[3.5] Ghoulish Overkill! Zombie+Skeleton Baron build

*****************3.5 initial update.*****************************

I believe I will be adding War Banner and possibly an Animated Guardian. I will be playing around with links and gem setups for the first few days of league.

Most likely this will be what we are going with for the start of the league. I will also list out two setups for the 6-link. One is the bossing setup and the other is for speed clearing. Use the bossing setup for bosses(duh :P) or any difficult content where you want zombies to do more damage to end the encounter faster. Use the speed clear setup if you are just spamming low-mid tier maps for quick xp.

Bossing 6 link
Raise Zombie - Multistrike - Minion Damage - Melee Physical Damage - Concentrated Effect - Empower (level 4 only, if you don't have a 4 Ruthless is better dps.)

Speed Clear 6 link
Raise Zombie - Multistrike - Minion Damage - Melee Physical Damage - Minion Speed Support - Empower (level 4 only, if you don't have a 4 Ruthless is better dps.)

Helmet 4 Link
Vaal Summon Skeletons - Minion Damage - Maim - Melee Physical Damage (can be blind if you want more tankyness)

Glove/Boot 4 link 1
Raise Spectre - Smite - Generosity - Increased Duration

Glove/Boot 4 link 2
Enlighten - Clarity(don't want vaal) - Purity of Elements - War Banner

Weapon/Shield 3 link 1
Shield Charge - Faster Attacks - Fortify

Weapon/Shield 3 link 2
Summon Stone Golem - Animate Guardian - Minion Life Support


This is the preliminary links I plan to test in standard at the start of league. If I feel any changes are warranted I will post them ASAP.


Reminder the recommended Spectres are a Diabolist from act 1 Upper Prison, it will auto-cast Enfeeble for you. The second, and possibly third depending on boots, spectre(s) should be Undying Evangelist from Act 3 Upper Scepter of God. They give out Proximity Shield for a long duration (around 80% uptime with 21/20 duration.) Proximity Shield prevents all damage that comes from a location outside of the shield while you are inside the shield. This has some small exceptions, but is one of the best survive-ability tools I have found.

Im trying this on HC betrayal. Starting, now :D

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evilmaxwar wrote:

Im trying this on HC betrayal. Starting, now :D

Make sure and come back and tell us how it goes!

"

Orangeuglad wrote:

"

evilmaxwar wrote:

Im trying this on HC betrayal. Starting, now :D

Make sure and come back and tell us how it goes!

I had been doing quite well until I tried Delving and Died from the darkness like the noob that I am. I was only level 41. It was my first time delving, last time I had played POE delving was not a thing yet. I was stupid and overestimated how long the flares lasted so I went straight out in the dark to explore! In HC you often learn the hard way but I should have been more careful and do some testing around with the flares first :p

I liked the build so far, definitely will try it again before the league ends.

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evilmaxwar wrote:

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Orangeuglad wrote:

"

evilmaxwar wrote:

Im trying this on HC betrayal. Starting, now :D

Make sure and come back and tell us how it goes!

I had been doing quite well until I tried Delving and Died from the darkness like the noob that I am. I was only level 41. It was my first time delving, last time I had played POE delving was not a thing yet. I was stupid and overestimated how long the flares lasted so I went straight out in the dark to explore! In HC you often learn the hard way but I should have been more careful and do some testing around with the flares first :p

I liked the build so far, definitely will try it again before the league ends.

Well, we all gotta learn those lessons somehow, right?

Which items are you gonna use with your Animated Guardian ?

Also, as the Scourge doesn't work with Smite, wouldn't be better to have a mace with a line "%damage for minions" from Alva or with those new craft ?

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Leverdatre wrote:

Which items are you gonna use with your Animated Guardian ?

Also, as the Scourge doesn't work with Smite, wouldn't be better to have a mace with a line "%damage for minions" from Alva or with those new craft ?

I'll post what items for the animated guardian when I get home from work tonight. Ideally yes you'd want a minion damage mace from either Alva (if those still exist) or from the Delve Fossil crafting.

So for the cheap animated guardian setup you want Dying Breath, Leer Cast, Southbound, Victario's Flight and Carcass Jack(Lightbane Raiment also works if you cannot afford a spare carcass.)

The expensive option is to replace Leer Cast with Crown of the Tyrant.

After some brief testing and resource checking, Tombfist doesn't work with guardian so ignore that.

Hi,
Thanks for the detailed guide and keeping it updated. I am glad finding a build which allowed me to drop SRS and try Skeletons.
I believe I didn't skip reading any posts sofar, however some questions stay for me.
When and why did you decide to drop spirit offering, is it to make room for war banner or something else?
There is no mention of Severed in Sleep. Is it not a good option? Attribute Bonus helps leveling dexterity gems and poison dmg is useful for sustaining summons. I am not good with smiting, poison damage could companse this loss for me and free some sockets.
Desecrate summon level is based on gem level, so I think a low level gem wont be useful even in high tier maps. Will a lvl 20 gem be able to create level 100 Undying Evangelist corpses at hideout? I guess You prefer keeping it in your inventory instead of socketed.
I have a Skin of the Loyal I want to use with 2r2b2g, since I was not able to find another 6l body armor with good stats. What are BIS for 2g sockets. Blind and Withering Touch?
Thanks in advance.

"

Cruonit wrote:

Hi,
Thanks for the detailed guide and keeping it updated. I am glad finding a build which allowed me to drop SRS and try Skeletons.
I believe I didn't skip reading any posts sofar, however some questions stay for me.
When and why did you decide to drop spirit offering, is it to make room for war banner or something else?
There is no mention of Severed in Sleep. Is it not a good option? Attribute Bonus helps leveling dexterity gems and poison dmg is useful for sustaining summons. I am not good with smiting, poison damage could companse this loss for me and free some sockets.
Desecrate summon level is based on gem level, so I think a low level gem wont be useful even in high tier maps. Will a lvl 20 gem be able to create level 100 Undying Evangelist corpses at hideout? I guess You prefer keeping it in your inventory instead of socketed.
I have a Skin of the Loyal I want to use with 2r2b2g, since I was not able to find another 6l body armor with good stats. What are BIS for 2g sockets. Blind and Withering Touch?
Thanks in advance.

Spirit offering was dropped this patch for a couple of reasons. Primarily it was a time wasting skill in 95% of cases. It's effectively only useful for guardian tier and above fights. Otherwise it's just locking you in position for 1.5-2s for the desecrate+offering. War Banner and Animate Guardian are a better passive buff than the offering would give in those same 95% cases.

This also brings me to an important note.
***If you want to socket desecrate you can, just replace minion life on the guardian/golem link. As it is right now I find the zombies aren't dying unless I do guardian tier and above. I'm past the point where that has become mandatory for best xp ratio.***

Severed in Sleep is a fine replacement option, it is probably mentioned in a few posts, but I can understand missing it. I would still try to smite with it if you can, it's a huge damage boost.

Desecrate wont summon level 100 corpses in your hideout. I believe it's locked at 40, but I might be wrong. To summon your highest level specters you have to go into the highest level map you have access to with the lower level specters. Then you use Desecrate(I have it in an off weapon) and repeat using it until you find the corpses of your current active specters then just summon them from those corpses. Ideally you want a 20 desecrate for this purpose.

Until you change chests I would recommend Faster Attacks and Increased Accuracy. Or conversely you could use Blind and Culling Strike.