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

First of all, great build, started using it but I have 3 simple questions:

1 - How do you summon minions that can attack at a certain range?
2 - Instead of skeletons, is SRS viable?
3 - Is it possible to use the Dead Reckoning in this build so I can have a better map/wave clear?

Also, keep up the good work, love reading this build so much ☺️

How does Queen's Hunger do on that build? Says its triggering an offering that also affects you.. every few seconds so that could potentially replace the CWDT setup I guess?

@ Niinimaki:

"

How does Queen's Hunger do on that build? Says its triggering an offering that also affects you.. every few seconds so that could potentially replace the CWDT setup I guess?

Queen's Hunger is covered in the FAQ.

---

@ Shinigamistar:

"

Shinigamistar wrote:

First of all, great build, started using it but I have 3 simple questions:

1 - How do you summon minions that can attack at a certain range?
2 - Instead of skeletons, is SRS viable?
3 - Is it possible to use the Dead Reckoning in this build so I can have a better map/wave clear?

Also, keep up the good work, love reading this build so much ☺️

1. Do you mean to ask what types of minions have a ranged ability?

• Raise Spectre - Ranged or Melee, depending on monster type you raise.
  
  
• Herald of Agony - Ranged.
  
  
• Summon Phantasm on Kill Support - Ranged. Also available on Soulwrest staff.
  
  
• Blink Arrow - Ranged.
  
  
• Mirror Arrow - Ranged.
  
  
• Summon Flame Golem - Ranged.
  
  
• Summon Lightning Golem - Ranged.
  
  
• Summon Holy Relic - Limited Range - Nova.
  
  
• Vaal Summon Skeletons - Mix of Melee and Ranged.
  
  
• Summon Skeleton - Melee; Ranged with Dead Reckoning jewel.
  
  
• Animate Weapon - Melee; Ranged with Spirit Guards jewel.
  
  
• Summon Chaos Golem - Ranged Cascade spell, but otherwise Melee.
  
  
• Summon Ice Golem - Ranged icicle attack, but otherwise Melee.
  
  
• Bestial Minion - Ranged (Cobra) or Melee (Ursa, Rhoa). Available only from Yriel's Fostering body armour.
  
  
• Raise Zombie - Melee.
  
  
• Animate Guardian - Melee.
  
  
• Summon Raging Spirit - Melee.
  
  
• Summon Stone Golem - Melee.
  
  
• Dominating Blow - Melee.
  
  
• Herald of Purity - Melee.
  
  
• Dancing Dervish - Melee. Available from The Dancing Dervish sword or The Dancing Duo sword.
  
  
• Spectral Spiders - Melee. Available only from Arakaali's Fang dagger.
  
  
• Spectral Wolves - Melee. Available from The Scourge claw, Rigwald's Crest ring, or an amulet craft from Syndicate.
  
  
• Spectral Spirits - Melee. Available from an Essence of Insanity craft.
  
  
• Icy Raging Spirits - Melee. Available from "of the Grave" Labyrinth glove enchantments.
  
  
• Harbingers - Non-combative, provide various buffs. Available from various Harbinger uniques.
  

2. SRS requires you to constantly cast it, or take a DPS hit by automating it on something like a Spell Totem. In order to reach their optimal damage potential, you need to build your character differently than this build.


3. You shouldn't have any trouble clearing a map with Spectres, Phantasms, and the Agony Crawler. Skeleton Mages are just a waste of time to stop and cast all the time, and while you wait for their slow projectiles to finally hit everything will already be dead. Skeletons are our single-target boss killing skill. We get the most out of them by specializing in this manner. We leave map clearing to other minions who are specialized to speed and area coverage.

I made a change to your glove gem setup, rather than having Charged Dash, I placed a Winter Orb in it's place. Mainly because I dislike the idea of dashing after spamming it for the Ball Lightning, sometimes I dashed into AOE monster death explosions (the red or blue big circles when rare monsters dies) or having to keep channeling dash cos if I let go I'll dash into those circles of death (and by waiting, I am losing precious time on my HH buffs). Other times I'm dashing away and some good currency drops and I have to run back just to pick it up, it's just super inconvenient for my taste. Plus, I think it's more damage (especially with Hatred on), more projectiles which hits way more targets not in front of my cone of Ball Lightning and more chances to spread aliments to my targets. I don't know, is this a good change? I was considering using Scorching Ray or Lightning Tendrils but Winter Orb made more sense.

Another change was using Leap Slam rather than Charged Dash. Leap Slam can still proc Fortify, and I can jump over small walls and cliffs, which is a great annoying aspect of Charged Dash, which doesn't let me do that.

I also found a talisman with +1 zombies which I'm using instead of what you suggest, and I dropped belly for a rare chest with flat evasion, % evasion, life and all resists, mainly because I'm using a HH with this build (which is super OP since some mods are auras and buffs all my minions) So I lack resistances (also very hard to find a unset ring with 15 life gained and resists). Recovery from flasks doesn't really appeal to me since my deaths are 1 shots 99% of the time.

I feel super squishy tho, I'm level 81 with only 4k life and very little armor/evasion.

I tried swapping Hatred for Grace, but that didn't help. I keep dying on the most stupid things. So I switched back to Hatred.

Any idea how I could improve survivability?

EDIT: Also, I'm seeing a lot of dead monsters explode after I kill them, way more than when I use other builds. What is causing this? It's not the big red/blue circle explosions, just smaller explosions with no warning other than the animation of the corpse expanding to a red ball then it explodes. Although those don't 1 shot me, I have to be careful cos 2 or 3 of those and I'm down to less than 10% life.

@ Garulf161:

"

Garulf161 wrote:

So I just want to get a confirmation if what I'm doing is not completely wrong.

I don't hate charged dash, but for some reason I'm very squishy, and Charged Dash makes me die so much since I can't move enough.

That's why I switched it out. Now, I know it is there mainly for the bleed bonus for the skellies. But I've switched the Gloves and Helmet gems as following:

By stopping to manually cast all the time, you squander the biggest advantage of minions -- their permanence. This feature let's us do other things while they kill. We want to capitalize on this as much as possible, or else why bother with the middlemen? Just play a full-fledged Ball Lightning spellcaster for faster results (ball hit = kill vs. ball hit then minion hit = kill).

Charged Dash provides more than just Bleed. It lets us cast without losing momentum, maintaining the Agony Crawler effortlessly. It triggers the Holy Relic's healing and damage nova. Since we have very little cast speed, Cast While Channeling allows us to cast as if we had over 114% increased cast speed, and it costs almost no mana, which is helpful because of how much mana we reserve and our lack of high mana regen. Spamming Ball Lightning lets us fully benefit from Life on Hit from Spells and Knock Back.

---

@ BLVCKSHVDE:

"

BLVCKSHVDE wrote:

I made a change to your glove gem setup, rather than having Charged Dash, I placed a Winter Orb in it's place. Mainly because I dislike the idea of dashing after spamming it for the Ball Lightning, sometimes I dashed into AOE monster death explosions (the red or blue big circles when rare monsters dies) or having to keep channeling dash cos if I let go I'll dash into those circles of death (and by waiting, I am losing precious time on my HH buffs). Other times I'm dashing away and some good currency drops and I have to run back just to pick it up, it's just super inconvenient for my taste. Plus, I think it's more damage (especially with Hatred on), more projectiles which hits way more targets not in front of my cone of Ball Lightning and more chances to spread aliments to my targets. I don't know, is this a good change? I was considering using Scorching Ray or Lightning Tendrils but Winter Orb made more sense.

We cannot use Winter Orb, because of Hatred and Elemental Equilibrium. As a result, you are dramatically cutting down your minions' cold damage.

Be sure to read the FAQ about Charged Dash if you haven't already. Basically, if you keep your channeling brief, it'll help your control immensely. You can use Shield Charge right after releasing for further distance or to quickly backtrack when something good drops.

Chance to Bleed only works with Attacks (Charged Dash, Blade Flurry), not Spells (Winter Orb, Scorching Ray, Lightning Tendrils), so Bloodlust on Skeletons is doing nothing for you.

"

BLVCKSHVDE wrote:

Another change was using Leap Slam rather than Charged Dash. Leap Slam can still proc Fortify, and I can jump over small walls and cliffs, which is a great annoying aspect of Charged Dash, which doesn't let me do that.

Leap Slam would not be a replacement for Charged Dash. Did you mean Shield Charge? If so, Leap Slam is much slower without significant attack speed. We use Shield Charge because it's the fastest and most reliable on-demand mobility for our build.

"

BLVCKSHVDE wrote:

I also found a talisman with +1 zombies which I'm using instead of what you suggest, and I dropped belly for a rare chest with flat evasion, % evasion, life and all resists, mainly because I'm using a HH with this build (which is super OP since some mods are auras and buffs all my minions) So I lack resistances (also very hard to find a unset ring with 15 life gained and resists). Recovery from flasks doesn't really appeal to me since my deaths are 1 shots 99% of the time.

I feel super squishy tho, I'm level 81 with only 4k life and very little armor/evasion.

I tried swapping Hatred for Grace, but that didn't help. I keep dying on the most stupid things. So I switched back to Hatred.

Any idea how I could improve survivability?

None of your jewels have life. You should not invest in 3-point jewel sockets without T1 life on your jewels at a minimum. You are also using Violent Dead (useless for us), Inspired Learning (you don't have 4 notables allocated, so it's doing nothing), and Fortified Legion (totally not worth a jewel socket).

Invest in more life nodes. 4k is way too low.

Armour/Evasion is not important to us, so don't bother investing in it. Neither helps when it counts most, and without significant investment you won't feel much of a difference anyway. Acrobatics, Blind, and Block already gives us 75% attack avoidance (or 50% without Blind). Thus any Evasion is essentially worth 25% of its value when adding it to our total avoidance. 20% chance to evade, for instance, would bump us up by 5%, for 80% total avoidance. Or another way to put it is 20% Evasion lets us evade one out of five attacks that weren't dodged/blocked or missed (Blind).

As for Armour, it will never prevent more than 10% of its value as damage. You need 5 times the damage taken as Armour to prevent 33% of it, 10 times for 50%, 20 times for 66%, and 90 times for 90%. And again, this mitigation is capped to no more than 10% of your Armour. So 10k Armour will, at best, prevent 1k physical damage. If you took a 2k hit, it'd prevent 666 damage.



Source

So a casual couple thousand Armour isn't worth more than a couple hundred life.

Also, the 13% increased Damage craft on your Unset ring does not affect minions, so it's useless to you.

"

BLVCKSHVDE wrote:

EDIT: Also, I'm seeing a lot of dead monsters explode after I kill them, way more than when I use other builds. What is causing this? It's not the big red/blue circle explosions, just smaller explosions with no warning other than the animation of the corpse expanding to a red ball then it explodes. Although those don't 1 shot me, I have to be careful cos 2 or 3 of those and I'm down to less than 10% life.

You've been nerfing your cold damage with Winter Orb, so Freezes and Shatters will be less frequent.

If you're talking about the Nemesis mod, Volatile Flameblood, then that's unavoidable for all builds. You just have to Shield Charge through it, or let it touch you and immediately dash away. No other way to stop it from spawning or chasing you down.

You're seeing it more often because of map/memory modifiers, not the build. Since you have Headhunter, I'm guessing you've been running Zana's Nemesis mod, right? That's why.

Hey Herc,

I have killed Elder and Shaper now (both for the first time ever) and I have my Elder Orb.


What Maps would be good for us to use this on? I am assuming we want something that is fairly open, but still quick to run. What is your recommendation?

Thanks for the great work on the build and its presentation. Today I fought the shaper, he defeated me but this is where I got him :



In this fight I died from 2 completely preventable death, and as you can see, not being used to trigger the balls that follow you far enough and quickly enough. I'm convinced I will kill him on the next try.

This was done at lvl91 with fairly good gear (none above 50c - belly of the beast 6L)

"

Hercanic wrote:

We cannot use Winter Orb, because of Hatred and Elemental Equilibrium. As a result, you are dramatically cutting down your minions' cold damage.

Be sure to read the FAQ about Charged Dash if you haven't already. Basically, if you keep your channeling brief, it'll help your control immensely. You can use Shield Charge right after releasing for further distance or to quickly backtrack when something good drops.

Chance to Bleed only works with Attacks (Charged Dash, Blade Flurry), not Spells (Winter Orb, Scorching Ray, Lightning Tendrils), so Bloodlust on Skeletons is doing nothing for you.

Oh I see, I forgot about EE. Is there another alternative to Charged Dash? I just dislike the skill completely.

"

Hercanic wrote:

Did you mean Shield Charge? If so, Leap Slam is much slower without significant attack speed. We use Shield Charge because it's the fastest and most reliable on-demand mobility for our build.

Yeah, sorry, I got mixed up with the spell names. I did mean Shield Charge. Tbh, I prefer either Leap Slam or Flame Dash, but the latter doesn't proc Fortify. Is this part really integral for the build?

"

Hercanic wrote:

None of your jewels have life. You should not invest in 3-point jewel sockets without T1 life on your jewels at a minimum. You are also using Violent Dead (useless for us), Inspired Learning (you don't have 4 notables allocated, so it's doing nothing), and Fortified Legion (totally not worth a jewel socket).

Invest in more life nodes. 4k is way too low.

I see, so more life mods in jewels and drop Violent Dead and Fortified Legion. Damn, I always thought Inspired Learning just needed 4 notables in range, my bad, I'll transfer that jewel back to my TS Deadeye.

I actually have 3.6k life, not even 4k. I've died maybe 4 times at level 80 which was pretty annoying. I've been crafting my own jewels, but I guess I was prioritizing other stats than life. What is the bare minimum I should aim for, 6K? I also am unsure what to abdicate to put in more Life nodes, kinda difficult for me right now since my resists. I'm capped for Fire and Cold resists, but Lightning is at 67% and I was thinking of putting some nodes in either the ones before and after Resourcefulness (left from where I had my Inspired Learning) which needs 3 points, or Survivalist (left from Acrobatics) which needs 2 points, unless I get a unset ring with resists, this is what I'll have to do.

"

Hercanic wrote:

Also, the 13% increased Damage craft on your Unset ring does not affect minions, so it's useless to you.

I don't really have a better enchant to craft tbh, so my logic behind that was to increase at least the dmg of my Lightning Ball. I need a better unset ring tbh, but I really can't find one as a lot of them are overpriced asf in poe.trade. I've replaced it with 52 Life enchant craft.

"

Hercanic wrote:

If you're talking about the Nemesis mod, Volatile Flameblood, then that's unavoidable for all builds. You just have to Shield Charge through it, or let it touch you and immediately dash away. No other way to stop it from spawning or chasing you down.

You're seeing it more often because of map/memory modifiers, not the build. Since you have Headhunter, I'm guessing you've been running Zana's Nemesis mod, right? That's why.

No no, not the noisy fireball that runs towards you, that's pretty easy to avoid, I just run through it and it's gone. I mean monsters expanding into a red (blood color) ball and explodes with blood red splashes coming out. I have been seeing this loads on my Necro but rarely see them on my other builds.

Anyway, thanks for the reply it was very informative. I'm enjoying your build a lot, just wish I was less squishy but I'll take your advice on those jewels and wait to see if you have the patience to further reply to this post.
Cheers!

Where is the Gem Setup in this guide?

I dont seem to be able to see it any where.

Also every other guide I have seen so far, has a current gear setup showcase showing in 1 hide area about the gear you were using near end game. I dont seem to be able to see that in your guide.

The layout of the guide is pretty hard to follow. You got shit going all over the place.

EDIT: Also, no one looking for a guide about a build wants to read an entire book to find certain details about the actual build. Less words, more pictures


All a guide needs is:

Pros/Cons,
Little bit of info explaining how the build works, (LITTLE)
leveling stages, (Which Pantheons, Bandits, Ascendancies)
Gear stages,
Gem stages,
Video showcase,


It doesnt need all the fancy shit that makes following guides hard.

That is my opinion about your guide. Take it however you want. I am just trying to help :)

and before you say it. No, i havent made my own guide yet because I dont play to make guides. I play guides to make my game.

@ spazman6117:

"

spazman6117 wrote:

Where is the Gem Setup in this guide?

Open the spoiler box in the first post. "I Accept 💀" -> EVERYTHING YOU NEED -> "Gem Links & Gear Examples".

---

@ BLVCKSHVDE:

"

BLVCKSHVDE wrote:

Is there another alternative to Charged Dash? I just dislike the skill completely.

That's covered in the Alternative Skills section of the FAQ.

"

BLVCKSHVDE wrote:

I prefer either Leap Slam or Flame Dash, but the latter doesn't proc Fortify. Is this part really integral for the build?

It's worth 25% more life, essentially. I would personally try to work it in, but it's up to you how tanky you want to be.

So long as you're using a channeled attack like Charged Dash or Blade Flurry, you can replace GMP on Ball Lightning with Fortify to keep it up constantly (like in my Red Elder video).

Or swap CWDT + Spirit Offering for Animated Guardian + Minion Life, and give him a Kingmaker for the Fortify aura.

"

BLVCKSHVDE wrote:

I actually have 3.6k life, not even 4k.

What is the bare minimum I should aim for, 6K?

Yes. You should be able to surpass 7k on this build. 200% life and 2000 flat life will net 6k. 220%/2200 will net 7k.

Passive Tree #1 has 221% life, without Belly of the Beast.

You currently have 142%/1662.

"

BLVCKSHVDE wrote:

I also am unsure what to abdicate to put in more Life nodes, kinda difficult for me right now since my resists. I'm capped for Fire and Cold resists, but Lightning is at 67% and I was thinking of putting some nodes in either the ones before and after Resourcefulness (left from where I had my Inspired Learning) which needs 3 points, or Survivalist (left from Acrobatics) which needs 2 points, unless I get a unset ring with resists, this is what I'll have to do.

You can take back the 3-point jewel sockets by Scion. That's 6 points. Since your belt gives DEX, you also don't need the 3-point DEX jewel socket in Shadow's area. Now you're up to 9 points.

For jewels, you don't need Brood Shard, Foul Stare, or Whispering Oculus.

You don't have a Hypnotic Jewel that gives flat Chaos Damage to Spells, and I don't see any other sources on your gear. Did you read "Item Requirements" under EVERYTHING YOU NEED in "I Accept"?

If you get a Hypnotic Jewel with Life and Lightning Resistance as well, you can replace Ancient Globe.

Your boots, gloves, and helm are where you want to look for more resistances. Once you solve that, you'll want two jewels with 10% minion resistances to cap your minions (55% -> 75%). They'll basically double Skeleton life against Shaper and Uber Elder, for instance. But right now you need to ensure your own survival.

"

BLVCKSHVDE wrote:

I mean monsters expanding into a red (blood color) ball and explodes with blood red splashes coming out. I have been seeing this loads on my Necro but rarely see them on my other builds.

Sounds like Bloodsoaked Fallen. These are Voll's soldiers who have a dripping blood visual effect applied to them. They occur in Blood Aqueduct and maps based on it. Have you been farming one of these?

When killed, a blood ball spawns and shortly explodes, releasing a nova of ~5 slow bloody blob projectiles that inflict Corrupting Blood if they hit you.

Your anti-bleed flask should counter it. Otherwise, you can try to get Corrupting Blood immunity as a corrupt implicit on your Unending Hunger jewel.

What makes these dangerous for you is your low life, which translates to low life regeneration. With more life these shouldn't be too dangerous anymore. In the meantime, you could use a Stone Golem for better life regen.

---

@ Bilenoire:

"

Bilenoire wrote:

Thanks for the great work on the build and its presentation. Today I fought the shaper, he defeated me but this is where I got him :



In this fight I died from 2 completely preventable death, and as you can see, not being used to trigger the balls that follow you far enough and quickly enough. I'm convinced I will kill him on the next try.

This was done at lvl91 with fairly good gear (none above 50c - belly of the beast 6L)

Good luck!

---

@ GingerBeast:

"

GingerBeast wrote:

Hey Herc,

I have killed Elder and Shaper now (both for the first time ever) and I have my Elder Orb.

Looking at all your supporter badges, for this to be your first time on both, that's quite significant! Congratulations!

You may have missed the EDIT in my earlier reply, but you're missing Chance to Bleed affix on your gloves. Meaning Bloodlust for Skeletons was never working. You beat both Shaper and Elder with only 63% of the total Skeleton DPS you could have had. =o)

"

GingerBeast wrote:

What Maps would be good for us to use this on? I am assuming we want something that is fairly open, but still quick to run. What is your recommendation?

I haven't looked into it since the reshuffle. Do you want XP or valuable drops?

For drops, investigating the maps that sell for the most is a good place to start. A high price might indicate either a high demand or low demand/low supply and thus no competition. So some digging is necessary.

For XP, here's a monster count by map:


Source

Desert Springs has a lot of great bonus monsters during the boss fight, but the boss itself is annoying with all its stages. You also want to be careful of increased monster AOE, as its burrowed tail slam gets ridiculous in that narrow corridor.

Moon Temple is good. It's wide open, has a solid mob count, and Charged Dash lets us easily jump across all the platforms. Easy boss.

Video: Top 10 - Maps with the highest mob count