So I have a whole butt load of Aether gear and Clairvoyant’s set and wanted to try and recreate my glory days of the AAR build which was the first build I ever really fell in love with back when Arcanist launched.
I think it looks pretty good, obviously some of the items are items I don’t have yet, but just wanted to get some feedback before I got too stuck into it.
Mainly devotions, I like this set up but if people can suggest something better I’d love to see it!
Not sure how the combined skill cost reductions will affect AAR, have the flat -39% with the -14% on the skill itself should half the cost, and I’m thinking Clairvoyance with Tree of Life should help with sustain.
Well, I’m not the most experienced at buildcrafting, but I have a few suggestions for you -
Fire to aether conversion would be a good idea, as you have very little fire damage, and your damage (and RR debuffing) all hinges off aether. Ideally you’d also want to convert some of the lightning damage on Disintegration to aether damage. So you could consider items such as -
If you do go for Decree of Aldritch then you may need to tweak your devotions to get more help with energy due to the loss of Clairvoyance; useful ones here are Oklaine’s lantern and Bard’s Harp (the OA on the proc along with the other goodies may be better than the Spear of the Heavens)
I’m not convinced that your investment in foul eruption is worth it, as I assume you’re after the resistance debuff? If so, the resistance debuff only applies (I believe) to the explosion that comes when you kill a mob (not sure if Ravenous Earth itself has to kill it) which would make the RR debuff almost useless for boss fights unless there are lots of adds.
Points in Overload are often well spent, as the +%Crit damage is nice. Nullification is also a handy 1-point wonder for cleansing enemy buffs/reflects and also debuffs from yourself.
You don’t have much + pet damage stuff, so I’m unsure if the damage of Reap Spirit on its own will warrant its use instead of just focussing on the opponent with AAR & devastation - reason being is that, in spite of the skill points spent, the wraith will probably end up being little more than a distraction for mobs.
I wouldn’t use 2 imbued silver on your weapon and offhand - IMO a better choice for one of them would be a Seal of Corruption https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/8900 - lots of OA and a nice debuff.
I’m not sure how much bang you’re getting for your buck on Alladrah’s Phoenix. An AAR user can end up needing to tank a few blows due to its low mobility, so +30 DR and +150 armor may be a better investment (in Obelisk of Menhir)?
You’ve spent some points in Mirror of Ereoctes (I usually add more, personally). Would be a good idea to add it to your skillbar - it’s an amazing skill. With both that and Mark of Torment, you could block a lot of damage.
I’m a big fan of the Eternity relic - the -% skills cost is lovely for an AAR build that’s hungry for energy, as well the CD lowering proc being great for Mark of Torment, Mirror of Ereoctes and Devastation.
FWIW, my main AAR character is a sorceror - hopefully others with more experience of spellbinder can chime in.
The rings + one of those items would get you to 100% for fire with good rolls. And now that AAR does quite a lot of lightning, that would help a lot there as well.
Decay from Ravenous Earth is more useful then Foul Eruption. Foul eruption, to my surprise, requires it to eat a corpse to work. Decay is good for survival. You’ll probably want to grab Acid Spray in the devotion tree in order to make up for it.
Putting a few more points into Mark of Torment would help you survive longer.
Fabric of Reality doesn’t add all that much damage. You can steal points from it, to develop Mark of Torment and pick up Siphon Souls.
Siphon Souls would be an great addition to your survival skills. Without ADCTH, it will be your main source of keeping your health topped off. Convert it to Aether damage.
Star Pact may or may not be more useful to you. With the additional -CDR%, you can keep Mark of Torment and Mirror up (assuming you add more points to it). You’ll have to give up some OA/DA to get it.
As mentioned above, 1 point in Nullify is very useful.
Thanks so much for the advise guys! Super helpful and I think the cord with the rings would be a great solution to improving damage output. I don’t have the Decree, while I do have the full Clairvoyant set so I’ll stick with that to retain the skill and +1 all skills.
Thanks for the advice around foul eruption, I may ditch ravenous earth altogether and opt for siphon souls converted to aether and then respec devotions to grab acid spray. Not too big of a deal losing spear, I mainly like the first three points anyway. Might be tricky to also get the harp but I’ll see what I can come up with.
Thanks again for the great tips. I’ll post a revised grim tools in a bit with a build that takes the above suggestions.
Actually no real detriment to the OA and DA stats, while gaining a lot of potential damage output.
Also able to get the Acid Spray devotion without really affecting overall devotions much at all, just took 3 points out of spear and the 2 points in Phoenix (was there for Chaos Res, nothing else).
I think this is actually a pretty decent looking build in this state, 3300 OA/DA and 100% Armor Absorption is actually really impressive for a build of this type.
I’m doing an alternate devotion set up now, with Bard’s Harp and Lantern instead of Tree of Life and then Chariot/Giant’s blood for Health regen. Bear with me xD
EDIT: Here’s an alternate build not using Tree of Life, but using Behemoth, Bard’s Harp and Chariot instead:
Now you might want to experiment with Master of Death exclusive vs Star Pact exclusive. Star Pact will shorten the cool down times of Mark of Torment and Mirror, giving you a much sturdier build, but you’ll lose OA and DA if you do. I leave that for you to decide on what is best.
I feel like this will be a matter of playing both and working out which feels better. Obviously in boss encounters having these 2 up more often will be much more beneficial, but I’ll definitely feel the 300+ loss to OA/DA I reckon. Over 3000 for both is still good, but I guess we’ll have to test and see!
But I agree, Star Pact could well be a better option overall for the build, as more Lightning damage will be beneficial as it’s the secondary damage type of this build.
Can I also get feedback on which devotions I should bind to which skills? Am I better off changing the skills assignments to these to allow better procing of better devotions?
So this build is working brilliantly, although I definitely find in longer encounters I’m relying on Clairvoyance to sustain AAR. As a side note, any thoughts on how Diviners set would work in place of Clairvoyant set?
I’d lose overall points to both classes, but it has some neat features.
Also I have swapped necrosis relic for haunt and moved necrosis to my fire/chaos auramance. He basically runs around casting necrosis then word of pain while auras deal the damage, at least gives me something to proc devotions with.
Got Mythical Aethereach and a set of Impenetrable Stonehide greaves of the Flesh hulk which are both great for the build, really only have chaos resistance to cap and I haven’t actually used any augments yet.
As for Star pact/Master of Death. I’m level 99 and just can’t quite tell the difference if I’m honest.