Cold ANIMATE WEAPON Summoner | League-Start & Leveling Guide

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le16rrex wrote:

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snowmittens wrote:

I'm doing a physical mixed zombies/AW and just finished act 7 strong.
However I really hate the AW play style-it's slow and clunky and getting the minions up take a long time and work and you are vulnerable while doing it.

I hope someone can come up with some other way to sustain AW and greatly improve the QoL of these AW builds soon

edit - silly me, didn't link the bladefall to anything

What did you link bladefall with to improve the sustain of AW?

I played the last couple acts with it unlinked only realizing it now.
Now I linked it to spell cascade and faster casting. AW still slow to build up...

Well I tried this build and i have to say its kinda not worth. AW are clunky as f. Thier AI is even worse than zombie one. In Delirium they are pretty much 100% time dead, even when trying to recast them with Unleash it is pointless since they will die right away.

Kinda sad this build is not working, i was expecting something more.

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hexed1 wrote:

Well I tried this build and i have to say its kinda not worth. AW are clunky as f. Thier AI is even worse than zombie one. In Delirium they are pretty much 100% time dead, even when trying to recast them with Unleash it is pointless since they will die right away.

Kinda sad this build is not working, i was expecting something more.

Agree. Am at tier 4 maps now and Imo this is horrendous to play.

I am finding the same complaints many are.

Getting the AW's up is way too slow and it is like I have a magnet on me to target me for damage every time I do.

I have no issues when the AW are up though, damage looks good and using Melee Splash, Feeding Frenzy and Convocation keeps the clear speed decent even at my low level.

Maybe once I get the second ascendancy point that keeps them active longer this will feel better but I almost wish we had some automatic way to just keep them up while still playing.

Same complaints here too, kinda disappointed with the AW gameplay. Damages feel great to be honest (I think I clean faster than with my zombie/skelli test pre 3.10) but summoning AW is a chore (like nothing comparable with skelli/srs) and having to do it during a fight feels very bad bc of how slow the process is (basically running away from the fight and trying to dodge everything until all the AWs get summoned).

I will push to A10 tho, I guess someone will figure out a QoL solution.

poe ninja build is up, with 22% of necro playing AW. Probably some good ideas around there.

https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds?class=Necromancer

Not really having any of those issues. I am in T7 maps right now. AWs never die, no matter how insane the Delirium is.

I enter the map, summon like 6-7 AWs and start moving. Then whenever I stop for a second for the AWs to kill a pack, I Bladefall and summon 2-3 AWs, even when I am already at max AWs! Rince and repeat and I am always at 17 AWs, I mean, they do have 88 second duration, just from Ascendancy and the Enduring Bond wheel...

Also just had my first real single target test. Baran on a T5 map. Melted in 0.5 seconds.

For clearing Feeding Frenzy and Melee Splash are a must though. Not a problem of course, the damage is still insane.

Getting a Spectre setup for charge generation helps a ton, I would advise to go for RS-Meat Shield-Minion Life-Blood Magic until your RS gem is very high level, then change one of the blue supports for Spell Echo.

Oh, and get all the minion movement speed you can. AWs are slow as fuck, and spend like 50% of the time slowly moving between enemies in a pack. That directly impacts their effectiveness. I just got the 18-22% minion movement speed craft on one ring and it increased my already ok clear speed by a lot. Have another ring and an amulet to go for the craft, so they should end up being really fast.

And just as general advice: Until you are geared up, measure the build on how good it is against the normal content, not Delirium. Delirium is simply insane and is causing huge survivability problems for most other builds too.

An analogy I posted somewhere else:

While AW damages and clear seem better than zombie/skelli, summoning AWs is a chore. It's slow, clunky af and it happens way too often. I mean, summoning zombies is slow and clunky af too, but you have to do it only once per session, not every minute.

Edit: anyway, thanks for the amazing guide! The complaints have nothing to do with your work. :)

End of my first session. Damage is nutty. I kill conquerors in 0.5sec and I don't even swap out melee splash. Clear is fine too. For me getting trigger weapon and going EK instead of bladefall solved a lot of clunkyness issues. Survival is fine and even more to come. I dont find the AI to be bad at all, its just fine.

Some thing you only find out after actually playing the build and for me that was adding in HoP. Just 4 extra boys doing damage. Summoners don't always hit but this one you have to, so no problem at all summoning them with culling linked. Bladefall feels like you have to wait 20 min before you can start animate. EK feels much faster and a faster cast speed too, and less dex needed.

I have no doubts I'll be any less effective than a similar skellies build pre 3.10, in fact it might even be better. Tomorrow I'll probably switch to shield charge and figure out a way to add spectres for p/f charges generation.

GG!

the guide says
his setup will manually cast:
- Bladefall
- Animate Weapon
- Desecrate
- Deathmark, if we're using that suppor

what part allows deathmark amd AW to be autocast? i understand the others but not how those get auto cast