The Sly Hound - A Deceiver Pet Build

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1


Grim Dawn pets in real life

With Zantai’s pronouncement that pet items will be thoroughly investigated in hopes to bring a more diverse group of pet builds in the fold, I wanted to demonstrate how different classes could be successful in supporting pet builds and how smart equipment design - whether through generous pet bonuses, skill bonuses, or survivability in the right places - can easily allow multiple pet builds to flourish. This build is an example of a pet build that is very close to being a successful build, but helpful itemization in the right direction can really make a difference. Outside of my Pet Retaliaton Conjurer, this is the build I have spent the most time on, mainly because while the expansion gave pet summoners plenty to cheer on with the Necromancer, the Inquisitor is a surprisingly great support class that real pet classes could partner extremely well with.

I was originally planning on waiting to post this build until after I had extensive AoM experience with it, but with version 1.0.4.0 coming around the corner, I have decided to post this build to spark further discussion on where pet itemization will go from here. The build has been a rousing success at facing Vanilla content, so while limited time prevents me from further testing, the solid success rate against all of the Vanilla Nemeses and Nemesis-level bosses gives me confidence that this class combination will be able to handle the content, especially if pet builds receive a boon.

What this build can and cannot do
Testing this build vigorously against the best the Vanilla content has to offer, this build has the following advantages:

  • Very large flat damage bonuses - Thanks to multiple skills that grant flat damage, the Primal Instinct Swarmlings boast an average flat damage of 708 - this is even more than the Dracarris build.
  • Primal Instinct Swarmlings have an effective OA of over 4300 and a 2.8X Crit multiplier that’s achieved even without having Dying God.
  • Has three on-demand heals, though this build does not use Twin Fangs.

Alas, the build comes with several disadvantages:

  • Build version 2.0 swaps around skill points and devotions for better RR, but it comes at the cost of not being able to use Dying God and its tremendous crit bonuses.
  • Requires 3 MIs for full functioning - This is truly a build that you level up as something else and then respec into this later. As it stands, pet builds don’t have enough itemization to make this a serious contender without MIs.
  • Untested with Expansion Content - I made this point clearly before, but I’ll say this again, I will keep tabs on this and update it to test it against the hardest of the new foes, but for now this is unproven territory.
  • Fails at Crucible - I suspect the relative squishiness (even with 33% Physical Resistance) and low amount of AoE disruption / pets on-hand to body-block the opponent means that this build has a long way to go until it can rival the Dracarris build. It doesn’t help that the build is reliant on Seals to both keep you alive and give your Swarmlings the damage they need to do the job quickly.

With that all noted, I present: the Grimtools

The Sly Hound, version 2.1 (use Ctrl+Shift to see skills without bonuses)
Alternate Weapon Choice for more pets

For those who don’t like MI’s, the post right below this one will explain in more detail.

The concept of this build is simple - stack up all the flat damage sources I can, combine it with 24/16 Blood of Dreeg and + Skills in Inquisitor, and use Arcane Empowerment’s flat damage bonuses and Crit damage to give pets damage spike capability while using Rune of Hagarrad’s Freeze and the Seal’s damage absorption to keep the Summoner alive. As both classes bring different damage types, we use our devotion constellations to obtain appropriate RR while Howl of Mogdrogen to give large bonuses to both Pet Crit Damage and Total Speed.

Equipment
Weapon: Mythical Touch of Purity
Touch of Purity was chosen for the bonuses to Blood of Dreeg, the + Skills in Inquisitor, and the lovely heal that also cures both the player and the pets of most DoTs. Version 1.0.4.0 gave the healing skill to the Mythical version, so don’t hesitate to upgrade to the Mythical Touch of Purity.
Components: Seal of Might is taken for the Physical Resistance and help with overcapping the other resistances
Off-Hand: Cataclysm’s Eye
+All Skills bonus, Chaos resistance, and reduced stun duration makes this one an easy choice.
Component: Now that version 2.0 uses Manticore, Enchanted Flint is taken for the extra Fire damage.
Head: Mythical Spellgaze
For starters, you get +3 to Arcane Empowerment, +All Skills in Inquisitor, and 20 flat elemental damage for your pets courtesy to the skill modifier to Word of Renewal; on top of that, you get a massive +900 flat Energy. Thanks to this headpiece, you will never have serious Energy problems.
Component: Living Armor
Shoulders: Mythical Mantle of the Patron
This build was created in version 1.0.2.0 when the shoulders still had 14% Crit Damage for pets. Even without it, I still like it due to the great OA bonuses and bonuses to Storm Spirit.
Component: Scaled Hide
Hands: Mythical Overlord’s Iron Grip
I have touted how much I enjoy this item multiple times, so I won’t add anything else other than this item is amazing.
Component: Enchanted Earth
Feet: Mythical Runeguard Greaves
The Runeguard Greaves are taken in combination with Alex’ Chausses to take Steel Resolve to 20/10. The Physical Resistance, Vitality Resistance, Heavy Armor and damage ward add to the benefits of taking these boots.
Component: Mark of Mogdrogen
Belt: Mythical Cord of Deception
Bonuses to Blood of Dreeg. All Skills in Inquisitor. 32 + 4% DA. Even without pet bonuses, this belt is just great to have.
Component: Ugdenbog Leather
Pants: Stonehide Aleksander’s Chausses of Kings
Bysmiel is out, Alex is in! The new devotion set-up grants us extra pet OA and Poison resistance, so we now use Alex’s leggings for the extra Health and bonuses to Steel Resolve, and with it, extra flat Physical damage and small % bonuses. Grava’Thul Leggings can also be selected for the extra points to Vulnerability and Death Sentence as well as additional DA.
Component: Ancient Armor Plate
Chest Armor: Mythical Fiendmaster Raiment
Contains the largest pet bonuses seen on a Chestpiece - 140%. The bonuses to Manipulation and Vitality resistance are also nice touches.
Component: Titan Plating
Amulet: Mythical Sovereign Ruby of Domination
The undisputed pet BiS item for amulets, and possibly of any equipment. Wear it, enjoy the crits.
Component: Aether Soul
Ring 1: Subjugator’s Gollus’ Ring of the Basilisk
Gollus was chosen for the Health regen bonuses. Subjugator’s was taken for the large pet damage bonuses, and resistances to cover are pierce and DA.
Component: Runebound Topaz
Ring 2: Incorruptible Gollus’ Ring of the Wild
More DA is paramount here, along with pet bonuses and patching up Aether and Chaos overcaps.
Component: Runebound Topaz
Medal: Mythical Undying Oath
Flat Health and Health Regeneration bonuses + Aether Resistance + Blood of Dreeg bonuses + 20 flat Vitality damage for your pets. A great item for anyone using an Occultist summoner.
Component: Black Tallow
Relic: Primal Instinct
This build needs pets. This relic brings pets. Any questions?
Augments: For augments, cover up any resistances you currently don’t have capped since your Rings + Pants + Boots will be different. Ravager’s Eye is non-negotiable due to %DA, rings may be negotiated depending on how bad you need resists, ultimately you want Mogdrogen’s Blessing.

2

The no-MI build will have its own separate write-up as it fundamentally differs from the shape of the OP. Instead of piling on raising the Inquisitor skills as high as they can go to take advantage of the flat damage bonuses, this build focuses on the Fire/Chaos damage from the Swarmlings, thanks to the Desecrator Covenant set and the Voidwhisper ring that procs 100% conversion from Physical to Chaos.

Grimtools - No MIs

Equipment
Weapon: Mythical Bloody Dagger of the Covenant
It’s great that the dagger has some small CDR, and pet damage bonuses and OA are nice toppings.
Components: Seal of Might is taken for the Physical Resistance and help with overcapping the other resistances
Off-Hand: Mythical Channeling Orb of the Covenant
The off-hand also brings a healthy amount of pet OA, and helps contribute to 20/12 Hellfire.
Component: Symbol of Solael brings stackable Chaos RR.
Head: Mythical Unholy Visage of the Covenant
The third piece of the set gives our pets the bonus of 220% Fire and Chaos damage. Craft this with Algrim for the Armor Bonus.
Component: Leathery Hide is required to help with Stun Reduction
Shoulders: Mythical Unholy Mantle of the Covenant
DA and Vitality Resistance help shore up the Summoner’s weak points.
Component: Sacred Plating
Hands: Mythical Overlord’s Iron Grip
The first item listed that isn’t part of the Covenant set. I have touted how much I enjoy this item multiple times, so I won’t add anything else other than this item is amazing.
Component: Spellscorched Plating
Feet: Mythical Footpads of the Grey Magi
This item is taken for the Physical Resistance proc as well as the Aether Resistance and DA bonuses. This item is also craftable, so take this to Algrim as well for the Armor bonus
Component: Mark of Mogdrogen
Belt: Mythical Cord of Deception
Bonuses to Blood of Dreeg. All Skills in Inquisitor. 32 + 4% DA. Even without pet bonuses, this belt is just great to have.
Component: Ugdenbog Leather
Pants: Mythical Wildshorn Legguards
A pet build that is focused on Chaos damage must stack Hellfire as high as it can, and these pants do the trick.
Component: Scaled Hide
Chest Armor: Mythical Fiendmaster Raiment
This items already contains large All Damage bonuses, but the Chaos damage stacked on top of it makes it that much sweeter.
Component: Living Armor
Amulet: Mythical Sovereign Ruby of Domination
The undisputed pet BiS item for amulets, and possibly of any equipment. Wear it, enjoy the crits.
Component: Aether Soul
Ring 1: Mythical Voidwhisper Band
Thankfully, the Desecrator Covenant set permanently converts half the pets’ Physical damage into Chaos damage, so it’s not entirely dependent on the ring to function. You will feel the different when it activates, however.
Component: Runebound Topaz
Ring 2: Wildpact Emerald
A middling ring, but the Poison & Acid Resistance and Pierce Resistance are required, and no other ring does it better.
Component: Runebound Topaz
Medal: Mythical Unholy Sigil of the Covenant
This is the medal that completes the set, so take the 5 piece bonus proudly.
Component: Black Tallow
Relic: Primal Instinct
All Physical Damage converted to Chaos and extra Fire damage to boot. These swarmlings will love your build.
Augments: The armor augments are a combination of Coven Black Ash and Malmouth Soulguard. Ravager’s Eye is non-negotiable due to %DA, you will be fine with Mogdrogen’s Blessing for the rings.

3

Making the most of an Inquisitor Pet build
Between large flat damage bonuses, damage multipliers against specific races, and large effective OA increases, the Inquisitor is a great supporter for pet builds. Add equipment skill modifiers to the equation, and pet builds have a lot of bonuses to consider. Specifically, the Inquisitor brings:

  • Physical Damage from Steel Resolve
  • Piercing Damage from Aura of Conviction and Arcane Empowerment
  • Elemental Damage from Arcane Empowerment and Equipment Skill Modifiers

The Inquisitor gear I considered gave large skill bonus to Occultist skills, specifically Blood of Dreeg, so the second class was obvious. The Occultist comes with its own slew of damage types, including:

  • Acid Damage from Blood of Dreeg
  • Elemental Damage from Storm Spirit
  • Chaos Damage from Hellfire
  • Vitality Damage from Equipment Skill Modifiers

The key is going well beyond the regular cap of the most important skills. Blood of Dreeg in particular scales very well as you reach the maximum overcap. With these skills put together, the total flat damage for the Primal Instinct Swarmlings comes to a staggering 729. The Hellhound jumps from an average of 15 damage to 449 damage, an increase of 2,893%.

Primal Instinct critters get 50 flat damage to their main type (Fire) and 86 from their secondary type (Physical). Unfortunately, the split from Elemental into three different types (Fire, Cold, Lightning) prevent us from raising the Fire damage even further. The damage type with the most bonuses is Piercing, which a large 85 flat damage bonus, followed by Acid, thanks to 24/16 BoD. With this smattering of damage types, we then aim for as much damage as possible. Without Dying God, pet damage tends to fall around 1,700%-2,000%. This is mainly thanks to the combination of Shepherd’s Crook, Mythical Sovereign Ruby, and Arcane Empowerment. Getting boots or pants with “of Kings” is important as well, as this build can use all the +Damage bonuses it can get.

This build also contains a generous amount of flat OA bonuses combined with DA shred from Hune of Hagarrad. Unfortunately, the gear only provides around 800% Cold damage - to make this a hybrid summoner, you would want to concentrate on cold damage + raising skillpoints on Chillsurge (perhaps this may happen if pet Cold support ever becomes a thing). Blood of Dreeg provides a great 186 flat OA increase, with Aura of Conviction a close second at 182. With Howl of Mogdrogen active and the Rune’s DA shred applied, the swarmlings can reach the highest tier of crits even against the Mad Queen and Nemeses!

With the Beastcaller’s Set and high enough CDR bonuses, especially on the tome, this build is able to achieve 100% uptime on Mogdrogen, and with it, permanent pet OA and total speed increases. With the build’s great effective OA, the Swarmlings will have times where it reaches the maximum crit threshold (1.5X + all crit modifiers), especially when trash mobs are involved. Of course, keeping the critters inside the Inquisitor’s Seals is vital, as the seals give over 100 points of flat damage, ~150% damage bonus, and 22% crit damage. Thankfully, Primal Instinct bugs are small critters, meaning multiple bugs can easily fit inside a Seal.

Using the Dracarris pet damage spreadsheet, with all buffs active and using typical Ultimate monster resistances, the maximum crit for our pets (using the highest threshhold our PTH grants us) is over 62K for either build (though the Spellgaze build is not reliant on Call of the Beast to obtain this damage), comparable to the Swarmlings damage output in the Dracarris build. I have seen plenty of crits over 50K, especially when you’re fighting Cthonics and Eldritch due to Word of Renewal’s damage bonuses. Thanks to this, the Sentinel, normally the bane of every pet build, is much more manageable.

Devotion Set-up
Version 2.0 of this build replaces Dying God with Manticore, Solael’s Witchblade, and Assassin’s Blade. This allows our pets to continuously apply RR to all of the major damage types, while avoiding the Health drain that comes with using Dying God. The difference between using version 1.0’s devotion set-up and version 2.0’s is small enough that avoiding the health drain is worth losing the QoL of just spamming two devotion buffs.

Bindings:

  • Assassin’s Blade to Summon Hellhound
  • Eldritch Fire to Rune of Hagarrad (Experimental)
  • Acid Spray to Curse of Frailty
  • Howl of Mogdrogen to Word of Pain
  • Shepherd’s Crook to Dreeg’s Evil Eye (the cooldown will provide close to 100% on activation)
4

Creative design and good write up.

I’m glad you posted this instead of waiting for dev stars to align or holding off because of crucible viability.

5

I don’t want to be a jerk, sir, but you might want to edit that to “Ravager’s Dreadgaze”. Ravager’s Eye is indeed unbeatable as an augment for pets (it’s sold by those Burrowitch cannibals, btw) because that’s what it is - an AUGMENT, not a helm.

P.S.: I wouldn’t say that about the helm, though. If you struggle with RR it might be marginally good, but as a stand-alone item it’s actually one of the worst helms in the game. People who look at Dammit’s database and see the description of the item might want to know that the area is abysmal small, around a 6/12 Soul Siphon. It is also centred on your character, so the description might sound a lot like Necrosis, but it’s not.

Otherwise, good luck in making more of these builds. I find it refreshing to see pet builds outside the intuitive “lightning amplification” strategy that was set in stone there from 1.0.0.4. forward.

6

I dun goofed. Yes, I meant the Dreadgaze. It deserves a mention because of our awful RR, but shame to hear how small the area of effect is (though outside of tank melee classes, Inquisitors would handle the downsides well because of Inquisitor Seals’ Damage absorption). I’m grateful the Mythical Spellgaze is such a good item to use in its place - what I forgot to mention about it is that the flat Energy bonuses and Energy regen on this thing are amazing. I love not having to worry about Energy usage and this helm single-handedly assures that for me.

7

Nicely done - with some more updates (especially RR and item updates) this can definitely become Gladiator capable, though it’s impossible to predict how quickly/consistently it will do so.

This reminds me of a discussion I had with a few Praetorians on the Discord some months back, before AoM’s release:

9y4n6o0.png708×279

I think this build pretty effectively hits all the same high points of inquisitor pet builds that were discussed – very high flat damage, bonus crit, and extra racial damage – and Occultist rounds these features out pretty well. (Note: at the time, Primal Bond did not have its crit bonus yet, so the only mastery skills for pet crit were Call of the Grave, Elemental Balance, and Arcane Empowerment.)

You might consider testing replacing Mogdrogen with Manticore, Bysmiel, Staff, and either Murmur or Solael. I haven’t done any number-crunching, but I suspect the RR/extra pet might outweigh Mogdrogen’s bonuses since stacking so much flat damage turns each additional pet into a very significant DPS increase. Another hound can also help provide enough critical mass of pets to disrupt enemy pathing and hold chokes, especially since swarmlings are so small.

Just a small nit: lightning pets haven’t been considered pet meta once Glyph and Spark of Ultos were stripped of their excessive flat lightning/conversion/crit/speed bonuses back in 1.0.0.7 (Dec 2016). In fact, in all of 2017 there hadn’t been a single video of any lightning pet build successfully soloing Gladiator until the release of AoM, with Stormbringer of Malmouth breathing new life into the strategy.

Prior to AoM, builds designed around effective use of Primal Instinct were the main Gladiator contenders. Thus, the AoM nerf to Primal Instinct probably helped encourage the lightning revival as well.

8

Wondered this myself.

True, but I’m assuming AoD was referring more to the defacto loadout for pet conjurers explicitly. I don’t get out much though so I don’t know if electro instinct was just my conjurer setup for most of that time or a lot of peoples.

9

DaShiv is right. I haven’t played one hour of GD since 1.0.0.6. when I said that lifting requirements from ABB will result in perma-freeze spellbreakers and nobody listened. He is right…Primal Instinct was nerfed hard somewhere in that period along with some other items that supported lightning. In 1.0.0.5, however, lightning pets could annihilate Mogdrogen. Sure, a strong part of the equation was his poor A.I., but they could…

Even now, however, after the 1.0.3.0 nerfs to the Malmouth tome, lightning pets are a safe bet. Aether / Lightning hybrid is where is at actually, though I let some more passionate player discover it and post it here.

10

Eh? Main cause for perma freeze was Night’s Embrace debuff and the fact Nemeses and Mad Queen didn’t had high freeze resist (at least not enough to not be affected by the debuff). Lifting the weapon restrictions on ABB did nothing because the perma freeze build was using swords.

11

I might remember this incorrectly as restricted to 2h (ranged + melee), which would intuitively make sense due to how it scales. It is very probable that I remember the debate wrong. You are right that the freeze resistance was the main culprit, but the dagger / sword variant was simply the most popular one. You could replicate it with dagger/tome, sceptre/tome (and even pistol/tome). Now, even if you stack all sources of -freeze you can get, you won’t put her below 95%, which makes you wonder how useful the Night’s embrace gimmick is. I haven’t seen the amulet anywhere in any new build, but 0.1 sec freeze vs. nemeses for an amulet slot doesn’t seem very competitive.

The most interesting part is how that amulet was nerfed right before 1.0.0.9., when fire pet builds became a thing. I can only imagine the 2s videos if freeze resistance wasn’t checked and you could OFF MQ.

12

The most popular build doing the perma freeze thing used either two Crescent Moons or Crescent Moon + Deathmarked weapon. I think it was either in 1.0.0.7 or 1.0.0.8 (i’m leaning towards 7). Seriously, Moose could be perma frozen. A giant ice golem, perma frozen.

Then the Nemeses and Mad Queen freeze resist was upped enough to not be affected by the Night Embrace’s debuff in the following update.

13

Would you please share the devotion path that gets you all four of those things? I assume it involves replacing Bat with Wretch? The way I have it, I can replace Mogdrogen for Manticore, Bysmiel, and Staff, but I don’t have enough devotion points to pick Murmur or Solael. This route would likely be the best in terms of DPS, but I’d be very uncomfortable getting under 2700 DA and sacrificing a good leech tool, as survivability is what’s killing my build in the first place.

I can also go for Aeon’s Hourglass, and with it I can take either Bysmiel or Manticore, but not both. I was thinking Bysmiel because while losing out on additional 13% RR is rough, I get nearly 100% uptime on Bysmiel, so I gain a rougly permanent pet to help with body-blocking. In addition, I can cast my three heals on much shorter cooldowns, so sustainability is a lot higher. Finally, Aeon’s gives me the most DA of the devotion choices, with 2800 (slightly larger than my initial build, which has 2750).

Note that all three of these choices has smaller crits (except the one with Staff), smaller OA and considerably smaller attack speed thanks to not having Mogdrogen (not to mention Quill is a really good devotion and it’s great that it fits our devotion set-up perfectly).

My plan for now is hold out until v1.0.4.0 and see if the new gear brings about new damage sources / RR / pet crit or speed bonuses. From there, I’ll consider the new information and determine which constellations are worth a second look.

14

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/1NX7eBBZ

It’s pretty easy to pick them all up if you simply drop Raven. The trick with AoM devo paths is to focus on the big picture and not get too greedy with trying to collect every single useful T1/T2. For example, the Night King v1.0 reached its extreme DPS even without Raven and Panther for the extra OA/flat/crit, because it had a big picture plan to grab the biggest DPS boosts as efficiently as possible, then simply do what it can to fill in the rest.

You can substitute Murmur in place of Solael above for a bit less DPS and 96 more effective DA, but I’m also a strong advocate for “the best defense is a good offense” when it comes to pet builds. Also, by increasing Twin Fangs damage via RR, Manticore will noticeably boost your survivability. As a comparison, the Night King v1.0 had 900% vit damage, 3.2k effective player OA, and -96 vit RR (-84 post-nerf) to power Twin Fangs. Best defense = offense, etc.

If it were me, I’d never try to sort this out in my head - it’s a nightmare trying to visualize and weigh all the tradeoffs involved when it comes to pet builds. I typically do tons of A/B build testing – first by spreadsheet to dramatically sort down the candidate list, then via direct playtesting (PV, MQ, and finally Gladiator only if the build handled the previous very well).

It’s a lot like how obtaining “good rolls” for items isn’t about getting very lucky, but simply about farming/keeping all the duplicates and picking the best ones (and blowing up the rest). Likewise, I went through 50+ Grimtool builds before finalizing v1.0 of the Night King, and I’m well over a couple dozen candidates (with very different strategies) for v2.0 thus far. Good spreadsheet use will hugely cut down on the number of build candidates that require actual playtesting.

You can wait and see, but that’s also a pretty good way of being let down by Crate. For all the whinging by melee builders about nerfs, pet builds have consistently been shown FAR more nerfs and FAR fewer new toys than all other build types. For example, how many new conversions were introduced in AoM – dozens at least? over a hundred? – and how many those were for pets? How many top-tier competitive builds in AoM are powered by new/improved Mythical legendary sets (too many awesome builds/sets to count), and how many top-tier competitive pet builds are? (Exactly none.)

Maybe this time will truly be different, but I’ll believe it when I see it. As for myself, I’m certainly not relying on any patch changes to help bolster my work on v2.0.

15

Ahh, it was removing Raven I was missing. I wasn’t expecting that. With regards to your Night King, it helps a lot that the Necro’s Master of Death is so good at providing the necessary pet OA. The flat OA from Aura of Conviction is slightly less than the %OA bonuses from Master of Death, so the total necessary Grimtools sheet pet OA should roughly be around 45% or so to account for the flat OA bonus. I’ll mess around with the spreadsheets and determine an appropriate OA that will get me what I need (due to the Rune of Hagarrad’s second delay in arming, I’d like to have enough OA to maximize damage output before the DA shred from the rune takes place).

You can substitute Murmur in place of Solael above for a bit less DPS and 96 more effective DA, but I’m also a strong advocate for “the best defense is a good offense” when it comes to pet builds. Also, by increasing Twin Fangs damage via RR, Manticore will noticeably boost your survivability. As a comparison, the Night King v1.0 had 900% vit damage, 3.2k effective player OA, and -96 vit RR (-84 post-nerf) to power Twin Fangs. Best defense = offense, etc.

You’re a lot better at the “best defense = offense” game than I am. Note that I play on a Steam controller because it immensely protects my hands from the mouse moving and clicking I would otherwise have to do; I probably would not have bought this game if it weren’t for controller support. I’d be the first to concede that if we played the exact same build, you’d be miles better at body-blocking, avoiding swarming, and maximizing your pets’ potential than I would. There’s a reason I deliberately avoided running a Cabalist and instead made a 3500 DA Conjurer. :stuck_out_tongue:

If it were me, I’d never try to sort this out in my head - it’s a nightmare trying to visualize and weigh all the tradeoffs involved when it comes to pet builds. I typically do tons of A/B build testing – first by spreadsheet to dramatically sort down the candidate list, then via direct playtesting (PV, MQ, and finally Gladiator only if the build handled the previous very well).

It’s a lot like how obtaining “good rolls” for items isn’t about getting very lucky, but simply about farming/keeping all the duplicates and picking the best ones (and blowing up the rest). Likewise, I went through 50+ Grimtool builds before finalizing v1.0 of the Night King, and I’m well over a couple dozen candidates (with very different strategies) for v2.0 thus far. Good spreadsheet use will hugely cut down on the number of build candidates that require actual playtesting.

Agreed. My testing route is Fabius + Cronley (due to close proximity and a good test to see how my build faces ground damage), then Mad Queen, then Iron Maiden, then Sentinel, and if all those tests pass with flying colors, I take it to PV (places that require Skeleton Keys I save for last) and Gazer Man fight.

The way I see it, there are three candidates- my original build of Dying God + Mogdrogen, your devotion set-up for maximum RR, then Dying God + Aeons using either Bysmiel or Manticore. I’ll report the spreadsheet results once I run the numbers, then test your maximum RR build and see if I’m impacted by the loss of defense (knowing my playstyle, the loss of defense would be significant, but maybe I’m just too freaked out by the prospect of sudden OHKO Notched Bone crits).

You can wait and see, but that’s also a pretty good way of being let down by Crate. For all the whinging by melee builders about nerfs, pet builds have consistently been shown FAR more nerfs and FAR fewer new toys than all other build types. For example, how many new conversions were introduced in AoM – dozens at least? over a hundred? – and how many those were for pets? How many top-tier competitive builds in AoM are powered by new/improved Mythical legendary sets (too many awesome builds/sets to count), and how many top-tier competitive pet builds are? (Exactly none.)

Maybe this time will truly be different, but I’ll believe it when I see it. As for myself, I’m certainly not relying on any patch changes to help bolster my work on v2.0.

It’s more like, “Starting with the Christmas holiday, I have a good number of personal life commitments that will take up a large chunk of my time, and by the time I will have these commitments settled and I can give myself the time to really test these things out, Crate will probably already have the update out by then.” It’s less wishing Crate will listen to our suggestions and more of a logistical reality stemming from the amount and type of real-life work I will be handling for the next couple of months. Speaking of which, how did your business trip to Asia go? You mentioned it in your Night King thread and I find it cool to have a job that allows people to travel that far to completely different cultures.

16

You seem to be really into making creative masterpieces. Between this and your Pet Retaliation build I am speechless

Great job coming up with this

OT
Hopefully your long post gets us a Pet DK set :p. I could use one for mine

17

Thank you for the kind words, Chthon! I really appreciate the compliment.

Okay, so I put everything into Grim spreadsheets (the only way to play). I have two spreadsheets comparing my original set-up with Howl of Mogdrogen vs DaShiv’s RR devotion set-up, assuming in both cases 5 Swarmlings are on the field. Thanks to Howl of Mogdrogen’s extra PTH and total speed, my original devotion set-up has roughly a 2-3% DPS advantage over the RR constellations, even when you take the extra pet from Bysmiel into account. However, since Mogdrogen only has roughly 70% uptime (66% + CDR devotion reduction), DaShiv’s set-up has the overall edge.

What I did was use the damage spreadsheet to get the maximum damage before crits (all buffs applied, average damage values used when pets have a damage range), multiply that by the damage multipliers based off PTH and crit damage (DaShiv’s build has a slight advantage) taken from the OA/DA spreadsheet, and multiplied that total by attack speed multiplier (so for 100% attack speed, I multiplied the total damage by 2).

DaShiv’s build also has 1,500 health (I used the last two points to get Vulture’s 15% Bleeding Resistance so both builds have roughly the same resistance profile) more and only roughly 35 DA less than my build. It likely won’t make much of a difference in Crucible, seeing my biggest issue is keeping myself from getting swarmed, but it is definitely worth looking further into and testing.

18

It’s probably a silly question but…

How does flat damage work for pets?

Let’s say, a skill gives 50 flat damage. If I have +100% for this damage, the number goes up to 100 (in the skill description) and I would make 100 additional damage when I hit something with my weapon (ignoring armor and resistances here).

If my pets have +200% (for this damage type) how much damage do they do then:

a: 50 + (200% * 50) = 150
b: 100 + (200% * 100) = 300
c: something else?

:undecided:

19

No worries, all questions are welcome. DaShiv’s Dracarris Incarnate and Night King pet builds go into much further detail, including spreadsheets that explain everything for you, but here’s the quick explanation:

  1. Check Grimtools for the base damage your pet has. That is considered their weapon damage. As a general note, any pet that attacks with projectiles - the Raven is the most obvious example- does not benefit from weapon damage, but all other pets are fair game.
  2. I will use the Primal Instinct Swarmling’s 200 Fire Damage as an example. Using a skill that grants 50 Fire damage will get added to that 200 base damage, resulting in a total weapon damage of 250 Fire Damage. If the Swarmlings have access to a skill that grants % Weapon Damage (they would not, but if you bind a Devotion to your Hellhound, that would be an example), that skill would do 250 * % Weapon Damage. For just about all cases, though, you are dealing with a basic weapon attack, so it’s simply base damage + bonus flat damage for the same type.
  3. That total damage is multiplied by the % damage bonuses. Your Grimtools spreadsheet will have the % to all damage displayed, but many equipment and skills grant bonuses to specific damage types which are not displayed. You will have to add these numbers yourself to get the real % Damage for that specific type.
  4. That means for your example, your total damage would be (Base damage + 50 bonus flat damage) * 200%. Using the Swarmlings as an example again, that damage would be (200 + 50) * 200% = 750 fire damage. You would then repeat that process for all other damage types. DaShiv’s spreadsheets explain it much better than my clunky example; I would thoroughly read one of his builds, download the spreadsheet, and follow his explanations until you get it.

Hope that helps.

20

Thanks a lot for your helpful answer. :slight_smile:

As I use a necro (and try to max the skeletton’s flat damage), I guess the added flat damage does then also NOT apply to the archers and mages, right? (because they use projectiles)
That’s a bit disappointing…