{3.10} Speaker for the Dead | The Mass Minion Summoner | League Starter, Leveling Guide 💀

Thanks a lot and that first post on page 9 did clear up most of my questions. Apologies for not reading the entire thread to make sure my questions hadn't been already answered. I'll be leveling using the guide at least once this weekend, maybe twice if I have the time, as well as a couple times doing a couple acts since I'm trying to learn early layouts.

Thanks!

Thanks for making this awesome guide! I like summoners and one thing lacking in my knowledge is how to make lots of summons work without specializing in just one type of minion. Guess this is the answer to my question.

Just a quick correction on your Defenses portion: Fortify is reduced damage taken, not less. Arctic Armour and Kintsugi are examples of less damage taken. :)

@ term:

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term escreveu:

Thanks a lot and that first post on page 9 did clear up most of my questions. Apologies for not reading the entire thread to make sure my questions hadn't been already answered. I'll be leveling using the guide at least once this weekend, maybe twice if I have the time, as well as a couple times doing a couple acts since I'm trying to learn early layouts.

Thanks!

No need to apologize; I don't expect people to read through the entire thread, especially as it gets longer. I've been adapting my replies into the main thread so such a thing wouldn't be necessary. Your question reminded me that I needed to add my earlier clarification to the leveling guide, so thanks!

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@ lyndoff:

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lyndoff escreveu:

Thanks for making this awesome guide! I like summoners and one thing lacking in my knowledge is how to make lots of summons work without specializing in just one type of minion. Guess this is the answer to my question.

Just a quick correction on your Defenses portion: Fortify is reduced damage taken, not less. Arctic Armour and Kintsugi are examples of less damage taken. :)

Great! I see you are of refined taste. Lots of minions is exactly what this build sets out to do! Many summoner builds follow the wisdom of other builds, specializing into one main skill, but minions are inherently different from all other skills. Why follow what they must do? Lost potential is what I say!

You're right about Fortify. I've made the correction. Interestingly, I also learned Taunt cannot be overwritten. The first application stays in effect. I had long wondered if a Warcry would be nice to work in on a summoner if minions would be able to overwrite the taunt onto themselves, but now I see that's not possible.

FYI, this is what the taunt effect looks like:

I wonder if you'll only see this effect if the monster is taunted onto you, not just if they're taunted in general.

I for one am greatly looking forward to trying this build in 4.0 Just coming back to PoE. I love summoner type builds, I dont know why but they are fun for me. So while they might not be the "best" I play them because I enjoy them. Do you have any idea if this build will work in 4.0? I havent been watching the changes very much.

Hello.

Firstly, thank you for the obvious time and dedication you put into this build. It was great to read through and from seeing a few of your other posts on other builds regarding misinformation on numbers, it's nice to see that you're both very knowledgeable of the game while trying to show that some other builds perhaps exaggerate (innocently or deviously) the DPS numbers.

Secondly, I'm relatively new to PoE (3.2 was my first league) and I usually play summoners in any game I have the chance to, and despite enjoying some of the other Necro builds on here, none really 'clicked' with me until I played this one. A hell of a lot of fun and in comparison to other summoner builds, it's much more satisfying to command an awful lot of undead allies than the more streamlined builds allow you to, seeing as they tend to focus on just one or two types of undead.

I have a question in regards to Taunt though. This will probably be due to my inexperience with the game, but why do you put in abyss jewels that have 'x% chance to taunt' when the Summon Holy Relic disables minions from being able to Taunt? Am I misunderstanding something? I also struggled a lot with Zombie survivability. I've not made it to Red Elder/Shaper/Uber Elder before (I lucked into a Chayula Breachstone and didn't seem to have many problems there) but I tried Uber Atziri and the zombies just kept getting one shot by the big fire ring she casts around herself that explodes. At the time I believe I only had lvl 19 zombies linked to a lvl 2 Empower on a claw without a +1 prefix, is that where that issue arises? Or will that big blast end up killing them all every time they stand right in the middle of it?

Anyway, thanks a lot for the build. Will be my league starter in 3.5 and look forward to finally reaching Shaper/Uber Elder with it if I can.

@ mtwilliams717:

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mtwilliams717 escreveu:

I for one am greatly looking forward to trying this build in 4.0 Just coming back to PoE. I love summoner type builds, I dont know why but they are fun for me. So while they might not be the "best" I play them because I enjoy them. Do you have any idea if this build will work in 4.0? I havent been watching the changes very much.

I assume you mean 3.5 Betrayal League, right? 4.0 isn't due to come out until the end of 2019.

Speaking of 4.0, that should be pretty exciting. GGG was gearing it up to compete with a potential Diablo 4, so you can bet GGG pulled out all the stops for it. I imagine, at the very least, we'll finally get new character models by then.

For 3.5, GGG hasn't released anything about nerfs yet, so whether this build will be hit is unknown. I strongly doubt any singular change will kill it, though. We use many minions; even if one kind is nerfed we still have plenty more. Summoners aren't exactly game-breaking, either, so it's unlikely we'll be under threat. The Agony Crawler is the only minion I could see them toning down.

We do know GGG plans to eventually make some changes to Elemental Equilibrium, but that may not happen in 3.5.

I forget which day, but patch notes will be released sometime this week. You can keep up on the teasers here.


New stuff:
The two new support gems, Multiple Totems and Bonechill, aren't applicable to us. Neither are most of the new skills and unique items.

War Banner and Dread Banner both look to have potential, but they reserve a "small amount" of mana. GGG didn't say how small. This build doesn't have much mana to spare, without some intervention from an Aul's Uprising for Hatred or a reduced reservation helm enchantment for Herald of Agony. Both of which are rare.

Solstice Vigil would be nice for the free Blasphemy Temporal Chains, but it'd take up two sockets. I wonder if it'll have an Enfeeble version?

The passive tree will have new nodes added for Brands and Cold/Chaos Damage Over Time. Eldritch Battery is changing to not interrupt ES recharge from non-damage sources.

Yeah, so far it doesn't look like much will change about this build in 3.5. Beast Crafting and double corruptions might have some possibilities, though.

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@ Aquiline_Fury:

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Aquiline_Fury escreveu:

Hello.

Firstly, thank you for the obvious time and dedication you put into this build. It was great to read through and from seeing a few of your other posts on other builds regarding misinformation on numbers, it's nice to see that you're both very knowledgeable of the game while trying to show that some other builds perhaps exaggerate (innocently or deviously) the DPS numbers.

Thanks! So you saw that thread, too, eh? Yeah, I was a bit perturbed by the dismissive attitude they had at the end. They are still advertising an inflated DPS even after I went over all the math and quoted GGG on how the mechanics worked. Did they misunderstand me somehow? I don't know, but I'd really like to hope they aren't being intentionally dishonest.

To summarize for everyone out of the loop: If a build is not specialized for dealing a massive hit of lightning damage, they should never check "Is the Enemy Shocked?" in PoB. An unsupported Vaal Arc doesn't cut it. Also, if a build is deriving their Zombie DPS from Slam, they are wrong. Slam has a cooldown that PoB doesn't take into account. Just these two errors alone will more than double your actual Zombie DPS.

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Aquiline_Fury escreveu:

Secondly, I'm relatively new to PoE (3.2 was my first league) and I usually play summoners in any game I have the chance to, and despite enjoying some of the other Necro builds on here, none really 'clicked' with me until I played this one. A hell of a lot of fun and in comparison to other summoner builds, it's much more satisfying to command an awful lot of undead allies than the more streamlined builds allow you to, seeing as they tend to focus on just one or two types of undead.

It makes me really happy to hear that my build scratched an itch no other build could. A Necromancer just isn't a Necromancer if they don't have a massive undead army, right? =o)

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Aquiline_Fury escreveu:

I have a question in regards to Taunt though. This will probably be due to my inexperience with the game, but why do you put in abyss jewels that have 'x% chance to taunt' when the Summon Holy Relic disables minions from being able to Taunt? Am I misunderstanding something?

It's local, only the Holy Relic cannot taunt. Raging Spirits and the Agony Crawler have the same thing. If it were to affect all minions, it'd say, "Your minions cannot taunt."

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Aquiline_Fury escreveu:

I also struggled a lot with Zombie survivability. I've not made it to Red Elder/Shaper/Uber Elder before (I lucked into a Chayula Breachstone and didn't seem to have many problems there) but I tried Uber Atziri and the zombies just kept getting one shot by the big fire ring she casts around herself that explodes. At the time I believe I only had lvl 19 zombies linked to a lvl 2 Empower on a claw without a +1 prefix, is that where that issue arises? Or will that big blast end up killing them all every time they stand right in the middle of it?

Uber Atziri's Flameblast does absurd damage. You should expect your zombies to die to it.

It deals 1893-2839 Fire damage x 10.9 stages = 20,634-30,945 x 0.75 penalty vs minions = 15,475-23,209 x 0.45 to 0.25 depending on Zombie resistances.

Her Storm Call deals 7,319-21,958 Lightning damage, and her Empowered Storm Call deals 10,813-32,438 Lightning damage.

lvl2 Empower makes your 19/0 Zombies into 20/0. Mine are 26/20 and have 20.2k life. Your Zombies have 10.5k life, right? 20% Quality would boost that to 11.4k, and +6 levels are responsible for the rest. They're worth double life, double damage, and 59% more accuracy. This is why we level stack so hard on Zombies and the Agony Crawler.

If you want your Zombies to live, you need those bonus levels. Aside from that, you can also get two jewels with "Minions have +10% to all Elemental Resistances." This will cap Zombie resists, nearly doubling their protection against Uber Atziri's heavy elemental damage.

Don't fret too much over Zombies, though, they're only one part of the whole build. It's okay if they die. Naturally, you want them to stay up for the Physical Damage Reduction, but some endgame bosses will require you to fight with a handicap.

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Aquiline_Fury escreveu:

Anyway, thanks a lot for the build. Will be my league starter in 3.5 and look forward to finally reaching Shaper/Uber Elder with it if I can.

You're welcome, I'm glad you liked it! See you in 3.5!

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Thanks! So you saw that thread, too, eh? Yeah, I was a bit perturbed by the dismissive attitude they had at the end. They are still advertising an inflated DPS even after I went over all the math and quoted GGG on how the mechanics worked. Did they misunderstand me somehow? I don't know, but I'd really like to hope they aren't being intentionally dishonest.

Yes, I was reading that. I was a little confused at the seeming nonchalance at just dismissing your input. Your point was to help clarify, not only for him but for other players: not personally attack the build he put a lot of effort into. Whatever floats people's boats I guess. I shan't attack his ignorance, whether willful or innocent, as his build was also enjoyable, as I did try a few summoner builds out before settling on this one.

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It's local, only the Holy Relic cannot taunt. Raging Spirits and the Agony Crawler have the same thing. If it were to affect all minions, it'd say, "Your minions cannot taunt."

Thank you for the clarification. As much as I love this game, it can sometimes be very confusing with its item/mod/stat descriptions. I still don't entirely understand the more/increased effects. *sigh*

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Uber Atziri's Flameblast does absurd damage. You should expect your zombies to die to it.

It deals 1893-2839 Fire damage x 10.9 stages = 20,634-30,945 x 0.75 penalty vs minions = 15,475-23,209 x 0.45 to 0.25 depending on Zombie resistances.

Her Storm Call deals 7,319-21,958 Lightning damage, and her Empowered Storm Call deals 10,813-32,438 Lightning damage.

lvl2 Empower makes your 19/0 Zombies into 20/0. Mine are 26/20 and have 20.2k life. Your Zombies have 10.5k life, right? 20% Quality would boost that to 11.4k, and +6 levels are responsible for the rest. They're worth double life, double damage, and 59% more accuracy. This is why we level stack so hard on Zombies and the Agony Crawler.

Wow. That is a crazy amount of damage. No wonder my poor little 19/0 zombo's got RIP'd into oblivion. I figured that their lack of life was due to the lower levels but I wasn't aware of just how much they scaled up in damage/life/accuracy from just a few levels. I naively thought that a 19/20 zombo wouldn't be too inferior to a 21/20, therefore I kind of shrugged off the effect that a 26/20 zombo would have, suspecting that it'd just scale little by little. Much noted for next league.

One final question that I forgot to ask in my OP, about the ascendancy change you were experimenting with. Did you ever decide which final node you stuck with? I know you were experimenting between switching from Flesh Binder to (I believe it was 2) other options for the 8-12% inc damage. Would you recommend still sticking to Flesh Binder?

Thanks again [:

@ Aquiline_Fury:

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Aquiline_Fury escreveu:

I still don't entirely understand the more/increased effects. *sigh*

The two terms distinguish the way the numbers are multiplied. Sources of Increase are added together to make one big multiplier, while More are always their own separate multiplier. In practice, this means the value of More is consistent. If it's 50% More damage, its impact on the product is always 50%. Whereas Increases are added together, so each additional one has less impact on the product.

For example, 10% Increased Minion Damage is roughly worth 2% more damage for Skeletons in this build, because we already have about 400% increased damage. The base damage is 100%, so it becomes 500% vs 510%. 510 divided by 500 = 1.02, or 2% more.

4% Increased Minion Attack Speed is also worth ~2% more attack speed, because we already have 114%. Base is 100%, so it becomes 214%. 218 divided by 214 = 1.019, or 1.9% more.

The impact of an Increase depends on how much you already have. At 100% (200% with base), Increases are worth half their stated value. 10% node = 5% more. At 300% (400% with base), it halves again, or in other words quartered. 10% node = 2.5% more. At 700% (800% with base), it halves yet again, now one eighth of its stated value. 10% node = 1.25% more.

Increases have diminishing returns;
Mores have exponential returns.

Let's say you have a Fireball with the following modifiers: 300% increased Fire Damage, 250% increased Spell Damage, 40% More Fire Damage, 50% more Spell Damage. The equation would look like this:

(1 base + 3 increased fire damage + 2.5 increased spell damage) x 1.4 more Fire damage x 1.5 more Spell damage
=
(6.5) x 1.4 x 1.5
=
13.65 or 1365% more damage.

Even though the sources of Increase were much larger, the More effects more than doubled the final result.

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Aquiline_Fury escreveu:

I naively thought that a 19/20 zombo wouldn't be too inferior to a 21/20, therefore I kind of shrugged off the effect that a 26/20 zombo would have, suspecting that it'd just scale little by little. Much noted for next league.

Each level is ~10% More than the previous level, so it grows exponentially: +4 levels = 46% more; +5 levels = 61% more; +6 levels = 77% more; +7 levels = 94% more.

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Aquiline_Fury escreveu:

Would you recommend still sticking to Flesh Binder?

I haven't changed it yet.

I am really tempted to swap to Puppet Master because Skeletons would break into 3mil damage and that looks super pretty. The minion movement speed and duration would also be very nice QoL. The only thing I don't like is how conditional the damage boosts are. I don't wanna stop to cast Skeletons every 4 seconds unless I have to. Though I hear if you link a Phantasm gem to Shield Charge, using Shield Charge will then count as using a minion skill. If that's true, it might be worthwhile if you put Fortify on Charged Dash.

Commander of Darkness is more stable, but the easiest way to get the resists to apply to you is also expensive: a 5ex Envy version of Aul's Uprising. With two auras affecting minions, they'd get 6% attack/cast speed, half of Puppet Master's without any pesky condition. The elemental resists would negate the need for any on jewels, too, so there's additional damage potential there. But no duration or movement speed. =o(

Mistress of Sacrifice works really well with Spirit Offering on CWDT, giving you enough ES to counter the damage taken. It's almost like taking 9% less damage, but it needs 9 corpses per use and it has a 0.25sec cooldown. We could drop Fortify and Faster Attacks on Shield Charge, and move Hatred+Generosity to the shield to make room for Unearth+GMP in our CWDT. This would ensure 5 corpses for Spirit Offering. But meh... I'd say this route would be good only if you drop Acrobatics and go hybrid ES. Dex will need a solution. Then get a Discipline version of Aul's Uprising. Use Desecrate instead of Unearth+GMP to make room for Discipline. Then get a Watcher's Eye with ES On Hit. Whew. Now Spirit Offering is scaled up by your %ES, and you make use of all those Ball Lightning hits to rapidly recover ES with the Watcher's Eye. ES itself gives you much more eHP to tank those endgame one-shots. You'll want a high ES chest with 125+ life and ES bases for your helmet, gloves, and boots if you can find/craft them with the other affixes this build wants. Not cheap, but doable.

Finally, Flesh Binder. +2 Zombies for a bigger army is a huge, gargantuan, mega ultimate perk!!! ...probably. Don't try to convince me otherwise! The Slam AOE and cooldown reduction is solid for helping clear speed. Sometimes Zombies will just be places your other minions aren't hitting. But really, that's just fluffy icing. It's all about that Physical Damage Reduction. There are scary physical one-shots lurking out there, just waiting for you to have your pants down, so any scrap of protection helps.

Hey, if any1 wanna try this endgame before next league i can sell my whole char for 10 ex since i would also like to try a different build the last few days and need some funding. Gear should be worth way more and currency doesnt rly matter much end of league.
Did shaper and guardians easily and if u know the fight u can do uelder as well, gonnna throw in the switch gems/gear for that fight suggested by op.
Let me know if any1s interested, my char should be public.
If u care for standard i can give u back what i bought for the 10 ex at end if league and some other stuff.

What do you think about the new +1 Skeletons veiled mod on body armours? Do you think replacing the Belly with a rare +1 Skellies chest is worthwhile?