[2.0] Bob's Blood Magic Summon Raging Spirit Build, all maps and mods, Atziri

Everyone has seen an SRS build, and this is of the same ilk. However, this one is specifically designed to be forgiving with a crappy computer and an even worse internet connection (damn you comcast!).

Pros:
-can do any non-unique map with any mod
-very fast clear speed with high damage srs and 2x extended vaal haste
-moderate amount of iir considering the clear speed
-quite survivable all things considered
-uses 1 unique (aurseize)
-done in league
-likely hc viable if you don't use Comcast (shakes fist)

cons:
-MUST have a 6L staff (or vagan's blood magic enchant)
-very reliant on mana regen until you have a 6L to switch to BM and have the life/regen to support (or vagan's blood magic enchant)
-must have an even amount of mana (2x 50% auras and no reduction)

Total investment:
*6L staff (once you have it alt to get +2 fire level and then make sure you enchant cast speed)
Aurseize (kind of expensive in warbands, paid 2ex equivalent)
-Jewelry is all crafted, other gear purchased for well under 1ex each, no biggy

Notable stats:
5916 armor
max elemental resists
5,148 hp
417 hp/sec regen
212% minion damage
247% iir

Here's the low down and dirty:

















*despite my poor connection, I tried Atziri 5 times today for the first time ever. I killed her 4 times out of the 5*


That is all folks. Sorry this is my first guide so deal with it :)

This looks like a fun build. I like the skill combinations and the self-sufficiency of the summoning. What other mods would be helpful on the staff? + to all gems and melee gems I presume?

If I had my druthers, it would be +2 fire gems, +1 socket gems, + melee gems, cast speed, Str, resists.

Anything in there helps the skull damage or your survivability.

+ fire gems give a boost to raging spirits as well?

Edit: Read Angry's thread -- yep it does.

Use the Vagan L7 mod "socketed gems are support by L1 blood magic." Don't waste a link for it. >_<

That's certainly an option, but the mana cost would be very high without the lvl 20 and quality blood magic, so you might need to swap in a couple of those 2% regen jewels instead of 15% minion damage. But you could add in empower instead and go crazy :)

So, that inspired me to trade for a +3 fire staff with an open prefix.

Now, I'll start the long process of throwing 4x empower into my off staff to lvl to 3. Then see if I can corrupt one to a +1. If so by my math that's: 21 (corrupt gem) + 3 (staff) + 4 (corrupt empower + 1 from staff) = SRS lvl 28.

That would be about a 50% damage increase from my current staff. Thanks for the idea!

I actually think this build has a lot of potential as a SRS variant. The reason is that you improve your sustain at the same time as improving your survivability. More life => more regen/sec. Also life regen is easy to get in the part of the tree that has life and armor. Last, life flasks are much better than mana flasks. However its DPS will be lower than a mana-sustain variant because you don't use 3 DPS auras or much aura effect. I think specializing in MF is a good idea since you won't be competing on DPS with other SRS builds anyways.

Also consider this tree. Yours is 163% life, 8.1% regen, 20% increased life recovered from flasks. This one is 180% life, 8.4% regen, 50% increased life recovered from flasks. Both are 7 jewel sockets.

Other comments (I'm just throwing all of this at you so you can pick & choose):

You need to get boots with +50dex on them, so you can avoid stating +30dex nodes in the tree.

Belly of the beast is a good option to boost flasks further.

Socketing two vaal hastes is just a waste of sockets. Use the second socket for vaal grace or vaal summon skeletons. If you're worried about vaal haste uptime just get a or two.

Use anger instead of haste for more DPS. (Up to you if you can handle loss of move speed).

Use culling strike instead of melee physical damage (or instead of multistrike if not using Anger) for more DPS and lower mana multiplier.

Use sapping flasks instead of saturated or catalysed.

You can use shaper's seed to help with sustain.

You can't do the bloodmagic map mod because that would force you to reserve your auras on your life. I guess it's still doable if you're ok losing a bunch of DPS.

Wow thank you for the feedback, this is fantastic! I'll take a look at your suggestions

I definitely like that tree variant, you do lose 12% cast speed, which if you also lose haste will be pretty significant.

What would be the damage difference of culling strike vs melee physical? In addition, anger vs haste? It's hard to get a solid idea on the damage difference. In addition the increase of damage from culling strike is all over the place on the wiki... Does it actually lose damage as it levels beyond a certain point?

Check out the SRS info compendium.

There's a calculator there by me as well as one by Axazol. Use those to compare Haste vs Anger, MPD vs Culling vs Multistrike, and effects of cast speed / aura effect.

I also added your build to the list since I think it's interesting.

Last there's a link to petition for GGG to release the minion damage values so we can theorycraft properly.