http://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2drP0ZJ
this is the build I finished elite with, and it has been pretty fun and simple with the limited gear I have been able to find.
mostly greens and middling blues and faction gear, nothing super good yet. will this build be able to take me through ultimate without wanting to punch a nun?
A) Why NOT punch a nun? They’re not really allowed to punch back, after all.
B) Your gear isn’t showing in that link, just your skills.
C)I’d drop the Briarthorn’s skills, they really aren’t worth it. The only pet skills that really are are the Hellhound’s Hellfire buff, that’s great, and now that it’s been changed, the Storm Spirit on Familiar. Also, dump the points in Familiar. Relying on that idiot bird for damage will get you killed as it tries to shoot through a wall or something equally stupid.
Those are just my thoughts of course, do as you please.
the familiar is actually doing work. when I got the 3rd orb for it, it actually started taking huge chunks of health from the enemy, at the end of elite at least. need to see how it holds up on ultimate.
when an enemy ignores the rest of the pets and decides to wade through all the slow I use to buffer, the familiar shotguns them in the face, probably my best protection playing through elite.
You’ll want Blood of Dreeg maxed not just for the heal, but also for the added OA for your pets and for the flat damage added to each pet attack (except familiar, it counts as a spellcaster, so no added flat damage).
Familiar has a bad rep and if you have stellar gear there are probably better choices for points. But, I’ve found points in Familiar to be a worthwhile addition to a less-than-“best-in-slot” geared pet build. Also, I recommend leaving the level 50 Shaman pet at 1 point and adding more points elsewhere. And, I agree with Nssheepster that points into the Briarthorn roar could be better spent elsewhere.
Consider adding to flat damage when you can because that will often add more to pet damage than boosting the % added damage will. That means, for example, that the Hellhound’s hellfire aura and the Familiar’s storm spirit aura will generally add more to a build than a marginal increase in the % of pet damage done.
DaShiv has a thorough and excellent discussion of pet damage in his “Dracarris” thread. It’s worth a look.
the emboldening roar adds much needed defense for both my pets and myself.
I noticed a marked improvement to their survival when I specced into it.
maybe when I get much better gear, I will swap those points over to the hellhound hellfire.
but why only 1 point in the conjure primal spirit, the difference between lvl 1 and 12 is like 4x the damage?
right now my summons are:
permanent:
familiar
hellhound
briarthorne
stormhound
temp:
primal spirit
salazar’s harbinger
have not found either of the black grimoirs of og’napesh.
I do not have access to primal instinct relic yet.
You get 4x the damage for one pet that is up about 50% of the time, versus flat damage added to multiple pets on a routine basis. The math is likely to be heavily in favor of adding an always-on flat damage aura (hellfire or storm spirit) over having a single part-time pet hit harder.
If you need emboldening roar for your summoner’s defenses, then there’s probably some gear changes that could help your conjurer become tougher. Also, maxing out blood of dreeg would do quite a bit to help your summons last longer (and kill quicker, which also improves pet durability). It offers “% of total life” healing, which for pets works beautifully because they have very large health pools.
You can upload a character save file to grimtools. If you do that, then your character’s gear should show up, making it a lot easier to make suggestions for fine tuning your build.
Generally pets are an offense heavy style. The faster they kill, the better they survive, and thus the better YOU survive. It seems counter intuitive in this game particularly, but that’s just how it goes. Also, you really shouldn’t BE getting attacked, if you’re managing the aggro right. Your pets should be taking the aggro right back from you, and the few times they don’t, you should be running away. If you’re getting yourself in a bad spot, you might need to just go a little slower so your pets don’t aggro that many monsters at the same time.
the upload feature on grim tools isnt reading my saves. let me recreate them as well as I can.
guess there was a misunderstanding. I myself dont die, but emboldening roar does let me tank a hit better, and my pets dont wipe so easily to massive groups. let me play around with blood of dreeg, see if it is more effective at this point, even though it a lot more skill points
http://www.grimtools.com/calc/xZy6jmNm
currently at 63 after rerolling a while ago, working through elite
the rings, ammy, and belt, are all yellow, with those prefix and suffix.
havent used components yet, was saving those for when I get actual good gear. the augments are the usual res on armor pieces, and I have pet augments on weapon and offhand.
alright, took the points out of emboldening roar and put them into blood of dreeg, going to see how much of a difference it is.
Consider also taking points out of primal spirit to max blood of dreeg. You lose virtually nothing to experiment a bit with that and you end up doing a much better test of BoD that way.
If you start to see more crits from pets with higher OA when BoD is maxed (or at least mobs start falling over faster overall), then you know your pet build is headed in a good direction.
http://www.grimtools.com/calc/xZy6DmNm
OK, this is my tweeked build, for now.
I took the advice and switched out emboldening roar for blood of dreeg.
took primal spirit to 1 and put those points in storm spirit.
took points from hellhound and briarthorn and put them into hellfire.
13 in familiar is a must for me, the 3rd orb familiar with elemental storm is doing serious work for me.
when I get better gear, I will work points away from familiar, hellhound and briarthorn and put them into finishing off hellfire and get some points into heart of the wild.
http://www.grimtools.com/calc/1NX4eLND with existing gear