[3.8] Carrion Golem and Zombie Necromancer - Very tanky and fast, awesome single target
 Hello and welcome to my Carrion Golem Necromancer guide. So, after huge buffs in 3.8 and Zombies becoming finally good, I decided to create simple Baron strength stacking Zombie Necromancer. And first thing I noticed after a while (when I became faster after I got all movement speed boosts I wanted) was that even with a lot of movement speed for minions my zombies very often simply couldn't keep up. So I was experimenting with plenty of options to improve this area while not losing a lot of damage. And after some experiments with spectres I decided to try Carrion Golem. First I tried just 2 in 4 link and after watching them for a while, their clear was actually pretty impressive. So I decided to add some primordial jewels to empower them. And the results were amazing. I even eventually moved my Carrion Golems to 6 link and Zombies to 4 link and also dropped the whole Baron setup to focus primarily on golems. I was enjoying the build a lot and so I decided to share it with others and write a guide. Now, let me explain how this build actually works. The core of the build are Primordial jewels empowering our golems. These jewels allow us to run 4 Carrion Golems in total, granting them some cooldown recovery so they can use their Cascade attack more often for clear and also a lot of damage. We then buff Carrion Golems with our Zombies (as Carrion Golem gets damage bonus for each non-golem minion we have capped at 10 minions). For defenses the build is stacking life and armour. Armour is then used in conjunction with Bone Armour and Vaal Molten Shell to give use huge temporary shield. And with huge life pool we utilize Cast When Damage Taken and Spirit Offering to heal us for around 15% of maximum life each time we get hit. We also stack some life regeneration to passively survive sustained hits and dots. Changelog
Spoiler
23th September 2019 - Removed Baron and strength stacking from main setup - Grabbed some extra damage in main setup - Added Baron and strength stacking version as separate setup - Updated Leveling section with updated gems and golem progression - Updated pros and cons based on tree changes - Added Multistrike to both Raise Zombie and Carrion Golem setup - Replaced Combat Stamina life cluster with Tireless - Changed jewellery to have minion movement speed crafts on it - Added flask effect on belt - Changed Experimenter's Granite flask to Alchemist's Granite flask 21th September 2019 - Replaced weapon with 2x Cold Iron Point - Moved Raise Zombie to 4 link in helmet - Moved Summon Carrion Golem to 6 link in body - Switch to Maim body - Added alternative Vaal Haste setup for people who do not like Spirit Offering CWDT setup (or simply want some offensive vaal skill) - Slightly altered passive tree to take more minion damage - Replaced Ruthless with Mulstrike in Carrion Golem setup - Updated workarounds for multistrike - Added "Gear optimization and specialization" section - Replaced Flesh and Stone with Summon Skitterbots - Replaced Cold Iron Points in league start setup with 2 clayshapers 20th September 2019 - Added gem progression section - Restructured leveling and gearing section - Updated "How to configure PoB for your own character" - better formating and Carrion Golem combo attack workaround - Moved workaround mods to Careful Planning jewel in PoB - Added level 80 and 70 tree 19th September 2019 - Created the build Pro's & Con's + Awesome single target. The build can reach around 24M combined single target DPS with 12 zombies and 4 golems + Pretty good clear speed because of zombie slams exploding packs and speedy carrion golems + 182% increased movement speed + 196% increased movement speed for minions + 7K+ Life (218% from tree) + 20k+ Armour (what also equal around 12k shield from Vaal Molten Shell) + 25% additional physical damage reduction + 10%+ life regenerated per second + We get "healed" for 15% of our maximum HP as energy shield each time we get hit (thanks to CWDT + Spirit Offering) + Fortify (20% reduced damage taken) (thanks to Kingmaker) + Enemies deal 30% less Damage (thanks to Ruins Hellion spectre) + Very good league starter as zombies require only very little investment (and for Carrion golems you can just use double Clayshaper) - Can't do physical reflect map mod - We have to use Careful Planning to get our Dexterity requirements - We are socked starved and require unset ring for final setup Path of Building Path of Building is tool for PoE to plan gear, skill tree and calculate effective damage. It also contains Bandits choice. You can download it here. Then simply import below Pastebin URL. Pastebin
Navigating through PoB (important, read carefully)
There are trees for level 100, 90, 80 and 70. There is also 1 special tree: - Baron - This tree is for version utilizing Baron helmet and strength stacking. It is pathing to bottom to grab Utmost Might for strength stacking and Soul of Steel for some extra survivability. It is also using Efficient Training for even more strength. Advantage of this version is way higher survivability and disadvantages are slightly lower damage and higher cost. Use dropdown in bottom left corner of Tree section in PoB to cycle between the trees. There are 4 item sets: - Default: This is end-game optimized version - Baron: This setup is using Baron helmet and strength stacking gear to get extra zombies and zombie leech from Baron for some extra survivability and damage. - Starter: This setup is designed for league start, utilizing some cheap and very effective uniques - Animated Guardian: This item set is items that you should ideally equip for your Animated Guardian. There are 2 helmet skill gem sets: - Default: This setup is using pseudo 5-link with Minion Damage from helmet - No Minion Damage: This setup is for people without pseudo 5-link helmet, dropping Multistrike in favour of Minion Damage There are 2 weapon skill gem sets: - Default: This is regular setup with CWDT and Spirit Offering for defense - Vaal Haste: This setup is instead using offensive Vaal aura to temporarily boost our minion's power
How to configure PoB for your own character
After importing your character to PoB, follow these steps to properly configure it to show your actual stats: 1. Find Raise Zombie in Main Skill section on left and select Slam in dropdown under skill 1. Find Summon Carrion Golem in Main Skill section on left and select Combo Attack in dropdown under skill 3. Enable all flasks in items section and switch to configuration section 4. Set Is enemy boss? to Shaper/Guardians 5. Check Do your minions use Power Charges? 6. Check Do your minions use Frenzy Charges? 7. Check Is the enemy Deathmarked? 8. Check Is Feeding Frenzy active? 9. Check Is the enemy Maimed? 10. Check Is the enemy Taunted? 11. Check Have you been hit recently? 12. Set Enemy Phys. Damage Reduction to -9 13. Select some jewel in items section, click Edit.. and add " at bottom and click Save. These are workarounds for some not yet supported keywords and mechanics in PoB that this build is utilizing. Pantheon For major god Soul of Lunaris is almost mandatory beacause of Avoid Projectiles that have chained mod it provides. Because we are running a lot of minions, chaining projectiles can easily kill us otherwise. For minor god Soul of Soul Gruthkul is very good pick for some extra physical damage reduction and slowing of enemies. For some content Soul of Soul Tukohama can be better alternative to Gruthkul. Ascendancy Get Mindless Agression first. Then get Unnatural Strength and Bone Barrier for some damage and defense and finally get Mistress of Sacrifice from Uber Lab. Leveling and gearing
Gem progression
- At level 1 grab Freezing Pulse, Arcane Surge, Onslaught and Raise Zombie. At this stage it is not worth it to actually use zombies because they die very fast, so just start leveling them - At level 4 replace Freezing Pulse with Summon Raging Spirit, drop Onslaught and grab War Banner and Frostblink - At level 8 grab Melee Splash and socket it to your SRS link. Also grab Minion Damage and socket it to both Raise Zombie link and Summon Raging Spirit link - At level 10 replace Frostblink with Smoke Mine and Summon Raging Spirit with Summon Skeletons - At level 12 grab Flesh Offering - At level 16 grab Summon Skitterbots and Desecrate - At level 18 grab Melee Physical Damage and add it to your Summon Skeletons link and Raise Zombie link - At level 24 grab Convocation and Pride - At level 31 add Feeding Frenzy to your Summon Skeletons link and Raise Zombie link - At level 34 drop Melee Splash and replace Summon Skeletons with Carrion Golem. You can also grab Phase Run now (if you have enough Dexterity). If you have Primordial Might drop Feeding Frenzy link from Carrion Golem and replace it with Deathmark. - At level 38 add Brutality to your Carrion Golem link and Raise Zombie link. If you have Minion Damage helmet for zombies, also add Multistrike to your Raise Zombie 4 link and if you have Primordial Might add it also to your Carrion Golem 6 link. After leveling you can add Animated Guardian and Raise Spectre setup, but before that it is not really necessary (for details see respective sections). Also add Spirit Offering setup as soon as you get Mistress of Sacrifice. When you get enough armour you can also add Vaal Molten Shell setup (if you have the Vaal version), but it is not really necessary early as well.
Spectres
We use 4 spectres: - 2x Carnage Chieftain - You can raise this spectre in The Old Fields in Act 2. We use Carnage Chieftain for generating Frenzy charges for our minions - 1x Host Chieftain - You can raise this spectre in The Ashen Fields in Act 7. We use Host Chieftain for generating Power charges for our minions - 1x Ruins Hellion - You can raise this spectre in The Quay in Act 8. We use this spectre to buff damage of our minions and also make enemies deal less damage
Animated Guardian
We use these items for our Animated Guardian: - Weapon: Kingmaker to give fortify to us and our minions and also to slightly buff their damage - Helmet: Nearby enemies take 9% increased physical damage rare helmet - Body: Gruthkul's Pelt for some additional survivability - Gloves: Southbound with Curse enemies with level 10 Vulnerability on hit corruption for some life regen and life and also so our guardian will curse enemies - Boots: Victario's Flight to increase movement speed of our minions
Gear optimization and specialization
If you want to map a lot faster, you can replace your weapons with Queen's Escape: If you are struggling with survivability or strength requirements, you can run wand/cold iron point and shield: If you want a bit more tanky zombies with some explosions, or just simply want to reduce number of your minions to improve performance you can grab Mon'tregul's Grasp (you will also need to change Brutality to something else in zombie link otherwise explosions will do 0 damage): If you are struggling with dexterity requirements and don't mind losing Phase Run you can replace it with Smoke Mine. Media Mapping Core Lvl 91 Bossing Forge of the Phoenix Lvl 91 (5 link, face tank) Maze of the Minotaur Lvl 91 (5 link, face tank) Maze of the Minotaur Lvl 93 (Mon'tregul's Grasp) The Constrictor Lvl 92 (Red) The Purifier Lvl 92 (Red) Shaper Lvl 92 Delving Delve Depth 204 Lvl 93 My builds: https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam My site: https://mapsofexile.com/ Last edited by thedeathbeam#7125 on Sep 23, 2019, 4:40:51 PM Last bumped on Mar 22, 2020, 10:11:44 PM
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My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam My site: https://mapsofexile.com/ |
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Build update:
- Added gem progression section - Restructured leveling and gearing section So I decide to write very simple gem progression/leveling section, hopefully it will be useful. I did something like that at league start, and it worked very well. My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam My site: https://mapsofexile.com/ |
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Another small update:
- Updated "How to configure PoB for your own character" - better formating and Carrion Golem combo attack workaround - Moved workaround mods to Careful Planning jewel in PoB - Added level 80 and 70 tree So, based on this post I added "Golems have 174% more attack speed" workaround to simulate actual combo attack DPS for Carrion Golems. I also decided to move these custom mods to Careful Planning for better readability. I also cleaned up the "How to configure PoB for your own character" a bit and added new workaround there as well. My builds: https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam My site: https://mapsofexile.com/ Last edited by thedeathbeam#7125 on Sep 20, 2019, 9:35:23 AM
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Small update:
Added new gameplay video Forge of the Phoenix Lvl 91 (5 link, face tank) The map did not really had very dangerous mods so I decided to simply try and face tank phoenix.  My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam My site: https://mapsofexile.com/ |
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Another update:
Added yet another gameplay video, now doing the same thing to minotaur as I did to Phoenix. Still trying to 6 link my mace I plan to craft, so using 5 link in meantime. Maze of the Minotaur Lvl 91 (5 link, face tank) This one also had some annoying mods like phys as extra life and more monster life, but eh. My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam My site: https://mapsofexile.com/ |
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So I was tinkering a bit with more Carrion Golem focused setup, and this is what I have so far:
https://pastebin.com/mA9rUzRj I think it looks really promising (and double Cold Irons are dirt cheap compared to zombie mace, also opens up a lot of room for both optimization with convoking wands and also defensive options, like cold iron/wand and shield etc). My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam My site: https://mapsofexile.com/ |
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Love the build - swapped over from a different carrion build and I definitely prefer the defensive nature of this one.
What's your gut feeling on that cold iron build? |
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" I am testing the cold iron version atm and I think I like it way more. I lost some damage, but not much and I think the clear speed is way better and I can focus blight bossess more comfortably too thanks to Deathmark and 6 link buffed carrions. Only issue I see so far is zombies will end up with around half of previous HP with just cold irons (but carrion golems on other hand will end up with way more HP). On the other hand with Convoking Wands I think zombies will jump back to their original HP, so it should be fine. I will most likely be updating the main post with carrion-focused PoB today or tomorrow if rest of my testing go well. My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam My site: https://mapsofexile.com/ |
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" I swapped over and I like it too. To be honest, the trade off in a bit of damage is worth the 7ex I get back from selling my weapon. Excited to see where this build goes. |
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