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

Hey guys, I have been receiving a lot of questions about the character I made in archnemesis so I decided to write up some notes on decisions I made during the creation of my character: SadPandaArchMage.


3.22 UPDATE:
Ok guys, new skele mage is out for 3.22 and fresh meat support works incredibly well with our character.

New dragonfang +3 skele amulet is perfect for us, we replace that with ashes.

Replace mageblood with any stygian belt with high resistances
Remove supreme ego jewel, that provides us +4 max cold out of thin air and a lot of aura eff + reservation but it costs about 40 divines to set up.
Buy an elegant hubris with 240 or 320 minion damage, heres the search(hit the search then buy one of the jewels that requires you to travel least points, 3 and 4 matches preferred): https://vilsol.github.io/timeless-jewels/tree?jewel=5&conqueror=Caspiro&seed=4547&location=26196&mode=stats&stat=488
Get a good large jewel with 12 nodes, 35% inc effect and minion attack cast speed on it.

You could also use +2 all max res tattoo above witch Lord of the Death node and increase its effect with new 100% tatto effect increase jewel Warrior's Tale so you can make that +4 to all maximum resist. This would help you cap your max cold res
We can also tattoo our int passives with aura effect.

Instead of using crit dmg gem our 6th link will be fresh meat both on bosses and clearing
Swap in and out gmp for hypothermia for bosses vs clear.

Brine King + Abberath for gods no change there.

Build should cost about 50 to 60 divs to fully function, the more you pour into it the better it would perform, I am having a blast mapping with it.

Pob:
https://pobb.in/1TZnWdud



Showcase: I will upload some bosskills to the youtube I did in 3.19 as an example of the dps.
Minotaur kill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg1K5WXeg5Q
Formed clear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ppQmlt7tE
Elderslayer's clear: https://youtu.be/iDlkjYphNag
Twisted clear: https://youtu.be/HVNo6AG2dSk
Feared clear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me0ru7Pxoj4
Uber Cortex last phase clear with 4 man hp: https://youtu.be/ZsMlJKe3Z64
Uber Shaper last phase: https://youtu.be/fIke-MeZZDg
Eater 2 player hp: https://youtu.be/jLUPDo8tC6I
Uber Cortex 6 player hp last phase: https://youtu.be/9wCv5jzxozQ
Feared 270 quant with more life: https://youtu.be/qkXc9Yaqw_Y

-The guide-
This character is extremely tanky with incredible dps, can do all content with all mods very easily. I will showcase my items and the reasons I put behind those items. The character is hybrid with 4.5k + life and 1.5k + es depending on the gear you choose with block as its base mechanic.
Heres the character link:
https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/MrsDeath_/SadPandaForbiddenRectum?i=4&search=class%3DNecromancer

Pob link: it seems to be wrong so you can choose to extract from my profile MrsDeath_ or simply follow the poe ninja, sorry I just hate pob.

Items 3.19:


Some reasons behind those item choices:
Firstly: I would aim to get a fleshcrafter, you don't have to get a +2 from get-go, if you decide to get a 5 link you can extract crit multi from the support gems.

Then you should get a shield: aegis aurora. This one is really big and really important for our defense. Since we have 75 spell block and 69 attack block. This shield replaces some of our energy shield based on our armour when we block. This becomes really big replenishment when we are basing our character on defiance banner and determination.
Side note: I did manage to double corrupt my shield into +5 block on implicit so that takes us to 75 attack block, if you can buy it that would be a huge upgrade.
Side note 2: you can get a divergent tempest shield gem and divergent bone offering gem to max out your attack block.

Then you can start from wand and then boots and then helmet, styigan belt, amulet, gloves etc.

On these parts: I prefer picking up a simple minion damage wand at first or something like +2 wand without speed or minion damage. +2 wand is important when it comes to us spawning 4 spectres and strengthening our skeletons. You could get some armour on your helmet, gloves, belt etc to boost your armour furthermore.
I find +1 maximum skele number on our amulet to be absolutely necessary and a big dmg boost, even more than 1 level amulet. I would say get that with some stats, resists and life.
Anointment: I really like Sanctuary to boost our resits and block. It is very cheap with 2 teal and 1 amber oil.
The next option is Charisma, with the new nerfs to the mana reservation efficiency it is the best anoint for our amulets.

I prefer to get 100% reduced chill effect so we will get brine king upgraded and a ring suffix with 50%+ reduced chill effect.

Flasks: They are important for our defenses and offense in some parts. Bottled faith is not mandatory but it really helps with our mage skeleton crits since they are crit based. Before you get a bottled faith, you could a silver flask for utility and movement.




Jewels: New crit multi jewels provide us with 90% crit multi for our minions for 3 jewel slots, that is great value and we can get up to 75% stun avoidance implicits on them or corrupted blood immunity if you would like.


Cluster jewels: be sure to get a blessed rebirth. Thats really important to make our minions invulnerable after 4 seconds of their spawn. Then you can get a renewal next to it if you can afford. Then comes an lead by example jewel, I love this to boost my minions with an enduring warcry. Then I would pick up large cluster jewel with renewal, call to slaughter and rotten claws. We skip rotten claws and only pickup 1 redundant point at start then rust to 2 jewel sockets to place medium jewels there.
Side note: you can grab a vicious bite instead of call to slaughter on the large jewel. It is expensive but worth it.
Put your covenants jewels onto tip of the medium jewels to make their downscaling effects to be ineffective.
Side note 2: Which points do we take on our cluster jewels? Just to inform other people and answer for everyone, on the medium jewels we pick: 1 lead by example 1 renewal and 1 blessed rebirth.
on the large jewel we pick: 1 renewal and 1 vicious bite or 1 call to slaughter.
This means on the minion jewel we spend 4 points and on the warcry jewel we spend 3 points, on the large minion jewel we spend 5 points in total.



Gems:
On our chest I prefer: Summon Skeletons- Pierce - Greater multiple projectiles- Spell echo- Increased Critical Strikes support and minion damage.
In 3.19 I swapped crit multi with crit chances because we have way easier access to crit multi than before. It feels way better in clear speed.

We swap grater multiple projectiles with hypothermia when we are dealing with single target such as big hp bosses. I also added Divergent prey to swap with crit multi on bosses, felt like giving more dmg to us.
Boots: Since the skeleton unique boots have changed we are swapping to the Brittle implicit boots with high ele res life and cannot be chilled ms.


Wand: classic lifetap + desecrate + bone offering, in that order.


Helmet: A helmet with +1 skele +1 zombie craft and elder minion life mode in it. This is important to support our zombies + spectres + animate guardian with a minion life + meatshield support.
How to craft the helmet:
With 3.19, now we need +2 or +1 helmet too, if you cant find an elder helmet just swap zombies with minion life or ag.



On your gloves or shield: link your stone golem with feeding frenzy and rest of the gems are flame wall, enduring cry, tempest shield and flame dash. I prefer enduring cry for lead by example node on cluster to give our minions onslaught and some survivability to us, I add flame wall to make our minions deal more flat damage. On the ring I have sniper's mark to make it easier to kill ads in bosses and deal more damage.


Spectres: I prefer a bit different spectres than others.
In order you should get these spectres: You need a level 25 raise spectre gem.
Pale seraphim
Wild bristle Matron
Ancient Wraith(new one applies enfeeble and has +1 curse limit)
Arena Master - This spectre spawns from drox maps or you could simply pm me in game or either find someone to borrow them in global 6666. My ign: SadPandaMirrorMirror

3.20 Spectre choices: I need to remind you that monkeys can still be good at start, these are pretty good for the single target setup.
Pale seraphim
Arena master
Wild bristle Matron
Ancient Wraith(new one applies enfeeble and has +1 curse limit)

I use 3 of these to boost our skele mage dmg and 1 to protect us from outside hits. I find heretical guardian useful in many helpful situations. I absolutely recommend it.


The melding of the flesh version with 90% all max res and mageblood:
This is a very high budget version of the build which makes us incredibly tanky. To reach 90% max cold res we need to do some calculations first.


Melding of the flesh provides us a -4 all max res
that takes us to 71% max cold res
then we have aegis aurora for 5% and 3% max cold res gloves which gets us to 79% max cold res
then we will get +7% max cold res from purity of ice with 40% aura effect and that allows us to reach 86% max cold res
then thanks to impossible reach jewel we can grab 3% max cold res on the prismatic skin tree by either reaching imbalanced guard or unwavering stance.
After these we get to 89% max cold res
the last 1% comes from megalomaniac jewel, which provides us with either prismatic dance or prismatic carapace.
Someone found one more mod that could help us in megalomaniac, and that is winter prowler for 2% max cold res, it could help us a lot while managing our max cold res.
that is how we reach 90% max cold res.


Animate Guardian: Classic items with some changes.

Kingmaker
Garb of the ephermal
Boots with brittle implicit on them for 4 seconds they move.
Gloves with unnerve implicit or explicit, you can grab 50% chance implicit ones with some resists on them or a 25% unnerve on hit.
Helmet: leer cast is a great budget version, which gives 50% dmg to nearby enemies, for endgame versions, we have trialmaster drop which gives malediction to nearby enemies which is 10% increased dmg taken and 10% deal less dmg for enemies.

Be absolutely sure that your AG is level 20, I pick a "minions gain %5 life on minion death" mastery to make sure our supporting minions survive hard situations, be sure to pick up that mastery too.

Pantheons: Big pantheon: Brine king. Upgrade it to the fullest, gives us freeze immunity, block recovery, chill immunity with one ring suffix.
Small pantheon: New small pantheon: soul of abberath, it is great with upgraded making you avoid all the burning dmg ground degen.

Achievements of the build:
Has killed an aul depth 600 without help with 2x hp
Has cleared feared with 3x hp and rare
Has killed maven, uber elder and other bosses with 3x hp
Has killed new bosses with 3x hp.
Has cleared wave 30 simul, can afk to wave 25.
Can tank wave 27-28-29-30 double bosses in simulacrum.
Cleared toughest feared encounters I thrown at her.


Since this was also a widely asked question I would like to pin this comment here with the version of the build without mageblood and uber bosses viable version:

Up to first lab:

Up to 2nd lab:

Up to 3rd lab:

4th lab and maybe 90 ish levels:

Solid build for sure :) take it from me that is running a bleak copy of him :) standing in Delerius, double beyond stuff in t15-16 and fighting my way through currently at lvl 91. Currently sitting on 3610HP and 1935 ES.
still on a +1 wand :) and no bottled faith :)
No helm enchant yet still going extremely strong :)

You really wrote a guide for skele mages... Naaah u didnt, it´s not like there are like 30 guides for it already :D

"

Vennto escreveu:

You really wrote a guide for skele mages... Naaah u didnt, it´s not like there are like 30 guides for it already :D

Not as good as mine ^^
I get 5 questions a day on my build since I am high ranked and do boss services regularly. So this is a thread where I can point them.

Hi MrsDeath_!

I love your build, but I have questions.

Why a wall of flames?

Hum, you have an error in POB, generosity is linked with détermination, i can watch 12k armour and not 43k ;)

"

Sho0oryuken escreveu:

Hi MrsDeath_!

I love your build, but I have questions.

Why a wall of flames?

Hum, you have an error in POB, generosity is linked with détermination, i can watch 12k armour and not 43k ;)

I don't use pob so i dk about that. I don't recommend it cuz all the numbers are wrong there. Dont use that program just copy the poe ninja

Wall of flames adds flat dmg to our skellies and makes rainbow colors with trancendence wall of flames skin. It makes our skellies shoot rainbows out of bosses. Pretty fun ^^

lool, but it's same on poe.ninja :D


ty for explanation, i'll try your version, without the second cluster jewel...

"

Sho0oryuken escreveu:

lool, but it's same on poe.ninja :D


ty for explanation, i'll try your version, without the second cluster jewel...

I have 2x 2 links in my boots so they are not linked ^^ You might have misseen it or something. I think second cluster is a waste. We already have enough dmg to destroy everything.

Sorry, but no, i dont have enougth damage for simulacrum 30...
Well I don't have your stuff either :D

Hello,

Great guide and a different take from what i am doing but this seems solid too.

Your amulet is crazy good but i wanted to know, would you be able to use Ashes of the stars instead - Yes you loose the 1 Skeleton true but all your other gems get buffed a lot.

Of course this will be a stepping stone to your current amulet.

Otherwise this build seems easy enough to build up to currency wise. There are some nice guides on how to craft the wand etc.

From what i have seen the double corruptions are nice but not needed. This build is crazy good.

Thanks for the guide!!!