Animate weapon build [HC and SC]

So after playing with animate weapon build for long time now, I want to make a guide about it. This is my first guide on forum so any feedback is welcome.

Some pros and cons about animate weapon

Pros
-Fun build (at least for me)
-Good clear speed
-Fairly cheap

Cons
-Aoe boss is bad for your weapon.
-Your weapon have duration so you need to run around fast and sometime careless.
-Playing solo with low quantity affect your weapon drop too.

Leveling

-So I play with ele buzzsaw till level 90 and then respec to animate weapon, so you can level with ele buzzsaw or other leveling build you like. The lack of quantity when leveling may prevent you to leveling with animate weapon.

Skill tree

Level 90 tree



-Bandit :Oak-kill all-kill all
-You can see that I take a lot of life node because I play in Invasion, other animate guide out there they go with evasion or get iron reflexe, you can do that too, but I always prefer more life than armor for summoner.
-The 3 duration node is mandatory for animate weapon. TAKE IT
-After level 90, you can take those minion life node on the right or take mana geyser.
-Your damage is from aura so take those node first then life then minion node.
-Elritch battery is mandatory if you want a large army, I will explain later
-Elemental equilibrium is not mandatory, but I like to take it.

Gear, gem and other note.

So this is my gear :


-The expensive one is alpha howl and the 6 link, you can play without alpha howl and 4 link just fine, other gear just have some life res, notice that the gloves have some dex so you can drop dex node on tree.
-Try to get mana regen and mana on gear, it will help a lot.

Gem choice:

With 4l your link is : animate weapon- increase duration-melee splash- multistrike
With 5l your link is : add faster attack
With 6l your link is : add minion damage

-Your aura will be Wrath-Anger-Haste in alpha howl, clarity in other slot
-You can run arctic armor if you have mana regen on gear, but I find it not really necessary.
-CWDT set up is same for summoner, I got enduring cry link with immortal call and cwdt.
-Flesh offering for faster clear speed.
-Convocation is mandatory, when you summon your weapon they have some wake up time, and sometimes they stand there doing nothing so convocation will help a lot for postioning

-You can see that other build suggest weapon elemental damage gem, but when I ask Rory on forum he confirm that the gem and the node on tree won't affect animate weapon so minion damage gem is your best bet.
-About color of your gear, just buy hybrid chest ar/es to make your life easier, I bought the ev/es because no other 6l chest list on xyz and spend 800 chromes to have that color :*( .
-Try to get quality animate weapon and increase duration, a 20/20 increase duration give your minion 82,13 life span, so it really good.
-With 6l, your animate weapon cost 319 mana per cast, that is the reason why I take elritch battery. I have 616 mana after reserve, so I can raise 2 weapon at same time before run out of mana.
- You can see I use animate guardian in the boot gem slot, but it not necessary, you can use zombie, raging spirit or spectre.

Animate guardian
-So I try this skill, fun skill but still lack something, some combo I want to share after try it:
+Dying breath with leer cast: double damage aura for your minion and party member, downside is your guardian really easy to die.
+Oro sacrifice with blood dance: Good damage when you first enter the map, because you have haste and flesh offering your guardian attack really fast, I try conduit gloves with guardian but it not working so don't do that.

Raging spirit:

-Since introduction of echo, it help a lot for self cast spirit now, I start to use it as some damage at the start of the map, and their damage is good too.
-I got 2 new unset ring so now I can link vaal grace with inc duration and it help a lot with aoe boss, even they nerf 15% of vaal grace but you still have 60/59 block with all aura node.

Play style:
-I normally get some white weapon in vendor or farm city of sarn before going to maps.Or you can have zombie or spectre to kill first few packs.
-I suggest play this build with another player, work well with increase quantity and he can throw id rare weapon for you too.
-With hard aoe boss, use bone offering or try to get about 25 weapon and run to the boss then use convocation and drop minion bomb on his head, I try it but it base on how fast you kill the boss.

Some final thoughts about animate weapon:
-GGG should allow us to animate range weapon with some downside like less range,damage and life, it will solve a lot of problem with this build.
-They should make weapon persist in one instance, so I can sell rares to vendor and come back to maps.

Thank you for reading the guide, any feedback is welcome.

add vaal grace and raging spirit

Any chance you could update your tree for 1.2?