(Unsupported) Odif's Build Guides for Newbies: Absolution-Slave Drivers Necromancer

I am no longer supporting this build.
Due to Archnemesis mods on rares, I no longer think the build is good in its current state, and I don't have the motivation to try and make it good.

Try Ghazzy or Kay for Absolution builds

https://www.poe-vault.com/guides/ghazzy-guide-hub
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3179145#p24300847
Spoiler
Greeting Exiles

The build is a Necromancer using Absolution and Spectres (Slave Drivers) for dps.

This build guide is specifically designed for Newbies!
(Also works as a league starter for experienced players)

Why for Newbies?
It is so hard for new players to do well at PoE, so I wanted to make new guide that will get them deep into endgame, easily.


What makes it so Newbie friendly?
Spoiler

It uses, NO cluster jewels, needs no expensive empower or enlighten, no vaal skills.
I has one optional (recommended) unique body armor, but you can use a rare body armor if you want.

It progresses through Acts 1-10 with ease.
There is a VERY detailed leveling section, with exactly what quest rewards to take, what to link to what skills, what supports to swap out in what acts, etc.

It needs minimal gear to dominate maps.

It has a simple play style, run around and occasionally cast Absolution.

It's a minion build, and minion builds are BY FAR the easiest for newbies.

What about experienced players?
Spoiler

Experienced players can use it to get currency league start, then transition to another end game focused minion build, or reroll to another class.
Since Absolution was introduced in 3.15, many experienced players have not used it, so its an opportunity to try something new, and get a easy smooth league start.

General Description of the build
Spoiler

We use TWO minion skills for damage, ABSOLUTION and RAISE SPECTRE (Slave Drivers)
We use two minion skills for utility and defense, raise zombie and summon stone golem.
We use Bone Offering and Molten Shell for more defense
We use Conductivity curse for more offense.
We use 4 auras, Wrath boosted with Generosity for offense, and Determination, Tempest Shield and Defiance Banner for defense.

For Defenses we use high attack and spell block, life recovery on block, some armor, and some life regen.

We have Summon Phantasm Support linked to Zombies.
These Phantasms are designed to die a lot, and when they die, they will heal our minions via a Minion Defense Mastery on the passive tree.
(Thanks to Promaore for this idea.)

Will this build be good for Archnemesis League?
Spoiler

YES!
Archnemesis is a boss centered league, both the new atlas stuff, and the league specific stuff are boss fights.
Absolution is a single target boss killing skill.

Map Mods to avoid:
Spoiler

Elemental Reflect
No Regen

Pros and Cons
Spoiler

Pros
Needs no uniques, cluster jewels, empower, or enlighten
Goes thru campaign with ease.
Goes to red maps with minimal investment
Can dodge boss damage while minions dps.
Super cheap to gear, scales with investment.
VERY forgiving to player error, I.E. Newbie friendly.

Cons
Minion build (some people hate minion builds)
Not a super fast clear speed due to low move speed. The only move speed we have is on boots and a quicksiver flask.
At high end investment you will want to transition to different minion build.
Uses 2 unset rings


Solving Mana Issues
Spoiler

When your Absolution is in a 6 link chest, it uses a LOT of mana each time you cast it. You have to do some thing to fix your mana issues.

Keep your Absolution as a 4 link until you do one of the below things!!!


You have a choice

Choice 1 (recommended)
Buy the unique armor The Covenent

All your mana issues go away, with that one thing.
If all you can afford at league start is a 4 link Covenant, that's ok!

or

Choice 2
Drop Defiance Banner, replace with a low level clarity.
Use 2 enduring mana flasks

Spam alteration orbs on mana flasks until you get the enduring mod.
Use 2 of these enduring mana flasks (along with quicksilver, life, and granite flasks)
Get a ring with "curse enemies with conductivity on hit" and take Conductivity out of your trigger wand.
Get as much +max mana and as much +% mana regen on your gear as you can.

Well, ok, you don't have to do ALL of the above, but you will have to do most of them. It's possible to go without the Covenant. But, there is a reason it's recommended.

P.S.
Some other players have tried this build have said I am exaggerating the mana difficulties. They used a single enduring mana flask and did just fine.


Skills and Links
Spoiler

All supports listed in order of importance

Chest (5b 1r)
Absolution
Supported with Spell Echo, Physical to Lightning, Lightning Penetration, Minion Damage, Concentrated Effect
(Note: do not use more than 4 links for Absolution until you have solved your mana issues. See above Solving Mana Issues section)

Helm (4b)
Raise Spectre
Supported with Spell Echo, Elemental Army, Lightning Penetration

Boots (4b)
Raise Zombie supported by Feeding Frenzy, Summon Phantasm and Meat Shield.

Gloves (3r 1b)
Determination, Molten Shell, Defiance Banner, Tempest Shield
(None of these need to be linked.)

NOTE: You can swap the boots and gloves if you want, if it is easier to color sockets that way.

Weapon
Desecrate, Bone Offering, Conductivity
(None of these need to be linked.)

Shield (2b 1r)
Wrath supported by Generosity, Flame Dash
(Only Wrath and Generosity need to be linked.)

Unset ring 1
Convocation

Unset ring 2
Golem (Stone golem for more life regen, Chaos Golem for more physical damage reduction, or Carrion Golem for more dps.)

Base Gear
Spoiler

This is the gear you want to buy when you first start mappping, or as soon as possible after that.

We want as much armor on gear as we can get, knowing that we want mostly blue sockets which can be hard to roll on pure armor gear. Armor/ES hybrid gear in most slots is good.

It will be easy to cap our elemental resists, so priority is a high life roll and some chaos resists on all gear.

You will need 46 dex on your gear. Either one good dex roll or 2 weak dex rolls should get to you 46.

You will not need strength on gear at high level, but as we get our strength on the tree late, you will need strength on your gear while leveling.

Chest (5b 1r)
The Covenant unique chest is highly recommended
Even a 4 link Covenant will take you deep into maps.

If you must go with a rare chest keep your Absolution in a 4 link until you have solved your mana issues.
See above section on Solving Mana Issues

Use a ES or Armor/ES chest with as many good stats as you can

Helm (4b)
ES base
Get at least +2 socketed minion gems.
Get a high life roll and some resists.

Gloves (3r 1b)
Armor base
High life and some resists

Boots (4b)
ES or Armor/ES hybrid
25% move speed (or more)
High life and some resists

Weapon (2b 1g)
Any one hand weapon with "+1 all spell skill gems".
A free suffix so you can craft "trigger a socketed spell when you use a skill"
Note: this craft is unlocked via betrayal mechanic, or you can purchase the craft from a trusted crafter.
To find a trusted crafter go to the trade section of the official forums.
Here is the link to a trusted bench crafter that I have used before.
It's a Scourge SC league link, so you will need to find one in the right league for you.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3188159


Shield (2b 1r)
Armor/ES hybrid base.
High life roll, flat life recovered on block, +% spell block.
If this is too expensive initially, flat life recovered on block is top priority.

Rings
both rings need to be Unset rings.
Life and resists

Amulet
Life and resists.

Belt
Life and resists.



Flasks
Spoiler


Two flask setups:

WITH The Covenant Body Armor
Life flask crafted to instantly recoup life (anti curse here)
Any flask with remove bleeding/corrupting blood
Quicksilver flask (+% movespeed is nice here)
Granite flask (+% armor is nice here)
Quartz flask

WITHOUT Covenant Body Armor
Life flask with remove bleeding/corrupting blood
Quicksilver flask (+% movespeed is nice here)
Granite flask (+% armor is nice here)
2 enduring mana flasks, one with anti curse.

In either case, you will need anti freeze on a flask until you get the pantheon power that makes you immune to freeze.


PoB link
https://pastebin.com/UPh7742S
PoB link explanation
Spoiler

This is a snapshot of the gear on my current test toon.
The proposed passive tree at level 89.
THe gear assumes you have spent a bit extra currency: A 6l Covenant body armor, a +1 all skill gems weapon, a +1 str ammy that is annointed with Death's Attunement, a helm with +2 minion gems, a corrupted 20/20 Atonement gem, a corrupted 20/20 Summon Spectre gem and the rest of the gear is garbage.

er...What is PoB?
Spoiler

PoB is Path of Building, a third party software, that lets you plan and share builds.
It is completely optional.
There will be browswer based skill trees linked below.

If you want PoB, make sure you download the community fork
(google search "path of building community fork")

Ascendancy, Bandits and Pantheon
Spoiler

Necromancer Ascendancy order
Mindless Aggression --> Unnatural Strength --> Commander of Darkness --> Mistress of Sacrifice

Bandits
Kill All

Pantheon
Major: Soul of the Brine King
(Make sure to Capture Litanius to make you immune to freezing)
Minor: Your Choice, Soul of Ryslatha or Soul of Garukhan

Anoint for Amulet
Spoiler

Anoint Deaths Attunement on your amulet, as soon as you have a valuable enough amulet to justify the expense of the anoint. (Costs a clear, crimson and silver oil.)
See the Gear Upgrades section for what to look for in an amulet.

What is Anointing?
Spoiler

Randomly, in maps you can find Cassia, she gives you a mission to clear some corruption from the map. The mission can drop oils, which can be traded. After the first mission you can (and should) invite her to your hideout.
She has the ability to "anoint" an amulet with a Notable from the passive tree, but it costs 3 oils. Some anoints are cheap, some are expensive. Silver is the second most expensive oil, it can cost 30c at the start of a league, so its silly to anoint a 5c amulet with 30+c of oils.

We anoint Death Attunement on our amulet, and save 7 passive skill tree points.


Skill Trees (Including leveling trees)
Browser based, no third party software needed.
Spoiler

poeplanner.com links

14 skill points
https://poeplanner.com/b/Jp0

24 skill points
https://poeplanner.com/b/Jpo

33 skill points
https://poeplanner.com/b/Jic

52 skill points
https://poeplanner.com/b/Jiz

67 skill points (no anoint)
https://poeplanner.com/b/Jir

81 skill points (no anoint)
https://poeplanner.com/b/JBW

93 skill points (no anoint)
https://poeplanner.com/b/Ji9

112 skill points (with anoint) Level 89
https://poeplanner.com/b/Jia

117 skill points (with anoint) Level 94
https://poeplanner.com/b/Znp

NOTE:
The above trees use no jewel sockets.
You should spend currency getting a good ammy and anointing it before you spend on jewels....BUT if you find a great jewel, feel free to spend 2 points to get the socket for it.


Absolution explanation
Spoiler

Absolution was introduced in patch 3.15

Absolution is a spell you cast on enemies. It has a small AOE circle that does lightning damage and places a short debuff on enemies. If the enemy dies while debuffed, it spawns a Absolution Minion, You can have at most 3 Absolution Minions at a time. If you already have 3 Absolution Minions and you summon another, it will refresh the duration on an existing one. Their base duration is 10 seconds, but we will have over 100% increased duration on them, so about 21 seconds at high level.

If you cast Absolution on a rare or unique enemy, you also have a 25% per cast to summon an Absolution minion. Thus you can easily keep 3 up on bosses.

While you do some damage with Absolution, the vast majority of the damage is done by the Absolution minions. They hit HARD.

Absolution is a base physical damage spell, that inherently converts 50% of physical to lightning damage. We convert an additional 50% of physical to lightning via the Physical to Lighting Support gem.

So our Absolution Spell and Absolution Minions do pure lightning damage.


Spectre info
Spoiler

We are using Slave Drivers, which are found in act 5, the first zone after town, the Control Blocks.
Slave Drivers do a mid range aoe lighting spell that is very high damage.
Their weakness is they are not very tanky, but we invest a lot into minion survivability in this build.
Their squishiness is only an issue at high level content, which is why we only take the minion defense master to have minion death heal other minions last. If your spectres are dying earlier, then take this node earlier.

Newbie Spectre info
Spoiler

To safely raise spectres, first remove Spell Echo from the spectre link, so you only cast it once.
If you have the Trigger craft in your weapon, you will also have to remove the Bone Offering gem, and cast absolution to trigger Desecrate, as spells in a weapon with the trigger craft cannot be self cast, only triggered.

Go into the control blocks, desecrate until you see the corpse of a Slave Driver. (Hold "A" to see corpses)
Hovering over the slave driver corpse, press the Raise Spectre button.
Repeat until you have the max allowed.
If you accidentally summon the wrong spectre, remove your spectre gem to unsummon all your spectres, put spectre gem back in, and try again.

When done, put removed gems back in place.
Remove raise spectre from your castbar, so you don't accidentally over write your Slave Drivers with some random lame spectre.

Once you have Slave Drivers, any zone you go into, including your hideout, gains the Slave Drivers as possible corpses you can desecrate.
So, if a Slave Driver dies, you can right there, cast desecrate to get it back.
(You may have to cast desecrate many times, as it will not be a high chance.)

FYI:
99.9% of monsters in the game, when raised as spectres, completely suck, but there are a few that are crazy OP. Slave Drivers are OP.



Playstyle
Spoiler

Put Molten Shell on left click. This will make it auto cast when off cooldown.

Once you get the trigger craft on the weapon, just run though maps, casting Absolution on packs of monsters, enough to keep up 3 absolution minions.

Your absolution minions are timid, but will attack what you cast absolution on. Your specters are smart and agro on everything.

Use Convocaton when you need to call your minions to you.

Spam Absolution at the start of boss fights to get 3 absolution minions as quickly as possible.

Use Flame Dash to move out of danger, or to travel over obstacles.

Flask as needed.

Prior to getting the trigger craft on weapon, you will need to manually cast bone offering and conductivity. (annoying)


Gear Upgrades
Spoiler

First upgrade your amulet
Upgrade to a +1 lightning skill or a +1 physical skill or +1 all skill ammy when you have the currency. (It should also have high life roll and some resists)
Strength is prefered, as it helps Determination, Stone Golem and Defiance Banner also.
Your ammy should be your first upgrade, so you can justify spending the currency to anoint it with Death Attunement

Optionally, you can upgrade to the Ashes of the Stars amulet.
This amulet gives +1 all skill gems, improved mana reservation, and gives skill gems a quality bonus.

Then upgrade a ring
Get a ring with "curse enemies with Conductivity on hit"
This allows you to get rid of an unset ring.
Remove Conductivity from the weapon. Put Tempest Shield in the weapon (reservation skills cannot be triggered.) Put Convocation where Tempest Shield used to be)
This both dramatically cuts your mana use, and makes for more consistent cursing.

Then upgrade your shield
Armor/ES base
Flat Life recovered on block, Spell block, Attack block, and Life with as much armor as you can afford. Resists are optional.
Shaper influenced shields can get % max life recovered on block, which is better than flat life recovered on block, but much more expensive.
The most important thing is getting as much life as you can per block.

Then upgrade your body armor
Getting a Covenant with a nice corruption, like +1 socketed gems, or +2 socketed duration gems, or +2 socketed AoE gems.
If you get the +1 socketed gems, a level 4 empower should replace concentrated effect support. You would need 4b-2r as your colors then.

Then upgrade your Helm
+3 socketed minion gems.
Socketed gems deal 30% more elemental damage
(spam Essence of Horrors on a high ilvl Bone Helmet with a good enchant)
Hopefully also get high life and resists.

Then upgrade your weapon
Get a convoking wand with (+1 all skill gems AND/OR +1 all minion skill gems) AND (% minion damage AND/OR minion cast speed)
Get the best one you can afford.
Remember: It HAS to have a free suffix to craft the "trigger socketed spells when you use a skill."

Jewels:
Get your jewels AFTER you have an anointed amulet and after you are high enough level to have allocated the sockets in the tree.

Desired jewel mods in order of importance
Life
Minion damage if you have used a minion skill recently
Minion cast speed
Minion damage %
Flat minion damage (physical or lightning)
These can get VERY expensive, so buy what you can afford.
(Jewels need at least 2 good mods to justify spending 2 passive points to get the socket in the tree.)

Optional Upgrades
Gloves
Armor base
% minion damage (Redeamer influence) high life and some resists
+1 level of socketed AoE gems (crafted prefix)

Boots
ES or Armor/ES hybrid base
Delve boots can drop with
+1 level of all spectre skill gems
+1 level of all strength skill gems
+2 level of socketed minion gems.
Get one of the above mods with move speed and life.
Getting more than one of these mods, with life and move speed would likely be way too expensive.

Awakened gems
Only get if they are not very expensive.

NOTE:
Upgrades beyond the above mentioned might not be optimal.
Instead of investing massive currency into this build you might be better off transitioning into a minion build designed for high investment.
Like...
Kay's minion builds
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3179145
or
Ghazzy's list of minion builds
https://www.poe-vault.com/guides/ghazzy-guide-hub


Global Chat Channel for this build
type "/global 8123" in chat (without the quotes)
This will let you discus this build with others.
(The channel is also used for my other newbie builds.)
I will be in this channel, when I am logged in.

CONTINUED ON NEXT TWO POSTS
Last edited by Odif on Jun 18, 2022, 10:38:40 AM
Last bumped on Aug 4, 2022, 8:08:36 PM
Obsolete info below.
Spoiler
How to Level with this build (for Newbies)
Spoiler

I recommend doing all quests as you level, along with league mechanics. This will cause you to be over leveled, which helps a lot. This is NOT necessary, if you want to rush, you can.







IMPORTANT - IMPORTANT - IMPORTANT!!!!
When you get to town at level 2, check the wand vendor (nessa) and the armor vendor (tarkleigh) for linked BBR and BBB items.
Do this EVERY time you go to town, until you get them.
(BBB item is for zombies, BBR for Summon Raging Spirits --> Absolution
I cannot stress this enough, DO THIS EVERY TIME YOU GO TO TOWN, until you have both.
At low level, gem links are more important than stats.

(This assumes you are league starting. If you already have a Tabula Rasa and other leveling gear, you don't need to buy 3 link items.)

You will need some strength on gear early on.
I suggest buying a Heavy belt from nessa.
You will need dex on your gear.in Act 2
I suggest buying a Jade amulet from Nessa.

Even white items are ok, you NEED the stats.
When you get your crafting bench in Act 2, you can craft strength and dexterity on your gear as needed.


You just killed Hillock and made it to the first town.
Spoiler

Take Freezing Pulse as your first reward.
Get rid of Fireball, link Freezing Pulse to the Arcane Surge you got on the way to Hillock.
Buy Raise Zombie from the vendor (nessa)
Head out into Act 1. (remember to check the vendors)

How do I buy gems?
Spoiler

In acts 1-4, the vendor that sells wands and flasks also sells gems (tab 2)
They sell all gems that are offered to you as quest rewards PLUS some others.
These gems are sold PARTIALLY LEVELED, so when you can buy from them do so. They do not sell all gems, which ones they sell are class dependent. I.E. if you are a Witch they sell mostly caster gems.

In act 3 there is a side quest in the Library. When you do this, you unlock a gem vendor in the library that sells all Acts 1-3 gems in the game except the few that are drop only.
Notes:
This vendor sells all gems at level 1.
this vendor requires you have the currency in your inventory, which can be annoying.

In act 6, after you do some quests, a in town gem vendor is unlocked, She sells all gems in the game that are not drop only. She sells them at level 1.

CURRENCY
Spoiler

You will need wisdom scrolls to buy the first few skill gems.
Later you will need transmutation orbs to buy skill gems.
Still later you will need alteration orbs to buy gems.
Transmutation orbs are a bit scarce early on so...

Sell unidentified blue items for transmutation scraps.
Sell identified yellow items for alteration scraps.
You need several transmutation orbs, so sell LOTS of unidentified blue items early on.
I recommend picking up ALL blue items in Act 1 and selling them unidentified.
Once you have a surplus of transmutation orbs, stop picking up blue items.

Sell armor scraps and blacksmiths whetstones to get more wisdom scrolls.

Later in the game you will get more transmutation orbs and wisdom scrolls than you can deal with, so the above only applies to the first few acts of the game. Later on, save your armor scraps and blacksmith whetstones, and stop picking up blue items.

You will always need Alteration orbs.
(crafting good flasks at high level can take hundreds of alteration orbs for each flask)
So make a habit of picking up yellow items, identifying them, and vendoring them.
To make for less trips to town, you can choose to only pick up the smaller items, gloves, helms, boots, daggers, wands, rings, amulets, and belts.

NOTE: In the below details, only quests that give access to needed gems are listed. I still recommend you do ALL quests.

Act 1
Spoiler

Goals for Act 1
Raise Zombie linked to Summon Phantasm and Added Lightning Damage
Summon Raging Spirit linked to Melee Splash and Added Lightning Damage.
Transition to Absolution linked to summon phantasm and added lightning damage.
Holy Flame Totem unlinked, until you get Absolution
Movement: Frost Blink transition to Flame Dash
Auras: Vitality and level 1 Clarity
Flesh Offering (optional)
Details
Spoiler

(Only quests that give needed gem rewards are listed. Do all quests!

Do Medicine Chest quest
Take Quicksilver Flask and Summon Phantasm Support as reward.
Link to Zombies

Do Breaking some eggs quest
There are two rounds of rewards.
Take Summon Raging Spirit as the first round reward
Take Frost Blink as a reward in second round.
Link SRS to Arcane Surge
Buy a Holy Flame Totem if you have the currency.
Get rid of Freezing Pulse


Note: Zombies are very squishy at low level.
Resummon when they die, if you can do so easily. Your SRS are what are doing most of the damage at this point. Holy FLame Totem heals zombies that are near it, so you can put it down in the middle of the zombies.
Once you get the Vitality Aura (after killing Brutus), zombies rarely die.
Later, zombies get very tanky.

Enter Lower Prison and take Way Point back to town
Take Added Lightning Damage as reward
Buy a second Added Lightning Damage and link one to SRS and the other to Zombie.
Buy a Melee Splash from vendor and link to SRS.

BUY A HOLY FLAME TOTEM FROM THE VENDOR AT THIS POINT IF YOU HAVE DONE SO ALREADY.

You will need HFT to kill Brutus

He kills your zombies right away, don't bother resummoning.
Just kill him with the totem and SRS. Keep the totem between you and Brutus, casting SRS only when the totem is up. Resummon the totem as soon as it dies.

After you kill Brutus
Take Flame dash as reward, replace Frost Blink.
Buy Vitality and Clarity from the vendor.
Vitality is priority over Clarity, if you are short of transmutation orbs.
(see CURRENCY above)
Keep Clarity at level 1.
(to keep a gem at level 1, instead of left clicking the little box to level it up, RIGHT click it. This will freeze the level of that gem. It will show up in your inventory screen, at the lower left, you can level it there with a right click if you need to.)
Buy Flesh Offering (optional)

Enter Cavern of Wrath.
Take Way Point back to town.
Buy Absolution from vendor. Swap it in place of Holy Flame Totem, which can be discarded. Vitality should keep your zombies mostly alive now.

Merveil (Final boss of Act 1) does only cold damage.
Buy 2 saphire rings from nessa, if you can, to make her fight much easier.

At some point in Act 1, get a shield.
You should be using weapon + shield from now on.



Act 2:
Spoiler

Goals for Act 2
Raise Zombie linked to Minion Speed, Summon Phantasm
Absolution linked to Minion Speed, Controled Destruction, (Elemental Focus)
Auras: Vitality, level 1 clarity, Tempest Shield
Movement: Flame Dash
Desecrate level 1
Flesh Offering (optional)

NOTE:
Binding orbs can be found as early as Act 2.
When used on a white item, they turn it yelllow, and FORCE 4 linked sockets on it.
If you should find some, use on a pure ES chest, for your Absolution. It may be worth using chromes early on, on a 4 link, to get desired colors, BUT only if the item is the proper base. I.E. ES base items are more likely to get blue colors.

Details
Spoiler

Do Sharp and Cruel quest
Take Minion Speed as reward, swap into Absolution replacing summon phantasm.
Buy Controlled Destruction from vendor, swap into Absolution replacing Added Lightning.
If you have a 4 link, buy Elemental Focus for Absolution.
Buy Minion Speed from vendor. Swap into Raise Zombie replacing Added Lightning.

Do Intruders in Black quest
Take Desecrate as reward, leave as level 1.

Do The Root of the Problem quest
Take Tempest Shield as a reward.



Act 3
Spoiler

Goals for Act 3
Raise Zombie linked to Meat Shield, Minion Speed, and Feeding Frenzy
Absolution Linked to Physical to Lightning, Lightning Penetration, and Minion Speed.
Movement: Flame Dash
Auras: Determination, Vitality, Level 1 Clarity, and Tempeast Shield
(Auras listed in order of importance if you feel mana starved.)
You should be able to do them all AFTER you have the full aura Cluster (sovereignty)
Conductivity
Desecrate level 1
Molten Shell (on Left Click)
Convocation
Flesh Offering (optional)

4 links start dropping in Act 3 and can sometimes be found in a Vendor. Keep your eye out for the right colors,

Details
Spoiler

Do Lost in Love quest
Take Conductivity as reward
Buy Convocation from vendor

Do Sever the Right Hand quest
Take Raise Spectre as a reward.
Put in a weapon swap for use later, in Act 5.
(gems socketed in weapon swap get exp too)

Do Fixture of Fate quest (Library)
Take Lightning Penetration as a reward.
Buy from Clarissa in town:Meat Shield, Feeding Frenzy
Buy from Siosa in the Library the following gems: Physical to Lightning, Determination, and Molten Shell.
You will need to have the currency in your inventory to buy from Siosa in the Library.


Act 4
Spoiler

Goals for Act 4
Zombie Linked to Meat Shield, Feeding Frenzy, and Minion Speed
Stone Golem
Absolution linked to Spell Echo, Physical to Lightning, and Lightning Penetration
Movement: Flame Dash
Auras: Determination, Vitality, Level 1 Clarity, and Tempest Shield
Desecrate level 1
Conductivity
Molten Shell
Convocation
Flesh Offering (optional)

Details
Spoiler

Do Breaking the Seal quest
Take Stone Golem as a reward

Do The Eternal Nightmare quest
Take Spell Echo as a reward

Having a 4 link Absolution with Spell Echo makes it cost a lot of mana.
Make sure you keep updating your mana flask, as you will be a mana flask junkie for quite a while.


Act 5
Spoiler

Goals for Act 5
Zombie and Stone Golem Linked to Meat Shield and Feeding Frenzy
Raise Spectre linked to Spell Echo, Lightning Penetration and Elemental Army
Absolution linked to Spell Echo, Physical to Lightning, and Lightning Penetration
Movement: Flame Dash
Auras: Determination, Vitality, Level 1 Clarity, Tempest Shield.
Desecrate level 1
Conductivity
Molten Shell
Convocation
Flesh Offering (Optional)

Details
Spoiler

Get the Slave Driver spectres in the zone right after Act 5 town, called Control Blocks. See the above section on Spectres for details.
Put the Spectre gem in your 4 blue helm you were useing for zombies.
Zombies and Golems now go in boots (or gloves)

Buy Spectre support gems in Act 3 (Elemental Army and Lightning Penetration) and Act 4 (Spell Echo)


Acts 6-10
Spoiler

The Covenant is usable at level 49
Even a 4 link Covenant will be very nice.
It all depends on the price.
Buy it if you can.
Maybe a 5 link Covenant is cheap at league start, who knows?
Check prices.


Keep using Vitality. We will drop it, and start using Defiance Banner when we finish act 10.
We don't use Bone Offering yet, either. No need until we have done Uber Lab and get Mistress of Sacrifice, so offerings effect us.

You now have your base skills, and its time to focus on life and resists on gear.
Killing Kitava at the end of act 5 will give you a permanent -30% to all resists, and Killing Kitava at the end of act 10 will give another permanent -30% to all resists, so you need to start looking for gear with the right sockets that also has life and resists on it. Elemental resists are more important than chaos resist.

The other thing is to start looking for is flasks with good mods, like a life flask with anti bleeding or an enduring mana flask.

You should do the rest of the campaign without difficulty, as minions will kill all enemies with ease.

Save up your currency, so you can go shopping when you kill act 10 Kitava

You have killed act 10 Kitava, what now?
Spoiler

Do the questline that gives you access to maps.
Do some SHOPPING
Try and get all the gear listed in the Base Gear section.

Priority is a Covenant, even if its only a 4 link.
DO NOT TRY AND LINK IT YOURSELF!
It takes on average 1000 fuses to 6 link an item.
Buy it linked!

Make sure your elemental resists are at 75% or higher.
If you can, get chaos resist to 75, but this is optional.
You can use your crafting bench to supplement gear you buy.

Since we are now shopping for our mapping gear, we drop Vitality and level 1 Clarity. We get all the gear with all the colors listed in the BASE GEAR section.
We start using Tempest Shield.
We have Bone Offering and Wrath-Gnerosity equipped.
We dont start using Bone Offering until we do Uber Lab (or get a trigger wand).
We don't start using Wrath until we have the Armor Mastery that gives 25% mana reservation for Determination.
(Bone offering bought in act 1. Tempest Shield in act 2. Generosity and Wrath in act 3)

Start Mapping!






I have moved my General Newbie help files to a single location.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3225884

There is a Section with general advice for newbies, and a section with specific information about minions for newbies.

All newbies should click on that link and read the "General Information for Newbies" section.

Last edited by Odif on Jun 18, 2022, 10:39:26 AM
Deleted
Last edited by Odif on Jun 18, 2022, 10:39:54 AM
Hey there,

so, I am working on a Minion-Start for 3.17, already in prep-phase. Naturally, I am testing out a lot of stuff right now and I am willing to give this one a go.

I spotted some minor mistakes / improvements and worked them in already. By the way - who on earth uses that build planner, get PoB man...

So I took it up on myself to go with a starting PoB: https://pastebin.com/af1VqzrN

Main-Problem I see with this setup right now is the lack of boss-dps. Even with 21/20 gems u land on 460k Sirus DPS, thats quite poor, Mapping DPS with roughly 1mio is fine for starter. On level 19 gems the mapping dps is still allrighty'ish with 600k. Frenzy Charges would benefit the minions a lot though, so its worth to argue about the shield - worth to look into necromantic aegis and +2 frenzy charges I suppose.

The defenses are very fine though: with my proposed setup you´ll land on 68/66 real block, 24,6k armor = 83% phys mitigation, 4,8k life with 800 ES, poitive Chaos Res, nearly 100 flat life on block and EHP well over 120k on everything aside from Chaos.

Should be a reasonable starter build to travel into yellow maps, acquire core items and then reroll into something more powerful.
"
Vennto wrote:
Hey there,

so, I am working on a Minion-Start for 3.17, already in prep-phase. Naturally, I am testing out a lot of stuff right now and I am willing to give this one a go.

I spotted some minor mistakes / improvements and worked them in already. By the way - who on earth uses that build planner, get PoB man...

So I took it up on myself to go with a starting PoB: https://pastebin.com/af1VqzrN

Main-Problem I see with this setup right now is the lack of boss-dps. Even with 21/20 gems u land on 460k Sirus DPS, thats quite poor, Mapping DPS with roughly 1mio is fine for starter. On level 19 gems the mapping dps is still allrighty'ish with 600k. Frenzy Charges would benefit the minions a lot though, so its worth to argue about the shield - worth to look into necromantic aegis and +2 frenzy charges I suppose.

The defenses are very fine though: with my proposed setup you´ll land on 68/66 real block, 24,6k armor = 83% phys mitigation, 4,8k life with 800 ES, poitive Chaos Res, nearly 100 flat life on block and EHP well over 120k on everything aside from Chaos.

Should be a reasonable starter build to travel into yellow maps, acquire core items and then reroll into something more powerful.


Thank you very much for the analysis.
I look forward to your in game testing.

Your point on only having 460k sirus dps is missing the point.
This build is NOT min-max
It is for newbies who struggle in white maps.
The dps is plenty for newbies who have never gotten to red maps.

This guide is to hand hold newbies, with my choices not being about max dps, but about super easy simple to use.

And yes, I expect people to transition to something else when they try end game bosses.

About not using PoB:
PoB requires a 3rd party tool, which all experienced players use, but some newbies don't, they just want to click a link and see the result in their browser, hence poeplanner.com

It's all about my target audience.

Thanks again!
Last edited by Odif on Dec 20, 2021, 10:44:35 PM
"
This guide is to hand hold newbies, with my choices not being about max dps, but about super easy simple to use.

About not using PoB:
PoB requires a 3rd party tool, which all experienced players use, but some newbies don't, they just want to click a link and see the result in their browser, hence poeplanner.com

It's all about my target audience.

Fair enough, guess that was my mistake - PoB is already second nature to me, but you're right, for complete beginners a link can be better.

You should check out the changes I did in PoB and adjust the tree and gear section for your link before 3.17 then. I'll do some playtesting with it and let you know how it goes, but it should be very strong: 4link spectres in the helmet is stupid good on white maps and I personally did not think about combining that with Absolution, so even experienced people can potentially consider this as a very speedy starter. Ill be back with the results. Cheers.
"
Vennto wrote:
[
Fair enough, guess that was my mistake - PoB is already second nature to me, but you're right, for complete beginners a link can be better.

You should check out the changes I did in PoB and adjust the tree and gear section for your link before 3.17 then. I'll do some playtesting with it and let you know how it goes, but it should be very strong: 4link spectres in the helmet is stupid good on white maps and I personally did not think about combining that with Absolution, so even experienced people can potentially consider this as a very speedy starter. Ill be back with the results. Cheers.


Thank you so much.

I will be integrating your suggestions into the guide, it just takes time.

And yeah, Slave Drivers are under rated.
Their dps is insane.
The reason they don't get used more is they have such low survivablity that end game bosses kill them.
BUT for this build, we dont care, as we only want ones that will take on t15 maps, which they do with ease.

And yeah, I got the idea from my old guide, (about 6 leagues ago) that used melee skeletons with 4b triad gloves and slave drivers.
Having 2 different dps minions doing pure lightning damage is really really good for that early league start, "i have no gear", stage.
And Absolution lets us do this with no needed uniques, something I really wanted for my FOR NEWBIES GUIDE.

I Look forward to your feedback.

P.S.
I think this would do well in the 10 day Atlas Invasion temp league.
"
Vennto wrote:
Hey there,

so, I am working on a Minion-Start for 3.17, already in prep-phase. Naturally, I am testing out a lot of stuff right now and I am willing to give this one a go.

I spotted some minor mistakes / improvements and worked them in already. By the way - who on earth uses that build planner, get PoB man...

So I took it up on myself to go with a starting PoB: https://pastebin.com/af1VqzrN

Main-Problem I see with this setup right now is the lack of boss-dps. Even with 21/20 gems u land on 460k Sirus DPS, thats quite poor, Mapping DPS with roughly 1mio is fine for starter. On level 19 gems the mapping dps is still allrighty'ish with 600k. Frenzy Charges would benefit the minions a lot though, so its worth to argue about the shield - worth to look into necromantic aegis and +2 frenzy charges I suppose.

The defenses are very fine though: with my proposed setup you´ll land on 68/66 real block, 24,6k armor = 83% phys mitigation, 4,8k life with 800 ES, poitive Chaos Res, nearly 100 flat life on block and EHP well over 120k on everything aside from Chaos.

Should be a reasonable starter build to travel into yellow maps, acquire core items and then reroll into something more powerful.


Ok, finally got around to looking at your PoB.
A few different choices on the passive tree than I made, but similar enough. (I deliberately did not use cluster jewels, to make it more newbie friendly)

BUT!

You made a dps calculation error.
You have the absolution minions doing DEFAULT attacks.
They cast Absoltion spell (and thats all they do)
If you set it to Absolution spell, then they do way more dps.

In anycase.
Thank you so much for the effort you put into this.
It was helpful to see what you did.
Last edited by Odif on Dec 23, 2021, 11:56:57 PM
Ok, there is a PoB link in the guide now.

I took Vennto's PoB and modified it.

Thank you Vennto
I just logged to say thank you for the guides :)

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