I used to be until the nerf to Mythical Circlet of the Great Serpent made 4 Unstable Anomaly Blightfiends impossible 
It may just be Physical + Bleeding that gets a good rap, because I’ve tried incorporating Bleed into other pet builds and it just doesn’t feel impactful at all. I’ve tried out this build here:
I know that the World Gate doesn’t have Weapon Damage so it can’t apply Bleed, but having Bleed sources from Hellhound + Primal Spirit + Primal Instinct doesn’t seem to give the oomph needed to differentiate it from a standard Cold build, such as Cold Briarthorns with the Beastcaller’s Set. And I’ve tried other pet builds that incorporate large number of pets inflicting Bleed damage, but they don’t seem to be impactful as well (not to mention that gearing for many pets leads to a lack of pet resistances, so all those pets just end up dying without inflicting much in terms of Bleed)
I would personally up the Bleeds across the board, make it feel like an actual Bleed build with large Bleed ticks. Builds like this have the RR to make Bleeding impactful, why not provide the damage that comes with it? Especially when multiple pets like the Raven + World’s Gate can’t even provide Bleed damage in the first place, limiting the type of pets that can inflict Bleed enough to make it worth investing in.
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Perhaps try Heart of the Sand King amulet and Mark of the bloody ends Medal (if you haven’t already). Could even add in the Black Hand of Sanar’siin and try to take Nighttalon along with the flat bleed from Huntress.
Imo, the issue with going Bleed + other damage types is that you won’t be able to support both equally, just like say Chaos + Lightning Pets.
This is the build I use when I try out Heart of the Sand King / Mark of Bloody Ends.
Problem is that there’s no sustain in the build so I end up losing every Crucible attempt I’ve tried. I’ve since abandoned the build. I can try other pet builds but I’m of the opinion that only fully invested Briarthorns with the Beastcaller’s Set is going to make a suitable Bleeding pet build, leaving builds like the above Ritualist a bit dead in the water.
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Also, adding feedback from someone else -
I’m sure pet players are still not satisfied with this set and honestly, I’d argue it needs a niche or reason to be picked up to begin with. So I think adding 100% Elemental to Physical pet conversion to the full set would be an interesting move in making the set more considered/played and opening up pure Physical damage primarily for the:
- Familiar
- Hellhound
- Swarmlings
- Chillmane Yeti
And some meme options in Necromancer like Skeleton Mages or Reap Spirits. Though for Physical pets Necro to really become self-sufficient it also absolutely needs Vitality to Physical or Acid to Physical pet conversion somewhere but I’m uncertain where I’d place it.
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@AlkamosHater made this Chaos + Bleed build using Heart of the Sand King a while ago but it still shreds, if you want to test it out or use it as a jumping-off point. [1.1.9.0] Beastcaller Conjurers - Bleeding and Chaos/Bleeding hybrid-> Crucible 4:49-5:20/ SR 115/ Callagadra 2:53-3:27 + Ravager 1:23 + Crate ~30 seconds
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It is with Beastcaller set and double Briarbutts though. I believe @thepowerofmediocrity was trying to avoid using the set to see if bleed pets are still possible.
With the set, there are quite a few options for bleed + another damage type.
I will later try Bleed Reap Spirits 
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boo, they suck 
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I am actually afraid to pilot this - Ritualist, Level 100 (GD 1.1.9.8) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
meh, weaker than going pure Vitality Spirits. Takes longer to kill Cally and is much more riskier to pilot.
Kill time was around 4:30 minutes, while Beastcaller setups can do it faster and safer. But, still a decent meme I suppose.
Is it just me, or are Cold pets much weaker and harder to pilot than other types of pets? I thought it was just trying to combine Cold + Bleed which gave me an unnecessary handicap, but when I tried purely Cold pets, I still don’t feel much of a difference.
A 26/16 Brairthorn, a 26/16 Hellhound (with the sexy Cold Fx), and a 22/12 Primal Spirit should be enough to run through Crucible, especially with damaging devotions bound to all of them, but the build just seems very weak overall. I can get <6 minutes playing Fire pets and just around 6 minutes playing Lightning Pets (doesn’t matter if it’s Lightning Briar focused or Lightning Primal Spirit focused, both builds play very well), I can’t get below 9 minutes playing the Cold build.
I don’t know if it’s just a matter of it being too piano getting the RR devotions up, or the fact that there’s no chance of 1500% Lightning damage like there is with Voidmancer’s Cord, but something is up that’s making Cold pets a lot harder to pilot. I’ll try and get a Crucible video going to compare and contrast with my other Elemental pet builds, because this shouldn’t have a 50% difference in Crucible times between them.
It might be a case of trying to compare 1:1 type of building? Or perhaps full hellhounds conversion and skill investment is too expensive compared to an ammy slot pet.
This player did cold pets around 6 min CR with a 2x Winter King itemization.
Although it says hybrid, it is basically full pets with similar RR. Both your and this build don’t have birds, so the main difference is the hellhound skill investment and itemization - and a different method to proc extra pets - as well as fairly substantial Wendigo Totem investment. I’m not sure how much the acid pet damage contributes.
It is less piano by a couple of skills, I think.
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I just tried the above build and got just over 6 minutes in Crucible, so it’s probably a matter of Ghol’s being really good (the flat RR bound to Mogdrogen’s Pact alone is very good, much less the bonuses Briarthorn gets), the dual Cold/Acid damage pairing, and Hellhound being too expensive in getting its base stats high but no investment in its auxiliary skills Ember Claw and Infernal Breath.
Still, nice to know that Cold pets can perform very well and it’s a matter of Cold FX Hellhound maybe needing a boost to make it worth investing in compared to regular Hellhound / other Cold pet builds.
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The conduit prefix probably does atm need some more HH skill +.
Yet, iirc the devs consider conduits to be memish and accept that they might produce less desirable results. 
Hm… now I am kind of curious, has any set-less pet build performed better than something built around a set?
I would also like more options supporting the obscure pet damage options, though my opinion is certainly worth less than Maya’s. 
My personal preference is for more support for aether pets. For instance I’d like to build around Warden’s Judgment. It suggests that aether pets Spellbinder could be done - but I am quite skeptical this is going to work without more conversion and RR options.
Balancing is probably tricky. When pets work well they’re basically faceroll simple, and it’d be best to avoid buffing other good builds (e.g. aether -RR should probably not be too easy for non-pet builds; we’ll probably be stuck with Widow).
Could aether -RR could be added to some of the pet auras (storm spirit, hellfire, or emboldening presence)? Or, phys/vit to aether conversion could be added to pet-related abilities (primal bond, bonds of bysmiel, call of the grave?).
I don’t think my suggestions are very helpful but 
for more aether pets support especially.
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The one issue I have with Aether damage on Necro pets is that there is no Vitality to Aether conversion. I suppose, could go with dual damage type, but feels weird…
Aether Spellbinder is easy if you go Reap Spirits instead of Skeletons -
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4VxxW5MV (Bysmiel’s domination)
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/L2Jd060Z / https://www.grimtools.com/calc/aZqQRdAZ (Primal instinct)
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I’ve tried a Raven + permanent Primal Spirit set-less build for Lightning damage, and I’ve tried Guardian of Death’s Gates for Vitality Skeletons, but they ended up performing slightly worse than Bysmiel’s Set and Lost Souls set, respectively. The 4-pc set bonuses are just too good to give up, which is a shame since I love experimenting with custom pet build ideas.
Unfortunately, offensive auras cannot provide RR like you’re suggesting, and since Warden’s Judgment converts 100% Physical to Aether and Aethereach converts 100% Elemental to Aether, I doubt we’ll see more conversions to Aether (and sadly you can’t put an item modifier that converts to Aether for Reap Spirit since it would only apply to the player spell and not the Wraiths that spawn from it)
As much as I’d like to see Spellbinder Skeletons become successful, when I tried out the Elemental Skeletons, they’d die super early since there’s no source of healing for them, unless you want to branch out and take Tree of Life, and even then I’d doubt their survivability without any resistances (except for Aether resistance on IEE through Overload). It would take a lot of balancing to get the resistances right while providing some sort of offense to make going Spellbinder worth it (IEE only gives Elemental damage, so for starters you’d need a modifier that gives Aether damage on IEE, and considering how strong flat damage is for melee Spellbinders, I doubt we’d see that sort of buff).
TLDR: It’s hard to figure out what would buff Aether pets specifically without giving non-pet Aether builds an unintended big boost, but I welcome suggestions in the form of item modifiers that might push them towards the right direction.
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You could look at something like Aether Defiler Skeletons (+few extra summons)
Why Demo?
- aether RR
- heavy investment in FB for 33% miss for another layer to help skeletons survive (in addition to 26% Omen)
- FT/temper for more flat
Could use conduit for more RR to omen, but I’m curious if heal to DW pendant CotG also impacts pets…
Sorry, but @Boromonokli has given me lifelong PTSD on Skeleton Defilers.
So, someone else will have to test that one 
What can I say? I like the idea of not having to use bone harvest, I have a spare halfway-leveled defiler who could swap over to warden’s club, but I can’t figure out why you go Giant’s Blood instead of a more standard tree of life + ishtak setup?
also, @Maya Did I see it right? The aether spirits diviner works even with the “wasted” vitality half and the cold to vitality penalty?