Cold ANIMATE WEAPON Summoner | League-Start & Leveling Guide

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.

Appreciate the post Larz, great write-up, and excellent insight for anyone who would look at running AWs in hc.

This is the first time I went Standard league I've done HC for 8 years, mainly so I can get familiar with all the endgame stuff before PoE 2 pops, so I can see a solid hc strategy when I see one, aside from the glaring fact you're 99 in hc with AW. :)

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Psomm wrote:

Appreciate the post Larz, great write-up, and excellent insight for anyone who would look at running AWs in hc.

This is the first time I went Standard league I've done HC for 8 years, mainly so I can get familiar with all the endgame stuff before PoE 2 pops, so I can see a solid hc strategy when I see one, aside from the glaring fact you're 99 in hc with AW. :)

How's your build going mate? :d
I think you can fit quite a lot more using double precide + vengeful commander on 2 jewels cluster.
I am using dual wands with +2 levels, amulet with +2 instead of shield and that unique amulet but im not sure which should be prefer.

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AndyLovesHisBge wrote:

I died in Simulacrum late but I could not do anything from that point on as I was never able to get my AW's back up before getting killed again when stepping through the portal.

Is there any trick to finding some space when re-entering the simulacrum when the bad guys are swarming and you have no AW's up?

I know i'm replying to this long after you wrote it. AW build is my third build of the league so i'm a little late to the party... Lvl 84 so far, wrecking up to t13 maps with delerium.

Anyway, I had an idea about the problem of getting back into a simulacrum fight after a death....

I have an unset ring that I normally run lvl 1 clarity in just for a little extra regen... so my thought was this.

1) Take out my clarity and put in a leveled Vaal Summon Skeles. DON'T actually use the Vaal Skeles...just let the gem stay charged. (if you don't normally run an unset ring, maybe get one just for this purpose)

2) When/If you die, turn on your Hatred but DON'T turn on your Skitterbots... you're gonna need an extra pool of mana...

3) Upon re-entering the Simulacrum, immediately pop the Vaal Skeles, giving yourself an instant mob of at least 38 (or more depending on your gear) meat shields.

4) Spam bladefall and use your larger than normal mana pool to get as many AW's going as you can before all the skeles die.

5) Continue the fight as normal, and the first moment you have a fraction of a second to do so, turn Skitterbots back on.

***Variation on a theme: If you happen to have two unset rings, you can have Vaal Clarity in the second one, which you can pop as soon as you pop the Vaal Skeles, thereby giving yourself a window of mana free AW spamming, removing the need to go in with Skitterbots turned off.

(Disclaimer: I have not actually tried this method, but it seems viable)

Anyway, loving the build so far. Thanks MoLoK13!

So I followed this build up to maps and i got to the point of raising spectres. Would a Merveil's Retainer work for this build? Does the Vulnerability curse they apply help us in any way?

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aka2411 wrote:

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Psomm wrote:

Appreciate the post Larz, great write-up, and excellent insight for anyone who would look at running AWs in hc.

This is the first time I went Standard league I've done HC for 8 years, mainly so I can get familiar with all the endgame stuff before PoE 2 pops, so I can see a solid hc strategy when I see one, aside from the glaring fact you're 99 in hc with AW. :)

How's your build going mate? :d
I think you can fit quite a lot more using double precide + vengeful commander on 2 jewels cluster.
I am using dual wands with +2 levels, amulet with +2 instead of shield and that unique amulet but im not sure which should be prefer.

Going well, the dual vengeful commanders are great. The dual renewal is overwhelmingly awesome... when it works. the issue is Renewal is an all or nothing notable for the most part, meaning if you are on the offense and your minions aren't getting hit much, it obliterates everything, but on longer boss fights or heavy delerium where enemies do common aoe damage I'd gauge its about half as effective at best.

So for normal mapping I can pretty much go to sleep and delete everything on any maps deathless as fast as I can run, but on heavy aoe damage maps its not as effective. Its worth noting my minions rarely if ever drop more than 10% health at least up to 60% delirum t16s depending on the map mods (based off what I can see on my AG and golem. I have plenty of +health, +regen and leech for them, but if minions drop any health at all then the renewal would technically not work.

So I'm sort of at an impasse, not sure where I want to take the build -- part of me wants to just focus on getting the core atlas stuff done, another part wants to work delving, another part wants to dig deeper into end game bossing, another wants to group play and see what others are doing -- and with all the experiments I've been doing I'm finding myself more distracted putzing in my HO than actually doing anything at all. HC it's so much easier to focus -- baby steps the entire time with very little incremental experiments along the way :)

So i've seen recommendations to run different gem swaps for clear and bossing.

Some suggest Multistrike + Melee Splash, and others EDWA + Melee Splash, and then of course swapping Melee Splash out for bosses...

In the OP's gem section he suggests either swapping for either one, but no definitive 'best' choice mentioned...

I've been running Multistrike + Melee Splash and not even bothering to swap out Melee Splash for bosses on up to t15 red maps, but just wondering if people prefer EDWA for clear instead...

Is there any kind of consensus on whether Multistrike or EDWA is better for clearing red maps with delerium?

Thanks.

So i've seen recommendations to run different gem swaps for clear and bossing.

Some suggest Multistrike + Melee Splash, and others EDWA + Melee Splash, and then of course swapping Melee Splash out for bosses...

In the OP's gem section he suggests either swapping for either one, but no definitive 'best' choice mentioned...

I've been running Multistrike + Melee Splash and not even bothering to swap out Melee Splash for bosses on up to t15 red maps, but just wondering if people prefer EDWA for clear instead...

Is there any kind of consensus on whether Multistrike or EDWA is better for clearing red maps with delerium?

Thanks.

EDIT: Ok, I think i've answered my own question. Ran some t14s and alternated between Multistrike and EDWA back and forth... very unscientific of course, but it seems that EDWA is better for clear. Most monsters die in one shot, but Multistrike seems to lock the AW's into a little longer animation, completing the three shots even when the monster dies on the first shot... So EDWA for clear it is unless anybody has a compelling arguement against???

Interesting comment.

I purchased awakened multistrike today and did a simulacrum after. It felt a bit clunky but damage was obviously better. It kind of went away once I got to like stage 15+. MS seems to feel weird once your damage is like too high if that makes sense. Though I have to say I didn't notice it on normal MS. Pretty sure you just have to get used to it. Overall from my experience I can say MS is the best gem to use. I only swap out melee splash on bosses like shaper or elder where theres a chance that I might die myself. For t16 bosses I just leave melee splash as it doesn't make a big difference anyway.

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LarsSultanHengzt wrote:

Interesting comment.

I purchased awakened multistrike today and did a simulacrum after. It felt a bit clunky but damage was obviously better. It kind of went away once I got to like stage 15+. MS seems to feel weird once your damage is like too high if that makes sense. Though I have to say I didn't notice it on normal MS. Pretty sure you just have to get used to it. Overall from my experience I can say MS is the best gem to use. I only swap out melee splash on bosses like shaper or elder where theres a chance that I might die myself. For t16 bosses I just leave melee splash as it doesn't make a big difference anyway.

I def agree that no swap is necessary for most regular map bosses. Just ran another couple maps with multistrike in, and i think the longer animation of multistrike does slow the clear speed a bit... but like you said, only once your dps is high enough. When EDWA is enough that most monsters die in one hit, the clear seems faster as the AW's immediately move on to the next target rather than being locked into an animation for half a second.