Animate Weapon Build with EB/MoM/ZO + Atziri Video

Update for Ascendancy:
I'd probably do this build now as a Dualist/Champion (passive tree, Fortitude, Inspirational) or Witch/Necromancer (passive tree, Mistress of Sacrifice, Spirit Eater, Commander of Darkness).

Original Post:
This is an Animate Weapon (AW) build using Victario's Influence and EB/MoM/ZO to deal with the huge burst mana cost of the skill. I designed this setup to be very cheap and easy to put together. It can do Atziri, pretty much any map mod except Blood Magic, and is good in parties. I made this with SC in mind, so if you want to try this in HC you'll probably want to make some changes to shore up its defenses. Check out the videos below to get an idea of what it is like to play.

Videos:
Animate Weapon vs. Atziri
Animate Weapon vs. Map Bosses (Compilation)
Animate Weapon vs. Atziri (Boss Fight Compilation)

Passive Tree
Character profile 'Telekinetics' has current gear, jewels, passives

General Idea:
I borrowed a lot of ideas from Uber's Elemental Animator. Animated weapons deal a fairly small amount of physical damage on their own, but have extremely high damage effectiveness and good attack speed, so most of the damage comes from flat elemental auras (Anger and Wrath) and is further enhanced by weakening monsters to fire and lightning damage with Elemental Equilibrium and Elemental Weakness. Optional bits: I use an Animated Guardian composed with a Dying Breath, Leer Cast, and Zahndethus' Cassock. I sometimes also use spectres of the Frenzy Monkeys from the Old Fields to give the weapons frenzy charges. I bogarted that idea from my friend Peppr, so credit to him.

Caveats:
This build can struggle solo when you have no weapons to animate. It really scales well with a party however, so find a buddy (or two) who benefit from your auras that can carry you through the dry spells. It also forces you into clearing maps with a minimum of backtracking and vendor trips. Once you get it going though, its very strong!













Thanks for looking and hope you have fun with AW!
Feel free to whisper me in game @nrdy or comment here

wow nice dude, will inspire from this :)

Good stuff, nice videos. TY for posting! :)

Great build ialso dont like srs)

How can you be using Wrath, Anger, and Hatred at the same time? That is 150% mana reserved and I only count 34% reduced mana reserved: 20% from chest and 14% from passives.

Just do the Math...^^

150%*0.66=99%

I play an Animate Build myself and i am halfway to level 98 and im pretty sure i get 100 with this. In parties it's a bit stressfull to watch at your mates (at High level and Gear, pretty much the only thing what kills us are Stormbearer Type Bloodline mods) so Gluttony of Elements is crucial for Party survival. I rescued many, many asses and XP with this. The most OP skill in the Game. But you have to get your weapons going at the same time AND watch for yourself. But it's fun to play :)

EB/ZO/MOM is too squishy for me, also taking high damage result in no Mana which can be deadly.
I am Runnung 7,8k HP with a +1 Bloodmagic Staff and basically 7 linked Weapons.

Much more Expensive and Safer (in my opinion) and more Damage. But less sockets for stuff like Desecrate and Curse on hit.


If your group kills fast, they basically clear even faster, because Vaal Haste has pretty much 99% uptime then.

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Nurbel wrote:

EB/ZO/MOM is too squishy for me, also taking high damage result in no Mana which can be deadly. I am Runnung 7,8k HP with a +1 Bloodmagic Staff and basically 7 linked Weapons.

I checked out your character and it looks like a good setup. But more something you would to transition to at high level after you have a L7 Vagan. I based my character around Victario's because it seemed like a cool chest that few were using so I knew it'd be easy to trade for. Pretty sure my tree could be tweaked to get about the same effective HP (I went overboard on Minion Life, because Flashback was rough as hell on them). Yours would still have the advantage of the life regen as defense and extra links on AW. It looks like you need both a L4 and L3 enlighten though right? What did you do before you had those?

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nrdy wrote:

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Nurbel wrote:

...

I checked out your character and it looks like a good setup. But more something you would to transition to at high level after you have a L7 Vagan. I based my character around Victario's because it seemed like a cool chest that few were using so I knew it'd be easy to trade for. Pretty sure my tree could be tweaked to get about the same effective HP (I went overboard on Minion Life, because Flashback was rough as hell on them). Yours would still have the advantage of the life regen as defense and extra links on AW. It looks like you need both a L4 and L3 enlighten though right? What did you do before you had those?

Hi,

i didn't like the fact that 1-2 hits can drain your ES pretty fast. I played with Victario's before and its was okay'ish in Tier 13+ Maps. But then i came up with the Staff idea and it worken BUT, with Multistrike instead of Added Lightning in my 6L setup, one Weapon eats up 650+Life. That is hard to sustain with 5k (ish) Life and ~4% regen, that was the big Point why i went Full Life.

You don't need a lvl 4 enlighten, but you have to spent 9 points to get the Aura Nodes right hand the Scion ES wheel. I wanted to drop this to get more Life and Damage, but it is not that big of a Deal. You need 2 level 4 Enlighten or 1 and the Quest Reward jewel with the -2 mana reservation to get this going.

I also did an Uber run with this Char. Double Vaal and Trio was a joke, but Uber is hard to do. One Flameblast kills all Weapons and she casts pretty fast so that you can not take her into and out of her Phases that quickly, that one Convocation can fix that. I only used 3 Portals (no Death before) and let her kill from one of my Guildmates. I will do another run with an Purity of Elements Totem (with the Corrupted Jewel, lvl 20 Reduced Mana and a Quality Blood Magic it costs 0 life x)) and take a look if they can Survive at least 1 Blast. I had just one Curse and EE, but now with 2 Curses (Ele Weakness + Warlord's Mark), and better Jewels, i think it is doable. I will test this when i hit 98.

It is a bit annoying to do Uber, you have to save Weapons and Carry them right bfore Atziri. Deathless would be Possible if you log out. But it is not doable in one Run, you need more Portals (i think 4 Portals would be doable) because of the Weapon survivability. The Trash is pretty hard.

I think a very good Option in the Helm slot in your case, is the Uber Helmet. 50% reduced cost would drop the Mana costs to 60ish in the 4l Setup. Maybe with this in mind, you can drop EB, and get a good Hybrid ES/Life pool that can reach, i think ~8k+. But you need to invest in more reservation nodes (and/or high level Enlighten) to free up that needed Mana. 120 ish mana regen per second should be doable (with Clarity on BM), so you can ise a Dying Breath als 6l by yourself or a Chober Chaber (which is pretty good in my opinion for this, because its +1 level and inc Duration and the extra Minion life)

when you do atziri are you using a increase duration gem instead of wed or just use your setting right now?

i think AW gonna out of time during atziri