[3.X?] ALL Content! Lv100 Huy's OG Summon Raging Spirits Necromancer Guide - .:The Druid:.

Pros

• One of the greatest strengths of this build is its flexibility with Gem and Gear Swaps for different situations and styles.
• Fantastic Mapper - All Mods in any combination and Magic Find Viable.
• Boss Killer - Cleared all end game bosses.
• Grouping - Gear can easily be adjusted for flexible support.
• High Attack Speed + Shield Charge = Smooth Movement through the content.

Cons

• While budget friendly, new changes in gear drops in 3.1 can make the end-game build significantly more expensive.
• Mana Pool Issues - Discussed at length below in the Tips/Tricks and Crafting section with further recommendations to improve this aspect of gameplay.
• Bosses with powerful AoE spells can wipe out all your minions and thus halt your damage until you get high level SRS (especially with Empower).
• Affected by "Ramp-up" Time, which is alleviated once you get more cast speed. Once geared, it only takes 1-2 SRS to kill entire packs.

This build is primarily a high speed clear build, but can be played both as offensively or defensively as the player is comfortable with. The goal is to get a ‘rolling wave’ of SRS by casting a few skulls, using a movement skill, then casting a few more. Over time you will master the ‘feel’ of keeping this wave going, as well as have a better grasp of the aggro range of the skulls and how to best chain them through mobs.

You have the option of being in the middle of your skull pack, with good fortify uptime due to Increased Duration, or alternatively, you can corner-cast for more defensive play by letting your skulls around a corner at more difficult mobs. This versatility is the cornerstone to the build’s success and survivability.

By running three auras and keeping Necromancer Ascendancy, without changing any gear or gems, you already supply a party with modest buffs. Haste and Hatred are always crowd pleasers. Clarity is useful on low regen maps. Skulls will spread and target stragglers automatically thus the group can stay together.

At the beginning of Harbinger, I wanted to do everything in the game at a modest budget. This meant that I needed a build to tackle leveling, all map mods/combination, magic find, bosses, uber bosses, and even the infamous Hall of the Grandmasters. I’m proud to say that this build can accomplish all of that with small adjustments. I have a stash tab called “Test” that I use to swap in different items depending on the situation all the time. It is super handy and I love that aspect about the build. Even in my inventory, I carry around the usual “Strongbox Rolling” pack and a few pieces of gear/gems that I swap in depending on the situation. It even allows for different setups while solo and grouping (with a proper support). With the proper adjustments, all content in the game can be done (even deathless if you are practiced and well geared)!

The choice of ascendancy class is a simple one. The Necromancer.

Ascendancy Skills
While leveling, pick the Ascendancy skills in the following order:

• Commander of Darkness (The Labyrinth)
• Mistress of Sacrifice (The Cruel Labyrinth)
• Puppet Master (The Merciless Labyrinth)
• Invoker (The Eternal Labyrinth)

Note: Some might wanna take a minor for minion dmg but the chaos resist is needed, plus the poison clouds are strong especially and scale (mine does about 8k dps). The clouds also appear when the SRS runs out of duration, or if more SRS are summoned. This means spamming SRS will cause the caustic clouds to appear in addition to those that would normally form on minion death.

Major:

• Soul of the Brine King - Make sure you get the bonus effects from the Divine Vessels.
• Solaris is also acceptable.

Minor:

• Soul of Ryslatha - Life Flask Nodes from Tree gives 50% total increased healing from life flask. When on low life with pantheon, + another 60% increased healing = 110%. This is nice for survivability but becomes insane when coupled with Blood of the Karui.

Kill ALL of the Bandits to receive 2 Passive Skill Points from Eramir.

Mind Over Matter
Mind over Matter was nerfed in 3.1 in the following ways:

• The passive skills behind Mind over Matter now grant 10% increased Mana (down from 12%) on the non-notables, and 30% increased Mana (down from 40%) and 40 added mana (down from 100) on the notable.

This doesn’t mean that this is no longer a desirable keystone for the build, but it has to be accommodated for in a few different ways. There are a variety of % Total Mana nodes within reach when moving through the passive tree. Going for the jewel socket northwest of the Scion starting point has %Mana nodes. Another place is to pick up the Deep Thoughts noteable passive, next to the Cruel Preparation life nodes already in the build.
Further troubleshooting for mana problems is located below in the FAQ.

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Elemental Equilibrium
Elemental Equilibrium is an amazing damage boost for this build. SRS uses physical and fire damage, and we add additional cold damage through Hatred. This leaves lightning as the remaining element to proc the effect, and this build includes three different ways to do so. EE lasts 5 seconds at a time and can be refreshed as needed to keep 100% uptime.

You will know when EE has been properly applied to an enemy by the Pink/Purple/Blueish spell affect at their feet, which is seen below:



You will also see a written confirmation that EE is both active and attuned to the correct element when you see “Vulnerable to Fire, Vulnerable to Cold” listed on the mob’s affixes. With trash this may be hard to see, but with rares and bosses, you should be able to see this on mouseover targeting. It will look like this:

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The first way we apply EE is through Orb of Storms, which can be taken very early on in the levelling process, allowing players to start dealing tremendous amounts of damage early on. Orb of Storms is a Cast-at-Player lightning skill, which leaves an area of lightning damage which will continually apply both EE and Shock to mobs within its effect.

The second is through Shield Charge, which takes advantage of the ‘Adds x to x lightning damage on Attacks’ affix found on jewelry, or which can be enchanted on jewelry by Elreon when he reaches level 6. Shield Charge will deal Area of Effect damage at the end animation of the charge in a circle in front of the player. This AoE damage will apply EE to any mob affected by the AoE damage it causes, therefore allowing you to blanket a tightly packed mob group with EE all at once.

The third is through Vaal Lightning Trap, which applies EE when the trap is triggered. It should be noted that Vaal Lightning Trap will NOT refresh EE in the same way Orb of Storm Does. Vaal Lightning trap does not cause any further damage after being triggered, instead leaving shocking ground which debuffs the mobs affected by it.

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Necromantic Aegis
Necromantic Aegis is the third and final keystone passive skill this build utilizes. It removes all bonuses provided by modifiers on the equipped shield and applies those modifiers to the player’s minions instead. This includes implicit modifiers such as armor rating, chance to block. In the case of Lycosidae, the ‘Hits Cannot Be Evaded’ passes directly to minions, thus negating any accuracy requirement whatsoever. In Path of Building this was shown to be an absolutely astronomical increase to DPS, far more than any other shield available, including Victario’s Charity. There are some notes in the gearing section with what to use/equip in the time before you can acquire a Lycosidae.

This build is set up around certain uniques. This section will detail each unique and offer a brief explanation about the item, how it works in conjunction with the build, and offer ways to try and acquire the item.

Chestpiece:

• Trash/AoE: SRS + Minion Damage + Melee Phys + Empower (at least Lv3, if not, go with Ruthless or Additional Accuracy if you do not have Lycosidae) + Minion Speed + Melee Splash

• Boss: SRS + Minion Damage + Melee Phys + Empower (at least Lv3, if not, go with Ruthless or Additional Accuracy if you do not have Lycosidae) + Elemental Focus + Elemental Damage With Attacks

Helm:

• Cast When Damage Taken (L1) + Immortal Call (L3) + Increased Duration (L20) + Enfeeble (L5).

Gloves:

• Faster Casting + Flesh Offering + Orb of Storms + Desecrate

Boots:

• Hatred + Generosity (Two-link, only). Stone Golem, Clarity

Main Hand:

• Shield Charge + Faster Attacks + Fortify

Shield:

• Increased Duration + Vaal Lightning Trap + Vaal Haste

Unset Ring:

• Haste

The following is the ideal setup for all content, but for bosses or farming, the Silver and Quicksilver flasks can be changed to whatever suits your needs. The Chemist’s prefix is highly recommended due to its interaction with Arcane Chemistry's 15% Reduced Flask Charges Used Modifier, allowing you to hit breakpoints that allow 1-2 extra uses of each flasks (especially when coupled with a >19% Reduced Flask Charges Used Belt).

Prior to obtaining Blood of the Karui and Lavianga’s Spirit, you can use a Catalyzed Divine Life Flask, and a Catalyzed/Saturated Sanctified Mana flask, respectively. Suffixes can be whatever suits your needs or whatever you happen to roll.

If you’re rolling spare utility flasks, or specializing certain flasks for certain fights, remember to always roll the Chemist’s prefix!

During normal mapping, there’s two common swaps.

Belts:

Remember with Bisco’s Leash, you need not wear it the entire time. You can equip it, kill one thing, then switch back to your other belt and continue to chain rampage kills. A Leather Belt/Stygian Vise with >19% Reduced Flask Charges Used Belt is great for Bosses.
Gems:

Use these for clearing trash. Switch back to Elemental Focus and Elemental Damage with Attacks for Bosses.
(Any other swaps are likely covered in the other sections below)

Not that any of these are new ideas, but these are the MF items most easily integrated into the build. Swap Minion Speed for Item Rarity, especially if you have rings with the crafted speed %. Bisco’s is of course, much more expensive now in 3.1.

For the most part, this build does great in Hall of the Grand Masters, with one caveat. There are a few ‘Blocker’ exiles mixed in, and these can present a problem for the build. ‘Blockers’ refer to full aegis/regen/immortal block builds, which means that they can sustain their eHP when they get hit by quick attacks. Fast-hitting SRS will not be able to kill them. In this case, you simply swap in the Scorching Ray Setup to melt them down (since it does not ‘hit’), then switch back to SRS. The easiest way to accomplish this is to have a spare chestpiece so swapping can be done quickly, as the gems do differ and you may not be able to swap so many so quickly without dying.

Scorching Ray Links for HotGM:
Scorching Ray + Controlled Destruction + Elemental Focus + Empower + Burning Damage + Swift Affliction

After hitting lv100, since there's nothing to lose, I've been pushing the damage potential and throw in more magic find. This is what I'm currently experimenting with. I'd recommend to stick with the original setup for most people but for those who are at super end-game, just wanted to give you some further options to consider!

With the beginning of Abyss league, we saw the beginning of the War for the Atlas, which introduced new Shaper and Elder bases to the core game. This really changed things up for a lot of builds, having explicits generally reserved for corruptions/uniques suddenly appearing on rares! It was a very exciting time, and a lot of people had some great ideas on the forums.

That being said, spending some time on PoE Affix can help you learn what is available out there.

The one that makes the most sense, is of course picking up an shaper amulet with ‘Grants Level 22 Haste’ on it.
Any Shaper amulet ilvl 68 and above can roll this suffix, and it obviously frees us from having to use an unset ring! Here’s Brittleknee’s amulet from Abyss League:


Towards the end of Abyss Brittleknee was trying to craft an Elder Helmet with Loathing Essences to craft a sweet, sweet combination of both 20% to Maximum Mana, with a 5% Reduced Mana Reserve. She never hit the jackpot, but she did make this little guy:


There are some pretty neat combinations out there that allow for more flexibility with the build, which has always been and remains, the cornerstone of why it is both popular and successful.

When playing at the beginning of a league, or playing SSF, getting your hands on a Tabula early on makes all the difference. Tabs can go for quite a bit of currency in the first week of a new league, and acquiring the currency to buy one outright can be daunting unless you’re familiar with early league markets and trading. The good news is that Tab is 100% farmable, and will cost you nothing but time. While levelling, you can farm The Aqueduct (The First Area of Act 4) or The Blood Aqueduct (The First Area of Act 9) for Humility Divination Cards. A set of nine cards can be exchanged for a Tab.


With some time, and some effort, you can acquire your own Tab, and wear it into early to mid mapping. It’s time well invested.

If you have a Tabula or 6L, unique weapons like Reverberation Rod and Nycta’s Lantern are no longer useful. A Severed in Sleep at the beginning of a league or in SSF isn’t exactly budget-friendly/acquirable. Brightbeak, while still a solid option before obtaining The Scourge, doesn’t offer any direct damage, though it is awfully fun to zoom around with.. However, using a Screaming Essence of Fear on a weapon will provide a nice 19-22% damage for your SRS. Higher tier essences provide a higher percent minion damage. Claws are a nice choice to craft, since the DPS of the weapon does not affect SRS damage, and Claws can often roll with helpful affixes such as Dexterity, Mana Regeneration, and Resists.

An example is:

Using a Essence of Fear on a ring or amulet will result in a minion movement speed affix. This is a huge quality of life improvement and works several ways synergistically with the build. It first helps by allowing your minions to chain between packs of mobs more easily, as this seems to lengthen their aggro radius since they can cover more distance. This contributes to the ‘rolling wave’ playstyle by limiting your need to resummon once you arrive at a new pack, allowing you to supplement your existing SRS as you go, rather than having to rebuild your SRS between packs. Furthermore, since this is a all-in-one build, faster minion speed means faster farming. It also means faster arrival time for your SRS to bosses which change positions during a fight, resulting in a higher DPS uptime.

Ideally, you’ll want high life (70+), a resist or two, and maybe a helpful stat such a Dexterity for a ring or amulet to be ‘good.’ But there are plenty of other combinations of stats which can also be useful, such as Mana Regen, + Mana, or even Rarity. A Screaming Essence of Fear will net you 19-22% minion movement speed per jewelry item.


Some examples are:

While crafting a helmet with an Essence of Loathing is not remotely required, freeing up some of your mana from reserve due to the recent nerfs to MoM can provide some wiggle room in talents, allowing you to skip some Total Mana % nodes in lieu of damage, or simply provide a larger mana pool in which to cast SRS and take hits.
Screaming Essence of Loathing results in a 3% mana reserve reduction, and scales up to Deafening, which provides 5% mana reserve reduction. Craft with what you can afford. A bone helmet with this essence can be an excellent starting helmet until the helmet enchant from Uber Labs can be acquired.

Some examples are:

With the price hike of Lycosidae, there are a few ways to combat some of the issues that arise from not having the powerful ‘Hits cannot be evaded’ affix granted to SRS via Necromantic Aegis.

One option is to delay the acquisition of Necromantic Aegis, instead finding a nice +Life and +Resist shield for yourself, and using additional accuracy in your SRS Links.

Another option is to take Necromantic Aegis, and use a Evasion-based shield, as these can roll with fairly high +Accuracy Rolls to help. This in conjunction with Additional Accuracy might provide a substantial hit chance for your minions.

Furthermore, if you take Necromantic Aegis, a Victario’s Charity is a great shield to use in the meantime, providing charges for your minions which will increase their damage. However, you will need to use Additional Accuracy in your link setup.

The Build in Action: Highlights from 3.0. Harbinger League

Full Shaper Run: Shaper

Full Uber Atziri Run: Uber Atziri

More videos and clips can be found on Twitch!

The Build in Action: Highlights from 3.1 Abyss League (provided by Brittleknee)

All Breachlords, elder guardians, elder and shaper kills: here.

Twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/iHuyTV

Discord!
https://discord.gg/0jaIH5z0nPGECG3S

Twitter!
https://twitter.com/iHuyTV

HUGE thanks to Brittleknee for taking her time to restructure this guide and rebuild it in a more streamlined and user-friendly manner.

I would also like thank all my friends and guildmates. You guys made the game 100x more enjoyable for me. I would have stopped playing a week in or something when I get bored, haha. The new friends and people I met in this league were all super nice and fun to talk to!
To the viewers who checked out the stream, thank you! You motivated me write this guide (and make my profile public ;P). Streaming is super hard and I am noob/bad at it, so thanks for bearing with me ><.

• 3.6.2018: Initial Bestiary League update completed.

• 1.10.2018: Guide received layout update and restructure from Brittleknee.[li]

• 10.13.2017: In lieu of the spectre patch, I tried them out as a 4L to supplement the SRS.
  Long story short, I didn't like it ><. On the bright side, as a side effect, I had some really good jewels lying around so I redid the tree to fit in 3 more jewel sockets. I got about 10% more damage and a small amount of extra life! I also got the elemental weakness curse on hit gloves so I put ball lightning instead of the low level ele weakness on the cast when damage taken setup. Been loving it so far! [li]

• 10.2.2017: Path of Building Link updated to be more organized and accurate. Vaal Lightning Trap doesn't give the full shock (15% instead of 50% more damage so we can't toggle that). Instead, we can try intimidate (thanks for the suggestion) as that is 10% more, so our actual practical DPS is 5% more than what's shown vs Guardians/Shaper.[li]

• 9.21.2017: I'm using Lightning Golem instead of Stone Golem now for the extra 10% attack and cast speed (at gem level 21).
  I'm also using a lv5/20% Elemental Weakness instead of Enfeeble on the cast when damage taken setup to squeeze out a bit extra damage. This works out to be 4% more damage vs bosses (due to curse effectiveness) and 17.6% more damage vs regular monsters.
  These choices are personally made to get more speed/damage. At this point, since I've reach Lv100, I can go a lot more YOLO than when I was leveling. If you want to be safe, then you can stick with Stone Golem and Enfeeble.[li]

• 9.7.2017: Guide created. [li]