[3.0] Skeletal Mage Summoner (7k+ life, double blasphemy curse)

Ascendancy:


It's vital to get 2x jewel sockets as soon as possible for the Dead Reckoning jewels. Otherwise we summon normal skeletons instead and no one wants that.

While leveling before you get all gems, I recommend using a lifesprig until act 2 and socket lesser multiple projectiles along with minion damage. Once you get to act 2 if you have a tabula, use the following gems:

Summon Skeleton - Faster Casting - Minion Damage - LMP - Controlled Destruction - Minion Speed
Starting off - Skeletal mages by level 12 (14 points)


More skeletons! (36 points)


To not die, next up we'll put all points into survivability. (58 points)


Continuing to pick up hp nodes and the last interesting minion nodes (96 points)



End-game variant 1: No necro aegis, strong focus on life and life regen


End-game variant 2: Necro aegis and more jewel sockets


Personally I am leaning more towards variant 1. If you use variant 2, you will want to use a shield with as high spell damage as possible. Other mods aren't really relevant.

My gear is far from optimised but this is how it looks like right now:



My TO-DO list gear wise looks like this:

1) Get a better chest. I am still not sure what chest I want to use, if it's a rare or unique. Good options include:

Belly of the Beast / Lightning coil - however fairly hard to roll the amount of blue sockets needed unless you use the vorici trick.
Rare chest with high life and resists
Cloak of Defiance is a solid choice if you want to go for MoM.

My personal #1 would be a Skin of the Loyal, corrupted to get +1 gems like this one:
This would be the highest possible damage chest although it will likely be fairly hard to get ahold of this league.

One great thing about a rare chest is that you can craft +1 skeletons for a bit more damage and a nice even number of 10

2) Replace rings. Simply better stats, as much life, mana regen and resists as possible. Extra dex and str helps here as well.

3) Replace belt. Here we can use an essence of fear to craft something with minion life and hope to get as high life/resists as possible. Another option is 'Belt of the Deceiver' which, if I understand correctly, makes nearby enemies take 10% more damage due to the intimidation effect. Pretty solid!

4) Better shield. I am not opting for Necro Aegis just yet so I am looking into getting a beefy Arcon Kite Shield to take care of my resists and as much life as possible. Other good options are Rathpith Globe, Lioneye's Remorse, Saffel's Frame or Ahn's Heritage.

Boots/gloves are decent for now

Let's discuss the weapon of choice. Due to most of the summoner one-handed weapons not doing a whole lot for us or requiring taxing investments (midnight bargain removing 30% life is nuts for us) I've opted to use a rare one-handed wand crafted with a Deafening Essence of Fear for 30% minion damage. I chose a wand because it had 14% implicit cast speed and because I am not using any movement abilities like shield charge or whirling blades. If you want to use either of these skills you can craft a dagger or scepter instead. Good stats to look out for are mana, mana regen, cast speed and resists.

Other weapons that can be used are Severed in Sleep/United in Dream, Mon'tregul's grasp (beefier but less Zombies) or you can opt for the 2h route and use either Queen's Escape or Femurs of the Saints. If you go the 2h route I would use a Victario's Influence as my chest and switch the build up a bit to use some auras or Kaom's heart.

I have swapped my wand for a Mon'tregul's grasp after I noticed Zombies were dying too often in later maps.

Chest armour:
Before you get spell echo:
Summon Skeleton - Faster Casting - Minion Damage - LMP - Controlled Destruction - Minion Speed

After spell echo:
Summon Skeleton - Minion Damage - Greater Multiple Projectiles (Slower/faster projectiles for bosses) - Controlled Destruction - Pierce - Spell Echo. A level 4 Empower (possibly also 3) will deal more damage than a Controlled destruction and should be used if you have one.

Helmet with +1-+2 minions:
Raise Zombie - Minion Damage - Melee Physical - Ruthless support or Maim. The reason for this is that Zombies still pack quite a punch and since you're taking all the nodes that give +1 zombie anyway since they also give skeletons, might as well utilise them.

3-link weapon/shield #1:
Blasphemy - Temporal Chains - Enfeeble or Elemental Weakness. If you instead want to use Mind Over Matter I would use a curse on hit - ball lightning - curse of choice here instead.

3-link weapon/shield #2: Misc gems needed. Desecrate, Convocation, Flame Dash

4-link gloves/boots #1: Increased Duration - Vaal Haste - Flesh Offering - Golem of choice. I prefer to use Lightning Golem since it offers the only damage increase (albeit small) to minions but it also gives me quite a bit of cast speed which helps me summon new mages as quickly as possible. Other good choices would be chaos golem for even more physical reduction or stone golem for some sweet life regen.

4-link gloves/boots #2: Cast when damage taken - immortal call - Clarity aura. The last slot I currently just use for a slower projectile gem so if you want to use another movement skill there you can.

Uber lab at level 75 with level 17 skeleton mages
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Woi93pJ_jY4

Twinned Kaom with -9 max resist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKVRrTjdd94

TBA