Improving Hybrid Pet Summoners

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

I know there had been multiple balance changes to improve the concept of hybrid summoners, where the Summoner can use 1-2 active skills to provide decent DPS along with the character’s pets. For some cases, such as Dracarris Incarnate, the combination of active Demolitionist skills (Thermite Mines) combined with good procs that reward Summoner kills (Dracarris’ Hellspawn) made it an extremely good build. However, those are the exceptions, as most of the time the player is either starved for skill points, extremely lacking in damage for both Summoner and Pets, or crumbles at the sight of a tough enemy. This thread is meant to both suggest ways to further improve the chances of a Hybrid summoner working correctly and provide further build ideas to better improve itemization.

Dracarris Incarnate- what did it do right?
It has multiple items that grant both skill bonuses to the most vital skills (Flame Touched) and grants good procs as well as valuable RR. I’m referring to items such as Ulzuin’s Headguard and Mark of Divinity (and their Mythical equivalents). Dracarris’ Hellspawn is active 50% on Enemy Death, and grants good bonuses to the Summoner as well as better bonuses for pets.

Fire Damage Breakdown (Pyromancer):
Mythical Dracarris: 275% Fire + Burn Damage, Proc provides 225% Fire Damage
Mythical Wyrmclaw – 150% Fire + Burn Damage
Ulzuin’s Head + All Demo Skills Belt – 185% Fire + Burn Damage
22/12 Flame Touched – 210% Fire + Burn Damage
12/12 Hellfire – 100% Fire Damage (usually more skill points)
12/12 Storm Spirit – 100% Fire Damage (usually more skill points)
2 Components (Enchanted Flint) – 200% Fire Damage
Solael’s Witchblade Nodes + Rhowan’s Crown Node = 110% Fire Damage

Total for caster = 1,550% Fire Damage

Combined with the >100% Fire RR, it is easy for Pyromancers to take advantage of the “On Death” procs from its main weapon. This should be the goal of any attempted Hybrid Summoner: to have a healthy amount of pet damage (pets have easily over 2,000% Fire Damage) while rewarding players who activate the “On Death” procs with buffs that benefit both the Summoner and pets.

Chaos Hybrid Summoner
It’s no secret now that Witching Hour Cabalist, thanks to the changes from 1.0.4.0, is now extremely good and may have one of the best chances at beating the new Gladiator Crucible for any pet build (DaShiv’s Night King and future creations notwithstanding). Thanks to Dying God being the best constellation for most pet builds and the numerous amount of generosity in equipment, Chaos Hybrid Summoners have a wide advantage over the other damage types. It even has an Epic set dedicated to it that holds over well until you obtain the necessary Legendary items.

Chaos Damage Breakdown for Covenant Set Occultist:
Desecrator Covenant Set – 835% Chaos Damage
Mythical Fiendmaster Raiment – 56% Chaos Damage (as part of all damage)
Mythical Voidwhisper Ring – 105% Chaos Damage, proc adds 75% Chaos Damage
Mythical Shadowfiend Cord – 105% Chaos Damage
Solael’s Witchblade Nodes – 120% Chaos Damage
Dying God Nodes – 180% Chaos Damage
Hungering Void – 289% Chaos Damage
Symbol of Solael – 35% Chaos Damage

Total for Caster = 1,800% Chaos Damage

Seeing the Witching Hour Cabalist is much more suited for being a traditional Raise Skeletons summoner, I will instead focus on another goal for the Hybrid set-up: to take advantage of the Mythical Black Scourge and its ability to summon Chaos Scourges on Enemy Death.

Chaos Damage Breakdown for Black Scourge Hybrid Summoner:
Mythical Black Scourge – 235% Chaos Damage
Mythical Plaguebearer of Dreeg – 140% Chaos Damage
Horns of Ekket-Zul – 100% Chaos Damage
Mythical Fiendmaster Raiment – 56% Chaos Damage (as part of all damage)
Mythical Voidwhisper Ring – 105% Chaos Damage, proc adds 75% Chaos Damage
Voidheart (or second Voidwhisper Ring) – 105% Chaos Damage
Mythical Shadowfiend Cord – 105% Chaos Damage
Solael’s Witchblade Nodes – 120% Chaos Damage
Dying God Nodes – 180% Chaos Damage
Hungering Void – 289% Chaos Damage
Bysmiel’s Domination – 92% Chaos Damage
Riftstone + Symbol of Solael – 60% Chaos Damage

Total for Caster = 1,650% Chaos Damage

It appears that a Hybrid Chaos dual-wielder can make a decent set-up depending on the active abilities the player chooses (Riftstone’s Chaos Strike, for starters), but the question becomes: why choose this set-up over the already safe passive summoner?

Here is what the Black Scourge does, and I’ll compare it to the Primal Instinct relic’s Swarmlings:

  • Black Scourge has an average of 69 Physical Damage and 82 Chaos damage.

  • Primal Instinct has an average of 95 Physical Damage and 200 Fire damage

  • Black Scourge critters only live for 8 seconds and end on an explosion that deals an average of 285 Chaos Damage that isn’t affected by flat auras

  • Primal Instinct swarmlings live for 20 seconds and already have 295 base damage, and not only can you convert the Physical damage to Chaos, Swarmlings can get additional Chaos damage from Hellfire and other flat damage bonuses.

  • Black Scourge critters can only be up 3 at a time and can only be up through Enemy Death (so you can’t rely on them to fight single tough bosses who don’t have adds)

  • Primal Instinct swarmlings can be up 5 at a time and are summoned on attack.

These three comparisons demonstrate that, at least from an offensive standpoint, there’s no reason to attempt to make a hybrid that uses the Black Scourge with Bysmiel’s Dominaton when a passive summoner with Primal Instinct outclasses it in every way.

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Unfortunately, outside of Dracarris and Black Scourge, the only other pet item that benefits from “on enemy death” procs is the Mythical Bonescavenger’s Deathgrips, and I will discuss ways to improve Hybrid Summoners who want to take advantage of these Spirits, as their 100% immunity to AoE attacks and good damage output make them a must-have for pet builds.

Outside of “on enemy death” procs, the other reason why you would want to make a Hybrid summoner is to take advantage of player-scaled pets such as the Raise the Dead skeletons and Blind Sage’s Elemental Seekers. I’m not sure if player-scaled pets have the same resistances as the player, but it’s often complained that they simply do not have the durability to make an impact in most cases. Regardless, player scaled pets allow you to focus more of your skillpoints in applying active damage and focusing your skillpoints in overcapping one pet instead of spreading them out along multiple pets.

Lightning Hybrid Summoner
With the changes in 1.0.4.0 to the Conduit of Eldritch Whispers, I have tested a Lightning Hybrid Summoner that takes advantage of 26/16 Raven with its 100% chance to pierce through enemies, complementing the bird with 26/16 Storm Totem thanks, in part, to the Stormbringer of Malmouth’s skill bonuses. My testing so far have proved that the build is capable of handling vanilla content comfortably, though less effectively than a passive Lightning pet Conjurer would. However, the items that would best suit a build like this, such as Mythical Mantle of the Patron or Mantle of Mogdrogen, don’t even grant Lightning bonuses to the Summoner.

Lightning Damage Breakdown (Conjurer):
Mythical Spark of Ultos – 410% Lightning Damage, 290% Electrocute Damage
Stormbringer of Malmouth – 150% Lightning + Electrocute Damage
Elite Wendigo Spellweaver Spaulders – 80% Lightning Damage (as elemental damage)
2X Mythical Glyph of Kelphat Zoth – 182% Lightning + Electrocute Damage, proc provides 125% Lightning Damage
2 Components (Hell’s Bane Ammo) – 200% Lightning + Electrocute Damage
Widow Devotion – 50% Lightning Damage
Hand of Ultos Devotion – 180% Lightning Damage
Eye of the Storm - 100% Lightning Damage, the granted buff adds 150% to that
Thunderstruck prefix grants 55% Lightning Damage

Total for Caster = 1,550% Lightning Damage (note that in order to get 26/16 Summon Familiar, it is unlikely that you’ll have access to all of this)

Suggestions: [ul]
[li]Give Voidmancer’s Belt Summoner Lightning Damage (equal to the Chaos damage already placed). [/li]

[li]Mogdrogen’s Mantle should have at least 85% caster Lightning damage (a set of faction shoulders is better than all of the other gear where hybrid set-ups are involved).[/li]

[li]In addition, Blind Sage is usually regarded as a poor T3 Constellation, especially with its extremely high affinity costs. As it is, there’s no reason to take it over something like Ultos, Shepherd of Storms. I’ll leave it to other players to suggest how to buff this particular constellation and the Elemental Seeker pet.[/li]

[li]P.S. It’s a bit frustrating to learn that absolutely none of the items that grant bonuses to Summon Familiar grant Lightning bonuses to the Caster. You have equipment that grants nothing in terms of offense (like Mythical Mantle of the Patron), MI’s that grant Vitality Damage (Bargoll’s Core and Salazar’s Blade), bonuses to Poison Damage (Mythical Blightstone Invoker and Rotdrinker’s Crest), Chaos Damage (Voidmancer’s Cord), and most strange is that not one, but multiple items grant Aether damage (Mythical Wraithcaller’s Mantle as well as Mythical Mark of Forgotten Spirits). Please rectify this so that the caster can get Lightning Damage bonuses while going for 26/16 Raven- you’re paying a high cost in skill points as it is, there’s no need to rub it in by refusing to give the right damage bonuses.[/li]
[/ul]

Winter King Cold Hybrid Trickster
I have taken the liberty of testing this myself, curious as to how the stream of buffs would make the build. I was honestly surprised at how well it performed against vanilla Nemeses and Mad Queen, so kudos for turning this from dumpster fodder into something salvageable. However, the build continues to suffer from having too little damage from both pets and the player, too little OA & DA, and too much strain on skill points.

Note that Shamans already have a huge opportunity cost by not being able to equip the Mythical Beastcaller’s Set and taking advantage of its tremendous buffs. For a Cold Trickster, the Mythical Crown of the Winter King and Mythical Frostdread Cuirass are non-negotiable, meaning you can’t take advantage of the amazing proc from the Mythical Beastcaller’s Hat. As such, Tricksters heavily rely on good shoulder and medal itemization so they aren’t tempted to simply throw out half of the Winter King ensemble (the reason why you make this in the first place) to get the 3-pc Beastcaller’s bonus. I am currently using the Elite Wendigo Spellweaver Spaulders (a faction item) and Mythical Mogdrogen Sigil (22/12 Primal Spirit is not negotiable for a build that already struggles with damage).

Cold Damage Breakdown (Trickster):
Mythical Bane of the Winter King – 400% Cold + Frostburn Damage
Mythical Crown of Winter King – 84% Cold + Frostburn Damage
Mythical Heart of the Mountain – 105% Cold + Frostburn Damage
Mythical Frostdread Cuirass – 84% Cold + Frostburn Damage
Elemental Awakening (12/12) – 85% Elemental Damage
Lethal Assault (15/12) – 80% Cold Damage
Devotions – 90% Cold Damage (Murmur), 90% Elemental Damage (Harp)
Component – 50% Cold Damage + Frostburn Damage
Elite Wendigo Spellweaver Spaulders – 80% Cold Damage (as elemental damage)

Total for Caster = 1,060% Cold Damage

As you can see, this is the weakest of the summoners in terms of Caster damage by a significant amount, which is especially troublesome as pet Cold damage is the weakest of the three damage types as well.

Suggestions: [ul]
[li]Firstly, it is baffling that none of the 4 pieces that make up a Winter King Cold build have any caster OA to speak of. It would make the most sense to apply flat OA to the 2-H sword. Add some DA to the headpiece and add ~50% pet bonus to all damage so that the pet Cold damage bonuses exceeds that of the Beastcaller’s proc (200% damage, not to mention the 28 Physical Damage that would be really nice to convert to cold damage). [/li]

[li]Add a small amount of % cold damage (55% or something like that) on Mythical Frostdread Cuirass’ buff. Add Caster % Cold Damage on Mythical Bonescavenger’s Deathgrips (the same as already present Vitality damage).[/li]

[li]Adding some DA to the Mythical Mogdrogen Sigil would be appreciated as it’s the only medal that grants bonuses to Conjure Primal Spirit. [/li]

[li]Having the physical damage component of Mogdrogen’s Pact scale higher at Ultimate ranks (from 18/12 to 22/12) would greatly benefit pets that rely on Physical conversion. [/li]

[li]Add Cold Damage similar to the Aether Damage bonuses in Spiritbinder Glyph. That ring now has 2 of the 3 skill bonuses be Shaman bonuses, and Aether damage is completely useless for Shamans. Meanwhile, Necromancers can still make use of the Cold damage thanks to Bone Harvest.[/li]
[/ul]

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Vitality Hybrid Necromancers
While Vitality summoners benefit from Dying God as much as Chaos summoners, Vitality summoners, as well as their pets, don’t have nearly the sense of awe and danger Chaos summoners do. The fact that the pet bounses from Rattosh, the Veilwarden was removed entirely was confusing, to say the least, as while passive summoners had other options to follow, Vitality hybrids would have loved to take advantage of the -Life Leech resistance the proc gave them.

Vitality Damage Breakdown (Ritualist):
Corruptor of Souls Set – 352% Vitality + Vitality Decay, proc provides 6% Healing + 150% Vitality Damage (Summoner)
Mythical Bonescavenger Deathgrips – 56% Vitality Damage + Decay
Mythical Ravager’s Bite – 143% Vitality Damage + Decay
Mythical Dreadguard (Shield) – 100% Vitality Damage + Decay
Soul Harvest 22/12 – 120% Vitality Damage + Decay
Caged Souls suffix – 75% Vitality Damage + Decay
Bat Nodes - 39% Vitality Damage
Dying God nodes - 180% Vitality Damage
Hungering Void - 289% Vitality Damage

Total for caster = 1,500% Vitality Damage

Suggestions: [ul]
[li]If you’re really okay with removing the pet damage from Rattosh (which would have helped a hybrid caster out), at the very least restore the ~200% pet Vitality damage you removed from that other medal to something that also has caster %vitality damage. My preferred choice would be the Mythical Undying Oath, as Cabalists already love the medal due to the flat damage granted by the Blood of Dreeg modifier. [/li]

[li]Give any amount of % Vitality damage to Revenant nodes so that hybrid pet builds can actually use the Raise the Dead proc with some efficiency. [/li]

[li]Add Flat OA to the Corruptor’s set to give something extra to the 4% OA bonus already in place.[/li]

[li]You won’t get this if you’re using the Corruptor’s Set, but the Mythical Wreath of Souls gives bonuses to Raise Skeletons and all three pet classes, yet gives no bonuses to pets. I know it’s an epic item and not a legendary, but something like 50% to all damage shouldn’t be too much to ask for, especially as it’s a non-set item that grants no skill modifiers.[/li]
[/ul]

Aether Diviner’s Set Spiritbinders

I have theorycrafted, though not tested, an Aether Diviner’s Set Spiritbinder that emphasizes the finer points of the set: 26/16 Reap Spirit combined with Devastation. Like the other hybrids, skill points are extremely scarce; as a result, there is no room to add Raise Skeletons or even Summon Blight Fiend and it’s great Rotting Fumes AoE. Even devotion points are very scarce, as Aeon’s is essentially a necessity with the amount of temporary buffs coming from both the Necromancer side as well as the Arcanist side.

Aether Damage Breakdown (Spellbinder):
Diviner’s Set – 450% Aether Damage
Decree of Aldritch – 300% Aether Damage
Mythical Spiritseeker Cord – 100% Aether Damage
Mythical Spiritbinder Glyph – 100% Aether Damage
Mythical Band of the Eternal Haunt – 100% Aether Damage
Spectral Binding 15/12 – 112% Aether Damage
Fabric of Reality 6/12 – 50% Aether Damage
Widow – 120% Aether Damage
Haunt Relic – 50% Aether Damage

Total for caster = 1,380% Aether Damage

Suggestions: [ul]
[li]Add pet % bonus to all damage to the Mythical Spiritseeker Cord so that the belt feels like a real upgrade compared to the Epic belt Mythical Shadowfiend’s Cord.[/li]

[li]Neither the Diviner’s Set nor many of the required equipment slots to complement the set have Cast Speed or DA. The -10% Physique Requirement for Armor seems pretty useless for the belt, since Arcanists provide enough Spirit just through its mastery alone that Spellbinders should be able to put all 105 Attribute points in Physique with no problems. I don’t even know what pet build would even need Heavy Armor where the requirement would be a problem in the first place. I would replace the bonus on that belt with a nice DA bonus.[/li]

[li]The Raise the Dead constellation, arguably a devotion custom-made for Aether pet Spellbinders, is actively detrimental to this build when you consider the devotion points necessary to obtain it. Spellbinders need Widow for the Aether RR, Dying God for the Crit damage, and Aeon’s Hourglass to help with Mirror, Nullification, Call of the Grave, and Mark of Torment. When you consider the affinity requirements necessary to obtain those 3 devotions, spare devotion points are hard to come by, and spending 6 points merely to get 1 Chaos and 1 Primordial affinity is a hard pass, especially when the nodes range from middling (ACDTH is nice to have, though) to outright useless (24% Vitality resistance is laughable when Spellbinders already have 50-100% overcap).[/li]
The fact that Skeletons only have 120 Vitality and 120 Aether damage, which can’t be improved by Weapon Damage, seals the deal when deciding on this constellation. If you were looking toward Diviner’s Spellbinders to justify bring Raise the Dead to player-scaled pets, then you’ve managed to sink this constellation lower than you thought.

[li]As neither the Necromancer nor the Arcanist have flat OA bonuses for pets, you need roughly 65% pet OA in order for a Spellbinder to match what a Cabalist could get by with 55% OA or a Conjurer / Pyromancer with less than 50% OA. The set does provide 13% pet OA, but pet gear for Arcanists as a whole is underwhelming, as there are few (if any) items that grant pet OA as well as bonuses to Arcanist skills. Items such as Mythical Whispers of the Dead could stand to grant pet OA bonuses.[/li]
[/ul]

4

This space is reserved for additional damage types you’d like me to look into or suggestions to improve other player-scaled pet abilities.

5

I have added the Aether Diviner’s Spellbinder to the OP while cleaning up things from the previous builds. I would appreciate other players pitching in and saying how their Spellbinders are doing, as I’m sure they are thinking of different equipment set-ups from the items I hinted at in my OP.

So far, I’m impressed with what the hybrid pet builds can do with Vanilla content. They certainly are less DPS and more risky to use than passive pet Summoners, but if you’re a player that’s wondering “why can’t I go in and whack things alongside my pets,” there is no easier time in Grim Dawn’s update history to do that than it is right now.

6

I love the write-up dude. I think Grim Dawn is the best pure pet experience I’ve had in any AARPG (or RPG. maybe), but going for Hybrid has always been underwhelming for me still after all these recent buffs.

What you’ve said here speaks true to my experiences with a couple of damage types. For instance I just tried a Winter King setup in which I ended up having to drop more and more pet stats until it was mostly just me hitting stuff to feel good. OA and DA were soooo hard to come by without going insane with temporary buffs in devotions + savagery + amarastas blade burst and generally ignoring pet buffs.

And of course the pets (not being mega tanks) were getting pretty wrecked in the DLC which seems to be in love with persistent AoE ground effects that pets have to stand in while getting hit from other sources.

Grim Dawn seems to want the player to invest heavily in augments, skills, and devotion trees almost exclusively benefiting for pets for them to do even respectable damage but also heavily in gear and the tree for them to not die (then some pet resists are nearly impossible to come by anyways). By the time you have your pets doing well enough to just support a player controlled character you have 30 skill points to play with and 3 gear slots. Grim Dawn was more guilty of it in the past, but even now I think investing so many points in pets could be seen as the loss of caster viability that it is. The caster really begins to miss out on the top end OA, DA, and % scaling that takes a character from struggling to doubling dps against bosses and being a god when you give up even a few pieces of a build for a pet’s sake.

Last thing I’ll say is I haven’t enjoyed a pet build without blood of dreeg to heal them all and give them flat OA (and even poison res if I want). Would like to have had pneumatic burst or something heal pets on the trickster I played.

Agai, great research and write-up

7

I was surprised that my theorycrafted diviner spellbinder gear set is almost exactly the same as yours, even the devotion choice:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2mkDzzZ

But, actually I don’t think that this set want you to spend points in raised skeleton or blight fiend as like you said, the skill points is scarce.
In my build, I choose other skill from items instead to do continuous damage.

I need to thank you for always raising the issues about the pet build grim dawn have.
I actually has given up making pure passive pet build because it cannot compete in crucible.

Hybrid caster-pet or melee-pet is the way to go.
Even the pet you use need to be the one that player-scaled.
Pet-scaled pet make the summoner weak because of the gears. Always need to run, and can be killed just because one or two attack from nemesis.
Gearing is also substantially difficult because you also need to think about the balance between offense-defense of your pet.

Sent from my Redmi Note 3 using Tapatalk

8

I’m thankful that Reap Spirit and the Diviner’s Set has some good discussion here and here, and from what I’ve seen so far, the people who’ve posted these builds are playing them exactly like Aether casters where the pet bonuses may as well not be there. I’ve tried to give the pets at least something so that it feels like an actual pet build, but all the builds in the video handle vanilla Nemeses easily, while my build gets rekt. It takes most of the skill points just getting the necessary skills to survive (Devastation, all the Arcanist protection skills, Siphon Souls); attempting to use moves that benefit you and your pets, such as Bone Harvest or Call of the Grave, are simply squeezed out.

The reason I chose Decree of Aldritch was because I was really looking forward to having a Howl of Mogdrogen + Elemental T3 pet as all the Elemental Damage was being converted to Aether. It’s really cool seeing the Reap Spirit Wraiths jump around like Ninjas with that speed bonus, and Blind Sage seemed great with the huge Crit bonuses and Aether explosions, but my build crumpled in all the Nemesis battles I tried.

All-Aether Attak Seru is likely the better option because of the Aether bonuses and better defenses, so I’ll see what happens when I respec myself to soft cap Siphon Souls and see how well the healing is. For now though, it seems that trying to make your Wraiths act like actual pets seems like a fools errand compared to simply nuking everything with your own damage skills.

9

Can you tell me what such a Cabalist would use as a direct damage skill? I mean Doom Bolt has a too large cooldown, and other than conversion of Reap Spirit I could not find any other ranged spell-like attack that does direct chaos damage. Unless you use the chaos bolts that some components give you?
And with the Witching Hour, do you use it just as a base ranged attack?

10

Way to bring up a thread from three years ago. Basically everything from the OP is outdated at this point.

To make this post relevant, Zantai made a point in a recent thread:
"Hybrid pet builds are a weak point in the GD build spectrum, I freely admit that we did not hit the mark with that play style and realistically probably won’t at this point in the game’s life cycle.

Are hybrid builds viable for most content? Sure. Will they be setting records or make the list for endgame suggestions? Unlikely. Could the issue be addressed at this point? Not without some serious review and likely undesirable repercussions echoing across other builds ( Cough Bane of the Winter King Cough).

As I pointed out in the thread, the biggest problem with pet builds is that you need specific devotion paths to assure that your pets have the damage and resistances to survive, and a lot of the time, the equipment and devotions don’t match up with the damage type you’re trying to build for, and even if the stars align for your damage type, you need a skill that could do damage regardless of your pets.

I’ve been tinkering around with multiple hybrid builds just to see if there’s any synergy that could be had. Here’s how they fared in SR 65:

  • Chaos Reap Spirit Cabalist: Success
  • Cold Winter King Briarthorn Trickster (really Duskdeep’s idea): Success
  • Acid Blight Fiend + Ravenous Earth Cabalist: Failed (too many Acid pet items don’t have Acid damage for the player, and needing Acid Spray + Rumor makes it very hard to get good pet + Acid damage devotions).
  • Vitality Reap Spirit Cabalist: See video below, great success
  • Lightning Storm Totem + Double Raven Conjurer: Also have good hopes for it.
  • Fire Hellhound Pyromancer: Pyromancer is an extremely skill-point hungry class, and with very few equipment pieces granting +skills to Occultist and Demo, it’s very unlikely that I’d be able to make something usable.

Edit: Hybrid Vitality Cabalist SR65-66 Part 1
Hybrid Vitality Cabalist SR65-66 Part 2

This is how a pets / caster hybrid gets done right. Helps that Reap Spirit + Gate of Many Worlds are both invincible.

2 Likes
11

Every now and then I try to get my old Pyro to be useful
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YNnmypyZ
I don’t use GDstash etc so am missing a few items which are probably BIS eg “Ring of Khonsar” but the main reason I posted this build was to suggest that the devs add
+1 to all skills in Demolitionist to Mythical Sovereign Ruby of Domination
with maybe some %fire and % burn bonuses as well. Adding that bonus really only helps this type of hybrid and doesn’t break any other build so it’s win-win.

1 Like
12

What can I do? Searching for the Desecrator set only brought up this topic and one other. I rather reply than start a new one.
Got a link to that Chaos Reap Spirit Cabalist? I been thinking about making my Cabalist into that too, I assume you used the Fiendgaze tome.
And I don’t really need the build to be able to do Ultimate Shattered Realms or Crucible. Just beating Nemesis is enough for me.
Are Wraiths from Reap Spirit invincible btw? The skill text says they scale with pet bonuses, and they live only 33 minutes even with the Diviner set, I never seen them killed… but I assumed they could be hurt by monsters?
I have made a so far very powerful Pyromancer using the Harbinger set, but I do admit the Hellhound is only there for the chaos/fire boost aura and I put it on Defensive mostly.

13

Here’s the Chaos Reap Spirit build.

Wraiths are in fact invincible, so you don’t have to worry about them getting hurt from monsters at all. It allows you to not have to worry about them dying off too early, as they are a massive source of pet damage.

I remember having tried the Desecrator’s Occultist set, but I was largely disappointed at it - it was far too squishy to handle even regular Nemeses, and having only 50% Elemental to Chaos conversion hurts any chances of using that conversion properly.

Thankfully in MC, if you side with Barrowholm, you don’t have to worry about fighting the Reaper Nemesis, as it’s the biggest thorn of any Chaos-related pet build. I like to make sure any of my pet builds can defeat the highest-resistant Nemesis before recommending it to anyone; I know how much of a slog things can get when you just can’t get enough damage to feel adequate with your build.

Speaking of which, I have video of the Lightning hybrid defeating Grava’Thul at SR65, so now I have 4 SR65-66 capable hybrid pet builds that I’ll post once I get the proper screenshots and everything.

14

That’s a strange build… why so many points into the Blight Fiend who does Acid/Poison damage mostly? I mostly found that it’s only worth summoning pets whose damage you can increase/convert with most of my builds. I had a Lost Souls Cabalist and I eventually removed all points from the Blight Fiend as it was just not powerful enough compared to the Hellhound and Skeletons.
Regarding the Chaos conversion, why do you need to convert elemental? The physical/vitality damage counts the most and you can convert all of that with the Solael’s Witchfire transmuter and the Covenant set itself. The set also gives Fire damage bonuses for the Hellhound. I think I wouldn’t use the Familiar with the set, rather I’d focus on the Skeletons whose Physical and Vitality Damage you can convert with these and the Voidwhisper Band to Chaos.

I think every pet build needs to side with Barrowholm, they have too many good pet-boosting augments to miss out on. :slight_smile:

15

The group I play with has been spit balling a long shot (real long shot) in terms of a hybrid that might be able to push to the 75 barrier. Of course completely theoretical. The devotion path is really up for debate but I started testing from the ground up last night. I didn’t the intent to test but since I lost a fresh level 100 HC last night, I decided to start.

Unrelated to this thread, make sure you have a good deal of reduced reflect damage and phys res before physical doom bolting something with reflect when you hit stuff for over 600k. I nearly fell out of my chair when I went from 16668 hp (And 34% phys res) to dead in one bolt. Found it comical for about a minute until the loss of 17 hrs sunk in :expressionless:

Don’t usually play phys builds a lot and totally built with that huge oversight.