Cold ANIMATE WEAPON Summoner | League-Start & Leveling Guide

I have stopped trying to go with new builds at league start and just go with this build. Sure it can be annoying to summon weapons at the beginning but it's really worth getting the head enchant "24% chance to create an additional Animate Weapon copy" as it says on the main post (especially with harvest you can craft something nice yourself if you buy the helmet with the enchant).

Thanks for this very thorough guide, I've been very casual this league but still loving your build.

Hitting a plateau in my damage as of now, wondering if changing added cold for melee phys, awakened ones, will make any significant difference.
Anyone tested what is the threshold amount of phys dmg on jewels to have before switching to melee phys?

Edit: My POB somehow doesn't work when i swap gems around, my minion dmg stays the same throughout

@Ventrue09: Glad it's working! I agree, the Helmet enchant to summon an extra AW helps a ton.

@evilrulz37: Place to look for upgrades is on your abyssal jewels. You're using a lot with low added phys rolls (7-10, 2-5) when I think you should go for ones with average added ~16+ phys, plus %minion damage if minion skill recently.

Easiest way I've found to get awesome abyssals is to trade for ones with good damage stats and an open prefix, and then try to Harvest-craft the life roll on.

Just installed PoB and tried to follow the steps, to brag about, its at 24k average dps and 65k total dps... (Not sure if i did everything right, since you wrote to copy your pastebin char, not mine and i copied mine :D

Now im curious about my head enchant, (150% increased Effect of the buff granted by your carrion golems) really want to try the additional Animate Weapon copy chance for a smother gameplay but im affraid i will lose tons of dps. Is there any way i can check this beforehand in PoB?

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ThanatoZGaming wrote:

@Ventrue09: Glad it's working! I agree, the Helmet enchant to summon an extra AW helps a ton.

@evilrulz37: Place to look for upgrades is on your abyssal jewels. You're using a lot with low added phys rolls (7-10, 2-5) when I think you should go for ones with average added ~16+ phys, plus %minion damage if minion skill recently.

Easiest way I've found to get awesome abyssals is to trade for ones with good damage stats and an open prefix, and then try to Harvest-craft the life roll on.

Thanks for the tip!
Is awakened melee Phys definitively better than awakened added cold once the Phys damage jewels are in place?

I think once you have about 5 top-tier added phys abyssal jewels, awakened melee phys is better than awakened cold - really the best way to check is by loading your character in POB.

Well I'm basically done with the league, time to share some thoughts. Due to harvest crafting I made some modifications to gear and gem set ups.


Opted for a crafted chest to survive better, currently at 6.5k life so the ES craft is quite a nice buffer. Additional curse allows for Ele weakness to be put on alongside frostbite.

Which i achieve via:



as mentioned in an earlier post, you can easily make the frostbite ring.

As i felt spell block was lacking, i made:



Physical damage reduction felt lacking as well, therefore:



And to round out the dex requirements and other stuff:



Clusters are quite easy to craft with the farm.



Vicious bite can be added with augment crit.

Lastly, for abyss jewels and corrupted blood:



Ideally, find jewels with minion% and minion attack speed on them. Then add physical and life.

With this gear, i feel its better to put the carrion golem in your helm to benefit from the +3. Avatar of fire and frost bomb and an unset ring allowed me to put in enduring cry and tempest shield for additional tankiness.

With flasks popped, I'm sitting at 6.5k life, 1k ES, attack and spell block capped, 90% physical reduction, 76% all res (even chaos), corrupted blood immune, freeze immune, stun immune, ignite immune (i run soul of abberath + jewel implicits, 100% ignite duration reduction means it falls off before even ticking once), wise oak 10% ele reduction due to balancing res with harvest crafting.

And the damage speaks for itself, https://imgur.com/a/Q3by5sK.

@Azureheaven333: Thank you for the gear showcase and congrats on level 99! Looks awesome.

I am a newbie to PoE, very happy with this awesome guide. Thank you very much.
Any suggestion what should I modify to finish Hall of Grandmasters map?
I have been trying about eight times, the best I could get was mid 4th stage, I got killed easily :(

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MbahDjoyo wrote:

I am a newbie to PoE, very happy with this awesome guide. Thank you very much.
Any suggestion what should I modify to finish Hall of Grandmasters map?
I have been trying about eight times, the best I could get was mid 4th stage, I got killed easily :(

You can use a vendor recipe to get Block Chance Reduction Support gem - this helps against some of them.

The other classic HoGM item is a Balefire unique scepter as some guys are easiest to take down with the Scorching Ray - even if it's not otherwise supported by the build.

Those would be my best sugggestions...