[1.2.1.5] Rotting Gaze: 4:00 Crucible Gladiator 150-170, SR 36, all Celestials Vitality Decay Conjurer + bonus build Dark One Conjurer

[mad_lee]

*
*Certain Nemesis sees his life force decay in front of his eyes

Foreword

Few things happened that made me do this build. Dreeg’s Evil Eye builds have suddenly became viable since couple of patches ago: you have your Vitality spam DEE, you have your Chaos spam DEE, you even have your cooldown Fire DEE’s. Vitality damage casters got new toys: cheap flat rr with Mark of Dreeg, buffed Affliction, buffed Occultist mastery etc. etc. And then of course I felt the need to post a build guide again and I can only bring myself to writing a whole guide every once in blue moon or when I find a build special…

The Build

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*Craft for freeze resistance
**Check gear alternatives in gear section below

Concept

Tanky caster that can both facetank and kite when needed without losing damage. Cooldown DEE is a direct damage nuke plus huge dot source at the same time. I tried to get as many sources of Decay to supplement DEE as possible without sacrificing consistency and increasing clunkiness. Plus I wanted to do it with relatively easy gear with good alternatives.

EDIT: Accidentally wrote a history of rot how this spec was made in one of the comments.

Gear/Skills and Devotions/Leveling

We of course need Rotgheist set, Pandemic dagger, Morgo ring, Dreeg’s Affliction relic and Blood Orb of Ch’thon for build to fully work. Other gear slots are flexible, but from my tests Mark of Forbidden medal really adds that missing layer of tankiness with its proc, max res and some DA. For belt we can use a well rolled Lunal’Valgoth Girdle, for pants really any pants with a lot of hp and ideally some OA or DA (crafted pants will work well here), but Grava’Thul Leggins are bis here. For boots some well rolled Stoneplates that help us cover our cc-res hole will do. Try to get one Formidable prefix between pants, gloves and boots slot.

Devotions all support build’s dot nature. Charriot patches up OA and cc-holes plus offers a very valuable proc.

Skill distribution is standard, nothing to add here.

For leveling please check beginner guides, this is an endgame build

Gameplay

Always try to cast Curse of Frailty before DEE, because of the massive DA debuff on it (we really want our Eye to crit). Try to herd mobs in clusters to get the most value out of your spells arsenal. All bosses in SR 30-31 are facetankable, some facetankable in groups, except for Mad Queen. Against Mad Queen you have to kite when her aura is on. Use Wendigo Totem for bigger scuffles. Relic’s skill can actually shotgun bigger targets. Remember that you have a lot of range with all of your spells and debuffs.

For Ravager of Flesh fight use two Soul Shards instead of two Frozen Hearts and three Wraith’s Scream augments in jewelry (can play it safer with just one or two of those augments). Facetank is relatively smooth if you dodge his sunders and time your potions and cluster well.

For Callagadra just run around and pepper her from afar.

Watch the videos to learn how to play the build.

Stats

General

DEE’s damage with Abominable Might on

Videos

1.2.1.5 Ravager of Flesh 57 seconds kill

1.2.1.5 SR 30-31 4:43 run

1.2.1.5 SR 36 4:13 run

1.2.1.5 Crucible Gladiator 150-170 buffless 4:36 run

1.2.1.5 Callagadra 1:31 kill

1.2.1.5 Crate kill by RomanN1

In Conclusion

Credit to @banana_peel for doing Vitality Decay builds before it was cool and to @grey-maybe for making a first serious cooldown DEE build this patch. Also shoutout to @El_Collapsar for doing a Vitality Decay Ritualist that made me look into dot-focused Rotgheist Conjurer. And thanks to @romanN1 for testing different iterations of this spec and suggesting to use green gloves (used to be Dark One gloves).

Bonus Build: Decaying Dark One Conjurer

Not much to say here, just a throwback to a certain Dark One Conjurer build that was somewhat popular long ago. Not super optimised but probably more relevant than most Dark One Conjurers specs out there.

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Decaying Dark One Conjurer vs. Ravager 1:15 kill

[orwund]

@mad_lee

Not super optimised but probably more relevant than most Dark One Conjurers specs out there.

Dont think so, but some highed max resistances and prismatic diamond it lacks defence by far despite your strategy of knowing positions being in right places and killing enemies faster than they kill you this set dictates to stay near totems and this idea requires good defence and circuit breakers. This set is for lazy playstyle that’s why i love it and you don’t. You are trying to make sportcar from bobcat and complaining its non perfect perfomance (i felt it in your note). That the rare case where mine looks better for me than yours.

In addition it’s rather to say veilkeeper reaper(that doesn’t support health regeneration) more ‘balanced’ than druid becouse of speed.

[mad_lee]

@orwund

That the rare case where mine looks better for me than yours.

Show it! It still facetanks Ravager, so how much more do you really want. I could probably make it tankier with Soulbearer and more leech oriented devotion map. I was just not that interested in re-doing a build I did ages ago.
Also this guide is not about a Dark One anyway.

[orwund]

[1.2.1.2] All content Vitality Decay Conjurer HC viable

[image] Dark ones Nightbringer Conjurer UPDATED maelstrom points went to storm totem and serenity replaced meditation (even more damage now, dots from each new storm totems stack with the replaced one)

old

<a href="https://www.grimtools.com/calc/gZwdJ78N" class="inline-onebox" rel="noopener nofollow ugc">Conjurer, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.2) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator</a>

Description Build uses many sources of elemental dot damage which is…

i didnt mean ravager or any celestial. some builds are needed to be modified for them its understandable, the point is absence of circuit breakers, not capped cc resistances and standing near totems concept of this set, imo.

The main build is nice as always. this post is for antimonopolizing policy (speed=better, i know u are not alone) sake.

[mad_lee]

Ah, Dark One with this Morgo shovel, tale as old as time. That’s gonna be tanky all right, mainly due to phys res value on that thing. You could make that spec better btw if you move few items around.

[orwund]

i could bumping OA for celestials fights but i left it as it safely can facetank crucible by standing in the middle of arena.

[Bas]

Why scorpion? Just for the proc? The rest doesn’t seem to bring you much. Wouldn’t Raven give you more value?

[mad_lee]

@orwund

i could bumping OA for celestials fights but i left it as it safely can facetank crucible by standing in the middle of arena.

I mean you could take Lunal belt for +1 to Occultist and Elemental to Vitality and take rings with rr procs. Could also take different boots or pants too.

@Bas

Why scorpion?

Pseudo-pets like Wind Devils stack dots from devotion procs when they each proc it, and since we convert Acid to Vitality it’s all additional Vitality Decay dot. Plus 150 DA shred with very good coverage.

[Bas]

@mad_lee

Pseudo-pets like Wind Devils stack dots from devotion procs when they each proc it,

Aah ok! I always forget about that. That makes sense.

[orwund]

@mad_lee

I mean you could take Lunal belt for +1 to Occultist and Elemental to Vitality and take rings with rr procs. Could also take different boots or pants too.

Don’t want to argue much here, lunal is always pain to farm unless you have it from SR, with other purple boots and belt it has way more OA and destroys calla by 1:35.

[flandcdn]

I am in love with this build. Can you tell me why not use bloody pox with dark one gloves ?

Why is morgo ring mandatory ?

[mad_lee]

@flandcdn

I am in love with this build.

Thanks!

@flandcdn

Can you tell me why not use bloody pox with dark one gloves ?

Sure. Tl;dr version: from my tests like this is better.

But I wrote a long version which is basically a story of how this spec was made, because why the hell not. So first versions of this build had Dark One gloves. Here is the very first iteration I tested. As you can see I did choose Dark One gloves and had an extra converted devotion proc and even Storm Totems. Also medal slot had a much more offensive option. It was a bit too squishy for my taste. I move on to the next version and dropped Fiend for Charriot and got rid of Storm Totems. This is where I tested Morgoneth Ring vs. Voidheart and Morgoneth showed overall better results. I liked the spec so much I even called it “final version” in the next video. After a couple of days of testing other funky Rotgheist DEE combinations I came back to tweaking this Conj because I felt like it could be made better yet. So I decided to tank it up and added Mark of Forbidden medal. It felt better but it’s still wasn’t fully there. Fortunately @romanN1 was also trying out those specs and he was suggesting to try crafted gloves with casting speed because build felt clunky to him. I couldn’t imagine dropping Dark One gloves, like how could I, it meant giving up damage reduction on Pox and then extra healing on Wendigo Totem. But then I thought, what if I make a radical adjustment. I will not just take green gloves with casting speed, but I will also give up Bloody Pox completely and make it have one button less. And then rely on Morgoneth Ring and DEE’s phys dr for damage reduction (which seemed like a sketchy idea at first).
And so it was born, called “no pox spec” in the first video it showed up in and now it’s here. I also wanted to make up for the loss of %damage from chosing green gloves over Dark One* gloves and from losing Bloody Pox damage (which was something) and changed pants to Grava pants (didn’t need Aleksander’s Black Death bonus anymore) and took a good old Cursebearer that capped Vulnerability which DA shred synergizes really well with almost 150% crit damage cooldown DEE has and then just maxed out Blood of Dreeg for the better heal button (and also more upfront OA).

[Bas]

@mad_lee

Pseudo-pets like Wind Devils stack dots from devotion procs when they each proc it, and since we convert Acid to Vitality it’s all additional Vitality Decay dot. Plus 150 DA shred with very good coverage.

Just this morning I was wondering, will the DA also stack from all Wind Devils? (So you’ll end up with 450 total)

[mad_lee]

@Bas

will the DA also stack from all Wind Devils?

You mean DA shred from Scorpion? Unfortunately no. DA or OA shreds that are written like x reduced target’s defensive/offensive ability for x seconds can only apply once (similiar logic to flat RR). So OA/DA shreds from stuff like BWC or Korvaak devotion proc or FoI or Drain Essence are not additive or multiplicative and highest value will apply if you have few of them.

However stuff that is written like “-X defensive/offensive ability” stacks, so DA shred from Vulnerability and Seal of Annihilation proc will stack.

[Bas]

Aah sneaky minus sign strikes again. Ok, too bad, but probably makes sense. And I guess something like Will of Rattosh also doesn’t stack it’s rr either for some reason? Would be a bit OP otherwise probably.

[mad_lee]

@Bas

And I guess something like Will of Rattosh also doesn’t stack it’s rr either for some reason?

RR procs from one item or devotion cannot stack with itself (like with having two rings of eternal haunt or black matriarh). Stacking dots on pseudo-pets is as fun as this game goes (which is pretty fun).

[romanN1]

In addition to what was already shown, it is my pleasure to add this small showcase of power related to this build as following:

[1.2.1.5] Lee's Rotgheist cd DEE conjurer vs Crate

And for bloopers (and maybe feedback purpose too):

[1.2.1.5] Dreeg's Evil Eye vs Solael's Scary Stairs

Kudos!

[mad_lee]

@romanN1

following:

Very nice kill, probably a bit lucky with the crits, added to the guide.

@romanN1

And for bloopers (and maybe feedback purpose too):

This Conjurer shoots straight but sometimes just can’t get it up (the stairs)