3.8 New Queens Escape + Baron - super fast physical skeletons + zombies
" I've noticed that you put a point into an extra Int to the north of your start, above the Violent Dead socket. This is unnecessary, as Violent Dead doesn't care whether the Int nodes are active or inactive; merely that they're within its radius. If you replace your second Violent Dead (socket #5 on your PoB pastebin) with an Efficient Training, you can safely gain 6 points by dropping Might (and the Int leading up to it), 3 extra strength nodes and Born to Fight (you will still have 1,032+ strength after dropping them, with a low roll Efficient Training). If you still want that second Violent Dead jewel, the socket your Oblivion Essence occupies as 40 Int within a Medium radius. I would then recommend you replace From Dust with the Oblivion Essence jewel. Do note that I have never aimed for 1,200 Str, so this advice is biased against going further than the base 1k needed for the life leech. Someone more experienced in reaching that milestone should cover this instead. I don't think there's particularly anything wrong with From Dust, but it feels like a mana saving measure; an extra 2 summoned for an extra 1 second cooldown to the skill. So I'd consider it a low priority jewel. I'd argue that you take the three int nodes leading to Righteous Army and instead put them into Spiritual Command. The gains will be immediate, even if not quite as high (honestly, the difference between them will be something like 0.9% total DPS for your current 5L skeletons, for 3 extra points. If those were strength nodes instead of int, the results would probably be marginally closer). If you were to put the rest of your accumulated points up to level 90 into the HP raising skills (Quick Recovery, Heart and Soul, Bravery, Juggernaut, all the life nodes around Constitution), it will jump you from 4.7k hp to 6.5k. You can probably put the two remainder points into the life recovery nodes next to Shaper, so you get an extra jewel socket at 91. That lastly brings me to your current gems. I've noticed you stopped your Increased Duration at level 5, presumably because you think if it goes any higher, it won't work with Cast When Damaged Taken. CWDT only stops working with gems above its level if they're active skill gems: Inc Dur is a Support gem, and you can safely max this. It will still affect Immortal Call and Phase Run even if it's higher than the level CWDT supports. Similarly, levelling Phase Run beyond CWDT's level req will allow you to use it as your main movement skill, so that you don't need to use Flame Dash (unless you really want to). Your next order of business will be getting your maxed gems to 20% quality. The cheapest way to go about this will be to vendor them with a gemcutter's prism to get them back at level 1, 20 quality. Care should be taken that if you do it for all your maxed gems at once, you'll be confined to low level maps until they've levelled appropriately. Those that start with a good amount of quality, about 10+, you should just use prisms on directly unless funds are tight. Do note that you should check the wiki for what some of the quality increases actually do. I've elected, for example, not to 20 quality my Animated Guardian and Raise Spectres, as they only gain minion movement speed from raising quality. This is what my build currently looks like for comparison; https://pastebin.com/qFqr8wUs Do note that my main focus for this getting natural elemental overcap (minimum of 33% over the hardcap to counter Elemental Weakness) and squeezing in some extra DPS (from the right side of the tree instead of the left, because I am a filthy min-maxer, even when I'm not good at it :v) Ignore the terrible flasks. I've taken a small break from PoE, so I've neglected to improve on the build some more. But the chief focus for my build moving forward will be health, and purely health. Because something nasty is going to swing my way eventually, and it's going to hurt. |
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Thank you for the amazing guide! Currently i am slowly completing my atlas (around T9-T10) and delving around 120. I have one question: what is the purpose of Blood Magic? I am not recasting neither specters or golem/animate guardian, and they are not so horrible in mana cost. What am i missing?
Thanks! |
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Playing this pretty slowly on hardcore. What should I do, I can't afford Astramentis so I have no dex for level 1 phase run or for a leveled desecrate. Good job I can't afford queens escape either because I wouldn't be able to equip that without dex as well.
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" Blood Magic is for the spectres. Normally, Chieftains have a very small mana pool; they'll cast their Mass Power/Frenzy a few times, then join the fray as physical fighters. |
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ahhaa, so spectres use their life to cast spells? cool! Tbh honest i dont even use the chieftains just yet because i dont need them and when i tried i got bored after 2 minutes (couldnt spawn them :\) thx!
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Yeah, I find it's good practice to wait until you can spawn high level versions of them, with an equally high level Blood Magic and Minion Life gem. Otherwise they'll just kill themselves spamming the spells. But yeah, it can get a fair bit annoying when you can't get the corpse you want from Desecrate.
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Here is what I'm running in SSF HC Delve, inspired by this and a couple other phys skelly builds. Lv 92 depth ~190
basically, extremely budget items and a 5link have easily taken me to red maps, all bosses have been a breeze, could recommend |
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Why is it that when I keep getting passive points like "minion damage" or even the "minion damage" on the ascension nodes, the tool tip "Raise Zombie still says "Minions deal 44% more damage" and that number doesn't increase when I get the minion damage nodes... Shouldn't that go up when I get minion damage nodes on the tree? It seems to be adding to my "Minions have Life", but not the damage. Is something broken?
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There are quite a few builds in PoE where tooltip means nothing because it isnt accurate, summoners are one of them, you have to import it into Path of Building to see the calculation of dps of your minions I believe.
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" The easiest option is give up desecrate/phase run altogether for now, and to use flame dash and faster casting. With the buffs this patch, this skill is now great for getting you out of trouble in a hurry, and for moving faster. Otherwise, You can take dex from the tree (2 points for 30 dex) or use one jewel slot for dexterity (careful planning is great if you can find it). Having movespeed and phasing is definitely worth 2 damage or health nodes! You can get also some dex on boots, gloves, amulet, rings, or craft it onto them. Eventually, it's worth getting enough to at least have the queens escape, because defensively, there is a huge difference between fast minions who get in front of you, and slow minions who trail behind you. |
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