Occultist Pet issue.

[Gilver Redgrave]

After playing Shaman and Necromancer for a while i feel like the base game original Pet class is kinda getting sc*ewed. While a Hellhound build is fun and is also very stron the Occultist get outperformed by the Necromancer by a huge amount.

Lets compare a little shall we ?

Occultist:
- Raven
- Hellhound

Both have a summoning Limit of 1. On top of that the Raven is bad because you cant control what skills Pets use and when. This isnt an issue if you really just have this one Hellhound but once you have more Pets on the field via Items,Devotions the Raven acts on his own and chooses his target. Hence why Raven is the least liked Pet in Grim Dawn. If you need healing for your pets Shamans Wendigo Totem is a much better option. The Hellhound itself is pretty nice but it should scale up to at least 3 Summonings on Max level. On top of that Occultist as the base Pet class is also the only one without a "Boss Monster" which both Shaman and Necromancer do have.

- Bonds of Bysmiel

The only saving grace really. Unlike the other two classes which increase specific damage types this one increases "all damage" making it irrelevant what type of pets you use.


The issue is as "THE" Pet class the Occultist focuses far to much on debuffs which sadly enough is done better by the Necromancer aswell.

Now what does Shaman have. Shaman is mostly a "supportive" pet class. Occultist use Shaman for Briathorn as a Tank and for the Boss Monster aswell as Mogdrogens Pact and Primal Bond for more damage.

So Shaman as a support for Pets is pretty fine the way it is.


Now the Necromancer. The call of Ah Puch. The Giggler of Bones.

Overpowerd as hell. No really lets compare his skills with the original pet class.

Necromancer:
- Skeletons
- Blight Fiend
- Reap Spirit

Unlike Occultist and Shaman the Necromancer comes with both a damage dealer and a Tank pet. Unlike the other two you dont have a summoning limit of 1. Blight Fiend has a node that gives it +2 Summoningss however it now has a duration which isnt an issue because they also turn into walking "bombs". And the Skeletons....well. What about 10 of them ? Yes no kidding summoning 10 of them is possible.

Now lets go more into detail shall we ?

- Blight Fiend
Strongest Tank hands down. Both its attacks generate thread. His Giga Fart (AoE attack) is HUGE and makes the Hellhound detonation look like a bad joke. It also get an damagin aura around it (3.6 meter max level) that damages enemys AND has a 15% chance for Fumble attacks and Impaired Aim for 2 seconds. Those are the strongest CC in the game because what doesnt even hit you doesnt deal damage. And his Giga fart also has Confuse Target for 2 Seconds. No percantage chance it DOES happen when he farts. And with his +2 node you have 3 of them doing that and the only "inconvinience" is that you need to re-summon them.

- Skeletons
Holy sh*t. The Skeletons. First of all you can have 10 of them you follow me so far yes ? Next is there are 4 "Classes" for Skeletons. Yes you hear right 4 "CLASSES" which you summon at random.

Normal:
Simple Skeleton. Fodder. Nothing Special.

Crossbow:
Huge amount of Pierce damage,fast attack speed and have a pass trough enemys shot.

Mages:
Cast a Chaos damage Spell and a Meteor.

Knight:
Oh look another Tank. Has a Damage Aura (Chaos damage i believe) and throws 3 chaos bombs at enemys before engaging.

I mean we dont need to argue here that Hellhounds are extremely inferior here right ? And you also have the Reap Spirit as Boss Monster mind you.

Necromancer Buffs:
- Bone Harvest
- Call of the Grave
- Master of Death

I mean 3 buffs while Occultist only has 1. I dont need to say more do i ? Oh i need to mention 1 ting. Bone harvest also has a chance to confuse Targets. Yes Necromancer has ALOT of confusion going on because Necrotic Edge also has a huge chance for Confusion and Ill Omen is hilarious. So with Blight Fiend you have 4 sources of Confusion.

Debuffs:
This is where it gets toasty. The Debuffs are what normaly would save the Occultist. However Occultist has found his match here.

- Ill Omen
- Spectral Bindings

Ill Omen is pretty much Bloddy Pox. It does deal less damage HOWEVER it does 100% afflict Confusion for 2 seconds and it spreads. It also decreases the enemys damage and reduces its movementspeed. So Ill Omen and Bloddy Pox are 2 sides of the same coin. One dealing damage with a chance for confusion while the other inflicts strong debuffs 100% sure but deals low damage.

Spectral Binding decreases the enemys Attackspeed and all resistances the Necromancer needs to deal more damage. Its pretty much just Curse of Frailty from Occultist.


All in all Necromancer feels like they took Occultist,improved it and then released it as new class. This is so bad that Occultist is reduced into being the "support" class for Necromancer. Double dipping on debuffs ? YES !

I feel like Occultists Pet aspects need a little love. His Raven is just plain unrelyable and his Doggy is strongly outdated for the modern gameplay of Grim Dawn after all its DLCs. Maybe also add one more buff for Pets.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

hopefully this settles that debate once and for all :sweat_smile:
https://imgur.com/a/pd6pRwT

Originally posted by Gilver Redgrave:

Lightning Strike has a 3rd party scaling that increases its damage which is "Weapon Damage". So this skill gets stronger because of the weapon youre holding but not by any of the players stats.

nah, this weapon dmg reference/weapon dmg listed on true pet skills/pet scaled pet skills is the pet's own "weapon dmg"/innate or global flat dmg

[Gilver Redgrave]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

nah, this weapon dmg reference/weapon dmg listed on true pet skills/pet scaled pet skills is the pet's own "weapon dmg"/innate or global flat dmg

The Crow has a weapon ? O.o

Oh sh*t boys that Chicken is packing heat !

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by tvance52:

But thought auras that add flat damage to "allies" add it to pets?

they do, 100% you're right on that, just misremembering how auras work scaling wise
grimtools is a best example of this
an aura/buff has a base value (which also increase with ranks or item modifiers), what you see in GT calc is skill base values, incl party buffs like blood of dreeg
*that's* the value that's conferred to team members or pet scaled pets
those base values are then boosted by the recipients own stats/boosters, in this case bonus pet dmg

Originally posted by tvance52:

But on the stats, I just went in-game and checked it in case my memory was wrong.

For my level 100 build:

at 639 Spirit (base Spirit for my build), flat damage is:


at 1084 Spirit, flat damage is:

and welcome to the wonderful world of Grim Dawn's tooltips
unsure if you've heard/know about LCS, or the "lying character screen" from ex diablo 2
GD direct skill tooltip sadly have... "limited", utility, when it comes to accuracy
so it doesnt' factor everything in, and sometimes it factors stuff in it shouldn't
what you're likely seeing, i'm guessing here since not having seen your char, is that you have a party buff/some form of aura active. That buff/aura is technically being boosted by your spirit "for you", the tooltip then takes that, and adds it to the raven "as if it was the ravens", when instead it's just mingling stats it shouldn't

easiest example of skill tooltips lying is them not showing conversion, atleast not if it's not direct skill conversion and then in some cases still.
Tooltips not showing item skill mods.
Tooltips showing skills dealing XY dmg, when in fact they deal X or X+part Ydmg, like how dual wield skills will show a dmg increase if you add flat bleed, and the weapon dmg on both mainhand+offhand skill will go up, even tho the bleed technically only applies to 1h of the attack.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by Gilver Redgrave:

The Crow has a weapon ? O.o

nope
which is why the raven's %wd entries is fairly limited, because it's a "caster" pet, has no innate flat unlike ex briar or hellhound, so it only obtains flat or "weapon dmg" from outside global source, like the storm spirit buff, blood of dreeg etc

[madrigal]

Originally posted by Gilver Redgrave:

I count kiting as Tanking. Also known as running in circles screaming :" I am gonna die,i am gonna die,i am gonna die, SH*T I AM GONNA DIE !!!"

Interesting definition of kiting.

Kiting, in the sense of staying ranged and running away when monsters get to close, is not really a strategy for pets in late and end game. Your pets need be up close and personal to the monsters to draw aggro and if you get too far away, your pets will follow you instead of attacking the monsters. You need to stay close to your pets and run just enough to avoid pools of death and meteor showers. The last thing you want is monsters chasing you instead of your pets. It takes a little practice to stay at the right distance.

With a few exceptions, I just set all the pets to full aggro, send them in and follow 6 meters behind them. Obviously, you don't want to draw aggro on multiple mobs. Enough pets are very good at pinning down even Nemesis bosses so you are barely in any danger as long as you don't get nullified.

[Bludbonez]

Just add Shaman to your builds with any other pet class. My Occultist/Shaman and Necro/Shaman beat out my Occultist/Necro build by a long shot. IMO, just me! They are much more fun than Occultist/Necro.. Also survive better!

[Gilver Redgrave]

Originally posted by Bludbonez:

Just add Shaman to your builds with any other pet class. My Occultist/Shaman and Necro/Shaman beat out my Occultist/Necro build by a long shot. IMO, just me! They are much more fun than Occultist/Necro.. Also survive better!

I use SHaman for my Necromancer. Wendigo Totem also keeps minions alive.

[tvance52]

You're right on pet damage. No direct boost. I'm deleting those older posts so people searching this later don't get misled.

I went in game and tested on dummies with 5000 Spirit. All within the same margins as before.

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

and welcome to the wonderful world of Grim Dawn's tooltips ...

can't believe I fell for it. argh.

I knew the Character sheet was a mess, didn't realize the Skills info was, too.

I generally don't bother with either since I already know what I'm building toward, but that is still frustrating.

...

I do stand by the comment that boosting Spirit helps pet builds (within reason). Characters need to be doing something to support their pets against Celestials, high SR, and such. Unless the build is just a debuffer (Frailty, etc.) I find builds with higher Spirit do it easier/faster than builds that pump Physique. But that goes back somewhat to gear and piloting to ensure you can survive first.

All my high SR pet builds are more Spirit based with caster support.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by tvance52:

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

and welcome to the wonderful world of Grim Dawn's tooltips ...

can't believe I fell for it. argh.

i keep being surprised by it, you think you've figured it out, "discovered a baseline" for what you can use/trust, and then BLAMO ! the game sucker punches you and teaches you a new thing it was hiding

[tvance52]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

i keep being surprised by it, you think you've figured it out, "discovered a baseline" for what you can use/trust, and then BLAMO ! the game sucker punches you and teaches you a new thing it was hiding :lunar2019crylaughingpig:

haha, true.

Not a big issue for experienced players, since you generally know what works and what doesn't. Hard for new players trying to figure things out.

[valium]

Skeletons are broken on normal/vet/elite, but start falling off hard on ultimate. Necro pet builds tend to switch to zombies later on. Hell, the best performing pet build doesnt even spec any of the class pets and uses all their skill points on the buffs/debuffs and uses pets spawned from procs instead.