[2.0] "The False Shepherd" Minion Instability Templar
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This project was about making the most fun minion instability build capable of at least the early end-game, without the annoyance of having to cherry pick specters from specific areas etc. It is quite solid, but still work in progress and I plan to update this thread.
In short, it's a summoner build that uses MI only for dealing with bosses and occasional harder mobs. It's unusual for a summoner to look forward for your minions to die, but if giggling on the sight of your zombies exploding sounds like something you might enjoy then behold - "The False Shepherd" Minion Instability Templar! Not suitable for HC and (most likely) not good for farming Atziri. I'm not sure how far you can get with this build, but I started mapping with it and it's a blast, especially that zombies start to explode more often, which makes it feel more like a propoer MI build. It's funny to admit, but it's actually exciting to stumble upon hard hitting mobs! This build was made with one idea in mind - the fewer targets the enemy has, the better the minion turnover, the bigger the MI DPS Why this approach?
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The popular opinion is that MI works best if you swarm you enemy with weak minions that will add up to a lot of AoE damage (skelly totem anyone?). Unfortunately, this approach works poorly in practice since a wall of minions acts like a damage sponge and even the weak minions die slowly. Lowering their life and defenses even more helps with their turnover but lowers their damage. Moreover, when hit with a strong AoE from rares and bosses they can be one-shotted without MI even activating, since when their life hits 0 "minion death" is registered before "low life" status.
Thus, the only way to keep a reasonable clear speed is to make your minions stronger, which increases their damage per explosion but also makes them tankier and explode less frequently, thus effectively lowering their DPS from MI... It would be great if we could control timing of minion explosions or at least speed them up with skills along the lines of "flesh offering" or uniques that cause poison, bleed or other type of degen on minions, but one can only dream. However, we still have some tricks up our sleeve that can make them less tanky without lowering their life pool. Offense - Double curse woith Elemental Equilibrium
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The build uses a double curse set up (elemental weakness and flammability) together with elemental equilibrium from the skill tree applied via ball lightning for lowering resistances against fire (additionally supported by curse effect nodes).
- Auras
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We exploit the double curse set up to scale damage from minion instability but also anger aura supported by generosity and aura effect nodes (which unfortunately doesn't add to MI explosion, but supports default minion attacks).
- Zombies with Mon'tregul's grasp
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Main sources of MI damage are zombies supported by Mon'tregul's grasp mace, which adds a tonne of life, which is further increased by minion life and damage from skill gems and tree nodes. Also, enemies killed by zombies explode for 20% of their life dealing fire damage, which syngergises well with MI and our fire resistance-lowering set up.
The item's drawback (max number of zombies reduced by half) is not actually a drawback for this build since, as stated elsewhere, the fewer targets the enemy has the quicker the minions get reduced to low life and explode. - Raging Spirits
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We support the zombies with Summon Raging Spirits, which can't be targeted by enemies (thus making zombies/golem get all the attention) and also deal half their damage as fire, which again syngergises very well with MI. They rarely explode but AoE attacks sometimes target them as well. The aftermath of 10-15 of them exploding in one go is a very cool thing to observe!
- Necromantic Aegis with Maligaro's Lens
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We further increased minion damage, life, their AoE radius and lower their resistances by picking up Necromatic Aegis and equipping Maligaro's Lens.
It's a very good item, although the 2% life recovered by allies on death goes both ways - it lowers your MI-related DPS, since minions heal upon explosion or when SRS duration expires, but on the other hand it increases your life regen. Defense - Life-based & potential for Mind Over Matter
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In terms of defenses you can go with whatever caster defenses you like, but I would stick to being life-based due to regen of 2% total life from SRS expiry / zombie explosions thanks to Maligaro's Lens. I didn't invest in the build much so I was leveling with cloak of flame and arctic armour, but in the future I plan to invest into mind over matter due to good mana regen this build has, which could be coupled with clarity and benefit from the aura buffs already in place. Cloak of defiance comes to mind, but can't give any recommendations just yet.
- Skeleton totem
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Skelleton totem can add up quite a bit of FPS at boss fights but is used mostly as an emergency button when you need more meat shield between you and enemy, for example when you weren't paying attention and most of your minions exploded in quick succession (although when that happens, there's rarely anything left standing!).
Levelling - Ancestral bond Double flame totem + minions
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... respect out of ancestral bond and transition to your main set after lvl 45, which is when you can pick up Maligaro's Lens shield.
Tree - 98 point build - "Full", aka probably won't gonna happen Current gear and links - work in progress!
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Melee splash is exchanged with fire penetration on zombies during boss fights Will update when I polish it up a bit! IGN: AlCohonez, GhengizCohen Last bumped on Apr 20, 2016, 2:18:31 PM
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Need a video !
What about Increase minion damage jewels ? Last edited by Kikoyou on Sep 11, 2015, 12:05:47 PM
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" I guess I could look into doing a video at some point. It's quite simple when it comes to jewels - if you can afford some, get them :) Minion damage and minion life (in that order) comes to mind. I don't think there are any unique jewels that would directly benefit this build. I'm not investing much into this build just yet, maybe later if I have some spare currency to experiment with, but until that time I can't recommend any jewels in particular. IGN: AlCohonez, GhengizCohen
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Are you playing this build in 2.2? Which ascendancy did you go with or have you changed classes? Where is the video?
IGN: Strudely
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