3.8 New Queens Escape + Baron - super fast physical skeletons + zombies

Heya, glad you tried the build!

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- You say, we should take minion speed as our 6th gem for Skeletons but its not in the list of the 6 gems. Which gem should i replace with minion speed and what exactly is your recommend 6 Link setup for clear / bossing?

Minion speed is a good option for safely mapping. I happened to roll an extra red link on my 6-link, so I use multistrike or ruthless on occasion. 90% of the time I don't bother swapping and keep melee splash in for all content, so the 6th link is really just down to whatever you prefer. If your minions are dying, you can even go empower or minion life.

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- Your video's at the bottom are (im sorry) crap. 480p really? I can barely see anything.

Sorry, my first time using the software. I'm away for the weekend, but will put some nicer ones up next week!

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- I guess you are not running Convocation because we can just summon skeletons where ever we need them, right?

No, I don't use convocation. First, my goal was to minimize button pushes. Second, My minions almost never die, so the health regen does me no good. Third, the zombie are moving super fast, so they keep up with you nicely. Fourth, I like having the zombies free to move independently, because their AI is not as bad as people say :). And finally, yes, your skellies go in the thick of the danger and your zombies stay a bit closer as bodyguards.

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- Did you try Uber Atziri / Uber Elder / Shaper ? Is it good or are the minions missing life or damage?

The build excels at farming uber atziri and uber lab. It should be deathless, fast and never any danger to you. I killed shaper first try, but died a few times trying to facetank because I'm unfamiliar with the fight, and was hoping to afk run in circles. Next time I kited and used Zana and did it deathless. Uber elder should be fine as long as you keep summoning skellies. I tried to facetank one of his abilities to see if i died in one shot and did :). So to do it deathless you have to kite.

In summary:

Uber atziri -brainless
uber lab - brainless
shaper - very fast but will need to re-summon minions so will have to time your button pushes
uber elder - need kiting and re-summoning, so will need some skill to do deathless.

Grimlock, great build man! I've been running a very similar pure physical skeleton build this league except I went the blood magic route for mine. Absolutely loving the skeletons. Also doing the carnage chieftains like you recommend. Frenzy charges are almost always up. I'm at level 88 now and just steam roll through every map I've tried (up to T12 so far) on a 5L. I'm still undecided on my final weapon and tree though. Playing around with block at the moment. 6K+ life with max block and a shaper shield is feeling pretty tanky. ~800 life on block is nice. Not sure if I'll stick this out or go back to femur or queen's. My watcher's eye jewel I got for the "phasing while affected by haste". Not getting blocked by enemies when trying to run around is great.

My current gear:

That watchers eye and haste combo looks amazing.

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Grimlock, great build man! I've been running a very similar pure physical skeleton build this league except I went the blood magic route for mine. Absolutely loving the skeletons. Also doing the carnage chieftains like you recommend. Frenzy charges are almost always up. I'm at level 88 now and just steam roll through every map I've tried (up to T12 so far) on a 5L. I'm still undecided on my final weapon and tree though. Playing around with block at the moment. 6K+ life with max block and a shaper shield is feeling pretty tanky. ~800 life on block is nice. Not sure if I'll stick this out or go back to femur or queen's. My watcher's eye jewel I got for the "phasing while affected by haste". Not getting blocked by enemies when trying to run around is great.

Some nice gear in there! That shield loses a bit of efficiency by using blood magic though. Let me know how you go with the block. I have always felt elemental damage is the hardest to defend against, which is why I go for movement speed, and don't value block as much.

Eventually I'd like to try a perfect form as body gear - I think phase acrobatics might be the missing piece. Switching to Solaris pantheon has helped a lot too. I also think minion move speed is a layer of defence on it's own, which is why I prefer queens escape.

Also, check out the announcement that curses might be effective v bosses soon. I reckon curses would also be way better than block - much easier nodes to pick up.

I’m so glad you posted this! I played something similar so far in 3.2, but my information came by trying to mix a baron zombie build with a non baron skeleton build. One neat thing I wanted to mention... wearing shapers touch gloves and geofri’s armor, you can get well over 3k Energy shield. My build is closing in on 10k life + ES. The second thing I wanted to request: I’m a horrible trap runner! The max regen really helps me run the lab.

Once again, so glad you posted this! Thank you.

Advice taken!: https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/ImAncient/characters?characterName=AncientKeepsTryingSummo

Questions
1: I know you picked zombies of the sacrifice ascendancy, but not even have an offering skill?
2: A level 25 purity of elements is just a few points higher than level 20. An unset ring with a resist all could catch up and the rest of the slots could help. What did I miss?

Your phasing is a HUGE help in the lab. Doubles great with the frenzy spectre.

Thanks for this guide! Never played summoner before, but after reading your guide I'll definitely try it in the flashback race! <3

Glad people are loving the brutal minions as much as me!

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1: I know you picked zombies of the sacrifice ascendancy, but not even have an offering skill?

Yes, no offering skill for me. I'd prefer the flat 12% physical damage reduction from the zombie ascendency. The offerings are good, but the aim of the build was to minimize button pushing, so I skipped them.

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2: A level 25 purity of elements is just a few points higher than level 20. An unset ring with a resist all could catch up and the rest of the slots could help. What did I miss?

The ring only helps you, whereas the purity of elements aura helps your minions and party as well. It's actually a huge help in keeping your minions alive, which is why I also choose commander of darkness as first ascendency. But, the main reason I like the aura is that it helps levelling a lot. Having a voideye + decoy totem gives you a lot of safety while you are finding/buying high life / good defensive gear. Likewise, having your resists come from an aura and the tree mean that you can run high level content without finding well rolled resist gear.

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wearing shapers touch gloves and geofri’s armor, you can get well over 3k Energy shield. My build is closing in on 10k life + ES.

I tried this, and it is definitely a good option, but I found it kinda changed the build a bit too much. First you need to find a whole lot of strength items, which I'm too lazy to search for. You actually lose a lot by going for all those strength jewels too (2 x violent dead are superb for map clearing when I can't even be bothered casting skellies) Second, you lose a lot of minion speed, and personal speed. The alberons warpath boots lose 30% move speed vs the seven league steps. The shield and scourge set up means your minions lose 100% move speed. I've come to believe that in this game move speed is the single most bestest thing you can have!Third you get zealots oath, which is a blessing if you are fast with flasks, but I almost never use flasks (too much button pushing!), so I'd die to some chaos degen all the time. And finally, when facetanking I rarely get time for my energy shield to recharge, so it doesn't matter how large it is, it is useless for lazy bums like me who just want to hold their finger on the mouse 'move only' key. Therefore it's life only for me, and I look at other ways to improve my EHP, like enfeeble aura, or when I can afford one, a lightning coil or perfect form.

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phasing is a HUGE help in the lab

It's so good huh? you can brainlessly run around hitting every trap, and as long as you go fast enough they don't have time to kill you! (as long as you have decent life regen too.) Incidentally, phasing is working great with aspect of the spider. I run straight into a mob who get slowed and enfeebled, and hardly target me. By the time the zombies have got to them, I've had time to cast skellies at the next mob, and run on before their attack animations kick in. Happy days!

Thank you for the answer. I did flip back to zombie to try it out again, and I already had one violent death jewel... I’ll try another.

In contrast,, I’m a button pushing player :) can’t help you there :). I can try out the queens sword... trying to test stuff in the next few days to be ready for the mini series. I'll even try out following your exact build for that one to see how it works for me :)

Change that, I bought some equipment to try closer to your build now. There are some differences bigger than I expected. It is fun that things can change so much in this game.

I have a similar build, but can be so:
https://pastebin.com/KawKkNqC
13 x skeletons with 136K damage (melee splash not need it)
14 X zombies with 19,5K life, 26K melee damage, and 58K slams (good melee splash, 1.25s cooldown)+maim

and build in process...