[3.4] Penta Herald, Volatile Poison Auto Minion Master. Fast clear, Budget, Fun and Easy to play.

Short demo in Waterways of gameplay.

https://youtu.be/4n2Ja9CqVFc

The Covenant



We use this for blood magic and added chaos as we have almost 100% mana reserved. It is required for the build to function.

Soulwrest



We use this staff for the automatic minion summons when we cast Volatile dead. It also provides us with a decent chunk of regen when we cast as well as to our minions. For this build to work you will only need a 4 link staff, but having the extra 2 sockets unlinked is good because any gems in those slots will affect the Phantoms summoned when we cast Volatile dead.

Volkuur's Guidance (Fire)



These gloves give our fire damage the ability to poison along with a small poison chance boost. While not totally required for the build to work, they do give a nice buff to our Herald of Agony minion and provide a good dps buff.

Warlords mark elder ring

For more survivability we use a ring with warlords mark on hit. This gives us some extra life leech and endurance charges that help keep us alive. While leveling you can use the unique ring Mark of submission with a warlords mark socketed in it until you can afford this.

A good helm with the volatile dead consumes more corpses lab enchant is probably best in slot, however a good, cheap option is to use a well rolled bone helmet as the minion damage gives us and our minions a bonus.



Finally once your other gear is to the point that you can cover your resists elsewhere the extra spell block from Stone of Lazhwar along with the cast speed can be a good option.


Atziri's Promise Flask is a good option for some extra damage as well as leach,
Rumi's Concoction gives a great boost to armour as well as buffing our spell/attack block with staff.

Jewels mostly focus on life and filling any resist gaps you may have, End game try to find ones with +minion damage as this scales all our damage.

The main skill we use is volatile dead.

This is linked with in order of importance:
Concentrated Effect, Controlled Distruction, Lesser Poison.
For your Five and six links adding in Combustion and then Immolate will give a decent dps boost.

Secondary is the Heralds. In one group we have Herald of Ice, Thunder and Ash, Linked with at least a level 2 Enlighten gem as seen here:



The next heralds get socked in our staff, here we have Herald of Agony and Herald of Purity, in a four link configuration together with minion speed and minion damage. This gives us a great boost to both of the heralds summoned minions while keeping the mana reservation low enough. The other two gems socked in the staff are up to you and what colors you roll. Keeping in mind that the supported phantasms use physical projectile SPELLS some good options are multiple projectiles, or added lightning/fire damage gems. Here is an example:




Finaly we have our support skills, Here we need two skills, Flame dash for mobility and Desecrate for corpse summoning. Both need to be linked to Blood Magic in order to cast reliably and the fourth link should be spell cascade in order to summon more corpses in one cast. Here is an example:



Your remaining four link can be used for a cast when damage taken setup, I would recommend convocation and immortal call with increased duration as seen here:



This keeps your minions close and is very handy in delves when you get surrounded by monsters in the dark as they soak up targeting.

Leveling

Volatile dead can be used early, and when linked with summon phantasm on kill will give you an early feel of what the final build is like. Level until 49 with only three heralds active (Ice, Thunder, Ash), then you can switch to The Covenant and go ahead and activate Herald of Purity and switch over to the final skill set mention in Skills section.
Once you have completed Cruel lab and unlocked the Mastermind of discord Ascendancy you will be able to activate your fifth herald and add in some supports.
Please note that you will need a level 2 Enlighten, along with the Sovereignty Notable AND conquerors efficiency jewel in order to run both minion speed and damage on both Heralds.

Bandits is kill all for the points.

Ascendancy order
Elementalist
Pendulum of Destruction -> Mastermind of Discord -> Paragon of Calamity -> Shaper of Desolation

Play style

Drop down your desecrate to bring up your first set of corpses. Volatile dead will summon some minions for you and take out the first pack, from there just keep casting volatile dead and summoning corpses occasionally as needed. We have a fairly large Energy shield buffer of about 1.5-2k ES depending on gear. If you see your energy shield is gone, that is time to step back and let the minions soak up some targeting. While the build is not squishy and can tank/block a fair amount of damage I find the ES is the best indicator of when to take a step back.

For bosses, just summon a bunch of corpses and detonate them. Keeping a good position is vital and your minions do a good job of distracting most bosses so you can just keep summoning corpses and detonating them, thus creating even more minions.

Maps/shaper/elder/uber

I will be honest here, I have not fought the shaper, it just does not interest me. If I manage it with this build I will post notes here. However for maps, I have no issues running any map roll up to tier 14 with almost any mods even at level 80. Things to watch out for are chain as this can bounce a lot of damage through your minions to you and of course multiple added damage mods. I have no idea if this is hardcore viable, you would probably need to take a much more defensive approach and possibly spec some more life/ES nodes.