I’ve been looking to play primalist, specifically around Spriggand Form in one way or another, and as I’ve been looking into the choice I’m most interested in: Bees, I’ve sort of developed a cloud of related builds that are somewhat overlapping, but probably distinct in so far as how I need to commit to each one. I could use some help sorting through them and getting advice on how I could make each work. I don’t necessarily have a whole planner that I’m happy enough with to show, so I’ll just describe them.
-
Bloodkeeper’s Nest Spriggand Form where the bees do the damage. Not sure if Druid or Beast Master. I think bleed is what makes sense because of the str benefit. But yet to be seen if it can work at all. Last time I tried a bee build it didn’t really work out, but I also think I was a bit too unfocused and we have some new power available that we didn’t before.
-
Bee and bear build. Bees are a way to stack up a lot of bleeds and then the bear does more damage and has more movespeed per bleed. Although this only stacks to 30, so idk.
-
Keeping with the bear, we drop the bees all together and play single companion bear Beast Master with the new weaver amulet that buffs up a single minion and then use Spriggand Form to buff it up with thorn shields and maelstorms. I just want to make sure though: Are the maelstorms owned by the bear or us? Does it get the global phys damage increase from that node or do I get it? Also, do minion affixes transfer at all from things like the amulet and Julra’s gloves? I have an amulet with T6 minion damage, but not sure if that matters.
Now going more down the spell damage route: We use the attunement to phys spell damage uniques to do one of two things:
-
We use the fact that the bees get free thorn shields to make a lot of those to apply our damage. We also run phys maelstorm, but that we only get on direct casts of thorn shield, so we can’t go too crazy with it. Similar question to before: Do the minions own the spells on them for the sake of scaling? Do I need minion spell damage or just spell damage for my character?
-
Not my build, but I’ve seen a druid retaliation build that looks cool. But having tried a retaliation build just before this… idk if this will really go any better.
-
Lastly and probably one of the more straightforward options: I play with the new relic Soul of the Mountain and use thorns and attunement stacking. I’m also somewhat tempted to try using the spirit thorns boots, but not sure I’m suicidal enough to want to stand still to cast things for an extended period of time.
With any of the stat stacking builds, I do have red rings I can use. 2 T7 Str. None for attunement though, so I’d have to farm for those.
Also, random question: Does damage taken from mana before health work with rage or no? I have some Seeds of Ekidrasil I could maybe use in the attunement stacking builds if that works.