Spiritdweller and Inconsoulable: A death race poll for the 1 month hardcore league

Act 1 normal was pretty straightforward and neither summoner has been in trouble yet. Raging spirits make an excellent “kite and fight” skill, when taking down invader bosses. Thus, it didn't matter much whether an invader boss wiped out all the other minions, as spirits acted like guided missiles and took them down.

Inconsoulable ---- Life = 711, ES = 65, Mana = 391
Spiritdweller ---- Life = 626, ES = 57, Mana = 296

Inconsoulable has found an Aurumvorax (unique basket rapier). This will help with nasty boss battles for which her resists might otherwise be an issue. She took clarity as her normal Brutus reward and it is now frozen at level 3. She found the anger aura, which is being leveled up. For boss packs, she has vaal fireball as her best available power, as well as Vaal Storm Call. Otherwise, her gear is nondescript.

Spiritdweller found a +9 quality summon skeletons and is now leveling that up, along with decoy totem (also found). He took summon skeletons as his normal Brutus reward, and so is running without clarity. For boss packs, he keeps in reserve either vaal cold snap or vaal fireball (both are being leveled up). Otherwise, his gear is nondescript.

So far, the RNG has favored Inconsoulable, overall. Perhaps that will even out over time, or perhaps not. But, Inconsoulable has a bit of a rough patch coming up, as she won't be further boosting minions for quite a few more levels. In contrast, Spiritdweller should have an easier time filling out his passive tree for his remaining time in normal difficulty.

I'll head straight onward toward finishing Act 2 next, with both of them.

Act2 normal was mostly smooth. But, Spinesnap (invader boss, leaping frog) proved to be a difficult fight for both summoners. He takes out minions pretty quick and uses temporal chains to slow you so his leap slam can land, which gets his DOT / degen going on your character. It was particularly hard for my witch because Spinesnap came as part of a large mixed mob, she has less minions to distract Spinesnap than my templar, and she had no life regen and no chaos resist at the time. He almost ran her out of life flask charges, which could have gotten ugly. There were no other difficult fights for either summoner.

Other than for Spinesnap, the witch (Inconsoulable) is generally having an easier time. She has clarity, while my templar (Spiritdweller) does not and he can't spam spirits almost endlessly, the way Inconsoulable does. They've both found flameblast, which is making leveling significantly quicker.

I helped Oak for 40 hit points, with both summoners.

The first quest in Act 3 took patience, but was not overly difficult. The only moderately challenging encounter was Cintiq. Flameblast wasn't very helpful when fighting him because he flickers all over. But, in normal he's not too threatening and so he fell to a barrage of zombies and spirits.

Inconsoulable ---- Life = 1087, ES = 61, Mana = 394, 400+ armor, 150ish evasion, 40+ elemental resists
Spiritdweller ---- Life = 850, ES = 28, Mana = 334, 150ish armor, 275 evasion, cold resistance maxed, other elemental resists are 21% or less.

The focus is now on accumulating resources, and so no crafting has been done so far, other than to turn superior items into quality items and to upgrade flasks to their higher level counterparts.

In addition to flameblast, Inconsoulable (witch) found convocation. She's still very low on sockets, and so convocation is leveling up on a switch weapon, at the moment. She took raise spectre as her first act 3 normal quest reward. She also found a +1 to minions helm, which now contains raging spirits and melee damage on full life (linked). Otherwise, her gear remains as nondescript as before.

In addition to flameblast, Spiritdweller (templar) found Vaal molten shell, which has proven quite handy. He took melee splash in act 2, and so having some AOE has been helping his clear speed. Otherwise, his gear is nondescript.

Spiritdweller is carrying about 60ish IIR at the moment, in the hopes of getting the better gear he needs. Inconsoulable also has some, but she's been lucky enough to need to compromise less on sockets and item attributes to get her IIR total up. This is the key reason why Spiritdweller's stats are noticeably worse than for Inconsoulable.

Erratum: I mistakenly listed Spiritdweller as having Vaal Storm Call, in my earlier post. It is actually Inconsoulable who is using Vaal Storm Call. In this level range, it's proving very handy as a frequently re-usable mini-nuke for clearing crowds and dealing with rares. I've fixed the earlier post.

So far, the RNG is still favoring Inconsoulable. What could have been a tough patch for her has instead (except for Spinesnap) been pretty straightforward.

For next steps, I'll take each of them up to Docks waypoint, before pausing in their progress to do a little leveling and to search for corrupted areas and strongboxes.

Both summoners had a mostly smooth ride through Act 3 normal. A handful of rares (ie: poison bomb throwers, other usual suspects) required careful handling because summons aren't very tough yet. The Sceptre of God run also required patient handling because of that. Finally, Kole should never be taken lightly and so with both summoners I tiptoed through Lunaris 2 until I knew he was dead.

Dominus was more challenging than expected for Spiritdweller. The first set of adds took a while for Spiritdweller to take down, which I thought was a not-so-good sign. And, he did need a few town trips to replenish flasks, after Dominus got in a random Touch of God, a crit or two with his lightning hose, and after a few mobs exploded on Spiritdweller when he was cursed by Dominus.

As Tarkleigh would say “Still alive, are we?” :)

Inconsoulable ---- Life = 1320, ES = 57, Mana = 444, 302 armor, 494 evasion, 59/63/46/-8 fire/cold/lite/chaos resists*
Spiritdweller ---- Life = 1137, ES = 52, Mana = 336, 1568 armor, 264 evasion, 49/48/54/-8 fire/cold/lite/chaos resists*

* Resists are for cruel difficulty

Strongboxes have been fun. But, they're not made a substantive difference for gear to either summoner, as of yet. RNG and all that.

Inconsoulable has found convocation, reduced mana, and the anger gem. But, most of her other gear was weak, after Piety. Thus, before the Sceptre of God run, I did a little crafting using transmutes, alteration orbs, and augment orbs (a smattering) to turn a few pieces of white gear with good sockets into magic gear that allowed her to be ready for Dominus. I wanted to be able to run the anger and clarity auras with her, which I was able to do and which really helped clear speed. She also has a +1 to minion levels helmet, and that's the place in which spirits + melee damage on full life + minion damage are located. She has raise zombie – raise spectre – minion life linked on her 3 socket wand. Finally, she has an ample granite potion of heat, which is very handy for strongboxes (especially “of freezing” boxes).

In contrast, Spiritdweller has no really “wow” gear. But, he has some good armor pieces (for his level), because of a little crafting with transmutes / augmentation / alteration orbs (as was done for Inconsoulable). His crafted gear helped get his defenses up by quite a bit, and also allowed more gems to be slotted, so they can level up.

I'm really missing clarity on Spiritdweller, so much so that I'll probably skip skeletons and take clarity on my next summoner, as the normal Brutus reward. I need to use mana flasks often enough for Spiritdweller that it's having a (modestly) adverse affect on clear speed and safety. He has spirits 3-slotted, with melee splash and increased duration (recently found). He has raise zombie – summon skeletons (9% quality, lucky find) – minion life linked on his 3 socket wand.

Spiritdweller very recently found a quartz flask that I'll have him start using for strongboxes. I used an agumentation orb on the quartz flask, which added the “of heat” suffix to that flask (surgeon's is the prefix). That was probably Spiritdweller's best bit of luck, as that really helps for “of freezing” strongboxes.

Cruel takes more caution than normal; I'll need to be less cavalier about strongboxes, as one change. Also, exiles may sometimes function as a real challenge, instead of serving primarily as wandering loot bags, as they do in normal (thank you for your generosity, Jonah Unchained!).

I'll need to improve Spiritdweller's mana situation, with more regen / mana, even if a few compromises need to be made in his armor total to do that. I'd really like to run auras for him, but at present it would be painful to do that. He could also use a boost to elemental resists.

For Inconsoulable, I'll need to work on her armor total. I'm considering going dual perma curse with her, even though that wasn't in the original plan; she has both temporal chains and vulnerability, both of which would look very good over the heads of mobs.

Act 1 cruel is up next. :)

Opening strongboxes has gone smoothly most of the time. A few have been troublesome – especially those in tight quarters, with rares / an exile / freezing mods. No surprise there. Regular battles have seldom been challenging, with damage being quite good for the levels in which both summoners are leveling up.

Atziri's Pride was the most dangerous encounter because he took down Spiritdweller's minions almost as quickly as they were summoned, with lightning warp and righteous fire. The in-game meaning of lacking minion and totem resistances in Spiritdweller's collection of gems really showed up, in that encounter. That's high on my “I hope I find that gem” list.

Inconsoulable ---- Life = 1534, ES = 99, Mana = 455, 399 armor, 536 evasion, 75/74/62/-8 fire/cold/lite/chaos resists*
Spiritdweller ---- Life = 1438, ES = 138, Mana = 482, 1021 armor, 370 evasion, 67/70/68/-8 fire/cold/lite/chaos resists*

* Resists are for cruel difficulty

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMAeQPAVAdjVytr23NTbRlFfg5cEHQI9DGIJ6l_xqKjwfMkPFptSVGnXBSwAP0XUEwtgh5Vxs9l0NCboffXrJgWb_qAKpjZC6cIj0ba3YhApqwabJ2uGYU6MDbpJKpmnvrStzFDY5rPcU1-WZAz

For Inconsoulable, I'll get Body & Soul (armor and ES cluster), then Holy Strength (life cluster), and then Sovereignty (aura cluster). After that, I'll head down to the trio of “life and mana” nodes, and then the Elemental Adaptation node, before finishing up in Cruel. From there, I'll head down toward IR / MOM, if Inconsoulable survives Cruel and goes to Merciless.

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgUARUdrrDdHBVtFnZrgeqrr7riTMtEabJ2upwiQM4hApqzjajbpJKoZhRZvVcbPZdDQj0b56ILHKPr60vqAKpjZC53EWPW3MUNjms9xTWaewBqnhJBVVdZk5xcvgKTa3Ro4WisqE1nzo_Ispw==

Spiritdweller needs more survivability and more damage for his minions, and so I'll get the “Gravepact” minion cluster quite as the next step. After that, it will be time to head toward the “Sentinel” passive (directly south of the Scion start point) and to get the increased skill duration nodes nearby. With elemental adaptation, that should top off armor / evasion / resists nicely, ahead of finishing up Cruel and heading to Merciless.


A quandary for both summoners -- I'm not certain when to take EB and to start running the discipline auras. I have arctic armor for the witch, now at level 8. I don't have arctic armor (AA) for the templar, at least not yet. I'm hoping to get lightning warp before running AA full time, to make movement less mana-intensive.

Gemstone strongboxes have helped both summoners quite a bit. They're skills are rounding out quite well, albeit with a key gap in Spiritdweller's support gems being the lack of a "minion and totem elemental resistances" gem.

Inconsoulable found Conversion Trap in a gem strongbox and took the “multiple traps” gem as a quest reward shortly after that. That has had a transformative effect on potentially ugly situations. It has also made handling strongboxes easier. She also has Vaal Skeletons now, which is helping even further, for difficult situations.

Inconsoulable is still struggling to get her armor total up; the RNG for defensive pieces has just not been working in her favor. Spiritdweller is doing better, but still lags Inconsoulable in his luck. His best recent item acquisitions are clarity (quest reward) and all 3 single element purity auras (all found). He also found the discipline aura and wrath, both of which are likely to prove quite useful.

Both summoners are doing fine on damage and can hold their own, for defenses. Inconsoulable is clearly in the lead for damage, as her self-cast raging spirits are 4-slotted in a “+1 level to minion gems” helmet with spirits - minion damage - faster attacks – increased duration. They're quite strong for where she is in the game and they often 2 shot or 3 shot regular mobs. Spawns melt pretty quickly. Spiritdweller has more trouble with mobs that can quickly take down his minions and totems because he's completely dependent on them to do damage – such is the life of a dual totem character.

They're both struggling to keep their mana from running on empty, though. That will improve greatly for Spiritdweller once he has a reduced mana gem (quest reward, coming up). I'm very tempted to take Eldritch Battery on Inconsoulable soon, just so she can push out more damage.

Finishing up act 2 is next. :)

Both builds are fleshing out fairly well. Mainly, it takes patience to work through particularly heavy concentrations of enemies. Otherwise, most fights are not that difficult. Inconsoulable is still (mostly) having an easier time primarily because of temporal chains as a perma-curse, conversion trap linked with multiple traps, and her Vaal skeletons (which Spiritdweller does not have, as of yet).

Inconsoulable ---- 1687 Life, 112 ES, 474 Mana, 483 armor, 550 evasion, 75/75/70/-8 fire/cold/lite/chaos resists*
Spiritdweller ---- 1586 Life, 138 ES, 507 Mana, 1021 armor, 388 evasion, 67/70/68/-8 fire/cold/lite/chaos resists*

* Resists are for cruel difficulty

The gearing challenges remain pretty much the same. It's looking like it will be a challenge to get Spiritdweller's resists up in time for merciless and his minions are still a little squishy, even after further investment – the lack of minion & totem resistances is probably a key reason for that. Inconsoulable has very solid damage, for her level, but armor remains her weak point (no RNG love at all for armor, at least so far).

I made a choice with Inconsoulable that I would rather I hadn't made. I took multiple traps (to boost conversion trap) instead of flesh offering, and since that's the last time flesh offering is a quest reward, she may never get that gem. Her damage is inevitably going to take a hit, because of that.

Next I'll be doing docks and catacombs runs for a few levels with both Spiritdweller and Inconsoulable, aiming to upgrade gear, while also getting ahead on the level curve.

I'm taking a minor detour in the leveling of these two characters up to level up a 3rd summoner, also in the one month league (not part of this death race). I'll adventure with both Inconsoulable and Spiritdweller, and also alternate leveling my third summoner. It will slow down progress. But, it's interesting to see how the three summoners are evolving and what challenges end up being unique to each of them.