[3.16 updated] BRO, DO YOU EVEN SUMMON? Life/ES Dark Pact Skeleton Caster League Starter

im ready for try this build in this new league!

You can save 1 skill point by linking from Arcanist's Dominion to Retribution and taking the jewel slot just under there, rather than linking from Cruel Preparation to Arcane Potency and taking the elemental damage nodes which don't benefit the build.

Unleash should be really good with Dark Pact and possibly Summon Skeletons, probably outperforming Spell Echo especially against bosses with phases. Any thoughts on using the newly buffed Chain support with Dark Pact?

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Nirdana wrote:

To me 3.6 seems like insane buff. Not only you get zealotry, bunch of damage on tree, es leech as CI or hybrid, but possibly the biggest increase of power would be intensify (if it's compatible) with increase of base area of DP you change this support for inc area of effect and you get even more area effect and possibly insane damage boost (depends on number of achievable stacks) for single target (not like you would need that)

correct me if there is something wrong about my asumptions.


Will deffinitely try to recover build at least in standard.

And i almost forgot, Kingmaker on animate guardian will be enormous defense boost, the crit multi is handy too.

Possibly as a CI you could use chain support instead of gloomfang chain and get ES and crit multi on amulet. From my PoB it had roughly the same damage, no losing life on hit and more ES. It may be even worth trying as life based.

Would you mind sharing your 'tentative' PoB build Nirdana? I know PoB isnt updated yet but I would love to get an idea of what you're going for. :)

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DriesnMajoor wrote:

Would you mind sharing your 'tentative' PoB build Nirdana? I know PoB isnt updated yet but I would love to get an idea of what you're going for. :)

This is the hybrid version, only modified to new skill tree: https://pastebin.com/htYSAtZg

And this is a CI version I'd like to try.
https://pastebin.com/J69hNrpJ

Possibly get extra curse from tree and change arctic armour for enfeeble/temporal chains blasphemy. Will change the rings to some without chaos resist, cause that's silly :)
It uses chains support (lvl 40 was not enough) and implicit crit multi amulet, so the damage remains the same without need of gloomfang.

If intensify will be great switch it for conc or controlled destruction.
Also Animate guardian in helmet skeleton setup is around 85K HP, he should survive for a while.

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How do you see a CI version of this build going? I know its technically possible but do you think it would be any good?

I have never tested it with CI but I got some feedback it works really well in hc. And with new ES leech nodes it should be even better.

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To me 3.6 seems like insane buff. Not only you get zealotry, bunch of damage on tree, es leech as CI or hybrid, but possibly the biggest increase of power would be intensify (if it's compatible) with increase of base area of DP you change this support for inc area of effect and you get even more area effect and possibly insane damage boost (depends on number of achievable stacks) for single target (not like you would need that)

Zealotry is gonna be a huge dps boost but I'm not sure if this build needs more dps and since it reserves 50% mana it would require to swap out either warlord's mark or temp chains. Intensify however will be amazing for clear mixed together with inc AoE; imagine taking carcass jack and new AoE nodes on tree on top of that... :)

I'm not sure if an animate guardian with kingmaker would be worth it since crit bonus it provides is local so it won't affect any spells as far as I know. Also culling strike is worth to me only when you're lacking of dps. And last, it's not a 1alc unique so you would really have to care about keeping guardian alive. But I don't have any experience with playing with an animate guardian so I may be somehow wrong.

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You can save 1 skill point by linking from Arcanist's Dominion to Retribution and taking the jewel slot just under there, rather than linking from Cruel Preparation to Arcane Potency and taking the elemental damage nodes which don't benefit the build.

Great cath pataphysix but it's 7 points for both options (I'm assuming one do takes 5% life node). I think the original route is better for levelling since it's 4 points (without taking a jewel slot) vs 5 points of what you suggested and also there is a +1 curse cluster on the way, but your solution would be better for already levelled and being min-maxed chars since +10 str is just a one more chunk of life and +10 dex means higher lvl of dex gems like temp chains / phase run / vaal haste etc.

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Unleash should be really good with Dark Pact and possibly Summon Skeletons, probably outperforming Spell Echo especially against bosses with phases. Any thoughts on using the newly buffed Chain support with Dark Pact?

I'm waiting to test it in game and PoB before I recommend it. At this moment only intensify looks good enough on paper to be safe to said 'go for it!'.

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brant09081992 wrote:

I'm not sure if an animate guardian with kingmaker would be worth it since crit bonus it provides is local so it won't affect any spells as far as I know. Also culling strike is worth to me only when you're lacking of dps. And last, it's not a 1alc unique so you would really have to care about keeping guardian alive. But I don't have any experience with playing with an animate guardian so I may be somehow wrong.

The kingmaker was mentioned in patch notes with therese changes: "Kingmaker now has "nearby allies have +50% critical strike multiplier", "nearby allies have fortify" and 250-285% increased physical damage. Existing versions are not affected."

Should have copied that before.

Hi! Thanks for the build! Do u update it for 3.6?

I'm actually excited about Trickster changes and it might, just in theory, be the missing puzzle piece for "not so tanky" and eliminate the only real con we have.

Unfortunately, had to drop out in the middle of last League and have no idea when there will be time for gaming. So I strongly encourage you guys to try it out. Should be cool with QotF/Perfect Form/Carcass Jack as a chestpiece, hybrid es/hp gear and running Grace. Along with new Dual Wielding nodes, might be able to reach max dodge/spell dodge and 35%+ block chance. Losing some damage seems justified, we get a ton of it anyways. Sounds absurdly strong.

On the side note: surprised I made it into Top 50 delve (Depth 1353) with immune builds running rampant again last league. Top1 underrated build, huh? =P Have a fun Synthesis!

i just want to thank you , the build is nuts.
i just cleared all content in syntesis, including uber elder ( deathless) , uber atziri, catarina, breach bosses,delve bosses, and even hall of grandmasters using a balefire in the weapon swap.
People who said this is not tanky enought to do uber elder should watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht-anxqyBNg

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zoNiklv wrote:

I'm actually excited about Trickster changes and it might, just in theory, be the missing puzzle piece for "not so tanky" and eliminate the only real con we have.

I went with a Saboteur this league for this build instead of a Witch and it's an absolute MONSTER. Yes it's slower but Gloomfang does not hurt you as it's the traps that casts the spell and I can benefit both from Trap as well as Spell passives. Also, passive blind from the Sab ascen allows you to jump into any grp, drop a bunch of skellies and nobody cares about that I'm even there. The traps need like a sec to trigger and they are darn slow to throw compared to the Witch self cast but I think I died just a fraction of the times I did with the Witch. Not to mention you can totally stack up 3-4 pile of traps, preload damage this way and when you summon the skellies then like 10+ dark pact traps will boom at the very same time. Bosses and memory fragment map opening clutters just usually vanish.