[3.4] Letters from Hell (Poet's Pen SRS/Skeletons) Shaper/Red Elder Down No 5L/6L! Video's Included!
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Howdy Exiles!
 Want to try all the new minion stuff in Delve without having to hit mobs in the face? Want to have 2+ million shaper DPS on a 4L? Enjoy builds with few uniques so you can truly tinker with your build and take advantage of fossil crafting? Then I got a build for you! Note this build isn't exactly tanky (can hit ~5800 hp @lvl 90 with good life rolls on all gear, no MoM), flasks are kinda important and there are some gem swaps this build uses. This build isn't "hold RMB to clear maps." With that said, I found it to be a lot of fun, fairly versatile and I wanted to share it with y'all as I haven't really seen anyone building something similar. If you don't want explanations and just want the PoB link, skip to the below "Skill Tree" spoiler. Pros/Cons
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+ 2 Million+ Shaper DPS without a 5L or GG gear.
+ Moderate price point, viable as a league starter. + Only 4 required uniques, lots of flexibility with rares. + Relatively smooth leveling process. Build plays like a normal summoner until you pick up Poet's Pen. Once you have that though the build plays the same. + A ranged summoner that can make use of new Delve content like Herald of Purity and Summon Holy Relic without using melee weapons. - Not the tankiest build, can't take multiple successive big hits. - Delayed damage at start of combat due to having to ramp up by summoning your SRS. - Can get expensive to reach this build's full potential. - Relies on manual dodging and flask management, if you're as bad at those as I am expect a few preventable deaths. Videos (T15 Corrupted Rare Shaped Siege, Red Elder, Shaper):
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https://youtu.be/ZpmmOSG5kAo
https://youtu.be/oCUkZBAx-yw https://youtu.be/qjSoj5K3dvA Please note that this was my first Shaper fight, my deaths were due to my screw ups and failing to dodge Shaper orbs and stepping away from Zana too early. My deaths were completely avoidable. Build Theory:
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Delve gave summoners a lot of cool toys, but they're mostly centered around toons that fight with their minions. Herald of Purity gives us extra minions, Summon Holy Relic gives us and our minions life regen, Spiritual command gives us global attack speed for building minion attack speed.
Unfortunately for ranged casters we aren't usually going to kill a lot or make efficient use of global attack speed, but Poet's Pen changes that. Not only does it let us stay at range whilst making use of the new goodies, it lets us make easy use of on-hit effects like Elemental Equilibrium. It also makes our tree fairly efficient as we don't really have to build global cast/attack speed since we don't need that much cast speed and we get tons of attack speed from our minions. The build uses Summon Raging Spirit socketed in Poet's Pen for clear. They may not have much love from tree or uniques but they're fast, non-targetable, fly over terrain, you can have a ton of them and most importantly they remind me of lost souls from DooM. To compensate for the damage loss from SRS being socketed in a 3.5L, we run 4 auras and Victario's Charity to give everyone frenzies. With the new Command of the Pit gloves, Lycosidae is no longer necessary to ensure that SRS can hit things at minion level cap (92% in PoB). For boss DPS we use Summon Skeleton. They can do a lot of damage in a 4L, even more in a faux 5L. They also scale well with flat damage auras due to gaining 50% more damage from added damage sources. Even better from ascendancy they gain huge buffs such as being able to summon 3 at a time and their hits not being evadable. Defensively we make heavy use of Phase Run, pump our flasks in tree and use a weapon swap to generate Endurance charges and proc Fortify. Also due to absurd amount of global duration we build Immortal Call can easily last over a second without charges and Phase Run can last over 4 seconds (the cooldown). Since we don't suffer as harshly from not hitting the 3.8APS breakpoint with Poet's Pen, we use Power Siphon as our attack to trigger SRS. This attack provides so much value with built in culling strike (which is how we sustain Herald of Purity minions) and +7 projectiles. This is also useful for applying Elemental Equilibrium and curses from curse on hit rings. Skill Tree:
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Level 93 Tree: https://pastebin.com/guypV7c4
Bandits:
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Kill all. We don't really need any of the bandit boons.
Ascendancy:
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Normal Lab: Commander of Darkness.
Cruel Lab: Invoker Merciless Lab: Bone Sculptor Uber Lab: Puppet Master Commander of Darkness gives us +20% all res, really nice during leveling. We grab Puppet Master last as it's weakest node we pick up, but we don't use Zombies or Spectres and Mistress of Sacrifice makes our attack speed really inconsistent which is a no go when we don't want to exceed 4 APS. Pantheon:
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Major: Lunaris
Minor: Tukohama; Ryslatha with the upgrade. Flat % physical damage mitigation is always welcome, Ryslatha gives our life flasks a huge boost when upgraded. Gear:
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Weapon:
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Poet's Pen is what enables us to utilize attack speed as a summoner as opposed to cast speed. Weapon Swap:
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A decent 2H weapon is all we need for extra sockets. Sinvicta's Mettle is a nice option due to Rampage and good attack speed. Mandatory armor:
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These are core to the build. Victario's Influence for reduced mana reservation, Victario's Charity for frenzy charges, Command of the Pit for minion accuracy. Rare armor:
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Since we put minions in our helmet, we want +x level of socketed minion gems. If budget allows, try to essence craft with Essence of Insanity for socketed gems gain 50% of physical damage as extra lightning damage. The result is a huge damage boost, giving my Skeletons +34% DPS when I landed this this craft. Additionally I can't recommend enough Elder boots with socketed increased duration support. This lets us use it on a CwDT setup and a self cast setup in the same piece of gear. We also get some global duration as well. Jewelry:
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Life and Resists. Poacher's Mark curse on hit ring is a nice QoL upgrade due to the 100% flask charges gained effect.
Jewels:
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%Life/Flat Life, %Minion Damage/Attack Speed, Resists and Attributes as needed. Make sure to grab somewhere: Minion Life Leech, Minions have x% chance to blind and Minions have x% chance to taunt.
Flasks:
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Instant Life Flask, Blood of the Karui, Anti-bleed, Anti-freeze and Anti-Curse. Use the proper elemental max res flasks when dealing with bosses. Gems:
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Wand:
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Summon Raging Spirit + Minion Damage + Melee Splash
Not the highest damage combo but since it's our clear skill the splash damage makes up for the lower single target. Plus this isn't our main bossing skill Weapon Swap:
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Ground Slam + Faster Attacks + Increased Area of Effect + Fortify - Enduring Cry
Both the Fortify buff and Endurance charges survive the weapon swap, so we put them here. I personally like using ground slam to proc Fortify due to it's large AoE and I didn't want to use Tectonic Slam as that eats Endurance charges. Shield:
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Faster Casting + Flesh Offering + Flame Dash
Since we don't really build global cast speed in the tree, we support the two skills that need it most. Body Armor:
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Wrath, Anger, Hated, Haste, Summon Holy Relic and Herald of Purity.
Everything that reserves mana goes in here except for Clarity as we need that to affect us for the mana regen and all resists. Helmet:
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Summon Skeleton + Minion Damage + Melee Physical Damage + Multistrike
Pure single target DPS. Gloves:
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Power Siphon + Faster Attacks + Additional Accuracy.
Power Siphon is our core attack skill due to an insane number of free projectiles, each one directly targeting an enemy as well as built in Culling Strike. For reflect maps, replace Additional Accuracy with Frenzy, and swap Power Siphon > Frenzy in action bar. We can tank the reflect from one projectile per attack, not quite 8. For bosses without add phases, replace Additional Accuracy with Desecrate. The lower accuracy is fine since we aren't having to apply on hit effects to multiple new targets and we want to proc Flesh Offering for maximum damage. Boots:
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Cast when Damage Taken + Immortal Call - Phase Run - Clarity
Damage Mitigation. Unset Ring:
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Summon Stone Golem
Life Regen and another minion. Hope that made sense, if you have any questions or suggestions please let me know! Last edited by moddedaccount on Sep 14, 2018, 5:52:38 AM Last bumped on Jan 2, 2019, 10:13:55 PM
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what is the outfit in the image it looks awesome but I can't seem to find it in the store
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Love the build. I just converted an old league char into this to try it out.
Couple of observations. Summon Holy Relic states Minions cannot taunt enemies on gem. Which makes getting jewels that have % for minions to taunt useless. In your vids I don't see you using the weapon swap setup at all and I've been struggling to find when I'd want to use it. So far I've used it to trigger rampage which I love and that's it. Thanks for the build! My friends I play with will love the dmg boost and they're tired of my ED build :P |
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Could you make a leveling guide to get up to the level of this build?
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I used your build as a basic framework but twisted a few things here and there. Zombies are my main single target damage, with my 6L being focused solely on them, with skeletons and SRS for AOE trash clearing. Dual wielding poets pens; SRS/minion dmg/splash in one, skeletons/minion dmg/splash in the other. It’s a ton of fun and basically the same concept with an absolute ton of pets going on when you pop all of it at the same time + Vaal skeletons. I usually end up with over 60 pets on a boss fight and bosses die almost instantly. I wanted absolute chaos and I think I achieved it!
Thank you for the guide! |
