[2.5] Necro/guardian High budget auramancer (18 buffs, lvl 23+gems). lvl 100 viable

During last 2 years I've been playing mostly a culler-support (guide in https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1617230).

But I've always wondered how strong a character whose unique purpose was to buff party members would be. Also, I'm pretty lazy, so I thought it would fit me :D
The high budget mostly comes from all the corruptions needed to achieve high levels (23-27) on gems, but the build is also very good without them.

My current gear


Ideal gear
Weapon
Ehemeral Edge. There aren't good corruptions for weapons

Helmet
Alpha's howl. Good enchants are golems, warcries and reduced reservation for auras


Shield
Prism guardian. Ideally corrupted to +1 to gems


Armor
Shavs. If you can afford to corrupt +1 gems... go for it.


Gloves
Voidbringer. Ideally corrupted to +1 gems


Boots
Any high ES ones with 30% movement speed. Ideally corrupted to +1 gems or with 10% increased movement speed if you haven't been hit.


Rings
Lori's lantern (Movement speed, some chaos res, overcaps res against ele weakness and the unlucky mod, which is awesome). Shavronne's revelation on right slot.

Those 2 provide more tankiness than any other ring, but you can use unset rings if you really want the sockets, or if you don't have them. Ideal rolls are %es, flat es, int/dex/str, chaos res.
There aren't good corruptions for rings

Amulet
I'm not sure what's best. I use astramentis because they are cheap and quite effective. Int becomes %es. Dex saves 1 passive point and becomes %ev. Str becomes hp, which reduces stuns, shocks and ignites and slso becomes armor thanks to Radiant faith. A rare amulet with %es, flat es, int/dex/str, hp, chaos res would be better, but harder to find.

Alternatively you could get eye of chayula for stun immunity, or for a bit more party support.

Amulets can be corrupted for +1max res or 5% movement speed.

Belt
With the new base, a rare es belt is the best choice. Useful stats are es, flask duration, chaos res, hp and movement speed (mastercrafted).
Useful corruptions are skill effect duration and +1 end charge, but you might prefer to keep the implicits depending on base.

Flasks
Mines are pretty good. Quicksilver should have reduced charges used + 30% MS, but that's about it. You can also use a remove bleeding/curse, or vinktar + remove shock if you are into it.

The ideal setup for auras depends on who are you playing with. You need to know when to use which auras in every situation, and keep a flexible setup that let you swap gems around without recolouring anything, while keeping the maximum utility.

For example, a caster using arc will want wrath and anger, a attack based build will want wrath + hatred + anger, a caster using bladefall will want hatred + anger, etc. Also, be very careful of not messing with elemental equilibrium, typically used by EA and CoC builds (always ask when in doubts).

In addition, depending on where you put your gems they'll have different levels or bonus (generosity). So it's important to know which auras scale well and which do not.



My current links (posted in gear setup) let me have all auras up except one of the dmg ones. When I run with someone who benefits from all 3 dmg auras (namely a phys based attack build) I have 2 options:
If we really need some extra dmg, I remove empower from the boots (loosing some es from a lower lvl disci, and some eva or MS from grace or haste).
If we don't need that much dmg I do some gem swaps. Move wrath from gloves to shield, PoL from shield to helmet, and enlighten from helmet to gloves. (loosing the generosity on wrath, and the vitality aura).

Needless to say, I would like to have another pair of +1 gloves so I could get lvl 27 dmg auras with generosity but... not that rich.

You should adjust your setup according to the level of your corruptions. Also, keep several clarity gems so you can use the one that ends up with maximum hp reserved (so u get more armor).

The links you are using are variable, but you should at least have one warcry, 1-2 vaal auras with increased duration, and animate guardian. I recommend a 3-4L for vaal auras+warcry, and a 4L for guardian+golem.

Warcry can be either enduring cry or rallying cry, based on preference and/or situation. I use rallyng cry for general mapping and enduring cry for uber izaro. Spam it on cooldown, gives attack, cast and movement speed and has no cast time.

Vaal haste is a must. You can also use vaal discipline, but remember that the time it takes to charge first vaal haste will be longer, resulting in slower clearspeed.

For animate guardian, there is a detailed explanation in my culler guide under "gem setup" section. I don't wanna make this too long to read.

As for the rest, you should have some spare sockets. I'm using raise zombie because I'm sharing the shavs with my RF, but there are better options. Probably cwdt+curse is best.

The last utility source is the doedre flask. On use, you take some damage and gain one endurance, frenzy and power charge, that will get shared with your near party members. The range of sharing is pretty small though, so test the distance in your hideout with a friend, and be sure you are close enough when you use it.
You are aiming mostly for frenzy charges, so if the group can consistently generate them, you could use a more selfish flask.

Leveling: Ideally, you'll get a friend to carry you during this stage. Otherwise you'll have to decide yourself, I've heard that facebreakers shield charge/totems, flameblast totems and bladefall totems are good, but I'm not good enough at lvling to give proper advice.

Endgame tree:
http://www.poeplanner.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

The shortest path out of the templar area is the top one via intelligence nodes. But I prefer to get the one shown for more armor and HP (which is even more armor, and resistance against stun, shock.

1. Introduction
I recently discovered that "Commander of darkness" scales from aura effect. This makes necromancer the best Offensive support. Compared to guardian, we lose all the free phys mitigation, a bit of aura effectiveness, allies sharing charges and the warcry. In exchange, we gain 206% increased damage, 103% increased attack speed and 103% increased cast speed.

2. Changes from guardian version

2.1 Mobility
Party clearspeed increases considerably, due to the huge dmg increase, and the attack/cast speed. We make good use of that extra attack speed by using a mobility skill. Shield charge is best for its fast speed and low mana cost.
Also, since we don't have the ascendancy bonus, we don't use warcry

2.2 Gear
Same than templar but with a very minor difference. Since we want to use shield charge and we are BM+ZO, we need elreon's jewelery, like these.



Charge cost 8 mana, and elreon's can give up to -8 cost, which would make it 0. However, our gloves increases the mana cost of our skills by 80%. You can wear 2 elreon's pieces to reduce the cost to 0, or you can link shield charge to reduced mana and get it to 1 (you'll need to use a flask potion if you choose this option). Alternatively, you could sacrifice the +1 to gems from voidbringer for a bit more comfort.
Edit: if you have more than 2 lvl 4 enlightens you get ~50 unreserved hp, so you can use SC 9 times with a normal amulet.

2.3 Auras
Because each aura give bonus aps and dmg, we focus on maximizing the number of auras, so we skip empower. We can run up to 12 auras (all except purity of elements).

My current setup here: https://poe.mikelat.com/#2v34pAPd/tNrp.6d=/tNrp.2Nh/9b.15q/tNrp.vDe/tr.
You really need several high lvl enlightens and/or +1 to gems items to make this work.
Of course, you can make adjustments that fit your budget, just remember to put your elemental gems in voidbringer, get lvl 23 purities, etc.

Obviously, the full support has better clearspeed (due to offensive auras) and slightly better defensive buffs, while the culler provides better loot. I say "play the one do you enjoy the most" but if you are looking for the differences between both builds, here we go.

Even with 147% MS (183% with vaal haste) there are builds you can barely keep up. They are very rare, but they exist. Needless to say you can't cull with them.

The culler has MUCH more energy shield than the support. Basically, both builds share a similar tree but culler can get a good es shield and helmet, while support needs prism guardian and alpha's.

Full support seems to have more general acceptance than culler-support, because the benefits are more straightforward. People see you increased their dps by 70-250%, but they don't see the huge boost to es, maxres, ev, etc. (that both builds do) and the extra loot you provide. Except on bosses, where the presence of the culler is blatantly obvious. But in general you'll receive more "awesome, luv u bro, nice, etc." with the dedicated support.

My culler-support build
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1617230

Another high budget guardian auramancer. It is very short with barely any explanations, but content is good (althought I disagree with some choices).
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1657831

Another necro auramancer. I learned about commander of darkness aura scaling from there
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1698800

Before - http://imgur.com/VBiwidU
After - http://imgur.com/yYBoXsV

Before - http://imgur.com/9nFnNP6
After - http://imgur.com/McLro3U

Before - http://imgur.com/RHB17Pe
After - http://imgur.com/NcjIomj