[3.14] Work in Progress! | Wazzupdj's Triad Grip Aurastack Necro | Vaal summon Skeletons
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Warning! This is a work in progress. I'm using this as a starter build for Ultimatum, and posting all the gear I get when I get it. This'll be more fleshed out over the course of the following week. Until then, you'll have to make do without all the Shaper kill video's etc.
I'll flesh this out with fancy colors/fonts/images as time goes on. Intro
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I'm lazy. I cannot be bothered whatsoever to grind maps until I have an exalt to spend on a marginally better rare piece of gear that ups my damage by 20%. Instead, I take as many decent/build enabling enabling uniques as I can to cobble together a build that goes farther than it really deserves to. As a result, this build should be able to do shaper/elder with almost no crafts (essences and crafting bench, nothing more). Concept
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Using a 4G triad grip, we convert 100% of minions' physical damage to cold. From there, the Hatred aura is a straight up double-dipping more multiplier for our minions' cold damage, and as a result scales for very long with increased aura effect. That is all the excuse needed to start full-on aurastacking. Using Victario's influence, we can stack a bunch more auras without running out of mana reserved. This gives us a bunch of power-boosting auras in exchange for a 6-link, further driving down costs. We also stack a bunch of aura effect on items and on the tree to further capitalize on this. With all this aura effect, using high-impact mines for the aura effect, at max mine stacks we can easily get ~60% chance to deal double damage. With a hungry loop, we can run a Raise zombie with feeding frenzy for mapping, as well as vaal summon skeletons for bossing in an elder 4-link helmet. The exact minions you run is kind of personal taste; Since most of the power is in your auras and not in your link setup, it is almost trivial to simply swap out the vaal summon skeleton gem for Dominating Blow/SRS/Spectres. The lack of rares make it hard to build a decent HP pool. To account for this, Pros/Cons
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+ Easy leveling + Scales deep into endgame with little cost + Cold-based minions freeze many other would-be threats + Many defensive layers -Bit of a 10-button build -Hungry loop shenanigans can be annoying -screen clutter -Minions, I know a lot of people hate the playstyle -Minions hitting the boss can perpetually freeze them, which requires walking away from them. (Was this fixed? I don't remember) -Relies a lot on uniques, not SSF friendly -Build has been nerfed every league since blight league +Build has been nerfed every league since blight league Levelling
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I'm going to save my PoB's when I'm levelling at level 10, 30, 50, and 70, and publish them inside the pob spoiler. I'll try to have something here that resembles a levelling build for leaguestart. I usually go for raise zombie immediately out the gate, support that with minion damage and summon phantasm (this one you get through the optional Mercy Mission) on a three-link. It's not the fastest levelling experience but it gets the job done. You can also get purifying flame at level 1; the consecrated ground it provides is a huge boost in survivability, and it can apply Elemental Equilibrium for -50% cold resistance later on. When it's available, put summon skeletons on a separate three-link with minion damage and melee phys/deathmark. You can potentially find a lvl 1 vaal summon skeletons in vaal side areas, so it's worth running those, or even buying a Vaal summon skeletons gem from the market. You can also choose to forego vaal summon skeletons and just level with the non-vaal kind, but you'd be missing out on the trivial bossing the vaal gem provides. The vitality and precision auras help a lot with early-game damage and survivability. At level 23 you can equip/buy a Matua Tupuna shield. The +2 socketed minion gems mod is very powerful; Since you get skellies at quite a low level, their damage scales very hard with gem level so socketing the skeletons in the shield is an up to 70% more damage modifier. This alone can easily carry you to act 4/5. At level 24 we can activate the Hatred aura, and at level 32 we can get a Triad Grip. Turning a Triad grip into one with four green sockets can be done with the vorici trick, but that requires unlocking the crafting recipes in Delve (which you can only do starting in act 4). Once you have the gloves and the recipe, I usually go for a triad grip with the first two sockets green, and the last two blue for levelling, which I'll turn green once I have the jeweller's orbs required. You can get the Jinxed Juju amulet at level 48, and Victario's Influence at level 52. This is a good moment to select the gems you want for your hungry loop and socket them in your off-hand weapons for levelling. When doing the first two labs, I like to take Mindless Aggression and then Unnatural strength, so you have +2 to all minion gem levels relatively early on. When your minion gems are not yet level 20, the bonus additional gem levels give is larger. It also increases their base health a lot, which makes them much more survivable. In the end, this build does head toward a trigger wand. This is only at level ~90, however, once the hungry loop setup has been completed. Pob
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Proof-of-concept POB, endgame: https://pastebin.com/LL549Sq4 Proof-of-concept POB, ~lvl 55: https://pastebin.com/5UbVu0sz Skill Gems
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All these gems are in the order of most important to least. (Helmet) Vaal summon Skeletons-Minion damage-Deathmark-Elemental Damage with Attacks (Body Armour) Hatred-Precision-Skitterbots-bonechill-Flesh and Stone-Vaal haste. Activating the haste aura is nice, but not required. You can choose to forego the haste aura, and reinvest the reduced mana reserved into other stats. (Gloves) Phase run-Dash-Second Wind-Desecrate (weapon 1) Bone offering-Assassin's Mark-Frostbite. This is a trigger wand, (shield) Raise spectre-Blood Magic-Animate Guardian. We need the blood magic so that the frenzy charge/power charge monkeys keep spamming their skill. (boots)High impact mine-purifying flame-carrion golem-discipline. (ring 1)Vitality. (ring 2)Raise zombie. This is a hungry loop; more info on this can be found below. Tree/Ascendancies Mindless Aggression-Unnatural Strength-Commander of Darkness-Mistress of Sacrifice. Pre-hungry loop setup:
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It's largely the same, except we don't use animated guardian or any of the spells in the trigger wand. With a second rare unset ring, this gives us enough slots to free a four-link so we can run Raise Zombie-Summon Phantasm-elemental army-Feeding Frenzy in our boots, rather than in the ring. Why summon phantasm? I like summon phantasm.
Smaller Details
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Animate Guardian gear
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Weapon - Dying breath for budget weapon, kingmaker for non-budget Body armour - Garb of the ephemeral, can be very expensive Helmet - Eye of malice provides a good damage increase if we get enemy res below 0%, and only becomes more effective the further down it goes Boots - the new Legacy of Fury boots leave scorched ground, potentially a further -14% cold res. Effect is kind of finicky, so don't expect it to apply a lot of the time. You can also take victario's flight for 10% increased movement speed. Gloves - Curse on hit gloves? can be useful. Spectres Used
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I always use host/carnage chieftain for the charges. The remaining 1/2 spectres can be used for defence. I personally run a diabolist (enfeeble-casting spectre) until I get my own curses, at which point I replace them with ruins hellion. The taunt by ruins hellions gives a 30% reduced damage debuff, as opposed to the 10% for default taunts. Hungry Loop
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The hungry loop is an item which is either 1 chaos or 1 exalt, depending on whether you level the gems yourself. I suggest selecting the gems you want beforehand and levelling them in your off-hand the moment they become available. That way, they'll all be done approximately the same time and the transition is relatively painless. For my setup, the gems I'm levelling for hungry loop are summon phantasm support, feeding frenzy support, elemental army support, and deathmark/minion damage support. Levelling up all the supports to level 20 is a process that takes a while. Usually, I get to around level ~90 (so already quite far into maps) before the gems reach level 20 and can be fed to the hungry loop. Until then, you're even more socket starved. To account for this, I usually don't run Animate Guardian or Curses until the extra gem slots are available. Getting the 4g Triad grip with Vorici trick
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Triad grip converts your minions' damage based on the color of the sockets of the gloves. We want to 100% convert to cold, but the gloves are a strength-intelligence piece of gear. As a result, each socket has a 45% chance to roll blue, 45% chance to roll red, and 10% chance to roll green. As a result, spamming chromatics until you get 4 green sockets is unfeasible, especially for a self-titled budget build.
That's where Vorici trick comes in. Vorici trick is something named after the former Master Assassin, Vorici. He could craft a specific number of sockets/colors/links on your gear. Since then, he has been disappeared and all of these crafts can be done at the crafting bench once you unlocked the recipes in Delve. You can get the basic ones you need for crafting Triad grip all at level 1 and 2 azurite deposits (craft 2 green sockets, craft 2/3/4 sockets onto an item). Basically, you craft the item with 2 sockets, and turn them green with "at least 2 green sockets" craft. Then, you craft 3 sockets. The way the crafting works is that it leaves the already-there sockets untouched, so this craft gives you 2 green sockets and then a new one with 45% chance blue, 45% chance red, 10% chance green. If it's not green, hitting "craft item with 2 sockets" gives you back the item with 2 green sockets. Rinse and repeat until you have 3 green sockets, and you can do the same thing with the fourth one. On average it takes 10 tries to get the third green socket, and 10 for the fourth. In total, that's an average of ~160 jeweller's orbs and 25 chromatics. Still not cheap, but it's much cheaper than spamming chromatics (10,000 chromatics average cost) or even the "at least 3 greens" craft (1,000 chromatics average cost). I personally prefer to get the gloves ASAP, and with these crafts get a Triad grip with 2 green sockets and 2 blue sockets. That is much cheaper to get while you're still leveling, it makes you less socket starved, and it is much better still than leaving your damage unconverted. Last bumped on Apr 16, 2021, 4:55:33 AM
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Post for future build additions.
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