Hi, I just started playing yesterday and didn’t want to spend too much time reading up on everything beforehand so jumped in and fell in love with the occultist Especially Bloody pox, however when I hit lvl 17 or so I thought I should search for some viable builds since I was a bit overwhelmed with all the devotion choices etc and it seems that bloody pox is not the skill i was hoping for I wanted to be a AoE death and decay type character where Bloody pox would be my main dps skill, alas that dream seems shattered when reading up on Bloody pox (even though some changes were implemented in b31 it still seems a bit underwhelming?).
So since I wasn’t sure how to progress I started a shaman/occultist build and been cleaning house with my pets really. I even by mistake cleared east marsh and Crag’s Crags at level 20 (however I did die twice to that big friggin Ogre boss >.<) because I found dynamite in the beginning of Act 2 and just rushed back because I thought that area was Act 1. But the playstyle doesn’t suit me at all and I find myself still wanting to play a disease spreader type build…
So could you guys point me in the right direction for a new character if I want to do massive AoE dmg preferably something poison/disease type dmg. I don’t mint DoT/over time dmg at all, I can run for days haha, joking aside I just want to play that kind of character which poisons and uses spreading skills if possible to deal with mobs as well as bosses. I am not a fan of single target spells really. Please help!
/wannabe witchdoctor/occultist
Personally I don’t see why Bloody Pox can’t work. I havent done a build yet, but I just decided I would Try to build 1.
This is what I have decided I will try and use http://grimcalc.com/build/qis9H2 Tho as I level the build I have been known to tinker with what I first thought
Sorry, that I can’t provide a link to my current Conjurer build, which is still in progress. (Need to post 2 more times first ;))
My build is currently at level 65 and I am “swarming” through Elite difficulty with ease right at the moment (just arrived at Homestead).
I highly recommend (like most people here) to start with the turtle devotion.
But most importantly, it is “Devouring Swarm” from the Shaman in combination with “Curse of Frailty” from the Occultist what you are looking for.
Then you want to put 2 points into “Summon Briathorn” and also 2 points into its “Ground Slam” (Shaman), to keep mobs at bay early on till around level 40-50 when you should have appropriate gear and are no longer in need of any pet.
Pump up “Devouring Swarm” to 16 as fast as possible!
You don’t need to rush “Curse of Frailty”, but 5-6 points into its “Vulnerabilty” fastens killing mobs immensely.
Thanks a bunch for the pointers! Would you mind coming back and posting your build once you collected your posts? Do you use any totems for survivability?
The main selling points of a caster-based Conjurer is the fact that both Sigil of destruction and Wendigo totem do massive aoe vitality damage while keeping you alive at the same time, and they combine perfectly with vitality resistance reduction from Devouring swarm (which also has some vitality damage and lifesteal for good measure) and Vulnerability. I would suggest maxing these 3 skills asap and spamming the shit out of them.
This build works extremely well in the late game as well, because:
a) bonuses to Devouring swarm, Wending totem and Sigil often appear on the same items, making it easy to get +10 to all three of those skills (well worth it, Devouring swarm reduces resistance by -100% at the highest level, Sigil covers the whole screen and Wendigo makes you indestructible)
b) You only do one damage type, which makes gearing easy: just stack vitality damage. With any other char type, this would be a weakness as well because some mobs would have high resistance to one damage type, but not for the vitality conjurer because you can easily stack -150% resistance.
c) Defensive passives from Shaman complement perfectly the more offensively oriented Occultist class to make a well-rounded character that is both hard to kill and clears really fast. And since you don’t need to stack 200% casting speed, you can focus even more on health, resistances and offensive ability than most casters (for example, you can use the awesome gloves from the Homestead shop that give a shitload of offensive ability, but most classes can’t use them because they don’t give attack or cast speed).
The only sad thing is that, while the modified Storm totem looks great on paper (more vitality damage, yay!), bonuses to Storm totem only appear on lightning-based items. It’s still well-worth investing in.
The reason bloody pox isn’t used often is that the damage just isn’t there. At 12/12 in all 3 nodes you have a total of 136 flat damage/sec done across 3 different damage types - and they aren’t even types that frequently appear together on gear! Compare that to Rend which does 145/sec at rank 1! and 307/sec at rank 3 - and is all of a single damage type (which it reduces resistance to…)
Hell even at 22/12 in all 3 skills it is only 365/sec (okay, that combined with nice rend devotion might work…) but seriously how are you going to get 22/12 into all three skills? And you still have the split damage types problem.
Pure Vitality conjurers on the other hand rock. And don’t worry about having almost zero acess to + (corrupted) storm totem. Lightning gets skill boni for it, but vitality gets to drop enemies resistances by an insane amount!
With this post I am just 1 post away from being able to do so.
Of course! But in your first post you mentioned not even being level 17!
…and I didn’t want to throw tons of info at you right at the beginning.
I also didn’t mention that I went for the Bat devotion 2nd, which I linked to “Devouring Swarm”, and had a lot of fun watching mobs flying around like crazy in Veteran difficulty (in which I started my char).
That’s 100% correct, as far as I can tell from own experience.
So, pomperipossa. What GeneralCash is telling you is very valuable information, but I thought it to be too early to throw that much information at you.
That’s also the reason why I didn’t tell you about my char carrying the Rover “Harvester” Off-Hand since around level 40 and that I still haven’t found a replacement (enough good rare and epic drops I do have), because it is THAT good.
Oh, and another very valuable tip, I think: The shops “reroll” their offers every time you “rift” to another place far away. So, no need to quit your session to get a good roll for the level 35 Off-Hand later. That’s how I got mine with 91% Vitality damage and the rest also very good values.
But I think that’s enough for now. As already said, I don’t want to overwhelm you with tons of information right at the start. Just one more info for now: You WILL redo some of your devotions later on, because some of the better ones than “Bat” you can’t reach at the beginning and “saving” devotions points till you are able to pick them is total nonsense, In my opinion.
Ok. Go for Turtle, then Bat and then ask again OR I will try to remember the way I went with devotions in the meantime.
Firstly, thanks for keeping tabs on the thread and replying, really makes the whole experience as a new player way more fun and way less confusing. That goes for all the non lurkers Secondly, it’s frightening how addicting this game is. I am level 54 now >.< Going to ask some questions tomorrow, have to sleep. Played like 19h straight today.
Especially Bloody pox, however when I hit lvl 17 or so I thought I should search for some viable builds since I was a bit overwhelmed with all the devotion choices etc and it seems that bloody pox is not the skill i was hoping for 
I wanted to be a AoE death and decay type character where Bloody pox would be my main dps skill, alas that dream seems shattered when reading up on Bloody pox (even though some changes were implemented in b31 it still seems a bit underwhelming?).
Do you use any totems for survivability?