Lightning Golem Crescendo ♫ All Content / HC Focused / Not Casual-Friendly

I don't know everything about golems. There's still a good bit of info that hasn't been figured out or revealed by GGG yet. That said, I'll try to answer questions to the best of my knowledge, no more, no less. If I don't know, I'll straight up say, "I don't know." What I won't do is gloss over questions, give vague responses, or treat this like a marketing exercise. I'm more interested in sharing information than build promotion. On the flip side, if you have some advice or notice something I've gotten wrong, please do let me know. Thanks!

As I said in the intro, this guide isn't really aimed at new players. While the build isn't hard to play, I don't know if I'd recommend this as your first foray into POE or golem builds unless you're fairly open-minded, dedicated, and/or masochistic. In fact, I'd say Flame Golems are easier for most players to get into. So maybe go play Flame first if you're not sure. You can even use the tree(s) and recommendations in this guide as a base if you want, as it's quite easy to switch back and forth between Flame to Lightning.

At the time of this writing, golems aren't cheap. They've gotten a good deal cheaper since the advent of the 3.0 spectre meta and since GGG killed afk boss-killing for minions. But you're still looking at a minimum of 2-3 exalts (in HC) just for the essential jewels.

Furthermore, a lot of people tend to be biased toward the Necro Flame variations when it comes to golems:

1) Check out Engineering Eternity's Beginners Guide Series if you're completely new. Remember, the wiki is precious.

2) Start game as Witch (in a non-HC league unless you're a masochist).

3) Head to town.

4) Get your starter spell.

5) Start leveling/questing.
- Get secondary skills/curses/move skills from vendors as you progress
- - i.e. Flame Dash, Fire Trap, Faster Casting, etc.
- - Many progress from Freezing Pulse > Firestorm > Bladefall > main skill
- - Level other skills in free slots where possible and experiment
- - You'll get a feel for what's useful and/or interesting
- - You'll outgrow some/most of the skills you level up (stash or trash as needed)

6) Pick up gear upgrades from poe.trade.
- Avoid spending currency to craft your own items for now
- Try to stick with what you pick up or can find on poe.trade < 1 chaos
- While leveling, it's usually easier to buy than craft, since people find more drops that are useful for builds other than their own.

7) Once you hit 41, get 2x Clayshapers.

8) Get Liege of the Primordial if you haven't already and follow with Elemancer.

9) Get a taste of each of the different golems with simple 4-links:
- Typical setups:
- - Chaos Golem>Minion Damage>Void Manipulation>Increased AoE
- - Flame Golem>MD>Greater Multiple Projectiles>Spell Echo
- - Ice Golem>MD>Minion Speed>Multistrike
- - Stone Golem>MD>Melee Phys>Multistrike
- - Lightning Golem>MD>Spell Echo>Elemental Focus (or MD-GMP-Pierce)

Here's where you decide whether you really want to play Lightning Golems or go with something more established (Flame/Chaos). Or heck, maybe you'll discover Golementalist isn't really your thing :P

If you're still not sure, then you might want to turn back and consider some other build for now. Golem builds can be quite expensive to min/max (although you can say this about most builds). Anima/Might jewels can run you upwards of a few exalts each. If this doesn't scare you though, then good luck! Dive right in and tell me how your journey goes. :)

Also, if you decide to go with Stone or Ice instead, do share your experience, as not many people have tried taking those to endgame.

I know this is a little sparse on details (hence "rough"), so let me know if you have any questions. More than happy to answer/help where possible. :)

1) Level to 41 as a caster.
2) Grab dual Clayshapers; farm for golem jewels (GMP+Pierce is good here).
3) Get gems up to 20/20 (and hopefully hit a LVL 21 Lightning Golem).
4) Grind your 6L and other upgrades (skip to step 5 if softcore).
5) Once gear is set start doing Shaper/Uber Atziri/Elder/etc.

Buy a cheap quality LG to start instead of a 0% vendor gem.
Buy a corrupted 6L, don't need perfect links
Save, don't spend most of your fuses and alchs
Set your live search alerts to snipe bargains and perfect Harmonies/Eminences

Not yet attempted:
- none
- open to requests

Sketchy content:
- Hall of Grandmasters
Can clear, but can be really random/rippy. Not recommended on HC with this build. Bring a Scorching Ray setup for the ES tanks (not my video)

- Uber Elder
Still learning this fight. Deathless isn't too hard, but not sure if I'd farm this in HC.

1) Summon Lightning Golem
2) Minion Damage
3) Spell Echo
4) Added Lightning
5) Greater Multiple Projectiles
6) Pierce


You don't need these exact colors/gems to start off a new league. Just get a Tabula or a cheap, corrupted 6L that's BBBGGx and slot whatever's convenient for the last gem.

I tend not to focus too hard on clearing trash mobs usually, but GGG has really been emphasizing the clearspeed meta since Breach League, followed by Breach League II (Legacy), Mini-Breach League (Harbinger), Mini-Breach League II (Abyss), some slight reprieve with Bestiary, and another round of speed freaks with Incursion, making it almost required for survival/enjoyment. So I'm forced to include a clearspeed setup in this build guide.

You don't need to use the boss setup if you don't want to. This GMP setup can do all content just fine. I just prefer to use the boss setup in order to optimize for certain fights in HC. What I tend to do is start the league with the GMP setup and switch over to the boss setup when I'm ready to do Shaper, Uber, other endgame league challenges. That way I only need to recolor once. Certain league mechanics can also generate white sockets in a deterministic manner for added convenience.

1) Summon Lightning Golem
2) Minion Damage
3) Spell Echo
4) Added Lightning Damage
5) Elemental Focus
6) Increased Duration or Controlled Destruction

Please note that this setup is entirely optional. You can do all content just fine with the mapping setup instead. I just prefer to use this setup to optimize for major fights in HC and ensure survival. I also map a lot on this setup, even though it's not clearspeed focused. There's a lot less graphical mess on-screen this way as well.

That's certainly an option. I just tossed in MD and Empower without really thinking about it. Lately, I tend to go with Culling+MD, especially to shorten fights against bosses that break out new tricks as they get low on health.

Re: config
For overall damage, I recommend 5.1.1.

For pure mapping/clearspeed, 6.1 looks to be the best (6xLightning, 1xFlame). If you go this route, I recommend FlameGolem-SpellEcho-GMP-MinionDamage for your links. 5.1.1 is still fine for mapping though, especially if you don't want to give up freeze/chill immunity from the ice golem.

I've put together a rough calculator in case people are interested in optimizing how many golem types to use depending on the # of Primordial Harmony: (Google Docs).

Re: shield
Victario's Charity+Necromantic Aegis is basically the same DPS as a 2nd Clayshaper (https://youtu.be/9F8Lyy5QwRY). Except that it costs you another passive point, which is why I skip it.

You may even consider going 5xLightning + 1xFlame + ES/Life Shield for pure mapping with extra safety in HC.

Golem type?
Elemental golems all the way. For HC, you can run a Chaos and/or Stone Golem while mapping/farming for that extra little bit of regen and physical damage reduction. I personally don't bother though and just stick with Flame and Ice. I recommend sticking with elemental golems for endgame bosses too, as elemental damage immunity doesn't apply to non-elemental golems.

If you play with Shav's+Zealot's Oath and stack a lot of Harmony, then Stone Golem is a good choice (Flame-Ice-Stone-Culling)

Curse on Hit + dual curses enables you to do all of your debuffing with a single click (including Elemental Equilibrium) on a 4L. This provides significant flexibility for other gem slots in your setup. More room for your Offering, Immortal Call, or whatever kind of offensive/defensive utilities you prefer. Less clicking also means more focus on safety/dodging (especially true with Orb of Storms which you can cast effectively without having to change direction/movement).

Some people prefer cursing via Blasphemy, which is not a bad choice. A Temp Chains aura basically trivializes trash mobs. Feel free to modify the suggested gem links for TC/Blasphemy if you feel lazy, want training wheels, and/or run maps with bad/cramped layouts. It basically turns mapping into a walking simulator. I've actually run TC/Blasphemy on top of a CoH-dual curse setup before, even with a 2-curse limit. You get up-close protection from the TC aura, but still have the ability to go with double offensive curses for enemies far away.

For mapping
Glacial Cascade/Ball Lightning:
GC is faster, but has less coverage (needs level 20 for +2 radius). Ball Lightning is slower, but has more coverage. It's basically your personal preference here.

You can also just stick with Orb of Storms full-time, which can be safer in some situations due to not having to stop and aim (although Ball Lightning is more useful in situations where you want to curse at long distance).

Frost Wall:
This can be another good manual defensive layer in some situations (i.e. vs. porcupines) as well as acting as a CoH skill.


For bosses
Orb of Storms (LVL 17)
Orb is good for close-range fights, particularly Shaper/Uber. It's very hassle-free, giving you more time to focus on other stuff (i.e. staying alive).

Ball Lightning (LVL 1)
On some bosses you can just hide offscreen and direct your golems with Ball Lightning.

Frost Wall
This can be useful in certain situations. For example, you can block the projectiles of Elder's adds this way. It also helps protect Zana from Shaper's adds pretty well.

Shock Nova
If you're going offensive with [Three Dragons + Beacon of Ruin] for shock effect, you might as well switch your main curse to Shock Nova to get more mileage out of it. Though it can be a bit more finicky for targeting, Shock Nova provides the most Increased Effect of Shock out of all spells.

Why Avatar of Fire?
- Lightning Golems have a mini Wrath aura
- The mini Wrath gives your spells lightning damage
- If you deal lightning damage, it will mess up EE
- AoF makes you deal only fire no matter what, so you won't mess up EE


For Uber Atziri (re: curse reflection)
I suggest swapping out Elemental Weakness for Enfeeble, in case you mess up with your Warding Flask. Getting Enfeeble reflected back at you doesn't matter since it doesn't affect your golems. Getting hit with your own Elemental Weakness on the other hand can be fatal. Having your Conductivity reflected back at you isn't as big a deal, since Storm Calls are easy to dodge. This is also a reason why you should be happy if one of your maps has the "Players are enfeebled" mod. It's basically free item quantity.


For HC
You could go the classic Enfeeble/Temp Chains route for mapping/leveling and also Hydra, but I'd probably stick to offensive curses against Shaper/Uber/etc., since they can burst you down pretty fast regardless, due to severely reduced curse effectiveness. Most of the major bosses in this game don't move around much to begin with. The faster they die, the fewer shenanigans they pull.

Decoy Totem
Self-explanatory. Just need one open slot somewhere.

Purity of Fire/Ice/Lightning
Self-explanatory. Just need one open slot somewhere. I only work this in for certain fights like Uber Atziri (Fire/Lightning) or Uber Elder (Cold).

CWDT-(Vaal) Immortal Call-(Vaal) Discipline-Increased Duration
Drop CWDT to manually tank Shaper's slam attack. No need to level CWDT. In fact, it will trigger Stone Golem if you overlevel it and socket it in your Clayshaper.


Increased Duration-Enduring Cry
I swap over to this during Chimera's add phase to gain Endurance Charges that help give me an extra long Immortal Call when the smoke phase begins.

CWDT-Frost Wall-Phase Run
Bread and butter defensive setup. Socket order must be R-B-G to avoid Frost Wall overwriting Phase Run. Frost Wall on CWDT is like pseudo-block and protects you against a wide variety of mapping threats.

It also helps protect Zana during Shaper's add phase. Replace Frost Wall with an overleveled Frost Wall when you want to manual cast it (works great during Elder add phase and also stops stuff like Porcupine spikes). Careful not to overlevel CWDT if you put it in your Clayshaper. It will trigger Stone Golem at LVL 10+.

For extra protection, add Enfeeble and turn this into a 4L if you like. You'll probably need to drop Minion Damage in your sub-golems link to make this happen.

Replace Frost Wall with Arctic Breath if your party members get annoyed by it :)

Blasphemy-Temporal Chains
Feel free to run this on top of your dual-curse CoH setup for extra protection up close while maintaining offensive debuffs at long distance. Useful if you want lazy mapping while watching Twitch/Youtube. Keep in mind you won't be able to run this simultaneously with Wrath without investing in Mana Reservation reduction nodes and/or Enlighten.

CWDT-Enfeeble
As an alternative to Blasphemy-TC, in case you want to have less reserved mana/more EHP from Mind Over Matter.

Ball Lightning-Knockback(-GMP-SlowerProj)
Not that many places where this is useful, but can be a lot of fun.

Leep Slam-Faster Attacks-Fortify
or Shield Charge if you're running Victario's or a defensive shield

Lightning Warp-Less Duration-Faster Casting
Can add in Swift Affliction for even faster activation. I recommend this as a 3 or 4L vs. Uber Elder.

Other Notes
This build also has the flexibility to go for a few mana reservation reduction nodes to run Discipline + 2x Purities if you want. Like I said, the remaining links are more about your personal preference/goals. You can (and for HC should) recolor/customize links depending on your needs, even just for specific boss fights.

Not sure what to pick? Then skip down to the TL;DR section.

Flesh Offering and/or Desecrate
As the build has enough offense, I tend to skip Offerings. The option is there for you though.

Wrath
Self-explanatory. Just need one open slot somewhere. Link with Generosity for extra effect.

Vaal Lightning Trap or Vaal Haste
Self-explanatory. Just need one open slot somewhere.

You can have another set of Clayshapers in your weapon swap so you can switch to additional utility skills of your choice without decreasing your golem numbers.

Fine. Fair warning though, if you let me pick your links, I'm going to be really conservative. It will be up to you if you want re-config more offensively.

6L
Lightning Golem
Minion Damage
Spell Echo
Added Lightning
Pierce
Greater Multiple Projectiles

4L
Ball Lightning (LVL 1)
Curse on Hit
Conductivity
Elemental Weakness

4L
(Vaal) Immortal Call
Increased Duration
Cast when Damage Taken
(Vaal) Discipline

4L
CWDT (LVL 9)
Enfeeble (LVL 13 q20)
Frost Wall (LVL 15 q20)
Phase Run (LVL 8 q20)
(Order is important. Phase Run must trigger last to be effective.)

3L
Flame Golem
Ice Golem
Culling Strike

3L
Blasphemy
Temporal Chains
Convocation

1L
Lightning Warp

1L
Decoy Totem (or skip this and just use a Coral/Moonstone Ring)

Note that this isn't the setup you want to use for Uber Elder. But you can worry about that if/when you get there.

Also note, there are 4 curses slotted, despite a 2 curse max. Why? You get the benefit of defensive curses when enemies are near you and/or actually get a hit on you, but retain the ability to offensively curse enemies farther away.

At the time of this writing, golem builds aren't cheap. The Primordial Jewels by themselves can easily cost you hundreds of chaos orbs (depending on the league), an amount that could fund 2 or 3 other decent builds. So be sure you enjoy golems or are curious/rich enough to give them a serious try before jumping into this.

That said, you can get pretty far with even with just a 5L and no Anima Stone.

Each one will give you an extra golem. Try to get Clayshapers with 30% minion life rolls. Clayshapers inherently allow you to cast Stone Golems that are actually fairly effective for leveling from 41 to 55-ish.

You may also consider replacing a Clayshaper with Victario's Charity or Malachai's Loop and taking Necromantic Aegis. I wouldn't though. I recommend just sticking with dual Clayshapers to save a passive point. If you're going to go with a shield, I think it's better to grab one that significantly boosts your EHP/defense instead. Magna Eclipsis is an okay alternative to a rare ES shield, depending on how good you are at avoiding hits. It's also really nice for the +gem level boost, potentially giving you access to LVL 23 Purities (Purity bonus goes up +1% @23).

+ For HC, use Shav's
+ Regalia can be HC-viable too if you cap chaos res
+ + 1st Priorities: ES, Life
+ + 2nd Priorities: resists, stats
+ + Icing: useful corruption (+gem level, +ES/Life%, etc.)

Skin of the Loyal is kinda risky on HC imo.

ES base. + 1st Priorities: ES, Life
+ 2nd Priorities: resists, stats
+ Icing: +40% Lightning Golem enchantment or +Life/ES% corruption
+ socket sub-golems here if you manage to get +minion lvl mod

With the introduction of Shaper/Elder rares in 3.1, it's possible to get a pseudo-6L in your 4L gear slots and add Spectres to the mix. That said, I cannot really recommend one at this time, since Shaper/Elder mods take up a prefix/suffix just like any other mod. As this is an HC-focused build, I recommend keeping it simple and going for gear with more ES/Life stats. Moreover, without massive amounts of generic Increased Minion Damage, your Spectres will only be doing a fraction of a legit Necro Spectre build.

If you want more offense without having to use Spectres, one option would be The Three Dragons (hopefully with a Lightning Golem enchant) so you can shock with your (Avatar of) Fire damage. This would require you to spec into Beacon of Ruin instead of Paragon of Calamity. Another would be to use an Elder/Shaper/Essence helm to deal direct damage with a self-cast spell.

Another offensive option is Crown of the Tyrant. I try to avoid hyperbole, but this helm looks a bit ridiculous. Need to get my hands on one to make sure, but at face value, it's already stronger than a LVL 21/20 Added Lightning Gem...

For Elementalist builds, I honestly don't believe adding Spectres to to the mix boosts overall DPS appreciably vs. pure Golems. The points/resources invested/wasted into the Spectres makes the Golems proportionally weaker. For Golemancer, okay, it makes sense. For Golementalist, no.

+ rare amulet & Brine King Pantheon is okay on a budget:
+ + 1st Priorities: Life, +ES, +%ES
+ + 2nd Priorities: resists, stats
+ + Icing: +1 extra curse corruption

Stun mitigation is helpful, especially vs. Phoenix trash and Chimera smoke phase. +1 curse corruption saves you 3 passive points if you're lucky enough to get it.

If you're willing to sacrifice defense for more offense, The Primordial Chain or Perquil's Toe both surpass Yoke of Suffering as a DPS option. Still need to see final numbers on P.Chain before we know which one is better. Check the Golem Damage Calculator for comparative values on P.Chain.

+ 1x Anima Stone (gives you 2 more golems)
+ 1x Primordial Might
+ 1x Energy from Within (if CI-based in HC)
+ mostly Primordial Harmony for the rest

You may consider shaving off 1 or 2 jewel nodes to grab more ES/HP nodes if you like. If you're rich/bored, feel free to corrupt your Jewels for Silence immunity, extra minion damage, and other nice perks. List of potential corruptions here: POEDB.tw

Feel free to experiment with some Primordial Eminence if you feel you have enough golem regen. Eminence is better for mapping to a degree, because more cast speed and less cooldown means the golems will do their projectile move more often. For Minotaur or Uber Trio, you might consider going full Harmony for max golem regen.

These are some sample pieces you might grab if you're going Hybrid.

+ 1st Priorities: Life, ES
+ 2nd Priorities: resists, stats (DEX is more common on gloves)
+ Icing: Mastercrafts (especially Leo recharge craft), useful enchantments
+ More Icing: +Life/ES% corruptions




With the new belts from 3.1, you may want to consider a Stygian Vise. You may even want the unique Stygian Vise that allows you to slot 2 Abyss Jewels. You can potentially hit 250+ combined ES+Life from your belt slot this way, which exceeds Crystal Belts (max. 221 combined ES+Life).


If you can work it into your build, I highly recommend Bisco's Leash (the belt) even more than the amulet. It's one of the most fun items in the game.



I also used to have an easy to swap Culling set that I used every once in a while, just for fun.

Mapping
+ X of Curing (if Hybrid ES/Life)
+ X Quartz of Warding (curse immunity)
+ X of Staunching
+ Quicksilver of Adrenaline
+ (your choice, Basalt is good, Rumi's if you run a defensive shield)
Try running around/past every pack with Quicksilver of Adrenaline and Quartz of Warding. In addition to not having to worry about curses, you can pretty much treat Temporal Chains as another free quantity map mod.

If you have the bleed immunity corruption on a ring, then you have even more flask flexibility.

Shaper
+ a mix of Quartz and Quicksilver/Adrenaline
+ X of Staunching (if you want to run through regen phases)
+ X of Sapphire (when exiting Zana's bubble)
+ X of Sulphur (for a bit of extra damage)

The Adrenaline and Quartz flasks help you speed through Shaper's regen phases. They also help out slightly in combination with your Sapphire flask at the end of "bullet hell" phases. Some of the "bullets", which do cold damage, linger for a bit, even after Zana's bubble dissipates. The Shaper also uses this as a window of opportunity to launch his next attack from offscreen sometimes, which is why this is probably the sketchiest part of the fight I think.

Hydra
+ a mix of anti-phys and Sapphire flasks
+ X of Adrenaline (to run behind Hydra faster)

Minotaur
+ a mix of anti-phys and Topaz
+ (flasks won't help you much in this fight imo)

Phoenix
+ a mix of anti-phys and Ruby
+ X of Adrenaline (to run away faster from Firebomb in a Temp Chains map)

Chimera
+ X of Staunching
+ anti-phys
+ Quicksilver of Adrenaline

With the exception of Chimera, it's better to just focus on avoiding hits rather than worrying about what flasks to pop against Guardians. But if you can work good flask usage into your game, more power to you.

Uber Atziri
+ Topaz of Warding (vs. Storm Calls and curse reflection)
+ Ruby of Warding (practice swigging before the hit comes)
+ Ruby of X
+ Granite/Basalt of Staunching (stop spearing me, Atziri)
+ Quicksilver of Adrenaline (to run from double Flameblast)

If you have the resources, I suggest practicing with Normal Atziri by removing all your damage support gems, chopping off 2 or 3k ES, and trying to get in the habit of anticipating when to flask up. I don't have a lot of experience with this fight, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but my feeling is that her Flameblasts are more dangerous than the Storm Calls, which is why I pack more Ruby than Topaz and run Purity of Fire instead of Lightning.


Uber Elder
Sapphire of Adrenaline (or Sapphire + Quicksilver) and a Life flask or two should be enough.

This is what the build would probably look like if I had ten thousand mirrors (or maybe POE Hero Editor™):

https://pastebin.com/XsMPGXS2 (POB)

I left out legacy items/stats because we have to keep this *cough*realistic*cough* obviously.

These are from 3.1, but should still be okay (import into Path of Building to view):
(if you feel these trees are too conservative, feel free to use the SC trees below)

(as is always the case with passive trees, feel free to adjust to your tastes as far as how many EHP/DEX/STR nodes you want or need)

CI
- is still okay
- not godly anymore

Hybrid with Shav's or Esh's Visage
- safer for HC

Hybrid
- should give you the most EHP
- as good or better than Shav's if you supplement chaos res elsewhere

Life+MoM
- lower EHP ceiling than Hybrid
- inefficient pathing means you will get less jewel slots overall
- full MoM means less flexibility to run auras
- MoM might enable you to create a super Primordial Might Stacker build that takes advantage of Beacon of Corruption (untested; nobody's done it yet afaik)

So for SC, you can choose any option. They're all viable.

For HC, I recommend Hybrid with Shav's or Regalia + capped chaos res.

HC:
https://pastebin.com/jq64qKgy (import into POB to view)
+ 11,000+ EHP with realistic gear (T2 mods, non-legacy)
+ 13,000-14,000 EHP with Regalia+Shield
+ extra 50-60% Faster Start of ES Recharge
+ Immune to Stun/Chill/Freeze/Shock/Ignite
+ 11 jewels

It is your decision whether to play with a Shield or not. Whatever way you choose, I make no guarantees. Your character is your responsibility in hardcore. :P

SC:
https://pastebin.com/0Wc2B1Zm (import into POB to view)
+ 9,000+ EHP with realistic gear (T2 mods, non-legacy)
+ 10.5K EHP with shield
+ extra 50-60% Faster Start of ES Recharge
+ Immune to Stun/Chill/Freeze/Shock/Ignite
+ Primordial Chain for 10 golems
+ 13 jewels
+ trade EHP for more jewels if you like

CI:
https://pastebin.com/medJQEzb (import into POB to view)
+ 8,000 ~ 10,500-ish ES depending on rolls and # of Energy From Within
+ extra 50-60% Faster Start of ES Recharge
+ Immune to Stun/Chill/Freeze/Shock/Ignite
+ wants corrupted Eye of Chayula (+1 curse) to save points
+ 11 jewels

The above trees are all set near LVL 95 or lower to be realistic.

The below trees are impractical.

Yolo Offense:
https://pastebin.com/nfXee6rB (import into POB to view)
+ 4,500 EHP (don't say I didn't warn you :P)
+ 19 jewels
+ At this point, everything goes down so fast that Increased Duration's value is lost. Use Controlled Destruction instead.

Dream Gear/Tree:
https://pastebin.com/XsMPGXS2 (import into POB to view)
+ Purely theoretical (impossible without ungodly amounts of currency)

Help out Eramir for points :)

POB doesn't factor Duration scaling for stacked Storm Orbs. The program's author has acknowledged this here already.

Beyond that, I would encourage players to not only look at DPS calcs, but at actual skill mechanics (feel, effect), and actual testing. This goes for all skills, not just golems/minions. Simple DPS numbers can't give you an apple-to-apples comparison.

There is also what I consider a common misconception that Flame Golems clear significantly faster than Lightning Golems. I feel that both have different advantages, but clear more or less at the same pace. Having played both extensively, I would probably give a slight edge to Flame, but the gap is definitely not that big imo. See a video comparison here: https://youtu.be/UZ21M9M0EjU

As for single-target, I think the other videos in the section above show Lightning is perhaps a bit better.

Try walking past packs instead of waiting for them to die (this applies to the mapping setup as well). It'll feel weird at first not making sure monsters are dead before moving on. But if your gems are fully leveled and you have Primordial Might, your golems will trail and leave orbs behind that will clear packs as you walk away (note this requires a certain degree of familiarity with map layouts and can be somewhat dangerous to do in tight quarters). In this respect, it's kind of similar to Earthquake.

This does have the disadvantage of causing you to miss low-value currency and items (your filter will tell you if something valuable is worth backtracking for). But this might actually be an advantage in that it forces you to play a bit more efficiently and not spend time picking up every nickel, dime, and bauble.

If you want more clearspeed, then just recolor your chest and run with GMP+Pierce. I tend to do this at the start of a league and switch over to the boss setup when I'm ready to do the harder challenges. If you still want more clearspeed, you should try an actual clearspeed build. This build is intended more as a boss-killer than mapper. :)

Yes. Just drop Avatar of Fire. And use appropriate Flame Golem links (Empower is not an optimal link for a Flame Golementalist).

Please see the top post on page 5

It doesn't. I have almost no changes to report.

If you're rich and can get 1 or 2 OP Ghastly Eye jewels, then that will be a small upgrade in the belt slot vs. a GG Crystal Belt. That's about it.

With the introduction of Shaper/Elder rares in 3.1, it's possible to get a pseudo-6L in your 4L gear slots. That said, I cannot really recommend one at this time, since Shaper/Elder mods take up a prefix/suffix just like any other mod. The combination of available mods only synergize well with Flame Golem anyway. As this is an HC-focused build, I recommend going for gear with more defensive stats.

On a minor note, I've dropped the Death Attunement and Gravepact nodes from my tree. You could get another Primordial jewel for those points instead, which would provide more value. Or else just get more HP nodes.

Please see the top post on page 16.

Please see my top post on page 19.

Check the videos. I usually write some tips/notes in the Youtube description box under the video. If something's missing, please let me know.