Hiero CI spectre/zombie/AG summoner with triple-totem SRS

The chest and boots give us more minions and boost our stats. The shield is a must have for minion when you take Necro Aegis. The belt applies our flasks effects to our spectres and zombies. I tried an SRS sacrificial setup with Maligaro's Lens, but it was pretty outdated. If you have the cash or the RNG favor, you might want to try for a +1 level to socketed on the boots.

I lucked out with the boot enchantment, extra speed for whirling blades and curse casting.

The helm should have +2 minion. Both gloves and helm should have some mean ES stats, as well as some resistance. The chaos resistance here is no longer useful, since this build is CI. The glove enchantment is nice for this build; you can combat bleed even better with the consecrated ground from crit just by staying still and casting three SRS totems in front of you. Helm enchantments, yeah, not worth it.

Be sure to use triple resistance unset rings. These have some ES, too, which is nice.
While not the cheapest or most elegant solution, an astramentis will solve most of your str and dex attribute problems. Ideally, a strong one with a +1 curse would be best (well, a Voll's here would be even better), but we're trying to keep this build under 2 ex.

With Vis Mortis and Bones of Ullr and the passives, we get four of these, and they are the main damage givers.
There's so much info about these on forum, so you can look up with type you want. I chose Flame Sentinels and used the following gems, accordingly.

Raise spectre (B) + minion damage (B) + GMP (G) + spell echo (B) and chain (G)



If I had a six-link, would have added elemental focus (B). It's pretty easy to color this chest, and the stats are great. Knitted horror are also fun, and make weird sounds, but elemental damage looked more fun than bleed. Either way, you're killing.

The second most important skill is zombies.

So the spectres are fire damage spammers, but this are some melee fiends. So let's let them spam poison.

Raise zombie (B) + minion damage (B) + poison (G) + multistrike (R)



Ah, you recall, we're hiero, so there's a cool node that adds 2% life leech to boot skills. I'm pretty sure this means the zombies get the life instead of me, so Ghost Reave is a waste of points, but that's fine, fewer zombies to refresh.

The idea with multi strike is multiple poisons.

Well, there are whole build around these, and they are particularly strong when user summoned. But we've got spectres and zombies to think about that's a lot of button pushing. Also, I've got that cool 3 totem node in hiero that isn't being used. What about totem-casting SRS, they're expendable anyway? They do more damage than you might expect.

Summon raging spirit (B) + minion damge (B) + melee splash (R) + spell totem (R)



Ah, you recall, we're hiero, so there's a cool node that adds 20% resist pierce to helm skills. These guys are 50% fire damage, and we can get up to 30 spirits at a time with three totems, so that's okay, sure, I guess.

Having a totem active gives us speed from hiero node, so good to have at least one up at all times. They also warn you about p-mobs ahead.

well, they suck, compared to SRS, but if I'm feeling a little sad and the mobs are easy, I take out the convocation gem from my ring and put in a lvl 20 Vaal summon skeletons.



This beast only takes 32 souls, but floods your screen with scores of skeletons, more than enough for your fix. Convocation has its use in corridors, but in the open field why not have vaal skellies equipped more often?

His name is Jimmy, but he just died recently, the first time this league. In any case, if you equip him right, he'll buff and slaughter and survive for a long time.

Generally I give AG the following equipment:

Leer cast (dmg buff) + Dying breath (dmg buff) + death's oath (chaos dmg) + southbound (keeps him alive)

that leaves boots, which should be survival based (here I chose ES)

The gloves, southbound, prohibit him from killing unfrozen enemies, which is nice, since it keeps him receiving on-kill chaos damage from Death's Oath. We don't freeze enemies, so that means he won't kill anything.

If only there were a way to check up on what Jimmy was wearing, I vendor so many decent boots in any given day.

One of the benefits of keeping Jimmy on weapon is I can hit 'x' and swap to secondary if danger is close.

So, this isn't really a skill, but since we're CI, his regen is pretty important. My initial motivation for this build was the redblade ring, which buffed golems and make a pretty brutal lightning golem, or three of them with dual clayshapers, but that won't work with this build for two reasons: no regen and aligns with summoner on EE.



Not much to say, if you use a golem in this build, it should be stone golem.

I like whirling blades. In this case, I've forgone the normal faster attacks gem for an aura, specifically haste, just not enough gems sockets for this build. It's a fair trade off, since the time per map is probably about the same, or even faster.



Dusk blade would also work, but I like culling and ES recharge.

There are so many curses you could do for this build. But I stick by my favorites, mostly because I like to drink while I play and need to survive bosses without having to remember to switch out curses.

Ball lightning (B) + Curse on Hit (B) + Enfeeble (B) + Temporal chains (G)



Ah, you recall, we're hiero, so there's a cool node that adds 20% AoE to glove skills. That means a larger curse radius, nice. With haste, you can easily outrun haste, so best to fire a ball forward and wait a sec to curse the enemies ahead. Since it's lightning, EE will switch and your spectres and SRS will have a hayday with their fire damage, -50% fire resistance. Remember, the SRS already have -20% fire resist, so a slaughter will ensue.

I probably should have stopped it early on, but ball lightning is leveling atm, and since I haven't been killed by reflect yet, who cares.

Recall, this used to be a guardian, so auras are his strength. I don't have many set up here, but the following are crucial.

Discipline (B) for keeping us alive, since we are CI, and helping out our spectres.
Haste (G), because faster is always better, and I have this awesome 21/20 haste that just needs to be used.

as well as
Increased duration (R) + vaal haste (G) + bone offering (B)



Vaal haste is awesome, just love hitting 'r' around big mobs, and I chose bone offering over flesh offering due to the enormous block, plus the passive node that links regen to minion block. TBH, those p mobs suck, and giving minions a timely bone offering goes a long way in ensuring their survival. poor Jimmy.

I also keep convocation around in a ring, but swap it out with Vaal summon skeletons when I feel risky and Vaal discipline when I feel the need to be tanky. Hard to beat a 20/20 vaal discipline, that's some mad ES, albeit a short one if you don't have inc dur nearby.



This shield, Victario's Charity is a must have for summoner builds. It not only boosts their stats, it pretty much guarantees full power and frenzy charges, OP. You gotta take the Necro Aegis, though, keep that in mind.

I only use this to summon zombies and spectres, but have it on switch 'x' as needed. You can find flame sentinels in Merc eternal lab, refresh if you just get garbage. Level it to 20 so that you can get strong corpses, but I never use this offensively.