3.1 - SRS - Super Slow Mo - Cheap (5C) (Perfect for new players, poor players, and endgame players)

WELCOME!

Do you like to laugh at enemies? Do you like to laugh at them because they are going so slow that you have the time to laugh at them? Do you like to make enemies so slow that you can run beside them and whisper mean things to them as they run towards your old position at an embarrassing slow speed? THEN THIS IS THE BUILD FOR YOU! If you don't like to make enemies feel poorly before you kill them then you should try this build so you learn to like to make enemies feel poorly before you kill them.

This guide is written with a focus on those new to Path of Exile. For those that aren't new, thanks for your patience with all the extra bits. I've tried to make this layout easy to skip to the important bits if you don't need the filler.

About the 'Author' / Why My Builds are the Way they Are
I deal with post concussion syndrome. Without getting all "doctor" on you, if I want to play a game for a good while and be able to function when I'm finished playing, I have to avoid many things in video games. Things that I try to avoid in POE builds are: really fast character movements, unpredictable movements by the character or enemies, lots of flashing lights, anything spontaneous or unpredictable on screen, required quick reactions (like movement), quick reactions to specific things (like seeing if I'm silenced, in a bear trap, frozen, bleeding, and then needing to do something quick and specific to deal with it)...and many more basic gaming things.

The reason that I write this part isn't so that you feel sorry for me. It's to explain why there are certain elements of my builds that are not maximized in a way that the general community would typically maximize their builds. So I look for build ideas that:
- Don't require much movement (or movement that I have to focus on providing).
- Don't have emphasis on lots of specific button presses at specific times (like flasks).
- Don't require aiming with the mouse (console POE I can handle better because of analog aiming instead of mouse clicking).
- I can look away from the screen for a bit, still deal damage, and survive (hopefully).

As limiting as that seems, this game provides endless character building options. Cast When Damage Taken, curses, skills that don't have to be aimed, life regen or dodge with Chaos Innoculation are all big helps.

So my build ideas (if you like them) are great for:
- New players.
- Players that don't like button mashing.
- Players that don't like having to move lots while fighting.
- Players that like attacking/casting with only one or two skills.
- Players that like a more laid back POE experience.
- Players with medical conditions (like epilepsy or those with with physical limitations that are restricted in how they use keyboards or mice (to name a couple)).
- Players that don't want to stress about finishing maps in record breaking time.
- Players that like the best builds ever made in the history of Path of Exile.
Patch 3.2
My 3.2 guide of this build is up https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2094165.

I'll add the passive and video demo once 3.2 is actually released. The skill tree is exactly the same except for the ascendancies. So you can get going right away.
Build Explanation
How Minions Work
Summon Raging Spirit (which I will refer to as SRS from now on) is our main skill and it is a minion skill. Any minion's damage only increases with items or passive tree nodes that specifically increase "minion damage". If a node on the tree or mod on an item doesn't specify minion damage, it won't be useful at all. So something that says, "Increases your damage by 30%" won't improve the damage your minions make. In this build your character will do no damage, only your minions will.

Minions are considered Allies though. So auras, nodes, or items that improve allies will benefit your minions.

SRS Attacks enemies, it doesn't not cast spells. So anything that improves minion/ally Attack Speed will help our build out, but not cast speed (that's for spells).

Lastly, minions are their own entity. Once you cast them into the world, they attack who they want.
You cannot control who they attack.
Slow Focus
This build uses all four aspects of "slowing" enemies in the game. POE doesn't use the term "slow"...but I will for your sake. These four methods of "slowing" can stack but can't slow an enemy down below it's base speed value. Each enemy has a different base value, so some enemies will be more affected by this build more obviously than others. But it will affect everyone.
There is no list of each enemy's base speed value. (It was confusing to learn about so I decided to stack all the ways to "slow" an enemy in the game to ensure they were going as "slow" as possible.)

Maim - Slows movement speed by 30%. Can only be attached to Attacks. Our SRS attacks.

Hinder - Slows movement speed. Our weapon Singularity will reduce movement speed by 25% to nearby enemies. Without our weapon, hinder can only added to spells. Singularity allows us to implement hinder into our build and still let us use the skills we want. You'll see a blue and white hue around the torso of the enemy if they are affected by Hinder.

Chill - Slows all actions (movement, cast/attack speed) up to 30%. It's based on the total Cold Damage done to the enemy. So the higher the cold damage the higher the "chill effect". (Arctic Armour has a flat 30% chill effect.) We are going to try and give SRS the highest cold damage possible.

Temporal Chains - Slows all actions (movement, cast/attack speed) up to 29%. We'll stop leveling our gem at level 5. So Temporal Chains won't be at its slowest, but it will be constantly cast, slowing enemies. (If we wanted Temporal Chains stronger then it would be cast lest often.)
Curses
Curses are Debuffs that you can put on an enemy. There are quite a few debuffs in the game, not all of them work with every build. I have chosen lots of debuffs for this build. More than most prefer ;-). I love curses. I have chosen curses in this build that make the enemy slower, weaker in damage, and that lower their elemental resists (they take extra elemental damage (which we'll deal lots of)).

By default in POE, every character you make can only apply one curse to per enemy. There is one node on the tree that increases this limit by one (we'll get it) and a few unique items in the game that we can equip that will increase our limit as well. We'll be using 5 curses in total. The amount of unique items we wear is for this reason alone. Rare items are typically better than uniques but we don't have any other options if we want 5 curses. We will be weaker, but so will the enemy.
We will be selecting a node on the tree called Elemental Equilibrium. It acts as a curse that lowers enemy resists, but isn't a curse. We'll be getting that too.
Aggro - Extra Minions
By going for all the minion nodes that benefit our build in the passive tree (Minion Damage and Attack Speed) we inadvertently increase the maximum amount of Zombies and Spectres we can have up at one time. Since Spectres and Zombies are also minions and will take advantage of the damage nodes we are selecting for SRS (along with a Golem (also minion) that gives a passive ability to life regen for our character), we’ll have these setup to be a distraction for us so we’re not always the focus of enemy attacks.
Cast when Damage Taken
Cast when Damage Taken (CwDT) is a gem that automatically casts spells it is linked to. The lower the level of CwDT the less damage it needs to cast its linked spells. The higher the level of CwDT, the more damage is needed to set it off. The benefit to CwDT at a high level (for our build) is that we can have high level gems attached to it. A low level CwDT can only have low level gems attached to it.
Offerings
We will also be running an offering. Offerings are skills that consume corpses to give minions temporary benefits. The offering that I've chosen for us increases minion attack and movement speed. You'll see it as a red "ghost" while in combat. Because of a node we'll take in our Ascendancy, this offering will affect us as well :). I'll touch on that in the skill tree section.
Pros and Cons
Pro-Really cheap (5 Chaos)

Pro- Perfect for new players. Easy to level, easy to buy, easy to afford, easy to survive, easy to kill, easy end game.

Pro- You only cast one skill. Everything else (except for flasks) is automatic.

Pro- It clears maps quickly.

Pro- Chills and slows every enemy and boss. Great for survivability.

Pro- Has great DPS (14k per SRS) against the Shaper with a 5 link and 20k with a 6 link.

Pro- Can take and give good damage.

Pro- Reflect Damage doesn't affect you at all.

Pro- You can run any map mod in end game except one. (You need mana regen.)

Con- The only con is that it's a minion build (meaning you don't choose who you attack).
Cost
This section won't include your gems. Just the average price or the uniques required. The prices are based on the PC marketplace. The console marketplace is too inconsistent (it's a market of opportunity) as it currently stands.
- Singularity, Platinum Sceptre - Should cost 1 Chaos.
- Windscream, Reinforced Greaves - Should cost 1 Chaos.
- Atziri's Foible, Paua Amulet - Should cost 1 Chaos max.
- Doedre's Damning, Paua Ring - x2 - Should cost 1 Alchemy each.

Just get the items for now. Worry about getting maximized rolls later. The currency will come to afford better gear in no time.

You will want to spend currency in rare gear to ensure you have the proper resists and links as you go through the later acts. It's okay to upgrade each piece of gear a few times as you progress. Don't feel like you have to get the best available right away. The currency will come.
Endgame Mods to Avoid
At the end of the game, the levels (maps) you try and clear will have random modifiers (mods) allocated to them. There are A LOT of mods that can go on a map.

We won't be able to run maps that disallow mana regen. We don't leech mana. And in a case where it's just you and one enemy, you won't have the ability to refill your mana flask(s). But that's it!

Some mods will be inconvenient, but they won't be impossible to run.
You can run reflect mods! Reflects will go to your SRS, not you, and you'll be replacing them constantly. No Life Regen isn't important, just inconvenient. Even Hexproof maps (curse immune enemies) isn't a big deal. You'll do enough damage with Elemental Equilibrium. I hate running maps with Temporal Chains as a map mod, but it won't kill you to do them. It'll just be slow. It's my hate of running maps with Temporal Chains that made me want to slow every enemy to its max in retaliatory hate.
You'll learn your preferences but only No Mana Regen must be avoided.
This build is easy to play. We run into the middle of a group of enemies and cast one skill (SRS) until everything is dead (or we have to move ;-)). Everything else will be automatically cast with our gem setup. We'll have an aura to boost our cold damage and another skill that increases our defense. The build has as high life as I could squeeze out of the tree and as much life regen as was possible. The items I'll encourage you to have are high in armour so we'll have as much physical damage reduction as possible with the amount of uniques we'll be using. In other words, we're aiming to have our character as "tanky" as possible while our minions are all damage and no defense. Check the Gem and Gear sections for more.
Passive Tree
The passive tree on Path of Exile's website
Passive Tree Explained
The skill tree is easy to understand:
You'll start as a Witch. There is only one ascendancy that greatly benefits minion builds. That ascendancy is Necromancer and makes us start with the Witch class. If you follow the path of the tree linked below, you can simply select all the nodes as they come up. There is no race to get to certain nodes and then backtrack.
I have every node on the tree that increases minion damage and attack speed. Minion life isn't important at all because SRS expire quickly and they aren't attacked by enemies.
I then focused on maximum life and life regeneration for us. Life regen has awesome benefits. It's great during Trials, is still active while drinking life flasks, and keeps you from dying in those "zone out moments". You'll see.

I added some bonus armour nodes at the end of the tree as most of our items will have armour bases to them. When selecting our life nodes, I selected the ones that also gave us a benefit besides life. So instead of choosing +5% Max Life, I'd select another node that gave +4% to Max Life and 6% Increased Armour.

Take your time to look at each skill as they come along. Some of the nodes are pretty dramatic. Like Elemental Equilibrium.

I have 5 jewel slots selected. Jewels are great. As you come across, or buy, jewels that have minion benefits (or resists and life for yourself) you can add them to the tree (as long as you have a jewel slot actually selected on the tree. What's really neat is you can swap jewels in and out of your passive tree anytime. You'll fill the whole tree I have laid out by level 89 so you can add jewel slots or extra health anytime you want along your path. You can also use Orbs of Regret if you make a mistake or need some temporary benefits.
Ascendancy
Choose Necromancy. We'll get 8 points to spend here eventually. We'll be focusing on 3 big ones (Mistress of Sacrifice, Spirit Eater, and Beacon of Corruption.) Of the big three, you can choose them in any order you like. You'll only get two points at a time as you complete your Labyrinths. The last one you pick will be Commander of Darkness. This build would have more value to us if we were affected by our own aura. We will be running one aura but we're linking it with Generosity which removes any benefit the aura has on us and amplifies it on our allies. Meaning the benefits of Commander of Darkness only affect our minions, not us. It's still huge damage, just not as valuable as the other three major ascendancy nodes...so we save it for last.
Pantheon
Choose any you like as they come across. I personally like not being affected by burning ground and having chill effects on me reduced. But this build will also greatly benefit from bonus to standing still. I really like the ones that give bonuses to physical damage reduction as well.
Quests
As you go through the game, no side quests are important to your build expect for the quests that give extra skill points (a list of quests that gives skill points). Including the Bandits. When dealing with the bandits in Act 3, I suggest killing all the bandits for the extra two skill points.
Gem Links

Level all these gems to their max (level 20) unless I have written a level number beside the gem name. For example: "-Cast When Damage Taken (Level 1)". If I have written a level beside the name, that's the level you need to stop leveling the gem at.

5 Link(6 Link) - Main Skill
-Summon Raging Spirit - Our main skill, a minion skill. They do the damage. Not you.
-Maim Support - Some bonus damage and slows the enemies' movement speed.
-Minion Damage Support - Improves damage.
-Melee Physical Damage Support - Improves damage.
-Elemental Damage with Attacks Support - Improves elemental damage (improving chill effect).
-(If you get a six link: Hypothermia Support - Improves damage if the enemy is chilled.)

4 Links
Aggro and Bonus Damage
This set is great for aggro. You get the offensive benefit of all the nodes you have selected for your SRS's damage. And you don't have to worry about casting it. If you don't care about the aggro safety, keep the Stone Golem at max level for the health regen.
-Cast When Damage Taken - Automatically casts linked spells.
-Summon Stone Golem - Life regen and aggro.
-Raise Spectre - Aggro.
-Raise Zombie - Aggro.

Bonus Attack Speed for Minions, Cast Speed for You, and Elemental Equilibrium activation.
-Cast When Damage Taken (Level 1) - Automatically casts linked spells.
-Desecrate (Level 7) - Guarantees corpses for Flesh Offering.
-Flesh Offering (Level 8) - Improves minion attack and movement speed, and your casting speed.
-Ball Lightning (Level 4) - The Elemental Equilibrium node in the tree is a huge damage boost. This is the skill that sets it off. You'll notice a blue and pink hue under the enemies that have the effect. (The skill must be lightning for Elemental Equilibrium to work as you will have fire and cold on your SRS hits.)

Damage Curses (Curses show as icons above the affected enemy head)
-Cast When Damage Taken (Level 1) - Automatically casts linked spells.
-Elemental Weakness (Level 5) - Improves damage with all elements.
-Flammability(Level 5) - Improves fire damage.
-Frostbite(Level 5) - Improves cold damage and chill effect.

3 Links
Defensive Curses - (Socket in Singularity to save Chromatics)
-Cast When Damage Taken (Level 1) - Automatically casts linked spells.
-Temporal Chains (Level 5) - Slows enemies.
-Enfeeble (Level 5) - Weakens the enemies' offense.

Mana Reservation
-Generosity Support - Greatly improves Hatred.
-Hatred - Improves cold damage therefore chill effect.
-Arctic Armour - For physical damage resistance and chilling enemies.
Doesn't need to be linked. Also, it is not an Aura. Auras affect allies, Arctic Armour only affects yourself. (Because of Generosity is linked to Hatred, Hatred doesn't affect yourself. Just the minions. So the Commander of Darkness node has no benefit to us, but still gives a great boost to our minions within range of Hatred.)

Feel free whenever your have the currency and gear you're comfortable with to start getting quality versions of your gems. The only one I suggest trying to get as soon as you can is SRS (unless you buy a level 20 version at 20% quality).
Gear
-Aim to have your non-unique gear rare strength based only. But if you're low on currency you will save lots of Chromatic Orbs by looking for gear with Armour and Intelligence bases.
-Your focus on your gear as you acquire it is lots of health and resistances to Fire, Cold, and Lightning (ignore Chaos). You want your resistances to add up to 135%. By the end of the game, Path of Exile gives characters -60% to your resists to wrestle with. If you can, go over the 135% as some endgame maps will lower your resists by another 60%.
*With what we have in the skill tree, you'll need an extra 7 Dexterity on one of you pieces of gear somewhere.

Gear List
-Weapon - Singularity, Platinum Sceptre (Unique) - Needed only for it's Hinder.
-Shield - Anything you like.
-Head - Bone Helmet - It's not a unique but a rare that can't be worn until level 73. This helmet has a guaranteed mod that comes with it that gives 30-40% minion damage. For your first Bone Helmet, don't care about getting a high implicit modifier (an implicit is an guaranteed modifier on an item. Just try and get the other mods to have health and resists. Once you have a Bone helmet with good mods, then try and get a better one with higher minion damage. It's not too important for the price you'll pay though. ***(Don't enchant this at the end of a lab or you'll lose the minion damage bonus.)
-Chest - Anything you like.
-Gloves - Anything you like.
-Feet - Windscream, Reinforced Greaves (Unique) - Needed to increase our curse limit.
-Amulet - Atziri's Foible, Paua Amulet (Unique) - Great mana regen and attribute requirement reduction.
-Rings - Doedre's Damning, Paua Ring (Unique) - x2 - Needed to increase our curse limit.
-Flasks - Anything you like. I like to run with 3 health flasks (all of which remove bleeding), one mana flask (removes bleeding) and a Quicksilver flask since we aren't using a movement skill.
URLs
-Path of Building - Hi! - (A link to download Path of Building, the build planner I like to use - Hello!)

-The passive tree on Path of Exile.com - Hey!

-An example of the build in action - Boo!

- The filter I use - Smile!
It's a very picky filter you can use to help with the looting. It's only drop items that benefit your build...For the most part. There were a few items I couldn't filter out. But it'll drop ALL currency (and small chromatic recipies), maps, Divination cards, league and quest items. The only weapon it'll drop is Primordial Staff. It's a two hander, but if you get the unique version it'll give you a change to start a DPS SRS character if you want to mix it up. It'll only drop the best Chest, Gloves, Shields, and then Bone Helmets with the highest Armour bases. It'll also drop Elder and Shaper items, all uniques, and rare jewels, and accessories. It's not a get rich fast filter, but it's great for getting your own stuff and selling what doesn't work for you. I prefer build specific filters, instead of the general stuff. You'll miss lots of good gear to sell though, so...up to you if you use it.

Downloading the filter - Click the filter link. Click Download near the top of the page. Once downloaded, rename the file to whatever will help you find it in POE. Put the file in, *whichever drive*\*user name*Documents\My Games\Path of Exile. Once POE is loaded, hit "O" for Options, go to the "UI" tab, scroll all the way to the bottom, and select your new filter from the drop down list beside "List of Item Filters".

If it doesn't work, let me know.

Awesome. So if you have any questions let me know and I'll respond the best I can. If you don't like my build I hope your build ideas lack success and then you come back to mine and go, 'huh. I like this...a lot.' And then you'll ask if I have more build ideas that are super and I will say, 'Yuuuuup' and then link them below:
https://www.ForeverExiled.com/: Forever Exiled, A Path of Exile Podcast

Annnnnd

Wrecker of Days' One-Stop-Shop: Stress-Free Builds (& Filters): 1-Button, HC SSF, Item Freedom: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3467875
Last edited by Wrecker_of_Days on Mar 2, 2018, 1:56:23 AM
Last bumped on Mar 2, 2018, 1:49:54 AM
Good idea stacking reduced movements speed and elemental curse.
Can you post some video of effect of this builds on enemy?

Tks
I'll get on it
https://www.ForeverExiled.com/: Forever Exiled, A Path of Exile Podcast

Annnnnd

Wrecker of Days' One-Stop-Shop: Stress-Free Builds (& Filters): 1-Button, HC SSF, Item Freedom: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3467875
A really nice grainy video is up now.
https://www.ForeverExiled.com/: Forever Exiled, A Path of Exile Podcast

Annnnnd

Wrecker of Days' One-Stop-Shop: Stress-Free Builds (& Filters): 1-Button, HC SSF, Item Freedom: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3467875
Good, very nice build!

My2c

You can add Bitterdream for levelling, is lv32 and can be obtained with a recipe, so SSF viable.

I appreciate the suggestion and the compliment :)
https://www.ForeverExiled.com/: Forever Exiled, A Path of Exile Podcast

Annnnnd

Wrecker of Days' One-Stop-Shop: Stress-Free Builds (& Filters): 1-Button, HC SSF, Item Freedom: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3467875
Why are you using 5 curses when you are limited to 4?

Why dont you take any jewel sockets?

Ignoring life nodes to go fully regen isnt useful.
More life gives you more regen too.

Example:
Remove the 3 points going to Armor Mastery and put them in the 5% life nodes next to Bravery, Heart of Soul etc.

You end up with more life and more regen!

Those are good points. I have personal preference for those responses though which I seem to not have explained very well above.


Q: Why are you using 5 curses when you are limited to 4?
A: A character can have one curse by default. I have the Whispers of Doom node on the Passive Tree which allows another. I have the Windscream boots for the 3rd. Two Doedre's Damning rings for the 4th and 5th.

Q: Why dont you take any jewel sockets??
A: I most definitely have jewels. I just didn't touch on them (which I should have). The suggested tree (which is designed for new folks) breezes past 3 Jewel nodes that are only one click away from the tree path. 2 others are only 2 clicks away. a 6th is three clicks away. The tree only takes someone to level 82 which my suggested setup can get to easily. 82+3=85, 85+4=89, 89+3=92. 5 Jewel nodes at 89 is pretty good. But you're right, I should talk about them in my post.

Q: Ignoring life nodes to go fully regen isnt useful. More life gives you more regen too.
A: The whole tree focuses on life nodes. The priorities in the tree are Minion Damage and Attack Speed, Life Regen, Max Life. The passive tree suggested has +198% life as it is. So if you don't care about life regen as much as a new person would appreciate it, manipulate the tree as you wish (of course). The south part of the tree has lots of travel nodes to get to big health nodes and health regen. I prefer the health nodes that give a little less health and have an extra perk. So instead of picking 5% extra to health, I like having 4% to health and 6% to armour (or anything else). Physical Damage mitigation goes a long way on the grind to level 90+. The three nodes that lead to Armour Mastery I find very valuable. Even though I only have 154% armour and roughly 25% physical damage reduction, it prevents a lot of damage still. It's a very flexible build. Maybe I'll reword the whole thing to explain more.

Thanks for your input!
https://www.ForeverExiled.com/: Forever Exiled, A Path of Exile Podcast

Annnnnd

Wrecker of Days' One-Stop-Shop: Stress-Free Builds (& Filters): 1-Button, HC SSF, Item Freedom: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3467875
Last edited by Wrecker_of_Days on Dec 27, 2017, 2:43:40 PM
How did i miss the 2nd Doedre ring? Probably because this is the first build i know of which is using 2 of those rings. :)

Half of your gear are unique items with bad/mediocre stats and no life on them.
You will have trouble getting enough life and resists later on.

Even with 198% life increase from the Tree i dont think that youll end up with alot of life. Therefore every little life node will be important, more important than life regen ones.

Armour is nice but it doesent work like elemental resist. A 25% mitigation doesent mean 25% less damage. To sum it up, the bigger the hit the less protection it gives. Its good against many small hits, but Izaro doesent care much about a 25% (pseudo) mitigation.

I still wish you all the best with your build and hopefully with all the slowness going on bosses wont have time to oneshot you. :)


So far I have 4700 health and 27% physical damage reduction. (The three nodes to (and including Armour Mastery) give me 4% physical damage reduction.) I find it worth it. It's working well. I appreciate your input. I'd love to use normal rings, but increases to curse limits are pretty strict.
https://www.ForeverExiled.com/: Forever Exiled, A Path of Exile Podcast

Annnnnd

Wrecker of Days' One-Stop-Shop: Stress-Free Builds (& Filters): 1-Button, HC SSF, Item Freedom: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3467875

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