I am sporadic player of GD. I just added AoM and was playing with a couple ideas. I thought that a Firestrike Demolitionist with Skelton pets would fun to play around with, so I took an old Demolitionist that I had at level 15 or so, and started leveling some Necro into it.
I had previously gone with 2 mastery/level, later I started going with 3/2 levels, so I will probably focus more on skills for a few levels. My current idea is to focus on Fire Strike (switching to 2 Leanders when I can dual wield) and Raise Skeletons. I dropped Grenado for Bone Harvest, because I like the look, as much as anything.
I don’t know much about the Necro skills at this point. I was planning on dropping a point into the toggles or passive skills in both masteries, what other skills would benefit this build. I doubt very much that I will ever get the build to level 100, but would like to be able to play it through the 50s without it becoming annoyingly difficult.
Any advice on distribution of attribute points would be welcome as well.
Defiler is like the least synergetic class in GD at the moment. In my opinion the only decent way to play a low-level Defiler is play it as you would a necromancer-summoner and using demolitionist for support (Flame Touched, Flashbang). And even then you’ll probably hit the wall later in the game due to your pets not being as durable as if you had went necro+occultist instead (the damage would be lower as well).
Defiler is kind of like Apostate in my opinion - there’s no immediate or apparent crossover in damage types between the 2 masteries so you need specialist equipment through conversion to make that connection (e.g. Aether Apostates can use Elemental to Aether, Defilers can use Fire to Vitality/Vitality to Fire or Fire/Elemental to Aether).
Saying that though, you can level the combo with Fire Strike and Necromancer’s WPSes by just relying on the % weapon damage components of both whether you want to go Fire, Vitality, Aether or something else and use any needed conversion equipment when you want to tackle Nemeses at endgame.
Onto your build, I’d recommend you drop the Skeletons at some point - pets require dedicated support through gearing, devotions, components and augments to be good. Otherwise, they will struggle in Elite and crumble entirely in Ultimate, Skeletons especially are frailer than other pets and will have an even harder time.
You’ve leveled up the mastery way too much and not put enough skills in.
Unlike the other people in this thread, I think you go full skeletons, at least for now. They can easily carry you through Veteran. You’re going to have to be re-summoning them constantly during any major AoE damage, but that’s fine, I did so and it worked beautifully. Essentially you are just a Necromancer for normal, with the Flametouched Aura helping your pets out.
Max Undead Legion next, and then go get Blight Fiend. Take two Enchanted Flint as soon as you get them and put them on your main and offhands. The idea is to take your auras and make your pets go nuts on the enemy. Just get gear that gives +OA to pets and +dmg to pets.
Changed devotions to get Shepard’s Call asap, bind it to Flashbang.
This should get you through Veteran and to the 50s as you stated, with relative ease.
I forgot that I can pill points out of mastery, I think that is a change. Thanks for your suggestions, I will give them a shot, although I will keep the devotion the same, for a little while. A dozen pets wandering around with Flame Torrents is too much fun not to watch for a little while!
A question about the Enchanted Flints, do two of the same Auras stack?
