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.
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?
Aha. Bit more detail on skeletons: I like how clean the aether pet devo route is compared to fire and that it uses fewer skills. The lack of vitality to aether conversion sucks though. There is vitality to elemental in very small amounts out there, and vitality to fire for skellies only on a conduit, but that’s it. Might have to wait until 1.2.0.0.
(I almost never commit to affixes…but this one had soo many greens for a fantasy fun time)