[2.5][HC] Max Block CI Spectre Summoner! Shaper/Guardians/Uber Atziri

Introduction
Hello and welcome to the guide for my hardcore flame sentinel summoner! This league I have been playing summoner almost exclusively and have been really enjoying it. A lot of people have whispered me asking for a guide for the build, so here it is!

Although summoner quality of life features are still almost non-existent, the build is still very fun to play and effective against bosses. I have played this build three times so far to level 96.5, 95, and my current character which is lvl 96.

LEVELING TIPS AND OTHER RELEVENT INFO AT THE BOTTOM

Passive Tree
This is my current tree at level 96: http://poeurl.com/Yiq

Bandits
KILL KILL KILL

Videos

Chimera: https://youtu.be/9yEtCf7jAG0

Phoenix: https://youtu.be/ieaGQXc_6cI

Hydra: https://youtu.be/BL66D3O2wPY

Minotaur full clear: https://youtu.be/jENcKgcJplQ

Uber Atziri: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be8B4wAPv80

Shaper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbRDeot_sms

Gear

For your chest try to get a vaal regalia with 700+ es. In order for the build to feel powerful, you will want to have at least a 5l, but get a 6l if you can. The damage you gain from adding a sixth link is very nice, but is not necessary to clear end game bosses.

Links (in order of priority):


My gloves are basically exactly what you want to try and find: High es with dex and an open prefix slot to craft minion damage.

Links:


There are a few options for your helm enchantment if spectre damage is too expensive or too hard to come by in a new league. A few of the best options for your helm enchant include: Spectre damage, Convocation recovery speed, Bone offering duration, and reduced aura reservation.

Links:


Bones of Ullr is a no brainer for the boots slot. Try to corrupt these boots for +1 level of socketed gems then you can link Empower for extra levels on the gems in your boots.

If you dont have +1 Ullyrs then just run minion life instead of empower in your links.

Links:


In my opinion Advancing Fortress is the best option for your main hand because you can easily mass corrupt them for the culling strike implicit, it caps out your attack block, and saves you a gem slot by giving you fortify. Another very good option is Ephemeral Edge, which grants 50% increased energy shield which is very nice early on when you haven't gotten all your es nodes on the tree, but I don't think it's the best end game option

Links:


For your shield I think Rathpith is easily best in slot, especially considering the price. If you don't think losing es for spell block is worth the trade-off, then you can replace rathpith with a 500+es shield. If you go this route you can push 18k+es but I still don't think its worth it

Links:


Eye of chayula is the only option for the amulet. Try to get one corrupted with minion damage or +1 curse, but a clean one with 16 attributes is not bad at all.


The best base for your ring slots is Unset ring because it allows you to free up some space in your links and run extra gems. High dex and str rolls on your rings is very important, but try to also get flat es + %es rolls on them if you can. For your belt slot, try to get a Crystal belt with high es, resists, and strength. If you don' need resists or strength on your belt, try to get flask mods.

Run clarity lvl 1 in an unset ring for the bonus 10% damage from commander of darkness


For jewels try to get an Energy from within to put in the jewel socket below Meldiing, this will give you a lot of es. For your rare jewels you ideally want minion damage + energy shield along with any other stats you can get. Attack speed, resists, and stats are all nice to get if you can.

Flasks:

Leveling
Fastest leveling strategy: Use whatever spells you prefer until you get firestorm, then switch to using that until you reach level 28. Once you hit 28 make sure you are ready to spec into ancestral bond, then start using bladefall totems in a 4-link linked with faster casting, controlled destruction, and spell totem. Bladefall totems will basically carry you all the way through cruel and merciless up until the point where you are ready to respec and switch to using only minions. Along the way try to pick up area damage, totem damage, and life nodes that won't be too expensive to respec once you are ready to go CI.

Map mods
This build can run every map mod except for elemental reflect. Although you can run maps with chain or no regen, I recommend skipping these map mods.

Q&A
Q: Is this build expensive?
A: No. This build is extremely cheap. You can play this build perfectly fine with no starting currency.

Q: Is this build a good league starter?
A: This build is easily one of the best league starters out there and it's the build that I started with in Breach league.

Q: Is this build softcore viable?
A: Don't play this build on sofcore.

Q: Why do you run purities instead of damage auras?
A: Because it allows you to be much more flexible with your gearing and brings your max resists up to 80% thanks to aura effect nodes. It is possible to run haste + anger for more dps, but it isn't really needed.

If you have any questions feel free to whisper me in game, i'm on pretty often and I don't mind answering questions if i'm not busy. I do occasionally stream so if you're interested feel free to go to my twitch and drop a follow https://www.twitch.tv/superduperbakedbeans

Seems good how expensive is it?

This build is as flaming as the OP, which is to say RED HOT FLAMING. FIRE. FLAMES. HOT.

Thanks a lot for getting round to this m8! Really appreciate it. Definitely going to give this a shot over the next few days.

Lots of love xoxoxo

wanna ask if you can this build with shaveron?

"

popotm wrote:

wanna ask if you can this build with shaveron?

yes you can do this build as low life fairly well. Just drop some es nodes to pick up charisma, then run haste or anger on your life pool.

Great! I played Flame Sents to 9x as well. Here are my notes:

- Projectile Weakness is the biggest damage increase if you are running EE. The "increased projectile damage taken" is a MORE multiplier. It also adds knockback which can knock bosses into a wall. Finally, pierce allows you to reduce clearspeed on packs (especially necrovigil and cannot die totems - pierce hits them all. More benefit than the default fork.)

- Desecrating while already owning Flame Sents means Flame Sents are more likely to spawn. T15 sents = wreck everything.

- Victario's Charity vastly increases flame sent power as they scale ridiculously well with cast speed. Power charges on monsters grant 200% crit chance, frenzy gives 4% damage and 15% cast speed PER cast.

HI!

This might sound little stupid question, but how you would advice on uber labyrinth.

So if i don't have option to do with boosted run or with beefed up guardian, do you take commander of darkness first or mistress of sacrifice?
For example at beginning of league there is not that many "boost services" available.

since there are some rather nasty trap combos (saw blades and spikes in long lines with switches and locked doors between them) in uber lab sometimes and you don't have many options to "heal" yourself as CI build and those last 2 ascendancy points are quite valuable to this kind of build.

so how you would suggest that i tried to tackle this problem?

I have tried all kinds of ways to build up summoner's defenses and found out that CI + Block seems to be
most reliable way to stay alive in HC.

So i like your build guide because it gave me simple and effective way to achieve that what i wanted from my defenses to be, so thanks and keep up the good work! :)

Any changes on this build for 2.6? Thinking of rolling this as LHC starter.

Hi
Loving this build so far playing it in the new hc league. My question is when do you recommend going full Simmons and changing off bf totems.
Thanks heaps for putting the time in and posting this build too