[1.3] Malg's burning dead

Hi,
I'm working on a summoner build focused on burning damage via the following mechanics:

1. Minion instability keystone allows scaling by minion damage and minion life
2. Burning damage works best with a large hit of fire damage
3. Minion damage scales both the big fire hit as well as the burning damage afterwards
4. Mon'tregul's Grasp deals 20% of enemy corpse as fire damage in an area of effect
5. Mon'tregul's Grasp also greatly increases zombie life and damage (80-100% damage, +2000 life)
6. Maligaro's Lens weakens minions resist theoretically allowing better use of Minion Instability (it also increases life and area of effect)

I've found that using the 6-link for zombies focused on burning damage works pretty well. When I do that, I don't really want to use Mon'tregul's because the big damage comes from when the zombies die.

Current Skills I'm using:
Helmet: SRS + Spell echo + Concentrated Effect + Melee Slash (get quality!)
Armor: Raise Zombie (get quality!) + Change to Ignite + Increased Burning + Elemental Proliferation + Minion Damage + Fire penetration
Gloves: Arc + Curse on hit (get quality!) + Flammability + Elemental weakness
Boots: Hatred + Anger + Reduced mana + Generosity
Weapon: Summon Skeleton + Spell Totem + Faster Casting
Shield: Desecrate + Trap + Multiple Traps
Ring: Flesh offering

Zombies

Zombies deal burning damage. We use Anger so they can sometimes ignite without exploding, but mostly we want them to explode. The zombies have 4k+ life (tool tip does not show Maligaro's lens bonus), and explode for 1k+ damage. This kills trash quickly when they explode.

For things that will kill the zombies too fast, I use a weapon switch that has Mon'tregul's Grasp and Chernobog's Pillar. Mon'Tregul's makes the zombies harder to kill through resists and +2000 life. Chernobog's converts 25% of physical to fire, which will allow the zombies to ignite trash with their normal attacks. The infernal blow effect can ignite based on the exploded monster's life. We can do similar with an added fire support gem, but then we lose a Minion Instability support, so I thought Chernobog's pillar was better. Sometimes it casts enfeeble too. The weapon switch is great vs some rogue exiles and some bosses. Also, it is useful when running a map without a lot of elemental damage.



SRS

These used to have a larger role in the build. Right now they are just for some extra dps. We could run the standard SRS + Melee Splash + Multistrike + Spell Echo. That would be fine, but it does not enhance Minion Instability. Concentrated effect works with Melee Splash for normal attacks and also for the Minion Instability explosion, plus it is a More multiplier. SRS do pretty well with our fire oriented curse setup as well.

Curses
Any of the following curses scales damage:
- flammability (provides more ignite chance)
- elemental weakness
- vulnerability (physical damage and burn damage)
- temporal chains (increases burn time)

My tree gets double curse. I'm considering getting Windscream boots to run triple curse with Asenath's gentle touch gloves. Alternatively a glove with temporal chains, elemental weakness or vulnerability corruption would be good. Getting Asenath's glove corrupted with a different curse allows triple curse and another elemental proliferation on Arc. Then you can take some shock chance on the tree and proliferate with Arc (also want quality for that).

Misc Skills
Desecrate with trap supports spits out nine corpses at a time, enough to replenish our entire army. You will need it. Flesh offering anything left over. This is a big quality of life improvement over plain desecrate.

Devouring totem is something I want to try out once I find a nice unset ring for it.

Equipment
You only need the following:
- Maligaro's Lens (cheap, I got a near perfect one for 1 fusing)

Also useful:
- Mon'tregul's Grasp (couple of chaos. you want a low zombie resist one)
- Chernobog's Pillar (1 fusing, stats don't matter at all)

Maybe useful:
Infernal Mantle for +1 fire gems (rest isn't too useful). A corrupted +1 fire +1 all gems could be pretty sweet.
Soul Mantle for spell totem support. (50% less modifier is pretty harsh, but I think it only effects the damage, not health value of summons).

I want to test out using a triple curse setup to see if it worthwhile. Using Windscream, or Doedre's Damning (or a corrupted amulet).

You can also run Bones of Ullr and a chest with the +1 zombie master craft.

My current Equipment


Weapon switch


Passives
Minion Instability
Necro Aegis
Elemental Equilibrium
Eltrich Battery (for now, will probably swap out once I can get better mana regen gear)
Whispers of Doom (dual curse)



The tree is similar to most minion focused builds.

If you have a double curse on hit glove, you can run Arc + Curse on Hit + Curse + elemental proliferation and get some change to shock on the tree (near Eldritch Battery and templar start).

Bandits
Oak for hp, kill for skill, kill for skill

Thanks for reading. This is a work-in-progress, so any suggestions are welcome.

switched to more zombie focused build.