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

Awesome and informative guide, i'm thinking about using this as my league starter since i've never played a summoner before! In your con you said logging on and summoning is a chore, can you elaborate some more on that?

@bankai1009 - outside of 700 life or so on block with bone offering up, it's unfortunately just flask based. The bubbling prefix is nice for that - high instant life, and then some over time once the danger passes.

@ActiveSlay - Armor is possible - there is a variant of the tree out there which goes for the life nodes and soul of steel down bottom. If you can afford the gem slot (unset ring), then VMS would be great for sure. In my own personal build though, I'm short on sockets, so I just use bone barrier. I'd assume there are some nice block nodes in the new cluster gems that could take us to cap without a shield.

The issue with spirit offering was in the CWC setup, where it was proccing every second or so, providing insane ES recovery. I think that's what they'll hit - add an internal cooldown of maybe 3 seconds? Otherwise it's a great skill but I don't think it's broken, especially since it is an active thing in a relatively passive build. I think even for just the max ES, it's worth it. When I ran one offering, I used spirit over flesh for that reason.

@moon_nmh - the only minions that stay summoned when you log onto the game are spectres. If you log out or crash (this is why I only play one character when I play necro), then you have to resummon all your zombies, carrion golem, and animate guardian.

Reached red Maps in Budget gear.

Build is totally nuts.

I have just one question:

I already converted to cold damage with EE and Hatred + Triad Gloves.

Why do I need Avatar of Fire? I understand it's needed for the EE somehow but I don't deal any fire damage according to PoB. Also it doesn't change a thing in PoB when activated.

I play mostly with skitterbots and bonechill. Combined with Hatred this leaves 88 mana. How do you cope with that little mana?

Quick gear setup:




The helmet is not perfect but one of 3 tries. I'm quite satisfied with it.

@K4P0T - Glad to heat you’re enjoying the build! Avatar of fire is solely for converting the cold damage from frost bomb to fire damage so to not ruin EE while applying frost exposure. Without avatar of fire, you either have to uncheck EE or frost bomb in PoB.

For mana, I crafted mana regen into my non-trigger wand. I also had it on an older ring which I replaced. There are a lot of places where you can choose between convenience and damage. If you can’t get a mana regen craft, blasphemy frostbite may make life easier with comparable (though less) damage.

Your items look good! What you have now is more than enough to farm T16s at awakening level 8, kill A8 Sirus, and delve to 600 and beyond. Check the progression summary for where to go next.

A few minor improvements: I’m not a fan of wise oak unless you can balance your resistances. You want three magic flasks at least to have staunching, heat, and warding suffixes to survive. If chaos resistance is an issue, replace the Atziris with a regular amethyst flask with increased duration and one of the above suffixes or something similar. You should also get quality on dash otherwise the cooldown is pretty long.

Thanks a lot for the work! I’m really glad that someone released a guide for my favorite build and did it that good =)

No updates to the main guide until patch notes come out, at which time I will update it for 3.10.

GGG just posted all the keystones and notables coming out in 3.10 - give it a read here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2783927. A few interesting things from this diagram:


A few key takeaways:
-It looks like the maximum number of jewel sockets from a non-unique large cluster is two (for mediums and smalls only), and the maximum from a medium cluster is one (smalls only).
-Large = damage, Medium = Utility, and Small = Defence.
-The shortest medium can be four nodes - the starting, two notables on either side, and one jewel socket
-The shortest small can just be two nodes. Could there be one with one node?
-No idea if more notables and sockets can roll on the large. That one shows five of the combined.

Below is my list of what I think is interesting and can potentially fit into the build - comments in white:

Keystones
Veteran's Awareness
+10% to all Elemental Resistances and maximum Elemental Resistances while affected by a Non-Vaal Guard Skill
20% more Damage taken if a Non-Vaal Guard Buff was lost Recently
20% additional Physical Damage Reduction while affected by a Non-Vaal Guard Skill

This is a playstyle defining keystone. With bone barrier, you would play six seconds dangerously, and then pull back for three and repeat. This is less for general mapping (since you just want to go fast), but would be amazing for delve, where you hide in corners anyways. It is also a small jewel, meaning you only lose out on a defensive keystone and one travel node.

Aura Nodes (Medium or large?)
Precise Commander
You and nearby Allies have 50% increased Critical Strike Chance
You and nearby Allies have +15% to Critical Strike Multiplier

Vengeful Commander
Anger has 30% increased Aura Effect
Wrath has 30% increased Aura Effect
Hatred has 30% increased Aura Effect

These are (possibly) mediums, meaning you can get two of these per large jewel cluster (or three with three voices). 30% hatred effect is about 7.5-10% more damage depending on how much you have. Critical strike chance and multi is of course amazing. No time for math now, but crit minions is most certainly a great add-on to the build. If this is for a large jewel, it is much less interesting but still worth considering.

Minions (Large)
Renewal
Minions Regenerate 1% of Life per second
Minions have 10% chance to deal Double Damage while they are on Full Life

Vicious Bite
Minions have 50% increased Critical Strike Chance
Raised Spectres, Raised Zombies, and Summoned Skeletons have +50% to Critical Strike Multiplier

Rotten Claws
Minions have a 20% chance to Impale on Hit with Attacks
(Phys Only)

Primordial Bond
10% increased Damage per Summoned Golem
40% increased Effect of Buffs granted by your Golems
Golems have 25% increased Maximum Life
(Golem)

Renewal is nutty - 9.5% more multiplier for minions (1.15/1.05). Crit as discussed, is very good as well. The last two are more for different minion builds but are still worth highlighting as strong nodes. For phys skellies, the impale chance with 3.9 numbers is 10% more dmg or so. The golem node is good for elementalists and my old favorite build, golemancers.


Curse (Medium?)
Evil Eye
Enemies you Curse take 5% increased Damage
5% chance to Dodge Attack Hits from Cursed Enemies

Forbidden Words
25% increased Area of Effect of Curse Skills
5% increased Effect of your Curses
Curse Skills have 5% reduced Mana Reservation

More multiplier for evil eye. Forbidden words though, is full of potential: Dual curse (frostbite + elemental weakness) at level 25 each (21 + awakened blasphemy +1, +2 from convoking wands, +1 from int gems amulet).

Minions Pt 2 (Small?)
Dread March
Minions have 10% increased maximum Life
Minions have 10% increased Movement Speed
Minions have 10% additional Physical Damage Reduction
Minions have +10% to Chaos Resistance

Blessed Rebirth
Minions have 20% increased maximum Life
Minions created Recently cannot be Damaged

Survivability for AG and friends for the top node. Skellies die quickly in deep delve, so this would help out a bunch as well. Bottom node helps skellies keep the 15% change for double damage buff.

Shields (Small)
Rote Reinforcement
+20 to maximum Life
20% chance to gain an Endurance Charge when you Block
+4% Chance to Block Attack Damage

Triple offering block = endurance charges

Chaos Defense (Small)
Antivenom
+17% to Chaos Resistance
Unaffected by Poison

Replaces Shakiri pantheon, allowing you to pick up another minor god.

Memes
Hibernator
40% reduced Freeze Duration on you
15% additional Physical Damage Reduction while Frozen

YogaPants and Yeezys tier memes.

I don't believe your pastebins have the Skitterbot-Bonechill additions anymore. Did you accidentally overwrite them?

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SamSmitty wrote:

I don't believe your pastebins have the Skitterbot-Bonechill additions anymore. Did you accidentally overwrite them?

That one is actually a suggestion by some of the writers in this thread. I'll put a skitterbots variant in the 3.10 update, but I did have not changed the Pastebin yet.

Skitterbots with bonechill is great, but the low mana is potentially an issue (depends on your playstyle) unless you have some mana regen somewhere on your gear.

I believe to simulate it in PoB, you add shock as 35% while removing frostbite.

For physical (since you mentionned impale), the notable with -50% banner reservation mana and 15% aura effect on enemies (pride/war banner) is great with the new unique armor. But it's off topic :p

The warcry build is probably dead on arrival, however, looks like it will only be on medium. RIP.

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Keyen wrote:

For physical (since you mentionned impale), the notable with -50% banner reservation mana and 15% aura effect on enemies (pride/war banner) is great with the new unique armor. But it's off topic :p

The warcry build is probably dead on arrival, however, looks like it will only be on medium. RIP.

Good point on the banner. Shame for the warcries. I figured there would be more added effects for warcries. With how much hype that node is generating for zerkers, it might not even be cheap.

Another thing I just though if is bigger hits = bigger chill/ freeze. My character can freeze ( I think) Baran for short durations. Can It potentially freeze shaper with a large enough crit??

Now I’m just interested in what is a large and what is a medium - particularly for the curse and aura ones.