Infectious Summoner
This build is a complete lvl 60 setup and is UP-TO-DATE with the new relic subclass rework. The subclass used is Bane and the build is Heavily Summon-centric. We stack various damage sources, two of those come from class skills: Loyal Shasta (taunts and then gives us passive +50% dmg vs taunted enemies), Sacrifice to Goose (applies vulnerability making enemies take 25% more dmg or 30% with the Tier 1 bonus). We also stack Minion damage from a Relic Passive & a Relic Active skill: +25% minion dmg from the passive and +100% minion damage while Miasma is active Together with Ghost Visage (for mobility + an extra 50% crit chance buff for Targeted Strikes). Considering Targeted Strikes for some DPS + Spectral Spider as DPS & a summon skill + the DPS & summon of Arachnid Assault + Eight-legged Allies for chance to summon spiderlings + Goblin Legion – the build can dish out pretty good dps to enemies. The three must have items for me are the Ryeful of Leedarshap rifle (in the legendarium) + Infectious Shooter (equipped or in the legendarium) + Bonerazor (equipped or in the legendarium while Boneblocker is equipped).
Octiber 21st EDIT: I’ve added a suggest way to lvlup as a Bane Sharpshooter at the very bottom of this page/build.
September 17th EDIT: I’ve updated the skill points allocation screenshots to include the extra 10 points (total of 70) that the new update added.
September 7th EDIT: Bane‘s Spread of Death passive and all other passives like this will no longer give any DMG bonus to the relic’s element (i.e. Poison for Bane). I’d say only keep the skill leveled if you like the proc effect, else it would be best to spend those points elsewhere.
August 17th 2020 EDIT: I still suggest investing 5 points into Bane‘s Spread of Death passive! It will get rebalanced to only give +25% poison DMG but it is still a pretty nice number.
August 10th 2020 EDIT: HIGHLY suggest investing 5 points into Bane’s Spread of Death passive!!! This one gives a whopping 50% poison dmg overall (10% per skill lvl). Combine this with a weapon that has poison dmg rolls on it and sockets that you can fill up with more poison damage + more poison flat or % dmg on the armor pieces that can roll it and you’ll be seeing a HUGE dps boost. Consider downgrading some of the less useful skills or passives. I Suggest going for Tier 1 Scout’s Bones and having 5 points into Spread of Death. For example: if you have a weapon with 3,500 poison dmg and leg armor with 500 (total of 4k together), with the passive +50% it will show your total poison attack on your stats as 6,000. I didn’t know this worked in such a way when I made this build video so hopefully this message reaches enough of you 🙂
Build Video footage:
The skills I use:
- Loyal Shasta – used to taunt enemies and keep them grouped up for our dmg spam also makes taunted enemies take 50% more dmg). Can do some more dmg + heal us when the Shasta’s Promise shield is equipped/slotted in the Legendarium.
- Goblin Legion – Some meatshields + okay dmg + nice ranged dps when boosted by the Ryeful of Leedarshap rifle.
- Targeted Strikes – amazing piercing straight line dps
- Scout’s Bones – When boosted by the Infectious Shooter pistol this one shoots poison projectiles in all directions as the rat ball(s) travel forward.
- Ghost Visage – our escape mechanic and a movement skill. We also get 50% crit chance for the next 3 uses of Scattershot & Targeted Strikes after using it
- Sacrifice to Goose – we use it to apply vulnerability, making enemies take 25% more dmg or 30% with the Tier 1 bonus & for the Tier 2 bonus to get -10% cooldown for Scattershot
- Spectral Spider – 1 big spider summon that at Tier 1 also spawns 4 Egg-bombs for decent dps. On Tier 2 the spider gets a ranged attack and on Tier 3 it also summons 6 spiderlings
- Miasma – decent dmg + an amazing party buff for DMG & defence + summons 6 spiderlings (1 every second, up to 6) + at Tier 3 we get a 100% minion dmg boost
- Arachnid Assault – Nice dmg + summons a Spider Queen at Tier 1 that also does decent dps
The gear I recommend using is:
MY IDEAL EQUIPPED GEAR:
- Infectious Shooter (Pistol) – this boost our Scout’s Bones skill and gives it an amazingly fun ability to shoot loads of poison projectiles
- Boneblocker (empowered by a slotted Bonerazor) – this allows us to summons some skeletons and when empowered we get a total of 10 across both items.
- Musketeer Hat + Robe + Gauntlets
- Musketeer Cavalier Hat – gives +1 Precision Skills (+2 with the 3 piece set bonus)) [I’ve tested it and it won’t give you extra levels if the skill is already lvl 10 so go for lvl 9 if you have +1 or 8 if you have +2 to those skills]
- Musketeer Robe – gives +1 Adventurer Skills (+2 with the 3 piece set bonus) [I’ve tested it and it won’t give you extra levels if the skill is already lvl 10 so go for lvl 9 if you have +1 or 8 if you have +2 to those skills]
- Musketeer Gauntlets – summons one (or two with the 3 piece set bonus) archer spirits to fight alongside you (they use Tight Grouping)
- Arc-Powered Legs – PRETTY GOOD! When using Spectral Spider there’s a chance to gain 25 relic energy (the default cost is 50 so in the worst case where no cost reduction is in place that’s 50% of the cost back)
- ANY Shoulder: Woodsbeast for a summon, OR Skittering for survivability OR Arc-Powered for a dps-y Buff
- Maybe Blue Boots as they now can drop with % {element type} dmg (I assume that flat dmg can roll on boots as well)
- You can even try combining boots + shoulder + legs of Woodsbeast or Arc-Powered or Skittering to get a total of 2 sets (of 3 items) for the extra bonuses. That is alongside the Hat + Robe + Gloves mentioned above of course.
Blue Gear only gets 1 socket now.
Suggested Legendarium Powers (to fill in the gaps from items you’re wearing):
MY IDEAL LEGENDARIUM COMBO:
- Ryeful of Leedarshap (rifle) – boosts Goblin Legion to also summon 3 Ghostly Gunners.
- Bonerazor (1handed sword) – can empower Boneblocker while slotted
- Shasta’s Promise (shield) – boosts Loyal Shasta to do 100% more dmg and heal us for 10% of our hp when she taunts) OR one of the two legendary pistols while equipping the other (Infectious Shooter & Lil’ Drake are the two pistols)
If you decide to go for a blue 2h weapon equipped then use the Infectious Shooter in slot 3 instead of Shasta’s Promise.
The recommended stats to look for in your items are (the list is not in order of priority and is just listing good bonuses + there’s new stats and I might have missed some which will get added later):
- +Flat Poison Damage
- +% Poison Damage (starts getting very good later on when you have a nice flat to boost with this)
- +% Damage to Precision skills (it’s a good boost for when focusing more on targeted strikes spams)
- +% Damage to Adventurer Skills
- +% Damage to Spectral Spider (and any of the other 2 active relic skills we use)
- + Health
- + Defense (the non elemental is good for any act but lesser numbers than elemental)
- +% Critical Hit Chance (the cap is 40%)
- +% Critical Damage (the cap is 300%)
- +% Gear Luck (eventually try to get like 50-75% total for good drop quantity – the cap is 100%)
- +% Energy Recharge Rate
- -% Relic Energy cost
- +% Relic Active Skill Damage
- +% Block Chance
- +% Chance to Evade damage
- +% Ammo Generation
- +% Chance to Poison is a very good synergy although we probably poison enough with the scout’s bones and summons.
- +% Chance to Bleed and/or Burn to stack the poison with the other DoTs
- + % Chance to Stun/Slow/Blind – not a bad choice but not high priority (you can get 10% dmg vs slowed, stunned, blinded from tier 2 Rizzi but that will require reworking of the skill points)
The Skills and Passives I recommend are:
IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that my setup + all other alternative examples are WITH the +2 Adventurer & +2 Precision skill levels from the Musketeer Set Hat + Chest!
September 17th EDIT: I’ve updated the skill points allocation screenshots to include the extra 10 points (total of 70) that the new update added. The numbers in YELLOW represent the suggested skill levels after the new update. In some cases you may need to remove points from one skill to get another one leveled.
Regular Setup (used in the video):
More summons, less cooldown:
Even more summons, less cooldown, no goose:
Less cooldown, more Targeted Strikes dmg + ammo regen:
No goose, more Precision dmg + use Reload:
No goose, +10% Relic Recharge Rate:
No goose, +10% Relic Active Skill dmg:
Suggested way to lvlup any Bane Sharpshooter:
Sadly, summons are not that good at damage and that build might be tough to level but I’d go for Targeted Strikes Tier 3 and Reload Tier 2 (or 3) and Loyal Shasta Tier 2 as Highest priorities while leveling up.
- At lvl 2 get Scout’s Bones 1 or Spectral Spider 1 or Goblin lvl 1
- At lvl 3, 4 save points.
- At lvl 5 get reload lvl 1 and lvl 3 Ghost Visage.
- At lvl 10 1 point into goose. At 15 put 1 point in Miasma.
- At lvl 16 you can save the point and all next ones all the way till lvl 20 and get Loyal Shasta Tier 2.
- At lvl 21 get Arachnid Assault lvl 1.
- Keep leveling Targeted Strikes and Reload until you get them to the mentioned tiers.
- Then start getting Miasma to lvl 10 and Arachnid to lvl 10 and maybe get the other skills you’re missing as at least lvl 1 or tier 1.
- Eventually get the setup to look as the final one (whichever one you’ve picked) you may need to remove points from targeted if you’re using a Tier 1 setup.
Hey mate, i dont get it. U changed the skill points to 70 but then u end up with 10 skills. But u can only hold 9. Is there something I miss?
Not every Active skill need to be used as an active. Some active skills in my builds I invest into for the passive Tier 2 bonus, which you get regardless if you’ve slotted the skill or not.
Active skills used are: Targeted Strikes, Spectral Spider, Miasma, Arachnid Assault, Scout’s Bones, Goblin Legion, Ghost Visage, Sacrifice to Goose, Loyal Shasta. This is a total of 9 as i don’t use basic attack for this build.
Any guideline where to focus at lvling to spend points?
Hey, sadly summons are no that good at damage and that build might be tough to level but i’d go for Targeted Strikes tier 3 and Reload Tier 2 (or 3) as priorities. At lvl 2 get Scout’s Bones 1 or Spectral Spider 1 or Goblin lvl 1, At lvl 3, 4 save points. At lvl 5 get reload lvl 1 and lvl 3 Ghost Visage. At lvl 10 1 point into goose. At 15 put 1 point in Miasma. At lvl 16 you can save the point and all next ones all the way till lvl 20 and get Loyal Shasta Tier 2. At lvl 21 get Arachnid Assault lvl 1. Keep leveling Targeted Strikes and Reload until you get them to the mentioned tiers. Then start getting Miasma to lvl 10 and Arachnid to lvl 10 and maybe get the other skills you’re missing as at least lvl 1 or tier 1. Eventually get the setup to look as the final one (whichever one you’ve picked) you may need to remove points from targeted if you’re using a Tier 1 setup.
Ive targeted Even more summons, less cooldown, no goose build cos i like summons in most of the games ive played like d2,d3,PoE,even wow.Do i have to go the same path uve showed me cos targeted strikes deals much dmg than summons at low lvls?
Well, the summons are very underwhelming to be honest. I wish it wasn’t the case as i love minion builds in every game I play but alas it’s very underwhelming here. If you plan on playing the harder difficulties, the summons just won’t cut it without having something more reliable. The minions AI needs a lot of work, we have no hotkey to allows us to make out pet + minions focus a specific target or move to a certain place, their dmg sucks (apart from train based minion dmg builds). Summons could be strong if we did have a way to tell the to focus a single enemy and not just sit idly. Ranged summons are a bit better but melee ones are close to horrendous most of the time. You don’t have to do what I’ve shown but you may feel the underwhelming difference. Targeted Strikes is good even as a lvl 1 skill so you could as well keep it the way it is.
I’m a bit late but for anyone else 🙂
Try and either equip or put the Musketeer Chest into the legendarium as soon as possible, it unlocks all the skills on that tree even if you don’t have any points in them, so you can drop points in adventurer and put them into targetted strikes (which will be huge damage and make levelling miles easier), while also using shasta long before lv20
at lv15 I currently have
Precision — lv10 targetted strikes (+1 from gear), lv1 reload
Bane — lv1 Eight-legged ally, lv3 Miasma
Adventurer — 2 points in goblin & 2 points in goose (+1 to all skills) so using lv1 scouts bones, lv1 shasta, lv1 ghost visage, lv1 either rizzi/pi’pi (or auto attack) + lv3/tier 1 goblin legion & sacrifice to goose
Bar looks like this https://i.gyazo.com/7c841b1387c08579273f136a3adb91ad.png (4 is empty as i’m too lazy to slot pipi/rizzi and just going to wait and put arachnid there)
Then save points until 20, put 5 into shasta (tier 2) and 1 into arachnid assault, from then on you can probably pick whatever you want, leaving puppet master & scouts bones until last
Might have an alternative build at 60 as well, since I have most of the gear sitting on another char, but will need to wait and test it as its all pretty much theory just now
Yeah with this way it’s much easier to level builds, especially if you have already unlocked the legendary powers of the class sets. I think they did not intend for us to gain access to skills we’ve not unlocked yet so don’t get too attacked to it but enjoy it until it’s patched 😀
Just to add to this now that I’m lv60, depending on what gear you have (I’m far away from being best in slot ‘bis’) at least in my opinion, If your trying to farm gear or level through fazeer’s then Bane is much better than sharpshooter.. Miasma looks like dirt as the aoe never hits anybody, but you have close to a full uptime on it with the +25% damage & +50% defence which makes it close to impossible to die
I actually have 5 points in Spread of death which doesn’t really do a lot, so could swap that out for 10% relic skills damage or 10% relic charge rate which would make it even better
Miasma i so good especially if you stack the +% duration affixes for it 🙂