"YAHoAg" Champ. Yet Another Herald of Agony (budget or high-end, can be run as a league starter)

You want an elder +3 minion helm ideally, with Level 20 minion life built in. Get as much life/resists on it as you can. If you can't afford that settle for just +3 to minion gems (can be any normal i86 helmet if you want to craft one yourself; alt spam, regal, ???, profit!) and sacrifice zombies in favor of giving your Animate guardian maim, minion life, and multistrike. If he feels squishy, drop maim for minion and totem elemental resistances. In my path of building I have a +2 minion gem helm with lvl 20 minion life. Note that quality on the helmet doesn't give you quality on the minion life. I go into some more details on the helmet in the utility minion section.

Grip of the Council, with word/edict of spite (creates chilled ground) or word/edict of light (consecrated ground when you take a crit) Grip of the council is a mini-hatred, but it has the drawback of slowing your crawler down. Your choice. Shaper's Touch are also very good, providing some flat life, evasion, and a good bit of ES. They are the more defensive option. Both can be had on the cheap, for decent rolls.

Either windscream or Atziri's step are very good options here. You get life and evasion and some spell dodge. If you have trouble with your resistances (which you might if you can't find a nice amulet like the one I have in the pob). The budget version of this build counts on 2 curses for maximum shocking, so windscream boots are good if you can't get a +1 curse amulet. (high budget version of the build includes cospri's will, so the amulet isn't such a big deal)

+1 curse if you can get it. Otherwise just go for life/resists/stats

protip: sidhebreath, paua amulet can be had almost free so you can corrupt a bunch of them until you get +1 curse. Only important mod is the minion movement speed (and the cold res if you're needing that)

Quill rain is BIS for budget version, and enables us not to use the Golden Rule jewel. You might want that for the chaos resistance it gives you anyway! Your poisons are so weak with quill rain that you won't degen since we're regening a lot.

High budget version (i haven't finished this bow yet) uses something like:



I got very unlucky with the base. I had a grove bow in the synthesizer, and another faster bow, but i got the slow one out. Still, this bow is better than quill rain, but disallows the use of Hatred unless you can get the Herald of Agony 30% reduced reservation enchant (super expensive!)

This one is tough. I go with rearguard for the block and spell block. But just as useful and maybe more defensive could be Maloney's Mechanism with Decoy Totem (or holy flame totem if the taunt from the decoy totem doesn't count as yours. since holy flame totem will proc ee as if you're the one who did the hit, I hopethat the hit (which will count as yours, see EE mechanic) will also count as your taunt? I'm unsure about that) linked to multiple totems, then a flame dash or blink arrow by itself. Yes, this build is lacking a movement skill. That's the biggest weakness IMO. Maloney's isnt exactly budget, coming in at 45c right now in Synthesis for a crappy corrupted one with only 2 sockets.

Only budget option here is The Coming Calamity. Buy (or find, as I have dropped a couple in Synth league so far despite being a very casual player) a base with a high es roll, and link it yourself as you accumulate currency. The crawler does fine with a 5 link. if you have a 6th socket on a 5 link, put flame dash or blink arrow there. offcoloring will eat up a lot of jeweller's orbs on this chest.

Life and resists, maybe an unset for your movement skill. Craft for minion movement speed with essences if you can. The lower tiers are fine, and are cheap as chips when people are offering them. They're a little hard to come by sometimes.

Life/resists if you need them/stats if you need them/minion attack speed/chance to blind for you and/or minions

I put these in the helm for the + minion gems mod. Since you're a summoner, you gotta have a meat shield (zombies), and it would be remiss to go without some means of generating frenzy charges for your crawler. I am not going up to the spectre wheel (it only takes an extra point to do so if you drop the spiritual command wheel and Sovereignty, but then you might need to use the golden rule jewel to keep up your virulence stacks because you lose a bunch of attack speed) so instead of one frenzy ape, my answer is Raise Zombie and Animate Guardian in my +2 to minion gems helmet with built-in level 20 minion life. Evasion base is good. Armor/EV base might be better. ES base will be probably too expensive, and not give you enough ES to be worth it (unless you have mirrors to spend) since we're not getting any ES on the tree.

Links for this are RZ-AG-Multistrike-Maim

Because the gear for the animate guardian includes



It doesn't need to be Elder, but that was the cheapest highest-speed-tier foil I could find with the appropriate ilvl for the fossil craft for intimidate on hit and t1 attack speed. I mean, who's going to pick up jagged foils at ilvl 77 unless they're elder or shaper? I'm sure i could have farmed for it in 10 minutes if i made an adjustment to my item filter. I think I paid 2c for the base. Chaos spent is Time well not-spent. Jagged foils are perfect crafting bases for animate guardian, because I've got to have more life on my belt than the Belt of the Deceiver provides. Plus i don't want to be that close to the boss :P

I used the jagged (for good chance to get intimidate-on-hit) and serrated (for a good chance to get attack speed) fossils in 2-socket resonators until I got intimidate with a good tier of attack speed. It was pure luck that I got 5% chance to blind on hit at the same time as t1 attack speed and intimidate. I spent less than 20c on the crafting. so under 25c for a GG animate guardian weapon.

Why a high-speed foil? To proc intimidate (and blind, yay!), as well as to proc




to grant your Scorpion friend frenzy charges. Without them, he's a slow lil bugger.

The maim is mostly defensive.

Other key items for the animate Guardian are:

Southbound Soldier Gloves (provides up to 16% increased life)
Ambu's Charge Crusader Chainmail (provides Life regen, much needed since we don't have any minion regen on the tree)
Victario's Flight boots (provides movement speed for all nearby allies as well as the guardian himself)

And as icing on the cake, if you feel he's not too squishy, a fossil-crafted (metallic) helmet with life and resists and "Nearby enemies have -9% to Lightning resistance". This is why in my POB the shaper has -9% to lightning resistance. PoB doesn't handle those "nearby enemies have reduced resistances" mods yet. Otherwise a helm with +% life is bae (pristine fossil craft).

If you want more speed reduction on enemies, have your guardian use a singularity sceptre (hinders nearby enemies) along with his foil, and find a place to fit in a frenzy ape since your AG is no longer using Vic's Charity. you could possibly drop multistrike if you feel like the intimidate is proccing enough without it. But really, your crawler does need those frenzy charges.

I also have Stone Golem at level 20 in my boots. He gives about 15% additional life regen to our 6.5k or so life pool

The Agony Crawler moves slowly and hits slowly and hard. This is why I chose to do Lightning conversion instead of going for more more multipliers. Lightning penetration would be nice, but we have to balance somewhere.

Links are: Herald of Agony/Minion Damage/Damage on Full Life/Physical to Lightning/Vile Toxins/Elemental Damage with Attacks. This goes in the Coming Calamity, of course.

Rain of arrows/poison/knockback/curse on hit/proj weakness/conductivity (yes the PoB has this wrong but i don't want to spam their server). Drop knockback for a 5-link. This goes in your bow. If you can manage to get 3 curses (just a few more levels), get an elemental weakness corruption on your gloves. This will give you knockback. If you have a 6 link bow, add in blind.

CWDT/IC/Desecrate in the gloves(level of desecrate doesn't matter unless you're summoning spectres but if you are, keep your higher level one in your inventory. you want this to proc with CWDT)/Flesh Offering. Mind the levels and gem order. They will proc in the order socketed! Use the jewellers orb method to offcolor your gloves. If you don't know it, look up "vorici method offcolor" on Google.

Hatred/Generosity/Enlighten level 3 plus a stone golem. Not much to say about it. Goes in Boots.

We go with Champion, to access permanent fortify as well as ally damage buffs (taunted enemies can't evade attacks, and take 20% increased damage), though fortify the last node we take, in uber lab. I don't find the content before Level 75-80 to be so dangerous that I ever felt uncomfortable leveling up as a squishy necromancer.

The order is: Conqueror, Worthy Foe, Unstoppable Hero, Fortitude