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
I have something like that and it’s quite fun to play (well it’s more like aether/fire than aether/chaos as most of my chaos damage is converted to aether).
Chaos bolt is exellent in proccing celestial powers without cooldown like Flame Torrent or Aetherfire on single targets at close range as it’s shotgunning 3 bolts an them.
Here’s my char for some inspiration (if you need any):
I bet that would make a fun one. I was trying to think of how to utilize Aether Tendril and Chaos Bolt and the procs without too much intersection with the ones I am already playing, but it didn’t really occur to me to combine them into a single character. Hmm, Spiritweaver Circlet, Blackwood Wand, Hermits Legguards all give nice Arcanist/Occultist boosts, been thinking of what to do with those too. Good stuff.
I have something like that and it’s quite fun to play (well it’s more like aether/fire than aether/chaos as most of my chaos damage is converted to aether).
Chaos bolt is exellent in proccing celestial powers without cooldown like Flame Torrent or Aetherfire on single targets at close range as it’s shotgunning 3 bolts an them.
Here’s my char for some inspiration (if you need any):
thanks mate, much appreciated!
Chaos Bolt can be used endgame but you obviously will be relying on procs to do the heavy lifting. On my build I get around 6k DPS on chaos bolt at endgame. Which isn’t that bad since it has multiple projectiles and its linked to aetherfire proc. The real issue with Chaos Bolts is its trajectory. Makes the skill kind of annoying to use for me.
Greater Fireblast IMO is the best spammable component Skill for endgame.
So true. Thats why i use it manly at point blank range after closing in with Chaos Strike ;). And because of Flame Torrent and Agrivix’s Malice and the like.
here’s mine so far: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/gZwaPl2j
and here’s what I’m aiming for, the build is indeed inspired by FunkyGandalf’s, some differences in skill tree and devotions though: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/8NKweOND
also, great tip on chaos strike, works great!