[3.3] Popcorn Skeleton bomber (Minion instability Earendel's Embrace)

I had two ideas about this build - let me know what you think!
First, instead of getting Puppet Master with your last ascendancy, spend the two points on the two "Minion Damage and Life" small nodes next to Invoker. You lose out on 20% minion move speed, but get slightly more damage. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but minion duration, attack, and cast speed are all useless for us, right?)

Second, how important are the six-linked secondary minions (golems/specters/whatever)? Because I was thinking you could combine the Dark Pact 3-link and the Orb of Storms curse-on-hit into one thing.
Something like Dark Pact - Spell Totem - Curse on Hit - Flammability - Chain - Added Cold/Lightning Damage (for getting Elemental Equilibrium going - I assume Chaos damage doesn't work for that, but not sure). Then you can put your secondary minion in the four-link where orb of storms used to be, and you have a free three-link to do whatever you want with. (You do lose Arcane Surge, so maybe that should go into the new 3-link).
Any thoughts? Is six-linking the secondary minions way more important that I'm giving them credit for?

Interesting ideas, i've also been playing around with the dark pact bit.

I think the secondary minion 6L is only important if you're going for the damage/speed boosts from Animate Guardian. AG - SZ - Minion Life - Minion Speed - Minion Resists - (fortify/whatever you want)
You pair that with Flesh Binder and a little taunt on hit for minions.

Overall The only thing you're really going to have a problem with this build is that it's not very fast, the build does tons of damage and have lots of room for tankiness. It's fast enough for incursions and all that, just significantly slower than any meta build, its just the way the mechanics work for the skeletons it essentially plays like a super slow trap build. I have been trying to play around with ways to make it faster, the only way seems to be with dark pact, but you'd need to use them simultaneously or have obscene +cast speed.

What I was playing around with is having spell echo + from dust. You'd get 10 skeles out a cast, which also helps with management, The problem is you lose a bunch of damage with spell echo, and the fact that you largely use the skeles to block packs, and the placement is absolutely terrible when they cast 10 at once. Not to mention you can't fight 2 fronts. And From dust by itself tends to screw me over rather than help. I was also thinking about playing around with CWDT dark pacts, it can definitely help kill you though.

Forget my totem idea - totems can't use Cure on Hit. Oops.

I'm still thinking how to improve the way that EE and the curse get applied. I'm not a fan of Orb of Storms due to the small range, but I don't want to use something like Arc or Ball Lightning because then you have to keep casting it to keep triggering EE against bosses.

Right now I'm thinking of using the Elemental Damage on Spells that you mentioned to make Dark Pact totems proc EE, and then maybe self-cast Flammability with Spell Cascade (or just Increased AoE) and Acrane Surge.

@aelf

trading the puppet master node for two life nodes is actually not a bad idea at all. Good suggestion!


Regarding the 6L, its pretty much open to whatever you feel works for your play-style. I dont think there is necessary one best setup. I find however that the golems really smooth out mapping significantly, especially with the phantasms.

I've also found that a 3l zombie meat shield setup with empower and minion life has proved itself worthwhile. I've been using that over dark pact totem for mapping since I blow up all the bosses with vaal popcorn.

Yayyy hit 90 in IHC today. Build is going great.

At 89 I decided to finally get big boy flasks



I feel like the lav flask is definitely BiS for us, got this near perfect roll for 40c. For a BiS endgame flask that's cheap af.

Rumi I got for 15c for 1off each blocks, which I'm totally fine with. Didn't feel like dropping 50c on a perfect one.

The build is extremely safe built out the way I've augmented it for HC. Compared to meta builds like reave etc. It's not the fastest build, but it's solid and safe.

Gonna start working on the atlas and do harder content once my gems are 20/20

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Ahfack wrote:

I feel like the lav flask is definitely BiS for us, got this near perfect roll for 40c. For a BiS endgame flask that's cheap af.

Ahfack,

Can you explain to me why you like Lav over a hallowed life/mana flask? I appear to have no issues sustaining unless I get chain smacked and don't block at all and then the mana from the flask is enough to LW away or finish the pack while my skeletons blow up. I did however trade the 4 points that originally went towards Necro Aegis for Deep Thoughts and Righteous Decree as I got some pretty good EHP as my helm currently has no life and I am also using a Sidhebreath. I am sitting around 2300 mana unreserved after clarity, and I am also using the boots that degen your mana a little bit because I am at 42% movement speed due to onslaught and the move speed on boots.

I could easily work Lav into mine as I sort of have an extra flask slot (mainly because I always forget to tap the phys reduction one) but as my gear isn't perfect I find I -have- to run an Amethyst. So I am running a Instant Divine of Freeze, a Hallowed life/mana of Bleed, Chemists Quicksilver of Adrenaline (mainly for when I have to backtrack or I am speeding through an incursion, I tend to map pretty steadily), and once I feel like using the alts hopefully a Perpetual Amethyst of Warding for as close to 100% uptime as possible.

I was also waiting until I get to high yellow or red maps before I bought a good Rumi's as that should give me 51% block (15%+17%BO +19% or so Rumi's)/9 or 10% spell block. I think I am going to have to bog down and buy maps for tier completions as this is easily the furthest I've progressed and not getting 0 or +1 tier drops is starting to make me feel a little salty. lol.

Thanks

Check my current gear boys :)

Hi mate, love this build!

Question : you say mistress of sacrifice is mandatory and yet you only use one (bone) offering skill and it's on CWDT ! It's a good helping skill but not used very often on cwdt. or maybe you use the blood offering in the armor?

Shouldnt we take the 2 skills before spectres and zombie passives?

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Thottz wrote:

Hi mate, love this build!

Question : you say mistress of sacrifice is mandatory and yet you only use one (bone) offering skill and it's on CWDT ! It's a good helping skill but not used very often on cwdt. or maybe you use the blood offering in the armor?

Shouldnt we take the 2 skills before spectres and zombie passives?

The CWDT setup procs very frequently, if not all the time while mapping. Its very noticeable in higher tier maps, which is why you would want it right after getting bone sculptor. Blood offering isnt really that great unless you are trying to heal your minions.

REEEEEEEEEEE level 91, 3% away from 92. Was totally my fault in an incursion with rippy mods!


Wish I would've Vaaled it BEFORE I ripped lol

Sexy chest