IMO, Venthyr could very well pull ahead.
We donât know how some things with soulbinds will shape up:
Venthyr: Nadjia offers either a flat 4% damage boost or 15% to weapon enchants, food and flasks. That could be worth a lot if it effects the magnitude of food and flasks and not just duration. Thrill Seeker is basically a mini heroism every 80 seconds of combat.
Venthyr: Theotar should on average give 60% longer combat potion buffs, which is very powerful. If wasteland proprietary doesnât have a ICD, thats basically a heavy damage buff that automatically lines up with every shadow dance and could have as much as 60% uptime (not to mention it buffs your party).
Comparatively, none of the necrolord soulbinds look to have a very substantial impact on damage output other than maybe Marilythâs âPre-emptive Strikeâ (10% damage for 5 seconds at the start of combat) which could be nice for solo or M+. The idea that going Necro âfrees upâ extra dps conduits is kind of meh because there really arenât that many great dps conduits for sub/sin; theres pretty clearly a high, medium and low options, so theres heavy diminishing returns for trying to take 3 damage based conduits.
Napkin math:
Slaughter is more powerful/efficient than shadowstrike even without the potency buff (1.9% AP per energy vs 1.75 AP per energy). If we factor in something like Venthyr potency rank 5 (maybe achievable in tier 1), Slaughter is about double the damage of shadowstrike (2.7% AP per energy + 40% crit). Shadow strike is just under 100% AP per cast, so double damage is about 200% AP per cast with Symbols up.
Bone spike is currently 60% AP per 3sec, or 1200%AP per minute, per target. That means you only need to get off 12 slaughters to surpass Bone Spike + shadowstrikes at Rank5 in single target, or maybe 7-8 with crits, which does not seem very hard.
Without a nerf to Necrolord, Venthyr could still very well be the best pick for ST for sub by the end of Tier 1. With a small nerf to Necro, Venthyr would likely be the best pick for sub and Necro would still be the dominant choice for multitarget.
Itâs harder to say for Sin without seeing how Blindside shakes out, but itâs hard to imagine getting enough PPM for slaughter to catch up.