Stats shown with passives active. Sheet DPS is Devouring Swarm.
Grimtools
Gear crafted for % armour.
Introduction
I’ve had this build complete and thread more or less written for about a month now but didn’t opt to post it as I didn’t think it was worth showcasing due to low stats like OA/DA but a few people encouraged me otherwise. I guess someone out there that enjoys hybrids will appreciate it 
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Build Concept
- It’s been known around the forums for some time now that multiple of the same player-scaled pet can stack their non-debuff DoT damage together and this character takes advantage of that in several places (detailed below) to accumulate lots of Vitality Decay and Bleeding damage.
- Yes, we’re not just stacking Vitality Decay or Bleed either - both are important to us. Besides our pets, we also pile on more from other sources with Siphon Souls being a big one.
- Besides our focus being on DoT damage, we are also able to put out decent amounts of Vitality damage and life steal through it on Siphon Souls, Storm Totem bound to Twin Fangs, Scales and a few gear procs. Life Leech resistance also makes this sweeter.
- DA is low at about 2500-2600 but gets 245 OA shred from Blood Boil and 150 OA shred from Rend to help.
- We boast 10% racial damage to Aetherials and Ch’thonians, 12% damage to Humans and 14% damage to Beasts as additional boosts to vast amounts of enemies we come across. All Nemeses except Moosilauke, Zantarin and Kaisan fall into one of these categories.
Abilities
Storm Totem (Twin Fangs): Our best source of spreading damage throughout crowds.
Wendigo Totem: Great source of health recovery that acts independently. Also increases all Vitality/Bleed damage we deal while stood in it’s area.
Devouring Swarm (Living Shadow): Significantly increases all Vitality/Bleed damage we deal and adds some damage of it’s own on top.
Siphon Souls (Rend): More Vitality/Decay/Bleed damage in a big AoE with strong debuffing utility.
Reap Spirit: One of the best sources of Vitality Decay in Necromancer despite the lack of AoE. The pet doesn’t do a lot for us due to lack of pet-scaled pet damage.
Ill Omen: Reduces the damage enemies deal.
Mark of Torment: Lowers the damage you take by a significant amount. Great in a pinch.
Pet Attack: Directs your pets to focus on one target.
Mogdrogen’s Pact: Health, armour and Pierce/Aether resistance, all good.
Spectral Binding: Health and OA, can’t go wrong.
Master of Death: Unfortunately, we’re short on OA/DA without Master of Death here so have to take it.
Aether-Ward Aura: Provides some needed Aether resistance.
Void-Ward Aura: Provides some needed Chaos resistance.
Player-scaled Pets
As they are a big portion of the character, lets take a minute to go over how stacking DoTs on player-pets work and the ones we use:
How DoT stacking on player-scaled pets works
Player-pet skills can be split into 2 categories: attacks and debuffs.
Debuffs are only applied once per enemy regardless of how many player pets are summoned and as a result do not stack the damage they apply in any way. The benefit to having more pets summoned is that they can spread their debuff out to a larger area and as a result keep more enemies debuffed at once.
Attacks on the other hand will apply their direct and DoT damage independent of each player pet summoned to any number of enemies they can effect. What this means is that having more pets out means more attacks and more damage dealt and the key thing to note - more DoT damage applied. This means that not only is increasing a pet’s raw DoT damage important but increasing it’s summon limit can increase DoT damage potential dramatically as well.
So how would someone be able to identify a debuff from an attack without testing it out beforehand? Well, I have been using grimtools pet database so far as it parses just about every player pet available (though doesn’t include skills added via mastery skills like Maelstrom/The Big One). From there, you can look at an attack and tell on the side if it is a debuff or attack, for example:
The above is a debuff.
The above is an attack.
Player-pet Analysis
Storm Totem
4 Summon Limit
They stay where they’re summoned and cast a chain lightning-style attack that deals 396 Vitality Decay damage over 2 seconds and hits up to 8 enemies. Not much to say.
Deathstalker
1 Summon Limit
The Deathstalker has a passive aura that deals 50 Bleed per second for a start. But beyond that, other attacks it also has are:
- A standard attack that deals 210 Bleeding damage over 3 seconds.
- A claw swipe that deals 210 Bleeding damage over 3 seconds.
- A Shadow Strike it uses against long-distance enemies that deals 300 Bleeding damage over 3 seconds.
- A tail strike that deals 366 Bleeding damage over 3 seconds.
- A roar that deals 210 Bleeding damage over 3 seconds.
Bloodbathed Servants
4 Summon Limit
These act similarly to the Skeletal Mages from Necromancer’s Raise Skeletons. Attacks they have are:
- A Trozan’s Sky Shard-style attack that is their standard dealing 240 Bleeding damage over 2 seconds.
- A 12 projectile nova that deals 240 Bleeding damage over 2 seconds.
Living Shadows
3 Summon Limit
Living Shadows are unique amongst our pets as their Bleed output can be fairly sporadic due to the fact that they have WPS. Their skills include:
- A standard attack that deals 298 Bleeding damage over 2 seconds.
- A Shadow Strike that deals 163 Bleeding damage over a second.
- A WPS that deals 298 Bleeding damage over 2 seconds. Has a 15% proc chance and 4 second cooldown.
- Another WPS that deals 298 Bleeding damage over 2 seconds. Has a 15% proc chance and 4 second cooldown.
- Another WPS that deals 298 Bleeding damage over 2 seconds. Has a 15% proc chance and 4 second cooldown.
Resist Reduction
Scales of Ulcama: Occasionally lowers all resistances by 20 to any enemy that hits you.
Devouring Swarm: Fires a projectile that debuffs struck enemies by lowering their Vitality resistance by -65% and Bleeding resistance by 45%.
Spectral Wrath: Lowers the Vitality resistance by -29% of any enemy that hits you and all enemies in an area around them.
Siphon Souls: Creates a brief nova that debuffs enemies with -30% Vitality resistance, -10% Bleeding resistance and -5% Life Leech resistance.
Rend: Debuffs enemies with -32% Bleeding resistance.
Will of Rattosh: Debuffs enemies with -25% Vitality resistance and -8% Life Leech resistance.
Signet of the Fallen: Debuffs enemies with -15% Vitality resistance.
Aura of Darkness: The Deathstalker emits an aura around it that debuffs enemies by lowering their Bleeding resistance by -10%.
In total, this leaves us at -184% Vitality resistance, -117% Bleeding resistance and -13% Life Leech resistance.
Attributes
Enough in Spirit to equip our off-hand, rest in Physique for much needed DA.
Playstyle
Keep enemies debuffed with Devouring Swarm and drop a Wendigo Totem down for the juicy % Vitality/Bleed bonus. For general crowd clearing, Siphon Souls and Storm Totem should handle that relatively well. It also helps to have as many of your pets active to increase clear speed.
For Heroes or Bosses, we want to debuff with Ill Omen as well, add Reap Spirit in and Mark of Torment to increase facetanking capability.
Achievements
Crucible run by @romanN1. Big thanks to him for trying it
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Acknowledgements
@Superfluff. Inspired the build with his own Vitality/Bleed Valguur Ritualist long ago. All I did was put my own spin on it.
@Rhylthar. I can’t not tag Rhylthar on a Bleed build and a lot of people should know why.
Other Player-Pet DoT Builds
These operate on the same idea of stacking notably large amounts of DoT damage through multiple player pets but are stronger than my own:
