[3.23] [SC+HC] Summon Homing Missiles (SRS) Necromancer: Starting, Leveling & Endgame Mapping

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energumenus32 wrote:

Are there any notable changes in the PoB or gearing/skill setup that should be made for HC? My only worry really is that you have to stand still for a good amount of time to get the spirits out and standing still in HC makes me nervous which is why I never really tried an SRS build.

If properly playing, you should never cast it more than once from the same location. (this is a major difference to SRS builds that rely on its attack: you will never summon up a swarm of them)

I'll admit that I've not played a lot since getting my transmuted gem, (I was pretty lucky to get one to drop on my first lab run post-3.23) so I don't have a deep feel with how much different it feels to take 60% longer to cast.

But with the normal gem, it's definitely quite fine; I normally always hold down the "move only" button, just periodically also pressing the button to summon one, so when I release it, I keep moving.

It's a nearer-term goal of mine to actually try and provide some visualization of this tactic, since I've noticed it's hard to convey in words, and would be better in a video/GIF. But it's a tactic that's served me very well; it both increases the build's clearspeed a lot, and it's a lot safer.

The mentality I approach it with is that this isn't a minion build: it's a ranged spellcasting build that just so happens to auto-aim itself, so you needn't worry about using your mouse pointing for anything other than movement.

Also, aside from all of the above, I'd of course make sure to take Unwavering Stance as soon as you path near it. This, coupled with some pretty high amounts of life & armour for a spellcaster, make it a lot more viable. Also, I might consider a rare chest over Skin of the Lords; the character I run with this build has a rare plate, and has over 6.4k life and over 15k armour pre-flask. (almost 30k with flask up)

Thank you for the guide. I've been using it for a little bit. There's two things I wanted to point out. It could be useful to mention that you can assign Bone Armor to left click as it doesn't interrupt movement and it'll allow essentially 100% uptime. The other thing is I noticed that right after getting Minion Instability, we go for Minion Defense Mastery. In doing so, we grab Indomitable Army which gives minion 15% elemental resist. I ended up refunding those points, since it was causing Infernal Legion to take a little long, and rushing the other Minion Defense Mastery connected to Sacrifice, delaying Mana Mastery/Dreamer as I wasn't having any mana issues at that point. It's all the same after you get Tavukai, but I wanted to share my experience.

A question I have is, does Throatseeker/Critical Strike Mastery affect the damage from the MI explosion with the Transfigured SRS? If so, it'd be 79% crit multiplier (against unique enemies), but the question is where would we even get the 6 points for it and would it even be worth it.

As an aside, I'm curious if there's an interaction between Necromantic Aegis passive + Unyielding Flame shield + MI + Transfigured SRS. I don't have any way to test it since I don't have the Transfigured SRS yet. It sounds cool in my head, meteors dropping after a raging spirit explodes, but that doesn't mean it actually works or is useful in any capacity. :)

Thanks again ACGIFT.

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Jewwwy wrote:

A question I have is, does Throatseeker/Critical Strike Mastery affect the damage from the MI explosion with the Transfigured SRS? If so, it'd be 79% crit multiplier (against unique enemies), but the question is where would we even get the 6 points for it and would it even be worth it.

As an aside, I'm curious if there's an interaction between Necromantic Aegis passive + Unyielding Flame shield + MI + Transfigured SRS. I don't have any way to test it since I don't have the Transfigured SRS yet. It sounds cool in my head, meteors dropping after a raging spirit explodes, but that doesn't mean it actually works or is useful in any capacity. :)

Thanks again ACGIFT.

Thank you for your feedback! I'm always trying to refine the tactics part, which is a bit hard in text; my ultimate goal is to have some video explaining it.

As for Indomitable Army, that's fair. I'll admit to not having playtested those levels again since they removed the life from the IA node, which does hurt it. I may rework the recommended pathing to take Sacrifice far earlier, (e.g, act 3 vs. act 7) so we can get the mastery from that cluster instead.

And no, player crit multiplier does not apply to your minions: functionally, the MI explosion is the spirit triggering its own skill. So the only sources of crit multi on the tree that apply to it would be the Fearsome Force cluster; I take points from the Death Attunement cluster to fund that.

And yes, that's an interesting mechanic, and I think it works (as triggered skills still play after death) though I'm a little skeptical as to the value of its damage; the base damage of the MI explosion is going to be in the range of 30-50k or so, while Commandment of Inferno is only 3324 to 5263: 1/10th as much. Both would, I believe, enjoy the same sort of scaling, so it's a question of whether That extra 1/10th damage would be worth losing a wand over... Which it generally isn't.

I will admit it would look cool, though.

I am just curious why are awe taking Indomitable Army passive when it just gives defences and not life or damage to our skull boys?

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Phoenixbl wrote:

I am just curious why are awe taking Indomitable Army passive when it just gives defences and not life or damage to our skull boys?

Minions have 15% increased maximum Life

Its our damage.

I league started this build and I'm enjoying, I was just wondering would Legacy of Fire proc SRS explosion?

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Phoenixbl wrote:

I am just curious why are awe taking Indomitable Army passive when it just gives defences and not life or damage to our skull boys?

I dropped the Indomitable army passive as it indeed does not increase ur life, if u read it it's just ele res + phys reduction, I took the 30% inc minion life on the Sacrifice node, and took the +8% life on Indomitable wheel

the best atlas for srs what to farm? how to build an atlas

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Upss wrote:

the best atlas for srs what to farm? how to build an atlas

The only mechanic I find issue with is Ultimatum, but that could also just be because of the slow cast speed of the enormity srs and me sucking in general, You can pretty much do anything you want with the build, so just spec into things you don't mind grinding for a while

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Phoenixbl wrote:

I am just curious why are awe taking Indomitable Army passive when it just gives defences and not life or damage to our skull boys?

You need a Minion Defense mastery in order to take the mastery for 30% increased minion life. I've been trying to test it at low level of late, and in my next PoB revision I'll likely remove it at low levels, because the resists make the explosions take longer to occur. Once you have Tavukai, this is no longer the case.

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Pretma wrote:

I league started this build and I'm enjoying, I was just wondering would Legacy of Fire proc SRS explosion?

I'm assuming you mean Legacy of Fury... And its proc only triggers when we kill, not our minions. So it is not helpful to us. (though the scorch it applies is universal, so it technically increases our DPS, at the cost of requiring us stick near enough to the enemy)

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Upss wrote:

the best atlas for srs what to farm? how to build an atlas

For the most part, SRS is fairly "universal," but less "zoom zoom" than most popular farm builds. So I'd recommend content where extreme-clearspeed builds like Tornado Shot & Flicker Strike see less benefit.

This will include more boss-heavy stuff: so it fares better at Maven invite farming vs. Eldritch altars, for instance. (meanwhile Tornado Shot almost exclusively farms altars, not Maven invites)

As far as league-type content, here's ones that I've noted it does pretty well with:

• Expedition - Almost certainly the one content where this build shines above all others more than anything. The only remnant to look out for is making them immune to fire damage. (Crit immunity can sting with a new build for crit, but otherwise is no big deal) Everything else? It ignores them. Annoying enemy directional shields? It ignores them. Wards? Overwhelms them.
  
  
• Blight - One of my favorites. Can definitely do full blight-ravaged, (assuming your computer can handle it...) and is pretty chill. I recommend building primarily for stunning & other CC towers, as this build offers amazing clear for blight lanes. Only warning is that due to the delay in explosions, you need to make sure the mobs are cleared before they get close, otherwise it can be too late.
  
  
• Harvest - Super trivial; just keep a few spirits placed on the crop as they spawn, and they always die instantly.
  
  
• Sanctum - Not as experienced, but it seems to work great. Which figures, given it's a "stay away from the mobs" build, and generally totems, traps/mines, and minions are preferred here.
  
  
• Essence - Easiest essence farm I've ever done. You can pre-summon a few before clicking the essence the third time, and even at T16 with rippy mods this usually insta-deletes them, and even if they don't, you can easily hang back safely. This works for memory essence farm as well.
  
  
• Bestiary (Einhar) - Lotsa big, tough monsters that won't insta-die due to them only freezing once a net is thrown, which makes this pretty ideal.
  
  
• Harbinger - While hanging back means that the mobs will often get warped to you, as long as you stay mobile your safe, and SRS here offers great area coverage to quickly delete them.
  
  
• Strongboxes (Ambush) - I mean, everyone takes these anyway, but dropping a couple SRS before popping them makes them go almost instantly.

Now, for a list of builds I recommend against farming with this, mostly because the content tends to get the spirits stuck on adds that slow you down a lot. This can do these forms of content, but it'll definitely feel less-than-ideal:

• Delve/Incursion/Syndicate (Niko/Alva/Jun) - I'm a little harsh on it for Syndicate (it handles the Syndicate members rather well) but it definitely doesn't do great in Research encounters. Similarly, Incursions & Delving aren't as fast, and the former's harder because they're still "minion kills" which award half the time of normal kills.
  
  
• Legion - Sadly, while the DPS is phenomenal, the dense crowd of frozen mobs means you have to physically get next to the major targets to drop an SRS; this is really bad. If you're maining SRS, I recommend blocking Legion.
  
  
• Breach - Similarly, as mobs trickle in from all directions at once, this generally is too much for SRS to cover. If you can spot a breachlord with more than a couple seconds left you can delete them easy, though. Still not great.
  
  
• Ultimatum(?) - I skipped Ultimatum, and only got to try it a little, so I'm hardly 100% on it. It seems to be as chaotic as Breach, so getting coverage of all the enemies in time is a bit hard. Might be fine with actual skill, but I don't know.

Other stuff I've not mentioned are about middling; they're fine once you have skill with the mechanics, though not perfect.