[3.14] Flame Golem 101 - Complete Guide To Golemancy, ✔️All Bosses Down, ✔️Necro, ✔️Elementalist

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Hey :)

I tested the unearth + different links but as I don't have char with almost 50/50 HP + ES ratio, the spirit offer gave nice ES heal but needs more base HP to really help.

However I checked lots of other builds using unearth + spirit offering and they can heal almost instantly, so the links are working as good as you told :)

I'm trying to figure if the unearth can be used to proc EE without adding jewel with no minion damage mod. Shaper rings can actually roll "adds lightning damage to spells and attacks", so maybe i can find good roll to test it.

Yeah I mentioned the rings (and helms) when I first brought up using unearth for EE, but I think it's a bit too much investment to get a good ring for the slot. Jewels are much cheaper, and you only lose a small amount of damage.

But I've moved on to the Spirit Offering CWC setup anyway. I would never advise using spell totem unearth for EE simply because the Spell Totem AI doesn't work at all for hitting enemies with it. It's great for laying corpses, but Unearth needs to be shot past the enemy, not at its feet like the spell totem does. Unearth works great when self casting though for EE.

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tomatopotato wrote:

Not sure I totally agree here. Offerings are pretty big, but Elementalist has access to lots of defensive tech as well. It just depends what you spend your gem slots on.

I'm curious, what is the defensive tech available to Ele that isn't available to Necro? The only thing defensive the Ascendancy gives is 8% reduced damage taken of an element after being hit once with it, and a small amount of ele res.

Also, when measuring the effect of cast speed on DPS in Path of Building, does it actually take into account the cooldown on the spell? Because right now with 7 harmonies, my Magma Ball cooldown is 2.93s, and my cast rate is 2.65 (Which means it finishes one cast, including the echo, of Magma Ball in .75 seconds), so the Flame Golem will have to wait 2.18 seconds before it can cast Magma Ball again, so at this point Cast Speed doesn't actually help them cast magma ball more often, just makes them more likely to run in and use other spells.

EDIT: Yeah PoB is definitely broken in regards to cast speed giving DPS even though what's restricting the DPS is the cooldown. (Cast speed is still fine if you want your golems to use other abilities of course, but it's not going to give you accurate DPS calculations)

Realistically our DPS is measured by taking the average damage, multiplying it by two, and then dividing by the cooldown time rather than the casts per second.



My golems for example, showing 53k DPS with Magma Ball.

PoB finds this by taking the average damage, and dividing by casts per second (20132/0.377 = 53400)

But this is inaccurate because of the cooldown. You need to find DPS by multiplying damage by casts per cooldown, then dividing by cooldown time. It's not really possible to have cooldown be lower than our cast time for a spell echo, so this should always be accurate except at low levels without cast speed on golems.

(20132 x 2 / 2.93 = 13.7k DPS)

This is because we're only getting 2 casts every 2.93 seconds.

EDIT AGAIN:

Did some in game testing, I can only conclude that the cooldown for magma ball is just inaccurate. Because a single flame golem seems to cast 4 magma balls non-stop with my current setup.

It seems finding the optimal set up for jewels could be pretty hard since PoB is effectively useless for this.

EDIT AGAIN AGAIN:

After some more messing around, I'm actually suspecting that Magma Ball uses a charges system, similar to Desecrate, or it's just the way Flame golem AI works - With spell echo and no CDR they'll cast it 6 times before moving in.

Example: https://gfycat.com/ExcitableComplexDungenesscrab

With no harmonies (No cooldown recovery) and no spell echo, they seem to cast up to 3 times before moving in.

Example: https://gfycat.com/DismalWhichIndianrockpython

So my guess is that cast speed will help with front-loaded damage to use up all the charges quickly, whereas cooldown reduction will help with boss fights.

This really explains the weirdness with cooldown and the way they cast in my opinion. Most likely the cooldown in PoB is accurate, but the charges system complicates things.

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tomatopotato wrote:

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mika2salo wrote:

After certain point adding "increased" damage will give only small benefits. I used these path of building trees:

I don't believe this is an accurate characterization. "Increased" will do what it implies, which is increase damage, no more, no less. Although it increases additively rather than truly multiplicatively (as with "More" multipliers), you'd need to already have +2000% increased damage to safely say it gives "only small benefits".

"

Necromancer, 4x Golems, Necro Aegis with Victarios Charity, 6x Harmonies
- 101k DPS per Flame Golem
- https://pastebin.com/nJnt3ETc

Elementalist, Same tree, 2x Clayshapers and 4+1+1 mix, 8x Harmonies
- 87k DPS per Flame Golem
- https://pastebin.com/sQ0iwFra

Exaclty same tree was used on both and same gear expect i added more harmonies on Elementalist and second Clayshaper.

What really increases the damage is "more" damage modifier, charges and cast speed.

Disagree here as well. What is best for your overall flame golem DPS is an optimal mix of "More", "Increased", "cast speed", and others. I really advise against discounting the value of "Increased" mods.

There are a few reasons you're not getting better output from your Elementalist tree:
- Your tree isn't optimized for ELE
- You are not using any Eminence
- Your gem links aren't optimized (AG vs. real 20/20 EleWeakness; Emp4 vs. EleFocus)
- others

Here is a more optimized Elementalist tree:
+ 154k DPS per Flame Golem (Magma Ball)
+ https://pastebin.com/MRNvnEU8
+ 500 more EHP than the NEC tree
+ can easily hit 250k+ on extreme offense version

"

Aboba wrote:

As you pointed out in your FAQ though, it gives up a lot of survivability. No shield and no offerings means you can't tank almost anything. Instant flasks and Vaal Discipline are about all you have.

Not sure I totally agree here. Offerings are pretty big, but Elementalist has access to lots of defensive tech as well. It just depends what you spend your gem slots on.

"

Yeah I mentioned the rings (and helms) when I first brought up using unearth for EE, but I think it's a bit too much investment to get a good ring for the slot. Jewels are much cheaper, and you only lose a small amount of damage.

But I've moved on to the Spirit Offering CWC setup anyway. I would never advise using spell totem unearth for EE simply because the Spell Totem AI doesn't work at all for hitting enemies with it. It's great for laying corpses, but Unearth needs to be shot past the enemy, not at its feet like the spell totem does. Unearth works great when self casting though for EE.

I'm curious, what is the defensive tech available to Ele that isn't available to Necro? The only thing defensive the Ascendancy gives is 8% reduced damage taken of an element after being hit once with it, and a small amount of ele res.

Also, when measuring the effect of cast speed on DPS in Path of Building, does it actually take into account the cooldown on the spell? Because right now with 7 harmonies, my Magma Ball cooldown is 2.93s, and my cast rate is 2.65 (Which means it finishes one cast, including the echo, of Magma Ball in .75 seconds), so the Flame Golem will have to wait 2.18 seconds before it can cast Magma Ball again, so at this point Cast Speed doesn't actually help them cast magma ball more often, just makes them more likely to run in and use other spells.

EDIT: Yeah PoB is definitely broken in regards to cast speed giving DPS even though what's restricting the DPS is the cooldown. (Cast speed is still fine if you want your golems to use other abilities of course, but it's not going to give you accurate DPS calculations)

Realistically our DPS is measured by taking the average damage, multiplying it by two, and then dividing by the cooldown time rather than the casts per second.

My golems for example, showing 53k DPS with Magma Ball.

PoB finds this by taking the average damage, and dividing by casts per second (20132/0.377 = 53400)

But this is inaccurate because of the cooldown. You need to find DPS by multiplying damage by casts per cooldown, then dividing by cooldown time. It's not really possible to have cooldown be lower than our cast time for a spell echo, so this should always be accurate except at low levels without cast speed on golems.

(20132 x 2 / 2.93 = 13.7k DPS)

This is because we're only getting 2 casts every 2.93 seconds.

EDIT AGAIN:

Did some in game testing, I can only conclude that the cooldown for magma ball is just inaccurate. Because a single flame golem seems to cast 4 magma balls non-stop with my current setup.

It seems finding the optimal set up for jewels could be pretty hard since PoB is effectively useless for this.

EDIT AGAIN AGAIN:

After some more messing around, I'm actually suspecting that Magma Ball uses a charges system, similar to Desecrate, or it's just the way Flame golem AI works - With spell echo and no CDR they'll cast it 6 times before moving in.

Example: https://gfycat.com/ExcitableComplexDungenesscrab

With no harmonies (No cooldown recovery) and no spell echo, they seem to cast up to 3 times before moving in.

Example: https://gfycat.com/DismalWhichIndianrockpython

So my guess is that cast speed will help with front-loaded damage to use up all the charges quickly, whereas cooldown reduction will help with boss fights.

This really explains the weirdness with cooldown and the way they cast in my opinion. Most likely the cooldown in PoB is accurate, but the charges system complicates things.

Hi :)

The theory that Golems use charges is very interesting. Usually when I come near to pack, Golems spam massive volley of Magma Orbs, but after some casts they usually slow down or start using alternative attacks.

After some testing with 1x Flame Golems :
- no harmonies or eminenses
- 6x Harmonies, no echo
- 6x Eminenses, no echo
- 6x Harmonies, with echo
- 6x Eminenses, with echo

I noticed that Golems always attack 3x times when entering near enemy before they stop casting Orbs. After last cast they waited roughly 6 seconds before casting new orbs, so I believe also that they have 3x "Charges" per skill and have 6 second cooldown to reload new charge.

With 6x Eminenses I noticed they casted with faster animation but had exactly same cooldown after 3x casts than without any extra primordial gems at all. This means Eminenses are pretty much worthless jewels unless wanting you want the golems to cycle all 3x3xattack charges in random order.

With 6x Harmonies Golems casted 3x attacks with normal speed and then stopped. However they started to cast Orbs much sooner that without any Harmonies or with eminenses. For Magma Orb bombardment Harmonies are absolutely needed to keep Golems getting new charger as soon as possible.

I also believe that the cooldown in Pob is correct.

For the Elementalist, getting similar defenses is harder that with Necromancer. With Elementalist lot
of links have to be used for non-optimal defenses and getting gear will be harder with lower resistances.

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Thank you for the answers, i will keep testing the jewel, and as soon i have a decent amount of chaos i will try to buy rings with minion speed.

Thank you again and happy new year :)

Happy new year also and glad it helped ^^

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Is this build better at boss killing than spectres build?

Hello :)

Golems have better AI and speed than Specters, so they clear content faster than Specters can. Tukohama Vanguards single target damage however is much higher than what Golems can deal.

Usually Specter builds run mix of about 2 Solar Guards and 2 TVs to cover both clearspeed and boss killing. This however is unoptimal as Specters cant move very fast and have limited aggro range, so SGs wont attack trash mobs from very far.

If you want both clear speed and boss kill damage, I recommend trying combining both. Streamer Wonderful247 has combined both Golems and TV specters and has excellent clearspeed. TVs can work in 4 link items like "Bones or Ulr" which also gives extra specter, so total mix would be 4x Golems and 3x TVs.

You can check my char "Flame_Gollums_Preciuos" as I'm experimenting in league with both 6l Golems and "Pseudo" 6l TVs and have excellent results.

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Got this one. I hope it's good enough for our build...

Hey :)

I recommend getting Skin of the Loyal with colors 2r2g2b :
- flame golem > empower > gmp > slower projectiles > minion damage > echo

This setup is very cheap and loses only 20% total damage compared to more expensive color combinations. You can use Vertex +1 level to gems to boost Temporal Chains to max effectiveness (75%, which is most op defense in the game) or "pseudo" 6l helmet for Specters to boost total damage.

"

The theory that Golems use charges is very interesting. Usually when I come near to pack, Golems spam massive volley of Magma Orbs, but after some casts they usually slow down or start using alternative attacks.

*Doing some test before continuing post*

I suggest testing it in an area where golems are shooting across a gap, so that they do not end up in melee range where they are more likely to be attempting to use their other skills.

I found reliquary was pretty good for this. Also helps if you can find a rare with proximity shield.

I am absolutely convinced that Magma Ball has 3 charges with a 6 second cooldown per charge.

EDIT: Yup your tests seem to confirm with mine. So we have to be wary of PoB DPS calculation, because it does not take cooldown into account at all. Cast speed will only help with clear speed, and not with bosses, or things that take more than 3 charges. Even clear speed it's hard to say, because if you are moving fast enough, you will have used up all your charges too quickly.

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Shiverwarp wrote:

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tomatopotato wrote:

Not sure I totally agree here. Offerings are pretty big, but Elementalist has access to lots of defensive tech as well. It just depends what you spend your gem slots on.

I'm curious, what is the defensive tech available to Ele that isn't available to Necro? The only thing defensive the Ascendancy gives is 8% reduced damage taken of an element after being hit once with it, and a small amount of ele res.

Sorry for the confusion. My post was in response to the poster who said ELE has nothing except Vaal Disc and instant flasks, not that ELE (or NEC for that matter) has access to lots of exclusive defensive tech outside of Mistress of Sacrifice/Bone Offering. Examples include Immortal Call, Fortify, the plethora of available CWDT setups, even fringe stuff like self-cast Frost Walls (surprisingly good vs. porcupines and easy to slot into a COH setup), etc. Some not so obvious examples include more passive tree flexibility to allocate more EHP due to not having to invest in minion survivability nodes/jewel slots, or in the case of this build, the flexibility to work in Purity of F/I/L for certain key fights due to not being tied down by Infernal Mantle's mana reservation penalty. Whether these defensive options can be considered "non-optimal" is a perhaps a matter of opinion. But just looking at MOC/Bone Offering in a vacuum and concluding that NEC defense = strong and ELE defense = weak is really incomplete analysis (and false imo).

Regarding your observations on cast speed vs. cooldown, I agree it could definitely use some more looking into. The charges theory sounds interesting, but a little weird to me. If it were true, then Magma Ball output should start strong with full charges and eventually putter into cyclical bursts as the golem charge state goes back and forth between 1 and 0. That's not something I've observed in-game. I guess it would make sense if golems went back to full charges instead of just 1 after cooldown, but that wouldn't be consistent with Desecrate for example. I wish I could contribute more, but digging deeper into POE game mechanics isn't something I want to do over this winter break, so I'll just wish you success in your testing :x (P.S. I also did some very rudimentary Harmony cooldown testing here. Feel free to check it out if you're interested.)

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mika2salo wrote:

For the Elementalist, getting similar defenses is harder that with Necromancer. With Elementalist lot of links have to be used for non-optimal defenses and getting gear will be harder with lower resistances.

Disagree. I assume you're talking about MOC/Bone Offering here, as that's the only notable defensive difference. Block is a great mechanism, I'll give you that. But it's RNG-based and still not as good as just having a high EHP pool or avoiding getting hit in the first place. It also depends on the situation too. Like if you're facing Chimera smoke phase or Shaper slam, do you go with Immortal Call or rely on your block chance? Correct answer would obviously be to use both or dodge if you can, but if you don't have the gem slots/flexibility to spare, then it comes down to a choice of what tech you want to work into your game.

There are also sacrifices to be made if you want to go all-in on Bone Offering and get block numbers past 50%, which tends to involve uniques. Uniques in general have significantly less life and/or ES than well-rolled rares or involve some other sacrifice. So I definitely think it's not as black and white as a lot of Necro purists make it out to be. Does access to MOC/Bone Offering mean NEC defense tends to be built differently? Sure. Does it mean it's way better? That sounds like a stretch. At the end of the day, I don't think either Ascendancy wants to be standing there taking hits and pretending to be a leech tank when you can just click and move away.

Resistances being a problem as Elementalist is also inaccurate I think. I've been running golemancers and golementalists in HC since Breach league and neither ascendancy has trouble with resists. You can easily run as ELE even with Bisco's with resists overcapped for EleWeakness. Resists (including chaos) are by and large unrestricted suffix mods. You can get 2 or 3 of them on any rare. With most golem builds running 4 or 5 rares. That's at least 10 slots to cap your resists without even getting into Abyss jewels. Resists are a non-issue. Considering that ELE doesn't need to spend any passive points on minion survivability, this gives more flexibility to grab those +EHP/resist combo nodes, unnecessary as that may be.

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tomatopotato wrote:

Regarding your observations on cast speed vs. cooldown, I agree it could definitely use some more looking into. The charges theory sounds interesting, but a little weird to me. If it were true, then Magma Ball output should start strong with full charges and eventually putter into cyclical bursts as the golem charge state goes back and forth between 1 and 0. That's not something I've observed in-game. I guess it would make sense if golems went back to full charges instead of just 1 after cooldown, but that wouldn't be consistent with Desecrate for example. I wish I could contribute more, but digging deeper into POE game mechanics isn't something I want to do over this winter break, so I'll just wish you success in your testing :x (P.S. I also did some very rudimentary Harmony cooldown testing here. Feel free to check it out if you're interested.)

I am absolutely convinced it is a 3 charge system, with 1 charge replenished per cooldown.

Your video actually further confirms this. With 10 Harmony's and a base golem your golem appears to have a slower cast speed than the cooldown, so if it's kept at range, will always attack with Magma Ball.

And for the golem in the No Harmony's video, it exhibits the exact behaviour you talk about (Puttering into cyclical bursts after it uses 3 Magma Balls). When you first enter the arena the golem fires 3 Magma Balls in a row, then starts using the melee range abilities. When you pull it away again, it fires one Magma ball, going melee again. You can even count the 6 second charge recovery yourself and see that it stops using magma balls after it runs out of charges, and will only resume once at proper range + charges. I could make some more gifs in reliquary to further confirm if you wish, but just seeing your video I'm even more convinced.

The charge system is MUCH less easy to spot with a full entourage of golems, and probably why no one took the time to dig deeper into it like I did. This is because one or two golems get stuck in melee and start using Immolate or Flame Wave, during which time they'll be gaining Magma Ball Charges. And then you have this offset of some golems with Magma Ball charges, and other without, and it's impossible to really tell. Also in general mapping they will have time to recover charges between packs.

As for the Necro vs Ele debate, I find myself very happy with the Spirit Offering ES replenish build. Golems are not at risk of dying, even in reflect maps, as long as I am diligent and not being lazy. Though I haven't (And probably won't) test it against the end game bosses like shaper.

Realistically I don't have much to add, as I have never attempted to make the Ele build work, or even really looked into it, just because Necro has been working so well for me.

With Spirit Offering though I am very tempted to try out Stone Golems for the effective 30% more multiplier with phys added as chaos. And switch out the Storm Burst for a Wither CWC. It actually fits quite neatly. I might do some experiments.


EDIT: I figure I might as well make the gif, just so that there can be no doubt, and in case anyone asks for proof

https://gfycat.com/NeedyWeepyGossamerwingedbutterfly

Here you can see a base golem, no cooldown reduction, fire 3 Magma Balls, and then 6 seconds after it has thrown the first one, it will fire another. And will then only fire a magma ball every 6 seconds.

I step back, and let it recharge back to 3 total charges once more, then head back, and we see it fire 3 magma balls in a row again, then back to once ever 6 seconds.

Damn, this is getting tough, I've really enjoyed reading both mika2salo and Shiverwarp write ups about playing this build, but now I'm at a point I need to pick which path to follow, and I'm not sure what one to pick. I have played a block version similar to this in breach league, and loved it, but that spirit offering that Shiver posted a gif of looks nice!

I've been enjoying my Sudo 6 link Spec helmet, but might go vertex soon, and I should prob upgrade from the tabula that dropped in act one for me finally since I've on tier 8 maps.

I think I'm going to finally try out skin of the loyal, in Breach league I ran a hybrid with this chest but I remember how much I hated crafting that thing, so skin sounds good.

If I go the spirit offering route, would normal boots(well rolled rare) be a better choice than the rainbow boots?

Thanks for the guide!

I've been trying a Scion version of this build and as far as I can tell, it's just simply a better ele golemancer. You get +4 more gem sockets than the witch and a free +28 to all resists. I'm running into a couple problems I hope someone can help me with. I took elemental ascendancy for the +1 golem, but i'm not sure which other ascendancy would give me the most bang for my buck. Also i'm running the Victario with 1 stone golem as the boost with the extra harmonies makes it significantly better than 5 flame. My DPS is obscene. However the most glaring issue is that I don't have much in the way of survivability since I don't have the offerings. Granted it's not hard to kite bosses and flasks go a long way, but i'm wondering if you might have any creative ideas that I can try?

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sumfight wrote:

Damn, this is getting tough, I've really enjoyed reading both mika2salo and Shiverwarp write ups about playing this build, but now I'm at a point I need to pick which path to follow, and I'm not sure what one to pick. I have played a block version similar to this in breach league, and loved it, but that spirit offering that Shiver posted a gif of looks nice!

I've been enjoying my Sudo 6 link Spec helmet, but might go vertex soon, and I should prob upgrade from the tabula that dropped in act one for me finally since I've on tier 8 maps.

I think I'm going to finally try out skin of the loyal, in Breach league I ran a hybrid with this chest

but I remember how much I hated crafting that thing, so skin sounds good.

If I go the spirit offering route, would normal boots(well rolled rare) be a better choice than the rainbow boots?

Thanks for the guide!

Yeah just use some nice rare boots. These are the ones I'm using:



Just have to be aware that the Spirit Offering defense is very different than block. Gotta have the totem up if you want to be tanking for an extended period, especially on bosses. You don't want to be standing in bearers, like you might be able to get away with on max block. And I highly recommend a CWDT with spirit offering in it, just for those stray hits when clearing trash.

But it is extremely satisfying watching your ES shoot up when tanking stuff. So far I've done some decently scary red maps up to T13 without a problem.

This was just my personal evolution of the build. Hybrid to me is very sketchy (at least in hardcore) with no way to replenish ES. I crafted an ES on block + Spellblock Shaped shield, which was nice defensively with the max block, but losing out on the victario's just kills the build IMO, the golems aren't nearly as good without the extra movespeed, cast speed, and damage.

"

Shiverwarp wrote:

"

The theory that Golems use charges is very interesting. Usually when I come near to pack, Golems spam massive volley of Magma Orbs, but after some casts they usually slow down or start using alternative attacks.

*Doing some test before continuing post*

I suggest testing it in an area where golems are shooting across a gap, so that they do not end up in melee range where they are more likely to be attempting to use their other skills.

I found reliquary was pretty good for this. Also helps if you can find a rare with proximity shield.

I am absolutely convinced that Magma Ball has 3 charges with a 6 second cooldown per charge.

EDIT: Yup your tests seem to confirm with mine. So we have to be wary of PoB DPS calculation, because it does not take cooldown into account at all. Cast speed will only help with clear speed, and not with bosses, or things that take more than 3 charges. Even clear speed it's hard to say, because if you are moving fast enough, you will have used up all your charges too quickly.

"

I am absolutely convinced it is a 3 charge system, with 1 charge replenished per cooldown.

Your video actually further confirms this. With 10 Harmony's and a base golem your golem appears to have a slower cast speed than the cooldown, so if it's kept at range, will always attack with Magma Ball.

And for the golem in the No Harmony's video, it exhibits the exact behaviour you talk about (Puttering into cyclical bursts after it uses 3 Magma Balls). When you first enter the arena the golem fires 3 Magma Balls in a row, then starts using the melee range abilities. When you pull it away again, it fires one Magma ball, going melee again. You can even count the 6 second charge recovery yourself and see that it stops using magma balls after it runs out of charges, and will only resume once at proper range + charges. I could make some more gifs in reliquary to further confirm if you wish, but just seeing your video I'm even more convinced.

The charge system is MUCH less easy to spot with a full entourage of golems, and probably why no one took the time to dig deeper into it like I did. This is because one or two golems get stuck in melee and start using Immolate or Flame Wave, during which time they'll be gaining Magma Ball Charges. And then you have this offset of some golems with Magma Ball charges, and other without, and it's impossible to really tell. Also in general mapping they will have time to recover charges between packs.

As for the Necro vs Ele debate, I find myself very happy with the Spirit Offering ES replenish build. Golems are not at risk of dying, even in reflect maps, as long as I am diligent and not being lazy. Though I haven't (And probably won't) test it against the end game bosses like shaper.

Realistically I don't have much to add, as I have never attempted to make the Ele build work, or even really looked into it, just because Necro has been working so well for me.

With Spirit Offering though I am very tempted to try out Stone Golems for the effective 30% more multiplier with phys added as chaos. And switch out the Storm Burst for a Wither CWC. It actually fits quite neatly. I might do some experiments.


EDIT: I figure I might as well make the gif, just so that there can be no doubt, and in case anyone asks for proof

https://gfycat.com/NeedyWeepyGossamerwingedbutterfly

Here you can see a base golem, no cooldown reduction, fire 3 Magma Balls, and then 6 seconds after it has thrown the first one, it will fire another. And will then only fire a magma ball every 6 seconds.

I step back, and let it recharge back to 3 total charges once more, then head back, and we see it fire 3 magma balls in a row again, then back to once ever 6 seconds.

Hello :)

Very cool find with the charges per attack. I will add it to guide later in Primordial jewel section and give you credit for the find ;)

"

Sorry for the confusion. My post was in response to the poster who said ELE has nothing except Vaal Disc and instant flasks, not that ELE (or NEC for that matter) has access to lots of exclusive defensive tech outside of Mistress of Sacrifice/Bone Offering. Examples include Immortal Call, Fortify, the plethora of available CWDT setups, even fringe stuff like self-cast Frost Walls (surprisingly good vs. porcupines and easy to slot into a COH setup), etc. Some not so obvious examples include more passive tree flexibility to allocate more EHP due to not having to invest in minion survivability nodes/jewel slots, or in the case of this build, the flexibility to work in Purity of F/I/L for certain key fights due to not being tied down by Infernal Mantle's mana reservation penalty. Whether these defensive options can be considered "non-optimal" is a perhaps a matter of opinion. But just looking at MOC/Bone Offering in a vacuum and concluding that NEC defense = strong and ELE defense = weak is really incomplete analysis (and false imo).

Regarding your observations on cast speed vs. cooldown, I agree it could definitely use some more looking into. The charges theory sounds interesting, but a little weird to me. If it were true, then Magma Ball output should start strong with full charges and eventually putter into cyclical bursts as the golem charge state goes back and forth between 1 and 0. That's not something I've observed in-game. I guess it would make sense if golems went back to full charges instead of just 1 after cooldown, but that wouldn't be consistent with Desecrate for example. I wish I could contribute more, but digging deeper into POE game mechanics isn't something I want to do over this winter break, so I'll just wish you success in your testing :x (P.S. I also did some very rudimentary Harmony cooldown testing here. Feel free to check it out if you're interested.)

"

Disagree. I assume you're talking about MOC/Bone Offering here, as that's the only notable defensive difference. Block is a great mechanism, I'll give you that. But it's RNG-based and still not as good as just having a high EHP pool or avoiding getting hit in the first place. It also depends on the situation too. Like if you're facing Chimera smoke phase or Shaper slam, do you go with Immortal Call or rely on your block chance? Correct answer would obviously be to use both or dodge if you can, but if you don't have the gem slots/flexibility to spare, then it comes down to a choice of what tech you want to work into your game.

There are also sacrifices to be made if you want to go all-in on Bone Offering and get block numbers past 50%, which tends to involve uniques. Uniques in general have significantly less life and/or ES than well-rolled rares or involve some other sacrifice. So I definitely think it's not as black and white as a lot of Necro purists make it out to be. Does access to MOC/Bone Offering mean NEC defense tends to be built differently? Sure. Does it mean it's way better? That sounds like a stretch. At the end of the day, I don't think either Ascendancy wants to be standing there taking hits and pretending to be a leech tank when you can just click and move away.

Resistances being a problem as Elementalist is also inaccurate I think. I've been running golemancers and golementalists in HC since Breach league and neither ascendancy has trouble with resists. You can easily run as ELE even with Bisco's with resists overcapped for EleWeakness. Resists (including chaos) are by and large unrestricted suffix mods. You can get 2 or 3 of them on any rare. With most golem builds running 4 or 5 rares. That's at least 10 slots to cap your resists without even getting into Abyss jewels. Resists are a non-issue. Considering that ELE doesn't need to spend any passive points on minion survivability, this gives more flexibility to grab those +EHP/resist combo nodes, unnecessary as that may be.

Hey :)

Very nice video! I think it also shows nicely that the Cooldown lets the Golems cast new orb sooner once they run out of charges. I tried the test again and noticed again the 3x continuous cast and then pause before next orb. Harmonies made the pause much shorter and Golems didnt necessarily enter melee range at all.

For the defenses, I think Shaper will kill you in one slam with or without Immortal Call as it wont trigger cause you get killed with one shot. Chimera fight has so long pause between attacks that Immortal call will end before next one, but there are bosses where it is helping ofc a lot.

Raising block chance actually takes just high level Bone Offer and Rumis flask :
- 35% + 20% = 55%

Spell block will also be almost 45% :
- 35% + 10% = 45%

Rest can be added by using Rainbowstrides, new spell block rare amulets or new spell block shield without Necro Aegis.

Scion seems also very nice Golemancer base as you can get extra Golem, other class as extra and even tons of STR / DEX from leftover nodes. Elemental immunity to Golems is not very useful after GGG decided to end the whole "kill-bosses-while-dead" bug. I'm not saying it was the only reason to go to Elementalist, but it was used pretty widely.

Hoever GGG said that they are redesigning Elementalist soon, so there is lot of hope that Elementalist can be equal choise for Golemancer in near future ;)

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Damn, this is getting tough, I've really enjoyed reading both mika2salo and Shiverwarp write ups about playing this build, but now I'm at a point I need to pick which path to follow, and I'm not sure what one to pick. I have played a block version similar to this in breach league, and loved it, but that spirit offering that Shiver posted a gif of looks nice!

I've been enjoying my Sudo 6 link Spec helmet, but might go vertex soon, and I should prob upgrade from the tabula that dropped in act one for me finally since I've on tier 8 maps.

I think I'm going to finally try out skin of the loyal, in Breach league I ran a hybrid with this chest

Verified
but I remember how much I hated crafting that thing, so skin sounds good.


If I go the spirit offering route, would normal boots(well rolled rare) be a better choice than the rainbow boots?

Thanks for the guide!

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Yeah just use some nice rare boots. These are the ones I'm using:


Verified


Just have to be aware that the Spirit Offering defense is very different than block. Gotta have the totem up if you want to be tanking for an extended period, especially on bosses. You don't want to be standing in bearers, like you might be able to get away with on max block. And I highly recommend a CWDT with spirit offering in it, just for those stray hits when clearing trash.

But it is extremely satisfying watching your ES shoot up when tanking stuff. So far I've done some decently scary red maps up to T13 without a problem.

This was just my personal evolution of the build. Hybrid to me is very sketchy (at least in hardcore) with no way to replenish ES. I crafted an ES on block + Spellblock Shaped shield, which was nice defensively with the max block, but losing out on the victario's just kills the build IMO, the golems aren't nearly as good without the extra movespeed, cast speed, and damage.

Hi and thanks for support ^^

There are basically 4x main variants of the build atm :

OFFENSIVE
- Streamer Wonderful247 4x Golems, 3x Tukohamas version
BALANCED
- The default from the guide
- The 75%/75% block variant from the guide
DEFENSIVE
- Shiverwarp version and lots of others HC variants from the thread

All of these are extremely good and I would say get the job done equally well. Clear speed vs chance to survive unknown dangers is basically how you want to choose your build.

If you play very fast, clear-speed oriented game I recommend Wonderfuls variant as it has good defenses with almost 2-3x better boss kill time than default one and maybe 4x better than HC variants. Wonderful is however excellent at kiting boss attacks. If you are not familiar with boss mechanics deaths will happen.

If you like playing lazy 1-button play-style, then the default one is most suitable as it has automated defenses. However if not been careful or not kiting well deaths may happen.

If you care most about staying alive with good clear speed (mainly HC), then some of the survival based variants are best. They require active casting and may clear bit slower, but are more tanky and have additional ways of defense and means to heal.

I'm doing different variants on different leagues (Wonderfuls variant now) and they all feel different to play while being great in different ways ;)

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I've been trying a Scion version of this build and as far as I can tell, it's just simply a better ele golemancer. You get +4 more gem sockets than the witch and a free +28 to all resists. I'm running into a couple problems I hope someone can help me with. I took elemental ascendancy for the +1 golem, but i'm not sure which other ascendancy would give me the most bang for my buck. Also i'm running the Victario with 1 stone golem as the boost with the extra harmonies makes it significantly better than 5 flame. My DPS is obscene. However the most glaring issue is that I don't have much in the way of survivability since I don't have the offerings. Granted it's not hard to kite bosses and flasks go a long way, but i'm wondering if you might have any creative ideas that I can try?

Hello :)

I did Scion template when the changes came out and used :
- Elementalist
- Guardian
- Took +40 STR / DEX nodes to marauder and ranger

This provided nice damage, survival and gave tons of free attributes to drop form rings & other gear.

Other nice combo is :
- Elementalist
- Raider

This gives you extra movement speed and onslaught when you are on maximum frenzy charges. Golems generate you charges very fast and shield charging with the 10% extra movement + 20% movement and attack speed from onslaught lets you travel areas very fast.

So if I'm understanding the charges piece correctly, you need to get your cool down rate to below the cast speed of 6 (3 x Spell Echo) magma balls.

I can achieve this exactly with 10 perfect harmonies, assuming golems and I both have 3 frenzy charges and commander of darkness and no other cast speed mods.