[3.12] Cyclone CwC Skeleton Summoner of Max Block + 3 Offerings Variant

Introduction
My very first character was a Necromancer without using a build guide, it was squishy as hell and had only around 800 HP after reaching maps. It died a lot. After some more characters with different builds I started a new Necromancer for Metamorph that should be the opposite from my first attempt.
Now imagine a Summoner that won't stay behind the minions, instead cyclone in the middle of the mobs with bloodthirsty minions following and murdering everything on the way. This sounds a lot funnier then (de)buffing from the background, am I right?
The inspiration for this build guide comes from Steelmage.

Update 3.12
Another nerf for this build.

- Mistress of Sacrifice now causes your Offerings to have 50% reduced effect on you (from 25%).

To get again to 78% Blocking Chance use for example Rumi's Concoction


Update 3.11
Cyclone got nerfed and no longer provides stun immuntiy, so we need to adjust. With Unweavering Stance Keystone we have again stun immuntiy but at the cost of loosing 50% Evade through blinding enemies with flesh and stone. An alternative would be arctic armour

Cyclone
- No longer makes you immune to Stun while channelling.

Also Vaal molten shell got nerfed:

- Now grants 25 additional armour at gem level 1 (from 60), up to 429 additional armour at gem level 20 (from 1030).
- Now grants 20% more armour at gem level 1, up to 29% more armour at gem level 20.
- Now causes 30% of Damage taken from hits to be taken from the buff before your life or energy shield at gem level 1, up to 35% at gem level 20 (from 80% at all levels).
- The buff can now take Damage equal to 30% of your armour (from 60%), up to a maximum of 30000.
- Now reflects 300% of Damage taken from buff as Fire Damage each second or when the buff expires or is depleted at gem level 1 (from 100%), up to 9000% at gem level 20 (from 3000%).
- Now removes and is removed by any other Guard skill.

In the end the build is still more than viable and can carry you a long way into maps.


Update 3.10
Sadly we got a lot of nerf for this build:

- Bone Barrier no longer grants Elemental Resistances per minion. Increased Life and Energy Shield Recovery per minion is now 2% (from 3%), capping out at 20% (from 30%).

Summon Skeleton
- Damage dealt by minions at all gem levels has been lowered by approximately 40%. This change isn't visible on the gem as it is a property of the minion itself, and does not affect Skeleton Mages or any other non-basic Skeleton minions summoned by Vaal Summon Skeletons.
- The number of maximum summoned skeletons you can have at gem level 20 is now 7 (from 8).

Feeding Frenzy Support
- Now gives minions from supported skills 25% chance to grant Feeding Frenzy to you on hit at gem level 1, up to 44% at gem level 20 (previously 25% at all gem levels).
- No longer causes minions from supported skills to deal more damage while you have Feeding Frenzy.

In the end we still have a lot of survivability and it will just take a bit longer to kill robust stuff


Video Guide 3.9

https://youtu.be/a5HOxJhidN4


Build Assessment
Easy 90% Physical Damage Reduction with help of Granite Flask
78% Block Chance for Attacks
A lot of Elemental resistance without Items

Pros:
+ Strong defences (high HP, Armour, Blocking, life Regeneration and Recovery)
+ Great Boss Killer
+ Great Metamorph Killer
+ Great league starter with low budget for new player
+ Great for fresh and new exiles
+ Delve deep, delve far
+ Good Clear Speed

Cons
- Your minions do most of the work


Playstyle and build mechanics
We use Cyclone with cast-while-channelling-support to continuously cast Desecrate and bone-offering. So we can just spin around while we keep up bone-offering. With the Ascendancy Keystone Mistress of Sacrifice we also get the bonus of bone-offering which provides us with a lot of additional blocking chance (up to 26%).
With summon-holy-relic in our back we dish out a lot of nova damage which also heals us and the minions, what an evil holy relic this is.
We use raise-zombie as our meat shield to cover our back and use summon-skeletons in a 5-6L as our main damage dealer. For bosses we use vaal-summon-skeletons to keep the party going. While the skeletons murder the boss we circle around the boss to heal our minions with the holy relic nova. For metamorphs we keep a little more distance and kill the black stuff that is coming up around it.
For additional fun we can also add raise-spectre to increase the overall damage.


Passiv tree 3.11
Regarding the passiv tree we go west to increase our survivability by a lot.

Level 100 passiv skill tree: www.poeurl.com/cUAZ

Level 70 Skill tree: www.poeurl.com/cT7h


Gems




Ascendancy, Bandits and Pantheon
Ascendancy: -> Mistress of Sacrifice -> Mindless Aggression -> Bone Barrier -> Unnatural Strength or Commander of Darkness
Bandits: Kill all + 2 passive Points
Pantheon: Soul of Lunaris + Soul of Abberath


Gear


[/spoiler]

Which Spectre
Solar Guard: Solaris Temple Act 8
Slave Driver: Act 5


Jewels
No real recommendation but use Jewels that:

- Increase Minion Damage, Life, Resistance, Speed, Blocking chance
- Increase your own Life
- Increase Spell blocking Chance


Flasks
Craft or get flasks with Bleed, Freeze and Curse immunity, also Poison immunity is good.

Because we already have a lot of Survivability we don't need to play flask piano, but for dangerous opponents like Metamorph they will help.

For Max. Blocking Chance use Rumi's Concoction

Silverflask - Speed
Granite Flask - Additional Armour - with increased Armour during Flask effect craft
Basalt Flask - Additional Damage reduction
Quartz Flask - Additional Dodge Chance and Phasing
Life Flask with Bleed immunity

Anointment
For more Minion DPS

Ravenous Horde:
Opalescent Oil, Opalescent Oil, Verdant Oil



Edit:

OFFERING OVERCHARGE
A nice variation of this build is the use of Leash-of-Oblation, it enables you to use all 3 offerings at the same time. Also at the cost of 50% reduced duration and 25% reduced effect.

To use this change your 6-Link to the following setup:

cyclone 6-Link

cyclone
cast-while-channelling-support
desecrate
bone-offering
spirit-offering
flesh-offering

In normal operation mode you only get bone-offering from the desecrate corpses (just not enough corpses for the other offerings), but with the first kills you get the bonus for the other two offerings as well as all your minions. Therefore this is great for clear speed and bosses with companions.
The only downside is that you reduce the power of the skeletons and you sacrifice a bit of blocking chance (72% instead of 78%). But you get the buffs of all 3 offerings =)

Example Gear with 3 Offerings

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

Have fun trying it out.

Hi there,

Your build has been a lot of fun to use. But where do you get the dexterity to raise the cyclone gem?

I have plenty of strength and intel from the tree. The armor, jewelry suggestions made are life, resists and some of the pieces naturally have strength on them.

Being new to POE I've probably missed something or just don't know. Could you please suggest where I pickup Dexterity? or did you not raise cyclone?

Hopefully by raising cyclone it will give the umph needed for the boss runs

Thank you so much for sharing.

For this build cyclone deals very little damage so don't worry about the getting max level.
Cyclone is used to proc flesh offering/fortify/desecrate.
Cycloning makes you unstunnable.

"

Xyntress wrote:

Hi there,

Your build has been a lot of fun to use. But where do you get the dexterity to raise the cyclone gem?

I have plenty of strength and intel from the tree. The armor, jewelry suggestions made are life, resists and some of the pieces naturally have strength on them.

Being new to POE I've probably missed something or just don't know. Could you please suggest where I pickup Dexterity? or did you not raise cyclone?

Hopefully by raising cyclone it will give the umph needed for the boss runs

Thank you so much for sharing.

As mentioned before you don't need to raise Cyclone, it's for casting offerings and hitting to trigger holy relic.
You are the blocking master not the damage dealer ;)

Hello, I'm gonna start your build. I have a freezing pulse totem templar, but wanted to try something different. How far did you get with this build?

"

mmmariush wrote:

Hello, I'm gonna start your build. I have a freezing pulse totem templar, but wanted to try something different. How far did you get with this build?

I personally got only until Tier 10 Maps before Monster Hunter Iceborne came out, for now I'm swinging my Gunlance again ^^

But I didn't have any issues and with better Gear that increases your Minion Gem Level and overall Minion DPS you shouldn't have problems to do any content.

For example Steelmage has a similar Character with Level 100 in SSF HC.

Have fun

what anointment do you recommend for the build?

"

chri478n wrote:

what anointment do you recommend for the build?

Ravenous Horde was my choice

"

Obexlol wrote:

"

chri478n wrote:

what anointment do you recommend for the build?

Ravenous Horde was my choice

Dito, for more DPS Ravenous Horde is the best choice. I will add it to the guide.
I'm happy that my build is useful for you exiles.

Found this and it is trashing everyting while leveling (act 7-8). Worth stickign with or move back to 1hand & shield for more defense in late game? I even get the Cold damage bonus since I'm using Triad Grip gloves with 25% Phy to Cold conversion.