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

@ Swaggmann:

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better page reference [for Animate Guardian] please?

Everything: PoB for Triad
Support Gems: @ virtusOne92
Rare body armour: @ thegamingkage

This'll all be covered properly in the guide rewrite.

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@ Razalgh0ul:

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Razalgh0ul wrote:

Do you have any thoughts on greater volley vs gmp? Using both whie I level and not noticing a huge difference between either other than the larger area of clear with gmp

I've been testing Greater Volley while leveling. I had hoped the projectiles would be further spaced out than they are. Due to this, I don't feel it's a good fit for Frost Sentinels and Phantasms. It is, however, exceptionally nice for exploding projectiles, like the Flame Sentinel's Fireballs, as it ensures the AOEs will overlap considerably.

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@ Dashbb:

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Have a consolation video of me killing a metamorph with level 81-83 organs https://streamable.com/ozul7

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Dashbb wrote:

Feel free to use any of the videos I post

Awesome! Thank you for your many contributions to this thread!

About Frost Sentinels, the most common setup is the following : Raise Spectre, Summon Phantasm on Kill, Minion Damage, GMP, Elemental Army, and Faster Projectiles.

... for the last one, what about spell echo or controlled destruction ? Wouldn't it be better ? Maybe it's a dumb question, but I prefer ask than to stay dumb !

Finally, how do you use skellies while playing (map, bosses, delve) ? Summon => spin to win, break to re-summon every 30sec => spin to win again ?

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Finally, how do you use skellies while playing (map, bosses, delve) ? Summon => spin to win, break to re-summon every 30sec => spin to win again ?

Skeletons are used only for bigger enemies like bosses, exiles, master. etc.

Yes @Hercanic but what is the armor i should aim for, best rolls/what mods ? and i add on it 10 % HP added as ES ??

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Hercanic wrote:

(Responses to be edited in.)

Spoiler

@ everyone:
We've surpassed 2 million views! Thanks, everybody! =oD



For comparison, here's when we reached 1 million views. It was only 3 (!) months ago! We more than doubled the number of replies as well! (2897 - 1276 = 1621) Divided by 103 days, that's an average of 9.7k views and 15 to 16 posts per day.

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@ The_Fatness:

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The_Fatness wrote:

Looking for some insight from anyone who is currently running this build who is also doing red maps, specifically t13-16. I am doing the "King of all summoners" build and it is very rippy in the high tier red maps and I am utterly tired of dying to the metamorph bosses and conquerors.

Has anyone gotten this variant to the top end maps? I don't want to quit the league already.

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@ Rakio:

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Rakio wrote:

Is it too early in the league to talk about replacement for the previous influenced items?

I am looking into respeccing into this build after trying a pure phys skelly summoner.

I cant find a updated list for gear to look for in 3.9. In 3.7 it was easy. 3.8 made everything expensive. 3.9 is too soon to tell?

What mods/gem effects on items can we be without?

I will probably do without Cyclone and rely on brands for EE. Hopefully not too much survivability is lost.

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Full Posts

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thegamingkage wrote:

What was the best optimal armor for Animate Guardian? i can't find the topic's page out of so many pages lol, i added it kingmaker + mask of the stitched demon


Also since i\'m here, @Hercanic, @guys ,
can i use MTX weapon skin transfer for 2handed mace, from a 1handed weapon?or just 2handed melee stuff?

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Swaggmann wrote:

Animated guardian is page 153

@ Swaggmann: Page 153 is outdated, but I'm impressed you remembered something so far back.

@ thegamingkage:

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@ Dashbb:

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Dashbb wrote:

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Hercanic wrote:

Absolutely, I would love to do some comparison tests, record videos, and keep it equipped on a character for display for the guide. However, are you sure? I imagine the Maim mace will retain a nice value on Standard going forward.

Yeah, I actually made a second mace near the end of the league. But I don't really care that much about my gear in standard since I can just buy it again if I need it.

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Hercanic wrote:

Eye of Malice helm has a lot of potential with Cold Triad Grip. It increases resistances of nearby enemies, which includes negative resists. -50% EE, -10% Cold Exposure, -29% L5 Frostbite on Hit, -24% L5 Ele Weakness on Hit = -113% * 1.5 = -170% Cold Resistance.

Arakaali's Fang is ~twice as powerful as Zombies in an Influenced 1H weapon, so that's always an option if you don't mind dealing with worm flasks.

I hadn't seen that helm yet, definitely a cool one. I assume at some point you'll compare the damage of this vs a rare with minion damage and + levels? I'd be interested to see that at some point.
Have you read anywhere about the exposure of the helm? Elemental Army is -10% but the other 3 gem sources are -25%.

I assume Arakali's Fang loses a lot of power with Triad Grip so it wouldn't be using while I have them on?


Here's a bonus question. One of the new bosses has a disgusting chaos DoT that one shots me if it touches me. This is at 37% chaos res with a flask. I'm only at 4.3k life but I think even with an extra thousand or something it will still kill me with how quickly it drops. Outside of anointing Cleansed Thoughts, do you have any other ways of reducing the incoming chaos damage?

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Dashbb wrote:

For anyone looking for a cheap weapon to use while you focus on your other gear, incursion weapons are super common right now and you can get Citaqualotl's Sceptres for 1-2c. Search for One-handed melee weapons with Minions deal 70% increased damage and also 1 empty suffix since that will let you craft on minion attack & cast speed.

Anyone using Triad Grip with 4 green sockets may be interested to know that rings dropping from The Redeemer can drop with % Increased Minion Damage as well as curse enemies with Frostbite on hit

Minion Damage is a Prefix while Frostbite is a suffix so it would be possible to alt spam and then multimod to get this combo reliably.
There's a huge pool of new mods and I haven't really looked at them so if there's any others that would be strong with this build I'd love to know about them.

I can also craft "Gain (7-8%) of maximum life as extra maximum energy shield" on chest armors as a prefix so if anyone needs this done, send me a whisper in game @IWasStrongerInBlight the craft costs 2 alch and then 2 alch and 1 scour if you want it recrafted. It's only the middle tier craft as I still need to get more body armors from Gravicious to unlock 9-10%

Just on the end of this post as well, I did another upgrade on my gear to get into a good position for when I add a hungry loop with animate guardian. I haven't really looked into Catalysts yet, but I had a couple of "Intrinsic Catalyst" in my stash. These enhance any attribute modifiers on jewelry which makes it much easier to gain the dexterity we need from only 1 item.

Spoiler

Just had my first attempt at the Awakener (Wasn't expecting it to be at level 84, I thought it would be lower level like Red Elder or something) and he kicked my ass. I did at most 2/3 of his hp before I ran out of portals I did forget to resummon my zombies after a couple of the deaths so maybe I could have done a bit more damage but I don't think it would have mattered.
I went in blind and most of my gems are only 18/20 at best (not counting the +2 from ascendancy) but the fight felt somewhat manageable. There were a couple of parts where all my minions died but I think that's avoidable with Meat shield on spectres + zombies & just playing better/knowing the fight. Honestly the damage in my set up felt good enough that I think with a slight upgrade and 20/20 or better gems the fight will actually be pretty easy.

I have a question, why can't I channel my ball lightning anymore?

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DigitalBeating wrote:

I have a question, why can't I channel my ball lightning anymore?

To add to this question, should we use ball lightning if we run slave drivers? (since they are lightning damage)

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xaeror35 wrote:

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DigitalBeating wrote:

I have a question, why can't I channel my ball lightning anymore?

To add to this question, should we use ball lightning if we run slave drivers? (since they are lightning damage)

But this build uses EE, if your minion is also lightning how you going to do damage?

I was able to channel ball lightning, after the patch I can't channel it anymore. IDK why and I haven't changed anything on my character since the patches because I went to play metamorph league for a bit. I don't think you can channel with a wand, I switched to a Sai and was able to channel. Then to a mace and channel fine. Now I can't channel ball lightning anymore.

@ Amnexty:

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Faster Projectiles

The projectile of a Phantasm fades out, like Ethereal Knives and Freezing Pulse, limiting its range. This means projectile speed will increase its range, reaching further before fading out. Faster Projectiles Support allows Phantasms to reach the edge of the screen from the center of the screen, significantly improving their pack clearing and engagement time (less time spent moving closer to reach their target).

FP Support also radically reduces the delay from when our Spectres cast to when they hit and kill. This goes a long way toward smoothing out our clear speed. The sooner a target is dead, the sooner our minions can focus on living targets and not overcommit to something that's already "dead".

It's also safer. Inflicting chill and freeze before monsters even have the chance to get out their first attack is crucial to not taking a face full of hot hail from the pack's combined strength.

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how do you use skellies while playing (map, bosses, delve) ?

We don't pull out Skeletons for general trash clearing, since there's no need. For map bosses, unleashing Vaal Skeletons is usually enough. If there's something dangerous ahead (e.g. shrine of dangerous monster types) and you want to be safer because you're at 98% XP, tossing a batch or two of Skeletons out in front can pave the way. For the toughest fights, Skeletons are invaluable.

Skeletons have several useful properties, unique from our other minions:

1. Insanely powerful. They mince bosses for their breakfast smoothies. With Vaal Skeletons, they are the highest single-target DPS skill for summoners. With Melee Splash, they will decimate any pack in a single swing. We don't use them for everything, though, because casting them every screen is inefficient when minions who can follow us, like Spectres, Phantasms, and Zombies, can continually clear trash while we simply run forward.

2. Cast anywhere. Your minions are relatively dumb. Sometimes our persistent minions like Zombies and Spectres get stuck, or take too long to engage through a doorway. You are smart. Plunk down Skeletons into rooms, up/down cliffs, around corners, on top of something dangerous, places where other minions might struggle or put you at risk.

3. Cast infinitely. Zombies need corpses. Spectres need specific corpses. These limitations can be deadly when we're pressed against a wall. But Skeletons can be spammed, in batches of four no less. We can overwhelm a Grandmaster in HoG who is machine-gunning arrows or fireballs, because the Skeletons never stop coming.

4. Independent. Skeletons do not follow. They are not forced to disengage to catch up to us as we run forward (or away). We can leave them to clean up or deal with things that are too dangerous for us to stay close to. During Incursions, we can have them clear out different rooms simultaneously, while we go in another direction entirely. Any defensive event, like Blight, Breach, and Delve nodes, we can fight on multiple fronts like a true army. Just note that if you get 1.5-2 screens away, they will despawn.

(There is a certain massive area around players, around 1.5-2 screens in radius, where time within passes normally, but beyond which time is completely stopped in suspended animation. This is why even if you leave an area for a long time and come back, after-death monster effects like Bearer explosions and chasing Volatiles will still be there. Player effects like skeletons, totems, mines, traps, etc, are made to disappear when subjected to this twilight zone.)

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@ DigitalBeating: Melee channel skills, like Charged Dash and Cyclone, require a melee weapon. A wand will not work. Make sure you didn't accidentally hit X to Weapon Swap, that your tree is still intact if it's an old character, that no items are disabled from not meeting stat requirements, that the gems and links are all properly accounted for, that you have enough mana available, and that the Channelling skill is on your skill bar and not the triggered spell.

@ xaeror35: Avatar of Fire keystone (1 passive point), or use a Fire spell (Armageddon Brand, Firestorm with Spell Cascade), or add flat Fire Damage to a Physical skill.