[3.0] [SSF] Thunder Liege (Summoner-Spellcaster Hybrid)

Pros:
‣ Versatile Build: You can blast through things or just avoid attacks and let your golems grind the target.
‣ Fun summoner: You are not just reduced at a debuffer for your pets. You have always an active part into the fight.
‣ Automatic clean-up: Destroy 95% of the pack with your spells, your golems will clean up the rest while you pick up some loots
‣ Original gameplay: The build has lots of original point and plays differently than everything else so far


Cons:
‣ Not a top build: As you spend passive for your pets, you are never going to have the DPS of some top spellcasters with this build.
‣ Need some luck with loot: Efficiency of golems is largely influenced by jewels. So you gotta cross a bit your fingers if you want the golems to reach their top (but they still efficient even without)

The first question to answer with this build is: Which golem to use?

As the goal is to use Liege of the Primordials at its fullest, all the golems have to be elemental golems to get the elemental immunity. i.e. Flame, Ice and Lightning Golems.
Chaos and Stone Golems aren't elemental golem and gain no immunity.

Now, here is a quick summary about the 3 elemental golem type:
‣ Flame Golem: Use spells only, bring +40% fire damage and an extra damage buff on top of it. Its gem is based on Strength, then Intelligence. It is the elemental golem with the better clear speed.
‣ Ice Golem: Use both attacks and spells, bring +40% ice damage and +30% critical strike chance. Its gem is based on Dexterity, then Intelligence.
‣ Lightning Golem: Use spells only, bring +40% lightning damage and +9% casting speed. Its gem is based on Intelligence, then Dexterity. It is the elemental golem with the best dps on boss, simply because with the right setup, it will stack its orb on the boss for cumulative damage.

First conclusion: the Ice Golem falls behind the two others.
Dexterity is the stat the less used by witch, and elemental caster builds usualy rely on the Elemental Overload keystone which render the critical strike buff irrelevant (you will crit enough to sustain the buff even with the minimal critical chance)

Lightning and Fire golems have both their perks, and for this build, both are good.


Now, the question is: should we mix golems of different types in the squad?
A good point of a squad with a single element is that you can empower it with aura and curses related to a single element. While is you mix golems of different types, the only aura/curse that will help all the golems is Elemental Weakness, which is rather weak compared to the single element counterparts: Conductity and Flammability

There are good combos to do with several golems to improve the overall casting power... but if you start to sacrifice your golem's potential to make yourself more powerful at spellcasting, then you probably just should do a regular elemental spellcaster.


So, at the end, all is a choice between a pure flame golem squad and a pure lightning golem squad.
I personnaly chosen to take the golem which are the best against boss, as I'm confident we can reach a decent clear speed just with spells. So Lightning Golems.
It happens that during leveling, I also found a very fun lightning combo to use that made that choice even more interesting: the Charged Dash CWC Arc

Playstyle: Before the first labyrinth, it's better to just stick with spells. Simply because golems will only become useful once you have unlocked your ascendancy and Liege of the Primordial, and second because you need to raise your dexterity a bit to summon the Lightning Golems.
MoM comes rather late, by the end of the Act 3, probably just before the fight with Dominus. That's why you gotta be careful while fightning Piety or activating strongboxes in narrow spaces.

Skill tree: Just before the first labyrinth
This take in account the 2 bonus skill point gained by killing all the bandits.

Gem setup:
The attack spell is setup up with this gems, by priority:

3L is enough honestly, but I found a 4L tunic in the act4 shop, so it ended like this.

For damage support, use Clarity and Herald of Thunder until late in act 3, then switch Clarity for Conductivity+Blasphemy. Do not try to put Wrath in the mix yet, as it will put your mana too low at those levels

Playstyle: After the first labyrinth, your golems are going to enter the dance. You must have two of them always active, if one dies, resummon immediatly.
Do not try to wait for them to catch with you. Except in boss phases, your spells will kill truly faster than they can follow... rather, let them clean the remains. There is often one or two little bugs that escape the first wave of slaughter, and the golem will take care of them nicely.

Skill tree: Just before the second labyrinth
Even if it doesn't appear on this build, you could need to put a point into the Agility node. The reason why is because of the Summon Lightning Golem gem's dexterity requirement: you could not have found some good gear with +dexterity to meet it so early, so in that case, at level 41, active this node... and respect it later when you don't need it anymore

Gem setup:
For the offensive spell, I aim for the combination that Whaitiri recommands into his Whaitiri's Arc Witch



For the 6L summon, I will trust until further testing the recommandation of Tomatopotato in his lightning golem summoner build : Summon Lightning Golem - Minion Damage - Spell Echo - Added Lightning Damage - Elemental Focus - Increased Duration


For support abilities, as soon you get Soverignty, you can run both
1) Wrath
2) Conductivity + Blasphemy
It still however a large reserve cost, so we won't have room for improvments until we find some items reducing this reserve cost and it also limitate the efficiency of Mind over Matter. I usualy cut down the curse when I'm going to fight down a boss, in order to gain some survival.

Jewels setup:
Jewels slots are to use in priority for jewels that allow either to summon more golems, or make them more deadly. Until you find some jewel like this, you can use the slots to put the rare jewel who as gifted to you during missions

Playstyle: This is time to introduce the Chard Dash CWC Arc combo, you can do this just before or after the second labyrinth.
I'd recommand to switch to it before and clear a few map to get used to it, because this combo make the cruel labyrinth easy as shit.
If you don't feel confident, stick with simply Arc to clear it... then switch to the combo after.

Skill tree: Just before the third labyrinth
You need to aim for 68 dexterity with or without the help of the Agility passive. 68 is needed for level 20 Summon Lightning Golem and 67 is needed for the level 1 Charged Dash.

Gem setup:
The main change is to switch the attack gem setup like this: Charged Dash - Cast While Channeling Support - Arc - Lightning Penetration Support - Life Leech Support - Controlled Destruction Support


A secondary change is a slight modification to the curse: Conductivity + Blasphemy + Increased Area of Effect Support


Jewels setup:
Same as before, golem jewels should be taken as a piority, if you found any. Otherwise, just slot the rare jewels the quests gives, especialy the one of act 8 which brings a reduction of cost and mana reserved.

A bit soon for me to speak about it as I need further testing, but how is a quick look of what the tree could look like : Full passive tree

Basicaly, it goes for Whisper of Doom's extra curse, and then aim for extra jewel slot and finally for more damage taken from the templar side.

Gem setup will not truly change after this, the extra curse will be Warlock's Mark to improve survivability of both the main character and its golems.

I'll have to consider Zealot's Oath depending how high ends the ES with looted items