{3.10} Speaker for the Dead | The Mass Minion Summoner | League Starter, Leveling Guide 💀

@Herantic

Thanks for the 3.8 investigation and the other answers!
A+ grade material as always :)


I will try with your suggestions to improve performance before trying another spectre or necro build.

Really like the idea of the Hybrid build.


For 3.8 Blights I am not sure if Cyclone nor Charged Dash will be good?
I mean you will need to stand still often and interact with the towers.
Cyclone is easier for positioning but you will have to stop to click I guess?

What are your thoughts? Any alternatives? Triggers for EE+Poison?

@ everyone:
I had mistakenly assumed rings could have Notable Passive anointments, too, but it's only amulets and the special league armor set. So realistically we'll just get one choice.

Therefore, hands down the best one will be Soul of Steel, since it's 4-5% unconditional damage reduction on everything except chaos. The oil price for this one will likely skyrocket, as many builds will also want it.

Bloodletting takes second place with 5% damage reduction from bleeding enemies. Unless you've dropped Bloodlust and Chance to Bleed.

Steadfast is runner up at 4% damage reduction while stationary. Good for Charged Dash/Blade Flurry with Fortify, but not for Cyclone.

Silent Steps with 5% damage reduction would be great if we could reliably blind, but outside of bosses with our blind jewel this will be unlikely.

Charging Offensive gives a way to generate Endurance Charges, but since it's a 20% chance when we're hit there's limited use while bossing. Still, while clearing it'll be worth a fantastic 12% phys reduction.

Sanctum of Thought's crit damage reduction will take a monster's multiplier down from 1.3x to 1.1x, so it's actually really good for helping to prevent those sudden "WTF?!" one-shots.

Fending could be very powerful if knockback works against Blight lanes. Same with Freeze proliferations and Frost Walls.

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@ Rakio:

"

I am not sure if Cyclone nor Charged Dash will be good? I mean you will need to stand still often and interact with the towers. Cyclone is easier for positioning but you will have to stop to click I guess?

Cyclone and Charged Dash both allow us to move and cast simultaneously, which we'll want to do to cover multiple lane directions as well as reach different tower nodes to activate them. If knockback works on lane monsters, this should be doubly-effective in buying time.

Since monsters stop to attack anything in their path, having tons of minions scattered everywhere will go a long way toward delaying them, but may also put a higher premium on minion life.

"

Any alternatives? Triggers for EE+Poison?

Firestorm + Unleash + Spell Cascade + Increased Duration (74%). Three points for "Potency of Will" (45%) with "Mistress of Sacrifice" (30%) will net 149% increased duration. Firestorm's 2 sec duration * 2.49 = 4.98 seconds of 3 (cascade) * 4 (unleash) = 12 storms from one cast.

That works out to be 588 hits possible on a single large target like Brine King. That would = 8820 life @ 15 gained on spell hit, or 1764 life per sec for 5sec (= 29% life regen @6k life or 25% @7k). With max Unleash seals earned back in only 2.13 seconds, plus 0.75 cast delay, you could maintain two casts at once.

Against a smaller target who is only within the overlap of two cascades, we get an average of 7 hits for a normal Firestorm * 2.49 duration * 2 overlap * 4 unleash = 139 hits. That would = 2091 life @15 LGoSH, or 420 life per sec. x2 full casts = 840 per sec.

Cast While Channeling can reach the same 8 casts (two full-charge Unleashes) in (0.35 * 8 =) 2.8 seconds (2.13 + 0.75 = 2.85 for Unleash). But CwC wouldn't have room for Increased Duration Support. On the other hand, you could spread the storms out more.

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@ drakomel777:

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Hercanic wrote:

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drakomel777 wrote:

Patch 3.8 is incredibly promising for necros <3 You have any plans on updating the Speaker for the Dead build?

Of course! I am chomping at the bit for every morsel of info!

Oh that's awesome! Can't wait to see how your build looks when 3.8 hits.

I have to say, you've done an amazing job with this build! Really love using it! :)

Oh brother, can't wait for minion skills and Necromancer changes in 3.8 for this build!

Excellent build, great writing, very aesthetically composed. Can recommend for everyone, am confident this will be the best Necromancer build for 3.8.

Only weakness of this build is Uber Elder and Forge of the Phoenix boss. UE overall damage and huge aoes melts every meat you have except Spectres, making Skeletons and Zombies barely usable. Chicken Nugget is very annoying because of massive fire AoE, but doable. Some significant changes would be needed to make it UE viable. Other than that, all T16s are pretty much Vaal and go with this, Hexproofs slows it, but not by much.

Red tier map bosses with a single stage? Press Vaal Skeletons and start casting Portal.

@ everyone:
Video demonstration of new Summoner gems! I've got it set to 0.25 playback speed, to catch all the details:

• 1. Carrion Golem: Looks to have a basic Slash attack, Ground Slam, and Leap. Cooldown on Ground Slam seems pretty low, or they were supported with Multistrike (more likely).
  
  
• 2. Infernal Legion Support: Shown on Zombies, they were visually on fire and burned adjacent enemies. One of the Zombies spontaneously died at the end of the clip. This is presumably something like Righteous Fire, where it burns down both the minion and any close enemies, but like other Burns it may not stack.
  
  
• 3. Feeding Frenzy Support: Zombie ignored closer targets and ran off to attack an enemy further out. Likely grants the AI of Raging Spirits, who spread out. Skeletons with Feeding Frenzy had a green Dash-like ability (their skull glow was also green), but this may either be a new property of Skeletons or from the reworked Necromancer ascendancy (instead of 100% skeleton movement speed?).
  
  
• 4. Deathmark Support: Caused the Zombie to focus on a marked mob behind enemy lines. I expect it will provide bonuses against the target.
  
  
• 5. Meat Shield Support: Zombie did not move beyond ~30 radius from the Summoner, ignoring targets further out. Used its Slam ability right after being raised, unlike the Deathmark Zombie where their initial attack was only a Basic one despite traveling further to its first target. Perhaps Meat Shield grants cooldown reduction to minions?
  
  
• 6. Some kind of 6-second buff. Like the Assassin's new Elusive buff, this is probably a new Necromancer defense. You can see it pop up @ 1:09. Deathmark, the crosshair icon bound to MMB, goes on cooldown at the same time, so at first I thought they were related until I looked back at the initial clip of Deathmark and did not see that buff activate.

Minions overall seem incredibly fast and responsive. No idea how much of this will be built into the base minion and how much is coming from the new minion passives or reworked Necromancer ascendancy.

EDIT: Whoops! I saw the video, thinking it was from a magazine exclusive, before I noticed GGG's post explaining each thing.

Going by this, I'm leaning toward Feeding Frenzy on Spectres/Phantasms and Deathmark on Skeletons. We would constantly have the Frenzy buff, and Deathmark would give us control over our anti-boss minion. I just hope the damage these gems provide is competitive, like Minion Damage vs. Melee Physical Damage, and not something like Minion Speed Support.

Meat Shield looks good for an Animated Guardian, but is otherwise meh for us. We can get Taunt on a jewel, and requiring us to be close for more damage is a risky conditional. The damage reduction looks interesting, but how will that compare to Fortify or Minion Life?

The Carrion Golem gets up to 80% more damage per nearby minion and its buff grants flat physical damage to minion attacks/spells. I hope it's not as pathetic as the Lightning Golem's Storm Nimbus (Wrath) aura, which is a measly ~10 lightning damage. Even if it's between Herald of Purity and Soulwrest for flat damage, it'll still be pretty small with how much base damage most minions have. I'll need more numbers on this guy before coming to a conclusion.

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@ Cowrex:

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Can't wait to see how your build looks when 3.8 hits.

Oh, I see, you had a name change. =o)

Yeah, I can't wait either! It's going to be tricky to work in the new minion nodes we're likely getting without sacrificing too much of our current defenses. I get the feeling GGG will want to encourage specialization, so like Grave Intentions there may be some clusters we'll need to skip. As for the new support gems, summoners are socket-starved so this will also be a challenge. Hopefully the supports give competitive numbers so they can comfortably replace generic supports.

"

I have to say, you've done an amazing job with this build! Really love using it! :)

Thanks!

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@ NameOfMyLady:

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Excellent build, great writing, very aesthetically composed. Can recommend for everyone, am confident this will be the best Necromancer build for 3.8.

Thank you!

"

Only weakness of this build is Uber Elder and Forge of the Phoenix boss. ...Chicken Nugget is very annoying because of massive fire AoE, but doable.

Bosses who move around a lot will reduce Skeleton damage, that's one of the biggest downsides to melee minions. So when Phoenix is using his Whirling Charge, our DPS suffers. Preemptively placing Skeletons to where you know he'll stop will help. Vaal Skeletons, just by virtue of having Skeletons everywhere, will keep the DPS pressure on him. Aside from that you just have to stay back when he starts charging up his Firebomb. He should be pretty easy otherwise.

Skeletons seem to be getting a Dash ability, and minions overall look much faster in 3.8. This will be of immense assistance against mobile bosses like Phoenix.

"

UE overall damage and huge aoes melts every meat you have except Spectres, making Skeletons and Zombies barely usable. ...Some significant changes would be needed to make it UE viable.

You capped Skeleton resistances, right? Without two 10% resistance jewels, they only have 55% elemental resistances. You can also get Minion Life on your helm, but it'll take up the Life prefix.

Hologram_o had success with Uber Elder. Quote: "This build CAN farm uber elder, I kid you not." They posted their gear, too.

You can also check out the Poor Man's Hybrid I'm working on. If you have currency to burn, there's also the Rich Man's Hybrid (Post 2, Post 3, Post 4). I'll be adding both variants to the build.

GAME UPDATE
GGG is currently giving minions a dev pass, so I made a Reddit thread to strike while the iron is hot:

[Minion Rework] As a long-time summoner, here's a few things I hope GGG addresses.


Art by Tony Sart

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Hercanic wrote:

@ Cowrex:

Full Post & Previous Conversation

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drakomel777 wrote:

Patch 3.8 is incredibly promising for necros <3 You have any plans on updating the Speaker for the Dead build?

"

Hercanic wrote:

@ drakomel777:
Of course! I am chomping at the bit for every morsel of info!

"

Cowrex wrote:

Oh that's awesome! Can't wait to see how your build looks when 3.8 hits.

I have to say, you've done an amazing job with this build! Really love using it! :)

"

Can't wait to see how your build looks when 3.8 hits.

Oh, I see, you had a name change. =o)

Yeah, I can't wait either! It's going to be tricky to work in the new minion nodes we're likely getting without sacrificing too much of our current defenses. I get the feeling GGG will want to encourage specialization, so like Grave Intentions there may be some clusters we'll need to skip. As for the new support gems, summoners are socket-starved so this will also be a challenge. Hopefully the supports give competitive numbers so they can comfortably replace generic supports.

"

I have to say, you've done an amazing job with this build! Really love using it! :)

Thanks!

Yeaaa finally changed my name to something catchier :) Really awesome of you to notice!

I can only imagine that with the new minions, it'll be a challenge for you to find a really good balance. How do you feel about the new carrion golem? Think it's a great addition to the roster of gems (Or a good replacement in the build's case).

@ everyone:
New minion jewel revealed!



If you want to use Fortress Covenant, to avoid losing any notables we take, the best place to put it would be in the STR jewel socket by Scion (no longer true with the addition of the Gravepact cluster). If you are not going Hybrid, you can also place it in the Witch-Shadow socket by Melding.

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@ Cowrex:

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How do you feel about the new carrion golem?

I have my doubts that his flat damage buff will be worthwhile on its own, due to how high base minion damage is, so we'd only want to use him if he's powerful enough offensively without much support.

We could place him in our Zombie socket, share room with our Skeletons, replace the Agony Crawler, or put him in a pair of Elder boots with the Fortify Support affix. By dropping CWDT, Spirit Offering, Faster Attacks, and Fortify; using Flame Dash instead of Shield Charge; and moving Hatred + Generosity to our shield; we'd have our boots completely open to support him, with the Fortify affix giving a fifth link.

We know the tree will have a +1 Golem node somewhere, so with an Anima Stone we could have at least three of them.

Excluding his 80% more damage that comes from surrounding minions, the question is whether his base stats are comparable or better than other golems.

My league start goal is to kill uber elder on day 2-3. Previously I planned to start a miner to do it, but im quite tempted to go necro. Is this build capable of doing it with gear aquirable that early? If yes, how would you adapt it? Thanks!

So... how about that carrion golem?

Looks like it's the new cavalry and the zombies are no longer infantry/cavalry, just infantry.

I hope you post an update before 3.8!