I’ve been working on variants of Beastcaller’s Pet builds for a while, first starting with Retaliation Conjurer, then Elementalist, then Physical pets Vindicator, and now Druid. I didn’t want the variants to be carbon copies of each other, only differing slightly in a slot or two, so I kept things on the down-low until I saw a build that had potential to be different. Now, with the Gate of Many Worlds item introduced in v1.1.6.0, I finally have a pet build unique enough to be worth introducing as my contribution to Fallen Gods pet builds.
[1.1.6.0] Beastcaller’s Pet Druid
Permanent Buffs Only
*Call of the Beast and Howl of Mogdrogen activated
Feedback on Beastcaller's Set
First, some feedback on the Beastcaller’s Set itself: It’s obviously a well-designed pet set, considering just how many pet builds using the set have been capable of besting SR75-76 and Gladiator 170. My only gripe with it is that the two modifiers - a second Briarthorn and additional uptime to Primal Spirit - are both things that should be baked into these pets when you hardcap the skill in the first place. FG’s revamps of AAR, Blade Arc, and now Cadence all are constructed with the recognition that sufficient AoE is mandatory to make an acceptable build, and yet all Shaman pet builds have is Briarthorn with middling AoE in Ground Slam and Primal Spirit with only 50% uptime before CDR and Beastcaller’s Set bonuses. I personally find the practice of giving a skill unreasonable downtime and forcing the player into Beastcaller’s Set + Off-hands just to make it usable an extremely poor design practice. I’d personally either increase the uptime of the skill to 25 seconds or reduce the downtime to 30 seconds and give Primal Spirit a different modifier when you complete Beastcaller’s Set; Primal Spirit just contributes too much to Shaman pet builds to gate it behind such arbitrary constraints.
That being said, this build has the benefit of all of its equipment slots fitting very nicely with each other; especially nice with no MI’s to worry about. This is the first instance of a pet build being able to wrangle 22/12 in IEE alongside the Beastcaller’s Set, and both the weapon and the newly introduced Gate to Many Worlds providing additional modifiers to IEE. Surprisingly, most pet resistances are near the cap with only Overload providing pet resistances from the Arcanist side. Thanks to Bysmiel’s Grasp modifiers, both Briarthorn and Primal Spirit are focused on Cold damage, so the RR and devotions are focused there, but even without additional elemental RR, the additional Elemental damage adds up to hard hits not just from the major pets, but the other pets as well.
Pets: Briarthorn (X2), Primal Spirit, Chillmane, Gate to Many Worlds, Eldritch Webweaver, Bysmiel’s Devotion
Damage Type: Cold (Briarthorn, Primal Spirit), Elemental (Remaining pets)
Why take Druid over Conjurer?
It is certainly possible to make a “Cold Pets” Conjurer, though I personally much prefer using Bysmiel’s Set over Beastcaller’s Set for Cold damage, especially with Mythical Crown of the Winter King’s 100% Lightning to Cold conversion that a Beastcaller’s build wouldn’t be able to use. Conjurer has the advantage of pet Health thanks to Bonds of Bysmiel, pet Speed thanks to Manipulation, and Elemental Resistance thanks to Storm Spirit; Crit damage is a wash since Conjurers can use Mogdrogen’s Blessing to provide pet Crit damage, while Druids needs Sylvarria’s Essence to provide pet Poison resistance. That being said, Druid does have multiple advantages that this build fully benefits:
- Thanks to IEE and its transmuter, the additional pets have 100% Physical to Elemental conversion without requiring Bysmiel’s Mindweaver. Using 2 Bysmiel’s Authority rings also brings 66% Acid to Elemental, giving Summon Chillmane, Eldritch Webweavers and Bysmiel Hound predominately Elemental damage.
- IEE has a huge amount of flat damage: 136 flat Elemental (including Gate of Many World’s modifiers) which breaks down to 45 each of Cold, Fire and Lightning. Add the 24 flat Cold modifier from the weapon and you get a huge advantage over a Beastcaller’s Cold Conjurer (though Bysmiel’s Trinkets is not too far behind with 22/12 Storm Spirit and 100% Lightning to Cold, though you lose the multitude of defensive benefits from not using the Beastcaller’s Set).
- Arcanist’s naturally high Spirit and Mental Alacrity makes Energy Regeneration and constant casting with Primal Spirit uptime a non-issue. It also makes meeting the Off-Hand requirements significantly easier, resulting in more Attribute points available for Physique and DA.
- Defensively, what you lose in Physical Resist, you gain in at least 15% Damage Absorption (leading to a total of 30% Damage absorption as multiple sources of absorb are multipliers instead of additive) and great secondary resistances - the ability to disregard Ben’Jarr’s traps and Moosilake’s Freeze is not to be trifled with. Not to mention Mirror, which really helps keeping yourself at ease while positioning and setting your pets up for the kill.
- Nullification! As has been demonstrated by far superior Crucible pilots, Nullify is a huge weapon in your disposal. Disregard Mad Queen’s Aura. Erase Reaper’s savagery stacks. Remove Anasteria’s huge RR debuff before you get to Wave 170. You can shift points from Mirror and other skills to stack as many points in this ability as possible.
- At least 20% OA more than Occultist when you factor in Inner Focus, Gate of Many Worlds modifier and Sylvarria’s Essence augments. This makes it fairly easy to summon the Eldritch Webweavers which are summoned on Crit.
I’m still learning the ins-and-outs of playing 150-170 Crucible. There’s so much ground effects and the Nemeses are so fast that I have a hard time focusing on my pets and making sure they survive. So far, in my tests, Grava and Alex have been the most bothersome, as Alex is too hard to notice in the crowd before a giant meteor falls on my head, and Grava makes my pets fumble so much DPS goes in the toilet. I know that this build will be successful in more capable hands, so I’m posting the build regardless and giving other pet-masters a shot at it.
That being said, I enjoy this build a lot because outside my core group of pets (Briarthorn, Primal Spirit, and Chillmane), this build has a very active component, summoning Webweavers and Gate to Many Worlds as quickly as you can summon them. The Gate pets are a lot of fun, as they’re invincible and have large AoE component to them that other pets don’t have.
