💀3.15💀 iLL3aT’s Cold Skeleton Warriors/Archers/Mages ❆ League Starter ❆ All Content ❆

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Xierg wrote:

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sKillmaTic wrote:

@iLL3aT

Changed pathing to save 1 point in soul of steel tree, it was a level 99 build.

https://pastebin.com/y8wfVCEP

sKillmaTic how is this better than the standard 3.10? For a total noob, is it ok to start with this build as a league starter?

It's easier to start with, you can level with decent armor and vaal molten shell, my tree is a little more defensive so probably better for new players.

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sKillmaTic wrote:

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Xierg wrote:

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sKillmaTic wrote:

@iLL3aT

Changed pathing to save 1 point in soul of steel tree, it was a level 99 build.

https://pastebin.com/y8wfVCEP

sKillmaTic how is this better than the standard 3.10? For a total noob, is it ok to start with this build as a league starter?

It's easier to start with, you can level with decent armor and vaal molten shell, my tree is a little more defensive so probably better for new players.

Thank you, starting with your build for sure. Why Vaal molten shell over normal molten shell?

Also no Commander of Darkness, OP mentioned he was going to use that. Sorry for the questions :)

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Xierg wrote:

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sKillmaTic wrote:

@iLL3aT

Changed pathing to save 1 point in soul of steel tree, it was a level 99 build.

https://pastebin.com/y8wfVCEP

sKillmaTic how is this better than the standard 3.10? For a total noob, is it ok to start with this build as a league starter?

You're near immortal during vaal molten shell duration

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sKillmaTic wrote:

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Xierg wrote:

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sKillmaTic wrote:

@iLL3aT

Changed pathing to save 1 point in soul of steel tree, it was a level 99 build.

https://pastebin.com/y8wfVCEP

sKillmaTic how is this better than the standard 3.10? For a total noob, is it ok to start with this build as a league starter?

You're near immortal during vaal molten shell duration

That is a good reason :)

Just to be clear , is a 4 blue triad grip variant stronger than physical skellies? i was wondering if i should run 4 blue until ihave enough chromes to make it a 4 green gloves( now i see that it is 4 off color).
And would you suggest getting the 4-green asap or focus on other items before i start rolling it?

@iLL3at I personally ran my build last league with less emphasis on the actual skellies and more on QoL basically everywhere else. There are a couple differences:

1. socket the skellies in my helmet, rather than somewhere else. With an elder helmet you can get +3 minion level and supported by level 20 minion damage for a pseudo 6-link, effectively freeing up 2 extra sockets in exchange for ~30% of my damage.

2. Hungry loop zombies. Since for regular mapping minion damage really isn't the priority, I made my own hungry loop, giving me a 5L for my zombies. As a result, I don't really have to summon minions for map clearing AND I get to stack half-damage half-utility gems which also boost damage. My current hungry loop has:
-feeding frenzy (10% more damage for skellies AND better behaving zombies)
-Elemental army (still 28% more damage for my zombies, and 10% exposure on any enemy that survives the first hit. This makes Frost bomb less big a deal to land perfectly)
-ruthless (spikes in damage should apply freeze more effectively)
-elemental damage with attacks (best extra damage)
You can also experiment with meat shield for taunt, maim for phys minions, and even elemental proliferation if you really don't care about their output.

3. I never gave up Jinxed Juju amulet. It reduced damage taken from hits by 10% (and gives it so spectres), which in and of itself is so strong. It's effectively a 11% more life mod. On top of this, a well-rolled jinxed juju gives 15% increased effect of curses and 15% increased effect of auras. In total, the damage gain is comparable to a global +1 int skill gem level. Good defense, good damage, and dirt cheap, so I decided to call it a day with that.

As a result of all of this, I am not socket starved and have a chest to mess around with, but also am very res starved. Last league I had something like 30 res from the passive tree, 30 from bone barrier, 24 from spirit offering, and I still barely capped.

The build I'm planning right now basically uses Victario's influence for a free awakened generosity, extra aura effect, and reduced mana reservation to just go crazy with aura's. I also tried to 6L curse on hit but that turned out to suck against bosses pretty bad.

In total I have something like ~66% increased aura effect from the tree & gear, which you can just push beyond the 67% threshold with conqueror's potency.

As for icicle mines & new elemental ailments: Hate to disappoint you but using ice damage for brittle breaks EE and will absolutely kill your build. You can use the three dragons to get brittle from stormblast mine, but all that would do is boost the damage you get from crits by 15%. Scorch (if it works) can give up to -30% res, which improves overall damage including crits. Similarly, the 10% increased crit chance per icicle mine is just outshined by 3% increased damage taken from stormblast mine. It's probably a better idea to run assassin's mark with scorch than it is to run EW with brittle.

One last thing I found which is even more broken: You can turn any spell into a mine with high-impact mine support. These mines give 2% chance for double damage, as opposed to 3% increased damage. Less of an effect, but since we have more "increased damage taken" from other places the increased evens out. You can still reach ~57 chance for double damage at 50% aura effect, for a total 54% damage increase. The finisher, however, is that you can use basically any spell/wand attack you want to use (frost bomb doesn't work because of the cooldown). How about Purifying Flame, a skill with great AoE which grants consecrated ground and a "Consecrated Ground from Purifying Flame applies 9% increased Damage taken to Enemies" helmet enchant?

As for the threshold, self-applied ailments will probably be much easier to apply than one would expect. I assume that they'll take the same formula from the reworked chill & shock ailments, which is this formula:


Where E is the ailment effect, D is your damage, T is the threshold, and M the increased effect multiplier. You need at least 5% effect for chill and/or shock to apply. To reach this with no ailment multiplier, each hit only needs to do 0.3% of the ailment threshold. A 21/20 stormblast mine, however, already has 50% increased effect of shock (see if this also works with other ailments). With this added multiplier, each hit only needs to do 0.11% of the ailment threshold. Since the enemy has increased res from EE, the damage will probably be kinda lackluster, but you really don't need very high damage to apply ailments anymore.

This is a lot of text, and I spent way more time on this than I should have.

@itaizilca you can get decently far qua damage by just scaling physical damage. Dread banner, pride, and Flesh & Stone together work quite well. Maybe not quite as well as cold damage, but definitely better than lightning damage. You can get the gloves using vorici trick:
1.craft a triad grip with just two sockets, both of which are green.
2.craft the gloves to have 3 sockets. It will add a socket of random color (10% chance it's green) and leave the other two untouched.
3.If not green, craft two sockets. This will remove the un-green socket and leave the green ones untouched.
4.Repeat steps 2-3 until you have gloves with 3 green sockets.
5. Craft gloves with 4 sockets.
6. If the last socket is not green, craft for 3 sockets.
7. Repeat steps 5-6 until you have 4 green sockets.

Steps 2-3 cost 4 jeweller's orbs per attempt, and steps 5-6 cost 13 jeweller's orbs per attempt. You need the crafting recipes from delve (just go to any azurite spot, takes like 5 mins). What I did last league was just buy triad grip early on, keep playing as a phys necro, and sink all my jeweller's orbs I got from mapping into attempts. Once you have the gloves, just make the switch.

For you folks that understand the game mechanics better than I do: is there any reason not to consider Skeletal Atrophy x3 while running Despair, Wither, etc instead of the Triad grips?

I am tempted to use this build as my main build in 3.10, probably gear will be cheaper because a lot of players will try other builds.

Good luck all !

@wereodiles - I'm curious too. I'm playing with a crit option, but am not 100% sold yet.

@K4P0T - RNG unfortunately. I made one in like 100 chromes + vaals (coloring a corrupted one), and another in closer to 500 (it kept failing on the 3 to 4).

@Xierg - Either or. The old tree was what I used in the prior league to great success. I'm trying out sKillmaTic's because I like it, and I like change and
experimentation. Neither tree is the final tree though, since the final one will have cluster jewels. I'd still use a Doryani over divine flesh though - divine flesh is great, but getting that much chaos res it very hard.

Vaal summon skellies comes with normal summon skellies as well. Two skills for the price of one jewel socket =)

Commander of darkness would just be a starter for me. The hardest part of early league for me is usually capping resistances (I usually don't trade the first few days of league except to convert to exalts) which was why old bone barrier was so good.

@Vulgarny - Devouring Diadem would be a great aura holder. I think it'd depend on how you view AG in general - guess him and friends would go into boots with empower and minion life maybe.

@sKillmaTic - Thanks for that! I had never clicked on the levels of the monsters and had dismissed him as bad after seeing -20%. Probably worth dropping a chieftain for one since that's -13-14% cold resistance on bosses (40 * 0.34). Good catch! The downside is that the cooldown is ten seconds and uptime six.

@itaizilca - Phys might be better than lightning. It's actually pretty close to cold's damage but both have their strengths and weaknesses. Elemental takes an extra cast for EE/exposure, but phys' aura is pride...which is dangerous to use and not worth scaling. Phys is strong pretty much because impale is ridiculously overpowered (and even more so with the new minion node).

@dj - Your insights are always super insightful. We don't agree on everything, but there is no progress without discussion and different viewpoints!

Interesting variant for sure. Compared to a +2 chest (hard to get I know), helm skellies is pretty much a 5 link +5% more dmg/5% life - essentially down a full link, which is ~50%.

Hungry loop is awesome. Never played with it much since I wanted to min/max skellie damage, but I see it used in a pile of minion builds to great effect.

I think the main advantage of jinxed is the cost, since then you can mass corrupt them for +1 curse. I still prefer the gem level stacking personally, but it's an option for sure.

Icicle mines - I use avatar of fire remember, so it would be doing fire damage and not breaking EE. I tested it last night in the blood aquaducts. I'll play more with mines more a few weeks in. Do remember that a 5% brittle/scourched is only -1.5% elemental resistances and +0.75 base crit (which is pretty much assassin's mark on bosses, funny enough). Definitely worth playing with further.

High impact mine - another brilliant idea. This one is probably the best option since one minefield support worth of mines is 10% DD, or ~9.5% more damage assuming just gravepact. Since up to 19 is possible, this is a LOT of damage at the cost of three linked sockets. Purifying flame is promising

@Malbidion - three skeletal atrophies will be near impossible. I think two large cluster jewels is the max due to limitations to the tree and available passive points. Chaos also does not scale as well as cold or phys due to not having an aura (pride/hatred) and instead having to either use the inferior haste, or a combination of aspect of the spider, despair, and skitterbots (without bonechill).

@_MrL_ Good luck as well!