Cold ANIMATE WEAPON Summoner | League-Start & Leveling Guide

I had a lot of fun with the build.

I managed to hit my 40 Challenges 2 days ago.

I managed to do all content ( Sirius 8 , Uber Elder, Simulacron , Chayula ) deathless at the end.

"

Kramatikfeler wrote:

I've applied the changes. If I've read corretly, then the added Lighting and Fire Damage on a Ring counts towards spells and should trigger the EE. I'll try to get additional Ghastly Jewels as I continue, but the Large Claster Jewel was Expensive. Wow. For the Mediums I've chonsen only Vengeful Commander, because the only good option would be Precise Commander and those are beyond my range right now.

What are my next goals in improving this build and what content yields the most value? Maps, Delves, Delirium? I understand that trade is crucial, so I'm using PoE Overlay for Trade (pretty convinient). I don't know wheter this is the right thread and appreciate some guidance. After all my complete character is based on this build and it's FUN!

Yes, thats right, the hybrid added fire/lightning damage craft applies to spells. Vengeful Commander is better than Precise Commander, you can get both on the same jewel once you have enough currency but I wouldn't sweat it, double Vengeful is more than enough, so the magic jewels you have now is fine.

For helm, I will suggest a +3 with minion life. These gives your Spectre and AG much more life. Additionally, a +3 helm will net you a lvl25 Raise Spectre, with a lvl20 gem, so you don't need to corrupt or buy a lvl21 gem. A lvl25 gem gives you more 1 spectre

You may wanna take Indomitable Army for the next 3 points, it makes your minions much tankier. Since we can't see what your AG is wearing, I'm gonna suggest some equips for him to wear, if you haven't already bought them. Buy him a Kingmaker, victario's flight, a redeemer-influenced chest with the mod 'nearby enemies are blinded', a shaper-influenced helm with the mod 'nearby enemies take 6% increased elemental damage' and any random corrupted gloves with elemental weakness on hit. All these makes him a strong buffer both offensively and defensively for the whole party, on a small budget. You can upgrade his equips next time as you go along

I've really enjoyed this build and have gotten pretty far with primarily self found gear except the gloves, but now I've started to build up some currency and am looking towards buying upgraded gear. At this point, what should I prioritize buying first and are there any changes to my tree/cluster jewels I should make? Is getting a +2 wand more important or further upgrading my jewels, or something else? Also, people are talking about getting double vengeful commander. How do you do that, since I assume you aren't pathing to get a whole second chain of cluster jewels.

"

ZWOK3 wrote:

I've really enjoyed this build and have gotten pretty far with primarily self found gear except the gloves, but now I've started to build up some currency and am looking towards buying upgraded gear. At this point, what should I prioritize buying first and are there any changes to my tree/cluster jewels I should make? Is getting a +2 wand more important or further upgrading my jewels, or something else? Also, people are talking about getting double vengeful commander. How do you do that, since I assume you aren't pathing to get a whole second chain of cluster jewels.

Get a large cluster jewel with 2 added sockets. You can socket 2 medium cluster jewels with vengeful commander into them. 2 sockets can only roll on ilvl75 and above jewels.

Get a better amulet, at least a +1 for now and anoint ravenous horde.

For your wand, if you are using +1, get 1 with some minion dmg, aspd or mspd at least, to provide more dps

You can buy a lvl21/20 AW as well, prices for it have fallen alot since last week, its around 40+c now.

A lvl21 AW with +1 amulet, will bring your AW to lvl25, quite a substantial boost in dps, because you gain 1 more blade.

Once you get more currency, you can look into getting +2 wand and +2 amulet

Your ghastly jewels look fine dps-wise, other than some of them missing life rolls, but since you are using lioneye's remorse, its okay for now.

"

SoundOfSilence wrote:

"

hakukun wrote:

Hi all, I finish my build, I'm pretty happy about it, but (there is always but):
Quick description of my build:
17 AW 104 sec duration, don't have a problem with bosses (i change hypothermia to assassin mark and got a chance to freeze on the ring with frostbite.
Max res even chaos res, 58% dmg reduction, and 50% chance to block
Can't be silent, hindered and immune to corrupted blood
1. I'm dying often when I'm in delirium encounter (1shots)
I'm trying switch flesh offering to bone offering now.
2. I'm not sure about my skill tree - should give up Gravepact and Potency of
Will to get Soul of Steel?

I think I'm out of the option to improve survivability. Any advice?
Big thanks for this guide it is super fun to play!!!

Get rid of that Frostbite ring, its affecting your EE. Get a new ring without the 'add cold damage' mod

Use bone offering instead of flesh offering

You are wasting 4 points getting the jewel socket for Fortress Covenant. Take out your Antivenom small cluster jewel, socket Fortress Covenant there and respec those 4 points. Your minion medium jewel with dread march/feasting fiends, replace it with another vengeful commander medium jewel

Respec potency of will and spiritual command as well, with these 10 new skill points, take barbarism and the jewel socket below. Take the jewel socket above lord of the dead as well

You will have to replace all your ghastly jewels. Immune to silence and hinder is not a deal breaker for us. For ghastly jewels, added physical damage is priority with life, secondary useful mods will be %increased minion damage, minion attack spd and added cold damage. Just make sure 2 of the jewels have a taunt on hit and blind on hit. Try to cap your resists using your gears, so that you don't need them on jewels

Thanks for tips SoundOfSilence! I made some changes (i didn't know that there is no radius in cluster jewels ... wow) Bone offering looking good 75% block chance capped. Now I've got 6k hp! I had an idea and now I've got vall molten shell in ring (+6,5k absorption!) with steel skin 1,3k I have 14k hp!. Now I must change all jewels but it will be a long process. Still, I don't understand why ring with cold dmg (not spell dmg) is braking my EE (I'm using only bladfall to attack), I thought its attack dmg and it is super good for my AW ... this mechanic is beyond my understanding :(

"

Schattenpanda wrote:

I had a lot of fun with the build.

I managed to hit my 40 Challenges 2 days ago.

I managed to do all content ( Sirius 8 , Uber Elder, Simulacron , Chayula ) deathless at the end.

Hii
Gtz with the achivements..just wandering how did u manage to do all that content deathless...i've done shaper, elder simulacrum and up to sirus 7, but sirus 8 won't come down, getting oneshotted by almost everything...tried 4 times with no success...

But the character seems good enough no?? I'm just bad??

Thanks

"

IShaka95 wrote:

"

Schattenpanda wrote:

I had a lot of fun with the build.

I managed to hit my 40 Challenges 2 days ago.

I managed to do all content ( Sirius 8 , Uber Elder, Simulacron , Chayula ) deathless at the end.

Hii
Gtz with the achivements..just wandering how did u manage to do all that content deathless...i've done shaper, elder simulacrum and up to sirus 7, but sirus 8 won't come down, getting oneshotted by almost everything...tried 4 times with no success...

But the character seems good enough no?? I'm just bad??

Thanks

Check out endgame options in the guide.
Invest into chaos res, spell block, "immune to corrupted blood". Timeless jewel with devouring diadem. Learn Sirus moves from youtube.
I failed my 2 first Sirus 8, but kept learning and improving.
Now i died 1 time last 4 Sirus fights and i have like 5 fps during that fight( old laptop ftw).

"

hakukun wrote:

Still, I don't understand why ring with cold dmg (not spell dmg) is braking my EE (I'm using only bladfall to attack), I thought its attack dmg and it is super good for my AW ... this mechanic is beyond my understanding :(

Looking at your character, your rings are fine now and shouldn't cause any problems. I didn't see your previous ring which was referred to, but to clarify, bladefall is actually a spell, not an attack. I don't know what specific mod was on the ring, but if it was one which gave flat cold dmg without specifying attacks or spells, then it actually would apply to both spells and attacks, making your bladefall spell do cold damage and thus increase the monsters' cold resistance.

Speaking of EE, you have edict of frost as the enchant on your gloves which would cause cold damage if you ever triggered it and mess up your EE. That being said, it's a trigger on kill and you'll probably have effectively no kills yourself, so it probably isn't a problem.

Can you give me any tip so i can run hatred, summon skitters and avian ? i have 11 mana with everything on

I felt like I should make a post here.

I heard about AW buffs for this league and wasn't necessarily curious but I wanted to league start a necro. One of my guldies said I should go animate weapon. I stumbled upon this thread and probably read everything from page 30-70 or so when the league started. I quickly decided to go the impale build but content here was still really good and helped me a lot.

Animate weapon felt really bad for a long time I have to admit. I mean it was decent but no where near what I was used to. It's a good boss killer and has decent clear speed. Still it wasn't specifically good at neither of them.

When I tried simulacrums for the first time I realised how bad it actually was. At that point I was using a shield and a cold iron dagger. I was also using flesh offering as I was mapping on yellow for a very long time. I thought dagger dual wield would make me too squishy to advance to red maps but ultimately it was the best decision that I gave it a try. I swapped to bone offering when I went dual wield. Everything was so much better. Damage was really great and defense was really nice too. Not only character wise but also my weapons as they didn't die any more.

I was also struggling to keep my golem alive but with the additional +3 lvl that got solved as well. Ultimately I cannot see the benefit of not going dual wield with animate weapon. It's just too good.

Anyway everything was going great but there was still so much to improve on. First thing I decided to change was implementing ailment immunity. I was using a 6link belly for a very long time and I had already decided to go +1 gems (bought a corrupted one and planned on bench 6linking it). I was close to 1k vaal orbs already when I had to give up on that as I had to use a rare chest. I needed the 35% bench craft for ailment avoidance. With another 35% on boots and 30% from a cluster jewel I would be capped.

Implementing ailment immunity is so huge especially regarding delirium. It free's up flask spots and I don't have to worry about shock and freeze and all that. Overall great. After that was done next step was to get a nice +1 phys gems amulet. Not only will my AW benefit but also almost everything else. On top I decided to be chaos res capped is good too. Get two unset rings with high life and chaos res with open suffix so I can craft minion speed. On Gloves, Belt and Helmet I would simply craft hybrid chaos/ele res and done.

What I've learned next was that the animate weapon dmg enchant actually blows. The 150% incr. golem buff effect is sooooo much better. It's easily 20% more damage in my case. Crafting it like I wanted it to be was kind of expensive but worth it in the end. Damage in simulacrum was immediately noticeable. Basically simulacrum is a really nice damage check.

Last thing I changed was my belt. I'm playing on HC and stuff is expensive because there simply isn't much for sale. In order to improve I had to get a hunter's orb with the plan to use it on a stygian. It sadly bricked and I exalted chaos damage instead of % life. Crafting it the way I wanted took me almost 30 Exalts all things considered. In the end I almost gained 500 life what I call worth it.

For anyone curious check out my character (not hard to find). I'm using two large cluster jewels. I got 71/57 block, 72 chaos res, 76 ele res, 7k life. I might change my gloves but for that to happen I needed two great ghastlys to add to my build. Not sure though, I also gotta do some calcs on PoB.

Overall it's a great experience. I have killed all bosses that the game offers so far. Yes deathless because well im on HC haha. Last phase sirus lvl 8 takes less than 15 seconds to kill. Really curious how many other builds can do that while being so safe like I am. Uber elder fight is like 2-3 mins.

Is AW too strong? I don't think so. Is it unerrated? Yes it is. If you're setup it's pretty crazy game experience but before that it can at times be annoying. You have to invest quite a bit to make it work really well and that's what I like about this build.

Hopefully I didn't bother anyone, just sharing my experience. Hopefully it helps here and there as this thread has helped me to get to where I am now.