Ok, so, the harbinger has a +30% elemental resistance aura and as such while it’s alive your pets are now elemental immune which means I was able to kill foa-avatar in 1:15 with a perfect chaos skeleton build. That’s really funny.
Using the same set up with harbinger/chaos skeletons I killed ubernerf in 3:04, but that’s pretty RNG dependent since you’re just dodging nonsense all day.
But that would be no pure chaos skeleton mages. I do considee harbinger when playing chaos pet conjurer.
Yeah, but all their damage is converted into chaos anyways?
No but I like the visual of chaos mage more (and chaos mage deals most dmg among the skeletons). For non chaos visual I already have the awakened covenant set.
I would say that the biggest contribution of harbinger is the rr
Oh sure, it’d be better to have pure chaos skeletons, but the harbinger pet’s resistance aura is pretty funny
For me the most important thing it gives is the rr. Well for uber fight it does help that its most lethal attacks are elemental.
Also, using the chaos mage dagger you can replace the rings with bloodsworn to have offensive power.
You think the bloodsworns are higher dps than the voidwhispers? They’ve got more hp but the 12 chaos damage proc seems better, no?
Really? Idk need to check again. Thing is, bloodsworn let you max soul harvest, which also gives flat. Also, idk if the chaos proc can stack here
You can get both voidwhisper buffs showing up at the same time, I assume that means they stack.
With regards to the Spiritmonger’s Gavel, the build plays much better as a Spellbinder compared to a Cabalist. I wasn’t expecting that, but it’s nice that Arcanist support actually works well for pets in this build:
Definitely on board with seeing buffs for Revenants & the Raven side of the scepter.
For the Lost Souls set, I ran it against Callagdra and Ravager (of Minds). Ravager battle felt slow because Null totems everywhere and it ended up being a roughly 2 minute fight. Calla actually felt easier compared to Ravager and took around 5 minutes, which is comparable to builds like the Witching Hour.
Getting a proper burst going is especially tough for Skeletons because Calla spawns those massive tornadoes on Hit and on ranged attack Hit, so it’s double dipping on the tornado spawns; having Aeon’s here was really helpful in keeping the Army and double Hellhounds alive. Lost Souls may not have the raw DPS that other Skeleton builds have, but with the way I’ve configured my potions, the build feels fine to play as long as I keep an eye out for those massive tornado spawns.
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I’ve tested the Chaos Skeletal Mages, and their approximate clear times for different content are as follows:
SR 30–31: 5:00
SR 36–37: 7:30
5 Ashes Ravager of Flesh: 1:30
5 Ashes Mogdrogen: 2:30
5 Ashes Callagadra: 4:00
Uber Nerfatal: 4:30
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Wake up chat. We got some nice things.
- Shepherd of Lost Souls: increased % Health modifier for Raise Skeletons to 80%, their % Physical Resist modifier to 18% and their % Speed modifiers to 20%
Grim Dawn V1.3.1.2 Playtest Changelog
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Good news so far is bysmiel skeletons being buffed. Now I wonder if I should go cold or lightning bysmiel skellies now. @Duskdeep86 Do you consider trying bysmiel skellies?
I don’t want to be all doom and gloom, but that sounds extremely minor given how fast skeletons currently explode?
levelling some skeletons, and as i was about to decide on class choice, a question popped into my head with the 1.3.1 resist changes:
is harbinger of death just superior from 25% vit res 
- Primal bond player absorb seemed like a chill comfy idea, and 25% crit ofc damadz, but is vit dmg pseudo immunity (sans RR shred) just that much stronger now endgame, to be preferable over crit as dmg option on Ritualists?
Presumably you mean Master of Death and not some mash-up between that and Harbinger of Souls? For Master of Death’s case, pet %OA is always valuable, and if you’re leveling a Ritualist specifically, the Death-Watcher Pendant - which you can buy from Benevald - is going to be a leveling staple, and you’ll get your damadz and crit damage from Call of the Grave.
But if you’re mentioning endgame, that will largely depend on how much skill bonuses you have and whether you have other sources of damage mitigation to forgo the absorption bonus from Primal Bond. In terms of salvaging skill points, you’re usually running Reap Spirit and less so running Conjure Primal Spirit, so Master of Death is going to be a great choice simply for skill point efficiency.
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Pet survivability is the foundation of any pet build. Once your pets can no longer withstand incoming damage, even the highest damage output becomes worthless.
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Not a very good choice. The Cabalist’s elemental resistance reduction is too low, so the skeletons can’t reach their maximum damage output.
Some test result against Uber Nerf for aether skeleton ritualist here
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TE4knPDOd43aV-4PEXqOQfV2SYDGr4iM?hl=vi
They range from 1.30 min to 3.30 min, which is not so bad. My biggest problem is, spectral wrath, the major aether rr source for this build, does not proc often because Uber will attack pet instead of you most of the time, and you have to tank the meteor to have the proc happens (but fortunately you can tank it). Definitely not for hardcore.
This makes me not very comfortable with the design philosophy of spectral wrath for a major pet class. Pet player is supposed to stay safe behind, while spectral wrath needs enemies to damage you, the two philosophies almost contradict each other.