[3.13] GOLEMENTALIST (Flame Golems Elementalist) Build (Easy & Safe for everyone!) +Video guide!

Hello again. I have created a post on reddit about my current version of this build. I posted it there because I'm a fat lazy idiot who wanted to feel special because I had my own thread. ANYWAY, I would like some advice on how I should proceed. I am incredibly uneducated as it regards the advanced inner workings and the min-maxing of builds, as you will be able to see from the PoB link in that thread.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/d63qai/flame_golem_elementalist_needs_gear_suggestions/ is the link that I made my stupid little reddit thread. If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can improve this character, I would really appreciate it. Thank you for your time, and have a nice day.

Pledge on hands isn't a better weapon?

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Gabriel2112 wrote:

Pledge on hands isn't a better weapon?

You need the Clayshapers for the extra Golems, yes?

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AceOfJacks1 wrote:

Hello again. I have created a post on reddit about my current version of this build. I posted it there because I'm a fat lazy idiot who wanted to feel special because I had my own thread. ANYWAY, I would like some advice on how I should proceed. I am incredibly uneducated as it regards the advanced inner workings and the min-maxing of builds, as you will be able to see from the PoB link in that thread.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/d63qai/flame_golem_elementalist_needs_gear_suggestions/ is the link that I made my stupid little reddit thread. If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can improve this character, I would really appreciate it. Thank you for your time, and have a nice day.

There is a lot to digest in your Reddit post, so before anyone tries to help you, are you open to the idea of getting rid of your unique items? As you said in your post, you have an 'addiction' that stems from your Diablo days, but it is doing nothing but hurting your build here.

Basic feedback would be to discard most of your uniques (body armour, boots, gloves, belt and especially rings) for rare items with energy shield, a bit of life, and plenty of resists.

Your helm would be better off as a crafted rare with + Minion gem levels, or a vertex to start (cheap and easy to come by).

Doing so would allow you to drop purity of elements. You'd also want to swap Anger for Zealotry, as it adds more damage. I'm doing this off my phone and I can't remember everything I saw, but until you are very well versed in the mechanics of the game, I'd suggest dropping one Clay Shaper for a shield (there a decent unique shield out there for this build if that helps, +2 to socketed gems with ES and some other stuff).

Honestly, your gloves are quite useless for your build. They were designed to alter physical damage Minions such as skeletons, zombies or spectres. They don't do anything for your flame golem as it deals 100% fire damage already (not phys converted to fire). And splitting the conversion over the elements would just dilute it's usefulness anyway. So get rid of it. If you were using ice golems there would be a better set of unique gloves you could use, but not for this build.

Ace - I would suggest you throw away everything but the clayshapers and priomordial chain and start over. You already know your problem but yet you post here asking for help and spend a ton of time writing up extensive detail about gear that can be trashed? Diablo is meant for you

On a separate note, the theory of pledge of hands is really strong and you can still run up to 9 golems. It just hasn't been tested with this build and shared that I am aware of.

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ShadowHamed wrote:

Ace - I would suggest you throw away everything but the clayshapers and priomordial chain and start over. You already know your problem but yet you post here asking for help and spend a ton of time writing up extensive detail about gear that can be trashed? Diablo is meant for you

On a separate note, the theory of pledge of hands is really strong and you can still run up to 9 golems. It just hasn't been tested with this build and shared that I am aware of.

I've tested it, and it's quite a bit stronger as a 6-1-1-1 set up. But the rest of your gear has to be pretty decent to make up the defensive loss of a shield. It just feels less comfortable and safe. But the golems annihilate everything.

Another alternative is a +3 all fire gems staff. I only briefly looked into it, but if you had a good staff combo'd with a +1 chest with Empower 4, it looked pretty good.

Very nice and you are doing all in league. You sir are a beast, thanks for the info.

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ShadowHamed wrote:

Very nice and you are doing all in league. You sir are a beast, thanks for the info.

Blight is killing me though. It's a tough one for Golems. I died last night with 11K eHP, maxed chaos resist, and 80% physical damage reduction, curse immunity and ailment immunity, and around 1500 ES regen, in less than a second. Oh and my friend golems site even faster depending on what mins spawn. Makes me want to use Empower Lvl4 in my 6 link, but unless I have a +1 gems body armour it's a decent damage loss, which is the biggest problem for flame golems in league.

Makes it difficult to not switch to a build with better sustain and prolif, which is king this league.

Thinking of converting this character to ignite divine ire with golems for buffs. Haven't managed to PoB a build that makes me happy yet.

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Hohenheim_ wrote:

Blight is killing me though. It's a tough one for Golems.

I can't speak for Blight since I'm playing in STD but I wouldn't just blame it on content alone. In 3.9 we have revamped ascendancies granting us a truly obscene increase of Golem Buff effect which can make us tanky as f*ck. As a consequence Primordial Chain has now become a "build-enabling" piece of gear. Prior to 3.9 I wouldn't have touched that amulet with a 12-ft barge pole because it takes such heavy toll on our pets' health pool (for example, my Stone Golem has now 30k life, down from 80k!). In short, our pets are no longer "immortal" and the amulet really is the crux of the matter.

The golems can only die from physical and chaos damage (Bleed can hurt 'em too but I have never lost a golem to Bleed). Again, I don't know about Blight content but now I have seen golems die in high-tier Uul-Netol and Chayula Breaches and in the Azurite Mine as well and Ulaman, the Abyssal Lich dealing phys and chaos damage, is absolutely no fun either (this fella has always been a problem).

Bottom line, our golems need more, much more life and possibly damage mitigation. Life can be helped by increasing the gem level and quality and certain notables which can also grant physical/chaos damage mitigation. Taking these notables, however, means a lot of travel and passive points at the expense of our own defenses and/or precious jewel sockets. In Blight you can anoint your amulet with such a notable which does help somewhat although my preference in this respect would still be Soul of Steel (which seems to be the most expensive anointment for a reason ;). But the cheapest and and yet very efficient form of damage mitigation comes from one of the most underrated skill gems in the game: the Decoy Totem. Not only is it drawing aggro but everything is dealing 8% less damage, now, cast Enfeble on top of that and it makes deep-delving a breeze.

Thank you all for the detailed responses. I will definitely work towards breaking the Unique addiction. Thank you again, and have a nice day everyone.