Bysmiel's Ravens vs Beastcaller's Briars - Extensive Testing

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
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I’m going to use this thread for some comprehensive pet build testing to see where these sets succeed and where they struggle. Bysmiel’s Set - by appearances at least - is very weak: the only skill modifier is the 4-pc set bonus which grants an extra Raven. Occultist is a very point-hungry mastery, especially with investing in the Raven, and yet the amulet gives +1 to Necro and Shaman, but not Occultist. The set converts multiple different types to Elemental, which means any flat damage bonuses are further divided by 3. This set has no right succeeding, so this thread will compare the set of 2 birds with the Beastcaller’s set.

Cold Ravens + Cold Primal Spirit Conjurer

Cold Ravens + Cold Reap Spirit Cabalist

Elemental Ravens + Hellhound Conjurer

Lightning Ravens + Skeletons Cabalist

Unsurprisingly, the build attempting to use the Hellhound and tri-Elemental damage does worse compared to the Primal Spirit Conjurer & Reap Spirit Cabalist, the latter two being surprisingly balanced compared to each other.

It was quite disappointing that the Lightning Skeletons Cabalist didn’t do better than the Cold Reap Spirit Cabalist, as there are so many conversions going about and having both Fiend’s Flame Torrent and Guardian Gaze being converted to Lightning - combined with the %chance of 1500% additional Lightning Damage - I was expecting this to be a glass cannon trading safety for speed.

Comparisons to Beastcaller’s will come tomorrow.

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Beastcaller’s Witching Hour Cabalist

My first main testing route was that with Beastcaller’s set giving 2 Hellhounds and opening up the weapon slot, go full Witching Hour and rain destruction on everything. There was no destruction, the build is actually bootycheeks.

Crucible times were 6 minutes at best, but could go as badly as 06:30.
As before, I modded the Beastcaller’s Set to mimic what it will be in v1.3. The loss of pet Crit damage on the set really hurts this build.

Beastcaller’s Fire Pets Zookeeper

This was the build I was expecting to perform the best, but I couldn’t get the Crucible times to prove it. Invocation to Chaos, Swarmlings, highly invested Conjure Primal Spirit and large flat bonuses. It definitely feels smoother to play than the Bysmiel’s videos, but I do wish I was able to reflect its better gameplay through better Crucible times.

Since Magi rings are a pain to get, I also made a Fire Pets build focusing more on the Hellhound. Results were about 15 seconds slower in Crucible, but much, much more gear-friendly.

Cold Max Briarthorn Investment Conjurer

Having the Beastcaller’s Set granting an extra Hellhound means that the never-used Cold Hellhound Conduit can now serve a role. 26/22/22 Briarthorn serves as the focal point. All of the Cold conversions are on the skills themselves, meaning there’s no global conversion to take advantage of devotion skills; still, Blizzard is always a great devotion to use with pets, and being able to get pet %Total Speed bonuses is always a plus.

Beastcaller’s Vitality Zookeeper Conjurer

Similar concept to the Fire Zookeeper, with a larger emphasis on having as high uptime on Primal Spirit as possible. Vitality pets likely have the highest flexibility since Vitality focused Hellhounds can work with both Conjurers or Cabalists.

Beastcaller’s Chaos Hellhound + Reap Spirit Cabalist

IMO, the best build I’ve played out of all the testing. Chaos isn’t particularly resisted that much, and having Occultist’s recent Chaos RR + Fiendgaze + Ill Omen modifier + Salazar pet means you get a considerable amount of Chaos RR most pet builds don’t have access to.

Revenant Skeliies is an odd choice for flat RR, but I needed Dying God + Aeon’s for Call of the Grave + Salazar to have nearly 100% uptime, and this was the best way for me to grab all the devotions I wanted.

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Awaiting your final test results.
At present, the Bysmiel set cannot outperform the Beastcaller set even after the 1.3 buffs.

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Would you please tell me which Beastcaller’s builds you’re using that are outperforming the Bysmiel set? I want to make sure my testing experiences are matching your performances for various builds.

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Fire pets are currently among the strongest, followed by Vitality pets.
On the other hand, the Beastcaller set is far superior to the Bysmiel set in aggro control, making it a much smoother experience to play.

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Any suggestions on the Bysmiel set you’d like to see?

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Now that Beastcaller’s now gives +1 to Occultist skills, you have more wiggle room to ensure that you have all the skill points you need. I’d like to see the Shaman bonuses re-designed entirely; replace the Emboldening Presence bonuses with something like Raging Tempest.

Another skill modifier is sorely needed, but it’s hard to figure out where to put it. Maybe Primal Bond, maybe Blight Fiend since there’s a ton of Familiar + Blight Fiend gear out there.

Builds for Fire & Cold Beastcallers are up. Vitality, Chaos, and Lightning builds will likely come tomorrow.

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I was thinking of either flat elemental damage to briarthorn or blight fiend as a skill modifier considering it is an elemental set.

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The Beastcaller set received buffs mainly because it was among the weakest builds in version 1.216. Now in version 1.3, it gains an additional Hellhound, and the build mostly relies on double Hellhounds for damage output. Double Briarthorns can hardly hold their ground, as most of the items that modified with Briarthorns have been nerfed.

I think it is completely reasonable to give the Bysmiel set a slight buff. After the pet critical nerfs in version 1.3, sets that received no enhancements have been noticeably negatively affected.

1.3 Beastcaller fire pet

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Vitality & Chaos Beastcaller’s builds are up. With times being so close to each other, it’s very difficult to get a good ranking for all these builds, but impressions are matching Duskdeep’s that Beastcaller’s with Double Hellhound are outperforming those with double Briarthorn.

I’m not particularly good at running SR, which is why I use Crucible as my benchmarks. Beastcaller’s high defenses makes SR much more comfortable than Bysmiel’s in the few times I’ve ran my builds through SR, but I don’t trust my ability to pilot through SR cleanly and with adequate speed.

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With buffs active in the Crucible, the Conjurer Beastcaller set build has very little clear time difference across various damage types. The fire summoner variant in Shattered Realm deals slightly higher damage compared to other variants. As for the Bysmiel set, it is definitely inferior to the Beastcaller set right now.
Personally, I hope both the Bysmiel set and the Lost Souls set can receive some adjustments in version 1.3 to fit the new meta. In addition, the Beastcaller set is basically locked into a double Hellhound playstyle. It would be nice to balance Briarthorn. properly so it can become a primary pet build, adding more build diversity.
In fact, the original Beastcaller set in early versions was centered around Briarthorn. However, Briarthorn. got nerfed repeatedly just to make room for Hellhound. Looking back across all game versions, Briarthorn. has never been overpowered at any point.

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For sure. I wouldn’t be able to tell you how much a 22/12 Ground Slam differs from 12/12 Ground Slam, or even not using it at all, but compared to having both Ember Claw and Infernal Breath, Briarthorn has nothing that would make it stand out as a DPS pet. It’s really just for the tankiness and Emboldening Presence buff.

One more build, and ironically, I didn’t think until now to test the intended purpose of this set, but here’s a Grimtools of Physical / Bleeding Beastcallers:

Multiple tests were showing that even with the enemy Armor changes, Physical Beastcaller’s is a cut below the rest, averaging around 05:20 for buffed Crucible.

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Last version I took into testing - the Lightning pets Conjurer that used to be a powerhouse in the olden days - is a complete dumpster fire.

If you want Lightning pets, Bysmiel Cabalist with the Raven is the way to go. Between the RR devotion requiring a player skill as “pets cannot summon pets,” a complete lack of pet OA anywhere in the optimal gearing, leading to a “no fun allowed” devotion route, and Spark of Ultos being basically worthless for pets outside of the aura, Lightning Briarthorns is way too slow to be considered any further.

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The Beastcaller set can’t convert fire to lightning; otherwise a lightning-version Hellhound build would be quite playable.
Overall, all damage types end up feeling heavily homogenized in the end. Only one or two damage types stay genuinely strong, due to differences in resistance reduction and item support.

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At least when it comes to Crucible gameplay, yeah. I’m going to attempt some SR runs and see how much of a difference it makes, but most of the time it takes me around the same time to finish 1 full shard with boss room as it takes runners like you to finish 2 shards.

It may be a matter of build difference, but I think I just have a hard time mentally processing everything that fast. The fact that I play on a controller and often don’t have enough buttons to have both a movement rune + evade in the same hotbar is also a consideration to take into account.