[3.9] Pure Phys Skeletons & Friends Necromancer — Beginner/SSF/Budget Build

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kestak wrote:

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Voopvoop wrote:

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kestak wrote:

Greetings,

- I tried 2x Undying evangelist no blood magic ( meat shield - concentrated effect and spell echo ) and 2x Slave drivers and I ended up with almost all the time max frenzy, power and endurance. It was better than the hosts.
Thank you

What's generating the charges when you're running two slaves and two undyings?

Undying evangelist is the one that is generating the charges. I was surprised because wiki says: "Casts a short duration Proximity Shield, preventing damage from sources out side of its area of effect." And I never had that. Maybe it got changed.

Thank you

Interesting. Thanks for responding.

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I think the game is kind of broken.

They literally crippled so many decent builds and narrowed the diversity. Just think if they didn't buff the ranger abilities lol.

Thank you heaps, viperesque, for rolling this build out. It's really a great one for starting out and learning the mechanics of the game.

Some more pros and cons that I feel this build has:

> Boss fights are really short and smooth. Not having to focus too much on targetting gives a lot of room to evade attacks and learn their animations. Furthermore, we have loads of defensive layers while we watch the bosses get absolutely mobbed by the skellies: Taunt, Blind, Hinder, Corrupted Blood immunity, Maim immunity, etc.

> Flexible gearing options. Dual wield wands for more of a glass cannon? Sure. Shield up for shield charge and toughness? This is my pick, because I'm sure a klutz, and I take a really long time to react to danger and flask up.

> Budget build capable of scaling. This build can be cobbled together with less than 1 exalt, since even a 4- to 5-linked Skelly will wreck most content. There aren't items that you absolutely need to enable the build. However at the same time, you can pour in a lot of currency to make mapping/bossing/delving really smooth. +1/+1 wands, +1 amulet, 35%ms boots, 10%HP belt, +1/2 corrupted chest armor. Take your pick.

> Flexible skills. Multistrike? Ruthless? Impale? All of them can work well, and you get to pick based on your needs. Run MoM to build a massive tank, or reserve mana for even more DPS? Both paths work, and there are advocates on both sides. With the Glorious Vanity (Doryani) jewel, our HP with energy shield forms a very respectably eHP pool. Given how ES scales from our HP, we're nearly impervious to getting 1-shots. This way, we get to run Pride (20% - 40% MOAR damage), Generosity+Dread Banner and Aspect of the Spider (perma-hinder so you have even more jewel choices, AND enemies take increased damage while affected).

> Flexible Spectres. Frenzy charges? Power charges? Sure, but when I'm not bossing, I re-summon my skeletons all the time so although I get 3/3 charges in battle, my (continually) newly summoned skeletons don't benefit. However, with bosses, these skeletons really shine with maximum charges since they aren't re-summoned. During delves at around 600, I found proximity shield Spectres to be a nice cheesy way to stay out of harm's way. Beyond this, there's a whole smorgasbord of useful Spectres to curse, taunt, warcry. Loads more choices as we progress!

> Decent map clear. With melee splash, a clump of mobs will instantly die on each cast of skeletons, even on t16s. Of course, there are mods that make things more difficult (phys. damage reduction), but since this is mostly a cast-and-go build, it doesn't really matter. Get a good, strict loot filter so you don't need to double back each time a rabbit runs by. Also, try to cast the skeletons DIRECTLY on the clump on monsters, so they are instantly engaged. This is a huge QoL we have over zombie builds, since we get to precisely control where the skeletons are. For some builds, proximity shields are pesky; but since our skeletons get up, close and too personal, it's a non-issue for us.

> Map mods are generally kind. Physical damage reflection is a no-go for me, since I need to spend time re-summoning Carrion Golems. While mapping is all about speed and efficiency, this map mod isn't FATAL, so we can just keep summoning and everything will eventually die. IMO unless it's a really nice (high quant/guardian) corrupted map, I would roll the mod off. No regen maps are totally fine with enduring mana flasks. No other map mods seem to be an issue (unless you don't have chained-projectile mitigation, then it's on you).

> Animate Guardian. Good investment for later, and it can be modded to your liking. Personally, I've lost a couple of Kingmaker-AGs but they were both in instances that I knew were far too dangerous. On the second go, I had it with huge life pool (increased % and raw life chest) and crazy regen loadout as suggested by other contributors, but it was more of a one-shot than a lack of regeneration. Once we know the limits of the AG, it's really a great addition to the team.

> Minion playstyle. I know this gets a lot of flak from other builds with a more "active" playstyle, but IMHO, that's just salt overflowing from their nostrils. This build is NOT one that you can AFK if you want to be efficient. As mentioned, you want to target your skeletons and not let them run willy-nilly. You want to be positioned so that you're in range for Pride, Dread Banner and Aspect of the Spider. You want to dodge telegraphed hits. When you aren't in range of the Animate Guardian, you want to ensure that Shield Charge connects, so we stay Fortified. That's almost exactly how every other build runs; melee, ranged, totem, or otherwise. When bossing, we have to be mindful to keep Flesh Offering up for maximum deeps, while staying aware to drop a Desecrate so Spirit Offering can gobble corpses up when it procs. Sure, some builds are more "in-your-face", but we're built to have meat-shields for a reason. When we watch fellow exiles melt when tanking black blobs on Metamorphs while we are having tea with our AG, there's bound to be envy.

> Physical damage only. Running Brutality prevents us from dishing out ANY other damage types. That means Unholy Might does nothing for us, neither does any + elemental damage source on Ghastly Eyes. While this isn't a huge deal, I find that running with AuraBots makes it underwhelming, as a huge chunk of their auras are ineffective for us. However, as mentioned above, this build is nothing if not super flexible. By swapping Brutality for another gem during group plays, it's an enjoyable face-melting experience.

I'm sure there are more ways to view this build, but I'm really thankful to run a league to 40/40 without relying on RNG.

Oh bless, viperesque.

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Voopvoop wrote:

Undying evangelist is the one that is generating the charges. I was surprised because wiki says: "Casts a short duration Proximity Shield, preventing damage from sources out side of its area of effect." And I never had that. Maybe it got changed.

Thank you

Are you sure that you used the Undying evangelist?

Because i tried them, summoned in [32] The Sceptre of God [33] The Upper Sceptre of God [56] The Grand Promenade.

And i always get the proxomity shield.

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Dragomirov wrote:

Reaching a bit the late stage of this build.

Spoiler

https://pastebin.com/VghFU8UF

I'm above 2m dps per skeleton in a single wand + shield setup.
11.4k eHP (6k life, 3k ES with Doryani+perma Spirit Offering, 2k mana).
78% all resist (including chaos), 33% phys dmg reduc from Armour (47% when flasked), so many defensive layers:
- Bone Armour
- my Forbidden Tast Quartz Flask for full instant life + phasing + dodge atk/spell
- basalt flask as mentioned
- the AG gives me the juggernaut's immunity to chill/frozen/temporal chains
- the AG makes nearby enemies cannot crit
- the AG gives me Fortify

Great mobility between movement flask, Flame Dash and Shield Charge.

I don't include Vulnerability from Merveil's Retainer in my PoB as I prefer the defensive option of Enfeeble and have 2 Carnage/2 Host chieftains for better uptime of the Frenzy & Power charges. Can't be bothered with Whispers of Doom.

In terms of gem setup I actually leave in Multistrike all the time and swap Melee Splash for Ruthless on bosses. Both Multistrike and Ruthless have a logic dealing more dps on the 3rd hit, but (a) Multistrike raises attack speed which is great for all the taunt/blind on hit, impale and other synergies, and (b) even if Multistrike wasn't giving crazy dps from the attack speed, in 2 hits Multistrike would already be better than Ruthless that only starts to add on 3rd hit.

The few upgrades I can still see for my build would be:
- Awakened Multistrike
- great corrupt like +2 socketed duration gem on chest
- trigger wand as I want to try even more uptime of Spirit Offering than with CWDT. Manual casting for me is not an option, tested it, discarded it. Way less reactive. Even with cyclone CwC setup.
- belt with +10% max life (hunter)
and that's about it. I don't even care anymore about +1 skelly on amulet, why go to 14? Might even consider swapping the +1 skelly & zombie on chest for +8% max life/ES.
- if I ever get to lvl 100 I could drop the +5% life passives from life wheel to go fetch the passives around Devotion and the socket on the way. I would lose 5% max life, but would gain a bit of intel, strength and another jewel with life/minion dmg/minion atk speed.

I'm at a point where even on Shaper/Sirus/whatever the only thing preventing the boss to die in seconds are phase transitions and other animations.
Still die a couple of times per level but that's often carelessness/fatigue.
AG hasn't gone down in health since I made a new one after my Hall of the Grandmaster whoopsie. So Ephemeral robe seems much better to me than a Belly or other defensive options.

Overall spending way more time researching ways to improve even more the defensive layers or QoL of this build since dps is now completely irrelevant (2m per skeleton x13 = 26m dps, Uber Elder has 48m health per mob, so if there weren't animations to make bosses immune they would die in 3.7seconds, maybe 4.5seconds with the Awakening 8 bonuses).

Starting to spend time thinking what's going to be my character for next league. Even if this doesn't get nerfed I might try something different. Maybe a super defensive version of Cospri CoC Ice Nova cyclone. Might still play necro as a league starter given how cheap it is to gear for T16 (I was doing T16 on this char as soon as I did my Uber lab for last Ascendency, which was before even lvl 72, with total budget about 1ex), even if it scales nicely in endgame.

Since your AG gives you immunity to chill/frozen/temporal chains you can consider putting immunity to staunching on your granite flask, remove your life flask, and get room for another Quartz flask.

I can recommend trigger wand. I have 4600 ES up all the time (with a chest giving me extra ES) The only annoying thing is you have to switch gems around when you log in to cast zombies.

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venk2011 wrote:

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Voopvoop wrote:

Undying evangelist is the one that is generating the charges. I was surprised because wiki says: "Casts a short duration Proximity Shield, preventing damage from sources out side of its area of effect." And I never had that. Maybe it got changed.

Thank you

Are you sure that you used the Undying evangelist?

Because i tried them, summoned in [32] The Sceptre of God [33] The Upper Sceptre of God [56] The Grand Promenade.

And i always get the proxomity shield.

DOH!!! You are right. It is what happens when I play after a 12 hours shift. I wonder which one I summoned by mistake... I will try to figure it out.

Hello guys, I have been lucky last week and I got around 5 ex to spend, I am wondering about next upgrade of my necro to improve boss fights. Everything else is ok - T16 maps etc...

Should I upgrade gems (and which) or/and some parts of gear?

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Dragomirov wrote:

Reaching a bit the late stage of this build.

Spoiler

https://pastebin.com/VghFU8UF

- the AG gives me the juggernaut's immunity to chill/frozen/temporal chains
- the AG makes nearby enemies cannot crit
- the AG gives me Fortify

I'm pretty new at POE, what combination of gears/skills are making the AG do this?

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Ckuttah wrote:

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Dragomirov wrote:

Reaching a bit the late stage of this build.

Spoiler

https://pastebin.com/VghFU8UF

- the AG gives me the juggernaut's immunity to chill/frozen/temporal chains
- the AG makes nearby enemies cannot crit
- the AG gives me Fortify

I'm pretty new at POE, what combination of gears/skills are making the AG do this?

kingmaker sword

Guys give me ex of your abyss jewels stats please i dont know what i need to put in...