[3.9] CI Golems (All Content Viable)
 Hello, Exiles! I'm on a quest to post each of the builds I actively play. Here we have a build that I've been lucky enough to play each league since 3.6, and I lucked into a piece of chest armour that made it a whole heckuva lot better, IMHO. In short, this is a Golems build that relies on Chaos Inoculation. It doesn't have insane amounts of Energy Shield, so don't get your hopes up you OG occultists. :p So without further ado! Path of Building Pastebin How this build works: Golems 101
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This build is pretty simple. Cast your golems, get your auras going, and run around while your golems kill stuff, trying not to die yourself. Occasionally cast Flesh Offering for a dps boost. Specifically, this build runs 8 golems: 4 of ice or flame, 1 of the other, 1 each of lightning, stone, and chaos.
Pros and Cons
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+All content viable
+Extremely customizable - there are lots choices to be made +Purely a "damage by proxy" build, if that is your thing +Chaos Inoculation is awesome if you can get it, and this build gets it +If you get the right chestpiece, you can swap between Ice and Flame golems -Not cheap if you go all in -Difficult as a league starter - In every league I've played it, it's been a secondary build -Can be difficult (in certain boss encounters) to control what your golems are attacking -If you prefer to be the direct source of damage, a Golem build is *not* for you Passive Skill Tree
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Ascendancies
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Witch, Elementalist, In order:
Liege of the Primordial Elemancer Paragon of Calamity Pendulum of Destruction or Shaper of Desolation. I prefer Pendulum because it gives me better coverage with my AoE. Shaper does *not* behave the way one might hope. It does not grant its ability to your minions, so it really is of limited usefulness. Bandits
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Kill all. No debate, you need those skilltree nodes.
Pantheon
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I'm a big fan of Lunaris and Garukhan here. Go with something you're comfortable with.
Fire or Ice
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The questions of flame golems or ice golems is one of preference, really. Flame golems have lower single target dps, but are ranged casters shooting ranged projetiles, hence can be supported by greater volley (my preference) or greater multiple projectiles. Ice golems have roughly 2.5 times the single target dps, but their AoE is much lower due to the fact that most of their damage is done via melee. Ice golems have a much harder gem profile to pull off (4 Red, 1 Green, 1 Blue) versus Flame Golems (4 Blue, 1 Green, 1 Red). Unless you get lucky with your Safehouse crafting (like I did) you're probably going to have to choose one or the other. I'll say generally that flame golems are better for clearing maps, and ice golems are better at boss fights. Actual mileage may vary.
Gems
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The exact combination of gems depends on whether or not your using flame golems (likely) or ice golems (harder to pull off).
Flame golem gems: 6L - Summon Flame Golem + Minion Damage + Spell Echo + Controlled Destruction + Concentrated Effect + Geater Volley OR Greater Multiple Projectiles 3L - Ice Golem + Minion Damage + Added Fire Damage 3L - Anger + Generosity, Flame Dash 4L (Hands) - Vaal Discipline + Blasphemy + Flammability + Enlighten 4L (Feet) - Inspiration + Increased Duration + Convocation + Flesh Offering 4L (Head) - Summon Chaos Golem + Summon Stone Golem + Summon Lightning Golem + Elemental Army Ice golem gems: 6L - Summon Ice Golem + Minion Damage + Melee Physical Damage + Fortify + Ruthless + Maim OR Empower 4 3L - Summon Flame Golem + Minion Damage + Greater Volley 3L - Hatred + Generosity, Flame Dash 4L (Hands) - Vaal Discipline + Blasphemy + Frostbite + Enlighten 4L (Feet) - Inspiration + Increased Duration + Convocation + Flesh Offering 4L (Head) - Summon Chaos Golem + Summon Stone Golem + Summon Lightning Golem + Elemental Army Auras
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L20 Vaal Discipline is necessary
Generosity + Hatred for ice golems, Generosity + Anger for flame golems Blasphemy + Frostbite for ice golems, Blasphemy + Flammability for flame golems Discipline + Hatred/Anger + Blasphemy = 120% reserved mana To get that number down to less than 100, we need the Sovereignty + reduced mana reservation nodes + enlighten L2 to get that number down to about 98%.(We need a little bit of mana for convocation, flesh offering, and flame dash) Enlighten L3 means you can free up 2 passive nodes for more ES. Map mods to avoid
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There are no map mods to explicitly avoid. But! Watch out for melee reflect if you're running ice golems, and elemental reflect if you're running flame golems. Those will eat through your golems like nobody's business. Also watch out for no mana regen. Replace your quicksilver flask with a mana flask if you run it, it shouldn't be a problem.
Items
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My Equipment
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Equipment Notes
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Technically, the only hard requirement are the 2 x Clayshapers.
If you want to run 4 x Ice Golems, gloves BiS is Grip of the Council. Budget waist is Bated Breath. Until a few leagues ago, this was clearly BiS. Still, not too shabby if you're not able to synthesize better. I'm convinced that Death's Door is BiS for feet. Solid ES, Bleed immunity (which is huge), decent movement, +All Resists, +Strength, no negative elemental statuses because you're a friggin' elemancer. There is literally nothing not to love about these shoes, other than the price. 2-3 Ex in league play is pretty standard. (The shoes give +1 Endurance charges, so you're competing with melee types as well) If you can't afford them, get shoes with great ES and strength that will help you max out your resistances (and run fast). On the helm, you'll want +level of socketed minion gems (get +3 if you can, +2 if you cannot). Rings / Amulet: These are a great source for resists. Anointed Amulet
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I chose Gravepact. For 2 black and an azure oil it seemed really good value. You can choose something else if you wish.
Flasks
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Quicksilver (Rotgut for me), Basalt, Jade, Granite, Quartz
Jewels
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1 x Anima Stone
1 x Primordial Might 4 x Primordial Eminence 5 x Primordial Harmony You'll probably want to fiddle with the Harmony to Eminence ratio to find what works best for you. In general, a good rule of thumb is this: Primordial Harmony = offense, Primordial Eminence = survivability. Primordial Eminence boosts the golem buffs and speeds up the attacks/casting of your golems as well. Zealot's Oath with 4 x Eminence and a Level 21 (+3) Stone Stone Golem provides upwards of 1000/sec ES recharge that is outside of the normal delayed ES recharge. Final Notes
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The quickest way to die is to outrun your golems. Make sure you keep cognizant of where they are, cast convocation in a pinch, and know you won't have time to cast it as maps get higher level. Mobs will eat through you like nobody's business. Another quick way to die is to get impatient against boss mobs and stop running around to hover your mouse over the boss to see how much life it has left. Stopping running while out in the open leaves you vulnerable, so be careful.
If you have suggestions and/or questions about this build, please post in the comments below. I'll try to respond to all. Last edited by AAAWalrus on Apr 1, 2020, 3:16:25 PM Last bumped on Jun 19, 2020, 9:36:01 AM
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hello, just would like to know what should i have for ES at lvl 92? ty
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I've got around 6200 at level 91 with Discipline. Which doesn't seem like much, until you realize I've got 45% physical damage reduction and 1100 ES regeneration (that's outside the normal recharge time). It can take a hit (or more with judicious use of Vaal Discipline and the "Gain ES on Focus" chest enchant.) Mind you don't take too many big hits, or your doing it wrong. :)
Look for a 3.10 update to this build soon! | |
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could u look at my gear and see what i need to improve. ty
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Sorry for the delay in updating the build for 3.10 . The cluster jewel market in Standard is still quite f*cked because the drop rate sucks compared to League play, and after having played this build for three leagues, I'm quite frankly tired of rolling new characters. So the focus of this build is in Standard rather than League. I have some ideas from what I've seen regarding cluster jewels, but I have been quite unable to bear them out (because I refuse to pay 80C for an ilvl 50 large cluster jewel.)
So for now, the build hasn't really changed from 3.9 so feel free to use the above guide, and tweak/experiment as necessary, and I will occasionally check back here. Laters! PS - I won't be providing specific analysis of individual characters. That requires too much time. What I *can* do is offer spot opinions and attempt to answer specific questions you might have. | |
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Hey, I was thinking what to play in 3.11 and golems seem to be on the "probably won't be nerfed" side, however I have a few questions.
You said flame golems can't run ele reflect, but doesn't Liege of the Primordial make them immune to all elemental damage? Shouldn't that make them immune to ele reflect? That's one reason I'm debating between phys golems vs ele golems. I like "can run all map mods" builds. Also are the golems interchangeable or do they require specific setup for each type of "main" golem? I know they rely on the same "golem" jewels but outside of that I have no idea, I never played a minion build at all. | |
" You'd think so. But remember it was in 3.8 (I think) that golementalists got a big buff with the "golem commander" node. They can easily take that sh*t away. " Indeed! I think this wasn't always the case, and I never paid that much attention to it. But good catch! | |
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One note here:
Since 3.8.0 golems are immune to elemental damage. Thus I do not think 'Elemental army' support gem in helmet is useful - resistances are useless, enemies resistances reduction also, as your main damage source is based on another type of damage from the golems in head. Thus I would expect meat shield, area of effect or blind support would be much more viable. Last edited by MustDy on Jun 19, 2020, 9:36:13 AM
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