Fairly new-ish player, is my build OK?

I'm new-ish because my original "main" character is like level 79, but with a crappy build and that was over a year ago. I got a few others like under level 30. Now I'm 37 again this League, decided to pick the game up again. However, I don't want a bad build again. I couldn't do trials by myself (well, or even with other people very well LOL), though I clear maps fine and such. I don't know, I just want guidance and whatnot.

So my main skills are Raise Zombie, Raise Spectre, and Glacial Cascade. I plan to chose Necromancer as my Ascendancy class.

For passives, I went over to Grave Intentions, through Lord of the Dead to Death Attunement, cut back across to Spiritual Aid, and down to Sacrifice and Spiritual Command. Not sure where to go next, though I think I need personal tankiness -- probably means energy shield. And I also need more STR but maybe that should come from gear more so than passives?

My gear:

I have a Queen's Decree with plans to upgrade it when I can. and Bones of Ullr. Everything else is just "good yellow stuff" -- I'm guessing you can check out my profile if you care to see.

Gems: (Parenthesis I plan to add eventually)

Raise Sceptre
-Minion Damage
-Added Cold Damage
-Lesser Multiple Projectiles
-(Greater Multiple Projectiles)

Raise Zombie
-Minion Damage
-Minion Speed
-Lesser Poison
-Minion Physical Damage
-(Brutality)

Lightning Warp
Flame Dash
-Arcane Surge
-Faster Casting

Glacial Cascade
-Added Cold Damage
-Elemental Proliferation
-(Increased AOE)
-(Bonechill)
(I plan to get rid of Elemental Proliferation for those 2)

Vulnerability
-Faster Casting
-Arcane Surge
-(Increased AOE)

Hatred

Summon Holy Relic

Unearth

So.....yeah, Unearth. That's what I'm using for my spectres. I know it's probably not the best but it's new and...fun? And convenient? And noob-friendly (I hope)? I know you'll tell me it sucks and I should use "X" instead (but that's fine, that's what I came here for).

So I have 4 sceptres, 9 zombies, and holy relic running around while I cast Glacial Cascade to quickly clean up mobs (Spiritual Aid is freakin OP). If it's a boss or something that takes a while to die, I use Vulnerability to help my minions kill it faster.

I have Flame Dash and Lightning Warp BOTH, because why not?

I have Hatred and Unearth both in my 6-slotted weapon, unlinked to the Spectre links (it has 4 links, 6 slots) so there's room for my Glacial Cascade and Vulnerability to gain more links in my gloves/boots. Zombies is a 5-L on my top, but I will eventually buy (or find?) a 6-L. Eventually.

Or......maybe I should buy The Baron? If I did get The Baron, first of all, how much am I missing out on if I do NOT put a minion in there? (Maybe I could always put a lesser important minion, like a golem or even holy relic) Also, how much am I missing out if I don't have 1000 STR? (Or even 300? XD) yeah...sad...

Any other uniques I should keep an eye out for? I don't wand that wand that gives you half zombies but they leech life, I prefer the sword I have...

Ok sorry for so much text. Help...please?

1) You need to allow others to see your characters in profile settings

2) Builds using spell damage and minions together rarely work after act 9 or 10. Minions for damage, spells for utility is a good guide.

3) You currently have no good items, so yes, you should buy something like the baron, it will help you get past act 10 to get to maps to get more currency, to get better items, etc.

4) If you are new and not having fun testing on your own, just follow a good existing build to the letter. You'll take 1/4 of the time to get to level 80, and you'll know what items to get, what tree to follow and what links work well. Then you'll make currency easier and have a funner time experimenting or playing a new character from scratch.

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grimlock9999 wrote:

1) You need to allow others to see your characters in profile settings

2) Builds using spell damage and minions together rarely work after act 9 or 10. Minions for damage, spells for utility is a good guide.

3) You currently have no good items, so yes, you should buy something like the baron, it will help you get past act 10 to get to maps to get more currency, to get better items, etc.

4) If you are new and not having fun testing on your own, just follow a good existing build to the letter. You'll take 1/4 of the time to get to level 80, and you'll know what items to get, what tree to follow and what links work well. Then you'll make currency easier and have a funner time experimenting or playing a new character from scratch.

1. I think I fixed that, but let me know.

2. I'm pretty sure Glacial Cascade scales solely off STR, does it not? I even looked this up when you said that, and it appears it was changed in patch 3.0.

3. What I'm saying is the Baron doesn't do much for me yet because my STR is so low. I know I need to work on getting it up but...not sure how lol

4. Well, I'm kinda new but I have got to end-game before on my first character and that one had a bad build so I can do it again on this one I'm sure. I did look up guides and learn some things but ultimately I want to experiment a little bit even while I level, I don't mind. My main goal is to be able to solo labyrinth, so I'm starting to put passive points into tankier stuff, but not sure if I should focus on ES, armour, life, mixture of them, etc.

Quick lesson on skills and I will explain it on the example of Glacial Cascade.

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Glacial_Cascade

Under it's name you can see "Spell, Aoe, Cold".
This means multipliers to Spell Damage, AOE Damage and Cold damage (that includes Elemental Damage) will increase this skills damage. It deals a base damage of 72 to 633 and also converts 60% of physical damage to Cold damage and that will be treated as base and then multiplied by Spell/AOE/Ele.

If a skill is categorized as Spell then your weapon's damage won't affect it - I mean if you get more physical damage on a weapon - it won't increase the spell, only if there is Prefix or a Sufix (a mod basically) that directly affects the spell. In this case Cold Spell Damage and AOE. Same things applies to nodes on the passive tree. If you have a node that says "Increased Critical Strike Chance with Daggers" then it won't work with Bladefall because Bladefall is a spell and you don't technically use your weapon just cast a spell while holding it.

Another example on Fireball - it has Projectile, Spell, AOE and Fire. So to increase its damage you want Fire Spell Damage (which incorporates Fire damage and elemental damage), Projectile damage (projectile speed will increase the speed of fireball and support skill like Greater Multiple Projectiles will cause you to cast 5 fireballs instead of one) and AoE damage (it explodes when it hits).

If we take a skill that is not a spell however like Cleave it has - Attack, AoE, Melee so thinkgs like Melee physical damage will increase it's power but since it is an attack the damage is based off of your weapon's damage. At level 1 of the skill gem it's 110% of your weapon's attack while on level 20 it's 163% of your weapon's damage.

This system is pretty complex but I think it's actually really fun learning it. You will get it in time no problem.

As for defenses - just go life. It will be the easiest. I would not recommend going CI (Chaos Inoculation - you take that when going Energy Shield builds) when you are a new player. Having a life flask is a pretty big quality of life for a new guy.

Oh and also - if you want to raise any particular stat try looking for it on Jewelry - early on you can get jewelry with stat increases from NPC in town. Then you just plaster and orb of alchemy and you got a decent necklace.
Those are just basics mind you - there are tons of ways to increase your stats. Going a different way on your tree, getting it on jewels or finding a particular piece on poe.trade but for your level - you should be fine with just a vendor neck.

I never really played an endgame summoner build (only leveld as SRS once) so I can't help you with the build.