[3.5] Ghoulish Overkill! Zombie+Skeleton Baron build

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Dogmatick wrote:

Sorry for my english. But what maps do you make with this build now without problem? Фnd how deep in the mines?

Neither of us behind making the build has been able to play religiously this league as before.
However, there are no maps that are incredibly difficult (physical reflect may cause some trouble as a map mod) with exception of Uber Atziri, Shaper, and, maybe, some of the Shaper Guardians. However, all have been done with the build in previous leagues, and the build has recieved no nerfs.

As to depth, only time will tell. Neither of us has had the time to test its limits yet. I suspect quite far, however.

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Orangeuglad wrote:

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Dogmatick wrote:

Sorry for my english. But what maps do you make with this build now without problem? Фnd how deep in the mines?

Neither of us behind making the build has been able to play religiously this league as before.
However, there are no maps that are incredibly difficult (physical reflect may cause some trouble as a map mod) with exception of Uber Atziri, Shaper, and, maybe, some of the Shaper Guardians. However, all have been done with the build in previous leagues, and the build has recieved no nerfs.

As to depth, only time will tell. Neither of us has had the time to test its limits yet. I suspect quite far, however.

Thx too much for fast answer! Will play this build now)

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TokeMcBong wrote:

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DieKao wrote:

Heya, so I've leveled with this build and put my own spin on it and was wondering what you guys think.

Basically, Smite + Avatar of Fire + Elemental Equilibrium + Wrath.

So no MoM, but Smite and Wrath should work together (Wrath increasing the damage from the smite aura) and with avatar of fire it gets boosted even more.

It just so happens that one of the Embalmer/Necromancer mobs also use Conductivity.

Skeletons scale ridiculously with flat damage by the way.

Let me know what you think. You can look at my profile to see what I mean.

This sounds like a completely different build entirely. It also sounds like it doesn't really work.

Avatar of Fire for you personally will not affect the damage of your minions in any way.

Avatar of Fire from Earendal's Embrace is a giant damage loss for the scenario you mentioned unless you are running 2 of them. If you are running 2 of them then you aren't running the shield this build does and you're going to respec the tree.

If you are using Avatar of Fire from dual Earandel's, and it must be dual to get full 100% conversion, you'd get more damage from Anger.

Conductivity will also do nothing for you as you "Deal no non-fire damage" according to avatar of fire. So your minions with avatar of fire would need Flammability instead.

Biggest issue is that Earendal's only works on skeletons which only make up 35-40% of your total minions and only around 25% of your total boss damage. Buffing them at the cost of zombie damage is counterproductive to the way the build currently functions and appears to be a damage loss.



Also big note, your characters aren't set to public so I cannot see your tree and gear to confirm these details based on what you are using.

I don't think you quite understood me. I don't understand at all why you're going on about Earendal's Embrace.

Smite has phys to lightning conversion, Avatar of Fire makes it so I only deal fire damage, which makes it possible to proc EE. It also means conductivity works, since my minions only gain lightning damage through Smite-Aura and Wrath. I'm even considering Phys2Lightning support.

Hope that makes it more clear. You could have just looked at my character to see that I don't use Earendal.

Edit: Well, my characters where hidden, I have no idea why. I had to search 5 minutes to even find the setting.

Any suggestions on optimal pantheons?

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DieKao wrote:

I don't think you quite understood me. I don't understand at all why you're going on about Earendal's Embrace.

Smite has phys to lightning conversion, Avatar of Fire makes it so I only deal fire damage, which makes it possible to proc EE. It also means conductivity works, since my minions only gain lightning damage through Smite-Aura and Wrath. I'm even considering Phys2Lightning support.

Hope that makes it more clear. You could have just looked at my character to see that I don't use Earendal.

Edit: Well, my characters where hidden, I have no idea why. I had to search 5 minutes to even find the setting.

That does make it a bit more clear. It's around 13 pathing points out of the way to pick up avatar of fire just to achieve this, plus one for EE. If you are running that setup and not using physical to lightning in both zombies and skeletons then you are short-changing yourself. Ideally you'd want to find a way to convert the rest of their damage to cold or lightning this way, but I don't think that is possible.

While I do see the merits of this style of build change. It doesn't seem to deal substantially more damage than I've currently got now, but comes at the cost of MoM and a substantial amount of survivability lost. If you wanted to go this route without MoM you get substantially more damage from using Hatred and aiming for a 15th Zombie. Then changing your CurseSpectre to a Vulnerability one and abusing physical damage.

Also a big note, you're going to have strength problems on your pathing changes. You've lost around 80 base strength by going the way you did for Avatar of Fire. This most likely means you have lost a zombie, as without MoM you should have 1500 strength (or 16 zombies)

Another big thing, you're trying to squeeze out more DPS on a build that can reach over 5 million shaper dps. Although there is nothing wrong with trying to do that. I feel the build is lacking in survivability more than damage at any stage of the game. With that in mind I can't recommend making a change that would drop your survivability this much. If you want to run those changes you are more than welcome to, but I feel you're just going to make things harder for you at the end-game stage of things.


Edit: I also just ran the numbers through path of building for your build at level 100 and it ends up being only around 300k-400k dps higher than my version with MoM and around 600k-700k lower than my verison without MoM. You also gave up a ton of life, at level 100 you'd have over 1k less life than either version I've posted.

The big reason for this is that you aren't picking up enough strength from the tree. At level 100 your build would only have 1219 strength with your current gear. This comes in at a surprising dps loss because, not only do you lose 1 zombie at 180k dps, you also lose 150 strength on all minions.

Quick comparison
Your minions at level 21, with level 11 conductivity 1219 strength.
Zombies 180k each, 15 total (assuming craft on chest)
Skeletons 153k each, 12 total (+22 from Vaal Warriors/Elite)

Same minions at 21, with Hatred version and level 11 Vulnerability, your gear 1523 strength.
Zombies 204k each, 16 total (assuming craft on chest)
Skeletons 163k each, 12 total (+22 from Vaal Warriors/Elite)

So while it might seem like your idea is a damage gain overall, it ends up being less just due to the fact that you get more zombies that deal more damage with hatred/vuln and no conversion. Another big note is that your version ends up with around 5900-6k health. While the version that grabs more strength is at 7k health with your current gear.

*The tree I was testing with for hatred and your current gear. I just slotted the vuln in an extra slot so I could add the curse to the calculations. It's level 11 because I believe that is what the spectres cast. If I am wrong it can be updated.

https://pastebin.com/Yckvxt3T

However @DieKao something just crossed my mind. If you link Smite to Physical to lightning, Hatred to Generosity and took EE on the hatred version you do gain another 22% damage for 1 point on zombies and skeletons. You've piqued my interest to try and squeeze EE into the build when I work on it later today.

I will be posting an update soon.

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TokeMcBong wrote:

However @DieKao something just crossed my mind. If you link Smite to Physical to lightning, Hatred to Generosity and took EE on the hatred version you do gain another 22% damage for 1 point on zombies and skeletons. You've piqued my interest to try and squeeze EE into the build when I work on it later today.

I will be posting an update soon.

Thank you very much for your in depth look at my unholy concoction of a build.

I don't quite get Physical to lightning on Smite, smite already converts 50% physical to lightning on it's own. You'd deal pure lightning damage with smite then I guess, but that would weaken the smite damage aura if you take EE. Not sure I get your idea behind this.

I was sure that Wrath increased the aura damage of smite, but either it's not that much damage after all or PoB doesn't calculate it. Anyway, it's probably still less than Hatred. Hatred is just too good for ele damage I suppose.

In my first iteration I was actually thinking about using Stygian Revenants again, with Wrath + Smite. Then I found this build and put different things together as usual.

I do believe your point about gaining not that much damage for a massive survivability loss is valid. I have 3,5k Life at the moment. Even after 5-linking my +88 life rare chest I still feel it's too little. UBER Izaro one-shot me today without buffs with his charge. I didn't get hit during my first run, but I was still shocked to get insta-gibbed.

I'll wait for that update and see if I respecc for MoM.

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DieKao wrote:

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TokeMcBong wrote:

However @DieKao something just crossed my mind. If you link Smite to Physical to lightning, Hatred to Generosity and took EE on the hatred version you do gain another 22% damage for 1 point on zombies and skeletons. You've piqued my interest to try and squeeze EE into the build when I work on it later today.

I will be posting an update soon.

Thank you very much for your in depth look at my unholy concoction of a build.

I don't quite get Physical to lightning on Smite, smite already converts 50% physical to lightning on it's own. You'd deal pure lightning damage with smite then I guess, but that would weaken the smite damage aura if you take EE. Not sure I get your idea behind this.

I was sure that Wrath increased the aura damage of smite, but either it's not that much damage after all or PoB doesn't calculate it. Anyway, it's probably still less than Hatred. Hatred is just too good for ele damage I suppose.

In my first iteration I was actually thinking about using Stygian Revenants again, with Wrath + Smite. Then I found this build and put different things together as usual.

I do believe your point about gaining not that much damage for a massive survivability loss is valid. I have 3,5k Life at the moment. Even after 5-linking my +88 life rare chest I still feel it's too little. UBER Izaro one-shot me today without buffs with his charge. I didn't get hit during my first run, but I was still shocked to get insta-gibbed.

I'll wait for that update and see if I respecc for MoM.

converting all of your damage to lightning, and putting generosity on hatred, would reduce enemy cold resist giving a giant buff to your now generosity buffed hatred.

Wrath only gives Smite flat damage because it's an attack skill, not a spell. Plus it would need to be "Aura effect" to change the strength of the Smite buff.

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converting all of your damage to lightning, and putting generosity on hatred, would reduce enemy cold resist giving a giant buff to your now generosity buffed hatred.

Wrath only gives Smite flat damage because it's an attack skill, not a spell. Plus it would need to be "Aura effect" to change the strength of the Smite buff.

But Smite already has 50% Physical to Lightning conversion. Which means you deal part physical and part lightning damage, so you proc EE anyway.

And I wasn't talking about Smites damage being buffed by Wrath, but Smite's Aura Damage being buffed by Wrath.

Smite has two distinct components. The attack itself which has a bit of AoE and phys to lightning conversion.

And the Aura, when you hit an enemy. Even if you link Smite with Generosity, you are still doing lightning damage with the attack and will proc EE.

Of course then the Smite Aura damage from your minions is reduced because off EE, which is the reason I converted to fire in the first place.

I even saw a comment recently on reddit, which I can't find now, talking about the Smite AURA damage and Wrath interaction. Smite just gives lightning damage (to attacks and spells). Of course I'm not sure if Wrath actually buffs Smite Aura damage or not, maybe it only does if that damage gets delivered with a spell, like Skeleton Mages for example. But that's an entirely different build then.

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DieKao wrote:

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converting all of your damage to lightning, and putting generosity on hatred, would reduce enemy cold resist giving a giant buff to your now generosity buffed hatred.

Wrath only gives Smite flat damage because it's an attack skill, not a spell. Plus it would need to be "Aura effect" to change the strength of the Smite buff.

But Smite already has 50% Physical to Lightning conversion. Which means you deal part physical and part lightning damage, so you proc EE anyway.

And I wasn't talking about Smites damage being buffed by Wrath, but Smite's Aura Damage being buffed by Wrath.

Smite has two distinct components. The attack itself which has a bit of AoE and phys to lightning conversion.

And the Aura, when you hit an enemy. Even if you link Smite with Generosity, you are still doing lightning damage with the attack and will proc EE.

Of course then the Smite Aura damage from your minions is reduced because off EE, which is the reason I converted to fire in the first place.

I even saw a comment recently on reddit, which I can't find now, talking about the Smite AURA damage and Wrath interaction. Smite just gives lightning damage (to attacks and spells). Of course I'm not sure if Wrath actually buffs Smite Aura damage or not, maybe it only does if that damage gets delivered with a spell, like Skeleton Mages for example. But that's an entirely different build then.

1: he was talking about, on your version of the build, putting phys to lightning on the zombies, so they'd get a bigger buff from EE.
2: Smite getting generosity is so the aura gets bigger, and so it can share (your very limited) link space with hatred, while giving hatred more damage.
3:he's talking about having no substantial lightning damage on the minions (aside from the smite aura) and having substantial cold damage on them instead (from a generosity'd hatred) as hatred is invariably more damage to all of your minions than wrath would be.
3a: both of them act as "added damage" for the purposes of skeletons
3b: your zombies do more than 3x in physical damage than wrath adds in lightning damage.
3c: wrath does not affect smite's aura damage in any way, as it's not spell damage -- unless the minion using the auras is a skeleton mage or a very particular spectre, as those are the only minions that deal "spell damage" which is the only way to get wrath's 20% more mod.
3d: even if you could get wrath's more mod on all of your minions, hatred is effectively a 36%+ more mod on any physical damage they do, whereas wrath would only be a 20% more mod on any lightning damage they do, and they do more physical damage without PTL than they do lightning damage with PTL.
3e: even if you had PTL in the links, hatred still comes out ahead, because it's calculated in before conversions.