[2.6] Chaos Animate Weapon Necromancer (EHC level 100!)

Did you ever consider running zombies + flesh binder for the additional phys mitigation?

Having so much fun with this build. Thanks so much for putting time on making such a good guide.
Cheers.

nice one

Cloak of Tawm'r Isley is pretty good in a QoL way, not just overkill damage, you don't need to hoard white weapon while clearing map anymore, boss will drop enough blue weapon to start next map, also if you make very detailed magic item(mostly rings) drop rules, you can pick up quite a lot of 1c-3c worth items to build up your bank quite efficiently

I hit a milestone with this build (and in PoE in general) by spending 2ex at the same time to make an animate weapon bow:



Here's the currency burn: https://youtu.be/cCt1ENSy58Q

I actually got it to GGRRBB in about 40 chromes. Didn't realize I needed Tora 7 so getting that next.

Afterward, I noticed you run GGGRBB for Void Manipulation (I didn't know that gem even existed) whereas I'm using Increased Duration. Since it adds about 27 seconds, isn't it like a 73% more multiplier (kind of)? I don't clear as fast as you do and I'm hesitant to chrome my bow anymore since it's possibly 100s to redo. Increased Duration is always pretty fancypants when I swap Melee Spaslh for Spell Totem since it makes the totem last lots longer (for my Atziri runs). We both seem to hotswap Melee Splash and Multstrike so that's the same.

I have some bows in reserve I'm crafting up as well and I was wanting your opinion. I was eyeballing a Reflex Bow for the 4% movespeed. I am thinking item level 72 or 84. 72 could be ideal because you can get 45% resists but there's a ton of damage mods you can't get yet. 84 would be BIS but I think it's harder to roll than 72.

I was able to solo Twinned Dark Forest Rigwald in a 6player game using your Wither stacking method (plus an Aquamarine flask). They were standing right next to each other and were reeeeeally slow from 19/20 temporal chains + curse effectiveness + chill. Later I did 8 mod corrupted single player Rigwald and it was pretty much the same thing.

I got killed over and over by Minotaur but I didn't have my bow yet.

Dank build reserved. After pizza serving everyone. Ty for the stream and build \m/

Do you think it'd be possible to run this build as CI, and if so what changes would you make for the tree?

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Anherus wrote:

Do you think it'd be possible to run this build as CI, and if so what changes would you make for the tree?

Mana cost for animate weapon is quite substantial.

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Anherus wrote:

Do you think it'd be possible to run this build as CI, and if so what changes would you make for the tree?

I have theorized it but it's too much am sacrifice IMO. You have to drop the 3rd curse or drop the Purity aura...OR maybe use Enlighten + a reduced aura reservation helm enchant AND/OR Skyforths.

Somehow you get ~180 mana unreserved, then you still be slow from waiting on mana regen all the time, or you run Spell Totem for Animate Weapon or Vaal Clarity or some such.

Another huge loss is your jewel slots that become Energy From Within lose you the very powerful 16% minion damage 10% minion ele resists.

I use a Catalysed Eternal Life flask of Animation anyway to keep my weapons alive inside Porcupines and such, which becomes mostly a wasted flask that doesn't do anything for my own survivability.

Yeah, basically for CI, you'd probably need to at least drop vuln and maybe even run a mana flask. It's pretty nasty. Not to mention you lose the benefit of life gain on block with bone offering when you need bone offering, which is actually hella nice.

You're also looking at running Vaal Discipline on CI though. We're already super limited on skill slots, maybe not gem sockets but the amount of skills we can have on the bar is limited.

Increased Duration vs Void Manipulation: Both of these double dip in their own way. Void Manipulation is more upfront damage + poison degen per second, Increased Duration is more relaxed and makes the poison last way longer. It's up to you to decide what you like.

Reflex Bow is the best base for an Animator obvoiusly for the movement speed but getting a 6 link on that seems a bit excessive compared to just buying a 6 link I think, dunno

I don't run Zombies + Flesh Binder because whenever Zombies die theres HUGE lag spikes because it updates the stats of every minion you have. This honestly makes things way more risky even with the extra phys mitigation.

With amazing endgame gear I think this could work even better as lowlife, given that you could get well crafted gear with a +1 curse amulet. With lowlife you can easily run discipline, 3 blasphemies, a lvl 20 clarity, and arctic armor and have half your mana unreserved for the huge cost with huge mana regen, or you could run discipline and grace on life and run your clarity on mana leaving you with about 30% of your mana unreserved. With lowlife you have a larger healthpool potentially at endgame, can run more auras for survivability and commander of darkness (which benefits from the curse effectiveness you pick up) would give even more resistance due to extra curse effect. Your blasphemies would have more radius and minions would be receiving auras farther away. You would also have zealots oath plus a couple percent regen from tree giving very reliable regen, which you could bolster with soul strike essence surge if you gave up movespeed on rare quiver.

This is just a very rough skill tree I came up with for the basis of a lowlife build, which you could easily get more jewel slots/regen and es/es recharge/minion damage as you see fit.