[1.1.9.0] [Ritualist] Deacons of the Deep

[Evil_Baka]

Stats shown with passives active.

Grimtools

Affixless Setup.

Try to get a Wendigo Gaze medal with the ‘of Caged Souls’ suffix or a Korvaak’s Burning-Blade with a Necromancer/Apostate/Cabalist/Theurgist/Ritualist prefix for the last +2 to Raise Skeletons to cap it out at 26/16. Some DA on an affix and/or your Mogdrogen’s Ardor craft bonus are also big helps to patch it up some more.

Setup I use.

BiS Setup.

Introduction

Pets overall got some hefty changes in 1.1.9 that from what I’ve seen so far have caused confusion with pet players. For me, I am back to this build after putting it together last year and after some tests, it has seemingly been buffed (or at least is better than I remember). Since it’s looking viable by my own metrics for builds now, I thought I should share it as I’ve seen few builds for Raise Skeletons, few builds for Fire pets and only 2 or 3 that successfully combine both of them together over the previous updates.

Also a good way to get feedback from pet players that are more experienced than I am in a singular place.

Build Concept

• Raise Skeletons is our main source of damage converting the pet’s Physical and Vitality damage over to Fire through our weapon and amulet. Fissure is bound to them adding in more Fire damage and AoE capability - their numerous/rapid attacks means 2-3 are always active in a fight.
• We add more flat damage to our Skeletons through Soul Harvest, Blood Pact, Mogdrogen’s Pact, our Khonsar rings and Corruptor set proc.
• Our Briarthorn acts as a beatstick in place of our Skeletons and the Primal Spirit as an additional chunk of damage whenever it is out, unfortunately any Vitality damage for them stays as Vitality as we only globally convert our pet Physical damage.
• For pet defense, all of our pet resistances are overcapped by 15-41%, physical resistance is increased by 34%, Ill Omen reduces all damage they take by 25%, Wendigo Totem keeps them consistently healed within the Totem’s radius and Blood Pact alongside Toad feeds them 11% ADCtH.
• For player defense, we have Wendigo Totem, Giant’s Blood and Corrupted Soul for health recovery, Ill Omen and Primal Bond reduce the damage we receive and Defy Death gives us a circuit breaker to work with in emergencies.

Abilities

Raise Skeletons (Fissure): Our main pet for dealing damage, primarily via the Mages.
Bone Harvest (Shepherd’s Call): Reliably procs Shepherd’s Call and Soul Harvest for big conjointed damage increases.
Ill Omen: All around reduces incoming damage taken for us and our pets.
Summon Briarthorn (Eldritch Fire): Provides some nice side damage, a way to proc Eldritch Fire and some sizable buffs through Emboldening Presence. Ground Slam means it will often take aggro away from our Skeletons as well.
Conjure Primal Spirit: provides another pet alongside the Briarthorn that can take a beating and acts as a damage nuke.
Grasping Vines (Howl of Mogdrogen): Reliably procs Mogdrogen due to Grasping Vine’s ticking it’s Physical damage 2 times per second per instance in an AoE.
Wind Devil (Elemental Storm): Lowers our enemies resistance to Fire damage passively and procs Elemental Storm on it’s attacks.
Wendigo Totem: Provides a way to heal our pets and us consistently.

Spectral Binding: Some health, some OA. Spectral Wrath helps with the Vitality damage on our Briarthorn/Primal Spirit a little bit.
Mogdrogen’s Pact (Giant’s Blood): Provides our pets and us with various benefits ranging from damage, health, DA, resistances and armour.
Primal Bond: Huge damage increase for our pets by giving us some much needed crit damage to pair with Howl of Mogdrogen’s OA/total speed.
Presence of Might: Resistances for us and our pets.
Mogdrogen’s Ardor: Health, total speed and armour for all of our pets.

Resist Reduction

Elemental Storm: Provides 32 reduced target’s Elemental resistance in an AoE.
Eldritch Fire: Provides -23% Fire resistance as a contagion that spreads from one enemy to another.
Raging Tempest: Provides -31% Elemental resistance as a passive debuff around the Wind Devils.

In total, this leaves us with -86% Fire resistance. Good enough for anything without a ton of Fire resistance but struggles with guys like Maiden or Grava.

Attributes

Enough Cunning/Spirit to equip our weapon and off-hand. Rest in Physique.

Playstyle

Keep up Soul Harvest, Shepherd’s Call, Howl of Mogdrogen and 2-3 Wind Devils. Keep your pets inside of your Wendigo Totem and debuff enemies with Ill Omen. Use Primal Spirit whenever it’s available to speed up Heroes/Bosses or clear through trash faster.

Achievements

Lokarr

[Maya]

[Nery]

Cool build!

I want some skellies as well.

[Seekneek]

Nice build does the amulet change skeletons attacks look to fire ?

[Evil_Baka]

Sadly no. No pet transmuter/skill modifier changes their look or colour as it would take magnitudes more work to do than standard skill swaps:

[Suggestion] Wish PET body can change color with different kind of damage

Like Summon Guardian of Empyrion put point to Scion of Dreeg will change to green color and Albrecht’s Aethe Ray color change with different damage. for example Primal Spirit if have 100% Phy convert Acid. body will change to green, and low than 100% nothing happen. kind of damage can 100% convert： Phy - Acid Phy - Vitality Phy - Elemental Phy - Lightning、Cold、Fire Phy - Chaos I alrady played 3800 Hours for only Summoner, little boring. really wish to see some different for Summoner Bui…

[Snazzblaster]

Still waiting for the day when the OG Dracarris Fire pet pyromancer comes back to life. For the time being, this will do

[Relinfearous]

This looks very good. I bet it’s satisfying to watch the undead army proc Fissures.

I have a couple of questions:

1. Is Ill Omen too unreliable for proccing Howl of Mog? Or did you just want more control over when it happens?
2. What’s the reason for not 1-pointing Call of the Grave and Mark of Torment?
3. Why are Mog’s Pact and Blood Pact left at those amounts of points? The former doesn’t really fall off after softcap and the latter isn’t on a sweetspot.

[Evil_Baka]

Is Ill Omen too unreliable for proccing Howl of Mog? Or did you just want more control over when it happens?

It’s probably good enough for crowds but I dislike it’s proccing ability for single targets. Vines on the other hand just about procs it on cooldown whether it’s 1 person or 10 but with the caveat that like CoF, it’s also an aggro-drawing machine so there’s upsides/downsides to it.

What’s the reason for not 1-pointing Call of the Grave and Mark of Torment?

I just have enough skills to rotate around as is, maybe I could fit 1 more in but I find my skillset is fine as is . Feel free to pick up both if you can manage them though.

Why are Mog’s Pact and Blood Pact left at those amounts of points? The former doesn’t really fall off after softcap and the latter isn’t on a sweetspot.

Frankly just a lack of skill points, I’d max both if I could. When putting the build together Mogdrogen’s Pact/Blood Pact were the point dump areas at the end for a bit more damage. Maybe I could take points out of the Briarthorn for what should be an overall damage increase but in my experience, doing so makes him more liable to die and lose the Emboldening Presence buff mid-fight until he’s re-summoned. Anywhere else I could take points out of is either a loss in damage/defense or a 1-pointer.

As for the exact skill rank numbers, maybe I could squeeze a tiny bit more flat out by shifting points back and forward between Mog’s Pact/Blood Pact for an optimal overall flat total, I didn’t give it much thought.

[Relinfearous]

Sweet, thank you. How is Briarthorn’s survivability at 16/16?

[Evil_Baka]

It’s not bad, it’s able to survive Lokarr or SR 65-66 without resummons. In comparison, despite being able to kill Lokarr, my Skeletons do slowly get worn down and require 1-2 resummons but they don’t get wiped all at once or too quickly for me to react to.

[thepowerofmediocrity]

Still waiting for the day when the OG Dracarris Fire pet pyromancer comes back to life.

Someone (not me) has already scored a Ravager kill using a pet Pyromancer:

Sadly, Demo pets in general suffer from a heavy lack of skillpoints, which makes it very hard to sustain a good offense while keeping your pet stats for reasonable survivability. It looks like with enough patience, it could be done, though.