I wonder what other people think when it comes to summoner (pet-based) builds. I for one understood that there are two main directions to go:
full pet summoner, meaning that all your skills and gear should provide as many pet bonuses as possible.
full solo build, meaning that all your skills and gear should provide as many bonuses to your own skills as possible.
However, I’ve always been interested in a middle ground, to have half of each or maybe in some rare cases manage to have both at the same time. Would this approach generally make the whole more inefficient as any of the two previously mentioned cases (where you either choose one or the other and focus exclusively on it)?
I had a quick look at the first posts and they all discuss pet builds (which might come in handy, of course). My question was, however, whether it’s good to stick exclusively to pets or if it’s good to have a build that’s split between both (having personal attacks/spells and pets at the same time and scale both somehow). It was a question about whether it’s the right choice to position yourself at the middle or if you need to be at the extremes to gain the highest efficiency.
Always technically better to specialize in one thing. But hybrid builds are still perfectly viable, unless you’re minmaxing.The user gargabolo has a lot of hybrid builds you can check out.
Yeah, that’s what I imagined too. So, if you can’t find gear that provides bonuses to both pets and your own damage, you’re better off to choose one or the other, right? Is there a chance where if half of the skills/gear would be pet-oriented and the other half player-oriented, you’d get a whole just as good or maybe even better? Because if you think about it, pet themselves usually provide bonuses to yourself, like auras and enemy debuffs, so they strenghten you. Thus, what you lost to invest in pets would come back to you from their contribution. The answer is probably that I need to look for these cases. But the general conclusion is what you said, most likely. I asked this because I find pet builds very very boring. And I also find it difficult to shape their resistances as well as I do for the build, because for the build you have a lot of components and augments to juggle.
This avenue is completely not worth pursuing until you have a mastery of both regular builds and passive summoner builds. Most of the time, the gearing you’ll be needing to make such a hybrid work simply isn’t there.
Let’s have a more specific example. Would it be more worthwhile to invest 28 skill points in hellhound just for its aura, or is it better to invest in the Flame touched aura fewer points? If you don’t have any use for the extra skill points, the first case might be the obvious choice, unless the Hellhound dies too quickly. Right? Because you get the same buff and you might get even a bit of extra damage from the pet, even if it’s not scaled.
Ok, at least I know what to search for, to get some inspiration about what I could achieve. I’m studying your own build now.
I see that you achieved a decent amount of global bonus damage for both yourself and your pets. I also like that you chose Reap spirit as your attack, to have both direct damage and summoning pets at the same time. How would you say that this build “feels” in-game, when compared to an exclusive summoner or caster? Just as good or a little worse? Because that’s the conclusion that I’m after.
Also, do you think that it’s mandatory for a build that mostly (if not entirely) focuses on pets to also have a main spammable skill, no matter how little you managed to scale your personal global damage bonus? Or you’re better off just doing nothing and only provide buffs/debuffs, because your spammable skill would achieve nothing major and you’re better off just standing safely behind your pets? For example, there are some relics or components that give you a spammable skill like Fireball. Even if you deal a small amount of damage (although often), wouldn’t a little be better than no damage at all?
And yet another question. If you choose a hybrid build, would it be better to slightly tilt the scales towards player-based damage or towards pet-based damage? I for one think that the first case would have more impact if you own fewer pets, but more skills that run simultaneously (like Siphon souls, Ravenous earth and Blade arc). The latter one might be more worthwhile if you manage to gather a lot of pets.
(edit) I tried to make a hybrid that’s more oriented on the character, rather than on pets, and came up with this (it isn’t finished). It’s lousier than a full caster and the pets are few and pretty lousy. When I compare the pet bonuses with your build, you got triple pet damage and full resistances. I won’t even finish editing this build, I think I’ll turn it into a full caster with Dreeg’s eye. I guess that a hybrid just doesn’t assemble itself as well as I’d hoped for. Unless I can somehow make it a full caster and as a purely accidental side effect make it have one or two powerful pets, it’s just not worth the hassle. Or maybe if you have spare skill points, you could invest in a pet for its aura.
I don’t think you need a spammable skill. Usually whatever usable damage skill components or items give are (much) worse than skills you specialize in, and in case of a pet build it is not significant. You can use the time to move, I found that’s one of the big benefits of pet builds (dodge harmful stuff or simply move towards your destination). Also you can use skills to support your pets (like curse of frailty or thermite mine).
I’m not so sure about that. When I compare Voracious reach with Eye of Reckoning they look pretty similar. I know that you could upgrade the latter with skill modifiers, but otherwise they’re kind of the same. Which isn’t a bad thing because it can save you when you’re out of skill points and need a decent spammable skill. Or you could even be a gluttonous opportunist and start with a granted spammable skill every time and add anything else afterwards. Although that’s not really a good idea because you should do your best to upgrade your main skills with skill modifiers. In the case of hybrid pet builds this approach might be good because you spend a lot of your skill points and gear slots augmenting pets.
then you’re looking at something very different
*in the case of EoR/Yugol relic
other skills can be more similar, but there is a fundamental difference about these two atleast
(and you should not keep underestimating item skill mods ofc)
Please note the word “usually”. There are of course exceptions.
In your example,
Voracious reach has the opportunity cost of not using other relics, which is definitely not insignificant.
EoR can be scaled, converted with items and skill points, it it is supported by a lot of things available in the game. Voracious reach - not so much, I don’t think it even has a dedicated support. Sure, it requires zero skill points, but I’d take EoR any day otherwise.
Back to your original question, when I was playing a pet build (or a dot build), I have never missed having a spammable damage skill, I just spammed my supportive skill (some cc or rr skill mostly) if spamming something at all (to proc bound devo or item granted skills for example).
As for hybrid builds, I haven’t seen a convincing one that meets my performance and piloting preferences, so I haven’t played any (aside from leveling of course), I don’t want to play a hybrid build just for the sake of playing a hybrid build. It has to be better than or at least similar to other “normal” builds, but now my opinion is they are much harder to equip, optimize and play than even the average/worse endgame builds.
I am in no way an expert in the game (but not a noob either), and this is just my subjective opinion, take this into consideration… If you can make a good hybrid build that is on par with the normal, specialized builds, I might even steal and play it.
Except when you don’t have enough skill points and gear slots to make it better than Voracious reach (as I already said). And I for one would rather have Voracious reach or Greater fireblast than waste time doing nothing but run in circles.
I agree with you on this, so I’ll keep trying a couple of times to see whether I can give a pet summoner a bit of strength so he won’t be useless. This means focusing on pets mainly and sneaking in some impactful things for the caster too (if possible). Or maybe take pets only for their auras/debuffs and take pet bonuses only as side effects.
I for one am happy to “waste time” dodging harmful stuff, moving towards my goal (next monster pack, quest, whatever), using some support skill (applying RR or a buff). For me one of the main appeals of many builds (and particularly builds involving pets) are that I don’t have to spam skills or follow a strict rotation accurately. And I don’t think that me using voracious reach can match the damage of just slotting in a pet buffing relic’s extra damage.
If a build is so good that I can really afk against SR 31 and celestials (I have yet to see such a build) and is still reasonably fast, I can do something else on my other screen. Please show me one, I’d love to try it out, I am not aware of any such build.
When I had a bunch of spare points, I tried using briarthorn for emboldening presence (which is a very nice buff on paper), but I found that without investing heavily into it, it is just too fragile and dies quickly against anything that matters. Often it dies long before the cd to resummon it expires, but even if it survived long enough, I am not sure I would want to bother summoning it on cd…
I think you and most of the rest of this thread are kinda missing the point of hybrid pet builds,
if you play them do it for some of the following reasons (not efficiency):
You get bored by playing pure pet builds because the character isn’t seeing enough action,
but you still want to use pets as to not miss out on a lot of the game content.
Your build is a ranged caster or gunner and you want enemies to stay away from your character (tank pet will facetank most enemies for you)
Your build is melee and you want some laziness added to the build (auto-cleanup of weaker enemies) or want extra protection on hardcore from tank pets.
You want to add pets to your build for thematic or roleplaying reasons.
Yeah, but it also takes more time to move on to the next pack, if you don’t contribute to the overall damage with your character. In which case you’re better off using a pure summoner.
I tried one more time, this one on vitality and I have to say that it’s not as bad as I expected it to be. It converts every last pet damage type to vitality (so their damage can benefit from RR debuffs), the pets are buffed enough, the character is buffed enough. The character uses Acid purge fully converted to vitality. There are a lot of pets (20 total), especially buffed skeletons. The Wendigo totem supports everyone. The Blight fiend makes the enemies miss attacks. Etc etc. I think I might give this one a go in the game because I’m very curious how it would perform.
For gameplay I would prefer to use much less pet (buttons). Lots of pets is fine as long as they don’t use buttons because then the gameplay starts to involve a lot of ‘pet managing’ and plays less hybrid and more like a normal pet build. This is only about gameplay, not performance, performance might be fine with lots of pets. I would probably put much more points in mogdrogen pact and will of the crypt and use only one tank pet + skeletons (and all proc pets). Overall i think it will work fine
Do you have another hybrid pet build that you can recommend? One of those that miraculously assembled themselves together as good as possible, given the existing skills and gear (which don’t allow much flexibility for this, but rather just enough). Or maybe just the one that you found the most enjoyable and even efficient in actual gameplay. Thanks.
There are of course exceptions.