[1.1.3] Behold My Army - a CoC Raging Spirits build

This build makes use of Raging Spirits with Cast on Crit to bring out hordes of minions at once. Minion damage is augmented by auras. In between groups, if necessary, a skeletotem and animated weapons provide some measure of protection and extra damage. All minions explode on low life, for that extra kick. As icing on the cake, your own attacks also deal damage, like a mini elemental buzzsaw.

Pros
- Team damage auras. Or defensive auras if your party wants that, I suppose.
- Relatively inexpensive to start up (first character viable) and remains low-budget throughout, but scales well with gear
- Spirits and weapons are not affected by ground effects

Cons
- Solo single-target can kind of suck. Can't handle some invaders and exiles solo.
- Minion-killing AoEs, no surprise there, and especially the chaos DoTs can be a pain.
- Very, very heavy on the GPU!
- Soul Eater nemesis mod wrecks your day. It doesn't distinguish between friendly and unfriendly souls.

No quality gems required. Though some are nice to have, I suppose.

Spectral Throw - GMP - CoC - RS
Reduced Mana - Wrath - Haste - Hatred/Anger (pick one, or replace by Clarity if necessary)
Flesh Offering - Increased Duration - Animate Weapon - [Weapon Elemental Damage]
Summon Skeletons - Spell Totem - Blind
Curse of choice

Anything else is up to player discretion. Try Cast when Damage Taken - Frost Wall - Enduring Cry - Immortal Call, because why not? If you can make zombies, spectres or animated guardian work, more power to you too.

Regarding curses: Projectile Weakness will cause knockback, adding to your survivability, though it doesn't help your minions' damage any. Crit weakness and ele weakness, well you know the drill. TC/enfeeble are staples in any HC setup. No curse at all is fine too.

For additional links, I'd add either LoH or coldsnap depending on gear. Specifically, whether or not I have a Thief's Torment. Coldsnap does freeze even without spell damage or freeze duration, and freezing is good. Elemental proliferation is a very good alternative, as it spreads shock stacks. Increased Duration will obviously help out RS to some extent. Take PCoC if not using a Voll's. If you have a 6L, culling + IIR works, but be careful not to step on your MF buddy's toes!

Feel free to switch auras in and out, of course.

Lower levels of ST cost less mana, but higher levels have better damage effectiveness. This is not so much useful for your own damage - although it helps - but more importantly for any life on hit you gain from it. What level to leave it at is up to your discretion and mana availability.

This character can be built from a Scion start. Shadow and Ranger are also possible, if possibly somewhat less point efficient. There's a lot of competition for points in this build.

Remember, all of the build links are SUGGESTED builds, and you should always seek to tailor a build to your own play style, available gear and acceptable level of risk.

Spec into the usual passives first: HP, crit, IAS. In that order if you're playing HC. Leveling builds will not be provided, because you will only switch to CoC when you have sufficient HP and crit. This is dependent on your play style, available gear and acceptable level of risk. I will say, however, that priority should be given to HP/crit/IAS nodes rather than to aura reservation and aura effect ones.

Your build will probably look something like this if you're in HC at level 80. SC players may choose to take aura effect nodes over some of the smaller HP nodes, like this.

Other notes on keystones and routes:
- Consider picking up +mana nodes, at least enough to cast a skeletotem after 3 auras. This is relevant if you're using a Voll's.
- Minion nodes...are nice, and nearby too. I chose not to take them due to lack of points, as being able to run more auras is better for overall DPS, but they're there if you want them.
- Ditto the duration circle below Scion, it's nice, but in 3ish seconds (RS base duration) the mob is dead anyway. It does boost your single-target damage a little though.
- Conduit is nearby, but the only charges this build gains regularly are power charges. Not really recommended. If you can find a way to reliably gain frenzy charges in a party, I want to hear it.
- I really don't recommend CI, you'll get nuked by lightning thorns due to having no ES return whatsoever.
- EB is just a few points away. Acrobatics is also relatively close by, but close is relative and there's a LOT of points pressure. And you don't really want to take both anyway, so at most one will do.
- You may consider speccing more crit. Enough 15% nodes do add up, and especially if you're using a wand, there are precious few sources of it.

Normal: 40 HP (Oak)
Cruel: 8% IAS or skill point (Kraityn or kill all, respectively)
Merciless: Power Charge (Alira)

When in doubt, just take the skill point. It's fine.

Your weapon options here are claw and dagger. Specifically, you want a rare Tiger's Paw (level 43, 15 LoH implicit) with IAS and crit rolls. Any other damage rolls are a bonus, as is a LoH explicit. This allows you to bypass the otherwise mandatory LoH gem on ST, on a budget.

If you have the ring slots to spare, get a Thief's Torment, which allows far greater survivability as well as negating the need for Clarity. With either this or a LoH linked to ST, you can drop the claw in favour of a dagger.

You probably want to get a Voll's Protector, as it's the easiest way to generate power charges and also does not take up a socket.

Feel free to search for base elemental damage and % increased weapon elemental damage on accessories and uniques. The usual about HP and resists on gear also applies.

Uniques good for the build:
- Ungil's Gauche is absolutely amazing as a leveling weapon. Really. It also has shiny 90% global crit on a pretty decent 6.8% base, which may allow you to go CoC earlier than otherwise expected.
- Berek's Grip
- Wake of Destruction, Thunderfist
- Maligaro's Virtuosity
- Alpha's Howl
- Leer Cast

As always, the list is not exhaustive and common sense is recommended.

Do anything you like as a leveling build. Probably 2h ST. Switch to CoC when you have about 25% crit using an 8% crit weapon, with a Voll's; this is about the minimum crit rate I've found to be reliable for proccing CoC.

Set up auras. Join party or not, your call. Raise a totem if you feel it safer. Spam spirits.

As a rule, you always want to fire into the largest group available, since that'll summon the most spirits. This includes shenanigans like setting a skeletotem to distract a boss while you fire into a pack in the opposite direction. Trust your spirits to go where they'll deal damage, even if you're not attacking the same target.

You aren't really dealing a lot of personal elemental damage, not enough that ele reflect is a problem.

Solo, it may be more reliable to use coldsnap than RS, simply for the safety factor (assuming you don't have a 5L 3-offcolour Voll's), but RS is more fun. For bonus points, wreck your entire party's FPS by using firestorm instead. Fair warning that ele reflect rares may take exception to your doing so.

When did you change to CoC?
I did a major gear overhaul at 61 and started using CoC then, although in hindsight I could've done it earlier if I'd taken more crit nodes rather than aura ones during the leveling process. Subsequent gear additions and passive nodes allowed me to add auras one at a time.

What gear are you using?

How's the build working out for you?
I like it, the clear speed is pretty good, and it doesn't hurt in a party. What else is there to say?

Ripped at 68 due to talking in docks, went off to complete the rest of my A3M quests with little difficulty. Including Dominus. The first group (Imperator, Compulsor and Draconarius) was the hardest. After proving its capability with current gear, I did a gear upgrade with available SC items and started on maps. Maps are easy.

Kiri is a reroll addict with a penchant for big numbers, less popular skills, and building around specific items and playstyles.

Kiri is happy to take PMs and in-game questions, and will stream on request.