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

"

lootmonger wrote:

Herc did you recently add that poem? it's darkly beautiful and also concise, much like this guide. I love you man.

"

Hercanic wrote:

NEOPHYTE GUIDES
New to the Hack-n-Slash ARPG genre? New to Path of Exile? New to the summoner playstyle? Just curious? Well, allow me to put your apprehensions to rest: You have made an excellent choice on all accounts! Prepare to be carried on a throne of corpses all the way to endgame!

1. Minions Explained - The Liber Mortuorum (~15% complete)

Artwork - The Demon Book

Art by Stefan Koidl

This grimoire of undeath will detail specifics on each minion, its AI, stats, and nuances such as how to raise Spectres properly.

MINIONS 101
Minions do not use your weapon, or any of your gear. The only way to scale them is through gem level, linked support gems, minion-specific nodes on the passive tree, anything that says "Minions" or "Allies", like Auras, and debuffs put on enemies like Curses and Elemental Equilibrium (EE). In the case of Spectres, they also scale with the corpse level they were originally raised from.

Nothing on the passive tree or your gear affects minions because they are not You, and their Attacks and Spells are not Your Attacks and Spells. The only exception is if the keyword "Minion" or "Ally" is used. If it doesn't EXPLICITLY state either of those words, it doesn't directly apply to minions. EE, for example, does not have either of those words, so only Your Attacks and Spells, not your minions' Attacks and Spells, will affect the target's Elemental Resistances.

In other words, minions do not trigger EE. The resulting debuff on an enemy, however, can benefit minions, as well as any other party member, because the target itself has had some of its resistances weakened by you.

Spells come from You. Totems and Mines are remote Spells. This is why all three apply EE. Minions are different. The spell you cast to create them ends at that, meaning the spell itself deals no damage and has no other effect aside from creation. Unlike a fireball or ice spear, the minion itself is not the Spell. It is a separate entity from You, with its own independent stats. If they score a kill, you do not get credit for on-kill effects. If they deal attack damage, you do not get attack leech from them. If they strike a monster who Reflects Damage, you do not take the reflected damage, the minion does.

Minions do use two stats from you, namely Item Rarity and Item Quantity.


SPECTRES 101
The default hotkey for "Target Corpse" is "A". This only functions while a corpse-targeting spell is on your hotbar, such as Raise Zombie or Raise Spectre. Hold down this hotkey to target the corpse you want for your Spectres.

The monster level of Spectres does not automatically increase with gem level like other minions. It stays whatever monster level the corpse was that you raised them from, further restricted if your gem levels were low at the time. So if you raise Frost Sentinels from Lunaris Concourse, even with a level 20 Raise Spectre, those Frost Sentinels will always be level 58. Raise Spectre also has its own cap, so if you use a level 1 Raise Spectre in Lunaris Concourse, even though the corpse is level 58, your Spectre will only be level 32 because of the gem's cap.

Once you have any level of Frost Sentinel as a Spectre, the Desecrate skill can create that monster's corpse in a higher level zone. This is how you get up to level 84 Frost Sentinels without having to find them naturally. However, again, there's a cap tied to Desecrate's gem level. So if Desecrate is too low level, just like if Raise Spectre is too low level, you will end up creating very low level Spectres (a wand on weapon swap with "+1 to socketed Chaos skills" can help Desecrate). At gem level 20, both Desecrate can create up to level 100 corpses and Raise Spectre can raise up to level 100 Spectres. However, there is no level 100 zone. Desecrate only creates corpses up to the lowest between its level cap and the monster level of the zone. Since the highest zone is 84, we're limited to level 84 Spectres. The only current exception to this is Unearth, which can create corpses of a higher level than the zone. So you can, in fact, get up to level 100 Spectres, but only very slow-walking Skeleton Archers that the Unearth gem creates corpses of.

It's a bit confusing at first. You have to check the zone level, Desecrate level, and Raise Spectre level to determine what level your Spectre will be when raised, and then you must memorize that since there's no way to check it later. The unique map, Oba's Cursed Trove, in the last room of the map with all the strongboxes, has a monster level of 84, and is the most reliable way to get level 84 Spectres.

How to raise Spectres - A short video guide by DieKao.

How to change Body Armor without losing Spectres:
If you ever need to change out your body armor or do crafting on it, go to town first. Wear the new body armor and slot Raise Spectre in the exact same socket position. For crafting, temporarily wear a Tabula Rasa or any body armor where you can keep Raise Spectre in the same socket position while you craft on your actual body armor. And, of course, go back to town again to switch back!

If you make the mistake of ever changing gear in your Hideout (oops, you lost the DEX from that item, which disabled your body armor, and now:), the Spectres you worked so hard on will go POOF. Gone. Forever. Until you go to the trouble of raising them all over again.

As long as the Spectre gem stays in the same socket position, you will not lose your Spectres when you go back to your Hideout to use your crafting bench. If you get new body armor, make sure the same socket is blue so you can place Raise Spectre there and keep your Spectres. I repeat: Always change gear in town!!!


ARMY OF THE DEAD
You can think of our minion lineup as a military unit, with distinct roles performed by different minions. This lets them cover each others' weaknesses, so we aren't crippled by any particular minion's Achilles heel:

• 1. Phantasms = Peltasts/Skirmishers. Light frontline fighters with modest range from their "javelins/slings". They protect the flanks by freely engaging targets.
  
  
• 2. Zombies = Infantry/Cavalry. Heavy frontline fighters who rush in to lock down the enemy in melee.
  
  
• 3. Skeletons = Assassins. Light infiltrators who appear from nowhere to deliver surgical strikes on high-value targets.
  
  
• 4. Spectres = Archers. Softens enemy ranks from long range and makes their approach difficult. Creates an opening for other units.
  
  
• 5. Agony Crawler = Ballista/Catapult. Massive destructive capability, but limited engagement and high maintenance.
  
  
• 6. Holy Relic = Medic. Can patch up battlefield scrapes and delay the worst, but they are not a doctor with a sterile surgical room.
  
  
• 7. Vaal Skeletons = Reinforcements. When times are bleak, the horn sounds the arrival of one's allies.

FROST SENTINELS (Spectres)
Frost Sentinels deal ~63% of Solar Guard damage, but their Ice Spears gain 50% more damage in their second form, putting them at a nearly identical 94% damage. Their range is the same as a Solar Guard's special beam cannon. They are like snipers, able to attack ahead of you from the other end of the screen instead of trying to catch up to you. With their extra projectiles and casting from further back, they cover far more of the screen than Solar Guards who have -50% range on their fireball spell.


SOLAR GUARD (Spectre)
Solar Guards have potentially several times more damage if their fireball explosions overlap. These explosions do not happen if the projectiles Pierce, so monsters must be close to walls for this to matter.


PHANTASMS
Individually they may not seem like much, but all together they deal significant damage. But most importantly they increase your area of effect.

When a Spectre kills things at max range and spawns Phantasms, those Phantasms can turn outward and attack things even further out. With so many, they are more likely to be able to attack in directions your Spectres aren't facing. A few monster kills in a room puts Phantasms in that room to clear everything else in it. They have built-in pierce, making them reliable against packs you haven't or can't curse with Projectile Weakness.

They are also 11 more chances to land a proliferated freeze, thanks to Hatred giving them cold damage.

Uptime shouldn't be a problem while clearing, and they're not intended for bosses.


AGONY CRAWLER


ZOMBIES


HOLY RELIC


SKELETONS


VAAL SKELETONS

2. Mechanics Explained (1% complete)

Artwork - Arcadia

Art by Pablo Fernandez

This section will detail the nuances of several game mechanics this build relies on, such as the commonly misunderstood Elemental Equilibrium or how we enable Ball Lightning to Poison.

Path of Exile Beginner Guide (PoE Betrayal 3.5) - A video guide by Rhykker, aimed at anyone brand new to PoE.

Shield Charge - Requires a one-handed melee weapon. Wands will not work.

Threshold Jewels - These do not require you to actually have their stat requirement allocated. Just that nodes with that stat exist near the jewel socket. All this really means is you can't place something like Unending Hunger, which requires 40 INT in radius, in places like the STR socket to the immediate left of the Scion's life wheel. Whereas it works perfectly fine in the INT socket north of the Witch's starting area, despite us not having allocated 40 INT, because 120 INT, allocated or not, is within range.

Unending Hunger - Spectres only need to be close to a kill to absorb its soul. They do not need to be the one who dealt the killing blow. In addition to 5% attack/cast speed per soul, Soul Eater also grants 5% increased Damage Reduction per soul. This is an insane amount of protection from literally everything.

Elemental Equilibrium

ELEMENTAL EQUILIBRIUM
Often called EE for short, Elemental Equilibrium is a keystone node on the passive tree, located in the center between the Templar and Witch areas. It is extremely powerful, especially for summoners, but requires several concessions: We must be wary of having any added Cold or Fire Damage on our gear, as well as added Cold or Fire Damage from allied auras.

How it works for our build is Ball Lightning and Charged Dash both deal Lightning Damage. When we hit monsters with either of these skills, their Cold Resistance and Fire Resistance are significantly weakened. By a whopping -50%, which can also put the target into negative resistances. In most circumstances, it is worth 50% more Cold and Fire Damage. In cases where monsters have high resistances, it is even better. 75% resistances being dropped to 25% is effectively triple damage.

In compensation, because we hit with Lightning Damage to begin with, the Lightning Resistance of the target is strengthened. By a mere +25%, but this could be enough to bring a monster with 50% Lightning Resistance to 75%, which effectively cuts Lightning Damage in half. We don't mind this, though, as our only Lightning Damage is from Ball Lightning and Charged Dash, and neither of these are intended to deal meaningful damage. We're a summoner, after all. Our minions deal damage. Our own attacks serve other purposes, like debuffing enemy resistances for our minions to exploit.

Avoid any source of flat Fire or Cold Damage on Attacks/Spells, since we use Elemental Equilibrium (EE). Of the three Elemental Damage types, we want to only hit with Lightning Damage, which will weaken further Lightning Damage in exchange for strengthening the Cold and Fire Damage of our minions against the target. None of our minions use Lightning Damage, so it's okay to weaken Lightning Damage. (Note: Physical and Chaos Damage are not considered Elemental, so they do not matter in regards to EE; the Generosity Support prevents our Hatred aura from affecting our own attacks in exchange for making it stonger on allies; and minions do not trigger EE because their damage is separate from ours.) We do not want to deal Cold Damage, or EE will weaken the Frost Sentinels' and Hatred's Cold Damage. We do not want to deal Fire Damage, or EE will weaken the Fire Damage of the Solar Guard and Added Fire Support (if you have either).

If you plan to play in parties and do not wish to sabotage their damage, you must take care to coordinate what elemental damage they deal and the auras they use, or temporarily abstain from attacking, or simply remove EE to avoid any conflicts. EE is very powerful, but not party-friendly without planning.

"

Enemies you hit with Elemental Damage temporarily get +25% Resistance to those Elements and -50% Resistance to other Elements

Balance is good in all things, but especially in the realm of magic.

What does this mean? Let's break it down word by word, because in PoE many terms have very specific meanings.

1. Enemies you - "You" refers to your character. Minions cannot apply your EE because they are not You. Refer to the Minions Explained section above to learn more about how minions are treated as separate entities from your character, unlike other Spells. It is important to remember that all instances of "You" and "Your" throughout the game exclude minions (unless it's explicitly "Your Minions").

2. hit - The skill must Hit, which is distinct from certain things like Damage Over Time and other debuffs that do not directly strike the target with damage. Skills that do not hit include Scorching Ray, Blight, Wither, Searing Bond, etc. Both Ball Lightning and Charged Dash hit, so we needn't worry about this.

3. with Elemental - Elemental refers to Cold, Fire, or Lightning. Physical and Chaos are not Elemental, so they do not affect EE in any way.

4. Damage - This means at least 1 point of elemental damage must be dealt. Those who take the Ancestral Bond keystone, for example, are unable to directly deal damage, and thus cannot apply EE through their own attacks or spells. We don't have to worry about this, as we still deal a small amount of damage.

5. temporarily - Debuff lasts 4 second.

6. get +25% Resistance to those Elements - To all elemental types contained within the same hit. If you use a weapon with added Cold and Fire Damage, then one hit from Charged Dash will deal all three elemental types. The target would gain +25% Resistance to all Elemental Damage. That would be terrible. There'd be no point to taking the EE keystone if it only hurts your damage, due to added elemental damage on your gear. So be sure to look carefully and avoid any item that adds flat Cold or Fire Damage to your Attacks or Spells.

7. and -50% Resistance to other Elements -




Two enemies afflicted with EE.

Poison

POISON

The only requirement for this build is one source of flat Chaos or Physical Damage for Spells, such as on an Abyssal Jewel (above), Elder affix on helm (above), Lesser Poison Support, Herald of Purity, or Envy aura from Aul's Uprising. This is important for allowing Ball Lightning to Poison when we have % Chance to Poison, which gives us Virulence stacks, even if it's only 1 point of Chaos Damage or Physical Damage. We achieve up to 80% Chance to Poison from Herald of Agony and Poison Support affix on gloves.


The small green cloud indicates this cannibal has been successfully poisoned.

3. Leveling Guide

Artwork - Witch

Art by KILART (Choe, Heonhwa)

I ran out of room, so I moved the leveling guide to its own thread:

[Leveling Guide] Speaker for the Dead
74-minion Mass Summoner

"

Xadian16 wrote:

"

Hercanic wrote:

NEOPHYTE GUIDES
New to the Hack-n-Slash ARPG genre? New to Path of Exile? New to the summoner playstyle? Just curious? Well, allow me to put your apprehensions to rest: You have made an excellent choice on all accounts! Prepare to be carried on a throne of corpses all the way to endgame!

1. Minions Explained - The Liber Mortuorum (~15% complete)

Artwork - The Demon Book

Art by Stefan Koidl

This grimoire of undeath will detail specifics on each minion, its AI, stats, and nuances such as how to raise Spectres properly.

MINIONS 101
Minions do not use your weapon, or any of your gear. The only way to scale them is through gem level, linked support gems, minion-specific nodes on the passive tree, anything that says "Minions" or "Allies", like Auras, and debuffs put on enemies like Curses and Elemental Equilibrium (EE). In the case of Spectres, they also scale with the corpse level they were originally raised from.

Nothing on the passive tree or your gear affects minions because they are not You, and their Attacks and Spells are not Your Attacks and Spells. The only exception is if the keyword "Minion" or "Ally" is used. If it doesn't EXPLICITLY state either of those words, it doesn't directly apply to minions. EE, for example, does not have either of those words, so only Your Attacks and Spells, not your minions' Attacks and Spells, will affect the target's Elemental Resistances.

In other words, minions do not trigger EE. The resulting debuff on an enemy, however, can benefit minions, as well as any other party member, because the target itself has had some of its resistances weakened by you.

Spells come from You. Totems and Mines are remote Spells. This is why all three apply EE. Minions are different. The spell you cast to create them ends at that, meaning the spell itself deals no damage and has no other effect aside from creation. Unlike a fireball or ice spear, the minion itself is not the Spell. It is a separate entity from You, with its own independent stats. If they score a kill, you do not get credit for on-kill effects. If they deal attack damage, you do not get attack leech from them. If they strike a monster who Reflects Damage, you do not take the reflected damage, the minion does.

Minions do use two stats from you, namely Item Rarity and Item Quantity.


SPECTRES 101
The default hotkey for "Target Corpse" is "A". This only functions while a corpse-targeting spell is on your hotbar, such as Raise Zombie or Raise Spectre. Hold down this hotkey to target the corpse you want for your Spectres.

The monster level of Spectres does not automatically increase with gem level like other minions. It stays whatever monster level the corpse was that you raised them from, further restricted if your gem levels were low at the time. So if you raise Frost Sentinels from Lunaris Concourse, even with a level 20 Raise Spectre, those Frost Sentinels will always be level 58. Raise Spectre also has its own cap, so if you use a level 1 Raise Spectre in Lunaris Concourse, even though the corpse is level 58, your Spectre will only be level 32 because of the gem's cap.

Once you have any level of Frost Sentinel as a Spectre, the Desecrate skill can create that monster's corpse in a higher level zone. This is how you get up to level 84 Frost Sentinels without having to find them naturally. However, again, there's a cap tied to Desecrate's gem level. So if Desecrate is too low level, just like if Raise Spectre is too low level, you will end up creating very low level Spectres (a wand on weapon swap with "+1 to socketed Chaos skills" can help Desecrate). At gem level 20, both Desecrate can create up to level 100 corpses and Raise Spectre can raise up to level 100 Spectres. However, there is no level 100 zone. Desecrate only creates corpses up to the lowest between its level cap and the monster level of the zone. Since the highest zone is 84, we're limited to level 84 Spectres. The only current exception to this is Unearth, which can create corpses of a higher level than the zone. So you can, in fact, get up to level 100 Spectres, but only very slow-walking Skeleton Archers that the Unearth gem creates corpses of.

It's a bit confusing at first. You have to check the zone level, Desecrate level, and Raise Spectre level to determine what level your Spectre will be when raised, and then you must memorize that since there's no way to check it later. The unique map, Oba's Cursed Trove, in the last room of the map with all the strongboxes, has a monster level of 84, and is the most reliable way to get level 84 Spectres.

How to raise Spectres - A short video guide by DieKao.

How to change Body Armor without losing Spectres:
If you ever need to change out your body armor or do crafting on it, go to town first. Wear the new body armor and slot Raise Spectre in the exact same socket position. For crafting, temporarily wear a Tabula Rasa or any body armor where you can keep Raise Spectre in the same socket position while you craft on your actual body armor. And, of course, go back to town again to switch back!

If you make the mistake of ever changing gear in your Hideout (oops, you lost the DEX from that item, which disabled your body armor, and now:), the Spectres you worked so hard on will go POOF. Gone. Forever. Until you go to the trouble of raising them all over again.

As long as the Spectre gem stays in the same socket position, you will not lose your Spectres when you go back to your Hideout to use your crafting bench. If you get new body armor, make sure the same socket is blue so you can place Raise Spectre there and keep your Spectres. I repeat: Always change gear in town!!!


ARMY OF THE DEAD
You can think of our minion lineup as a military unit, with distinct roles performed by different minions. This lets them cover each others' weaknesses, so we aren't crippled by any particular minion's Achilles heel:

• 1. Phantasms = Peltasts/Skirmishers. Light frontline fighters with modest range from their "javelins/slings". They protect the flanks by freely engaging targets.
  
  
• 2. Zombies = Infantry/Cavalry. Heavy frontline fighters who rush in to lock down the enemy in melee.
  
  
• 3. Skeletons = Assassins. Light infiltrators who appear from nowhere to deliver surgical strikes on high-value targets.
  
  
• 4. Spectres = Archers. Softens enemy ranks from long range and makes their approach difficult. Creates an opening for other units.
  
  
• 5. Agony Crawler = Ballista/Catapult. Massive destructive capability, but limited engagement and high maintenance.
  
  
• 6. Holy Relic = Medic. Can patch up battlefield scrapes and delay the worst, but they are not a doctor with a sterile surgical room.
  
  
• 7. Vaal Skeletons = Reinforcements. When times are bleak, the horn sounds the arrival of one's allies.

FROST SENTINELS (Spectres)
Frost Sentinels deal ~63% of Solar Guard damage, but their Ice Spears gain 50% more damage in their second form, putting them at a nearly identical 94% damage. Their range is the same as a Solar Guard's special beam cannon. They are like snipers, able to attack ahead of you from the other end of the screen instead of trying to catch up to you. With their extra projectiles and casting from further back, they cover far more of the screen than Solar Guards who have -50% range on their fireball spell.


SOLAR GUARD (Spectre)
Solar Guards have potentially several times more damage if their fireball explosions overlap. These explosions do not happen if the projectiles Pierce, so monsters must be close to walls for this to matter.


PHANTASMS
Individually they may not seem like much, but all together they deal significant damage. But most importantly they increase your area of effect.

When a Spectre kills things at max range and spawns Phantasms, those Phantasms can turn outward and attack things even further out. With so many, they are more likely to be able to attack in directions your Spectres aren't facing. A few monster kills in a room puts Phantasms in that room to clear everything else in it. They have built-in pierce, making them reliable against packs you haven't or can't curse with Projectile Weakness.

They are also 11 more chances to land a proliferated freeze, thanks to Hatred giving them cold damage.

Uptime shouldn't be a problem while clearing, and they're not intended for bosses.


AGONY CRAWLER


ZOMBIES


HOLY RELIC


SKELETONS


VAAL SKELETONS

2. Mechanics Explained (1% complete)

Artwork - Arcadia

Art by Pablo Fernandez

This section will detail the nuances of several game mechanics this build relies on, such as the commonly misunderstood Elemental Equilibrium or how we enable Ball Lightning to Poison.

Path of Exile Beginner Guide (PoE Betrayal 3.5) - A video guide by Rhykker, aimed at anyone brand new to PoE.

Shield Charge - Requires a one-handed melee weapon. Wands will not work.

Threshold Jewels - These do not require you to actually have their stat requirement allocated. Just that nodes with that stat exist near the jewel socket. All this really means is you can't place something like Unending Hunger, which requires 40 INT in radius, in places like the STR socket to the immediate left of the Scion's life wheel. Whereas it works perfectly fine in the INT socket north of the Witch's starting area, despite us not having allocated 40 INT, because 120 INT, allocated or not, is within range.

Unending Hunger - Spectres only need to be close to a kill to absorb its soul. They do not need to be the one who dealt the killing blow. In addition to 5% attack/cast speed per soul, Soul Eater also grants 5% increased Damage Reduction per soul. This is an insane amount of protection from literally everything.

Elemental Equilibrium

ELEMENTAL EQUILIBRIUM
Often called EE for short, Elemental Equilibrium is a keystone node on the passive tree, located in the center between the Templar and Witch areas. It is extremely powerful, especially for summoners, but requires several concessions: We must be wary of having any added Cold or Fire Damage on our gear, as well as added Cold or Fire Damage from allied auras.

How it works for our build is Ball Lightning and Charged Dash both deal Lightning Damage. When we hit monsters with either of these skills, their Cold Resistance and Fire Resistance are significantly weakened. By a whopping -50%, which can also put the target into negative resistances. In most circumstances, it is worth 50% more Cold and Fire Damage. In cases where monsters have high resistances, it is even better. 75% resistances being dropped to 25% is effectively triple damage.

In compensation, because we hit with Lightning Damage to begin with, the Lightning Resistance of the target is strengthened. By a mere +25%, but this could be enough to bring a monster with 50% Lightning Resistance to 75%, which effectively cuts Lightning Damage in half. We don't mind this, though, as our only Lightning Damage is from Ball Lightning and Charged Dash, and neither of these are intended to deal meaningful damage. We're a summoner, after all. Our minions deal damage. Our own attacks serve other purposes, like debuffing enemy resistances for our minions to exploit.

Avoid any source of flat Fire or Cold Damage on Attacks/Spells, since we use Elemental Equilibrium (EE). Of the three Elemental Damage types, we want to only hit with Lightning Damage, which will weaken further Lightning Damage in exchange for strengthening the Cold and Fire Damage of our minions against the target. None of our minions use Lightning Damage, so it's okay to weaken Lightning Damage. (Note: Physical and Chaos Damage are not considered Elemental, so they do not matter in regards to EE; the Generosity Support prevents our Hatred aura from affecting our own attacks in exchange for making it stonger on allies; and minions do not trigger EE because their damage is separate from ours.) We do not want to deal Cold Damage, or EE will weaken the Frost Sentinels' and Hatred's Cold Damage. We do not want to deal Fire Damage, or EE will weaken the Fire Damage of the Solar Guard and Added Fire Support (if you have either).

If you plan to play in parties and do not wish to sabotage their damage, you must take care to coordinate what elemental damage they deal and the auras they use, or temporarily abstain from attacking, or simply remove EE to avoid any conflicts. EE is very powerful, but not party-friendly without planning.

"

Enemies you hit with Elemental Damage temporarily get +25% Resistance to those Elements and -50% Resistance to other Elements

Balance is good in all things, but especially in the realm of magic.

What does this mean? Let's break it down word by word, because in PoE many terms have very specific meanings.

1. Enemies you - "You" refers to your character. Minions cannot apply your EE because they are not You. Refer to the Minions Explained section above to learn more about how minions are treated as separate entities from your character, unlike other Spells. It is important to remember that all instances of "You" and "Your" throughout the game exclude minions (unless it's explicitly "Your Minions").

2. hit - The skill must Hit, which is distinct from certain things like Damage Over Time and other debuffs that do not directly strike the target with damage. Skills that do not hit include Scorching Ray, Blight, Wither, Searing Bond, etc. Both Ball Lightning and Charged Dash hit, so we needn't worry about this.

3. with Elemental - Elemental refers to Cold, Fire, or Lightning. Physical and Chaos are not Elemental, so they do not affect EE in any way.

4. Damage - This means at least 1 point of elemental damage must be dealt. Those who take the Ancestral Bond keystone, for example, are unable to directly deal damage, and thus cannot apply EE through their own attacks or spells. We don't have to worry about this, as we still deal a small amount of damage.

5. temporarily - Debuff lasts 4 second.

6. get +25% Resistance to those Elements - To all elemental types contained within the same hit. If you use a weapon with added Cold and Fire Damage, then one hit from Charged Dash will deal all three elemental types. The target would gain +25% Resistance to all Elemental Damage. That would be terrible. There'd be no point to taking the EE keystone if it only hurts your damage, due to added elemental damage on your gear. So be sure to look carefully and avoid any item that adds flat Cold or Fire Damage to your Attacks or Spells.

7. and -50% Resistance to other Elements -




Two enemies afflicted with EE.

Poison

POISON

The only requirement for this build is one source of flat Chaos or Physical Damage for Spells, such as on an Abyssal Jewel (above), Elder affix on helm (above), Lesser Poison Support, Herald of Purity, or Envy aura from Aul's Uprising. This is important for allowing Ball Lightning to Poison when we have % Chance to Poison, which gives us Virulence stacks, even if it's only 1 point of Chaos Damage or Physical Damage. We achieve up to 80% Chance to Poison from Herald of Agony and Poison Support affix on gloves.


The small green cloud indicates this cannibal has been successfully poisoned.

3. Leveling Guide

Artwork - Witch

Art by KILART (Choe, Heonhwa)

I ran out of room, so I moved the leveling guide to its own thread:

[Leveling Guide] Speaker for the Dead
74-minion Mass Summoner

"

GingerBeast wrote:

Hi everyone. I am working on the 6L Belly and when I got to the 5th socket, it was blue. Should I keep it blue and go for #6 and have a BBBBBG belly?

"

Hercanic wrote:

@ GingerBeast:

"

GingerBeast wrote:

Hi everyone. I am working on the 6L Belly and when I got to the 5th socket, it was blue. Should I keep it blue and go for #6 and have a BBBBBG belly?

The rest of the post

"

GingerBeast wrote:

Current State of my Belly:

It seems like 5 off color is pretty nice. What would I use to replace Faster Projectiles with?

Using Path of Building, it looks like Spell Echo gives me the most overall DPS increase. However, the AVERAGE DPS actually goes down from 17652 DPS to 15367 DPS. Is 2300 avg DPS loss more impactful than 16.5K total DPS gain? I honestly am not sure.

Alternatively, I could use Elemental Focus. The AVG DPS and the total DPS both go up with that, but then I would need to remove elemental proliferation (no chill/freeze with elemental focus). My average and total DPS both go way up, but is that worth losing the ability to chill? I don't think it is.

My last thought is to use Minion Life. I don't really have a problem with specters dying, but the life goes up by a ton for them (60K for frost sentinel!).

To summarize:
Current chest with gems:

Currently (with Faster Projectiles):
AVG DPS: 17652.6
DPS inc. Poison: 40912.5
Total Life: 106757.0

Replace FP with Spell Echo:
AVG DPS: 15367.8
DPS inc. Poison: 57493.8
Total Life: 106757.0

Replace FP with Minion Life:
AVG DPS: 16772.4
DPS inc Poison: 36899.2
Total Life: 165569.0

TL;DR: What would you recommend? Keep a 5B1G Belly and use Spell Echo instead of Faster Projectiles? or Keep rolling the belly to use Faster Projectiles?

Go for green.

Area Coverage and Speed > DPS on our clear skill. Base monster life from T1 to T16 is 6k to 16k.

The tankiest monsters have a 576% (Giant Gladiator Statue), 540% (Risen Vaal Advocate), and 360% (Kitava's Herald) life multiplier. So the toughest normal monster would have 93,087 life.

Magic monsters have 187% more life. Rare monsters have 463% more life. So a rare Giant Gladiator Statue would have 524,081 life. That's the upper limit before map mods.

However, most monsters will have no more than 16-32k in T15 maps.

Damage of one Average Hit of one Minion:

18.9k = Holy Relic
22.3k = Zombie
39.2k = Zombie (Slam)
282.8k = Crawler
29.2k = Phantasm
23.1k = Solar Guard
27.4k = Frost Sentinel (Ice Spear's second stage)
98.9k = Skeleton

With this, even before attack/cast speed, we can see just one of our minions can already one- or two-shot most monsters. A tanky rare ends up as the last one standing and all minions converge, making short work of it.

Put simply, our clear skill doesn't need to do Shapers-Per-Second of damage, that would just be overkill. Instead, we want to cover as much area in as short of a time as possible. Faster Projectiles Support does this. It is well worth the damage loss.

As for Spell Echo, you can consider it a 53% more multiplier (= 0.9 * 1.7). One thing to keep in mind, though, is that it locks the caster in place for two casts. This will actually delay your minions despite having a faster initial cast.

For example, say the minion has a 1 sec cast time. Spell Echo grants 70% more cast speed. 1 / 1.7 = 0.58 cast time. But it must cast twice, so it actually takes (0.58 + 0.58 =) 1.18 seconds to finish casting. This means it takes longer for it to acquire a new target, or move to catch up with you.

One thing newly in favor of Spell Echo, say versus Minion Damage, is that Spectres have a 10% chance to summon Phantasms on hit against bosses. Spell Echo would help get Phantasms up faster, so it's something to consider.

"

GingerBeast wrote:

Just want to make sure I am reading your advice correctly: Re-roll the 5th socket to green and then go for green 6th socket, so that i use FP no matter what.

Is that correct?

"

GingerBeast wrote:

Also, for what it is worth, I love this build. This is now my highest level character and I made it that way with almost no effort. I did Elder for the first time ever yesterday and the fight was almost disappointingly easy.

"

Garulf161 wrote:

So I just want to get a confirmation if what I'm doing is not completely wrong.

I don't hate charged dash, but for some reason I'm very squishy, and Charged Dash makes me die so much since I can't move enough.

That's why I switched it out. Now, I know it is there mainly for the bleed bonus for the skellies. But I've switched the Gloves and Helmet gems as following:

It does two things: projectile weakness increases the spectres damage and adds a chance to knockback, and Maim on the helmet increases the skellies physical damage and adds a chance to Maim. Also, this way I can have both Enfeeble on the ring, and the Projectile Weakness on the gloves. Double curses.

So far, at least on Path of Building, the skeleton damage increases by about 25%. According to PoB, it's even higher than if I put an Empower Support.

So if I'm not thinking anything wrongly, this might be a viable alternative for charged dash. In my opinion, it might even work better than trying to bleed.

What do you guys think?