With the new recent awakened covenant set together with sovereign amulet, we can easily summon 5 skeleton in every 0.3 sec, which is… very good, you can totally play skeleton brainlessly with that set.
But here’s the thing. It is not the only variant of skeletons. We have many others:
Cryptstalker aether skeleton build
Spiritmonger Gravel aether skeleton build
Wight Frost Channeler cold skeleton build
Lost soul vitality skeleton build
Bysmiel lightning skeleton build
Korvaak burning blade fire skeleton build
Harbinger Blade chaos skeleton mage build
Custom vitality skeleton ritualist build
The last two has sufficient damage to make up their glass part, so you can all in dmg to make them kill enemies before they kill skeletons. However, the rest wont. They will never reach such damage potential to kill enemies before they kill them. You have to come up with gears to reduce their cdr since skeletons are glassy, meaning that you will sacrifice some gear that provide great dmg (like eye of mogdrogen’s chosen) and they will still not reach the good cd reduction like awakened covenant helm. If you dont you have to micromanage them, which makes skeleton has bad qol and also absurd when looking at conjurer pets since they are so tanky that no such thing is required.
As a result, how about increase the cdr in undead legion so that weaker skeleton builds can have their ground? In addition, since you increase the cdr in undead legion, it is ok to nerf the cdr granted by the awakened covenant set so the total bonus will be the same, for example, the total result is still 0.3 sec when you have 20 point of undead legion plus equipping the covenant set and the sovereign amulet.
Yo yo, uh, I know you pinged me to chime in with support, but here I don’t think I totally agree.
I like that the Awakened Covenant set’s identity is one as not having top DPS but having by far the best skeleton resummon rate. It’s easy to get lost in the mindset of making numbers feel even across builds, but I think what is even more important and fun for the game is making builds feel distinct from each other wherever possible. In short, it’s cool that the new set is the only one that can do that.
I don’t think undead legion needs more cdr at all. I think the other builds you listed should be examined on a case by case basis on whether they merit a damage buff, a skeleton tankiness buff, or maybe 1-3 seconds shaved off their skeleton resummon. I’m pretty okay with no other skelly build getting below ~5s resummon to help Awakened Covenant maintain its distinct identity.
So it’s really 3 vectors, how fast can the other builds resummon skellies, how much dps does the build have, how tanky are their skellies? I think it’d be neat if there was a build that reduced the max number of skellies but made them significantly tankier and gave them a bit more dps.
I don’t think this new awakened set should immediately eat an indirect nerf. I think the other elemental skelleton builds should get their own unique buffs or extra effects, and perhaps the aether skeleton knights should get some extra tankiness to them (they do look bulky after all).
Hmm, it is also a good idea. If I have to consider case by case, then I think
Wight frost channeler and Bysmiel: Increase their tankiness, especially archers. Archers don’t have very good dps while also squishy.
Aether skeletons: Same too. They are melee fighters
Korvaak burning blade: Maybe provide an item for pets that also provides rr, or maybe a set. There is an offhand that provides 20 fire rr but has no pet support.
Lost soul: I think we could increase their dmg by a bit since this set blocks the slots of so many valuable items. Also convert pet’s dmg to vitality could be nice.
I kind of want a set that will allow the player to be like Dravis (or whatever that guy’s name is) and just summon like 2 dirge pets (or even just one really big skeleton) instead of regular skeletons.
Actually I don’t necessary need support, but want to see how people thinks and perferably with people have good insights, since, well, most of forum I tried to create have low or zero replies.
It would help if you could make a thread for each of these builds showcasing their performance across the various content (SR, celestials, 5x juiced altar)
That is more likely to let Z make a confident judgment on tuning them if they need it at all.
-11 summon limit, +500% health, +25% physical resistance, +150% TDM, and some cool unique skills for the summon itself.
I haven’t seen the OP post anything regarding Grimtool links or video performance throughout the various pet threads. I’ll be more than happy to run a series of tests to get a good sense of what’s working and what’s not working.
While Berserker isn’t nearly as big of a pet supporting mastery as the others, I will give a +1 to Cold Frost Channeler Archers feeling weak. Having 22/12 Amatok’s Pact with mega flat Cold damage and 350 flat Armor should not feel so tame - especially since hardcapped Will of the Crypt doubles all that flat Armor. But the build simultaneously feels weak and squishy - fighting Moosi in even moderate SR feels rough.
Btw, since I don’t have time to test all the builds yet, but currently, regarding chaos skeleton pets, there are some videos about them already against bosses with altar (credit to Duskeep):
With comparison to fire beastcaller, covenant version is … worse in every contents so far [1.3.1.0] [HC] All-Rounder Beastcaller Fire Pet Conjurer（5 Ashes Cairn World、Dungeon、Celestials、Deep SR、Crucible） - #10 by Duskdeep86. For Chaos mage, not sure if there will be optimization later, but the current gear is similar to covenant set so far and their rav killing time is not much better than covenant (possibly due to using howl of mogdrogen instead of dying god). Also, compared to beastcaller, they require more micromanaging only to get a slower rav kill time (with similar devo).
@thepowerofmediocrity For cold archer, do you run lost soul or custom? Since, idk they are too fragile to not use lost soul.
When I have time, I will try to run vit and aether to see if things are different.
Hmm, defensive side or cdr is ok for me, since they are fragile currently, leading to slower content doing time compared to conjurer as the videos I listed above. Btw, iirc you have a vitality skeleton ritualist right? Is it still good? I wanted to test it using the tool that converts GD planner into save file now but according to you it does not work now.
Yes, too fragile skeletons are, in tests they could not stand long. The vitality skeleton ritualist do need some repairment, get more defensive attributes (try get more pet DA probaly). As for the tool, new version: Release GDBuildLoader v1.4 · NavingLord/GrimBuildLoader · GitHub
Okay, here’s what I’ve come across through testing various skeleton builds:
Ravager specifically is known for having the Dreadgaze debuff that provides -25% to all resistances. Now that pet resistances are removed from gearing and devotions, pets have no way to counter enemy RR abilities. The Bysmiel Archer build that @minh_pham tested had most of the skeletons die around the 25 second mark, which is precisely when Ravager uses the Dreadgaze attack (3 second initial time-out + 21 second cooldown).
Callagdra is most known for its tornado attacks, which also shred pets. This is because damage reduction has no effect on tornadoes, Bobr waves, or any other projectile attack. There’s no way for pet builds to obtain Damage absorption for pets, so these attacks are much more dangerous to them than they are for non-pet builds who have a constant source of damage absorption.
In short, Ravager is a lot more dangerous now because we have no way to counter Dreadgaze, and we have no way to mitigate dangerous ground effects. Having something like Fiendflesh which grants flat damage absorption to each pet would be very helpful without simply giving pets more damage.
Yes, ravager has rr, cally has tornado. These two are hard for skeletons. Sry I did not test SR as testing superbosses is easier and I don’t have time yet. But as you can see, compared to conjurer pets, the two video I posted above implies that skeletons will die a lot.
The vitality one, which was the strongest skeleton build, with insane regen devo and affixes still have them die like that against the weakest superboss: ravager (and resulting in its kill time not much better than beastcaller).
The bysmiel build is even worse. After killing ravager there are only 3 skeletons left.
This will obviously call for an improvement in skeleton’s defense. I would be appricated that people will make their skeleton test videos here and provide feedback about them.
As it stands now, Ravager’s Dreadgaze means that any pet affected by the debuff takes 2.5X more damage than without the debuff, assuming the standard 80% resistance as opposed to immunities covered by mastery buffs. There aren’t any defensive buffs in the world that can cover for that much of an increase in damage.
This is why the TDM potions make things so bad; who cares about a 12% increase in damage taken if you can kill Ravager before it uses Dreadgaze and effectively causes a 150% increase in damage taken?