[3.3] Pure Skeleton Warriors Summoner, 1.9M Shaper DPS (Videos Inside)
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Catharsis wrote:
Changes for 3.3
In 3.3 all vaal skill gems include the non vaal version as well, therefore we Swap Summon Skeletons for Vaal Summon Skeletons, lose level 21 gem but gain a disgusting pack of 6L vaal skeletons, more than worth it.
Ranking The Build:
Clear Speed: 6
Survivability: 8
Single Target: 9
Ease of play: 8
Fun Factor: 8
This is a Skeleton only build, I wanted to see what they're like in maps and endgame bossing.
They're not as good as Specters or Flame Golems for clear, because their AI is still pretty dumb.
But they're a lot stronger for bossing.
It's slightly different than the recommended one because I have lots of Dex on gear and enough life to sacrifice a Ring.
Flasks
Important Items
The heart of the build, I wouldn't replace it for anything in a skeleton build.
The second heart of the build, huge survivability boost.
Big damage boost and a higher chance for your minions to chill/freeze.
Extremely important jewel to be able to summon skeletons quickly without running out of Mana.
A few of these will give a big damage boost.
Blind on hit halves monsters chance to hit, with one of these jewels it has 100% uptime on bosses.
Taunt on hit means less targeting and less damage on you.
Try to get the last 2 jewels with a "Minion damage if you used a minion skill recently" mod, and preferrably life, although all 3 mods can get expensive. Note that only one of each of the abyss jewels is needed.
Animate Guardian
Keeping Animate Guardian alive
Nothing complicated here, you really only need to worry about this in a few specific fights, like Acid Lakes boss, Uber Trio, Minotaur and a couple of others.
Just make sure he's attached to a minion life gem, sufficiently leveled and has all his regen gear (another reason to use femurs), A +2 helmet is nice to have, but not nessecery.
If you notice him dropping below 50% HP at any point, unsocket the gem and resummon him when safe.
Low Budget Options
This build can be done as a league starter with zero Budget.
The only thing you need to get started is a 4-Link Femurs Staff, which costs 1 Chaos, and a From Dust jewel and work your way up from there.
Use a Bloodbond chest until you can afford a Kaom's
Skeletons Gem Priority
Summon Skeleton > Melee Splash > Minion Damage > Multistrike > Minion Speed > Maim
Swap Splash for Melee Physical Damage on high HP Bosses.
Keeping Skeletons Alive
-Bone Offering all the time, forget about flesh.
-Max out their resists with 16% resist tree node and Commander of Darkness Ascendancy.
-Use the staff for +2 levels.
-Leech node and minion regen are somewhat helpful too.
Leveling
tl;dr SRS + Zombies until you get Bone Sculptor from Cruel Labyrinth, from that point you can drop everything else, switch to Skeleton Warriors and watch everything melt.
Use only single curse Temporal Chains until red maps, more damage isn't needed before then.
I would only consider a 1H + Shield setup on an ES based build.
Femurs:
-More skeleton HP
-Ability to wear Kaom's Heart, which pairs well with the high life regen from the tree.
-Skeleton survivability boost (+2 levels)
-More damage
-Golem and Guardian survivability boost
Scourge + Victario's Charity
-Shield Charge mobility
-Occasional fortify
-Would need a significant and inefficient tree rework to grab Necromantic Aegis, and skeletons don't get maximum benefit from the charges because you'll constantly resummon them.
Sustaining Mana
You won't have enough mana to repeatedly cast Summon Skeletons, therefore https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/From_Dust Jewel is critical to be able to run this build on very little available Mana/Regen.
Don't level clarity at all, it's only there for +20% resistance bonus.
Zombies
Are they worth using? In my experience no, Here's a couple of reasons:
-Their high Mana cost doesn't jive with the high Mana reservation and low Mana regen of this build, meaning if they die during combat it requires turning off an aura and slowly waiting for the mana to regen for each zombie.
-They can do more harm than good in Multi-Proj/Chain maps since they tend to conjugate around you, meanning a quick for them and possibly you.
-Their Damage and Survivability drops drastically in high end content.
Specters
I personally don't think they're needed, but they can help with clear since skeletons aren't the fastest clearing minions in the world with their dumb AI.
However sockets are scarce, so a is probably your best bet, you will likely have to buy level 19 gems and level them to 20 yourself since nobody uses or sells these.
Note that mine is set up for Vanguards, not clear specters.
Mind over Matter
Is it worth using? I say No.
Pros: Gain 1-1.5k eHP
Gain a few Gem slots.
Can spam skeletons and drop From Dust jewel, gaining +1 jewel slot
Cons: Lose Blasphemy Temp Chains.
Lose generosity on Hatred (Essence Worm).
Lose a flask slot to a mana flask.
Harder to cap Resists.
League Starter / Low Budget
The recommended gear isn't cheap, but it's also not that expensive compared to the power it gives.
This build was my league starter, and it's possible to make it work from scratch, Skeletons are very powerful with only a 4-Link femur, use BloodBond chest until you can afford a Kaom's Heart
Flesh Offering
Fine to use in yellow maps/easy red maps, beyond that your skeletons will die too quicky without bone offering, which is also a great survival boost for you.
Swapping Kaom's
You can, if you plan on running easy maps, I would never swap it for high damage red maps or endgame bosses.
HC
Yes.
Uber Elder
They would need a significant HP boost (double), which is achievable through +1 gems +2 minion gems staff and a level 4 empower, then the fight is quite easy, I wouldn't attempt it with less than 8,000 HP Skeletons.
Low DPS in PoB?
-Remember to enable curses and auras
-Check gem levels
-Attack speed bonus per skeleton from Femurs doesn't count, you can add it manually
-Having 9-10% AS rolls on to dusts adds up
-Remember to swap gem from Splash to Melee Physical for single target DPS
Lvl 92 in incursion league. Did everything but über elder and über atziri so far.
Gonna make some tweaks for über elder if i decide to fight him again.
As usual i am doing this with mind over matter. Got 6k life and 3k mana.
Do Uber atziri. She's a joke as skellies. Even trio doesnt stand a chance.
Lvl 92 in incursion league. Did everything but über elder and über atziri so far.
Gonna make some tweaks for über elder if i decide to fight him again.
As usual i am doing this with mind over matter. Got 6k life and 3k mana.
spectre helm for frost sentinels and boots for an extra spectre.
brutality for multistrike, empower for melee splash and purity of ice for haste or hatred.
rumi flask instead of ice flask.
10093 ehp. I believe this league 1 hander and shield are better than staves since we have the temple mod available 90%+ increased minion damage on one handers. I hope that stays in the game!
Last edited by kompaniet#2874 on Jul 7, 2018, 8:00:55 AM
spectre helm for frost sentinels and boots for an extra spectre.
brutality for multistrike, empower for melee splash and purity of ice for haste or hatred.
rumi flask instead of ice flask.
10093 ehp. I believe this league 1 hander and shield are better than staves since we have the temple mod available 90%+ increased minion damage on one handers. I hope that stays in the game!
Amazing items. Can you tell prices of these items?
I have enjoyed playing this build. I feel I am lacking somewhat in dps and have missed something important. I am hoping you or anyone had some advice on what would improve my character the best. Thanks in advance and really appreciate this build. I've had the best leveling experience yet with this character.
I have enjoyed playing this build. I feel I am lacking somewhat in dps and have missed something important. I am hoping you or anyone had some advice on what would improve my character the best. Thanks in advance and really appreciate this build. I've had the best leveling experience yet with this character.
you if you are mostly mapping you could use a spectre helm like: that's gonna speed things up by a lot. you can get a lot better than mine. this i bought for 2-3 chaos or something like that but it gets the job done.
if you don't want to get a 6l for skeletons and honestly it's not needed as 5l is enough for everything except maybe über elder you could make some adjustments to the support gems in there.
i don't see melee phys or maim anywhere. i doubt multistrike is more dps than those two. also minion speed is not that good overall. you can just summon skeletons on top of things as you move about and you get plenty of speed from the passive tree and ascendancy skills.
what do your jewels look like? a good portion of the damage comes from jewels. if you put 'to dust' jewels in every slot you're gonna be doing some sweet dps. if you can't afford those then the ghastly abyss jewels with 'x% minion damage if you have summoned a minion recently' are good too.
Last edited by kompaniet#2874 on Jul 9, 2018, 9:36:05 AM
