PB (I plan to use its mod to make it spammable and deal Vitality damage) seems to be a spell that has a weapon damage component (20% at 16/16), making it somewhat unusual and not something I am used to, so I have questions…
Does flat Vitality damage increase PB damage? Including flat damage from a Devotion or non-weapon equipment slot?
Does % attack damage converted to Health work with PB? (Obviously its modifier ‘Heart Seeker’ works, I am talking about general ADCTH, such as from Toad devotion)
Assuming general ADCTH does work with PB, does it use 100% of the damage PB deals or only the weapon damage component of it?
Yes. At 12/12, each projectile carries 20% of your total weapon damage. Each instance of flat damage contributes to your total weapon damage. Btw, don’t stop at 12/12, max the skill.
2 and 3. Yes but only 20% of global adcth is used at 12/12.
There’s also a beginner guide for this [1.1.9.1] Beginner's Vitality Reaper Energy management is discussed there very thoroughly (in multiple sections of Leveling)
OK sure that would be amazing. Please note, I am only level 52 so my gear is crappy so be gentle. Also, I Shrine-hopped my way to Ultimate so I have no rep and few augments. Also, current build does not have a Prism in it because I was experimenting and found that I do not have any Cthonic Seals to make another Spark. And as part of that experiment PB is currently 20/16 in this link…which is unsustainable. Build kicks ass (on Ultimate at level 45 and I murder everything), but is out of Energy after almost every fight.
Also I have already tried removing the Eye of Korvaak devotion and replacing it with first 4 nodes in Revenant but that did not help.
Current build and gear:
Proposed final build (has no gear, just theory craft):
The gear looks ok for that level, but Heart Seeker and Spectral Wraith absolutely must be maxed out BEFORE the main skill. Also, just because you CAN put more skill points into the main skill doesn’t mean you NEED to. That’s one of the very few skills where it totally makes sense to keep the skill at lower investment to control the mana costs. The Will of Rattosh also absolutely MUST be bound to PB. Blade Spirits and anything else possible won’t be nearly as efficient at applying it as PB.
Also not using Ectoplasm in rings when you have energy issues during levelling is literally wtf.
I told you I was mid-experiment when I uploaded the build. That included no Ecoplasms etc.
I did have WoR on PB originally but putting EoK onto pets massively nerfs it - it hardly ever procs compared to if I have it on PB when it goes off constantly (always have 2 swirls on the screen at all times) and I feel it is the MVP of the build. The difference between how the build feels with EoK on PB and EoK on Blades was transformational, my melting of things got far stronger once EoK was on PB.
That aside, my thinking for the swap being decent was this…
Against trash I do not need RR anyways, since everything melts. Meanwhile, against bosses or tough single targets, it’ll proc fine from Blade Spirits because it lasts 8 seconds when it does and I use Pet Attack to keep them on the boss, so it is easy to keep the RR up when it actually matters.
If EoK is the star of your build then either I’m out of touch or something is horribly wrong. I played my PB reaper with Scales of Ulcama instead.
The resistances vary from enemy to enemy and vitality is one of the most resisted damage types in the game on average. A lot of Chthonians have high vitality resistance, so you’re killing them slower than you should → spending more energy.
Also Will of Rattosh isn’t just RR, it’s some additional passive damage. You only really melt things in melee range, so Will of Rattosh helps clear far away enemies more efficiently.
Heart Seeker is an absolutely mandatory node for PB. Not only it’s more flat damage per energy cost than the main skill node, but it also has life steal and (!!) piercethrough. Better piercethrough means more effective crowd killing means spending less energy.
I confess I am going though a bit of an EoK phase at the moment. It is my first thought for any build that has a “cone shape” main spam, as it prevents sudden surrounding.
Anyways, deep breath, if I give up EoK (ugh) how does the following Devotion setup look? Took Lotus as well for the Energy, but lost Gallows in the process.
I note that if I go with this, I no longer need Blade Spirits so that’s 19 points I can place elsewhere
Rat is just a cheap way to get 2 red 3 green. I was using the Bat before that, but as I didn’t had good binds for Twin Fang after I got Rattosh and binded it to PB I ditched Bat to have an extra devotion point to invest elsewhere.
I see. Thanks for the reply (and same to everyone else above). Cheers for taking the time, guys.
I have (kind of) fixed my Energy problem. I still chug Potions more regularly than I want to, but at least I am not out of Energy with Energy Potion on cooldown, as I was before. In very busy situations, such as Totems, it actually works out better than trash fights, Energy-wise.
Not a great build, I think. Not that fun to play (not much to do) and feels quite a bit weaker to how I usually feel when hitting Ultimate at level 45~50, although it can face-tank everything I’ve met so far with only 9k health. But I’ll try taking it to 100 anyways and see how it feels after that. I have a bunch of Vitality gear waiting for higher level, including a Spectral Arbalest that is bursting with flat and % Vitality damage, so I want to use it all
Indeed. Too late now to claim that my build was entirely devised by me and not copied from that list. It was though. I am going through a phase of making new chars built round skills I’ve never used before, this was the first one of those and this is how it came out. Any similarity to the build on that list is a coincidence. [Aegis of Menhir is next on my list but that looks a lot tougher]
Don’t worry. Nobody here would “accuse you” of that. It’s all about the details and optimization when testing against the hardest content not a similar general idea one has while leveling.
It is my first thought for any build that has a “cone shape” main spam, as it prevents sudden surrounding.
