Taters is a Arcanist / Necromancer who loves to raise skeletons, blast foes with Olexra’s flash freeze then mop up with AAR.
The character as I say is around level 40 something as she stands and the items listed on GT is basically what she’s found running around (she does also have a shield and mace which give bonuses to OFF). Obviously this is far from a perfect max build but a fun thing I use to run around nuking baddies with my nephew!
Has only found around 30 shrines so the build listed on GT is really just a guess … I’m still in awe of the devotions thing.
Can people please:
Critique this build (Yes I know jack of all trades master of none)
Give pointers on what items to look out for
Let me know just what Iskanders does and if it will help AAR (or OFF)
Can’t really critique it as it seems you put your item on blank grimtools instead of uploading your save file to grimtools. If you love AAR + pet, there is a set for that on end game, so don’t worry about that playstyle, but it’s Reap Spirit and not skeleton. The set is called Clairvoyant. OFF require dedicated set and devotion to work vs boss, so might as well dump it as soon as it effect is unnoticeable.
If you’re still leveling, look for item that boost both AAR and Disintegrate skill, juggle your item so you can balance your resistance/damage/energy regen.
Iskandar boost % elemental damage and give flat elemental damage to skill that use weapon damage. AAR do not have weapon damage, so it only receive the percentage increase to fire and lightning damage on AAR and energy regen. The Overload only give OA and aether resist, and Elemental Balance boost crit damage and electrocute, so both is not that useful early game.
Now, if you’re having fun, why would you need any criticism on that? I mean, on Normal difficulty almost anything works. But I can tell you right off the bat as soon as you hit Elite, it will be a pain town.
My sentiment is the same as XandeRoot and arivus - making a pet hybrid is difficult and rather gear dependent, not impossible but far harder than making a character that swings fully towards all pets or no pets. You can clear Normal with anything maxed but as soon as you get to higher difficulties, you’ll start to see problems with the idea. At a minimum, I agree with arivus about cutting out Olexra’s Flash Freeze past Normal and redistributing the points.
This is a long one so I’ve split it up :
Iskandra's Elemental Exchange
Iskandra’s Elemental Exchange gives Elemental damage (and some Aether with the Warden’s Judgment) and Energy Leech to your weapon attacks. Any skill that deals a chunk of your weapon’s damage like Callidor’s Tempest in Arcanist or Bone Harvest in Necromancer will increase with these, any other skill will not. All unconverted Elemental damage you deal everywhere is also increased regardless of source or how it’s dealt. Little bit of passive energy regeneration at the end as a bonus.
Manifestation
You convert some Physical damage everywhere to Elemental damage but so do your pets. They also deal more Elemental damage.
Overload
Overload gives you more Aether resistance and more Offensive Ability for hitting or critting things easier. Any weapon attacks made will apply one of the 3 Burn, Frostburn or Electrocute effects.
Elemental Balance
Elemental Balance means your Burn/Frostburn/Electrocute damage everywhere lasts longer and whenever you deal a critical hit, it deals more damage.
Worth noting as well. Because it’s a party-wide buff, all of these will effect nearby pets like your Skeletons or Blight Fiend as well as any allies in multiplayer.
Great help guys, thanks! I will move towards a ray of death character as I level !!! I just love it. Plus there seems to be plenty of gear for it too. Things are starting to be frozen less with OFF and the skellies seem to be dying more so I will move to a more heavy duty setup … One further question, what is the area of effect bomb of choice for a higher level Arcanist / Necro? Devestation I guess ???
Devastation is great as you can just fire it off and it’ll bomb an area while you laser stuff yeah. Respectable damage and not too hard to convert to mostly Aether damage, even while levelling if you pick up a Haunted Vestments and Ascended Spaulders.
Hey folks a month later and I have split the character in two! Character one is a more traditional AAR beast but character two is the frosty / skellie half. Both are crushing Ultimate and are around level 70.
Some interesting observations on character two:
OFF reduces fire resistance so fire skellies are a great joy! I found a Korvaak’s dagger* which converts pet damage to fire and also allows me to summon more skellies so the end result is a high turnover of glass cannons dealing huge fire damage to baddies who have a lowered resistance to fire!! Plus an empowered wyrmclaw for even more burning joy (was an og’napesh which was equally fun).
The Necro bar is full so I jumped on Reap Spirit. A good fun skill This, plus Blight Fiend and my 11 Skellies mean I have a fair entourage.
Walk in, bang off an OFF … hit the boss with a Reap Spirit then Call of the Grave and everything pretty much melts. Have not had any trouble with bad guys since discovering the OFF / fire pets combo.
So thanks for enough kind words and encouragement people I am halfway through Ultimate and having a lot of fun!!!
Now I will work on a soldier / necro skelly guy who uses the soldier skills to boost skellies See how i go …
*Rekt found this dagger too and props to him in his efforts to educate us in the ways of GD!!
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This, plus Blight Fiend and my 11 Skellies mean I have a fair entourage.