Damage types

[Asrapila]

I'm kinda new to the game ( most of my gameplay time I was afk ),

I'm using mix of both pet skills ( such as "raise skeleton" and summon "blight fiend" ) and drain essence ( and it's further skills ) which both are in necromancer category.

What should I use in order to boost these skills ( epically drain essence because I can see items for pets ), Is it vitality damage or cold damage or vitality decay damage ?

[Enfild]

None.
Pets scale with pet bonuses, so if you use both offensive skills and pets, both will suffer.

First choose what you want to go for, then seek damage types listed on tooltips. Dont try to grab everything.

[imfratman]

just a quick heads up , skellies later in the game i feel are not your best choice as pets. much more durable options available..

[ಠ_ಠ]

Originally posted by imfratman:

just a quick heads up , skellies later in the game i feel are not your best choice as pets. much more durable options available..

But they are great for leveling.

[Duder]

Originally posted by ಠ_ಠ:

Originally posted by imfratman:

just a quick heads up , skellies later in the game i feel are not your best choice as pets. much more durable options available..

But they are great for leveling.

And awesome with some devotion skills like Tsunami, boost their level enough and Will of the Crypt and it's a mess of water everywhere
I'm playing with them on Ultimate, you'll just be summoning them often have them hotkeyed and undead legion skill lowers the cooldown
You get 8 skeletons with a 35% chance devotion skill on every attack that's every hit from each skeleton
They are best when they summon with magic skills or crossbows imo
Drain Essence imo is not that great, but then again I've never developed the skill. Spectral Binding will increase your Aether Damage from Drain Essence.
Drain Essence is only cold damage if you turn on the Gravechill skill, otherwise it's Aether, Vitality Decay, and Vitality damage fully developed.
A Wrathstone component on your weapon or off-hand with it's toggle skill Aether weapons will boost Aether a further 100%
Hollowed Fang Component or Haunted Steel will increase your Vitality/V Decay Damage,
plus your life drain % as well
There doesn't seem to be a component that gives you that Vitality Damage toggle skill

[Slapstick]

Pets are awesome for leveling because it's reasonably easy to get hold of +pet damage gear, and that's the only thing you need. If you utilize pets, you generally should stick points only in things that benefits the summons - it's better to focus on either your own damage or your pets; and not try to do both.

[Kosiarz_Poland]

Originally posted by imfratman:

just a quick heads up , skellies later in the game i feel are not your best choice as pets. much more durable options available..

I have pet Ritualist lev. 82 no problem on elite with skellies durability. Big overcup 20-26 on skelies skills, no hard bosses in main story for now.

[Duder]

Originally posted by Slapstick:

Pets are awesome for leveling because it's reasonably easy to get hold of +pet damage gear, and that's the only thing you need. If you utilize pets, you generally should stick points only in things that benefits the summons - it's better to focus on either your own damage or your pets; and not try to do both.

Why not, especially if you're trying to make the game harder on yourself. To me this game can be played any way you want.
Pets in general aren't that powerful, to me they're more support. That's what I use them for anyway. I got my army of Skeletons with tsumani attached currently so they're a wave of watery death, pets for me distract others from surrounding you.
I have about three or four main damage types I focus on as well, two skills I use the most has those types. Someone said here focus on only one damage type, but that doesn't make any sense because many enemies will be resistant to that damage type.
I use many damage types, and skills. For me that's more fun that maxing out one or two skills and just breezing thru everything, to me that's boring but everyone has their own thing. From a role playing standpoint too, doesn't make sense that this powerful almost god-like hero would have one battle skill they use exclusively.

[phenir]

Originally posted by Duder:

Originally posted by Slapstick:

Pets are awesome for leveling because it's reasonably easy to get hold of +pet damage gear, and that's the only thing you need. If you utilize pets, you generally should stick points only in things that benefits the summons - it's better to focus on either your own damage or your pets; and not try to do both.

Why not, especially if you're trying to make the game harder on yourself. To me this game can be played any way you want.
Pets in general aren't that powerful, to me they're more support. That's what I use them for anyway. I got my army of Skeletons with tsumani attached currently so they're a wave of watery death, pets for me distract others from surrounding you.
I have about three or four main damage types I focus on as well, two skills I use the most has those types. Someone said here focus on only one damage type, but that doesn't make any sense because many enemies will be resistant to that damage type.
I use many damage types, and skills. For me that's more fun that maxing out one or two skills and just breezing thru everything, to me that's boring but everyone has their own thing. From a role playing standpoint too, doesn't make sense that this powerful almost god-like hero would have one battle skill they use exclusively.

Because 90%+ of items are designed to either support pet damage or your damage, not both at the same time. By half assing it, you end up with a gimped character who does half the damage he could be doing, with pets that are too squishy to survive long enough to do appreciable damage and an enemy who is half dead beating you up.
You focus on one or two damage types because the same reason as above, most items support up to 2 damage types (and their associated DoT if any) at most. You should look into items that convert extraneous damage types into the ones you want to focus on. That would still allow you to use multiple skills but they'd be much stronger than just as is.
Enemy resistance is never an issue as long as you grab appropriate devotions for the damage types you are using. You can always get at least 50% resistance reduction just from devotions and ideally one of your masteries would give another 20-30% or more.

[jV]

not to add confusion to things, there are minions that do scale with the player's stats, but they specify if they do. For example, the blade spirits from nightblade and guardian of empyrion from oathkeeper are two that come to mind. I think there are also some devotions that proc minions that scale with you, too. Trying to spec into minion stats and player stats( barring defense of course) is going to end up with mediocre gameplay in both though, OP. Vitality skeletons with ritualist(shaman as your second class) will absolutely steamroll the entire game all the way up until celestial bosses so I would probably just play that. If you really want to play a caster build, I would ditch drain essence. It's a mediocre skill even with really good gear.

[Childe Roland]

Originally posted by Feed Me-Unruly22:

I think there are also some devotions that proc minions that scale with you, too.

All of the Devotion pets scale with the player except for the Hound from Bysmiel's Command (proc from Bysmiel's Bonds).

[Valentine (Lunaticus)]

Originally posted by phenir:

text

Well yeah, but if you're new and play on normal it really doesn't matter at all. And so what if the character is ♥♥♥♥? You can just respec and make it into a better character later on.

I still have one of the first characters I ever made and throughout the years I made it better as I gained more knowledge on how to build better characters.

[ಠ_ಠ]

Originally posted by Valentine (Lunaticus):

Well yeah, but if you're new and play on normal it really doesn't matter at all. And so what if the character is ♥♥♥♥? You can just respec and make it into a better character later on.

I still have one of the first characters I ever made and throughout the years I made it better as I gained more knowledge on how to build better characters.

Agreed. The respec system is very forgiving. First play should be primarily about having fun, and secondarily about learning the game's systems.

[Duder]

Originally posted by phenir:

Originally posted by Duder:

Why not, especially if you're trying to make the game harder on yourself. To me this game can be played any way you want.
Pets in general aren't that powerful, to me they're more support. That's what I use them for anyway. I got my army of Skeletons with tsumani attached currently so they're a wave of watery death, pets for me distract others from surrounding you.
I have about three or four main damage types I focus on as well, two skills I use the most has those types. Someone said here focus on only one damage type, but that doesn't make any sense because many enemies will be resistant to that damage type.
I use many damage types, and skills. For me that's more fun that maxing out one or two skills and just breezing thru everything, to me that's boring but everyone has their own thing. From a role playing standpoint too, doesn't make sense that this powerful almost god-like hero would have one battle skill they use exclusively.

Because 90%+ of items are designed to either support pet damage or your damage, not both at the same time. By half assing it, you end up with a gimped character who does half the damage he could be doing, with pets that are too squishy to survive long enough to do appreciable damage and an enemy who is half dead beating you up.
You focus on one or two damage types because the same reason as above, most items support up to 2 damage types (and their associated DoT if any) at most. You should look into items that convert extraneous damage types into the ones you want to focus on. That would still allow you to use multiple skills but they'd be much stronger than just as is.
Enemy resistance is never an issue as long as you grab appropriate devotions for the damage types you are using. You can always get at least 50% resistance reduction just from devotions and ideally one of your masteries would give another 20-30% or more.

That's fine, but I like playing with both, it's more fun for me, and that's what it's all about.
Works just fine for me too.
Maxing out everything for two skills is just another way of playing.