[3.9] Pure Phys Skeletons & Friends Necromancer — Beginner/SSF/Budget Build

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Skua99 wrote:
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Solanales wrote:
Swap Feeding Frenzy for Impale on Skellies. Tack on Multistrike on them as well for bossing and switch it out to Melee splash for clear.

Run Dread Banner with Generosity and Enhance to get some extra Impale DPS.

I've been running Culling Strike on my Carrion Golems in place of Brutality as it lets them cull bosses like Awakener and Metas.

I annointed Ravenous Horde instead of Indomitable Army. In fact I skipped Indomitable Army entirely and pathed down to Aligned Spirits.



Thanks for putting this list together (I only quoted the one's I implemented).

I did the switch over to Impale (along with Dread Banner, Generosity and Enhance) a while ago and am very please with the results. I was a little worried about loosing 'Feeding Frenzy', but in my case it does not seem to make a difference. Also I have not tried Multistrike yet on bosses because I have not yet torn myself away from the mass onslaught of 'Vaal Skeletons'.

Adding Culling Strike seems to make sense on the Carrion Golems. I have made the change, but things are dyeing so fast that I don't see much a difference at this point in time.

I also did your pathing down to Aligned Spirits along with the 'Ravenous Horde' anointment and adding an additional 'to dust' jewel. I think that this pathing is definably the way to go. Wish I did not spend the chaos getting the oils to anoint the amulet with 'Indomitable Army' :(

I'm also considering the Multistrike thing but have been hesitant about ditching Vaal Summoned Skeletons. I wish I knew the DPS difference, my laptop is trash and near impossible to keep a charge on long enough to mess with PoB.
What's this other patching option you mention towards aligned spirits? I'm interested.
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Skua99 wrote:
"
Solanales wrote:
Swap Feeding Frenzy for Impale on Skellies. Tack on Multistrike on them as well for bossing and switch it out to Melee splash for clear.

Run Dread Banner with Generosity and Enhance to get some extra Impale DPS.

I've been running Culling Strike on my Carrion Golems in place of Brutality as it lets them cull bosses like Awakener and Metas.

I annointed Ravenous Horde instead of Indomitable Army. In fact I skipped Indomitable Army entirely and pathed down to Aligned Spirits.



Thanks for putting this list together (I only quoted the one's I implemented).

I did the switch over to Impale (along with Dread Banner, Generosity and Enhance) a while ago and am very please with the results. I was a little worried about loosing 'Feeding Frenzy', but in my case it does not seem to make a difference. Also I have not tried Multistrike yet on bosses because I have not yet torn myself away from the mass onslaught of 'Vaal Skeletons'.

Adding Culling Strike seems to make sense on the Carrion Golems. I have made the change, but things are dyeing so fast that I don't see much a difference at this point in time.

I also did your pathing down to Aligned Spirits along with the 'Ravenous Horde' anointment and adding an additional 'to dust' jewel. I think that this pathing is definably the way to go. Wish I did not spend the chaos getting the oils to anoint the amulet with 'Indomitable Army' :(

I'm also considering the Multistrike thing but have been hesitant about ditching Vaal Summoned Skeletons. I wish I knew the DPS difference, my laptop is trash and near impossible to keep a charge on long enough to mess with PoB.
What's this other patching option you mention towards aligned spirits? I'm interested.


I just went back and edited my last post. I tried out multistrike and really like it.

For the pathing. Drop 'Ravenous Horde' and the skills leading up to it. Path down to 'Align Spirit' picking up the jewel socket on the way (I added another 'to dust'). Then anoint your amulet with 'Ravenous Horde'.
Thanks for the great guide! I have been following it but I have a quick question.

I ran my eternal labyrinth and happened to get a Commandment of the Grave enchantment on my gloves. Is this a good enchant for this build?

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Commandment_of_the_Grave

My only concern is that it states (at least in my link above) "Minions cannot Taunt Enemies". Does this mean even with a jewel which enables my minions to taunt enemies, it will not work?

If so, would you recommend not using this enchantment, or do you think the extra bit of DPS and minions are worth it?
Hey, somebody can help me improve my DPS inexpensively, i have like 5ex. Im new player here, like 100h. https://pastebin.com/wuWLP5VU
Last edited by z1gzagoon on Jan 4, 2020, 11:28:20 PM
@viperesque

Thanks for build.
Having fun with it so far.

After i maded it past act 10 and to level 74 and equipped my wands i tried to do a tier 16 map as level 74 and that went well.
Whacked the boss and the metamorph in there.

What didn't go so well was me choosing and attempting a level 16 chimara map in the zana NPC inside map. Maded it to the boss but died 1 stage in.
Ouch :D Never tried Chimera before, but i think i killed myself by running around a lot with bleed on me or something.
But i will get that bugger in time :)

As far as the spectres.
Is it worth renewing zones to get rare chieftains or does that not matter?
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Hey, somebody can help me improve my DPS inexpensively, i have like 5ex. Im new player here, like 100h. https://pastebin.com/wuWLP5VU


My first suggestion is that you give me your wands immediately, after that take a look at the global suggestions that 'Solanales' posted about 10 posts back. I just made some of his suggested changes and saw a huge increase to my DPS. I did lose some survivability on my minions, but no one is dying so who cares.

And the good news is that it will not cost you that much to implement them.

--edit also look at upping your chaos resistance
Last edited by Skua99 on Jan 4, 2020, 11:52:04 PM
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I'm also considering the Multistrike thing but have been hesitant about ditching Vaal Summoned Skeletons. I wish I knew the DPS difference, my laptop is trash and near impossible to keep a charge on long enough to mess with PoB.
What's this other patching option you mention towards aligned spirits? I'm interested.


Fully understand the hesitation but what I did was grab a 21/23 of regular summon skellies as I found the Vaal boys just tend to not target well enough to really get the job done.

It was just a preference thing. My theoretical DPS with Vaal Summon Skeletons is higher by a good bit, but I valued the control of Multistrike a bit more. I don't think it's right for everyone, but it's just what I liked a little more. Metamorphs get brought down and culled before they even have a chance to get a skill off so I didn't really mind dropping the Vaal.

The pathing thing, you can see that here:



So basically I just run down to Aligned Spirit from the jewel socket and then annointed Ravenous Horde.

Skua99 did a good job explaining it above but I just wanted to provide you a visual to help out.
Last edited by Solanales on Jan 5, 2020, 12:15:01 AM
"
Skua99 wrote:
"
Solanales wrote:
Swap Feeding Frenzy for Impale on Skellies. Tack on Multistrike on them as well for bossing and switch it out to Melee splash for clear.

Run Dread Banner with Generosity and Enhance to get some extra Impale DPS.

I've been running Culling Strike on my Carrion Golems in place of Brutality as it lets them cull bosses like Awakener and Metas.

I annointed Ravenous Horde instead of Indomitable Army. In fact I skipped Indomitable Army entirely and pathed down to Aligned Spirits.



Thanks for putting this list together (I only quoted the one's I implemented).

I did the switch over to Impale (along with Dread Banner, Generosity and Enhance) a while ago and am very please with the results. I was a little worried about loosing 'Feeding Frenzy', but in my case it does not seem to make a difference. Also I have not tried Multistrike yet on bosses because I have not yet torn myself away from the mass onslaught of 'Vaal Skeletons'.

Adding Culling Strike seems to make sense on the Carrion Golems. I have made the change, but things are dyeing so fast that I don't see much a difference at this point in time.

I also did your pathing down to Aligned Spirits along with the 'Ravenous Horde' anointment and adding an additional 'to dust' jewel. I think that this pathing is definably the way to go. Wish I did not spend the chaos getting the oils to anoint the amulet with 'Indomitable Army' :(

--edit Ok I tried using Multistrike and the boss and morph kills seem to go faster that when I popped 'Vaal Skeletons' using Ruthless.

So now my question is, is it worth keeping 'Vaal Summon Skeletons' around? It would be a lot easier getting a 21/20 'Summon Skeleton' than the Vaal version.


Personally I grabbed a 21/23 regular summon skellies sunce it was WAY cheaper than anything similar on the Vaal front and I didn't use Vaal so it didn't make much sense for me =D

That's on your though. If you like the million skellies Vaal thing go for it. I just like messing aorund with options.
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Dragomirov wrote:
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UBiLL wrote:
Hey guys i've been running the build with impale, dread banner and vulnerability and i had an idea today i ditched flesh offering and keep spirit offering up (for the energy shield and the added chaos damage). I got rid of brutality to use spirit offering 32% extra chaos damage.

It looks like this : skellies - impale - melee physical - ruthless - minion damage - swap multi for boss and splash for maps.

I would like to know what you guys think about it! thanks

btw did it for survivabilty too 6800 hp + 1800 es with spirit offering up + MoM + bone armor!


Agreed on this. If you leave Spirit Offering on when you get a CWDT activation you barely lose any dps by replacing Brutality with Ruthless. And quite frankly on big bosses or tricky situations where the dps imports the most, it is also when I don't want to cancel my energy shield from Spirit Offering straight away to replace it by Flesh Offering.
I'm still hesitating on the best course of action:
- keeping current gem setup for the offerings and activating Flesh until Spirit gets triggered
- removing Flesh entirely but then only getting bonus dps when CWDT activates
- removing Flesh and replacing Spirit Offering by Steel Skin/Immortal Call/Whatever linked to CWDT+Enfeeble, and on boots replacing Flame Dash-Flesh Offering-Desecrate-Faster Casting by Cyclone-Cast when channeling-Spirit Offering-Desecrate. This way you get the max Energy Shield from Spirit Offering (you get more per corpses consumed, so after 2 ticks of Cyclone you're at max and recharging all the time, whereas if waiting from CWDT activation you often get the bare minimum from the ability). In this case I would have to move Flame dash somewhere else. Thinking removing CWDT entirely, giving up on Enfeeble (Enfeeble is already weak on rares/uniques, and on bosses even more with their curse resistance). This would free the slots for Flame Dash/Dread Banner-Generosity.

~~The comments below and the rest of the message are valid for everyone and not targeted to anybody in particular.~~

Talking about defensives, it's been mentioned already but put a few passives to get a Doryani jewel. I put mine next to the Pain Attunement keystone. Including the keystone that's 6 passives spent to get +1650 ES (before Spirit Offering :D). With full Spirit Offering + Doryani + gear (didn't focus on ES on gear, wanted a bit of armor) I get 3k+ ES. 6k life. 2.5k mana.
I see people going to get the socket for Doryani near the armor/strength passives, but +Resolute Technique you spend 7 passives instead of 6. Save a point, get the Pain Attunement one.

Also I see half of the people here running Pride aura in a normal socket ring, you're losing half of your mana which is quite bad seeing how you spent so many passives to get a lot of mana + MoM. Use the Essence Worm ring. Otherwise respec for less mana gains and more life+armor or ES, and add Skitterbots as well. If you're gonna destroy your mana reserve for auras and giving up on Mind over Matter you might as well do it properly.

To dust jewels: they're a cheap option, but technically a Ghastly jewel with both "minions deal increased dmg if you've used a minion skill recently"+"minions have increased attack speed" will do more damage, and you can also get some +life on it. Better than To Dust. Good luck getting the corrupted blood immunity when you vaal it though lol. I use a To Dust for that.

As mentioned by others, you're losing a lot of dps including Feeding Frenzy in your skeletons setup. Your Carrion Golems already give it to you. Unless you want to swap for it for fast clearing and then swap to a proper gem (Impale for example) for bosses it's a loss. But since we're swapping melee splash and Multistrike anyway... a shame our 6L is not on weapons, I'd love to just press 'X' to go from Melee Splash+Feeding frenzy to Multistrike+Ruthless.
Actually considering a setup where the 3Ls we put on our weapons are put on chest instead, and having 2 6L weapons. One would be some kind of rare staff with +2 spell skill gems/minion dmg/minion atk speed (not as powerful as having 2 wands doing this I know), and one Queen's escape with 6L for clearing. Crazy minion movement speed+skelly duration. This way I would just press 'X' as soon as higher dps is required. Once again not as great in pure numbers as some ultimate double +2 wand setup but quite frankly after 1.5m dps per skelly x13 skellys I start to prioritise QoL... :)
The only sad thing with this would be abandoning my Ahn's Heritage shield. I love the fucker. +100 life, 1400 armor (great in a setup where we don't have that much armor otherwise), 29% block, +3% all max resist (even chaos!). Shield Charge for ultimate mobility (on open areas, in dungeons it gets awkwardly stuck on any corner or pebble)...

Final important point: I haven't seen anyone before recommending 'Forbidden Taste Quartz Flask'. WTF? We have a huge life pool, no need for much flasks, this does everything for you in one go: instant full life, phasing, dodge. Normally our life regen is big enough to counteract the chaos degen and stay net positive. In a build where we don't have any leech we don't have other ways to get back to full life quick. My seething flask gives me a meager 1k and other flasks would be fairly slow (and not even to full life). This flask is cheap and super great for us.

End of rant. Would be great to read feedback on some of these ideas.


This is all 100% accurate and building to keep Spirit Offering up is a way more survivable way to go. I don't do it personally because I don't mind a death here or there but if you're in HC or just really hate dying, spirit offering and a Doryani are the way to go as well as an Ahn's Heritage. You would be nigh unkillable with that combo.

Good call on the Pain Attunement Doryani spot. I think that's a way better place to get it if you end up going that way.

Forbidden Taste is an option I haven't considered at all. I'll have to look into it. Nice ideas for survivability there. I love the flexibility of this build.
Last edited by Solanales on Jan 5, 2020, 12:21:13 AM
"
Solanales wrote:
"
Skua99 wrote:
"
Solanales wrote:
Swap Feeding Frenzy for Impale on Skellies. Tack on Multistrike on them as well for bossing and switch it out to Melee splash for clear.

Run Dread Banner with Generosity and Enhance to get some extra Impale DPS.

I've been running Culling Strike on my Carrion Golems in place of Brutality as it lets them cull bosses like Awakener and Metas.

I annointed Ravenous Horde instead of Indomitable Army. In fact I skipped Indomitable Army entirely and pathed down to Aligned Spirits.



Thanks for putting this list together (I only quoted the one's I implemented).

I did the switch over to Impale (along with Dread Banner, Generosity and Enhance) a while ago and am very please with the results. I was a little worried about loosing 'Feeding Frenzy', but in my case it does not seem to make a difference. Also I have not tried Multistrike yet on bosses because I have not yet torn myself away from the mass onslaught of 'Vaal Skeletons'.

Adding Culling Strike seems to make sense on the Carrion Golems. I have made the change, but things are dyeing so fast that I don't see much a difference at this point in time.

I also did your pathing down to Aligned Spirits along with the 'Ravenous Horde' anointment and adding an additional 'to dust' jewel. I think that this pathing is definably the way to go. Wish I did not spend the chaos getting the oils to anoint the amulet with 'Indomitable Army' :(

--edit Ok I tried using Multistrike and the boss and morph kills seem to go faster that when I popped 'Vaal Skeletons' using Ruthless.

So now my question is, is it worth keeping 'Vaal Summon Skeletons' around? It would be a lot easier getting a 21/20 'Summon Skeleton' than the Vaal version.


Personally I grabbed a 21/23 regular summon skellies sunce it was WAY cheaper than anything similar on the Vaal front and I didn't use Vaal so it didn't make much sense for me =D

That's on your though. If you like the million skellies Vaal thing go for it. I just like messing aorund with options.


I have been playing around forcing myself not to use the vaal version of the skeletons. The only time I seem to miss it is not against individual bosses but when I am delving and get hammered by a large number of bad guys. I am going to buy a standard 21/23 and try it out. I can always revert back to my 20/20 vaal one when I want to delve.

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