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

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Tequ1la wrote:
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velvetpaws12 wrote:
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Someone wrote that feeding fenzy applies to all minions when the buff is active. Is this correct? I only need one feeding frenzy gem on one minion type to affect all the others?

When I did this on the zombies, the skeletons did not seem to be affected and didn't appear dash around.


They only get the dash when the gem is socketed in their respective setup. You get the buff(and you can see it on your character too), but you don't get the minion status set to aggressive and the dash. I also think it is wisest to socket it in the carrion golem setup because when I tried it the other way around by putting it in the zombie setup I found out just how useful the meat shield zombies are at soaking projectiles. Their damage sucks anyway but they are excellent bullet sponges.

EDIT: I would also like to know if, when having the appropriate level of dexterity, it is worth socketing culling strike in the skellies setup. For example, which stat weight is valued higher? Minion damage or minion attack speed? And are there diminishing returns for stacking too much of one type(minion damage?) For instance I have no idea whether a full quality minion damage(59% minion damage) is actually better than 10% attack speed and 38% damage. I think culling strike shouldn't be neglected because it is 10% HP shaved off any tough boss, but I'm wondering how these stats work on the skellies compared to straight minion damage.


AG with Kingmaker is what people are using to provide culling strike.


Minion damage vs minion attack speed will depend on your build and how much you have of each, and has changed significantly for me as my gear changes. Currently in POB I get 1320 DPS from 1 AS and 573 DPS from 1 minion damage. Not too long ago with different gems/gear, this weighting was extremely different though.
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Dragomirov wrote:
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Bainand wrote:
Awesomeness.


You bloody necro, you managed to raise me from my tomb. I thought this thread was done and dusted with 20 consecutive pages of "pls fix my build I can't read nor do research" and no single new idea, and there you come and revolutionise this build to make it even more awesome. Undisputed22 is right when saying that build version will reconcile a lot of people still fighting over Spirit vs Flesh Offering, and dps vs tankyness.
When you linked it I spent the first 5min in PoB like the others trying to see what you had done wrong until I realised what you had done right. Also nice to see my own handwriting in the jewel, happy to see some guys actually benefited from my previous input.

I will personally do the shield version with only 1 trigger wand, as I really like to feel as immortal as possible, and 3m vs 4m dps is worth it for me. I mean I'm at 2m currently with shield and don't feel like I need more dps. Still struggling to get an epic tier trigger wand but I probably just need to stop lazying and start fossil spamming.
For a similar reason I feel like keeping +40 life implicit on Leash belt might be worth it rather than the 3% dps from the Corrupted Implicit...
Also I'm definitely keeping MoM, 2.4k eHP isn't to be scoffed at. Keeping Pride in Essence worm and Dread Banner+Generosity reserving only 14% mana.

The sad thing is that I had just crafted this beauty:

Gonna lose some life swapping that out. Trying to get the most life I can out of shield and chest to compensate.

I disagree a bit on the choice of sending your zombies away and getting them aggressive. It helps a bit the clearing in low-tier map I suppose but in my experience the carrion golems are enough to propagate Maim with their AoE attacks. Having 12 zombies around me in defensive positions taunting/blinding anything that comes too close is unquantifiable but really good.
However Undisputed22's point about the Golem Commander also makes me thing I could sacrifice these 4 passives, lose 1 golem and add 4 passives for more life (since I'm losing my god-tier belt). Yes these passives give a bit of dps from the "increased effect of buffs granted by your Golems" but it's negligible and easily replaced by just 1 passive near Righteous Army as he correctly points out.
- 1 Carrion Golem is enough to give you Feeding Frenzy and enough to apply Maim on the few tanky targets we encounter. With 2 Maim would get apply on more mobs but we gain so much more dps with 3 offerings that I can afford to lose Maim on most small targets.
- I would think ~+20% max life (~400 actual max life) is better than the +105 life per second from Stone Golem. Especially with the Block dynamic healing us and nice potions. I discard the taunt from Stone Golem as all my minions already taunt.

Spectres-wise, currently running 2 Carnage chieftains, 1 Host Chieftain, 1 Merveil's retainer. 1 retainer seems to do a good enough job to curse targets that survive a few seconds. 1 Host chieftain is a bit low in terms of power charges, but the chieftains are mostly for bosses anyway (for mapping I summon new skeletons faster than they can be buffed - zoom zoom shield charge away!).

Pantheon-wise... given high block chance the stuff that might still be an issue is DoT damage. Maybe switching from Lunaris to Arakaali could be interesting? Losing Projectile avoidance and projectiles that have chained (kinda relevant when surrounded by an army), but the 5% reduced DoT dmg and 30% reduced effect of shock might be worth it?


Haha, glad to see someone else is trying the updates. I think there is further room for improvement as well, just trying a few different things. I don't know why leash of oblation has been basically unused as it is very powerful!

Some items in POB I am struggling with you may know:
- POB doesn't register the -9% phys on the helm. I can simulate it using a low level war banner (along with the mervail's 50% vuln) which shows it being much better than any other helm option, but there has to be a better way to show it.

- Would the -9% helm work on animate guardian, and would it stack? I can't even find a range on the aura it gives, but it is way stronger than the festival mask I am running if it works.

- Funny enough I just had to switch to a +life oblation since I corrupted my impale into a 21/23, and am now 1 dex short to wear it. And the 20% pride belts aren't available for sale anymore when I got mine super cheap earlier. So I am using a 20 stat belt with life until I can get 1 dex!

- I can see your point on the maim/frenzy on golem and it makes sense. I think I will stay as I am as I am since I haven't died in ages, and I find zombies on aggressive get maim up a bit better. Maim/frenzy on golem may be a better base option, especially for lower gear levels.

I was actually just playing with a version that goes without golem commander. I find in most cases, the buffs from the chieftains are not up on my skellies while clearing since I am resummoning them a lot (works better on things like elder/sirus) so looked for a solution since most of my time is mapping. I found I could run necromantic aegis and victarios charity and keep full charges all the time while clearing, run an extra curse from whispers of doom, and run 2 mervails and 2 enfeeble spectres for excellent uptime on curses. I figured it would give all the mods on the shield to the minions, and would leave me with the block/armor. But it takes the block from the shield away from me as well! If not for that it would have been my new build :( Back to the drawing board I guess.
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faytte wrote:
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Tequ1la wrote:


AG with Kingmaker is what people are using to provide culling strike.


Is there a good cheat sheet of items for AG?


Notable items used:

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Animate_Guardian

Budget set usually is Leer Cast, Belly of the Beast, Southbound, Victario's Flight and Dying Breath.




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Bainand wrote:
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Dragomirov wrote:
"
Bainand wrote:
Awesomeness.


You bloody necro, you managed to raise me from my tomb. I thought this thread was done and dusted with 20 consecutive pages of "pls fix my build I can't read nor do research" and no single new idea, and there you come and revolutionise this build to make it even more awesome. Undisputed22 is right when saying that build version will reconcile a lot of people still fighting over Spirit vs Flesh Offering, and dps vs tankyness.
When you linked it I spent the first 5min in PoB like the others trying to see what you had done wrong until I realised what you had done right. Also nice to see my own handwriting in the jewel, happy to see some guys actually benefited from my previous input.

I will personally do the shield version with only 1 trigger wand, as I really like to feel as immortal as possible, and 3m vs 4m dps is worth it for me. I mean I'm at 2m currently with shield and don't feel like I need more dps. Still struggling to get an epic tier trigger wand but I probably just need to stop lazying and start fossil spamming.
For a similar reason I feel like keeping +40 life implicit on Leash belt might be worth it rather than the 3% dps from the Corrupted Implicit...
Also I'm definitely keeping MoM, 2.4k eHP isn't to be scoffed at. Keeping Pride in Essence worm and Dread Banner+Generosity reserving only 14% mana.

The sad thing is that I had just crafted this beauty:

Gonna lose some life swapping that out. Trying to get the most life I can out of shield and chest to compensate.

I disagree a bit on the choice of sending your zombies away and getting them aggressive. It helps a bit the clearing in low-tier map I suppose but in my experience the carrion golems are enough to propagate Maim with their AoE attacks. Having 12 zombies around me in defensive positions taunting/blinding anything that comes too close is unquantifiable but really good.
However Undisputed22's point about the Golem Commander also makes me thing I could sacrifice these 4 passives, lose 1 golem and add 4 passives for more life (since I'm losing my god-tier belt). Yes these passives give a bit of dps from the "increased effect of buffs granted by your Golems" but it's negligible and easily replaced by just 1 passive near Righteous Army as he correctly points out.
- 1 Carrion Golem is enough to give you Feeding Frenzy and enough to apply Maim on the few tanky targets we encounter. With 2 Maim would get apply on more mobs but we gain so much more dps with 3 offerings that I can afford to lose Maim on most small targets.
- I would think ~+20% max life (~400 actual max life) is better than the +105 life per second from Stone Golem. Especially with the Block dynamic healing us and nice potions. I discard the taunt from Stone Golem as all my minions already taunt.

Spectres-wise, currently running 2 Carnage chieftains, 1 Host Chieftain, 1 Merveil's retainer. 1 retainer seems to do a good enough job to curse targets that survive a few seconds. 1 Host chieftain is a bit low in terms of power charges, but the chieftains are mostly for bosses anyway (for mapping I summon new skeletons faster than they can be buffed - zoom zoom shield charge away!).

Pantheon-wise... given high block chance the stuff that might still be an issue is DoT damage. Maybe switching from Lunaris to Arakaali could be interesting? Losing Projectile avoidance and projectiles that have chained (kinda relevant when surrounded by an army), but the 5% reduced DoT dmg and 30% reduced effect of shock might be worth it?


Haha, glad to see someone else is trying the updates. I think there is further room for improvement as well, just trying a few different things. I don't know why leash of oblation has been basically unused as it is very powerful!

Some items in POB I am struggling with you may know:
- POB doesn't register the -9% phys on the helm. I can simulate it using a low level war banner (along with the mervail's 50% vuln) which shows it being much better than any other helm option, but there has to be a better way to show it.

- Would the -9% helm work on animate guardian, and would it stack? I can't even find a range on the aura it gives, but it is way stronger than the festival mask I am running if it works.

- Funny enough I just had to switch to a +life oblation since I corrupted my impale into a 21/23, and am now 1 dex short to wear it. And the 20% pride belts aren't available for sale anymore when I got mine super cheap earlier. So I am using a 20 stat belt with life until I can get 1 dex!

- I can see your point on the maim/frenzy on golem and it makes sense. I think I will stay as I am as I am since I haven't died in ages, and I find zombies on aggressive get maim up a bit better. Maim/frenzy on golem may be a better base option, especially for lower gear levels where defensive zombies can help.

- I didn't spend much time on the shield since I don't plan on using it. Do you agree that a yellow shield with enough to reach max block with rumi's, and 12% spell block is the best option, or is there a better option?

- I haven't played around with pantheons, but I do like the movement speed in the current setup, as well as the reduction in chaining.

- I was actually just playing with a version that goes without golem commander. I used to run a survival anoint when I was squishy (I ran herbalism) and liked having it. If I was level 97 I could drop golem, path to ravenous horde and get all the dmg in that circle, and anoint herbalism.

My current failed experiment: I find in most cases, the buffs from the chieftains are not up on my skellies while clearing since I am resummoning them a lot (works better on things like elder/sirus) so looked for a solution since most of my time is mapping. I found I could run necromantic aegis and victarios charity and keep full charges all the time while clearing, run an extra curse from whispers of doom, and run 2 mervails and 2 enfeeble spectres for excellent uptime on curses and full power/frenzy charges all the time. I figured it would give all the mods on the shield to the minions, and would leave me with the block/armor. But it takes the block from the shield away from me as well! If not for that it would have been my new build :( Back to the drawing board I guess.
If I cannot find an armor with +25% offering effect, is the belt still better than a stygian belt?


Also I do not understand how you got the corrupted soul, is it because of the Glorious vanity jewel? What if I put it in the slot near MOM, will it work if I don't use MOM?
WOW! And i though i was almost over with this build. Thanks Bainand i just can't believe how crazy this is. I changed chest for 25% offering and the belt, had to swap some gear too for res and it's amazing.

Funny thing is i tried to annul one of my two +2 gem level wand and got unlucky and lost a +1 so i kept it anyway and even with this loss i'm much more powerfull. Bought a nice chest with 10% life as ES, kept doryanis and even with no shield and no fancy flask i'm kind of unkillable (7757 Hp 4,661 ES with offering)

Thank for giving this character a second life!

Last edited by UBiLL on Jan 23, 2020, 9:41:20 PM
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Blakes2000 wrote:
If I cannot find an armor with +25% offering effect, is the belt still better than a stygian belt?


Also I do not understand how you got the corrupted soul, is it because of the Glorious vanity jewel? What if I put it in the slot near MOM, will it work if I don't use MOM?


Yes, no question it is still better. When testing the belt initially, with no chest, it was already better by a significant margin without even any build tweaks. And the belt isn't actually that much behind a stygian, it has around 100-110 life, and all attributes which if you are running impale lets you drop dex on another slot. You lose resists (which I haven't had an issue with for this build) and a gem, but that is more than made up for even with reduced offering strength.

Also consider you can get a lower offering roll on the chest (do try to get the 21-25 T1 roll though) and divine orb it to 25% later.

The glorious vanity jewel gives the corrupted soul. It has to be the "doryani" one to give the 20% ES. It changes all the mods in the radius to random vaal mods (some are very nice) but the keystone is always the 20% life as ES. You can use MOM with it or not, no effect.
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Tequ1la wrote:
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faytte wrote:
"
Tequ1la wrote:


AG with Kingmaker is what people are using to provide culling strike.


Is there a good cheat sheet of items for AG?


Notable items used:

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Animate_Guardian

Budget set usually is Leer Cast, Belly of the Beast, Southbound, Victario's Flight and Dying Breath.






Wouldn't the AG die pretty easily with those budget items? As for Kingmaker, yeah it sounds awesome if you have the disposable resources to allocate to it, but I am not sure I wanna take the risk this league. If there is one thing we can all agree on it has to be the very random nature of Metamorphs and how some of them are mega brutal. The one that fucked me the most was one who sent exploding black spiders in Acid Caverns. An easy to dodge mechanic, sure enough, if your brightness is cranked up to max! Seriously, who thought having black colored homing, exploding baddies is wise? And they also had a significant AOE that instantly killed my minions lol.

I have also seen a few people lose their granked up AG in this thread, so I am not sure I wanna take the risk. If you have 50+ exalts lying around it's an awesome commodity to have but I'd first want to get one of those epic wands ^^

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- 1 Carrion Golem is enough to give you Feeding Frenzy and enough to apply Maim on the few tanky targets we encounter. With 2 Maim would get apply on more mobs but we gain so much more dps with 3 offerings that I can afford to lose Maim on most small targets.
- I would think ~+20% max life (~400 actual max life) is better than the +105 life per second from Stone Golem. Especially with the Block dynamic healing us and nice potions. I discard the taunt from Stone Golem as all my minions already taunt.



Where would that life come from? That got my interest.
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Last edited by Undisputed22 on Jan 24, 2020, 1:48:17 AM
Velvetpaws12-

My animate guardian has never died since I summoned him and it has been the same for most of the people on this thread. He has a crazy amount of life even with budget items (think close to 100k).

I originally recommended using him with budget items to build your comfort level. It's a huge boost and almost no risk. Don't let the fear of him dieing sway you. Investing in Kingmaker is different story but points in indomitable army can help ease the risk.

If you are really worried about AG dieing ask yourself the last time you lost a zombie. The animate guardian is about 3-4 times as Tanky as a zombie.

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