1. Any reason at all to not slot Animate Guardian with Zombies and removing the Fortify Gem? Seems like even with cheap items he will next die. Belly of the beast as a chestpiece alone gives 40% to life and 15% to all resist and I've never came close to losing him.
2. Are the +1 Skeletons always the best crafting option when it comes to modifiers? I am asking because I was looking at an option for a 6 slotted armor with multiple % life modifiers.
3. Has anyone done the math if it is ever worth it to get the 2 socket abysal belt that gives a 50% to socketed jewels but loses out on the other modifiers that the one socket belt provides?
I swapped this exactly two nights ago and put kingmaker on it. I can 100% vouch that if you have the money for it, it's a very good idea. Everything gets fortify, culling, crit multi and whatever other buffs you toss on guardian.
A Loreweave can let us ditch Ahn's Heritage's +3% maximum resistance for more damage by dual wielding wands.
Overall less of a glass cannon than simply dual wielding without the 78% resistances, especially chaos for this league's funsies. Bonus if there's a +1 gem level corruption to boost the awakened gems too.
The Helmet can share the duty of running +1 skeletons.
Overall pretty tanky but still hits like a truck. With Vaal Skeletons, bosses skip stages and the fight becomes even safer.
Ahn's Heritage gives you +100 life, +1400 armour, +29% chance to block, and then +3% to all max res and the possibility to Shield Charge for ultimate mobility in open maps, linked to Fortify for 20% less dmg taken. With it you can equip a great chest piece with 1000-1600 armour, 110+ life, 10% max life, +1 skellies, plenty of res... for like 10c plus fusings.
You are trading all that for a not so great chest piece with only 50 life, a bit of mana and attributes, crappy armour and no res at all. All of the value of your chest is coming for the 6L and the corrupted implicit, which you can both get on any chest piece. So overall you're losing like 2.5 armour, 160+ life, 10% max life, 1 skelly, a truckload of res, 29% block chance, Shield Charge for a wand (+2 skill gems, minion dmg/atkspd).
If you really want the roughly +30% dps from having a second wand I'd say ignore the +3% max res and go with a much stronger chest than this. If you want to be defensive forgo the second wand and get a great chest + Ahn's.
The only small advantage of the +3% max res through Loreweave instead of Ahn's is that Loreweave fixates the max res to 78% even if you get a map modifier giving you -x% max res. This mod gets ignored.
1. Any reason at all to not slot Animate Guardian with Zombies and removing the Fortify Gem? Seems like even with cheap items he will next die. Belly of the beast as a chestpiece alone gives 40% to life and 15% to all resist and I've never came close to losing him.
2. Are the +1 Skeletons always the best crafting option when it comes to modifiers? I am asking because I was looking at an option for a 6 slotted armor with multiple % life modifiers.
3. Has anyone done the math if it is ever worth it to get the 2 socket abysal belt that gives a 50% to socketed jewels but loses out on the other modifiers that the one socket belt provides?
Good stuff there.
1. I don't get the Animate Guardian question. Sure you can remove Brutality from the Zombies, it's kinda useless, but an Animate Guardian will do like 20k dps vs 1m+ per skelly? I guess you had an idea behind on how the benefit from the Guardian equipping certain items that would come and buff your skellies but how? Giving the guardian more Wands?
2. A +8% life crafted would give me roughly +3% life from current and as much in ES. A 13th or 14th skelly increases dps by ~7% assuming they can all hit the boss (big assumption)... Frankly it's your choice and the +8% life/+8% mana isn't stupid. Especially in a MoM where the +8% mana also helps your eHP. I'm considering switching actually. It's only 4c if you change your mind :) Maybe you find a chest with only +115 life/+10%life prefix and max 2 suffix so you can multicraft both the skelly and the +8% life/mana ? In this case you lose on a potentially good armour prefix or more res.
3. I was actually levelling with one lol. It's definitely an offensive option. In my PoB if I put a perfect +35 life, +20% minion dmg, +6% minion AtkSpd jewel, between getting +50% on it and adding a second one also buffed, I gain roughly +10% dps total vs only 1 jewel in a normal stygian vise. Because both have life on them I also 'only' lose 150 life. But you lose so much on what you could get in other defensives...
Last night I was playing with other ways to boost everything even further and I did swap out fortify from my zombie link for guardian with kingmaker. Holy moly it amplified everything even further. More dmg, more survival everything. It's expensive but well worth imo.
You do risk the guardian dying and losing everything. Most expensive piece was kingmaker at around 160-180c. I can tell you all I ran last night was around 40-50 juiced as F T16s and it never once budged from full health. I was running full sextant'd, alch, vaal, scarabed + zana modded T16s. As I have it linked in my zombie links it's supported with minion life and meatshield so it's just a buff bot really. Still gives zombies fort, now gives all your minions fort, including you, and also gives everything cull, 50 crit mult and depending on the rest you gear it with some movespeed, endurance charges if it gets hit etc.
My bad, I had missed that post. It answers my question in my previous post. Definitely interesting. What else would you give him to get movespeed, endurance charges or whatever more you can think of?
The fortify you could get via a Shield Charge setup, the Culling Strike by removing Brutality on Carrion Golems, but the +50% crit multi on skeletons is +16% dps alone... It's so hard to find ways to give them crit multi. And +30% rarity is always a nice bonus.
I am semi-erect, please go on.
(Sold a Kingmaker to a guy yesterday, hope the price didn't go up too much lol.)
Last edited by Dragomirov on Jan 9, 2020, 3:28:35 PM
A Loreweave can let us ditch Ahn's Heritage's +3% maximum resistance for more damage by dual wielding wands.
Overall less of a glass cannon than simply dual wielding without the 78% resistances, especially chaos for this league's funsies. Bonus if there's a +1 gem level corruption to boost the awakened gems too.
The Helmet can share the duty of running +1 skeletons.
Overall pretty tanky but still hits like a truck. With Vaal Skeletons, bosses skip stages and the fight becomes even safer.
Ahn's Heritage gives you +100 life, +1400 armour, +29% chance to block, and then +3% to all max res and the possibility to Shield Charge for ultimate mobility in open maps, linked to Fortify for 20% less dmg taken. With it you can equip a great chest piece with 1000-1600 armour, 110+ life, 10% max life, +1 skellies, plenty of res... for like 10c plus fusings.
You are trading all that for a not so great chest piece with only 50 life, a bit of mana and attributes, crappy armour and no res at all. All of the value of your chest is coming for the 6L and the corrupted implicit, which you can both get on any chest piece. So overall you're losing like 2.5 armour, 160+ life, 10% max life, 1 skelly, a truckload of res, 29% block chance, Shield Charge for a wand (+2 skill gems, minion dmg/atkspd).
If you really want the roughly +30% dps from having a second wand I'd say ignore the +3% max res and go with a much stronger chest than this. If you want to be defensive forgo the second wand and get a great chest + Ahn's.
The only small advantage of the +3% max res through Loreweave instead of Ahn's is that Loreweave fixates the max res to 78% even if you get a map modifier giving you -x% max res. This mod gets ignored.
1. Any reason at all to not slot Animate Guardian with Zombies and removing the Fortify Gem? Seems like even with cheap items he will next die. Belly of the beast as a chestpiece alone gives 40% to life and 15% to all resist and I've never came close to losing him.
2. Are the +1 Skeletons always the best crafting option when it comes to modifiers? I am asking because I was looking at an option for a 6 slotted armor with multiple % life modifiers.
3. Has anyone done the math if it is ever worth it to get the 2 socket abysal belt that gives a 50% to socketed jewels but loses out on the other modifiers that the one socket belt provides?
Good stuff there.
1. I don't get the Animate Guardian question. Sure you can remove Brutality from the Zombies, it's kinda useless, but an Animate Guardian will do like 20k dps vs 1m+ per skelly? I guess you had an idea behind on how the benefit from the Guardian equipping certain items that would come and buff your skellies but how? Giving the guardian more Wands?
2. A +8% life crafted would give me roughly +3% life from current and as much in ES. A 13th or 14th skelly increases dps by ~7% assuming they can all hit the boss (big assumption)... Frankly it's your choice and the +8% life/+8% mana isn't stupid. Especially in a MoM where the +8% mana also helps your eHP. I'm considering switching actually. It's only 4c if you change your mind :) Maybe you find a chest with only +115 life/+10%life prefix and max 2 suffix so you can multicraft both the skelly and the +8% life/mana ? In this case you lose on a potentially good armour prefix or more res.
3. I was actually levelling with one lol. It's definitely an offensive option. In my PoB if I put a perfect +35 life, +20% minion dmg, +6% minion AtkSpd jewel, between getting +50% on it and adding a second one also buffed, I gain roughly +10% dps total vs only 1 jewel in a normal stygian vise. Because both have life on them I also 'only' lose 150 life. But you lose so much on what you could get in other defensives...
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In regards to the Animate Guardian I was operating under the assumption that it is equipped with Leer cast, Dying Breath, and Victario's flight. Thats 33% damage and 10% for all minions, yourself and allies as an added bonus. Seems like a no brainer but not everyone has made the jump. Is it just the fear of losing it? I haven't come close to losing him yet and all of the items I mentioned are dirt cheap. As I mentioned previously the Belly of the beast alone gives an insane 40% increased health and their are some very good cheap options for gloves like southbound that gives 16% health.
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In regards to the Animate Guardian I was operating under the assumption that it is equipped with Leer cast, Dying Breath, and Victario's flight. Thats 33% damage and 10% for all minions, yourself and allies as an added bonus. Seems like a no brainer but not everyone has made the jump. Is it just the fear of losing it? I haven't come close to losing him yet and all of the items I mentioned are dirt cheap. As I mentioned previously the Belly of the beast alone gives an insane 40% increased health and their are some very good cheap options for gloves like southbound that gives 16% health.
Leer Cast is only +1.9% dps for me. Why not for its small life buff to the Guardian.
Dying Breath +2.3% dps and bonus to curses which is harder to quantify (bosses being resistant). So far Kingmaker was a much better weapon suggestion for the crit multi alone.
Victario's Flight for the +10% movement speed. Sure, why not.
Belly of the Beast sounds good indeed.
Southbound for the life okay... could we put some curse gloves there instead? But the guardian being defensive will rarely hit anything so curse on hit would be near useless.
Fundamentally, if I change my mind about what to equip on it, can I cast it on another pair of gloves and it will equip the new one? Or is he stuck forever with what I chose initially? I couldn't find the answer on the wiki of the spell.
is grave intentions anoint worth getting if you cant get indomitable army yet?
Unholy Might is physical dmg as extra chaos damage, which is prevented by Brutality.
You can get Aligned Spirits pretty cheap (Mana + Minion dmg), or adopt an alternate tree I see a bunch of people using, where you get Ravenous Horde as your Anoint, and use the 7 saved skillpoints to travel to Indomitable Army yourself. With this pathing, you can pick up the jewel slot for another To Dust or Abyss Jewel, and go to Aligned Spirits for mana/Minion Dmg if you want...
Looking at oil prices, Ravenous Horde is close in price to Indomitable Army, so Aligned Spirits is the cheap option either way. As people say, you want Indomitable Army for red maps.
i can kill sirus really easy already, i just die if i mess up the mechanics but uber elder is hard because of the amount of damage he does, looking for improvements: more dmg while maintaining tankiness and if possible + damage and tankiness. heres my pastebin: https://pastebin.com/BANw8U4T any help appreciated
In regards to the Animate Guardian I was operating under the assumption that it is equipped with Leer cast, Dying Breath, and Victario's flight. Thats 33% damage and 10% for all minions, yourself and allies as an added bonus. Seems like a no brainer but not everyone has made the jump. Is it just the fear of losing it? I haven't come close to losing him yet and all of the items I mentioned are dirt cheap. As I mentioned previously the Belly of the beast alone gives an insane 40% increased health and their are some very good cheap options for gloves like southbound that gives 16% health.
Leer Cast is only +1.9% dps for me. Why not for its small life buff to the Guardian.
Dying Breath +2.3% dps and bonus to curses which is harder to quantify (bosses being resistant). So far Kingmaker was a much better weapon suggestion for the crit multi alone.
Victario's Flight for the +10% movement speed. Sure, why not.
Belly of the Beast sounds good indeed.
Southbound for the life okay... could we put some curse gloves there instead? But the guardian being defensive will rarely hit anything so curse on hit would be near useless.
Fundamentally, if I change my mind about what to equip on it, can I cast it on another pair of gloves and it will equip the new one? Or is he stuck forever with what I chose initially? I couldn't find the answer on the wiki of the spell.
any Level 10 Vulnerability on Hit implicit gloves would work. Can probably get one with some good survivability mods on it, as well...
In regards to the Animate Guardian I was operating under the assumption that it is equipped with Leer cast, Dying Breath, and Victario's flight. Thats 33% damage and 10% for all minions, yourself and allies as an added bonus. Seems like a no brainer but not everyone has made the jump. Is it just the fear of losing it? I haven't come close to losing him yet and all of the items I mentioned are dirt cheap. As I mentioned previously the Belly of the beast alone gives an insane 40% increased health and their are some very good cheap options for gloves like southbound that gives 16% health.
Leer Cast is only +1.9% dps for me. Why not for its small life buff to the Guardian.
Dying Breath +2.3% dps and bonus to curses which is harder to quantify (bosses being resistant). So far Kingmaker was a much better weapon suggestion for the crit multi alone.
Victario's Flight for the +10% movement speed. Sure, why not.
Belly of the Beast sounds good indeed.
Southbound for the life okay... could we put some curse gloves there instead? But the guardian being defensive will rarely hit anything so curse on hit would be near useless.
Fundamentally, if I change my mind about what to equip on it, can I cast it on another pair of gloves and it will equip the new one? Or is he stuck forever with what I chose initially? I couldn't find the answer on the wiki of the spell.
You can always equip a new item and the previous item is lost.
I guess overall my point was it seems like a lot of people playing this build know an Animate Guardian with Kingmaker is powerful but they are afraid of losing gear when it dies.
My recommendation is to add Animate Guardian right away in one of the zombie support slots and even with basic gear he shouldn't die (Dying Breath, Leer Cast, Belly of the beast, Vicario's flight and sounthbound). Then once you are comfortable and have the currency you can add the expensive items.
