Hardcapping is apparently where they end up in a comparable state to before. Meaning, if you say, spread out your points over multiple pets (Fluffy Squishy), it can no longer provide the same performance.
But something like Ishtar (Diviner Reap Spirit) gets away unscathed.
Now, this might come across as bit strange, but Silverbolt is looking really appealing right now…
Time for Ritualists and Cabalists (or Necro tbh) to make a comeback it seems, at the cost of Conjurer.
I am still not sold on Skeletons as their core issue regarding AoE still remains and Blightfiend nerf of 1.1.8.1 kind of put me off those.
So… I guess time for Ghosts and Wisps. And good old, stacking +1 to skills.
I understand the objective with the patch, but one thing is that there aren’t really many replacements for slots which were occupied by Set items. So in that regard, you are stuck with more or less the same choices, but without having access to a good chunk of the set bonuses anymore.
One thing this might encourage however is the use of double rare greens to push the skill points to their max.
Not happy with it still, but ghosts still live for now (ironically)…
Being primarily a HC player I rarely reach end-game, so at least one nice thing comes to mind: with all pet values readjustment - leveling and progressing through the game will probably be smoother. And with that I might finally complete my third “this-probably-should-not-work” build
Just curious, what do you mean by ‘broken shit’ and how did you define Pet builds to be broken? Pet builds still utilize all the game mechanics and design into their builds such as over - capping their resistances , having a form of armor / damage absorption , kiting when needed and paying attention to procs and buffs in rotational play, understanding a nemesis / celestial damage and attack types. So i’m really baffled you claimed pet builds are broken…considering it comes along with a product that i paid money for.
I can say the same about some of my previous “broken” builds that are now heavily nerfed and some are dead as stones. I utilized game mechanics and I payed for the game and spent money and time
Before 1.1.9.0 i have been playing in “scared” mode, still doing 65-66 Normal SR to farm the missing equipment pieces. Now with 1.1.9.0 I’ve done some 65-66 Elite SR and one 65-66 Ultimate SR run without any problems.
Jumping from 185% to 365% is a great boost to partially make up for the set nerfs. I wish the Beastcaller’s Set didn’t lose the Offensive Ability buff for the 3-pc bonus, but having the pet resistances and player Physical Resistance is already a significant boost. It is a significant change for pet builds, so I can’t say much about it, especially since I never used Bysmiel’s Set for a Conjurer (I have it for a Cabalist, and unfortunately the performance feels roughly the same to me, or slightly worse).
If you feel that certain non-set pet items are lacking in terms of stats, I’d be glad to raise it over at the feedback thread. It’s tough pinpointing a specific problem because we’re combining significant pet changes with significant SR changes that harshly penalize you when you die (a change I largely hate).
One thing I can say, Hellhound is a really good skill line now. It’s the first time in like 3 years that I can make a build revolve around the Hellhound and beat Crucible with it (this is both Fire Hellhound Conjurer and Lost Souls set Deceiver).
Nothing has changed with pets (in crucible anyway) maya , If anything they got buffed im still waking up, drinking coffee, fumbling keys, and still wrecking the piss out of crucible with birbs and chaos cats
I think Crucible buffs to damage will offset set nerfs and since you have increased health will make your characters tougher to kill and lose buff perks. Skellies time…
SR will be slight Nerf but in my experience pets tend to aggro bosses fast and are tough to avoid CC damage and multiple stacks are detrimental for them. So first few chunks should be slightly tougher and boss chunks up until the super big numbers will be more consistent.
Against super bosses, slight Nerf to damage? But this need testing. I will eventually retry my cold birbs and maybe test non set builds but until then will trust my guts.
At same time want to say that I find Maya’s concerns reasonable. Sets were nerfed, while very few items were actually buffed in order to close the gap to non set builds. Also cat uptime is lower, so there’s that. But I want to see some more feedback and discuss it then. No need for saying #deadbuilds but also these concerns shouldn’t be mocked.
My concern is that people are not even playing the game before writing stuff online. Imagine spending the time writing playing instead
Crate have playtesters and some of them play pet builds afaik. These changes are not just arbitrary “let’s see what happens” but should have been implented for a reason.
You know I don’t play Cruci
Can you try naked Cruci for me? with extra spawns. Should give a better assessement.
The issue I have is this:
As you noted, it is still a significant boost. If you take 3 random non set items, you are still going to be in a worse state than if you had gone for set pieces.
for eg; I love Fiendmaster’s Raiment and could use it in fluffy Squishy. I can also go for maybe Winter king helm + Mog shoulders or Fiend Flesh. But if I make that switch, my build will be much worse than doing nothing.
We don’t have enough non set legendaries to choose from when it comes to the slots that set items usually occupy.
Like when it comes to chest: we have 2 non set items to choose from.
Shoulders: Also 2.
Helmet: 3.
So, unless you were to go out of your way to choose Fiendmasters or Necrolords or something, you will still end up with the usual suspects.
And the reason why this hurts even more is because Crate announced that this is going to be their last major patch.
So I can’t even realistically hope for new items or such to come in the future to help actually promote diversity among choices.
Could still go for it. The issue is that with most of the power locked behind hadcapping skills, Fluffy Squishy suffers from lack of points to max everything and having focus on more than just the Raven. It used all 3 pets to be effective.
Birb auto got nerfed, Hound needs more investment, Briar needs more investment…
It was already complained to be slow and it was built that way, to be a slow moving tank. But I dread going up against Callagadra on Fluffy now while before I have often boasted it as the easiest to do so with.
Some might argue that a build trivializing something like superbosses is too powerful, but if you make a hammer, you expect it to be efficient at hammering stuff. Fluffy was built for a purpose and that just got much harder to actually accomplish with the build.
It is by no means unplayable, but I can no longer confidently tell you to choose a pet conjurer over something like a Vitality build.
And for those who want a Pet build that embodies everything Fluffy stood for, especially the laziness, Will-O-Wisp should be the current choice to go with instead. It even has less skills to bother with and no Wind Devils
