It's like playing Summon Raging Spirit but the minions last longer and deal more damage! How to Read This Guide: sections marked with stars (***) are essential to understand the build. For those in a hurry, read the marked sections first! Then go back to read the rest. Please read the whole guide before asking questions.
Please don't message me with with questions in-game. That is what the guide is for! The thread here is very active, if you ask here either I or someone else will answer your question, and others can read and benefit.
5/1/2020: Significant change to recommended ascendancy points, updates to cluster jewel section, and gem links.
4/19/2020: Advanced section updated with new Cluster Jewel setup.
4/8/2020: More detail on Timeless jewels in "advanced gearing" section at the end, for surviving at level 90+
3/2/2020: Added video guide for getting 4 green sockets in Triad Grip. and FAQ section.
2/28/2020: Original post.
+ Safe playstyle with minions that chill, freeze, taunt and blind enemies. + High DPS for bosses. + Can do all map mods. + Low budget to get started, but scales easily into end game. + Can get high health and/or hybrid defenses, with easy 200% increased life on tree. + Very flexible passive tree that benefits a lot from cluster jewels. - Cannot tank big hits. The best defense is mobility and avoiding huge slams. - Dexterity is needed on gear to meet gem requirements. - More active playstyle than other summoners. Number of skills to use may overwhelm newer players.
*** FAQs ***
Very brief summary of the build: Get Triad Grip gloves to convert all minion damage to cold. Use Hatred aura and Summon Skitterbots - Bonechill to scale cold damage to big, girthy levels.
For newer players there is a highly detailed description of all build mechanics, without any jargon, in the very next section!
"Should I league start with Animate Weapon?"
A summoner playstyle doesn't depend heavily on gear, making it very easy to start a new league with. Further, you get access to the Animate Weapon gem right at the start of Act 1 so leveling is simple.
"I'm new to Path of Exile. Can I try this build?"
Sure! This guide is comprehensive and intended to be accessible for players with all levels of experience. Check out the Intro and Mechanics sections first, and then leave a comment if you still have questions.
"Solo self found (SSF) and budget friendly?"
Mostly. There is only one "highly recommended" unique, Triad Grip Mesh Gloves. This drops frequently in maps. Even without finding them right away, the build should still be functional without those gloves for a long time. Aside from that one unique, you can reasonably craft or find every needed item yourself.
"Hardcore Viable?"
Probably. The skill tree is 90% the same as one for Summon Raging Spirit, and many people have taken that to high levels in HC before. This guide is for a SC perspective but with small adjustments, more defensive options are available. (i.e. more Marauder life nodes, Soul of Steel, and Bone Offering for block rather than Flesh Offering for speed)
"I want to avoid a lot of clicking. Is this hard to play, mechanically?"
While leveling, Ethereal Knives or Bladefall generate "ammunition" for Animate Weapon. It's a one-two skill usage, a bit like Essence Drain/Contagion, but weapons have a long duration so it's not required all the time. Flasks are only used defensively, so no "piano flasking" to keep up DPS. Once you are actively running through a level, you can just raise weapons as you go.
Later on some of this can be automated away through gearing, but while leveling there are quite a few skills to use. If you want a summoner build with a less active playstyle, this build may not be for you.
"What about some other Ascendancy?"
I wrote a section on why Necromancer is the best for this build, so at minimum read that before asking. Feedback is welcome and helpful, and the guide has changed a lot based on comments here. BUT, if you have a suggestion please back it up with some evidence as to why your change would be a good idea, and include a Path of Building link to demonstrate why it's an improvement.
"Cast While Channeling / Spellslinger / other clever gearing setups to trigger Animate Weapon?"
I fully researched and considered most automation methods, and the conclusion I reached was Not Worth It. Huge loss of DPS for very small added convenience, and gem slots are in short supply as it is. Link an Unleash Support to Animate Weapon if you are bothered by casting it repeatedly. For a fully automated build, look into Chains of Command with a Scion instead.
"Does your build work with Chains of Command?"
Aside from being visually similar, a Chains of Command build has nearly nothing in common with this one. Most guides I've seen for that build use Scion instead of Necromancer, so look there instead.
"Why Cold, instead of Physical with Impale?"
Physical is less demanding for gem slots and has a slightly more flexible passive tree, but the damage with cold scales more easily. I started off the guide with the idea of showing various different damage types but it was getting too wordy, and the gearing for varied setups is different enough to make it awkward to cover all of them.
I've played an Impale version of the build also, and it's good. With a high budget to get several really excellent Cluster Jewels, it's potentially better. Cold is more functional on low budget (1-3ex) and for SSF, where a phys version will struggle without better items.
"How do you trigger Elemental Equilibrium?"
By casting Bladefall on bosses, while having "x to y fire/lightning damage to spells" on some item (see gear section for details). We run Hatred Aura linked to Generosity so that it does not add cold to Bladefall. Make sure no items have added cold damage to spells!
EE is not needed until late game bosses and I recommend against taking it before character level 80-85.
"Which spectres does the build use?"
Stygian Silverback (frenzy charges) and Host Chieftain (power charges) both of which can be found in Riverways of Act 6. Spectres go into a +2 minion gem helm so they stay alive better.
If you have other questions, please do leave a comment!
Other minion builds hammered, Animate Weapon buffed! Skill is looking amazing for 3.10!
Introduction to Animate Weapon
If you have little experience playing summoner builds or are new to Path of Exile, this section will get you up to speed.
Animate Weapon: the Basics
The Animate Weapon skill turns an identified melee weapon on the ground into a flying minion with high damage, which chases down and slays your enemies. And you can summon a lot of them!
If you've played other summoning skills in Path of Exile, think of Animate Weapon as the cross between Raise Zombie and Raging Spirit. Like a Zombie, the Weapon must be raised from something on the ground - a dropped weapon, rather than a corpse. And, like a Raging Spirit, the Animated Weapon flies and has fixed duration before expiring. (Unlike Raging Spirits, Animated Weapons will be targeted by enemies so their health pool does matter).
The problem for Animated Weapon builds prior to 3.10 was that unless monsters dropped enough weapons for you to raise, your animated army could stall out for lack of "recruits". Further, the targeting of weapons on the ground was awkward, requiring very picky selection with your mouse cursor to animate them.
In 3.10 the first issue has been fixed because blade-related spells (Blade Vortex, Ethereal Knives, and Bladefall) now leave behind lingering knives to animate at will. The second part has also been simplified with buffs to cast speed and a reduced mana cost, making the skill much more pleasant to play.
We now have an easy two-skill combination - cast a blade skill (realistically Bladefall because it creates the most knives) and then animate those knives to fight for us. As an added benefit we can apply curses and debuffs to monsters with hits from Bladefall, making our minions more effective.
How Animate Weapon Calculates Damage
When you cast Animate Weapon it inherits the damage, crit chance, attack speed etc. of the identified item on the ground which you targeted. This includes any magic, rare, or unique modifiers (though be aware, you won’t get that weapon back!) Then the skill adds its own modifiers to base damage, attack speed, and so on to the minion which flies around and hits things until it dies or the duration expires.
When a weapon is summoned from a lingering blade (created by Bladefall) the process is slightly different. All summoned blades have base stats roughly equal to a Glass Shank. Then, Animate Weapon adds an additional damage bonus based on its own skill level to the created minion, if it is from a lingering blade. This boost is substantial!
What it means to you: the level of Bladefall you use, or any supports attached to that skill, don’t matter for your DPS. All that counts is the level of your Animate Weapon.
The plan is very simple: keep up as many Animate Weapon minions as possible, buff their damage, and we're along for the ride as they kill everything in the game! The rest of this guide is about how to accomplish that.
Minion Mechanics for New Players
For those completely new to this type of build, here are the mechanics that matter.
An Animate Weapon skill gem has the tags Duration, Minion, Spell attached to it so let's unpack those first.
Each animated weapon lasts for either 40 seconds duration or until it has zero hitpoints. We increase that duration with the passive tree so that we don't need to recast as often.
Minions count as Allies (but are not Party Members, which is only other players - this distinction occasionally matters). In order to improve our minions' damage with gear or the passive tree, the modifier must explicitly say "minions have..." or "allies get..." otherwise it has no effect!
For example, although an Animated Weapon attacks with physical damage, a passive node saying "15% increased physical damage" will not benefit it, because that is only for the player and not Minions.
Casting Animate Weapon is a Spell, and is improved by Cast Speed. However, as the Animated Weapon is a Minion, increases to spell damage do not help its damage. If you add Spell bonuses or supports, it will support the spell which animates the weapon, but won't affect the weapon's damage when it attacks enemies.
The reason these tags matter is that a support gem usually has to match a tag on the skill it supports. In addition to Duration, Minion, and Spell, Animate Weapon can also be supported with MeleeAttack and Physical tags.
There are other support gems that just have the tag "Support" and can attach to almost anything. Read the text on a support gem and it will describe any special cases and what it can or cannot apply to. GGG's wording tends to be VERY literal.
The damage our minions deal with attacks can be Physical, Elemental (Cold, Fire, Lightning), or Chaos. The type of damage matters because monsters can resist attacks by having resistance to Cold/Fire/Lightning/Chaos, or armor against Physical. Bosses especially have significant amounts of armor and resistances.
Animate Weapon deals physical damage by default but eventually, we want to convert all that damage to cold.
*** Why Convert Damage to Cold? ***
There are three benefits to converting all damage to one element.
First, it lets our minion benefit from more sources of increased damage. If we convert all minion physical damage to cold, any item that says "minions have % increased physical damage" or "minions have % increased cold damage" will benefit them equally.
Second, by picking just one element, we can focus our build toward breaking through that one elemental resistance on bosses. It's easier to find gear and skills which reduce, or penetrate, one sort of resistance rather than all of them.
Third, physical damage gets reduced by armor. Armor blocks a flat amount of physical damage from each hit (rather than a percentage as resistances do), making it most effective against small hits. Animated Weapons attack with a lot of fast hits so bosses with high armor won't take as much damage. Fully converting to elemental will ignore monster armor, and we have lots of ways to break through resistances.
One way we do that is with Elemental Equilibrium (EE), a keystone node located between Witch and Templar. With EE, when an enemy is hit with one element (for example, lightning) they get +25 resistance to lightning but -50 resistance to cold and fire. We hit enemies with a small amount of lightning or fire damage so that they have negative cold resistance when attacked by our minions.
Lastly, cold damage benefits from some of the most powerful damage multipliers in the game. Very rarely, buffs can "double dip", or increase both physical and elemental damage at the same time, so final damage benefits from both increases. The Hatred Aura is one example, because it gives added cold damage based on physical damage, and also more cold damage, double-dipping from any increase to physical.
The other big multiplier we gain is from linking the Bonechill Support to Summon Skitterbots. Skitterbots have two effects: one is a shocking aura, which at level 20, causes monsters to take 18% more damage. There is also a chilling aura, and with Bonechill, that causes monsters to take 18% more cold damage. Together this causes 36% more damage to the unlucky boss which is affected by both our shock and chill at once.
Incidentally, cold damage has some defensive benefits by chilling enemies so they hit us less often, and freezing and shattering corpses to avoid nasty on-death effects. But mostly we're in it for the big, meaty damage increases.
Loot Filter To enjoy playing Animate Weapon, a custom loot filter is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED! This reduces the number of times casting Bladefall, as you can animate weapons that drop in a zone.
Custom Loot Filter for Animate Weapon
Normal rarity weapons we might want to animate will be hidden by default for most loot filters. I'd strongly recommend a custom filter because the pace of play is much better when you animate weapons off the ground instead of trying to generate all of them yourself with Bladefall.
You can view filters in my profile and "follow" them, and should get automatic updates as I make changes.
To tweak my pre-made filters:
- Leveling Version (should be good up until red maps)
- Very Lategame Version (will filter out lots of stuff you might still want to see early on)
After you load the filter you should be able to see what I've changed and make your own adjustments. Please don't ask me for tech support on these, if you don't like the various options just make your own.
To make your own custom filter which includes weapons to animate:
2. On the first page, select the Strictness of filter that you want (for example, in late game, Very Strict).
3. Under the “Customize” tab, scroll down to Miscellaneous >>> Optional Filter Modules >>> Animate Weapon Mode.
4. Pick the correct option (Normal, Spirit Guards if you use that jewel, Cloak of Tawm’r Isley if you use that item) and click Show.
Make any other changes you want to customize your loot filter, then download, put it in the correct folder and load it in Path of Exile, or sync it to your profile.
Passive Tree
Level 80
This tree is very flexible and prioritizes life because damage is not a problem. Either take more HP nodes in Marauder or go deep on cluster jewels as you level.
Alternate (Not Recommended) Tree: More DPS, Lower HP
Gains an extra Spectre and a little more damage at expense of less life.
Level 90
Taking Indomitable Army nodes for minion survival in red maps. Minion leech gained from cluster jewels.
*** Path of Building ***
These are snapshots of my actual character in the league. Level 93: https://pastebin.com/PQjQq7nb 9.7M Shaper DPS Level 88: https://pastebin.com/JKpJsvs9 4.7M Shaper DPS Level 85: https://pastebin.com/i61hEgrH 1.9M Shaper DPS
You MUST have the Forked version of Path of Building installed or DPS calculations will make no sense! Not sure what that is? Read below.
You will also need LocalIdentity’s fork version, which more accurately calculates DPS for a variety of skills, as well as adding several useful features and more regular updates. Once PoB is installed, follow the instructions here: https://github.com/LocalIdentity/PathOfBuilding/wiki/Installing-this-Fork
After you update Path of Building to the newest version, follow these steps to load a build:
- Click "New" (top middle) for a new build
- "Import/Export build" at top left
- "Import from Pastebin", paste the URL given above, and click "Import".
Done!
How to See Your Animated Weapon DPS in POB
1. In the "Items" tab, go to the top for Item Set, click "Manage"
2. Click "New", name the new item set something (like "shank") and then set that as your active equipment set.
3. Still in the Items tab, go to the right side and click "Create custom..."
4. In the dropdown, select "Normal", and then type Glass Shank
Adds "x" to "y" physical damage
5. To know what to enter for x and y, navigate to the Skills tab, highlight your Animate Weapon skill. You'll see a line which reads Animated Lingering Blades deal x to y Added Attack Physical Damage
and enter those figures for your custom Glass Shank.
6. Change your active equipment set back to Default, for the gear you're actually using
7. On the left side of the screen where you see Main Skill, there is a dropdown which may read Default Item Set. Instead select "shank" (or whatever you named your custom item set with the custom Glass Shank in it)
Done! You should now see an accurate estimate of your minion's DPS. Make sure all the other configs are right then go brag on the forums about how much damage you do.
Explanation of Configuration settings
- Enemy hit by lightning damage (added by some piece of gear) for Elemental Equilibrium.
- Minions have power/frenzy charges from Raised Spectres on Chieftains in A2/A6
- Shock effect: 36% accounts for Skitterbots 18% shock, plus the stacked effect of Bonechill causing increased cold damage (another 18%)
- Enemies given -10 cold resistance from Elemental Army
(Buffs from Animate Guardian equipment not included.)
Ascendancy Choices
Recommended Order:
1. Mindless Aggression - boosts minion damage and movement speed to kill stuff faster.
2. Mistress of Sacrifice - increased Animate Weapon duration and lets us benefit from Flesh Offering. Can take this first if DPS is sufficient and want the QOL improvement sooner.
3. Bone Barrier - increases minion HP and gives some physical damage reduction. Put "Bone Armor" skill on left-click and it will automatically activate the buff while moving around!
4. Unnatural Strength - +2 Minion Gem levels from Eternal Lab so our minions HP and damage continues scaling nicely into the endgame.
Optional: if gear is extremely bad, take Commander of Darkness as #3 (before killing A10 Kitava) for extra resists and damage. This can be re-spec'd out of later as it's not really necessary with optimal gear, but can be helpful when league starting or in SSF. Alternately, in the very late game with optimal gear (Animate Weapon Level 25+) the extra HP from Bone Barrier may not be necessary, and again can spec into Commander of Darkness.
Why Necromancer?
You can actually get comparable DPS with a Guardian ascendancy - at least, with numbers on paper. The main reason to play Necro is the Mistress of Sacrifice node:
- 30% Increased Skill Effect Duration; 30% Increased Minion Duration
- Your Offerings also Affect You, with 25% Reduced Effect on You
Increased duration is not available on any other ascendancy, and reduces the amount of times recasting minions, improving QOL and clear speed.
Even more importantly, the ability to benefit from Flesh Offering, which increases movement speed, attack speed, and cast speed makes everything play much smoother. It's like having Onslaught all the time, except you can still stack real Onslaught on top of it! Casting minions quickly and having them reach enemies faster further improves their effective duration, and in turn, clear speed.
Alternately, if defense is the priority, Spirit Offering and Bone Offering are large boosts to Chaos Resist and Block Chance, respectively. It's an incredible amount of flexibility for very little investment.
Guardian also does not have any boosts to minion life, which Necro gets incidentally with +gem levels for minions as well as the Bone Armor buff. This is a significant problem when doing tougher content that can easily kill low-HP Animate Weapons.
Scion is also viable, but it will have considerably lower damage. The main reason to choose Scion would be for the Pathfinder flask nodes for some specialized, alternate build (beyond the scope of this guide).
Bandits & Pantheon
Kill all the Bandits for skill points.
When fully upgraded the Soul of Lunaris lets us avoid chained projectiles, which are otherwise very dangerous to a summoner. Lunaris also has some helpful damage reductions which we otherwise are weak on, making this the favored choice.
As a minor god, I'd suggest either Gruthkul (more phys reduction) or Shakari (poison immunity when upgraded). Optional: switch to Ryslatha for going through Labyrinth.
Cluster Jewels
How cluster jewels work: These special jewels may only be socketed in jewel nodes on the outer edge of the passive tree, and will have varying numbers of small passives, notables, and implicits within them.
Try to get a cluster jewel with the minimum number of passives on it to save on points - for large, the minimum will be 8 passives. On a medium, 4 or 5 passives are equally good.
With a large cluster jewel that has 8 passives, you can spend 7 points for 3 excellent notables plus two jewel sockets to either place medium cluster jewels into, or a regular jewel.
Large Cluster Notables (small passives: minions have increased damage):
Renewal: Minions Regenerate 1% of Life per second; Minions have 10% chance to deal Double Damage while they are on Full Life. Extremely high DPS boost if minions are reliably at full life.
Call to the Slaughter: Minions deal 15% increased Damage; Minions created Recently have 10% increased Attack and Cast Speed; Minions created Recently have 30% increased Movement Speed. Better for SRS than this build, but decent.
Feasting Fiends: Minions have 10% increased maximum Life; Minions deal 10% increased Damage; Minions Leech 0.4% of Damage as Life. Allows you to drop life leech nodes from the passive tree
Primordial Bond: 10% increased Damage per Summoned Golem; 40% increased Effect of Buffs granted by your Golems; Golems have 25% increased Maximum Life Increased Carrion Golem buff helps damage.
Medium Cluster Notables (small passives: minions have increased life):
Feasting Fiends.
Renewal.
Life from Death: Minions have 15% increased maximum Life; Regenerate 2% of Life per second if a Minion has Died Recently; Minions Recover 4% of Life on Minion Death. Keeps animated weapons alive, as duration expiring counts as dying recently
Dread March: Minions have 10% increased maximum Life; Minions have 10% increased Movement Speed; Minions have 10% additional Physical Damage Reduction; Minions have +10% to Chaos Resistance. Excellent for minion survivability.
Blessed Rebirth: Minions have 20% increased maximum Life; Minions created Recently cannot be Damaged. Good against bosses with large AOE hits that stall our momentum
Medium Cluster Notables (small passives: increased non-curse aura effect):
Vengeful Commander: Hatred/Anger/Wrath have 30% increased Aura Effect. Very good for DPS!
First Among Equals: 10% increased effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills Not as strong but decent.
Small Cluster Jewels sockets are often best used to place regular or Abyssal jewels into. Note that radius effects are disabled within cluster jewels, making these slots ideal for placing Fortress Covenant and Quickening Covenant if you use them!
Leveling Guide
From a fresh character in a new league up to the end game. Click Here for a walkthrough using POE Leveling Planner Tool for this build, or just follow along with my comments for each act below.
A custom loot filter that shows normal weapon drops is highly recommended! Important playstyle tip: don't try to summon all your weapons at the start of a zone and wait for them to expire. Instead, summon a few, and then animate the stuff that drops. You will be constantly at maximum stacks and never have to stop and resummon.
Acts 1 to 2
Item goals:
- several 3-linked items with GB B colors.
- 2x one-handed weapons with 3 sockets each (used in off-hand weapon swap to level gems)
- any rarity of Bone Spirit Shield, to be used for a vendor recipe.
- Boots with Movement Speed (check vendors), and a Jade Amulet to meet dexterity requirements.
- Sell unidentified magic items for Transmute shards (needed to buy skill gems).
Act 1. After Hillock, take Raise Zombie. Purchase Ethereal Knives.
In Submerged Passage, take Frostblink and purchase Animate Weapon. You can now use Ethereal Knives to fuel your weapon summonings!
After Tidal Island, take Quicksilver Flask and Summon Phantasm Support, link to Ethereal Knives. Can buy Spell Cascade (won't need this right away).
After Brutus, take Flame Dash, replace Frostblink. Buy Added Lightning, Minion Damage, and Clarity aura.
Before Merveil, get Flesh Offering.
Links:
Animate Weapon - Minion Damage - Added Lightning
Ethereal Knives - Phantasms - (Arcane Surge)
You can also link in Melee Splash at any time if damage feels good, to clear faster.
Act 2. Intruders in Black: take Desecrate.
The Weaver: take Deathmark, buy Faster Casting and Melee Physical Damage.
If dexterity is an issue, pathing into the Precision node by Templar can make leveling much smoother with added move speed and cast rate.
Passive Tree: End of Act 2
Acts 3 to 5
Item goals:
- get a 4-linked helmet with 1 green socket, 1-2 blue and 1-2 red (check vendors).
- Recipe: magic helmet + Orb of Alteration + Life Flask of Animation = +1 Minion Gems.
- (Bone Spirit Shield + Life Flask + Orb of Transmutation = Flask of Animation)
Act 3.
Tolman: take Convocation. Buy the Hatred aura and Frostbite curse from Clarissa.
Ribbon Spool: take a Jade Amulet to help with dexterity requirements.
Gravicius: take Raise Spectre, purchase Bladefall. Link Bladefall to Spell Cascade and Faster Casting. Keep Bladefall at level 1 to keep mana cost and req's down.
Fixture of Fate: take Feeding Frenzy (optional).
Act 4. Pick Summon Carrion Golem after opening the mines and start using it. After Kaom and Daresso, you can take Multistrike.
Gem links will depend on items found so far, but the goal is to have:
- Animate Weapon in a 4-link with +1 minion gem levels. Supports can include Minion Damage, Melee Phys, Multistrike, Deathmark, even Added Lightning or Added Cold (depending on colors in your gear). Add Melee Splash if desired for clear;
- Bladefall - Faster Casting - Spell Cascade;
- Carrion Golem - Feeding Frenzy;
- Auras: Hatred and Clarity;
- Flesh Offering, Desecrate and Convocation un-linked.
Do first Labyrinth before entering Act 5.
Passive Tree: End of Act 5
Acts 6 to 10
Item Goals: Capped (75%) resistances.
Act 6. After clearing Twilight Strand for Lilly, purchase some gems to level or use: Summon Skitterbots, Animate Guardian, Generosity, Elemental Army, Elemental Damage with Attacks, Multistrike, Hypothermia and any others you might have skipped earlier.
If playing in hardcore, set up Cast When Damage Taken - Steelskin links here.
Go back to A1 and buy as many copies of Animate Weapon as you can fit in off-hand weapon slots, and begin leveling them.
Acts 7 to 8. Item Goals: acquire defensive utility flasks.
Silver Locket: take the Basalt or Granite Flask, whichever you have not yet found.
Wings of Vastri: take Conqueror's Efficiency as reward, consider socketing it if you have mana issues.
Act 9. As soon as a Divine Life Flask drops, upgrade its quality to 20% and roll a Bubbling/Seething prefix onto it with Alteration Orbs, then use Einhar's Menagerie to craft "...of Staunching" onto it. You can use that flask for the whole game!
Act 10. Safe Passage quest reward: take Quartz Flask (very useful for Delve).
Complete Cruel and Merciless Labyrinth at some point before entering maps.
Passive Tree: Entering Maps
Note the small re-spec, changing the pathing out of the witch start and around the center. This is optional but slightly more efficient. I suggest taking that respec right around the time you reach "Righteous Army" on the tree to fill out that wheel to the left of Templar.
Common Issues in Early Maps
Going into maps you'll be about Level 66-70. You won't have the "trigger socketed spells..." craft unlocked from Jun yet, and your resistances might be bad. However, what you should have is a 4-link helmet with +1 minion gems and some decent flasks.
Your gems should be: Bladefall - (Optional: Faster Casting or Spell Cascade).
Main damage links: Animate Weapon - Minion Damage - Multistrike - Added Cold. Start using Elemental Damage with Attacks when you get Triad Grip. Switch Melee Splash instead of Multistrike for general map clear.
These are boosted by: Carrion Golem - Feeding Frenzy; Hatred - Generosity and Skitterbots; Flesh Offering for clear speed, and a curse for bosses. Other gems will be used eventually but that's all you really need.
"I Just got to Maps and my Gear is Awful!"
Relax, this is why we play a summoner! The only "required" unique is Triad Grip and while these gloves do boost DPS, it should be possible to progress before finding or trading for them (and they are dirt cheap...) In fact, having a full elemental conversion probably doesn't even matter until late yellow/early red maps where monsters have high armor ratings.
"My Resistances are Bad!"
Use the Crafting Bench to add resists to your gear. Even with early crafts you should be able to get them to decent levels. You can also spec into parts of the passive tree which add resists, and re-allocate those points later.
"I run Out of Mana all the time!"
Take the nodes near Templar which give extra mana and reduced mana cost, and re-allocate them later. You may not be able to run Skitterbots right away until leveling up more, and can use Clarity aura instead.
Dream Fragments is a useful ring that can fix mana problems in a pinch.
"My Minions die a Lot!"
Early on you can trade for a Skullhead helmet and it will keep both you and your minions alive.
Minion leech on the tree or a jewel is the best way to sustain their HP. Unfortunately against Delirium mobs even this is rather dicey, and it may be necessary to back off and resummon occasionally for very difficult encounters. Taking more minion life and defense nodes, such as Indomitable Army, will help. Animated Weapons gain a significant amount of HP with more gem levels so in the very late game you may be able to re-spec out of some minion life nodes.
"Animate Weapon AI is crap!"
Yeah kinda. The main problem is they're slow. A quality gem would help of course, but if you're league starting with it, you can link Feeding Frenzy to them and it will help some. Heavily prioritize getting minion speed on gear, as this makes them much more aggressive - you can cheaply craft that onto rings and amulet that have an open suffix.
"My Damage is Low!" (No one has ever said this, actually)
Summon spectres that buff your minions with frenzy/power charges. I use the A2 Stygian Silverback (Frenzy) and Host Chieftain in A6 Riverlands (Power changes). No joke, a huge part of DPS comes from frenzy/power charges. When linked with Blood Magic, these guys will keep the team buffed. In a +2 Minion helm, they will stay alive.
You can pick out areas of the Atlas where Convoking Wands and Bone Helmets are able to drop (a guide to these locations). Farm these maps in a targeted way to find upgrades, and use Essences you've picked up in the campaign to craft useful stats onto them.
Item Progression Goals
There are several item milestones to seek out as you progress deeper into the Atlas. In order of priority, those are:
- Capped (75%) elemental resistances.
- 5-linked body armor. Easiest method is to trade for a Jeweler's Touch prophecy, which typically go for ~25c at the start of a league. If playing SSF, you can farm Flora's Gift cards as a temporary measure, and use a staff instead for now. Save your Jewelers and Fuses!
- Triad Grip Gloves, socket color irrelevant. Can start using Elemental Damage with Attacks support efficiently after equpping these.
- Positive (>0%) Chaos resistance, better when possible.
- A few decent Abyssal Jewels to improve your maximum life and minion damage (see that section in Gear).
- Color Triad Grip gloves with 4 Green sockets. (Video) You'll need to enter Delve and go down very slightly to get the socketing recipe, and have saved up a few hundred Jeweler's Orbs from selling 6-socket items. At this point, link Bonechill to Skitterbots if you haven't already.
- method to trigger Elemental Equilibrium (see Gear section below for options) and only then, take the EE node.
- Anoint Ravenous Horde (or other good notable) onto amulet with blight oils
- Unlock Jun's "Trigger Socketed Spells..." craft, and acquire a Wand good enough to be worth applying this onto.
- Trade for 6-linked body armor (if SSF, suggested to farm for cards to get this. I recommend against attempting to link it yourself at this stage).
- Get Level 21 Animate Weapon gem, either through trade or by using a Vaal Orb on a Level 20 gem you have leveled up (this can take a few tries...)
- Acquire some method to curse enemies with Elemental Weakness. Most accessible is with corrupted gloves on Animate Guardian. Get enough other decent gear for the Guardian so it won't die easily (see that section in Advanced).
- Other more expensive upgrades such as a good amulet and rings, specialized cluster or timeless jewel setups, top-tier Abyssals, Level 21/20 quality gems, Awakened Supports, etc etc to fully maximize the build!
*** Final Gem Links ***
We're using Hatred to double-dip off added physical damage from Jewels or other gear, and Summon Skitterbots linked to Bonechill provides an additional "more" damage multiplier to cold. Supports which give us more melee physical, more cold, or more minion damage will all be effective.
Here are the gem links used to take advantage of that in the endgame.
Cold Conversion - Animate Weapon Supports (5L/6L)
Damage supports in order of efficiency:
- Added Cold Damage
- Minion Damage
- Elemental Damage with Attacks - must have Triad Grip Gloves on first
- Multistrike - Highest boss DPS, may cause mana issues
- Clear speed:Melee Splash
And choose one of these:
- Elemental Focus - great damage but can't freeze/shatter corpses
- Hypothermia - recommended to use for defensive boost of freeze.
Other supports that are less good:
- Ruthless - every third hit deals extra, much less consistent- especially with Multistrike
- Deathmark - good for bosses but needs a hotkey
- Melee Physical Damage - least raw DPS
For bosses, swap out Melee Splash for either Multistrike, EDWA, or Ruthless.
Use Awakened supports when you have access to them.
(To accurately estimate cold DPS in Path of Building, set Shock Effect to 36% from Skitterbots, for the stacked effect of Shock and Bonechill.)
Cold Conversion - Utility Skills
Gloves: Bladefall, Desecrate, Dash - Second Wind (or Portal, or Vaal Haste, or Enhance).
Must fill those 4 green sockets in Triad Grip. Don't level these dex gems all the way, keep requirements under 110 Dex to avoid gearing issues. (How to get 4 green sockets into Triad Grip).
Auras: Hatred - Generosity and Skitterbots - Bonechill (these can be in separate links or all together in a 4L, doesn't matter)
Elemental Army will cause our utility minions to apply Exposure to Cold on hit, and also keep them alive. For spectres we summon the Host/Carnage Chieftains from Acts 2 and 6 to apply Power/Frenzy charges to our minions. Blood Magic causes them to spam this buff more regularly. Get +2 Minion Gems on Helmet so these stay alive better (see Gear section).
Weapon: Summon Carrion Golem - Feeding Frenzy and Flesh Offering. (Has crafted "Trigger Socketed Spells when using a Skill")
The Golem's job is to apply the Feeding Frenzy buff by hitting enemies. Flesh Offering should be active all the time.
Utility:
- Convocation. Summoning minions to our location improves clear speed.
- Bone Barrier skill from Ascendancy. Can be put on left-click to move and automatically activate.
There are two "flex" or open gem sockets with this setup which you can use in any way you choose. Some suggestions:
Link Convocation to Enhance or Second Wind for increased cooldown recovery on that skill- better clear speed!
Clarity aura for mana regeneration.
Enlighten linked to Hatred to increase open pool of mana.
Cast When Damage Taken linked to a defensive curse like Enfeeble (note, if using Bone Barrier, cannot effectively use a guard skill as the cooldowns will overlap)
link Bladefall to Curse on Hit - Frostbite for more boss DPS.
To truly min-max the damage we could also try to apply Frost Bomb exposure (-25 Resistance) rather than exposure from Elemental Army (-10 Resistance). This also requires pathing to Avatar of Fire to not mess up EE. It's up to you to decide if your clicking fingers are up to the task with an extra hotkey for that DPS boost.
This was my first build into the Atlas, really appreciate you posting it.
I was thinking about slotting the animate weapons into the Triad Grips to better take advantage of the 4 Greens... I know I'll lose a ton of DPS but it'd open up some options.
The Ice Bite seems like it would work great with the frenzy charge spectres and I'm running Frost Bomb (with Avatar of Fire) to proc EE. For curse, I've been switching between Frostbite and Enfeeble spectres.
Build is updated for 3.11! Animate Weapon is not mentioned (in other words, not nerfed). Glancing Blows is now much more accessible, not requiring a timeless jewel, and I've re-designed the defensive strategy around it.
This should be a solid option for you in 3.11 - I look forward to hearing how it goes for everybody!
(new) Rallying Cry and/or Ruins Hellion spectre wont add anything to the build?
Delve still sucks with Animate? I guess Ill delve less. Thats why the only enchant for me is the one with extra copy.
I wonder if we lose weapons when we enter to garden from maps.
Envy was buffed or nerfed? Nobody played poison AW anyways last league :/
Could try rallying cry if you want. Same for Ruins Hellion, maybe it's a touch more damage.
Honestly, DPS is the very last problem for this build, it's off the charts - the more common issue was mana sustain at the start of maps, and survival in late reds. I think both of those have gotten a bit better.
Do you have an updated PoB by any chance ?
I saw you had 3.10 ones and some screenshots/tree for the 3.11 but no 3.11 PoB or I missed it.
Looking forward to trying that build though
I can't see the poe leveling planner, will the link be down? Until last night I could see it. Thanks
PoE leveling planner seems to be not working, I've taken that out of the guide for now.
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Woute wrote:
Do you have an updated PoB by any chance ?
I saw you had 3.10 ones and some screenshots/tree for the 3.11 but no 3.11 PoB or I missed it.
Looking forward to trying that build though
The gem links etc from 3.10 should all be the same, so you can use those POBs and just add the 4-5 nodes that are new and different. I don't want to theory-craft a POB and have some big "that's not realistic..." discussion so I only post POBs of characters I played.
hey OP thanks a lot for the great guide! Planning to play AW for the first time and as my Harvest starter no less, even though many people say AW is 'the clunkiest skill in poe' (reddit ofc).
Anyway, I saw that for his guide for the cold conversion....version, Ghazzy still uses cold iron point daggers (which look so incredibly juicy) and then a malachai's artifice golem to proc EE on bosses.
What do you think about that? Do you think it's worth it giving up a ring slot for the possibility to use two CIP daggers? I think especially early on in the league it might be good although I have no clue how much the daggers cost at league start.
Hey man, i wanna try your build as league starter. Will your Loot Filter in this guide be updates one the league starts or do i have to get my own custom one?
