Get rid of Wind Devil. It is useless here since your pets are not doing any elemental damage anymore.
Also get rid of Blood Orb Off-hand since you are not going for Chaos pet build. Take the Briarthorn Off-hand instead (Bloodsworn Codex)
There is no need to have both Manticore and Bysmiel’s Bonds devotions.
If you are going for Vitality damage, switch one of the rings to Spiritbinder ring if you want full Elemental to Vitality conversion for pets (optional since you are focusing on Briarthorns).
Get rid of points from Hellfire. No need to invest more than 1 point there.
You want to 12/12 Aspect of the guardian and 10/10 Oak Skin for the Resistances they give both to you and your pets.
Since you are converting both Physical and Elemental to Vitality (gloves and belt), take Rattosh devotion.
You can remove Huntress devotion if you wish, since build is no longer bleed focused.
2 points to the winds purely for the more frequent proc of the constellation (which I put on them).
For the same reason, manticore + Bysmiel. Yes, these resistor cutters do not add up, but it’s better to have them all the time than half the time.
The acid damage in this build is greater than the elemental damage (hound of bonds + blood of Dreeg). The blood sphere comes in very handy. Acid turns into health. The Codex (including the hound’s archive for the cabalist) and Zaria’s necklace are trash (I apologize if it’s rude, but I judge by the speed of killing celestials - if you need to pay attention to some other aspects, then tell me which ones). Spirit Captor (ring) is also worse than current rings.
When the hound’s aura is removed, the group’s DPS drops by 15% (instead of 1kk+, 800-850k remains - I see the numbers through DPYes). Of the skills, I would only max out the Mogdrogen Rite, but I don’t know where to snatch the points from.
I don’t need more resistance, all resistance (both mine and my pets) except physical is to the maximum. I feel sorry for spending a skill point for +1 to physical resistance.
I have just enough constellation points to take Wolf Mogdrogen. To take Rattosh and keep the Wolf, I would have to give up a lot of pet bonuses. It’s a pity.
I do not dispute your experience as a pet breeder, so I will be happy to test your suggestions, but you should not only tell me what to change, but also what to change for what (of course, if I have not already carried out these tests earlier), because in my opinion I Now doubt it because of the amulet only.
Like I sad, you don’t need manticore (same type of RR as Bysmiel Bonds, so they don’t stack), so you are wasting skill and devotion points.
I disagree and Briarthorn Codex, not Hellhound one. I did not say anything about necklace.
Hellfire is irrelevant here.
Yes you do since your pet acid res (and a few others as well) is not overcapped either and enemies have RR.
You can easily take both.
The problem with your tests is the base build, which is not built to benefit from Bleed necklace. I have already mentioned what to change and what to take. The decision ofcourse is yours.
Suppose I spec into Blight fiend, and take unstable anomaly (Which reduces cooldown by 13 seconds). I’m also wearing Rotdrinker crest and circlet of the great serpent, which reduced cooldown by 4 seconds.
I’d be able to summon 1 blight fiend every second, and maintain 3 at all time.
Given how DOTs stack if they are form different sources, Meaning every blight fiend, and each of their 2 attacks, plus their on-death attack each counts as a different source (Plus rotting fumes aura)
And given that devotion procs DoT also stack if they are from different sources…
If I was to summon a new blight fiend every second, giving each about 3 seconds to perform each of their 2 attacks at least once, and hoping that they die within that time to trigger their on-death attack, all the while proccing Scorpion sting every 1.5 second, each time from a different source…
…I would have at least 12 concurent poison attacks ticking simultaneously, right ?
I could also completely ignore pet defense, resistance and health, since it’s actually beneficial for them to die very quickly… and just concentrate on damage.
Wonderful, was hoping it would work like that (Unlike certain runes I could mention)
Connex question: do devotions damage scale with pet damage if they are bound to a pet ? (Otherwise, trying to leverage Scorpion sting is not gonna work very well)
Granted, I have VERY little experience building pet builds (And piloting them), so this may be all sorts of wrong… but this things just melts anything in its path. Yes, there are skill points not assigned, and yes the devotions are probably very bad, but the fact that it absolutely shreds right now and has room for improvements (For starters, my devotions were level 1 when I started, so just that will improve) makes this very promising Thanks a lot Maya !
I went without Reap spirit because I was already busy enough and didn’t want an extra active skill… Not sure what I’ll do with these points…
Regarding the devotions, you can also test with Moggy or Ishtak since they are close by in terms of points required. Definitely get Giants Blood regardless since you do have 4 leftover devo points and it can provide additional tankiness to the build.
Regarding leftover skill points, you could do something like 1 point Raven and keep it on defensive for Mend Flesh or Storm Spirit aura (since amulet converts all elemental damage into acid). Even if it dies in harder encounters, having say for example, some extra damage to your blightfiends, will make clearing areas even faster.
Latest iteration, a little more refined than before, and a bit more effective.
I think with a bit more work, it will deserve its own thread. Thanks again for the very valuable advice and feedback
Devotions are probably still a mess (That comes with having no experience playing pet builds, and wanting to rely on health regen for sustain a bit too much) I still have 5 points… debating on where to put them. Ulo, Crab, and Sailor’s guide all seem like good picks…
Got rid of Morgoneth (My usual benchmark for basic build viability) in about 12 seconds, so that’s a good sign by my standards.
I’d love to see you try it @Maya
Would be cool to have an experienced pet pilot tell me how good/bad it objectively is compared to the kind of tight stuff you usually churn out.
Hi Maya, which one of your lazy non-pet builds are the easier and tankiest to play? I’m gonna assume the traumatised warlord? I just want to play something with like 2 buttons that can faceroll most content while watching tv haha. Cheers for the builds
While the warlord is certainly the least button heavy, it is not as tanky these days due to all the phys res changes and whatnot. So it requires a bit of careful piloting.
Sorry for the late reply, but first things first, welcome to the game and the forums
To answer your question, Conjurer should be the easiest to start with due to having ton of defensive options and pet support between Occultist and Shaman while the pets themselves are pretty strong and offer a tanky, laid back playstyle.
@Maya I see you left the GD discord anyway, was wondering if a variant of the familiar shotgun build is viable. I remember one of your first Callag builds was the shotgun build and I also remember Zantai throwing down the nerfhammer on it.
In 1.2.1, Bargoll’s Core projectile count for familiar went up to +2. Would this elevate it a lot in terms of viability, perhaps even dual wielding it and perhaps in combination with Will of Bysmiel for a whopping +6 projectile count that now scale with 6% of weapon damage bonus? I would assume that combining all that would come at too high of an opportunity cost to make it viable, but it’s fun to brainstorm and franky, it’s all GD is about
I never used that weapon to my knowledge. Mostly because you kind of had to use Mindweaver until recently to get the full physical > elementary conversion for pets. With Trinkets Set recently getting buffed it is no longer necessary, but I still like to minimize use of greens in my builds if I can, so kept the Mindweaver.
Bargoll’s is still a pretty good option, but something to keep in mind is that with the familiar AI, you are going to have some difficulty keeping it near enough to bosses to actually shotgun, since the birds like to keep moving around. Also, getting a pet based double rare can be somewhat difficult.
I don’t know if dualweilding it is a good idea since you are not just losing the off-hand slot, but also another one just to be able to wield two weapons. Your options are pretty much limited to belt slot here unless you want to give up the Relic, which would be even costlier.
Hi Maya, I’m going to do a skeletons and hellhound build using the lost souls set! Any tips for devotions, other gear pieces, etc… Would love to hear some tips from a top pet player! Thanks
(Do note that this is not something that I have currently tested and is based on one of my older setups. I don’t really like Lost Souls in the latest patch since it is hard to keep skeletons alive vs superbosses)
…
Thanks a lot Maya !
anyway, was wondering if a variant of the familiar shotgun build is viable. I remember one of your first Callag builds was the shotgun build and I also remember Zantai throwing down the nerfhammer on it.
