The idea of the build is to have strong minions and let them do all the damage.
We stay behind, casting buffs and occasionaly using Fury Leap for tactical advantage.
Gameplay:
(My record is wave 298, died due to lag.)
With 98% Glancing Blow and ~2000 dodge rating our Companions will be most unbeatable.
Gameplay consists of spamming Wolf Howl, strategically placing the Totem and occasionally using Fury Leap, either to reposition your companions out of a deadly AoE (giant scorpions’ spikes are prime example), or getting ourselves out of a sticky situation.
Mandatory Uniques:
Artor’s Legacy
The Fang (The Claw will suffice)
Leveling Skills: Wolf, Swipe, Fury Leap
Swipe
aspect of panther, frenzy, spirit wolves, leech, increased area, culling
Endgame Skills: Wolf, Sabertooth, Bear, Storm Totem, Fury Leap
Summon Wolf
On the Hunt 1/5
Savage Hunters 8/8
Legendary Bite 6/6
additional wolf 1/1
Earthborn 3/5
Rise of the Wild 1/1 (+1 companion)
Summon Sabertooth
40% more damage: 1/1
added cold damage: 5/5
ice tiger: 1/1
retaliatory ice vortex: 1/1
more melee damage: 5/5
more cold damage: 3/5
attack speed (Fury Swipes): 3/5
Frenzy (+50% attack speed and bleed, 33% more damage taken): 1/1
Summon Bear
Forceful Swipes 1/1
Rapid Swipes 3/3
(I have tested Swipe’s damage, and it seems to be lower than default attack. Take Claw Totems instead)
Lacerating Claws 3/3
(Do NOT take Thorn Bear, we don’t want our Bear to cast spells!)
Thick Hide 1/6
Retaliatory Thorns 1/1
Tearing Thorns 4/4
Winged Thorns 1/4
Primal Precision 3/3
Gouging Claws 3/3
Fury Leap
4 points to make your companions jump with you (Pack Leader)
13 points to max Vines (just as Decoys in Mage’s Teleport, they serve as good distraction)
3 remaining points to increased damage for 3 second after jump (should finish at 6/7).
Storm Totem
2 points to get to Blizzard Totem (casts cold AoE DoT instead of lightning bolts)
(The damage it does is not big enough to matter, so I went for chill chance).
10 points to buff your companions: give your minions +15 melee lightning (cold?) damage
3/3 to shock chance (should be converted to chill chance, according to the tooltip on the cold totem node)
3/5 added cold damage
2/3 increased chill chance (the way it is worded makes me believe that this works off of the flat chance, which is 25% base + 30% converted from shock, so 20% of 55% is 11%)
See “Storm Totem borkedness” below
Alternatively, as long as Storm Totem is bugged and doesn’t buff companions for damage, you can use Thorn Totem, chill specced. In this case you don’ need to put points in Shaman.
Passives:
Primalist (20)
Primal Strength 8/8
Gift of the Wilderness 2/8
Survival of the Pack 6/6
Ancient Call 1/1
Ancient Remedy 3/5
Beastmaster (59+)
Ursine Strength 8/8
Savagery 1/? (just to unlock Aspect of Lamprey; 7% increased damage per point is meh)
Eternal Hunters 1/5 (take another Savagery if you think pots are useless. I beg to differ)
Aspect of Lamprey 6/6
The Chase 10/10
Axe and Claw 5/5
(Do NOT take Savage Bond, because we won’t be doing melee)
Primal Strength 3/10
Emanation of the Hare 14/14 (98% Glancing Blow for minions, absolutely amazing)
Agile Pack 10/10 (very powerful but only if you have at least 300 minion dodge on equipment. You should, by this point).
(By this point the build is complete, all that remains is gradual damage increases)
Serrated Teeth 10/10
Serrated Claws 10/10
Primal Strength 10/10
Shaman (5)
Ancient Stones 5/8 (just to unlock Storm Totem)
Gear:
Leveling Gear
Head: Snowblind, Artor’s Legacy
Neck: The Claw
Weapon: Beast King
Body: The Falcon, Yrun’s Wisdom
Offhand: Close Call
Rings: Arboreal Circuit (x2)
Belt: Vipertail
Gloves: Keepers Gloves, Riverbend Grasp, Wing Guards
Boots: Eterra’s Path
Endgame Gear
Head: Artor’s Legacy
Neck: The Fang
Weapon: Necromancer’s Wand or Golem Eye Wand with Minion Damage, Minion Physical Damage, Cast Speed.
Other:
Prefixes: Glancing Blow 100%, Minion Health, Minion Dodge rating (very important, you want 700-1000 on gear), strength is optional.
Suffixes: Dodge (Beastmaster passive gives us +100% dodge, so have a good amount on gear to take advantage of this bonus), Minion Damage, health/protections.
Prefixes breakdown:
Excluding Uniques and Weapon, we have 16 prefixes to work with.
aim for:
- 100% Glancing Blow (7-8 T5 affixes)
- 400-500% increased minion health (3-4 T5 affixes, plus Turquoise Ring bases)
- 900 minion dodge rating (3-4 T5 affxes)
900 minion dodge on gear will turn into (900 + 98) * 200% = ~2000 dodge rating, that’s 70% dodge at level 100. Further investments won’t do much due to diminishing returns and dodge chance hardcapped at 80% (with infinite dodge rating).
Glancing Blow chance and Dodge protect out companions from Hit damage, but neither helps agains DoTs. Only Increased Minion Health does, so try to gather a healthy amount.
Details:
Increased minion damage breakdown
tl;dr: about 600-700%
Passives: 67% melee, 25% general.
Strength: 2 base, 26 from passives; 28 * 4 = 112%.
Gear: The Fang gives 20% per wolf, that’s 60%
Turquoise Ring bases up to 2*35% = 70%
Weapon: up to 100% generic (90% T5 + 10% Necromancer’s wand base) + over 100% physical
Other items, say rings and relic: 3*50%
Wolf Howl: 60% per howl, incidental
Added minion damage breakdown
The Fang: +12 melee physical / The Claw: +6 melee physical
Beasmaster Passives: +10 melee physical
Storm Totem: +15 melee lightning (probably converted to cold, doesn’t matter)
Sabertooth DPS balance between attack speed and cold damage multiplier
We need 2 points in “10% per point attack speed” node in order to unlock 50% attack speed node. After that we have 4 points left, so there are following possibilities:
2 points in “10% per point increased attack speed”, 4 in “15% per point more cold damage”
3 points in “10% per point increased attack speed”, 3 in “15% per point more cold damage”
4 points in “10% per point increased attack speed”, 2 in “15% per point more cold damage”
5 points in “10% per point increased attack speed”, 1 in “15% per point more cold damage”
which one is optimal, depends on several factors, but mostly on ratio between amount of added cold damage and other types of added/base damage.
In my case, I have estimated base damage of Sabertooth to be 16-18 physical, plus 10 physical from Beastmaster passives and 6 physical from The Claw. Storm Totem seems to be bugged because I couldn’t notice any damage increase from it’s “+15 melee lightning damage” buff.
so we have 32-34 physical damage and 26 cold damage.
now first is affected by “increased minion melee physical damage”, which I have 559% of
// to (not) be continued
tl;dw:
- dps ~ attack speed * (cold damage flat * (100% + cold damage increased) * more cold damage + physical damage flat * (100% + physical damage increased))
- lightning added damage from Storm Totem doesn’t work (0.7.1b)
- if using The Claw, go for 2/5 speed, 4/5 more cold damage
- if using The Fang, go for 3/5 speed, 3/5 more cold damage
- take 1 more speed, 1 less cold damage if you have several minion physical damage affixes (I only have one on a weapon)
Storm Totem borkedness
Nodes that do seem to work in Blizzard mode (cold AoE):
- cast speed
- shock chance (converted to chill chance)
- -20% movement speed debuff to shocked enemies (converted to chilled enemies)
- increased chill chance
Nodes that don’t seem to work in Blizzard mode:
- increased area of effect (no discernable increase)
- added melee damage to nearby minions (companions’ damage numbers stay the same)
- Frostbite chance/effectiveness (totem’s damage numbers stay the same)
- added cold damage (totem’s damage numbers stay the same)
- increased movement speed if totem shocked (chilled) an enemy recently (no discernable increase)
Nodes that are otherwise useless/underwhelming:
- crit chance/multi - DoT doesn’t crit.
- 10% chance for stronger totem - useless 90% of the time
- nova on totem death - couldn’t see any noticeable damage compared to a single tick of cold DoTs.
This heavily limits useful nodes, so I ended up with following:
shock chance: 3/3
-20% movement speed to shocked enemies: 1/1 + 1/2 (pathing)
cast speed 4/4
increased health 4/4 (very small effect, but at least it’s better than nothing)
Blizzard Totem 1/1
added cold damage 3/5 (pathing)
increased chill chance 3/3