[1.1.6.0] Hot Dogs | Fire Hellhounds (Pet Conjurer)

[wine_not]

Hi guys ! (This is my first guide and my english is not perfect so i’ll try my best to make it clear )

Hellhounds got some love in last patch and they are now viable as main pets so I decided to give it a try ! I choose to go for a conjurer because it’s simply the best option for elemental pet build thanks to the additional RR from wind devil. It also brings some nice defenses and huge crit buff from Primal Bond.

The build has a strong dps and high survivability (23.5k HP - 3k DA - 52% phys res and Ishtak/Giant’s blood). We have less than 2 sec CD on Hellhounds, so there’s no problem if they dies, we can re-summon them instantly.

GRIMTOOLS

GEAR

I chose to go full fire damage with these rings :

They are pretty hard to get : You drop it from Khonsar (one of the seven Magis) in Forgotten God rogue-like dungeon and the drop rate is very low (~2%). It took me about 100 runs just to get one and I had to trade the second (I recommend you to do it this way).

They allows us to deal mostly fire damage with pets so we can take full advantage of all fire buffs and RR (up to 120). The build is not really playable without it or at least, not this way

I’m also using Lost Souls set for an additional Hound, Fleshwarped Archive offhand for more dps/cdr (you can buy it in Steelcap District vendor, next to the blacksmith) and The Overseer medal (You can buy blueprint at Malmouth Resistance vendor once you’re revered) wich is probably the best dps option. These are the core items for the build

Rest of the gear is pretty common and you can tweak it as you want. You can, for example, replace Mogdrogen’s Ardor with Primal Instinct/Bysmiel’s Domination or replace Overseer with Mark of Unlife for more defense. I’m using Beastcaller chest because I need pet elem resistance, but if I can get a nice rare pants with high res, i’ll switch to Fiendmaster Raiment for more dps and chaos res.

SKILLS

I just put as much point as possible in hellhounds and utility. Familiar and Briathorn are just there for buffs and devotion procs :

DEVOTIONS

For the devotions, I tried different setups and I had the best results with the current one. For more dps, you can go with Mogdrogen/Dying god or Meteor Shower for clearing, but you will be way more squishy, so be carefull !

• Ishtak is just too good to drop since we don’t have any taunt in this build.
• Giant’s blood adds some nice regen
• Sheperd’s crook and Staff of Rattosh for dps
• Elemental storm/Eldritch Fire gives huge RR
• Flame Torrent deals only fire and is very good on hounds

PERFORMANCE

I’m still pushing SR and right now I cleared shard 82 without buffs/potions. I died a few times but it was pretty smooth overall and I think I can go a lot deeper

I’ll add more videos of boss kills/SR/Crucible later.

SR 75

---

If you have any question or suggestion, i’ll be glad to hear it !

[Maya]

All I have to say is… ok well, I have a few things to say.

1. Welcome back and it is one hell of a first build (pun intended)
2. Your English is good. No worries there
3. Build looks pretty good
4. Curious to see how it performs. Best of lucks and may the Hounds prevail

[wine_not]

Thanks a lot Maya !

It’s time to feed them haha

[wine_not]

Edit : Just cleared SR 75 with no buff/potions using a different devotion setup (Dropped Ishtak for Mogdrogen).

I still need to test it more, but I think this build works better with “nuke” dps since pets can be re-summoned very fast and Hellhound’s abilities hits so hard…

It’s a bit more tricky without the taunt, but the dps is insane

[Knife]

Finally, a reason to bring my Ramsay Bolton build to the fore! Thank you for showing hounds can be done now!

[wine_not]

Haha, Ramsay Bolton, the true king in the North !

[Jess_Tan]

i am very interested in your build, can u please give us a detailed guide on leveling? which skills to prioritize? thanks in advance.

[wine_not]

This was my first character (a long time ago ) and it was originally a vitality caster. It’s very effective for leveling. Use Wendigo and Storm totems (with the vit modifier), seal of consumption and all the different vit procs on gear and devotions (Bat, wendigo’s mark, rattosh,etc…). Dps is not incredible but it’s super easy to level this way since you’re almost immortal For the very first levels, Primal strike is the way to go until you have enough points to spec into storm totems.

This build requires some specific items to work (Lost souls set/Rings) and leveling with this setup is not worth it I think. If you really want to play summoner from the start, I don’t know exactly how to do it as a conjurer because it’s the only pet class I never played at lower levels…

But from what I know about pets, flat dmg is extremely powerful while leveling and conjurer provides a ton of it from Storm spirit/hellfire/blood of dreeg in occultist’s tree and Mogdrogen’s pact in shaman’s tree.
I recommend you to max Briathorn with Ground slam for more aoe and since Hellhound received a nice buff to base dmg/abilities and scales better with skillpoints, it should be good for leveling too. (Remember to take infernal breath : it gives more aoe )

For devotions, rush Sheperd’s crook/Mogdrogen the wolf for dps/speed and get some survivability wherever you can (Giant’s blood, turtle,etc… there’s many options ^^)

[wine_not]

Edit : I switched back to Ishtak and cleared SR 80 but not in time for a funny reason :

I chain died against bosses and I was wondering why I was taking so much damage. Then after a few wipes, I watched my skill bar and figured out I had no more health potions left… So when you pull 2-3 bosses at once without potions, it’s pretty hard to survive…

[Nery]

I feel guilty, but I was attracted by the title

Remember a joke, foreign tourist in New York wants to order food but everything seems expansive to him, so he order hot dog, cause it’s relatively cheap. The problem is he don’t know what it is, so opens Google translate from phone and sees it. So the reaction, when he received the hot dog “I knew it is dog, but WTF I’ve got just the tail”

About build, don’t know much about pets, but looks like a great first build!

[wine_not]

Hahaha xD

Thanks a lot !

[wine_not]

Added SR 75 video