[3.2] Necromancer Dominating Blow - A literal Army of Minions

Hey @sonic1238!

I personally don't think there are any particularly useful unique flasks for this one. Your damage lies within your minions and the actual conversion strike doesn't require damage scaling to be effective.

You would most likely be better off having defensive flasks alongside your usual hp, mana and quicksilver.

"

sonic1238 wrote:

do you think any of the unique flasks would be good for this build? and if so which of them?

thank for your help!

The only unique flask I see being useful is a Rumi's Concoction to increase your characters overall defense. If I remember correctly, Dominating Blow has quite a high Mana Cost(84 on a 5-link setup), so at least a Mana flask is needed for this build as well as your Life Flask. You can fit a Rumi's in but that's about it I think. If you really want to, You can run a Lavianga's Spirit in place of your mana flask but i don't see it as necessary.

What do I do while leveling this? I'm extremely new and don't have a clue what you should do while you level. :insertthinkingemotehere:

I've always loved Dominating Blow but could never find a build on it and I am still too new to try to make my own build especially for a skill like this. Really excited to try the build.

Hello @Vizeroh!

For leveling, you'll be using zombies, skeletons and phantasms as your main source of damage until you feel comfortable to make the switch to dominating blow (I recommend you only make the switch when you have Chober Chaber with a minimum of four link!)

If you follow the pathing as I've specified in your guide, you should link a summon zombies with phantasm on kill (min 2 slot) then beef them up with minion damage and melee physical damage support gems (See my gloves linked below)



Summon skeletons are very much the same as above. When I leveled I would simply keep those up alongside my zombies.

Later, you will then be able to get to summon specter which you can add in a third four link setup.

Some notes to help:

- Before you spec into minion damage at very low levels, your spell choice is whatever you feel comfortable with, but as soon as you get those nodes, priorities any [minion tagged skill] - such as raging spirits, alongside the above.
- For the 5 link, since you mentioned you are new, look out for a prophecy called "Jeweller's Touch" which will instantly 5 socket and 5 link any item when you use a jeweller's orb on it. (marketplace = http://poe.trade/)
- While leveling, you will be a lot more passive than with dominating blow. Let your minions do the work for you.

Awesome to hear that @deklan006! Let me know what you think when you try it and the general feel. Hope it's everything you expect + more! :)

Long-time summoner here. I hate to be that guy, but your build needs significant work:

• 1. You can save 3 points with this routing. If you needed that 30 strength, grab Might and you're still ahead 2 points.
  
  
• 2. Vendor that Chober Chaber. Even 5-linked it's complete garbage. The item design is just far too old and outdated to be worthwhile. Its damage and attack speed are crap, +2 levels give little value to Dominating Blow (in fact there is no incentive to level DB at all, unless you like higher mana costs), and minion life is not very important. The mana is nice, but you can get that plenty of other places. Only the 15% skill duration is good, but you completely ignored Potency of Will on the passive tree, which is an easy 45% increased duration for 3 points. Hey, didn't I just save you three points, too?
  
  
• 3. Scrolling through a list of all the unique 2-handers, I found over half a dozen more useful weapons:
  
  
  • Queen's Escape - Notice how Spectres get bonus movement speed? That's because monsters generally don't have great movement speed, especially ranged ones. Queen's Escape is an easy 100% movement speed boost to Dominated minions and an extra Spectre. It even has a faster 1.4 attack speed compared to Chober's 1.25.
    
    
  • Wideswing - A seven-link with level 20 Increased Area of Effect Support and +2 weapon range.
    
    
  • Kitava's Feast - A seven-link with level 25 Melee Splash Support. It has high base damage, life/mana leech, and 5% of max life recovered on kill. If your minions apply any Damage Over Time like poison, bleed, or ignite, and the enemy dies to that, you get credit for the kill even though it was not you who applied the DoT.
    
    
  • Pledge of Hands - A seven-link with level 30 Spell Echo, great for Dominated caster minions. 100% increased maximum mana, perfect for Mind Over Matter. 18% block chance for extra protection.
    
    
  • Reaper's Pursuit - Hits Can't Be Evaded, Culling Strike, 15% movespeed, 40% item rarity.
    
    
  • Kongor's Undying Rage - Hits Can't Be Evaded, Onslaught on crit, 20% all resist.
    
    
  • Oro's Sacrifice - 1.55 attack speed, high base fire damage, 20% Ignite chance, Culling Strike against burning enemies, and gain a Frenzy Charge if an attack Ignites an enemy. You can use the Frenzy Charges with Flicker Strike to teleport you to monsters before using Dominating Blow.
    
    
  • Wings of Entropy - Counts as Dual Wielding, which means 15% block chance and 10% more attack speed. It also has 8% additional block and 25% of block chance applied to spells. That gives 23% block and 6% spell block.
    
    
  • Jorrhast's Blacksteel - 1.46 attack speed, 25% chance to trigger level 20 Animate Weapon on kill, animating weapons creates an additional copy. Animate Weapon shares all the same supports that benefit Dominating Blow. Socket two Spirit Guards and you can have 16 ranged weapons, which would benefit from GMP like other ranged Dominated minions. To reliably trigger the On Kill, use Lesser Poison Support so your minions can poison and wear Speaker's Wreath. This will cause minion attacks to reduce enemy life to 1, and no lower like an Allies Cannot Die totem, at which point poison will tick down that last point of life. Remember, DoT kills are credited to you.

Here's what I recommend: Get an Elder/Shaper dagger, claw, or scepter with at least three or four socket affixes. Because you are dominating many different enemies, you benefit from all kinds of supports. Mixed melee/caster support affixes are selling pretty cheaply, too, because no one else can properly utilize both types. You essentially get a 7+ link one-handed weapon, which is absurdly easier to fully link than a 6-socket 2-hander. This lets you use a shield and either Shield Charge or Whirling Blades with Fortify, drastically improving your mobility and survival. You could also dual wield, using The Scourge, United in Dream, Clayshaper, or Mon'tregul's Grasp. In this case, since you can't use Shield Charge, make sure your main hand is a claw or dagger so you don't lose access to Whirling Blades, too.

Get an Elder helmet with the socket affixes of Minion Damage, Minion Life, and Burning Damage. Put Raise Spectre in there and raise some Tukohama Vanguards. These guys will cover your single target while Dominating Blow deals with your clear. For your other three supports, use Elemental Focus, Swift Affliction, and Minion/Totem Elemental Resistance Support. Now they are 7-link Spectres, all on your helmet. Important FYI: Their Scorching Ray totems do not benefit from Spell damage, unlike normal SR.


Side note: For those unfamiliar with Spectres, you can find Tukohama Vanguards in Part 2 Mud Flats, but this zone is only level 46 so your Spectres will also be level 46. You want to go to a higher level zone after raising the Vanguards and use a level 19-20 Desecrate to create Vanguard corpses. Re-raise them and they will now have the level of that zone, provided your Raise Spectre or Desecrate gem is not low level, as these have their own level caps to watch out for.

Drop Enfeeble. Use Temporal Chains with 20% quality and an Enhance gem. This has two benefits: First, monsters are slowed down so much they often die before they can even get their first strike in. You don't want to be stunned before you get off a Dominating Blow. Second, it prolongs the duration of Dominating Blow's debuff, helping to ensure they convert when killed by your minions. It'll also assist your Vanguards' SR totems.

To further the damage potential of your Spectres, consider taking Elemental Equilibrium and using an Animated Guardian with dual Dyadus axes. These two can cause a boss to have -50% fire resist and take 200% more burning damage. You would need to use Generosity on your elemental damage auras and be careful of any elemental damage added to attacks on your gear. You only want to trigger EE with either lightning or cold damage, not both.

Drop Multistrike. You want to tag and move forward as fast as possible, letting your minions convert and mop up in your wake. The only reason to use Multistrike in the past was to compensate for how shitty lock-on skills are with the auto-targeting of the repeat attacks. However, Ancestral Call accomplishes the exact same thing but with several benefits. First, it hits simultaneously instead of sequentially, so you aren't locked in place whiffing air. Second, it has bonus range. You can even hold position, strike at air, and the Ancestral Call will reach out and strike targets further away. The only downside is minions do not inherit Ancestral Call. But if you're already using it, then you don't need Multistrike. Replace it with Greater Multiple Projectiles to dramatically and hilariously benefit ranged minions.

Drop Hatred and Wrath. It's overkill for clearing, Vanguard Spectres do not benefit from either, and auras take away Mana that could be going toward your survival with Mind Over Matter. I'd recommend Vis Mortis for Unholy Might and an extra Spectre instead of Victario's Influence. With that done, you can also drop Sovereignty on your passive tree.

Add a {level 1 Cast When Damage Taken + level 5 Convocation}. This is extremely useful. You can also add a lower level Offering of your choice, too. On my own summoners I tend to forego a CWDT+Desecrate in favor of self-casting a few around a boss room and relying on normal corpses when clearing, but since your build uses Dominating Blow, which doesn't leave corpses, that might make an automated Offering without an automated Desecrate too unreliable. Fundamentally, automating your offering will speed you up because you can focus on moving, which is a great QoL improvement.

Because you are always within melee range of monsters, consider adding a {level 1 Cast When Damage Taken + level 8 Blade Vortex + level 20 Curse on Hit + level 20 Temporal Chains} gem set. This lets you remove Blasphemy and now all your mana can be used for Mind Over Matter. If you pair this with a Victario's Charity shield, the hits from BV will proc Frenzy Charges for all your minions. This is without Necromantic Aegis, too, so you maintain the shield's block and other benefits on yourself.

Side note: Frenzy Charges on minions are actually much more potent than on players, granting 15% attack/cast speed, 5% movement speed, and 4% more damage per charge. With 3 charges, that's 45% attack/cast speed, 15% movement speed, and 12% more damage. Power Charges are the same, which you get On Kill so the Vanguard SR totems should give you that because they kill with Damage Over Time. Each Power Charge grants minions 200% critical chance. 3 Power Charges is then 600% crit chance, or 35% chance to crit at 5% base chance. Spicy!

Consider dropping Zombies. I know, I love them too, but in the highest tier content they die too often to bosses and take too long to raise all 10+ to be worth the constant maintenance. You can then trade in the Flesh Binder ascendancy for Mistress of Sacrifice. You would get another 30% duration and self-Offerings. Using Bone Offering can help you reach block cap, a huge survival boost.

If you want to keep Zombies, then treat them as tanks. Drop Minion Damage and Melee Physical Damage for Minion Life and Fortify. Maim or Blind would allow them to productively support your other minions. If you just want them to generate Phantasms, consider swapping Melee Physical Damage for Greater Multiple Projectiles or Faster Projectiles so the Phantasms contribute more to clearing. Since you only get them On Kill, Phantasms won't appear reliably during boss battles anyway, so give them better coverage.

If you've taken my advice up to here, then your chest is open. With 7-link Spectres in your helmet and 7-link Dominating Blow in your one-handed weapon, your chest gives you another 6-link skill. There's a lot you can do with this. 6-link Zombies might be worth it. Skeletons (with Ascendancy node) would be great to help distract and kill bosses. A Raging Spirit totem works for both clearing and boss fights. You could buff up an Animated Guardian. Or, if you're open to using four jewel sockets, you can have three powerful Fire Golems. You'll need 1 Anima Stone to get multiple golems (do the vendor recipe, it's cheaper), 1 Primordial Might to make them aggressive, and 2 Primordial Harmonies so Golems will use their abilities more often and to meet Anima Stone's requirements for a third Golem.

Speaking of jewels, your minions' resists are not capped. Most have 40% all resist, while Spectres have 30% plus whatever their base form had. Tukohama Vanguards sadly only have 40% Fire and 0% Cold and Lightning. With Herd of the Flock granting 16% all resist, this means your minions are sitting at 56% and 46% respectively. You're 20-30% short. This is one reason why we use Minion/Totem Elemental Resistance Support on the Vanguards. Your other minions are disposable, so their resists aren't as important. If you want to cap them, jewels are the easiest answer. Especially an abyssal jewel in an abyssal belt, so you don't use up normal jewel sockets.

Hey, wait, didn't I say minion life wasn't valuable? Well, that's because you already get a lot incidentally. Resistances over 50%, on the other hand, double in effectiveness. The 25% from 50 to 75 is effectively 50% reduced elemental damage taken. That's like doubling their life pool. Adding 40% life to Spectres who are already sitting at 270% life (100 base + 100 ascendancy + 70 passive nodes) is effectively 14% more life. So 100% more vs. 14% more. There's a clear winner.

Drop Skull Cracking on your passive tree. You aren't going to be stunning anything worthwhile that your minions couldn't take care of. It's a waste of points to buff your melee damage. Minions are your damage source; your job is to survive.

Take Potency of Will, you weirdo! It's 45% increased duration for your Dominated minions! That's worth 9 seconds of lifespan for them! The DB debuff lasts longer, too, for more reliable conversion! It's nearly a whole Increased Duration Support for 3 measly passive points!

Take Inspiration, Quick Recovery, and Sanctity. If you're using Mind Over Matter, you need mana and regen. No, seriously, you are constantly in melee range, you will need this!

Why take Practical Application? You're not casting for the most part, so you won't benefit much from the stun avoidance. I'm guessing you needed the Dex? Take Precision instead. It gives 20 Dex, 3% movement speed, 6% attack/cast speed, and 30% accuracy.

Drop Grave Intentions. It's not worth 3 points, let alone the 5-6 you're spending to get it.

Consider dropping Resolute Techniques. Yes, you probably only have ~70% accuracy and will miss a fair chunk of monsters. But that's okay. You'll still dominate plenty for clearing. You really don't need to hit every monster.

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For your consideration: This is my preferred Summoner tree.

• Minion Life is not very valuable, so I skip it in most circumstances. Those points are better spent elsewhere. Like on my own life.
  
  
• I emphasize Life Regen, grabbing as much as I can to reach 500+ regen per second. Summoners don't get leech, and even a Dominating Blow Summoner won't deal enough damage to justify leech anyway. Always remember, minions are your damage source; your job is to survive.
  
  
• I highly recommend the Bloodgrip amulet. It gives 1.6% life regen, +70 max life, doubles life from flasks (instant flasks become as meaty as normal flasks without this amulet), and practically neutralizes Bleed (you will only take 10% at all times, instead of 140% while moving).
  
  
• I stack Block because I use a Rathpith Globe and a self-Bone Offering to cap block and spell block. With the 50% nerf to self-Offerings, I'm no longer at cap, but it's still fantastic mitigation and with a bit more investment I can meet the cap again. Remember what I said about resistances from 50 to 75? Block is the same way. That last 25% is worth 50% mitigation, doubling my effective life. Like Dominating Blow, I am often in the face of monsters as I Shield Charge through packs, so it's very important to have multiple layers of defense.
  
  
• I take Unwavering Stance to prevent chain-stuns and being unable to immediately move out of danger. It just feels very bad to have your intended action not happen and be left wondering what caused it, such as a stun, no mana, invalid target area, or lag. Since I am already investing in Block, the keystone only costs 3 points. It's better than the Brine King pantheon power because you will still be stunned at least once with Brine King. Every second can be precious in a boss fight, after all, and it takes a moment to recognize that your Shield Charge didn't go off because you were stunned and so have to push the button again and again until it works.
  
  
• For giggles, I'm using Vigilant Strike + Ancestral Call with The Vigil jewel. This gives both me and all my minions Fortify that lasts a whopping 37 seconds. I went this route because I tried putting my Curse on Hit onto my Shield Charge, with a ring that has lightning damage to trigger Elemental Equilibrium. No more stopping to cast Ball Lightning or something, I just ZoomZoom around all the time. However, since I couldn't fit Fortify in this experimental setup, I decided to try a more manual approach. I have to say, I adore the massive duration. It means I can easily keep Fortify up long enough to approach distant packs, or in a boss fight I only need to get close once every half minute to refresh Fortify.
  
  
• To apply this tree to your own build, drop the 3-point jewel socket above the Scion life wheel in order to afford Potency of Will. If you're below level 92, drop life from the Scion wheel as needed and the 3-point regen jewel slot.
  
  Here is the core 73pt passive tree that I would recommend.

"

Hercanic wrote:

What he said

I was just about to start this build and your insight was really helpful, and i really appreciate your lengthy descriptions and arguments so we can have more voices crafting a good Dominating Blow build. Kudos!

@Hercanic, hey there!

I think your post highlights one of the many things I appreciate about the POE community. I would never consider myself very well versed in all of these aspects and still quite new to creating guides, so having people actively provide constructive feedback on it is really commendable. So, really, a big thank you for your input!

At the end of the day, we create these for others to enjoy, so I really hope those trying this build take everything into account, including feedback from all these posts to make dominating blow worthwhile.

I've personally learned quite a bit from your response so that's a x2 thanks you (probably said this too much, but it's meant!)

The one thing I would like to mention on dropping that multistrike though, is that it somehow feels like converting entire packs become much more slow/difficult. I definitely see your reasoning in why there are better sockets, but there seems to be a trade off in QoL. Its the same for skull cracking. I have been recently speccing in and out of it to mull on whether its something to keep and I one hundred percent agree, it really doesn't need to be there at all, but again, the QoL seems to take a bit of a hit.

I'm glad you and ThaKeeper found my infodump useful. Personally, I really like Dominating Blow, but I don't have the time or energy to maintain any guides. I appreciate your work to create such a guide, and when I saw the extra effort you put into your video I decided to commit the time to write up all that I did.

It's unfortunate that GGG decided to nerf DB with a flat 35% less minion damage out of the blue and ignore the skill from then on, likely to discourage people from using it instead of removing the skill because it can be pretty demanding on the server. Ironically, the new Shaper/Elder items actually make Dominating Blow better than ever. All Summoners benefit, in fact, because minions have persistence so we get maximum uptime on secondary skills.

"

Taerus wrote:

The one thing I would like to mention on dropping that multistrike though, is that it somehow feels like converting entire packs become much more slow/difficult. I definitely see your reasoning in why there are better sockets, but there seems to be a trade off in QoL.

You need increased duration (Potency of Will and Exceptional Performance), GMP, and a better base weapon with higher attack speed. The DB debuff is very short-lived, a fraction of a second. Multistrike means you're often reapplying that debuff, so conversion happens more regularly.

The real issue is your minions need a faster and more consistent kill speed. Duration gives them a bigger window to make the kill before the debuff expires. All of your supports right now, except Minion Damage, are Melee. The thing about melee minions is they take time to move up to their target, and only a limited amount can surround any one target. Their DPS has physical bottlenecks. In short, their kill speed is slow. You need to support Ranged minions to boost your clear speed, and thus conversion speed. Greater Multiple Projectiles is the minimum you should have for this.

When you have 130+ minions, their damage ceases to matter. What becomes important is how quickly and how broadly they can apply their collective DPS. GMP, Pierce, and Faster Projectiles do wonders for this. Whenever possible, target ranged and caster monsters over melee monsters.

"

Taerus wrote:

Its the same for skull cracking. I have been recently speccing in and out of it to mull on whether its something to keep and I one hundred percent agree, it really doesn't need to be there at all, but again, the QoL seems to take a bit of a hit.

That's more likely a perception of value. The numbers just don't support what you think it's doing.

• 1. Your Chober Chaber deals 125-258 damage, or an average of 192. This is half of what an end game two-hander usually has, and a third of what something like a Starforge has. You have the damage of a one-hander with the attack speed of a two-hander, and are not using any added damage to compensate.
  
  
• 2. Your supports are Minion Damage, which doesn't benefit you; Multistrike, which is 30% less damage; Ancestral Call, which is 17% less damage; and Melee Splash, which is 27% less damage to surrounding targets.
  
  
• 3. You have 184 Strength from your tree, 18 from your helmet, and 23 from your belt. At 225 Strength, you have 45% increased melee physical damage from Strength.
  
  
• 4. You also have from your tree 14% increased melee damage, 20% increased area damage, and 64% increased physical damage with maces.
  
  
• 5. 45 + 14 + 20 + 64 = 143% increased AOE melee physical damage.
  
  
• 6. So one of your hits deals 192 * 1.6 from DB * 2.43 from increased damage * 0.7 from MStrike * 0.83 from ACall * 0.73 from MSplash = 316. You deal 65% more than your base damage.
  
  
• 7. Your auras would add damage, but Victario's Influence has a level 30 Generosity, so you don't benefit from either Hatred or Wrath.
  
  
• 8. To stun a monster, you must deal more than 10% of its maximum life to even have the smallest chance for a stun. You must deal 50% of its maximum life to guarantee a stun.
  
  
• 9. Here's the HP of monsters from the level 64 zone Ravaged Square. An average of 5,000 to 10,000 life, meaning you need to deal at least 500 damage to have the barest chance to stun. You deal 316. Your best possible hit is 258 * 1.65 = 426 damage. You can only stun the weakest monster, the Kiln Mother, who has 3877 life, about 10% of the time. A single normal monster from a level 64 zone, not even a T1 map (there's an especially big jump at 68). FYI, magic monsters have 187% more life and rare monsters have 463% more life than normal monsters.
  
  
• 10. Even if you could stun, you only get Culling Strike if that stun happens within the monster's last 10% of life. Any more and culling doesn't matter. Any less and culling has no effect.

Skull Cracking isn't just bad, it plain does not work for your build.