[3.0] Self-Cast Dark Pact Occultist - over 3mil Shaper DPS

Can Dark Pact be used with Chaos Inoculation or low life? The life loss would be a moot point if you're relying entirely on energy shield anyway.

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Nostrademous wrote:

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IANF1 wrote:

I was curious about this spell when i saw it and I was wondering if it worked with totems at all. I wanted to see if you could make a chaos version of RF totems like this.

It does work with totems.

I know we are early into a new league here but has anyone explored viability with this? I'd assume I'd want to try witch/templar for it instead of marauder where the RF totem build comes from? I'll need to look at the trees.

I'm still pretty shit at this game but i might just give this a crack. fuck it, i'll try it out in hardcore.

that bandits is better for this build?

did some testing with dark pact too (however everything quite low lvl).

scenarios I did test:

dark pact totem without skelettons:
lowest damage of all variants. Totems die very quickly. I dont think it is worth a real build.

dark pact selfcast
second lowest damage. Highest clearspeed, but not as good vs bosses. has to be pretty close range, simmilar to a nova build. You need quite some defenses and vaal pact.

dark pact selfcast + skelettons selfcast
high damage once skelettons are out in the field (because of the chaining between skelettons), but very low clearspeed

dark pact selfcast + skel totems
higher clearspeed than casting everything yourself. high damage, but you cant control where your skelettons are, so often you wont deal any damage at all to the dangerous mobs you need to kill fast
good vs bosses that dont move a lot. (not sure about super high aoe dmg bosses who could melt skells too quickly) though

dark pact totem + selfcast skelettons
This is probably the way to go.
Feels much better as you can control where the damage is dealt.
Lower damage because of totem support, but still better than selfcast I guess, but dont expect super high clearspeed as you still have to put down totem and ramp up the skell count first.

-> damage might be very good if multiple totems would stack up damage, couldnt test that




In short:
- the damage is really good, especially while using skelettons.
- I dont recommend leveling with selfcast DP in HC.. it is really dangerous
- starting dark pact totem + selfcast skel @ lvl 28 did enough damage in a 2L (DP+totem support) to kill monsters e.g. in docks fast in a 2 man party.
- selfcast is clearly the better clearspeed build, while some skel variant is much better and safer vs. bosses especially as skelettons deal quite some dmg of their own

Also works with "remote mines"

Just entered Act 8 and found a 5-link chest - with IAoE easy large 1-shot on most white/blue mobs. With Conc Effect easy 1-shot of yellow mobs and most bosses die fast.

Life became much easier after doing 2nd labs and getting 2nd curse up (assassin's). Now I can realistically heal to full from just using DP.

My gear is still largely crap.

did some testing with ancestral bond double dark pact totem + selfcast skelettons.
I could be wrong as even vaal did die very quickly, but I didnt notice any difference between 1 and 2 totems...

@Nostrademous:

did u try a skeletton totem at bosses? it should increase your dps (at least if the boss doesnt move a lot).
Also did you take minion or spell/chaos dmg nodes to boost your damage?

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azraelb wrote:

@Nostrademous:

did u try a skeletton totem at bosses? it should increase your dps (at least if the boss doesnt move a lot).
Also did you take minion or spell/chaos dmg nodes to boost your damage?

The only boss that I didn't rapidly take-down was the act 10 boss. I have tried briefly doing DP + SpellTotem with self-cast Skeletons and I was under-impressed in the damage (although I didn't commit all the way and pick up minion life support, etc).

I'm debating a few changes to my build based on my map experience:

1) spec out of MoM - taking a large hit or two can completely deplete your mana pool and then you can't heal to full from your attacks as you don't have the mana to cast it. I need to check the math that I will have sufficient mana for 2-3 casts without the + % mana behind the MoM wheel while reserving 70% for my double curses. MoM is great for early Acts all the way through 9 and I highly recommend it, but in Act 10 it felt more as a crutch then a help.

2) I'm also debating if perhaps removing Warlord's and putting in "life leech support" as a linked gem to Dark Pact might be better. I wouldn't have mana leech then but I could cast Clarity. Hoping that between Clarity + Alira Bandit Reward and some mana regen nodes I don't have mana issues. This would allow me to modify my ascendancy tree or use a defensive curse like enfeeble in addition to assassin's mark.

3) stun immunity (or partial) would be nice... if I do #2 above I can go for the "full energy shield == stun immune" ascendancy then which might be much better of. More mapping will tell.

PSA - for all the private messages: I went Alira Bandit Reward.

To murder bosses - and I murder a "large" amount of them (meaning they don't even phase transition, they just die) I pop: Orb of Storms (to shock them and proc Arcane Surge), Vaal Haste, Diamond Flask, Wither Spell Totem, and spam Dark Pact (at my level/talent-selection and with Spell Echo and with Vaal Haste I get around 5 DP hits per second.

With a few more levels in Orb of Storms I think I can get Arcane Surge level 10 to work with the gloves (I bought ones that were high in mana cost of skills to help here... they go all the way up to +75%). Right now I'm at 62 mana to cast OoS (level 17 gem). It goes up by 1 mana (plus the +60-ish% from my gloves hopefully rounding up to +2mana next level. 64 mana is required for Arcane Surge (level 10)



I have a 5-link chest and my 5th link right now is Item Rarity b/c I honestly don't need more damage... for bosses I used to pop in a Conc Effect but lately I don't even bother as things die fast anyways and the Item Rarity loot drops from bosses are what I want anyways...

As I progress through map tiers today I will see if I start lacking in damage, currently it's as easy as:
1) Flame Dash into a pack
2) Cast Dark Pact (with Spell Echo repeat)
3) pack is dead... I'm back to full health/mana...

Here is my current gear:





As you can see it's largely not finalized yet (minus the gloves - which could be a little better, but not much).

My weapons are "ok" for now. I really need to get improved versions of things like:

but with a 50% crit base and some spell crit mod as well as + dmg to spells.
NOTE: check on Divinarius (no +dmg to spell, but might be good mid-tier option)

I am resist capped right now, but I really should focus on more ES/life on my gear and better resist jewelry an then some good jewels (I have 1 jewel socket currently and with a random shit jewel in it simple b/c I didn't have time to find a decent one).

NOTE TO SELF: check dmg numbers if using Pledge of Hands (+140% spell dmg, level 30 spell echo - so 7 link)

Got this wands for 2 chaos from poe.trade - damage going up.