Bleeding pets in 1.1.9.0 and onwards

I am thinking again about bleeding pets with Mythical Heart of the Sand King
and took the liberty to slightly modify Omnitirio and Maya setups:

  1. https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZo0rolN
    Assassin’s blade, Quill, Toad

  2. https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYqevrN
    Falcon, Quill, Toad - without Assassin (neglecting physical damage due to crits from Assasin are not reliable in my opinion)

  3. https://www.grimtools.com/calc/1NXQMkO2
    Toad + Assassin + Falcon
    going full damage setup but note that low nod of Huntress is lost (+18 bleeding damage to pets) + it’s a bit awkward to properly proc all the devotions.

What does community think about these three devotions setups and itemization in general for bleeding pets?

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I used to have Assassin’s blade in my original setup, but the RR as you noted is too unreliable. Combined with it being single target, it does not translate well in practice, especially in an environment like the Crucible. But for Superbosses or SR, due to their single target nature, it could works decently I suppose.

Itemization wise, need to check if Heart or Zaria’s (even without well rolled affixes) would be better, but other than that, it is all good.

I like the 2nd and 3rd builds. Which would be more effective, needs a bit of testing I would say. One one hand the RR from Ass blade does help with extra damage. But on the other, if it doesn’t do much in practice, that is extra points that could be spent elsewhere.

Thanks, Maya.
My understanding that with Mythical Heart of the Sand King pets get both 78 bleed damage from the modifier to Mogdrogen’s Pact AND 48 bleed damage from the pets’ bonuses section and if this is correct, this is definitely worth losing the pet from Mythical Heart of the Mountain, for example.
Zaria’s pendant is tempting choice, then Bloodsworn Codex (total damage modified by 35% to Briarthorn) is needed so two items give +65% total damage modified and it’s like an extra pet, basically.
I wonder if this “total damage modified” thing is applied to bleeding damage as well because there is a lot of it here.

It does :sunglasses:

It also interestingly effects devotion procs bound to pets. I’m picturing Meteor Shower bound to Briarthorn/Hellhound with the Physical/Fire converted to the same damage type and the +65% total damage boost on top :eyes:.

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Managed to farm Vigorous Zaria’s pendant of the Untamed (+14% health, + 490 HP, 11% phys res to pets, 5% attk spd for pets, 6% ttl speed to pets) + Occultist Bloodsworn Codex of Binding.

Managed to clear 75-81 shards easily, problems arrive when all 4 bosses rush to me at once, otherwise even 2 bosses simultaneously are possible. Only HP potions used, several deaths.

  • damage ROCKS. Amulet + Off-hand is the way to go for double Briarthorns no matter the damage type, in my opinion
  • Rend is bound to Briarthorns for quicker spreading of RR and Falcon Swoop is bound to Hellhound - arguably it is needed only on bosses and packs of heroes, trash dies very fast. Oleron rage is bound to Primal Spirit, the beast crits every strike so it’s permanent proccing the devotion.
  • Assassin’s blade had to go, it is not needed (in my opinion) even during boss fights in SR. Probably super-bosses is where it may speed things up, but in general i have enough things to control (Devouring Swarm, BLood of Dreeg, Totem for healing, summon Primal Spirit + Call of the Beast, and Curse of Frailty of course), so another button to press is a bit too much for me personally
  • i still don’t have Mythical Nosferatis and i have only one Mythical Crimsonbriar Band, so there is enough room for damage rise.
  • pets don’t die. Well, only Hellhound and only when 3-4 bosses rush on me at the same time. +4% adth to pets from Toad really shines here + healing from Totem and Blood of Dreeg
  • Hellhound finally does decent amount of damage and it’s worth maximizing it. BIS for off-hand is Houndmaster Bloodsworn Codex of Caged Souls, it gives +4 to Hellhound enabling to maximize it.
    BIS for amulet is probably Incorruptible Zaria’s Pendant of the Wild, +2 to Briarthorn so it is easily harcapped.
  • Sadly only one point per skill in Mogdrogen Pact line, i don’t know where to take points for it.

Overall the performance is really nice, can’t wait to find Mythical Nosferatis and second Mythical Crimsonbriar Band.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/RVvRo5JV this is how it looks ideally on items in my opinion, Rend should be bound to Briarthorns, of course amulet and off-hand are essential and it is preferrable to have some pet suffixes on both.

It is also worth checking whether dropping Falcon and getting green/purple devotion points elsewhere can increase survivability for higher shards without much loss in damage.

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Nice to see the Veilpiercer in a build, I have several and didn’t have any idea what to do with them.

I love the build :blush:

Veilpiercer was indeed discovered long ago as good option for pets builds which don’t require specific weapon to work.
Other suitable options:

  • Mythical Black Hand of Sanar’siin: nice stats, +2 to Hellhound, +2 to Briarthorn, basically a placeholder until something better is obtained
  • Mythical Black Scourge: real contender here as +1 to Shaman skills is huge, considering we would like to get as many points there as possible, it adds Chaos res so it is obviously a good option for farming Bastion of Chaos.
  • Salazar’s Blade: Green item which adds additional pet, it used to be very slow and all trash died before it even reached them, but probably could be an interesting option for super-bosses.

Pants: options here are Mythical Runebrand legwraps, Mythical Rifthound Legwraps (Pierce + Aether res + some hp for player + Aether res + oa/da for pets) and Mythical WIldshorn Legguards (+1k hp, da and attack speed/damage for pets). Certainly some crazy green pants with tons of hp/res/da for player and some pet bonuses will be better.
My choices is Mythical Rifthound Legwraps for the time being

Boots: the struggle is real here as Mythical Grim Harvest boots provide more valuable stats in my opinion and +2 to Briarthorns allowing to cap it if you don’t have +2 to Briarthorn on amulet or use the free points elsewhere, but defensive proc from Mythical Fiendflesh Greaves is really noticeable in high SR. Tough choice indeed.

Rest of equipment is basically a must, i think.

Devotions: we waste 9 points to get Falcon Proc (no useful stats on the devotion itself for us/pets and only 8% Aether res + 2% da on the Quill). What can be done instead of Quill + Falcon:

  1. Spider + Wolverine: +150 more da for the player + some extra defense for the pets.
    It is probably better for defense and attacking higher SR

  2. Raven + Empty Throne + completing Huntress: 5% more oa and 5% less d/a comparing with Spider + Wolverine, +8% health for pets from completing Huntress, extra res for player (arguably it is not needed as much as da), extra Freeze/Slow res for player and stun/chaos/aether/freeze/stun res for pets + you can get 15 da for player and 10% pierce res from Wolverine, but player d/a is roughly 2845 instead of 2990 in option with Wolverine + Spider.

  3. Raven + Wolverine + completing Huntress.

  4. Raven + Empty Throne + completing Huntress + one last devotion point.

Requires testing, probably.
Appreciate to have community ideas on above.

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Here’s how I’d approach it - GRIMTOOLS

Main changes are that I went with Wildshorn Leggings for the large health bonus, +DA, and Physical Resistance. I removed Raven since it’s really not doing anything and swapped some points around to get Oak Skin to 10/10 - the DA, Armor bonuses for you and Pierce resistance for your pets is much worth the investment.

For weapon slot, with you investing in Oleron, I concur that Veilpiercer is BiS here - there’s no way to get Mogdrogen, Oleron, and Acid Spray, so having the flat RR on the Hellhound is a great choice. In removing Falcon, I gave Oleron’s binding to the Hellhound - the flat RR reduction should apply to the devotion proc as well, if only at a 75% rate - so you’ll get much more consistent flat RR applied.

Otherwise, secondary resists are always a good thing to have for pets, so I went with Raven + Empty Throne + completing Huntress to get more resistances for your pets, and I swapped some augments + components around to give you more resistance overcaps. One last thing - unless you’re running out of Energy, you have much, much more Spirit than you need for your Off-hand, so if you’re needing more DA, you can always take points out of Spirit and put them in Physique.

Thanks for the advice

The Familiar may deserve 1 point just to apply the bleed damage elsewhere, probably.

Oleron is nice devotion and Primal Spirit procs it with every crit, basically. I will check how it performs when bound to Hellhound.

Do you think it is worth dropping Oleron and go for Manticore instead? So something like mythical Black Scourge may be equipped?

Huge Aether res for pets from mythical Veilpiercer really helps again Alexandre, Anasteria and other aether guys, though i don’t feel any problem with chaos-hitting guys like Grava and Benn’Jarr - with current setup, i mean.

I also tend to think Empty Throne is more important than Wolverine here.

With Wildshorn Legguards it makes sense to put 1 point in Hellfire as it gives +48 da at rank 6 (plus some minor flat damage), not bad for a single skill point.

You are right about the off-hand, my mistake not to re-allocate the points from Spirit to Physique.
Occasionally i run out of mana when i spam skills a lot, but energy potions are there for such cases.
It is worth mentioning that with Crane constellation we only need 652 points in Spirit to equip it and considering the off-hand provides some spirit, it is possible to equip some other times with huge spirit bonus, then equip an off-hand and re-equip the required items so you have 652 spirit or more AFTER you equip the off-hand.

Of course if you don’t have Incorruptible Zaria Pendant you might need other augments to fix resists.

I wonder if somebody has time and desire to check the improved version thepowerofmediocrity suggests against Callagadra and Crate ( the only unconquered from my side :slight_smile: )

New patch brought us new opportunities.

No more damage, crit damage and healt as 3-pieces completion set bonus, but base damage of all pets is increased, as well as the hound of Bysmiel Bonds, CHillmane from Heart of the Mountaine (both mythical and non-mythical) and the hound from Savage relic.

We will see if the damage to Chtonian Harbinger is increased as well (summoned from Salazar’s Sovereign Blade).

No more almost uptime of Primal Spirit (base cooldown is increased from 40 to 45 sec and 5 sec duration modifier is removed from full set). We will see if Developers may revert at least one of these changes in 1.1.9.1.

In my view Bloodsworn Codex and Zaria Pendant are the way to go, both are easily farmable in the Blood Grove on the way to Zaria, and despite all niceties of Bound’s Wraith (+8 sec duration to PRimal Spirit) in my opinion Bloodsworn Codex is still better as +2 to BRiarthorn, +2 to Ground Slam and -8 sec to resummon Briarthorn.

Post patch i managed to crawl with my build to Shard 86, however i noticed that Hellhound procs Falcon Swoop very rarely and with Primal Spirit uptime is 20 sec and then 15 sec off-line (may vary depending on your cooldown), it does not make much sense to go for Oleron.

This is what i think should work better:

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lNkQAPlV

rare affixes/prefixes are best in slot, in my view, i don’t have them, it’s like an aiming goal.

Question is where to put the last free devotion point (if we go for Eel; if Sailor Guide = no free points)
1 - first node in Lion: +4% hp, +8 da, +3% hp to pets
2 - something from the Behemoth:
2.1 - regeneration?
2.2 - +30 hp/sec and 5% heal increase?
2.3 - 5% hp + 80 armor - looks like the worst out of these.

Thoughts?

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