Witch - Cold ANIMATE WEAPON Summoner | League-Start & Leveling Guide - Forum

" mi78005 wrote: Hello, nice build, playing it from the start. From beginning it was great, but now i sometimes play red maps and i fell like AW's don't do that much damage, they have a hard time with conquerors. Any thoughts? Your wand has added cold damage to spells so EE is not working - in fact, it's buffing bosses and reducing your DPS. That would be your problem.	Posted by ThanatoZGaming on Oct 8, 2020, 1:05:24 PM Quote this Post
" ThanatoZGaming wrote: " mi78005 wrote: Hello, nice build, playing it from the start. From beginning it was great, but now i sometimes play red maps and i fell like AW's don't do that much damage, they have a hard time with conquerors. Any thoughts? Your wand has added cold damage to spells so EE is not working - in fact, it's buffing bosses and reducing your DPS. That would be your problem. Hi, yeah i thought about that while writing my first reply, i dont cast bladefall that often, only at the start of the map, and before i enter the arena. If the AW's disappear i usually cast them and then continue mapping so i dont hit mobs while casting bladefall.	Posted by mi78005 on Oct 8, 2020, 5:05:11 PM Quote this Post
" mi78005 wrote: " ThanatoZGaming wrote: " mi78005 wrote: Hello, nice build, playing it from the start. From beginning it was great, but now i sometimes play red maps and i fell like AW's don't do that much damage, they have a hard time with conquerors. Any thoughts? Your wand has added cold damage to spells so EE is not working - in fact, it's buffing bosses and reducing your DPS. That would be your problem. Hi, yeah i thought about that while writing my first reply, i dont cast bladefall that often, only at the start of the map, and before i enter the arena. If the AW's disappear i usually cast them and then continue mapping so i dont hit mobs while casting bladefall. Hitting the boss with fire/lightning damage when you have EE gives them -50 cold resistance. It effectively doubles your DPS. If you're having trouble with conquerors it's because you're not using bladefall to trigger EE on them.	Posted by ThanatoZGaming on Oct 8, 2020, 7:14:55 PM Quote this Post
" ThanatoZGaming wrote: " mi78005 wrote: Hitting the boss with fire/lightning damage when you have EE gives them -50 cold resistance. It effectively doubles your DPS. If you're having trouble with conquerors it's because you're not using bladefall to trigger EE on them. Oh, yeah i forgot about that, dumb dumb me. Thank you very much I bought a better large cluster and a medium claster jewel, do you think i can largely upgrade something from where i stand? I was thinking on buying a unique shield and getting rid of the block nodes on the tree.	Posted by mi78005 on Oct 9, 2020, 5:41:59 AM Quote this Post
Hello there! So far so good, the build is running really well! I was looking for the alternate quality gems that have been provided by heist and some have caught my attention but I can't decide myself what to take so I would like your opinion about them : - Flesh offering has by default 10% increased skill effect duration which is quiet useless with "trigger a socketed spell when you use a skill". But you can have instead "grants minions 0.4% of damage leeched as life" or "grants minions 10% increased attack speed". The attack speed sounds the best for me but the leech life could provide a good survivability to my animated weapons which can die quiet easily sometimes. - Storm brand has by default 10% increased cast speed but with the "trigger a socketed spell when you use a skill" it becomes quiet useless. You can have instead "10% increased area of effect", "20% chance to chain an additional time" or "20% increased effect of shock". The increased area effect and chance to chain an additional time seem like the best to have but what is your wisdom for these ? - For animate weapon, do you keep the 20% increased movement speed or do you take the 20% chance to animate a second weapon ? - Melee Splash Support has 10% increased area of effect to supported skills, but we can have instead "20% increased melee damage to supported skills" or "40% more damage to surrounding targets to supported skills". Do we keep or do we change, and for what ? Thanks for reading me!	Posted by MasterJawa on Oct 10, 2020, 5:47:11 AM Quote this Post
" MasterJawa wrote: Hello there! So far so good, the build is running really well! I was looking for the alternate quality gems that have been provided by heist and some have caught my attention but I can't decide myself what to take so I would like your opinion about them : - Flesh offering has by default 10% increased skill effect duration which is quiet useless with "trigger a socketed spell when you use a skill". But you can have instead "grants minions 0.4% of damage leeched as life" or "grants minions 10% increased attack speed". The attack speed sounds the best for me but the leech life could provide a good survivability to my animated weapons which can die quiet easily sometimes. - Storm brand has by default 10% increased cast speed but with the "trigger a socketed spell when you use a skill" it becomes quiet useless. You can have instead "10% increased area of effect", "20% chance to chain an additional time" or "20% increased effect of shock". The increased area effect and chance to chain an additional time seem like the best to have but what is your wisdom for these ? - For animate weapon, do you keep the 20% increased movement speed or do you take the 20% chance to animate a second weapon ? - Melee Splash Support has 10% increased area of effect to supported skills, but we can have instead "20% increased melee damage to supported skills" or "40% more damage to surrounding targets to supported skills". Do we keep or do we change, and for what ? Thanks for reading me! That is a good question and you hit on most of the useful alternate quality gems already. I added a section in "gems" on the main post to elaborate on this, thanks for bringing it up. "For animate weapon, do you keep the 20% increased movement speed or do you take the 20% chance to animate a second weapon" - I've tried this and I like it as a substitute for the helmet enchant. Just need to make sure the rest of gear is really good for minion speed!	Posted by ThanatoZGaming on Oct 10, 2020, 3:41:44 PM Quote this Post
" ThanatoZGaming wrote: " MasterJawa wrote: Hello there! So far so good, the build is running really well! I was looking for the alternate quality gems that have been provided by heist and some have caught my attention but I can't decide myself what to take so I would like your opinion about them : - Flesh offering has by default 10% increased skill effect duration which is quiet useless with "trigger a socketed spell when you use a skill". But you can have instead "grants minions 0.4% of damage leeched as life" or "grants minions 10% increased attack speed". The attack speed sounds the best for me but the leech life could provide a good survivability to my animated weapons which can die quiet easily sometimes. - Storm brand has by default 10% increased cast speed but with the "trigger a socketed spell when you use a skill" it becomes quiet useless. You can have instead "10% increased area of effect", "20% chance to chain an additional time" or "20% increased effect of shock". The increased area effect and chance to chain an additional time seem like the best to have but what is your wisdom for these ? - For animate weapon, do you keep the 20% increased movement speed or do you take the 20% chance to animate a second weapon ? - Melee Splash Support has 10% increased area of effect to supported skills, but we can have instead "20% increased melee damage to supported skills" or "40% more damage to surrounding targets to supported skills". Do we keep or do we change, and for what ? Thanks for reading me! That is a good question and you hit on most of the useful alternate quality gems already. I added a section in "gems" on the main post to elaborate on this, thanks for bringing it up. "For animate weapon, do you keep the 20% increased movement speed or do you take the 20% chance to animate a second weapon" - I've tried this and I like it as a substitute for the helmet enchant. Just need to make sure the rest of gear is really good for minion speed! Thanks for replying! Do you mean it's possible to have the enchant on an helmet that provides a chance to animate a second weapon?	Posted by MasterJawa on Oct 11, 2020, 7:20:21 AM Quote this Post
Yes, you can get 24% chance to create an additional Animate Weapon as a helm enchant - it's very helpful! Also, just posted new video for 3.12 with end-game defensive strategy around mana stacking. For those with questions in that area, check it out. Last edited by ThanatoZGaming on Oct 12, 2020, 5:39:13 PM	Posted by ThanatoZGaming on Oct 12, 2020, 5:38:38 PM Quote this Post
First of all, thanks for the guide. It's very detailed and has made the game very enjoyable for me as a fairly new player so far. I'm doing t12+ maps now and I'm having some issues here and there. I can clear the maps fine for the most part, but with some bosses, rare monsters, and game mechanics (like incursions on those maps), I have problems with minion survival. The golem has always been the most squishy, so his dying is somewhat expected. However, some stuff just completely wrecks my Weapons (e.g. when they have Vulnerability on them) and then I'm screwed. Could you take a look if something about my equipment/build is off, please? I tried sticking to your guide as much as possible, but I might've gone wrong somewhere. I trigger EE exclusively through Stormbrand atm, and that's activated automatically through the enchant on my wand. I'm thinking about going back to manual casting, though, because I feel like I'm gimping my dmg a bit by somewhat relying on RNG to cast Stormbrand where it should be. Or I'll get ele dmg on a ring and use Bladefall instead. In any case, thanks! Last edited by mw33321 on Oct 12, 2020, 6:42:15 PM	Posted by mw33321 on Oct 12, 2020, 6:23:34 PM Quote this Post
Easiest way to improve minion survival would be to trade for a level 21 Animate Weapon gem (very cheap this league...) as gem levels add a lot of HP. You could also drop a few life nodes to take the Indomitable Army passive cluster. Also, having 2 medium cluster jewels with minion life notables (instead of the 1 that has vengeful commander) would help a lot. Life From Death/Renewal is a combo you definitely want. Glad the build is generally working for you, good luck! Last edited by ThanatoZGaming on Oct 12, 2020, 7:16:49 PM	Posted by ThanatoZGaming on Oct 12, 2020, 7:16:23 PM Quote this Post