{3.10} Speaker for the Dead | The Mass Minion Summoner | League Starter, Leveling Guide 💀

@ Tomosovich:

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Tomosovich wrote:

4. You should mention a bit about movement. Things like using your charges dash to cheese encounter mechanics (teleport as a big boss attack is incoming and holding the channel to let the ball lightning send the cavalry in before you) this is a huge perk of the build IMO.

I've talked about this with regards to Uber Elder, and had planned to add it to the Endgame Bosses section, but I suppose it'd be worth mentioning sooner, such as in Playstyle of the main guide.

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Tomosovich wrote:

5. Not sure I’m sold on acrobatics. I may tinker there but I imagine your research is far more exhaustive than mine.

It's a gamble against singular big hits, but against packs and rapid multi-hit boss abilities (e.g. Eradicator's Lightning Tendrils, Elder's Rising Slam barrage and big groups of eyeball minions, Chimera's Combo Attack, Hydra's Barrage, etc) it averages out to act like mitigation. Taking 50% of hits = 100% more eHP (x2), 40% = 66% (x1.66), 30% = 43% (x1.43), 75% = 400% (x5). As you can see, it gets exponentially better the more you have.

The only reason I wouldn't take it is if I was trying an ES Hybrid variant of the build using an ES-on-Hit Watcher's Eye.

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@ cookieclickerpro:

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cookieclickerpro wrote:

Does anyone have a similar claw for sale in relation to this build? I can't find one with main, +1 socket level and life on hit. Will pay well!

You may want to specify that you're playing on Standard. GGG has said only about 10-15% of the game's population plays on Standard, so trading there will always be more difficult and expensive compared to Challenge Leagues, especially for niche items like our claw.

Just so you know, the example gear shown in the guide is not for sale, since I'm keeping them archived for possible future uses for the guide.

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@ Kirran:

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Kirran wrote:

This build is a lot of fun!

Glad you're liking the build! =oD

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@ thomzon:

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thomzon wrote:

The only complain I have is the use of Charged Dash. I really really hate this movement skill.
So for now I'm using a combination of Flame Dash, Convocation and Blade Flurry for channeling.

Believe me, I know very well the initial pain of Charged Dash. When I was first developing this build, I thought Charged Dash would work great. Then when I used it, I hated it. So I tried alternatives like Static Strike. But it sucked against bosses, so I used a second set of gloves with a Blade Flurry/Ball Lightning setup. This worked relatively fine, but it wasn't as smooth as Static Strike while mapping. So I tried swapping between them when I went from clearing to killing the boss. This felt tedious and most of the time I forgot to even do it.

I wanted an all-in-one. So I begrudgingly attempted Charged Dash again, but this time I adamantly sought to familiarize myself with its peculiarities. It wasn't long before I overcame my initial dislike and found it worked beautifully. My expectations had been tempered by the previous failures, allowing me to appreciate the rough diamond that is Charged Dash. Only it was me who needed polishing.

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thomzon wrote:

I'm actually thinking that if all I do is launch one BL salvo per pack, I don't really need to channel it, I could self-cast ball lightning with the same results, saving myself 2 previous gem slots. Any thoughts on that ?

We need an Attack to trigger Holy Relic and apply Bleed.

We use Cast While Channeling because it turns a 0.70 cast time spell to 0.35 with no investment into cast speed, and lowers the mana cost to almost nothing. When I had tested manually casting, I couldn't maintain more than a few seconds (e.g. Delve nodes; getting the most out of Life-on-Hit) before depleting my mana and casting off pure regen, which feels like hiccuping.

If you want to manually cast, Unleash Support would be very nice (add Knockback Support while Delving for even more hilarity). Drop Holy Relic (unless you want to trigger it with Shield Charge) and Bloodlust.

Have you gone very far in delve with this build? I've been tinkering and I think i'm going to try a glove swap so that I can channel a non movement skill whilst sending out the ball lightning. This way I keep life on spell hit coming in and keep the crawler engaged.

Divine Ire wouldn't interfere with our EE would it?

@ Jenjur:

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Jenjur wrote:

The example gear though is just kinda way too specific.
I don't think I will be getting much currency, maybe at most 5-8 exalts, but I'd still like to do beat most of the content. SO(sorry), what I wonder is, how much currency would I need to invest in this build to be able to do all that?

This build has no required items. All you really need is one (1) item: A generic Hynotic Eye jewel you can find from any Abyss after Act 6, which you can then craft to have "Chaos Damage added to Spells" with a mere handful of Alteration Orbs.

All other items are for pure power, and most should be cheap or drastically fall in price as a league progresses. None are necessary, not even the jewel if you add Chaos Damage to Ball Lightning another way, like Lesser Poison Support.

Here's a rundown of the basic gear for this build:

• 1. Any 5L Body Armour is plenty, you just lose Minion Damage Support on Spectres/Phantasms. Tabula Rasa is a cheap 6L, going for 10c within a week or two of a new league, but will start off at around 20c during the first day or so. You can even get one yourself by farming for ~3-5 hours in A3 Aqueducts/A8 Blood Aqueducts to find Humility cards. Eventually you'll want a 6L rare chest for better life, which go for ~40-50c. Our final goal is Belly of the Beast, simply because it gives a ton of life. Otherwise, your Body Armour is completely up to you.
  
  
• 2. Victario's Charity, Mark of Submission, and Unending Hunger are all fairly common Uniques, so beyond the start of a league these should become a dirt cheap 1c.
  
  Vicario's Charity will cost more if you want perfect or near-perfect life/lightning resistance. We use this shield because Frenzy Charges are a massive damage boost for minions, and since we're already hitting a bunch to maintain the Agony Crawler, which will also trigger the Frenzy Charge mod on the shield, it just makes sense to use it.
  
  The ring lets us curse with anything we hit with, so namely Ball Lightning, Charged Dash, and Shield Charge. Our Projectile Weakness curse is a great damage boost, but also acts like a free Pierce gem for Spectres and the Agony Crawler, which is great for smoother clears. Phantasms pierce by default, though, who are our principle clear minion, so ultimately Projectile Weakness, and therefore Mark of Submission, is optional power.
  
  Unending Hunger gives Spectres infinite cast speed, so it's a huge damage multiplier for them. But the most important aspect of this jewel is they also get 5% reduced damage taken per stack as well (probably capped to 75%). That means it doesn't take many kills for them to gain massive protection, helping to keep your Spectres alive through virtually anything.
  
  
• 3. Vaal Skeletons is pretty common from Vaal side areas, and while farming Aqueducts/Blood Aqueducts you will encounter these side areas. It should be dirt cheap if you just want to trade for one. Even a level 21 gem is a cheap 5c in Synthesis League, because it's not in high demand.
  
  
• 4. Gloves with Poison and Chance to Bleed are pretty much only used by our build, since Bleed and Poison builds are neither meta nor very strong right now, so the gloves shouldn't be expensive. Chance to Bleed is only for Bloodlust on Skeletons, and we only do this to push their DPS as high as possible. You can just as well use a somewhat weaker support on Skeletons and forgo Chance to Bleed. Then you'd only need gloves with a Poison Support affix. And we only want this to save a socket, allowing us to use GMP. You don't need GMP, it's just more convenient. Ball Lightning has a 22 unit radius, much larger than its visual indicates, so it'll reliably hit most things even without GMP. If you don't use GMP, you can use the Poison Support gem instead and then use absolutely any gloves you want.
  
  
• 5. Weapon can be any one-hander with good attack speed for a smoother Shield Charge. We want +1 to socketed gems to boost Zombie life and give the Crawler more damage without any additional reservation. Maim is more damage, and the debuff on foes helps Skeletons/Phantasms, but this is just power.
  
  
• 6. Ring can be any Unset Ring so we have room for the Holy Relic. We only want the Life-on-Hit from Spells affix because we're already hitting a bunch with Ball Lightning, so why not turn that into life recovery? Again, this is completely optional, but very nice to have.
  
  
• 7. Helmet is to push Skeleton DPS for endgame bosses. +3 with Minion Damage Support affix will cost several ex, but drop down to a +2 and the price falls dramatically for only a small sacrifice in power. You can clear map bosses without even using Skeletons, so the helmet can be one of your last upgrade considerations.
  
  
• 8. Amulet, Belt, and Boots are all up to you. +1 Spectre boots are entirely optional, because Phantasms are our principle clear minions, not Spectres.
  
  
• 9. Jewels: T1 life jewels with good minion stats like double cast/attack speed will run ~1ex each if you wait for good deals. These are optional. Taunt and Blind are great protection against certain bosses, and if you're not picky about T1 life then you can get these mods for just a few chaos orbs.

There you have it. That's it. This build will only cost multiple ex if you want perfect gear and max power, but the same can be said of any build. Compared to those, though, we're incredibly cheap for a multi-million DPS build.

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Jenjur wrote:

Or would it be better to just start a new character with some other build?

This build will absolutely trample 99% of content with minimal gear. The only real challenges will be Minotaur and Uber Elder.

Minotaur you have to be aggressive and stick close so he doesn't use Burrow. It will one-shot you if it hits, but travels in a straight line so as long as you see it you can avoid it by stepping to the side.

Uber Elder is supposed to be the hardest fight in the game, so expect to struggle here until you learn the fight. We don't have 25k ES, so face-tanking is out of the question. Once you're skilled with it, you can pretty much avoid every mechanic.

T15 Core's Malachai boss can get very hairy with certain mods, like double boss with extra damage and AOE. Minions can set off all his Fire Traps simultaneously, and double bosses mean double the traps, which is bad news for you.

T12 Acid Caverns can randomly have a really scary Warband boss who ultra-spams these delayed elemental explosions. Just make a tactical retreat while baiting him into the open with a breadcrumb trail of Skeletons. Then use hit-and-run (so Spectres don't wipe) when he's isolated and you have room to manuever.

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Jenjur wrote:

If that's the case, any good recommendations?

I do recommend playing other builds, but only because it's fun, not because this build can't do something. If you like the targeting automation of minions, then you might also like Storm Brand, Winter Orb, and Soulrend. Totems are also nice, but a bit slow on the initial encounter. Mirage Archer is sweet, but attack builds need good and often expensive gear before they start feeling really good.

I made a Storm Brand/Magma Orb Shimmeron Inquisitor for Synthesis League. Details are in the FAQ ("Will you make any other guides?"). Storm Brand with the newly buffed Chain Support is fantastic clear with no investment into Brand nodes or any need to use Brand Recall (three beams each get +2 chains, so it multiplies how many targets you hit, 3 beams x 3 hits, and even against only two targets it doubles the hits). For single-target, I abuse Magma Orb with Slower Proj, Unleash, and the Gloomfang amulet (also gives another +1 chain to Storm Brand), which can pretty much one-shot map bosses.

For Flashback I'm working on a Soulrend Trickster. You cast once and then run alongside the Soulrend projectiles as they seek out enemies for you, recasting once per screen or as needed. High cast speed makes this guy feel very nice, and I am just loving how Chaos Damage ignores Proximity Shields and doesn't have to worry about Reflect Damage.

I've also got a Winter Orb Occultist started in Flashback, since when I retrofitted an old Blade Vortex Elementalist character with Winter Orb I was impressed with the results (though single-target needed help), so I want to see what I can do with Occultist's high ES and Chaos explosions.

At some point I'd like to play around with stacking Less Area on Firestorm (so all fireballs hit a target): Intensify (48%), Spell Cascade (16%), and Concentrated Effect (30%) (0.52*0.84*0.7= 70% less area, or 30% of original area) (25 firestorm radius * 1.54 Intensify * 0.3 = 11.55 radius). Combined with Unleash Support, it seems like it could be crazy-good single-target.

1 hit per 0.1 seconds x 2 second base duration = 20 hits
200-300 fire damage = 250 average x 20 hits = 5000 base damage
30% damage effectiveness = 600% over 20 hits (212 from Added Cold would = 1268 or 25% more damage)

Spell Cascade gives 3 storms per cast, and Unleash casts 4 times in one go, so you'd get 12 storms from one cast.

Duration acts as a damage multiplier for Firestorm, which we can get 45% x2 clusters on the tree. With double the duration, that's 40 hits x 12 storms = 480 hits from one cast. Spell Life-on-Hit or 30-Life-on-Ignite/1%-Life-per-Ignite both looking real nice. 480 x 15 = 7200 life over 4 seconds, or 1800 life per second, from one cast.

I might try to incorporate this into my Winter Orb Occultist, with WO being used for clear, since both benefit from Duration.

Thanks for the replies Hercanic, great details as always.

I understand what you say about Charged Dash, I played a CD Trickster during Synthesis, so I had plenty of time to adapt to the skill. I tried, really, but I just don't like it.

I however don't really miss either bloodlust or the Holy Relic, I feel the build works great without both. I don't have a Mark of Submission yet, so I have a 4L with Ball Lightning, GMP, Curse on hit, Proj weakness. With that, silver flasks and flame dash, the build also feels great, fast and quite safe. Early maps only for now though.

Once I get a Mark of Submission, I'll definitely try Unleash, and I'll see then if I find any use for the 4th link.

@ XGrandAspira:

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XGrandAspira wrote:

i use Divine Ire to Channeling Ball Lightning but my virulence decay fast... Why ?

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Tomosovich wrote:

Virulence will always decay very fast the more stacks you have and the last few stacks will last the longest. If you're casting ball lightning triggered by the channel during Ire you'll pop up to 40 stacks pretty fast and then quickly drop back down as the enemies die and there are fewer sources of virulence. Check the following though:
1. Do you have at least one source of "adds x to y chaos damage to spells"
2. Are you using GMP linked to your ball lightning (or other AOE damage spell)?

These will help ensure you're generating stacks effectively. I find that keeping virulence going isn't hard at all so long as i'm moving from pack to pack fairly quickly. Even during a boss fight I can keep stacks up by circling the boss and channeling a second or two at the boss before I move again.

Yep, check Herald of Agony's gem description:

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"You will lose Virulence over time, at a rate which increases the more Virulence you have."

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@ McMad_Hatter:

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McMad_Hatter wrote:

Thank you so much for this guide. As others have said, it is incredible - one of (if not the) best guides I've seen on here. As a fellow lover of necromancy I really enjoyed the 'fluff' components too - made the whole thing feel very immersive. The build itself is a work of art. :)

Thank you so much! =oD

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@ Tomosovich:

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Tomosovich wrote:

Have you gone very far in delve with this build? I've been tinkering and I think i'm going to try a glove swap so that I can channel a non movement skill whilst sending out the ball lightning. This way I keep life on spell hit coming in and keep the crawler engaged.

This build was made during Delve, so it was designed with deep delving in mind. Namely Freeze Proliferation, triggered Spirit Offering to destroy Unstable Weta corpses, Knockback from Projectile Weakness, and Acrobatics for avoidance.

The build can easily handle 300+, but due to a lack of time, Sulphite, and lots of rerouting due to dead ends, I have not pushed the build to whatever its deepest delve might be. The only dangers at 300+ are rare Enhanced Vaal Fallen in Vaal Cities dashing onto you, or invisible rare Cavestalkers in Abyssal Cities who can't be damaged until they swipe at you. Constantly keeping on the move is the best defense, since identifying them among a chaotic melee and when they're about to use their ability is tricky.

As you venture far deeper, you may want to use Knockback Support on Ball Lightning to always keep everything away from you. Ice Wall shenanigans may help, too.

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Tomosovich wrote:

Divine Ire wouldn't interfere with our EE would it?

No. It deals Physical and Lightning damage. Just check its tooltip to ensure no Cold Damage has been added to it. Because it deals Physical Damage, if you're ever in a party with someone using Hatred aura it'll cause Divine Ire to also deal Cold Damage.

Both you and XGrandAspira (above) are using Divine Ire, but I'm not sure why. It doesn't provide any utility, so is it for damage? While we do get ~400% minion damage applied to us, we don't have much cast speed, crit, or any damage supports, so Divine Ire's effectiveness should drop as you get into harder content. Since it's a Spell, you can't trigger Holy Relic nor apply Bleed from Chance to Bleed.

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@ thomzon:

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thomzon wrote:

Thanks for the replies Hercanic, great details as always.

I understand what you say about Charged Dash, I played a CD Trickster during Synthesis, so I had plenty of time to adapt to the skill. I tried, really, but I just don't like it.

I however don't really miss either bloodlust or the Holy Relic, I feel the build works great without both. I don't have a Mark of Submission yet, so I have a 4L with Ball Lightning, GMP, Curse on hit, Proj weakness. With that, silver flasks and flame dash, the build also feels great, fast and quite safe. Early maps only for now though.

Once I get a Mark of Submission, I'll definitely try Unleash, and I'll see then if I find any use for the 4th link.

• 1. Faster Casting - Reduce the delay before you can start moving again. Movement is king.
  
  
• 2. Onslaught - Every other occasional kill would give 8 seconds of 20% movement and cast/attack speed. It was just buffed, too, giving it a 10% chance to grant Onslaught on hit against Unique monsters. We hit often enough for the 10% chance on Victario's Charity to basically always work, so against bosses Onslaught would be guaranteed.
  
  
• 3. Faster Projectiles - This would apply EE and Curse to everything on the screen much, much quicker. But it'll cut hits down by half, so less Spell Life on Hit and Virulence. You can also find this as an additional affix on the type of gloves we use.
  
  
• 4. Knockback - Excellent protection in Delves, synergizing with Projectile Weakness, but will work against Skeletons until the boss is against a wall. At one point while developing the build I was manually casting Ball Lightning. Knockback with Spell Echo and Spell Life on Hit allowed me to explore Delve side areas with impunity, never needing flares, because nothing could get close to me once I cast and so many hits gave so much life in return that the Darkness degen was completely negated for as long as the balls lingered. Now we have Unleash. Just two balls from Spell Echo was enough to bulldoze, but four balls at once? Everything would be pushed indefinitely to max range.
  
  
• 5. Blind - Great avoidance against attackers. With Block and Acrobatics, we have 50% attack avoidance. Causing monsters to miss 50% of the time would push our avoidance to 75%. However, long ago I was testing Blind Support and found its 10% chance to be unreliable, even on Ball Lightning. But the new Unleash gem changes things. It may work far better now.
  
  
• 6. Chance to Flee - To its detriment, this support does not affect Unique or Rare monsters. But against Magic and Normal monsters it'd be like a supercharged Knockback, using the monster's own movement speed to keep them away.
  
  
• 7. Lesser Poison - Fills out the last 20% Chance to Poison for guaranteed poisons, and alleviates the need for a Chaos Damage jewel.
  
  
• 8. Culling Strike - An occasional kill will trigger the Power Charge mod on Victario's Charity. You could also get Culling Strike from an Animated Guardian using Kingmaker.
  
  
• 9. Increased Area of Effect - Would slightly increase Ball Lightning's hits.
  
  
• 10. Life Leech - Gain as life 3.9% of 22-426 damage, x7 hits, x5 from Minion Damage affecting us, x1.54 from Projectile Weakness (x1.18 vs bosses), x4 from Unleash (x0.74 for the three recurrences), and reduced by EE (x0.75 vs normal, x0.45/0.35 vs bosses) and GMP (x0.74).
  
  Normal monster
  53.9 more x 0.555 less (x0.4107 for Recurrences)
  = 29.92 (22.14 recurrence) multiplier
  6702 damage (224 average damage x29.92)
  14878 recurrence damage (4959 x3)
  21580 total damage
  = 842 leech per target (capped to 20% of max life per second)
  
  Shaper
  41.3 more x 0.259 less (x0.19166 for Recurrences)
  = 10.7 (7.92 recurrence) multiplier
  2396 damage (224 average damage x10.7)
  5322 recurrence damage (1774 x3)
  7718 total damage
  = 301 leech (capped to 20% of max life per second)
  
  
• 11. Elemental Proliferation - Proliferate a bit of Shock. You'd need to do 0.2% of a monster's life as damage in a single hit to inflict a minimum 1% shock, or 10% for a 50% damage boost. Using the numbers above and dividing by the 7 hits to get a single hit, we get a 957/342 average hit vs normal/Shaper. A max damage hit would almost be double. So you could inflict the minimum shock against a normal monster with 478,500 life, or 957,000 with a max hit. Level 84 monsters have 16,161 base life, while level 68 monsters have 5,642.
  
  Just remember that dealing damage means Reflect maps might pose a risk.

Just to follow-up on my previous post - this is the most fun build I have ever tried. You truly feel like a Necromancer/commander of the dead. It's insane.

I was rocking Skelemancer before, and I loved it, but this is next level. I'm not sure if you're familiar with a tabletop wargame called 'Warhammer', but there is a character called 'Nagash, Supreme Lord of the Undead'.

I always played undead class when playing this - your build is as close as I've ever come to actually feeling like Nagash in a game.



^ This is him :P

Thank you so much again mate :)

To be clear, I’m not using divine ire. It’s more of a thought experiment. I was asking purely because if I charge a dash and accidentally zoom off the screen I could die from it. I’m only at like 100-ish now so I’ll keep it up to date in this thread.

Thanks again Hercanic ! Great details and saves me from doing all the research myself xD

For now I'm doing lvl 1 Ball lightning for mana cost, so anything damage related is off the table. I'll look into the rest.

Got my Mark of submission, so my gloves are now free from curse on hit / projectile weakness.

I have added unleash, it's great for virulance stacks, it's like instantaneous 0 to 40 at each cast. I have tried several green support gems, and for me the winner is clearly Faster Projectiles. It feels really awesome for map clearing, and the addition of unleash makes virulance stacking really not an issue.

For tough bosses however I'll probably replace it with Blind or Onslaught.

Ty for this wonderfull build. İ have one belly eith 6 link but its 4 b 1 g 1 r can i use one red gem instead of green? İs there any usefull one