5 Aura Raging Spirits / Animate Weapon 1.1.5 Build

Hi,
I just started leveling this Build and I'm wondering which Bandit Rewards you took..
If I missed it somewhere in here I am really sorry,
so for I really like the animated Weapons ;)
thumps up

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Killiango wrote:

Hi,
I just started leveling this Build and I'm wondering which Bandit Rewards you took..
If I missed it somewhere in here I am really sorry,
so for I really like the animated Weapons ;)
thumps up

I went with life, cast speed, passive skill point. TheNuganaut might have done something differently.

id like to know the bandits in generel
i guess oak kill kill but i tend to pick cast speed even tho its kinda crappy . would be awesome if some1 who knows it replys .
thanks

Unless you are min/maxing, a skill point will always be better than increase in cast speed and charges are needed for specific builds that are again made for specific encounters. For example you would want to have as many endurance charges for atziri trio as you can get, same goes for frenzy charges and frenzy skill based characters.


So halp oak then get points...always get points

Hi guys !

I'm a bit new on this game, and i really like raging spirit and animated weapon ! That's why I chose this build ! But it's a bit difficult for me to know where it's better to put skill points at the beginning ! I would appreciate to have some help :)

Thx a lot !

@diew54

I started as Witch and picked up alot of cast speed early in the witch area, and in and on the way to the shadow area. So i managed to level with Zombies and Raging Spirits, meanwhile i leveled my Animate Weapon and the other gems i need like Aura's etc., Iam using Animate Weapon only for Bossfights since they wont last long enough for normal progress till you get your increased duration passives. There are also not many white weapon drops before maps.
With 31 you get Faster Casting and Spell Echo and your raging spirits starting to rape the enemys. And this is why i would recommend to start as witch if you want to level as a summoner and not with Arc or Flameblast.

I made a quick passive tree for the first 36 level or so.

The problem with the "increase duration" node is that it cost the bare minimum of 9 skill point to get them and that you can easily replace those 9 point by a "increased duration gem" or keeping the 3.5s and putting faster casting like in this video.

Another problem with increased duration is that there's a limit to the number of raging spirit that can attack one target at once. I've done some character like this and always had this problem where i summon 15+ raging spirit and only 9 or 10 attack the target while the other run around.

So it's beneficial when there's lot of target but if there's only one.. it's kind of useless to have more of them.

As for the defensive node in the tree, i disagree with the video where it's said that the raging spirit doesn't get benefit from them. That help quite a bit when you go fighting Dominus for example.

Animate weapon take lot of time for little benefit, in fact since the raging spirit don't live long it's better to keep casting raging spirit instead of casting animated weapon.

If you want to add minion choosing zombie would be a better idea in my eyes since they can tank a bit for you, are quite resistant and do some damage with all your auras as well.

I think for survivability it would be better to use a Lightning Coil, Acrobatics, & Rumi's Concoction with the Arctic Armour. Can also use ES/Life gear so discipline isn't needed: replace discipline with purity of lightning to synergize with the lightning coil.

For weapon, can use Mon'tregul's Grasp or wand/dagger/scepter with cast speed and mana regeneration. If 2-handed route desired, use Pledge of Hands to get 7L skill and added faster casting. (Also grants +100% mana.)

Discipline isn't for survavibility in his build, but for using more aura and getting a better mana regen.

@rarylith: I think there's value in making the effort to get the Increased Duration nodes for a few reasons. First they benefit three of your skills: Raging Spirits, Animate Weapons and Flesh Offering. In the case of Animated Weapons and Flesh Offering, it's beneficial to stack the Increased Duration passive nodes with the Increased Duration gems. In the case of Animated Weapon, there's probably a point where extra duration isn't really necessary - at which point having the duration passive nodes allows you to replace the Increased Duration gem with something else. I've only got a 5-link Cloak of Defiance, so I gave up Melee Splash - looking to get it backk in 2 levels. In a 6 link situation you might replace Increased Duration with Faster Casting so that you can ramp up to max spirits faster.

Having played a lot with Animated Weapons, I'm a big fan of them. The build skips most of the minion life nodes, so I suspect zombies would be somewhat squishy. Animated Weapons are effective tanks. The number you can have up is only limited by the number of weapons that drop. They last for a decent amount of time even with just an increased duration gem.

@litesabr: Either Coil+Purity of Lightning or Cloak of Defiance would increase survivability over AA alone, although obvious that's added cost. Would Acrobatics reduce the amount of mana you got from Eldritch Battery? Probably worth it if you were trying the build in hardcore, but maybe not necessary in a softcore league. Pledge of Hands is an interesting weapon choice. Mon'tregul's Grasp doesn't actually help the build unless you're using zombies instead of Animated Weapons or spell totem-ed skeletons.