u/KirkLucKhan

I've tried a lot of variations on the Bone Mage theme, including the powerful-but-tricky Blood-Mad Idol / 3pc Waking Touch combo. That one relies on a frankly bugged interaction, but it's clearly the highest DPS version, and it will top the leaderboards. (Last Tower "season", I piloted that version to Rank 30 in SSF with a Tier 127 clear, and I also cracked Pit 130. Not the best, but just mentioning it to calibrate expectations.)

The problem? It's pretty damn frustrating and is highly dependent on enemies that behave themselves, like bosses with normal attacks instead of one-shot-or-nothing mechanics.

I tried several variations that don't rely on that interaction, and they're all less powerful, which is to be expected. However, the version I settled on that is only about 1-2 Pit tiers lower (I cracked Pit 129 with some fishing) uses Locran's Talisman for DPS, and the combo of Tibault's Will and Torment aspect for essence generation. Yes, you're losing two DPS slots by taking Tibault's and replacing a ring Aspect. However, you can ALWAYS be maxed out on full-Essence Bone Mages. This includes against bosses, and versions that rely on Lucky Hit Essence Gen (edit: like the u/devindran version discussed here) will always struggle vs single targets. I've found that it's fine to lose 2x damage on paper if you always have full Mages that were all summoned on full Essence. I'll also note that this version is much tankier because all Bone Mage builds rely on PocQue for Barrier, and it triggers when you spend 100% of your max Essence three times. Doing this is way more consistent on the Tibault's / Torment version.

Honestly, the only hassle with this version of the build is it gets a little repetitive to repeatedly summon Mages, but this is what makes it consistent.

Others may have had a different experience, so by no means do I think this is THE way to go with easier Bone mages, but I spent a couple days trying to optimize it, and this is the version I plan to run going forward. It's fun to play "Please just touch me but don't kill me" with the Blood-Mad / Waking Touch combo every now and then, but its inconsistency was driving me nuts. This version is much less rage-inducing, IMO.

Build planner: https://maxroll.gg/d4/planner/cv2fq50x
There are things to tweak in here based on your preferences. Try Blood Bone Prison, different Glyphs, skill tweaks here and there, Runes, gems; the only things that I think are set in stone for this version are Torment, Tibault's, Trag'Oul, and the usual stuff that you'll find on all Bone Mage builds.

Everyone who saw the new S15 Splinter of Hellfire that gives double damage but 100% reduced Crit Chance thought, "Oh a DoT-centric Splinter, that's cool." Yes, that's true... but you can absolutely still cap Crit Chance with that penalty, and it's done by building on the recent Bone Mages build that is already at or near the top of the S14 leaderboards. You don't even need to cheat and use Pact of Bone!

Many will probably already be running Unique Splinter of Anguish (35% Crit Chance and Attack Speed), which reduces Mage damage and duration slightly (9 more Essence per cast due to 30% increased resource cost from Splinter of Anguish) but is worth it for access to Hellfire. Switching one of the rings or 1H Aspect to Serration also helps this.

With that in mind, here's the math: 5% base + 5% Bone Graft Paragon + 13% shield affix + 15% weapon tempers + 21% SW Litany of Death (15 ranks) + 68% BS Roll the Bones (33 ranks [15 points + 18 from Charms]) + 10% Quintessence + 10% Serration + 35% Soul Splinter of Anguish + 10% Gar rune = 192% Crit Chance. Including Dex bonuses probably bring it to about 195%. If you really wanted to cap it, could add one Crit Chance affix roll on a ring or luck out with a Crit Chance roll on a transfiguration or Diamond Mind seal.

Long story short, hitting 200% Crit Chance on a Bone Mages build shouldn't be that hard in S15, so Splinter of Hellfire should absolutely be on the menu.

I was excited about using the essentially 2.5x DPS buff from Blood-Mad Idol as a charm this season, particularly with the new Golden Epiphany seal. It's not super hard to generate enough barrier to counteract the burning DoT, especially if running Epiphany with 2pc Waking Touch bonus and the ZanQue runeword.

The trouble I've found is, Pit and Tower pushing is the only place where that kind of DPS buff is really meaningful. In both, it's a bit inconsistent maintaining the burn (and therefore the DPS buff) against the boss, since many of their hits are one-shots or are otherwise dangerous to allow yourself to get tagged every 8 seconds. On top of that, Pit pushing (which, as the only way to level glyphs, is quite important to optimise) is dependent on the Experience Orbs granted by the Heart of Stone in the War Plan node, and the burn makes me drop the stone way too often, even when barrier uptime keeps me at full life.

Long story short, I'm still trying to figure out the best way to put Blood-Mad to use, but I'm getting more success on Warrior and Mage builds from a standard 5pc set plus Azurewrath/Bloodless combo. The tower leaderboards reflect this.

If you have a good way of using it, I'm all ears, but for now, I no longer feel that using or recommending it makes sense.

I see posts every day or two asking for a good Minions build. I've ridden a version of this with only two good Mythics to Pit 125 and a Top 50 SSF Tower placement, and I don't consider this build particularly sweaty. It leans heavily on the synergy between Bloodless Scream and Azurewrath Charm, so you could consider it a frost build, if you fancy. Now that Mythics are easier to get (patched to remove the 1-crafted-Mythic limit):

S14 Necro Minions with full Mythics: https://maxroll.gg/d4/planner/zhfozh0t
(Edited to fix skill tree mistake)

Here's a Guide for acquiring the key items, in order of most to least important (give or take), and why I put them in the order they are.

Deathgrip gloves: Farm Grigoire. Be on the lookout for a set with two good offensive stats as the random stats, because the bonus ranks to Skeletal Warrior is not as good as any of the multiplicative bonuses or crit chance. These give a bonus Warrior, up to 50%[x] direct bonus damage, a further 50%[x] direct bonus damage to a single target with fairly high uptime (depending on your attack speed), and MASSIVELY increase the AoE of Reapers. The first item to hunt for, if starting from scratch.

Pact of Bone: Toss-up between farming Harbinger, if you have the Greater Lair Boss keys to spare, or upgrading Ancestral Normal rings until you hit one. This has three distinct bonuses, all important for an endgame build: better Minion attack speed (to help hit Cult Leader's 100% cap before your ranks to Gargantua Golem can get you there single-handedly), the single best source of Crit Chance, and a straight up multiplicative bonus that can have 100% uptime with NeoCeh Runeword.

Bloodless Scream: Easiest acquired by upgrading an Ancestral Normal 2H scythe. It's on Astaroth's loot table, but he's challenging to farm, as it either requires pushing a full Escalating Nightmare dungeon or using a Superior Lair Key at Belial and selecting his loot from the chest. This synergizes with Azurewrath vs non-Bosses, trivializing them in all but the highest Pits, and has a full-uptime huge buff vs Bosses. Don't sleep on it, especially paired with...

Azurewrath for Charm: Upgrade Ancestral Normal swords, then convert the first one you get to a charm. Makes any non-boss content way, way faster, especially when paired with Bloodless Scream, with which it synergizes extremely well. Frost Blight groups them up, Bloodless freezes them, Azurewrath pops the full group.

Blood-Moon Breeches: Upgrading Ancestral Normal pants. As with Bloodless, it's on Astaroth's loot table, but he's challenging to farm, as it either requires pushing a full Escalating Nightmare dungeon or using a Superior Lair Key at Belial and selecting his loot from the chest. A direct up-to-60% DPS bonus, but only when crit capped, which is not trivial. Also automates Curses, especially in Pit pushing, where enemies don't explode before accumulating 10% hits.

Undercrown: Farm Duriel. If out of Greater Lair keys, upgrade Ancestral Normal helms. Four extra Warriors (five if Mythic) help but only represent 50% more Warriors, so the items above give better DPS bonuses. Still very helpful. Also, the extra Mages are instrumental for survivability via Barrier generation, particularly if rolling with Blood-Mad Idol, either amulet or charm.

Rustbitten Dirk for Charm: Upgrade Normal Ancestral daggers. For Bosses only, as Azurewrath is bugged against them.

Blood-Mad Idol amulet: ONLY IF GOD-ROLLED, use it instead of a well-rolled Legendary Amulet, but it's extremely hard to farm (it's not on a Boss loot table).

Seal of Golden Epiphany: Highest Torment farming you can, any Greater Boss.

(If you get Golden Epiphany) Blood-Mad Idol and Red Blessing charms: upgrade Normal Ancestral amulets. Pretty much straight-up DPS buffs; Blood-Mad is a bigger buff but comes with being squishier.

Blizz forum post. Devs looking into it.

I'll try to keep this updated, with mine or others' findings (if others', I will try to cite). If anything gets patched, I'll cross out and update. In no particular order:

• Ceh rune Wolves de-spawning still count towards Pact of Bone on-death bonus, but with an interesting caveat: if you spawn them too quickly (like spamming IgniCeh), they won't de-spawn until you stop spamming. Recommend using NeoCeh.
• Gargantua Golem now no longer requires you to re-summon in-zone to get the Cast Speed aura bonus.
• Undercrown is slightly bugged. Bonus Warrior (but not Mage) count is tied to the Unique Power. I don't have the exact ranges Minimum 22% Unique Power for full 4 bonus Warriors; lower Unique Power rolls will give 2 or 3 Warriors. But fun fact: unless and until they patch it, Mythic Undercrown grants 5 bonus Warriors.
• AotD Unyielding Commander bonus damage uptime is still 100% simply from having the "Passive Bonus" selected.
• Cold Mages do appear to be correctly proccing, and benefitting from, Signet of Pelghain on bosses. No such luck for Azurewrath (on bosses, still bugged, only activates when Staggered by a direct Freeze effect).
• Lots of reported bugs with Thorns and Minions. (Via Slayer on the Bug Report Forums)

Azurewrath is supposed to build up damage while an enemy is frozen and explode afterwards. Pelghain is supposed to do extra cold damage after an enemy has been frozen.

In S13, both of these were broken for bosses if you didn't use a Freeze effect to trigger Stagger on the boss: you didn't build up Pelghain debuff, and you didn't get an Azurewrath explosion.

Testing on the target dummy in S14, Pelghain was fixed: stacks build up no matter how the enemy was staggered. However, Azurewrath still does NOT trigger an explosion unless a Freeze effect was the thing that triggered the Stagger. I don't know how many builds use Azurewrath, but I had aspirations of using it on a Minion build in S14.

I primarily play Minion Necromancer and am quite sure that Golden Epiphany with 3pc Waking Touch + Azurewrath + Bloodless Scream will be better than the standard 5pc Black Shroud set. Supposedly, Mythic Seal drop rates are higher in S14, so if I get one early enough in season, I might want to try it out on other classes. Has anyone mapped out cool Golden Epiphany combos?

S14 Skeletal Warrior build: https://maxroll.gg/d4/planner/nqh0w00w

[If you're re-visiting this page, I've made some edits that are explained at the end of the post.]

This is my endgame Skeleton Warriors build for S14. Many of these decisions are based on the Patch Notes (particularly losing Signet of Pelghain) and the report that Mythic Seals should have a higher drop rate in S14. With that in mind, for here, I'm using a Mythic Seal, but I'm only accounting for one Mythic Unique equipment, Pact of Bone. This helps cap Crit Chance.

Some points of interest:

* In what game modes is this any good?

All endgame activities. Great at Pit pushing, great at T12 open world, great at Bossing, decent at T12 Infernal Hordes.

* How's the Gameplay?

Really easy. Spam Skeleton Warrior on cooldown, hit AotD every 7 seconds, clump enemies with Ice Blight, and zoom around with Reap. EZPZ.

* What kind of Pit pushing range should this expect?

Even with sub-optimal gear, this can likely push into the Pit 122-125-ish range. Hard to tell exactly; on the PTR with pre-nerf Signet of Pelghain, this (with decent but not amazing gear) was doing Pit 125, but that was with a crappy Talisman setup; I expect the Talisman setup presented here to more than make up for the loss of Pelghain.

[Everything below here is for the nerds. Beware the wall of text.]

* Speaking of Talisman, what the hell is going on with yours? Golden Epiphany with 3-piece Waking Touch, Azurewrath, Bloodless Scream, and Blood-Mad Idol?

Well, first things first: Black Shroud kinda sucks. The 2.75x multi is nice, but the 1.75x DoT bonus is only relevant for encounters that last a long time (since for the first 30 seconds of each encounter, you only average half of that bonus), and the 1.5x DPS bonus when DoT>Life is only relevant for about 5 seconds per encounter. The only reason Minion builds have used it is because the Waking Touch 6-piece bonus is hot garbage. Conversely, the 2-piece Waking Touch bonus is not only nice for the 1.6x DPS, but for letting our Army of the Dead 1.5x DPS bonus have 100% uptime. Even if the current bug where that 1.5x DPS bonus is up full-time stays in place, my Epiphany setup is still better than 5-pc Shroud + Blood-Mad Idol: I've been working on the math for encounters of various lengths, on Elites and Bosses, with 50% freeze uptime on Elites and 3-4 staggers per boss encounter. Long story short, the single-target DPS is +/- 15% or so for both builds, depending on the encounter length... but the Azurewrath / Bloodless Scream combo converts about 85% of your single target damage into a big AOE every 10 seconds or so. This will be MASSIVE for Pit pushing, where normal mobs provide the lion's share of XP orbs that push the timer. As for why Blood-Mad Idol is there: I found that in the PTR, rocking Undercrown and 9 Mages on Shadow Mage Upgrade 2 made me virtually unkillable (except to one-shots) even WITH the Blood-Mad Idol DoT. With that in mind, Blood-Mad Idol is the single best Unique Charm for DPS, representing a 2.5x DPS multiplier (1.25x Berserking x 2x while Berserking = 2.5x).

* Man, those Runes look kinda lame; and isn't Ceh nerfed?

Yeah, Runes have become pretty mid overall. Ceh is still used because it saves us the hassle of re-summoning a Mage every 3 seconds to trigger the Pact of Bone On-Death bonus (yes, Wolves shouldn't trigger it, but they do, and they continued to do so on the PTR). If we used something else and summoned Mages ourselves, we'd need to lose a DPS Temper on a Ring in favor of Lucky Hit Resource Gain, and those DPS tempers are meaningful; about 5%[x] DPS or so, and replacing Ceh with something like Ohm is barely better. Que is still helpful for defense, and all of the other utility Runes are not very helpful for this build. Don't need Thul for freezing, Kry is kind of a risk for pulling Elites towards you, Vex (Skill ranks) is pretty diluted. Long story short, not sure NaguQue/NeoCeh are optimal, but they meaningfully help. Note: If using a normal Unique Pact of Bone, we're not crit capped, so we can use NeoGar and re-summon Mages for the on-death bonus.

* Hey, the Uniques don't have the proper Always-Drop Affixes from the Patch Notes.

Yeah, this Maxroll build planner is based on the PTR. The Always-Drop Affixes will only meaningfully change the build by making it a bit squishier since Helm and Pants lose a defensive affix roll in favor of a DPS roll. All the more reason to rock Shadow Mages Upgrade 2 and NaguQue.

* Wait, you're using Litany of Death? On a Warrior build?

Yes, using Litany to cap Crit Chance lets us avoid having to devote at least 3 gear rolls to Crit Chance. Those 3 gear rolls can be multiplicative Damage buffs, more than making up for losing 3 Warriors. And no, capping Crit chance isn't essential, but Critical Strikes do roughly 10x the damage per hit than non-Critical Strikes, so lost Crit Chance is essentially losing that amount of DPS. And the build planner is not accurate with the Crit Chance bonus; Litany provides about 25% Crit Chance at 30+ Warrior ranks. With 5% Base, 25% Litany, 45% from Mythic Pact of Bone, 10% from Shield affix, 7.5% from Weapon temper, 5% from Mage Crit Strike Chance Bonus, and a bit from Dexterity, we're capped. If you're stuck with extra Crit Chance on your gear or get lucky with your Seal, then it moves the needle to where Master of Puppets is a bit better even if slightly under Crit cap. [EDIT: Litany also automates Flesh-Eater Paragon. If using Master of Puppets, we'd have to switch to the second Mage variant that consumes a Corpse on Mage summon. Solves Essence generation, but gives two fewer Mages, hampering defense. Or, use a weaker Paragon board like Scent of Death.]

* Haven't you heard the good news that they fixed Lidless Wall?

Yes, but if we switch to Lidless Wall, we have to sacrifice Cold Mages to get a meaningful DPS bonus over the AotD 1.5x bonus combined with a 1.6x bonus from choose-your-Legendary-Aspect. The math:

Lidless: 2.2x (four Storms) x 1.2x (Cold Mage Sacrifice) = 2.64x

AotD + Legendary: 1.5x (AotD) x 1.6x (Aspect) = 2.4x.

...But going this route costs you the ability to use Shadow Mage Upgrade 2, so you lose virtually all survivability in close range. Besides being a hassle, this means we can't use Blood-Mad Idol, and whatever we replace it with will cost us the DPS we gain from Lidless and then some. (Yeah, we can avoid the Mage Sacrifice, settle for a 1.9x Lidless multi and no Cold Mage Sac bonus, and swap from Litany to Puppets on Warriors since Bone Storm grants 15% Crit Chance, but we're borrowing from Peter to pay Paul on the DPS.)

* No Overpower?

Yes, the nerfs to Overpower were enough that, especially with AotD at 100% uptime, it's not better than this. You'll see build guides calling for it; it's mostly inertia.

Feel free to ask questions or offer suggestions; I'm good at math, but I'm occasionally forgetful or miss bits of news here and there.

[Edit 1: minor change to Chest Aspect, changed to Glynn's Anvil from Disobedience. Slightly worse Damage Reduction, but without Black Shroud, Blight is the only DoT source, so it's a bit inconsistent.]

[Edit 2: Added a "Pre-Epiphany" build. IF THE AOTD BUG IS STILL IN PLACE (where Unyielding Commander has 100% uptime simply by being on the bar if you have the "Summon a skeleton every 4 seconds" option selected), then this has similar DPS to the Epiphany build... but it's substantially squishier, and may merit switching away from Blood-Mad Idol. If the bug is fixed and you don't have 100% Unyielding Commander uptime, then its DPS drops based on the downtime of AotD, so probably about 30% less DPS.]

[Edit 3: I created the "Pre-Epiphany" build in S13 with mediocre gear, including no Blood-Mad Idol amulet. Got through Pit 120 quite easily (3 mins left). I plugged my current build's damage into a Necro damage calculator and compared it to the damage of the build in the "Pre-Epiphany" planner, and my scuffed S13 version is doing 28% of the proper build's damage. That's about 4.5 Pit Tiers. So yes, both versions in the Maxroll palnner (the squishy Pre-Epiphany version and the full Epiphany version) should comfortably handle Pit 125 in S14.]

EDIT June 23: The freshly updated Patch 3.1 notes have changed Signet of Pelghain to only apply to Cold damage. It may very well be that Cold Mages become the highest-pushing Mage build in S14, but other than that, Pelghain will not be viable in S14. Consider the below to mostly be relevant for Azurewrath.

Signet of Pelghain: "Your Freeze effects cause enemies to permanently take 20%[x] increased damage from you for each second they are Frozen."

Azurewrath: "After Freeze expires, enemies explode for 120% of the damage you dealt to them while Frozen."

Both of these Uniques count how long an enemy has been frozen, then either deal damage or apply a debuff. For both of these effects, it's fairly straightforward for non-Boss enemies: they're frozen, they build up the debuff or damage, then they thaw and it's in effect. (Pelghain builds up during this, but you get the point.)

For Bosses, on the other hand, something very strange happens. It's generally the case that while Bosses are Staggered, they are considered to be under the effects of every Crowd Control (CC) mechanic, including Freeze. However, after some Youtube vids and testing on the target dummy, something is clear: Bosses under Stagger ONLY build up Pelghain debuff, and only accumulate Azurewrath damage, if it was a direct Freeze effect that triggered the Stagger on the Boss. Chill doesn't count, either. You can test this on the Boss target dummy to verify. Bloodless Scream or Cold Skeletal Mages will never get Pelghain or Azurewrath effects to trigger on a Boss, but if your only CC is from something like Thul Rune or the % Chance to Freeze temper (both of which skip right past Chill and go right to Freeze), then your Damage against the Boss will reliably increase with Pelghain ring, and you'll reliably see the little frost explosion (and the resulting high Damage spike) as Stagger expires. This is obviously a bug, but I wouldn't expect to see it fixed any time soon.

This has implications for endgame builds, particularly Minion builds. Bloodless Scream and Azurewrath (one via Charm) synergize very well with each other and with Pelghain, particularly in Pit pushing before the Boss spawns. However, they antagonize one another on the Boss: the constant Chill effects from Bloodless Scream make it much less likely that the specific CC that pushes the Boss into Stagger will come from a direct Freeze effect, even if you're running both Thul rune and % Chance to Freeze weapon temper. Minion builds with Blood Moon Breeches (Constant reapplication of Decrepify) or Reapers with Bonus 2 (more Damage, but also 15% chance to Stun) are especially bad at catching the Boss specifically with a Freeze.

Now, Bloodless Scream provides a direct DPS buff to Boss damage, so it's not useless, and it's well worth wearing Pelghain for clearing Elites before the Boss pops, so it's still a very strong item (the combo with Azurewrath is arbuably BiS with the new Mythic Seal that allows 3 Unique Charms). Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that both Azurewrath and Pelghain are practically useless against Bosses unless you can gear to make sure that the vast majority of your CC effects are direct Freeze effects. This includes easy-to-ignore CC sources like Set Charm bonuses; charms that have Slow or Stun effects will work against your build, while charms with Chance to Freeze will synergize.

With the upcoming nerfs to a lot of powerful mechanics, average Pit/Tower levels for most builds will drop substantially coming into S14. Some people think it's good, some bad. I wondered what people thought should be the ideal power for a class. Should the best builds be topping out at 120? 130? 140? Speedrunning 150? And I know the kneejerk response is "As long as all the classes are balanced, it's fine", and while that's true, I'm more interested in the degree to which people think the game should be trivialized.

This sub doesn't let us post Polls, so I'll comment with Pit levels if people want to vote / comment.

Build at the end of the video, but roughly this Maxroll build (keeping in mind this build online has the S13 item stats): https://maxroll.gg/d4/planner/nsg77g06

EDIT: For posterity, here's the "Final" version that I used for Tower 123 and Pit 125:
https://maxroll.gg/d4/planner/48h6a106
I'll note that, if I get the three-uniques Mythic Seal, I'll switch from Black Shroud 5-piece with Blood-Mad to Waking Touch 3-piece with Blood Mad, Azurewrath, and Bloodless Scream.

Amusingly, I forgot to hire Raheir, so this run is actually an underperformance.

Some points of interest:

• It's not only a very strong build, but incredibly low APM. There's no point in commanding the Golem (other than to break CC) or using AotD; both provide their bonuses as a passive, and using them would slow down the recharge of Command Skeletons, the only active skill that has a direct benefit to DPS. Basically, move around to avoid one-shot ground effects, and sic your Warriors on Elites. Rinse and repeat.
• Gearing requirements are also pretty low. If I were running regular Uniques instead of Mythics, I'd probably only be about 2 or 3 Tiers lower. None of my items have truly crazy Transfigurations (in fact, not all of them are Transfigured).
• This becomes a great build for farming or Bossing by just swapping out Pelghain for a Legendary ring with some bland but good Offensive Aspect.
• In the PTR, Mythic Undercrown grants a bonus Skeleton Warrior vs standard Unique. That might be a bug... but damned if I'm gonna report it.
• With 9 Mages, it's an INCREDIBLY tanky build. In fact, I generate enough Barrier that I can run Blood-Mad Idol charm (a 2.5x DPS multiplier by itself, with movement speed as a bonus) and I still only die to one-shots. The DoT is essentially meaningless (at least in the low 120's Pit/Tower; might not be so easy in 130s, if your gear can get you there). Sacrificing Mages would be a major drop in Defense and a meaningful drop in DPS because I'd lose Blood-Mad Idol; no other Charm comes close to it in overall DPS.
• Running Ceh rune because Wolves de-spawning triggers the DPS bonus from Pact of Bone. It shouldn't (they're Summons, not Minions)... but it does. EDIT: If I wanted to squeeze a bit more DPS out of this, I'd find a replacement rune instead of Ceh and just Summon a Mage every 3 seconds. It'd add a mildly annoying rotation, but this build is so AFK, I think it'd be fine. (The "Best" rune for DPS is probably Gar, allowing gloves to swap Crit Chance to another Multiplicative damage source.) EDIT2: Yup, casually knocked down Tower 123 by making that swap.
• Running Litany of Death Skeleton Warriors upgrade would seemingly be a huge drop in DPS (going from 13 to 10 Warriors)... but the Crit Chance granted lets me completely devote Jewelry to Multiplicative Damage affixes, which more than makes up for the lost Warriors. It's basically three extra Multiplicative Damage rolls... or 30% more Skeletons. The math is pretty easy. With Litany, I only need Crit Chance rolls on Gloves and Shield (don't even need GA rolls) to cap Crit Chance.
• As a bonus, Litany of Death also provides a mechanic for corpse consumption, allowing me to run the Flesh Eater board.

On S14 PTR, I'm playing around with Blood Mad Idol charm, and with the new-and-improved Undercrown, I have nine Mages (Shadow Upgrade 2) refilling my shields constantly. Unless I'm standing in a poison puddle, it more than compensates for the burning DoT, and provides a 150% DPS bonus as a charm (1.25x Berserking x 2x while burning = 2.5x = 150% DPS bonus). It got me an easy extra two Pit tiers, and unlike a lot of Pit-beneficial bonuses, this should be even better outside the Pit.

I don't think people have noticed it much during S13 because everyone is running Heir of Perdition and Red Blessing, and doesn't have enough Shield Shadow Mages to compensate. But I look forward to running one in S14.

EDIT: One of the comments below shared that this Blood Mad Idol damage bonus isn't working in Live S13 while shielded. I'm happy to report that I've verified at the target dummy that the damage bonus works while shielded in S14 PTR.

I've been in the PTR, futzing around with a Golem build, using pretty scuffed gear, crap gems, and only Paragon 200... and Pit 120 is where it starts to get a bit challenging. Frankly, the biggest issue in higher Pits is defense, to the point that I'm actually going Endurant Faith charm. For comparison, using pretty GG gear and squeezing every drop out of Overpower in S13, Golem got me to 130. The difference between Pit 120 and Pit 130... is just the Pit. Everywhere else is fine.

Are you going to be cracking Pit 140 in S14 using broken mechanics? Probably not (or at least not busted Overpower). Is Torment 12 going to be a challenge to an endgame character using just about any build? Absolutely not. Meanwhile, chasing good Mythics for my build will be a hell of a lot more fun than breaking down yet another useless Andariel's Visage, and being able to modify Uniques in the cube feels really good compared to S13. When a Mythic for your build drops, you won't need to fret about whether it has the stats you need, you just need to farm more Cube mats.

Just my 2 cents, but we're fine.

EDIT: Deathgrip Minion build performs similarly (finish Pit 120 with 5 mins left), and it's tanky enough to run Azurewrath charm to wipe out trash mobs in the Pit.

EDIT 2: Singularity Naz mages with Requiem on amulet, Tibault's Will charm, two Lucky Hit Essence tempers, and casting Shadow Bone Splinters between Mages also did 120 with about 6 mins left. Pretty tanky, a little repetitive counting "One, two, three, Cast Singularity" for 10 minutes straight. But still, plenty powerful.

https://maxroll.gg/d4/planner/u37tdi0y [Edited to fix Crit Chance]

The gist: The fix (hopefully) to Golems as Macabre skills puts Radament's set on the menu, we get rid of Overpower since the payoff isn't worth it anymore, we use Crown of Lucion as the new best DPS source for a helm, and we go with Mace of Leoric due to the buff to 120%. Freeze for Pelghain is provided by weapon/OH tempers plus a sprinkle from Ceh wolves and one lonely Cold mage, who is really only there to provide Essence regen to make up for Lucion.

Note that this is the S13 Planner, but there are some PTR changes not reflected in it: Lucion down to 45% DPS at full stacks (Still best DPS in helm slot), Glynn's capping at 40% is still best single damage reduction source (and the +2 Resolve stacks means you don't need extra stacks elsewhere via Tempers), Duelist's Aspect is now 65% more DPS at full stacks, Mace of Leoric is up to 120% DPS, and Hellbent is down to 60%.

Q: How are you capping Cult Leader (100% attack speed)?

A: 35% from Pact of Bone, 8% from Cult Leader nodes, 5% from Frailty nodes, 17% from Hulking Monstrosity nodes, 30% from Gravebloom gets us to 95%. The rest comes from Frenzy stacks.

Q: Is it crucial to cap Crit Chance?

A: No, not really, but it's pretty easy on this build with ~25% from Litany of Death (which is not represented in the Planner but goes up with Skeletal Warrior skill ranks) and 35% from Pact of Bone, but honestly, if you're over 80%, you're in good shape. [Fixed from earlier version where we were over-capped.]

Q: Why isn't Paragon filled out?

A: Use your imagination :- )

Q: Why Focus, not Shield?

A: Gem strength bonus. Shield counts as armor, not a weapon, so you lose a huge chunk of DPS. But if you get a good enough shield and find yourself feeling squishy, switch it up!

Q: Why Ceh wolves? Weren't they nerfed?

A: Yes, but when they expire, they trigger the 35% DPS bonus from Pact of Bone, so they're still the best for DPS. Plus, they provide a tickle of freezing for Pelghain.

This Ranny El build for deep Pit pushing with Shadow Mages - Singularity is a bit challenging to pilot (in a fun way), and that makes it all the more interesting compared to the current Reaper meta. He cracked Pit 138 with it (video here); his max Skeletal Warriors Pit (that he posted) was 135. I was able to take a variation of his Singularity build to Pit 130 without too much hassle; I have a great weapon, but the rest of my gear is mediocre compared to his.

The only gear requirements that will kill the build if you lack them are a max Deluge aspect, Tidal on 2H, and the Red Blessing charm. This combo, with Blood Wave + Overpower upgrade, nets you 18 overpower stacks and a minimum of 244 Essence, good for over 21 seconds per Singularity Mage. I do recommend getting 30-40 additional Max Resource on Chest and/or Charms for a bit more Mage longevity/power, but if you go too crazy on Max Resource, refilling Essence between Mage casts will become a challenge.

If you're going to try it out, I suggest swapping out Blood Mist, which is seemingly only there to provide Fortify, and instead put in Bone Splinters - Shadow Seekers with Essence Generation and Resolve upgrades. It helps make sure you're always capped on Resolve and substantially improves your Essence generation, which is good but not amazing from the Deluge aspect. For a bit of Fortify (necessary for Tidal), Raheir's Shield Bash can get the ball rolling.

I had success with this skill rotation, counting every five seconds, starting with full Essence (if not full, shoot Splinters until full).

1: Blood Wave
2: Splinters (top off Essence)
3: Mage
4: Splinters or Sever to reposition and get a corpse for Priest summon.
5: Splinters

The every-five-seconds pattern is really necessary for the Bloodbath node, since you have to actually allow an Overpower stack to drop momentarily for the 50% Increased Damage effect to kick in. If that annoys you, Scent of Death or Flesh Eater are reasonable substitutes for Bloodbath. A five-second rotation is also short enough to keep 4 Singularity Mages up at all times in extended encounters. Rinse and repeat while dodging ground effects using Sever. Speaking of Sever, since this build uses the Litany of Death upgrade for Warriors (to make up for losing Pact of Bone), make sure to use Sever every couple of rotations during extended Elite or Boss encounters since a Skeletal Priest requires a corpse.

For those who get frustrated that Mages can't be commanded to attack a specific target, this build will annoy the crap out of you. But if you ever wanted to see a Skeleton Mage hit for 50 trillion damage, or to pilot a Minion build that is less spammy and requires a bit more timing and consideration, this build will scratch that itch.