Add Bleeding to Storm Totem to Valguur's Hunger

One of the great things about Valguur’s set is how well it combines Vitality + Bleeding damage and several other supporting items allowing one to make a hybrid as was demonstrated way back in Ashes of Malmouth by Fluff. Since then, even more support has been added with Oathkeeper and further items like Bolvar’s Pendant and Lagoth’Ak’s Bloodbinding to name a few.

However, only one skill in the set supports both damage types being Siphon Souls. Between the other 2 skills, I think Storm Totem is more liable to receive Bleeding damage better with how multiple Totems are able to apply the DoT individually so one side between the duo damage types doesn’t fall behind the other.

All it would take is adding a skill modifier on the set somewhere like the headgear or full set bonus that is something along the lines of 240 Bleeding damage over 2 seconds added to Storm Totem. Any thoughts on this?

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Do multiple storm totem actually stack dots? They come from the same source. Also since you wanna combine it with necro, you miss out on strong bleeding skills like RoS and BA and other wps skills, which reduces dmg output a lot.

Any attack from a player-scaled pet that isn’t a debuff stacks DoTs. You can validate this by comparing the DoT damage a Training Dummy takes with 1 Blade Spirit active and then 2 as for whatever reason, Whirling Blades isn’t considered a debuff:
whirlingblades
Blade Eruption also stacks with the above for each Blade Spirit as well.

You get a lot of Vitality damage from Necro however, and Shaman still features a decent amount of Vitality/Bleed damage as well. Both masteries are also capable of stacking high amounts of RR to both damage types which Soldier/Nightblade lack.

Yeah I just tested them on dummies, they do stack. Getting Bleeding RR is not hard even for single RR classes and given the fact that necro doesn’t have any good bleeding proc, you’re forced to only rely on totems to do proper bleeding. All of this ends up making bleeding damage the supportive type, which already is. ( Unless you want to go for a hybrid then sure, but I don’t think valguur can ever work with bleeding as main.)

Did you not even check Fluff’s old build that I linked :stuck_out_tongue:.

Blood Boil already exists, Valguur piles more Bleed damage ontop. Additional items pile more Bleed ontop of that. Fluff even double downs on it by binding Rend to it for huge OA shred and AoE DoT potential in Crucible.

Even Rhylthar made a Bleed user out of Ritualist using Guillotine and that’s just pure Bleed. You’re forgetting that Valguur also has access to tons of Vitality and Vitality Decay damage on top, the Bleed side needs a bump and that’s what I’m advocating for here.

I should point out as well. You’re forgetting the old mantra “RR is king”. More of it is always a notable damage increase for any build.

That still focuses more on Vitality damage, hybrid nonetheless.

That’s Rhylthar being Rhylthar playing non-conventional bleeding builds. It also uses a completely different set.

And I am saying that even if it does get buffed, vitality side will still be stronger.

I know, but single RR bleeding builds reach -100 or close to it easily. Rend and Devouring Swarm are really good for that

Given the fact, that Necromancer has 2 WPS (not relying on a 2H-Weapon) it could be even a nice Melee/Caster-Hybrid.

Storm Totem would definitely help. :slight_smile:

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/10charact

Btw I am not saying that I am against your suggestion, I’m just saying that even if it does get buffed, vit side would still be better when it comes to focusing on 1 dmg type, but I can see the buffs being useful to a hybrid build. Sorry if I sounded aggressive.

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No worries. I do get the Vitality side will still be stronger. It’s natural as Bleeding has both Vitality and Decay on the set and skills working against it, and unless you have a really godly set for Bleed like Bloodrager, it’s difficult to make it work solo.

But for a hybrid, I think it’d work great, maybe Bleed would still be more of a support to Vitality with the change but one of the challenges to making a hybrid is carefully balancing your damage types so they’re equal with the benefit that you don’t get screwed over by enemies that heavily resist 1 of your damage types (except the ones that resist both like Grava for Fire/Lightning, Kuba for Cold/Vitality or Reaper for Aether/Chaos etc.).

When you get a build to that point where you have both damages fairly equal/balanced or so that both sides are contributing a significant amount and it’s strong, it just feels satisfying to have overcome the problem you’ve set for yourself.

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I feel it would be thematically strange for Storm Totem to deal Bleeding.

The intent would be to use it with the transmuter as Vitality and Bleed thematically go hand-in-hand with a life/blood drinker and mechanically share a fair amount of items/skills together.

As for Lightning itself without the transmuter though? I suppose you could look at it in the same way as Primal Strike and Storm Surge where the shocks are potent enough to pop blood vessels.

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True but that goes for any other skill modifier that introduces an exotic damage type or other notable stat to a skill, especially in the case of ones that provide resist reduction like Rah’Zin/Darkblaze and it’s Chaos RR.

I went with 240/2s Bleed as Ludrigan already adds 240/3s Electrocute to Storm Totem as a basis, but as Bleed is a different damage type to the already present Electrocute/Vitality Decay (and as full Valguur cannot setup 4 Totems as easily as Ludrigan can due to losing the off-hand slot) felt a small bump up on damage per second would be fine.

You’re not wrong, and I wouldn’t mind seeing a full Bleed Valguur user if the change makes it more viable. Bleed needs more creative builds/sets besides Bloodrager. I still recall TZ_Tz doing Bleed builds with Blood Knight back in the Ashes of Malmouth days :wink:.

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