[1.1.9.1] Chaos Lost Souls Cabalist - CR 3:49

Can’t be having just one overperforming pet build, now can we?

I suppose skeletons will need their buff to special attacks from earlier this year reduced somewhat, and some Voidwhisper Band power shifted to Witching Hour.

Things die fast enough that it’s not too hard to stay alive most of the time, but also I’m piloting as aggressively as possible so that can get me into trouble. Maybe 25% of runs end in death. It’s usually when both Kaisan and Korvaak spawn on waves 169 and 170.

LOL! It’s because I’ve been AWOL for a year and didn’t even know that had pet bonuses on it now.

That seems reasonable to me. From my (very limited) recent experience, Skeletons seem to be outperforming other Cabalist pets, and Chaos outperforming other damage types.

I’ll take a look at some Witching Hour builds to make sure they aren’t in the same boat as this.

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In my opinion this puts the blame for the overpowered set on the rings that can have many other interesting applications.

Why not nerf or remove the casting speed bonus from the set?
I’m assuming this tunes down the mages, while not affecting all other skeleton builds.

Just want to say that by the author and one of the best pet build pilot’s admission itself, the build has a 75% success rate in Crucible with buffs/banners.

And Cruci has become ridiculously easy over time that most endgame builds that aren’t designed as glass cannons simply for the purpose of fastest possible clears, should be having 100% “success” rate.

Skeletons were finally buffed enough to actually become fun that you aren’t forced to choose between fragile DPS or tanks that take half an hour to kill anything.

I know they are supposed to be “quantity over quality” and the fragileness is intended along with them being available in numbers being the counter balance to it. I am also aware that damage essentially being multiplied by the number of pets can make things tricky balance wise.

But, Briarthorns were for example, excelling in all areas while being safe to play as well.

Are Skeletons consistently killing superbosses, pushing high SR, doing naked cruci etc with just as ease interms of piloting?

Because Crucible results alone, no matter how impressive shouldn’t drive changes that impact all aspects of gameplay even if it is the most widely used metric.

I would at the very least like to see how builds like these fare against challenges outside Crucible or even unbuffed/unbannered Crucible.

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It’s certainly not the rings alone, but I think the issue is more “Chaos” than it is “Lost Souls”. Vitality Lost Souls is substantially slower. Other configurations lack a lot of the synergies that make this so power. It’s a combination of the rings, the off-hand, the chart armor, hellfire, the devotions, and weapon components - all of the gear that doesn’t conflict with Lost Souls.

I could be wrong. I’ll spend some time looking at other variants this week.

Alkamoshater vitality build does 4:39, maybe not a monster score like yours but not as if it can’t survive a lost souls nerf. Also this is sort of a moot point since if you nerf the skeletons special attacks you will also be nerfing the vitality builds in the proces, as well as the aether skeleton builds and the fire defilers. If you lower the flats on the rings they lose value with pet builds that don’t have the luxury of so many pets.

In my opinion the issue is definitely the set, the set basically combines duplication of the strongest allround pet in the game with buffs to the highest damage pet skill in the game. A toxic combination if you ask me, but if the skeleton bonuses are shifted more towards defense then I think it can be balanced. Also to equalize with vitality, the %vitality bonuses can be raised.

A pyromancer that just uses the 2 dogs and forfeits all the other bonuses can already walk around in SR80, unlike a skeleton defiler for example. My strongest hybrid pet build that can almost do SR85 happens to be based on ghol and doesn’t use any skeletons at all, so I’m pretty sure the duplication of the Blightfiend has something to do with it. Such a bonus is already worth a set on its own in my opinion.

Quite the contrary. Flat damage affects Pet builds with more Pets than ones with fewer critters running about.

So the nerf will hit skeletons harder than other builds.

Neither Skeletons nor Hellhounds fit “strongest” or “highest damage”.

No more toxic than Ghol Blightfiends.

And a Pet Battlemage can do SR 75: Bottle Fwuffy - Pet Battlemage
That says nothing other than Pets being safe even on meme builds for SR pushing.

Regarding the first point I was talking about the stat in isolation while you about the builds as a whole.

Your other arguments about semantics are not bringing us any further.

In the end, you either nerf the set or skeletons in general, I choose nerfing the set as the lesser evil and have stated my reasons.

What is the use of looking at it in isolation instead of from a realistic perspective?

Why does it have to be one or the other?

exactly, why cant it be both

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Nerf skellies?? Nooooooo

-Zantai stated an intention for a nerf to skeletons in general
-I made a counter proposal to only nerf the set.
-Either way Zantai doesn’t like the 3:49 and seems set on applying nerfing somewhere
-If you want nerfs to both the set and skeletons in general I recommend to make that point, instead of derailing the thread by falling over every word and metaphor I use.

Or… let us not get into false dilemma fallacies?

or be presumptuous.

I’ve made a Witching Hour build that was more suited for fighting high SR, consistent (if slow) Crucible times, and fighting Ravager. Here is the build. Like you, I wanted to see how hard you can push it when you stack flat damage as high as possible.

I’ve also made a Chaos Reap Spirit build which doesn’t have Skeletons at all, but instead plays a hybrid set-up with the Black Scourge critters and Bound Spirits. I think I’ve been able to beat Crucible with this build one out of 5-6 times.

If I had to suggest nerfs, I’d suggest nerfing the RR from Fiendgaze Tome from 15% to 10% (which also helps nerf the Chaos Conjurer) while also slightly nerfing the speed bonus from the Lost Souls set. Maybe a slight nerf as you mentioned about the Skeletons special abilities, but I wouldn’t go overboard, especially as Sigatrev is likely fishing for the perfect Skeleton combination to make these runs possible.

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Here are a few other data points for Skeleton Cabalists:

Chaos Witching Hour Skeleton Cabalist - No Set
GrimTools
CR 4:18

Chaos Vielpiercer Skeleton Cabalist - No Set
GrimTools
CR 4:18
Dracarris performs similarly

Chaos Witching Hour Skeletons + Ghol
GrimTools
CR 4:20

Vitality Lost Souls
GrimTools
CR 4:03

My take-aways are:

  • Vitality skeletons are strong
  • Chaos skeletons are stronger
  • Skeletons are strong
  • Skeletons are stronger with Lost Souls
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Great job, love your scientific approach with many similar items in various slots, so the 4:03 vitality skeletons are (correction) barely touched by the outstanding changes while chaos gets nerfs to the 2x rings, the tome and the raiment in addition to the special attacks.

Great build, great run.

So, as a player who is coming back after a long break and wanting to start a new character in the current environment (current patch, set changes, etc) what would be some of my best options for being able to do all end game (super bosses, crate) not easily necessarily would prefer some challenge and enjoyable to play? I believe I had a ritualist and finished the main part of the game. Was around level 90 something. I know this may be subjective, but please let me know your thoughts. I do have the latest expansion, but haven’t played it yet.

Assuming you’re playing a pet build (if not, you’ll probably have to ask in another thread as I only play pet builds), Conjurer’s are generally going to be the best option if you’re starting from scratch and want to do everything including the super bosses.

  • Cabalists tend to get through the main campaign fastest.
  • Cabalists tend to get through crucible fastest (although less reliably than Conjurers)
  • Conjurers tend to have an easier time going deep in SR
  • Conjurers tend to have an easier time with super bosses.
  • Ritualists tend to perform worse than the other two.

@Maya has some guides for starting from scratch that you may find useful.

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