[3.6] Zombiemancer - High Survivability - End Game Viable

Update:
-Completely dropped the shield to make use of spectres for Frenzy charge generation.
-Included "Invictus Solaris" as a fitting and not too expensive replacement for "Victario's Charity".
-Stone golem is now socketed in the shield with an Empower, this way he can get up to level 28 (Even up to level 30 with shield corruption).
-Removed the second CWDT setup and put the important gems into the first one, giving up the low level Enfeeble.
-Spectre and Blood Magic Support now socketed in the helmet.
-These changes made room for one gem slot in the shield, i personally used it to link the golem with Minion Resistance Support. Can be used for self cast curse for example, but i want to keep the "everything is automated" flavour.
-Added Violent Dead as a jewel option.


I hope i covered everything that's affected by the shield swap and the spectres in the guide.

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Just my 2 cents, besides the tiny part at the start your tree is very well thought.
With enough strength one can think about not routing to Tireless (i.e. go from Sanctity straight down to Born to Fight) and save 2 more nodes (gear requirements are tougher though). Apart from that I did not find any room for optimizing your tree (which I enjoy to do).

Depends on what you want to use these points for. Strength is just really good for this build, that's why i grabbed all the strength nodes there.

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Crimmson wrote:

We could switch out the guardian and make the 4l in the Baron Golem+Empower+BM+Spectre. Or if the minion life Gem is mandatory we use Golem+minion life+BM+Spectre. I'd rather use the empower setup if possible because 2 more lvls for the Golem and Spectre Sound quite good.

The Guardian and the Spectres only need life, so a Minion Life is better than Empower for them. The support also benefits from the +2 of the helmet. The Golem benefits from higher levels, so i moved him to the shield with the Empower.

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Crimmson wrote:

When we don't need blade Vortex anymore to generate frenzy Charges, we could switch in Phase run as another defense layer? We would be Hit Lessing often after the procc and we would get extra movement speed + the Bonus that we could simply run through enemies. Don't know about the dmg buff, I guess this won't affect our zombies wouldn't it?

Phase run gets cancelled by any skill, and you do nothing but shield charging anyway. With the spectre change now, you dont have room for it anyway, Spirit Offering, Convocation and Desecrate are too important.

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Crimmson wrote:

Another, more active possibility would be to use a endurance cry? That way we could jump in, procc our cwdt Setups and give ourselfs and the zombies endurance Charges. If we could get a Spectre for frenzy and one for Power Charges, we could get endurance Charges on top of that. Don't know if any of these ideas are useable but that's for you to decide.

I want to keep the build without the need to cast anything, but of course you can use it if you want, there is now a free gem slot in the shield for it.

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caube524 wrote:

About the host chieftain, I couldn't find it anywhere. And also when i check the zombies' crit rate in PoB, it's only about 3% so please tell me if 3 power charges would be helpful to them or not.

you get both chieftains from the act 7 in the scorched fields

Also 3 % seems low as far as base crit is concerned. 5% is usually considered base.

keep in mind power charges on non player entities are considerably stronger since each charge gives 200% increased critical strike chance if i recall.


frenzy charges are similarly super charged on minions

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Clooney_is_best_Batman wrote:

Update:
I completely dropped the shield to make use of spectres for Frenzy charge generation.
-Included "Invictus Solaris" as a fitting and not too expensive replacement for "Victario's Charity".
-Stone golem is now socketed in the shield with an Empower, this way he can get up to level 28 (Even up to level 30 with shield corruption).

One could also use The Oak for 3% (ES) regen (+ 3% when on Low life). Sounds stronger to me than the Stone Golem lvl 30 (looking only at pure regen). Rare shield is also nice to stack life, ES, resistance and maybe missing Strength. Nonetheless these are all viable options.

As you mention the Violent Dead jewel, the best slot for that would probably be next to the "Shaper" node. You gain 1.7% ES regen and need 4 points for that. Or below Constitution for 30 Strength.

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Aphorist84 wrote:

Hi - thinking to try the build but just wondering how it compares to other minion builds E.g. spectres and golems? Is there much difference in power-level / clear speed / bossing ability between these "permanent" minion builds?

Hey, you can take a look at the clear speed and bossing ability in the two videos and see for yourself. They are in the "Intro" section of the guide.

Forgive the dumb question, why do stone "magic of blood" need ghosts?

Great guide, thank you for putting it together and spending the time to make it clear on the what and why...

I do have two questions though as a relative newb!

1) When is it 'safe' to use Animate Guardian with the uniques you've mentioned? As soon as you can use the chest at 43, or later on at a specific point in the passive tree. He seems pretty tanky without the uniques, but just worried there's an encounter that will waste the uniques if I use them prior to level 75+

2) Why don't you link the enlighten and haste to generosity and hatred? Am I missing a trick here?


Thanks! :)

The change in shield I don't really understand as I'm new to minion builds and don't understand how Specter works, do i have to just find 'gives frenzy to minions on hit' or something on a rare? this seems very annoying to set up. But i'm guessing this specter will stay alive through most things.

Been enjoying the build so far, just got my 7th big zombie.

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

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caube524 wrote:

About the host chieftain, I couldn't find it anywhere. And also when i check the zombies' crit rate in PoB, it's only about 3% so please tell me if 3 power charges would be helpful to them or not.

you get both chieftains from the act 7 in the scorched fields
Also 3 % seems low as far as base crit is concerned. 5% is usually considered base.
keep in mind power charges on non player entities are considerably stronger since each charge gives 200% increased critical strike chance if i recall.
frenzy charges are similarly super charged on minions

I've just changed into 1 carnage chieftain and 1 host chieftain. The result is pretty insane when it comes to boss slapping.

And your are right about that supercharged charged on minions:

"Effects on monsters and minions

The effects of power charges are much more significant on monsters and minions. Note that player totems themselves cannot gain or have power charges.

200% increased Critical Strike Chance per Power Charge"

"The effects of frenzy charges are much more significant on monsters and minions. Note that player totems themselves cannot gain or have frenzy charges (but will benefit from the player's own frenzy charges).

15% increased Attack Speed per Frenzy Charge
15% increased Cast Speed per Frenzy Charge
4% more Damage per Frenzy Charge
5% increased Movement Speed per Frenzy Charge"

why dont you use instead

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Converge57 wrote:

Great guide, thank you for putting it together and spending the time to make it clear on the what and why...

I do have two questions though as a relative newb!

1) When is it 'safe' to use Animate Guardian with the uniques you've mentioned? As soon as you can use the chest at 43, or later on at a specific point in the passive tree. He seems pretty tanky without the uniques, but just worried there's an encounter that will waste the uniques if I use them prior to level 75+

2) Why don't you link the enlighten and haste to generosity and hatred? Am I missing a trick here?


Thanks! :)

If you link enlighten to haste and hatred it will mean generosity will make it so you no longer have haste only the minions.