[3.1] "The Pencromancer" by Loate - (Summon Skeleton/Dark Pact)(Shaper/Red Elder down) SC

forgot to ask, does life leech on hit work on the dark pact off skeletons?

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rattek wrote:

the passive tree... i did the first 20 points into the area around scion but u say to go over to shadow how do u get there?


because in Your passive tree u linked it don't show u the way to get there.... Please can i get a updated passive tree and maybe a step by step guide to a certain extent? at least show me a way to get over to the shadow area because I have no clue were that is....

You'll want to go north of the Scion life wheel up through the Witch area to initially get over to the Shadow area, but once you clear Merciless lab you can assign points from the Shadow starting area and respec out of the connecting Int nodes. The reason for doing this is the Shadow starting nodes are very nice Chaos damage nodes that you'd want to pick up anyway.

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Camaron wrote:

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Loate wrote:

Updated with Lava Lake and Forge of Phoenix videos.

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I just leveling my assassin DP/Skeleton poet's pen build, damage feels ok but survivability sucks.

Yeah, that's why I went Scion, having access to that life wheel when you need it makes a big difference early on. I would also recommend leveling as like Frostbolt/Ice Nova or something - the Skeleton/Dark Pact combo really doesn't start taking off until you get into level 60+.

Why does it start taking off at 60?

Also how does the dmg compare to a VD setup on pens also?

60 is about where your skeletons start getting enough life and you've gotten enough nodes on the tree to see your dps seriously start spiking up. I'm not sure how well it compares to VD, but I suspect it's probably not quite as much dps due to there being no limit on the amount of balls.

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Camaron wrote:

forgot to ask, does life leech on hit work on the dark pact off skeletons?

Life gain on hit does not work on Dark Pact, only on your Barrage projectiles.

how about life leech on dmg ? does it works off skeles?

Just starting to level this build now, I find it interesting that you don't mention the Abyss Jewels that give 12% increased minion life. Were this intentionally omitted, or did you just overlook them?

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Nuraihyon wrote:

Just starting to level this build now, I find it interesting that you don't mention the Abyss Jewels that give 12% increased minion life. Were this intentionally omitted, or did you just overlook them?

They're definitely worth more than flat Chaos on abyss jewels (33 extra flat chaos damage per 12% minion life jewel versus the 12-15 flat Chaos from jewel specific), but you can only find them on Ghastly Eye jewels (which I believe can't roll the "hinder enemies with spells" and "percent less damage from abyssal mobs" mods, which are both very useful to have). I would say for raw DPS, a Ghastly Eye with Life, Mana, Minion Life, and then a resist or mana regen would be ideal, but that's a very specific combo that I don't think occurs very often (it seems to weight additional minion mods to go with minion life).

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Camaron wrote:

how about life leech on dmg ? does it works off skeles?

Yes, if you can find a way to leech chaos damage or generic leech (like Berserker/Warlord's Mark) then you can leech off the Dark Pact.

any chance we can get a path of building link for this?

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any chance we can get a path of building link for this?

Ask and ye shall receive. This has the tree, skill links, and uniques required - use the empty gear slots to fill in your resists and stats needed for Cospri's/gems.

https://pastebin.com/p40VzCut

Also updated with Red Elder video (in which I die once stupidly because I'm still not 100% on identifying the mechanics yet).