I was wondering if the chaos bolt skill I use on my pet conjurer is sustainable until endgame
the character is currently at level 58 and doing quite well
here’s the build as it is right now: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/w26obeVO
You can play the whole game with just pets really.
Doom Bolt is the natural skill to supplement your pets because it requires the least investment and has big damage on its own. It’s great for single targets like priests/healers/support/summoners/etc where you want them gone as soon as possible while your pets take on the mob. Also handy to proc devotions that are useful to your pets. Since you’ve already gone maximum on the mastery of shaman, you won’t be able to effectively do both, so you’re already using Primal Bond, so stick with that. Let the Chaos/Occultist stuff simply support your bet build. By going full on mastery in Shaman, you will not be able to really go hybrid (chaos & pets). Full Shaman like you have is more a pure pet build because you’re so deep into the mastery (shaman) and nothing else is there to supplement. Occultist on the other hand at full mastery gives you Doom Bolt, Possession, Bonds + Manipulation, while still allowing all the pets. It’s a better way for a hybrid approach. For a pure pet approach, you can still splash in Doom Bolt, but it won’t have any support from skills, just devotions/gear. That’s kind of where you are right now with as deep as you are on the Shaman. Trying to spread points into Sigil, Witchfire, 2nd Rite, etc, just takes away from your pets.
Not sure what you’re calling chaos bolt.
Here’s an example of how you could flesh it out to be a pure pet build with a little Doom Bolt splashed in, focusing on pet damage, resistances, and the pets and your abilities procing devotions that support it all. Pay attention to the devotions and how they’re assigned (including pets).
http://www.grimtools.com/calc/YZe5mpZ8
Very best,
Yes I think those item skills like Chaos Bolt, Greater Fire Blast/Ice Spike are viable. However they are completely dependent on your gear and global modifier buff skills like Solaels Witchfire/second rite, and they get just a very small percentage from the main hand damage.
So, you need lots of gear with a modifier for that type. For your guy if you are going all Chaos you need to max second rite and posession. Probably you do not need so many points in Witchfire itself. It gives chaos damage to the weapon, but your spells benefit most from the modifier on Second Rite.
If you are going caster you cant really hedge in my opinion. There is no point i carrying a crossbow for instance, you need offhands and daggers, wands, because they have the largest modifiers. Guns can be OK, but the modifier is smaller and if you are spamming Chaos Bolt as your damage then you will never be able to fire your pistol. So spam casting and Pistols are just not compatible in my view. If you are using them equally somehow then I suppose it works but i just feel its better to make a choice, be a caster, or a gunner, or a crossbowman, and figure how to maximise that play style, but not both. Both will suffer for the other. Pick your approach and let everything else support that approach.
It is a spammable chaos energy bolt skill granted by Void Touched Ammo. I find these to be favorable to casters as it frees up skill points for buff and modifier skills.
I don’t know that chaos bolt is best for a general pet build as i haven’t played too much with heavy pet focused builds. I usually like to take a pet because they tend to take the aggro if I find myself in a close call situation and needing to flee, and certain ones give bonus auras to the character. I don’t exactly like that the pets have a whole sheet of stats of their own when one would do, like a % of player bonuses. And move speed should just be locked to player speed, the constant falling behind and teleporting to catch up is silly. Much investment taken from the character to get pets strong.
For your guy if you are going all Chaos you need to max second rite and posession. Probably you do not need so many points in Witchfire itself. It gives chaos damage to the weapon, but your spells benefit most from the modifier on Second Rite
thank you, I will keep that in mind and change my build accordingly
If you are going caster you cant really hedge in my opinion. There is no point i carrying a crossbow for instance, you need offhands and daggers, wands, because they have the largest modifiers. Guns can be OK, but the modifier is smaller and if you are spamming Chaos Bolt as your damage then you will never be able to fire your pistol. So spam casting and Pistols are just not compatible in my view. If you are using them equally somehow then I suppose it works but i just feel its better to make a choice, be a caster, or a gunner, or a crossbowman, and figure how to maximise that play style, but not both. Both will suffer for the other. Pick your approach and let everything else support that approach.
I kind of got side-tracked by the ammo part in the name, not fully realizing this also goes into off-hands
caster it is!
Thanks, makes a lot more sense now.
Interesting, but also too low on damage to be useful late game. Early game I can see this being useful though.
The other ammo components seem to have some better options with higher damage that scale better with devotions & gear. Chaos seems to get very little love.
Very best,
You will find more of those item skills on higher level gear and relics as well to add to your arsenal. My chaos flamethrower pyromancer just found the Conflagration relic that gives a fire laser type spell. Can’t quite replace greater fire blast due to the mana cost but its a fun addition that does some pretty heavy burn damage. And look out for the passive proc skills on items and armor too. Heritics Tome offhand gives a VoidFire Nova that procs on attack, and rares with the Voidfire suffix give extra chaos bolt procs. With the right gear you will constantly spew out extra attacks from your main chaos bolt spell…fun and devastating. Voidblade dagger gives a doom bolt retaliation as well.
As a single damage source yes, but it will grow with your modifiers and mainhand damage plus extra procs. I have two on attack fireball procs and two chaos bolt procs each doing about 1000 damage at 20% on attack, the fast cast speed of the item spells means these proc frequently. Add in some AOE and DOT and every damage tick has a 20% chance to proc one of these effects. The overall effect is a constant stream of fireballs and chaosbolts from my caster in addition to the main spell.
Just to show you what i mean about the growth of the item spell and proc skills here is a quick video of the Pyromancer. I had forgotten to put up my buffs.
You will find more of those item skills on higher level gear and relics as well to add to your arsenal. My chaos flamethrower pyromancer just found the Conflagration relic that gives a fire laser type spell. Can’t quite replace greater fire blast due to the mana cost but its a fun addition that does some pretty heavy burn damage. And look out for the passive proc skills on items and armor too. Heritics Tome offhand gives a VoidFire Nova that procs on attack, and rares with the Voidfire suffix give extra chaos bolt procs. With the right gear you will constantly spew out extra attacks from your main chaos bolt spell…fun and devastating. Voidblade dagger gives a doom bolt retaliation as well.
the rabbit hole deepens
thank you, very useful information!
Basically it boils down to this: Chaos Bolt won’t be good without heavy investments into skills that you wouldn’t otherwise take for a pet build (you should use Primal Bond, not Possession, and Solael’s Witchfire/Second Rite don’t affect pets), so that simply leaves proccing Devotion skills which is better done by a single point in Bloody Pox, Devouring Swarm, CoF, Grasping Vines, etc. In other words, it’s not a good fit for your build. You’d have to sacrifice way too much just for it to be marginally effective, gimping your pets severely. I suggest leaving it for another character–sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
All that said, however, I really like the skill itself. I use it on a 50/50 Chaos/Aether Warlock, and it’s pretty nice there due to the lack of skill points needed to use it, thus freeing up more for damage/survivability.
Give your pets more love, and use Chaos Bolt on another toon.
Basically it boils down to this: Chaos Bolt won’t be good without heavy investments into skills that you wouldn’t otherwise take for a pet build (you should use Primal Bond, not Possession, and Solael’s Witchfire/Second Rite don’t affect pets), so that simply leaves proccing Devotion skills which is better done by a single point in Bloody Pox, Devouring Swarm, CoF, Grasping Vines, etc. In other words, it’s not a good fit for your build. You’d have to sacrifice way too much just for it to be marginally effective, gimping your pets severely. I suggest leaving it for another character–sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
All that said, however, I really like the skill itself. I use it on a 50/50 Chaos/Aether Warlock, and it’s pretty nice there due to the lack of skill points needed to use it, thus freeing up more for damage/survivability.
Give your pets more love, and use Chaos Bolt on another toon.
I suppose you’re trying to be helpful here, so thanks for that
however, my question was if the skill is viable until endgame
as you may have noticed my toon is already at level 58, I’ve been using chaos bolt for quite some time
it’s not the focus of my build, pets are, I also deal some (chaos) damage myself though
I won’t abandon a toon already at this level, I guess you wouldn’t either
with the tips given here I can see what I can come up with, perhaps later needing points in an alternative damage skill from my skill trees, that is what my question is about
I will definitely play this until I really get stuck, which I don’t see happening in the near future
pets are of course my main source of damage and therefor my number one priority
if that is really the case, fair enough
what would you then suggest as a spammable attack skill?
From the sound of it you aren’t supposed to have one with a pet build. There must be a happy median. At the price of a longer cooldown, Demons Breath, maybe. Would scale with your chaos at least. If you can find some of the Heratic’s pieces you can cover both bases at the same time, boosts to skills, chaos damage and pets. Broad and random though, many possible bonuses from the same affix.
Try not to think of having a direct attack skill so much.
Instead, think of a skill that you can spam, or will spam often anyways, and put a devotion proc on it that will happen often. An example of this is something like Curse of Frailty and any proc from a devotion, it will pop often, and Grasping Vines, also will cause procs very often. Just take a look at the different devotions that have an “on attack” proc, pick one you like that helps your pets a bit, and assign it to Curse or Vines, and you then have an “attack” spammable skill.
Or just use a component that gives you a free spammable skill.
Very best,
As others have mentioned, there’s no real need for a spammable attack skill. I use Devouring Swarm, Curse of Frailty, and Grasping Vines on my pet Conjurer to debuff and proc devotion/on attack skills. That should be all you need.
Edit: I see you mentioned in the original post that it’s a hybrid summoner, but I’d strongly suggest going one way or the other with the character. Unless you’re going for a very specific build with pretty steep gear requirements, you’ll simply be less effective than either a caster or a summoner.
I just wanna add that there’s nothing stopping you from simply trying it out and seeing for yourself how far you can progress with your current build until you might have to focus on your pets eventually.
Ultimately your preference for style of play tops nearly every viability-assessment; after all you only have to be able to beat the boss-monsters with your build and if your build makes that harder but is more fun for you to play then you should go for it nonetheless.
And there’s actually a lot of gear that provides significant percentual damage-bonuses and bonuses to skills on top of solid pet bonus stats, so plus the already mentioned procs I think that it should be possible to beat the content with your build.
Oh yeah, for items, maybe wyrmclaw and fiendblood Spellblade. Chaos Damage and bonuses to all pets on both items. They were in my second slot and i just saw and remembered.
I just wanna add that there’s nothing stopping you from simply trying it out and seeing for yourself how far you can progress with your current build until you might have to focus on your pets eventually.
Ultimately your preference for style of play tops nearly every viability-assessment; after all you only have to be able to beat the boss-monsters with your build and if your build makes that harder but is more fun for you to play then you should go for it nonetheless.And there’s actually a lot of gear that provides significant percentual damage-bonuses and bonuses to skills on top of solid pet bonus stats, so plus the already mentioned procs I think that it should be possible to beat the content with your build.
at the moment these are my thoughts exactly, I’m going to play as long as it works and will adapt when needed
Or just use a component that gives you a free spammable skill.
what, you mean like chaos bolt?
I was by the way intrigued by the idea of a chaos bolt chaos/aether warlock utilizing procs, so I’m currently theory-crafting such a build as well