3.8 New Queens Escape + Baron - super fast physical skeletons + zombies

Almost at lvl94 BHC. @ClearlyTimeToMeta

Did on the actual gear, 5l queens and belly;

Shaper , Atziri, Uber Atziri and Hydra. Farming only red maps with ease at any mod even triple dmg (besides no regen, since running mana flask gets me bored).

So far it has been a great experience and with less than 1 ex invested into it. Sadly I do not have the free time to put all my eforts into it solely. Thanks for the guide and build!

Glad people are still enjoying the build. 3.8 has clearly been a huge buff for minion builds. So much so, that there is almost every variation of this one floating around the forums now.

I myself went for super tanky with femur of the saints instead of queens escape, and kaom's heart instead of belly. Check out this sweet tank: https://pastebin.com/VKFEtkT1

"

grimlock9999 wrote:

Glad people are still enjoying the build. 3.8 has clearly been a huge buff for minion builds. So much so, that there is almost every variation of this one floating around the forums now.

I myself went for super tanky with femur of the saints instead of queens escape, and kaom's heart instead of belly. Check out this sweet tank: https://pastebin.com/VKFEtkT1

Did 4 Uber atziri that went alright, died on the fifth since well, budget gear and no purity or flask to hold that flameblast oneshot.

Im currently getting my char ready to hit endgame contente again but now with this defensive setup you are running, did some minor changes on tere and gems but besides that its 100% to the book, ill get back with results in awhile.

Char : ClearlyUberziriFarming

Greetings,

I am now lvl 97 almost 98 with this build. At lvl 98 I will be 9k life (Plus 150 shield). If I would have min/max I could have reached easily 10k life with almost no DPS lost. All content is very easy. Even if GGG nerfs the minions in 3.9 the build will still be able to do all content easily. You can see my gears and gems on PeriDeLioncourt.

I went high life on the tree and gears. You can make up some DPS loss (see following)

I did change a couple things:
- Defensive build: For spectres, I use 1 Diabolist and 4 Flame sentinels. Very fast map clearing and enfeebling mobs. For those who do not know, enfeeble will make the critical hit one-shot kill weaker.
- Boss killer : 5 Slave driver. You will see the Elder life melt.
For both I use the same gem setup in my helm.
- I use Vaal skeletons. the 41 more skeletons can be almost 100% up when you are mapping.
- You can replace in the tree life/resist jewels by violent dead jewels for mre zombie damage, but honestly, I did not really see a difference.
- Currently I use a high life armour. If I want more DPS, I use a body armour with level 1 maim for more skeletons damage.
-I do a lot of Red Elder and Shaper. If I swap the 6l skeleton for a 3 link weapon and shield for more life (9.55k), I do not see any difference in the fight time/easiness IF I use Slave drivers+ level 21 gems compared to 20/20 gems 6l.
- I use temporal chain because I went defensive. With the Diabolist, I have slowed and weaker mobs/bosses. I did not try to go full offensive/damage with another curse or going double curse for a loss of about 600 life (3 respect points).

Honestly, I really did not notice using the frenzy/power charge spectres (instead of the aforementioned spectre setup) was faster to clear maps or kill bosses. Flesh offering is doing a good job AND I get DPS/defense with my spectres.

I wanted the build to be a one button build (excluding the flasks). The only buttons I press are skeletons/vaal skeleton and phase run for more speed when needed.

If someone sees a gross mistake I made in my build, please let me know. I am open to any feedback.

Thank you

Greetings,

I forgot to ask:

Anyone changed the melee skeletons for mages and used the power charge spectres? I did ti but did not test enough to see if it is better.

Thank you

"

Greetings,

I forgot to ask:

Anyone changed the melee skeletons for mages and used the power charge spectres? I did ti but did not test enough to see if it is better.

Thank you

I have used a lot of skeleton mage builds and most of them sucked after red maps (they are fun until yellow maps). Any sort of doorway or corner ruins your dps, and the fast moving skeletons go faster than the mages bullets!

If you are using any ranged minion, I highly recommend building around projectile weakness. That is one fun defensive mechanic!
Here is an old build guide explaining more: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2228787

Greetings,

Little update:

I decided to try to push to level 99 (from 97- no time to get to 100) and I decided to explore a few ways to "not-die" to stupid crap.

I bought a 1H weapon and a high life shield:
.

It put me to 10025 life and gave me 23% block damage and 35% block projectiles. It lowered my speed by 7%.

I moved the skeletons to the boots to have a 4 link:.

Well... It feels A LOT more tankier. A LOT! The damage lost feels minimal. It added just a few seconds to a red elder fight. Did not even feel it for the Elder 4 bosses.

Please note:

- That the weapon is kind of middle tier. I could buy one 4+ exalts and it would give my minions a lot more DPS.

- I replaced minions life by feeding frenzy on the skeletons. They die a little bit more but for a good boost to DPS. I now kill the red elder faster than with the 6 link weapon AND I feel a lot tankier. In fact, I can AFk the whole thing now at Zana location (for the final boss death bang).

- I think I could probably replace the shield with another 1h weapon (dual wielding) and get the hidden block of 15% and feel almost as much tankier and get more DPS with a maximum life of about 300 less life

- The lab enchant on the helm is really not worth it. I got one and sold it because I did not see any difference.

- I tried other setups for defensive purpose and frankly, I am all for less buttons pressed. This is still a 1 button build and I love it.

Thank you

"

I decided to explore a few ways to "not-die" to stupid crap.

I've been testing this recently as well, and found that armour is really underrated these days: The last 5 leagues in a row have introduced some monster that needs armour to mitigate them. So it's possible that the armour on your shield is why you feel a lot tankier. Whatever the case, you'd have to be crazy to push to 100 with a queen's escape! That item is for softcore only.

If you are going the block route, I recommend femur of the saints, as it will get you to max block via your vaal skellies, and still allow your to have the 6 link. The life regen is also super sweet.

Here's a build that also stacks some strength for zombie leech and uses purities for high max elemental resists. Combine with bone offering and you can facetank brainlessly on a really low investment. The phantasms also give a nice level of damage from distance, so clearspeed is still good.

https://pastebin.com/2pWyq06Z

"

grimlock9999 wrote:

"

I decided to explore a few ways to "not-die" to stupid crap.

I've been testing this recently as well, and found that armour is really underrated these days: The last 5 leagues in a row have introduced some monster that needs armour to mitigate them. So it's possible that the armour on your shield is why you feel a lot tankier. Whatever the case, you'd have to be crazy to push to 100 with a queen's escape! That item is for softcore only.

If you are going the block route, I recommend femur of the saints, as it will get you to max block via your vaal skellies, and still allow your to have the 6 link. The life regen is also super sweet.

Here's a build that also stacks some strength for zombie leech and uses purities for high max elemental resists. Combine with bone offering and you can facetank brainlessly on a really low investment. The phantasms also give a nice level of damage from distance, so clearspeed is still good.

https://pastebin.com/2pWyq06Z

I did not think about femur of the saints. I will try it next season when I will try to push to 100. I am now at level 99 and 26 challenges and I am done. I will not have enough play time to reach 100.

I always wondered something: If Spirit offering is used instead of flesh offering, and brutality is used int he linking, will the minions gain the (20-29)% of their Physical Damage as Extra Chaos Damage? I know it will be a HUGe DPS drop, I am just curious....:)

Thank you

"

If Spirit offering is used instead of flesh offering, and brutality is used int he linking, will the minions gain the (20-29)% of their Physical Damage as Extra Chaos Damage?

No, Brutality makes them unable to do any chaos damage so the spirit offering is mostly wasted except for the ES.