I'm running the elementalist shotgun build and loving it. It's definitely squishy though.
I'm wondering, can anyone tell me why mika is running storm brand in the armor? I started out using it too, but it just felt like it wasn't doing anything for me. I'm just wondering if I'm missing something here. Any help would be appreciated.
i guess, to proc Elemental Equilibrium :]
Obviously, but that's what the winter orb setup is for. Just seems kinda redundant to have storm brand in there too. I know Mika has reasons for everything he does, so I'm just wondering what the reasoning is for having it set up like this.
P.S.
I just got a timeless jewel that gives me 3 slumlord nodes. My flame golem damage is just insane now. I am really loving this shotgun build!
Why Element equal? That will INCREASE their resistance to fire since thats the main minion dmg with this build. and a -50 to you minuscule channeled ice spell seems a waste. What am i not seeing here? I feel like it would be better used elsewhere.
"
Minions don't trigger equilibrium with their attacks. Only your own damage does. So, you just take a skill that easily procs non-fire damage on lots of mobs (like ball lightning or winter orb), spam it here and there - and that's an additional, massive resist debuff (which is also unaffected by curse count limit or limited effectiveness on unique enemies).
Hello :)
Yep, Minions can't trigger Elemental Equilibrium themselves. So if the Character triggers it, minions get 50% more damage for basically free.
Spoiler
Hi, I started this league using this build, and with no empower gem yet on my lvl 91 necro with 8 jewels currently, presence of chayula, and my six link non-corrupted skin, and spell block defensive shield, and a 20/10 rumi's, I am having no problem in tier 14 maps at all, cleared Hall of the grandmasters (painfully (mana issues/resummoning) with 2 deaths and had to swap to scorching ray/frostbomb to kill demi's spiderqueen, good learning experience tho - never did it before), and feel that it will scale even better both offensively and defensively with more investment ( only lvl 24 fire golems now, 22 spectres with non-minion buffing helmet). I've been able to clear most every map mod (ele. reflect seems to kill golems after a long blight encounter, but not on boss or on mob packs, not sure about blighted maps)
A lvl 4 empower, minion helmet w/ temporal enchantment, lvl 4 enhance, +1 corrupted Skin, full gem min/maxing, getting 5-7 more lvls to get the last 2 gem slots, using animated guardian, and getting a good 2-3 exalt amulet anointment will each help me buff everything up nicely; can't wait to see the results!
A few suggestions and tips I found while playing this build:
1. Mana flask suggestion - IMPORTANT! - I suggest you swap the instant/hybrid instant-overtime flask for the new ENDURING affix. 25% reduced duration, but lasts for the full duration. Meaning if you reach max mana (40 mana for me with all auras active...), you will still have the flask buffs for the full duration, mana gain and status effects. ALSO! YOU CAN CURRENTLY STACK THE BUFF AS MANY TIMES AS YOU USE IT IF YOU HAVE CHARGES!!! The effects on one flask fully charged will last 26.5 seconds if you spam it 5 times on a 20% quality eternal mana flask (best flask to use - longest uptime with best charges). One flask = 26.5 seconds of mana + >
> 26.5 seconds of 30% movespeed - or
> 26.5 seconds of curse immunity - (best for temp chains maps) - or
> 26.5 seconds of ignite immunity - or
> 26.5 seconds of freeze/chill immunity (best for chilled maps) - or
> 26.5 seconds of any other suffix! (posion/shock/bleed/armor/evasion)
Amazing for a flask option because of the extreme duration that can be spammed and forgotten about, since you don't have to worry about reactivation until all uses have run their duration. Makes mana flasks very attractive, as well as makes Cannot regenerate life/mana/energy shield maps even more of a joke for this build (just have to heal up chaos dmg with life flask).
2. Hybrid life/energy shield isn't that bad while leveling, but gets painful when you encounter end game content not geared without proper flask affixes. I would suggest getting Ignite/Bleeding/Movespeed flasks and upgrading them as you progress ASAP. Makes this build have much less downtime waiting for ES recharge and much more survivable in long fights with DoT's that eat your ES and keep your life lvl's dangerously low. After all the defensive options that come with lvling as well as gearing, it seems tanky AF.
3. I don't feel a bleed flask is necessary, with Bone Armour removing all bleeds from you and minions for 4.2 seconds every 7.2 seconds. ~58% Bleed Immunity uptime if you keep Bone Armour on coodldown, and allows your life pool to be near (for me right now at least) 11k+ while active (currently have 2.2k life and 6.6k ES). TANKY, that is if you don't block that hit, which you most likely will. Bone Armour is highly underrated, and it also gives your minions a bit of psuedo heal/recovery against ele. reflect, which seems to be the killer of your golems in high density, high duration fights @ 18% reflect. (they can be resummoned quickly if you turn off a single curse)
4. Expensive! Yet, worth it. If you know how to trade effectively, you can get what you need piece by piece; and it really comes together imo. I didn't even use 6 link golems when I got a 3rd day Skin that I stole for a measly exalt (80 chaos was priced, told him it was too cheap, sold it to me for 100c/1ex at the time <got lucky w/ exalt @ lvl ~40 on Blight encounter main loot pinata> ), I used 6 link solar guards til ~86 when i had the currency to snipe a set of 2 primordial mights for 55 and 50 chaos and 7 43-45% harmonies for 25-27 each. Build exploded and gained 3k EHP at that point, all content was trivial (t10 maps at the time). TL;DR - Costly but Effective, gear bought was all worth it and scaled well vs. how much was spent.
5. Chaos resist, you need more then what is on your amulet and passives (unless you have the amulet w/ double chaos resist, then you have 75% without any other sources <~1.5 exalt for the enchant tho, and may be better passive saving enchants to get, like the +1 curse enchant @ ~3 exalt tho...>) or you will suffer with high chaos burst and always be afraid of it happening out of nowhere and one shotting you. Once you have Presence of Chayula and ~20-30 on your items in total, Chaos becomes much less scary. I think 75% may be overkill, but I would like to try it and see if it makes chaos dmg absolutely trivial.
6. Casting your channeled spell (Winter Orb) seems to make your minions move to the location where your mouse cursor currently is at the time of casting. Use this to your advantage to position minions before fights or move them to where you want them during fights. Not sure how much command priority it has when facing certain encounters when minions are already occupied by opponents, but feels like you can abuse this 95-99% of the time to reposition the horde.
7. Lots of little things I can't think of now which make this a great build, a learning process for anyone looking into this build, with a rewarding outcome if you can follow thru and make thinks work for you. 8/10 on the guide, with top marks for succinct information that matters, but lower marks on the formatting and new player/ new to build information (definitely not the worse I've seen; even though it is the area if improved which would make this guide a 9.5/10)
Great work with the theorycrafting and guide; keep it up!
Hey and thanks for detailed report :)
Good to hear you like the build! After the 3.8.0 patch I can do 300+ Delves pretty safely, so the defenses are certainly on whole different level now.
1) Mana flask upgrade has been suggested few times now and it's certainly coming. I live in cold north and have pretty bad flu atm. I will try to update it into the guide tomorrow or at monday if I get little better.
2) I will probably add section about them in the leveling part also. Flasks can be very useful while leveling and prevent many deaths. I have to figure out best way to get each type, as alteration are pretty scarce at the start of the game and you don't really get many useful flasks as rewards expect quicksilver ones.
3) Never noticed that Bone Armor gives bleed immunity, thanks for the tip! I wonder if it's still viable to drop bleed flask, as when I start to lose life, I immediately start spamming flask keys to stop the effect. Reaching to Bone Armor to stop the effect might be confusing when it's almost automated reflex to press flaks instead.
4) Gz on great trades :)
Yep, build can be pretty expensive espacially if you rush for Golems. Necromancer used to be dirt cheap, but this league everything minion reladed seems to cost fortune.
I try to make crafting guides about each rare piece of gear that can be self craft for decent price.
5) I do aggree 100%
I just capped my own chaos resistances with
and it really changes survival in some areas. Chaos damage is not very widespread in endgame, but in Delves at depth 300+ monsters can leavy very strong chaos damage cloud on death. Capping the resitance really helped.
I plan to add gear value recommendations in the FAQ part of the guide, as the first part is almost full (50k char max). I will add values something like this in priority order :
Crystal belt
- Energy Shield 110+, Max HP 40+, Elemental resistances 35%+, Chaos resistance 25%+
Rare ring
- Energy Shield 40+, Max HP 40+, Strength 30+, Dexterity 30+, Elemental resistances 35%+, Chaos resistance 25%+, [minion movement speed]
6) I guess I should have some part I the guide describing how to move minions target using the channeling skill? Not 100% sure, but will verify it later.
7) Thanks for support ^^
It's easy to become blind for stuff for new players after you play for almost 6 years and mostly in standard. However I get tons of tips from forum posters, and try to integrate them into the guide. This makes guide almost ever changing community project, but also make remembering what there is exactly quite hard.
I will keep on working on the guide and especially the leveling part after getting lot of tips about it. Endgame seems to be very clear, but early leveling and swapping from Specs -> Golems seems to need more work. If you got any tips, you can PM me in forums, ingame or leave message in thread.
"
recommend this bunch of stones, it is better than winter orb
"
I started with Winter orb aswell but I still enjoy Storm Burst more, it's not the powerhouse it used to be but it spreads EE way faster than Winter Orb, I hate the small delay with Winter orb before it starts hitting if you have no charges.
Hey :)
I have been testing Storm Burst also, but it has both advantages and disadvantages.
It hits instantly and can be moved around the area to apply EE from across the screen. It can also snipe just the boss, instead of keep target on nearest boss minion.
However it has rather small radius and it wont keep spamming EE after you release casting and start to kite around the boss. Winter Orb also autotragets barrels, which gives some extra drops.
Which skills is better, depends mostly on play-style. If you want to focus just on boss, Storm Burst can be better. However if you want to apply EE generally everywhere or keep EE up longer while you kite boss moves, Winter Orb is better.
"
Don't I know it? A shame really... ;)
"
I know that too but if we can assume that all 5 explosions can inflict damage on one target at a greater distance (where the projectile spread is wider than at close range) if they have say, 50% incr. AOE from the gem, that in itself would be a lot more single target damage.
So yea, the lack of proper skill documentation is one of the major shortcomings of this game. GGG's policy, "This is for us to know and for you to find out," is a bit of of a pain the behind.
Hey :)
Orbs already overlap pretty well with increased area of effect from the skill-tree. I'm not sure if IAOE would let them overlap more, but it could be worth testing as PoB has no idea about the effect.
GGG likes to keep the games data hide and seek for the players. This however makes good guides even more valuable as most information has to be dug from wiki or some other thread.
"
I'm running the elementalist shotgun build and loving it. It's definitely squishy though.
I'm wondering, can anyone tell me why mika is running storm brand in the armor? I started out using it too, but it just felt like it wasn't doing anything for me. I'm just wondering if I'm missing something here. Any help would be appreciated.
"
i guess, to proc Elemental Equilibrium :]
"
Obviously, but that's what the winter orb setup is for. Just seems kinda redundant to have storm brand in there too. I know Mika has reasons for everything he does, so I'm just wondering what the reasoning is for having it set up like this.
P.S.
I just got a timeless jewel that gives me 3 slumlord nodes. My flame golem damage is just insane now. I am really loving this shotgun build!
Hi :)
Storm Brand is used to keep EE up when you have to kite boss / monster packs. It leaves the brand on the ground and reliably keeps zapping monsters around it for long time. With 3x up, you can apply EE to almost entire pack without having to use Winter Orb.
This works better in tight places like Delves, Breaches, Abysses, etc and less well in open maps. Hoever the skill is first one to be changed from all gems in the build if you want to run something else instead of it. You can replace it with something like Raise Zombies, to get 8-9x tanky minion to draw aggro and to apply any melee debuffs you might have on Glastly Eye jewels.
Gz on the timeless jewel! I have yet to try them. Is there any way to tell what the jewel does when you buy it from the trade?
UPDATE
Added "I_GameR"s "Pledge of Hands" -damage calculator in FAQ -part of the guide. Thanks a lot for creating it! ^^
[3.12] Flame Golem 101 - Complete Guide To Golemancy, All Bosses Down, Necro, Elementalist
https://tinyurl.com/y8k9fa2f
Last edited by mika2salo on Sep 21, 2019, 2:17:20 PM
Why Element equal? That will INCREASE their resistance to fire since thats the main minion dmg with this build. and a -50 to you minuscule channeled ice spell seems a waste. What am i not seeing here? I feel like it would be better used elsewhere.
"
Minions don't trigger equilibrium with their attacks. Only your own damage does. So, you just take a skill that easily procs non-fire damage on lots of mobs (like ball lightning or winter orb), spam it here and there - and that's an additional, massive resist debuff (which is also unaffected by curse count limit or limited effectiveness on unique enemies).
Hello :)
Yep, Minions can't trigger Elemental Equilibrium themselves. So if the Character triggers it, minions get 50% more damage for basically free.
Spoiler
Hi, I started this league using this build, and with no empower gem yet on my lvl 91 necro with 8 jewels currently, presence of chayula, and my six link non-corrupted skin, and spell block defensive shield, and a 20/10 rumi's, I am having no problem in tier 14 maps at all, cleared Hall of the grandmasters (painfully (mana issues/resummoning) with 2 deaths and had to swap to scorching ray/frostbomb to kill demi's spiderqueen, good learning experience tho - never did it before), and feel that it will scale even better both offensively and defensively with more investment ( only lvl 24 fire golems now, 22 spectres with non-minion buffing helmet). I've been able to clear most every map mod (ele. reflect seems to kill golems after a long blight encounter, but not on boss or on mob packs, not sure about blighted maps)
A lvl 4 empower, minion helmet w/ temporal enchantment, lvl 4 enhance, +1 corrupted Skin, full gem min/maxing, getting 5-7 more lvls to get the last 2 gem slots, using animated guardian, and getting a good 2-3 exalt amulet anointment will each help me buff everything up nicely; can't wait to see the results!
A few suggestions and tips I found while playing this build:
1. Mana flask suggestion - IMPORTANT! - I suggest you swap the instant/hybrid instant-overtime flask for the new ENDURING affix. 25% reduced duration, but lasts for the full duration. Meaning if you reach max mana (40 mana for me with all auras active...), you will still have the flask buffs for the full duration, mana gain and status effects. ALSO! YOU CAN CURRENTLY STACK THE BUFF AS MANY TIMES AS YOU USE IT IF YOU HAVE CHARGES!!! The effects on one flask fully charged will last 26.5 seconds if you spam it 5 times on a 20% quality eternal mana flask (best flask to use - longest uptime with best charges). One flask = 26.5 seconds of mana + >
> 26.5 seconds of 30% movespeed - or
> 26.5 seconds of curse immunity - (best for temp chains maps) - or
> 26.5 seconds of ignite immunity - or
> 26.5 seconds of freeze/chill immunity (best for chilled maps) - or
> 26.5 seconds of any other suffix! (posion/shock/bleed/armor/evasion)
Amazing for a flask option because of the extreme duration that can be spammed and forgotten about, since you don't have to worry about reactivation until all uses have run their duration. Makes mana flasks very attractive, as well as makes Cannot regenerate life/mana/energy shield maps even more of a joke for this build (just have to heal up chaos dmg with life flask).
2. Hybrid life/energy shield isn't that bad while leveling, but gets painful when you encounter end game content not geared without proper flask affixes. I would suggest getting Ignite/Bleeding/Movespeed flasks and upgrading them as you progress ASAP. Makes this build have much less downtime waiting for ES recharge and much more survivable in long fights with DoT's that eat your ES and keep your life lvl's dangerously low. After all the defensive options that come with lvling as well as gearing, it seems tanky AF.
3. I don't feel a bleed flask is necessary, with Bone Armour removing all bleeds from you and minions for 4.2 seconds every 7.2 seconds. ~58% Bleed Immunity uptime if you keep Bone Armour on coodldown, and allows your life pool to be near (for me right now at least) 11k+ while active (currently have 2.2k life and 6.6k ES). TANKY, that is if you don't block that hit, which you most likely will. Bone Armour is highly underrated, and it also gives your minions a bit of psuedo heal/recovery against ele. reflect, which seems to be the killer of your golems in high density, high duration fights @ 18% reflect. (they can be resummoned quickly if you turn off a single curse)
4. Expensive! Yet, worth it. If you know how to trade effectively, you can get what you need piece by piece; and it really comes together imo. I didn't even use 6 link golems when I got a 3rd day Skin that I stole for a measly exalt (80 chaos was priced, told him it was too cheap, sold it to me for 100c/1ex at the time <got lucky w/ exalt @ lvl ~40 on Blight encounter main loot pinata> ), I used 6 link solar guards til ~86 when i had the currency to snipe a set of 2 primordial mights for 55 and 50 chaos and 7 43-45% harmonies for 25-27 each. Build exploded and gained 3k EHP at that point, all content was trivial (t10 maps at the time). TL;DR - Costly but Effective, gear bought was all worth it and scaled well vs. how much was spent.
5. Chaos resist, you need more then what is on your amulet and passives (unless you have the amulet w/ double chaos resist, then you have 75% without any other sources <~1.5 exalt for the enchant tho, and may be better passive saving enchants to get, like the +1 curse enchant @ ~3 exalt tho...>) or you will suffer with high chaos burst and always be afraid of it happening out of nowhere and one shotting you. Once you have Presence of Chayula and ~20-30 on your items in total, Chaos becomes much less scary. I think 75% may be overkill, but I would like to try it and see if it makes chaos dmg absolutely trivial.
6. Casting your channeled spell (Winter Orb) seems to make your minions move to the location where your mouse cursor currently is at the time of casting. Use this to your advantage to position minions before fights or move them to where you want them during fights. Not sure how much command priority it has when facing certain encounters when minions are already occupied by opponents, but feels like you can abuse this 95-99% of the time to reposition the horde.
7. Lots of little things I can't think of now which make this a great build, a learning process for anyone looking into this build, with a rewarding outcome if you can follow thru and make thinks work for you. 8/10 on the guide, with top marks for succinct information that matters, but lower marks on the formatting and new player/ new to build information (definitely not the worse I've seen; even though it is the area if improved which would make this guide a 9.5/10)
Great work with the theorycrafting and guide; keep it up!
Hey and thanks for detailed report :)
Good to hear you like the build! After the 3.8.0 patch I can do 300+ Delves pretty safely, so the defenses are certainly on whole different level now.
1) Mana flask upgrade has been suggested few times now and it's certainly coming. I live in cold north and have pretty bad flu atm. I will try to update it into the guide tomorrow or at monday if I get little better.
2) I will probably add section about them in the leveling part also. Flasks can be very useful while leveling and prevent many deaths. I have to figure out best way to get each type, as alteration are pretty scarce at the start of the game and you don't really get many useful flasks as rewards expect quicksilver ones.
3) Never noticed that Bone Armor gives bleed immunity, thanks for the tip! I wonder if it's still viable to drop bleed flask, as when I start to lose life, I immediately start spamming flask keys to stop the effect. Reaching to Bone Armor to stop the effect might be confusing when it's almost automated reflex to press flaks instead.
4) Gz on great trades :)
Yep, build can be pretty expensive espacially if you rush for Golems. Necromancer used to be dirt cheap, but this league everything minion reladed seems to cost fortune.
I try to make crafting guides about each rare piece of gear that can be self craft for decent price.
5) I do aggree 100%
I just capped my own chaos resistances with
and it really changes survival in some areas. Chaos damage is not very widespread in endgame, but in Delves at depth 300+ monsters can leavy very strong chaos damage cloud on death. Capping the resitance really helped.
I plan to add gear value recommendations in the FAQ part of the guide, as the first part is almost full (50k char max). I will add values something like this in priority order :
Crystal belt
- Energy Shield 110+, Max HP 40+, Elemental resistances 35%+, Chaos resistance 25%+
Rare ring
- Energy Shield 40+, Max HP 40+, Strength 30+, Dexterity 30+, Elemental resistances 35%+, Chaos resistance 25%+, [minion movement speed]
6) I guess I should have some part I the guide describing how to move minions target using the channeling skill? Not 100% sure, but will verify it later.
7) Thanks for support ^^
It's easy to become blind for stuff for new players after you play for almost 6 years and mostly in standard. However I get tons of tips from forum posters, and try to integrate them into the guide. This makes guide almost ever changing community project, but also make remembering what there is exactly quite hard.
I will keep on working on the guide and especially the leveling part after getting lot of tips about it. Endgame seems to be very clear, but early leveling and swapping from Specs -> Golems seems to need more work. If you got any tips, you can PM me in forums, ingame or leave message in thread.
"
recommend this bunch of stones, it is better than winter orb
"
I started with Winter orb aswell but I still enjoy Storm Burst more, it's not the powerhouse it used to be but it spreads EE way faster than Winter Orb, I hate the small delay with Winter orb before it starts hitting if you have no charges.
Hey :)
I have been testing Storm Burst also, but it has both advantages and disadvantages.
It hits instantly and can be moved around the area to apply EE from across the screen. It can also snipe just the boss, instead of keep target on nearest boss minion.
However it has rather small radius and it wont keep spamming EE after you release casting and start to kite around the boss. Winter Orb also autotragets barrels, which gives some extra drops.
Which skills is better, depends mostly on play-style. If you want to focus just on boss, Storm Burst can be better. However if you want to apply EE generally everywhere or keep EE up longer while you kite boss moves, Winter Orb is better.
"
Don't I know it? A shame really... ;)
"
I know that too but if we can assume that all 5 explosions can inflict damage on one target at a greater distance (where the projectile spread is wider than at close range) if they have say, 50% incr. AOE from the gem, that in itself would be a lot more single target damage.
So yea, the lack of proper skill documentation is one of the major shortcomings of this game. GGG's policy, "This is for us to know and for you to find out," is a bit of of a pain the behind.
Hey :)
Orbs already overlap pretty well with increased area of effect from the skill-tree. I'm not sure if IAOE would let them overlap more, but it could be worth testing as PoB has no idea about the effect.
GGG likes to keep the games data hide and seek for the players. This however makes good guides even more valuable as most information has to be dug from wiki or some other thread.
"
I'm running the elementalist shotgun build and loving it. It's definitely squishy though.
I'm wondering, can anyone tell me why mika is running storm brand in the armor? I started out using it too, but it just felt like it wasn't doing anything for me. I'm just wondering if I'm missing something here. Any help would be appreciated.
"
i guess, to proc Elemental Equilibrium :]
"
Obviously, but that's what the winter orb setup is for. Just seems kinda redundant to have storm brand in there too. I know Mika has reasons for everything he does, so I'm just wondering what the reasoning is for having it set up like this.
P.S.
I just got a timeless jewel that gives me 3 slumlord nodes. My flame golem damage is just insane now. I am really loving this shotgun build!
Hi :)
Storm Brand is used to keep EE up when you have to kite boss / monster packs. It leaves the brand on the ground and reliably keeps zapping monsters around it for long time. With 3x up, you can apply EE to almost entire pack without having to use Winter Orb.
This works better in tight places like Delves, Breaches, Abysses, etc and less well in open maps. Hoever the skill is first one to be changed from all gems in the build if you want to run something else instead of it. You can replace it with something like Raise Zombies, to get 8-9x tanky minion to draw aggro and to apply any melee debuffs you might have on Glastly Eye jewels.
Gz on the timeless jewel! I have yet to try them. Is there any way to tell what the jewel does when you buy it from the trade?
UPDATE
Added "I_GameR"s "Pledge of Hands" -damage calculator in FAQ -part of the guide. Thanks a lot for creating it! ^^
Why Element equal? That will INCREASE their resistance to fire since thats the main minion dmg with this build. and a -50 to you minuscule channeled ice spell seems a waste. What am i not seeing here? I feel like it would be better used elsewhere.
"
Minions don't trigger equilibrium with their attacks. Only your own damage does. So, you just take a skill that easily procs non-fire damage on lots of mobs (like ball lightning or winter orb), spam it here and there - and that's an additional, massive resist debuff (which is also unaffected by curse count limit or limited effectiveness on unique enemies).
Hello :)
Yep, Minions can't trigger Elemental Equilibrium themselves. So if the Character triggers it, minions get 50% more damage for basically free.
Spoiler
Hi, I started this league using this build, and with no empower gem yet on my lvl 91 necro with 8 jewels currently, presence of chayula, and my six link non-corrupted skin, and spell block defensive shield, and a 20/10 rumi's, I am having no problem in tier 14 maps at all, cleared Hall of the grandmasters (painfully (mana issues/resummoning) with 2 deaths and had to swap to scorching ray/frostbomb to kill demi's spiderqueen, good learning experience tho - never did it before), and feel that it will scale even better both offensively and defensively with more investment ( only lvl 24 fire golems now, 22 spectres with non-minion buffing helmet). I've been able to clear most every map mod (ele. reflect seems to kill golems after a long blight encounter, but not on boss or on mob packs, not sure about blighted maps)
A lvl 4 empower, minion helmet w/ temporal enchantment, lvl 4 enhance, +1 corrupted Skin, full gem min/maxing, getting 5-7 more lvls to get the last 2 gem slots, using animated guardian, and getting a good 2-3 exalt amulet anointment will each help me buff everything up nicely; can't wait to see the results!
A few suggestions and tips I found while playing this build:
1. Mana flask suggestion - IMPORTANT! - I suggest you swap the instant/hybrid instant-overtime flask for the new ENDURING affix. 25% reduced duration, but lasts for the full duration. Meaning if you reach max mana (40 mana for me with all auras active...), you will still have the flask buffs for the full duration, mana gain and status effects. ALSO! YOU CAN CURRENTLY STACK THE BUFF AS MANY TIMES AS YOU USE IT IF YOU HAVE CHARGES!!! The effects on one flask fully charged will last 26.5 seconds if you spam it 5 times on a 20% quality eternal mana flask (best flask to use - longest uptime with best charges). One flask = 26.5 seconds of mana + >
> 26.5 seconds of 30% movespeed - or
> 26.5 seconds of curse immunity - (best for temp chains maps) - or
> 26.5 seconds of ignite immunity - or
> 26.5 seconds of freeze/chill immunity (best for chilled maps) - or
> 26.5 seconds of any other suffix! (posion/shock/bleed/armor/evasion)
Amazing for a flask option because of the extreme duration that can be spammed and forgotten about, since you don't have to worry about reactivation until all uses have run their duration. Makes mana flasks very attractive, as well as makes Cannot regenerate life/mana/energy shield maps even more of a joke for this build (just have to heal up chaos dmg with life flask).
2. Hybrid life/energy shield isn't that bad while leveling, but gets painful when you encounter end game content not geared without proper flask affixes. I would suggest getting Ignite/Bleeding/Movespeed flasks and upgrading them as you progress ASAP. Makes this build have much less downtime waiting for ES recharge and much more survivable in long fights with DoT's that eat your ES and keep your life lvl's dangerously low. After all the defensive options that come with lvling as well as gearing, it seems tanky AF.
3. I don't feel a bleed flask is necessary, with Bone Armour removing all bleeds from you and minions for 4.2 seconds every 7.2 seconds. ~58% Bleed Immunity uptime if you keep Bone Armour on coodldown, and allows your life pool to be near (for me right now at least) 11k+ while active (currently have 2.2k life and 6.6k ES). TANKY, that is if you don't block that hit, which you most likely will. Bone Armour is highly underrated, and it also gives your minions a bit of psuedo heal/recovery against ele. reflect, which seems to be the killer of your golems in high density, high duration fights @ 18% reflect. (they can be resummoned quickly if you turn off a single curse)
4. Expensive! Yet, worth it. If you know how to trade effectively, you can get what you need piece by piece; and it really comes together imo. I didn't even use 6 link golems when I got a 3rd day Skin that I stole for a measly exalt (80 chaos was priced, told him it was too cheap, sold it to me for 100c/1ex at the time <got lucky w/ exalt @ lvl ~40 on Blight encounter main loot pinata> ), I used 6 link solar guards til ~86 when i had the currency to snipe a set of 2 primordial mights for 55 and 50 chaos and 7 43-45% harmonies for 25-27 each. Build exploded and gained 3k EHP at that point, all content was trivial (t10 maps at the time). TL;DR - Costly but Effective, gear bought was all worth it and scaled well vs. how much was spent.
5. Chaos resist, you need more then what is on your amulet and passives (unless you have the amulet w/ double chaos resist, then you have 75% without any other sources <~1.5 exalt for the enchant tho, and may be better passive saving enchants to get, like the +1 curse enchant @ ~3 exalt tho...>) or you will suffer with high chaos burst and always be afraid of it happening out of nowhere and one shotting you. Once you have Presence of Chayula and ~20-30 on your items in total, Chaos becomes much less scary. I think 75% may be overkill, but I would like to try it and see if it makes chaos dmg absolutely trivial.
6. Casting your channeled spell (Winter Orb) seems to make your minions move to the location where your mouse cursor currently is at the time of casting. Use this to your advantage to position minions before fights or move them to where you want them during fights. Not sure how much command priority it has when facing certain encounters when minions are already occupied by opponents, but feels like you can abuse this 95-99% of the time to reposition the horde.
7. Lots of little things I can't think of now which make this a great build, a learning process for anyone looking into this build, with a rewarding outcome if you can follow thru and make thinks work for you. 8/10 on the guide, with top marks for succinct information that matters, but lower marks on the formatting and new player/ new to build information (definitely not the worse I've seen; even though it is the area if improved which would make this guide a 9.5/10)
Great work with the theorycrafting and guide; keep it up!
Hey and thanks for detailed report :)
Good to hear you like the build! After the 3.8.0 patch I can do 300+ Delves pretty safely, so the defenses are certainly on whole different level now.
1) Mana flask upgrade has been suggested few times now and it's certainly coming. I live in cold north and have pretty bad flu atm. I will try to update it into the guide tomorrow or at monday if I get little better.
2) I will probably add section about them in the leveling part also. Flasks can be very useful while leveling and prevent many deaths. I have to figure out best way to get each type, as alteration are pretty scarce at the start of the game and you don't really get many useful flasks as rewards expect quicksilver ones.
3) Never noticed that Bone Armor gives bleed immunity, thanks for the tip! I wonder if it's still viable to drop bleed flask, as when I start to lose life, I immediately start spamming flask keys to stop the effect. Reaching to Bone Armor to stop the effect might be confusing when it's almost automated reflex to press flaks instead.
4) Gz on great trades :)
Yep, build can be pretty expensive espacially if you rush for Golems. Necromancer used to be dirt cheap, but this league everything minion reladed seems to cost fortune.
I try to make crafting guides about each rare piece of gear that can be self craft for decent price.
5) I do aggree 100%
I just capped my own chaos resistances with
and it really changes survival in some areas. Chaos damage is not very widespread in endgame, but in Delves at depth 300+ monsters can leavy very strong chaos damage cloud on death. Capping the resitance really helped.
I plan to add gear value recommendations in the FAQ part of the guide, as the first part is almost full (50k char max). I will add values something like this in priority order :
Crystal belt
- Energy Shield 110+, Max HP 40+, Elemental resistances 35%+, Chaos resistance 25%+
Rare ring
- Energy Shield 40+, Max HP 40+, Strength 30+, Dexterity 30+, Elemental resistances 35%+, Chaos resistance 25%+, [minion movement speed]
6) I guess I should have some part I the guide describing how to move minions target using the channeling skill? Not 100% sure, but will verify it later.
7) Thanks for support ^^
It's easy to become blind for stuff for new players after you play for almost 6 years and mostly in standard. However I get tons of tips from forum posters, and try to integrate them into the guide. This makes guide almost ever changing community project, but also make remembering what there is exactly quite hard.
I will keep on working on the guide and especially the leveling part after getting lot of tips about it. Endgame seems to be very clear, but early leveling and swapping from Specs -> Golems seems to need more work. If you got any tips, you can PM me in forums, ingame or leave message in thread.
"
recommend this bunch of stones, it is better than winter orb
"
I started with Winter orb aswell but I still enjoy Storm Burst more, it's not the powerhouse it used to be but it spreads EE way faster than Winter Orb, I hate the small delay with Winter orb before it starts hitting if you have no charges.
Hey :)
I have been testing Storm Burst also, but it has both advantages and disadvantages.
It hits instantly and can be moved around the area to apply EE from across the screen. It can also snipe just the boss, instead of keep target on nearest boss minion.
However it has rather small radius and it wont keep spamming EE after you release casting and start to kite around the boss. Winter Orb also autotragets barrels, which gives some extra drops.
Which skills is better, depends mostly on play-style. If you want to focus just on boss, Storm Burst can be better. However if you want to apply EE generally everywhere or keep EE up longer while you kite boss moves, Winter Orb is better.
"
Don't I know it? A shame really... ;)
"
I know that too but if we can assume that all 5 explosions can inflict damage on one target at a greater distance (where the projectile spread is wider than at close range) if they have say, 50% incr. AOE from the gem, that in itself would be a lot more single target damage.
So yea, the lack of proper skill documentation is one of the major shortcomings of this game. GGG's policy, "This is for us to know and for you to find out," is a bit of of a pain the behind.
Hey :)
Orbs already overlap pretty well with increased area of effect from the skill-tree. I'm not sure if IAOE would let them overlap more, but it could be worth testing as PoB has no idea about the effect.
GGG likes to keep the games data hide and seek for the players. This however makes good guides even more valuable as most information has to be dug from wiki or some other thread.
"
I'm running the elementalist shotgun build and loving it. It's definitely squishy though.
I'm wondering, can anyone tell me why mika is running storm brand in the armor? I started out using it too, but it just felt like it wasn't doing anything for me. I'm just wondering if I'm missing something here. Any help would be appreciated.
"
i guess, to proc Elemental Equilibrium :]
"
Obviously, but that's what the winter orb setup is for. Just seems kinda redundant to have storm brand in there too. I know Mika has reasons for everything he does, so I'm just wondering what the reasoning is for having it set up like this.
P.S.
I just got a timeless jewel that gives me 3 slumlord nodes. My flame golem damage is just insane now. I am really loving this shotgun build!
Hi :)
Storm Brand is used to keep EE up when you have to kite boss / monster packs. It leaves the brand on the ground and reliably keeps zapping monsters around it for long time. With 3x up, you can apply EE to almost entire pack without having to use Winter Orb.
This works better in tight places like Delves, Breaches, Abysses, etc and less well in open maps. Hoever the skill is first one to be changed from all gems in the build if you want to run something else instead of it. You can replace it with something like Raise Zombies, to get 8-9x tanky minion to draw aggro and to apply any melee debuffs you might have on Glastly Eye jewels.
Gz on the timeless jewel! I have yet to try them. Is there any way to tell what the jewel does when you buy it from the trade?
UPDATE
Added "I_GameR"s "Pledge of Hands" -damage calculator in FAQ -part of the guide. Thanks a lot for creating it! ^^
thanks for gear value recommendations!!
Hey :)
Np, glad to help!
I think I hit the jackpot!
320% minion damage.
[3.12] Flame Golem 101 - Complete Guide To Golemancy, All Bosses Down, Necro, Elementalist
https://tinyurl.com/y8k9fa2f
Last edited by mika2salo on Sep 21, 2019, 3:07:38 PM
I didn't play since delve, can someone explain to me how to get such jewel, i read guides, but i still dont get which gem specifically would have such effect.
I didn't play since delve, can someone explain to me how to get such jewel, i read guides, but i still dont get which gem specifically would have such effect.
Hello :)
Here's my short guide with just todays experience from them, so might not be 100% accurate :
1) Get "Elegant Hubris"
It seems that any one will work as they might be all same item level. Make sure it's not corrupted, so you can reroll it with divine orbs.
2) Place the jewel in any of these three important sockets :
"Assassins socket" costs only 5x nodes to take, so you can respec some other nodes while testing it. Jewel also works in other sockets, but they have less nodes to reroll "Slum Lord" or you might lose some other important nodes at reroll.
The jewel will change the nodes at random, so you can't know what you will get. Smaller nodes will be destroyed and bigger will be rerolled and all will be taken inside the radius even without way leading to them.
3) Check how many "Slum Lords" you get per jewel socket form rerolled nodes. You can do this manually or search for "slum" after you place the jewel, and it will highlight all changed nodes. Hoever when you replace the jewel to another socket, you need to modify the search or it wont highlight new "Slum Lords". You can remove "m" form "slum" and end with "slu" and it will highlight new "Slum lords". with third place add "m" back at the search and it will search again.
4) If you get 0 or 1 Slum lords you might want reroll the jewel. Use Divine orb
to reroll the jewel and replace it again in all 3x sockets and search for "Slum lords". Repeat until you get more than 2x Slum lords or are happy with results.
I got 3x Slum Lords with 10x Divine rerolls and 4x with about 20x Divine rerolls, so be prepared to use lots of them. Some rolls didn't have any "Slum Lords" in any of the sockets, but most had at least one in some socket.
Please note that the jewel will reroll all nodes, if you place it near "Elemental Equilibroum" you will end with something different and lose the 50% damage bonus. Thats why the 3x mentioned places are best as they have lot of bigger nodes to reroll "Slum Lords" and not too important nodes that you may lose.
5) It seems like you still have to connect to the nodes. Try to find place where Slum Lords are close to your jewel start position or on way to the jewel.
[3.12] Flame Golem 101 - Complete Guide To Golemancy, All Bosses Down, Necro, Elementalist
https://tinyurl.com/y8k9fa2f
Last edited by mika2salo on Sep 22, 2019, 4:26:26 PM
I didn't play since delve, can someone explain to me how to get such jewel, i read guides, but i still dont get which gem specifically would have such effect.
Hello :)
Here's my short guide with just todays experience from them, so might not be 100% accurate :
1) Get "Elegant Hubris"
It seems that any one will work as they might be all same item level. Make sure it's not corrupted, so you can reroll it with divine orbs.
2) Place the jewel in any of these three important sockets :
"Assassins socket" costs only 5x nodes to take, so you can respec some other nodes while testing it. Jewel also works in other sockets, but they have less nodes to reroll "Slum Lord" or you might lose some other important nodes at reroll.
The jewel will change the nodes at random, so you can't know what you will get. Smaller nodes will be destroyed and bigger will be rerolled and all will be taken inside the radius even without way leading to them.
3) Check how many "Slum Lords" you get per jewel socket form rerolled nodes. You can do this manually or search for "slum" after you place the jewel, and it will highlight all changed nodes. Hoever when you replace the jewel to another socket, you need to modify the search or it wont highlight new "Slum Lords". You can remove "m" form "slum" and end with "slu" and it will highlight new "Slum lords". with third place add "m" back at the search and it will search again.
4) If you get 0 or 1 Slum lords you might want reroll the jewel. Use Divine orb
to reroll the jewel and replace it again in all 3x sockets and search for "Slum lords". Repeat until you get more than 2x Slum lords or are happy with results.
I got 3x Slum Lords with 10x Divine rerolls and 4x with about 20x Divine rerolls, so be prepared to use lots of them. Some rolls didn't have any "Slum Lords" in any of the sockets, but most had at least one in some socket.
Please note that the jewel will reroll all nodes, if you place it near "Elemental Equilibroum" you will end with something different and lose the 50% damage bonus. Thats why the 3x mentioned places are best as they have lot of bigger nodes to reroll "Slum Lords" and not too important nodes that you may lose.
Best one is "Assasins socket", next is "Templars socket" and third is "Witches socket".
5) When you find good place fo the jewel, if it has some big nodes arouund it taken re-spec the nodes around it as you get the nodes anyway. Take something else with freed nodes to replace lost elemental resistances or Energy Shield.
Gratzs on your rerolls! I actually just bought the cheapest one in trade and then checked all of my jewel sockets by respeccing. I got lucky that my 3 slumlord nodes were on the right side of the tree. It's the perfect place for them.
You should also know that you can anoint your items to get those nodes too. One of my slumlord nodes would have cost way too many skill points to reach, but I just anointed and picked it up instead. You just need to take the jewel out of the socket so you can make sure you anoint the right node, and after you socket it back in you will have it.
I am very happy that I got so lucky with this jewel on my first try. I think I will buy another one to reroll and see what I can come up with. They are very hard to trade for unless you know exactly which nodes the seed number on the jewel gives you. You can also only have one timeless jewel on your whole tree, so use it wisely!
Update for my progression from last post a few days ago:
From doing t14 maps with ease, to t15 cleared, Minotar then went down (with a death... had to move and get shocked to 60% hp followed by god knows what pseudo one shot me after while he was 5% hp), followed by easymode Chimera (except I've never done any guardians and I didn't realize he smoke the first time because I couldn't recognize it since it looked different from a video I watched), then semi-easy mode Phoenix (lots of running around, got hit by one big ignite, died to research syndicate spawn earlier tho... I hate those), and scary almost got one-shot Hydra clear (because i couldn't see where she moved because of minions made it so scary and hard to position...)
THEN DEATHLESS FIRST TIME SHAPER! woot! And by first time, means never attempted before.
155/159 map completion (30c+ maps remaining ~2ex cost total), got my Elder City Square, planning on 157/159 after I post this, and all that is left in map progression is Uber Elder
I was so scared of Shaper before, Uber Elder was something I never even thought of because of that, didn't really even know how it worked; but now I have a plan to try my luck and skill at it soon, all thanks to this build which feels amazing compared to my dozen or so builds I've used in the past, which never felt like they could get past t14 bosses for the most part, and definitely not Vaal Temple which I cleared once before.
This build really lets you focus on boss mechanics and positioning without the need to micromanage much but flasks and movement/(bone armor for necro) with a bit of channeling for block and EE. And since curses have what I believe 80% reduced effect on guardians, shaper, ect., you don't need to worry about sacrificing much of your already massive dps by moving away from the boss for extended durations, since they die rather quickly, and phases push very fast.
Overall at the moment, I am super happy I picked this build this league to experiment with, and I feel that a lot more investment in this build will be rewarding both scaling-wise and enjoyment-wise, which both make me quit leagues early 99% of the time.
TL;DR - FIRST TIME DEATHLESS SHAPER! Lot's of progression in maps, made in part by this guide being badass and relevant; makes the burnout where I would want to just give up in a league minimal. Looking forward to gearing further!
