[3.21] Cold Conversion Summoner | Build guides for all budgets | (Ghazzy Zoomancer)

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Deadandlivin wrote:

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Volturio wrote:

it's normal that with march of the legion i have to reactivate all auras every 10s ?, if so it's not great

Don't use March of the Legion unless you have alot of Duration specced in the tree. With Enduring Bond, Potency of Will and Mistress of Sacrifice the auras last 27 seconds which aren't too annoying refreshing.

Remember that this is a low budget build which means I've intentionally designed it to have pretty bad QoL while having very high dps and defenses for the budget. As the budget increases things will start to automate with trigger wands and you will eventually do away with the boots cause constantly refreshing 3 auras doesn't feel very good.

Okay, I understand better I thought there was a problem, in this case if I do not abuse would it be possible to do as with the leveling, a path to make the transition between the leveling and the budget? it would be clearer and it would avoid being blocked, thank you for the answer and the build

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Volturio wrote:

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Deadandlivin wrote:

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Volturio wrote:

it's normal that with march of the legion i have to reactivate all auras every 10s ?, if so it's not great

Don't use March of the Legion unless you have alot of Duration specced in the tree. With Enduring Bond, Potency of Will and Mistress of Sacrifice the auras last 27 seconds which aren't too annoying refreshing.

Remember that this is a low budget build which means I've intentionally designed it to have pretty bad QoL while having very high dps and defenses for the budget. As the budget increases things will start to automate with trigger wands and you will eventually do away with the boots cause constantly refreshing 3 auras doesn't feel very good.

Okay, I understand better I thought there was a problem, in this case if I do not abuse would it be possible to do as with the leveling, a path to make the transition between the leveling and the budget? it would be clearer and it would avoid being blocked, thank you for the answer and the build

If you go to the PoB section of the guide at III. Videos and all PoBs you will be able to find several PoBs there.

There you have the leveling PoB -> White maps PoB -> Yellow Maps PoB -> Low budget PoB.

If you're unsure how to upgrade the build, follow those intermediary steps between the leveling and low budget.

Hello, a very new player here, completed the campaign for the first time like 3 weeks ago. I have been following GhazzyTV's Slave Driver build and having a blast. At this point I've spent 3ex and about 30c on gear and my damage and survivability seems fine, but the highest map i have doe so far was tier 9. After I started looking around other guides and watching videos everybody seems to be saying that Slaves Drivers are not good spectres for higher content. Should I (https://pastebin.com/X9wxkDEC) just continue with Slave Drivers or is it better to switch to your guide, and if so how would I go about transitioning to it?

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Kalola wrote:

Hello, a very new player here, completed the campaign for the first time like 3 weeks ago. I have been following GhazzyTV's Slave Driver build and having a blast. At this point I've spent 3ex and about 30c on gear and my damage and survivability seems fine, but the highest map i have doe so far was tier 9. After I started looking around other guides and watching videos everybody seems to be saying that Slaves Drivers are not good spectres for higher content. Should I (https://pastebin.com/X9wxkDEC) just continue with Slave Drivers or is it better to switch to your guide, and if so how would I go about transitioning to it?

Ghazzy makes excellent guides.
The problem with Slave Drivers right now is that their AI is extremely bugged. It causes them to randomly auto attack non-existant monsters in the air during combat (I think they're trying to hit Scourge monsters). This causes them to wander of to desolate locations and reduce their uptime on actual monsters that need to be killed. This is very problematic.

I personally don't like Slave Drivers very much either. Their damage and aggresiveness is very good, however, due to the nature of the lightning spell they use for, they're pretty bad for clearing. They kinda are like melee minions who walk up and clear things in a cone infront of them which leaves alot of monsters around the screen. Compared to range spectres like Syndicate Operatives, Frost Auto-scouts or Hyrr's Watch et.c. the clearspeed is abyssmal.

For pure single target though, Slave Drivers are probably the strongest spectre. However, I believe Spectres for pure single target have been overnerfed over the leagues. Nowadays, if you create a spectre build and replace it with literally any other minion you'll almost double your dps. That's how nerfed spectres have been. Simply running a spell caster spectre and replacing them with Skeleton Mages will probably tripple your dps.
Running a melee spectre build and replacing them with Melee Skeletons will quadruple your dps. Replace melee spectre with Carrion Golems and you will increase your dps by 50%. Replace them by zombies and you will increase their dps by 60% et.c. I did the testing in PoB, spectres are pretty dogs**t right now.

Their strength imo, is in supporting. Either by supporting through buffs/debufs or through clearspeed. For clear, your focus is on wiping out white mobs which requires minimal damage. This is Spectres strong suite since they have some of the best clearing mechanics in the game akin to Bow builds where you can scale your clear through GMP/Fork/Chains et.c. And them doing zdps doesn't really matter since white mobs get oneshot by everything.

That's why I prefer to design my builds around having 2 primary minion setups. One for clearspeed and one for single target.

About switching to my guide, since I've designed this guide and I've tried to do the best I could with a summoning necromancer I obviously find my build stronger. I think the AI bug of Slave drivers kinda break the build too.

I believe my build has more dps and is far tankier. Granted though, this depends on gear. My low budget builds however, run March of the Legion which are annoying in the start and requires getting used to.

I suggest trying out this version of the build which is EXTREMELY low buget.
https://pastebin.com/PSvx6Q2X

Just to try things out. Most stuff should be between 1-10 chaos. The only expensive item is the chest which at this point of the league costs between 80-160 chaos. I suggest getting a 3blue-2red-1green one with any Keystone that doesn't brick the build (Like Perfect Agony).

Swapping might feel kinda bad though since my budget versions are pretty "spammy" builds compared to Ghazzy's builds. Meaning, there's alot more abilities to keep track of.

Since this is very low budget versions of the build QoL is sacrificed and you won't be running any triggers. That means that you have to selfcast Flesh Offering and Frostbite.
You also have to refresh 3 aurabuffs once every ~26 sec which some people might find annoying. Luckily, the build is very tanky so refreshing your buffs isn't much of a problem. The playstyle definitely requires getting used to do.

Thanks for the reply! After checking out how much stuff I'll need to change in terms of gear and getting used to different skills and playstyle I think I'll just explore more of the endgame with Slave Drivers for now. This game's gear is way too complicated for me to try and start changing things so much on the fly xD
Now that you mention Slave Driver's AI I've definitely noticed them wondering off or just not attacking anything, I've just assumed it's a minion AI thing in general and has been getting around that by flamedashing into a middle of a pack and using convocation to sort of "reset" them. Definitely going to go with your build next league from the start!

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Kalola wrote:

Thanks for the reply! After checking out how much stuff I'll need to change in terms of gear and getting used to different skills and playstyle I think I'll just explore more of the endgame with Slave Drivers for now. This game's gear is way too complicated for me to try and start changing things so much on the fly xD
Now that you mention Slave Driver's AI I've definitely noticed them wondering off or just not attacking anything, I've just assumed it's a minion AI thing in general and has been getting around that by flamedashing into a middle of a pack and using convocation to sort of "reset" them. Definitely going to go with your build next league from the start!

That's probably the safest bet.
If you hit a wall in the future and you got some currency to spare you can think about making the swap. Shouldn't cost more than 100 chaos or so just to try it out.

Unfortunately the AI bug seems to only affect Slave Drivers. My spectres and other minions will sit glued to targets with 100% uptime. This takes away alot from your build unfortunately. But considering that you're progressing through yellow maps it shouldn't be much of a problem. It'll start getting noticeable when you get into the endgame though.

Also, a quick tip for you since you're new:
Minion builds usually scale very well with gem levels on their gems.
Every gem level usually gives 10-15% more damage to your minions.
One of the easiest upgrades you can make is trying to buy level 21 skill gems with 0% quality. As an example, your spectre gem is lvl 19/10 which isn't too good. You want to buy a 21/0 gem as soon as you can. Spectres in particular are important to get a 21 gem on since you get an additional spectre at gem level 25.

This is easily achieved by getting 21 from the gem, +2 from your Ascendency, +1 from your boots and +1 from your wand. I suggest you do the same for all your other minions in your gear. Go and buy 21/0 versions of those minions. These gems are usually pretty cheap compared to 21/20 versions with quality.

Ok, so today I've grinded up into tier 14 maps and now I've definitely noticed the problems with Slave Drivers you've mentioned, especially them being "melee" and having to run all around big places to kill things. Also having to flamedash into packs to use convocation started getting too dangerous for my tastes. After looking at some more videos and reading some more different guides I've replaced Algor Mortis with Triad Grip with 4 blue sockets, changed my spectres with Syndicate Operaives, changed some of my auras and socketed Summon Skeletons into my helmet that has built-in minion life and damage support for boss damage. Overall it cost me only 1c and 20 minutes of reshuffling my gems but the difference in clearing is really noticeable, not just in speed but it just feels better. The boss damage seems to have suffered a bit, although I might just be imagining it, I'm not sure. I've also finally got the trigger socketed gems on using skill enchant for my wand from the Syndicate which made the whole build feel much smoother. My next planned upgrade once I get another exalt is to get an amulet with +1 to all intelligence gems which will put my spectre gem at level 25. Thanks for all the advice!

Do you think a more tankier approach going CI and utilizing Aegis would be possible?

I ran it on Skelly Mages and felt close to immortal, but I really hate skelly mages as a build. It plays more like totems than as an actual minion build, since you have to place down new skellies at every pack. The reason I play minion builds is for chill zero button gameplay and ability to afk blight and pseudo afk stuff like sims/legions/breachs/delve nodes/etc.

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Kalola wrote:

Ok, so today I've grinded up into tier 14 maps and now I've definitely noticed the problems with Slave Drivers you've mentioned, especially them being "melee" and having to run all around big places to kill things. Also having to flamedash into packs to use convocation started getting too dangerous for my tastes. After looking at some more videos and reading some more different guides I've replaced Algor Mortis with Triad Grip with 4 blue sockets, changed my spectres with Syndicate Operaives, changed some of my auras and socketed Summon Skeletons into my helmet that has built-in minion life and damage support for boss damage. Overall it cost me only 1c and 20 minutes of reshuffling my gems but the difference in clearing is really noticeable, not just in speed but it just feels better. The boss damage seems to have suffered a bit, although I might just be imagining it, I'm not sure. I've also finally got the trigger socketed gems on using skill enchant for my wand from the Syndicate which made the whole build feel much smoother. My next planned upgrade once I get another exalt is to get an amulet with +1 to all intelligence gems which will put my spectre gem at level 25. Thanks for all the advice!

Syndicate operatives are very weak for single target, keep that in mind.
Best way to use them is together with a support minion for single target. Melee Skeletons is probably your best bet. I suggest that you buy a +2 or +3 minion helm with either Minion Damage or Hypothermia support on it. This point in the league though, these items are extremely overpriced.

Also looking at your gem links, they're extremely suboptimal. This is how you want to link your helm and chest:

Helm - Skellies:
Raise Skeleton - Multistrike - Melee Phys - Elemental Damage with Attacks

Chest - SO:
Raise Spectre - Minion Damage - Greater Volley - Vicious Projectiles - Elemental Damage with Attacks - Predator

Gemswap Greater Volley for Hypothermia on Single target.

It should greatly increase your dps.
And as I mentioned before, you REALLY should use your chaos to buy a 21/0 Raise Skeleton and a 21/0 Raise Spectre. It will be huge for you.

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Shayd_ wrote:

Do you think a more tankier approach going CI and utilizing Aegis would be possible?

I ran it on Skelly Mages and felt close to immortal, but I really hate skelly mages as a build. It plays more like totems than as an actual minion build, since you have to place down new skellies at every pack. The reason I play minion builds is for chill zero button gameplay and ability to afk blight and pseudo afk stuff like sims/legions/breachs/delve nodes/etc.

Definitely think it is possible. I wouldn't run CI though, but rather go for lowlife. Aegis Aurora + Divine shield mainly is there to provide with regen on block against smaller hits. CI might be possible at very high budgets but I always found it super hard to get enough ES for it to feel good. But simply having a ~2k ES buffer or so with Aegis Aurora + Divine Shield is super strong.

I experimented with the setup but was running Grace which didn't feel good. Made me dodge all attacks instead of blocking them so couldn't feel the ES on block regen. If I tested it today I would definitely swap Grace for Discipline instead.