Ritualist (pet) build help/feedback

[[Vilu]]

Well, simply put; here is the build I'm planning for: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/RZR97rrV

I'm currently only 67 (act3 on elite) so I'm not there yet. And it's my first ever character, as I only just recently purchased GD. But I was wondering how does my build look to more 'veteran' players. Will it work in ultimate?

- Windigo on skeles to help them stay alive longer with a little dmg boost for them.
- Bat on Blight Fiend to boost its dmg output and keep it alive.
- Will of Ratosh on wendigo totem to increase the dmg boost it provides (via vitality res. reduction)
- Tip of the Scales on Master of Death for small dmg and self healing/energy leech. Can this proc on pets btw? Or only just me?
- Sepherd's Call on bone harvest for even higher pet dmg boost with soul harvest.
- Devouring Swarm is there for the -vitality res, but I don't find myself using it that often as I find myself microing my wendigo totem instead. That's why will of ratosh is on it rather than DS. For now anyway, might change it to devouring swarm at some point instead. Or maybe respec away from it and use the points elsewhere?
- The 2 points in Bysmiel's Bonds are left over points and those 2 looked like the best pet bonuses I can get with them.

Other than the breakpoints for Undead Legion's summon limits, what other skills are there that one would want to lower based on +skill gear they have? Like, really bad scaling past max for example.

For my first build, how does it look? :D

[[Vilu]]

Was "messing" around with grimtools and built up this gear list with it: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2mgnboZ

Maybe not the best in slot, but quite balanced set of gear. When all the buffs are up (including devotion ones) the pet stats are at:
1440% pet dmg
400-800% vit dmg? GT doesn't list it and I'm too lazy to count it all :P
58% attack speed
96% health.
47% speed
27% OA
All but bleeding resist capped, which is at only 12%. But grim tool doesn't up EP from briathorn in pet stats, so it should be at 49%+, I think

Player resists are allmost all capped. Maybe different set of components and augments is required. But hey, it's what I found relatively quickly. I tried to keep each item with +2 different skills or at the very least +1all on either shaman or necro, while still keeping OK pet stats.

It's completely different story if I ever find all of the items :P

[Kris]

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/62avgMkV

let me go over this edit of it real quick.

I dropped call of the grave because there's only three notable stats on it: Vit damage, poison damage, crit damage. the regen is very high, but it's only up a 40% of the time so it's not relible. the OA bonus from the offhand is to you not the pets, which actually makes it useless here. the %all damage is nice, but low and yours was already so high, it added around 4-5%. it's honestly a waste of points compared to swarm since when that's capped is a grand -60% vit resist which is almost your skele's only form of damage. It is a good levelup skill for raise skeletons or for endgame cabalist.

i took out all points in blight burst and threw the transmuter on since it'll die very fast at that low points, briarthorn has about 50% more hp with the exact same armor at 7 points.

threw a point into dread for the extra range on bone harvest.

maxed heart of the wild at pact's expense since heart actually isn't shown in pet stats so that's almost double the bonus from it at half the regen from pact, but skele have enough lifesteal for that to not matter much, blight and briar will fell that but should be tanky enough to survive until cds are off.

took two points out of totem since the heal only increased the flat after 12 points.

added mark because that's one hell of a anti-focus skill. helps if something dies a bit too early and aggro drops on you.

swapped medal to dreadchill since overseer's pet bonuses aren't that good for non shaman/occultists and since dreadchill gives 200% vit damage to pets.

i dropped bramblewood for heart of mountain bc you only lose two points in raise skeleton for 18% armor for pets and a third tanky summon.

also swapped augments/components around to hit almost capped resists for player.

so in total i dropped

-10% pet hp
-200%~ all damage
-16% total speed
-18% pet pierce resist
-23% crit damage (40% uptime)
-130% pet vit damage (40% uptime)
-21 pet hp/s
-2 points in raise skeleton
-120 flat healing on wendigo (more or less useless)

for

+18% pet hp
+200% pet vit damage
+18% pet armor
+60% vit resist reduction
+skill to survive focus fire for 4s
+2 points into soul harvest
+third tanky, no timer summon that deals cold damage
+make briarthorn draw aggro
+make blight beast have less than half cd (to make up for it's low hp pool)
+almost all resists completely capped (acid is like 3 points away)

[[Vilu]]

Some interesting changes. Thanks for the reply.

Can't really say much about the skill changes yet, as I'm still "only" 71lvl (act3 elite). Will experiment more with skills once I'm at 100, maybe with some better gear too.

I kinda do like rotting fumes for Blight Fiend as it basically makes almost everything crit, at this level anyway. Maybe it will be different story at 100 and ultimate. So not sure how much the transmuter will lower it's uptime on targets. At least for now it's not dying at all, thanks to bat + windigo totem + pact and call of the grave.

1 point in dread does seem quite good, for the added range. Not sure why I missed that great 1 point wonder.

I was using the medal for the pierce resist since there are very few items (like 3 or 4 total) that add it for pets. But since Oak Skin is not visible in the tool for pets, I think your choise is much better as overseer would go over the cap. Amulet looks nice one too.

One change I was thinking on my own, was to change Spider + the 2 spare points into: Scholar's Light (filler) and Scorpion for even more DA reduction. Asumming both rotting fumes and (maxed)scorpion are on the target, with the example gear that would be 150+272 DA reduction, which should result in some more crits to use all the pet crit dmg on the gear? As well as reduce some avoidance mobs have. But, I do not know if 420 is that much in ultimate, it's a fine number though.

[Kris]

Originally posted by Vilu:

Some interesting changes. Thanks for the reply.

Can't really say much about the skill changes yet, as I'm still "only" 71lvl (act3 elite). Will experiment more with skills once I'm at 100, maybe with some better gear too.

I kinda do like rotting fumes for Blight Fiend as it basically makes almost everything crit, at this level anyway. Maybe it will be different story at 100 and ultimate. So not sure how much the transmuter will lower it's uptime on targets. At least for now it's not dying at all, thanks to bat + windigo totem + pact and call of the grave.

1 point in dread does seem quite good, for the added range. Not sure why I missed that great 1 point wonder.

I was using the medal for the pierce resist since there are very few items (like 3 or 4 total) that add it for pets. But since Oak Skin is not visible in the tool for pets, I think your choise is much better as overseer would go over the cap. Amulet looks nice one too.

One change I was thinking on my own, was to change Spider + the 2 spare points into: Scholar's Light (filler) and Scorpion for even more DA reduction. Asumming both rotting fumes and (maxed)scorpion are on the target, with the example gear that would be 150+272 DA reduction, with should result in some more crits to use all the pet crit dmg on the gear? As well as reduce some avoidance mobs have. But, I do not know if 420 is that much in ultimate, it's a fine number though.

crit break points are like 70 OA away so 420 can make a huge difference.

as for the transmuter, it makes them live for 8s and makes the base resummon cd 8s and reduce skill cost 30%. makes them live perfectly, just need to resummon somewhat often but makes sure they're topped off.

[talonblade3]

I fiddled around with what you had and this is what I came up with without going through augments or compnents. Looks decent to me, but I am not that familiar with pet builds.

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/w26MBOeN

[Kris]

Originally posted by talonblade3:

I fiddled around with what you had and this is what I came up with without going through augments or compnents. Looks decent to me, but I am not that familiar with pet builds.

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/w26MBOeN

looks pretty good but there's a few issues

the gloves will only spawn if you get the kill so they're useless on pure summoner builds

the weapon is actually meant completely for death knight hybrid summoners so he's better off with a weapon and an offhand.

call of the grave for the same thing as above post, only cabalist can fully use it to max effect endgame because the stats are not that great. one point wonder unless you're doing the whole flat damage stacking game, but again, cabalists can only really do that. It'd be alot better if the modifiers worked on pets but they don't according to grimtools, haven't actually checked in game yet, but odds are it's correct.

you also maxed briarthorn but didn't put a point into ground slam so it can't draw aggro to use it's hp pool.

devotions are pretty decent, esp since you put manticore on skeles. the rr won't stack but should be up near permently that way. most people put fiend on them, i personally put bat.

you also put 3 extra points into mark, it's mostly a one point wonder unless you have points and have everything else where you want. you could have put those points into the pets for a bit more damage since mark only get .3m range, 3% absorbtion, and 36% reflection.

puting any ultimate points into wendigo is the same as pointing more than one point into mark, it's scaling is bad past there since it doesn't increase the percent heal if at all after 12.

you also kept oak skin at one point when it's just a bunch of free tank stats and regen for everyone including pets.

you also miss dread which is roughly 30% increase in range for a single point. :P

all in all not a bad build but the whole thing about shaman summoners is having undying tank pets while occultist is dps pets. your build would have the highest dps but the fastest dying pets and die fast they would.

[talonblade3]

Originally posted by Kris:

Originally posted by talonblade3:

I fiddled around with what you had and this is what I came up with without going through augments or compnents. Looks decent to me, but I am not that familiar with pet builds.

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/w26MBOeN

looks pretty good but there's a few issues

the gloves will only spawn if you get the kill so they're useless on pure summoner builds

the weapon is actually meant completely for death knight hybrid summoners so he's better off with a weapon and an offhand.

call of the grave for the same thing as above post, only cabalist can fully use it to max effect endgame because the stats are not that great. one point wonder unless you're doing the whole flat damage stacking game, but again, cabalists can only really do that. It'd be alot better if the modifiers worked on pets but they don't according to grimtools, haven't actually checked in game yet, but odds are it's correct.

you also maxed briarthorn but didn't put a point into ground slam so it can't draw aggro to use it's hp pool.

devotions are pretty decent, esp since you put manticore on skeles. the rr won't stack but should be up near permently that way. most people put fiend on them, i personally put bat.

you also put 3 extra points into mark, it's mostly a one point wonder unless you have points and have everything else where you want. you could have put those points into the pets for a bit more damage since mark only get .3m range, 3% absorbtion, and 36% reflection.

puting any ultimate points into wendigo is the same as pointing more than one point into mark, it's scaling is bad past there since it doesn't increase the percent heal if at all after 12.

you also kept oak skin at one point when it's just a bunch of free tank stats and regen for everyone including pets.

you also miss dread which is roughly 30% increase in range for a single point. :P

all in all not a bad build but the whole thing about shaman summoners is having undying tank pets while occultist is dps pets. your build would have the highest dps but the fastest dying pets and die fast they would.

Fair. Like I had said, I am not adept at pet builds. Never really got one past Homestead. At least I have the general idea lol