[3.17.5] Devon's Minion Instability Skeletons | Extremely High DPS | Thread locked... made new one

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xWonkas wrote:

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Skitterbots are necessary, they provide 20% more damage, others are optional. Haste is nice quality of life.

Hey, first of all nice build

I have 2 questions:
1) How/why Skitterbots inc 20% damage?
2) Why you dont level up Storm Brand? (level up => inc dmg multiplier)

Thank you!

1) One of them applies Shock in an AoE (default is 15% and effectivnes is increased with levels)
2) Low mana cost and it's used only to apply Flammability and Elemental Equilibrium (only necessary to use on bosses for that insane damage bonus)

Love this build! I had an old lv92 SRS Necro in Standard doing nothing, so I went ahead and made myself a semi-budget Popcorn Skeletons based on your guide. Last night I killed A8 Sirus with her and love it. Main differences in build, it works but doesn't deal as much damage:

*No pricey Elder Helmet, so Skeles are 6L in Body Armour.
*One of my Ghastly Jewels adds Fire damage to minion attacks, so Zombies can now bear Elemental Army, Feeding Frenzy, and Combustion! With all the +MinLife and regen from Life and Death they're immortal and reliably debuff single targets. They also taunt because of Hulking Corpses.
*No Spectres, Zombies do the debuffing
*Got a Sidhebreath with "You can apply an additional Curse" corrupt, letting me apply both Flammability and Elemental Weakness with Orb of Storms. No Anointment, unfortunately.
*Aspect of the Spider instead of Haste, allowing a higher Clarity

Some ideas, maybe good maybe not:

Two good notables from a Large Cluster: Raze and Pillage (adds fire damage to the Zombies on its own) and Call to the Slaughter. Two more sockets for two Medium Clusters. Would require moving a lot of passives, mostly costing player life.

This would be silly and hard to build, but you can potentially run The Baron and hit 1000 Strength. The leech from Zombies would bring great sustain and life is still good. 500 Strength adds 250 flat life to Skeletons. This requires Anointing Utmost Might, 18% Str Alberon's, high Strength on every rare, an Astramentis, a little reworking of the Passives tree to place a nice Efficient Training gem, and maybe even a Wall of Muscle from Small Cluster. Recommend taking Commander of Darkness ascendancy to help with resists.
Would also require dropping Haste and using a low-level Desecrate so you don't need Dexterity.

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therealtoothman wrote:

Love this build! I had an old lv92 SRS Necro in Standard doing nothing, so I went ahead and made myself a semi-budget Popcorn Skeletons based on your guide. Last night I killed A8 Sirus with her and love it.

Hey man, really glad you like it!
And I like the idea with the Zombies applying the debuff since it's only important on bosses anyway. Pretty cool dood.

And thanks for checking it out :D

And thank you for the guide!

One other idea: The Hungry Loop. Put your Spectres in it, let it consume Elemental Army, Combustion, Feeding Frenzy, and GMP (or Zombies with Minion Life instead of GMP). Saves you a bunch of gems and lets you buy a Helmet with more normal stats, like high life rolls. I have no idea what to do with the new open 4-link lol

EDIT: Oh what I am I thinking, new 4-link can be Meat Shield, Golem, Zombies, Empower or whatever. With all the natural minion life and sustain I've never seen a lv20 Golem with just Meat Shield die.

Also, Culling Strike in The Loop instead of GMP! So it could look something like this:

Raise Spectre - Plumed Chimeral (ranged attack to benefit from Culling, applies debuff to enemies hit - make sure something adds fire to their attacks)
LOOP supports: FFrenzy, Ele Army, Combustion, Culling Strike
Since the Spectres won't deal significant damage themselves, they're safe from Reflect.

Zombies and Golem with Meat Shield, either a 4-link with Empower or just a 3-link. More "budget" than an Elder helmet, better boss damage, but less passive clear speed.

Hi Devon,

First, I would like to thank you for putting together all these build guides.
I am a new player (Harvest was my first league and I played the Enki’s Arc witch) and I would like to play your build in Heist because it is easy to understand and follow with my still limited knowledge about the game.

I have a question about it – how essential are the specters? Are they absolutely necessary or can the build work without them or with a replacement? I saw someone mentioned a variation that uses zombies instead. How well would that work?

And I have a suggestion too – could you please color code the skills/gems in the “All Links” section? This will make it easier to follow for a noob like me :)

Thank you.

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hellix wrote:

Hi Devon,

First, I would like to thank you for putting together all these build guides.
I am a new player (Harvest was my first league and I played the Enki’s Arc witch) and I would like to play your build in Heist because it is easy to understand and follow with my still limited knowledge about the game.

I have a question about it – how essential are the specters? Are they absolutely necessary or can the build work without them or with a replacement? I saw someone mentioned a variation that uses zombies instead. How well would that work?

And I have a suggestion too – could you please color code the skills/gems in the “All Links” section? This will make it easier to follow for a noob like me :)

Thank you.

Hello and no problem, I really enjoy doing it.

So for the question. The idea is that your Spectres essentially just buff your minion instability damage with Elemental Army and Combustion. I went for the ones I recommended because they cover a large area mainly and deal primarily fire damage (fire damage necessary for combustion and elemental army).
It is absolutely fine to use Zombies or maybe even a Stone golem as a replacement but then you will have to replace gems such as GMP and Spell Echo with something that suits zombies/golems and provides some fire damage to be able to apply the Elemental Army/Combustion effects. Added fire would be the optimal solution for the lack of fire damage. The last gem can be anything, I would probably go for Meat shield so they can absorb the brunt of the damage anything dishes out and taunt enemies as well.

That's a nice suggestion, I will probably do it during the day ^^

Thank you for checking the build out and have fun :D

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devon752 wrote:

Hello and no problem, I really enjoy doing it.

So for the question. The idea is that your Spectres essentially just buff your minion instability damage with Elemental Army and Combustion. I went for the ones I recommended because they cover a large area mainly and deal primarily fire damage (fire damage necessary for combustion and elemental army).
It is absolutely fine to use Zombies or maybe even a Stone golem as a replacement but then you will have to replace gems such as GMP and Spell Echo with something that suits zombies/golems and provides some fire damage to be able to apply the Elemental Army/Combustion effects. Added fire would be the optimal solution for the lack of fire damage. The last gem can be anything, I would probably go for Meat shield so they can absorb the brunt of the damage anything dishes out and taunt enemies as well.

That's a nice suggestion, I will probably do it during the day ^^

Thank you for checking the build out and have fun :D

Hey thanks for the reply.

I will definitely try the version with the zombies because honestly I find the specters' mechanics quite annoying - the fact that they disappear every time they die or you change skills or gear, and then have to hunt down their corpses in a level they occupy to get them back or use a specter bank. That looks like an annoying chore to me.

Now I'm looking forward to the 3.12 patch notes to see if anything will change significantly with this build and Friday can't come soon enough. :)

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hellix wrote:

Hey thanks for the reply.

I will definitely try the version with the zombies because honestly I find the specters' mechanics quite annoying - the fact that they disappear every time they die or you change skills or gear, and then have to hunt down their corpses in a level they occupy to get them back or use a specter bank. That looks like an annoying chore to me.

Now I'm looking forward to the 3.12 patch notes to see if anything will change significantly with this build and Friday can't come soon enough. :)

Np, also I color coded the skill gems to make them easier to read. Does that look good to you? Or would you recommend a change in the look? Because I'd most likely do that with my other builds as well.

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devon752 wrote:

Np, also I color coded the skill gems to make them easier to read. Does that look good to you? Or would you recommend a change in the look? Because I'd most likely do that with my other builds as well.

Yep, it looks great. You can see what color sockets you need for each slot with just a glance even if you don't know the gem colors by heart. Thank :)

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hellix wrote:

I will definitely try the version with the zombies because honestly I find the specters' mechanics quite annoying - the fact that they disappear every time they die or you change skills or gear, and then have to hunt down their corpses in a level they occupy to get them back or use a specter bank. That looks like an annoying chore to me.

Pro tip for Spectres: Desecrate will make corpses that match your Spectres, so moving Gems around in your hideout only requires a quick Desecrate and re-cast. In maps, the corpses will be mixed with enemies from the area but you'll usually get your Spectres in 2-3 casts. They're very durable in this build, anyway.

Also anything that adds even 1 Fire damage to Zombie or Spectre attacks, like from a Ghastly Jewel, will be enough for Combustion/Ele Army, as long as other mods don't add more cold/lightning.