Minion Queries and things, plotting build

Planning a CI, Null's Inclination Witch...Just want to be sure I'm 100% clear on a few things before I start getting the gear together, as this is my first minion build.

A) My Auras would apply to my minions, yes? I'm thinking SRS and Animate Weapon a la Hege's latest guide.
B) Minion Damage, Minion Speed, Minion Life, and Minion/Totem Elemental Resistances are the only minion specific supports I see ...Do they need to be linked in Null's?
C) Is it worth running Minion Life if I plan on going Discipline and Spirit Offering?
D) Is Minion Instability worthwhile in an ES Minion focused build?
E) Melee Phys damage...worth it or not, for my SRS/Animates?
F) Did I miss anything obvious on my passive tree? I think I got enough ES, some good crit with Lioneye's/Power Charges, and some minion buffs, all the best ones. Tree is:

G) General tips for CI/Minions/Null's builds? Anything I might need to know?

Also, I'd need Spirit Offering in the bow, so between Spirit Offering, SRS, and Animate Weapon....I can only fit three more support gems for my minions. Minion Speed and Minion resists both seem like a must, so what do I drop in last?

And is there any way to get my minions to share my power charges? AFAIK Conduit doesn't do it, but it'd be nice if there was a way.

Bump a bump bump

A) Auras apply to allies, and minions are allies. If something says Party Members, like Conduit, then it won't apply to minions because they are not part of your party like a Player is.



B) Yes, supports must be linked to the active skill gems you want them to apply to. They are not global.

Only with an item that grants an active skill, like Whispering Ice's Icestorm, can you get away with leaving sockets unlinked and still get all socketed supports to apply.

In the case of Null's Inclination, the only thing happening is any socketed minion skills are cast on a trigger by the bow, rather than you, so it is functionally identical to you manually casting. As such, supports must be linked.



C) Minion Life on temporary minions like Raging Spirits and Animated Weapons would be a waste of a socket, in my opinion. It's good on tank Zombies and anything else you don't want to die too often, like Animated Guardian, some yolo Golems, and early-game Spectres. You can already get up to 110% increased minion life on the passive tree, not including jewels, so sacrificing up to ~50% more damage for ~1/4th increased life isn't worth it.



D) By ES Minion build, do you mean ES for yourself, or are you theorycrafting with the upcoming Spirit Offering? If for you, I don't see how ES in particular matters to Minion Instability. If for your minions with Necromantic Aegis (though quivers aren't affected) and Spirit Offering, MI triggers when a minion reaches 35% life and deals 33% of their life as fire damage, so ES wouldn't factor into either the trigger or the damage.

The consensus right now for Summoners is MI isn't worth it. It basically means your minions have 35% less life. For Spectres, this is terrible. If you are focusing solely on temporary minions, however, there is potential.

Level 20 Animated Weapons have a base life of 7,228. Raging Spirits have 3,252. For comparison, Zombies have 4,607. Raging Spirits cannot be targeted directly, so they'll only pop against heavy AoE or projectile interception.

The question is whether the life-based damage will be greater than the total melee damage they can inflict in the time from 35% to 0% life.



E) Melee Physical Damage won't affect Anger or Wrath damage, but it will boost Hatred.

Raging Spirits convert 50% of their physical damage to fire, meaning MPD will boost their fire damage portion because it is a conversion from physical. They also benefit most from Hatred over Anger/Wrath.

Animated Weapons depend more on auras for their damage, and since their physical damage is relatively low they benefit more from the flat damage of Anger/Wrath over Hatred. It should also be noted, since the two are sharing links, that the Weapon Elemental Damage support will not benefit Raging Spirits because they do not wield a weapon (like zombies, they are basically unarmed).

The question, then, is which of the two will be your focus, and which is a supplementary force?



F) I assume you'll be using the "Energy From Within" jewel to convert "Cruel Preparation" and "Heart and Soul" from Life to ES? I was about to suggest the same for "Melding", but that works out to 5.7 ES per point, so it isn't worth it over, say, the "Foresight" wheel.

You'll be using the "Lioneye's Fall" jewel with "Disemboweling" and "Serpent Stance"/"Blunt Trauma", right? These conversion nodes throw me for a loop at first, heh.

Do you need the +30 DEX nodes for item requirements and accuracy? If for the Minion Damage conversion, that's only worth 3% for 2 points by "Disembowelment". I'd say the Jewel socket below "Faith and Steel" can be worth more for the same 2 points ("Fluid Motion" unique jewel for +44 DEX/-20 STR or a rare +16 DEX, +10 DEX/INT or DEX/STR, 16% Minion Damage, and 8% Energy Shield jewel). Below "Mind over Matter" is another easy 1-point Jewel socket.

"Faith and Steel" and "Written in Blood" are 15% ES for 2 points, or 7.5% ES per point. That's higher than the "Foresight" and "Unnatural Calm" clusters (6% ES), and you get armor/resists on the former and STR for reqs on the latter.

"Nullification" can be reached in 3 points, giving a lower 5% ES per point, but also a total of 25% increased Evasion and +8% all Elemental Resistances. Further south is also "Void Barrier".

If you're filling out the "Death Attunement" and "Gravepact" wheels, then you shouldn't ignore "Lord of the Dead" for 1 point. It's 10% minion life, 15% minion damage, +1 zombies, and +2 skeletons. That also puts you in line to get the last 15% minion damage node after it.

"Alchemist" is pretty popular if you like using Flasks.



G) A link to the build you mentioned would be helpful. I haven't used Null's Inclination, and while interesting, I can tell you it is, unfortunately, self-limiting. Because you must score the kill with the weapon, you won't cast your minion spells if your minions get the kill before you. This is the same problem Dominating Blow contends with. As your horde increases, you are less and less likely to deal the killing blow. An anti-synergy.

Poison support on your minions would be good to test. If a monster dies to poison, you get kill credit rather than your minion. I don't know how it will play out with "Kill with this Weapon", though.

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Also, I'd need Spirit Offering in the bow, so between Spirit Offering, SRS, and Animate Weapon....I can only fit three more support gems for my minions. Minion Speed and Minion resists both seem like a must, so what do I drop in last?

Minion Speed and Minion Resists are a waste, and you could self-cast Spirit Offering. Are you planning to use Mistress of Sacrifice to get yourself ES on kill? Since the ES gained is scaled by your life, and Chaos Inoculation sets your life to 1, this may not work so well.

The three links you want are: Minion Damage + Melee Splash +

A. Melee Physical Damage (49% more damage), very nice if using Hatred

B. Bloodlust (59% more damage) instead of MPD if you can reliably trigger Bleed (Puncture or Knitted Horror Spectre)

C. Poison (20% more damage over 2 sec, +double-dipping) for potentially more kill triggers. Minion damage scales up the poison damage. ((1 + 1.05 from passives + 0.45 from Necro + __ from jewels) * 1.49 from Minion Damage support) = 3.725 multiplier, which turns poison into 74.5% more damage over 2 seconds. Since Raging Spirits only deal half physical, this is cut down to 37.25%. Minion damage on jewels and the upcoming +2 Ascendancy points will push this higher. Oh, it will also multiply Spirit Offering's extra chaos damage, too, which scales from the Raging Spirit's base physical before fire conversion. I think it'll be 25% of physical damage? In which case poison will essentially scale from 75% of the Raging Spirit's base physical damage, making it worth 55.87% more damage.

D. Added Chaos adds the most flat damage, which is best on Animated Weapons but still good on Raging Spirits.

E. Multistrike (~36% more damage) but you lose DPS if the target moves as your minions are locked in place.

F. Increased Duration benefits Raging Spirits, Animated Weapons, and Spirit Offering. Best for AW, though, since they follow you.

Y. Empower is not so great in this situation, since you aren't stacking levels with a +3 staff, and Animated Weapons don't get too much with levels.

Z. Weapon Elemental Damage (59% more damage) for Animated Weapons, but 0% for Raging Spirits, so not recommended.

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And is there any way to get my minions to share my power charges? AFAIK Conduit doesn't do it, but it'd be nice if there was a way.

Only with the Assassin's Mark curse, Power Charge on Critical support gem, or:

Necromantic Aegis makes this really shine, but you can't use a shield with a bow. Then there's:


With Doedre's Elixer and this belt you can give all three charge types to your Zombies and Spectres. Unfortunately, this doesn't include Animated Weapons or Raging Spirits.

Okay, I found the build video and gear/tree. I can't listen to the audio right now to hear Hegemony's justifications, but even so I must confess I am a bit disappointed. He goes to the effort of using Null's Inclination, but completely eschews all minion nodes on the passive tree.

Let's compare trees (113pts):
* His tree
* Your tree

Stats
192 INT, 214 DEX, 84 STR (20 more INT needed for Null Inclination)
332 INT, 114 DEX, 64 STR (98 more DEX needed for Null Inclination)

Increased Bow Damage
67% + (76% if Phys) + (20% if Ele) + (76% if Chaos) + (75% if DoT)
0% + (22% if Phys) + (8% if Ele)

Critical Hits
20% chance, 0% multiplier
565% chance w/ 6 charges, 139% multiplier (=40% of attacks will crit)

Remember, Accuracy is very important for crits, since even if you hit and roll a crit the game must roll again to see if the crit hits.

40% of your attacks have a chance of dealing 189% additional damage. This means you've got roughly 75% more damage with phys/ele/chaos, but not to poison. Increased damage from support gems will multiply this, rather than add on.

Hegemony has an increased 141% phys/chaos, 85% ele, and 206% poison before including increases from support gems. This places him at roughly twice your damage before we factor in support gems, which is where you can make up some ground.

If you are both using Drillneck, though, he has another 40% increased projectile damage from his pierce chance from the tree. You can get that too, but it'll cost 6 passive points. If so, with the Pierce support and Drillneck, you would have 100% pierce chance, or 100% increased projectile damage. For Hegemony, this means 241% increased phys/chaos. For you, it'd be 250% because of multiplication.

I can't say much more until I know what gear and supports you plan to use.

Here is an adjusted tree. Of note is saving 1 point by rerouting from "Instability" to "Cruel Preparations", since you get nothing from "Spell Damage per Power Charge".

For your bow attack, I would suggest Lightning Arrow or even Ice Shot. They deal less initial damage than Split Arrow because of GMP and the loss of Void/Poison/Culling, but they have insane scaling with Pierce against packs. Poison doesn't mean much if you can kill in less than a second. This is an On Kill build, so while LA/IS will fall behind SA against single targets, you won't be able to summon minions anyway so why not Weapon Swap to a single-target skill in those instances?

Since you're going the minion route, I recommend fully utilizing those passives by including tank Zombies for defense over Cast When Damage Taken. You can skip Spectres, but since you can have up to two why not consider one for support:

• Reanimators raise 3 zombies, who inherit the minion supports you give the spectre (but not your passive tree). 7 zombies + 6 from your spectres make a nice wall of distraction. They cast Enfeeble, too, which is nice if you aren't running any curses, but not so nice if you are.
  
  
• Carnage Chieftains give Frenzy Charges to allies. Blood Magic support lets them continually cast this, but if you don't find them in maps they are very squishy.
  
  
• Knitted Horrors inflict Bleed and are naturally tanky.
  
  
• Undying Evangelists have a Proximity Shield that blocks damage from outside the shield.
  
  
• Noisome Ophidians with GMP = tar ground everywhere, slowing enemy movement speed by 50%.

If you stick with Minion Instability, use a Skeleton totem for explosions all day long when things get hairy.

A) + B) Thank you, thank you.
C) Nice to know.
D) I meant both, really, as I don't intend to scale minion life and I do want to use Spirit Offering.
E) I think, and it's probably me being silly, but if I had to pick, I'd rather have a hoard of floating swords and things rather than a horde of skulls. Just more fun IMO, so I could drop the SRS entirely and go all Weapon, plus maybe the new chest unique, if I can get it.
F) Yes on both jewels. I'm pretty certain I WILL need the dex, as I can only get so many dex rolls on gear and I need it for the bow and the green skills. I tend to treat alchemist as a late-late game option, if ever.

G) I hadn't noticed that particular scaling, I had misread it as corpse life. That does make Spirit Offering and CI rather unattractive.
I don't intend to use Zombies or Skeletons, simply as I don't like them, and until they fix Spectres various utility issues, I'd hesitate to scale them in any way.

As for your second post, I've no intention of using poison. As I am hoping to get a Null's and do this in the new league at some point, the only hard and fast things I'm sure of are Null's, hopefully a Marylene's Fallacy, Maligaro gloves, and a couple diamond rings for gear. Aside from that I plan on running Discipline and a Blasphemied Assassin's Mark. That's my full intention. I intend to scale my damage almost entirely, and use the minions as a joint distraction/tank/clear speed booster, rather than massively scaling their damage specifically. I'm treating it more as an archer build with minions, rather than a minion build with a bow, if that makes any sense.

I'm planning on scaling my damage through crits and crit multi, as I should get respectably high with all the charges, the mark, and maybe 100% increased chance total on gear, if that. I'm also planning on focusing into phys and chaos so that I can handle reflect easier. I do plan on Culling Strike in my links unless I can get a Marylene's and pass about 75% crit.

I didn't honestly plan on going pierce, but it is a possibility. Now that you've pointed out the CI/Spirit Offering issue...
My rebuttal tree suggestion.


The change from Instability is well spotted, thank you. I tend to miss the small things sometimes, and they add up.

Also, yes I too was dissapointed in Hege's version. I have seen multiple Null's builds, and his just felt...bland. The minions weren't great, the bow damage wasn't great, it was overall just meh, it was a build, it was usable. Which was kinda odd from Hege.

Scratch that previous tree. Rethought it a bit. As you said, they are temporary minions, and I can summon infinite Animated Weapons, so their life is less an issue. Dropped some minion defense, rerouted slightly, gained more defense for me, plus about a gear's worth of resists, and the max lightning and fire nodes. Chaos damage will be a significant issue for this build now though, since I'd not be running Shav's, and I can't really afford to drop Diamond rings for Amethyst, much less go Ming's Heart and reach anywhere near cap. Can't take that downside as hybrid, only as CI or all life.
New rebuttal tree.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1653031

Convert this into witch with 2.3...

"

s0uless999 wrote:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1653031

Convert this into witch with 2.3...

No Null's, has Zombies, Spectres, 2x Golems, a Shield...very, very different, and heavily focused into minions over personal damage, which is the opposite of what I'm aiming for, and what most Null builds aim for. But the notice is nice.