Honestly, I never used Revive or Bone Spirit before, so I’m not sure how they work. I’m also not much of a theorycrafter, but these are my thoughts.
-
I think it sucks that all our damage comes from cooldown abilities. At least with the Skeleton Mages the damage was kind of on demand.
-
Army of the Dead and Bone Spirit damage depending on the number of our minions also has a problem for me: we need corpses for Revive, but we start GRs with no corpses available. And since AotD and BS damage is going to be weaker without Revive minions, it’ll be hard to actually kill stuff for corpses. Not sure what are our options for corpse sources, but I think it’ll be crappy to have to start all GR with a Land of the Dead cast just so we can do damage.
-
Not sure of this, but isn’t Bone Spirit damage single target? It doesn’t deal damage to enemies it passes through, just explodes on impact, right? Not sure how good the gaining damage per second mechanic is supposed to help. We should stand as far away from mobs as possible so bone spirit takes longer to reach the target? Seems like a crappy mechanic when most of the damage of the set is tied to the ability.
I’m not sure what kind of items are out there to help the reworked set, but I really hope they didn’t end up making the set weaker. Any corrections to my line of thinking would be helpful.
Edit: Maybe include another part to the 2-piece affix:
- Your minions reduce the cooldown of Army of the Dead by 1 second and grant a Bone Spirit charge each time they deal damage. Your skeletal warriors spawn faster, and your revived minions no longer expire.
2 Likes
I may be wrong, I may have carried a decimal wrong somewhere in this, maybe I’m overlooking it. But just based on early sketched out math multipliers, the damage output potential for this is… very high. Combined with near invulnerability from the passive uptime. This set has potential, don’t count it out yet. And I’m not even using Bone Spirit in my rough draft (yet) because you just don’t need it with the potential damage of Army.
1 Like
Thanks for clarifying the math. I was just worried about all the damage coming from cooldown skills.
When I first tried using the set and played with Army of the Dead, you still had to wait a decent time for the cooldown to reset. Maybe revive minions will fix that, but I wish pet damage was still important for the Rathma set.
Here’s to hoping that the set is more in line with the others now.
Keep in mind, one of the major changes here is the previously worded “pets have a CHANCE to lower the cd” has been replaced with “pet attacks lower the cd by 1 sec” on a 100% uptime. There is no more “chance” in this. This means it will reset off cooldown almost every time.
With 7 skeletons chunking away on Command and 10 mages in the back nuking, you will be able to get Army going like clockwork even without the Revives. Again, I may be wrong, but the newly uncapped max bonus to Army combined with the new Bracers, when using other items based around Army means a very high +% that should have no problem getting you kills for Revives.
I’ve set everything up to test this Thurs on PTR, I am excited to see it. Using Skeletons / Revives means this is the closest thing to a D2 Summonmaner we’ve ever had so I’m kind of excited to try it out!
2 Likes
A note. 6th piece set removed the increase to pet damage. So your Skeletons, and Mages will be wielding dry pool noodles.
Your pets will now just be stat sticks following you around to increase your damage of AoD and Bone Spirit.
============
As for my personal opinion. I absolutely hate the change. We no longer have a fun pet build. Sure, you can do no set, but then you’d lose Jesseth, which is my favorite part of the build.
Idk, when I saw that they were reworking Rathma, I was stupid excited. But I was crushed to find out it’s just another projectile build, that makes us use walking decorations.
4 Likes
While true, unless I’m missing something the new numbers on Army are outrageously high, so I don’t think you’ll even notice the pets dealing less…
Although to your second point, I agree that a pure pet spec to make this build the equivalent of the D2 Summonmancer would have been sweet.
1 Like
I really agree with you both. The set looks to have incredible potential both offensively and defensively, so much that I really don’t expect it to make it past the PTR without being nerfed. With maxed cooldown reduction on gear and each minion attack reducing cooldown of AotD by a second (if that really is how the 2-piece bonus will work) we should be able to keep the rotation beneath 4 seconds, which will lead to invulnerability through the Rathma’s Shield passive.
On the offensive side, we will have an improved version of the Bone Spirit RGK through the almost endless damage boost from Defiler Cuisses. Invulnerability combined with the highest damage in the entire game just doesn’t seem like something that will make it through.
As for wanting a pet set, I would have really liked Rathma to be that set but think maybe it would require too much work to make Revives move and attack efficiently hence why the devs chose to give miniona pets an entirely defensive/damage boosting role. My suggestion (as written in my thread Necro 2.0) would have been the following:
- Add a Bone Spirit bonus to the Pestilence set instead, which already involves corpse consumption and allows fighting from a distance.
- Make Land of the Dead and Revive switch skill categories.
- Make Rathma 6-piece Increase the damage of ALL reanimation skills (Command Skeletons, Command Golem, Revive and Army of the Dead) by X% while Army of the Dead is active.
3 Likes
Your last point is interesting. While it would be quite fun, downtime would be the death of Rathma. And AoD has a huge timer on it. Not having mana for mages can already ruin a Rathma’s day.
I think if they reworked Revive so instead of just…reviving. It created walking corpse explosions. Basically they would follow you, then charge at any nearby enemies exploding.
Between Skeletons, and Mages, I honestly don’t think having more perma pets would really add a lot, besides more screen bloat. Which I get, can be fun and all. But it has always been temporary for me, as they often either get wiped off the screen instantly by a aoe, or they do so little damage it doesn’t matter.
Maybe add a bit where for each revive that explodes, it also increases the time that Mages stay up? So we aren’t just CONSTANTLY spamming mages, but instead shifts it over to Revive.
Also give Jesseth a second set of Skeleton’s, that will speed around separately from the main group. Mmmmm
For the most part, it’s hard to keep a pet build active, instead of passive. While being balanced. That is for sure. I feel like Blizz just kinda gave up on trying with the recent rework.
I keep trying to figure out if Bone Spirit is even worth it. I think the damage output of Army is so high as it is that if you can keep it going with 100% uptime you may not even need Spirit. I’d only stop to hard cast Mages, then use Devour for Essence gain and Passive it to give me movement speed to keep up. I’d probably use the Army AOE Aura thing to just run like hell train trucking enemies as I go, I’m not sure you’d even need to stop. The damage potential seems that high. Spirit is kind of clunky, and would require the pants… I think I Just like 6pc Rats/3pc Captains with RORG, using Fate helm in the cube. Plenty of CDR, Army gets a second rune attack added in to it and hits for absurd damage.
I agree that a nerf is probably coming, did they even test this properly? Time will tell on PTR hah
1 Like
For some reason I thought the 6-piece bonus still had a damage cap making Skeleton Mages useless, so we’d drop that skill.
Wonder which skill should be dropped from the old Rathma build to incorporate Revive. Bone Spikes?
I want to run Mages, Skeletons and Revive, with Army, Devour and either Bone Armor or Simulacrum. The idea would be constant movement, Devour keeps mages going and gives you a speed boost, you could either use the Bone Armor Ammy to get 15 stacks for 45% movement or you could use the Simulacrum ammy for double Essence to play off of Shadowhook in the cube, I think either works. I think movement is key here - you need to keep going to get to enemies to keep your minions on the ball with refreshing your immunity cooldown from Army as fast as possible. If the math on Army is correct based on what I’ve scribbled down, you will not need anything but Army to kill anything. So you just keep moving in to packs, minions refresh Army, you cast it off CD, Devour replenishes Essence to keep Mages at max and you just move move move. Gonna be the first thing I try tomorrow.
1 Like
Mages even worth it? I mean, if you think about it, if you drop Mages, you could also drop devour. Giving you room for 2 other abilities.
2 Likes
Going from a 170x multiplier to a 270x multiplier is a big jump, but depending on the top end damage it might just depend on what you’re doing. Might just be two different builds - a no mage build for fast farming and a mage build for pushing. I like the Devour for the 50% faster run speed though. Also, if your Mages give corpses, at the start of a grift couldn’t you spam it a bunch to auto kill your own mages to give you free corpses for Revive before you even kill a single enemy?
Also, the ranged targeting of Mages keeps the CD of Army up reliably - they will target things at range quicker than you can focus fire the Skeletons. I like having them as backups in ensuring my Army is coming off CD 100%
The other argument in favor of using the Simulacrum ammy over the Bone Armor stacks for more movement speed / DR is I kind of like having Simulacrum as an “oh crap” hard cast in my pocket in case something messes up with the rotation of Army CD. Hard casting Simulacrum triggers the shield too.
Sounds good, let us know how it works out for you tomorrow! I’ve been preparing a somewhat similar setup for rifts and T16 but plan on spamming Command Skeletons - Frenzy, Devour - Voracious, Revive - Horrific Return for CC (instead of Bone Armor) and Mages with Gift of death for extra corpses. Then I’m going for Brigg’s Wrath with Avarice Band on companion and Aura of Frailty so all enemies are sucked right into my Dead Storm.
Then I’m unsure on whether I should go for Rorg and in the cube so I can equip Captain Crimson’s or if I’m better off wearing Goldwrap and cubing Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac. Or maybe fitting in Tasker and Theo is the way to go? Which option do you think will give the best CDR?
Fractured: Dropping the Skeletal Mages skill makes you miss out on 10000% damage bonus to AotD so that’s a no-no.
Stuff involving gold drop is useless in GR though.
Edit: never mind, saw that that’s a bounty and normal rift build.
Bones of Rathma
2PC - Each time your minions deal damage, the cooldown of Army of The Dead is reduced by 1 second. Army of The Dead also gains stack each time your minion deals damage. Each stack grants Army of The Dead ‘X’ increased damage.
4PC - You gain 1% damage reduction for 15 seconds each time one of your minion deals damage up to maximum of 75 stacks. All minions no longer expire.
6PC - Casting Army of The Dead amplifies all of your minion damage by ‘X’ for ‘X’ seconds.
Work Bone Spirit skill into Masquerade of the burning carnival. We already have pestilence for Bone spear.
1 Like
Looks like its going to need Capt’s for cooldowns(solo enchantress adds 10% cooldown) to help kept uptime on AotD, but There is so many options on extra legendary pieces Fates Vow, Defiler, Tasker and Theo, and ect.
Jesseth’s Set would be a good damage and cube Traq Fang.
But the main question is, since you 1000% increase damage for every minion active whats the max amount of minions you can have at once. Remember any minion cannot die or expire.
Just realized, if you keep immunity up with Army going 100% uptime, does this mean Squirt’s Necklace has perma uptime too? Does “not losing life” count as not taking damage?
It’s only the Revive minions that don’t expire. Skeleton Mages won’t take damage with the 4-piece bonus, but they’ll still expire.
I wonder if Nagelring minions work for the count. Not that they stay for long anyway.
Ok without using too many skill spots, 17 is the max number I can think so far,(thats excluding mages). I think whats going to be the killer on this build is bone spirit, using devour and LotD, kepting high cooldown you can spam spirits by the dozens. Get to a good spot and spam them and they can devastate a map. Defilers Cuisses Bone Spirit gains 400-500% damage for every second active, plus the other damage multipliers ( Krysbian, Jesseths, Amulets?).