[2.1] Midnight Bargin - Triple Generositied Damage Auras - Low Life Summoner
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I've been wanting to share at least one of my minion builds and in light of the upcoming changes in the beta I might as well do it now. I've done extensive testing of many minion builds and the one I am going to show now is without a doubt the largest asset to any party. First I will show you my current setup for the build and then as a side note I'll add at the end what I plan to do with my gems and links when The Awakening comes to the live server.
Skill Points What you want to get asap: https://goo.gl/mST1lj With this you'll likely need to pick up the strength and dexterity nodes early on and hold onto them for quite a while until you can get gear to compensate for them. When leveling I personally would make a b-line straight for the first minion life regeneration node on the templar side of the tree. It's a long trek but you'll likely be leveling with firestorm and flame totem and won't focus too much on summoning zombies that have zero regeneration and next to no health. If you insist on actually using summons early on make sure to pick up a Matua Tapuna and Bones of Ullr. If you can four socket and link the boots you're already set for end game cursing. Putting your zombies in the Matua makes them somewhat more useful even if they still have no regeneration they hit very hard even early on. Two blue and one red is optimal for leveling in my opinion. Zombie - Chaos Golem - Animate Guardian is the best minion setup for leveling early on. You'll want all blue in order to hook your Firestorm up to Curse on Hit - Elemental Weakness - Conductivity What you're shooting for end game: https://goo.gl/iiSgh6 To be honest you likely won't be able to get rid of all the crutch nodes that give strength and dexterity so just try to find the best amulet that gives you as much of both and get rid of them when able. Getting a Prism Guardian with max dexterity also helps a bunch. End Game Gear Gear Explanations
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Unique priority list goes as follows: Solaris Lorica 6s 4L'ed, Prism Guardian, Midnight Bargain, and The Vertex as the last pickup.
Helmet: I personally like The Vertex unique because when using an empower in it the helmet functions nearly identically to a +2 Minion Gems helmet. You really can't beat the price point on it either, at around 300 energy shield with a healthy amount of chaos resistance you'd be hard pressed to find a similar pure energy shield helmet with +2 to minion gems at under 5+ exalted. Another option is Geofri's Crest until you can manage Vertex's price tag. Chest: Solaris Lorica or Shavronne's Wrappings are required for this build to work. You will have almost all of your life reserved with the gem setup that I have chosen for this build and you will die without one of them. Upgrade to Shavs if you can afford it but it's not required, you just won't be able to use Bones of Ullr safely until you do. Gloves: Pretty much get as much energy shield and resistances on this slot, if you have a spare prefix you can also add 10-15% additional minion life/damage at the Catarina crafting bench. This and the boots slot without a Shavronnes will be likely the most expensive part of the build. Boots: Since I do not have a Shavronne's Wrappings I have to make due with the best energy shield boots possible. High energy shield boots are generally very expensive and if they have movement speed on them too with solid resists they are likely out of most players price range. If you can ever upgrade to a Shavronne's you can switch to Bones of Ullr for a damage increase so long as your resistances can handle the switch. Belt: I recommend going for as high ES as you can get on your belt, resistances are also very nice to have extra of and if you can get chaos resistance too then you're pretty much set. Heavy Belts are of particular note because they can save you a 30+ Strength node on the tree. Main Hand: I really like the Midnight Bargain for this setup and it's originally the item that I made this build around. Getting high minion damage on this weapon is the top priority second is high intelligence so you can scale up your energy shield as high as possible. Minion Movement Speed is not really that important, it synergies well with your Zombies but I personally don't rank it very high on the priority list. Make sure to shop around for this item on poe.trade, I bought mine for a single exalted and I only spent 20 minutes looking. Off Hand: Prim Guardian, not much to say about it other than it's what you use up your spare life with and can use it and the auras you put into it immediately after you have equipped your Shavs or Lorica and have all the mana reservation nodes. Getting high dexterity on this item is a good idea so you don't need to invest as many points on the skill tree. Amulet: For This item you'll want to try and get as much strength and dexterity as possible so you only need to skill the bare minimum on the skill tree. You can also shoot for the 22% increased maximum energy shield and I encourage this because you'll need all that you can get. On this item I would prioritize resistances last since you can pick up whatever you don't have on your rings. Rings: There is really only one type of ring that I can recommend getting for a traditional summoner and that is the unset ring. There is no end as to what you can do to your links for gem setups, and the only way to maximize your minion's dps and viability in party play is to have as much space as possible. This is so you can shift gems around and unset rings allow this better than any other ring. Basically what you want to do here is try and get some very solid resistance rings that have an open prefix to craft energy shield on. Unset resist rings are sold for chaos and I highly recommend you look around for solid ones at low prices. Jewels Look for minion mods on gems in this order: Damage/Resist/Life/Block. Personally I'd rather have something better than minion block as the 4th affix but it's really whatever you want to do. I highly recommend getting jewels last because it takes a significant investment to get the correct ones for the build. When you do get good enough jewels you can actually skill out of a fair few of minion life nodes too. Flasks Flask Explanations
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These are just personally what I use with a pure non leech energy shield build. Bleed is the most important thing to remove so you are required to get a flask that counters it. Burning is a nuisance and is helpful to remove so you can be at 100% es when the next hit comes in. Anti-Curse Granite is one of my personal favorites because it tanks you up and removes any non map rolled curses that could get you instantly killed by spells or high physical damage. A double move speed with additional charges quicksilver is pretty much required since you want to make the most out of your gem sockets and will not have space for a movement gem. Lastly a freeze potion is very helpful because you will have near no health and will be frozen and chilled very often if you're not positioned correctly and as such it is required for some fights like Merveil or just to help you move through chilled ground.
Gem Setup
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Helmet: Zombie - Animate Guardian - Empower - Fortify
You'll want this setup to make your front line as tanky as possible and able to make use of the ludicrous damage you're giving them with three damage auras. Only change I can recommend is switching out Fortify for Melee Splash to clear maps faster. Make sure your Animated Guardian in here so he is even less likely to die. Chest: Enlighten - Generosity - Wrath - Anger - Hatred - Flesh Offering You can do this gem setup in a four link as long as you drop the generosity but I highly recommend working towards a five link so you can give the best possible buffs to your minions and your party. The flesh offering is in there because it is the most expensive of the minion utility gems and if you ever get a six link it is the most ideal to put in linked with Enlighten. As a side note you need your Enlighten at level 3 to be able to use all of your active skills during combat. Corrupted level 4 makes your life easier on low and no regeneration maps. Spectre 4L: Spectre - Echo - Minion Damage - Chain Currently the best spectre to use right now is Revenant and on 4 gem slots this is the best you can do to augment their damage. Their damage is by far a better utility than even evangelist bubbles, only downside is they can't shoot up stairs so position accordingly. Cursing 4L: Firestorm - Curse on Hit - Elemental Weakness - Conductivity Not too much to say about this link other than this is the best setup for shocking things with your Revenants. I like firestorm for it's duration based AoE to curse things but can get dicy on some thorns monsters so choose whichever fire spell you feel works best for you. Main Hand 3S: Vaal Haste/Skeletons - Vaal Discipline - Chaos Golem Vaal Haste and Vaal Discipline are by far the best two Vaal gems for this build and as such you should use them. Chaos Golem is optional, I like it because it's +1 minion and you get some sweet physical defense on top of your outstanding dodge chance. The other option is to use a 20/20 increased duration to have better uptime on the Vaal skills. Vaal Skeletons is good though not the best in parties, solo it is better for killing tricky bosses though. Off Hand 3L: Discipline - Haste - Purity of Elements These are your leftover auras that aren't dedicated solely to the party and your minions. You actually will benefit from these and I left them without being linked up to a generosity on purpose. The Purity of Elements helps you and your minions with resistances, honestly the player won't likely need the extra 27 all resist while already using a Prism Guardian but it helps against elemental weakness maps and mobs that can curse you with the specific elemental variants in the map too. Dicipline is obviously to boost your energy shield to acceptable levels, don't forget to skill into the aura effectiveness and increased effect of buffs nodes either as they are very important to high levels of energy shield near the end of skilling. Haste is helpful for moving around without movement speed on your boots. You could put haste on generosity somewhere but I personally feel that it benefits the player more to utilize the buffs of the aura for their self too rather than have slower casting and movement speed. 1S Rings: Convocation // Desecrate This is where you put your gems that don't fit anywhere else. Convocation takes very little mana to use and as such doesn't need to take up a slot in the chest. Desecrate is there also because of the same reason. SPECIAL NOTE For the Animate Guardian skill gem in your helmet you'll want to put at the very least the Leer Cast and Dying Breath uniques on him for a total of 33% increased damage aura for all your minions and party members. I also highly recommend the chest piece for a chance at consecrated ground which is also helpful. The rest of his gear (gloves and boots) should be high tri resist yellows with or without life depending on your budget. Gloves with attack speed and boots with move speed are of course good for the guardian too. Though only get movespeed boots if you plan on using more melee centric spectres otherwise they'll always be out of range for his auras. Stats
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Current End Game Gear
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F.A.Q.
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Why go for the Void Barrier nodes rather than getting all the energy shield at the scion wheel?
I personally go for them because it helps with having the quickest energy shield recharge after taking damage and the evasion with Vertex is perfect. You could potentially grab the es nodes from the scion wheel and unskill out of them later when you have enough to go straight for the Shadow es/ev nodes. Final Thoughts 1.3
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I've really enjoyed playing this build and the compliments about how much extra dps I provide to people in maps, I don't do the most damage in a group but I don't have to when I bring so much utility and support to help carry any party. I think almost anyone could do this build, you'll just have to work towards each expensive piece as you get the currency to buy them. A 5L might be daunting but it's not a problem anymore with Elreon to Vorichi alteration conversion to fusings. Just put enough time in mapping to find yellow items for selling and anyone can get a 5L now and it's awesome. I personally used summoning gems very early on because I got lucky and found a quality SRS gem in mud flats and just soldiered through the process of leveling with low life zombies. When leveling you just try your best to find high life and energy shield items with some resists, purity of elements will carry you further than a build without it while leveling and gearing for maps. Priority gems while leveling would be hatred and purity of elements at the very least, hook up additional auras when you can start going low life.
Final Thoughts 2.0
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In all honesty this build is no longer a powerhouse of damage without getting a Shaveronnes Wrappings and the 4th spectre from Bones of Ullr. Summon Raging Spirits only get 70% of our auras now which is just another nail into our solo viability coffin. Also the combination of curses getting crazy buffs and the switch to pure elemental damage spectres the damage from a 4L non curse supported spectre is lackluster when compared to a curse specializing summoner. Switching out of the mana regeneration nodes and using Firestorm linked with Elemental Weakeness/Conductivity is likely the best form of this build even more so now. By no means is this build bad when compared to most other end game builds it's just worse than easier built hybrid builds at the moment and will remain so until curses are nerfed.
Final Thoughts 2.1
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Cursing for Revenants is the only way to do this build now in my opinion. The change to SRS is nice for low end builds and having a bunch of skulls out but awful for actually clearing high maps and surviving. I changed as much of the build that I could spot to reflect it being a curse build now and it's sad to see my SRS build finally die.
Last edited by Shadoman55 on Jan 18, 2016, 3:36:37 PM
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Really nice build. I really enjoy playing summoner as well, however, I find it a bit problematic when using too many minions, it quite hurts anyone (me or in a party) who doesn't have a really good computer/connection. I prefer mon'tregul's for that reason.
I would like to point out, thet in yout end game passive tree, you could get a more effective rout throught the rest of the evasion/es nodes and quickness notable instead through harrer. The only thing you lose is 10 dex, 1% mov. speed and some cast speed, but instead you get an extra 16% evasion rating and 10% es. In the end it really is up to anyone for personalisation, but I think the defences are well worth it. Tree with changes:
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http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMA34rpAv6zS65XKxslvYLZW20ZfRgRUOyKa9s1uacrHU8tH5UgwfOio1yKf8YRlhzcwcUOSJMnyT3sGIhCXfK0DL-XcLsd2bb3RnHqurJw8h7ZE0NUKwrhiA18YpUvb_RxES8dqlfJKlMo-uvugsebtbiTmuD56NP7DH0i6hmKpwgy0UWdqH0TbBB_6Nb7CY9G2QtFR1NSWpHGnud09todFJuhKpiIQGqs2xoaj_rS99f6gKasEHsXL8y8hEiQM746ZOcksEQEqsRca1XWQqMQl4Vgw22ApE2562OZmrVIbWw=
Also worth noting, is that there have been some changes to auras in the beta (not sure exactly, but I do believe discipline got reduced to 40% from 60%). This might mess up your lowlife setup (it sure has mine). Again, great post, nice build, hope you have fun with it until 2.0 and I hope you manage to find effective ways to run it post 2.0. |
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Greate set-up, can u post some video pls?
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" I really like your suggestion and I will change the build, after I've played the awakening for a few days I'll probably update this guide. Right now though you'll need a corrupted level 4 enlighten to keep the same amount of mana reserves but you can make do with a level 3 one I believe. Also for sure go with vaal haste and discipline in the wand, I can out clear mjolnir builds with the damage. |
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pretty ok build i guess. It would be much better to swap out minion life for something else though, youre running basically no defensive auras to scale with minion health so your zombies are nearly glass cannon anyway, might as well squeeze more dps out of them.
wrath and anger are pretty blegh auras for summoners tbh. Summons don't need damage, far from it. You cant run EE without gimping your summons because they do rainbow damage and wrath and anger dont benefit them much anyway. If you want to just be a support aurabot in parties it would be much better to just slot in vitality/grace/purities. 99% of people are going to be running new wrath/anger in any sort of dps build anyway so you really arent helping anyone much even with generosity ( which is a wasted slot imo) having 6L specters or 6L SRS would be far more damage than running anger+wrath Also the point about needing enlighten is false Thats 8 auras with only the 34% reduction from the tree and conquer's efficiency. You could even swap some around for tripple purity. You can even slot clarity into the second if you really wanted to with a blood magic gem, I probably won't. Last edited by boogboi on Jul 9, 2015, 11:47:12 PM
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" You obviously didn't even finish reading my first stated paragraph, I don't run all of these auras for just myself or my minions. Wrath and anger are what augment my damage heavily anyway or did you not even look at what my active skill is? Please actually look through the original post and give some thought towards why I built my character this way because it certainly wasn't made for defense. |
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" ohhh the ironyyyy. Im aware that youre running them for party support. If you were able to read i had said that most people will be running wrath/anger anyway and so running them at all, even with generosity is a waste and inefficient. pubs wont want them, summons dont need them, and neither do you. Why run them? If you want to be an aura bot party support char then go full aura bot, or at least run auras that most people wont be using. Secondly nowhere did i say (nor do i care) if your build was made for "defense/offence" or not, i was offering my suggestion/ giving some constructive criticism for your build. No need to be so butt hurt. Summons currently have one problem and that is certainly not damage. Even post 2.0 zombies and squishy specters especially are going to be prone to dying to sustained high magic damage. So let me ask you this, Where is your "offence" when all of your summons are dead? Last edited by boogboi on Jul 10, 2015, 12:31:56 PM
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" So you tell me to drop my "common" damage auras and switch them out for EXTREMELY COMMON DEFENSIVE AURAS. I think you're the one that is being ironic. Your criticism is hardly constructive when it says your build is meh switch it to something that it is entirely not. You aren't realizing that 3 damage auras on vaal hasted even 4 linked SRS is a shit ton of damage either. Not even to mention that if you think 40% better auras is not worth it I really don't know how I can help you. Since you actually think that zombies are "glass" I doubt you have even played in the beta and I recommend you roll a soon to be flavor of the month hybrid minion build by AngryAA or Liftingnerdbro. |
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Updated for 2.0, if you see anything unchanged from 1.3 feel free to let me know!
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Hi Shadowman,
I'm digging your approach to this build. One thing I've noticed is you could take harrier down to charisma and remove the points up to quickness. 1% more move speed, and some cast speed with no extra point expenditures. You would lose 10 dexterity for this however, so I suspect this may be the reason why you've chosen to go this route. Hope this helps others who may not need the dexterity. Last edited by FullBeans on Jul 20, 2015, 3:52:35 PM
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