[3.0] Skeleton Mage build. 7 aura necromancer can both solo endgame maps and support party play

That's what Eldritch Battery is for, with MoM and EB Energy Shield basically protects both, your Life and your Mana.

Playing this build, feeling very very squishy.... as we have no HP regen one finger always on HP pot...

Build is insane with new abyss jewels. You can get jewels that have all the upsides of To Dust, with no downside, and with an additional 30+ flat damage which is crazy considering damage effectiveness just went to 50% more.

It's slightly squishy since you'll never get life on chest and have to rely on pots for sustain. But - between taking the 9% phys reduction from Necro and taking Lunaris pantheon, we have a decent amount of reduction + MoM off of our ~5k life pool.

e; Additionally, you can get blind/maim on minion hit which is basically a free link for a good survivability boost.

how does this build get its es to a usable level when it gets next to nothing from gear and does not run discipline?

just doing a sand box of it puts my numbers around 5k life with 1.5k es


and that is with considerably more es on the tree than what the op has at level 91

seems squishtastic.

Build does feel very squishy (currently lvl 80), and has no defense mechanisms except MoM and zombie meatshields. I always played tanky builds and transition is hard, but build is fun and destroys everything so far.

I'm wondering why OP is not using Ele weakness, its an obvious choice and gives us something to do in between summoning skellies and casting flesh offerings, while boosting the somewhat lacking single-target DPS.

if i had to wager a guess it is because he probably cant fit it in the build.


if you look at what he is doing

your chest is full with 6 auras
your 2 hander is full with your skeletons
your helmet is full with your zombies / guardian if you so choose

the rings on a budget wont be unsets

you need a spot somewhere for an offering , vaal haste , desecrate and ideally an increased duration gem

you need 1 slot for clarity
one slot ideally for a movement skill
one slot for stone golem
and one slot for convocation.

and that is quite literally every slot possible before getting unset rings and good unset rings with resists , +stats life and es are testicle crushingly expensive

"

Saltychipmunk wrote:

how does this build get its es to a usable level when it gets next to nothing from gear and does not run discipline?

just doing a sand box of it puts my numbers around 5k life with 1.5k es


and that is with considerably more es on the tree than what the op has at level 91

seems squishtastic.

You only need 1.5k at 5k life for MoM though. For my tree this league I went for the Melding cluster rather than Quick Recovery and that's working to get me to that point. I think the 2 points spent on Precision aren't needed either, we only need a total of 155 dex which is easy via gear and the nodes we take already.

Additionally, if you drop those plus either a 5% life node, 15% minion damage node, or Herd the Flock (-1 Zombie & 1% phys reduction, they'll be capped from Auras anyway), it means you can also take another Jewel socket in the top right near the Mana. Depending on what Jewels you have that could be very worth it.

Currently running this in Abyss and it's a total blast to play but i've made a couple changes.

With the introduction of the shaped/elder items i've picked up a helmet with +1 to minion gems and socketed gems are supported by level 16 minion damage, which allowed me to drop the queens decree/pledge of hands.

With my weapon/shield slots freed up i picked up a brightbeak and a rare shield with life, implicit movespeed, and one of the new mods that recovers 4% of my max life when i block. The damage drop off from a 5L pledge (6L basically because that level 30 echo) is noticeable but i've been playing mostly in parties as a support anyways and this build is way more fun now that i can actually be mobile.

If you wanna check it out, my character name is ExaltsSkeletonsAndBlow. Thanks OP for a great build and making the league a ton of fun for me so far.

Is flesh binder fixed?

I also want to know too. For such a squishy build with 0 mitigation outside of 5k life, the physical dam age reduction is invaluable to the build, and caustic cloud on minion death doesn't really do much because your zombies rarely die.


Personally I use Vaal summon skeletons because I think it's more valuable than vaal haste in that you don't need inc duration and it's much better for abysses and bosses. Sometimes the bosses get trapped and they can't even approach you.