Help with Witch Necromancer
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Hello!
I'm a new player to PoE, but had a great time in Diablo 2 (skipped 3 because... reasons), and I'm still learning how stuff works. Right now I have a Lvl 42 Necromancer, built around minions (Skeletons and Zombies), which is supposed to be novice-friendly and cheap - so far, so good, btw! But now I'm getting less secure on what to do next, so I'd be very grateful to anyone kind enough to help me with the following doubts: 1) Defenses: where should I go next in the Tree?! I'm torn between going the Life or Shield routes, in terms of Passives 2) More Defenses: Again, should I pursue and invest in Passives that help with Elemental / Chaos defenses? Where in the Tree? 3) Stats: There are two Skills that grant +30 to Strength and Dexterity... I'm thinking about assigning 1 point in each of those to meet requirements for skills. Am I doing a mistake? 4) Keystones: 3.1) Minion Instability: Easy to get (2 points), will need to summon more minions but killing hard stuff should be easier. As of now, minions don't usually die and I've invested a lot in attack and durability for them. 3.2) Necromantic Aegis: seems dependent on a nice shield, which isn't cheap. I'm trending towards a "No" to this. Missing something? 3.3) Mind Over Matter: Seems a nice defense since I'm always with high Mana... is it really a good investment? 3.4) Am I missing any other noteworthy Keystones for this build? 5) Items: Right now getting the right items in terms of sockets seems impossible. 6) Ascendancy: Already a Necro with Invoker... next are Flesh Binder, Bone Sculptor, Puppet Master (if I ever reach that far hehehe)... comments? I have a draft of my desired skill set ("+" means linked to):
Spoiler
CORE SKILL:Main/Armor 1) Raise Zombie + Minion Damage Support + Elemental Focus + Controlled Destruction + Brutality Support [RED] (+ Minion Speed Support??) CORE SKILL: Shield... or use Vaal Raise Skel in the Armor since the rest is pretty much the same: 2) Raise Skeleton Vaal + Minion Damage Support + Elemental Focus + Controlled Destruction +Brutallity Support[RED] MINION BUFF 3) Flesh Offering (Blue) + Increased Duration [RED] (Must have buff) ENABLER for Zombies and Flesh Offering 4) Desecrate (Green) + Spell Cascade Support (Blue) DEBUFF Need to find those yet... but Enfeeble with Blasphemy Support seems like good idea... especially with Mind Over Matter 5) Enfeeble [Blue] + Blasphemy Support OR Increased Duration [RED] OTHER SUPPORT] 5) Clarity (Blue) - Mana Regen = Life Regen with Mind Over Matter 6) Convocation (Blue) - Good for OTHER DOUBTS In doubt about if and how I should use this ones 8) Raise Spectre (Blue) + Minion Damage Support (Blue) 9) Raise Stone Golem [RED] + ??? Here's my Passive today: https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMDAAQHES0c3CL0JSEo-iqYLJwy0TpYRUdMs025VK5VxlqRYPhqrGvbbAttGXyDfRh90oLHg9uFYIhAkDOmrKh9qqmqxKyYuJO_l8k9zLzTj9P72Qvfiuvu7IPsivIe99c=?accountName=Onslaught_Dom&characterName=SpectreMaster_Ons Here's what I'm gonna do next: https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/3.4.5/AAAABAMDAQQHEFERLRZvGmwc3CL0JKolISj6KpgsnDLRNuk6WDrGRUdKn0yzTblUrlXGWpFg-GL0Zp5ncWqsa9tsC20ZcbJ8g30YfdKCx4PbhWCIQIm8kDOg5qasqH2qqarErJi4k7-XyT3MvNOP0_vZC9-K42rr7uyD7IryHvfX-tI=?accountName=Onslaught_Dom&characterName=SpectreMaster_Ons Also - I'm using these builds as reference for my own (but they kinda disagree when it comes to my doubts ;)!) Spectre/Skeleton: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2114342 Skeleton/Zombie: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2108003 Last bumped on Nov 18, 2018, 5:15:01 PM
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Life
There is a chaos + life wheel of 4 points in the upper left of the tree - between the witch start and the templar start. That's a good wheel to get. For additional defenses, most players turn to armor, evasion, dodge, and block - but these are pretty hard to get as a witch. If I were you, I'd just stack life and trust in your minions to soak up a lot of incoming damage. Stats - do it, that's what they are there for. Minion Instability as good, but if your stuff isn't dying don't take it now. Your stuff will die eventually and you can take it then :P Necromantic Aegis is kind of personal choice and what you're trying to do. MoM can be good, especially if you're not getting hit often. Keep playing, keep reading, experience is the best teacher in this game. |
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" Wow tons of questions :) Thats good. 1) Stick with life for leveling, try to get to 6k life and use your minions and/or a decoy totem to distract hard content. Shield nodes are usually not worth it for summoners 2) Use the searchbar top right on the skilltree screen to find out where elemental res are. You can invest into those, but longterm you should try to get res on gear. Im usually using purity of elements aura for leveling to bypass this. Ignore chaos res though. Its a luxury stat thats not needed in most scenarios 3) Sure grab those nodes, if it allows you to level important gems. But again, try to get those stats on gear later on or use conversion jewels like efficient training or careful planning 4.1) Minion instability isnt worth it, unless you stack tons of life on your minions. But if you do that, they wont die - so whats the point? 4.2) Necromantic Aegis can be very powerful. Victarios Charity shield will provide tons of dmg and its cheap. Keep in mind though, you cant block anymore if you grab that node. 4.3) MoM is only worth it, if you dont reserve mana at all or just a tiny portion and heavily invest into mana reg. Auras are a very good way to buff minions, so I wouldnt go for MoM but stack as much auras as I can instead 5) Getting the right items can be challenging, but there are ways. Pick up white item with the right socket colors and use an essence on them. If that essence rolls some life and res, its a good enough item for leveling. Summoners dont need other stats than that. Also level your master, claim a hideout as soon as 1 master gets to lvl 3 and push Haku and Elreon to lvl4. Both can craft res and life on gear pieces and turn semi good items into usable items for leveling. 6) Thats fine :) Commander of darkness is a strong ascendancy too. It´ll help you and your minions getting more ele res and also deals tons of dmg. You can respec later (5 refund points for each ascendancy point). Its a little expensive, but also very convenient. You dont have to go for minion speed on tree, if you are using the Queens Escape sword. It provides tons of minion movespeed but its hard to get other than buying it from another player. If you go for the trading route, buy also The Jewelers Touch prophecy for a guaranteed 5 link on that sword. Good luck and feel free to ask Last edited by Orbaal on Nov 18, 2018, 5:58:03 AM
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Thanks @innervation and @Orbaal for your answers!
So... I was studying how items work... Fact) Items might be found in loot, traded by cards, traded with other players, and crafted or "evolved" using currency Doubt A) I don't get how Currency works with other players... somewhere I read that a Tabula Rasa is worth 5x Chaos Orbs, but it wasn't clear if that's trading between two players or in item creation. Which one? Doubt B) As a beginner player, is it common to actually consume Currency (as in, use it to evolve items Normal -> Rare, etc.)? Doubt C) Is there a player market of sorts inside the game, where I can find stuff? Doubt D) Crafting using Masters allow to choose number of sockets and links? Doubt E) As far as I could research, using multiple Auras in a build practically obliges to use Unique items that reduces that consumption (like Victario's Inffluence)... there are a couple Passives that help in that regard but they aren't that stong (compared to Victario's). Right? Thanks again! Last edited by Onslaught_Dom on Nov 18, 2018, 3:39:09 PM
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I only play summoners, I am not a hardcore player or some uber person, just a casual but hit red maps and even guardians with my builds.
" I felt that the shield is really coming handy once you actually have a good shield and play red maps. Before that, Life seems a better stat as it´s easier to find life items, than a decent shield for high block rate. (you also need a very specific necklace for block, which is quite rare). " You won´t need Chaos defenses, when I started with POE, I also always thought it must be maxed, but it doesn´t. But I support the idea of speccing into elemental resistances. There are some nodes with armor / Evasion or Energy Shield that also give all resistance bonus. I usually go for at least one or two of these nodes. " It´s not a mistake. If you find items with Strength and Dex later, you can remove those skill points from the tree. There are orbs that let you reassign your skill points, plus you get free passive refunds from quests. " I don´t use mana as defence, as I run auras and if you do, the available mana won´t be sufficient to truly benefit from the mana defence. If you don´t run any auras or heralds, Mana can be a nice defense mechanic. Personally, I prefer buffing me and my minions with auras. Aegis depends on a very rare shield, I found it twice in over two years. If you go for that, then you won´t be able to go for block, always remember that. My minions always do enough damage, so that they don´t require the buffs from my shield, while I need the block in red maps. I never used Instability, I prefer to have minions alive, than death. It also only makes sense with skeleton builds and huge life pools I believe. " Items will come over time, the good thing about summoners is, that you don´t rely on very specific gear to reach maps. Just when you move to red maps with harder mods, some items like the necklace I mentioned will help a lot. Try to get a five link once you are approaching maps and stick with it. It´s not much use to gamble for a six link. I didn´t have one since I started playing. It´s a nice bonus to have when you kill the endbosses, but for red maps you can play well with a fix link armor. There is a master, Voici, he can help with sockets and linking, but for a price. " Flesh Binder and Bone Sculpor are also my preferred notes. Put your skeletons on a spell totem, so that you don´t need to cast them all the time. You can block enemy monsters with your skeletons by just placing the totem in front of you. I don´t see Puppet Master as that interesting if you don´t play with the spirits. Yes, it does work with Skeletons too, but since we use the totem, we can save those two points and push our spectres. I have a draft of my desired skill set ("+" means linked to):
Spoiler
CORE SKILL:Main/Armor 1) Raise Zombie + Minion Damage Support + Elemental Focus + Controlled Destruction + Brutality Support [RED] (+ Minion Speed Support??) CORE SKILL: Shield... or use Vaal Raise Skel in the Armor since the rest is pretty much the same: 2) Raise Skeleton Vaal + Minion Damage Support + Elemental Focus + Controlled Destruction +Brutallity Support[RED] MINION BUFF 3) Flesh Offering (Blue) + Increased Duration [RED] (Must have buff) ENABLER for Zombies and Flesh Offering 4) Desecrate (Green) + Spell Cascade Support (Blue) DEBUFF Need to find those yet... but Enfeeble with Blasphemy Support seems like good idea... especially with Mind Over Matter 5) Enfeeble [Blue] + Blasphemy Support OR Increased Duration [RED] OTHER SUPPORT] 5) Clarity (Blue) - Mana Regen = Life Regen with Mind Over Matter 6) Convocation (Blue) - Good for OTHER DOUBTS In doubt about if and how I should use this ones 8) Raise Spectre (Blue) + Minion Damage Support (Blue) 9) Raise Stone Golem [RED] + ??? Zombies deal physical damage, so you want to buff that. Malm and Brutality are very good, but there are also a few other gems that you can try. Some favor AOE damage, others single target. Minion speed I don´t use anymore, as I have my Skelletons going in first. Put your raise skeletons into a 4 socket, put a spell totem in there and then multi attacks and minion damage. Always cast it infront of you, the skeletons will spawn and your zombies join in. As for curses, in most cases you can only apply one. I never found the space to add items that allow me two or three, nor did I have the skill points to get a second from the tree. Therefore, it does make a lot of sense to use "apply curse on hit". Use a spell that auto targets enemies and let it do it´s magic. If you run zombies and skeletons, a curse that increases physical damage is a very good choice. Summoners are very complex and need every single socket. You can try out a lot there, my build always changes a tiny bit each league. It´s a great casual character, as you can make it work even without trading or deeper knowledge of the game. One hint, don´t make the mistake running onto corpses, especially later in the game. I have the habit to run in and loot, while the zombies still kill or have just killed. It almost always ends with me being dead. Either there is some suicide mob that blows itself up or a corpse explodes... That´s GGG´s sense of humor to annoy summoner players :( Summoners stand back, even if we feel immortal due our defenses and almost never take damage, don´t be cocky. Enjoy :) | |
" The nodes do help a bit, but the points are not always there. As a summoner, skill points are what we don´t have enough of. I would need 110 to truly finish my builds, so that the final 20 are kind of depending on my finds. I had builds with all aura nodes, but honestly, never felt happy with it. Voici allows you do select what you want, but he is very hard to level for summoners. I almost never get him to 7. Our minions just fail the missions, but with 3.5. things will work different. Masters are reworked, there is a video on YT about it. POE Betrayel. There is sadly no ingame trade system, I know that some players use external websites, but those require that you buy premium stash tabs, so that your inventory can be listed. You must be online to trade, so that it works like in D2. You whisper a guy that you want his item and then you need to barter. Chaos and exalt orbs are mostly used, but also fusings and alchemy. I am not a fan of our trade system, that´s why I play solo selffound. There is no point to hold back currency early on. You will find a lot more in maps. The only thing I would try to always have a few of are those needed for sockets. Don´t waste them on weak items, but if you find something very good that will last a while (like some specific summoner item), then get it ready :D | |
" A) That's buying an item that someone has picked up from the ground. It's possible to use an Orb of Chance on a normal item to have a chance for it to turn into a unique one rather than magic or rare, but that is usually done for high value items. The price for a Tabula Rasa should be around 20-24 chaos btw, don't sell one for much less than that. B) Very rare. Real targeted crafting is only done in the top 0.1%. While leveling you might use a couple of orbs to improve your leveling gear so you don't have to bother looking up items to trade for etc.. This also improves your speed at league start. Ideally you would want to use a low level essence instead of an Orb of Alchemy though, because they don't roll higher mods. You do have to find these in the first place though. Using a small amount of currency to modify maps, which are consumable items that generate endgame content, is something that is done normally though. Other than that, modifying socket numbers, colours, and links is usually inexpensive for up to 4 linked sockets and thus something you would do yourself rather than buying an item fitting these conditions. For 5-linked and 6-linked items, it's cheaper to buy them. C) The official site has a trade sub-page as well. It might be slightly confusingly placed, because it's next to the Microtransaction shop. The following sites are the ones I normally use for trading: https://pathofexile.com/trade https://poe.trade https://poe.ninja The first is the official site, the second is the most popular third party one. Don't worry though, it accesses the same API as the official one. The third site is useful to provide an overview of regular prices for items with predictable value, as well as currency exchange rates. You can also use it to navigate to specific items you're interested in and open a search for it on a trade site in a new tab. There is no way to do any of this ingame. (Third party) ingame overlays for existing trade are being developed afaik, and there are some tools to generally simplify trading and price checking from inside the game, but the actual trading still has to be done with a detour before trading inside the game. D) When you reach level 3 with any master, you can create a hideout and invite other masters there. They will provide you with a crafting bench. Vorici offers one that allows you to change socket numbers, links, and colours. This will change in 3.5, but details haven't been released yet. E) There are builds entirely focusing on auras, that take both the passive nodes on the tree as well as the relevant items to run as many of them as possible with as much effect as possible. If you want your build to do more than providing auras, you have to consider the opportunity cost of not being able to use something else for each of these options. --- Lastly, concerning your skill tree; I don't know how many auras you're actually using, but I'd personally consider using Mind over Matter and then pathing to Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics on the right side of the tree along the edge, picking up the Written in Blood and the Blood Drinker life clusters. I'm not sure in what order you should take those, but under the assumption that you are able to recover from hits that don't kill you instantly, your defence goes up by 67% against attacks and 43% against spells. If you include the Mind over Matter, you would take 42% of the previous damage to life on average from attacks, and 49% of the damage from spells. You do of course still take some of that damage on your mana pool, so you need to work out how much you need there and how to recover the damage you take, but these numbers should simply demonstrate just how effective of a defence this can be. Keep in mind that becoming more defensive doesn't mean you should abandon your life pool; you still need to survive strong hits. You can use Hatred in an Essence Worm (which is what I would do for physical damage based minions), which doesn't reserve any mana. If you additionally take the Elemental Equilibrium Keystone (which only needs one point of investment since you've pathed there anyway), you can debuff the enemies' cold resistance by 50% by hitting them with fire or lightning damage. Anyway, these are just my ideas on the topic; I haven't actually played a summoner in a long time. |
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