[Major Damage/Mapping Improvements-Update 7.1.22 PoB/Vid] The Fortified Summoner: HoP MI Champion

For those interested or who have tried this build in the past, take a look because it's changed for the better quite significantly. This build has historically had two major weaknesses, both of which have been addressed in this update.

1. Low damage on normal/rare packs, as you have no way of spawning HoP sentinels. This has now been fixed with these gloves:

vastly increasing Sentinel spawn rates while mapping, as well as on-demand sentinels with this flask

Huge mapping improvement.

2. Ever since the mana changes a couple patches ago, the only way to sustain zombie CwC spawns was to use a gemini claw, which only worked if you were hitting things. This limited the on-demand regen from zombie explosions, and locked you in to using claws.

This limitation has been solved with the combination of Divine Flesh and Eldrtich Battery notables, which let you use your ES regen as mana. We can now sustain skelly CwC spawns indefinitely, which completely smoots out gameplay and lets us use daggers/scepters for the tasty +1 physical/spell skill gem mods, which is a massive damage increase as well, and really adds to the growth potential of the build end-game.

Here is my (only semi-optimized gear..the helmet, neck, and dagger are all merely ok) current PoB for consideration. Where the PoB below and the rest of the guide disagree, this PoB takes precedence.

https://pastebin.com/Nb322D4D


New videos to show mana/mapping

T16 Fungal Hollow
https://youtu.be/FCKNwhQJYBE

T16 Palace
https://youtu.be/3TQd3DuhGx0

Minion Instability - a Keystone in the upper-left hand corner of the map; this is the talent around which the entire build is based. In a nutshell, any minion reduced to low life will explode for fire damage equal to 33% of their max life! Pair this with the support Infernal Legion, and the high base health of Sentinels of Purity, and we can deal upwards of 600k for every MI hit.
The number of summoned sentinels increases proportionally with our attack speed. This makes faster attack support an absolute must-have for cyclone, and makes increased attack speed on your claw extremely valuable.

NOTE: if you over-cap on summoned Sentinels, the oldest one will be refreshed in both health and duration! This is the worst possible thing that can happen to us as a refreshed minion is a minion that is not exploding, and thus maximizing our sentinel spawn rate while avoiding capping out is one of the main goals of this build.


Elemental Equilibrium – This was nerfed recently, but even so represents one of the biggest single buffs we can get for our MI damage. Basically, we use either lightning or cold damage (added through weapon/gloves/ring) to apply a strong fire exposure of -25%. Critically, playing a Champion puts this keystone in easy reach, unlike most summoner builds that use the witch class.


Worthy Foe - a free 20% damage taken increase straight out of the Champion Ascendancy, and one of the main reasons to pick Champion (outside of Fortify of course).


Necromantic Aegis – Keystone that lets us apply all stats from our shield to our minions. We use this in conjunction with Maligaro’s Lens to lower minion resistances to the point that we can get reliable HoP MI detonations, as well as enjoy the constant regen from said detonations. Huge boost to both our damage as well as our bossing survivability.


Enduring Composure – Cluster jewel notable that gives us an endurance charge ever second if we have been hit. This, along with Doedre’s Elixir (which also counts as a hit) gives us permanent 4 EC which in combination with ~30k armour, gives us great physical damage reduction.


Cluster Jewel passives—Not required for the budget build, but pretty much necessary for the more endgame versions of this build. Cluster jewels provide a good chunk of damage, and just as importantly a huge chunk of ele/chaos resists if you buy good ones, and enable us to boost our max chaos res to 87% which synergizes well with the Divine Flesh keystone we run. If you use the recommended endgame gear, you pretty much must use cluster jewels to get your resists where they need to be. Look for +Elemental Resistance rolls on pretty much all your cluster jewels.

Claws - In addition to having good attack speed, claws provide us with a very nice boost to our regen by life gain on hit, and since the mana changes to CwDT are pretty much required for this build for the mana gain on hit of the gemini claw.

Putting it all together, let’s see what happens when we press the Cyclone button. Cyclone:

-Procs Sentinels of Purity, whose explosive deaths are the main damage source of this build
-Spawns Skeletons, whose explosive deaths are the other main source of damage
-Procs Elemental Equilibrium on hit for a sweet -25% enemy fire resistance, exploited by above-mentioned explosive sentinels
-Taunts on hit for +20% damage taken, and cannot evade attacks (Worthy Foe)
-Applies curse on hit, if you have it on your ring
-Gives us a good chunk of regen from claw implicit, which scales to god-tier regen when moving through large packs, and mana as well.


All while remaining fully mobile, with maintenance skills being Convocation and whichever flasks you use for utility (I generally run fire/lighning flasks, one life flask, taste of hate, and Doedre’s Elixir to get the ball rolling for our endurance charges.

There is a fair bit going on here so I will break down our skill links sources point by point, as well as explaining the role they play in the overall build.

Primary Support Links

This build can run multiple iterations of support links successfully. If using less than the full 6 links for a support, simply socket in according to the order listed.

6 to 7 Link Herald of Purity (Helmet)

Links:
Herald of Purity - Minion Life - Concentrated Effect - Infernal Legion - Combustion - Predator

If you are thinking that this is a strange list of supports for Herald of Purity well, you aren’t wrong. Unlike most builds using HoP, we are exclusively use them for their MI detonation. In good gear each Sentinel will have over 150k health, and total health recovery from detonations will be around 2.5k/sec, single target. Add in Zombie detonation for another 2k and you recover your entire life pool every second, in a way that cannot be shut down like life leach and life regen. This setup is only possible because of the unique shield Maligaro’s Lens + Necomantic Aegis keystone, and will be discussed further in the Mechanics section.

Note: this link is best socketed into an Elder helmet with Minion Life+Concentrated effect support, at minimum. You can generally find one for 10-20c if you aren’t picky about life/resistance rolls. +2 or +3 to level of Minion Gems is an acceptable substitute for one of the supports if you are on a budget, and is a great 3rd prefix as it does not increase reservation of HoP. If you can’t find one for cheap, it is relatively easy to fossil craft with bound fossils if you so desire. Alternatively, you can essence craft +30% elemental damage along with minion life and +2/3 to minion gems, which keeps a prefix open for life, and reduces the reservation of HoP.

Endgame helmet would be bone helmet with minion life/conc effect/+3/Hypothermia, with Skitterbots for the chill, but this is only achievable by running Aul’s Uprising so expect to dish out ~20ex for those two items. Expensive, but about double the damage of what you can achieve otherwise. Our helmet is probably the most important items we have, and also present the most opportunity to scale damage.


6-Link Zombies (Chest)

Links:
Raise Zombie - Cyclone - Cast while Channeling - Infernal Legion - Minion Life - Fire Penetration

Our secondary damage source, and our only way to do damage when there are no rares/uniques around, comes from Minion Instability (exploding) Zombies. Not only do they do the brunt of the damage when mapping, but they also provide substantial, consistent life recovery through our shield. Cast while Channeling linked to Cyclone gives us our constant zombie generation.


Secondary Support Links:

These links provide utility, defense, and support to our main damage dealers.

Below are the recommended items for each gear slot, as well as budget/luxury alternatives when applicable.

Neck:



I try to aim for 45% or higher reservation efficiency, but you can get away with lower. This neck is important to let us run Determination+HoP with all the needed links. Aul’s Uprising is no longer a required item for this build, but will let you run skitterbots and so can be considered a luxury upgrade.

Budget Alternative: Rare ammy with life/resists. You will be very limited with your HoP supports if you go this route.

Shield:



Maligaro’s Lens is one absolutely required unique for this build, and fortunately it is also readily available and dirt cheap. Be picky and look for maxed attack speed and life rolls! The -%Elemental Resistance is key to getting consistent HoP detonations, while the % heal on death combos with Necromantic Aegis to turn our minion’s timely demise into massive sustained regen for us (as long as we are within proximity of the detonation; good thing we are a melee summoner!)

Budget/Luxury alternatives: Lvl 25 Determination implicit

Helmet:



While not technically a required item, a helm with minion life and concentrated effect supports as shown below can be found for quite cheap and acts as a pseudo 6-link for HoP. Very highly recommended if you want to do good damage. Other stats to look for are a good life roll, resists, and an open suffix for resist crafting,

Budget alternatives: Any rare helm. If you can’t find/afford both minion life and damage supports, you can get by with just minion life and “+x lvl to minion gems” prefix, but this should be a very high priority to upgrade.

Luxury Upgrade: Minion life/conc effect helmet along with some combination of +30% elemental damage essence craft, +3 to minion gems, and Hypothermia (only if you have Aul’s and can run skitterbots). Bonus points if you can get it on a bone helmet. This is probably the most important item we have, and presents the most opportunity to scale damage.

Weapons:



Gemini claws provide a nice additional regen, and the mana on hit makes the skeleton mana cost feasible . Preferred mods: Cold or Lightning damage to attacks (if you don’t have it somewhere else), and increased attack speed (preferably 1.85 aps or better). Ideally you then multi-craft on Minion Life/Damage benchcraft (don’t skip this step; it’s a huge chunk of added damage)

Budget option: None

Rings:



Circle of Guilt: Mandatory roll is Mana Reservation, and I prefer the second roll to be Sentinel Damage. These have come down in price significantly over the last few leagues, so you should have no trouble finding good options.

Chest:



Skin of the Lords provides a nice chunk of extra damage from our skeletons, saves us a bunch of points pathing up to Minion Instability, and is usually quite cheap vs other 6-linked options. Overall it is recommended if you can find one with the right socket colors.

Budget Alternative: Any rare chest, with as many links as you can afford. look for life, lots of armor (1k+, preferably 1.5k or higher), and resists.

Gloves



This slot is where you cram in as much life, ele, and chaos resists as possible. Bonus points for leaving an open prefix to craft on minion damage. Also consider getting cold/lightning damage to attacks here, so you don’t need it on your claw.

Belt



My preferred belt is a Stygian Vise. Basically just find one with the best combination of armor, resists, and life you can afford. Preferred catalysts are prismatic if you need extra resists, else use fertile.

Boots



The movement speed on these boots is night and day vs even a max 35% speed roll rare boots, and in my opinion is completely worth giving up the armor and resists in this slot.

Alternative: any rare armor-based boots with life, resists, and movespeed, but just get The Stampeed instead. Bonus You also get a second anoint with The Stampede, which lets you anoint blind on hit.

Jewels:



Ghastly eye jewels are amazing. They are wonderful. Get them and love them; ideally with all the following rolls: “+xx to Maximum Life”, “Minions have xx% Increased Maximum Life”, and “Minions deal xx% Additional Damage if You’ve Used a Minion Skill Recently”. Look for as close to maxed rolls as possible.



Watcher’s Eye is a fantastic jewel, and required for getting to the %physical damage reduction needed for smooth play at high levels. Required mod is “+x% Additional Physical Damage Reduction while Affected by Determination”, and ideally the second mod will be “+xxx to Armor while Affected by Determination” (although those are quite expensive).

AG Gear

AG is an alternative to the holy relic 4-link, that we use to provide the equivalent of Jugg passive Unstoppable, as well as effective crit immunity through Garb of the Ephemeral. Full AG list: this will elemental and chaos cap, even with the lowering of resistance from Maligaro's Lense as well as provide great regen from Mask of the Stitched Demon + Grave Intentions.

Weapon 1: Aurumvorax
Weapon 2: Springleaf
Helmet: Mask of the Stitched Demon
Armour: Garb of the Ephemeral
Boots: Kaom's Roots
Gloves: any rare with 35% chaos res+15% chaos hybrid craft to cap.


Those are the key gear considerations. For everything else, we want to grab as much health, resists, and ARMOUR as we can get our hands on.

1. Life target:
4k for endgame content. You can get away with less, especially as leveling and in earlier maps, but I find 4k a good target for more difficult content


2. Physical Damage Reduction target:
75-85% sitting in hideout with Determination on.


3. Resistances Target: Res cap at minimum, ideally as high as you can get them to minimize Elemental Weakness map mod


4. Chaos Resistances Target: We run Divine Flesh so we need to get to 87% Chaos resistance. Much of that is gotten through the tree, and the rest through cluster jewels and gear.


5. Rotational Skills: While playing, we are channeling Cyclone while using Convocation on cd. Just hold them both down constantly; you won’t run out of mana using covocation on cd.


7. Cluster Jewels: Cluster jewels provide a good chunk of damage, and just as importantly a huge chunk of ele/chaos resists if you buy good ones. If you use the recommended endgame gear, you pretty much must use cluster jewels to get your resists where they need to be. Look for +Elemental Resistance rolls on pretty much all your cluster jewels.

3.17 Videos (more to come):

Chimera Map:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXU20X4Wats


3.14 and older videos

Note: All links are created using the community PoB fork.

Baseline Build – This version of the build uses an increased Determination reservation efficiency ammy in place of Aul’s Uprising, and as a result does not use skitterbots or hypothermia in the helmet. I consider this the “baseline” build, since it is a fraction of the cost of the build using those items.

https://pastebin.com/6Lup3RM2


End Game Build - As you can guess, this build adds in those items missing above. Damage goes up by ~1.5x.

https://pastebin.com/NmiyRz9w


Note: Average damage can be calculated in PoB by the following formula: (HoP Damage)*(Cyclone hits per sec)*0.2 + (Ignite dps) + (Zombie Damage/.35).


Old/Outdated versions of this build

I used to recommend Dominating Blow while leveling, but with the tree changes over the past couple leagues, there honestly isn’t much overlap between the Dom Blow leveling tree and the endgame tree, so use whatever you want as leveling, and do a re-spec when ready.

Note: The build is functional much earlier than it used to be thanks to the new tree pathings. By level 45 we have all the keystones and required gear available to us, so you can potentially swap over to this build as early as that. Here is what I would call the “minimally viable build” for leveling, prior to picking up Divine Flesh:

https://pastebin.com/Qsrv3fFq

Here is the final PoB, sorted by priority according to essential, core, and optional skills. Note the pathing in the middle is changed to accommodate a glorious vanity socket. It's worth looking through a few different gems to make sure the notable Sanctity that we path through is transformed in to something useful, like Hierarchy.

3/15/22 Mid League Update The guide is now updated to 3.17!

Major 3.17 Changes:
1. Transcendence dropped, Divine Flesh added as major ele damage reduction mechanism
2. Chaos resistance bumped to 87% currently to maximize value from Divine Flesh, and trivialize poison mechanics
3. Enduring Cry dropped! No more buff maintenance
4. Zombies dropped, Skeletons added (Zombies not sustainable post-mana nerfs on CwDT)

For an idea of how the revised build performs under typical mapping conditions, here is a quick Chimera map with breaches/ritual etc for your consideration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXU20X4Wats

3.17 Initial Update: After a 3-season leave, I have a bit of time and wanted to see how the build has faired with all the changes, so I updated the talent tree, tossed together some gear I had over in standard, and ran a quick T16.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByevVsYwxUU


Aaand, because I'm having fun, here's a bonus T16 Eradicator encounter+mapping ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaKN-6QI-TE

I've spent a day or two playing around with the new tree, and with the mana cost changes on cwc, I ended up swapping to skeletons instead of zombies for my mapping clear, along with a claw for mana gain on hit. I likely will be able to make some additional optimizations as I play around with pathing, but I am happy with what I have here, especially considering how many keystones were moved around between 3.14 and now.

Running skellies has the side effect of freeing up the hands to be non-unique, making getting res capped much easier. A full update to the guide will be coming soon, but for now enjoy and take a look at the PoB if you are interested!


3.15 League Start Update (note: this was before some nerfs were reverted and so is out of date)

3.14 Mid League Update

3.13 saw the introduction of the warcry variant of this build, which ended up being my go-to choice for most of the league. Big shout-out to Bryanking; his work with an EC-necro version of this build is what got me started the idea!

Because of us being easily able to achieve high physical damage reduction from EC alone, Transcendence is able to be used to smooth out elemental damage instead of running the purity auras, which frees up our mana for other things. In summary, the warcry version has double to triple the damage of the traditional build, while having superior elemental damage mitigation and comparable physical mitigation, but is also somewhat weaker vs elemental dot effects as these bypass Transcendence. I think the tradeoff is well worth it but I am leaving both versions in this guide as they are both viable, and the traditional build is less maintenance heavy with not needing to hold down Enduring Cry constantly.

3.12 was a big league for this build in that it transitioned away from HoA and in to MI-Zombies as the mapping damage source. This league, double-Determination watcher’s eyes have become ridiculously expensive, if you can find them at all. Without the extra armor from watcher’s eye we really needed to run an armor chestpiece, which meant The Coming Calamity was out.

While I am sad to see HoA go, it was definitely the right move as we now can squeeze in several important auras into the build, boosting either damage or defense in ways not previously possible. Skitterbots, Aspect of the spider, Flesh and Stone, Purity of Ice/Lightning are all on the table now, and getting life/armor from our chestpiece really helps our survivability.

3.11 saw further refinements to this build; most notably in adapting to the quite dramatic nerfs to a couple key cluster jewels used in 3.10. I am quite happy with the results; overall the build is easier to optimize, and removing cluster jewel dependency is great for the budget-conscious player as well vs the 3.10 version.