I’m doing my first MP runs in GD with a friend of mine. Currently I’m doing a DW melee build, but I don’t really like it, at least not for MP. So it got me thinking about the good old D2 days, where you could do a support / healing build.
I would really love to try something like that. Looking at the different classes, skills and devotions, I also think that it should be possible. However, I’m not familiar enough with GD (just coming back after a really long hiatus) to get it figured out myself. So I’m looking for help here, I guess.
Shaman, with it’s Wendigo Totem, seems like an obvious choice. Not in the least because my friend is doing a Vitality based build (Cabalist I think), so I could go Vitality too and use Devouring Swarm for enemy RR.
But which class to go with it? Which Devotions? I’m at a loss how to combine this, for more tankiness, aura’s, healing, … ?
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/8NK7X1nN theorycrafted this, haven’t tried it in play but it looks promising, high amounts of everything, though you’ll be smashing buttons like a piano
Deceiver isn’t something I was thinking of, but 3 people suggesting it might be a sign that it’s a good choice .
A few things though. First of all, since I’m just starting over, I have no gear except for a few pieces that I kept in the mutual stash from my previous play through. So I’m not sure how viable the builds suggested are in an untwinked setting.
Second, my my friend is doing a Poison / Acid build, based on this guide. So I was thinking that I’d want something to boost his poison / acid damage too, and / or provides monster RR to those damage types.
Combine that with the fact that I’m still kinda set on using the Shaman (one of the best builds I recall having a few years ago was one with Wendigo Totem, Grasping Vines and Devouring Swarm), and I was wondering if this Conjurer build would be any good as support build. It definitely seems to be good in practice, but my experience with GD is too limited to warrant that’s actually the case. Devotions would be more or less like the ones suggested in the builds by Snowmanplayer123 and Valinov.
Do your friend a fat favor and get rid of requnix’s Guide, it’s full of misinformation and doesn’t even provide beginner setups / any useful info overall, use stupid dragon’s / nery’s / Malawiglenn’s build guides instead
As for the support, Occultist has acid rr as well as some % poison dmg on AotG, so your friend will receive quite the Buff, either way % damage bonuses aren’t as impactful as other bonuses such as DA, health boost, OA for a support build, your friend will deal enough damage on his/her own, your job is to make sure that he doesn’t die
Conjurer wouldn’t be horrible for a support build, Shaman definitely has less good stuff than Inquisitior (the latter has 3 supporting skills after all, all of which are defensive), but it would still work with the Mog’s Pact line maxed and Tuturu maxed out + the other buffs in occu, but that’s about it
Edit : a support deceiver should work well without items, maxing Inquisitior Seal is enough to get you through the lower levels, and for devos you can grab bat as a damaging skill and bind it to CoF / storm box / devswarm
Ok thanks. I’m surprised with what you write about Requnix’ guide, as I’m following one too for my main character, and it has worked tremendously well so far. So far is only to the end of the base game in Elite though, at level 74. Not sure after that.
So if I understand it correctly, OA > % damage in (almost) all cases? Probably because there’s so many sources of % damage you have from skills / devotions / gear, that it doesn’t add all that much? And because endgame is mainly about surviving big hits, DA (and health and resists) > % damage as well in most cases?
Btw, you mention 3 supporting defensive skills on Inquisitor, but I only see two (Word of Renewal and Seal). Which is the third one you are talking about? I don’t think it’s in Valinov’s build, so maybe it’s not that strong / necessary?
On a side note, I’m using Word of Renewal and Seal on my main character, a BWC / RoK Purifier too. Obviously I like them, but I didn’t notice they are that good. Guess I need to pay closer attention to what exactly they do. Like I said, still a lot to learn
On Mog’s Pact for Shaman: both Heart of the Wild and Oak Skin seem very well worth it, but Mog’s Pact seems really underwhelming from a defensive point of view. Health and energy regen are really low numbers. Or am I missing something?
I second @Maya on this, and can speak from personal experience- Deceiver is incredible for healing/support. One of the most fun builds I have ever played with. Mine was never top tier, but i got so much joy out of dual wielding touch of purity and basically blocking all DoT effects from affecting the entire party. Even if this didnt actually do anything (due to the other players already having resistances and effects to quash DoT). I was just running around healing the hell out of everyone and in my head thinking “OH yeah, baby. NOTHINGS going hurt these guys! This is all me, this protection right here.”
I went into a shattered realm with the character at like level 80 and the other players were level 90+ and theyre like “Level 80 get the F outta here” and im like “Ill heal the hell out of you and youll never be hurt by a DoT again while im here” and theyre like “doesnt matter, if youre dead you cant heal anything” and im like “I dont die”. And sure enough, I didnt. At least not before anyone else did. The problem with my build was that it couldnt do a damn thing for damage on its own, but what does that matter if your allies are buffed to infinity and beyond and your enemies are debuffed into the ground? Well, it matters a whole hell of a lot if the team doesnt stay within the radius of your support effects!!!
Anyway, I think youll find theres a ton of ways to play support in this game and each of them is really fun to experiment with. My most fun character and first character to level 100 was a pure shaman healer/support build, I went warder with her in the 90’s specifically for menhir’s will to just make her survivability that much more incredible. Apothecary’s Gloves and Healing Rain, Totems, Mogdrogen’s Pact, etc. Doubles as a good tank but really is like a damn tree trunk on the battlefield, takes a beating and keeps kicking. As long as the other players arent horrible at the game, your little apothecary’s gloves triggering healing rain damn near on demand is a nice roundabout healing effect alongside totems and the pact for survivability, nevermind whatever skills you can get going with your relics.
I started the character yesterday, to get it up to par with where the characters of my buddy and me are. For now I went with the Conjurer build I posted. But it seems that I’ll have more MP games soon, as two other members of the guild I’m in (The Amazon Basin) expressed interest in teaming up for GD MP too. So I’ll defnitely try Deceiver with one of them.
Btw, I did some Crucible runs first with that new character, to get some easy levels, gear and devotions. Went well enough by maxing out Devouring Swarm immediately, which really cut through everything with ease. However I often see recommendations to give a new character starting out in Crucible (or probably starting out alltogether) some level 1 gear and components. I couldn’t figure out how to do that though. At the start of the game you can’t enter town, so you don’t have access to your stash. So how can I pass some gear to a new characer? Only by using a muling program (which I’m not using atm, but probably really should)? Or is there something else I’m missing?
