[1.1.1.2] Physical/Bleed Pet Conjurer (15:30 Callagadra)

Preface:

I should note before anything else that this build is being played on hardcore. So certain decisions I make are for that reason, and my piloting is extra safe for that reason as well – particularly because I don’t have a backup Mythical Black Scourge.

While playing a self found (except for Mythical Necrolord’s Gaze) fresh start character based around keeping Primal Spirit up all the time, I picked up the Heart of the Sand King amulet noticing it existed, then found out how much bleed damage I was doing later, which was surprisingly high. Ended up making a build around it and it’s surprisingly effective in campaign.

Now that 1.1.2 is out, the build is even more effective than before with a lot of changes benefitting it massively, and has sort of become a project of mine to optimize to it’s fullest extent. In HC I’ve cleared 170, killed Callagadra, farmed a bunch of kaisan amulets, and cleared SR 75.

SR 75 clear: https://youtu.be/w8NSMElZeXE
Note that pylons are used and so are consumables. Is it possible without them? Absolutely 100% yes, and it’s probably even more than possible to farm SR75-76 in SC on this.

More videos are contained in the relevant sections. I unfortunately don’t have any crucible videos saved at the moment, but there are SR + callagadra videos.


Grim Tools Variants

Primal Spirit centric Oleron/Dryad: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZo4q8oN
This has become my new favorite version of the build. Oleron returns with much better sustain than before. Incredibly, this build still performs well without having shepherd’s crook. This allows this build to get way higher DA with the use of DA augments in place of the Mogdrogen’s Blessing when desired (which is great for SR). Most of the reason for this build performing as well without shepherd’s crook is also that freedom to use Mogdrogen’s Blessing without worrying about low DA, and the fact that it doesn’t need an Ateph’s Will to cap pet bleed resistance.

Dryad is used to give the build more sustain with a low cooldown heal that also has a high proc rate. The reduced poison/bleed duration is actually also very noticeable, surprisingly. Bonus for having movespeed + slow res on the way there.

This version performs slightly better offensively than the falcon swoop/giant’s blood setup, and I’m not sure how to feel about the defensives. Both builds are great, and I think it ultimately comes down to preference.

It is worth noting that the offhand isn’t BIS affixes, and that a good CDR roll (ideally 18) is VERY important. Also worth noting – on Grim Tools, the chaos resistance is high because every piece of gear that I have on with chaos resistance low rolled, and the aether resistance is low because those are high rolls. Adjust your augments accordingly with the rolls you have in game to balance out overcaps if you can.

No Greens + No Conduit Oleron/Dryad: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4NOkvPoN
Untested, but it seems unlikely that this would be better than the above, and certainly loses defensives in comparison except for the stun resistance. But it does have the bonus of not needing any specific rolls on gear, and has good base stun resistance. Also doesn’t use a conduit, so you don’t have to worry about the resistance bonus there.

Falcon Swoop/Giant’s Blood setup (original 1.1.2.0 build): https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lV7BMOw2
I switched to this version instead of the original oleron setup in 1.1.2.0 because it still dealt great damage while being a decent bit safer. In comparison to the original Oleron version, it gained Primal Instinct, Bysmiel’s Command, and most importantly, Giant’s Blood was added as a proc for safety.

The augments on the faction ring is flexible – feel free to use Mogdrogen’s Blessing for more damage if you wish. I had the DA augment on at the time because I was doing shattered realm and prioritized safety.

Unfortunately perma Primal Spirit was dropped in comparison to my original build, but Briarthorns hold their own. Ability to go Primal Instinct is awesome and helps quite a bit as it means I have damage happening at every point in time, and it also helps the AoE – particularly if I let them do their own thing instead of using pet attack all the time. It also helps with the Primal Spirit downtime in that it gives you something else to attack for you.

With this setup, keep a second faction ring with a Keeper’s Binding Dust next to your Nosferattis for when something with Mind Control shows up. Because of the way this is set up, the vitality res of the pets went down a bit. This is why the faction ring is equipped on the right – because the vitality resistance of the pets when Shadowfiend Cord isn’t on is somewhat low.

“I got unlucky with my conduit res roll” version: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/M2gl4gBV
Ideally you get pierce/aether/chaos res on your conduit, but if not, don’t worry – you can still play the build with a couple changes.

Original Primal Spirit focused Oleron with Heart of the Sand King: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/r2BzLmB2
This was my first build in Forgotten gods, and has been updated for 1.1.2.0. This is pretty much the best DPS you’re going to get – but it comes with a cost of not having a devotion to help sustain. This is probably the “glassiest” version of the build.

My main idea was to make a build focused on keeping primal spirit up 90% or higher of the time. This build has a very low down time on primal spirit. As a result you want CDR anywhere you can. A good CDR roll on offhand is also very important, as your best proc is bound to primal spirit due to it’s high attack speed + weapon damage.

Budget Version: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNY4D0eZ
All faction gear and MIs that aren’t rolled. I have not tested this but did something similar when I restarted from nothing in FG, and managed to farm up to a full build – but it took a while. It’s very slow and you will have some struggles, but it gets the job done in campaign – wouldn’t take it into crucible or far into SR, though. I’d imagine it might be a bit better now that Ground Slam actually does decent AoE.


Gearing Choices

Feel free to skip this section, as it’s being written for both myself and other theorycrafters/builders interested in why I’ve picked certain gear.

Mythical Rifthound Legwraps
Originally meant as a means to help make it easy to cap aether res for both us and the pets, this ended up being used in the final build due to the +2 Ground Slam giving us more bleed damage. This lacks offensive stats other than that, but makes up for it in that we don’t need as many mender’s powders in the end. Should be noted that the DA is pretty useful too, as that’s in a bit of short supply.

Mythical Black Scourge
Originally chosen for being what I felt was the best pet weapon for this build with %CDR on it for primal spirit uptime, this ended up being used in the end as well because it combines well with the above legs to give pets high aether/chaos res. This combination means less mender’s powders, equating to more damage or defensives overall.

Interestingly, the weapon actually sometimes procs. I’m curious to know more about the mechanics of on death effects proccing when utilizing dots on both the player and the pets, because this was extremely surprising to see.

Cataclysm’s Eye vs Bound Wraith
I actually went back to the Bound Wraith when I returned to the oleron setup. The big thing about Bound Wraith is it improves your primal spirit uptime, and when you have it bound to an offensive devotion, you almost never want it to be out of the fight. Worth noting that Primal Spirit also has extremely high base OA, and the offhand gives it even more attack speed on top of it’s high attack speed – so it procs 100% on crit devotions almost immediately when they come off cooldown. It also has the highest weapon damage. All this combined makes the Bound Wraith the best offhand to use in the Oleron setup in my opinion, unless you’re using Mythical Will of Bysmiel.

Cataclysm’s eye is used in the no greens setup due to it’s skill bonuses making everything more well rounded, as well as the resistances. Ultimately I would argue that it’s the best generic pet offhand you can get – that is to say, when the offhand isn’t build defining.

The briarthorn offhand gets an honorable mention but I didn’t feel the impact of using one that much, even with decent rolls.

Conduit of Wild Whispers (bleed damage Mogdrogen’s Pact) vs Mythical Heart of the Sand King and other options
After revisiting Heart of the Sand King, peak DPS numbers on the Oleron setup are quite a bit better – upwards of 15% higher bleeds. The physical damage difference is negligible. Heart of the Sand King ends up being the best DPS option you can get for the build. However, the defensives of the amulet are REALLY weak – we basically only get elemental resistance out of it and extra Primal Bond levels. These numbers are also based off of highest DPS at any given time, not calculated over like 15 seconds so to speak (using Grim Internals to monitor). Overall the actual DPS is probably only slightly better, and I prefer the conduit for the better defensives. It is worth noting, however, that Heart of the Sand King is a farmable MI that drops from a specific boss.

Mythical Will of Bysmiel serves as a decent alternative in the primal spirit centric builds for no green setups.

The Devouring swarm conduit is also a great option that I have not yet tested, though I suspect would not be much better. Certainly would make a good alternative if you don’t have the bleed conduit.

Mythical Shadowfiend Cord vs Nosferattis
Nosferattis offers bleed damage, but not much else. Shadowfiend Cord is superior both offensively and defensively except when Mind Control is a factor and in terms of player resistances. As such, Nosferattis should only be kept in inventory to swap to when needed (Bolvar/Sentinel/Karroz/Loghorrean), as it is far weaker.

Primal Instinct vs Mogdrogen’s Ardor
If you have 120+ movement speed and your pets are overcapped on aether/chaos resistance without you being near them for oak skin, Primal Instinct tends to win out slightly unless you really need the skillpoints. The relic procs quite often. Also with this, the less you need to use pet attack, the better – as it will naturally spread out the swarmlings a bit, which is nice due to their low movement speed.

With Mogdrogen’s Ardor, you fix your movement speed a fair bit if it is low, and the resistances help a lot with removing the need for mender’s powders. You really want your pets to be aether capped WITHOUT oak skin, that way theres both some overcap, and they can be capped without you being near them.

The Oleron setup uses Mogdrogen’s Ardor, while the builds without Oleron use Primal Instinct.

Pet augments – Mogdrogen’s Blessing, Rotgut Venom, Mender’s Powder, and more
This is an interesting one because we’re getting so much pet res from gear, which leaves our options far more open than they would be on most pet builds.

Mender’s Powders should ALWAYS be used until aether/chaos res on pets is capped at bare minimum, imo, unless it’s crucible. This should also be before Oak Skin is taken into account.

Rotgut Venom should be used until you have at least 2700 DA imo. In SR, I use at least one, but you can get away without it – I just like having higher DA. My personal preference is actually going for 2800 at least.

Irrah’s Venomtongue is a new augment that I have yet to test. Same defensive stats as Rotgut Venom, but offers damage instead of attack speed, as well as some flat poison damage. I suspect this is better in the cases that we need to kite, which is SR boss rooms in general, simply because it should mean our dot damage is higher in general. If the flat damage was bleeding, it probably wouldn’t even be a contest.

Mogdrogen’s Blessing is the best DPS option you can get. Simple as that. If all other bases are covered, this is what you use.

Ateph’s Will – used when pet bleed res is needed to be capped. Get bleed res to 48 at least to have your pets be capped with your Briarthorn around.

Sandclaw Scale– a new one that honestly is something I need to look into more. HP + aether res for us, crit damage + HP for the pets. These are used in cases where you need Aether resistance to cap out. They can also be used similarly to replace armor augments with 30 DA, which makes them quite similar to Rotgut Venoms, but with crit damage instead of attack speed. One is used in the old Oleron build.

Survivor’s Ally – low damage, but useful if you’re ultra desperate for more elemental res. Mentioned simply because I needed it once, and is used in the no greens oleron setup. I always find that you should have around 30 overcap elemental resistance at minimum, with any more you can get being nice.


Shattered Realm

Full SR video of 70-75 in HC – Oleron/Dryad build: https://youtu.be/DaaLIahklO4
To answer ahead of time: If you are playing SC you don’t need the amount of defensives and such that I have in this. You don’t need consumables necessarily either, nor are the pylons entirely 100% required. This is just all done for safety.

This build was struggling in the 55-59 range, but now that it is past log arena hell, it is doing great. CC resistances are heavily desired, though. If you see the yellow pylon, pick it up and don’t think twice.

Full SR video of 49-50 in HC with the Falcon Swoop/Giant’s Blood setup (game version 1.1.2.3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M17ORRQec7I&feature=youtu.be
I’m aware it’s not so much the trend to post full videos, but as this is hardcore, the clear on trash is just as important because any death is game over. Consumables used for safety. This was my first attempt of 45-50 on HC ever, so was pretty tense.

At the moment, I usually aim for at least 2800 DA for SR, and will adjust augments based on mods. If you’re lazy and don’t like dying (or are playing HC), just use 2 DA augments.

For mods, I leave instantly and reset if I see -100 DA, +60% crit damage, or pet taunt resistance modifiers. The +50 OA, 6% OA modifier is annoying but with consumables isn’t the worst – with a couple extra damage mods alongside it I will leave on that too, though. The taunt resistance modifier wasn’t something I expected to be so noticeable, but it is.

Moosilauke is a massive problem, especially if you’re using one of the non-primal spirit focused builds. You should always use hoarfrost ointments because Moosilauke can chain freeze you to death if you don’t. Even with yellow pylon for CC res he often chain freezes minions to a slow and steady death though. This is made worse by the fact that crystals are straight up bleed immune and you can’t do ANYTHING about it – they have 1000% bleed duration reduction. Only the primal spirit is freeze immune.

It is also important to learn to use skill bar swaps to resummon pets. They WILL die.

For pylons: The only one that really adds consistency is the Yellow Pylon for CC resistances. With this, situations become way less dangerous.
Yellow – always take if available imo, the damage drop is worth the added safety
Red is basically always good on this setup for the damage.
Green is insanely good and gives your pets unbelievable tankiness – it’s a little shocking how much the overcaps help them. Try it and see for yourself.
Turquoise (Shrine of Death) should only be taken if you have the green pylon already imo.
Dark Blue can be skipped freely, it’s arguably the weakest for us (armor)

Be sure to keep Nosferratis in inventory in case of Karroz, Sentinel, or Bolvar showing up. All 3 of them have mind control and you will want to immediately swap to this belt if you see them until they are dead. Mythical Shadowfiend Cord is offensively and defensively better in all other cases.

After finally making it out of 45-60, the build performs fantastically. It is still not comfortable without the yellow pylon for CC resistances, and I’d like to find a way to fix this (mostly trap resistance), but it at least confirmed that the range of 55-60 that i was stuck at for ages was just because of the loghorrean arena.


Superbosses

15:30 HC Callagadra (Oleron variant, pre-1.1.2 buffs): https://youtu.be/wPfm6MJiG6Y

Mostly defensive consumables used which weren’t needed – you could do the same time without any consumables other than energy potions. Could push the time to be faster with better rolls, my medal and amulet were both below average rolls. Also the offhand isn’t the ideal BiS one + mine is only 16% CDR.

This can go faster now with the buffs that have happened and I wouldn’t be surprised if the more defensive setup is able to handle him in about the same time as well. The fact that the pets are still dealing damage after being dead is gigantic for doing this boss, because they WILL die.

Be sure to overcap your pierce res (and bleed res if necessary) for this fight.

Maybe more super bosses coming soon.


Crucible

Crucible with Falcon Swoop/Giant’s Blood: A bit under 9 minutes with 3 buffs + banner playing very safe. Didn’t drop below 90% the whole run. I suspect with better or more aggressive piloting, you can push 8 minutes or lower. Same with having more offensive augments (I can’t remember which ones I was using in the run honestly, lol).

I recall sigatrev saying he had a ~7:30 run with a setup very close to mine which had no falcon swoop, so I suspect the 9 minute run might just be me piloting safely/badly, or using defensive augments, or both.

Pre 1.1.2 I did 10-11 minutes with 4 buffs no banner on the original Oleron setup. Lack of banner was me being out of date on what people do in crucible now for runs. No idea how this would fare now – it’s been buffed pretty nicely since then.

It’s quite clear that this isn’t the best pet build for crucible – and I think that’s fine. It is very effective at doing everything else, and arguably more defensive in other situations. Perhaps someone can prove me wrong, though – I might just be piloting way too defensively.


Other Information

Primal spirit getting stuck: sometimes the primal spirit will get stuck running in place against a mob. In order to fix this, you need to select it (use a keybind to select that pet, click the portrait, or ctrl+click the pet itself) and move it elsewhere or just have it attack something else. Simply using pet attack without selecting it will not do anything. This usually only happens in tight spaces, so you don’t have to worry about it too often, but it’s a good thing to keep in mind.

Farming Bound Spirits: Make sure you do not help the wraith in the Tomb of Ugdall southeast of the barrowholm rift. He is the easiest enemy to kill with a decent drop rate of the spirit offhands, and also the fastest to get to. Wraiths on the way there can drop Bound Spirits as well. Just hope you don’t get an Enslaved Wraith instead. This is where I managed to find my offhand.

Moving pets without moving primal instinct / bysmiel’s command pets: If you bind a key to select all pets and press that, the next left/right click you do will only send all pets that you see in the top left view to the location you clicked. This means that the bysmiel pet and the swarmlings will continue doing what they are doing, which generally results in better aoe – mostly because of the swarmlings, as they are very slow. This is unfortunately quite hard to get used to, and I wouldn’t recommend trying too hard to use it, but it’s interesting nonetheless.


This build was just a fun campaign build thing that ended up being my main build – and certainly the one I’m most proud of so far.

Special thanks to Sigatrev and Maya both, for not only inspiring me to push this as far as I can, but for also making some of the best pet builds on the forums. I’d be lying if I said I came up with everything I did myself.

3 Likes

Did proper tests on crucible, it’s around 10 minutes or so average in my hands.

The lack of slow resistance really makes things awkward too, boot component could be replaced with Mark of the Traveler but that’s only 10% so it doesn’t help that much (it is better though). For a build meant to be able to kite, getting slowed is spooky.

It can definitely do 170 crucible, but there are better builds for that, especially when it comes to pet builds. And again, whenever primal spirit goes down, things get scary. It also pushes me to snapshot everything else that I can and even when I do that it didn’t really improve (didn’t reoptimize points for that though)

Gonna relax on playing the build more for now. I’ve been playing this for quite some time and I’m superstitious about how I get loot in this game, so I need to make a new character and level it and make a build I haven’t made before which will result in me getting more loot to try other builds which will eventually result in me making 5 builds that aren’t pets and realizing that I’m bad at making anything that isn’t pets and going back to pets. It’s a vicious cycle.

Also I want to note, I actually farmed this character to this point in gear from having nothing except Mythical Necrolord’s Gaze in like… 4 days game time. The new set rerolling thing is amazing, although I did get lucky on a few things (Mogdrogen’s Ardor dropping from a trove). Still missing a crafting bonus on my helmet though… But anyways, this is what I was playing with on day 2 or so: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/0V0qvAaZ

Nice to see you post this unique yet effective build on the forums! Awesome job on the build and the callagadra kill! :slight_smile:

This build is getting buffed in 1.1.2.0. The briarthorn change is pretty massive, will be trying a 17/12 ground slam. We will also be able to change ring augments around because of the aether res (assuming it scales the same as pierce res) and our pets will be quite overcapped on aether/chaos – which is great, though it also means I could change the pants with that change, as well as probably the offhand component. Interested in how oleron scaling will change, and if i should change any devotions (dropping oleron really doesn’t sound bad in the long run)

I actually got a subjugator’s of celerity with 18% CDR while rolling other builds, so it’s gonna be nice revisiting this. Primal spirit downtime is under 2 seconds with that.

Yup, that change from IT to bleed along with piercing spines for Ground Slam :smiley:

I believe the damage spike to the Primal Spirit might be because of reflect damage uniques. Those are always a problem with my pet builds that rely on having only a few powerful pets out at a time.

I play self-found but only until a build maxes out and completes all story content, then I transfer mythicals and/or use brute force crafting to get myself a good pair of items like Subjugator’s of x. My only self-imposed restriction is not transferring over specific MI combinations/double rare items from other characters (which are astronomically rare) because for everything else you basically just need to devote a weekend or two. Doesn’t really hurt to skip that part.

I’ve actually seen something similar with the La Magra Summoner pet build; your general approach seems to be the same (crits and debuff stacking) although the details have changed drastically. It’s a very promising build with some refinement, definitely worth revisiting.

Reflect doesn’t do anything in Crucible, so that shouldn’t be the cause of it. At least in every run I’ve done on both pet and non-pet builds.

Current setup i have trucks things now. I still feel like the clear isn’t that amazing at points, but there’s not much of a clear solution to it. Ground Slam change has helped an immense amount though.

As for changing the spec (ideally for more defensives) not entirely sure what I’d do. Kinda just ended up staring at devotions for a while today and didn’t come up with much. Until I started writing this post, of course. Funny how that works.

I vaguely remember some conversation I had with sigatrev on bleed pets and an issue with Primal Instinct was that it dropped my runspeed below 120%, which is kinda yikes. With some hefty changes, we should be able to explore much more though, and the defensives should be better. We might not need any procs with enough pets to do damage and cover good AoE in the end.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eVLP4Y9V – extra defensives, adds bysmiel devotion pet.
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2Ep9m3N – same as above with primal instinct, note the aether is capped with ok roll pants, but a menders powder can cover + add overcap too.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/w264yb7Z – with maul because i’ve never tried the proc… also the CC res on the way there looks really nice, honestly. Jackal is better dps than sailor’s, but sailor’s does have slow res on the way there. Proc doesn’t seem like it should be better than oleron but it doesn’t cost much to get so I might as well try it.

The jewellery augments are all over the place, those are probably gonna need some experimenting. Bleed res is not fully capped on pets – 4% off… probably fixable with a mender’s powder, a few augment changes, and a component change.

There’s actually a question now if Briarthorn offhand is competitive with Primal Spirit offhand now too. The extra damage modifier should be pretty substantial for it – especially because it covers good AoE now. I will need to look into this, I’ve collected a few – none with 2 good affixes, but a couple subjugator’s and such.

Came up with another pet idea to test first which was enabled by 1.1.2, but that shouldn’t take long to test (reap spirit/blight fiend/familiar cabalist sounds kinda insane?)

Also side note, think I’m legitimately going to start crafting for slow res or stun res instead of the pierce res/physique stuff. Wish the range wasn’t so high (4-12) but eh, I’ll take any stun res over none. Same with slow. When you get slowed and things aren’t taunted things get really, REALLY spooky.

Early in the testing of 1.1.2.0 I did crucible in ~7:45 with this setup. The Shaman skill changes were there at the time, but not the devotion or conduit changes. I’m sure it could be improved now, using Eldritch Hound for RR and the Mogrdogen’s Pact Bleed conduit.

Back in 1.1.1.2 I tried something along those lines but found it really hard to itemize for Reap Spirit when assuming Bysmiel’s set + Circlet of the Great Serpent + Stormbringer of Malmouth. Mine ended up being worse than Familair/Hellhound/Blight Fiend. That was before the wraith duration buff, so maybe it’d be more effective now. If you come up with anything good here, I’d love to hear it.

Aethereach lowers CD by 2 seconds, that’s where things got interesting with it. Reap spirit only needs to hit 23/16 to hit max ghost count.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/pZrA4WkV This is what I was planning. Some more changes could be made, but I find it pretty hard to argue the value of Fateweaver Raiment for pet builds in general – especially for this build which is barely coming short of capping pet res without it. It’s also cabalist, so 9 phys res on 1 piece of gear is pretty incredible in comparison to having the same on conjurer.

I’ll probably do crafts for stun res or throw a leathery hide on helmet for a bit realistically, cause 0 stun res is kinda not okay, but I also haven’t touched the devotions on that setup yet. (which is based off the familiar/blight fiend setup you had, except a few things changed because it turned out that setup fell short like 2 attribute points to wear everything)

I’ll be testing it today, though i’m naturally hesitant to immediately throw it into crucible and such.

I’m also thinking a defensive ishtak setup is probably gonna be better for this, as it doesn’t look like it’s gonna need the extra damage that much from devotions. On paper, at least. I’ll try both.

I had wanted to also use Fiendflesh Mantle. That said, if you’re going to use only 1 Fiendflesh item, the Mantle might be the better choice going with Deathwalkers Grace for boots. I found I needed Ishtak regardless, but I was using Clairvoyant body armor (back when it had +3 Reap Spirit) so maybe with the better armor you’ll do okay.

I keep forgetting these boots exist (partially because the absorbs on them are kinda awkward) but combining that with fiendflesh mantle makes a ton of sense and fixes pet chaos res by itself. Thanks for that, definitely changing. Although rip 21/12 blight burst, shouldn’t be needed, same with the da shred + taunt on blight fiend (I do believe the threat scales with level, as a sidenote).

And yeah I’m definitely gonna look at the ishtak setup first, threat is probably just an issue no matter what I do.

EDIT:

On the bleed testing, spec seems to be alright without Oleron. Maul is about as underwhelming as I expected having a 15% proc rate, but still leveling devotions. So far, the changes seem good, the dps seems a fair bit lower at the moment but the AoE actually seems better. (also, wtf is the starting cooldown on Bysmiel’s Command 60 seconds for >_>)

Briarthorn offhand makes the build feel a bit better on AOE as well. Using a Demolitionist’s of Binding right now.

Will need to do a few switcharounds on componants and augments to balance res better. Also got lucky and got a +1 ground slam primal instinct :smiley: First time I think I’ve ever crafted a relic with a skill bonus that’s been really beneficial to the build.

If I can find a way to fit Seal of Resonance in I might just use that, CC res is just too nice, although it doesn’t have slow res :\

more edits: Bleed Conduit performs basically the exact same as Heart of the Sand King. I expected Heart of the Sand King to be more substantial but somehow it results in the same damage numbers? Not even that many damage spikes even though heart of the sand king has that spike damage modifier. I suppose it’s probably because of the +1 shaman. (as a side note, I think these used to be the feral hunger mod, as I have 3 already). The defensive bonuses conduit sports seal it up, but heart of the sand king proves to be an okay alternative (and a very nice budget alternative). 4% CDR on Heart of the Sand King would bring it back up to debate for the Primal Spirit uptime, imo. But first I’d check that the modifier works, maybe I just got unlucky and it procced whenever pets didn’t crit. But I mean, I had them DPSing for like 3-4 minutes straight and the numbers on the bleed were barely any higher.

Weapon and Offhand are questionable. Right now I’m testing:

Malmouth Stormcaster (+1 shaman mainhand) + briarthorn offhand (20% damage modifier) – results in 25 briar 21 ground slam, 22 with my relic.
Cataclysm’s Eye + Black Scourge – allows replacement of 2 mender’s powders. Probably better, just because it’s better pet stats overall, and the 4% CDR is not something to forget when it comes to devotion uptime + primal spirit uptime.

And more. Primal Spirit offhand does feel good but isn’t as necessary with briar’s being able to do decent damage + AoE now. It’s noticable when it’s not up, but managable. Veilpiercer is still up for debate but doesn’t add much with the resists. I’m not actually sure that the briar damage modifier works fully at the moment, honestly. Currently using 18cdr subjugators of (trash suffix).

I may also try Mythical Will of Bysmiel, which shouldn’t have the numbers being higher than before (unless something really weird is happening), but might be better for the perma primal spirit.

Testing didn’t conclude today, I still need devotion levels. Really wish I had a good method of doing this.

SR 50 on HC done. In the end I’ve gone with this setup: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2m13y52

Consumables were used, and only the hoarfrost ointment felt necessary (surprisingly). Log arena scares the shit out of me though. Moosi chain freezing was obnoxious until I remembered hoarfrost exists. Still makes things really awkward because only the primal spirit doesn’t get frozen (unless I have yellow pylon)

Resetting on crit damage or -100 DA mods always. Might start resetting on taunt resistance, didn’t expect it to be as noticeable as it is but yeah.

I don’t know if I would like to suffer through that arena for 10 more floors. I might do it. But things are starting to not get comfortable, and I don’t think I’m gonna enjoy fighting Kaisan either.

That said, on the setup: I switch between DA augments and mogdrogen’s blessing on 2 rings depending on what I’m doing. Main campaign I don’t really need them. 1 Mender’s Powder to cap aether/chaos. Weapon is too good imo. It + pants open up the augments so much more, and it has CDR which means better devotion uptime + better primal spirit uptime.

The briarthorn offhand is surprisingly not terrible, but leaves the other slots awkward. 2 pet affixes on it is probably not terrible in the long run.

The amulet is something I can’t really come to a good conclusion on. I like the conduit simply because it has the best defensive stats of all of them. Somehow it got similar offensive results to heart of the sand king, which… was unexpected. I kind of want to try yeti in that slot now, just to see how much the conduit mod itself is actually doing.

I tried not using Falcon Swoop for a while, but it covers really nice AoE for trash and the shotgunning is really strong on single target. Shame the proc rate is so low, it results in some awkward moments when it doesn’t want to go off.

The Oleron setup does have more damage and I don’t think that can be improved. It just lacks defensives. Works for campaign though.

Maybe a couple crucible runs soon, we’ll see.

EDIT: Oh, I got rune of displacement from that run. Nice.

Really impressive, also the Callagadra kill. And even in hardcore. :cool: Nice to see your builds in GD, other than poe.

hi uber thanks for amazing build.

Just threw it into crucible. Was about 9 minutes or something in my hands, 3 buff+banner. I’m still a pretty bad crucible pilot, so yeah. But a massive improvement, and the oleron should be way faster, but I’m not gonna go back to test it right now – its too risky of a spec in comparison.

Also I found something out – you can move all pets that are in the top left (so, briar/familiar/hellhound/primal spirit in this case) without moving things summoned by, say, Primal Instinct, by binding a key to Select All Pets and hitting that before moving them. This means you can still use pet attack without worrying about having your swarmlings. Unfortunately its a bit annoying to do though. Something that I don’t think is too reasonable without a different keybind setup, or a macro. I suppose you could just get rid of the pet attack command on the bar, since then you can make them attack/move without having that on your bar, but then you can’t control the bysmiel’s command pet or the swarmlings.

EDIT: Crashed on SR 58. First time crashing since patches and switching to 64 bit in multiple weeks. FML

EDIT2: Had to leave on 58 again, too much RR + reaper… Log arena is so frustrating. I almost had it too, the problematic enemies (be’lloq with his 25% RR + a couple others that were being annoying and also had RR) just didn’t die before it became too much.

Updated guide with a LOT more information. I had time to work on this and make it look better.

I had the realization that Moosilauke is this build’s worst enemy thanks to the crystals chain freezing pets and being bleed immune (they have 1000% bleed duration reduction, meaning they literally don’t take bleed damage). Even with the CC res pylon he’s really tough. If I get him in the log arena it’s super sketchy – usually ends the run right there, but that’s because log arena more than anything. He actually seems to take the longest of all the nemesis I’ve gotten.

I’ve spent the night getting into the gritty details of optimization, and have found a LOT of possible optimizations for that extra boost. Just when I thought I was close to done, I realized I have more options, mostly in terms of weapon/offhand components and jewelry/armor augments.

I realized I was quite overcapped on chaos resistance (33 on GT). If I’m willing to drop some, suddenly tons of stuff opens up.

So lets go through some examples. For reference, the stats on the build I was using were 2878 DA, 16 overcap aether, 33 overcap on chaos. Also worth noting is I was only 15 over on poison. Pet attack speed was 113 with nothing, 173 with everything. Pet crit dmg was 79 with nothing, 117 with everything. Pet aether res was 19 over with oak skin, pet chaos res was 3 over. My HP was 16026.

Sandclaw scale setup: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/D2pxowy2 – pets gain 8% crit damage and 16% hp in exchange for 10% attack speed loss. I lose 60 DA + some chaos overcap in exchange as well, but gain about 600 HP. Still have 19 aether overcap, 18 chaos overcap, so a lot of augments could be changed around. I suspect the crit damage should be better than the attack speed overall.

Purified Salt + Imbued Silver weapon components: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/p25rPbyV – The main thing about this setup is that phys res is sacrificed, imo (51->43 for me). I don’t think the pet phys res should be that significant. Pets are 36 overcap on aether, 20 overcap chaos with 83 max on both with this setup and have a bonus 10% crit damage. I lose about 15% chaos res, 60 DA for this. Max aether/chaos res goes up.

This just looks straight out better than what I was doing provided the phys res loss doesn’t hurt too much, as I can replace the mogdrogen’s blessing with a 70 DA augment for even higher DA than before, or use a Sandclaw Scale and replace the 12 aether res augment on the helmet for 30 DA. It can also replace the mender’s powder in the same regard to result in the same amount of pet resistance. Still have a decent chunk of aether/chaos overcap myself with this. I don’t think losing pierce res overcap on pets should be that big of a deal other than on Callagadra.

I know sigatrev is a fan of mender’s powders and seems to like overcapping pet aether resistance, so I’m really curious if keeping the mender’s powder for extra overcap is worth it. Obviously if not, that’s more damage/defensives options, but I can certainly see it being worth, especially because sometimes the pets end up out of mogdrogen range.

thanks for update uber senpai
i use this setup:

Sandclaw scale setup: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/D2pxowy2 – pets gain 8% crit damage and 16% hp in exchange for 10% attack speed loss. I lose 60 DA + some chaos overcap in exchange as well, but gain about 600 HP. Still have 19 aether overcap, 18 chaos overcap, so a lot of augments could be changed around. I suspect the crit damage should be better than the attack speed overall.

damage is awesome.

Mender’s powder gives +10%hp too aside from the resist that could prove useful in some situations, i.e., vs gravathul, aleksander, sentinel or anestheria

Glad you’re enjoying it!

Yeah, I did look at that. Again the overcap resistance is what I need to look into now, and the salt/silver setup overcaps that really nicely. If it was ONLY about the %HP, sandclaw scales arguably provide better value. -2% HP for +4% crit damage.

This build seems to have more %HP than most pet builds though already.

After going in game today to look at my chaos res, apparently i misremembered somethign important looking at chaos overcap. every single item with it is minrolled chaos res… amulet is 30 out of 50 for gods sake. my chaos res is literally 15 lower in game than it is in grim tools reee, good thing i left room for stuff but man thats annoying

EDIT: So issue with the salt silver setup is … bolvar/karroz. Because the vit res now is much lower when swapping belts. This can actually be fixed a decent bit by using Keeper’s Binding Dust, and can even have a quick swap setup by using another Bysmiel Chilling Seal with Keeper’s Binding Dust. Might also be helpful for moosi, doubt it though.