[3.22] SadPanda's Summon Crit Mage Skeletons Guide | All the Uber Uber content done/Deep delver

Noob Question Guys,

What is special with Aurora Aegis compared to The Surrender?
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TimPam2 wrote:
Noob Question Guys,

What is special with Aurora Aegis compared to The Surrender?



Surrender recovers 250 hp on block if I'm not wrong, aegis aurora recovers about 1k+ energy shield per block so it's more than 4 times of the surrender. Life block on shields are not sufficient enough to survive on the block mechanic and they are most likely to leave you dead when it comes to your survivability mattering the most. Aegis aurora's block can let you survive simply on 1.5k es through all the content.
Trust your mind and strengthen your abilities!
Last edited by MrsDeath_#3960 on Mar 25, 2022, 1:09:05 AM
"
MrsDeath_ wrote:
"
TimPam2 wrote:
Noob Question Guys,

What is special with Aurora Aegis compared to The Surrender?



Surrender recovers 250 hp on block if I'm not wrong, aegis aurora recovers about 1k+ energy shield per block so it's more than 4 times of the surrender. Life block on shields are not sufficient enough to survive on the block mechanic and they are most likely to leave you dead when it comes to your survivability mattering the most. Aegis aurora's block can let you survive simply on 1.5k es through all the content.



Running my character in POB, there's an 8k difference in armour between The Surrender vs Aurora.. Isn't that a big factor?
What an interesting build. I've been mostly following Ghazzy's skeleton mage build guide but am at the point now where I want to customize it a bit - it's that or start going towards the minion helm and such that people tend to use.

In comparison to the life% block builds that a lot of guides suggest, this one is leaning more into the hybrid life/ES approach - more ES% on the tree, plus Aegis instead of a 5% life on block shield. You've also got higher spell block than the other Skeleton Mage guides out there, which have me around 45% spell block right now (admittedly with an only okay shield, no space for a spell block craft), while you're overcapped on spell block. The ES on block is also replenishing your outer layer of defenses, while the life-focused builds don't really get to count on that for big hits since it's usually zero unless you haven't been hit at all recently.

Auras are changed a bit, too, with Tempest Shield replacing Summon Skitterbots. That's a pretty big hit to damage for me (about 30%), and I suspect also for you as the shocks from the mages aren't big enough to shock bosses. OTOH being immune to shock and having +26% spell damage is great for survivability and, as you pointed out, your DPS is 0 when you're dead.

Enduring cry is a nice touch, Onslaught is about a 10% damage boost, *and* it'll get you endurance charges without having to run +min endurance charges on rings. And for me at least, the skeleton mage build is very low on button presses so adding some extra minigames to it would make it more fun to play. I have died before because I got bored and was looking at an item while my minions killed something. Not a good sign for the build's longevity of play.

Looking at your regen has convinced me that Bottled Faith is a good investment.

If anyone else is trying to PoB this, I was not able to get the Brittle checkbox to show up, so I added "Socketed skills have +5% to critical strike chance" to the Fleshcrafter, since the brittle ground gives 5% crit (with no reduction on effect of ailments). That brings the total crit chance to about 93%.

Definitely going to try out some of this. Brittle implicit on AG, Aegis Aurora, Bottled Faith, for sure. Got a lot to work on for my summoner though, also need to cap chaos.
hello , could you take clancing blows , for even more block ?
Ign:
Brokthefearless
Tofastforme
Deadismyfriend
Coldshoulder
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LuckPwnSKill wrote:
hello , could you take clancing blows , for even more block ?

We can already achieve max block without glancing blow and I prefer blocking the whole 100% of the damage instead of 35% of it. So I would rather take no dmg at max block with no extra effort than take glancing blows with the same setup. It has no practical use for us and blocking 100% of the dmg is kinda huge in our build.
Trust your mind and strengthen your abilities!
"
TimPam2 wrote:
"
MrsDeath_ wrote:
"
TimPam2 wrote:
Noob Question Guys,

What is special with Aurora Aegis compared to The Surrender?



Surrender recovers 250 hp on block if I'm not wrong, aegis aurora recovers about 1k+ energy shield per block so it's more than 4 times of the surrender. Life block on shields are not sufficient enough to survive on the block mechanic and they are most likely to leave you dead when it comes to your survivability mattering the most. Aegis aurora's block can let you survive simply on 1.5k es through all the content.



Running my character in POB, there's an 8k difference in armour between The Surrender vs Aurora.. Isn't that a big factor?

That's not a huge difference, what matters is the recovery coming from aegis aurora and how it keeps us alive throughout the content.
Trust your mind and strengthen your abilities!
"
dyfrgi wrote:
What an interesting build. I've been mostly following Ghazzy's skeleton mage build guide but am at the point now where I want to customize it a bit - it's that or start going towards the minion helm and such that people tend to use.

In comparison to the life% block builds that a lot of guides suggest, this one is leaning more into the hybrid life/ES approach - more ES% on the tree, plus Aegis instead of a 5% life on block shield. You've also got higher spell block than the other Skeleton Mage guides out there, which have me around 45% spell block right now (admittedly with an only okay shield, no space for a spell block craft), while you're overcapped on spell block. The ES on block is also replenishing your outer layer of defenses, while the life-focused builds don't really get to count on that for big hits since it's usually zero unless you haven't been hit at all recently.

Auras are changed a bit, too, with Tempest Shield replacing Summon Skitterbots. That's a pretty big hit to damage for me (about 30%), and I suspect also for you as the shocks from the mages aren't big enough to shock bosses. OTOH being immune to shock and having +26% spell damage is great for survivability and, as you pointed out, your DPS is 0 when you're dead.

Enduring cry is a nice touch, Onslaught is about a 10% damage boost, *and* it'll get you endurance charges without having to run +min endurance charges on rings. And for me at least, the skeleton mage build is very low on button presses so adding some extra minigames to it would make it more fun to play. I have died before because I got bored and was looking at an item while my minions killed something. Not a good sign for the build's longevity of play.

Looking at your regen has convinced me that Bottled Faith is a good investment.

If anyone else is trying to PoB this, I was not able to get the Brittle checkbox to show up, so I added "Socketed skills have +5% to critical strike chance" to the Fleshcrafter, since the brittle ground gives 5% crit (with no reduction on effect of ailments). That brings the total crit chance to about 93%.

Definitely going to try out some of this. Brittle implicit on AG, Aegis Aurora, Bottled Faith, for sure. Got a lot to work on for my summoner though, also need to cap chaos.

My mages apply around 20 to 30% shock to the bosses so I cover skitters by making my mages crit and deal their own ailments. I really don't like skiter setup cuz tempest shield block is HUGE and it synergises really well with the es gain on block setup.

I really like the feeling of having a capped spell and attack block with aegis aurora cuz it ables us to reach nigh immortality. It allowed me to clear any and every boss I encountered with the smallest investments. I think if we extract the big items from my setup it could perform the same achievements with the minimal amount of investment required. You could lose my wand minion dmg, corrupted chest, corrupted boots, corrupted shield(while still being capped at attack block) and it would perform just like my own min-maxed version with some dmg loss.
Trust your mind and strengthen your abilities!
I might not have the build 100% correct and since i play on xbox i had to change the molten shell around to use cwdt. But this build has to be the absolute best i have ever played and i wanted to come here and personally thank you.

Great guide and thank you for taking the time to write it up.
"
MrsDeath_ wrote:
My mages apply around 20 to 30% shock to the bosses so I cover skitters by making my mages crit and deal their own ailments. I really don't like skiter setup cuz tempest shield block is HUGE and it synergises really well with the es gain on block setup.

I really like the feeling of having a capped spell and attack block with aegis aurora cuz it ables us to reach nigh immortality. It allowed me to clear any and every boss I encountered with the smallest investments. I think if we extract the big items from my setup it could perform the same achievements with the minimal amount of investment required. You could lose my wand minion dmg, corrupted chest, corrupted boots, corrupted shield(while still being capped at attack block) and it would perform just like my own min-maxed version with some dmg loss.


I realized this later, that actually we were over shock and chill threshold even for Sirius, so Hypothermia still works (that's where the biggest damage hit comes from) and I should get some shock. It's only like 11% against Sirius, though I'm making some adjustments to get boss damage up even higher (giving Divergent Predator Support a go, it's like 60% more damage according to PoB, though it adds a button). Can't afford an Empower or Awakened Spell Echo at the moment, which would also be upgrades. The Awakened Spell Echo is a 20% damage boost at least, with also bigger shocks and chills, so seems highly worth the investment later.

Getting spell block up will be a big help, for sure. I'm under cap now and get blown up a little too often.

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