{3.10} Speaker for the Dead | The Mass Minion Summoner | League Starter, Leveling Guide 💀

I am so utterly and incredibly confused right now. Being as new as I am, I am trying to follow your build more or less to the point. Some of the gems i don't get at the same levels as your guide, which is totally understandable considering I probably don't do the quests in same order of you, and some I just havent traded for yet.

Right now I am level 34 Witch, and I'm still unsure of how much time and "money" to invest in the different items/gear so I can do the different gem combos you suggest throughout the leveling guide. I try not to invest too much, because I know I will swap out the gear rather often.

I'm at a bit of a dead-end though. I'm doing very well so far, killing and clearing without any trouble. Especially after I started using the Herald of Agony, but..

I'm at a loss right now. If I follow your leveling guide, it stops at level 38. If I take a look at your current gem setup (end-game content), it's a lot different from your leveling guide, which gems to use.

For a total noob like me who only started playing Poe, it gets so confusing so fast, if try to follow it to the letter. Most likely because Im half imbecil at it, hehe.

I fully understand that you gotta swap out gems depending on what end-game content you are chasing, but. What you suggest is, I should simply just keep to the gems you suggest in your leveling guide at level 38 and just stick with those to act 10?

Btw.. Even though I'm a bit critical, I mean no offense. I have nothing but absolute respect and gratitude for the amount of time and work you put into this, to help out us noobs :)

Kind regards,

Dave

PS. Two last things. 1. Any chance to see which skills you put on which buttons and 2. any chance you could in short (on the front page) outline in what order to cast the different skills to maximize the output?

Last edited by Davidkira on Jul 16, 2019, 12:40:14 PM
Okay so backtracking on my previous comment, it turns out with Poacher's Mark on hit ring your minions will be competing for frenzy charges so that's not really optimal. Victario's Charity really is BiS for damage.

So I dropped about 25 ish exalts on trying to get a +1 socket/added fire damage/maim claw with no luck but I did manage to make this for about 1/4th of that.



There are cheap bases with added fire damage and maim. Search for it with 1 open prefix and 1 open suffix. Anull the rest, multicraft with +2 socketed support gems and you have yourself an endgame weapon.
Last edited by Bibpanana on Jul 17, 2019, 3:34:50 AM
@ marvinpunz:
Full Posts
"
I've also been getting one shot randomly in t16 elder maps so I've done a bit of shifting around to spec for survivability. I socketed Enfeeble on Mark of Submission ring and Magna Eclipses with balanced resists for The Wise Oak Flask. Obviously stack as much HP as you can. I considered using Lioneye's Remorse for 350 more HP than Magna Eclipses but I thought a 1k ele shield combined with 10% reduced ele damage from The Wise Oak flaks was more effective.


If you want to use an alternate shield to Victario's Charity you have to have a different source of frenzy charges for your minions. For me I have a Poacher's Mark on hit ring which works great.


Other's have commented about a Cyclone CWC setup and I liked it at first but since you're in the middle of everything you're more at risk to taking hits. Then I swapped for the original Charged Dash setup and I feel it's way better. You're out of the way from danger and since I use Kitava's Heralds (melee minions) I can easily direct all my minions to a certain direction/enemy.

I tried the soulrend setup w/ added lightning damage mod and I like it much better than ball lightning (mostly because it's less visual clutter and a lot less loud).

My zombies also have been dying (I don't really like keeping track of my minions) so I swapped out Shield Charge/Fortify/Faster Attacks for Animate Guardian/Flame Dash/Minion Life Support. My Animate Guardian has Kingmaker so all my minions have perma-Fortify. Since Magna Eclipses has +2 to level of Socketed Gems, Animate Guardian has more HP. Combine this with an "of Animation" flask and my minions never die.


You could also look into the Corrupted Soul timeless jewel. I went from 6.4K HP + 200 ES to 6.3k HP + 1.2k ES. There's a notable right next to it for only 1 point which gets you a nice minion life/damage node. So for 2 points I think this is really effective.

"
Okay so backtracking on my previous comment, it turns out with Poacher's Mark on hit ring your minions will be competing for frenzy charges so that's not really optimal. Victario's Charity really is BiS for damage.

So I dropped about 25 ish exalts on trying to get a +1 socket/added fire damage/maim claw with no luck but I did manage to make this for about 1/4th of that.


There are cheap bases with added fire damage and maim. Search for it with 1 open prefix and 1 open suffix. Anull the rest, multicraft with +2 socketed support gems and you have yourself an endgame weapon.
Your gear is excellent! You could hit 10.5k-11.8k eHP by going hybrid Life/ES (6767 Life + 5045 ES, 2113 of which would come from Corrupted Soul keystone) using either a Vis Mortis (+1 Spectre and cheap) or an ES chest (more ES + craft). You could reach even higher if your other gear and jewels had ES.

Pastebin (view online):
https://pastebin.com/FbyxQUBN

There's a level 92, 95, 97, 100 (ES), and 100 (jewel) tree. Of course, you can change up the order you take any of these branches.

This setup drops Acrobatics in favor of ES nodes, and drops your War Banner/Arctic Armor (10%+25% reservation) for Discipline (35% reservation).

Then a Watcher's Eye gives ES on Hit while using Discipline, complimenting the Life on Hit you're already getting from your ring. Since the Corrupted Soul keystone basically splits damage between Life and ES, both recovery effects will be active at the same time. Meaning you can recover up to 45 eHP per hit.

Discipline/Flesh and Stone would need to be disconnected from the Hatred + Generosity link in your boots, so that Generosity can't affect them.

If you go Ball Lightning and drop GMP (less intensive on your GPU) for Fortify, you'd be very tanky (edit: oh yeah, Kingmaker on Animated Guardian is giving you Fortify -- though if you ever go out of his range you'll lose it). Soulrend only hits once, so against bosses you won't benefit much from Virulence or Life/ES on Hit.

The Melding cluster on the tree would have been good to take, but since I don't know how your Historic jewel affects the surrounding nodes I left it alone. For those not using the jewel, then Melding is ideal. If your gear provides enough DEX, you can also save points by not taking the two +30 DEX nodes.

This is basically the dream version of the build that I never had the time nor currency to implement. Even without the Corrupted Souls keystone it can still break 10k eHP. If you don't mind, I'd like to add your gear to the main guide as an example of where you can take this build if you have the currency.
Last edited by Hercanic on Jul 17, 2019, 5:20:29 AM
@ Davidkira:
Full Post
"
Davidkira wrote:
I am so utterly and incredibly confused right now. Being as new as I am, I am trying to follow your build more or less to the point. Some of the gems i don't get at the same levels as your guide, which is totally understandable considering I probably don't do the quests in same order of you, and some I just havent traded for yet.

Right now I am level 34 Witch, and I'm still unsure of how much time and "money" to invest in the different items/gear so I can do the different gem combos you suggest throughout the leveling guide. I try not to invest too much, because I know I will swap out the gear rather often.

I'm at a bit of a dead-end though. I'm doing very well so far, killing and clearing without any trouble. Especially after I started using the Herald of Agony, but..

I'm at a loss right now. If I follow your leveling guide, it stops at level 38. If I take a look at your current gem setup (end-game content), it's a lot different from your leveling guide, which gems to use.

For a total noob like me who only started playing Poe, it gets so confusing so fast, if try to follow it to the letter. Most likely because Im half imbecil at it, hehe.

I fully understand that you gotta swap out gems depending on what end-game content you are chasing, but. What you suggest is, I should simply just keep to the gems you suggest in your leveling guide at level 38 and just stick with those to act 10?

Btw.. Even though I'm a bit critical, I mean no offense. I have nothing but absolute respect and gratitude for the amount of time and work you put into this, to help out us noobs :)

Kind regards,

Dave

PS. Two last things. 1. Any chance to see which skills you put on which buttons and 2. any chance you could in short (on the front page) outline in what order to cast the different skills to maximize the output?
"
Right now I am level 34 Witch, and I'm still unsure of how much time and "money" to invest in the different items/gear so I can do the different gem combos you suggest throughout the leveling guide. I try not to invest too much, because I know I will swap out the gear rather often.

Summoners do not scale their damage from early-game gear, so this gives us a lot of flexibility when leveling. Instead, our damage comes from sockets. More sockets = more minions; more links = more support gems. Thus, we prioritize fully linked items over everything else.

Even normal "white" items are fine. You can use an Alchemy Orb on them, then go to your Crafting Bench in your Hideout (talk to Helena in Act 2 about Hideouts if you haven't). You can then craft an elemental resistance (suffix) or life (prefix) mod onto the item (rare items are limited to 6 total mods: 3 prefixes and 3 suffixes, enable Advanced Mod Descriptions in your Options and then hold down ALT while hovering over an item to see more details on their mods). These are the only two stats we're concerned about while leveling, as they are our primary defenses.

Elemental Resistances cap at 75%, which will reduce Elemental Damage to a fourth and essentially quadruple your effective life against Fire, Cold, and Lightning Damage (we don't worry about Chaos Damage, and Physical Damage doesn't have a resistance stat). It'll be a huge boon to your survival through the campaign.

Sidenote on Resistances: When you defeat the final boss of Act 5, he'll inflict an unavoidable and permanent -30% resistances "curse" on you. Don't worry, it's part of the game. It basically means you'll need an additional 30% resistances to reach the 75% cap. At the end of the campaign, we get hit with another -30%. With both -30% we sit at -60% without any resistance gear. This would multiply damage by 1.6x, ouch! So we want a total of (60+75=) 135% elemental resistances from our gear by the time we're in endgame/maps/post-Act 10. The leveling guide talks more about this in the Epilogue section. Just take from this that your resistances will be a moving goal post as you advance.

Life is our defense against, well, everything. Other defensive layers, like resistances or dodge, amplify its value, so we need a strong core of life to make it work. You can't have enough of it.

So with Crafting, we can ensure our white-gear-turned-rare-with-an-Alchemy-Orb will have at least one useful defensive stat.

Now, the only thing left to be concerned about is socket color. Changing these can rapidly eat up the few Chromatic Orbs you've found, so you want to plan a little carefully. When rolling colors, the randomness of each color is weighted by the stat requirements of the item.

INT = Blue
DEX = Green
STR = Red

You'll use up far, far less Chromatics if the item aligns with whatever color is most dominant in your gem links. Our Spectre setup uses 4 Blue sockets and 2 Green sockets, so an INT chest armour (Energy Shield) would roll blue sockets easily. Our glove setup uses 2B and 2G, so INT/DEX gloves (Energy Shield/Evasion hybrid) would roll these colors often.

That's it:

  • 1. White items with max links. 3 for 1H weapon & shield, 4 for helm/gloves/boots, 6 for body armour.
  • 2. Item base has stat requirements that match dominant gem color(s).
  • 3. Alchemy Orb, don't care about result, we just want to turn them rare for crafting. You can earn Alchemy Orb shards from town vendors by selling gear with certain mods, like Chaos Resistance or Increased Rarity of Items.
  • 4. Craft resistances, with goal to reach 75%, or life, depending on whether the item has a free prefix or suffix slot. If you can craft either, prioritize resistances until cap.


"
If I follow your leveling guide, it stops at level 38. If I take a look at your current gem setup (end-game content), it's a lot different from your leveling guide, which gems to use.

The guide mainly takes you up until you'll have access to all the gems of the full build. You'll want to aim to match it incrementally as you find or buy the right gear.

Any gems in the leveling guide that are not in the main build are intended to be transitional, and dropped once their usefulness has passed. I intend to provide full explanations on all gems, like with Act 1's Gem Vendor section, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

I assume by Level 38, you're referring to the GoogleDoc Leveling Plan, right? The reason for the differences between this layout and the final layout is the lack of Shaper/Elder-influenced items at low level.

  • 1. Once you get Elder gloves with Poison Support built in and an Abyssal Jewel with flat Chaos Damage added to Spells, you can drop Lesser Poison.

  • 2. When you get an Elder helmet that has Minion Damage Support built into it, you can drop the Minion Damage Support gem (for Bloodlust if your gloves have Chance to Bleed built in, otherwise use Multistrike).

  • 3. When you get a Shaper claw with Maim Support built in, you can drop the gem for Empower. If you don't have Projectile Weakness in a Mark of Submission ring, I would actually recommend using Pierce instead of Maim on the Agony Crawler.

  • 4. Stone Golem is optional if you find yourself with a spare socket (like a 6 socket chest that only has 5 links). Its life regen buff is useful for surviving traps in the Labyrinths, but aside from that you can drop it.

That's it. Everything else matches the main build.


"
1. Any chance to see which skills you put on which buttons

You can see my button layout in the Videos. I have a mouse with forward/back buttons, so along with the middle mouse scroll wheel button it has five buttons (Logitech gaming mouse). I keep all my active skills bound to mouse buttons.

Left MB = Move Only
Middle MB = Vaal Skeletons (party time button)
Right MB = Shield Charge (I want my dodge skill to be the most accessible)

Back button = Charged Dash (commonly used, thumb is strong)
Forward button = Summon Skeleton (only used on bosses and special circumstances)

Since Flasks take priority on the keyboard, I put the toggles (Hatred, Herald of Agony) and permanent minions (Holy Relic, Zombies) on the keyboard, since they're rarely used (just when first logging in, after death, or if the minion dies).

I keep Raise Spectre off my bar because I don't ever want to accidentally use it and ruin my Spectre setup.

Skills don't need to stay on your action bar to continue working, so because there's not enough room Hatred isn't on my bar. I just temporarily place it on my bar if I've died so I can re-activate it, then swap the slot back to Herald of Agony. I don't need to keep Herald of Agony on my bar, but whenever I find myself in a No Regen map I like to turn it off to free up mana.


"
2. any chance you could in short (on the front page) outline in what order to cast the different skills to maximize the output?

The Gameplay section covers this.
Last edited by Hercanic on Jul 17, 2019, 7:26:34 AM
"
Hercanic wrote:
Spoiler
Your gear[/url] is excellent! You could hit 10.5k-11.8k eHP by going hybrid Life/ES (6767 Life + 5045 ES, 2113 of which would come from Corrupted Soul keystone) using either a Vis Mortis (+1 Spectre and cheap) or an ES chest (more ES + craft). You could reach even higher if your other gear and jewels had ES.

Pastebin (view online):
https://pastebin.com/FbyxQUBN

There's a level 92, 95, 97, 100 (ES), and 100 (jewel) tree. Of course, you can change up the order you take any of these branches.

This setup drops Acrobatics in favor of ES nodes, and drops your War Banner/Arctic Armor (10%+25% reservation) for Discipline (35% reservation).

Then a Watcher's Eye gives ES on Hit while using Discipline, complimenting the Life on Hit you're already getting from your ring. Since the Corrupted Soul keystone basically splits damage between Life and ES, both recovery effects will be active at the same time. Meaning you can recover up to 45 eHP per hit.

Discipline/Flesh and Stone would need to be disconnected from the Hatred + Generosity link in your boots, so that Generosity can't affect them.

If you go Ball Lightning and drop GMP (less intensive on your GPU) for Fortify, you'd be very tanky (edit: oh yeah, Kingmaker on Animated Guardian is giving you Fortify -- though if you ever go out of his range you'll lose it). Soulrend only hits once, so against bosses you won't benefit much from Virulence or Life/ES on Hit.

The Melding cluster on the tree would have been good to take, but since I don't know how your Historic jewel affects the surrounding nodes I left it alone. For those not using the jewel, then Melding is ideal. If your gear provides enough DEX, you can also save points by not taking the two +30 DEX nodes.

This is basically the dream version of the build that I never had the time nor currency to implement. Even without the Corrupted Souls keystone it can still break 10k eHP. If you don't mind, I'd like to add your gear to the main guide as an example of where you can take this build if you have the currency.


First off, thanks for taking the time to look over my items. I did ED/C and Cyclone at the start and gained a lot of currency so I'm pulling out all the stops for this build. And of course I don't mind, it's actually pretty cool to see my gear as end-game goals xD.

That said, that's a really nice eHP pool, but would it really be better than my current 7.3k eHP pool with all my current damage mitigation? Recently I've been going up and close with enemies to take advantage of holy relic's heal regen/flesh and stone's blind so my zombies stay alive more. I'm stationary a lot because of charged dash so I also take Soul of Tukohama (phys reduction per second while stationary). Right now I have 24% less damage taken from Flesh and Stone/Arctic Armour and enemies have reduced accuracy due to Dread Banner, that combined with dodge keystones seems pretty strong.

Also thanks for pointing out that I could drop the 100% life/damage ascendancy, Kitava's Heralds have higher health than Frost Sentinels even with it off. I could take Puppet Master which boosts DPS of all my minions rather than just my spectres.
Thanks a bunch for taking the time out to write a very detailed response.

And thank you for putting the button combos in writing even though they are on the video. Easier for me to read what to do. Even though I put my QWER buttons on ASDF instead for better finger access.

My general biggest issue was/is finding out when to swap to new gear or not. As you said yourself sockets are the main important thing, but it also changes frequently, either by adding more gems or by swapping old ones out for new ones. But is a level difference of 10 on an item, maybe getting too much?
Do I use orbs to get more sockets in an item or link and unlinked item or is it just better to wait for a drop?

Will bear in mind of what type of item it is, when re-rolling colors. So far I've increased the quality of the items and turned them from normal to rare, just to get some extra bonuses.

And I constantly wanted to have the exact same setup as you had at those levels, that it frustrated me I couldn't find room for all the gems. In any case let me tell you this. So far everything's been running smoothly, even though I haven't managed to be able to link all the gems that I wanted. Most likely because your guide have prepared me excellently with the choices I also made in the passive tree.

Which reminds me. I've no idea where to branch out now. Do I go for the right side of the passive tree or the left side? I've branched out so I have the spiritual command, but I haven't gone all left yet or all right for the matter.

I haven't yet invested much time in adding suffixes or affixes on gear, because I know I will be changing them. I've added strength to a ring I think, mostly because I needed it to wear some of the other gear. Just killed the boss in act 3 with no problem what so ever.

Trying to concern myself with just selling the linked multi colored items (one of each color). Not sure if I should pick up the 4-L items, even though some of them are same color.

Do I use the menagerie to get me some uniques or is that waste of animals at such low level?

Think Im around mid 40's now but got no 5-L drops as of yet, and vendors don't have an abundance of many socketed items. Just started Act 4 though and I dont think I ever got presented with the chance of getting the Stone Golem. Cannot buy it from any vendors and I am pretty sure I cleared out all of act 3. Just finished helping Siosa and buying most of the gems I needed.

Cannot buy these either:

Empower Support
Cast while channeling
Cast when damage taken
Vile toxins support
Vaal Summon Skeletons
Bloodlust support

But will get them from a friend I think.

This is turning into a book. My apologies for that. Thank you for putting up with all the questions. It's a really fun build.

Will concentrate on having it set up as your end-game setup the second Im allowed. Thanks for the heads up on the half permanent resistance debuffs.
@ Bibpanana / marvinpunz:
Full Post
"
Bibpanana wrote:
"
Hercanic wrote:
Spoiler
Your gear is excellent! You could hit 10.5k-11.8k eHP by going hybrid Life/ES (6767 Life + 5045 ES, 2113 of which would come from Corrupted Soul keystone) using either a Vis Mortis (+1 Spectre and cheap) or an ES chest (more ES + craft). You could reach even higher if your other gear and jewels had ES.

Pastebin (view online):
https://pastebin.com/FbyxQUBN

There's a level 92, 95, 97, 100 (ES), and 100 (jewel) tree. Of course, you can change up the order you take any of these branches.

This setup drops Acrobatics in favor of ES nodes, and drops your War Banner/Arctic Armor (10%+25% reservation) for Discipline (35% reservation).

Then a Watcher's Eye gives ES on Hit while using Discipline, complimenting the Life on Hit you're already getting from your ring. Since the Corrupted Soul keystone basically splits damage between Life and ES, both recovery effects will be active at the same time. Meaning you can recover up to 45 eHP per hit.

Discipline/Flesh and Stone would need to be disconnected from the Hatred + Generosity link in your boots, so that Generosity can't affect them.

If you go Ball Lightning and drop GMP (less intensive on your GPU) for Fortify, you'd be very tanky (edit: oh yeah, Kingmaker on Animated Guardian is giving you Fortify -- though if you ever go out of his range you'll lose it). Soulrend only hits once, so against bosses you won't benefit much from Virulence or Life/ES on Hit.

The Melding cluster on the tree would have been good to take, but since I don't know how your Historic jewel affects the surrounding nodes I left it alone. For those not using the jewel, then Melding is ideal. If your gear provides enough DEX, you can also save points by not taking the two +30 DEX nodes.

This is basically the dream version of the build that I never had the time nor currency to implement. Even without the Corrupted Souls keystone it can still break 10k eHP. If you don't mind, I'd like to add your gear to the main guide as an example of where you can take this build if you have the currency.
First off, thanks for taking the time to look over my items. I did ED/C and Cyclone at the start and gained a lot of currency so I'm pulling out all the stops for this build. And of course I don't mind, it's actually pretty cool to see my gear as end-game goals xD.

That said, that's a really nice eHP pool, but would it really be better than my current 7.3k eHP pool with all my current damage mitigation? Recently I've been going up and close with enemies to take advantage of holy relic's heal regen/flesh and stone's blind so my zombies stay alive more. I'm stationary a lot because of charged dash so I also take Soul of Tukohama (phys reduction per second while stationary). Right now I have 24% less damage taken from Flesh and Stone/Arctic Armour and enemies have reduced accuracy due to Dread Banner, that combined with dodge keystones seems pretty strong.

Also thanks for pointing out that I could drop the 100% life/damage ascendancy, Kitava's Heralds have higher health than Frost Sentinels even with it off. I could take Puppet Master which boosts DPS of all my minions rather than just my spectres.
Oh, a name change? Looks like it doesn't carry over to past quotes.


"
that's a really nice eHP pool, but would it really be better than my current 7.3k eHP pool with all my current damage mitigation?

You'd still have Stone, Blind, and Tukohama.

Arctic Armour is Less, meaning it doesn't stack with anything. 13% Less Physical/Fire Damage is worth (100/87=) 15% more eHP while stationary.

Dread Banner, which is 23% Less Accuracy (21% * aura effect) and so is multiplicative rather than additive with Enfeeble's 25%/8% Reduced Accuracy (normal/shaper), only results in 5% chance to evade. This is strong if you already have a high evasion chance, since for example it can take you from 75% to 80% chance to evade (=25% more eHP). But you only have 1777 evasion, so Dread Banner takes you from a 3% chance to evade to 8% (=5% more eHP).

Acrobatics is worth (100/60=) 67% more eHP vs. Attacks.
Phase Acrobatics is worth (100/70=) 43% more eHP vs. Spells.

Keep in mind the eHP from Dodge and Dread Banner are only true against multiple smaller hits, like from a monster pack. They are meaningless against a single big hit that gets through, unlike ES which is effective either way.

If you went with my suggested ES Hybrid route, going from 7.3k to 10.5k is (10.5/7.3=) 44% more eHP. Even at the low end it's comparable to Phase Acrobatics, but is more reliable.

11.8k is (11.8/7.3=) 62% more eHP. This is comparable to Acrobatics, and way better than Phase Acrobatics.

Your Block Chance will also go up from 17% (100/83=24% more eHP) to 24% (100/76=32% more eHP). This brings 10.5/11.8k up to 90%/114% more eHP vs. Attacks.

Block with Acrobatics is (1/(0.83*0.6)=) 100.8% more eHP.

----------------------
vs. Attacks
90% = 10.5k
101% = Acro
114% = 11.8k

vs. Spells
43% = Acro
44% = 10.5k
62% = 11.8k
----------------------

In short, Hybrid ES is equivalent or better than Acrobatics, while also countering one-shots. ES is not reduced by map mods like Less Dodge Chance, either. Its only issue would be degens and recovery, but we solve that through ES on Hit from the Watcher's Eye.

That leaves 15% more eHP from Arctic Armour, but only against Physical/Fire and only while stationary, and 5% more eHP from Dread Banner, but only against Attacks. Personally, I don't think these are worth the ever-present vulnerability to one-shots.

Shaper's Slam deals 17,069 Physical Damage. 0.8 (Fortify) * 0.76 (24%=8+8+8% Flesh Binder/Lunaris/Tukohama) = 0.608 Physical Damage Taken, lowering the Slam to 10,378 damage. Even at 10.5k Life/ES, without even considering Enfeeble, Sand, or Taunt, you could already survive the biggest one-shot in the game.
Last edited by Hercanic on Jul 18, 2019, 6:51:19 PM
@ Davidkira:
Full Post
"
Davidkira wrote:
Thanks a bunch for taking the time out to write a very detailed response.

And thank you for putting the button combos in writing even though they are on the video. Easier for me to read what to do. Even though I put my QWER buttons on ASDF instead for better finger access.

My general biggest issue was/is finding out when to swap to new gear or not. As you said yourself sockets are the main important thing, but it also changes frequently, either by adding more gems or by swapping old ones out for new ones. But is a level difference of 10 on an item, maybe getting too much?
Do I use orbs to get more sockets in an item or link and unlinked item or is it just better to wait for a drop?

Will bear in mind of what type of item it is, when re-rolling colors. So far I've increased the quality of the items and turned them from normal to rare, just to get some extra bonuses.

And I constantly wanted to have the exact same setup as you had at those levels, that it frustrated me I couldn't find room for all the gems. In any case let me tell you this. So far everything's been running smoothly, even though I haven't managed to be able to link all the gems that I wanted. Most likely because your guide have prepared me excellently with the choices I also made in the passive tree.

Which reminds me. I've no idea where to branch out now. Do I go for the right side of the passive tree or the left side? I've branched out so I have the spiritual command, but I haven't gone all left yet or all right for the matter.

I haven't yet invested much time in adding suffixes or affixes on gear, because I know I will be changing them. I've added strength to a ring I think, mostly because I needed it to wear some of the other gear. Just killed the boss in act 3 with no problem what so ever.

Trying to concern myself with just selling the linked multi colored items (one of each color). Not sure if I should pick up the 4-L items, even though some of them are same color.

Do I use the menagerie to get me some uniques or is that waste of animals at such low level?

Think Im around mid 40's now but got no 5-L drops as of yet, and vendors don't have an abundance of many socketed items. Just started Act 4 though and I dont think I ever got presented with the chance of getting the Stone Golem. Cannot buy it from any vendors and I am pretty sure I cleared out all of act 3. Just finished helping Siosa and buying most of the gems I needed.

Cannot buy these either:

Empower Support
Cast while channeling
Cast when damage taken
Vile toxins support
Vaal Summon Skeletons
Bloodlust support

But will get them from a friend I think.

This is turning into a book. My apologies for that. Thank you for putting up with all the questions. It's a really fun build.

Will concentrate on having it set up as your end-game setup the second Im allowed. Thanks for the heads up on the half permanent resistance debuffs.
"
My general biggest issue was/is finding out when to swap to new gear or not. ...is a level difference of 10 on an item, maybe getting too much?

Nope. If it has the socket links you want, you have no reason to change it unless you find an item with the same socket links and better stats. Unlike bow, melee, or spells, summoners don't care about most item stats. Just two stats, life and resists, are all that matter to us. I've even beaten the campaign with some of my items still being white. That's how little importance it has for us.


"
Do I use orbs to get more sockets in an item or link and unlinked item or is it just better to wait for a drop?

And I constantly wanted to have the exact same setup as you had at those levels, that it frustrated me I couldn't find room for all the gems.

Save that currency for when you have the items you'll want to keep. You don't have to match the leveling gems exactly, they're just a guideline of what you could do. I usually just wait for drops and vendor updates (every hour and every time you level up) to get my linked items. It's nothing worth stressing over, since the campaign is comparatively easy for summoners.


"
Which reminds me. I've no idea where to branch out now. Do I go for the right side of the passive tree or the left side?

You can go either way, honestly. I've done both. Epilogue has a level 69 tree, in case you missed it.


"
Trying to concern myself with just selling the linked multi colored items (one of each color). Not sure if I should pick up the 4-L items, even though some of them are same color.

4L can sell for a Chromatic Orb as well. Items can have have any number of sockets so long as it has at least one socket of each color linked together. The only issue is how much inventory space it takes up compared to how often you go back to sell.


"
Do I use the menagerie to get me some uniques or is that waste of animals at such low level?

Use it. Every recipe now uses its own specific Red Beast, so using one recipe won't take away from a different recipe. The item level of the reward is based on the level of the Red Beast, too, so saving it for when you're a higher level won't change anything.


"
Think Im around mid 40's now but got no 5-L drops as of yet, and vendors don't have an abundance of many socketed items.

5L is a somewhat rare drop, so you aren't likely to find one until much later. However, you could buy one for super cheap.


"
Just started Act 4 though and I dont think I ever got presented with the chance of getting the Stone Golem. Cannot buy it from any vendors and I am pretty sure I cleared out all of act 3. Just finished helping Siosa and buying most of the gems I needed.

Cannot buy these either:

Empower Support
Cast while channeling
Cast when damage taken
Vile toxins support
Vaal Summon Skeletons
Bloodlust support

Stone Golem, Cast While Channeling, Cast When Damage Taken, and Vile Toxins are all Act 4 gems.

Bloodlust can be purchased from Siosa, but you don't need that until you have Elder gloves with the Chance to Bleed mod built in.

Vaal Summon Skeletons cannot be purchased from a vendor, but the regular Summon Skeletons gem can be acquired in Act 1 from Nessa. You can use the regular skill for as long as you need. The Vaal version is just a bonus.

Vaal skills are corrupted skill gems, gaining an additional skill on top of the normal skill
(two skills from one gem), but require souls from kills (or damaging a boss) to charge up that second skill. Since they are special, they are not sold by any vendors. You have to find them, but even then they are not a normal drop. You have a decent chance to find one in:

1. A Vaal side area, dropped from the Vaal Vessel after defeating the area's miniboss.

2. A Gemcutter's Strongbox with the mod, "Drops an additional Vaal gem". You can use currency on Strongboxes to change their mods.

3. Legion Monolith encounters with the Vaal, from Gem Encounter monsters/chests.

4. Incursion temple's gem room.

5. As a random boss drop in a corrupted map.

6. Corrupting the gem yourself with a Vaal Orb.

7. Just buy it from another player. They're super cheap.
Last edited by Hercanic on Jul 18, 2019, 8:43:20 PM
So you've convinced me with your explanation and I made the switch to the Life/ES Hybrid variant. I now have a eHP pool of 12.6k (6,130 life/6,483 ES)

Lost a lot of dex but that was managed with lucky dex rolls on my items and also snagged a super nice ES chest with high life.



Also moved the timeless jewel to the upper left corner where the extra curse notable is so I could take Melding which was like 800 eHP. Since I moved it up I found a jewel with 15% increased energy shield for only 1 point invested.

Here's the copy-paste info for the timeless jewel if you're interested.

Spoiler
Timeless Jewel
Prismatic Jewel
Radius: Large
Implicits: 0
Allocated Small Passive Skills in Radius grant Nothing
Notable Passive Skills in Radius grant Nothing
Gain 20% of maximum life as extra maximum energy shield
10% increased armour
2% increased maximum life
10% increased maximum life
0.78% of life regenerated per second
+7% to chaos resistance
+14% to fire resistance


I've been running elder t16 maps (city square) and I feel pretty invincible. The ES gained on hit is actually pretty crazy, it's like a built in Soul Tether but better. The bosses are known to be quite rippy but between the zombie meat shields and ES on hit jewel I'm pretty much good. I'm trying to reach 100 for the first time so I'm trying to be as tanky as possible xD.

I don't know if I can improve my items any further, any suggestions?

And of course thanks for all the feedback and detailed responses!

edit: so I've opted to go for more DPS and swapped out the gloves and chest for a +1 spectre/curse chest and ele weakness on hit gloves. I lose about 1k eHP but at 11.6k I still think that's pretty good.

I might craft some more gloves for a chance to bleed mod but with 4 kitava's heralds I don't think that's necessary. Also in my case if I were to get enfeeble on hit on my gloves would elemental weakness be better since it affects all my minions or would projectile weakness be better just for the pierce for phantasms?



Last edited by Bibpanana on Jul 20, 2019, 1:40:02 PM
@ Bibpanana:
Full Post
"
Bibpanana wrote:
So you've convinced me with your explanation and I made the switch to the Life/ES Hybrid variant. I now have a eHP pool of 12.6k (6,130 life/6,483 ES)

Lost a lot of dex but that was managed with lucky dex rolls on my items and also snagged a super nice ES chest with high life.


Also moved the timeless jewel to the upper left corner where the extra curse notable is so I could take Melding which was like 800 eHP. Since I moved it up I found a jewel with 15% increased energy shield for only 1 point invested.

Here's the copy-paste info for the timeless jewel if you're interested.

Spoiler
Timeless Jewel
Prismatic Jewel
Radius: Large
Implicits: 0
Allocated Small Passive Skills in Radius grant Nothing
Notable Passive Skills in Radius grant Nothing
Gain 20% of maximum life as extra maximum energy shield
10% increased armour
2% increased maximum life
10% increased maximum life
0.78% of life regenerated per second
+7% to chaos resistance
+14% to fire resistance


I've been running elder t16 maps (city square) and I feel pretty invincible. The ES gained on hit is actually pretty crazy, it's like a built in Soul Tether but better. The bosses are known to be quite rippy but between the zombie meat shields and ES on hit jewel I'm pretty much good. I'm trying to reach 100 for the first time so I'm trying to be as tanky as possible xD.

I don't know if I can improve my items any further, any suggestions?

And of course thanks for all the feedback and detailed responses!

edit: so I've opted to go for more DPS and swapped out the gloves and chest for a +1 spectre/curse chest and ele weakness on hit gloves. I lose about 1k eHP but at 11.6k I still think that's pretty good.

I might craft some more gloves for a chance to bleed mod but with 4 kitava's heralds I don't think that's necessary. Also in my case if I were to get enfeeble on hit on my gloves would elemental weakness be better since it affects all my minions or would projectile weakness be better just for the pierce for phantasms?

"
I made the switch to the Life/ES Hybrid variant. I now have a eHP pool of 12.6k (6,130 life/6,483 ES)

ES is essentially capped to your max Life, due to how Corrupted Soul allows half damage to bypass ES. The only exception would be a situation wherein your Life recovery outstrips your ES recovery. Against one-shots, though, you'd definitely be limited to 6,130/6,130 Life/ES, for a total of 12,260 eHP.


"
edit: so I've opted to go for more DPS ... I lose about 1k eHP but at 11.6k I still think that's pretty good.

You probably lost less than that due to the ES "cap". Flat life is going to give you the most bang at this point with 30% of it gained as additional Extra ES.

Just in case you didn't know, the way Extra ES is calculated is a bit particular. To figure it out, just look at your base flat life, take 30% of it for your flat ES value, then multiply it by your (% Life + % ES) added together. So 200% ES + 200% life would become 400%. If you had 2000 flat life, 30% of that would be 600. With 400% increased Life+ES, it becomes (600 * 5.0 =) 3000 ES.

This would mean every 100 flat life would become 300 Life and 150 ES (450 eHP), or 50% more eHP than normal.


"
Also moved the timeless jewel to the upper left corner where the extra curse notable is so I could take Melding which was like 800 eHP.

Good call. Since I didn't know what your Historic jewel did to surrounding nodes I had left it alone.


"
I've been running elder t16 maps (city square) and I feel pretty invincible. The ES gained on hit is actually pretty crazy

That's fantastic to hear! I always figured it'd work great, but never had the means to test it. I'm excited that someone has finally reached this point in the build, taking it to the next level.

In the guide, I mentioned that Gain on Hit is scaled by Damage Effectiveness. This was based on Patch 0.10.3: "Life Gain on Hit is now scaled by the Damage Effectiveness of a skill." When I shared this on Reddit, a couple people claimed it no longer worked like that, though they didn't provide any evidence. I have not yet tested myself to verify either way, but if true it means we're actually getting triple recovery from what was shown in the guide. 30 ES on Hit would be double that.

More specifically, Ball Lightning deals about 20 hits per second (per target), or 7 hits per Ball Lightning (per target). That'd be:

300 life / 600 ES per sec (per target)
105 life / 210 ES per Ball (per target)

Put another way, it's like 5%/10% life/ES regen per second, per target. Just four targets and you have the equivalent of Life Leech, while only one target is necessary for the equivalent of ES Leech. 8/2 targets and you have Vaal Pact without losing normal regen. It gets even better, because Gain on Hit is direct recovery and thus not subject to any cap, nor "No Leech" or "Less Recovery Rate" map mods. "Less cast/attack speed" would reduce it for other builds, but our Cast While Channeling is immune to that. Only negative Action Speed would reduce our Gain on Hit, such as from Chill or Temporal Chains.


"
I'm trying to reach 100 for the first time so I'm trying to be as tanky as possible xD.

Awesome! I hope you do! We've only had one other person, ArmedCiv, reach 100 with this build during Betrayal league. If we get enough people to that level, I'll have to make a new Centenarian section in the Cenotaph. =o)


"
I might craft some more gloves for a chance to bleed mod but with 4 kitava's heralds I don't think that's necessary. Also in my case if I were to get enfeeble on hit on my gloves would elemental weakness be better since it affects all my minions or would projectile weakness be better just for the pierce for phantasms?

Phantasms already pierce. It's the Agony Crawler and Frost Sentinels who don't.

Between clear speed or boss slaying, which do you want to improve?

For map clear, Projectile Weakness is a huge 54% multiplier for your clear speed minions (Phantasms, Agony Crawler, Frost Sentinels/Solar Guards/Kitava's Herald's mortar).

For boss slaying, you want to assist Skeletons with Vulnerability. A larger chunk of their damage is physical rather than cold. In fact, with Kitava's Heralds, all of your minions deal physical damage. As a side bonus, you'll also gain more frequent and reliable bleeds and maims from the curse.

Let me put this into perspective: Hatred w/Generosity is (35% extra cold * 1.25 more cold =) 44% more damage as cold. So a Skeleton deals 100% physical and 44% cold, or 144% mixed. Of a Skeleton's total damage, (44/144=) 30% is cold vs. 70% physical.

Now, Vulnerability (39%) will stack additively with Maim's debuff (14%), while Elemental Weakness (39%) will stack additively with EE (10% vs. Shaper, 20% vs. boss, 50% vs. trash). We'll ignore the impact of these additives since vs. Shaper it's pretty close.

Since both curses increase their respective damage types by the same value, it therefore comes down to whichever one contributes the majority of damage:

1. Vulnerability = 70% physical * 0.39 = 27.3% more damage
2. Elemental Weakness = 30% cold * 0.39 = 11.7% more damage

Your Phantasms, Holy Relic, and Kitava's Heralds are the same 70/30 split as Skeletons.
Your Zombies are at 54% physical, 46% elemental (24%/22% cold/fire).
Your Agony Crawler is at 35% physical, 50% elemental (26%/24% cold/fire), 15% chaos

So the only exception is the Agony Crawler, simply because 40% of its physical damage gets inherently converted into chaos.


"
I don't know if I can improve my items any further, any suggestions?

  • 1. Lab enchant your boots. Enchants no longer take up the implicit slot of an item.

  • 2. +3 helmet, but obviously not at all practical considering you need that helm enchant.

  • 3. Divine your Unset Ring to ~15 Life on Spell Hit. Unless it's a lower tier or if losing any of that STR/DEX would hurt you.

  • 4. If you wanted to trade defense for damage, you could craft Aspect of the Spider in exchange for Sand (both are 25% mana reservation).

  • 5. Quality on Charged Dash gives Attack Speed, which means a tiny bit more LGOH from your claw and Watcher's Eye.

  • 6. Haku crafted secondary weapons (6% gem quality) would boost Empower/Enhance/Enlighten leveling with bonus XP. Since you're aiming for 100, that's a lot of XP you could turn into more currency.

  • 7. Trade out a 5% life node for the 5%/8% life/mana node by "Heart and Soul".

  • 8. You may not be able to work it in, but a +1 to Minimum Endurance Charges craft on your ring would give you a permanent Endurance Charge, which reduces physical damage by 4%. The more of this stat we can stack the more effective it becomes, like an elemental resistance. It'd be nice if you could work in a Chaos Golem for another 4% (or 5% @L22), but you don't really have any free sockets left unless you went the Aspect of the Spider route or dropped Holy Relic. Grave Intentions is another 2% from +2 Zombies, but whether this is worth the 3-point cost for your specific build variant (it was pretty close to a jewel socket in value for the normal build) will need a deeper analysis. If you managed all three, you'd get +10% to your current 24%. Throw in a Basalt Flask (15%) and you'd hit 49% reduced physical damage and basically double your eHP against it.

  • 9. Multiple Vaal skills split souls. Having both Vaal Skeletons and Vaal Discipline means they're earning half of what they normally would. If you use both, that's fine, but it's something to keep in mind. Especially against endgame bosses with transitions (e.g. Elder Guardians) where the only souls you gain are from damaging the boss.
Last edited by Hercanic on Jul 24, 2019, 1:32:13 PM

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