Given this is my first post, please don’t be too harsh on the markdown structure.
Hybrid* pet cold+acid+bleed Trickster
>>>GRIMTOOLS<<<
Foreword
Although I call my guy hybrid, it is only in the loosest sense. Pets are the main source of the build’s damage, the guy himself can maybe kill a ~100k health enemy by the time pets rush over to decimate. On the flip side - most of your attacks crit. I am genuinely surprised at the build’s performance and tankiness, however. Perhaps I just haven’t tried any of the more established builds to draw a proper comparison from.
As to why a trickster specifically - I had one that needed a complete build makeover and happened to have Winter King’s Bane.
Build Details
Build can clear all Rogue Dungeons, run crucible 150-170 & Sr 75.
more on this in achievements section
*all temporary damage buffs active, all pets nearby
Core stats:
- 25k hp
- 3000 OA
- 2900 DA
- 57% Physical Resistance
- Full Pet Phys->Cold conversion
- ~1100% pet damage (with shepherd) with additional hidden 250% cold and ~130% Acid damage
- ~1300% pet retal damage (good meme)
- 18% Damage absorption
- 7% Pet lifesteal via wendigo totem
- -100% Cold resistance reduction
- -117% Acid resistance reduction
- -95% Bleeding resistance reduction
Game plan here is pretty simple: find an enemy group, dash into them, place a totem and hit with savagery meanwhile pets will kill everything nearby.
In terms of downsides I’d say is that ALL of the healing for pets comes from wendigo totem, the yeti pet also feels a bit squishy so I had him on normal operation mode as opposed to aggressive (that all other pets are set to). Also I had no ability slots to fit pet attack so it’s in the second ability bar, thankfully it isn’t needed for normal play.
Factions
Order of Death’s vigil accessories augments are needed to cap pet vitality res.
Barrowholm provides a weapon augment here (as is the case for most pet builds).
Gear
Winter king “set” is definitely a core of the build, provides pet bonuses and physical res.
Ghol’s set fits surprisingly well here as well. More acid rr, pet acid damage and weirdly enough attack speed, and that attack speed we can utilize here (to proc shepard better).
The only 2 green items in the build are farmable. Get the ring by reloading the merchant in bastion of chaos, the belt is craftable. For the belt I think any combination of pet affixes can work.
Pants were initially picked for the meme factor of stacking pet retal, but since it’s acid it actually works. Same for the relic, but it also provides pets. And I find it funny if some random zombie decides to squish one of my bugs it’ll get retalled with 50-100k damage before rr.
Skills & Devotions
Of note, Veil of Shadow contributes to the build all of its -%rr, as one of manticore’s attacks deals pierce.
Blade barrier is essential for survivabilty in extreme circumstances (such as naked crucible at wave 170). Plus as we aren’t reliant on our own damage trading dealing none of it for 3 seconds of invulnerability is quite alright.
Savagery here is mostly to hear nice crunchy melee hit sfx, as well as 8% physical resistance.
Devotion-wise, Mogdrogen was quite an obvious fit here since we really want murmur. As it provides pet bleed, and shaman provides pet bleed - huntress is a natural choice too. For more single target damage assigning it to briarthron would be better, but he can’t spread it as well as Devouring Swarm. Last 3 nodes were dumped into behemoth for massive health regen proc, it works great to keep you alive.
Achievements
SR 85 - A bit slow, but more or less comfortable. Many pots were used for safety.
Naked no towers extra spawns Gladiator Crucible 150-170
Of note both SR&Cruci runs had extra crit damage mutator, the build lives.
Fully buffed on Crucible of the Dead map with 4+3 +1 vanguard it runs 150-170 in ~6 minutes with a potato pc (and probably suboptimal piloting)
Celestials
Bourbon Clones - Facetankable, no pots needed (in the ss I had exp pot for devotions)
Lokarr - Facetankable, no pots needed
Mogdrogen - Facetankable, but lighting res pots & augments are needed.
Ravager - Facetankable, had to step away once. Multiple pots were used.
Calla - NOT Facetankable for extended periods of time, needs kiting and reviving pets, multiple pots were used.
Crate - Can be beaten with Maya’s pet strat, needed a build adjustment to proc devos from range.
