Wait a sec, so if I understand this correctly, i can put skill points into say Markovians Advantage and Zolhans technique and the player scaling pets will inherit that? Even if Im not attacking, they will get those skill bonus’s? Or am I just confused, and only the buff skills that are always active will go to the player scaling pets?
Oh wait, I didn’t see that. No, not Markovian’s advantage or any other attacks. But any buff that is granted to the player is also granted to those pets.
You can think of them as disembodied attacks, as if the player made them.
They benefit from all permanent bonus, but also temporary ones: if you’re sitting inside an inquisitor seal, your blade spirits will hit harder too, for example.
But WPS like Markovian’s advantage are only triggered when using an auto attack replacer skill, like Savagery or Cadence.
Here’s some farm-friendly ideas from memory. There’s plenty of room for optimization with good drops or transfers. Links:
Warlord: Fire - 2h sword, retal
Warlord; Vit - mace+shield → axe (any)
P.S.: I’m 80 levels into tinkering with another “Activist” build: Cold Jacks. Intense, but fun. All thanks to the recent Aeon’s Hourglass change. Unfortunately it may require immense attention to cooldowns to loop the now guarenteed cooldown reset.
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Thanks AuMidas, i appreciate it.
So another gee whiz I have, concerning Devotions that I auto include into almost every build for survivability.
Auto includes: Behemoth, Harvestman’s Scythe, and Tree of Life, all of those are just wonderful for life sustain for my particular playstyle.
I am considering a 4th auto include, one of which I have not used before. Bascially it comes down to either Dryad for the auto heal every 7.5 seconds, or Ulo keeper of the waters for the Cleansing Waters every 10 seconds. What do you folks think would be the best utility, cleansing or another heal?
Both of those proc on attack so would need either an active skill or a pet possibly.
I thought it was just global damage% bonuses, not flat amounts or attack speed or that kind of thing. 
But I have no idea really 
The purge from Ulo would be tough to make useful with a pacivist build. I tend to use it like a makeshift Nullification skill. The other benefits of Ulo can make it worth the ~10% uptime and spotty passivist activation. Dryad is great and it’s effortless to get to 100% uptime.
Resistance reduction is important to prevent stalemates. There are enough devotion points to grab everything and more once rat and crossroads can be swapped out. Rattosh (vitality) would require a sacrifice, though. The extra life leech from it may help cover losing one of the survival constellations. Manticore can be great if you happen to have the extra points.
In addition to classes with pets and relics like nemesis or deathstalker, skills from sets like The Blood Knight count for binding to attack devotions. While it is endgame, it can at least be crafted.
Neither flat damage or attack speed.
You can basically think of them as spells.
Word of pain for example, once applied will “attacks” every second and deals a fixed amount of damage. Adding attack speed to your character won’t make it tick faster, and you need %weapon damage to use your flat damage bonus, so it won’t apply there either.
But if you have %damage bonus, or Crit bonus, they will apply to word of pain. WoP will also use your OA, and will count as you attacking to proc devotions and other item procs.
Same for player-scaled pets.
They do their thing but scale as if they were a spell you cast. So they Crit more if you have high OA, they deal more damage on Crits if you have Crit bonus, and deal more damage overall if you have %damage bonus for whatever damage type they deal.
Their main selling point are that they are permanent, and they each count as a different source of damage for instances of DoTs and devotion procs.
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Cool thanks, then I got it mostly right. Didn’t know they inherited crit, though it makes sense.
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Into the 2nd act now in Ultimate on the Warlord, presented for review and suggestions! Thank you all for your help in making this happen!!
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Do you attack to trigger Smite (and thus Dryad) ?
If so, you would have much better odds of proccing it with just replacing your seal of might with a seal of destruction and using the action that comes with it. As it is, you have a ( 30% X 22% ) 6% chance to trigger Dryad per attack… not ideal.
Or if you’re not adverse to putting a few skill points elsewhere, 1 point in Blitz and 1 in blindside would make it proc 100% of the time when you use it.
Or you can simply use a movement rune and bind Dryad to it.
No sir, I do not attack at all, I just randomly chose a skill to attach Dryad to =)
Well, Smite won’t activate because you’re not attacking using a default weapon attack replacer (Cadence or Righteous Fervor) so Dryad isn’t going to proc at all because it’s an on attack proc and you’re not attacking.
erm… well… um, time to commence with the Devotion Jenga then lol! Didnt realize that Dryad wouldnt proc!
Just move the points to Lion and Panther since your OA is very low: Warlord, Level 95 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
Also, you’d probably actually be better with a simple Juggernaut relic than Menhir’s Bastion. You don’t really care about the physique requirement and your health is already pretty good, but Juggernaut would give you much needed OA and the proc is passive and works up to basically the same amount of healing. Either that or Absolution, or even Serenity would be great fits.
Will do… ohhh Serenity…+1 to all skills… yup gimme!
Just a little something I’ve been working on. Just started Ultimate difficulty. The remaining devotion points will be put into Tree of Life to max it out. Comments and suggestions welcome =)
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I recall awhile back folks mentioning that ranged damage was better than melee for calculating scaling bonus’s for EG/BS/WD (player scaling pets) and what not, can comeone expand on this, as I am a bit confused, or am I just thinking I read this and its not a thing? =)
Seems weird. Player scaling pets just scale with global damage. The ones with the the most % damage are daggers and scepters usually, not so much ranged afaik.