[3.4] Semigloss's Phantasm Queen - Soulwrest Occultist (20+ Phantasms - Fast Mapping - Budget)

This is our only required unique, The Soulwrest Staff (cost = 1-2 Chaos). Introduced with the Delve league, this item is what makes the build. Whenever you "consume" a corpse, you get a Phantasm (as well as a great regen buff for you and your minions). There are various ways to "consume" a corpse:
- Casting an offering spell (Flesh Offering works nice!)
- Using a spell such as Cremation or Volatile Dead
- Bubonic Trails Death Walk (see below).
Note that your sockets do not need to be linked in order to support the phantasm!




Bubonic Trail (optional). This item allows us to Auto-Summon phantasms because of its Death Walk skill. This skill deals AoE damage by consuming nearby corpses when you move. All you have to do is walk over dead enemies and presto! More phantasms.
Alternative: If you don't care about auto-summoning, go with a high ES boot with movement speed and resistances. Auto-summoning is in no way required... it is easy to sustain 20+ phantasms just using an offering spell or DD.


All other gear is just HIGH ES and RESISTANCES.

End Game Skill Tree - Level 93
Current Skill Tree - Level 73
Pre-CI Switch - Level 55
Post-CI Switch - Level 55
The Pre-CI is where your tree should be at right when you complete Cruel Lab. With Vile Bastion, you will easily be able to maintain a full ES orb. Remove the few life/mana nodes and drop them into more ES, and if you have the currency I recommend putting an Energy From Within in the first Jewel Socket you cross.

Life Based Version
The life based tree is for anyone interested in going the Necromancer route. It's essentially the same tree as before, we just swap ES to Life, and drop curses and CI for MoM. See below for more on the Necro ascendancy.
Life Skill Tree - L94

Ascendancy
Occultist:
Wicked Ward -> Vile Bastion -> Profane Bloom -> Malediction
I chose the Occultist because I wanted to go ES, and this ascendancy is great for it. Vile Bastion gives a ton of ES regen, which is maxed at 30 stacks 95% of my map runs (less boss fights when Wicked Ward helps out). Plus all the flat ES from both. The other great Occultist perk is Profane Bloom, which makes every pack of enemies instantly explode. When the explosion is triggered by a minion it scales with minion damage (almost 300% from the tree alone), so not a single enemy is left standing. This unfortunately doesn't help much during boss fights, but the investment into curses pays off here. You can run an offensive set up with Projectile Weakness and Vulnerability, which after the curse effect from passives (and boss penalties) is 55% and 27% MORE damage to map/act bosses and Shaper/Elder, respectively. Or you could play defense and run Temp Chains and Enfeeble, which by the same math would give -20% and -10% speed/accuracy/damage/multi. And you can also curse Hexproof monsters now.

Necromancer:
Commander of Darkness -> Puppet Master -> Invoker-> Your Choice
Necro is also an appealing option because of all the minion buffs, but Necro doesn't provide any good ES boosts/regen which was a deal breaker for me. In order to go Necro, you would have to switch to a life based build (see tree above). This route seems very doable however, because we can take Mind Over Matter, run Auras/Heralds, and we get lots of resistance from Ascendancy. The 50% convocation cooldown also shouldn't be overlooked. I did not specify the last two points because it really depends on what you enjoy playing or find is the strongest. They will all work. I would personally lean towards Zombies because they are reliable and also give lost of mitigation to your army. If I didn't hate managing spectres, I would probably go that route instead with Solar Guards or another ranged enemy. Skeletons have potential as well if you utilize some Dead Reckoning jewels to make them ranged (melee skelies won't keep up). I would recommend this Ascendancy & Tree to beginners over Occultist.

Bandits
Go for the skill points! If you wanted you could help Alira for the resistances/mana regen, but Oak and Kraityn aren't useful to us.

Pantheon
Major God
Soul of Arakaali - See CWDT setup in gem section below

Minor God
Soul of Ralakesh - Not much else is useful for us.

Main Minion Setup
This goes in your 6 Socket staff and is for general mapping and clearing purposes. I will explain some particular gem choices.

- Summon Phantasm on Kill Support -
You may be thinking "but wait, we already have the summoning part figured out". However, there is a funky little interaction where supporting with this gem actually adds the gems minion count to the minion count of the innate skill. With a Lvl 20 gem, this takes us to 20 phantasms instead of 10. Absolutely necessary.

- Faster Proj / GMP -
Faster projectiles makes the the Phantasm's spells reach much further ahead, and GMP gives their spell amazing AoE coverage.This combo makes for great clear speed because you can just charge through packs and your minion's spells will cover everything ahead of you and around you. I tested Minion Speed Support, not required if you keep a Quicksilver Flask up (Phantasms teleport to you often enough).

- Controlled Destruction / Minion Damage / Minion Resistance
These gems just boost damage. Note that gems such as Spell Echo and Maim do not work with Phantasms (I tried). Do not use Brutality, as it will null your Profane Bloom.

Single Target Swap
For strictly singe target damage (Shaper/Atziri/Guardians/etc.), we change things up a bit as we no longer need Faster Proj or GMP. Swap these out for gems that make sense. I recommend Slower Projectiles or Culling Strike (poison is good too if you aren't using Brutality).

Zombie Setup
If you choose to use Zombies, use them for defense. Support with minion life, minion resistance, and life leech. If you chose Necro, you can drop the resistances and use a support such as Blind to help with boss encounters.

CWDT Setup
CWDT (Lvl1) - Blood Rage - Immortal Call + Curse/Spell of your choice.
The first three gems need to be in this order (clockwise around a 4L item). When we get hit, blood rage goes off and we begin taking physical DoT. Immediately after, Immortal Call triggers and stops that damage. This combination triggers our Major Pantheon Soul (if you've upgraded it once), which gives us 50% increased life/ES recovery. the 35% from Vile Bastion and Soulwrest becomes 52% regen. WHAT.

Curse Setup
For offense use Projectile Weakness and Vulnerability. The extra damage will apply from both, and PW's knockback is a nice bonus. For defensive go Temp Chains and Enfeeble. For applying curses, I would recommend blasphemy. We get huge curse AoE so 3/4 of the screen is affected. When you are charging through maps hopped up on Quicksilver flasks, your Phantasms projectiles will be killing everything around you and procing Profane Bloom. If you want to take things slower and use curse on hit (suggested for Necro), then ball lightning is probably your best bet.

Since Soulwrest requires Level 62, you'll need to level up using a different method. We spec heavy into minion damage so I would recommend some sort of summoner until 62. Then you won't have to respec more than a few points. Additionally, when you pick up the new minion node Spiritual Aid, any leveled spell you have will become useful with no investment (see Herald of Agony comment below). Just follow the Pre/Post CI skill trees posted above, and pick up other points as needed.

Possible Minion Leveling Methods
- Zombies & SRS is a great option, and you can get a Mark of The Red Covenant at level 26. If you feel you need it, there is plenty of minion life/regen/leech nearby to keep Zombies alive, which you will just respec out of later (Phantasms need minion damage only). This should carry you well to Level 62 and through your first two Labs.
- Herald of Purity & Smite might be feasible, though I haven't played around with it this league. It seems to be a pretty smooth leveling experience, just make sure you grab some strength nodes along the way. Can also support Zombies.
- Herald of Agony. This is how I leveled personally, because I wanted to try a new skill, so I'll speak a bit more to it. Ball Lightning with poison kept Virulence stacks way up and the Crawler hits like a truck. All of it's skills are considered attacks so there are a wide array of support gems you can use. I would recommend Minion Speed, GMP, Pierce. My only deaths leveling this way were because of darkness in the mines. This is an easy way to go, no special gear required, and you can still use Zombies to tank. Also, once I picked up Spiritual Aid, Ball Lightning became about 1/3 of my overall damage. The Coming Calamity isn't necessary, as you'll only be a few levels from 62 when you can use it.

Forthcoming

Future testing to come for full Elemental conversion and also for poison/dot supports.
More Forthcoming