[3.14] Odif's Old Obsolete Skel Mage Guide, New one is in a new thread

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Seratt wrote:
Been using only this build so far this league, thanks!

I've tried to keep more of a tanky feel with shield and max block. I go back and forth constantly on whether to keep the zombies and skitter/curse on my rings or not. Pretty easy gaming so far though.



How do you like those unique rings and belt you're using? Leash of Oblation looks particularly interesting, but I'd lose some life if I replace my stygian vise.
Ok

I have a PoB here from my level 82 witch.
She has starter gear, with some upgrades.
Breathstealer gloves with annoint.
+1 all int gems ammy
A 21/23 Vaal Summon Skeleton gem.
Some minion damage/cast speed on the wands.

So, its past the starter gear, but not too expensive.

I did some calcs in PoB to estimate Shaper DPS.
I did this by averaging the dps of the fire/cold/light skels

Skel Mages do 245k dps each
I have 11 mages, so thats 2.69 mill shaper dps.

Vaal Skel mages do 140k dps.
I do not know exactly how many mages Vaal Skel gives
15 from the jewel, plus any that Vaal Skel naturally summons.
Lets say that is 5. (does anybody know?)
20 total vaal skel mages means 2.8 mill shaper dps.

So 5.47 mill shaper dps.

Not to shabby for about 3-4 exaults spent.
AND many support gems are not level 20, so more dps is easily doable.


If I ever get 6 blues on the chest with "socketed gems supported by level 15 pierce" chest, that dps will go way up.

If I ever can afford +2 gem wands, that dps will go way up again.

Hope everybody is enjoying the build.

Here is the PoB import I used for the calcs.

https://pastebin.com/eJW03XPq
P.S.
Why is my Skel mage necro only 82?

My first one this league, got much high level, i forget how high.
I got bored with it, and started another toon.

My habit is to delete old toons, otherwise I would run out of character slots.

I played several different builds, and decided to go back to the skel mages, so I started a fresh toon, to test out different leveling strategies.

I did change the leveling newbie section based on my new strategies.
It has infernal legion linked to skitterbots all the way through yellow maps now.
Current state of my version of the build, lvl 99. Lightning skeleton has over 2.5M Sirus damage now, with average 4/4/4 summoned mages its about 21M damage total (i dont count zombies, as they do pretty much zero damage). To get this number on perspective, thats enought damage for Cortex to do nothing, because every phase of his is instakilled! :-) The goal was to have enough damage for Maven, to be able to kill her after she does just one memory game in a last phase, which now works. Too bad i suck at that damn memory thing so i keep failing it, but we'll get there...

7k HP, resist are maxed for red version of ele weakness, immune to frozen, chill, 68/54 block. I'm currently testing Glorious Vanity for converting half of ele damage taken to chaos, because i have 80% max chaos resist. For some reason it looks worse in POB eHP pool, but i actually feel more tanky in juiced tier 19 delirium maps, needs more testing if its really worth the lose of that 3k ES shield you might get from spore. Anyway, I can do T16 100% delirium without any trouble, in T19 i must stay at 80% delirium, as its not worth to risk losing all that precious loot. Rampage really helps there, and its fun to watch! :-)



I bought these 2 wands for 80ex total, everything else i crafted/corrupted myself from scratch, all harvest craft farmed by me aswell. However i recrafted suffixes on them for my purpuse, still need to replace that last fire one.

Things left to do:
- finish large cluster, i can get +350 HP there
- with synthetised ghastly jewels i can get 9% cast speed for minions, so fair i failed to get the right rolls
I should get another 70% minion damage on rings doing this:
- replace prefix on my redeemer ring
- replace right ring with this one, still in process of crafting

This will also free me 2 gem slots, not sure yet what for, probably for Fortify.
- in theory you can replace boots with synthetised minion damage, but i dont wanna do that, but its a minmaxing option
- helmet is a tricky one, as i dont use it as typical minion users do, all i want is as much as HP as possible and indirect minion support for skeletons. Therefore BIS for me is shaper/elder influence with miniond damage and elevated "Nearby Enemies take 9% increased Elemental Damage". I have some general idea on how to craft it, but i'm not sure if i wanna do it, probably last thing to minmax, if i'll have enought time this league...
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evilmindcz wrote:
Current state of my version of the build, lvl 99. Lightning skeleton has over 2.5M Sirus damage now, with average 4/4/4 summoned mages its about 21M damage total (i dont count zombies, as they do pretty much zero damage). To get this number on perspective, thats enought damage for Cortex to do nothing, because every phase of his is instakilled! :-) The goal was to have enough damage for Maven, to be able to kill her after she does just one memory game in a last phase, which now works. Too bad i suck at that damn memory thing so i keep failing it, but we'll get there...

7k HP, resist are maxed for red version of ele weakness, immune to frozen, chill, 68/54 block. I'm currently testing Glorious Vanity for converting half of ele damage taken to chaos, because i have 80% max chaos resist. For some reason it looks worse in POB eHP pool, but i actually feel more tanky in juiced tier 19 delirium maps, needs more testing if its really worth the lose of that 3k ES shield you might get from spore. Anyway, I can do T16 100% delirium without any trouble, in T19 i must stay at 80% delirium, as its not worth to risk losing all that precious loot. Rampage really helps there, and its fun to watch! :-)



I bought these 2 wands for 80ex total, everything else i crafted/corrupted myself from scratch, all harvest craft farmed by me aswell. However i recrafted suffixes on them for my purpuse, still need to replace that last fire one.

Things left to do:
- finish large cluster, i can get +350 HP there
- with synthetised ghastly jewels i can get 9% cast speed for minions, so fair i failed to get the right rolls
I should get another 70% minion damage on rings doing this:
- replace prefix on my redeemer ring
- replace right ring with this one, still in process of crafting

This will also free me 2 gem slots, not sure yet what for, probably for Fortify.
- in theory you can replace boots with synthetised minion damage, but i dont wanna do that, but its a minmaxing option
- helmet is a tricky one, as i dont use it as typical minion users do, all i want is as much as HP as possible and indirect minion support for skeletons. Therefore BIS for me is shaper/elder influence with miniond damage and elevated "Nearby Enemies take 9% increased Elemental Damage". I have some general idea on how to craft it, but i'm not sure if i wanna do it, probably last thing to minmax, if i'll have enought time this league...


Holy COW, that gear is INSANE.

I salute you for the effort it takes to buy/craft that level of gear.

Great idea using flame wall to buff mage damage!
Why did I not think of that?
@evilmindcz

You should try out a doryani glorious vanity, you won't lose out on the spore es and you'll gain around 1500 permanent es on top of what you have from gear.

It depends on what kind of damage you're taking more of to see if it's more ehp than xibaqua. Since it's a question of 50% of elemental damage and 100% of chaos damage having 5% more mitigation (assuming 76% to 81% it's .19/.24= 21% less damage taken), or having 1400-1800 (~5000 spore) more shield that 50% of elemental damage and 50% physical damage has to go through, which is 16-20% of your total hp/es.

You'll take more health damage before the es is spent, which means you'll need to life flask earlier into fights, but that means your health regen and life from block has more consistent healing value and you refill flask charges rather than not use them. It's worth testing out.
are there any skills to channeling desecrate and offering?
I am not interested into super end game and looking for a comfortable build to crush all main contents and farming.

All the curses, offering, short defensive buff make my fingers quite busy.

Cyclone does not work with wand if I want to maximize the damage.
Thank you for this. This game is pretty intimidating with all of the options, and I keep getting a few levels in and I'm just too squishy. This guide seems like the perfect primer for me to try out, so thank you again. All the details are incredibly helpful and straight-forward; you've explained everything better than anything I have read so far. Thanks again.
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Karmachine wrote:
Thank you for this. This game is pretty intimidating with all of the options, and I keep getting a few levels in and I'm just too squishy. This guide seems like the perfect primer for me to try out, so thank you again. All the details are incredibly helpful and straight-forward; you've explained everything better than anything I have read so far. Thanks again.



Wonderful!
You are exactly the sort of person I wrote the guide for.
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Fendi_Gucci wrote:
@evilmindcz

You should try out a doryani glorious vanity, you won't lose out on the spore es and you'll gain around 1500 permanent es on top of what you have from gear.

It depends on what kind of damage you're taking more of to see if it's more ehp than xibaqua. Since it's a question of 50% of elemental damage and 100% of chaos damage having 5% more mitigation (assuming 76% to 81% it's .19/.24= 21% less damage taken), or having 1400-1800 (~5000 spore) more shield that 50% of elemental damage and 50% physical damage has to go through, which is 16-20% of your total hp/es.

You'll take more health damage before the es is spent, which means you'll need to life flask earlier into fights, but that means your health regen and life from block has more consistent healing value and you refill flask charges rather than not use them. It's worth testing out.


Yeah, i'm testing it now - it gives like 2k ES, and on some spores i'm over 8k ES. I think i'll get Torrent Reclamation to test it aswell, its massive HP loss, but huge offensive buff and it actually might help with some ES recovery too (i have more on ring aswell now., accidentaly)

EDIT: looks like damagewise is Darkness Enthroned actually slightly better, with 2 good eyes, plus it still has at least some hp
Last edited by evilmindcz on Feb 19, 2021, 7:33:25 AM

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