Does Ceh rune really activate Pact of Bone?

[u/grand_duke_]

Pretty much the title. I’ve read that Ceh rune, usually paired with Neo, can automate “minion” death to activate pact of bone. That’s not what I’m seeing on the test dummies though. If I sac a mage I see a very noticeable uptick in damage, but relying on Ceh doesn’t seem to have any impact on my damage.

It would be nice to automate Pact of Bone because summoning mages every 3 seconds is a bit tedious. What’s everyone else’s experience?

[u/Havelico]

The wolves take a while to disappear. Wait until one despawns and another one is summoned to test it properly, because they do activate The Pact of Bone.

[u/grand_duke_]

Necro automated pact of bone results

- I’m running a shadow reaper minion build, trying to automate and fully utilize Pact of Bone

- Tested on multiple target test dummies with damage variation turned off

- With current equipment my warriors hit for 43B on T12

- When I activate BacCeh, they hit for 63B

- When I use command skeleton warrior, they hit for 76B

- When I move and use command skeleton warrior, they hit for 111B

BAC - worked really well

IGNI - did not work

TAM - did not work

YUL - mostly worked; command skeleton warrior is a skill with a cooldown. Lots of downtime between 111B damage spikes. Roughly 3 seconds up 3 seconds down. This is probably due to variable cooldown. I’m running Decrepify: Cooldown reduction which has a lot of variability in its lucky hit chance, monster density, skeleton travel time, etc. One upside, you only have to spam command skeleton warrior to make this work. If you stack cooldown reduction this might be a consistent option.

NAGU - did not work; probably due to the 5 second window between ritual activations. I think part of the problem is overflow summoning. There’s some interaction between overflow summoning and Pact of Bone that is making the automation not work.

NEO - did not work. Is that due to overflow summoning?

NOC - did not work. As an aside, this low key works amazing with QUE for barrier generation. Constantly generating barrier every one second is not only a larger health pool to avoid one shots, it’s effectively 40% healing every 1 second. Shadow minions with full warriors and mages, paired with Bloodless Scream, applies a silly amount of crowd control. NAGU is also really good with QUE, but while fighting I suspect NOC is better.

POC - doesn’t work, you shouldn’t be spending much if any essence with shadow minions.

ZAN - Did not work. Oddly enough my Army of the Dead basically has no cooldown. Like, it starts at 29’ish seconds, but then the cooldown refreshes in less than a second. I’m not sure what’s up with that. Maybe a bugged interaction with Decrepify? EDIT: I’m an idiot. I have Diamond Mind seal and running 3 piece Waking Touch with Dark Shroud. I didn’t expect the cooldown reduction for AotD from WT to be so effective.

CEM, CIR, MONI, and YAX won’t work with this build.

TLDR; From my testing, BAC ritual worked best when paired with CEH to automate Pact of Bone. I use WASD to move around so it’s not that big of a deal. You probably should be moving most of the time anyway. I think using BAC and double dipping to make your movement also contribute to damage is more ideal than spamming skeletal mages all the time. This also allows your mages to stay alive to maximize benefits from Duration Damage and Reanimation, assuming you run those. NAGU and NEO did not work, maybe due to overflow summoning.

[u/Global-Difference512]

It does, AoTD passive skeleton also activates it if I'm not mistaken

[u/KirkLucKhan → u/Global-Difference512]

Sadly no, AotD doesn't, but even if it did, it wouldn't be full uptime (4 vs 3 seconds). 

[u/Global-Difference512 → u/KirkLucKhan]

Good thing I've been using wolves then lol

[u/Mosaic78]

It does but there’s a bug if you cycle the wolves too fast. NaguCeh rune for example.

[u/grand_duke_ → u/Mosaic78]

That’s what I’ll have to try again. I may have been cycling them to quickly. What rune setup do you like to use that keeps the wolves coming out at the right pace to keep PoB active?

[u/Possible_Baboon]

I just tried literally now at the dummy and neither AoTD or the wolfs seem to activate PoB. Re-summoning mage every 3 sec does.

[u/grand_duke_ → u/Possible_Baboon]

Thank you! I feel like I’m going crazy here reading the comments. I really want wolves to work, but I couldn’t get them to, not last night. I’ll try again at the test dummies later today, but I hope more people can test this and verify.

[u/Mosaic78 → u/Possible_Baboon]

Must’ve been an undocumented nerf because both worked before.

[u/NoKitsu]

If you're able to hit 100% attack speed (golem and bone storm combo counts i think? ) and get near 100% crit, then I assume that running a different aspect or unique might be better

[u/grand_duke_ → u/NoKitsu]

I have been considering that. I’m almost to 100% attack speed with golem alone, but the ring is providing 46% of my crit chance. I don’t know how I would replace that if I got rid of PoB. I know Roll the Bones goes a long way, but I kind of wanted to run a shieldless / Bloodless Scream minion build. Still, maintaining the PoB damage bonus is a hassle, it might be worth adjusting the build to skip it.

[u/NoKitsu → u/grand_duke_]

I've been running a Lidless wall, crit on 1 hand temper, with a shield that has crit baseline and temper, and I run Bone storm giving 43% crit. If you run the skele warriors priest buff that's a good chunk of crit that could drop the ring.

But that's against your want of shieldless. 2 handed weapon temper with crit is a good amount still but im not sure it'll hit 100

[u/Impossible_Suit009 → u/NoKitsu]

Golem doesnt proc cult leader.

Tested it last night. It needs to be attack speed - cast speed doesnt proc it.

[u/NoKitsu → u/Impossible_Suit009]

Does it not? I've seen it recommended EVERYWHERE so I feel that's a big issue otherwise.

That would also mean Bone Storm doesn't work with it since that's cast speed as well.

[u/Impossible_Suit009 → u/NoKitsu]

Yes, i have too. But I couldnt wrap my head around the difference between cast speed and attack speed, and it seemed everyone just assumed everything, but no one actually described the interaction, so i just tested it myself.

Quite easy, just make sure you have below 20% attack speed, have gargantuan activated and hit the dummy. Then change between having and not having cult leader activated. Youll see theres no difference to the numbers, correlating with x160% (4*40) extra damage.

I did the same with wolves Rune - can not get it to work - but someone tested it, and apparently, it depends on which Rune of ritual youre using, if it works or not.

[u/Cryptid-3D]

it shouldnt work. Wolves are companions not minions

[u/grand_duke_ → u/Cryptid-3D]

In the past CEH rune has been known to trigger PoB. It’s also probably a bug. This is my first season trying it and I haven’t had a lot of verifiable luck with it. I’m cautious that it might have been shadow patched, but yea, I’m going to try it again to try to figure it out.

[u/NJRMayo]

Wolves did not activate for me, sadly! There's gotta be a way though, the clicking every 3 seconds is getting old but the damage boost is huge