[3.14] Flame Golem 101 - Complete Guide To Golemancy, ✔️All Bosses Down, ✔️Necro, ✔️Elementalist

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Varskar wrote:

You think going MF with your version is possible?

Hey :)

This is what I'm running with Golems in standard when going light MF.



I replace Empower / Fire Penetration with Item Quantity and controlled destruction / Minion Damage with Item Rarity.

Golems still clean all maps up to T14 nicely and as I can Vaal every map without worrying about mods, I get pretty good loot. As Golems are not immune to elemental damage with Necromancer they need more defense, but on the other hand you get more defenses yourself with Bone Offering block chance. With Empower and "Kaltenhalt" shield even Guardians are farmable. Best way is to not take Animated Guardian out, die in battle and wait for Golems to finish fight as it tends to take a while.

Converting to Elementalist later for Guardian / Shaper / Uber Atziri farming is easy as skill-trees remain almost identical.

Rarity can be added on jewels, chest, gloves and boots with sacrificing some defense and Golem level.

Even the Zookeeper leveling layout with 4-5x Specters does good at clearing mid tier maps.

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mika2salo wrote:

I will keep 75%/75% block as legacy league is just ending and there are tons of Legacy Rumis in sale. Many of the build makers are wealthy standard players and have already access to Legacy Rumis. I changes it to :
"Up to 75%/75%"
to reflect that its not default value once build is done in new leagues.

While that may be true, even in Legacy League that Rumi's is 10+ exalts for one with bad rolls. Listing expensive legacy numbers and "cheap and noob friendly" in the same section might disappoint some people :x

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This is why I have spent lots of time to make sure that leveling is super easy and cheap. New players can clear maps up to tier T14 with just specters and zombies. its very fast to generate currency for Anima Stone once in maps and you have all the time to manage currency and item drops.

Yes, but "cheap" is usually something we judge in comparision to other builds rather than grinding time. This is the only golem guide I've seen that claims the build is inexpensive. But from a new player's perspective, they might not be able to tell the difference between your "cheap" and (for example) Chaos BV "cheap".

Imagine somebody picks up POE for the first time and does what everybody says to do, which is use somebody else's build guide. They click your guide and they don't know how much work goes into getting LVL 25+ golems, or 75% Temp Chains or 75/75 block chance.

All they see is the word "cheap" and think, "Okay, let's do this."

Let's assume they like the game, max out gems, and hit level 80ish. They see people doing "science" in global and reluctanctly Vaal their gems and don't hit a single 21 (nevermind their underleveled Empower or Enhance).

So then they're like, "Damn, guess I gotta buy it then."

Let's assume they're resourceful or have helpful friends, so they look up a LVL 21 Flame Golem on poe.trade.

Then they're a little shocked, "Damn, 200c. But, I already spent all my chaos on Anima Stone..."

But let's say they're pretty resilient. So this newbie buckles down and grinds, gets his LVL 21 FG, feels pretty happy and then starts to think what's next.

"Hmm, oh yeah, LVL 4 Empower. I need two, right? One for the golems and one for AG. I wonder how much those are?"

5 seconds later...

He/she starts to think, "Damn... I'm starting to notice a pattern here."

Next the player looks up LVL 21 AG, LVL 4 Enhance, LVL 21 Temp Chains, etc., etc. He/she might not even have a 6L yet and still has all the uber-expensive non-gem stuff to check off the shopping list. If you throw LVL 21 CWDT and Bone Offering on top of that, I just don't know...

Finally the player's like, "If this is what 'cheap' means for a golem build, I hate to think how bad the other golem builds are that say 'expensive'..."

Gear sold. Another Blade Flurry Elementalist is born, never to touch golems again...

Or worse, our intrepid newbie just quits the game. :(

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Necromancer has more minion damage in nodes from Ascendancy. I have also checked multiple forum threads earlier and noticed that all ended in conclusion that Necromancer will end with more minion damage and utility nodes while Elementalist gets elemental immunity and +1 Golem.

As I said, this is a false conclusion that is easy to come to because many people only look at the numbers on the tree without considering overall build profiles. That conclusion gets spread on reddit or whatever, people start assuming and believing, and pretty soon many become misinformed. We have to consider that +1 golem equals both more damage from the golem itself and more Harmony bonus damage.

I've done some calculations that show Elementalist and Necromancer damage are about the same (top post is ELE; bottom post is NEC). These calculations are for 7 Harmonies and include all NEC Ascendancy bonuses. I estimate that ELE damage begins to outpace NEC at about 9 Harmonies (depending on rolls). If we factor in damage from sub-golems, the gap becomes even wider in ELE's favor. Playing around with PoB backs this conclusion up too.

Note, I took the minion damage node near Herd the Flock away from ELE when calculating, since I consider that inefficient pathing, but left it in for NEC because it makes sense for NEC to protect their golems more and grab that damage node along the way. Also note that ELE is more likely to run the more offensive Flesh Offering full-time, compared to NEC using a defensive Bone or Spirit Offering as the situation calls for. Additionally, your build sacrifices a golem to use a shield. I don't believe the charges are enough to make up the DPS from a lost golem, which means it cannot match the damage from a typical ELE. And therefore...

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Minion damage helps with clear speed and as Necromancer gets more damage nodes, minions also kill rares and bosses faster. I changed "worse" to "slower" to reflect that it takes bit longer to kill some enemies.

It's hard to claim ELE is a worse/slower mapper or bosser.

He starts with this:
- Cheap and noob friendly build to start with great tutorial

And I do believe he is right that it is cheap build to start with, even in the videos he posted he uses quite normal gear I believe with only 4 golems instead of what you could get maximum and only level 23 flame golems instead of the level 27 you could get.

Maybe he could give some alternatives for those who don't have the currency for buying the empower but I think he is clear in what the costs are with most things.

I'm gonna start 3.0 with this build and think I will do just fine, the way the build works is that you can keep using srs for quite some time or go for the spectres anytime you feel like it.


Some side questions about your guide:
You start with quite some passives in strength and dexterity? May I ask why? Seems to me these are less important in the start and most gems you use when leveling don't require a lot of strength and dex?
I noticed when taking the nodes you mention in your guide I have often mana problems and think in 3.0 I would rather start with the health and soul then with the str end dex you get with practical application.

Also since you take all those strength en dexterity nodes is it not better to take the 2 passives points instead of the all resistance?

I realy enjoy the guide, but i'm thinking if there is alternative stuffs to use. I'm a casual player so i cant farm a lot of curency to get everything at once, so what sould be prioritized?

I agree with the guys above, is expensive. The first thing i do when i see a build that i like is go on poe.trade, see the end game gear and how it cost to buy it. But this is one of the first summuner guide that i realy got me happy to play with, so i realy wanna try it.

Thanks for the guide btw ^^

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Wall of text

Its very hard to price the build when getting to T13-14 maps costs way less then 1 EX with 5 specters. With Elementalist you can pretty much run to guardians with Tabula Rasa and wait for 5 minutes for boss to die while dead yourself.

All costs between that and deathless runs are relative to players own taste. Many build makers stopped min maxing after they got 6 link Infernal Mantle and normal Rainbowstrides. All content below T16 is doable easy at that point. Then they just switched to Elementalist and farmed T16+ bosses while dead if they didn't want to invest more.

Getting to endgame is pretty cheap and I'm explaining in the guide how to do t16+ endgame bosses while dead, even if not recommend to do it as its not the intended way.

I'm still adding cheaper item alternatives, but in most cases just dropping the +1 level or legacy % makes the item very cheap.

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As I said, this is a false conclusion that is easy to come to because many people only look at the numbers on the tree without considering overall build profiles. That conclusion gets spread on reddit or whatever, people start assuming and believing, and pretty soon many become misinformed. We have to consider that +1 golem equals both more damage from the golem itself and more Harmony bonus damage.

I've done some calculations that show Elementalist and Necromancer damage are about the same (top post is ELE; bottom post is NEC). These calculations are for 7 Harmonies and include all NEC Ascendancy bonuses. I estimate that ELE damage begins to outpace NEC at about 9 Harmonies (depending on rolls). If we factor in damage from sub-golems, the gap becomes even wider in ELE's favor. Playing around with PoB backs this conclusion up too.

Note, I took the minion damage node near Herd the Flock away from ELE when calculating, since I consider that inefficient pathing, but left it in for NEC because it makes sense for NEC to protect their golems more and grab that damage node along the way. Also note that ELE is more likely to run the more offensive Flesh Offering full-time, compared to NEC using a defensive Bone or Spirit Offering as the situation calls for. Additionally, your build sacrifices a golem to use a shield. I don't believe the charges are enough to make up the DPS from a lost golem, which means it cannot match the damage from a typical ELE. And therefore...

I'll just remove the damage comparison and focus on more clear comparisons. Poe doesn't give us minion damage readings so its very hard to do compares. Nice that you have done clear calculation for community :)

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He starts with this:
- Cheap and noob friendly build to start with great tutorial

And I do believe he is right that it is cheap build to start with, even in the videos he posted he uses quite normal gear I believe with only 4 golems instead of what you could get maximum and only level 23 flame golems instead of the level 27 you could get.

Maybe he could give some alternatives for those who don't have the currency for buying the empower but I think he is clear in what the costs are with most things.

I'm gonna start 3.0 with this build and think I will do just fine, the way the build works is that you can keep using srs for quite some time or go for the spectres anytime you feel like it.

Thanks for support :)

I'm still in the middle of adding cheaper alternatives for item. Skin of the Loyal is much closer to endgame chest for casual players in league, but I was surprised by how many players actually managed to 6 link Infernal Mantles them self in few weeks after start and many even Vaaled the +1 Level on it. Power or ARPG players is never to be underestimated even with casuals.

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Some side questions about your guide:
You start with quite some passives in strength and dexterity? May I ask why? Seems to me these are less important in the start and most gems you use when leveling don't require a lot of strength and dex?
I noticed when taking the nodes you mention in your guide I have often mana problems and think in 3.0 I would rather start with the health and soul then with the str end dex you get with practical application.

Also since you take all those strength en dexterity nodes is it not better to take the 2 passives points instead of the all resistance?

The strength and dexterity nodes are for players who hate trading or have horrible currency drops to buy items needed to fulfill requirements. It's often easier to take extra attributes and just use any 3-5 item with links or ring / amulet with resistances dropped than try to balance between attributes.

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I realy enjoy the guide, but i'm thinking if there is alternative stuffs to use. I'm a casual player so i cant farm a lot of curency to get everything at once, so what sould be prioritized?

I agree with the guys above, is expensive. The first thing i do when i see a build that i like is go on poe.trade, see the end game gear and how it cost to buy it. But this is one of the first summuner guide that i realy got me happy to play with, so i realy wanna try it.

Thanks for the guide btw ^^

Thank you for interest :)

I'm still adding cheaper item alternatives to the guide. Anima Stone should be number one item to get after all leveling gear is purchased.

You are good to do endgame maps with almost any 6 link armor that gives high Energy Shield. Rings and Amulet can have just resistances, life and resistances. Minion movement speed is quality of life but not really needed.

Real price spike comes if you want to do T16 Guardians deathless. All maps to T15 are doable with very little gear as bosses die very fast in battles, which makes kiting alive very easy.

You can of course just stack Minion Life and resistances to Golems and wait while dead for boss to die. Even cheaper is to re-spec to Elementalist for elemental immunity later and farm elemental damage based endgame bosses.

@mika2salo

This is what I mean by newer players getting confused:

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Krekel82 wrote:

He starts with this:
- Cheap and noob friendly build to start with great tutorial

And I do believe he is right that it is cheap build to start with, even in the videos he posted he uses quite normal gear I believe with only 4 golems instead of what you could get maximum and only level 23 flame golems instead of the level 27 you could get.

4 golems is the maximum you get with this build. Before you buy an Anima Stone, you only get 2 (or 3 if you're willing to sacrifice the shield/block bonuses). The video featured at the very top of the guide uses level 27 golems.

Also, I might need new glasses or something, because I don't remember seeing "to start" when I first read that line. My apologies if I misquoted there, but I do still feel emphasizing "cheapness" is not really realistic for golem builds as of v2.5.

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tomatopotato wrote:

@mika2salo

This is what I mean by newer players getting confused:

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Krekel82 wrote:

He starts with this:
- Cheap and noob friendly build to start with great tutorial

And I do believe he is right that it is cheap build to start with, even in the videos he posted he uses quite normal gear I believe with only 4 golems instead of what you could get maximum and only level 23 flame golems instead of the level 27 you could get.

4 golems is the maximum you get with this build. Before you buy an Anima Stone, you only get 2 (or 3 if you're willing to sacrifice the shield/block bonuses). The video featured at the very top of the guide uses level 27 golems.

Also, I might need new glasses or something, because I don't remember seeing "to start" when I first read that line. My apologies if I misquoted there, but I do still feel emphasizing "cheapness" is not really realistic for golem builds as of v2.5.

No misquotes here, I actually changed the guide somewhat after your first posts as you had very good points :)

accidental duplicate

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- 3 Link For Spell Totem
Spell Totem
- Spell totems level raises its health. Casts any spell linked to it.

Ball Lightning
- Spell that hits elemies with lightning damage. Triggers "Elemental Equilibrium" which is explained later. Can be left to lvl 1 for lowest mana cost.

Greater Multiple Projectiles
- With this totem shoots 5 projectiles instead of 1. Each projectile will have lightning arcs between them. The arcs also trigger "Elemental Equilibrium" too so they cover very large area.

The new storm burst Gem looks very interesting :
Spell Totem
- Spell totems level raises its health. Casts any spell linked to it.

Storm Burst
- fires bolts of piercing lightning while channeling, doing small amounts of damage. When you stop channeling, the bolts detonate, dealing a large amount of area damage around them.

GMP probably not needed for this setup, so it make a free slot for a new gem, and maybe put a clarity ?
Even level 1, just to proc one more Commander of Darkness (10% dmg + 5% AS/CS to party)

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kami_koi wrote:

"

- 3 Link For Spell Totem
Spell Totem
- Spell totems level raises its health. Casts any spell linked to it.

Ball Lightning
- Spell that hits elemies with lightning damage. Triggers "Elemental Equilibrium" which is explained later. Can be left to lvl 1 for lowest mana cost.

Greater Multiple Projectiles
- With this totem shoots 5 projectiles instead of 1. Each projectile will have lightning arcs between them. The arcs also trigger "Elemental Equilibrium" too so they cover very large area.

The new storm burst Gem looks very interesting :
Spell Totem
- Spell totems level raises its health. Casts any spell linked to it.

Storm Burst
- fires bolts of piercing lightning while channeling, doing small amounts of damage. When you stop channeling, the bolts detonate, dealing a large amount of area damage around them.

GMP probably not needed for this setup, so it make a free slot for a new gem, and maybe put a clarity ?
Even level 1, just to proc one more Commander of Darkness (10% dmg + 5% AS/CS to party)

Hey :)

Storm Burst sure looks promising. It has to be tested if it will spread Elemental Equilibrium and how intelligently Spell Totem will finally trigger the explosion.

Ball lightning may be quite fps hungry, so alternate skill to spread Elemental Equilibrium on low end pc has been Spell Totem -> Arc -> Faster Casting. I'm quite sure Spell Totem -> Storm Burst can replace it and maybe Clarity level 1 replace Faster Casting.