I love pet builds. But having tried making pet builds for all the classes this season, i can’t help but feel that they need some love. Tons of love actually, because they suck in relation to other builds. Depending on the class, pet builds vary from total trash, like Crusader Phalanx (which can’t even complete a T16 rift at 1000 paragon in a LOD build full of ancients, i tried and they are not killing anything fast enough) to simply acceptable like Necro or Witch Doctor builds, which are decent but way underpowered compared to other builds.
My suggestions:
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The enforcer gem needs a hefty buff. It is the main gem that actually benefits pet builds, most other gems only do so indirectly and most of the time not both bonuses apply to the build (for example Zei’s doesn’t stun with pet attacks). But the 0.3% damage increase per rank is miniscule, when you consider the other legendary gems in the game and how they scale. I think this should be buffed to at least double the amount. As it is now, at rank 100 this gem increases the damage of pets 45%. Compare this to most other legendary gems popular builds use and it is nothing, literally nothing. Also the secondary bonus should add a new effect, share a portion of the damage with the pets. Almost all the pet builds apart from Crusader and Barbarian are very squishy, and at higher difficulties the number of enemies is larger than your pets and they can’t bind them all so you end up getting attacked and die, and with you die the pets as well. This is especially hurtful when you are trying to find elites and move among enemies, heroes like Necro drop like flies. It doesn’t help that most pet builds need aggressive positioning to make the pets attack the enemies so you get into harm’s way often out of necessity. So i think increasing the damage scaling of this gem and making the secondary bonus give a portion of your damage to the pets will do a lot of good across the board for all pet builds.
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Crusader’s Phalanx has 4 legendary items dedicated to it, but even with combining all and using a rank 99 LOD and 13 ancient items, the damage is nothing. This is because the 4 legendary items for Phalanx don’t increase its damage much. In my opinion you need to add strong damage buffs in all 4 items to make it viable, in addition to buffing the enforcer gem. Eternal Union ring needs to have like a 400% damage buff added to it, alongside the duration buff. Same with the 2 handed flail, Baleful Remnant, it needs to provide a damage bonus alongside the regular bonus. It could also help if you increased the damage bonuses of Warhelm of Kassar and Unrelenting Phalanx Shield a bit. Personally, seeing how a LOD Phalanx build at rank 99 full of ancients at more than 1000 paragon takes forever to kill Torment 16 normal enemies, i don’t think that even giving a 400% bonus damage buff to all 4 items would make the build OP, the damage now is that low… Please buff Phalanx, i want to play with an army of phantom crusaders next season.
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Barbarian’s Immortal King set is in a great place i think. Just buffing the enforcer gem will be more than enough to close the gap with Rend Whirlwind somewhat. It is hillarious that Barbarian with just 3 pets is among the stronger pet builds in the game, and it is not even a pet build, but a hammer build…
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Monk’s Pet build with Inna’s set is very fun, but begins to slow down considerably around GR70-75. You can complete a season with it but it is way below the competition. I think the main reason is that the 6p set bonus damage is low compared to the competing sets. Increasing it a bit to reach 10.000% total instead of 7500% now with 10 mystic allies, plus with a buff to enforcer gem, it could be a perfectly viable build.
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Frost Hydra pet build is good for the Wizard, i think just buffing the enforcer gem is enough, if you add damage sharing with the hydras through the gem, the Wizard will be less squishy at higher levels. I think Frost Hydra is the best pet build right now but it is not really a traditional pet build to be honest, Hydra’s feel like most other AOE abilities in the game more than pets.
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Witch doctor has many ways to build pet builds, from 2 sets that buff pets damage to LOD builds, but i think just buffing the enforcer gem will be enough. Perhaps a small buff to the 6p bonus of Helltooth might be appropriate, make 9000% reach 10000% and pet builds with Helltooth would be better
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Necro is the most dissappointing pet class right now. A class made for pets, the class that made me buy Diablo 3 in 2017 just to play with Skeleton minions like i did in D2, and it sucks with Rathma Set and Jesseth weapon/shield set. It is very weak, both in terms of DPS and in terms of squishiness, and it is a shame. Necro typically drops like a fly at GR75 and higher no matter what you do, but it sucks more with a pet build since the pets are not instant and when you die it takes time to have them back… Their DPS is low no matter how you build with those sets, whether you go the “meta” way or attempt any other combination, it just doesn’t really scale well at higher difficulties. It is also VERY difficult to play compared to “hold right click to win” builds like Rend Barbarian or GOD Demon Hunter which are OP despite their extremely low difficulty. I think necro needs an enforcer gem buff with both proposed changes, both damage and damage sharing to make him not die that easily in the end game, and he also needs a significant damage buff in the 6p bonus of Rathma set, because 4000% damage bonus just for minions and army of the dead is lame compared to most other sets. As of now, it is like Rathma’s doesn’t have a 2p bonus, because even when you get to spam Army of the Dead the damage is extremely dissappointing, it doesn’t feel like a powerful 120 cd ability at all. There is reason everyone is using Simulacrum this season, and no one bothers with Army of the Dead even with the Rathma set. I think the damage should be double for the 6p bonus, to 8000%, and the 2p bonus of Rathma set should also increase Army of the Dead bonus by 400%, this would make using Army of the Dead worthwhile in pet builds.