[3.19] The Hymn of Steel is sung at the Iron Mass. Chaos Skeleton build.
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POB
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https://pobb.in/r0BNKJOLbVLY
The Iron Mass has been an item in POE that has been kind of neglected from the start. I think most Minions players have looked at it at one point or another and written it off since scaling skeleton levels has traditionally been better, and Skeleton mages have been much, much better the past few leagues. But with nerfs to Minion gems in general, and buffs to the Covenant, I think the Iron Mass now has it's time to shine Why play this build?
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 Note: This is a very ideal number assuming full poison/wither stacks and all skeleton warriors hitting the same target that's sitting in your AG's shocking ground. I'd halve this for a more realistic number - The build is relatively cheap. The most expensive piece is the Covenant, which peaked around 1 divine. United in dream will probably take a day or two to drop in price most leagues due to lack of people doing breachstones, and the Iron Mass might take ~60c for a perfect roll. After that, it's relatively cheap rares. You do not need expensive + Minion level gear, in fact, I'd suggest against it as it won't scale your damage much. - You want to play something that's not meta that's playable - It does great single target damage. - It has decent, not great clear - Eldritch battery means no mana issues and we get an additional aura which lasts a long time due to our built in skill duration bonuses - It plays well in parties, You provide good aura support and your minions get nice bonuses from Anger/Wrath/Shock - Vaal summon skeleton is a really fun cooldown to pop, 36 hard hitting mobs on demand kicks butt (even the archers and mages deal decent chip damage due to how we're scaling damage) Why not play this build?
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- Defenses are okay, but you're going to have to pay attention to boss mechanics, you will die to a pair of random crits here or there, and you do not have max block or a reliable quick regen method besides flasks. - Damage takes a second or two to ramp up. You rely on Withered/poison stacks to scale up damage, and while it only takes 3~4 skeletons on a target to reliably keep poison stacks up, withered stacks are a bit more unreliable. - It's hard to see ground effects with 41 skeletons running around, especially with MTX enabled. - The build hits a bit of a plateau gear-wise once you've got full elemental/chaos resists, good armor, and T1 life on every rare. There might be chase mods I'm not thinking of that elevate the build but I haven't found them. - Many, many buttons. I swap out Vaal haste for regular haste on pinnacle bosses because I would otherwise have to use the second skillbar to fit in Signal Prey. You can use Despair on hit gear to free up a socket/skillbar but it's a downgrade from handcasting. How the Build works " Playstyle Use Whirling blades to whip around the map at high speed and drop skeletons whenever you run into mob packs. Use Smite to keep your iron mass buff up, and hand-cast despair on rares/uniques. Vaal summon skeletons and Vaal haste can be used on bosses or league mechanics. Gear
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The Iron Mass: We use this for triple damage, Unholy might and wither on hit. Severed in Sleep: We use this for a huge amount of flat chaos damage, and minion poison chance The Covenant: We use this for a huge amount of flat chaos to our skeletons along with a good chunk of energy shield for Eldritch Battery Any rare with Life and Aura reservation(Essence craft here if nothing on the market is affordable) Crafting +1 skeletons on the helm will be a nice increase as well Alpha's Howl can also work here, if you're running the 3 purity of X aura alternate setup I'd recommend running with that so you can get more maxres. +1 skeletons and increased armor are important here. Anything below this basically just get rares with Armor/Life and make sure resists and strength/dexterity are filled out Abyssal Jewels You want to get minion Taunt on hit and Corrupted blood immunity here, along with flat life on every jewel. After that, Minion attack speed/Minion inc damage after using minion skills recently are the primary thing to look for. Skill Links
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Body Armor - Clear Vaal Summon Skeletons - Minion Damage - Minion Speed - Multistrike - Melee Splash - Vile Toxins Body Armor - Bossing Vaal Summon Skeletons - Predator - Minion Damage - Multistrike - Ruthlessness - Vile Toxins 4 link - Auras Purity of Elements - Determination - Defiance Banner - Whirling Blades 4 link - Support Summon Spectre - Minion Life - Meat Shield - Animate Guardian 4 link - Support 2 Summon Carrion Golem - Feeding Frenzy - Divine Blessing- Vaal Haste 3 link - Iron Mass Bone Offering - Cast when Damage Taken- Desecrate 3 link - United in Dream Smite - Generosity - Precision (Level 1-3) Free Socket Despair Levelling: To be finished later Last edited by Techgamer on Sep 14, 2022, 10:53:03 PM Last bumped on Dec 4, 2022, 11:19:46 AM
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Tagging this in case I need a second post
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e: double post
Last edited by Techgamer on Sep 14, 2022, 10:45:44 PM
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Hello,
thanks for sharing. Going to try this build out and twist it a bit to make it how I like it. Could you please tell me the Spectres you use and the Animate Guardian Setup? Much appreciated! |
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Thanks for the interest! I don't have a levelling tree out yet but if you have any questions there, let me know.
Spectres are currently 1 host chieftain, 1 carnage chieftain, 1 arena master. I'm considering going 2 carnage chieftains since we benefit from attack speed more than crit so much that more consistent applications of 3 frenzies might be worth it since we benefit so much from getting poison/withered stacks up. I've also heard great things about primal crushclaws due to their action speed debuff but I've yet to test it out in practice. As for AG, what I'm currently using is relatively budget, you can go more expensive. I do not believe we need the more tanky AG setups since we are constantly getting infusions of 5% health on all our minions from skeletons dying or being refreshed, our AG's biggest defensive bane is that we don't stack minion level gear for more base life, and that's not really all that fixable with gear. I haven't lost a single AG I put more than 20c into though. - Kingmaker - Leer Cast (Crown of the tyrant w/ white socket is almost certainly better) - Garb of the Ephemeral - Rare gloves with intimidate on hit and resists (your AG should usually be in your defensive auras due to meat shield but it never hurts to make sure they're tanky out of it) - Shocking ground boots, I don't rely on shocking ground and believe it's off for the POB, but it's nice when it's there. Sapped ground would be the more defensive choice, but I'd take unreliable offense over unreliable defense. Last edited by Techgamer on Sep 26, 2022, 9:04:33 AM
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I'll do a more formal update to this build once 3.20 launches and I can play around with it more but my initial thoughts are:
- Kingmaker rarity nerf is going to suck. The Fortify was a great defensive layer and once that came online I was basically only dying to high tier lake enemies and Pinnacle bosses. If the price "only" goes up around 4x I'd still recommend it for deep endgame play, the only AG I lost all league was to a essence memory'd super juiced mob when the AG got out of my auras. - Vaguely optimistic about the curse changes. Despair losing flat chaos sucks hard for this build since flat damage makes this build with IM's triple damage, but we weren't getting much out of it in the fights we needed it for. The nerf to white mob effectiveness doesn't mean crap because this build mows down anything but tough ANs and Pinnacles effortlessly. - The Relics are going to be potentially sick for this build. We've got so much of our gear slots dedicated to uniques that even mundane stats like stats or resists will be liked. The Aura effect affix that we do know is an option would kick ass with our many auras. Some of the keystones we can't realistically path to would be good to marginal upgrades as well. - Vaal smite looks cool but even with it's boosted buff, don't bother. Vaal haste and Vaal Skeletons are so integral to the damage windows that we don't want to split the soul gain 3 ways. Also if you use a dedicated push to walk key like I do, we don't have an extra slot for another skill. - Jewel ailment rework may mean we're able to get off of PoE if we can get ailment immunity to shock and ignite from our jewels and more base resist than I had in 3.19. Grace would be my first thought for a replacement. - Was hoping for a general minion buff. Didn't get one. Dang. Last edited by Techgamer on Dec 4, 2022, 11:24:24 AM
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