[1.0.3b] EK Summoner, optional MoM (defiance), cheap, scalable, highly synergetic

With using summons, you want to use certain auras, that are vitality and hatred, these go very well with a life based build and EK, leaving you enough points to get quite high life.

Ethereial Knives (EK) goes perfectly well with Arctic Armor (AA), using Added Fire Damage with EK, your AA will basically absorb all/most of the fire and physical part of your dmg while they still provide leech with the Life Leech gem.

Using Eldritch Battery (EB) provides easy mana to start with, and enables you to use Cloak of Defiance for 40% MoM to become even more tanky.
This is especially good as it reduces elemental and chaos dmg on you as well, something that Armor wont do for you.

Dual curses provides easymode for most bosses, and can be used to make hard maps easy, or to provide significant dps increase in group play on easier maps.

As specters, I prefer Undying Evangelists, their shield provides defence for you and your group, and can make some really hard bosses deal no dmg at all.
Every damage that originates from without the shield will deal NO damage to you/groupmates/minions under the shield, meaning, if Dominus is outside of the shield while you are under it, neither of his attacks, not the lightning, nor his totems, not even his "touch of divinity" can deal any damage to you.

Out of all map mods, only half-recovery, no-regen and curse-immune (especially in combination) generate some difficutly, but are managable with the right setup, though depending on your lvl, playerskill and equip, they might make some higher lvl map bosses too hard.
But honestly, there are few builds who can do the really hard bosses with mean map mods and no uber equip. ;)

Most other map mods can be safely ignored, as they mostly wont effect your minions at all, and your meat shield will keep you relatively safe.

Dont forget, that you will probably need certain items/setup for certain bosses.
For example, I do not recommend doing the crematorium map boss without Saffels and purity of fire to start with, though you could be bold and do it with only Evangelists to evade the dmg.

This build already runs great on cheap equip, all you need is enough resists to reach 75%, life, and maybe some spelldmg. Mana can be gained over ES through EB, armor/evasion is not needed at all. (though it helps)

Yet, it can be upgraded with more expensive equip to become really OP and seriously tanky.
Meaningful upgrades include:

- Tabula Rasa: rather cheap at ~1.5 ex, provides 6L specters if used with gem swapping

- Cloak of defiance + high ES shield for 40% MoM

- Mon'tregul's Grasp: insane dps boost, use in offhand and cast 4 big zobies, then switch and cast 4 more normal ones

- Chober Chabber: great for getting more HP on your summons, on zombies too if you dont have Montreguls yet

- Sidhebreath: not to forget this one, its cheap but it helps

- Boots of Ullr: demands much better gear to reach at least 75% resists, but if you can, its great!

- 20% quality Temporal Chains, provides a huge additional slow, very powerful

- 20/20 Zombie gem, great on its own, even more with Mon'tregul's!

Important note:
ALL minions inherit and keep the stats they have when cast, therefore you can safely remove items like Chober Chabber or Sidhebreath after casting, as well as connected support gems, as long as the actual summoning gem stays in its socket, or is put back into it (possibly in a different item) before you leave town.

If you start out brand new, thats ok, you dont need anything that cant be obtained within a few minutes.

As always, going HC, you will want more life nodes earlier, focus even more on life/resists on items, and maybe want to use Purity of Elements early on until you have 75% resists from equip alone.

Important note:
(Especially to newer players.)
Don't ever buy a rip-off, most gems used in this build will be less than 1 chaos orb to purchase, if someone wants more for it, ask someone else!
poe.xyz.is is the way to go!
Notably more expensive gems relevant for this build only are:
- Greater Multiple Projectiles (GMP) and
- Multistrike, which both are not necessary.

101 Point Build
The remaining points can be spend to get:
- Deep Thoughts: For even better MoM, larger mana reserve for no regen maps
- remaining Aura and Minion nodes
- more life
- more spelldamage

Bandit rewards are:
- normal: help oak for 40 life (It's the best choice for most life based builds.)
- cruel: help oak for 18% physical damage (This really counts as the build has not much dmg nodes!)
- merciless: kill all for 1 skillpoint

I still miss Mon'tregul's and Chober Chabber, as well I wont be able to use Sidhebreath without gear to make up for the dex that is on my amulet.

I have about 5000 HP and 2000 mana with the spelldmg shield and no defiance,
and 4750 HP and 3000 mana with the high ES shield and defiance.

Dps with defiance is 3k, with dps gear is 4.2k.

I use mana leech instead of added fire in defiance for now, but might change this if i get deep thoughts.

Mana regen is 300 with MoM gear, and 200 with dps gear.
Life regen is 170 with vitality.

Even with no great items, you already have a decent meatshield, and with your minions and EK enough dps to get everything done pretty fast.

All you need to start is max resists, or at least good resists and some life, your minions will take most of the damage anyway.

Adding more of the expensive stuff will grant you quite awesome dps and tankyness.



I usually start with getting me some Evangelists as specters from the upper scepter of god, though you can take one level lower from the (lower) area much faster if you want to.

With specters and zombies up you just need to spam EK to get through most areas at decent speed.

Skelli totem generates additional meatshield and dps when you need it.
It is as well awesome Vs bosses and tough rares/uniques/rogue exiles.

Curses can be used to either make hard maps easier, or provide dps in groups if you need it.
You basically wont need them in most situations, its no use to cast them when you are solo and everything is gone in 2-3 casts anyway, on the other hand, they proved to be exceptionally powerful against bosses.

If you dont have the mana regen yet to walk whit Arctic Armor on, use Lighting Warp, especially when in combat.
It is a pretty fast and fashionable way to travel anyway.



Hatred provides not only a damage bonus to you, but to your minions as well, Evangelits ground target spell is physical and benefits from hatred, too.
Tentacle Miscreations deal half fire/physical dmg and benefit from hatred at least partly.

Vitality will keep your minions alive, and gives you a much needed boost to regeneration, as this build lacks the regeneration nodes that standard tank builds have.

While dealing fire/ice/physical dmg with EK, your AA will absorb most/all of the fire/phyiscal dmg from reflect, this way you dont even lose leech through it.
As well, through EB and the mana/life passive nodes and some regeneration, you can easily support AA all of the time, at least while not moving or using Lightning Warp instead of walking.



For maps, you might want to avoid "curse immune" in combination with tough bosses and mods that make them faster or harder, everything else is quite easy.
If necessary, stay at range and use your skelli totem to beat them down.

On half-recovery maps, you may want to not use AA when your mana regen is too low, and/or play it a bit more defensive, meaning you make more use of your meat shield, keep skelli totem up and stay in the back.

On no-regen maps, you definately want to not use AA, and maybe not use defiance if you already have it.
Mana leech is a must, and carry some mana flasks (otherwise I dont use any).
Besides that, it is not much harder, just keep in mind that you are a bit less tanky then.

Skelli totem is exceptionally useful on those maps, as it provides very much for the mana spent.

Maps with the combination of no-regen and chaos damage per second might prove to be tricky, but with life leech, flasks and steady movement, it is doable, though not recommended for the inexperienced player.


All other map mods can be mostly ignored as they dont effect your minions.
Even the famous temporal chains map mod can be basically ignore with this build, through Lightning Warp you move at almost normal speed, and only even realize the chains when casting EK, you minions are again not effected by that and will do a great job.
Though again, dont do a combination of hard boss + mods that make them harder if you cant do it yet.