[3.22] Gryph's Immortal Cremation - Boss Killer+Simulacrum+Blight Ravaged Farmer

OK listen up, all I need to know because I am too old and too stoned and I am downloading "Prey", is it if the build will still be immortal and viable up till "Uber Elder" content and running triple beyond with mirror recipie map (not delirium map) T16. That's all I am doing and I have much fun and good income.

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Gryphenprey wrote:

I imagine the cremation corpse scaling will be .1% every 2 levels or .05% per level. Approximately. But basically unless the scaling per level increases past level 20 it's not going to be worth opportunity costs to push the level further than what we get incidentally from Ashes/Weapon/level 21 gem as each gem level looks to be about 1% more damage.

I really hope they did a per level scaling, but knowing how much they hate corpse spells there is a good chance it changes from 4% to 5% at 20 and that's it.

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Drevi wrote:

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Gryphenprey wrote:

I imagine the cremation corpse scaling will be .1% every 2 levels or .05% per level. Approximately. But basically unless the scaling per level increases past level 20 it's not going to be worth opportunity costs to push the level further than what we get incidentally from Ashes/Weapon/level 21 gem as each gem level looks to be about 1% more damage.

I really hope they did a per level scaling, but knowing how much they hate corpse spells there is a good chance it changes from 4% to 5% at 20 and that's it.

Nah, based on the numbers of Detonate Dead (7.9% at level 20) I imagine it's going to scale per level. My assumption is that DD will be 8% at level 21--scaling .1% per level. Cremation looks as though it'll scale up as well, just a lot slower (about 1% more damage per gem level). Again, not worth losing opportunity costs over (like, it's 100% not worth getting +1 fire spells on your weapon for instance) but the incidental levels we get will boost it a little bit and getting a 21/20 gem will be worthwhile (even if it's only 1% more damage. lol)

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Spacecom wrote:

OK listen up, all I need to know because I am too old and too stoned and I am downloading "Prey", is it if the build will still be immortal and viable up till "Uber Elder" content and running triple beyond with mirror recipie map (not delirium map) T16. That's all I am doing and I have much fun and good income.

Lol yeah you'll be fine.

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Spacecom wrote:

OK listen up, all I need to know because I am too old and too stoned and I am downloading "Prey", is it if the build will still be immortal and viable up till "Uber Elder" content and running triple beyond with mirror recipie map (not delirium map) T16. That's all I am doing and I have much fun and good income.

Talking about uber bosses, I found myself having problem face tank Uber Maven's "normal" attacks, while I have no problem tanking double Simu wave 30 bosses. Is it expected (and why)?

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superarts wrote:

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Spacecom wrote:

OK listen up, all I need to know because I am too old and too stoned and I am downloading "Prey", is it if the build will still be immortal and viable up till "Uber Elder" content and running triple beyond with mirror recipie map (not delirium map) T16. That's all I am doing and I have much fun and good income.

Talking about uber bosses, I found myself having problem face tank Uber Maven's "normal" attacks, while I have no problem tanking double Simu wave 30 bosses. Is it expected (and why)?

This entirely depends on your investment/setup. I can face tank pretty much everything in the game, but I also have 100% spell suppression, 10.1k es, and 90% max all res. So while a lower investment can easily do Simulacrums, it's not surprising when Uber Pinnacle bosses are able to shred the build on 5-6kes and no suppression. One of the reasons we're so tanky is because of our max resists, but the Pinnacle Bosses have a lot of elemental penetration attached to their attacks which ends up nullifying our biggest source of mitigation. This is why spell suppression is so good in pinnacle content, because you're adding an extra layer of mitigation to the penetrating spells.

Sadly, for next league, we're losing access to ES+Spell Suppression gear (RIP recombinators)

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Gryphenprey wrote:

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superarts wrote:

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Spacecom wrote:

OK listen up, all I need to know because I am too old and too stoned and I am downloading "Prey", is it if the build will still be immortal and viable up till "Uber Elder" content and running triple beyond with mirror recipie map (not delirium map) T16. That's all I am doing and I have much fun and good income.

Talking about uber bosses, I found myself having problem face tank Uber Maven's "normal" attacks, while I have no problem tanking double Simu wave 30 bosses. Is it expected (and why)?

This entirely depends on your investment/setup. I can face tank pretty much everything in the game, but I also have 100% spell suppression, 10.1k es, and 90% max all res. So while a lower investment can easily do Simulacrums, it's not surprising when Uber Pinnacle bosses are able to shred the build on 5-6kes and no suppression. One of the reasons we're so tanky is because of our max resists, but the Pinnacle Bosses have a lot of elemental penetration attached to their attacks which ends up nullifying our biggest source of mitigation. This is why spell suppression is so good in pinnacle content, because you're adding an extra layer of mitigation to the penetrating spells.

Sadly, for next league, we're losing access to ES+Spell Suppression gear (RIP recombinators)

Thank you for the analysis sir! Much appreciated!

Any idea / plan sharing your thoughts about alternative class choice for this build? Probably after seeing 3.19 patch notes (and see if any unique can be added to this build) I guess?

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superarts wrote:

Thank you for the analysis sir! Much appreciated!

Any idea / plan sharing your thoughts about alternative class choice for this build? Probably after seeing 3.19 patch notes (and see if any unique can be added to this build) I guess?

Ultimately going to wait for patch notes before making any finalized ideas. I do think there is a world where I play a Chieftain or Inquisitor though.

The new mark can be used with this build maybe?

Looks like there’s no way to make up the loss of banner and reservation, in general it will be nerfed pretty hard in 3.19. Any plan to theorycraft this build or new builds please?

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superarts wrote:

The new mark can be used with this build maybe?

Looks like there’s no way to make up the loss of banner and reservation, in general it will be nerfed pretty hard in 3.19. Any plan to theorycraft this build or new builds please?

Build is fine. Lost about 25-30% damage. Reservation can be fixed with a small cluster jewel easily enough. Obviously it's not *AS* strong, but it's still going to be good.

There is also a world where you can play it as a Chieftain, Inquisitor, Scion, or even the new Trickster if you so desire.
I put together a test on a Sublime Vision/Tempered By War Chieftain that had about 1m damage per explosion with 90% fire res and 96% of physical taken as fire damage (100% of cold/lightning as well)
This setup also works on Inquisitor -20% phys taken as fire. But lets you go crit easily and thus scale damage much higher.
The major downsides with these is lack of on block recovery. Though it's still possible to get some via cluster jewels and block mastery. The mitigation itself, however, is MUCH higher.

90% fire res+Ruby Flask+new arctic armour+petrified blood makes for a nasty amount of mitigation.
Basically, if you take a 10k elemental hit it will be reduced to 1000 from your resistance, then (let's be mageblood players xD) 39% less from Ruby flask takes it down to 610, Divergent AA and level 21 (+1 from Ashes alone) is another 23% less which brings it down to 470 damage. Using base quality Petrified Blood brings the actual hit to your life pool down to 282 damage. Life recoup easily covers the damage loss over 4 seconds from the back end of Petrified blood.
Plus, you get overleech and a huge amount of regen on this setup.
Adding in something like 70 life gain on block (1 One With the Shield cluster notable+block mastery) Would make this setup feel nigh unkillable. Currently, the only main issues are Physical DOTs (only 20% is converted to fire damage via shield, unless you want to go new Cloak of Flame route)--Bleed+Corrupted Blood can be avoided entirely, but lab traps in particular are deadly--and time when you're getting peppered by a ton of medium->small sized hits (Simulacrum). Adding just a small amount of life gain on block basically trivializes The latter issue. Possible to even add in a life gain on hit for spells ring(works off of things like tempest shield and/or CWDT+Ball Lightning) to give additional passive recovery (which is *effectively* doubled-ish when running low life petrified blood)
Also -max res and fire penetration would be problematic.

Scion setup would be same as Necro, but with more passive points. CI+Aegis+true Block. Necromancer+2 others (forbidden jewels for 1).
Good contenders for the 2nd and 3rd choices (in now particular order)

Deadeye-> extra projectile=more corpses spawned by Unearth and more Corpses Consumed per second from Cremation. Free Tailwind+Mark Effect.

Raider->Phasing, Onslaught, Frenzies, and 20% Spell Suppression, you're probably not getting suppression capped this league, but hey, it's an option at least.

Chieftain->Fire Damage and reliable source of Cover Enemies in Ash. Extra regen and strength is not a bad thing either.

Inquisitor->D.P.S. Also, lingering consecrated ground is really nice since we cannot take advantage of Zealotry or its watcher's eye mod.

For the other witch ascendancies on Scion, you'd need the forbidden jewels for either *it* or Necromancer to use it.
Elementalist->min 10% shocks(tempest shield blocking) and -20% res. This is big DPS and comes with QoL Elemental Reflect Immunity. +1 golem is meh.

Occultist-> Extra Curse, Cannot be Stunned. Quite nice.

Assassin-> Power Charge generation, some base crit change, and free elusive. Probably decent enough to consider for swapping to crit earlier.

NEW Trickster:

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The Ascendant's Trickster Ascendancy Passive Skill has been changed as a result of the Trickster Ascendancy rework. It now grants prevent +6% of Suppressed Spell Damage while on Full Energy Shield, 2% more Damage for each different type of Mastery you have Allocated, 2% of Damage Leeched as Energy Shield, and Nearby Enemy Monster's Action Speed is at most 92% of base value.

Not sure if I would actually take this or not, but it's probably worth about 20% more damage, free leech(frees the elemental mastery) and the action speed cap on monsters is pretty nice.

Without really digging into a POB or w/e I would probably go for:
Necro/Deadeye/Inquisitor. With the primary two being Necro+Deadeye.

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But Gryph, what about cast speed lost from Corpse Pact????

Cast speed is QoL on the build. Unearth's base cast speed is .3s, you do not need much to cover your corpse consumption cap on Cremation. 1 cast of Unearth+GMP=5 corpses. 6 if woke gmp or Deadeye. Cremation Geysersx3 will consume 24 corpses with GMP, 27 with Deadeye and 30 with both Deadeye and woke GMP. So, Unearth needs to have 5 casts per second to match consumption and it starts with 3.33=need roughly 50% increased cast speed in total. Not hard at all to get that from tree/gear/flask suffix.

As for Necromancer Ascendancy(Witch Class)
What we still maintain are these things:

Plaguebringer->big aoe boost and 10% reduced damage taken (and 10% more damage, but that's not actually THAT relevant for comparisons)

Corpse Pact->Huge QoL Attack and cast speed. Makes shield charging feel really zoomy if you have an active playstyle. No need for cast speed anywhere on gear or tree. Also free Shock+Chill.

Essence Glutton->QoL node for mana sustain and some ES regen.

Bone Offering for block is a big advantage over the non-scion options.

Access to Witch Forbidden Jewels
Swapping between Malediction for single target and Profane Bloom for clear is a huge reason to stick with Necromancer. Mostly Profane bloom tbh. Explosions really help out with clear speed. That said, the life based Inquisitor or Chieftain can use an explosion chest+Herald of Ash for really nice clear as well.

Finally, there's a world where you can shove the new trickster ascendancy onto this shell.
Polymath-big damage and on kill recovery
Escape Artist->Insane for making high evasion+ES chests.
SpellBreaker->Combo this with Wicked Ward and Ghost Dance and you have yourself a REALLY solid defense layer.
Soul Drinker->ES Overleech...makes ES Leech Support an incredible support option as you will mostly be on Full ES thanks to all of the different recovery option listed above. 20% A&C speed helps with smooth play and cast speed requirements for Unearth.
One Step Ahead-> Likely replaces Soul Drinker based on player preference. Really nice to not need to worry about freeze/chill/other action speed slows. Works as a free tailwind as well.
Forbidden Jewels:
Deadly Infusion->big boost to the crit version.
Ambush and Assassinate->A different big boost to the crit version if budget is an issue.
Mistwalker->Free Elusive+cannot take extra damage from crits. *shrug* Good on both crit and non-crit.
Opportunistic->Great for bossing specifically.
Born in the Shadows->Defense node.

Idk, SOMETHING ALONG THESE LINES. The loss of corpse life on Necromancer Ascendancy makes other ascendancy options more appealing.

Will be following your updates whether it be Necro or some other Ascendancy - I think this build is still worth a shot despite the nerfs.

What I actually think will hurt quite a bit is the divine orb nerf - getting the quality % gems mod to be as high as possible is probably gonna cost quite a bit.