Cold ANIMATE WEAPON Summoner | League-Start & Leveling Guide

I'd swap Deathmark in for Multistrike. It's barely behind MS when the mark isn't applied, and is far better for rares/bosses when it is. Plus the benefits of not being beholden to the minion AI.

I also think Minion Instability on the elemental Necro variant of the build shouldn't be ignored.

You could also use Wave of Conviction for Exposure. Bladefall should hit often enough to prevent it from ruining EE. I'm thinking of replacing Convocation with it on the CWDT; it will somewhat depend on how durable the re-balanced AWs are.

I feel so sad reading at this, 2 patch after triad grip release and people still don't run it as frost on minion builds when it's vastly superior to physical, fire and lightning damage, both in dps and survability. It's not even suggested when the synergies are EVERYWHERE.

Also, the amount of currencies you are ready to spend just so you don't have to cast bladefall every 80s is staggering.

A quick example without equipment where i have twice the dps of your fire setup:
https://pastebin.com/42MLHMxZ

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OmniscientlyMe wrote:

I'd swap Deathmark in for Multistrike. It's barely behind MS when the mark isn't applied, and is far better for rares/bosses when it is. Plus the benefits of not being beholden to the minion AI.

I also think Minion Instability on the elemental Necro variant of the build shouldn't be ignored.

You could also use Wave of Conviction for Exposure. Bladefall should hit often enough to prevent it from ruining EE. I'm thinking of replacing Convocation with it on the CWDT; it will somewhat depend on how durable the re-balanced AWs are.

Fair point about Deathmark. I'll include it in the links. Small DPS loss compared to Multistrike, but I can see the AI advantage, as well as lower mana cost.

Minion Instability has always felt gimmicky to me, but I agree it's worth testing. I think people get crazy PoB numbers out of it but actually having that happen in maps is another story.

Gem links are very scarce so I like Elemental Army on the Guardian for Exposure, however WoC would indeed be more damage if you could make it go off consistently.

Helpful feedback, thank you!

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Keyen wrote:

eople still don't run it as frost on minion builds when it's vastly superior to physical, fire and lightning damage... A quick example without equipment where i have twice the dps of your fire setup:
https://pastebin.com/42MLHMxZ

I read your guide for Cold Skellies, it's really good. And I did consider using cold after reading it.

The big difference is that AW has an extremely high damage effectiveness so Immolate is ridiculously strong for it, more so than Skeletons.

As for the PoB, you have a lot of extra options checked - frenzy/power charges for minions, an amulet with Ravenous Horde, different ascendancy (no bone armor), and you cut a bunch of defensive nodes like Soul of Steel for more DPS.

After making the PoBs more comparable, fire has roughly the same DPS as your cold setup, and I also get to take Soul of Steel and more life nodes.

https://pastebin.com/T4ZyS2fy

The feedback is appreciated, your guide is great!

Hum, I disagree:
-The shock effectiveness for a cold build is at 36% (due to bonechill), a fire build will be at 19%. So you shouldn't change it back to 19% for the cold build. I use the 36% value in the following calculation.
-I use Molten shield as my defensive skill with a life on block setup in the real build (and the final build is extremely tanky no matter the map mods, so not getting soul of steel is really not a problem or a "loss in tankyness"), so I don't really need bone barrier (the only thing I get out of it is the physical reduction, which is very expensive for 2 ascendancy points, given that plaguebringer gives aoe, dps AND -10% damage taken). But let's keep it for now.

Also, you may be missing the main difference. Yes, maybe that without any equipment and no change, the dps may be roughly the same (I disagree, but ok, I admit I didn't check if we had exactly the same option), but the scaling is very different.

The fire build is based on a ton of added fire damage (Immolate/anger), while the cold build is based on a ton of actual multipliers (Hatred/Bonechill). The difference, while it doesn't look so big right now, will be clear in effect because of several things:
-The equipment itself (because you will be scaling much, much better from abyssal jewels.
-The changes to animate weapon itself, which will see it's base added damage increased AND increased again when it will apply to the bladefall weapons.

Let's take again the two PoB.
-In the fire build, the physical damage is increased by x5,61 and has a more multiplier of 9.58, then multiplied again by the resistance/shock multiplier of 1.558. That means that any added physical damage the build will get (from abyssal jewel or AW change) will get a total multiplier of 83.73
-In the cold build, the physical damage is first converted at a 1,4x rate (Hatred), then is increased by x5.66, has a more multipler of 14.59, then multiplied again by the resistance/shock multiplier of 1.7. That mean any added physical damage will get a total multiplier of 196.54

Basically, any added damage is roughly 2,34x more effective in the cold build than it is in the fire build. And we will be getting a lot of them.

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Keyen wrote:

Hum, I disagree:
-The shock effectiveness for a cold build is at 36% (due to bonechill)

I don't fully understand why this is the case, but I'll take your word for it. Can you point me to where I can read an explanation of this?

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Keyen wrote:

Basically, any added damage is roughly 2,34x more effective in the cold build than it is in the fire build. And we will be getting a lot of them.

To test this out, I put in 5 really really good minion jewels for added damage. I also reverted to the shock effectiveness which you used (36% cold, 18% fire).

Result:

Fire conversion 525k DPS per weapon
Cold conversion 565k DPS per weapon. (491k at 18% shock effectiveness)

POB used: https://pastebin.com/7MBD52af

Without the added shock effectiveness, the fire build does more.

Anyway, I guess it really depends on the final stats on the gem. At very, very top tier gear cold may be better. I'll keep that in mind for updating the guide.

"

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Keyen wrote:

Hum, I disagree:
-The shock effectiveness for a cold build is at 36% (due to bonechill)

I don't fully understand why this is the case, but I'll take your word for it. Can you point me to where I can read an explanation of this?

I will quote myself

"

I put 36% by simplification, but Skitterbots-bonechill does two things:
-First, a shock a 15% with 26% increased shock effect -> 19% increased damage taken
-Second, bonechill has this effect you may have missed : "Enemies Chilled by Supported Skills have Cold Damage taken increased by Chill Effect". That means that since SB has a 10% chill effect with 26% + 44% increased chill effect, it increase cold damage taken (the same thing in the end for us than shock) by 17%
-So, both combined increase all cold damage taken by 36%, hence why I put the shock value at this amount.

"

To test this out, I put in 5 really really good minion jewels for added damage. I also reverted to the shock effectiveness which you used (36% cold, 18% fire).

Result:

Fire conversion 525k DPS per weapon
Cold conversion 565k DPS per weapon. (491k at 18% shock effectiveness)

POB used: https://pastebin.com/7MBD52af

Without the added shock effectiveness, the fire build does more.

Anyway, I guess it really depends on the final stats on the gem. At very, very top tier gear cold may be better. I'll keep that in mind for updating the guide.

1) You didn't put frost bomb in the cold setup. That's a lot of dps missing
2) I'm not sure what is happening between your pobs, the previous one you linked had a more multiplier of 14.5, the new one has only 10,65 (Edit: It's from ruthless, ok)
3) You have 20% quality on every gem in the fire setup, none on the cold setup.


Edit: Once corrected (Deathmark possible if you want to freeze and get even more dps), we have that:
https://pastebin.com/8Hp4T4p9
510K with fire build (I don't see 525k except with the ignite dps)
663K with cold build

Just with 75-110 added damage. If we double that (for instance if it gives that much again from AW changes), we are at:
https://pastebin.com/8fA3ssNC
581K with fire build
844K with cold build

So, you gain 71K dps with 75-110 added damage with the fire build, 181K with the cold build.

Finally, the jewels you put are expensive because you went with attack speed and minion damage on it. A cold build get almost as much dps from a flat physical+flat cold (+14,1% dps from your jewel, +12,8% from a 15-22 physical+15-22 cold without anything else) which is much cheaper (there is one at 40c currently). But yeah, for the fire build a flat physical + flat fire doesn't compare at all, for the reasons exposed above.

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solidghost wrote:

Another question regarding the knives skill - how will it affect the life of the animated weapons summoned from them?

If it works same as currently, base item doesn't affect HP of summoned weapon. I didn't read anything to indicate that would be changing- it appears all the tweaks are on the damage/AI side.

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solidghost wrote:

Krav mentioned about using a buffed Carrion golem (which gives flat phys to minions) to the setup. At lvl 26, it gives about 40 to 60 physical damage to non-golem minions. Not too shabby, especially considering that the glass shank has just 6-10 base phys damage.

Carrion Golem is definitely worth running. Added flat damage from anywhere is really good because AW has such high effectiveness for added damage (of course, this is looking at 3.9 numbers, who can say what 3.10 changes).

Doing full elemental conversion we'd be using Immolate and getting a big chunk of flat fire damage against ignited enemies, which makes Carrion Golem less impactful (but still good). Going pure Phys and without Immolate, even taking the Golem Commander cluster is highly efficient for DPS because the flat damage is so impactful.

In short it's definitely good. If you can get high levels of Carrion Golem it's totally worth it. Only question is how hard do you want to invest there.

The current version of AW, the item level does affect the life of the animate weapon. If the base item is like a glass shank, which is a item level 1 item, it is going to die pretty quickly. Base life of an AW glass shank should be like less than 92. Dead AW is useless. :-(

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Animate_Weapon
Just below showing the item level, life and attack speed boost.

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OmniscientlyMe wrote:

I'd swap Deathmark in for Multistrike. It's barely behind MS when the mark isn't applied, and is far better for rares/bosses when it is. Plus the benefits of not being beholden to the minion AI.

I also think Minion Instability on the elemental Necro variant of the build shouldn't be ignored.

You could also use Wave of Conviction for Exposure. Bladefall should hit often enough to prevent it from ruining EE. I'm thinking of replacing Convocation with it on the CWDT; it will somewhat depend on how durable the re-balanced AWs are.

Not too sure about Multistrike. Saw a video on the Chains of Command chest piece and those AW goes all over the place killing stuff. And in a huge area as well. Deathmark would really be good for bossing. But that could just be the Chains of Command proc creating more AW in the area where the AW is killing stuff.

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solidghost wrote:

The current version of AW, the item level does affect the life of the animate weapon. If the base item is like a glass shank, which is a item level 1 item, it is going to die pretty quickly. Base life of an AW glass shank should be like less than 92. Dead AW is useless. :-(

That doesn't mean what you think it means. Item level is different from required level or whatever. A glass shank has not a item lvl of 1, it can have a high item level.

Currently, if you raise a glass shank which dropped in a 82 map, it will have a lot of life, not 92.

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Keyen wrote:

So, you gain 71K dps with 75-110 added damage with the fire build, 181K with the cold build.

Okay, I have to admit you've convinced me. I'll update the guide to reflect this.

I think it still might make sense to level the build with the fire setup and swap it to cold once better gear is affordable, so I'll write both setups in, fire for beginning maps and cold for endgame.

Gem links are a bit of a problem, though. Having a 4G set of sockets to fill is tough, and will involve some sacrifices. Maybe that setup needs to be self-casting Bladefall? Any ideas on how to fix the socket problem are welcome.