Locust Summon Skeleton Build 1.3

1. Developed around Summon skeletons

I don't doubt there will be people saying if I do XYZ the build will be better. This build was made with the intention of highlighting summon skeletons. I know this build could be overall better with the addition of either zombies or specters. I'll go into some detail about spectres later. But really what I was worried about with using zombies is them outperforming the skeletons then just spending my time talking myself out of switching over.

So please, take my ideas and concepts and improve upon them. Add them to other ideas and come up with a more complete and better build. What I do know is this build has pretty insane auras, curses and skeletons do decent damage while being excellent meat shields. This is probably one of the better support builds.

2. Leveled with twink gear so no leveling guide

I have no leveling guide because I'm not going to tell everyone to get a tabala and 5l dying breath and enjoy the 100+ mana cost skeletons (w/ elreon jewelry). Especially with a month race coming up the honest thing is I have no idea how this build works in a real leveling situation. Early levels it was good, around late cruel/early merc it got a little rough then started to pick up again in the early 60s. Gets slow again in the early 70s picking up in the 80s. Vaal skeletons is just nuts for leveling, (something you probably won't get starting from nothing) any non-ele damage AOE boss will just melt. Actually laughed when I faced merc brutus because I couldn't imagine another build killing him with such ease.

So if you do level this build in the month race please make your own guide and share on how you improved this build. I can't take any credit for it. Shit, I had my friend rush me through act 2/3 merc. I just have an unrealistic view of how this build actually levels.

http://youtu.be/tQ-UUsTQDSI

I'm dumb and forgot to switch OBS from stream to youtube settings so the video isn't great quality. Also I'm lvl 85, not 89. I haven't streamed in a couple weeks, the previous guy was 89 and I forgot to take that down when recording the video. BTW, it's a white gorge map and squirrels are one of the more annoying mobs as they are spastic and skeletons can't keep up. Probably gave up 1-2 mins on the clear just because of them.

Tree

Considerations:

No Minion Instability - Tooltip life of the skeletons is about 2k, so 650ish is up for explosion. I have about 100% increased minion damage making that 1300 but skeletons deal 50% elemental damage, which does lower MI. There's no way (that I know of) to damage the minions myself or reserve their life to get them to LL quickly. So I'm giving up 1/3 of their health to deal about 650 damage. I did some math w/ a lvl 17 gem they deal about 1k per hit at 4 aps. So I'm giving up 1/3 of their life to deal 60% of what they deal every .25 seconds. Soooo, I respecced out of it.

You can easily ignore much of the cast speed and get life instead. There are 6 life passives to get immediately, the written in blood circle (4 life/es) is 1 INT away, and it's sister melding is 2 INT passives away. I only died 10 times with this build and I started mapping with under 3k life. I don't think it would be very hard to make this a HC build. I would just advise not copying me step for step when doing so.

I have all minion passives but grave intentions. I've been back and forth on this for a long time. The chaos res would be nice as beyond chaos packs really fucked my skeletons up which ruined all hopes of doing a double beyond map which is very fun. But I didn't feel the 17% life was really that needed as if you watched the video my skeletons don't really die before I recast them. As the skeletons up up in 4, the only total amount of skeletons that matters is amounts divided by 4. Atm I have 13, which I've considered dropping Herd of the flock because of it. You could get grave intentions + Alberon's Wrath to get to 16 skeletons but I feel outside of shrines and bosses it won't be much better than 12. If you're sticking with vaal skeletons it will feel slightly redundant. As personally those are the only times I use vaal skeletons.

How much mana reserve you take depends on how much free mana you want to have. I could probably drop a couple actually but I wanted enough for 2 casts with the 3rd coming from regen. If you don't mind playing it on the edge you can go with lower regen high unreserve or vice versa. Basic idea is having enough regen to cast a new round for every pack you run into.

I went nuts on cast speed because I hated getting stuck in the cast animation for echo. I could totally understand someone putting those passives into something else. I just felt the build was much better the faster it casted. Even now I'd like it to be faster and considered dropping dying breath for 2 25% cast speed wands. I just don't think the faster application of damage would make up for the lost in actual sheet DPS.

I also totally understand someone using a +1 curse ammy or doedre's over taking whispers of doom. Once you see my jewelry I think we can talk about the pros and cons then.

I feel like the gear is the heart of the build so rather than being long winded here it will just be an at a glance section and I'll explain my decisions below.

Summon Skeletons - Melee Physical Damage - Spell Echo - Multistrike - Melee Splash (+ Faster attack)

I couldn't imagine going without melee splash I wouldn't suggest going on a less than a 5l.

For the 6l, I had decisions to make.

I felt there were 3 options, empower, minion damage or faster attacks.

The deal with increased damage is the more you get the less each point means. So 78% increased damage from the lvl 18 5% qual minion damage is a lot but after doing the math I found faster attacks to be the better option.

From my math, I did a whole spreadsheet but it's linked to a long spreadsheet I've had for almost 2 years playing POE and the sheet itself has a bunch of other shit otherwise I'd just link it here. But, my 5l average damage on lvl 17 skele is 805 (remember, average attack not DPS). With minion damage it's 1014, only a lvl 4 empower beats it at 1086. I have a lvl 2 empower half way to lvl 3, not getting lvl 4, so empower is out. For the faster attack damage I wanted what the damage was with vuln, which is on 5l it's 896 and minion damage + vuln is 1105.

With flesh offering, haste and tree IAS minions have 3.45 APS, for a total of 3757 DPS w/ minion damage and vuln. With faster attacks they have 4.2 aps 3763. As each levels, faster attacks will basically be doubled from multistrike while minion damage is less effective. So the skeletons will hit for less but they'll attack much faster. Also, like I said earlier I prefer a faster feeling rather than slow and hard hitting. Both are very comparable and the difference is very small, because I'm not using MI it makes FA the better choice.



Ball Lightning + CoH + GMP + temp chains + Vuln


You could use arc and make it a 4l though with enhance as the 5th, same with ball lightning. Personally I prefer getting everything cursed in one go. Reason I don't like arc is because it has it's limits, against a shrine for example you aren't getting everything cursed quickly. Also there's very little targeting control. Ball lightning + gmp, whole screen cursed with one cast. Each option has it's perks and drawbacks.

I considered tri curse but figured why? Enfeeble is an option but just to save me a little damage, don't care about keeping the skeletons alive. Ele weakness will only give 60% of the hatred damage so it's a 6l, special piece for like 15% more cold damage before res. Pretty sure empower or enhance will be much better damage wise, didn't do the math to be sure so I could be wrong.



Gloves, yes I shit on minion life all over the place but I had these gloves, they're good and had the spot open for them. Also no good unique gloves for summoners so why not?

As for links:
Vaal Skele - Minion Damage - Multistrike - Melee Physical Damage

Now I shit on minion damage above, but this one has less increased damage. I don't have quality from summon skeletons (previous math was based on 20%/17 gem, not lvl 20 which I'm using). Also multistrike and MPD aren't quality (MPD quality is new, flipped it a day or so after doing the math for above). Also missing the increased damage from melee splash. Last consideration is the commanders, archers and mages that vaal skele brings, you already have 2 links that don't benefit them at all, at least minion damage benefits everything

I didn't intend on keeping vaal skele the entire time but for bosses it was so good. Also really good against tough packs or shrines. While I don't use it nearly enough (video I only use it once) when I do I'm happy I have it.



As it's only +2 to haste, which isn't a really big deal and I don't think I need the mana res, in fact I think an ES helm with EB would lower clarity's mana reserve % enough to almost to make up for the mana reserve alpha gives. Although, cannot be frozen is amazing, life and res are probably better. Plus, zombies in a +2 helm will probably make this build better overall.

haste - clarity - arctic armour - RM




Hatred - Generosity - RM - Desecrate

Other option is putting hatred in helm, dropping generosity altogether and using vaal haste and inc duration (w/ arctic armour and desecrate). As my playstyle I constantly forget to put up vaal gems and always save them for bosses. The decision for me is 90% IAS for bosses or 40% increased damage on hatred for the whole map? For me the answer was clear, for people better at juggling multiple skills go to town.

While not links, to cover it quickly



If you notice all the stat points, like 73 dex from ammy alone, this is why I don't have doedres or +1 curse ammy. I might get the 4 points back from tree, but I'd lose one or more to stat points instead. Most people will have to get both dex passives, this is jewelry I was able to get after the entire league. The ammy was like 15c I think and I would have paid over an ex for it. It's saved me multiple points over 2-3 builds at this point.

I had a hard time figuring out what weapon I was going to use. Because I want people to build on top of what I've already started I'll walk you through my thought process here. A "tl:dr" will be at the end with the weapon I went with (dying breath as you saw above)

I knew I wanted to go dual curse, was trying to think if I was going tri (or if there was any reason to so) so I wanted to look at both 1h and 2h options.

Why not a rare?
First the only offensive option for rare weapons in general will be cast speed. Mana regen would be nice and res could save me in other spots. I was pretty sure I couldn't justify using a rare weapon just for cast speed and regen. Not only do these not exist for sale because it's too niche, it's going to be attached to high spell damage and/or crit making them expensive. I could use them on another build but I started this build a day before they announced the end of the league and I don't really play standard anymore so...rare is a no go.

Why not a unique 1h?

Midnight Bargain is probably a great choice for most summoners.
Pros
- The increased damage is the main reason to consider this. Upto 30% is nice and there's not many better options.
- The +2 skeletons means w/ grave intentions I'd have 16 fitting the multiples of 4. But like I said, I'm not positive there will be much of a clear difference between 12 and 16 because they just run out of room to attack the same things.
Cons
- Fuck 30% life isn't a lot until you see it chopped off. I didn't really want to make a LL version. I don't have shavs, I hate solaris and just gave all my ES/chaos res gear to my buddy to do a LL build himself so I wasn't about to buy a new set of gear as the one I had was a bitch to get.
- Not really a con, but MS isn't that useful. For zombie and melee spectres your clear speed is linked to how quickly they make it pack to pack. For skeletons I just cast them on top of the target. This will help a bit on clearing ranged packs but I don't really care too much about the little it adds.

Apep's rage
As I was only considering cast speed for rare wands why not this? Well, first, the chaos damage is virtually useless. Granted it would put a bit of damage on my ball lightning and high roll apep is higher cast speed than rares. But that 40% increased mana cost is crazy as my skeletons are 160 per cast, could easily be over 200. So cast speed nice, everything else is wasted or detrimental.

2h options

Chober Chaber - It's a +1 gem option, but only minion and melee so I can't get it to bump empower up so that's annoying. The increased mana would be wonderful. The increased life, like I said already, pretty pointless. Increased duration...same as life but worse, less pointless. So...using it for the +1 to minion gems and % mana. Could easily get a rare staff with the same, less restrictions and cast speed. So that's a no.

Queen's Decree - This one I thought about for a while. But, max life again useless. Increased damage wasn't bad but half of what I could get out of midnight. The +2 skeletons wasn't bad like I discussed elsewhere, possibly overkill. The duration is interesting but really pointless. Ya, they last forever but that means they become bad zombies. I haven't seen a good skeleton build, nevermind one that turns them into bad zombies.

Pledge of Hands - I was extremely close to picking this for a weapon. There's very few good options, none giving a ton of damage so all options are worth the same or much less than a 7th link. So a weapon giving nothing but a bunch mana and a 7th link sounds right about what I'm getting max out of any option. The main reason I didn't go with it is because it will only shine as a 6l and I couldn't afford to buy a 6l one, I also have horrendous luck so I didn't feel like trying to make one myself to watch all my currency disappear to have a 6s PoH.

Dying Breath - The winner in my book. So it has 18% cast speed, which is only 7% less than a wand's max which none of the 2hers have this, nor does midnight. It also have 18% increased damage for nearby allies, which counts minions. This is the 2nd highest amount of increased damage I can get my skeletons and it also has ICS attached. Right there it's the best option. Then we have the aura and curse effectiveness. I originally planned to run vuln and temp chains, I've been swapping in ele weakness for grouping with my friend. So for vuln it's another 6% IPD and 3% on chains. So now we're up to 24% increased damage. I'm using hatred for another 6% and haste for 4% attack speed for minions and 4% cast speed for me. So in total this weapon gives 24% increased damage, 6% more damage as cold, 22% cast speed and 4% attack speed for minions. Also gives this to all party members making you a great addition to any party. My buddy was getting 50% sheet DPS from me (8k to 12k) before my ele weakness.

So while not MASSIVE improvements like most weapons, as there's nothing that benefits skeletons greatly, dying breath looks OP in comparison to other options.

The normal options of lightning coil or belly of the beast are fine. I think the colors will be hell as either the curses or skeleton setup in it you need 3b.

I think cloak of defiance is a great option but you probably have to drop an aura or get more aura reserve passives, or a ton more mana to make clarity a much smaller percentage of total mana. I only have 300 open, you'll want at least 1k, not really possible with my current set up but many changes you can make to adjust for this.

I prefer my chest. I'm not using any of the +2 additional skeleton uniques, alberons or a weapon, so this gives me my bare min 12 skeletons. Also, I bought my chest as is (w/o master craft) for 8 ex, pretty cheap for a 6l. The other three options are all 20-30 ex depending on what league and when purchased. You can get a white 6l chest for under 10 ex usually and it's not hard to get 1-2 res w/ high life saving you from wearing bad boots (alberons) and freeing up res requirement from other gear.

Also I did consider using kaoms, I just need too many sockets to drop that many. Using it means no generosity and I'd need unsocketed rings.

Just to give you a full breakdown on how great you are for groups.

Auras +42% + 21% from inner force + 18% from dying breath = 81%

So haste goes from 16% at lvl 20 to 29%.

Oh and hatred is linked to generosity for another 37% so it's a nice 78% additional damage as cold. Sadly skeletons only get half of this so it's like a normal hatred. But for a melee party member, you're giving them a shit load of DPS.

For curses it's not as extreme

Only 6% effectiveness from tree, 10% from CoH quality (ignore my failed vaal attempt pretend I didn't get fucked), and 18% from dying breath for 34%. So now my vuln is 46% instead of 34%. My 20%/19 ele weakness goes up to 61% which for my buddy's build I'm giving him 50% sheet DPS and then 61% more damage again on cursed targets.

Now I've considered getting skittering runes for another 12% increased curse effectiveness. But it's 2 useless passives before it so it's 4% per passives, which feels pretty low. It works out to be 5% IPD on vuln for 3 passives.

I have also considered heading down to harrier near scion which if I did I would get the 6% curse effectiveness on the way, also would get the aura effectiveness, probably leadership too and if I went down there it would be to get melding. So that would probably be a lvl 90+ build.

With being a support build I thought it would be cool to support my support even more using frenzy charge generating apes from old fields. I got death attunement for the additional spectre and when they worked it was AWESOME! My buddy was trying his hardest to keep them alive. The problem is they don't spam charges nearly enough and run into combat too often leading to their quick death. Not really any other pure support specter options. I didn't want the build to start becoming focused on specters so I didn't get traditional ones. Probably should have used bubblers just for the defensive perks.

Animate Guardian, I figured shit, I can just throw all my gear into a guardian for more bonuzeseses! So got a dying breath and leer cast. Figured fuck it, had a hyre's ire and got atziri step for 1 alch then just gloves with life and res. Not sure if the tooltip isn't considering it but the life doesn't go up with life on gear. The gloves had 80 life, tooltip didn't change. Later I tried fencoil which gives 10% life, didn't adjust tooltip either. Not sure if it's working or not. But the damn thing was just like my apes, died way too quick.

I did figure out though, dying breath's 18% block, plus rathpith on necromantic + lvl 20 bone offering is 78% (75% I know) block and 73% spell block. You're also just giving normal summons 60% and 64% spell block. If you use lochtonial caress with daresso's defiance and blood dance, you have an animated guardian w/ max block which can give frenzy and end charges when it kills something. Figured the only way that's happening though is if you get a dying breath with culling strike as implicit. So a guardian which gives 33% increased damage, the 18% curse should stack as it's a matter of him and you being close to something, with potential for free charges. In theory it sounds amazing but in practice I feel annoyed at it dying but who knows. I do feel the charge ascept is ambition and probably won't work out like I think it will.

Someone was trying to talk me into getting grave intentions w/ alberon's on reddit so I actually stopped and thought through how I play and how it ends up and this is what I responded to him with:

"

The reason I'm not sure about going from 12 to 16 is because if you watch my playstyle, I put one series in the front of a pack as a stop between me and them. One at the back to pull the pack to the back as well, if it's a large pack or high health one I put the 3rd series on one of the two sides. In a gorge map I'll tend to use the wall to box them in. Usually I have the two groups then throw the 3rd series onto the next pack and repeat. Generally speaking the first pack is dead by the time I get to the 4th cast on the 2nd pack. As I get one series every 1.25 seconds, meaning by the third, if absolutely no delay between casts is going to be 3.75 seconds, generally there will be some delay so probably like 5 seconds. It's pretty rare that the original cast hasn't cleared off what it's facing to the point where a 4th cast is worth it.

So I'm getting those extra skeletons, in theory it's an increase in damage but in practice I think the original cast skeletons will be doing nothing while casting the 4th group, making them worthless. Honestly the build would be at it's peak if I only needed the 6 skeletons so I could save those passives and use better gear. But atm no way 6 skeletons could compare to 12 damage and clear speed wise, also even if 6 did the job, 12 would be best for bosses. In fact, the only time 16 is better is against bosses, exiles and shrines, which is why I have vaal skeletons.

- Remove or reduce the 50% ele damage penalty. I'm not sure why it's there in the first place. There's no way to reliably discharge them for MI to work properly. Pretty much only powerful against a high damage source of degen. Also right now hatred does more damage than wrath or anger so making those decent isn't game breaking. At least drop it to like 25-30%.

- You've raised their damage 40 and 50%, another 10-20% would be good. My gorge run is 7 minutes and I'm not really pushing it, only lvl 85 as well. 20% would bring it down to about 5.5 minutes which would contest it with other top tier builds.

- We need a unique weapon that's for skeletons to be better at being skeletons. Something with cast speed, + levels, increase minion damage while lowering MS/life or less zombie/specters.

- While a new mechanic, it would be great if they had a very short range sprint, like 1-2m sprint. This way you lay them near a target, they enrage, sprint to it and attack. Anything outside that short range they continue to just move their normal speed to.

- With general buffs, please give us a total increase aura/curse and what their end balance is on the tooltip. Making fucking with this stuff easier when you have the info to mess with.

- Please release a new version of the minion spreadsheet every time you buff any of those minions please!

- Give some sort of minion master craft for weapons. I would have been happy with cast speed, mana regen and master crafted minion damage on a wand. But, not possible.

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMAGyVLrukC34rZW20ZwFQI9GpDvOqnKzW5EVAvb9kTcLvsGMHFf8Yc3A2NbAsi9ElR8NWP-gcelS5r230Y7IpJsdfP-TfviJMnpcQdquGIRnG0DMDjS1fxs2-egwkaj_ba-wkZipu1wzrKSg186rpXySj6-eiCxzwonL4NH0GH2L3-Crc-6-6nCLiT-oAqmNkLkDOmrIhARUcy0WqsWpGofdP7wGaiAASzWAd85RhqeC-boY9Gw21ca4RI99dNucy8qsSFYEKjJLAXL_rSHRSApONqFm826SSqOlismFXG