[3.6] YTC PurePhys Skelemancer | cheap strong lazy 4,8M~7M shaper DPS | <200c/ 5ex-ish/ 25ex+



recent changes:
17/4: added shaper run video
18/4: added uberlab solo video, updated kingmaker's price (15c to 25c).
22/4: added cortex bossfight video
5/5: added uberlab solo video (minmax version)

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Is it possible to have 3m+ shaper dps + 6k lifepool + tanky mitigation with only 2ex ??
WE AIM BIGGER!! we are talking about 4,8M shaper DPS within 1,5ex budget here!! NO BS

Spoiler
Please dont skip this straightly to PoB link, there are many important notes. Dont only look at DPS, please also consider the tankiness and the budget as I sacrifice many minion damage nodes for player's survivability (you can adjust it if you want more DPS).



Introducing Dorothy Johnson, the social justice summoner with up to 11 pure physical skeletons, 8 zombies, Stone golem, AG, 2 spectres, and also 4 curses 4 auras.

Pros & Cons
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pros:
- super cheap (mostly unique items, skin of the loyal is already 6L by default, rests 3L and 4L are easy to get, most investment is for helmet and accesories)
- tanky (hybrid life/es, permanent fortify, elemental aegis, temp chain+enfeeble, auto-molten shell)
- privileged safe gameplay (minions can taunt and blind, fight bosses off-screen. basically only cursing from safespace, what a jerk)
- Beginner friendly and Hardcore viable

cons:
- damage output is not very consistent (it depends on number of minions alive, although the dps doesnt depend on flask at all).
- not fast for clearing, most of time we summon skeleton and leave them behind to next monster pack, so we need to backtrack if something good dropped (similar to DoT build).
- not for everyone. for people who get used to play melee or spellcaster, summoner gameplay is a little bit awkward.
- not SSF friendly, this build depends on uniques


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Gears and Gems
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Main gears


skin of the loyal = 30c, ------> click here
magna eclipsis = 16c, -------> click here
vixen's entrapment = 2c, ---> click here
windscream = 2c, -----------> click here

Total 50c

Weapon
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recommendation:
use bound fossil (1 alc each) for crafting +90% minion damage. I suggest to craft it on high ilvl profane wand for cast speed implicit, or scepter if you want extra +2 fire gems.
bench-craft 'trigger socketed spell' costs 3c.
to buy bound fossil: click here
to buy primitive chaotic resonator: click here

We have to adjust trigger sequence on colouring weapon. Make it molten shell after desecrate so we could raise zombie before the corpses get exploded by offering: either R-B-G or B-G-R or G-R-B

price estimation: 15c

Helmet
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. helmet 13c vs helmet 3ex

10c + bench-craft 3c = 13c versus
helmet budget = 3ex (3 of 5 ex budget is allocated here)

recommendation:
buy from market:
- cheap version : click here
- expensive version : click here

or chaos-spam on high ilvl elder helmet, preferably elder bone helmet

price prediction for these helmet
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this is the most expensive rare item in this build, so I gotta post the price prediction for proof. It says 7c and 1,6ex. At worst the prediction was half of the actual price. So lets pretend they are 13c and 3ex. For uniques, you can check the actual price in market. It's harder to price the rares.





if you're really desperate to find this helmet, you can use wraithlord (1alc each), but you'll need more resist on rings and run purity of elements.


Accesories
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1,5ex version:

sidhebreath amulet = 1c, click here
belt of the deceiver = 1 alc, click here
These rare rings costed 3-8c each. to search the budget version rings in poetrade Click here
crafting +39 life costs 6 transmutation each
Look for dex and resis, it's ok if you couldnt get life/ES here. (better to get it!) You'll still have at least hybrid 3,5 life / 3k ES.

5exy version:


chayula = 1ex
'faster start of ES recharge' mod supposedly costs 1ex each, but we're using budget version with lower stat, costed 2 regal each.
+armour/ES on belt costs 2alc.

Minmax version:


- look for lv86 stygian vise triple t1s, multimod it with what you need
- look for ring with aspect of spider. drop vitality/purity of element for spider. Extra mana reservation for upgrading clarity. This is what I'm currently using. Aspect of spider buffs 500k DPS, costing 4%max res (if purity) or 250 ES regen/s (if vitality).

Price estimation: Ring with aspect of spider + t2 res = 50c, t1s stygian vise 10ex.


Note:
For rare items look for dexterity and resist.
unset ring is not mandatory. if you found another type of ring, remove rejuv totem on boots for convocation.
faster start of ES recharge is also not mandatory, if you dont have open prefix or your resistance isnt capped, better craft resistance or ES.


Flask
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- All defensive flask, look for immunity to ignite, freeze and bleed.
- When facing big bosses, change basalt to topaz/ruby/aquamarine, depends on the respective element.
- For lab run, change quartz with second quicksilver
- Picked these flask from trash, transmute-augment-alteration for crafting.
- Rumi's concoction is 1c, it's up to 5c if it has better roll
lets say the budget for flask is 10c

Jewelleries
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Recommendation:
alt-regal ilvl 81+ ghastly eye jewel (1 regal = 1c atm)
look for life, ES and minion chance to taunt/blind.
even it's bad roll like +30ish, it's okay. We'll still have at least 3,5k life/ 3k ES (<200c version, check pob for further calculation)

buy the base (costs 1 alc each).click here
crafting costed around 5-10c to re-roll. (high ilvl gives better roll)
to search the jewels (30+ life, 30+ ES) click here
there are many 5c-ish jewelleries that we want. For this guide lets say they are 10c each

Animate Guardian
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kingmaker 25c, (was 15c) click here
belly of the beast 3c, click here
leer cast 1c, click here
victario's flight 1alc, click here
southbound 1alc. click here
Total 30c

(if you have extra budget, remove leer cast and use rare helmet with '9% increased phys damage taken on nearby enemies', costs 5-15c, we are assuming leer cast for now, thanks to joachimbond)


Price estimation
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As you can see above, we overpriced the rare items. The price is at worst case scenario 190c and 4ex 229c. If we're really following the pricecheck feature in poetrade macro, it supposed to be 150c and 4ex build.

Super-Budget 1,5ex:
Spoiler
Main Gears ----> 50c
Weapon -------> 15c
Helmet --------> 13c
Accesories ----> 11,5c
Flask ----------> 10c
Jewelleries ----> 60c
AG Setup -----> 30c

Total cost 189,5c

Budget 5exy:
Spoiler
Main Gears ----> 50c
Weapon -------> 15c
Helmet --------> 3ex
Accesories ----> 1ex 64c
Flask ----------> 10c
Jewelleries ----> 60c
AG Setup -----> 30c

Total cost 4ex 229c



Notes:
Spoiler
- <200c version is resistruggle, so we use purity of element (no aspect of spider, no vitality). This makes minions tankier also. We might use purity of specific element depends on what type of resist you need, just in case it isnt covered by rares.
- For clearing, change bloodlust with melee splash, back to bloodlust when facing bosses
- For map farming, change basalt flask with divination distilate, and presence of chayula with bisco's collar. With kingmaker's buff, we can get up to 80% extra item rarity (+up to 230% item rarity from magic monster) and up to 65% extra quantity.
- Beast-craft magna eclipsis shield to +30% quality
- It's low level clarity, we couldnt reserve high lv.
- May change war banner with dread banner for more defensive gameplay, we actually dont need accuracy buff from war banner, since skeleton's hit cant be evaded. War banner is just for adrenaline and some phys dmg. I think For longer fight dread banner is better. War banner is for short fight. I'll just put war banner in PoB for now (because PoB couldnt capture the impale mechanics). Dread banner is recommended.
- Rejuv totem is rarely used, we may change it to decoy totem or manual immortal call or remove it (move convocation from unset ring to boots). That one gem slot on boots (supported by faster casting) is optional. I'm currently using rejuv totem just for helping costumers in uber lab carry service.
- for 5exy version, against big bosses drop vitality for purity aura from respective boss element (e.g. purity of ice for shaper and elder, fire for atziri, lightning for cortex). unless you already have aspect of the spider.


Item subtitution: (optional)
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Passive Tree, Pantheon, Bandit
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Passive Tree

Notes:
- If you want more DPS,
Drop 'devotion' (3skill nodes)
Pick 3 damage nodes on 'spiritual aid' cluster
Result: minus 30str + 280hp + 30ES | add 250k DPS
- If you want more tanky
Drop 'Redemption' (costs 3 points) + one minion damage node at witch area,
Pick 3x ES/armour nodes and 5% life/mana nodes near to templar starting point
Result: minus 300k shaper DPS | add 200ES + 70life + 1k armour.

Pantheon: Lunaris and Shakari
- We fight bosses off-screen, so the 'chance to avoid projectile' is good. Lunaris also slightly buffs the clear speed.
- DoT is annoying, it prevents ES recharge. Shakari gives immunity to poison and reduce chaos damage taken which is good for hybrid life-es build. We still need to increase chaos resistance anyways.

Bandit: kill all
we need more jewel slots.


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DPS sources
Spoiler

Actually we can get +400k DPS simply by replacing lv 20 vaal skeleton with lv21 regular skeleton (check PoB). But I still prefer vaal version, +40 skeleton is insane, in this calculation lets just pretend we dont have vaal skill.

Budget 1,5ex with lv20 regular skeleton = 4,8M DPS
Spoiler
Skeleton -> 420k x 11 = 4620k
Zombie ---> 33k * 8 = 264k
Spectre --> 33k * 2 = 66k
Animate Guardian and Stone Golem ----> lets say 0 DPS

Budget 5exy with lv21 regular skeleton = 5M DPS
Spoiler
Skeleton -> 417k x 11 = 4587k
Zombie ---> 46k * 8 = 368k
Spectre --> 37k * 2 = 74k
Animate Guardian and Stone Golem ----> lets say 0 DPS

Budget 5exy with lv 20 vaal skeleton = 4,6M DPS
Spoiler
Skeleton -> 377k x 11 = 4147k
Zombie ---> 46k * 8 = 368k
Spectre --> 37k * 2 = 74k
Animate Guardian and Stone Golem ----> lets say 0 DPS
Vaal Skeleton ------ > PoB says 7M+ dps, so we have up to 12M dps when vaal skeleton active (assuming they dont body-block each other). But, lets pretend vaal skeleton has 0 DPS for more consistent dps.

Borguesse 30ex with lv21 regular skeleton = 6,6M
Spoiler
Skeleton -> 556k x 11 = 6116k
Zombie ---> 51k * 8 = 408k
Spectre --> 41k * 2 = 82k
Animate Guardian and Stone Golem ----> lets say 0 DPS



Player Survivability
Spoiler
- All defensive flask: life flask with bleed immunity, granite flask with extra % armour (changed to Rumi's Concoction), quartz flask with ignite immunity, basalt flask with freeze immunity, quicksilver of adrenaline
- Use convocation during omg momments (fortify works only if we're close to animate guardian, the radius is fairly large)
- Try to find minion chance to taunt/blind in jewels for extra layers of defense
- For more defense, change war banner to dread banner. I'm currently using war banner in PoB for adrenaline buff. We dont need accuracy buff from war banner since skeleton's hit cant be evaded.
Defense stat when flasks active (5exy budget version):



Minions Survivability
Spoiler
- Carnage chieftains and animate guardian have over 60k hp and regenerate 6k hp/s so they're pretty much safe, they can facetank big bosses. We dont rely on them for DPS,so feel free to spam convocation when you need more defense.
- zombies (25k hp, 2,5k hp/s) sometimes die, so in bossfight we have to rely on desecrate. Make sure the colouring is correct as mentioned above.
- skeleton (5k life) cant survive against shaper's beam or other big moves. But it's okay they're easy to summon (thanks to bone sculptor passive). We only need 2 seconds to summon 11 skeletons. Abyssal jewels have "increased minion damage if you used a minion skill recently", so I still need spam it regularly (at least once per 4s) even if they survived, anyways. (The fresh ones dont have frenzy till the frenzy mass approx per 5s). As you see in the video, Izaro couldnt kill skeleton, they regen fast.


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Gameplay
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Our philosophy: Putting people first.
- Move to next pack after summon, leave them, they can take care of the mobs. One skeleton supposedly could solo one pack (depends on map mods). Watching them killing the mobs will only slow you down.
- For rare monster, curse before leave.


summon and leave (look at my buffs when flask active, funny isnt it)

It's important to note that summoner gameplay is not as slow as people say. All we need is to trust our skeletons, leave them behind, they can kill the mobs. It's only slow if you wait for them to clear all before you move to the next pack. Hide behind your minions only when facing bosses, we dont need to hide all time, unless it's awful map mods.

- Use divination distilate and bisco's collar for regular mapping (extra quant and rarity)
- Use convocation if we flame dashed too far or cliff-jumped
- Sometimes we need to backtrack when lootfilter give signal (similar to DoT build). This is quite similar to ED-contagion build, but we're using skeleton and curse.
- Use vaal skeleton when facing bosses
- If zombie died, it means you're in danger, better to retreat for a momment.
- We have many triggered spells and curses, so we could play lazy and focus on survival. Most of the time I only play with right click, flame dash and curse. Here is the skill set:



- If we're using dread banner, we dont need to plant it, use the slot for rejuv totem (or other active spell). Dread banner is recommended.


Annoying Map Mods
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Even though technically we can run all map mod, it's still better to avoid these following mods because they would cost us time and efficiency.

- no regen mod. we need to either drop all aura and bring mana flask, or to move blood magic support from helmet (spectre) to chest (skeleton).
- phys reflect mod, we need more effort to resummon them, skeleton will die very often.
- extra dmg as fire/cold/lightning, or hybrid crit-chance/crit-multi. they are dangerous for all build. We can still run this on t16 slowly but better not in combo with other annoying mods.
- desecrated/chaustic ground. chaos dmg penetrates ES and we have no life regen due to zealoth oath. The damage isnt a big deal, but we need to watch our step, especially when talking to npc.
- budget version is resistruggle, so elemental weakness/flammibility/frostbite/conductivity isnt good. We need to change basalt to divination distilate, and pay more attention to flask charges. Curses doesnt affect minions, so our damage output would still be the same.

no need to be very picky. we can run unidentified maps, slowly at first packs.

Video Showcase
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Uber Lab (recommended)
Spoiler
cheap version (4 keys/ 6 mins): https://youtu.be/6njZKbt3ko8
minmax version (16 keys / 16mins): https://youtu.be/uORBaLI-8r0

Notes:
- usually skip all except Argus (duration depends on the daily layout)
- watch https://www.poelab.com/cmfcw/ every day.
- for minmax version, use devoto devotion and onslaught boots.



. Top corner, sidestep twice, spam skeleton


. Take darkshrine, tank the traps (stress free, beginner friendly)


extra 2 keys if we're lucky...

Guardians
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Elder Guardian (T16-Hydra)https://youtu.be/sCiBUqIxsYc

Elder Guardian (T16-Phoenix)https://youtu.be/h4oGic5WQBo


Shaper run (recommended)
Spoiler
https://youtu.be/axOSy3gJxfo

Notes:
- watch slam and beam. I took a slam once on phase 3, it's approx 6-7k damage, it might one-shot us. I usually use quicksilver to dodge instead of flame dash, because if we flame-dash too early he would port to our later location, not the previous one, otherwise if we're late we would get the slam. Better to quicksilver I think.
- big minions are pretty much safe, they could facetank shaper's beam/slam. Some zombies might die on phase 3, resummon them if you want, but not necessary. Prioritize player's safety and number of skeletons.
- better to change phanteon to solaris and yugul.
- can re-raise spectres here for higher level.
- use vaal skeleton after shaper uses 'ultimate chaos'.


Temple Omnitech Lv83 (augmented with fire and minions)
Spoiler


nothing important to note, just use vaal skeleton then run around

Uber Elder
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I couldnt save the video and already uncompleted t16s. I'll record next fight later (probably with low fps again, sorry man). just a pic for now.

Cortex Boss (first attempt)
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https://youtu.be/4_pZssHMBeM?t=128
Notes:
- for the mechanics:
https://www.poelab.com/the-cortex-boss-fight/
- I didnt know when to use the defensive flask and how to dodge them properly, especially the big slam from titan which covered almost all area. I died there and forgot to re-activate auras.
- some zombies died, just like when facing other big bosses. It's not necessary to reraise zombie, prioritize player's safety and number of skeletons.


3.6 problem in a nutshell (not recommended)
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PoB link
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Super Budget <200c with lv20 skeleton (4,9M DPS)
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https://pastebin.com/qMmLfjcq

Budget 5exy with lv20 vaal skeleton (current build, 4,6M DPS)
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https://pastebin.com/LRZxk3eb

Budget 5exy + helmet enchant + lv21 regular skeleton gem (5M DPS)
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https://pastebin.com/60AQcy7G

For bourgeoisie, budget 20-30ex (same concept, 7M+ DPS, slighly tankier)
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https://pastebin.com/ktqQ1kEC


3.6 update
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- animate guardian setup +kingmaker. This animate guardian gives fortify, item rarity buff, culling strike as well as damage buff (leer cast) and movement speed buff (victario's flight). Animate guardian gives epic buffs efficiently only costed one gem slot on helmet.
- convocation CD is buffed in this league, so we can keep animate guardian stay close to us, especially for fortify buff
- vixen's entrapment gloves is the game changer, we dont need blasphemy/curse on hit anymore. In this case I'm using temp chain on boots (supported by faster casting), and it triggers all curse gems in gloves. decent yet very cheap (only 2c).
- %gain phys as cold dmg from hatred is nerfed, that's why I prefer pure phys.



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Overall

I think this build has less potential for minmax compared to other meta like winter orb or divine ire. Further investment may be better for second char instead of min-maxing this. I mean we could imagine like 3 mirrors investment for builds with elemental conversion or elemental-to-chaos, but for min-maxing this build the potential isnt there. As you can see, the difference between <200c investment and 20ex investment is not too far. The main reason is this build depends too much on unique items (That's also why this is cheap), secondly it's pure phys build. The min-max version of this might end up to 40ex as we keep improving it now. It is still realistic and affordable.

This build was originally created for league starter build, but turns out I killed uber elder and other big bosses with only 2ex budget, and currently still improving with better gears. The cheap version has already tasted like min-maxed (it's tanky 4,8M shaper DPS, what can you expect from 1,5ex). This level of DPS and survivability might cost much more for other build (might cost 20ex+). For me 4M DPS is good enough, further investment may be better for survivability instead of DPS. The enemies dont die instantly as we cast spell, so ranged monsters might hit us once or twice before minions kill them. Thus, we need more defense.

I highly recommend this to all casual player. Non-crit pure physical is much less confusing than crit chance/multi, elemental conversion, DoT, or other mechanics. Damage scaling is very tangible, it multiplies by the number of minions and attack speed so it's very obvious and straight forward. And again, the gears are very cheap. Summoner gameplay is super safe and super fun. Good luck on trying this and have fun!!

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Thanks for visiting my thread.
I have spent more than 100 hours of theory crafting in PoB for this build and willing to improve this build even further. Any advice for min-max version is greatly appreciated. Also, please visit other necromancer builds out there for more insight and comparison (look at DPS, survivability, and especially the budget). I would like to know if there's another 5exy tanky build with 4,5m+ DPS. Feel free to call me if there's any question, advice or request. I'll update this again tommorow. Stay tune.

P.S.
Spoiler

- The price estimation is based on Synthesis Softcore market and it might change in future or in flashback event. This is currently cheap because it's not so popular compared to other meta. I'll update the pricelist regularly. Even if in future the cheap version costs 2-3ex, I would say it's still amazing for the performance.
- I completely understand if someone skeptical about the price-to-performance in this build. I didnt believe my PoB at first either. It's too good to be true, man, so posted the worst case scenario at pricing the rares. Crafting them by ourselves would cut the price greatly.
Death to all enemy of the horde
Last edited by ytric on May 5, 2019, 11:00:23 PM
Last bumped on May 18, 2019, 2:22:34 AM
271k shaper DSP. Please mark the "Shaper" box, your curses won't be as effective then.

But it's still good damage - especially when it's not dependend on drinking 5 damage flasks and powering up lots of vaal skills. Only the spectre apes must survive for frencies.

Other question: How good is the survival of your skeletons at big ugly bosses?

It's bad dps when they die faster than it's time left to resummuning them, besides casting curses, offerings and dodging slams?
"
Llyrain wrote:
271k shaper DSP. Please mark the "Shaper" box, your curses won't be as effective then.

But it's still good damage - especially when it's not dependend on drinking 5 damage flasks and powering up lots of vaal skills. Only the spectre apes must survive for frencies.

Other question: How good is the survival of your skeletons at big ugly bosses?

It's bad dps when they die faster than it's time left to resummuning them, besides casting curses, offerings and dodging slams?



sorry about that, I updated it, thanks.

- big guys (carnage chieftains, golem and animate guardian) have 60k+ hp and regenerate 6k hp/s so they're pretty much can facetank all big bosses. So far they have never died yet.

- zombies (25k hp, 2,5k hp/s) sometimes die, so in boss fight I have to trigger desecrate from weapon to raise them. Need to put it in order 1 desecrate + 2 molten shell + 3 flesh offering so we can raise zombie before the corpses exploded by offering. (zombies rarely die tho)

- skeleton (5k life) cant survive against shaper's slam or other big moves. But it's okay they're easy to summon (thanks to bone sculptor passive), only need 2 seconds to summon 11 skeletons. My abyssal jewels have "increased minion damage if you used a minion skill recently", so I still need spam it regularly (at least once per 4s) even if they're survive anyways. (The fresh ones dont have frenzy till the gorilla warcry approx per 5s). As you see in the video, Izaro couldnt kill any of skeleton, they regen fast.

Yea, I feel much weaker when I fight uber elder as the skeletons dont have frenzy (I spam them), and also curse effect things. Probably the actual DPS is 190k/s/skeleton against uber elder (after I uncheck the frenzy). It's around 2m shaper dps for 6ex investment. It's still satisfying I guess. For other bosses, damage calculation in PoB is quite accurate I think.

I focus on player's survivability instead of minions as I dropped some minion's life nodes for ES nodes. I died more often than my minions. lol
2x die against uber elder, 5x against boss cortex, 2x against mastermind. (Mostly because of poor gameplay)

any advice for min-max version of this build please let me know
Death to all enemy of the horde
Last edited by ytric on Apr 8, 2019, 2:05:02 PM
I advise a "nearby enemies take 9% increased physical damage" helmet for your AG. It far outstrips a leer cast, and can be had almost as cheaply. no more than 5c for one that has a bunch of crap mods on it. The 9% increased phys damage is the only mod we care about.

dread banner is strictly better than war banner. It makes attacking enemies less able to hit you, 21% less accuracy at level 20, and unaffected by reduced curse effectiveness on bosses. you want this when you're facing hydra (or any boss that attacks). Basically a nearly-free mini enfeeble. The extra effectiveness from generosity means your minions impale more often, and the impales do more of their base damage per hit when applied. You really notice it when you run a herald of agony 1-minion build. the Boss' health bar goes down by huge chunks when the impale applies. (because you're using either rain of arrows or ball lightning to proc virulence stacks, and those both hit very fast, and when the hoag does impale, the next five hits (most of them from you since ol' spoder is a slow hitter) come fast, and each does much more than the standard 10% of physical damage of the initial hit, per hit, due to the greater effectiveness through generosity and enhance (and the weapon)

drop the rejuv totem for ball lightning. you'll see why in a second. put the stone golem in the boots, and blood magic (or increased duration) on the ag/zombies/spectres


i'd drop punishment since you're socket-starved. punishment requires each minion to be hit before he can receive the buff. It's not even that great a buff versus high-tier bosses, reduced curse effectiveness and all. That lets you have 2 apes and 1 evangelist (prox shield ftw) since you can have +1 spectre boots instead of windscreams. This more than makes up for the loss of elemental aegis, even though the bubble is only up 50% of the time (75% if you go for the defensive setup i mention below)

Vitality IMHO is a noob trap. if you get a couple of extra minion life nodes on the tree you'll never miss it, and you'll have 35% of your mana back.


also, if you're feeling brave, you can wield a one-hander with minion attack speed/ and minion damage/life and %quality of socketed gems (this is where you want to put your dread banner/generosity/enhance) and victario's charity withOUT Necro Aegis. Yes, you lose elemental aegis. But if you're playing this build correctly you're not getting hit very often. That gives your crew frenzy charges when you cast ball lightning (even if you use a totem! yes i've tested it. not that we have the sockets to spare for a spell totem but anyway...)

Replace the faster casting on temp chains with bane (much better aoe than raw casting temp chains, still triggers vixen). Or you can have all 3 curses on bane in a much better pair of gloves: Fenumus' weave, for example (that's what you're doing with most of the 35% mana you saved on vitality) THEN you summon Power Charge apes (Host Chieftains) instead of Frenzy apes, and when linked with blood magic, they're much more spammy with their warcry than the chieftains are (unless GGG ninja nerfed that recently).

You can also get a white socket on your boots or gloves (wherever you have your curses) and you can swap in assassin's mark for temp chains if you're comfortable with that. probably not a great idea in delve lol.

here's a version of your "bourgeoisie" setup with a few adjustments:

https://pastebin.com/kpThpJsW

Note that the tooltip for the skeletons doesn't take into account the added damage from Dread Banner. That's like, another 15% more multiplier on top of all that. yeah that's over half a million per skeleton.

you might have to turn on spiderweb stacks. (that's a big damage boost too as well as a hinder)

if you turn off power charges you'll see why i suggested selfcast ball lightning with vic charity. It keeps frenzy charges up much more reliably for your bonebois. the power charges are really just icing. If you wanted a really defensive setup, you could actually go with three evangelists. if you did do that, replace blood magic with increased duration, and you'll have shields up for 12 out of every 16 seconds. nuts.

I did change up your links a bit. there's no reason not to use bloodlust with a melee minion when you have vulnerability as a curse. and maim is strictly better than ruthless. The enemies get maimed anyway because of vulnerability, but the gem gives you more damage for the maim.

Lastly, well an afterthought really, you can save a bunch of currency by just getting minion life on the +3 helmet. the +20 or so increased damage isn't that much, when you have aspect of the spider giving you 50% increased.

enjoy!
Quoting Saltychipmunk:
...I look at the new act 5 boss where you have to hide behind the statues to survive the bullet hell and all I can think is... how the fuck are zombies going to survive that?

They don't know what hiding is... they don't know what dodging is... they are morons.
Last edited by joachimbond on Apr 10, 2019, 3:14:00 AM
one last bonkers hot take:

If you have well-capped resistances, and say, level 22 discipline on an amulet, you can put bloodlust, brutality, and enlighten (only those three, any more and you're negative mana. minion damage is same boost as brutality and has a higher mana multiplier so no minion damage) in a hungry loop and then add herald of purity and get 4 mimions that come out when you fight rares and uniques and do over 100k damage each. More minions whacking on the boss means boss is blind, bleeding, maimed and taunted that much more (actually your zombies and AG apply bleed). Plus they look really cool. You'll lose some ES and/or life (whatever you have on the ring you replace with the herald of purity.

but you can only realistically do this with reduced mana reserved on a couple of jewels and some tweaks to the tree. small tweaks.

https://pastebin.com/Xqia9ycG


In this example, i do this with reduced reservation on your helmet. That's possible if you can afford to spam essences of loathing on your base until you hit at least +2 minion gems along with the level # minion life support. sounds expensive. The screaming are 3 chaos each as of this writing, and that's the minimum you would need to make it work without corrupted jewels with reduced reservation. and gg minion jewels are already expensive af without that corruption.

with this, you can't endlessly spam skeletons, but really will you have time to stand still and push them out? no, you'll be dodging mechanics and casting ball lightning when you can (applying bleed, maiming, and generating frenzy charges for your mob), while they beat the tar out of the boss. One skeleton cast every 3-4 seconds is the most you should need. basically your juiced-up skeletons will insta-phase shaper. The purity posse is just for the lulz.
Quoting Saltychipmunk:
...I look at the new act 5 boss where you have to hide behind the statues to survive the bullet hell and all I can think is... how the fuck are zombies going to survive that?

They don't know what hiding is... they don't know what dodging is... they are morons.
Last edited by joachimbond on Apr 10, 2019, 4:05:49 AM
"
joachimbond wrote:
I advise a "nearby enemies take 9% increased physical damage" helmet for your AG. It far outstrips a leer cast, and can be had almost as cheaply. no more than 5c for one that has a bunch of crap mods on it. The 9% increased phys damage is the only mod we care about.


Thank you very much, I didnt think of rare items for AG before. Yes, I'll take this advice for sure.


"
joachimbond wrote:
dread banner is strictly better than war banner. It makes attacking enemies less able to hit you, 21% less accuracy at level 20, and unaffected by reduced curse effectiveness on bosses. you want this when you're facing hydra (or any boss that attacks). Basically a nearly-free mini enfeeble. The extra effectiveness from generosity means your minions impale more often, and the impales do more of their base damage per hit when applied. You really notice it when you run a herald of agony 1-minion build. the Boss' health bar goes down by huge chunks when the impale applies. (because you're using either rain of arrows or ball lightning to proc virulence stacks, and those both hit very fast, and when the hoag does impale, the next five hits (most of them from you since ol' spoder is a slow hitter) come fast, and each does much more than the standard 10% of physical damage of the initial hit, per hit, due to the greater effectiveness through generosity and enhance (and the weapon)


Yes, I was experiencing the same about dread banner. We dont need accuracy buff from war banner since skeleton is the main source of dps. I was using dread banner for big bosses, war banner for short fight (adrenaline). The problem is PoB couldnt capture the mechanics of impale atm, so I chose war banner temporarily. I'll compare them again empirically.

"
joachimbond wrote:
drop the rejuv totem for ball lightning. you'll see why in a second. put the stone golem in the boots, and blood magic (or increased duration) on the ag/zombies/spectres

i'd drop punishment since you're socket-starved. punishment requires each minion to be hit before he can receive the buff. It's not even that great a buff versus high-tier bosses, reduced curse effectiveness and all. That lets you have 2 apes and 1 evangelist (prox shield ftw) since you can have +1 spectre boots instead of windscreams. This more than makes up for the loss of elemental aegis, even though the bubble is only up 50% of the time (75% if you go for the defensive setup i mention below)


I think the bubble spectre would slow me down, our gameplay is to phase thru the mobs to next mobs (either by flame dash or quartz flask) and let skeleton finish them. I have to bring the huge defense with me, if it's left behind I would be fucked up.

"
joachimbond wrote:
Vitality IMHO is a noob trap. if you get a couple of extra minion life nodes on the tree you'll never miss it, and you'll have 35% of your mana back.


I think as long as our minions couldnt get one-shotted by boss, the regen is still very important. Currently they regen 6k+ hp/s, without vitality it would be 4k hp/s. (the stone golem in your version only 38k life and regen 2k hp/s, might need to change skill set to resummon).
Well, I'm playing more defensive atm. When I feel both player and minions are tanky enough may be I'll change vitality to aspect of spider as you suggest. I'll put it in consideration.

"
joachimbond wrote:
also, if you're feeling brave, you can wield a one-hander with minion attack speed/ and minion damage/life and %quality of socketed gems (this is where you want to put your dread banner/generosity/enhance) and victario's charity withOUT Necro Aegis. Yes, you lose elemental aegis. But if you're playing this build correctly you're not getting hit very often. That gives your crew frenzy charges when you cast ball lightning (even if you use a totem! yes i've tested it. not that we have the sockets to spare for a spell totem but anyway...)

Replace the faster casting on temp chains with bane (much better aoe than raw casting temp chains, still triggers vixen). Or you can have all 3 curses on bane in a much better pair of gloves: Fenumus' weave, for example (that's what you're doing with most of the 35% mana you saved on vitality) THEN you summon Power Charge apes (Host Chieftains) instead of Frenzy apes, and when linked with blood magic, they're much more spammy with their warcry than the chieftains are (unless GGG ninja nerfed that recently).


The shield is very important for me. I currently can only subtitute magna eclipsis with vix lunaris. It's better not to dual weild weapon because skin of the loyal has a role to double the defense, If i drop the shield I would lose the benefit of the chest. (or should I change the dress as well? we're talking about min-max version right).

We have to be able pass thru mobs if we want to clear fast, so I have to be tanky enough to bear damage from 1 to 3 mobs before skeletons clear them. Otherwise, we might get more damage but we couldnt pass thru mobs, which would make us slower instead of faster at clearing. If we rely on bubble, and drop some defensive layers we couldnt clear fast. but it's better for killing bosses, i guess.

Frenzy from 2 apes is quite good tho, I dont think we need to add more frenzy source. With low level clarity they warcry as often as using blood magic.

"
joachimbond wrote:
You can also get a white socket on your boots or gloves (wherever you have your curses) and you can swap in assassin's mark for temp chains if you're comfortable with that. probably not a great idea in delve lol.

here's a version of your "bourgeoisie" setup with a few adjustments:

https://pastebin.com/kpThpJsW

Note that the tooltip for the skeletons doesn't take into account the added damage from Dread Banner. That's like, another 15% more multiplier on top of all that. yeah that's over half a million per skeleton.

you might have to turn on spiderweb stacks. (that's a big damage boost too as well as a hinder)

if you turn off power charges you'll see why i suggested selfcast ball lightning with vic charity. It keeps frenzy charges up much more reliably for your bonebois. the power charges are really just icing. If you wanted a really defensive setup, you could actually go with three evangelists. if you did do that, replace blood magic with increased duration, and you'll have shields up for 12 out of every 16 seconds. nuts.

I did change up your links a bit. there's no reason not to use bloodlust with a melee minion when you have vulnerability as a curse. and maim is strictly better than ruthless. The enemies get maimed anyway because of vulnerability, but the gem gives you more damage for the maim.

Lastly, well an afterthought really, you can save a bunch of currency by just getting minion life on the +3 helmet. the +20 or so increased damage isn't that much, when you have aspect of the spider giving you 50% increased.

enjoy!


yes, I'll change vitality to aspect of spider when I feel tankier, need to test that. I'll look for aspect of spider on ring so we dont have to change the helmet. (my current unset ring is very budget, definitely will change that ring). Yeah I'm currently using dread banner, war banner was just less confusing in PoB so I put it with some notes. The lightning res in your PoB is too much, may be we can use that slot for aspect of spider. It's a suffix, right?

I'll test bloodlust for bossing. In PoB it became 4,5M DPS in condition that the enemies are bleeding. So yeah, if it works, bloodlust will be the subtitution for melee splash. thanks a lot!
Death to all enemy of the horde
"
joachimbond wrote:
one last bonkers hot take:

If you have well-capped resistances, and say, level 22 discipline on an amulet, you can put bloodlust, brutality, and enlighten (only those three, any more and you're negative mana. minion damage is same boost as brutality and has a higher mana multiplier so no minion damage) in a hungry loop and then add herald of purity and get 4 mimions that come out when you fight rares and uniques and do over 100k damage each. More minions whacking on the boss means boss is blind, bleeding, maimed and taunted that much more (actually your zombies and AG apply bleed). Plus they look really cool. You'll lose some ES and/or life (whatever you have on the ring you replace with the herald of purity.

but you can only realistically do this with reduced mana reserved on a couple of jewels and some tweaks to the tree. small tweaks.

https://pastebin.com/Xqia9ycG


In this example, i do this with reduced reservation on your helmet. That's possible if you can afford to spam essences of loathing on your base until you hit at least +2 minion gems along with the level # minion life support. sounds expensive. The screaming are 3 chaos each as of this writing, and that's the minimum you would need to make it work without corrupted jewels with reduced reservation. and gg minion jewels are already expensive af without that corruption.

with this, you can't endlessly spam skeletons, but really will you have time to stand still and push them out? no, you'll be dodging mechanics and casting ball lightning when you can (applying bleed, maiming, and generating frenzy charges for your mob), while they beat the tar out of the boss. One skeleton cast every 3-4 seconds is the most you should need. basically your juiced-up skeletons will insta-phase shaper. The purity posse is just for the lulz.


in your PoB the helmet has 7 affixes, which one to drop?

hmm I dont think i could afford herald of purity. We, as the player, need to kill monster or hit rare/unique monsters in order to summon them. Minion's kill or hit doesnt summon the sentinels. I think it's risky for the player to stand still hitting bosses. Mana reservation is one of my concern, may be I can only drop vitality for aspect of spider then upgrade clarity level.

Fresh skeleton dont have frenzy from monkeys, so I wouldnt spam very often. I think lv8 clarity serves me and the monkeys quite well, but it's still good to have higher level after I drop the vitality.

Oh I forgot to mention that I have secondary weapon (for leveling gems and subtitution)



I subtitute vitality with one of the purity aura for big bosses, from respective boss element. (e.g. purity of ice for elder and shaper, fire for atziri). If we used aspect of spider we might also drop the defensive buff from the aura. I'll have to test how tanky I am if I drop the defensive auras for aspect of spider.

Btw, thank you so much for your feedback. It helps me a lot. It's now 4m+ DPS even in budget version.
Death to all enemy of the horde
Last edited by ytric on Apr 10, 2019, 9:26:05 AM
Everyone has their preferred playstyle. I prefer to go a little slower and not have to worry in boss fights. The helmet can lose the minion damage mod.

I had a fast skeleton build in delve league, and it was a lot of fun. No block though since I was using queen's escape.

I like to run between packs, but since the phase run nerf I wouldn't even consider running through them. That's just suicidal. ;D
Quoting Saltychipmunk:
...I look at the new act 5 boss where you have to hide behind the statues to survive the bullet hell and all I can think is... how the fuck are zombies going to survive that?

They don't know what hiding is... they don't know what dodging is... they are morons.
"
ytric wrote:


"
joachimbond wrote:
also, if you're feeling brave, you can wield a one-hander with minion attack speed/ and minion damage/life and %quality of socketed gems (this is where you want to put your dread banner/generosity/enhance) and victario's charity withOUT Necro Aegis.....


The shield is very important for me. I currently can only subtitute magna eclipsis with vix lunaris. It's better not to dual weild weapon because skin of the loyal has a role to double the defense, If i drop the shield I would lose the benefit of the chest. (or should I change the dress as well? we're talking about min-max version right).



just to be clear i never suggested dual wielding.

the vic's charity is for me to give my minions frenzy charges by casting a ball lightning every few seconds. More reliable than the apes, IMO. plus you still get block.

Only downside is VC doesn't have a lot of es on it. I might have to give magna eclipsis a whirl and see how it feels.
Quoting Saltychipmunk:
...I look at the new act 5 boss where you have to hide behind the statues to survive the bullet hell and all I can think is... how the fuck are zombies going to survive that?

They don't know what hiding is... they don't know what dodging is... they are morons.
"
joachimbond wrote:
"
ytric wrote:


"
joachimbond wrote:
also, if you're feeling brave, you can wield a one-hander with minion attack speed/ and minion damage/life and %quality of socketed gems (this is where you want to put your dread banner/generosity/enhance) and victario's charity withOUT Necro Aegis.....


The shield is very important for me. I currently can only subtitute magna eclipsis with vix lunaris. It's better not to dual weild weapon because skin of the loyal has a role to double the defense, If i drop the shield I would lose the benefit of the chest. (or should I change the dress as well? we're talking about min-max version right).



just to be clear i never suggested dual wielding.

the vic's charity is for me to give my minions frenzy charges by casting a ball lightning every few seconds. More reliable than the apes, IMO. plus you still get block.

Only downside is VC doesn't have a lot of es on it. I might have to give magna eclipsis a whirl and see how it feels.


ahh, sorry I misunderstood the one-hander part. yes, I need to change the scepter for minmax. I was only looking for +2 fire gems and +90% minion dmg due to budget. Dont you need 'trigger socketed spell' on weapon in your PoB? It has so many active spells. How do you manage the skill set?
Death to all enemy of the horde

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