This isn’t really a “halp my build blows” type of thread but more one that I’m making for peace of mind. The build is an Acid Guardian of Empyrion Sentinel. The idea was simple: pretty much every Oathkeeper build I have uses GoEs and not a single one of them has more than one point in the core skill. Let’s make a build all about GoEs this time.
I expected it to be an utter and complete meme but the build works. It’s not absolutely stellar but the GoEs really put in solid work (originally I was dual-wielding the Ascendant Authorities but in an attempt to improve my own damage I swapped to Pandemic in mainhand). But as much as the build’s feasibility suprised me, so did its squishiness. And I honestly can’t put my finger on where it’s coming from.
The build feels like a glass cannon. Because Acid Purge is so short range I can take a tremendous amount of damage before I get to do my thing and when I’m doing my thing the health isn’t coming back at particularly high rates. I often get outdpsed and need to jump around a lot to get out of ground effects. But looking at the build it doesn’t look like this is what it should feel like.
Yes, I’m investing a lot into GoEs that are bringing nothing to the table in terms of sustain. My cast speed is pretty miserable, I’ve done what I could to get it sorted but 165% is the best I could do without massive sacrifices. But the rest? 19k health, 39 % phys res (!), acceptable res overcaps, 100 % armor absorb (though low armor), 15 % damage absorb, 16 % DR, Resilience, Ascension for Oh Shit moments, ton of DA (and +195 through Bloody Pox), 23 % general lifesteal + 6 % skillbound lifesteal, with a 57 % (!!) heal increase so that actually brings my lifesteal to 36 % + 9 % respectively, which is ridiculous. If there’s a character with abundance of sustain and comfort it should be this one and yet…well, see for yourself (video’s frozen at the start cause I’d just launched GD and immediately started recording, OBS didn’t like that, goes smooth after):
This isn’t the best showcase as the shard was extremely generous with 2 special chunks and an easy boss room, but look at the amount of damage I’m taking in just chunk 1 and parts of chunk 2 at mere SR75. The health’s flying all over the place. And I can’t figure out the reason for all the squish. I have close range characters with much less of everything that feel tankier.
purely based on sheet stats a guess could be
low cast speed,
“low”'ish dmg modifier (for acid)
low CC res
low OA,
frequent interruption casting 2 low duration skills
combined with “low”'ish dmg output because of the particular build, = enemies don’t die “in an instant”,
and no heal procs (GG/twin fangs/wendigo), also means your heal sources are slightly lower too
PS, how did you get Gazer Prime room on SR 75, i don’t think i’ve ever had that happen
That’s a very good build already and totally playable. SR75 is hard. I really like how you optimized!
I remember playing this a long time ago in Crucible and also found it squishy.
fwiw, i don’t think i ever bothered going above sr 65 with most of my pseudo pet stuff, dps isn’t the highest, and sustain can be bothersome on some/depending on filler skill etc
Hey @Gnomish_Inquisition Do you know how ADCTH works with Acid Purge?
If it only affects this 36% Weapon damage it might not be that impactful over the already existing 6% on the skill.
But I remember reading once IIRC some very weird mechanics that if a skill has any weapon damage
then global ADCTH affects all the damage?
it’s scaled by weapon dmg amount when %WD is below 100%
so 36% wd = 8% additional effective lifesteal per tick (scaled down from the 22)
but those 8% effective lifesteal still heals from the full acid purge dmg
as i understand it
I’ve done SR75-80 within timer on both Mortars (absolute reliability) and Vit Totems (haven’t tested reliability yet) before so the problem isn’t pseudo-pet exclusive, it seems to be this-build-exclusive. But Mortars were full regen + Wendigo Totem for sustain and Vit Totems only got off the ground when Decree of Malmouth got the lifesteal mod. All the sustain on this build hangs on Acid Purge so if that’s underperforming the sustain will too. My current sheet dps with it is 127k though so it’s not completely miserable. Purely subjectively more than my sustain or DPS being bad I just feel like I’m taking a ton more damage than I’d expect with my health, phys res and DA. Perhaps it’s just that I don’t wipe enemies sufficiently en masse though.
Obviously all of your suggestions are a viable path to take TQ but I don’t think phys res specifically is the culprit. Of all the characters I have this character is truly swimming in phys res. And frankly I’ve done high SR with characters with 12 % phys res that felt tankier than this. So dropping stuff for phys res doesn’t seem like the way to go to me. I think perhaps figuring out a way to get more cast speed might work but I honestly can’t see a path to take to make up a 35 % CS deficit. I can squeeze out like 5 % here or there on the devo tree but my gloves are about as good as they get for Acid, my relic has CS already, Pandemic is the weak point but at least I have CS on the Authority (the previous Authority I used instead of Pandemic also had cast speed and it played worse than Pandemic regardless because the WD typing was all wrong).
This build also previously got much of its Vit to Acid conversion from 3-pc Dreeg but I eventually dropped it as the resists were too tight, every single piece of it sucked for skills (ammy especially) and, frankly, all I was getting out of it was extra phys res I already had a lot of.
One option I’ve been toying with is trying Guardian’s Gaze on GoE’s cause with their % total speed and their number they should be swirling in eyeballs all day long. However, I’m not sure how much healing that 15 % ll would actually provide and, above all, dropping the Tainted Eruption overlaps sounds like a really great way to tank my AoE and cc into oblivion. That and Eye of the Guardian doesn’t do much for the devo progression in the slightest.
Or you could take , it fits Devo better. I took it instead of Guardian’s Eye on my DEE build.
Guardian’s Eye has been nerfed so many times already. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bats heals more with its 2 x 40% ADCTH projectiles.
Or maybe one of these two devotions from above, both with Ghoul, one with Turtle another with Scales would suit you.
I so fucking hate going Bat every time I’m left with a questionmark over a character’s survivability But it’s undeniable that this character is already well set up for it with full Vit conversion… In your GoE version did you feel a shortage of AoE at all if Tainted Eruption wasn’t tied to your Guardians? The ability to overlap Eruption DoTs was one of the main draws for me to do this in Acid.
didnt’ say it was an inherent issue for al pseudo pets, i’m pretty sure 5 guardian fire paladin cleared sr 75 etc fine
but that doesn’t mean all guardian setups will
just like how chillwhisper or demonslayer blade spirits handle 75 fine, doesn’t mean all blade spirit setups will
here’s an example of a vitality pets archon idea i had, and it’s squish af too iirc
*not the actual final version i think, i remember trying to change some stuff around to rely less on class skill prefixes
mortars are fully supported on a set and multiple items, and gets easy baked in regen, which is a perfect heal form for the passive kiting pseudo pet caster
you get none of that on your acid empy bros, you get 2 items that boost them that’s it, that’s all your dmg, and at the same time you need to rely on regular sustain, because all your items blocks regen
so you need to actively engage in fighting both to deal some extra dmg, and to sustain, while your dmg is also lower
which would suggest that it’s tougher on acid pseudo pets, than a regular acid sentinel, because more dmg/sustain etc
more cast speed and slow res might help, but it might also potentially still not be enough for 75 dmg output/sustain wise, as far as compared to regular builds/stats etc
otherwise to get stable, maybe the choice is to get hella defensive, turtle procs etc etc, to survive through the less than usual dps
yea 50-65 i get those “novelty” chunks constantly too, but i dont’ remember seeing Gazer Prime on 75 recently, or mebe even “ever”
OK so I reshuffled some devos to get Bat in there and I’ll see how it does: Sentinel, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator Cost me two 3 % OA devos so those of you who believe 3100 OA is a minimum for a viable character might want to cover your eyes (or find a different game to play cause you’re wrong XD) Probably gonna take a few runs to test cause Bat needs time to level up.
don’t think many has that view
also, your real OA wasn’t that high before anyway, because ascension downtime
you do have crazy high DA tho, maybe it’s possible/potentially worth to shuffle a bit of that into more steady OA?
Oh I know I’m sitting at around 2600 most of the time XD Well, 2700 cause CoF.
I do get the sense OA is overestimated a lot around here though, I’ve seen builds with 2900 OA stable with like three different posters immediately chiming in that the OA is a bit too low. Maybe it’s the Crucible meta, it seems there people go for 3200 OA while they’re sitting on 11k health.
I would love to get more OA and the DA stack definitely wasn’t intentional, it’s just what I wound up with after I got everything I felt necessary for the build. I could probably swap out Rotgut Venoms on jewelry and put in Irrah’s Venomtongues but then energy regen goes down and I already have to pop pots now and then.
Yeah, well, too much stuff to proc A small part of the reason I didn’t have Bat originally cause…where the fuck do I put all this stuff?
vire’s might + volcanic stride is an amazing proccer btw
if you’re already “jumping around” using your movement skill liberally for safety measures, might as well use a movement skill that can then also be a fat proccer?
, it fits Devo better. I took it instead of Guardian’s Eye on my DEE build.
But it’s undeniable that this character is already well set up for it with full Vit conversion… In your GoE version did you feel a shortage of AoE at all if Tainted Eruption wasn’t tied to your Guardians? The ability to overlap Eruption DoTs was one of the main draws for me to do this in Acid.
stash that 
A small part of the reason I didn’t have Bat originally cause…where the fuck do I put all this stuff?