In patch 1.1.9.8 there is still an issue with vitality focused skeleton builds that don’t use shaman as support class. Let me give an example of a death knight build I’m trying to make:
Skeleton warriors have 50% innate vitality resist and +53% by softcapping will of the crypt. Master of death exclusive skill gives +25% more at softcap.
Now I need to sort this out by taking other resists from devotions, of course I need wolverine, which gives me another +15% vitality resist and staff of rattosh for the precious aether resist which also gives me another +20% vitality resist.
If I want to fulffill the requirement for rattosh the veilwarden with crane, I get another 20% vitality resist and for picking up the thematically matching revenant devotion I get another 15%. I definitely need to avoid bysmiels bonds to prevent another +20% vitality resist.
I also need gear to max out my skellies at 26/26, which can be provided by wendigo conjurer bands, which gives 2x 20% vitality resist, I can also farm for marrow bands and I get 2x 25% more vitality resist. maybe I better skip rings and get +raise skeletons elsewhere.
Bysmiel’s medal gives +2 raise skellies but also +30% vitality resist. Maybe I can try to land a caged souls suffix on my wendigo gaze medal to get +2 to raise skeletons and for precious bleed resist… oh wait caged souls doesn’t give bleeding on jewelry.
Bysmiel sells a usefull helmet and shoulderguards with poison and pierce resist but they don’t buff skellies, coven mantle does buff skellies but it gives no damage resistance at all. Solaels vile cuirass is nice, but still only 20% chaos.
So I end up with 238% vitality resistance with skeleton themed jewelry and little room left to deal with the other resistances.
so you cherrypick the one medal with vit res? (which is not even that great for pet build?)
*not saying there isn’t a “problem” with skeleton builds easily getting too much vit res
but part of your inclusions here is… well, stuff you picked,
you can make a solid skeleton build and end up with less vit res
what you also can do, is make a non skeleton build/“no will of the crypt pet specific factor”, a non master of death build, and end up with much less vit res, and suddenly you’re not so unhappy about the various items/devos having vit res
^not even capped
while skeletons are still overcapped in the last two, the other pets are just in regular cap+overcap range, ie 80+24-40
no i didn’t cherry pick i was talking about jewelry that is skeleton, any jewelry that gives +2 to raise skeletons gives vitality resistance. This is not about things being impossible, i can probably make a build with only a crab spirit that makes it through Sr 60 if i really really want to, but this is a structural issue that greatly reduces flexibility and efficiency of unique skeleton builds. And I specifically mentioned non-shaman. This issue doesn’t occur with other pets or any shaman and occultist combo and its pretty obvious why: Occultists and shamans have the ability to provide useful resistances to their pets, while necro doesn’t, and necro is destined to want to pick devotions and budget-gear for many different builds that only make it worse.
the medal also gives bonuses to briar
so yes, with that in mind, it’s not out of line to say it’s cherrypicked
when considering it’s then a suboptimal skeleton medal, it’s not out of line
likewise with other items: they are not only boosting skeletons so you need to keep the other pets in mind, because not every pet has native high vit res, gets will of teh crypt, nor master of death
so yes, the issue is not the skeleton themed itemization, the issue is your chosen items and devos; because with other pets those (can) just manage to squeeze the desired amount of vit res
^and you can always make cherrypicked pet combos item/devo wise that get XY resist high (well, maybe except for chaos and pierce? )
the “issue” is skeletons high native vit res, then automatically paired with will of the crypt, that for some reason somehow boosting it further?? - which just gets even weirder considering Master of Death as a potential native pairing bonus
the items and devos is not the big deal there, skeletons are - that’s my point
Personally, I don’t see the issue. Raven for example has 500% Lightning Resistance natively and is going to end up with even more on a finished build. Briarthorn has 500% Acid resistance while BoD alone will fix Pet Acid Resistance issues, etc…
For Skeletons, it seems to be Vitality. But, other than Will of the Crypt, the rest of the stuff benefits all pets and can be used in non-skeleton builds as well. So…
I totally agree the items and devotions themselves don’t need to change, it is the skeletons that IMO need 50% bleed innate or 50% bleed from will of the crypt instead of vitality.
Th issue is not that i chose wrong devotions, yes if i go for Ishtkak it is easier to solve the problem, but not all pet builds want to go for Ishtak, for offensive vitality builds rattosh the veilwarden is much more appropriate and the road the rattosh is litttered with additional vitality resistance on the devotions that are otherwise best for vitality dmg pet builds.
which just covers the necessary vit res for the other pets as i showed in 2 examples above
so it’s not the devos or the “vitality dmg path theme”, it’s purely skeletons native+will of the crypt, and maybe master of death
briar, primal spirit, doggo, birb, eldritch talon, "etc etc etc"other pets with 0 vit base res, fully benefit from these, so there the vit path devos are not bad
unsure about swarmlings and such (immune?) or other proc pets, but majority of our pet lineup can end up with just barely covered vit res on teh same rattosh approach, because they don’t have 100-150 built in res like Necro does
TLDR, point is, the issue is purely on skeleton line/(maybe master of death too?) /necro side of things, all the other stuff is fine
and as Maya mentioned, absurd mono res is (sadly?) not uncommon, briar has 500 pierce? res or something too, doggo has 500 fire res, Yeti has 500 cold res, harbinger has 500 chaos res
when you say ‘other pets’ you assume there are other pets,
without shaman or occultist there are only necro pets with innate vitality resistance.
this is why i say it is a problem with flexibility and build variety, it negatively affects all non-pet class + necro combinations.
(Also absurd thematic mono-res is a different thing, this doesn’t involve any skillpoint or devotion point investment and is not provided by gear items that are otherwise great but prevent a slot from giving a usefull resistance.
what… you literally can’t just frickin take things in a vacuum like that?!? @_@
“oh sht, these items give vit res, lets totally ignore the 90% of other pets in existence, and only focus on 1 of them, in case i wanna make a skeleton build using none of those classes/pets” if you strip/lower or alter teh vit res it will affect those pets so yes you need to consider it/keep it in mind, it does not make it a bad example to remember/get told that as a build example
meanwhile it’s not a big deal for Skeletons (well it is imo), because high mono res is “normal” sometimes
^(i personally don’t think that’s a good excuse dev/balance side of things)
meanwhile it does not negatively affect all non-pet class+non necro hybrid combos “because they just mange to cover their base res as is”
what part of that don’t you see? you can’t base the itemsization and devo lineup on purely 1 pet, because other pet exists no matter how you flip it, and the others’ need it, because not having high native/base res - so yes you literally need to keep that in mind
it is only a problem if we consider high mono resist a problem
that’s however not what you proposed in your OP, but framing it as if it’s (in part) an item or devo issue, which sorta gets repeated later
only once in a comment do you suggest to flip it/skeleton innate res to bleed
and my point isn’t about that, because from the beginning i addressed the OP, and continue(d) to address any further points that lean towards it being the fault of the items or devos
i’m literally also highlighting myself that the “issue” is skeleton path, but not the vitality dmg theme path, and then you toss in another item/devo mention, as if that is part of the problem
I didn’t make a concrete proposal for a change, since I just wanted to lay out the problem first by showing all factors involved. The discussion triggered me to propose a possible solution and rectify the confusion that made it look as if I was having the opinion the devotions themselves needed changes. I don’t see any inconsistency.
yes that is indeed exactly what is going to happen, since because of this another resistance can’t be developed enough and my build will be killed in SR when it meets the nemesis that inflicts that type of damage.
A while ago I was playing around with ideas for a skeleton build: aether skeletons
And pet resistances ended up being 64% vitality (due to devotion selections and gear)…and I was happy that skellys had some extra vitality resistance here! Many of the other resistances are higher.
So some of it is your itemization and I suggest you are complaining about the more extreme cases.
But to be fair, years ago it was as bad as you say for too much vitality resists for pets. However, in the last many patches over the years this has changed. Note that this wasn’t only pet equipment though…as much equipment had “theme” resists on it originally.
your skellies have 143% vitality resist, much more than the others and you avoided buffing it further by going in the blue direction of the devotion system
vitality dmg is the default dmg type for skeletons and vitality support is more in the green/red direction where you will pickup more overcap, so in my opinion it is not an extreme case.
nonetheless the issue is not the devotions, it is necro being mathematically disadvantaged compared to shaman and occultist when matching with a non-pet class because they can’t get any other resistances with skill point investment making gearing harder and more restricted.
True. But other pets such as the devotion hound do not, though. The only pet that is mostly immortal is Reap Spirits. And one could complain that RS has too much resists so why don’t all items have % speed instead of resists.
Skeletons resistances and WotCrypt are “theme” pet-related so I doubt that will change at all. If you have specific item suggestions - that’s something constructive you can suggest to a thread. Although WotCrypt could have % physical resist instead of Vitality and maintain its theme.
Edit: I could see 1/2 the original skeleton vitality moved to bleed resist. So 25% bleed 25% vitality and still maintain the pet theme.
(some ideas for you. I’m not bothered enough by resists to personally suggest it on a thread, though)
because, as i poked at earlier, it might very well be a more so “i chose this very specific itemization/devo” than it is an actual issue, in terms of covering other res
dont get me wrong, some pet res is a right PITA to cover, specially piece, more so without ex Shaman buff,
but i’m legit beginning to think it might be a more selfimposed issue here, that even if we ignore skeleton native res wouldn’t really be the culprit or crux perhaps
)
