Cursed Balls Summoner 1.2.0...now with no balls.

These changes to the build are untested. This is my current theorycrafting on the matter. As I play and try it out for myself I will optimize and improve these changes to the build.

When we pick up http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Cloak_of_Defiance we change our passive tree and auras. This should provide a big boost to survivability late-game but of course requires significant currency. If you can only 5L your CoD, I would drop elemental weakness and tri-curse OR use http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Asenath%27s_Gentle_Touch to apply a level 1 Temporal Chains and keep Enfeeble, Vuln and Ele Weakness socketed in the 5 link.

In addition, we purchase a http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Prism_Guardian. Inside we socket Clarity, Reduced Mana and Flesh Offering. This allows us to run Clarity for a tiny amount of Life, keeping our mana pool as large as possible for CoD.

We drop Vitality as an aura, its nice, but its hardly necessary for our survival or that of our minions (with our big mana pool and high mana regen, summoning zombies during combat if they die is easy).

In 4L, we change to Reduced Mana + Hatred + Purity of Elements + Generosity. This will provide two powerful auras for our minions and allies and easily resist cap them in most situations. You should still be capped at resists with Aurumvorax and Prism Guardian with decent gear. For elemental weakness maps, just unsocket generosity to still be capped on resists.

Passive Tree Modification: http://poeurl.com/yY7ff13

We lose some life, but we gain a ton of aura effectiveness, more mana regen and a larger mana pool. Our survivability is increased thanks to MoM granted from the CoD and as high level Arctic Armour as we can support.

Finally, we level an Empower to level 3 (and in the dream scenario, corrupt it to level 4). This will replace Melee Splash on Zombies. The logic to this change is to make Zombies as tanky as possible while our Spectres deal the real damage. If you wish to prioritize clearspeed over tankiness, replace Minion Life with Empower.

Many people have asked me how I would change the build for leagues where death is not permanent. Here are my ideas, but keep in mind this is untested by me because I don't play these leagues. If you try or experiment with this, please let me know how it works:

1. Swap out Temporal Chains curse for Frostbite. This means you are now using three things to reduce enemy resists to cold: elemental weakness, EE and frostbite allowing your minions to deal massive cold damage via hatred.

2. Modified Rampage Passive tree: http://poeurl.com/yY7fQUF. We drop a lot of life for a ton of aura passives and an extra zombie. This should greatly increase our damage output and allow us to run stronger and more auras. For example, we can use Necromantic Aegis to cap our minions resists, allowing us to run Haste instead of Purity of Elements.

We could go drop more survivability, such as using Queen's Decree or Midnight Bargain, but honestly I feel this is simply dropping too much survivability. Enfeeble is still an important curse to run. Don't drop it. This isn't so much for your survivability, but for your minions. If you're minions die you're no longer doing damage.

We use Necromantic Aegis because our damage is directly dependant on the survival of our minions. There are a wide variety of shields we can use but I think the best possible shield is http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Rathpith_Globe.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Crest_of_Perandus is a powerful and cheap option.

Of course, don't use it if you feel you need the resist or survivability for yourself.

For the wealthy, using http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Vis_Mortis will be the dream for insane damage as all your minions now add 30% of their physical damage as chaos after kill.