Slow Mo Zombies! (No Uniques Needed|Relaxed Playstyle|Easy to Gear|Anyone Can Play|All Content)[3.5]

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saintonan wrote:

...Outside of physical reflect maps and superbosses, what do zombies actually die to? I'd like to have an idea of what to be cautious around. At the level I'm at, they're absolutely indestructible. I'm sure that changes eventually.

Honestly? Almost nothing. You'll come across some some surprising enemies like a 3 star Syndicate member but they really are hearty. There isn't anything specific to avoid or lookout for besides the things you already mentioned.

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Katischwa wrote:

Hey, I'm enjoying this build a lot, so thank you! I have attention issues and I like that I can veg out a bit with this....

You're very welcome and I'm glad it suites what you deal with. It's great to find ways to play games you typically didn't think you could.

And good post :).

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Heatherman wrote:

well i've got to say this is by far the easiest and most relaxed character i've ever played. never had such a cool time getting to maps, almost nothing bothers me haha, at this point i've never really been further so anybody have some tips on what to do/gear to swap next? mostly just been doing random maps and delves.

Hey Heatherman,

I'm so glad you're having a good time and are relaxed while doing it :). It's exciting to get into new content!

Honestly, the gear doesn't need to be complicated at all. If you look at my gear: https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Wrecker_of_Days/characters (IIIpV_Slow_Mo_Zombies).
I didn't have anything fancy. I capped my resists (including Chaos for the sake of Syndicate battles) and had 80+ health on all my gear (except the weapon). And you can use a bound fossil on normal weapon (item level 75 or higher) to get a minion damage roll on it.

I cleared the Atlas quite easily with that basic setup. Your zombies won't survive the Guardians and Shaper battles, but that's what the skeletons are for.

Honestly, it's that simple. Feel free to ask more if that's not the answer you were looking for.

I hope you keep enjoying the game! One thing to remember as you get deep into the atlas is that some of the BIG battles require getting used to. So don't be discouraged.

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AnExile_onthePath wrote:

Hi WoD (can I say "WoD's up?"?)

I noticed from your posts that your play style seems to be shifting a little more towards using the skellies for offence. Have you put any thought into making the skeletons the 6-link on the one-handed build? I have made the switch to skeletons and I find it much better than a few spectres, particularly using Vaal Skeleton with my Queen's Escape equipped. (I don't have the currency or Delve Depth to craft a six link on a unique, nor the intestinal fortitude to free style it with fuses - thus I am playing a 6z/4s rather than a 6z/6s. But I am wondering if I might try switching up to 6s/4z.) This build has so many great possibilities; thanks again for your guide.

Ha ha ha. Ya, you can call me WoD :). Funny. WoD up.

That thought crosses my mind often. But, let's say I make this build a Skeleton only build. I'd lose a lot of the ease of play. I'd lose the defensive aspect of the game too. Zombies will always follow me once I've Charged Dashed into enemies, and the damage is always right behind me. And the Zombie Slam clear speed is superior to Skeletons' single target hits. So, this build can do 98% of the Atlas without Skeletons. So, since I have to consider my symptoms, Zombies are still the best bet to 5/6 link on the one-handed build. If I 6 linked skeletons, I'd feel like I need to use them often and it'd take away from how relaxing and helpful the current setup is for my symptoms and such.

So, to paraphrase, I don't see ME making the switch, but it's not a bad idea for anyone else to do! It's a good idea! I'd be curious to see if the Zombie 4 link would be just as efficient with Zombies-Minion Damage-Minion Speed-Melee Physical.

Good post and thanks so much for your kind words.

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saintonan wrote:

Did Cruel Lab tonight and barely had to move for any of the Izaro fights even with just the four Grasp powered zombies. I fear the traps so much more than any mob in the lab, just due to my clumsy maneuvering.

One thing I noticed is that Vaal Skeletons were disabled in the Aspirant Trial rooms. If I went back into the previous room, they'd light right back up again, but in the Izaro fights themselves I couldn't launch the army. Fortunately they weren't needed at all. Is that a thing in some lab layouts? Are there maps where Vaal skills are disabled?

Great job on the lab!

The Vaal skills being greyed out is not a bug. Vaal skills get reset with every loading screen. GGG intentionally puts loading screens before the Izaro battles so that you have to re-earn the souls and earn the victory. You'll find less important areas of the game, like incursions, don't have loading screens.

After getting one shot by the elder guardian Eradicator's lightning damage twice, it got me thinking about the overall defensive outlook of my build and the CWDT+IC setup, especially since I finally got a 6 link Shavronne's which means the only flexible gem slots are the 4 in my gloves, and 1-2 has to be reserved for Holy Relic and an offering skill. The only times I die is through boss one shots, almost all of which seem to be elemental/chaos rather than physical, so while CWDT/IC is nice, I don't think it's helping me/saving my life that much in practice, so there might be better albeit more expensive options out there.

My solutoin: Since my amulet is my weakest spot at the moment, I bought the unique Shaper amulet today, which gives a nice 25% damage boost but most importantly renders Temporal Chains FREE of mana cost :)



Since I have 1050 max mana I reckon that I only need 50 to spam skeletons, offering and such once my zombies are up and running. That means, I can reserve 95% of my mana to auras. Only 1 curse obviously, and Temporal Chains is the whole point of this build, so I kept hatred for minion cold damage, and got 2 more aura gems into my gloves: Discipline and War Banner.

I noticed from running T13+ maps with tough mods that while my zombies are fine with anything except reflect physical damage, my skeletons are dying faster and faster. Discipline gives myself and ALL my minions a nice amount of ES (+460 on my self for a total of 1860) which recharges fairly fast out of combat, and stacks with the 2% max life per corpse ES from spirit offering. So with a large pile of corpses say 10+, one offering and discipline will give my zombies (22k hp on tooltip) 4k+ ES and my skellies (5k hp) 1.2k ES.

Not to mention that, with Shavronne's chest, chaos damage does not bypass my ES so now I effectively have 5.2k + 1.8k = 7K HP plus the 1k elemental shield from the Magma Eclipsis shielf with a 10s recharge.

Finally, War Banner offers nice offensive bonuses 40-50% accuracy and 10% more damage taken to mobs at a tiny mana reserve cost of 10%. You can also choose to place it during larger or boss fights for even more bonus.

The result: my build, which is still essentially the same, now has 4 auras:



Result so far: ran T10-14 maps (well i don't have t15s yet), minion defence/sustain SO MUCH BETTER, most obvious during boss fights/large rare and magical packs. When spirit offering is available (ie 95% of content)skeletons now hardly die at all. Because we need to charge into mobs to proc Holy Relic's life regen to minions, I can now just stand back and let them do all the killing even in T13-14 maps, as they rarely even need healing now, so it means a safer playstyle for myself as well. Also a noticeable damage increase, from the 25% flat from the shaper amulet and the war banner aura.

Myself? Haven't gotten close to dying yet :) All in all yes it's getting expensive but this particular upgrade is definitely worth it!

back with a new question, i would like more i guess advance help with mostly a 1 h weapon, just trying to figure out stats. trying to find a better weapon then mine i am having issues with. its decent with minion dmg and health crafting . but what other suffix and stuff would u really want. like does crit chance for spells or increased spell dmg will only effect charged dash right? does increased spell dmg help auras? i have seen your weapon, but i also cant search for minion mods on weapons outside of sockets with the trade website. from what i understand if it dosent say minion at all no stats will effect them.

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Diseasedmeat wrote:

back with a new question, i would like more i guess advance help with mostly a 1 h weapon, just trying to figure out stats. trying to find a better weapon then mine i am having issues with. its decent with minion dmg and health crafting . but what other suffix and stuff would u really want. like does crit chance for spells or increased spell dmg will only effect charged dash right? does increased spell dmg help auras? i have seen your weapon, but i also cant search for minion mods on weapons outside of sockets with the trade website. from what i understand if it dosent say minion at all no stats will effect them.

HOnestly, it regards to any weapon with Minions doing all the damage, there isn't anything much a weapon can do. I personally love the simplicity to it. But to answer your questions:

- like does crit chance for spells or increased spell dmg will only effect charged dash right? Charged Dash is an Attack, so spell mods won't apply to it. But either way, our build not benefit from any spell damage increases as we have no spells that we care about their damage, crit chance, or cast speed.

- does increased spell dmg help auras? No. Because auras don't do damage. They give damage. Increases to Aura effectiveness increase the damage auras give.

- i also cant search for minion mods on weapons outside of sockets with the trade website. Just change the values of the search and have either one, or both, selected. I just have this as the search parameters so that you could have it there: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Betrayal/GOdzpZcb

- from what i understand if it dosent say minion at all no stats will effect them. Correct. Minion or Ally affect minions.

Here: http://poedb.tw/us/mod.php?cn=Sceptre. That's a list of all the mods available on Sceptres. So knowing that only minion stuff affects minions, if you look, there is very little that'll help us. We don't run into mana issues, so an increase in mana or mana reservation won't really help the posted version of this build.

- You could increase resists or attributes.
- You could increase the level of socketed gems.
- You could increase the quality of socketed gems.

But honestly, for what they provide, it may not be worth the price if you're buying it. I personally just stuck with Minion Damage. (Keep in mind, if you get something that gives an Increase to Area of Effect and you put one of your aura links into it, the Increased Area of Effect mana multiplier will still apply...increasing the amount of mana reserved by the aura.

Thank you for the very detailed guide!

I plan to play this build in a party. In this party, some players will have cold or lightning damage, but no one will have fire damage.

Is it okay to drop charged dash for shield charge to apply EE and the curses? Then I would have some fire damage on one of my items. Or is there a specific reason for charged dash that I am missing?

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IINestorII wrote:

Thank you for the very detailed guide!

I plan to play this build in a party. In this party, some players will have cold or lightning damage, but no one will have fire damage.

Is it okay to drop charged dash for shield charge to apply EE and the curses? Then I would have some fire damage on one of my items. Or is there a specific reason for charged dash that I am missing?

Hey IINestorII,

Awesome! I hope you enjoy it! You can use any melee movement skill you like. Shield Charge will work great. I just prefer Charged Dash. And like you said, don't forget to add the lightning or fire damage to your Attacks.

Let me know what you think! And thanks for the thanks :)