[3.14] VolaBomber | CwC - Volatile Dead Necromancer | All Content

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SiCH13 wrote:

INTRODUCTION

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Hello boys and girls!

This build is Necromancer variant of my Volatile Dead Chieftain character. I wanted to try same idea with Necro because of reworked ascendancy. This build turned up really well. I like this variation even more than original Chieftain.

My Chieftain build posted here:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2626591

OVERVIEW

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Pros:
+ Great single target
+ Great mapper
+ Great delver
+ All content doable
+ Fun to play

Cons:
- Might be hard to setup
- Need some item swaps for elemental reflect
- FPS drops

VIDEOS

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Elder fight (crafted shaper's CwC staff) | PoE 3.9 Metamorph
Detonate / Volatile Dead 4 Watchstones Veritania (2 rare daggers) | PoE 3.9 Metamorph

Videos from 3.8 Blight

| T16 Arcade (crafted rare Staff) | PoE 3.8 Blight
| Uber Atziri Full Run | PoE 3.8 Blight
| Full Shaper Run | PoE 3.8 Blight
| 7 Lane Blight Corrupted T16 | PoE 3.8 Blight
| T16 City Square using Detonate Dead | PoE 3.8 Blight
| Inpulsa Action in Delve 200+ (monster lvl 83) | PoE 3.8 Blight
| 9k EHP + MoM + Fortify in flask setup demo | PoE 3.8 Blight
| Soulwrest + Indigon 40% MoM inside corrupted T16 map | PoE 3.8 Blight

Leveling as Necromancer in 3.8

Necro VolaBomber | Leveling with Incinerate
Necro VolaBomber | Early mapping with Tabula
Necro VolaBomber | First working setup lvl 80

Chieftain videos from 3.7

T14 Wasteland full run | Legion SC
Shaper full run | Legion SC
Uber Atziri full run | Legion SC

BUILD IDEA / MECHANIC

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The idea is to cast Volatile Dead without any headake that comes with this skill. I mean we don't want to create corpses manually and we don't want to stand still while casting. So I choose Cyclone + Cast While Channeling combination to trigger Volatile Dead.

Next step is to give our character some kind of passive skill that creates corpses infinitely. We want to cast Volatile Dead in any situation (even in hideout). I decided to use CWDT setups to trigger Unearth and Desecrate. Last thing to do is to find the way to deal damage ourself constantly. I found 2 effective solutions.

Solution #1: Soulwrest (Don't try it if not sure)

1. We are consuming corpses by casting Volatile Dead.
2. Soulwrest keeps summoning phantasms until we have maximum amount of them.
3. After that on each new cast we will kill old phantasm and resummon new one.
4. Heartbound Loop will deal us 350 physical damage for each killed phantasm. It is more then enough to constantly trigger CWDT. But you need a lot of armour and at least 6k+ HP.

6l Soulwrest cost me around 50c in 3.7 so I used this combination from start of the Legion league until late endgame. I even killed Shaper and red Elder using Soulwrest. But damage output was not as great as I wanted it to be so I switched to "Solution #2".

Solution #2: Scold's Bridle (My personal favorite)

1. This helm and gloves make manacost of Cyclone extreamly high.
2. We are dealing phys damage to ourself and triggering CWDT.
3. We can use any weapon now, but I prefer Disintegrator because it deals damage to us aswell and it boosts our damage like no other weapon.

Note about main weapon

You can use any weapon with spell damage mods on it.

After 3.9 patch Disintegrator is expensive and rare. As alternative we can use Martyr of Innocence staff or two rare spell Daggers or whatever you want.

Ideally for endgame we need rare shaper Eclipse Staff with "supported by Cast While Channeling" mode.

For this setup we need a lot of mana regen. New Necromancer's Essence Glutton Acnedancy point gives us huge mana regen because we are consuming corpses all the time.

Mistress of Sacrifice ascendancy skill point allows us to use Offerings to buff our character. Spirit offering should mitigate all damage from Scold's Bridle because it instantly gives us up to 30% of our HP as extra ES. We just need enough HP (around 4-4,5k to start) because Spirit offering gives us amount of ES based on our maximum life.

If you want to use MoM here some items that helping us to sustain mana even better:

*Avoid all armour on tree and items to make this setup work effectively.

Fortify in flask Idea for Blight

I've been testing new funny setup. It's caled "Fortify in a flask 9k EHP MoM volatile dead Necro tank" lul. Basicly I annointed Hardened Scars point which gives me Fortify during effect of life flask. For that point I crafted Foreboding Hybrid Flask which works even if we on full life. That means we can have fortify buff whenever we want by the press of the button.

Here is video demonstration:
https://youtu.be/JnPpUccg9aA

Right now this thing is blight specific mechanic.

Solution #3: Soulwrest Indigon 40% MoM

Items + Gems

Basically this is combination of both my standart variants, but this one should be a bit tankier.

I saw main mechanic in the Akane's video. Take a look at his demonstration of The Agnostic + Indigon + Enduring Mana Flask setup: https://youtu.be/2hoqHFR93iw

Basically we are using Militant Faith unique jewel wich gives us The Agnostic skill point. The Agnostic gives us interesting skill:

- While not on Full Life, Sacrifice 20% of Mana per Second to Recover that much Life

With Enduring Mana Flask, Indigon and Cloak of Defiance we can maintain almost full life and mana all the time while spinning.

Level 95 passive tree

I'm not using Spirit Offering in this setup because it kills my character so I changed Mistress of Sacrifice for Commander of Darkness ascendancy point.

My personal favorite setup is #2 so I will mostly talk about that variant of the build

SKILL TREE

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Level 40

Level 70

Level 90

Level 100

PoB Pastebin code for 3.9.1
PoB Pastebin code for 3.9
PoB Pastebin code for 3.8
PoB Pastebin code for Chieftain variant

Bandits: Kill All

Pantheon:
- Major: Arakaali (Stun Immune) or Brine King (DoT mitigation)
- Minor: Shakari (DoT mitigation) or Yugul (Elemental reflect immune setup).

Ascendancy:
Essence Glutton -> Plaguebringer -> Mistress of Sacrifice -> Corpse Pact.

Actually for leveling I took Commander of Darknes first because Necro is my league starter and I needed additional resists. When I had all mandatory Items I just removed it.

GEAR

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My current gear in Metamorph

My final gear in Blight

My final gear in Legion as Chieftain

GEMS AND LINKS

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Main damage setup:
1. Cyclone / Incinerate
2. Cast while Channelling / Awakened CwC
3. Volatile Dead
4. Spell Cascade / Awakened Spell Cascade
5. Concentrated Effect
6. Elemental Focus / Energy leech / Fire Penetration / Combustion
For Shaper's CwC staff:
7. Hypothermia

CWDT #1:
1. Cast when Damage Taken | lvl 1
2. Unearth | lvl 8
3. Greater Multiple Projectiles
4. Greater Volley

CWDT #2:
1. Cast when Damage Taken | lvl 1
2. Assassin's Mark | lvl 5
3. Desecrate | lvl 7
4. Spell Cascade

CWDT #3:
1. Cast when Damage Taken | lvl 1
2. Wave of Conviction | lvl 7
3. Spirit Offering | lvl 8

Mobility:
1. Flame Dash
2. Arcane Surge | lvl {7 - 12}

Auras:
1. Zealotry / Anger
2. Herald of Ash
3. Clarity

Optional Gems:
1. Summon Ice Golem
2. Vaal Righteous Fire

DPS CALCULATIONS

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PoB says that with Disintegrator 1 ball deals ~ 522 000 damage. We have 6 balls per 1 Volatile Dead cast. We cast Volatile Dead each 0,35 seconds (2,86 casts per second).

522 000 * 6 * 2.86 = 8 957 520 dps
Cyclone itself deals 127 389 dps

So in total we are dealing around 9 million dps against mobs and 5.5 million dps against Shaper. The damage is actually INSANE. Most of the time we will have a lot more balls before boss spawned, which means we can deal huge burst damage and almost oneshoot every boss in the game. And I still have a lot of things to improve. Crafted Shaper's Staff with CwC mod on it can boost ball damage up to 800k and total dps gonna be around 14 mill.

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Q&A

About Sustaining mana

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SiCH13 wrote:

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KleeziE wrote:

Having a hard time sustaining w/ mana... even with Atziri's Foible

With your posted current gear, are you able to sustain it because its only a 4L? How do you plan on sustaining a 6L? It that just the min-maxing enchants etc?

Just feel like im missing something or I just need to constantly spam mana pots :(

I'm sustaining mana on both characters (Necro and Chieftain) with 6L setup even in my hideout. But for Chieftain it's a bit trickier to sustain mana than for Necro.

1. Use high level clarity
2. Try to find watcher's eye with clarity mod on it. Like this one:

3. Invest some skill points on tree to Mana regeneration rate.
4. Craft Betrayal master mod "Damage taken gained as mana" on your rare rings and amulet. If you haven't unlocked one, there are a lot of crafting services. Here is my collection:

5. Use Praxis or Victario's Flight. They are super cheap.

Proof of concept and items showcase for both character:
Volatile Dead Chieftain | Showcase and Spinning in HO
Volatile Dead Necromancer | Showcase and Spinning in HO

About budget gear

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SiCH13 wrote:

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Tupactheon wrote:

any budget gear to start with? i mean soulwrest is 2,2exp right now.

I know dude. For some reason in this league Soulwrest is insanely expensive. I bought 2 6-linked soulwrests in 3.7 for about 50c each. That's why it was so easy to start.

In 3.8 I farmed Blood Aqueduct using Incinerate-CwC-VD-Concentrated-Combustion for Tabula rasa divination cards because we need any 6-link to start. After I discovered that can't afford Soulwrest I started to farm Jungle Valley map for 5-linked staff divination cards. My gem setup for Tabula was:

Cyclone - CwC - VD - Desecrate - Spell Cascade - Concentrated

It was enough for early mapping. Then lucky exalted orb dropped and I bought Disintegrator because it was much cheaper than Soulwrest and much better in terms of dps. After I bought Scold's for 8c and Doedre's for 10c and build started to work properly.

Total cost: 1 lucky Exalt + 18c

About Necro over Chieftain

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JermStudDog wrote:

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BigGrizzlyD wrote:

The original build does look sweet, but im curious what exactly does necro provide compared to chief?

Pros on Necro over Chieftain:

Better Positioning on the Passive Tree - Witch is right in the middle of where this build wants to be on the tree, you end up with something like 20 passive points that are more flexible than if you are running a marauder, this results in more optimized passives and more power at the end-game as a result.

Easier leveling experience - start with incinerate, add CwC + VD when you get the gems. That takes you all the way into maps with a pain-free experience.

Easier transition into the build - Once you have Essence Glutton + any 5 link, you can set up Cyclone + CwC + VD + Spell Cascade + Desecrate and transition into a weaker version of this build. Add in Doedre's Malevolence + Mistress of Sacrifice and you can transition into the full build easily and painlessly.

Stronger Defense - I have accidentally powered through 20+ Corrupted Blood stacks without even noticing, the free ES generated from Spirit Offering is insane for tanking.

Flexibility - I have recently been experimenting with Flesh Offering for white maps and it works extremely well. With a single gem swap, we can gain 17% movement speed at the cost of survivability, that's something chieftain doesn't have the option of doing.

Easier Mana Management - Because your mana concerns are taken care of by the ascendancy class alone, you are free to invest your $$$ into survivability and damage, meaning your character gains more raw power at a fraction of the cost.

The benefits of Chieftain are basically all damage-related, he does a TON of damage once you get him set up, but Necromancer has competing damage as well. Free 20% bonus damage from Shock on Corpse Pact, 15% bonus chaos damage from Spirit Offering, 10% more bonus damage Plaguebringer, and the passive minion damage bonuses from the passive tree and your ascendancy points once you pick up Spiritual Aid. Her damage package isn't quite as good as Chieftains, but it is a real package and leaves little room for Chieftain to truly be the better class in comparison.

About MoM

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SiCH13 wrote:

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AisaHimegami wrote:

btw i feel like MoM is kinda wasted, as we nearly reserve all our mana anyway or?

My Necro gaining 28% of incoming damage as mana (20% from Watcher's eye + 8% from Battle Rouse passive skill). That means I can use MoM almost for free. With master crafted mod on amulet and rings it's possible to have up to 46%.

You can easily skip MoM if you can't sustain mana effectively. I personaly don't have any problems with mana even in maps with no mana regen. The only massive problem for MoM characters is DoT.

UPD: Do not recommend to use MoM for Chieftains).

About items slot by slot

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AisaHimegami wrote:

I will try to give you my opinion, although it might differ from OPs :)

Chest:

Pure damagewise, there should be nothing beating out a Shaper Occultists Vestment with "Spells have 1.x% to critical strike chance" (The tier1 mod and the higher u go to 1.5% the better). If you are lucky and get some nice Resistance ontop of that, you can look for more dmg on other stuff, like amulets or belts.

Looking at Uniques there is no right or wrong as it comes down to preference.

Inpulsas: offer u good chunk of HP, even more AOE due to the explosions, aswell as shock immunity and a good dmg boost when u shocked an enemy recently. Im not to familiar but the inc shock effect should also provide some more dps gain, although i am not sure how much.

Carcas Jack: again offer you a good chunk of hp, the inc dmg should end up a bit lower than that of an inpulsa, but is also gives u some all-resistance which can help to free up a jewel for example.

Infernal Mantle: No Life, but a good chunk of energy shield. If u run anger instead of zealotry in your chest and stick with the CWC staff it could be an upgrade, but be aware, we reserve so much mana that you would constantly be taking the "25% increased spell damage taken"

Boots:

I think the stampede boots are only good when using the "Disintegrator" staff and having to flame dash super often to keep the siphoning charges up. A good pair for rare boots with Resist, Life and MS offer more utility and defensive traits.

Ring:

2x Circle of anguish again beats out MotS+Elder ring damagae wise and thats only with the Buff effect increase. If you would get Buff effect and fire damage this dmg gap would only increase (please note that they are rather expensive if u go for both mods).

MotS + Elder allows you to get some more resistances via the elder ring if u are struggling to cap urs and it also allows u to pick up some more health if u feel that u are on the low end of hp.

Amulet:

With 2x Circle of anguish we already have tons of fire resistance and need to try and get some lightning/cold resis, so i think a rare amulett should be better, as it will help you to resistance cap easier. Also Using an impresence would mean we had to drop Assasins mark and use flammability + blasphemy, so we cannot generate power charges and also loose the life + mana on kill from Assasins mark.

Please note that you could potentially pick up the Whispers of doom note in the skill tree. That would allow you to apply 2 curses, so you could use assasins mark and flammibility, but we do not have the sockets for that. So you would probably have to drop ice golem and place flammibility into the spirit offering CWDT setup (CWDT-Spirit Offering-Assasins Mark- Flammability).
This would also mean that again the impresence would be rather useless, cuz we would not benefit from the mana reduction.

Belt:

Biscos for magic find, e.g. when spamming T4 burial chambers. a good rare belt (pref. stygian vise) for everything else. Belt should have Life and resists as you need them. If u are decent on resistances you can go and try to fossil craft a stygian vise using: "Prismatic", "Pristine", "Scorched" fossils in a 3 socket resonator. With decent luck u can get a stygian vise with Life, some fire + lightning resistance, Ele dmg and fire dmg, this would be another boost for our dps.

I hope this was indepth enough. As i said at the start this is only my opinion after playing this build up to lvl 92. Im still working on my version, but sich13 will probably agree with the points i made :D

About crafted rare CwC staff

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SiCH13 wrote:

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evilrulz37 wrote:

Truly loving this build.

Just got my hands on a CWC staff, wondering what crafts are optimal on it?

I found few great staffs in the league. I'll give some mods here so you can simply copy it and paste into your PoB to test.

Demon Call

This staff is actually one that I'm using now. Don't forget to check "you are focused" in PoB's configuration.


Rarity: RARE
Demon Call
Eclipse Staff
Unique ID: 2c5d7b69897c920f05d9f478e4136c454853512c9c2cecbe12ec449c0ef21935
Shaper Item
Item Level: 77
Quality: 30
Sockets: G-B-G-W-W-B
LevelReq: 70
Implicits: 1
100% increased Global Critical Strike Chance
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Cast While Channelling
20% increased Attack Speed
20% chance to deal Double Damage
{crafted}Can have multiple Crafted Modifiers
{crafted}68% increased Spell Damage
{crafted}Adds 43 to 95 Fire Damage to Spells
{crafted}29% chance to deal Double Damage while Focussed
{crafted}Gain 7% of Non-Chaos Damage as extra Chaos Damage

Armageddon Call

Rarity: RARE
Armageddon Call
Eclipse Staff
Shaper Item
Item Level: 85
Quality: 20
Sockets: B-B-B-W-W-B
LevelReq: 70
Implicits: 1
100% increased Global Critical Strike Chance
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Cast While Channelling
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 16 Power Charge On Critical Strike
69% increased Spell Damage
{crafted}Can have multiple Crafted Modifiers
{crafted}Adds 50 to 83 Fire Damage to Spells
{crafted}28% increased Cast Speed
{crafted}9% chance to deal Double Damage
{crafted}{range:0.5}(67-75)% increased Spell Damage
{crafted}{range:0.5}Gain (7-8)% of Non-Chaos Damage as extra Chaos Damage

Dread Call

Rarity: RARE
Dread Call
Eclipse Staff
Shaper Item
Item Level: 80
Quality: 20
Sockets: B-B-B-G-B-G
LevelReq: 70
Implicits: 1
100% increased Global Critical Strike Chance
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Cast While Channelling
Adds 51 to 99 Fire Damage to Spells
19% increased Attack Speed
20% chance to deal Double Damage
{crafted}Can have multiple Crafted Modifiers
{crafted}70% increased Spell Damage
{crafted}10% chance to deal Double Damage
{crafted}Gain 8% of Non-Chaos Damage as extra Chaos Damage

Entropy Mast

Rarity: RARE
Entropy Mast
Eclipse Staff
Shaper Item
Item Level: 80
Quality: 20
Sockets: B B R-B
LevelReq: 70
Implicits: 1
100% increased Global Critical Strike Chance
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Cast While Channelling
17% increased Attack Speed
20% chance to deal Double Damage
{crafted}Can have multiple Crafted Modifiers
{crafted}{range:1}(67-75)% increased Spell Damage
{crafted}{range:0.134}Gain (7-8)% of Non-Chaos Damage as extra Chaos Damage
{crafted}{range:0.5}Adds (41-55) to (83-96) Fire Damage to Spells
{crafted}{range:0.5}(76-105)% increased Critical Strike Chance for Spells

About movement speed

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SiCH13 wrote:

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xenochaos1 wrote:

how would you guys modify the build to give it more speed?

and how much movement speed do I need to beat the stampede boot?

tankiness and DPS of his build is AWESOME but it feel so slow compared to my deadeye or pathfinder

so i want to find a way to make this build maybe a bit less DPS but a lot faster

I think this build can't be as fast as deadeye or pathfinder). But you can try some thing.

1. Take few more nodes with movement speed on tree.
For example: Precision, Nimbleness, Fangs of the viper
2. You can annoint Art of Lynx skill point or Quickstep or Avatar of the Hunt.
3. Find boots with great ms roll on them. Like this ones:

4. Try Bisco's belt with Rampage. That give you a bit more speed:

The Retch belt is great alternative too.
5. Cinderswallow have great modifier that gives movement speed:

About weapon alternatives after 3.9 patch

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SiCH13 wrote:

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Daiug wrote:

Any suggestions for what weapons to use till a crafted CWC Staff? Martyr costs far too much for a stepping stone atm.

Try to find 2 spell daggers on market.
The best option looks like this:

Platinum Kris
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50% increased Global Critical Strike Chance
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118% increased Spell Damage
109% increased Critical Strike Chance for Spells
+38% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier
+45 to maximum Mana
+1 to Level of all Spell Skill Gems


Daggers with this mods should be almost as great as crafted CWC staff.

Soulwrest staff is a nice option. And it costs only 10c now.
Also you can use Doryani's Catalyst or Divinarius in both hands.

Any item that have increased spell/fire damage, added spell/fire damage, spell/global crit strike chance and crit multi should work.

About Gryph's build variant

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SiCH13 wrote:

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xenochaos1 wrote:

is there a difference between your build and this build?:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2629311

I designed my build in 3.6, played it in 3.7 as Chieftain and in 3.8 as Necromancer. Last time I saw Gryph's build he played selfcast Volatile Dead. Now I see that he switched to CwC and there are probably some similarities.

My original guide have been posted september 1st. Nothing actually changed since then. And I don't know either he used some of my ideas or not. I spended almost 6 months to test and balance all the things and make all my setups work properly.

So you ask about differences. I don't really care about differences. It's my build. I was having fun with it so many months and wanted to share it with community. And I don't have much time to investigate either Gryph wrote different build guide or not. Sorry

About new Thread of Hope jewels

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SiCH13 wrote:

I'm using two Thread of Hope unique jewels in jewel sockets on left and top of the tree. This jewels allow me to allocate some passive points in radius without being connected to the tree. So I allocated Spititual Aid, Counterweight, Heart of Flame and Amplify without spending 16! skill points on passing nodes. And this is actually huge.

If you want to use these jewels make sure you are buying one with Large Ring for socket on the left and one with Very Large Ring for socket on the top.

Updates:
[3.8] Buffed - YAY! Desecrate now have no cooldown. More corpses = more damage.
[3.8.1] Fix - Fixed a bug introduced in 3.8.0 where Volatile Dead's targeting was very indecisive.
[3.9] Nerf/Buff - YAY! We are safe. Volatile Dead now has a limit of 60 Orbs which is fair change. Introduced Awakened versions of Spell Cascade and Cast While Channeling support gems.