[3.16 updated] BRO, DO YOU EVEN SUMMON? Life/ES Dark Pact Skeleton Caster League Starter

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Cybervagabond, you need to gradually upgrade your gear. Just enjoy your time and don't mind spending your currency for new items. For less than 10c you can easily buy two wands way better than your current ones. Buy yourself a helmet with +2 to minion gems and put skeletons there along with Empower lvl 3. Buy a Gloomfang not only for leech but also +1 chain which is a huge dps bonus.

Solid advice for a new player at mid to endgame I think! I shouldn't worry so much if the build isn't progressing the way I would want it to. That's just how it is when you don't already have currency.

Hopefully I can get my hands on some of those cheaper items. For now I think I'll stick with it a little longer instead of starting a new char and spec for an easier build. It really doesn't seem like THAT hard of a build anyway since I do get the feeling you definitely put in a lot of effort to make it approachable for newer players or as a league starter. Plus I really wanna try my best to make this build work for me.

Thanks for the detailed build guide and for the advice!

Hi im having trouble purchasing the timeless jewel.

How do you determine which jewel to buy? I bought 1 and used my divines but I didn't get the passives I wanted.

Sorry I skipped legion so I don't know what to look at.

Thanks !!!

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Cybervagabond wrote:

Hopefully I can get my hands on some of those cheaper items.

That's one of the differences between experienced and new players, that older guys can spot what upgrades makes the build stronger while you are leveling and transitioning towards your dream build with all best in slot items. That's the learning curve you have to pass no matter what build you play, so changing the build won't really help.

You can split that problem into two parts: tankiness and damage.

For the first task you want all your gear to have high life, es and resistances. Every piece of you gear is currently missing additional life and it's really in dire straits right now.

Second part requires a 5, 6 or 6+ Linked item for most of the builds in the game. Gem levels matter alot too and shouldn't be overlooked. For this particular build, secondary Spell (Skeletons) and it's levels matter too since the damage scales from Minion HP. And the more levels we can pump into Skelies is the better, hence +2 +3 helm and Level 3 or 4 Empower support are essential.

Some of the gems used in this build are dirt cheap and there is no point in waiting to grab them. For instance:

https://poe.ninja/challenge/skill-gems?name=skeletons

Level 21/0 Skeletons are only 4c

https://poe.ninja/challenge/skill-gems?name=dark%20pact

Level 21/20 Dark Pact 40c
or
Level 21/0 Dark Pact 4c

Just few things to consider as you continue your journey, hope it helps.

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awawawawa wrote:

Hi im having trouble purchasing the timeless jewel.

How do you determine which jewel to buy? I bought 1 and used my divines but I didn't get the passives I wanted.

It was designed to be a non-trivial task, so it's only natural people have troubles.

There are a few strategies that work. First and the easiest is just to know in advance good seed numbers and snatch them from trade. Second is to divine, but in the case of Hubris, its unreasonable since the price of divine is more than the jewel itself.

Instead, you want to buy jewels in bulk and try them on your own. This can be a long process, but there are good chances you will succeed since people are not interested in Minion HP and they are likely to be floating in the trader space (You are unlikely to find effective minion damage or spell damage jewels selling for base price, for instance)

Best is to buy Hubrises in bulk and share good stuff with friends, depending on who needs what passives.

After you bought the bulk of jewels and tried them on, just sell them in bulk to the next guy! Only time lost is the cost, essentially.

I've heard there are some auctions and databases of seeds, but those are things I can't confirm. Might be something in the trade forum section.

Best of luck with the search, anyways!

Hi Thanks for the information.

Thanks a lot for this content, really appreciate.
Could you please give me/us more insights about your DPS calculation plz ?
I'm new and stuck on calculations.

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10% increased spell damage gives me 100k dps.
10% increased cast speed gives me 330k dps.
10% increased crit multi gives me 190k dps.
10% increased crit chance gives me 44k dps.
10% increased minion life gives me 218k dps.

Dark pact damage is composed of a "base damage" + 6% * "skel life".
So increasing "increased spell damage" should always gives more DPS than "increased minion life".


("base damage" * "increased spell damage") + (6% * "skel life" * "increased spell damage")
SHOULD be superior to
("base damage") + (6% * "skel life" * "increased minion life")


Did I miss something?
Thanks a lot, HF bro.

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LaGueuze wrote:

Dark pact damage is composed of a "base damage" + 6% * "skel life".
So increasing "increased spell damage" should always gives more DPS than "increased minion life".

Incorrect, and is a common mistake that players do. Increased spell damage is additive, just a few examples that are not linked to Dark Pact or any other spell:

If you have a base 100% increase from tree+gear, adding 20% increase will result in overall 10% dps increase.

If you have a base of 300% increase from tree+gear, adding 20% increase will result in overall 5% dps increase.

For base of 500% increase, 20% would mean adding 3.3% dps.

And so forth the stat value is diminished and its true for all 5 of the stats you mentioned (spell damage, cast speed, crit multy, crit chance and minion HP).

So depending on what values you have at a certain point the value of each individual one changes.

Overall notes: If you play a power charge build the crit chance is already high enough that you dont need to invest into it heavily.

If you run Void Batteries on top of the PC the increased spell damage is also high enough that only a moderate investment required.

If you run Frenzy Charge build (i.e. this build with Badge of the Brotherhood) then you don't really need any investment into cast speed.

If you run Lvl 27 Summon Skeletons gem then you need about 240% increased Minion HP to get them to 20k HP as I found it to be the sweet spot.

Overall the best investment into DPS would be Crit Multy, every piece of gear you can get it on will be a large dps boost.

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LaGueuze wrote:

Thanks a lot for this content, really appreciate.
Could you please give me/us more insights about your DPS calculation plz ?
I'm new and stuck on calculations.

Dark pact damage is composed of a "base damage" + 6% * "skel life".
So increasing "increased spell damage" should always gives more DPS than "increased minion life".


("base damage" * "increased spell damage") + (6% * "skel life" * "increased spell damage")
SHOULD be superior to
("base damage") + (6% * "skel life" * "increased minion life")


Did I miss something?
Thanks a lot, HF bro.

I tried to make google doc with changable inputs. It does not look great, but it should be able to count increases and reductions according to change of stats and their relative power.
PoB values needs to be inputed mannually into cells (red).

If anyone is interested here is link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TgcHJ2jkec6cSi7r_QaoAHtd9fVsLFdwh3Bjo0XSN8E/edit?usp=sharing
(make a copy which can be altered)

@zoNiklv
Thanks a lot, 100% clear and will help me a lot with this game.
Really appreciate, thanks for your time.


@Nirdana
This spreadsheet is perfect, I'll use it for my next build: THANKS!
Helps a lot to understand "increase" VS "more": ideal for a noob.


Both of you are amazing, such a pleasure to meet this kind of community members.
Wish you the best! Have a nice day.

Seems like the 4.0 update is gonna change everything! I'm pretty hyped to see how this build is affected.

It won't change the basic identity of the build, it's still cast on skelies but everything supporting the playstyle will be so much stronger. We get more damage auras, faster casting skeletons, faster wither stacking on mobs/bosses, maybe access to permanent fortify/consecrated grounds etc.

We don't know about new Ascendancy choices GGG will prepare for 4.0, Occultist might not the overall best choice by then.

One thing for certain, Assassin will be #1 Ascendancy for Dark Pact in Metamorph since the League emphasis is on hard bosses.