While I didn’t want to take away from Sneaky Parrot’s thread on Ritualist gearing or x1x1x1x2’s thread on Mythical Sets, I wanted to give a more detailed explanation of what each set does, what they’re designed to do, and how those design decisions either succeed or fail on their own merits. Instead of making a giant spreadsheet depicting everything about these sets, I will use Grimtools to demonstrate what the player looks like after equipping the full set. Things that are not shown on the Grimtools sheet like pet Crit damage and single-type damage will be shown below the Grimtools link.
Mythical Corruptor’s Set
Build utilizing Mythical Corruptor’s Set (I’m sure there are better alternatives, but this is the only build I’ve seen on Grimtools that uses the set): Hybrid Bone Harvest / Pet Build Ritualist
What’s not shown: The 4% OA from the chest will translate differently depending on what else is equipped.
For pets:Pets have an additional 150% Vitality damage, so they have 212% without the proc and 362% with it. Pets also have an additional 8% Crit Damage without the proc and 28% Crit Damage with it.
Thoughts: This set gives the most Skill points to Bone Harvest and Primal Spirit. Bone Harvest seems like a surprising choice because its lack of shotgunning ability means that 9 skeletons will always out-DPS a single Bone Harvest cast. The only modifier that allows the Bone Harvest to even be semi-spammed - the Mythical Iceshorn Talons - is a far worse use of gloves than the Mythical Bonescavenger Grips.
There’s no way to use invested Bone Harvest with invested Raise Skeletons, so I viewed the merits of both. A Raise Skeletons build using this set looks too underwhelming compared to Cabalists or merely other Ritualists who can equip things like Mythical Necrolord’s Shroud, Mythical Clairvoyant’s Hat, and other superior equipment. Instead, I went through the Bone Harvest Route, equipping the Winter King sword and taking the 2H transmuter to maximize Bone Harvest’s Damage potential. As a bonus, using the Winter King sword converts 75% of pets’ Physical Damage as either Cold or Vitality if one takes the Master of Death exclusive (see build above).
How did it turn out? It is, by far, the worst performing build I’ve tried so far. Even 26/16 Bone Harvest pales in comparison to having 9+ Skeletons, but Raise Skeleton builds really have no need for this set at all. Primal Bond is easy enough to overcap without using any part of the set, and there’s no bonus to wearing one piece that would justify anyone using it the way pet builds can use the Beastcaller’s head. I don’t know what it would look like if I took out points from Bone Harvest to support having more pets (such as Primal Instinct or the Chillmane Yeti), but I have a hard time imagining something that will work that doesn’t immediately make it a bad Raise Skeletons build.
Suggestions: Increase the health restored from the proc to 12-15%, and give it an AoE effect so pets can get healed as well. Ritualists really struggle to keep their pets alive and Wendigo Totem is not nearly enough to sustain everyone. I admit, I like that the set tries to promote a more hybrid approach, but pet builds have a hard time obtaining skill points for the abilities they need, and obtaining extra points for RR abilities or survival makes it that much harder. I haven’t tried this set with the Mythical Spirit Cannon, which grants huge skill bonuses for Necromancers, but the fact the Harvester of Death is melee-locked will defeat the purpose of giving those large bonuses to Bone Harvest. Not to mention the large cunning requirements to even use the gun would be very off-putting as Ritualists have problems surviving as it is. The set also has very weak armor values, adding to the unhelpfulness toward survivability.
Desecrator Covenant Set
Build utilizing Desecrator Covenant Set: Sly Hound thread - no MI build
What’s not shown (For pets):With the 5-piece skill and other bonuses, pets have a total of 450% Vitality Damage, 470% Fire Damage, and 670% Chaos Damage.
Thoughts: It’s a very interesting set for both a player perspective and a pet perspective. Having only 50% Physical converted to Chaos means that the Voidwhisper Ring is still required for full conversion, but having that damage bonus combined with Dying God works wonders for stacking Chaos damage. Having 8 bonus points for SoC certainly helps for sustain, those it’d be very difficult having enemies stay on the sigils for too long, as the set’s innate squishiness negates the point of having the sigils in the first place. As it’s a one-class set, I assume Inquisitor would be the best second class option as the class’ Chaos RR and great exclusive in Aura of Conviction patches up the set’s holes easily, but even with the Inquisitor’s great benefits, it’s not nearly enough to prevent Nemesis enemies from completely wasting the build (though replacing the exclusive from Aura of Conviction to the buffed Aura of Censure might help in that regard).
I should note the positives in that the Pet OA, damage bonuses, and CDR are the big selling points.
However, there’s a second weakness that’s not as immediately present, but still very harsh to the build’s performance: the fact that the build uses a dagger + off-hand really limits the amount of offense the build can dish out, negating the strong %Chaos Damage a hybrid build would be able to utilize. Riftstone would be great to take advantage of the huge Chaos bonuses, but only using 1H makes it a very weak option. Using both equipment slots and a head-slot and only have +1 to all skills in a one class set is weak compared to most other sets.
Suggestions: Give pets Total Speed or Resistances - 5 slots should not give pets a big fat 0 in terms of defenses. The set can go for more resistances as well - every one of the slots only gives 1 Resistance. The Bleeding Damage in the weapon seems very odd with absolutely nothing to support it. I know it’s a Bloody Dagger and what not, but how is this flat damage supposed to help?
What’s not shown: The 7% OA from the axe will translate differently depending on what else is equipped.
For pets:Pets have a whopping 35% Crit Damage before Primal Bond’s bonuses, meaning they can have up to 95% Crit damage before other equipment and devotions.
Thoughts: A “5-piece set” that only has +1 to Shaman Skills and bonuses to 4 skills, 3 of them on the same line. It’d make much more sense if it was something like Forcewave or TSS where you’d want to take all three skills to maximum overcap, but investing skill points in the Briarthorn is pointless and having a slightly stronger Ground Slam doesn’t make it any better. The pet damage is nice and flat Physical damage helps for conversions, but why would anyone what to use this set when Beastcaller’s set infinitely outclasses it in any perceivable fashion? Beastcaller’s does more flat damage, more damage bonuses, more variety in skill bonuses, doesn’t use up both weapon slots, much better summoner defenses. It’s honestly like Mogdrogen’s Peace was meant to be a level 50 set before picking up Legendaries rather than an actual Mythical set.
Suggestions: With the Shaman’s natural 2H affinities and the ax’ huge 7% OA, I’d take away the Briarthorn + Ground Slam buffs and make it more hybrid. That would involve adding offensive bonuses to the rest of the equipment and giving skill bonuses to something like Mogdrogen’s Pact. Avenger’s Girdle is necessary for the 2H bonuses; while I don’t know how the Avenger’s set handles the tougher content, maybe aligning Mogdrogen’s Peace to be a mix between Avenger’s and Beastcaller’s might give it a little more niche.
I’ll post my thoughts on the Legendary sets at a later time, but I wanted to give focus on the Epic sets, as not only are they crippling in terms of working together, but none of the individual pieces stand out at all compared to all the other pet equipment.
