Pets on Fire: A build diary for newer players aiming to make their first pet build

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
21

Valdaran fight

I’d never fought a nemesis boss before tonight. But, I knew that with Aetherials at Nemesis shortly after starting hardcore ultimate that Valdaran would probably show up at some point. I didn’t know much about him other than that he teleports (good thing I remembered that, it turns out) and that he uses a lot of lightning.

On the way to fight the Amalgamation in Act 3, after PoF had reached level 78, Valadaran did turn up. At first I didn’t notice him. But, then I noticed the screen flicker when PoF got teleported, I got confused, I wondered “Why is PoF in a different location all of a sudden?”, PoF lost quite a bit of life very quickly as I was wondering what happened, I had PoF quaff a potion, and then I thought “Valdaran!”

Then I very bravely ran PoF away at top speed in the other direction. Very bravely, mind you.

After pausing a bit to see if Valdaran and every other Aetherial would chase PoF and her menagerie, I noticed Valdaran slowly shambling into view, all alone. I tried to follow through on a usual attack and he annihilated PoF’s hellhound and revenant almost immediately, leaving just the Familiar alive. I then noticed that Valdaran had just a very tiny sliver of life missing after annihilating the two pets in little more than an eyeblink and I thought “This looks like a little bit of a tough fight coming up.”

The fight probably took 5-7 minutes because of repeated pet re-summonings and a fair amount of caution by me in waiting until cooldowns were in good shape (especially the Revenant), ahead of re-engaging with Valdaran. PoF was down to probably less than 20% of her health at one point (Viva la Turtle Shell and Blast Shield!) after getting stunned and hit multiple times in short succession with lightning damage. But, in the end she survived and Valdaran did not.

PoF only has 23% stun resist, so yeah, that proved interesting. PoF also only has 2100ish DA at the moment, which is fine for most mobs, but which probably isn’t quite as helpful for Valdaran.

At this point, I have two questions about Valdaran.

  1. About how much DA is enough to not get crit by Valdaran, in ultimate difficulty?
  2. Does he have a lightning resistance reduction attack?

I ask because his damage could be quite spiky, at times, and the simplest explanations I can think of to explain that is either a particularly high OA total or a resistance reduction attack that sometimes get used (or both). I suppose attacks or spells that have very low minimum damage and very high maximum damage is also a possibility.

22

2100-2200 usually is considered enough for vanilla campaign.
It’s recommended to have overcapped lightning resistance (130-150) when engaging Valdaran, he reduce it.
Also lightning damage has biggest spread in damage numbers in GD, like 1-350 so it’s highly RNGable.

p.s. enjoyable reading, thumbs up :slight_smile:

23

Thank you for your reply!

I’ve had a bit of time to think about the Valdaran encounter and I realize now that I was probably very lucky not to have PoF die in that battle. I only had +25 over-resist for lightning and I didn’t have PoF drink a potion that would have boosted PoF’s lightning resist. I specifically brought along that consumable because I knew Valdaran might show up, and yet I still forgot. :eek:

I also got confused a couple of times, with all the teleporting around, and essentially trapped PoF in small spaces that offered no way toward safety other than by running right by Valdaran. That was very dangerous, as I could have gotten PoF shotgunned. :rolleyes:

24

Refinements and Progression

Pets on Fire is now level 80 and and has freed up the Fort Ikon riftgate in hardcore ultimate. She’s been able to make several refinements in gearing and put more points into mastery skills have helped to make her stronger.

Her lowest resist is now 77 (bleeding). Her DA total is now just shy of 2200 and her life total is close to 9300. Her average armor total has climbed to just shy of 900. She has 92% over-resist for lightning now (So, 172% lightning resist in total, after -50% for being in ultimate difficulty). That will probably help the next time Valdaran stops by to have another cup of tea with PoF.

Her pet damage has also gone up, and will go up again. With improvements in her resists, she was able to retire her purified salt component from her off-hand and to raise her aether resist to 83 even after retiring the purified salt component. In place of purified salt, she now has a second enchanted flint component and a second burning weapons aura.

Unless I’m mistaken, normally the same aura doesn’t stack when you run it twice. But, when the second aura is on an off-hand, then running two damage auras will lead to the damage stacking. She also now has +3 to Temper on her gear, after finding the “Sash of the Immortal Sage” legendary belt. So, I’ll put a mastery point into Temper on her next level-up.

Troublesome Enemies: Flesh hulks and Chillmanes

Boosting damage is welcome because flesh hulks, chillmanes, and other high health mobs take noticeably more time to bring down, as PoF closes in on the Necropolis. Plus, some mobs seems to love targeting Pets of Fire, such as Flesh hulks and Chillmane mobs and their variants, and I’m happy to bring them down faster. :slight_smile:

Most fights have still been fairly quick, though, overall. Which is good.

25

Prepping for Ultimate Hardcore Log

I’ll try to get Pets on Fire up to level 85 first, and then take on Ultimate hardcore Log. I’ll probably try at least one rogue dungeon after Log, if PoF is still alive, just to better test the limits of the build.

To finish up getting to level 85 I’m having PoF run missions and cleansing shrines. Her currentGrimcalc (level 83) is as follows: (click here for grimcalc)

This grim calc has “+ skills” figured in, including +2 to hellhound, +2 to blast shield, +3 to temper, and +1 to ember claw. There are no other +skills.

Gearing refinements

A noteworthy gearing change just happened, as earlier this evening Empowered rifthound boots were found. Swapping out Empowered serpentime wraps for the Empowered rifthound boots (+ swapping one ring to balance resists) led to slightly higher resists overall and to

+2 hellhound
+1 ember claw
+8% total speed for pets

… and a bit more pet damage, at the expense of losing +1 bonds of bysmiel (on the rare ring no longer in use). Since the hellhound is the most important pet for doing damage and holding aggro, this was a helpful boost.

Now the lowest resist is vitality (78) and all other resists are over their maximum at least a little (83 for chaos, 80 for everything else). Defensive ability is now over 2200 and average armor is now 938 (729 is the lowest armor total for any body part).

26

I would recommend level in rogue dungeon, Steps of Torment or Bastion of Chaos. Though Shar’Zul have immense fire resistance he should be easier than Alkamos as he doesn’t blink around dealing tons of damage, just beware of his fire wind devils.

27

This would also be a reasonable alternative, and probably quicker. In the end, I went with vanilla missions, just to give some sense of how well this build can handle that content. And, the build performed just fine, as Pets on Fire is now level 85.

I’ll probably take a run at Log this evening, depending on how work goes today. In the interim, below are a few suggestions for newer and returning players about managing battles.

For Newer and Returning Players - Funnels, “Kill that Healer”, Enemy Ground Effects, Chokepoints, and “A Familiar Barrier”

To maximize clear speed, it helps to use terrain features to best advantage and to prioritize key targets, plus a couple of other tactical moves can make battles easier.

The core damaging celestial skills on which this build are based (flame torrent, eldritch fire, aetherfire) all have an AOE component. Curse of fragility and its fraternal twin vulnerability, as well as thermite mines, also have an AOE radius. Especially given how eldritch fire spreads to nearby mobs and how it reduces resistances, when mobs are tightly packed together they tend to go down quite a bit faster.

The one downside of confusion, which several skills have for this build (flashbang, aetherfire, and light of empyrion all have it) is that it makes mobs wander. This reduces incoming damage, which helps clear speed. But, mobs that are more spread out also take longer to kill off, which works against clear speed.

Thus, the ideal scenario is to have mobs wandering about in a tight space, spreading eldritch fire as they wander and unable to wander very far away because of space restrictions. Thus, you’ll notice that any time you can set up a funnel the hardest hitting mobs will often not be able to make contact with your summoner (or even your pets, sometimes) while overlapping resistance reduction and the AOE damage from your pets native skills and celestial skills kill off everything.

For prioritizing enemies, I’ll have pets get initial aggro, and then before mobs are too tightly packed I’ll send the pets after any healers in the enemy ranks (and skeletal warlocks). Once mobs have set their aggro, sending pets in against a particular enemy doesn’t lead to much (if any) loose aggro going after your summoner, so it’s generally OK to send them deep into enemy lines, if necessary, to kill a healer or a skeletal warlock.

Once those mobs are down, if they’re present, then I’ll generally have pets gang up on mobs most likely to chase my summoner (ie: Dranghoul, they can hit hard). After that, I’ll have them go after the biggest, toughest mob I can see (usually a purple mob or a mob with a star over its head), knowing that the AOE ground effects from celestial skills on pets and thermite mines will clear out all the trash quickly anyways.

If there are a lot of ranged mobs, then I’ll often have pets target them as a priority (after healer and warlocks), knowing that melee mobs will follow pets anyways and get softened up or killed by AOE effects, while the ranged mobs are being dispatched.

Enemy ground effects can often dispatch your pets in short order. Since they usually have a cooldown before being summoned again, I just move my pets to the other side of the enemy in question, out of the ground effects, and continue the battle. This really helps with Salazar, Kilrian, corrupted bosses, and a variety of other bosses. Aggro doesn’t change when you move pets out of enemy ground effects, so it’s a good thing to do.

Using chokepoints when your summoner is being chased can be quite helpful for clear speed.

You can “pet attack” a chokepoint ahead of where your summoner is running and have your pets all group up there, run your summoner through your pets, and trap all mob(s) on the other side of your pets, where they will be chewed to pieces. It takes a bit of practice to get the timing right, but once you do some fights will become noticeably quicker and easier (Bloodfeast, I’m looking at you!).

Finally, when mobs are ignoring your pets and chasing your summoner around in open spaces, you can use the Familiar as a kind of makeshift barrier, running around it to keep from getting hit by melee attacks. It will remain stationary and attack from range when you run around it, which makes it useful for that purpose.

28

Ultimate Hardcore Loghorrean

This evening I ran Pets of Fire through to the Loghorrean battle on hardcore ultimate difficulty. The fight with Thalonis was noticeably longer than usual, which I took as a sign that Log might be several steps beyond that. And it was.

With quite a bit of kiting and by keeping thermite mines under Log most of the time, progress was made. I got Loghorrean down to the point where the fire-throwing mobs appear. But, three things made me hesitate after reaching that point.

  1. There seemed to be quite a few stuns happening. This is still a key hole in PoF’s defenses and it mattered quite a bit, for this battle.
  2. I found that PoF’s menagerie were having difficulty keeping mob numbers down once the fire-throwing mobs appeared, even with -resist support. I suspect they have a fair amount of fire resistance.
  3. PoF’s constitution was about half used up, at that point.

I don’t believe that I played PoF to her potential in that fight, which was unfortunate. But, my best guess was that PoF had about a 75-80% chance of not making it through the battle, given how much of her constitution was left and given the increasing level of difficulty in clearing out mobs supporting Log. So, I reluctantly logged her off.

PoF took quite an extended mauling from Ultimate Log and his helpers and survived, so she’s clearly fairly tough, especially for a SSF summoner. And, my best guess is that a fairly modest amount of increased DPS would be enough to put her over the top, especially if she gets better stun resistance.

As another way forward, reallocating points from Light of Empyrion into other constellations (to increase armor / DA in Obelisk of Memnir, get 3 points to get Giant’s blood, to get sustain from twin fangs in the Bat constellation, …) could also make her more robust for that particular fight.

I only used the chaos resist and vitality resist consumables, plus 20 health per second regen. I forgot to take them more than once. Probably consumables could have been used better (PoF has plenty of them).

I’ll probably take a break from playing PoF for a few days and ponder how she could best be made stronger for a second attempt at hardcore ultimate Log. Suggestions for how it can be done would be helpful and appreciated, particularly suggestions that keep her true to remaining a no-trade, no-twink character along the way.

Here is her current Grimcalc: (click here for grimcalc)

29

Nice decision to logout. My Warder died cuz i didn’t want to and fought to death.
Ult Log can be PITA when he start to summon like mad. I never tried to beat him with a summoner so have no advice for you other than universal one I do with my chars - try to farm some items in dungeons then come back and kick his ass.

30

I’m trying this build right now, currently lvl 16 and haven’t encountered any problem. Thanks for the leveling tips!

31

Also testing this build, currently lv 82 right now and at the end of Act 3

Doing good so far and most of the things were pretty easy. Hardest part I think at the moment was Elite Log fight. Everything else is just melting.

I would like to see some kind of gear update you are using… this would be very interesting!

32

The past few days I’ve been casually playing a Witch Doctor summoner in Season 10 of D3, which I hadn’t even realized was already underway. Haedrig’s gift is a good summoner set this time around, so I’ve been enjoying watching the fetishes run amok.

I’m glad to hear there’s interest in this build and the associated tips for leveling, though, and I’ll be taking Pets on Fire for another attempt to take down Ultimate Log in hardcore in the fairly near future (or she’ll die trying, as that is certainly possible).

I played with Grimtools a bit and found a really nifty feature that I somehow didn’t notice earlier, which is an option to upload a character file. Below is the link to Pets on Fire’s current gearing at level 85, along with her full skill tree and devotions.

Grimtools for Pets on Fire

Hopefully it shows up clearly for those who click on the link. Incidentally, the weapon that PoF is holding by default on loading up Grimtools (a rifle) needs to be swapped out by clicking on the “weapon switch” icon so you can see what she’s really using (Elite Legion Voidcutter, Black Grimoire of Og’Napesh). I have the weapon swap hotkey disabled in Grim Dawn on my computer, so I didn’t even realize she was still carrying that rifle.

There’s been some evolution in her gear since I last posted about that, along with a few more mastery points invested. The pets do noticeably more damage now, mostly because of incremental improvements in resistance reduction. She’s also now tougher overall, with the caveat that aether resist is no longer 83+ anymore.

I’m considering switching out a silk swatch and replacing it with a scaled hide for another run at Ultimate Log, as I suspect that the drop in bleed and pierce resist will be more than offset by improved armor absorption.

33

Considering your amount of flat damage with all auras you can try Primal Instinct relic for the swarmlings. Though they are prone to heavy AOE attacks.
Also for Log fight you can try to put Flame Torrent on a Themite Mines (each has separate chance to proc).

34

ok i’m looking at some of these builds and i really dont understand where you’re getting all these pets from?! theres another similar build on the forums where a guy apparently has like 8 pets… but all i’m seeing is the hellhound and familiar

apparently you can get some from items… but the grimcalc you posted doesnt have any pet items

also as a new player where in the world would i even get these pet items from? some are probably RNG but if you managed to make a character like this a few days i’m assuming theres some sure fire ways of getting a few pets

also these pets dont deal AOE damage… how do you deal with waves and waves of mobs? doesnt it take forever to kill?

35

I added in “Qx” (where “x” = 1, 2, … 4) for each of your questions / wonderings, and I’ll write up a response to each.

A1 - The build that evolved here only has 3 pets: the Hellhound, a fire-based Revenant, and a Familiar (aka the Raven).

As a more general answer, Masteries such as Occultist, Shaman, … can provide access to pets, devotions can provide access to a pets through celestial skills, and items can provide access to pets.

As for the “other build”, you’re probably referring to DaShiv’s hybrid caster / summoner pyromancer. That and a lot of other builds you see on the forums assume access to top-end gear. If you’d like to answer the question “How fast can you make a pet hybrid build go?”, then DaShiv’s build is a pretty good answer to that question. In contrast, Pets of Fire provides an example of a build you could play from scratch, with no prior gear and no knowledge of the game, as a starter character – which is how I’ve played her.

A2 - The revenant can be summoned when a character wears the Black Grimoire of Og’Napesh (or the empowered version), which Pets of Fire has been wearing on her offhand for quite a while. PoF’s other two pets are provided by the Occultist Mastery. The other build relies heavily on Primal Instinct, a mythical relic that summons up to several pets at a time with a % chance to summon on each attack.

A3 - RNG is a big part of finding other pets. But, celestial skills provide easy-to-achieve possibilities, even if the pets themselves are so-so in their damage potential. Also, playing the game naturally tends to lead to having more and more options for extra pets, as there are several ways of getting them.

One potentially appealing choice that I didn’t make, given that I already had the Revenant, would be to craft the “Savage” relic, which provides access to another permanent pet. It’s possible that Pets on Fire would be better off with a fourth pet, given all her flat damage added to pet attacks. But, she has done fine with a different relic instead, so I’m fine with sticking with it.

A4 - Getting AOE on pets means attaching celestial skills to them that do AOE damage, which is true for all celestial skills attached to pets in this build.

Wave attacks from mobs are usually cut down through a combination of aggro management, tactical retreats when needed, and the use of chokepoints and funnels to protect Pets on Fire, when available.

In an earlier post (#27) I spend some time writing about battle management, so I’d like to refer to that post for further details.

36

A brief update …

I’ve been remiss in not posting for a while. I’ve been enjoying D3 season 10 and enjoying a few other GD builds as well.

I’ve also been experimenting with Pets on Fire, doing Elite Log runs and running Kymon’s Chosen bounties (to get Revered factions up to 6 and unlock that achievement. Mission accomplished).

Elite Log was surprisingly dangerous even at level 85. That made me re-consider devotions to see if I could make PoF tougher. So, I brought her devotions more in line with DaShiv’s “Dracarris Incarnate” build by taking the Bat constellation and putting the Twin Fangs celestial on Curse of Frailty, plus I put 3 points into Behemoth to get the Giant’s Blood celestial. I removed the Empyrion cluster to make that happen and allocated the devotion point that had been on Chaos Crossroads to the new devotion picks.

I also swapped out the Ancestor relic for the Savage relic, to get a fourth pet. Thus, the build shifted from featuring 3 pets and a heavy focus on celestial skills to get AOE to a 4-pet build that leaned more on speedy attacks, flat damage, and better sustain for Pets on Fire through Twin Fangs.

Single target damage has definitely picked up, even more so after swapping out the Fiend constellation and picking up Acid Spray (Manticore constellation). But, the flip side of this is that pets get re-positioned more because large crowds take more time to whittle down than they used to take.

As another experiment, I’ve swapped out Giant’s Blood in favor the 8% life node in Tree of Life and 2 points in Obelisk of Memnir (7% more armor, more DA, and +150 armor to all gear slots). I’m not certain how well this will play out yet, as I’ve just recently made this change.

I haven’t leveled up the new celestial skills enough to want to try out Ultimate Log on hardcore yet. But, I’ll keep plugging away until I feel like PoF is ready (or bad play / bad luck leads to PoF’s demise). I’ll almost certainly tweak resists before another Ultimate Log run, as well, to ensure that chaos and vitality resists are maxed.

Regarding gear changes, I have 2 scaled hides on PoF’s gear now, for better armor absorption. A few other gearing changes can be seen by looking over the current Grimtools for PoF:

(click on link for Grimtools)

Oddly, the resist totals and life total doesn’t quite match what I see in-game. Aether resist is 70 in-game, chaos resist is 75 in-game, and pierce resist is 71 in-game. All other resists are maxed, with plenty of over-resist in a few of them. Life is 9927 in-game, armor rating is 1302 in-game, and DA is 2187 in-game.

Buffs are on in-game and in Grimtools, so I’m a bit confused about why there are so many differences.

37

Wow, time flew.

After abandoning partway through the first fight with hardcore ultimate Log, I read up on the mechanics of the Log fight and practiced a fair amount, gaining some valuable experience fighting Log in both veteran normal and elite (I was pretty much a noob at the Log fight, up until that point).

Also, I eventually switched out the Bat constellation and went back to Fiend, giving up on Twin Fangs in favor of Flame Torrent. I missed the AOE from stacked flame torrents too much, in the end, and I didn’t feel that I had enough extra % vitality damage to make twin fangs worth taking. In addition, I found a few more minor improvements in gear and ended up with maxed resists almost across the board. Aether resist at 70 and Pierce resist at 71 were the only resists not sitting at 80%, for the fight with Log.

The first fight with hardcore ultimate Log didn’t go well, in the end, because PoF didn’t have enough DPS to keep Log’s summons count down. I needed to kite with PoF while pets distracted mobs and thermite mines slowly whittled Log down. It was a strategy that came fairly close to working. But, it was very slow and very dangerous, with Blast Shield probably saving PoF more than once and Turtle Shell triggering a couple of times. I think it would have fallen short in the end, if I hadn’t logged out during that first fight with Log.

After changes to the devotions and skills as indicated in recent posts, plus some minor gearing tweaks, I finally went back for a second round with hardcore ultimate Log earlier this evening.

In the second fight, the increased DPS from the extra pet (Savage relic) and from Acid Spray allowed for a different and ultimately more successful battle plan, which consisted of pulling adds away from log, taking them all down, and then charging in pets and unloading with everything on Log (Flashbang, CoF, and a double helping of Thermite mines). Then I’d retreat pets and finish off the new round of help Log summoned, and get ready for the next round. Blast shield did trigger a handful of times, I believe, but I don’t recall Turtle Shell triggering at all.

It wasn’t a fast fight, especially compared to pet builds with BiS gear. But, in the end PoF ultimately bested ultimate hardcore Log. :smiley:

I feel quite proud to have taken a character all the way through the main story arc while still fairly new at adventuring ultimate difficulty, in hardcore, while using only gear that character found, bought, and crafted along the way, with no game mods. :slight_smile:

I’m attaching the Grimtools snapshot of PoF’s build and gear for when she bested HC ultimate Log. Here it is:

Grimtools for Pets on Fire: (click here)

Now that HC ultimate Log has been bested, whenever the urge strikes over the next few weeks I’ll time PoF on a few HC ultimate Twin Falls runs, report the results, and then try out the BoC and SoT rogue dungeons to see how she’ll do.

PS: To give credit where credit is due, DaShiv’s Dracarris Incarnate build proved very helpful for figuring out what to tweak to make PoF’s build function better. In particular, switching out the Light of Empyrion constellation was a difficult choice. But, in the end I think the ability to take 2 defensive nodes from Obelisk of Memnir and 5 points in Manticore, to get Acid Spray, were the key changes that put PoF over the top in the fight with ultimate Log.

38

I finally(!) noticed that I didn’t reply earlier to this post. I should have, as the ideas here are definitely well thought through.

Putting flame torrent on Thermite mines would probably have taken Log down faster, in the end, and this would have been a solid choice. I think that keeping flame torrent on Hellhound was still OK, even if perhaps not optimal for the Log fight, because bonuses to attack speed were high enough to keep stacked flame torrents going on a regular basis. Stacked flame torrents and regular crits were key to melting HC ultimate Log’s summons quickly enough to keep their numbers down.

Primal instinct would be a stronger option than the Savage relic and this is another solid recommendation. But, because this was intended as a kind of resource / guide for newer players who might be looking to put together their first character and who may not all be keen on using GDStash, I stayed away from using gear that a new player seemed particularly likely to have difficulty finding or crafting. Thus, I had ruled out using mythical relics, the empowered Black Grimoire (which PoF actually found in HC ultimate), or any other potentially “best in slot” unique gear.

39

Thanks for the hat tip, and congrats on competing your run! Given the constraints of HC+SF, I think the trade-offs you’ve made to shore up defense are pretty sound. Pyromancers and pet builds both tilt heavily toward offense, so defensive adjustments are definitely required for HC+SF.

40

Thank you for the feedback!

It’s taken some time to find the balance that seems to work best, at least for 1.0.0.9.