[3.3] Popcorn Skeleton bomber (Minion instability Earendel's Embrace)
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Welcome!
 This is the start of a fun little project using the Necromancer. Thanks GGG for nominating this for Build of the Week! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mlsQVCgC58 Proof of Concept: https://youtu.be/lfroKKxfERI Map https://youtu.be/6xZwpTPdStY Shaper It requires: or Quick explanation: Earendel's Sceptre causes skeletons to lose 30% of their hp per second. Once they reach 35% life, they trigger minion instability and explode, dealing heavy fire damage. Detailed Explanation:
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Part I - Skeletons by stacking minion HP and minion damage, the skeletons reach around 10-15k hp, possibly more with better gear. (use an elder helm for a cheap 6l) Earendel's sceptre degen is fire damage, which means it is affected by the minion fire resist. You will want to either use Maligaro's Lens with Necromantic aegis (this will cause your minions to have -10% all resist) or use 2 Earendel's Embrace with very high % degen. ********************************************************************************************** There are pros and cons to using either setup. Maligaro setup provides a decent close range heal and allows you to use shield charge, but you spend 4 points to get necro aegis, and the heal also causes the minions to explode slightly slower. You also lose the block% from the shield (base block of 0% can be RIPPY). Dual wielding Earendel's Embrace has a slightly better degen than Maligaro's. You also gain 15% base block chance. You also have 4 more skill tree points to spend. This setup will net higher DPS simply because you can spam skeletons faster. Part II: Damage Aside from minion damage and minon hp, Earendel's Embrace causes your skeletons to cover enemies in ASH - this means enemies are slower and take 20% increased fire damage. Elemental Equilibrium is applied using orb of storms, which is further linked with curse on hit and either flammability or Ele Weakness. **Lastly, we want the skeletons to ignite using Combustion, which reduces ignited enemy resistance by a further -19%.** When you get to a boss, simply use vaal Popcorn (Vaal skeleton) and the boss will be erased. additionally, you can use a spell totem with dark pact and chain to kill your skeletons even faster! This is great if you miss your ultimate. **note that you can use combustion support on your flame golems, and they will apply the -fire resist. This would allow you to replace combustion on your skeletons with elemental focus for more damage.** Part III Other minions flame golem with phantasm on kill augments the build perfectly. You need the Anima Stone for this to work best. Zombies were okay, however it was quite a pain to resummon them when they die because of their huge mana cost. I found they work best in a 3L. SRS might be possible using Mark of the Red covenant, though I have not tried. Spectres are also another option. Some people have suggested Solar Guards. In this case you would want to get the ascendancy node for spectres. Gear
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This Gear is on my Standard character. I also have my League character posted under "leveling" Look for Abyss jewels with: Minion life \\\\ Minion damage if you have used a minion skill recently||||| flat # maximum life If using flame golem, you will need The Anima Stone. Gear Explanation and gem links
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Start off with an elder helm with MINION DAMAGE and MINION LIFE support in it. ( I purchased one for 3c in league, and there were 10's if not 100's of others). This will work great until you can get the same mods helm but also with +2 minion gems. (in incursion, you can also get +2 to duration gems). Vaal summon Skeleton // *combustion* // inc aoe/conc effect // **fire pen** // in the helm. **a level 4 empower only does slightly more damage vs bosses then a 20/20 fire pen. Fire pen does more damage in general vs regular monsters unless they are cursed, which you dont want to do every time while killing trash. If you are using Maligaro's lens, then empower might be the way to go. If dual wielding, I recommend fire pen. *combustion can be replaced with elemental focus if you use combustion on your flame golems. When they ignite enemies, it will apply the -fire resist debuff.* 6L Chest (pick your minion - Zombies? Flame golems? Spectres? Flame golem - minion damage - GMP - Spell echo - phantasm on kill - Controlled destruction. If you have to cut gems, cut from the right (5L = cut controlled destruction) 4L - Lightning spell - curse on hit - flamability - arcane surge 4L - CWDT - desecrate - bone offering - clarity (unless you have an unset ring for the aura). 3L - Movement skill - support - support There are several options for the second 3l: damage: spell totem - dark pact - chain Scorching ray - faster casting - spell totem defense: Raise zombie - minion life - empower 3+ Utility: Animate Guardian - Minion life - empower 3 There is a lot of room for customization. There is no "best version", only different variations. Moving on to the rest of the Gear: - provides a nice boost to your HP as well as minions, and gives you some regen. its important to hit 12 skeleton max. since you summon 3 at a time, meaning you can get 4 casts without overwriting the first skeletons before they explode. You can ignore this if you plan on sticking with "to dust". - look for 29% + max life degen per second. That is the most important stat. The rest of the equipment is all stats - cap your resists, get life, even mana regen. Lots of room to be creative. As for jewels, you can start off with Minion life% and minion damage normal jewels. Eventually you want to get abyss jewels with minion life and minion damage when you use a minion skill. And finally, you will want to get life on the abyss jewels. - this is an optional jewel. Its great for early/mid levels. Probably not worth it end game. Skill Tree and PoB:
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Maligaro's Lens Setup: www.poeurl.com/b3IG If you dual wield (No maligaro), then drop necromantic aegis. Dual Wield Setup: www.poeurl.com/b3Iz PATHOFBUILDING: https://pastebin.com/uZUhzLsX Bone sculptor and Mistress of Sacrifice are the core of the build. normal lab - Mistress of Sacrifice Cruel Lab - bone sculptor Merc lab - Mistress of sacrifice Uber lab - has several options: 1) Puppet master - the 20% minion speed is quite useful (zombies respond faster, flame golems keep up with you, skeletons run to a target quickly). it also buffs their damage and attack speed which is great for mapping. 2) Fleshbinder - get this if zombies are your secondary minion 3) Soul Weaver - Get this if spectres are your secondary minion 4) Spend both points on the two small nodes which provide 10% minon hp/ 15% minion damage each. Do not get Commander of Darkness - this will increase your minions resist which is reduces their degen (this is bad). Bandits - help Allira to gain resists and mana regen. Leveling:
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This section I will update as I level. It may not be the most efficient way, but this is what I did: edit: Highly recommend using this for low levels: 1-40
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I leveled using SRS and skeletons linked with melee splash and minion damage. This honestly carried me SSF until level 35. At that point, I purchased 2 x 29%+ sceptres for 1 alch each, and proceeded to do the lab. The skellies were 1-shotting all monster packs except for rares.
at 38, I used Skeletons, Combustion, spell echo, minion damage 4L. I also got curse on hit Orb of storms/flamability ( I tested arc, but it didnt feel as good). 40-55
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try to get enough 4l items to run zombies and flame golems. Those + the skeleton spell echo setup will still carry you. Work towards getting unwavering stance as the priority. 55 and up
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Do the Cruel labrynth as soon as possible and get the skeleton mastery. from this point on you will wreck everything and destroy all incursions. Focus on reaching 12 skeleton limit and getting life nodes. Skill tree at 62 dual wielding sceptres: https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMDAAQHBLMGSQj0C2EN4hCXE2wUIBZvGFYabBzcHxgi9CSqKPoqmCziNZI26TpYOuE8LT38QYdEBEWdRnFIjkjnTLNN41BHUftTUlW1VcZXK1hjXz9mumebaHRo8mpDaqxr22wLbRl9GILHg1-DzIPbhTKFYIzPjxqPRpMnmK2a4JuKm6Gdrp7Nn8uhL6IAplemrKcIpzCqxKyYrj6vbLB3tAy3PriTvOq9gr5Pvoq_l8EExFjGrsk9ytPMvM0W0B_Tj9P72L3ZC9pi34rjauRR6QLr7uyD7IrvDu_r8B_yHvJF9kj31_no-oD-Cv6P_rM=?accountName=DreamScythe&characterName=DarkI%C3%ADng Level 89 character incursion league:
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Skill Tree: https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMDAAQHBLMGSQj0C2EN4hCXE2wUIBZvGFYabBzcHxgi9CSqKPoqmCziNZI26TpYOuE8LT38QYdFnUiOSOdJT0yzTblN41BHUftTUlW1VcZXK1hjXz9mumebaHRo8mpDaqxr22wLbRl9GILHg1-DzIPbhTKFYIzPjxqPRpMnly2YrZrgm4qboZ2uns2fy6EvogCmV6aspwinMKrErJiuPq9stz64k7yqvOq9gr5Pvoq_l8EExFjGrsk9zLzNFtAf04_T-9i92QvaYt-K42rkUekC6-7sg-yK7w7v6_Af8h7yRfZI99f56PqA_gr-j_6z?accountName=DreamScythe&characterName=Indiana_Joan I helped Alira to get resists and mana regen. I am not using Maligaro's lens, and i put the points from Necro aegis into MoM nodes. Notes and changelog:
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Minions have base 40% to all resists. if you used 2 perfect sceptres, the skeletons would lose 36%hp per second after factoring their resists. Maligaro's lens lowers their resists to -10%, which works out to just slightly slower degen, but can give some nice little heals. One downside of the build is that it wont function well when a party member is using purity of fire, purity of elements, or Commander of darkness (these increase minion fire resist). Changelog
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July 7, 2018 I have updated the guide slightly here are the following logs: -added ascendancy point explanation under the skill tree section. -added a few options under "detailed explanation" - such as combustion gem setup on flame golem. -clarified part of the "gear explanation" section regarding 3L setups and also "to dust" setup Videos:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mlsQVCgC58 build of the week highlight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_sO-jdYF60 - Just a regular ordinary instructional video about making popcorn. Definitely not a video containing exploding skeletons. https://youtu.be/6xZwpTPdStY Shaper https://youtu.be/lfroKKxfERI - quick shaped plateau https://youtu.be/Rv3Z5luASH0 - flame golem setup instead of zombies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YQ2_tzeqAc&feature=youtu.be Main characters: Deep_water - AnomaIy - Artica Build guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1602863 Last edited by DreamScythe#1384 on Sep 3, 2018, 3:43:42 PM Last bumped on May 9, 2023, 4:28:02 AM
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Reserved.
Also changed 6l chest to flame golem which is much better than zombies Main characters: Deep_water - AnomaIy - Artica
Build guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1602863 |
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Any resists below 0% should apply adversely to degen the same way it does to stuff like shimmeron and rf on the player(penetration doesnt work for degen).
Maligaro's Lens the on death heal has a radius of about 2 units, unless you're hugging your skeletons you should not be healed. |
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Did you consider using From Dust? https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/From_Dust
Summon 5 skeles per cast. |
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" I treated it like blood rage, which at one point (when it dealt chaos damage) got changed so that it would not do more than the 4% degen if ur chaos resist was bad, but could get reduced if it was good. if the -resist from maligaro's lens does indeed increase the dmg they take, then that is a bonus! As for the lens heal, there are many times when you can cast ahead of you, then shield charge through and get healed. This is useful on bosses (VERY usefull with Vaal skeletons). Also with all the phantasms everywhere, you will get random heals. " its definately a viable option. Allows for more mobility. Main characters: Deep_water - AnomaIy - Artica Build guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1602863 Last edited by DreamScythe#1384 on Jun 2, 2018, 3:24:57 PM
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how big is the heal's AoE from the shield (I remember they nerfed badly, like reeeeealy badly and you need to be no more than 1-2 unit away from the skele)
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" It's not amazing, I'll tell you that. I'm super busy this weekend which means not a whole lot of time for further testing the build. I do want to see how using 2 sceptres compares. You do get the added bonus block from dual wielding. Main characters: Deep_water - AnomaIy - Artica
Build guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1602863 |
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Well even before league started i thought of creating a guide for a build inspired in your "spectrenate dead" and i am leveling one as my starter
i can vouch that you can level this easily even before getting the cruel lab using the spell echo support in a 4L i am just reticent about using MoM till i get a higher life pool, also getting a vaal summon skelly is a MUST, also if you time it right, using vaal impurity of fire can make you almost one shot bosses here is my gear lvl 62 now most are crap and i will also test the build with tawmr's cloak using dark pact on it and getting Elder helm |
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nice!
Im also leveling this build on league. Wanted to test it out in standard and share it first though. Main characters: Deep_water - AnomaIy - Artica
Build guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1602863 |
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I am really looking forward to this sceptre because I currently run a similar build on Xbox.
Instead of the sceptre I use Dark Pact to kill my skeletons. It's lvl 1 and linked to spell echo, faster casting and chain. It also enables EE with an "add lightning damage to your spells" mod on your gear With that setup, a profane wand (with additional increased cast speed), flesh offering, sliver flask and 5 Abyss Jewels with "10% increased cast speed when a minion died recently" I can cast DP over 10 times a second. In 3.3 I will switch the wand for that sceptre and the shield. I currently use a totem to cast the skellies. With that totem you have to use From Dust because otherwise it will produce Skellies faster than you can kill them. I believe the sceptre plus shield combo will help a lot with that so I can produce and kill more than 5 Skellies a second. |
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