Introduction
Conjurer (Shaman + Occultist) class is available since base game. It’s one of the better choices for new players, is good both as vitality caster or pet build. This guide will show you how to build yourself a monster build from the scratch. So I will provide leveling tips, budget build with some explanation and also link the end game options, natural continuation of this build.
So why is this build suitable for beginners?
- Vitality casters are very resilient and allows some mistakes to be made.
- You have target farmable set in Dark One as best end game gear.
- Support gear can be replaced with cheap items and still function.
- Leveling weapon/shield are easy to farm and drop in abundance.
- Shaman and Occultist have nice synergy for vitality builds:
- Double RR sources (not the best though)
- Multiple separate resistances from passive skills - aether, pierce, chaos and acid with some vitality, no other classes can do that.
- Physical Resistance.
- Healing skill with OA values as buff.
- Exclusive skill with damage absorb and skill disruption.
As game play, build is so called piano, which means you will have to use number of keys in rotation, or just mashed on random. It could be either advantage or disadvantage depending on your preferences.
Also this build have great durability and area damage but isn’t very strong against single targets, especially in early portions of the game. End game build with BiS gear is though and is one of the better all around builds in the game. Worth saying that lot’s of players hate to level with one skill and completely change their setup at level 94. Well I level this build in exact same way as I play it in end game.
Another advantage is this excellent video playlist done by RektbyProtoss in YouTube Beginners’ Conjurer playlist so you can decide on your preferred source of information. His build is similar to mine but is done in Hardcore mode.
Credit to @RektbyProtoss for his wonderful videos, @malawiglenn since we discussed the possibility to do joined guide and @mad_lee for the end game build and devotions route.
- Note: subsections are hidden behind drop-down menus, click them to expand.
Main Build
- picture with permanent buffs only.
GRIM TOOLS 
CLICK ME
Gameplay&Skills
As I said this is piano build with few active skills. But in reality, since most of them have cooldown or are with long duration isn’t a problem if you miss-click or forgot to use certain skill. Also Blood of Dreeg is almost like a buff, which requires to hit it occasionally.
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Devouring Swarm - Skill with 5 second duration. It’s here for resistance reduction (RR). Should be maxed as early as possible. Shouldn’t be spammed, despite having no cool down.
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Curse of Frailty - The other skill for RR. This skill is ticking every second, applying RR and chance to proc devotions. Main skill points are for quality of life, while Vulnerability should be maxed.
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Bloody Pox - Our best procer, doing nice area damage and Wasting is doing Offensive Ability shred. Wasting should be maxed.
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Sigil of Consumption - Perhaps our greatest single target damage spell. Put it underneath opponents. Multiple Sigils damage do stack.
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Wendigo Totem - Without Dark One set is one pointer healing/filler skill but Dark One makes it shine also offensively, so I want to utilize it fully by maxing it. Second node of it is one pointer, we can’t use the Blood Pact’s flat damage.
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Storm Totem - With transmuter is dealing full vitality damage, I am not fond of it without skill mods, but you can max it leveling or leave it at 11/16.
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Blood of Dreeg - Heal and buff spell. Main skill should go 16/16 and second node either 12/12 or 14/12, depending if you need more acid resistance.
Gear
Most of the gear in this build is easy to be farmed. Key is Dark One set, which is one of the two target farmable sets in the game, won’t give spoilers on how to find the quest, but you can search for it. The other purple items are with faction bought blueprints. And green gear is only with the common (magic) suffixes, you could probably fins better. In gear section will list my choice, with few options, BiS gear pieces are hyperlinks and can be clicked. You could also check individual gear pieces in GT by clicking on it.
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Weapon - I use Boneblade Sword. Nice Pox modifiers, easy to farm from Trog enemies in Mountain Deeps or some other regions. Look for vitality damage affixes. In our end game build is used Fang of Chton which is high level crafted dagger. The other defining weapon is Nightbringer a 2H weapon farmed in new FG dungeon. Other vitality 1H legendary weapons can be used, if you don’t have Boneblade with good rolls.
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Off-hand - I use Word of Solael, faction recipe legendary item. Best item in slot
Skull of Gul’Amash which will make your build immortal with it’s Sigil modifier. Also good can be Blood Orb of Chton or Hallanx off-hand. Optional, you can stick with the shield from leveling. -
Relic - I use Ancestor, low level defensive shaman relic, blueprint can be sold by Hyram in Steelcap District. Absolutely monster relic, best by far is Eldritch Pact which is build defining relic, with it’s great proc.
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Rings - I use random blue ones, tough to say what’s good or not. Some legendary rings, like FG dungeon ones or Voidheart
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Medal - Rylok mark have solid Sigils mode, can be farmed from these Chtonic winged enemies on your road to Malmouth. Best item is Mark of Forbidden
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Amulet - Both Reaver’s Hunger and conduit have vitality boost to Sigil of Consumption and are great. Plagues of Dreeg with vitality suffix is BIS but really hard to craft.
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Belt - I use Lunal Valgoth, from Chtonic boss, in rift area before reaching Malmouth. I think with good rolls will be the best in slot. Stolen Dreams legendary belt is also an option.
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Pants - I use Solael Guardian green pants, they are very good way to cover your resistances. Best in slot are Wendigomane pants. Other good vitality ones or Tranquil minds can be used.
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Boots - Used are Final March boots, common blue ones with physical and slow resistances. Best without doubt are Voidwalker Footpads but Boneshatter are fine as well. Also Grey Magi are awkwardly suitable as well, although I prefer boots with % vitality damage.
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Crafts are with slow/stun resistance
Devotions
Key for any vitality build is to get both Rattosh devotion for RR and Dying God for the massive boost of % vitality damage. Also decided to take Wendigo, nice vitality devotion and Scales for flat RR and nice defensive proc. Other must devotion is Bat, I started my map with it. Others are for affinity points, since our map is going in all directions. For procing start With Bat triggered by Pox, later when you have Rattosh, put Pox in it and use different skill to proc Bat like Curse of Frailty for example
Route for the devotion map for this specific build. Useful if you don’t want many detours or have already level 100 Conjurer.
- Green node
- Bat
- Viper
- Eel
- Wendigo
- Yellow
- Panther
- Lotus
- Lion
- Scales
- Remove yellow
- Scholar’s Light
- Rattosh
- Lantern
- Remove Lion and Scholar’s Light
- Wretch
- Blue
- Dying God up to the proc
For the leveling take few more steps, since I picked Sailor’s Guide early instead of Eel, also respeced the crossroads colors and later put them back but no other differences.
Ghoul is also very good defensive fail-safe option. So you can use it instead of Wendigo if you want or to use Ghoul and Revenant instead of Scales and Bat and your route will like This
Attributes
You will need 724 points in spirit to use the end game off-hands, so need to put some points in there, build have low cunning, so you need some points to use the sword, in my case 23 and most if not all should go to physique. If you don’t use weapon with cunning requirement, don’t invest points in there.
Components and Augmets
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Components used in this build are only low level ones. High level are better of course if you have the recipes. Something like Spellscorh for pierce/elemental resistances, Seal of Annihilation in amulet, Shoulders amulet with aether res, Bloodied Crystals is rings. If you are new player don’t forget to check factions quartermaster for components blueprints and buy them all. I suggest to put component with armor absorb in your pants/shoulders.
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Augments on armor is mainly to cover resistances. But after you reach cap/overcaps you should go for defensive ability. Both Dreeg and Solael faction have augments with flat DA. Solael is 16 DA and 160 health, Dreeg Omen for 32 DA. For weapons go with Coven augments for vitality % damage. If you struggle with DA you should take 1x Ravager’s Eye from Barrowholm. Jewels depend on what you need, DA or OA. Coven augment called Wraith’s Scream have OA and vitality damage, Irrah’s Blood from Solael for vitality damage, DA and aether resistance, Arcanum dust from Malmouth faction provides DA, % total damage (including vitality) and elemental resistance.
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Movement rune - I used Bull Rush for leveling, this is bought from any of FG factions at friendly status and are cheap. It’s charging type of rune. In end game used Rift Tear, also cheap option, that’s instant travel but with long cooldown. You could also use high level crafted rune like Displacement.
Performance
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In campaign build is very fun and fast clearer. Area damage and you will be healed constantly, so very cool. I make some videos against Lokarr, so you can farm it for his set for your next toon. Note that you can craft anti-burn potion for this fight. Also video Monster totem+Kra’Val, killed this tentacle bastard. Doesn’t drop anything good this time.
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In SR I tried 65 and is easy if you use aggro abuse, didn’t climb higher. With some gear improvement this will be on of the better builds for SR, no need to push it with subpar though.
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In Crucible farming 150 is easy and I can recommend it. The sheer damage isn’t good enough for 170 farming, you are prone to be constantly surrounded in Nemesis waves. Still I beat it few times, video 7:49 Gladiator video
Leveling
- I will show you how I leveled this character, it’s not mandatory to follow it, but you can see which skill/stats to prioritize. If you find the logic behind them, you can level your next characters without guides.
For the purpose of this guide I leveled self found only, without Lokarr set, which grants huge boost for XP. My preferred difficulty to start the game is normal.
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In GT links click on upper left corner to change difficulty.
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In case you missed the previous link, check again this beautiful play list by RektbyProtoss for leveling Conjurer HERE
1-10
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GT 10 - Click
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Start with Shaman mastery and start pumping points in Devouring Swarm. Take the mastery bar up to Heart of the Wild and put a point in there, few points in Mogdrogen Pact for energy regen. Having off-hand with energy regeneration helps as well. Start your devotion route with Bat.
10-20
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GT - 20 Click
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Around level 15 select Occultist mastery and take it to Vulnerability, put 1 point in Curse of Frailty and start putting points in Vulnerability. Take Pox as 1 pointer and assign it to Bat’s proc. Max Devouring Swarm and Heart of the Wild. Use components in your gear, especially important to have energy sustain, like Ectoplasm and resistances from armor components. Start Sailor’s Guide or Eel devotion.
20-40
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GT 30 - Click
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GT 40 - Click
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Progress down the Occultist mastery bar, take Sigil of Conumption and Blood of Dreeg, later Aspect of the Guardian. Farm for Bone weapon/shield from Trog enemies in Mountain Deeps. Relic, you can get the Bone talisman from Elder Rover quest, in case you lie to keep it. Devotions, you should be able to reach Wendigo devotion, assign proc to active skill, not that important which one.
40-60
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GT - 50 Click
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GT - 60 Click
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Video from Log at level 50, also am showing my character sheet, skills, devotions, etc Click
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At this point you should cap most of the resistances and have enough DA to not be critted by bosses. Push the Occultist mastery till the end and max the exclusive skill Possession. At this point Sigil also should be maxed, point/points in Wasting, Aspect of Guardian, I took Solael’s Witchfire as passive at one point. Later invest some points in Shaman tree and take Oak skin. Devotions, you should be on your route to Scales or Rattosh.
60-80
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GT - 70 Click
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GT - 80 Click
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Now you can use augments on your jewels, armor and weapons. So some of these factions like Devil’s Crossing should be on revered status. Also you will probably find some useful legendary gear. Begin to focus more on gear with % vitality damage. You should take Rattosh and Scales procs and follow the route to Dying God. Respec unneeded devotions with spirit guide or potion. Work your way to Storm totems with Corrupted totems transmuter.
80+
At this point you should have all 55 devotion points and start gearing towards main build. You should farm for Dark One set in ultimate difficulty. Here’s the cheapest possible build for that by Malawiglenn Click
Factions selection
Often new players ask the question, which factions should be selected. It’s not really that important, except of course that you should be friendly with Barrowholm but here’s what I choose for this build.
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Death Vigil over Kymon, thematically appropriate choice.
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Be friendly with Barrowholm and Outcast.
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Cult of Solael from Witch Gods factions in FG. Second best option is Dreeg. But Solael have the best augments for our build, so selecting it will give chance for earlier reach of revered status. But you should max reputation with all three eventually.
Leveling tips, problems, FAQ
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Stats priority is, first to cover your resistances. Then OA and DA, health should be high, even if you are not focused around it. Then physical resistance is nice and of course % vitality damage, flat have little to no use. Early portions of the game % damage bonuses are very small, so can be neglected, in elite and ultimate difficulty you should focus on vitality gear and find way to secure all stats without sacrificing damage.
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Good leveling jewels augment is Survivor’s ingenuity from Devill’s crossing, for weapon/off-hand Vodibeast powder from Black Legion.
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Shield vs off-hand? Off-hands are better early on and end game but I prefer to use a shield, after I can farm Bonewall. Physical resistance is the best possible stat you can roll on it. Early game energy regen from off-hand is perhaps too good.
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Bosses/heroes are too slow? In some portions of the game it may happen. But if you have RR, with some help of extra skill levels, devotions, etc you will improve your single target damage. As alternative boost Sigil of Consumption earlier.
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I have problem with specific boss? You should check what damage the boss deals. You probably missing resistance against it. Also is worth to try learning bosses mechanics and try avoid the most dangerous attacks, usually they are telegraphed and predictable.
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When to start elite/ultimate. Since you have resistances penalties, -25% upper row on elite and further -25% on ultimate. So cover your resistances. I personally start elite at 65 and ultimate at 85.
End Game Builds
Main build Dagger/Off-Hand by Mad Lee
Our main goal, min maxed build capable of doing all content in game like Crucible even without buffs, high chunks of Shattered realm and Celestials.
2H Nightbringer by Ya1
Also great all around build, using Nightbringer weapon from new dungeon, if you have it, definite option.
Others
You should check the compendium for other Conjurers you might be interested in here Build Compendium X (Forgotten Gods)
Or try Carnival guide for pets by @maya, featuring lot’s of pet Conjurers Here
