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

There is a leveling section in the guide that is super indepth
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iLL3aT wrote:
Patch notes are out! https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2873739

Good news for me - updating the guide for 3.11 will be really easy since there are barely any changes. The relevant ones to us summarized:

Buff:
Enduring Cry
•Now taunts all nearby enemies to attack the user, and grants endurance charges. Gives a brief burst of life regeneration, as well as a buff which grants resistances and physical damage reduction based on your endurance charges.
•Now has a base duration of 2 seconds.
•Now grants 1 endurance charge per 5 power, with a minium of 1 charge.
•Buff grants +2% to all resistances and 2% additional Physical Damage reduction per endurance charge.
•Now causes you to regenerate 120 life over 1 second at gem level 1, up to 1976 at gem level 20.

Nerf:
Vaal Molten Shell
•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.

Conclusion: Drop VMS, pick up enduring cry (instant 3 endurance charges vs bosses, with a bonus 6% phys damage reduction), and insane life regen per second. This actually shores up one of our biggest weaknesses (recovery). The downside of course, is no more "invincibility" from VMS - bone barrier may have to be the pick again.

Cluster Jewel nerfs:

Vicious Bite
Minions have 50% increased Critical Strike Chance
Minions have +20% to Critical Strike Multiplier (from 50%)

Precise Commander
You and nearby Allies have 30% increased Critical Strike Chance (from 50%)
You and nearby Allies have +12% to Critical Strike Multiplier (from 15%)

Conclusion: Crit is probably not worth it now, but we'll see. I'll have to do some math, but this was a brutal nerf.

Other than that, not much really. Rallying cry had some potential, but it's really bad for this build since our weapons are convoking wands, which don't have much attack.

The crafting options are cool. Crafting good convoking wands will be much easier presumably.



So I saw this build and was curious. Loaded up the PoB with the updated nodes. With a level 23 Summon Skeleton and no Animate Guardian to kind of simulate a fresh character with a level 21/0 Summon Skeletons and +2 from Necro. You're still at 1.1m sDPS with one cluster jewel set up. 680k sDPS with no cluster jewel or thread of hope. I'm assuming that's per skellie. So that's still really good. Shouldn't have to change much to still be really strong.

Got nerfed a little bit yeah. But the build still seems to perform well.
Last edited by SparkleMotion on Jun 17, 2020, 8:31:16 PM
@rozbojnik_alibaba - I don't put levelling trees in my PoB since I change PoBs so often whenever I update stuff. Instead, I've included some trees under the levelling section since then I don't have to update those (or only have to make minor changes)

@Wythe16 - Check out 8(6) for the theoretical maximum damage for skeletons, though those are 3.10 numbers. I haven't played with the PoB for sentries, but did play with them last league and they are very strong and both could kill Sirus/Kosis, etc. just fine. I did play skeletons + sentries for most of the league for extra clear/fun though.

@SRKslash - I wasn't too concerned with the taunt, since other non-minion characters pretty much have taunt 100% of the time by being the only enemy around. On major bosses, you essentially have taunt anyways. You do have a ton of minions that should be taunting on hit with a ghastly jewel. I think this one is a play with the skill then decide one, but it sounds too good to skip so far.

@Cruxxxy - Act 1 tends to be rough since zombies suck until you can get skeletons, but it's okay for levelling from there on. Once you can add on slave drivers in act 5, the campaign is super easy.

@SparkleMotion - The nerf happens at the top ends, the lower end/league starters will not feel it, since those variants do not involve cluster jewels. The damage is respectable and the playstyle good for early game bossing.
3.15 ❆ Cold Skeletons guide: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2774965
@iLL3at

I see what you mean. I was looking at doing just a one cluster jewel set version so I would only have lost a little bit of DPS.
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SparkleMotion wrote:
@iLL3at

I see what you mean. I was looking at doing just a one cluster jewel set version so I would only have lost a little bit of DPS.


Sounds good! It looks like the one cluster version is largely unchanged for now (might rejigg the tree) outside of swapping VMS for either steel skin or enduring cry.
3.15 ❆ Cold Skeletons guide: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2774965
Do you think this build will still be viable for doing endgame content (ex: shaper, elder, A8 sirus, etc.)? I was really looking forward to league starting with this build and carrying it to end game and investing in it but after the Vicious Bite nerf, I just wanted to hear your opinion.

Awesome build guide as well. Made it very easy for me to understand everything I need to know about it. Keep up the wonderful work.
Last edited by Shearer0120 on Jun 18, 2020, 1:00:34 PM
Gonna try playing around with a more defensive version. With dropping one wand for a shield and picking up glancing blows and using bone offering for high block chance. A good high armour shield with decent block chance and life with enduring cry might make for a pretty tanky build.

Not doing this because I play HC but because I like to not think on my boss killers.

If I can keep my skellies at least 700kish sDPS I'll be more than happy. It shouldn't be hard to achieve.
For the level guide on ACT 1. I don't understand where Blastchain Mine Support could be used.
Thanks for the response. I guess we will have to test it and see I was looking up taunt on the wiki and it says : When multiple players are taunting the same enemy, the first person to taunt takes aggro. The targeted player can maintain aggro indefinitely as long as it maintains its taunt on the target. Taunt immediately expires when the character that applied it dies.

Also from the 2.3 Manifesto: Enemies you Taunt deal 10% less damage to targets that aren't you (including in PVP). Your Taunt effects can't be overwritten by other taunt effects. You can replace your own taunts. Where multiple players are taunting, the first person to taunt gets the effect.

So I guess we should just wait until one of our minions taunt(look for the indicator) and then use enduring cry. Another thing I was thinking of trying was Ruin hellions that use rallying cry to buff your minions as it would also taunt stuff like bosses and stay alive so you wouldn't have any chance of overwriting its taunt (unlike skeletons expiring).
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Shearer0120 wrote:
Do you think this build will still be viable for doing endgame content (ex: shaper, elder, A8 sirus, etc.)? I was really looking forward to league starting with this build and carrying it to end game and investing in it but after the Vicious Bite nerf, I just wanted to hear your opinion.

Awesome build guide as well. Made it very easy for me to understand everything I need to know about it. Keep up the wonderful work.


Viable is an understatement in that situation, no worries there.
DPS is off the charts even before you'd start stackimg good clusters (which is very endgame).
I played a tankier version with a shield in metamorph (before the minions nerfs but no clusters) and it absolutely melted bosses.

I highly suggest Melee splash for maps tho. I know it's already in the build but I really wanna emphasize this :)

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