[2.4] Queen of the Dead [Low Life] [Summoner] [Party Viable] [Semi-Support]

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Hello! My name is eJonKou and this is a guide for a build I made called Queen of the Dead. I created my first Summoner build back in 1.3 during the Torment league, back then I had no idea what I was doing and I created the slowest possible Summoner build imaginable, a pure Zombie build. Even though it was a terrible build, I was hooked on Summoners and it's by far my favourite playstyle in the game.

I originally created Queen of the Dead back with the release of The Awakening and the Warbands league. My main goal was to create a Summoner build which could clear almost all content solo but also be viable and be a huge asset for any group. This build has gone through several iterations and I was planning on releasing this build guide back in 2.1 during the Talisman league, but I felt like something was still missing from the build.

The Ascendancy expansion brought a lot of damage to Summoners and filled in the missing gap in the build. We pick Necromancer for the Commander of Darkness and Soul Weaver nodes.

The build works well with budget gear and has a huge gear ceiling. The build works decently as a league starter, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you really want to play a low life Summoner.

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Pros
► Basic gear is cheap.
► Clear speed is good.
► Can solo almost all content in the game.
► Great for party play!
► We run up to 7 auras buffing us, our minions and allies significantly.
► We can use up to 3 Curses with Curse on Hit.
► This is a very safe build.
► Uses Whirling Blades to move around quickly.
► We can run most map mods in the game!
► Very future proof. Buffs and quality of life changes almost guaranteed!

Cons
► Atziri & Uber Atziri will be tough and annoying.
► Not the most cost efficient or fastest clearing build, it will never clear like CoC.
► Setting up minions and auras is very annoying if you disconnect or log out.
► The build is very gem socket starved.
► Optimal gear costs a lot of currency.

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Passive Skill Tree (LEVEL 90)

The skill tree is a pretty basic ES Summoner tree.

Bandits are kill all/kill all/kill all.

I grabbed Commander of Darkness from normal Labyrinth, after that I went for Soul Weaver. Commander of Darkness is the most valuable node for this build, as it buffs our minions for each aura they are effected by. Aura effectiveness also scales this even further, so our minions gain 15% Increased Damage and 7% Increased Attack & Cast speed per aura instead of the default 10% and 5%. I am not sure if Generosity scales this effect further.

The points from Uber Labyrinth aren't required, but if you want to get them I would recommend grabbing Mistress of Sacrifice and run a Flesh Offering for the bonus. If you do this you might want to grab Increased Duration passives from the passive tree.

Elemental Equilibrium is another passive node that synergizes very well with this build and is very good if you play solo a lot. It works like a buffed Elemental Weakness, we activate it by using Ball Lightning which ends up giving monsters we hit +25% Lightning Resistance but -50% Fire and Cold Resistance. Our minions gain the benefit from Elemental Equilibrium but they are unable to activate it themselves.

Elemental Equilibrium also stacks with Elemental Weakness, which scales the -% Resistances even further.


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You have two options when it comes to which body armour to pick, and it boils down to how much currency you have. Shavronne's Wrappings is best in slot for the build and required for high level content. The price is pretty steep, about 4-8 Exalted orbs during a challenge league depending on the current meta. It offers a significant amount of # Energy Shield.

Solaris Lorica is our second alternative and it's the budget option. As you can see it doesn't offer any Energy Shield at all and only offers us a bit of Armour and a small amount of Strength. This body armour is widely available and you can usually pick one up early on in a league for 1-5 Chaos orbs and 1 Alchemy orb or 1 Chaos orb later in a league. This is what you will be using until you can affoard a Shavronne's Wrappings and this chest is useable in early/mid mapping. But I would recommend trying to get a Shavronne's Wrappings as soon as you can.

The reason we have to use one of these body armours is because of the affix Chaos Damage does not bypass Energy Shield. This allows us to use auras to reserve all our life.
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Ephemeral Edge is the best in slot weapon for this build. This gives us a significant amount of % Energy Shield and because it's a sword it allows us to use Whirling Blades to move around fast and keep up with party members easily. I wouldn't recommend using any other weapon, but if you really don't want to use Ephemeral Edge for some reason you could always run a Midnight Bargain and drop Vitality / Purity of Elements.
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Prism Guardian is one of the few required items for the build. It allows us to run 3 auras on our life for a significantly smaller cost, it also boosts the level of aura gems in the item. With this shield we can run a level 20(+2) Discipline, Grace & Haste.
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The best helmet for this build is simply a Rare helmet with the enchant +2 to Level of Socketed Minion Gems, preferrably on an Energy Shield base. There are several good enchants you can use, but I would consider Spectres have 25/40% Increased Damage to be the best affix for this build, it's a significant damage boost to our spectres.

You may also use a unique helmet such as The Vertex if you can't find or craft a good minion helmet. It works well and gives you a lot of Energy Shield.
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A pair of Rare gloves with high Energy Shield and good resistances are best in slot. If you manage to get a pair with Curses enemies with Temporal Chains on Hit or Curses enemies with Elemental Weakness on Hit corruption it allows you to run 3 curses in your setup instead of only 2.
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Bones of Ullr are the best boots for this build. I shouldn't have to say much about this item, but it gives us an additional Zombie and Spectre, some mana and % movement speed for very little investment.
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Rare rings with % Elemental Resistances, % Energy Shield, # Energy Shield and mana are the best. You will probably want unset rings, but thankfully unset rings are rather niche so finding good unset rings for a cheap price is easy. My two rings cost me roughly 15 Chaos orbs. Crafting % Energy Shield is something you will want to do eventually.
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Sidhebreath is sometimes considered a noob trap item, but it's actually very good amulet since we can easily get Strength and Dexterity from the passive tree and other gear pieces. The movement speed and damage are the most important affixes on the item. You can find a Sidhebreath with Enemies can have 1 Additional Curse or Minions deal X % Increased Damage corruption for a decent price in Prophecy. My Sidhebreath cost me around 30 Chaos orbs.
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Use the belt slot to fill in any gaps in your gear. # Energy Shield, % Elemental Resistances and % Chaos Resistances are good to have. You could also go for flask affixes if you don't need more resistances.
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This build only have two mandatory jewels, both of these are required but they're common and easy to obtain. Conqueror's Efficiency is obtained from the quest Through Sacred Ground in Act 2 Merciless, it opens up just enough mana to allow us to run Clarity and cast Ball Lightning.

Energy from Within is the second jewel we need. It's not obtained through any quest and must be either found as a drop or purchased from another player. This jewel has increased in value significantly since Grinding Gear Games changed the rarity of jewels in Prophecy it costs between 5 and 15 Chaos orbs. We put this jewel in the jewel slot next to the Melding passive node.

A Rare jewel for your third jewel slot is recommended. Something that has Minions Deal X % Increased Damage and % Energy Shield is optimal. On top of these affixes something like % Increased Attack Speed is good to speed up your Whirling Blades or go for something % Elemental Resistances or attributes if you need them.
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In this build we have a lot of freedom when it comes to which flasks we want to use. Personally I went mostly for defensive utility flasks such as Stibnite flask for the smoke cloud blind effect and Basalt flask for the Physical damage reduction.

For my character I chose two unique utility flasks. The first one being The Sorrow of the Divine which doesn't just create Consecrated ground but also gives us Zealot's Oath during the flask effect. The really great thing about the flask is that it lasts for almost 7 seconds at 20% quality and we can use the flask three times before it's depleted.

The second unique flask I chose was Kiara's Determination. Kiara's Determination helps us free up several affixes on our other flasks, using this flask we no longer need affixes such as of Warding or of Heat and it makes us stun immune during the flask effect. We also gain Onslaught during the flask which increases our attack speed, cast speed and movement speed by 20% during the effect. Unfortunately this flask only lasts for a short period of time, 3.5 seconds at 20% quality.

There are also other great options, such as a Taste of Hate. There are also some really cool combinations you could do if you have access to a Umbilicus Immortalis unique belt, unfortunately this is a Perandus exclusive item and isn't available in Prophecy.


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Raise Spectre - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Spell Echo - Minion Damage - Elemental Focus (5L) - Fire Penetration (6L)

Spectres are our main damage dealers. In this build we will be using Flame Sentinels from The Solaris Temple in Act 3. Flame Sentinels are very spammy, cover the entire screen with fireballs and deals great damage. The tier 6 Temple map also frequently spawns high level Flame Sentinels, and are a good way to boost your damage even further.
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Raise Zombie - Animate Guardian - Multistrike - Fortify

Basic Raise Zombie/Animate Guardian setup. They are your meatshield but thanks to all of our auras and buffs that they get from us they will deal good chunk of damage aswell. You will want to equip your Animate Guardian with a Leer Cast for the damage aura and Dying Breath for the curse effectiveness and damage buff. You will also want to equip your Animate Guardian with some cheap rares that have life/resistances to make him even tankier.
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Haste - Grace - Discipline

These three aura gems will be socketed in our Prism Guardian. Gems socketed in the Prism Guardian gain the Blood Magic keystone effect and not the Blood Magic gem effect, so we don't have to worry about gaining a huge multiplier.
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Purity of Elements OR Vitality - Blood Magic

You will want to socket your Purity of Elements or Vitality with Vitality to reserve the rest of our mana after the auras in Prism Guardian. This is mostly a filler aura so pick whichever you want, I personally went with Purity of Elements to cap my minions resistances and make them even harder to kill. Running a Vitality in a party will probably be better since players will be resistance capped by themselves.
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Generosity - Hatred - Wrath - Anger

These auras are what transforms our minions from good in to insane. All three auras gain the 54% Aura effectiveness from the passive tree and also the 39% aura effectiveness from Generosity(40% with level 21 gem) for a total of 93% aura effectiveness. This almost doubles the effect of our damage auras for our minions and party members. Quality auras are not required, but it's a nice thing to have for when your minions or party members are far away from you, same goes for quality on Generosity.
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Ball Lightning - Curse on Hit - Temporal Chains - Enfeeble

While our minions are obliterating everything, we will be cursing our enemies with Temporal Chains and Enfeeble. Thanks to all the curse effectiveness from the tree together with the curse effectiveness from a quality Curse on Hit and our Animate Guardian we will make almost any content trivial. Enemies won't have time to hit us and if they do they will miss. This is a huge defensive aspect and it's really good for fights such as Atziri and end-game Izaro.

Ball Lightning also acts as our method of controlling our minions. Our minions will prioritize the target we are attacking allowing us to easily choose where we want our minions to go. This mechanic works pretty well most of the time.

WARNING! Make sure you're running a level 1 Ball Lightning, higher levels increased the mana cost!
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Flesh Offering | Whirling Blades | Convocation | Desecrate

These three gems don't have to be linked with anything, which is why we socket them in to spare sockets in our gear and unset rings.

We use Flesh Offering for the significant buff it grants our minions. You will eventually want to grab the Mistress of Sacrifice so we gain the buff aswell.

Whirling Blades is our movement skill, but you might want to switch it out for a Lightning Warp or Flame Dash when doing content such as the Labyrinth where you benefit a lot from moving over obstacles. Whirling Blades allows us to keep up with party members easier and move around faster increasing clear speed. Our attack speed isn't too bad thanks to running a level 20 Haste and Commander of Darkness buff.

Convocation is used to recall minions to our location and is an essential skill. Minions move pretty slow even with all the buffs we give them and have a hard time keeping up with us. Convocation is a must have to in-door areas and maps where minions can get trapped in other rooms easily.

Desecrate is used to spawn corpses so we can summon our Spectres. If you don't have room to have it socketed, keep it socketed in a secondary weapon.

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Leveling is very simple and straight forward. Level with Fire Storm and Flame Totem, once you reach the threshold level to use minions you can stop using Flame Totem if you wish. Keep using Fire Storm up until you no longer feel you need it.

The level where you can switch to minions depends entirely on which leveling uniques you have. You can start using Raise Zombie when you reach level 23 with a Matua Tupuna and use the shield until you can equip a helmet with the +2 to Level of Socketed Minion Gems affix. You need to re-colour you Matua Tupuna so it has 1 Blue socket and 2 Red sockets and this will take, on average, roughly 20 Chromatic orbs which is about 1.5-2 Chaos orbs worth of currency. Socket a Raise Zombie together with Melee Physical Damage and Melee Splash, once you reach level 38 switch Melee Splash for a Multistrike gem and later on switch Melee Physical Damage for a Fortify gem.

Once you got your Matua Tupuna you should equip a pair of Bones of Ullr as they are our best in slot boot item, so don't be afraid of 4Ling your boots as you will be using them all the way. Have a look out for a pair with high movement speed.

Usually you're going to need your amulet slot filled by an amulet that gives you attributes while leveling, but if you can somehow spare the amulet slow I would highly recommend equipping a Sidhebreath as soon as possible.

I wouldn't recommend using Raise Spectre until you reach The Solaris Temple in Cruel difficulty, the reason for this is that your spectres will be incredibly squishy and will die a lot before this point. Flame Sentinels from cruel will carry you all the way until Act 3 Merciless where you can make the switch to higher level Flame Sentinels.

I would recommend using a Tabula Rasa whiling leveling until you can make the switch to low life. It's not a required item but it's nice to have and makes the entire leveling process easier.

Feel free to do the Labyrinth whenever you feel comfortable enough to do it. Thankfully we don't rely to heavily on our Ascendancy class while leveling.

Life Sprig, Reverberation Rod and Amplification Rod are nice wands to have for your Fire Storm but they are definitely not required.

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Passive Tree (Level 20)
Passive Tree (Level 40)
Passive Tree (Level 60)
Passive Tree (Level 68)

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I'm still playing my character and leveling her up. I'm currently around level 75 and just got the build going but I will keep updating the guide as I'm leveling up further. My goal is to hit level 90 on this character.

Once I reach a higher level I will be making videos showcasing the build in Uber Labyrinth and high level maps.

I'm not 100% satisfied with the leveling section and I will probably re-make it soon.

If you have any questions about the build or any of my choices, feel free to ask me anything.


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Nice build; appreciate the work you put into the guide as well. :)

Normal Atziri run video uploaded! Recorded the video on thursday but been very busy with RL stuff all weekend so I never had an opportunity to upload.

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Nice build; appreciate the work you put into the guide as well. :)

Thanks! :)

I love the detail of your guide and want to give it a go. However, I'm struggling with the various passive skill trees. They seem to all be stuck at 23 points assigned. The urls appear the same regardless of level.

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RuinExplorer wrote:

I love the detail of your guide and want to give it a go. However, I'm struggling with the various passive skill trees. They seem to all be stuck at 23 points assigned. The urls appear the same regardless of level.

Oh wow, I didn't notice that. Fixed and updated with proper skill trees for each level bracket.

Thanks for pointing it out!

does anyone know where flame sentinels spawn in maps now? im at 52/125 and still havent seen any, not even in the t9 temple map

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yourdoom14 wrote:

does anyone know where flame sentinels spawn in maps now? im at 52/125 and still havent seen any, not even in the t9 temple map

I found some in T10 Courtyard map a few times, but they don't seem to be bound to that map though so obtaining them would be inconsistent.

I'm at 73/125 and while I haven't really looked for them I can't recall finding a map that spawns them consistently.

Rather new to the game, was always playing a summoner or necromancer in RPG games, and I stumbled upon this guide, I will try to follow your guide it seems pretty cool, tho I feel a bit overwhelmed with all of the aspects of the game, anyway thanks a lot for making this!! <3