[Beta/Obselete] [Build Guide] Frost Raven - Ice Shot Culling MF EB Necromancer - Great Solo Farming

PROS

• Minimal gear dependence - This isn't one of those build-around-a-unique builds, it's just skill gems, rares, and one somewhat cheap unique. This makes it a great first character, either for new players or for a new league startup. Thanks to Eldritch Battery, you don't even need mana gear.
• Great MF character - Due to the minimal gear dependence, you can stack loads of IIQ and IIR, quickly farming rares and currency.
• Very tanky - This build delivers on the promise of facetank-anything Zombies. Map Brutus? No problem, your summons can tank him all day long. Other players have facetank melee characters? You control eight of them.
• Ease of use - Since this build uses Zombies instead of Spectres, it doesn't require super-elaborate pregame rituals. Turn on your auras, kill any random monsters to raise an army, done.
• Desync protection - Zombies keep on going even when you're out of sync. You'll still desync with this character, but often you'll end up teleporting into a room and not be dead, thanks to your meatshields drawing aggro.
• Great solo maps character - A lot of people say maps require grouping, and they have a point. However, if there's any build that can pull it off, it's this one. A lot of the most dangerous/feared map affixes are nothing to you, and you definitely can stack the IIQ/IIR to keep your currency up. If anything, you need the extra portals to haul back all the loot you'll get.
• Great first time build - Almost all the gear is self-findable, startup costs are minimal, it's efficient even at low levels, and other than some light trading for Multistike and other skill gems, not a whole lot of trading required.

CONS

• Hard outside, squishy inside - Your zombies might be tanky; you are not. The main challenges you face will be keeping your character out of danger and encouraging monsters to fight your zombies instead. For example, the Blacksmith is stupid easy for this build if you can barely see him on your screen; get two steps closer, and Leap Slam death is a serious threat (likely a 2-shot kill, 3-shot with Enfeeble). The build is Onslaught viable, but only for veterans who really know the game; if you fail to predict how monsters will react, you could die in a hurry.
• Moderate Reflects Damage weakness - This isn't a build that can just keep on firing into Reflects Elemental Damage or Lightning Thorns; a shot won't kill you, two probably won't kill you, but repeated firing without paying attention will.
• Relies on minion AI - You're counting on your zombies to be intelligent enough to engage threats, putting themselves in danger so you don't have to be. Usually this works, but on some occasions the AI just gets all weird, and you need to come up with a new plan to attack the situation.
• Limited kill speed - Zombies can kill things pretty fast, but the fact remains that they move from target to target and use melee attacks; and unlike players, they don't get Quicksilver Flasks. A very good build for full-clears (which maps are anyway), but not so great for MF speed-runs.
• Worse on 4L than Power Siphon - Simply put, you need a 5L to get both Item Quantity and Item Rarity. You might actually want to start this build off as a wander/summoner up until you get your hands on a 5L bow; fortunately, the passive tree progression allows for this.

This is an amazing skill for summoners. Since damage isn't a high priority for summoners, it's normally somewhat hard for them to inflict elemental status effects... but Ice Shot changes all that with a ground-based chill effect. Ice Shot spam reliably keeps even map bosses under constant Chill status, especially with zombies there to keep them in one place. It's like Temporal Chains (which stacks with Temporal Chains) and a bow attack all wrapped up into one convenient package.

SUPPORT GEMS

• 4L:
  
  Greater Multiple Projectiles is preferred over LMP because it covers even more ground with that wonderful debuff effect, and make Ice Shot feel like wielding a shotgun. Culling Strike is vital for stealing kills from your Zombies so that your Item Quantity takes effect. You want to start with Item Quantity because you really want a 5L bow with this build and Rarity doesn't help you achieve that.
   
• 5L:
  
  Of course, once you get that 5L, it's time to get your Item Rarity on.
   
• 6L:
  
  Blind finishes off the skill by making it an even stronger debuff, almost completely nullifying attack-based threats to your minions.

This is your bread and butter. The core of this character is a melee tank build; the twist is that you aren't the tank, your minions are. As such, supporting your Zombies is a lot like building a melee tank, with the same types of priorities.

SUPPORT GEMS

• 4L:
  
  Minion and Totem Elemental Resistance is an all-star; zombies normally have 32 base fire and lightning resistance and 64 base cold resistance, which means after Purity your Zombies will have between 44 and 59 fire/lightning resist. This is why Voidbearers are usually known for ripping through zombie packs — solid AoE, Fire damage, capable of spawning with Multiple Projectiles. MaTER covers this weakness well, ensuring between 69 and 79 (Purity capped) fire/light res. Life Leech is key to any tank; you need to actually out-heal your opponent's damage if you hope to survive, and without the ability to do that your life total doesn't really matter. Life Gain on Hit is a suitable replacement while you're below level 31. Multistrike then gives your zombies plenty of extra damage, meaning extra leech; best of all, since the extra damage is based on attack speed, it gives you a window to hit the monster with Culling Strike, rather than killing it outright. You will probably have to trade for it, however; you might want to use Minion Damage until you save up for it.
   
• 5L:
  
  Faster Attacks is yet another attack-speed-based damage increase.
   
• 6L:
  
  How to add even more tanky goodness? Life Gain on Hit.

Eldritch Battery is truly an amazing keystone. Running all of these simultaneously? You'll need decent ES off of gear to do it... but you can. And will.

The only auras you're not running are Haste and Determination, both percent auras. Determination isn't of much use unless you give your minions Armour with Necromantic Aegis; Haste simply isn't of much use.

When you first get to maps, chances are you'll have to pick 6 of 7; running all the percentages at once will probably be technically possible, but would lock out Raise Zombie or perhaps even your curses from being cast. My advice: Don't count on not having to create more Zombies mid-combat, if you were going that route you'd just use Spectres instead.

Enfeeble and Temporal Chains should also be linked to Reduced Mana; curses are surprisingly high-cost in the late game.

Simply put, your objective here is to slow down your enemies as much as possible. This greatly helps your zombies tank; it gives them more time to leech, and more time to regenerate life with Vitality.

Warlord's Mark is also an option, perhaps the best one in situations where you're running solo and go up against reflected damage or Lightning Thorns; it's a good idea to keep it leveled on your weapon switch, replacing Reduced Mana in the situations which you need it. Plus, if you're partying, your teammates are likely to allow Enfeeble + Chains, but Warlord's Mark would probably piss them off.

Important Note: Do not underestimate Grace, especially if you have quality on Enfeeble. Enfeeble lowers monster accuracy by 69% at L20Q20; this allows even a modest amount of Evasion Rating to go a long way. Level 73 monster example: 825 accuracy (without Enfeeble) vs 1244 evasion is 11% chance to evade, 256 accuracy (with Enfeeble) is a 28% chance to evade. That's 24% more EHP for your zombies vs attacks.

Passive skill tree build

Pretty much a race for Eldritch Battery; early game is plagued with mana troubles, and EB provides rapid relief. You want the +1 Zombies from Lord of the Undead, but the nodes behind it aren't really worth it; you'll get enough of those while getting the other +1 Zombie nodes.

Passive skill tree build

You pick up on some life (needed against Vaal's lightning attack), get another Zombie, and pick up some Dexterity, while moving towards Resolute Technique.

Passive skill tree build

Another Zombie, and the all-important Leadership cluster. Aura range is extremely important for this character, since you want to stay out of the combat yet you want your minions to continuously benefit from your aura stack.

Passive skill tree build

Resolute Technique is finally achieved! No more Accuracy woes. And in the near future you get the Reduced Reservation Cost nodes, improving your ability to aura-stack.

Passive skill tree build

As usual, your pre-Vaal passive tree ritual involves going for more life nodes, immediately after finishing off the reduced mana reservation.

Passive skill tree build

At this point you increase your personal damage with Inner Force, and almost finish off another +1 Zombie cluster.

Passive skill tree build

You finally finish all of the +1 Zombie clusters; maximum horde size achieved.

Passive skill tree build

Once again more pre-Vaal life; in preparation for some extensive Docks farming, you (almost) grab Iron Grip for the extra damage, as you are likely upgrading to a decent physical bow soon. (Self-found if you're lucky!)

Passive skill tree build

You finally start to reach for the double-curse nodes after maxing out your reservation reduction; you don't need dual-curse immediately, but it's vital to allow your zombies to tank higher map bosses. It's very likely that your Chaos resistance isn't that great, so you also grab Clear Mind to help with the damage-over-time map affix.

Passive skill tree build

Hopefully you have a Lioneye's by this point, and can refund Resolute Technique. Grabbing the other reduced reservation nodes is important and allows you to run all auras consistently, rather than playing pick-and-choose. Also, more life nodes.

THE ONE REQUIRED UNIQUE: (everything else is rares or Lioneye's)

This belt is amazing for this build. And it's not just because it's the only way to get IIQ in the belt slot; the +x all attributes is also amazingly strong, acting as an Onyx Amulet, which is good because we want Gold in the amulet slot. Like the IIQ, there's no other way to get Dexterity in the belt slot. Getting a perfect one might be out of your price range, but getting a cheap one is something you won't regret.

Note: the passive tree assumes +65 or better between belt and quiver, so I'd recommend getting at least 25 on your Blazon (max 30).

Amulet, Rings, Helm, Gloves, Boots: On all of these, IIQ and IIR come before anything else. Yes, you want life; yes, you want ES based items; and yes, you want resists. However, a piece of gear with all of those things is still worth nothing to you if it doesn't have IIQ or IIR. Even if you get RNG screwed out of map-worthy gear, you're better off easy farming Docks with amazing MF than spending your maps and not getting IIQ and IIR from them.

Early on, pure ES pieces are preferred to maximize your aura stack; when you start really good gear (worthy of actually tossing Fusings at in an attempt to 6L), you'll likely want to switch to hybrid AR/ES chest (for easier BBGRRR), a pure ES helm (RBBB), and one each of hybrid AR/ES and EV/ES for gloves and boots (BRRR and RGGG respectively). In all cases, the best prefixes are IIR, Life, and flat ES (except for boots, where Movespeed is obvious).

In terms of suffixes, IIR and IIQ are both possible, so the best you can expect out of a "perfect" item is one resistance. So value those resistance suffixes highly when it's combined with both IIQ and IIR, as that means just about a perfect suffix combination. In lieu of a resistance, Strength is pretty good for increasing both life and physical bow damage (including converted cold damage from Ice Shot and Hatred).

Bow: Your priorities are attack speed, high physical damage, and attack speed. Definitely a Thicket Bow at high levels, and you want to fire as quickly as possible so that your Zombies don't steal Culling kills from you (you want to attack faster than they do). The reason you want physical is that it's what Hatred looks at to determine its damage; plus Iron Grip; plus, splitting your damage better between Elemental and Physical is good against reflected damage.

Life Leech is not a priority, but actually pretty nice for mitigating the threats of Lightning Thorns and reflected damage. Other than attack speed, more resists are nice.

When you have the budget for it, Lioneye's Glare is pretty much best-in-slot bow for this build; you can refund the four points leading to Resolute Technique and get another +30 Dexterity node (probably Quickness) to meet the requirements. You shouldn't let your lack of Lioneye's dissuade you from this build, however; unlike the Blazon, it's not really at the core of how this build functions, and Resolute Technique covers a lack of LG just fine.

Chest and Quiver: Always a Light Quiver. Always. Actually, you might want to self-craft these with Alchs; focus on the high-Dex Light Quivers you find, toss an Alch at them, vendor them if you don't like the mods.

For both, you want to see life and resistances, but especially resistances; if you find a tri-res chest or quiver, treasure it. Otherwise, for chests you want flat ES and % ES, and for quivers you want %WED and perhaps Attack Speed (which is a suffix and thus competes with resistances).

Strength is actually a decent affix on chests, due to your reliance on life and taking Iron Grip; this is especially true if you're trading, since triple-res chests often experience considerable mark-up.

Quality on Gems
Ice Shot/Blind: You're going to be using this skill a lot, so increasing the duration of ground ice or the Blind effect both aren't high priorities. The only time quality comes into play is when you're facing reflect or thorns, thus you don't make that many attacks. Skip it unless you're rich.
GMP and Culling Strike: More attack speed? Yes please.
Item Quantity/Rarity: Your first priority on what to get quality. Get this first = more loot = more budget to get quality on other gems.
Raise Zombie: More movement speed is actually really helpful. Get this when you can.
Multistrike/Faster Attacks: More zombie DPS is a good thing.
Life Leech: Don't both. Zombies never really reach the Leech cap.
Life Gain on Hit: Amazing, a very good use of gem equality.
Auras: More radius is good for when you're not on the front lines. You want this.
Curses: Both have a very strong quality effect; get them.
Reduced Mana: You don't really need this at all, the only skills effected by this quality are your curses and they're not taht expensive.

Minion AI generally defaults to "protect caster," which is a really dumb AI and mostly involves standing around you, not attacking at all, and often standing on the wrong side of you so that there is no wall between you and scary, scary monsters. Your job is to keep them off of that behavior as much as possible.

The way to do this is to cast skills on monsters. Highlight them and click something other than move, and the minion AI changes to "attack this." Which is what you want.

This leads to three odd things:
1) Shifting the targets of your Ice Shot too often can cause your Zombies to get all schizophrenic, moving between two monsters but not attacking either of them much. At the same time, you often want to snipe those monsters with your Culling to get the bonus IIQ/IIR. The answer is to avoid clicking directly on the other monster, but to vary the spread of your GMP fan; with practice, you can reliably hit monsters without clicking on them at all.
2) If you're going against Reflects Damage or Lightning Thorns and you can't continue to use Ice Shot, you should continue to do something, or else eventually your minions will return to you, standing around as the pack follows them and eventually trains on you. To prevent this, just repeatedly curse monsters if you can't attack them. Casting Enfeeble once per second for a battle might look stupid, but it gets the job done.
3) As many melee players know, actually clicking on monsters to attack them can do weird things during desync, the most famous of which is teleporting into a room full of monsters because the monster you said to attack was actually desynced in a totally different position. This will happen pretty often to you if you don't hold down the shift key; in areas with tight doorways, always do this as a precaution. Unlike melee, you have zombies to draw aggro for you, but this isn't always effective and can still sometimes lead to deaths.