[3.11]QUEEN OF NECROMANCY - STRONGEST ZOMBIES EVER? 55M+ DPS 7K+ LIFE MAX BLOCK 90% CHAOS RES

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RandomPoe847 wrote:
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Qlidascope wrote:
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RandomPoe847 wrote:
I'm surprised to see that we're not converting damage to cold or fire and using elemental equilibrium.

Wouldn't that be a huge damage increase?

Also, I recently got 1500 strength. How big an increase in damage could I expect if I tried to reach 1800 strength?


Elemental damage convertion does add more damage yes, however it adds alot more buttons that you need to keep pressing, plus we lose the shapers touch gloves.

It depends on how many zombies you have, if you have 18 its 1/18th % more damage you get, if you have 16, its 1/16th.. So if you have alot of zombies already you won't gain alot from gaining another.


How is it more buttons? We can just get lightning damage on cyclone.


Frostbomb, Ele weakness curse etc. I've been over it before ^^
The number of buttons aside, ST is simply too powerful to replace for mere damage. To maximize elemental you need additional offensive gems. We would save 2-4 (Banner, Generosity if used, Maim, and F&S if used), but anything more than that would come at a further defensive cost. The concept has been visited several times in the past, and I doubt we’ll end up there again unless expansion changes makes it much more worthwhile. We are already straining this build with several goodies that will not fit and require you to pick and choose.
I've just reached 1600th depth in delve with slightly modified version of this build and I think that I'm done with this league, so I've decided to share some thoughts about deep delving on necro. It is possible to go deeper (1700-1800 should be doable with enough patience), but I like round numbers and I'm very tired of this beta with poor performance, so I'll take a break from poe. Also that ladder doesn't make any sense when you can dig on those 1 hp archers/miners and then just run one easy node on your necro.

Differences in build with some explanations
Core items:


If you want to go deep, then soul ripper flask and 21/23 vaal molten shell should be your first purchases. This combination really helps (the soul ripper flask makes vms uptime permanent after initial ramp-up).

Because damage output is not really a problem with this build I've sacrificed some of it in order to make delving more comfortable. Because pride, flesh and stone and skitterbots aren't very useful against packs due to their small radii, I've replaced them by purity of fire, cold and lightning. My idea is to run lvl 23 purities with at least 40% aura effect which increases all elemental resistances for you and your minions by 7% (28-30% less elemental damage taken) and get immunity to ailments via Watcher's Eye. Damage penetration mod is annoying, of course, but extra resistances help with it anyway. In order to get level 23 auras you need cheap gloves with +2 to level of socketed aura/aoe gems corruption and 21/23 auras which are very cheap also. For 40% increased aura effect I've anointed Influence and grabbed Champion of the Cause cluster on the passive tree.

For Watcher's Eye the most important mod is the shock immunity while affected by purity of lightning and the second mod is percentage of physical damage taken as element. I was very lucky and found one with third useful mod (ignite immunity), so I have immunity to all elemental ailments. Ignite immunity is not very important because Soul of Abberath still is the most useful minor god (immunity to burning ground and 5% reduced fire damage taken while moving), so another phys as elemental mod may be better, but it helps anyway. You can also incorporate clarity for the extra es, but in my opinion it won't make you much safer.

Incoming physical damage is not very scary in delve for the most part and I've found that using taste of hate + watcher's eye + purities + vms is enough to mitigate it. The main problem in delve that mods scale all base damage, even the chaos one (that's one of the reasons why fungal caverns are so annoying with mods), so in areas with elemental mods using another layer of physical mitigation (endurance charges, for example) won't help you anyway.

Another change from the original build is the loss of AG. I've lost him around 850 depth (I was running standard build version at that time) and decided to continue playing without it. It is possible to buy new AG gear every day with the amount of profit you can make in delve, but I hate wasting currency, so after some experiments I've settled with this setup in the helmet

It works well, but sometimes you have to replace died specters (those Apes have the same life as AG with minion life gem, so that also one of the reasons why I removed it from my build). I use maim in cyclone as 6th link, because infused channeling is just a waste of a socket in my opinion and maim helps with dps on those tough rares (some of them have way more life than lv8 Awakener)

In order to make zombies almost immortal, I've replaced minion damage by meat shield in the weapon, grabbed Indomitable Army and Grave Intentions clusters on the passive tree.

The hardest thing was to line up all elemental resistances for the Wise Oak flask, but it is another 10% reduced elemental damage taken. With the last upgrades I've also managed to get capped chaos res (with Arakaali's pantheon). It helps with fungal caverns without extra mods. Fungal caverns at 1600 without mods are easier than other zones with multiple damage mods, in fact.

In the end I've lost over half of my original dps, but it works very well in delve (the damage is still good enough) and before 1400 it was very comfortable. For bosses you can have other pair of gloves with dps auras because you have to avoid all of their abilities anyway and your minions shouldn't die there.

Gear summary and POB



POB: https://pastebin.com/fCkKfVtP
P.S. use LocalIdentity's fork if you want to see actual numbers

Delve mods and encounters

You can do almost any encounters without any problems. The only exceptions are Beyond with hard mods and high mob density or long encounters, Harbingers with onslaught (way too laggy because servers and client just can't handle this with big pack sizes, beyond also almost unplayable) and fungal caverns with multiple damage mods and long/hard encounters. Also Dusty Grove encounters with multiple mods are a bit problematic (but you can mitigate some damage with pantheons or use frost wall for this encounter). Damage penetration with other elemental mods are hard, but most encounters are doable (but oneshots happen sometimes).

Azurite encounters are very easy with almost any mod combinations. Rogues aren't that hard usually (just focus an archer asap, vaal RoA is very annoying and she deals insane amount of damage). Cities might be hard with multiple damage mods, but they aren't that profitable nowadays anyway. Rare fossil encounters almost always are doable. Devourers with mods are annoying, but doable (just run in circles and do not get hit...)

Last edited by DocRoberts on Feb 22, 2020, 8:09:24 AM
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DocRoberts wrote:
I've just reached 1600th depth in delve with slightly modified version of this build and I think that I'm done with this league, so I've decided to share some thoughts about deep delving on necro. It is possible to go deeper (1700-1800 should be doable with enough patience), but I like round numbers and I'm very tired of this beta with poor performance, so I'll take a break from poe. Also that ladder doesn't make any sense when you can dig on those 1 hp archers/miners and then just run one easy node on your necro.

Differences in build with some explanations
Core items:


If you want to go deep, then soul ripper flask and 21/23 vaal molten shell should be your first purchases. This combination really helps (the soul ripper flask makes vms uptime permanent after initial ramp-up).

Because damage output is not really a problem with this build I've sacrificed some of it in order to make delving more comfortable. Because pride, flesh and stone and skitterbots aren't very useful against packs due to their small radii, I've replaced them by purity of fire, cold and lightning. My idea is to run lvl 23 purities with at least 40% aura effect which increases all elemental resistances for you and your minions by 7% (28-30% less elemental damage taken) and get immunity to ailments via Watcher's Eye. Damage penetration mod is annoying, of course, but extra resistances help with it anyway. In order to get level 23 auras you need cheap gloves with +2 to level of socketed aura/aoe gems corruption and 21/23 auras which are very cheap also. For 40% increased aura effect I've anointed Influence and grabbed Champion of the Cause cluster on the passive tree.

For Watcher's Eye the most important mod is the shock immunity while affected by purity of lightning and the second mod is percentage of physical damage taken as element. I was very lucky and found one with third useful mod (ignite immunity), so I have immunity to all elemental ailments. Ignite immunity is not very important because Soul of Abberath still is the most useful minor god (immunity to burning ground and 5% reduced fire damage taken while moving), so another phys as elemental mod may be better, but it helps anyway. You can also incorporate clarity for the extra es, but in my opinion it won't make you much safer.

Incoming physical damage is not very scary in delve for the most part and I've found that using taste of hate + watcher's eye + purities + vms is enough to mitigate it. The main problem in delve that mods scale all base damage, even the chaos one (that's one of the reasons why fungal caverns are so annoying with mods), so in areas with elemental mods using another layer of physical mitigation (endurance charges, for example) won't help you anyway.

Another change from the original build is the loss of AG. I've lost him around 850 depth (I was running standard build version at that time) and decided to continue playing without it. It is possible to buy new AG gear every day with the amount of profit you can make in delve, but I hate wasting currency, so after some experiments I've settled with this setup in the helmet

It works well, but sometimes you have to replace died specters (those Apes have the same life as AG with minion life gem, so that also one of the reasons why I removed it from my build). I use maim in cyclone as 6th link, because infused channeling is just a waste of a socket in my opinion and maim helps with dps on those tough rares (some of them have way more life than lv8 Awakener)

In order to make zombies almost immortal, I've replaced minion damage by meat shield in the weapon, grabbed Indomitable Army and Grave Intentions clusters on the passive tree.

The hardest thing was to line up all elemental resistances for the Wise Oak flask, but it is another 10% reduced elemental damage taken. With the last upgrades I've also managed to get capped chaos res (with Arakaali's pantheon). It helps with fungal caverns without extra mods. Fungal caverns at 1600 without mods are easier than other zones with multiple damage mods, in fact.

In the end I've lost over half of my original dps, but it works very well in delve (the damage is still good enough) and before 1400 it was very comfortable. For bosses you can have other pair of gloves with dps auras because you have to avoid all of their abilities anyway and your minions shouldn't die there.

Gear summary and POB



POB: https://pastebin.com/fCkKfVtP
P.S. use LocalIdentity's fork if you want to see actual numbers

Delve mods and encounters

You can do almost any encounters without any problems. The only exceptions are Beyond with hard mods and high mob density or long encounters, Harbingers with onslaught (way too laggy because servers and client just can't handle this with big pack sizes, beyond also almost unplayable) and fungal caverns with multiple damage mods and long/hard encounters. Also Dusty Grove encounters with multiple mods are a bit problematic (but you can mitigate some damage with pantheons or use frost wall for this encounter). Damage penetration with other elemental mods are hard, but most encounters are doable (but oneshots happen sometimes).

Azurite encounters are very easy with almost any mod combinations. Rogues aren't that hard usually (just focus an archer asap, vaal RoA is very annoying and she deals insane amount of damage). Cities might be hard with multiple damage mods, but they aren't that profitable nowadays anyway. Rare fossil encounters almost always are doable. Devourers with mods are annoying, but doable (just run in circles and do not get hit...)



I am hoping this will help me delve further. Lots of useful info in here.
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DocRoberts wrote:
If you want to go deep, then soul ripper flask and 21/23 vaal molten shell should be your first purchases. This combination really helps (the soul ripper flask makes vms uptime permanent after initial ramp-up).


I’m starting to think this combination should really be core to almost any armour-based build. There’s nothing that can compare defensively with it, especially since it stacks with Bone Armour. It’s certainly easy enough in Delve to maintain, but how well do you see it in maps? If my math is correct, you should have ~12 seconds after the flask expires to refill 60 charges before VMS wears off assuming max duration. I’m also assuming it’s ideal to stack armour pretty heavily in order to maximize the buff amount. 50,000 armour is a pretty high cap.

I don’t expect to ever get anywhere close to 1600 depth unless I invest a few seasons in only playing standard, but I will be focusing on this combination in 3.10. I wa s early immortal in 3.9, but every once in awhile I had a wtf moment when some slam crit and one shot me.
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Aldonés wrote:
Spoiler
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DocRoberts wrote:
If you want to go deep, then soul ripper flask and 21/23 vaal molten shell should be your first purchases. This combination really helps (the soul ripper flask makes vms uptime permanent after initial ramp-up).


I’m starting to think this combination should really be core to almost any armour-based build. There’s nothing that can compare defensively with it, especially since it stacks with Bone Armour. It’s certainly easy enough in Delve to maintain, but how well do you see it in maps? If my math is correct, you should have ~12 seconds after the flask expires to refill 60 charges before VMS wears off assuming max duration. I’m also assuming it’s ideal to stack armour pretty heavily in order to maximize the buff amount. 50,000 armour is a pretty high cap.

I don’t expect to ever get anywhere close to 1600 depth unless I invest a few seasons in only playing standard, but I will be focusing on this combination in 3.10. I wa s early immortal in 3.9, but every once in awhile I had a wtf moment when some slam crit and one shot me.
In my experience you don't really need more than 12k shield from vms, it's better to add increased duration or enhance in link in my opinion. If you can get more armour somehow (on a belt, for example), then it will be a bit safer, of course, but I wouldn't focus on stacking armour, because you have to sacrifice life or damage for it. As for maps, the only possible scenario where you might need vms is running juiced t19 maps with 8 mods, sextants, prophecies, double beyond, etc. But you still will die in lags on those maps no matter what. I never died in maps, but I ran simple 8 mod / unid t16 with scarabs for sulphite and Conquerors/Awakener when they were ready. After deep delves maps are so easy, it almost impossible to die here with 84/83/83/54 resistances and 11.5k hp+es. For maps I replace the Wise Oak by silver flask with curse immunity and that's it (for no regen map replace taste of hate/soul ripper by mana flask). Despite I have less than half of my original dps, I haven't noticed significant loss in clear speed on those maps.
Last edited by DocRoberts on Feb 23, 2020, 5:36:09 AM
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DocRoberts wrote:
In my experience you don't really need more than 12k shield from vms, it's better to add increased duration or enhance in link in my opinion. If you can get more armour somehow (on a belt, for example), then it will be a bit safer, of course, but I wouldn't focus on stacking armour, because you have to sacrifice life or damage for it. As for maps, the only possible scenario where you might need vms is running juiced t19 maps with 8 mods, sextants, prophecies, double beyond, etc. But you still will die in lags on those maps no matter what. I never died in maps, but I ran simple 8 mod / unid t16 with scarabs for sulphite and Conquerors/Awakener when they were ready. After deep delves maps are so easy, it almost impossible to die here with 84/83/83/54 resistances and 11.5k hp+es. For maps I replace the Wise Oak by silver flask with curse immunity and that's it (for no regen map replace taste of hate/soul ripper by mana flask). Despite I have less than half of my original dps, I haven't noticed significant loss in clear speed on those maps.
It’s a play style I never really explored in 3.8, and my ~50 hours in Metamorph hasn’t let me try anything new in 3.9. In general I was foolishly opposed to any mods with physical resistance taken as elemental damage due to reaching 90% physical damage reduction with armour on PoB. I shot myself in the foot with that one because it dropped down to 30-35% if I were to calculate for a Shaper Slam, oops...nothing but the big hits worried me to begin with, and ACWC makes the ES recovery even better. Plus, armour becomes more effective once you convert a significant portion of the physical damage. I agree with your overall assessment though, at a certain point more dps becomes superfluous and more defense is all that really matters in the one in a thousand chance it keeps you from dying.
"
DocRoberts wrote:
I've just reached 1600th depth in delve with slightly modified version of this build and I think that I'm done with this league, so I've decided to share some thoughts about deep delving on necro. It is possible to go deeper (1700-1800 should be doable with enough patience), but I like round numbers and I'm very tired of this beta with poor performance, so I'll take a break from poe. Also that ladder doesn't make any sense when you can dig on those 1 hp archers/miners and then just run one easy node on your necro.

Differences in build with some explanations
Core items:


If you want to go deep, then soul ripper flask and 21/23 vaal molten shell should be your first purchases. This combination really helps (the soul ripper flask makes vms uptime permanent after initial ramp-up).

Because damage output is not really a problem with this build I've sacrificed some of it in order to make delving more comfortable. Because pride, flesh and stone and skitterbots aren't very useful against packs due to their small radii, I've replaced them by purity of fire, cold and lightning. My idea is to run lvl 23 purities with at least 40% aura effect which increases all elemental resistances for you and your minions by 7% (28-30% less elemental damage taken) and get immunity to ailments via Watcher's Eye. Damage penetration mod is annoying, of course, but extra resistances help with it anyway. In order to get level 23 auras you need cheap gloves with +2 to level of socketed aura/aoe gems corruption and 21/23 auras which are very cheap also. For 40% increased aura effect I've anointed Influence and grabbed Champion of the Cause cluster on the passive tree.

For Watcher's Eye the most important mod is the shock immunity while affected by purity of lightning and the second mod is percentage of physical damage taken as element. I was very lucky and found one with third useful mod (ignite immunity), so I have immunity to all elemental ailments. Ignite immunity is not very important because Soul of Abberath still is the most useful minor god (immunity to burning ground and 5% reduced fire damage taken while moving), so another phys as elemental mod may be better, but it helps anyway. You can also incorporate clarity for the extra es, but in my opinion it won't make you much safer.

Incoming physical damage is not very scary in delve for the most part and I've found that using taste of hate + watcher's eye + purities + vms is enough to mitigate it. The main problem in delve that mods scale all base damage, even the chaos one (that's one of the reasons why fungal caverns are so annoying with mods), so in areas with elemental mods using another layer of physical mitigation (endurance charges, for example) won't help you anyway.

Another change from the original build is the loss of AG. I've lost him around 850 depth (I was running standard build version at that time) and decided to continue playing without it. It is possible to buy new AG gear every day with the amount of profit you can make in delve, but I hate wasting currency, so after some experiments I've settled with this setup in the helmet

It works well, but sometimes you have to replace died specters (those Apes have the same life as AG with minion life gem, so that also one of the reasons why I removed it from my build). I use maim in cyclone as 6th link, because infused channeling is just a waste of a socket in my opinion and maim helps with dps on those tough rares (some of them have way more life than lv8 Awakener)

In order to make zombies almost immortal, I've replaced minion damage by meat shield in the weapon, grabbed Indomitable Army and Grave Intentions clusters on the passive tree.

The hardest thing was to line up all elemental resistances for the Wise Oak flask, but it is another 10% reduced elemental damage taken. With the last upgrades I've also managed to get capped chaos res (with Arakaali's pantheon). It helps with fungal caverns without extra mods. Fungal caverns at 1600 without mods are easier than other zones with multiple damage mods, in fact.

In the end I've lost over half of my original dps, but it works very well in delve (the damage is still good enough) and before 1400 it was very comfortable. For bosses you can have other pair of gloves with dps auras because you have to avoid all of their abilities anyway and your minions shouldn't die there.

Gear summary and POB



POB: https://pastebin.com/fCkKfVtP
P.S. use LocalIdentity's fork if you want to see actual numbers

Delve mods and encounters

You can do almost any encounters without any problems. The only exceptions are Beyond with hard mods and high mob density or long encounters, Harbingers with onslaught (way too laggy because servers and client just can't handle this with big pack sizes, beyond also almost unplayable) and fungal caverns with multiple damage mods and long/hard encounters. Also Dusty Grove encounters with multiple mods are a bit problematic (but you can mitigate some damage with pantheons or use frost wall for this encounter). Damage penetration with other elemental mods are hard, but most encounters are doable (but oneshots happen sometimes).

Azurite encounters are very easy with almost any mod combinations. Rogues aren't that hard usually (just focus an archer asap, vaal RoA is very annoying and she deals insane amount of damage). Cities might be hard with multiple damage mods, but they aren't that profitable nowadays anyway. Rare fossil encounters almost always are doable. Devourers with mods are annoying, but doable (just run in circles and do not get hit...)



Nice post but come on, triple purity setup?
I never played like this only on raider herald of agony i was using 2 purity.
AG is too good to loose if you ask me and going for minion dmg/minion life hubris is better.
Your setup is really tanky for yourself but for me when i was pushing to 1500 problem was how to keep zombies alive to kill mobs faster:). I think that t3 azurite with dmg nodes or phys mitigation and x3 chain are not so easy doable:).
I dont know how you do some delve nodes with soo much dmg lost. For example phys reduction + life on mobs with your dmg can take forever.
I am curious how much life zombies have in your setup? (i was close to 100k) and i didnt lost AG once i got minion life hubris.

Anyway gz for 1600 and good luck on next league. Just ignore those slackers with 1hp who do shit like this (i hope ggg will destroy 1hp builds and we will see after that)
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nazgul29 wrote:
Nice post but come on, triple purity setup?
I never played like this only on raider herald of agony i was using 2 purity.
AG is too good to loose if you ask me and going for minion dmg/minion life hubris is better.
Your setup is really tanky for yourself but for me when i was pushing to 1500 problem was how to keep zombies alive to kill mobs faster:). I think that t3 azurite with dmg nodes or phys mitigation and x3 chain are not so easy doable:).
I dont know how you do some delve nodes with soo much dmg lost. For example phys reduction + life on mobs with your dmg can take forever.
I am curious how much life zombies have in your setup? (i was close to 100k) and i didnt lost AG once i got minion life hubris.
The thing is, as long as your minions can survive, their damage is not very important. And t3 azurite is one of the easiest encounters with my setup. Only combination with beyond or too many damage mods with penetration is impossible.

Do not underestimate damage mitigation for minions in my setup. Auras reduce elemental damage taken by minions by 28%, add to this meat shield in the zombie link (26% less damage taken and 5% additional physical damage reduction) and taunt (another 10% reduced damage taken), also all recovery mechanics work much better and zombies can die only in fungal caverns or to beyond bosses or in areas with too many damage mods and penetration.

I do not use AG because I don't have sockets for him mainly. I have to remove maim or feeding frenzy for him which is not worth it (Culling strike will work only on Rares, extra movement speed doesn't change anything, helmet and crit multi will add a bit of damage, but the difference is not that big, but as I said before it is possible to use him and you can lose him every day, because at that point money are not an issue anyway). And I still have decent damage (loss of damage auras not that big in practice, because they have very small radius and you have to constantly moving in order to not die, so they were doing nothing half the time anyway), so encounters do not "take forever" to finish. I'm sure that it is possible to do another 100-200 levels, because zombies aren't dying yet.
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DocRoberts wrote:
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nazgul29 wrote:
Nice post but come on, triple purity setup?
I never played like this only on raider herald of agony i was using 2 purity.
AG is too good to loose if you ask me and going for minion dmg/minion life hubris is better.
Your setup is really tanky for yourself but for me when i was pushing to 1500 problem was how to keep zombies alive to kill mobs faster:). I think that t3 azurite with dmg nodes or phys mitigation and x3 chain are not so easy doable:).
I dont know how you do some delve nodes with soo much dmg lost. For example phys reduction + life on mobs with your dmg can take forever.
I am curious how much life zombies have in your setup? (i was close to 100k) and i didnt lost AG once i got minion life hubris.
The thing is, as long as your minions can survive, their damage is not very important. And t3 azurite is one of the easiest encounters with my setup. Only combination with beyond or too many damage mods with penetration is impossible.

Do not underestimate damage mitigation for minions in my setup. Auras reduce elemental damage taken by minions by 28%, add to this meat shield in the zombie link (26% less damage taken and 5% additional physical damage reduction) and taunt (another 10% reduced damage taken), also all recovery mechanics work much better and zombies can die only in fungal caverns or to beyond bosses or in areas with too many damage mods and penetration.

I do not use AG because I don't have sockets for him mainly. I have to remove maim or feeding frenzy for him which is not worth it (Culling strike will work only on Rares, extra movement speed doesn't change anything, helmet and crit multi will add a bit of damage, but the difference is not that big, but as I said before it is possible to use him and you can lose him every day, because at that point money are not an issue anyway). And I still have decent damage (loss of damage auras not that big in practice, because they have very small radius and you have to constantly moving in order to not die, so they were doing nothing half the time anyway), so encounters do not "take forever" to finish. I'm sure that it is possible to do another 100-200 levels, because zombies aren't dying yet.

I dont say is wrong setup but until i try it i cant say:). If you still want to push i can give you my weapon and my hubris, you can return both when league ends. I noticed you played with maim in cyclone link so my weapon with resolute tehn+fortify can help you.

One of the reasaon i love this build is because you can do soo many iterations:) and still performing very good. I use too meat shield on some nodes, on other nodes i wanted feeding frenzy on zombies. I still dont agree with chaos resist cap items (i played jugg cyclone with claw and insane dmg reduction chaos capped before fortify nerf and on fungal i was still one shot by damn zombos:))

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