Help With Pure SRS Build

I've been playing SRS on ssf for a few leagues by now, and everytime my character sucks, i've tried a lot of different things, i've seen all SRS guides i could read or watch and i still don't know what i'm missing, can someone help with my build, and say if the build is bad or it is me.

My build is a PURE SRS build with a golem, i'm using spectres just because of the     The Jinxed Juju, Citrine Amulet, they're on a CWDT setup, i would like to keep it as pure SRS as possible. I'm having all kinds of problems with survivability and lack of damage on high tier maps or sometimes when the map is just rare.

My character: https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Bhunao/characters/


Last bumped on Apr 17, 2020, 6:44:11 AM
Hey OP, I also play SRS builds. It is definitely not a problem with your gear or skill level. While it is possible to do endgame content, it is an incredible grind finding the gear and currency to make a viable SRS build.
Brittleknees, angry roleplayer and similar pure SRS guides were written with an almost unlimited budget, and during leagues before Delirium. What happened in delirium is that now monsters spawn far more minions of their own, plus the ridiculous increase to monster defences/health over the last two leagues. This makes an already weak skill almost impossible to use at the moment.

As an example, a fully 6 linked tabula rasa SRS setup, with twinking early gear will almost run out of mana taking out Mervail. Your SRS will die in her AOE, attack her spawns, still do almost negative damage, and generally be hard to cast as you are constantly having to reposition.

To make matters worse for myself, I love trying off meta ascendencies like scion SRS, raider SRS and chieftan SRS, or even SRS spell totem. I have realised that if you want to play SRS without grinding for weeks on end to buy a 20 ex helmet or staff, endgame content is off limits and even white maps 10 levels below yours will be a challenge.

So, looking at your gear, you can try using triad grip, as the elemental damage can scale higher. This won't solve the problem of it being impossible to both stay alive, and cast stationary spells, and scale minion damage, and proc EE, and scale defences, and avoid oneshots/crazy AOE ground effects, traps, mines, corpse explosions, and get AOE damage, and keep the little buggers alive, and regen mana (or life as you are using the covenant), and get cast speed, and move fast enough to complete enough maps/farm enough currency to make your time worthwhile.

If you are interested, here are some Pob's of builds that might be fun up until white maps.
raider - https://pastebin.com/WAgjKiBD
chieftan - https://pastebin.com/x3Y8v7Bd
spell totem - https://pastebin.com/3ciimUSg
necro fire srs - https://pastebin.com/UpzYVRD7
occultist and spell totems - https://pastebin.com/StsXW3Cb
chieftan and impale SRS - https://pastebin.com/fMiEfiB8

Last edited by grimlock9999#6212 on Apr 11, 2020, 2:06:22 AM
Thats something sad to read, deeply i wanted to be me the problem, cause i could just try to be better, i manage to get to Sirus with this build, and i almost killed him, but i died a few times for some mechanics that i did not understood well and anothers times just got one shot from more than 1 screen away.
Knowing that my build would basicly not viable for the end-end-game makes me just not want to play anymore, cause its the only build that i play, maybe i come back with another build or another skill, but until then i think POE is just over for me until then.

Thanks for the help.
Good day Bhunao and also grimlock999,
Here is my take on this problem, for starters I really love this skill, you summon skulls that do the bidding for you, but somehow GGG hate this skill and harshly nerf it again and again, but I do see a potential with this skill.

Now I am not discrediting the post by grimlock9999, they are all true, all the things he mentioned is valid, current and accurate to this point. and Kudos for you to try other ascendencies, good job my friend.

I did observed and viewed your character profile with the items and your skill tree, there are a few point that you could reconsider, you could apply them, you may also not, it is all up to you.

1. Try to enchant your items. Gloves, boots and Helmet, they would be a great addition to the build utility or damage wise.
2. I suggest putting your portal gem in your weapon swap, just when your done with the map press "X" and then portal and press "X" again, this will give you 1 more socket to fiddle around.
3.Try to get 2 Fragility Crimson Jewel(this is obtained via vaaling crimson Jewels and hope for it to result) this would give you the bonus of your shield on max res and onslaught, thus if you have onslaught you can drop haste and maybe get Flesh and stone(Defensive) or a banner(Offensive)
4. I also hovered your Ghastly Jewels, they have flat lightning damage to minion, this somehow is not flowing smoothly with your EE, try to replace them with generic jewels or Ghastly jewel "without" the flat lightning damage
5. In accordance with my 4th suggestion, you are also using Frostblink, this also does not contribute to your EE, since your SRS does Phys, Fire and Cold damage, Frostblink will retrigger EE and give the enemies positive Cold resist. Maybe try using shield charge since you have a flat lightning damage in your wand this will proc EE correctly.
6. Unleash may seem like a good DPS gem but at your setup ATM spellecho would be much more reliable to summon you 20 SRS. If you really want to stick with unleash I suggest you change your annointment to "Seal mender" which will help cool down the seals faster.
7. Playstyle wise, you always have to smart on where you position yourself, that is a dumb thing to say but I think this is the most important thing to remember. WE ARE NOT A TANK, we cannot facetank, we become stationary when summoning SRS and is very vulnerable to take hits, we do not have a ton of armour and evasion as well, so always stay behind your SRS, circle your enemies and use your movement skill if necessary.

General changes that might help
>if you have a lycosidae sitting around, you can equip that and go necromantic aegis, you sacrifice some defense but that would boost the SRS dps by a significant amount.
>you could change your rings to Vermillion rings which has %life increase and spam them with essense(Either essense of anger or fear)
>The Fearsome force cluster does not give you much benefit, SRS are not tagged with AOE. You can invest somewhere else.
>The Notable Spiritual Aid is not going to help you due to the reason that your SRS does the damage and not you. You can invest somewhere else
>With the Aura notables you do not need to pick the whole cluster I believe, instead of leadership try to get to Charisma, this will give you more mana reservation and aura effectiveness, also the pathing has a lot of DEX which helps with your gem slots.
>For the new cluster jewel, I recommend the Blessed rebirth notable to give your SRS survivality right after being summoned against hard hitting bosses.

Take my post with a grain of salt, I know that you are in SSF, and my suggestions are towards that route, since seeing your post you gave me the strong desire to play SRS in SSF as well and see if I could do better, I am going to stick to pure SRS as much as possible with the necromancy ascendency( which in my opinion is rank 3rd in ascendency as aura support, 1st is champion, 2nd is guardian) I will post in this thread my achievements if I am able to push through to higher tier content
Cheers and good luck.
Last edited by uwea123abby#4289 on Apr 15, 2020, 4:26:38 AM
uwea123abby,

I wasn't using lycosidae shield because on Path of Building says that my minions already have enough accuracy to always hit or at least most part of the time.

I've never tried to enchant my helmet because to me is something to painfull to do when i'm not sure that i will even get something that helps me.

I tried to get 2 Fragility Crimson Jewel, i even managed to get one, but i don't know if its worth removing 2 gasthly jewels to do this.

About Frost Blink, i just wanted to have a movement skil, but i have 100% of my mana reserved, i put it there but i never actually used.

I've tried using unleash, spell echo and elemental focus.

The other stuff that u said, i think u may be right, i'll try those things next league, i'm not feeling like playing poe this league anymore.
Bhunao,
1. With the Lycosidae, even if the POB says that your minion's accuracy is enough even to hit the evasive monsters every bit of accuracy on top of the hits can't be evaded boosts DPS in actual play(Very evident is boss kill comparisons)

2. That is the pain and joy of this game, it is all RNG based, but if you get a jackpot enchant then that is great, I suggest next league if you really are tired of this league(which is not SRS build friendly) try to get your boots with enchant with Life regen when hit(defensive) or damage penetrates ele resist(offensive). With helm enchant, the 2 enchants for SRS are mediocre, aura reservation would be the best.

3. with the 2 Fragility, with onslaught it grants 20% increased attack speed, cast speed, and movement speed, which is a significant addition to any build, and the plus max res can save you in tight situations with massive ele damage

4.if you are not using frostblink then your EE is fine.

5. Now unleash, spell echo and ele focus are really good support gem but this is what I just recently found out, Deathmark support seems to be a really good support gem to SRS, they will pool in to the enemy you place deathmark to.

Now as I said on my last message, I am now currently playing a SRS necro in SSF delirium, currently level 83, pretty bad RNG(due to the fact that the uniques that I pray to drop are not dropping)but I could say I am having fun. Normal maps are quite manageable, when I do the Delirium encounters that is when it gets hectic, but still able to complete them, one interesting unique I am using is the mark of the red covenant helm, it reduces my SRS to just 5 but it does surprisingly well. I will update you on my journey,
Hope you have a good time
Last edited by uwea123abby#4289 on Apr 17, 2020, 6:48:14 AM

Report Forum Post

Report Account:

Report Type

Additional Info