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

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Hercanic wrote:

At level 90, the % of base monster XP you'll get is:

10.5% of 11,170 XP @ T5 (72)
20.8% of 11,804 XP @ T8 (75)
30.4% of 12,192 XP @ T10 (77)
40.8% of 12,549 XP @ T12 (79)
50.5% of 12,863 XP @ T14 (81)
60.1% of 13,250 XP @ T17 (84)

So from this, you can see one T12 is worth more than two T8s. Whereas T12 vs T14 is 5,120 vs 6,496 XP.

As for your gear, it looks like you forgot to keep leveling the Agony Crawler, since it's only level 7 and maxed on XP.

Why is Fortify in your boots with Flame Dash, Hatred, and Generosity? Oh, now it's changed to Animated Guardian and Minion Life.

Curse Immunity is best on a utility flask, so you can suppress map curses for the full duration of the flask. Life flask effects end when you reach full life.

Flat life from your items adds up to 666. How proper!

So T12 might be where an ideal balance can be struck.

I am such a dufus, i hadn't leveled the Agony Crawler since i was dexterity capped, and then forgot to level it up once got more dex... leveling it now. Should be better soon. Thank you so much, this why i needed someone to look it over, always helps to have 2nd pair eyes look over things.

Yeah thought I'd try an Animated Guardian since we have so much minion related stuff. Does the gear he wears help the minions also? He gives me Damage and Speed, so wondered if that transferred to the other minions also. Just experimenting since I took out the 2x curses amulet for the life amulet. Might have to swap something else out to get that extra curse back on or get it on this new amulet. Really do miss the enfeeble, anything for more survive-ability.

Didn't do the 666 thing on purpose but how convenient lol. Also I'm getting around to fixing my flasks, but just haven't yet. Just a matter of rotating the effects right.

Also wanted to confirm the best way to get 4blue 2 green colors on the Belly? Someone told me in-game to do the 1xBlue for 4 chromes as best option, is that correct? Also in mean time, it is currently 3 blues 2 green and 1 red, can i use a red to replace one blue as a temporary measure? What would you recommend if at all. Or don't until got all right colors?

So happy right now, i found 2 exalts today, and finally 6 linked my Belly.

You know you are the best guide maker in the world right Hercanic? If you ever make another character and a guide for it, I want to know about it, because I will be playing that also :) Thank you for all your help, really made coming back to this game so much more enjoyable.

@ Skyllus:

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Skyllus wrote:

Thanks for the guide, been a lot of fun following it this league.

Couple notes:

- Pretty sure the Minions have a '4% Chance to Taunt with Attacks' gem is getting my Spectre's slaughtered.

Taunt is only applied by minions who Attack. This is distinct from Spells. Frost Sentinels and Solar Guards only cast Spells. They do not Attack, so they cannot Taunt.

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Skyllus wrote:

Level 19 Desecrate, have Spectre ascendancy, not much else for minion life. They die pretty much immediately in T6 maps. (EDIT: Nevermind, they're just dying immediately regardless now that I've hit T6...no clue why. No problems previously.) [EDIT2: Found my problem. After finishing campaign I was raising spectres from inside my hideout with desecrate because I'd misunderstood an older patch note...so they were probably level 20. What's the best way to get high level Frost Sentinels?]

After you've raised them from where you can find them naturally, any zone you enter with them as Spectres will have that monster type added to the possible corpses Desecrate can spawn. So take them to the highest level zone you can and re-raise a whole new batch. These Spectres will be the level of the zone, provided your gems aren't too low of a level and cap their max level lower than that zone.

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Skyllus wrote:

- Been brutal finding a suitable weapon for this, those claws don't really exist and crafting them somewhat reliably would require a Faceted Fossil which is selling for 1ex. How much is lost by not having '+1 level to Socketed Gems'?

It becomes a +2 with Empower, so you end up losing ~30% more damage and life. Don't break your bank trying for it. Just keep on the lookout and grab one should the opportunity present itself.

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@ SuperCrap and Alerean:

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SuperCrap wrote:

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Alerean wrote:

I'm pretty sure I'm safe to use this jewel I found, but I wanted to make sure...

If anyone has a chance to have a quick look over my gear to make sure I haven't missed anything or has any advice on what to focus on that'd be awesome :)

Its fine. You should only do lightning/physical/chaos damage with your ball lightnings to proc elemental equilibriums -fire/-cold resistances.
You minions should only do fire and cold damage then to profit from it and dont do lightning damage since they would then break the EE and add fire/cold resistance to the enemys.

Really nice build and fun to play so far. Leveling was a breeze!

Minions do not trigger EE.

Spells come from You. Totems and Mines are remote Spells. This is why all three apply EE. Minions are different. The spell you cast for them just creates the minion. The minion itself is not the Spell. It is a separate, independent entity. If they score a kill, you do not get credit for on-kill effects. If they deal attack damage, you do not get attack leech from them.

Nothing on the passive tree or your gear affects minions because they are not You, and their Attacks and Spells are not Your Attacks and Spells. The only exception is if the keyword "Minion" or "Ally" is used. If it doesn't EXPLICITLY state either of those words, it doesn't apply to minions. EE does not have either of those words. It only affects Your Attacks and Spells, not your minions' Attacks and Spells.

As for the jewel in question, you can use it without any issues, but it won't add much. The regen is nothing, the flat fire damage isn't worth the jewel socket, and the abyssal damage only applies to rare abyss encounters so most of the time it won't be doing anything for you.

If you're playing SSF, you can use a Scouring Orb to remove all mods on the jewel, and then craft yourself a better one. Transmute > Augment/Alteration is a cheap way to spam through lots of mods until you get two good ones, then Regal for a random third. A fourth mod would require a very rare and expensive Exalted Orb, which you only want to save for the very best of the best stuff because of how super rare they are. You could also Alchemy > Scour for 3 to 4 random mods, but this is more random and generally more expensive, but you have a tiny chance to roll 4 good mods for only 1* Alchemy. I'd personally recommend the former method for jewels.

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Hercanic wrote:

If you're playing SSF, you can use a Scouring Orb to remove all mods on the jewel, and then craft yourself a better one. Transmute > Augment/Alteration is a cheap way to spam through lots of mods until you get two good ones, then Regal for a random third. A fourth mod would require a very rare and expensive Exalted Orb, which yoy only want to save for the very best of the best stuff because of how super rare they are. You could also Alchemy > Scour for 3 to 4 random mods, but this is more random and generally more expensive, but you have a tiny chance to roll 4 good mods for only 1* Alchemy. I'd personally recommend the former method for jewels.

Damn, I had no idea I could do this. Thanks, this should help a bunch because all my Jewels suck. I do have two Exalted Orbs, but yeah I'm not touching that stuff until I learn more in general and know they won't be wasted.

@ Lexicon91:

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Lexicon91 wrote:

Hey just wanted to know if the leveling guide will ever be 100% complete. ACT 2 is missing a lot of details like the ones found in ACT 1

Lots of things are tugging at my attention. I will be completing and refining all the sections over time. I ran into a bit of a roadblock a few days ago when I hit the 50k character limit for the leveling guide. Right now I'm refining the places where I am getting repeated questions, like Elemental Equilibrium and Poison/Ball Lightning/Chaos Damage to Spells. I'm thinking of making a link index for all my replies so it's easier to search for any subject I've already answered. Doing so will let me review my past responses for any content I can add to the main guide.

I also need to level up my own character to verify certain things about the leveling guide. I'm only in Act 3 at the moment, because I haven't had much time to play. I really want to see how bad Betrayal encounters get, and whether Chaos Resistance is the key.

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@ kendo3:

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kendo3 wrote:

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SuperCrap wrote:

Its fine. You should only do lightning/physical/chaos damage with your ball lightnings to proc elemental equilibriums -fire/-cold resistances.
You minions should only do fire and cold damage then to profit from it and dont do lightning damage since they would then break the EE and add fire/cold resistance to the enemys.

Really nice build and fun to play so far. Leveling was a breeze!

I may be totally confused but from previous posts, I thought your minions don't trigger EE, just your attacks. so they can attack with any element. just that lightning would be subject to your triggering EE and creating a resist to it. so better to have your minions do cold or fire.

I do have one complaint though. this build is killing thing so fast and far off screen that I have to be careful to not miss any good loot drops. I hear the little pings for uniques or orbs and then have to hunt around to find them :)

No, you're right, Kendo3.

Haha, yep, the downfall of the summoner! Sometimes I don't even do anything; I just let my minions party on while I scrounge up loot. I am so glad we now have the light beams and map icons to signal good drops. I still worry I am missing stuff, so I end up wasting time double-checking too often. A bad habit from the olden days.

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@ ArmedCiv:

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ArmedCiv wrote:

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Hercanic wrote:

At level 90, the % of base monster XP you'll get is:

10.5% of 11,170 XP @ T5 (72)
20.8% of 11,804 XP @ T8 (75)
30.4% of 12,192 XP @ T10 (77)
40.8% of 12,549 XP @ T12 (79)
50.5% of 12,863 XP @ T14 (81)
60.1% of 13,250 XP @ T17 (84)

So from this, you can see one T12 is worth more than two T8s. Whereas T12 vs T14 is 5,120 vs 6,496 XP.

As for your gear, it looks like you forgot to keep leveling the Agony Crawler, since it's only level 7 and maxed on XP.

Why is Fortify in your boots with Flame Dash, Hatred, and Generosity? Oh, now it's changed to Animated Guardian and Minion Life.

Curse Immunity is best on a utility flask, so you can suppress map curses for the full duration of the flask. Life flask effects end when you reach full life.

Flat life from your items adds up to 666. How proper!

So T12 might be where an ideal balance can be struck.

Yep.

T8 is twice as much XP as T5, so every one T8 will equal two T5s.
T10 is 50% more XP than T8, so every two T10s will equal three T8s.
T12 is 33% more XP than T10, so every three T12s will equal four T10s.
T14 is 25% more XP than T12, so every four T14s will equal five T12s.
T17 is 20% more XP than T14, so every five T17s will equal six T14s.

You can then compare the cost and completion time of two tiers to determine efficiency.

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ArmedCiv wrote:

I am such a dufus, i hadn't leveled the Agony Crawler since i was dexterity capped, and then forgot to level it up once got more dex... leveling it now. Should be better soon. Thank you so much, this why i needed someone to look it over, always helps to have 2nd pair eyes look over things.

=o)

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ArmedCiv wrote:

Yeah thought I'd try an Animated Guardian since we have so much minion related stuff. Does the gear he wears help the minions also? He gives me Damage and Speed, so wondered if that transferred to the other minions also. Just experimenting since I took out the 2x curses amulet for the life amulet. Might have to swap something else out to get that extra curse back on or get it on this new amulet. Really do miss the enfeeble, anything for more survive-ability.

Depending how much life he has, you'll probably lose your Animated Guardian to things like Red Elder's defeat explosion. You can see in the video how it wipes out my 20k life Zombies.

His gear does not directly apply to other minions. Only things like built-in item auras (like Leer Cast, Dying Breath, Victario's Flight; built-in skills do not work, though, so no Death's Oath) or debuffs on enemies will help your minions.

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ArmedCiv wrote:

Didn't do the 666 thing on purpose but how convenient lol. Also I'm getting around to fixing my flasks, but just haven't yet. Just a matter of rotating the effects right.

Also wanted to confirm the best way to get 4blue 2 green colors on the Belly? Someone told me in-game to do the 1xBlue for 4 chromes as best option, is that correct? Also in mean time, it is currently 3 blues 2 green and 1 red, can i use a red to replace one blue as a temporary measure? What would you recommend if at all. Or don't until got all right colors?

I'm not sure, since I didn't expect GGG to make the socketing recipes so hard to get, and right now it's apparently bugged and doesn't drop. Ugh. 1xBlue or 3xBlue may work, but I'm not in a position to test this out myself right now.

As for a Red gem replacement, there's not a lot of options for Spells, sadly. You'll have to lose Minion Damage. If only it was a green socket, you could've used Vile Toxins, Hypothermia, Pierce, Cold Penetration, Ice Bite, or even Added Cold.

1. Added Fire will help Phantasms, but not Spectres. The proliferated Ignites might give your minions Power Charges more often, though.

2. Less Duration would boost Phantasm damage, but I don't know if Spectres might get the damage boost on the sly because of being linked to Phantasms.

3. Cold to Fire would hurt your freeze consistency.

4. Stun might be a nice layer of added crowd control.

5. Fire Penetration would only help the Solar Guard.

6. Empower only affects active gems, so it won't benefit Phantasms, and Spectres don't get much out of their gem level.

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ArmedCiv wrote:

So happy right now, i found 2 exalts today, and finally 6 linked my Belly.

You know you are the best guide maker in the world right Hercanic? If you ever make another character and a guide for it, I want to know about it, because I will be playing that also :) Thank you for all your help, really made coming back to this game so much more enjoyable.

Haha, thank you very much! I try. =o)

I pretty much stick to Summoners when it comes to making my own build. I usually try other build archetypes just to see how my summoners compare.

Let's see, as far as original builds... there was the Trypanon dream years ago that sputtered and died (the new Static Strike opens some options, though). Before Indigon or Shimmeron ever became popular (and now they're both nerfed), I made an Indigon-Shimmeron-Gloomfang Magma Orb Totem Hierophant that was pretty strong.

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Hercanic wrote:

I pretty much stick to Summoners when it comes to making my own build. I usually try other build archetypes just to see how my summoners compare.

That's a shame haha, because I agree with the OP. 100% would play another archetype if it was as well thought out as this one.

I managed to make a better Jewel. It's not perfect so I'll hold off on the Regal for now, but I'll keep at it and make a few more.

Thanks. Also anyone know where I can get Herald of Agony? Cuz I cant but it from the vendor, I just started ACT 3.

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Lexicon91 wrote:

Thanks. Also anyone know where I can get Herald of Agony? Cuz I cant but it from the vendor, I just started ACT 3.

Siosa in The Library. You can get there after clearing the blockage in the sewer in Act 3.

I just got a rare and unique Stygian Vise...I'm assuming if you have very good Jewels the unique can be better?

I'm sure it's there, I've just not spotted it.

But gems in Epiloge, is it just adding Elemental Proliferation support to the Specter gem? Then keep the rest as you have past lvl 38?

I miss a few slots for gems. Is it worth dropping stone golem for Projectile Weakness, and is it correcto to link it together with Cast when dmg taken?

Also past the Epilog tree, the 92 points. as far as I can see I'll be at lvl 75 at that point, after that I just put points as I see fit? I couldn't see and guide past that point?

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Hercanic wrote:

No, you're right, Kendo3.

Haha, yep, the downfall of the summoner! Sometimes I don't even do anything; I just let my minions party on while I scrounge up loot. I am so glad we now have the light beams and map icons to signal good drops. I still worry I am missing stuff, so I end up wasting time double-checking too often. A bad habit from the olden days.

shows how much I have missed being gone from the game for a while. I wasn't aware of the map icons, so have been trying to go by sounds and retracing my steps to look for items :(

have tried searching for information on that and it appears you have to use a filter, could not find a built in option in user settings. is that correct? or am I missing an obvious toggle?