[2.4]Crit Malachai's Loop Summoner
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Minions with Power Charges possible? Yes, it is. I've done plenty of research on this being it's hard to find any real information on minions. Minions start with 5% critical strike chance and 3 Power Charges. Also, Power Charges give them 200% increased critical strike chance. Malachai's Loop (shown below), with Necromantic Aegis Keystone, gives minions 2 more Power Charges and allows them a chance to gain charges on hit. Now, minions can chill, freeze, shatter, ignite, and shock. More on this later.
This is a low life build so that I can use Auras to buff minions, and use a couple for myself. Disclaimer: I knew nothing about summoners before making this build. I've never played one, not even Summon Raging Spirits.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Safe (25 minions to hide behind) - Good DPS solo, with the right Spectres - Can do maps on a 4l ink - Easy to gear (cheap) Cons: - Can feel slow on harder maps I leveled as a summoner and it was painfully slow. I would choose some form of spell to level with, until at least Merciless. Minions really take off at higher levels. There are plenty of suggestions for leveling out there, so I'm not going to get into it. For bandits, I killed all of them in all difficulties. I am low life, so Oak in Normal is useless. Nothing in Cruel is useful at all. For Merciless, I'm not using charges, my minions are, so nothing here is useful either. Here is how I did my tree:
Passive Skill Tree
Mana, regen, a little life and mana %, and an extra Zombie and Skeleton.
A little more life and some minion nodes. Minion nodes Stats (as required, additional curse, aura nodes, energy shield, Elemental Equilibrium, Static Shock, Necromantic Aegis. Finanl Tree - Arcane Vision, Energy Shield nodes, and jewel slots I started out with a few life nodes to make leveling easier. Low life came later. I equipped Malachai's Loop when I could, at level 65. My minions started igniting and shattering fairly often. Not as much so as if you build around an attack skill with critical strikes and cold damage, but enough to notice it. Around 75, I equipped Solaris Lorica and went low life. As for jewel slots, put Energy From Within by the Melding circle between Witch and Shadow. The other two slots, I opted for minion damage and whatever other stats the jewel may have. I almost chose Occultist as my Ascendancy class, just for the defensive aspect of it, allowing for higher Energy Shield. However, I went with Necromancer, mostly to boost minion deeps.
Necromancer Passives
Commander of Darkness: I went with Commander of Darkness first. I am casting plenty of Auraus, so this will boost minion deeps. Also, it provides 20% all resists for having casted an Aura.
Flesh Binder: Next I went with Flesh Binder because it's pathing toward Soul Weaver. It also gives my minions and me 8% less physical damage taken because I have 8 Zombies. Soul Weaver: This passive boosts Spectres a lot. It gives them 100% increased life and damage. Spirit Eater: This gives minions 30% increased damage. It also gives Desecrate 2 more corpses for raising Spectres. Makes them easier to find. For skills, I have it set up so that Skeletons are basically meat shields, Spectres are big DPS, and Zombies are mostly somewhere in between.
Skill Gems
Main deeps: Raise Spectre - Spell Echo - Minion Damage - Fire Penetration Minion Damage is always a solid choice on minions. I chose Flame Sentinels in Solaris Temple as my Spectres, so Fire Penetration and Spell Echo are solid choices. For a 5th and 6th link, I would go with Elemental Focus and Minion Speed. Elemental Focus is a big dps boost and Minion Speed helps them to keep up with you. Meat Shields: Spell Totem - Summon Skeletons - Minion Speed - Minion Life I put Skeletons on Spell Totem so that they can continuously be spammed without me having to spam them. Life and Speed are so they can last a little longer and get to mobs faster. Somewhere in between: Raise Zombie - Minion Damage - Melee Splash - Minion Speed Zombies are set up for area damage and to be able to follow me and get to the next target quickly. For harder content, I swapped out Melee Splash for Fortify. Cureses: Arc - Curse on Hit - Enfeeble - Temporal Chains I was going to use Ball Lightning for this but Arc seemed more instant. Also, the higher level Arc the more it chains, so the more mobs you can hit. Other options for curses could be Assassin's Mark or Elemental Weakness. Enfeeble and Temporal Chains is a good defensive setup though. Arc also applies Elemental Equilibrium. I do lighting damage and shock, so that my minions who do fire and cold damage can do a bunch more damage. Life Reserve Auras: Blood Magic - Discipline - Clarity Discipline is an obvious choice. It's a low life build, which is Energy Shield based. Discipline gives a big boost in Energy Shield. Clarity is used so I can easily spam skills, and I see no reason to use anything else. I assume it also helps the Flame Sentinels spam skills. Wouldn't want my main DPS to run out of mana. Other Auras: Generosity - Hatred This setup is used to give Zombies and Skeletons a bigger boost in cold DPS from Hatred. Other Skills: Arctic Armour, Flame Dash These provide defense and mobility. I actually got an Unset ring, just so I could put Arctic Armour in it. The only two uniques that are really required are Solaris Lorica, until Shavronne's Wrappings can be acquired, and Malachai's Loop so that minions can crit. It'll be harder to get more than a 4 link until equipping a Shavronne's Wrappings.
Current Gear
Used temporarily, until I can get a Shavronne's Wrappings. Need to prevent chaos damage from draining life before Energy Shield. Otherwise, it's a quick death to chaos mobs. With Necromantic Aegis keystone, Malachai's Loop gives minions Power Charges and the ability to crit. The main drawback of the shield is the 4 seconds of shock when you reach maximum charges. That can be pretty painful on yourself, but minions can be re-raised, so who cares if they get shocked. Drawback averted. While not required, Steppan Eard is fairly cheap and provides good movement speed and Energy Shield. Also, being unaffected by Desecrated Ground is nice. Aurumvorax is also not required but it costs next to nothing and has a ton of resists on it. It makes capping resists a lot easier and allows to get Energy Shield for cheaper. This ring was mentioned above. It gives a slot for Arctic Armour. It also has a little bit of resists and some Energy Shield. This amulet was given to me by a guild mate at the beginning of the league. It takes the stat nodes off the tree and boosts Energy Shield. For the rest of the gears, get as much energy shield as you can and finish capping resists.
Flasks
This is my favourite flask for this build. It instantly puts me at full unreserved mana every use. And it only takes 5 charges and has 30 total. Easily spammable. It also has -of Staunching to remove bleed. The rest of the flasks are defensive and a Quicksilver. Video Section: Cruel Merveil - Just a progress video. Kind of explains a little of the build and then kills Merveil. Merciless Dried Lake - Running to Voll and killing mobs on the way. Shaped Strand - Clearing Shaped Strand (Tier 11), with a simple Invasion Boss. SynTrSr - Trickster Soulrend/Bane Last edited by generaldave on Oct 19, 2016, 10:08:46 AM Last bumped on Oct 18, 2016, 12:22:16 PM
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Wait.
Are the minions actually getting that +2 to power charges? I tried pausing and zooming on your video but couldn't clearly see. This is really interesting, i'll probably give this try. With a inc crit gem + a diamond flask(+immortalis belt) you can get 84% + diamond = capped crit chance. Mobs has a default crit multiplier of 130%. or 2.3 times the dmg, I would sacrifice a support gem for iCrit if that was the case. The shield could be a much more reliable source of power charges then the victario shield when you're facing a singular boss. Necronomicon: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1617098 Build: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/409940 Summoner Dischord: https://discord.gg/XwWdSUa Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/zhoukon Last edited by mattc3303 on Oct 18, 2016, 11:56:14 AM
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" Yes, they do get the Power Charges from the shield. Real close to .50 in the video you can see one of the Spectres has 4 chargse. That's an interesting call on the Immortalis and Diamond Flask combination. I might have to incorporate that somehow. I tried the Increased Critical Strikes gem but clear speed was a lot higher with my current skill set up. It could be an option in a 5 or 6 link instead of Minion Speed. SynTrSr - Trickster Soulrend/Bane Last edited by generaldave on Oct 19, 2016, 10:38:47 PM
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