Buffs will offset the nerfs 
That won’t show you a clear picture.
Try no buffs or SR. Take KaosCats actually, since it should have been hit harder than Trinkets based builds.
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@Maya: I don’t even like running high SR, but I would do plenty of testing for my favorite bird. I don’t any tears for a build that can “only” do SR 85 and not SR 90. SR 84 had two Fabiuses, Benn’Jahr, and Shattered Gargobol, so it’s not like I’m cherry-picking the shattered bosses to get an easier layout.
Skeletons only started to fall off against Fabius + Blade Spirits and Shattered Sentinel (who’s a jerk to all pet builds, period), and even then Blight Fiend was study enough to handle aggro until I could get the Skeletons back. Also, Skeleton mages got a big buff to their fire attacks - they’re more like Meteors now instead of the weak attacks they had before.
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Wait… what build is that? Skeleton making SR 84 is indeed great news 
It’s Witching Hour Skeletons - pardon the double rare MIs, but I wanted to maximize the flat damage by getting Soul Harvest to 22/12, and this was the only way I could manage it.
Blight Fiend being 26/16 is doing a lot of great work soaking up the hits, and the DPS is good enough that Shard Hero AoE’s don’t bother the Skeletons too much. It’s really only certain Nemeses and Shattered Bosses that lay down the hurt, but thanks to the new SR layout, it’s a lot easier to kill the easier Nemeses first then use the expanded rooms to dash around and kite the nastier bosses. That’s how I was able to handle stuff like Shattered Sentinel - blink when he’s about to cast the mind control spell so that only a few of the Skeletons get killed.
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Damn, I won’t be able to call Skeletons Weak anymore.
Boner gang meta coming back? 
Alright, now that GT is updated, I have had a chance to see the stats of my pet builds and get a better picture.
Time to announce the new strongest now that the bell has tolled and kings of old have abandoned their thrones.
The Mesopotamian/Sumerian Goddess takes the throne in 1.1.9.0: Ishtar - Pet Ritualist
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You can probably still call Lost Souls Skeletons weak. It feels so out of place compared to Witching Hour or Guardian of Death’s Gate Skeletons.
Speaking of which, I’ve always wanted to see what would happen if you dual-wielded Lost Souls weapon with Veilpiercer to get 2 Dogs with flat resist reduction. It would make for more interesting devotions since you don’t have to go for something like Manticore for the flat RR, but with 0 CDR by not taking an off-hand, I have no clue what would be a good devotion set-up.
I feel like Rattosh is still necessary due to the RR class nerfs, but outside of that, what would be most useful for Skeletons? I feel like Dying God’s the way to go since the 10% Speed boost + the 24% from the Lost Souls set gives you nearly Mogdrogen levels of speed. However, I hate having to deal with the Health Drain with no CDR for Giant’s Blood.
Here’s a template I’ve constructed so far
Getting a good devotion layout is the hardest thing for this sort of build.
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Hm… CDR is going to be a problem, yes.
I remember Sig saying that Dying God is better than Rattosh if you had to choose one or the other, for Vitality builds. Not sure if it still holds true though.
I mostly prefer DG over Rattosh because more devo options open up when you don’t need to fish for affinities to get to Rattosh.
I am curious on how it turns out though.
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I blame Dammitt for updating grimtools…
Briarbutts have decided to go green: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/mN4gpX0Z
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wonderful 
Is it a new build or updated of an old one of yours?
New. Only one updated was my bleed build.
Might give it a try actually, but with my own legit found items. I have this but sadly bad conversion 
I guess RNGesus loves to play jokes on us. But dagger actually got their affix bias updated this patch 
So, back to farming I guess!
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Hey Maya and rest of #petbuilders. What do you think is the optimal way to go for Skeletons build, Lost Souls Cabalist or something else?
Also my idea for devotion map for vitality Skeletons (or other pets too)
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How does this compare to fluffy before nerf?
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No one here is really a fan of the Lost Souls set - I’m going to try it with the Grimtools above since having 2 dogs provide good flat RR is really the only way to have the set stand out from other Skeleton builds.
The most optimal Skeleton build I’ve seen is Duskdeep’s Guardian of Death’s Gate Cabalist - he always finds a way to astound me with how much Health he can stack in a build.
Runner-up will likely be my Witching Hour Skeletons build - completing SR 85 easily is no easy task for Skeletons, and I fought Ravager completely blind (despite my longevity with the game, I never fought Celestials before) and won without anything other than healing potions. It’s a very good build with lots of staying power.
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Tbh, I don’t really know how to build Skeletons anymore. Especially with the recent patch.
Lost souls is… it feels kind of weird to build with for some reason. I am not sure where the problem is or how to fix it. But it just feels lacking even when theorycrafting.
Devotion wise, Dying God + Ishtak or Tree would be my choice, yes.
I prefer to take the way of stacking as much dmg as possible rather than worry about RR, kind of like with Chaos Pet builds though.
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It does not compare with Fluffy at all
Is a new build and not an update.
Yeah how does it perform compared to how fluffy performed?
I did the build and was really lacking defensively. 
I definitely can’t play it. Conjurer feels so much safe to play.
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No idea as I am on 1.1.8.1 still and this was something I spent like 5 mins in Grimtools, making.
If I had to guess, having only 3 pets would kind of hurt its overall potential even if the 3 are beefed up.
This may or may not work better in that regard: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/m23kDnY2
I personally don’t really like giant’s blood since it feels kind of unreliable on pet builds. I go “I am invincible!” one moment and end up dead the next…
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