3.11 - Stress-Free PoE! SLOW-MO ZOMBIES: No Required Items! 1-Button Play! SSF League Start-End!

Does anybody know why the Kaom-style Elder guardian deals so much damage?

I just killed him with not a single portal left. One part of the damage he deals seems to be damage over time. I was burning down pretty fast repeatedly. The occasional firerain hit like a truck. I died very quickly several times. 6100 life and 80 % fire didn't seem help me a lot, unfortunately.



There were no hard map mods involved.

It's not the first time that I faced problems with this boss. And I have no idea how I could protect myself.

In the end, in a desperate attempt not to lose this map and to win this fight, I swapped meat shield for Deathmark. The zombies kept fighting, I kept running. And we succeeded.

"

Caligula_Exile wrote:

Does anybody know why the Kaom-style Elder guardian deals so much damage?

He is extremely dangerous on the first stage, because of how small the whole area is. I ripped to him several times too. I just try to dash around quickly until my minions deal with him.

"

AndyLovesHisBge wrote:

You can thank M_atrix for that curse suggestion, not me :) It was his recommendation to me that made me try it and he was absolutely right.


As for Meatshield, don't make the change to Empower and Deathmark until you get "Chance for Minions to Taunt" on a jewel.

Once you have that stat though on a jewel, immediately make the change to Empower 3 (or 4 if you are rich) and Deathmark. It is a large DPS boost, the Zombies stay more engaged fighting, you get an extra zombie and the taunt is 100% guaranteed with the amount of minions we have hitting.

ok, thanks a lot M_atrix and congrats for this very good idea

about meat shield, i bought a jewel "3% chance for minion to taunt", i did the swap meat shield/deathmark and it appears that my survivability is quite a problem, i'm dying pretty oftenin my opinion

it's strange because i assume that 3% is enough with the number of minions i have (9 zombies + 10 phantasms + 1 AG + 1 golem + 0 to 10 skeletons + sometimes 35 vaal skeletons)
i have 5400 life, 1080 ES and i run t14/15 maps, don't have a clue if it's ok, with meatshield it was ^^

the jewels with "chance to taunt" are pretty cheap so i can buy one with 5% but i prefer to ask here if maybe you can see another thing i did wrong

(i don't have your setup enduring cry)

"

pat_hibulaire wrote:

"

AndyLovesHisBge wrote:

You can thank M_atrix for that curse suggestion, not me :) It was his recommendation to me that made me try it and he was absolutely right.


As for Meatshield, don't make the change to Empower and Deathmark until you get "Chance for Minions to Taunt" on a jewel.

Once you have that stat though on a jewel, immediately make the change to Empower 3 (or 4 if you are rich) and Deathmark. It is a large DPS boost, the Zombies stay more engaged fighting, you get an extra zombie and the taunt is 100% guaranteed with the amount of minions we have hitting.

ok, thanks a lot M_atrix and congrats for this very good idea

about meat shield, i bought a jewel "3% chance for minion to taunt", i did the swap meat shield/deathmark and it appears that my survivability is quite a problem, i'm dying pretty oftenin my opinion

it's strange because i assume that 3% is enough with the number of minions i have (9 zombies + 10 phantasms + 1 AG + 1 golem + 0 to 10 skeletons + sometimes 35 vaal skeletons)
i have 5400 life, 1080 ES and i run t14/15 maps, don't have a clue if it's ok, with meatshield it was ^^

the jewels with "chance to taunt" are pretty cheap so i can buy one with 5% but i prefer to ask here if maybe you can see another thing i did wrong

(i don't have your setup enduring cry)

I have no idea what could be wrong. You should have constant taunt, even at 3% but if you feel you do better with meat shield, then go back to it.

For me going to a minion taunt jewel and the switching to deathmark/empower was the biggest improvement I made in my character but perhaps the slight differences in our build are causing a problem.

I do have my effective life to almost 7600 now so maybe that plus enduring cry is the difference?

There is one thing I don't understand in your setup. You are using Queens Hunger but you still are using Bone Offering.

Give me a little while and I will download your character into POB and see if I can make any suggestions to help.

"

AndyLovesHisBge wrote:

I have no idea what could be wrong. You should have constant taunt, even at 3% but if you feel you do better with meat shield, then go back to it.

For me going to a minion taunt jewel and the switching to deathmark/empower was the biggest improvement I made in my character but perhaps the slight differences in our build are causing a problem.

I do have my effective life to almost 7600 now so maybe that plus enduring cry is the difference?

There is one thing I don't understand in your setup. You are using Queens Hunger but you still are using Bone Offering.

Give me a little while and I will download your character into POB and see if I can make any suggestions to help.

well, about my bone offering, i didn't had a clue about what to put instead of it, so i just let it that way. But i assume that it is basically a "lost skill"

thank you very much for the time you spend to save a lazy witch like me xD

"

pat_hibulaire wrote:

well, about my bone offering, i didn't had a clue about what to put instead of it, so i just let it that way. But i assume that it is basically a "lost skill"

thank you very much for the time you spend to save a lazy witch like me xD

Hi Pat,

It is no problem, I enjoy helping and learning. Here are some comments I have for you. Feel free to ignore which ever ones you don't like or want to do, except for the first 1. You must do that.


1) You forgot to fully ascend. Before you do any more mapping, stop and go do Uber lab. When you finish Uber Lab, choose Commander of Darkness as your last ascension point. This will fix your under 109% capped resists and give you plenty of extra minion damage. Your under capped resists are likely causing you survival issues in red maps when running into elemental weakness maps. This will also allow you to improve your gear as you can focus on stacking life(or ES) and minion stats, and not have to worry as much about resists.

2) You are using Melee Physical Damage with Summon Phantasm in your zombie gems. These do not have synergy as the Phatasms don't do melee damage. I would replace Melee Physical Damage with Empower 3. Your damage will go up significantly.

3) You are missing the gem Feeding Frenzy. This is a huge buff to every minion. All of your minions have 10% more minion damage, 10% increased movement speed, 10% increased attack speed, and 10% increased cast speed when the buff is up which should be 100% of the time. I have attached my Feeding Frenzy to my Golem who keeps the buff up constantly.

4) I am unsure which specters you are using but I believe the 3 strongest support specters are Host Chieftain (Power Charges), Carnage Chieftain (Frenzy Charges), and Arena Master (temporary massive boost in attack and movement speed).

5) I have dumped the entire CWDT set up. We don't need Bone Offering when using Queens Hunger, and Enduring Cry is simply better and more flexible than Purifying Flame IMO. And I think desecrate is useless as there are always corpses on the ground for queens hunger and on the off chance there isn't in a long boss fight, not having a random offering is not that big of a deal. I would use these freed up slots to bring in Enduring Cry + Second Wind. Please feel free to look at my character for some ideas on how and where to use the gems in your set up.

6) I don't know if you are SSF or not but if not, you need to annoint your Amulet with Grave Pact. It is the strongest minion node on the tree that we don't already take.


Try out any of these you like or not, your choice. Again except for #1, that is mandatory to do. You are ~13 levels higher than when you should have taken the last ascendancy :)

Hey Slow Mo'ers

Looking for a little help. I'm struggling a little with this build. Just got all my first watchstones and moving into yellow maps. Here are my primary struggles:

1. Clear - when there are a ton of monsters seems like I have to spend a ton of time in the area to get them cleared. Example I can rarely get the stone passage stones in the temple incursions so I completed the first temple but have yet to get one open enough to get to the top again.

2. I still seem to get one shot often (part of this is the clear speed so there is so much on the screen it's hard to see where to avoid. Also I'm on the PS4 which with full screens can get super laggy.

3. I try to stay out of the packs, but my zombies are always near me due to the meat shield. Should I get rid of that and if so what would be a good replacement? It causes me to shield charge through packs to get them involved.

Hoping for some advice on...what gear should I focus on changing. I'm using Redemption Sentry for spectres would there be something better? (I was using Slave Drivers). My profile is open, but here is my paste bin as well.

https://pastebin.com/yJfacuWg

Thanks!

RSCCCC

"

RSCCCC wrote:

Hey Slow Mo'ers

Looking for a little help. I'm struggling a little with this build. Just got all my first watchstones and moving into yellow maps. Here are my primary struggles:

1. Clear - when there are a ton of monsters seems like I have to spend a ton of time in the area to get them cleared. Example I can rarely get the stone passage stones in the temple incursions so I completed the first temple but have yet to get one open enough to get to the top again.

2. I still seem to get one shot often (part of this is the clear speed so there is so much on the screen it's hard to see where to avoid. Also I'm on the PS4 which with full screens can get super laggy.

3. I try to stay out of the packs, but my zombies are always near me due to the meat shield. Should I get rid of that and if so what would be a good replacement? It causes me to shield charge through packs to get them involved.

Hoping for some advice on...what gear should I focus on changing. I'm using Redemption Sentry for spectres would there be something better? (I was using Slave Drivers). My profile is open, but here is my paste bin as well.

https://pastebin.com/yJfacuWg

Thanks!

RSCCCC

here are some comments after looking at your build in POB.

1) You have not taken your last ascension points according to that link. If that is true that is your number 1 priority. Go to uber lab and finish ascending. You want to take Mistress of Sacrifice when you finish.

2) your specters are a choice. You could choose support specters or offensive specters. You have chosen offensive specters. IMO, when chosing offensive specters, you need to invest in them which you can't properly do in a 4 link.

Many of us are using support specters to help all minions. I am using Host Chieftain (Power Charges), Carnage Chieftain (Frenzy Charges), and Arena Master (temporary massive boost in attack and movement speed), linked with blood magic so that they keep their charges up all the time. You won't need Elemental Army with this setup and works well in a 4 link since you don't need to invest in support specters.

3) You are missing the gem Feeding Frenzy. This is a huge buff to every minion. All of your minions have 10% more minion damage, 10% increased movement speed, 10% increased attack speed, and 10% increased cast speed when the buff is up which should be 100% of the time. I have attached my Feeding Frenzy to my Golem who keeps the buff up constantly.

4) Some of us have moved away from Temp Chains and added in Vulnerability as the second curse. Bosses go down much faster and Temp Chains was meaningless when clearing mostly.

5) Find a 5 link chest as quickly as possible. It will be extremely hard to map in a 4 link link. Once you get a 5 link and eventually a 6 link, your damage will sky rocket and much of your problems you mention will vanish.

6) You are experiencing one shots due to your effective life. It is slightly too low for yellow maps imo. When possible try and stack life (or less preferably, ES). Your elemental resists are good but you have little chaos resistance.

7) if you are looking for better survive ability I would focus on your flasks. You are using only 1 defensive flask (I use 4 defensive flasks in comparison). Your Topaz flask is providing you nothing out side of the freeze immunity. You don't need any lighting resist in your build as you are capped.

I use 4 defensive flasks(Jade, Basalt, Granite and Quartz, with Curse, Bleeding, Poison and Burning support) and 1 life flask with freezing support. Look back in the thread a couple of pages and you will see other types of flask setups you can look at for different examples.

8) When you feel like you have a nice amulet, don't forget to anoint it with Grave Pact. Unless you have plenty of oils then you can anoint your current one and then do it again when you upgrade, your choice.

"

AndyLovesHisBge wrote:

here are some comments after looking at your build in POB.

1) You have not taken your last ascension points according to that link. If that is true that is your number 1 priority. Go to uber lab and finish ascending. You want to take Mistress of Sacrifice when you finish.

2) your specters are a choice. You could choose support specters or offensive specters. You have chosen offensive specters. IMO, when chosing offensive specters, you need to invest in them which you can't properly do in a 4 link.

Many of us are using support specters to help all minions. I am using Host Chieftain (Power Charges), Carnage Chieftain (Frenzy Charges), and Arena Master (temporary massive boost in attack and movement speed), linked with blood magic so that they keep their charges up all the time. You won't need Elemental Army with this setup and works well in a 4 link since you don't need to invest in support specters.

3) You are missing the gem Feeding Frenzy. This is a huge buff to every minion. All of your minions have 10% more minion damage, 10% increased movement speed, 10% increased attack speed, and 10% increased cast speed when the buff is up which should be 100% of the time. I have attached my Feeding Frenzy to my Golem who keeps the buff up constantly.

4) Some of us have moved away from Temp Chains and added in Vulnerability as the second curse. Bosses go down much faster and Temp Chains was meaningless when clearing mostly.

5) Find a 5 link chest as quickly as possible. It will be extremely hard to map in a 4 link link. Once you get a 5 link and eventually a 6 link, your damage will sky rocket and much of your problems you mention will vanish.

6) You are experiencing one shots due to your effective life. It is slightly too low for yellow maps imo. When possible try and stack life (or less preferably, ES). Your elemental resists are good but you have little chaos resistance.

7) if you are looking for better survive ability I would focus on your flasks. You are using only 1 defensive flask (I use 4 defensive flasks in comparison). Your Topaz flask is providing you nothing out side of the freeze immunity. You don't need any lighting resist in your build as you are capped.

I use 4 defensive flasks(Jade, Basalt, Granite and Quartz, with Curse, Bleeding, Poison and Burning support) and 1 life flask with freezing support. Look back in the thread a couple of pages and you will see other types of flask setups you can look at for different examples.

Thanks for the feedback. In terms of the Ascendancy I still have one more trial to find to finish that (I should go Mistress and not Commander?). I'll look at making a change on the spectres as well. Adding Feeding Frenzy and swapping out temp chains seems pretty straightforward. In terms of gear - I play on the PS4 I've been trying to buy some gear - but I only have about 15 Chaos at this stage and price on the PS4 are nuts and no one ever responds. I've picked up 5 links armor - my challenge is socket colors and understanding enough about what gems to switch in and out if I have different colors then the gems I see in the build (only my second league so a big learning curve on this game - which I love!) In terms of flasks - I agree I realized I could put freeze immunity on any flask just the other day in the Menagerie so I'll make that switch. I'm leery about only one life flask though I don't have great regen and I seem to pump through them. Thank you so much for your time and thoughts on this. Should I just keep running white maps until I get some of this straightened out you think? Also can you clarify if bone armor provides immunity to bleeding? I read it somewhere - but I seem to bleed alot and maybe I'm not the best at keeping bone armor up...I try :) Plus I'm struggling with the Harvest mechanics still with everything else there is to learn - so I haven't been able to fully utilize it's capabilities.

Thanks again!

RSCCCC

"

AndyLovesHisBge wrote:

Hi Pat,

It is no problem, I enjoy helping and learning. Here are some comments I have for you. Feel free to ignore which ever ones you don't like or want to do, except for the first 1. You must do that.


1) You forgot to fully ascend. Before you do any more mapping, stop and go do Uber lab. When you finish Uber Lab, choose Commander of Darkness as your last ascension point. This will fix your under 109% capped resists and give you plenty of extra minion damage. Your under capped resists are likely causing you survival issues in red maps when running into elemental weakness maps. This will also allow you to improve your gear as you can focus on stacking life(or ES) and minion stats, and not have to worry as much about resists.

2) You are using Melee Physical Damage with Summon Phantasm in your zombie gems. These do not have syngergy as the Phatasms don't do melee damage. I would replace Minion Damage Support with Empower 3. Your damage will go up significantly.

3) You are missing the gem Feeding Frenzy. This is a huge buff to every minion. All of your minions have 10% more minion damage, 10% increased movement speed, 10% increased attack speed, and 10% increased cast speed when the buff is up which should be 100% of the time. I have attached my Feeding Frenzy to my Golem who keeps the buff up constantly.

4) I am unsure which specters you are using but I believe the 3 strongest support specters are Host Chieftain (Power Charges), Carnage Chieftain (Frenzy Charges), and Arena Master (temporary massive boost in attack and movement speed).

5) I have dumped the entire CWDT set up. We don't need Bone Offering when using Queens Hunger, and Enduring Cry is simply better and more flexible than Purifying Flame IMO. And I think desecrate is useless as there are always corpses on the ground for queens hunger and on the off chance there isn't in a long boss fight, not having a random offering is not that big of a deal. I would use these freed up slots to bring in Enduring Cry + Second Wind. Please feel free to look at my character for some ideas on how and where to use the gems in your set up.

6) I don't know if you are SSF or not but if not, you need to annoint your Amulet with Grave Pact. It is the strongest minion node on the tree that we don't already take.


Try out any of these you like or not, your choice. Again except for #1, that is mandatory to do. You are ~13 levels higher than when you should have taken the last ascendancy :)

whoooo, really i don't know how to thank you for all this help, i'm so happy to see all those improvements i can do !

1) about the labs, yes, at the beginning of me playing POE, i hated labs so i just didn't unblock them lol. somebody told me few days ago it was mandatory, so now i do them when they appears on my maps, but i have just 4 of the 6 labs unblock :(

2) you tell me melee physical damage is not good with phantasms and the next sentence you advice me to swap minion damage support for empower. I assume you wanna say swap melee physical damage for empower right ?

4/ I use 1 host chieftain, 1 carnage chieftain and 1 ruins hellion. Do you think ruins hellion is useless if i put enduring cry on my build ?


i will test the other points you mentionned, i'm so excited to see the results of all those improvements, again thank you very much !