Devotions
In case you’re unfamiliar what constallations are useful for pet builds, below is a brief description of all the devotions I like to use in pet builds and why. This will include some discussion of constellations not used by this pet build.
[Spoiler2]Tier 3 Constellations
[ul][li]Ishtak, the Sprint Maiden[/li]One of the 3 big pet constellations. This provides some great pet and player bonuses, but the Celestial Power is the real reason to take this constellation. The most important part is that the proc makes pets taunt their targets, so that enemies attack your pets instead of you. This is an extremely powerful defense mechanism.
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[ul][li]Light of Empyrion[/li]This provides some decent other pet bonuses and resistances. I use this up to the 5th node sometimes, but rarely go for the Celestial Power.
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[ul][li]Mogdrogen the Wolf[/li]One of the 3 big pet constellations. This provides some great player and pet bonuses, and the Celestial Power Howl of Mogdrogen which gives a massive 40% speed boost to pets. Unfortunately, it is very hard to max player movement speed when going down this devotion path.
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[ul][li]Dying God[/li]One of the 3 big pet constellations. This provides some pretty good player and pet bonuses, and the Hungering Void Celestial Power. Because it provides and aura, the non-pet bonuses on Hungering Void also apply to pets. The speed and crit damage are great to have, and on Chaos or Vitality builds the extra damage is huge. This also has very similar affinity requirements to Aeon’s Hourglass which is another huge plus.
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[ul][li]Aeon’s Hourglass[/li]Provides some great defensive bonuses and Time Dilation which is really useful, improving uptime of all temporary buffs and summons, and lets you cast Blood of Dreeg more often.
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Tier 2 Constellations
[ul][li]Ulo the Keeper of Waters[/li]Great resistances, including for pets. I never use the Celestial Power because it requires an extra active skill to bind to, and with it’s very long cooldown you have to pay a lot of attention to use it in a useful manner. I use this over Stag and Panther if I need the resistances and can spare the devotion points.
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[ul][li]Solemn Watcher[/li]Good defensive bonuses including pierce resistance and DA. I use this over Stag and Panther if I need the resistances and can spare the devotion points.
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[ul][li]Staff of Rattosh[/li]Great pet bonuses, and some nice player aether resistance too. I almost always use this.
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[ul][li]Widow[/li]Some nice aether resistance, and a Celestial Power that provides lightning RR. The downside is that the skill cannot be bound to pets. Conjurers already have access to a lot of RR, and have a bit of a spread in damage types, so the extra RR is often not as helpful as you might expect, particularly considering you could be using the points for other benefits.
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[ul][li]Amatok the Spirit of Winter[/li]This constellation has the Celestial Power Blizzard, which is one of the most powerful Celestial Power attacks in the game. I absolutely love Blizzard, and find it goes really well bound to Familiar. Pet builds tend to have a ton of +all damage and +elemental damage, so cold isn’t too far behind lightning, and most of the RR tends to be elemental rather than lightning specific. The spread in damage types is actually pretty useful, because it improves your DPS against enemies that are highly lightning resistant.
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[ul][li]Tempest[/li]Potentially useful for the Reckless Tempest Celestial Power, but I have never found it to be worth the cost, even on lighting pet builds. Blizzard is a lot more effective.
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[ul][li]Rhowan’s Crown[/li]Provides some minor pet bonuses, some decent resistances, and has a great Celestial Power that provides elemental RR.
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[ul][li]Behemoth[/li]Provides some good HP regen, and the Giant’s Blood Celestial Power which is decent defensively. This can be useful on both Mogdrogen builds and Dying God builds.
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[ul][li]Crab[/li]Provides some pretty good resistances and the Arcane Barrier Celestial Power. Pairs decently with Mogdrogen.
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[ul][li]Typhos, the Jailor of Souls[/li]Provides some pretty good pet bonuses, a lot of the same ones that Ishtak provides. It’s pretty useful if you’re going for Mogdrogen.
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[ul][li]Bysmiel’s Bond[/li]I frequently take the first 2 nodes of this constellation for the 8% pet speed boost, but almost never complete the constellation, or even use the Celestial Power when I do. It’s damage is far too low to be using an extra active skill in my opinion.
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[ul][li]Solael’s Witchblade[/li]The Eldritch Fire Celestial Power is a must-have on chaos pet builds.
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[ul][li]Murmur, Mistress of Rumors[/li]Provides the Rumor Celestial Power which can be pretty useful on Cabalists that use both Blight Fiends and Familiar’s with Blizzard.
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Tier1 Constellations
[ul][li]Raven[/li]Provides some decent pet bonuses. This is my first choice when I need Eldritch.
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[ul][li]Eel[/li]Provides movement speed, pierce resistance, and has great efficiency for Affinity.
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[ul][li]Stag[/li]Provides movement speed, pierce resistance, and has great efficiency for Affinity.
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[ul][li]Panther[/li]Some nice pet bonuses, and great efficiency for Affinity.
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[ul][li]Lizard[/li]great source of HP regen, useful if you’re using Dying God. This has pretty good efficiency for Affinity. I always use this over Hound.
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[ul][li]Assassin’s Blade[/li]Useful for the Assassin’s Mark Celestial Power on physical damage pet builds.
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[ul][li]Crane[/li]Great resistances and the provided reduced spirit cost means you only need 652 spirit to equip lvl 94 legendary off-hands. I use this almost every time that I use Ishtak.
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[ul][li]Shepherd’s Crook[/li]This provides some decent defensive bonuses for you and your pets, and also has the Celestial Power Shepherd’s Call which is pretty good.
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[ul][li]Toad[/li]Provides some minor pet bonuses, and has great efficiency for Affinity.
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[ul][li]Empty Throne[/li]Provides some good resistance bonuses, but I rarely end up using it.
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[ul][li]Wolverine[/li]Provides some good resistances and DA, but I rarely end up using it.
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[ul][li]Fiend[/li]Provides some minor pet bonuses, and the Flame Torrent Celestial Power which is great on chaos/fire pet builds.
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[ul][li]Jackal[/li]Provides minor pet bonuses. I often use this when I need Chaos Affinity.
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[ul][li]Vulture[/li]Provides some decent resistance bonuses. I use often this when I need Chaos Affinity.
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[/Spoiler2]
Many of the devotion setups I use have 2 Celestial Powers that must be bound to player skills. Curse of Frailty is always used, but there are some different options for a second skill. My personal preference is Dreeg’s Evil Eye with Focused Gaze, but Doom Bolt and Grasping Vines are also great choices. Wind Devil doesn’t work in these scenarios as it is a player-scaled pet.
The relevant Celestial Powers that require player skills are Shepherd’s Call (Shepherd’s Crook), Hungering Void (Dying God), Time Dilation (Aeon’s Hourglass), and Arcane Bomb (Window), Howl of Mogdrogen (Mogdrogen the Wolf).
There are numerous different viable devotion setups you can use. Here are a couple of options I can recommend:
[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 1[/COLOR][/li]The main setup I recommend in this build is defensive with some great RR as well.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 2[/COLOR][/li]Similar to setup 1 but a little simpler to play as it doesn’t use Arcane Bomb, which means you don’t need as many active skills.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 3[/COLOR][/li]This is better offensively at the cost of defense, using Dying God and Aeon’s Hourglass instead of Ishtak. It’s definitely faster and works great in the main campaign, but in the crucible it’s a fair bit less reliable.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 4[/COLOR][/li]This setup with Mogdrogen is great offensively, but also pretty bad defensively. In addition to not having Ishtak, it also doesn’t have maxed player movement speed. You can swap Whirlpool for Reckless Tempest if you want but in my experience it performs a little worse.
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[ul][li][COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Setup 5[/COLOR][/li]Alternate Mogdrogen setup using Giant’s Blood and Arcane Barrier instead of either Whirlpool or Reckless Tempest. A bit better defensively, but still lacks player movement speed.
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Tip: You can fully max a new set of Celestial Powers in a couple of hours running the Rogue-like dungeons with Potions of Clarity, significantly less time than it takes to farm the item’s you’ll need. If you decide to change devotion setups later on, it’s not a big deal.
Devotion Order (for setup 1)
[Spoiler2][ul][li]Crossroads (Eldritch)[/li]
[li]Raven[/li]
[li]Crossroads (Order)[/li]
[li]Stag[/li]
[li]Eel[/li]
[li]Amatok the Spirit of Winter[/li]4 points required for Blizzard, bind Blizzard to Familiar.
[li]Crossroads (Ascendant)[/li]
[li]Shepherd’s Crook[/li]bind Shepherd’s Call to Curse of Frailty
[li]Buyback Crossroads (Ascendant)[/li]
[li]Rhowan’s Crown[/li]bind Elemental Storm to Primal Spirit or Briarthorn
[li]Buyback Crossroads (Eldritch)[/li]
[li]Window[/li]bind Arcane Bomb to Curse of Frailty, bind Shepherd’s call to Dreeg’s Evil Eye.
[li]Crossroads (Chaos)[/li]
[li]Jackal[/li]
[li]Staff of Rattosh[/li]
[li]Buyback Jackal[/li]
[li]Crane[/li]
[li]Ulo the Keeper of the Waters[/li]
[li]Ishtak, the Spring Maiden[/li]
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[/Spoiler2]