[Leveling Guide] Speaker for the Dead | 74-minion Mass Summoner 💀
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[reserved]
I reserved out the full first page so I don't end up in the same predicament as with the original build thread. Comments start here! Last edited by Hercanic on Dec 23, 2018, 10:36:53 PM
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I was really intrigued by your guide yesterday and this makes me want to roll a new character (in my first league even!).
A general question I have is that you will rarely have all the 74 minions up, right? 30 or so skeletons are only for boss fights? | |
" It's been the most powerful character i've played and most enjoyable after trying a few other characters/builds. So good choice on build and starting out your first league with this build. You will always have the ability to spawn about 10-11 skeletons where needed, 3 at a time. And when you have charged up enough souls by killing mobs, you can then have access to call in your larger Skeleton Army. It is up to you when to use this, and often it will be bosses and difficult encounters, such as the syndicate encounters and tough from beyond creatures, anything that is causing you a tougher fight basically. You will through experience learn when to best use it, given the situation. One the things i keep forgetting is when going to elder guardian fights, that he sucks up the boss and you have to go through to another portal to fight his guardians, and the amount of times i summoned my skeleton army in anticipation of a boss fight and then there was no boss, and then ended up just fighting the guardian without the big skeleton army, well it's a bit embarrassing. But the build gets pretty strong that it still performs with just smaller skeleton group, but the Army is nice and makes boss killing much quicker. And less risk of losing some zombies. Hercanic explains it perfectly when he describes them, as like your reinforcements when you are in a big battle. Usually I use them in breach fights, syndicate encounters, some abyss experiences where the fight gets hectic, and just anywhere where the fight calls for it, like at the end of Delve encounters or sometimes in Incursions and in the Temples and red beasts. It truly makes you feel like you are a general in a battle and have to decide when to call in the big reinforcements and when you can just use your small skeleton reinforcements instead. The small reinforcements are kind of throw away initiators and they also act as a buffer and protection/screening force. So sometimes they are great in tight rooms, where instead of you running in there and getting pelted to death, you send in your little skeletons first to begin absorbing everything, then you go in with the rest of your Zombies and Specters and clean out. You will learn quickly how to best use them and your other abilities (charged dash/ball lightning) and how they compliment each other and advantage of phasing (as you can run through mobs with it), and you will see how the mobs get electricity run through them as it spreads between them and then as the EE kicks in and your minions easily wipe everything. Last edited by ArmedCiv on Dec 24, 2018, 3:52:28 PM
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Thanks, ArmedCiv!
@ Rakio: " Phantasms (11), Skeletons (10), and Vaal Skeletons (40) are the ones you won't always have up, but that's usually a matter of choice rather than ability of the build. Any small-space or defense-type event you will easily be at peak minion count. This includes Syndicate encounters, Delve nodes, Incursions, Abysses, Breaches, Harbingers, Red Beasts, Perandus boxes, and bosses with adds (e.g. Innocence). Max Phantasms are all but guaranteed while mapping. Throwing out a few Skeletons into a room or down the opposite corridor you're heading to cover multiple fronts is an option you can take. Otherwise you usually forego Skeletons while mapping, simply because your other minions are killing too fast for their summoning to be efficient. Think of Skeletons as your Assassins; you only need them when you want to surgically strike and strike hard. Against endgame bosses without adds, so no kills for Phantasms, we can swap gems on Spectres to orient them to single-target, to the tune of three quarters of a million DPS just by themselves. | |
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Great guide - thanks for your hard work on this!
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I've been playing a similar build for several patches, with 4 spectres, 12 zombies, 12 skeletons (totem), 20 raging spirits, 10 phantasms, and 35 vaal skeletons, for a max of 93 minions. Could not find room for a golem. :-) Also haven't considered any of the new minion skills as yet.
The spectres and zombies are persistent and rarely die, while the skeletons take one totem cast and I just spam raging spirits when not on the move. I can almost keep vaal skeletons up full time, and skeletons, raging spirits and phantasms vary depending on the situation. My zombies are the main weapon, with the zombie slam jewel in the passive tree (sometimes two). I'm at level 91 and plan to level up a few more. I seem to be able kill anything, though mine is a bit of a glass cannon, even with over 8k life + shield. Some bosses go for the player regardless of number of minions, and I don't have much armor or evasion. I never wrote a guide because there were similar summon-all builds already documented. There were some changes to the passive tree this last patch that made these builds somewhat stronger. | |
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Amazing guide, following it now as I've been wanting to play a Summoner-ish build for a while and really happy so far.
Not a big issue but I thought it might be a good idea to mention the Kill all Bandits in Act 2 section. Thanks again! :) | |
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@ Sepyuu:
" Good idea, especially now that the build and leveling guide are separate. It Is Done. @ dbw09: " You're welcome! @ shrunn57: " Thanks for sharing! Though I'd hesitate to call them similar beyond the minion count. The key difference is this build doesn't just have lots of minions for the sake of it. Speaker for the Dead makes all of its minions practical and powerful. To illustrate (Pastebin for your build): ----------------------------------- One of your Zombies deals 7,351 damage with 75% accuracy (952), or an average of 5,513 damage with their Default Attack. Their Slam hits for 11,908 on a 1.25sec cooldown. Slam has 22% less attack speed. A Default Attack rate of 1.35 is an attack time of 0.74, so Slam has an attack rate of 1.053 and an attack time of 0.95. So it takes a little less than a second to deliver the Slam, and it cannot Slam again until 1.25 seconds have elapsed since it started slamming. That means there's a (1.25 - 0.95 =) 0.30 second gap. So your Zombies will Slam, default attack, Slam, default attack, Slam, etc. In terms of DPS, this becomes: 0.95 Slam delay @ 11,908 damage 0.74 Default delay @ 5,513 damage = 1.69 total delay @ 17,421 total damage dealt = 17,421 / 1.69 = 10,308 DPS * 12 Zombies = 123,699 total Zombie DPS ----------------------------------- One of the Speaker for the Dead's Zombies deals 27,857 damage with 83% accuracy (1572), or an average of 23,121 damage with their Default Attack. Their Slam hits for 40,619 on a 2.5sec cooldown. A Default Attack rate of 1.83 is an attack time of 0.546, so Slam has an attack rate of 1.43 and an attack time of 0.70. This becomes: 0.70 Slam delay @ 40,619 damage 0.55 Default delay @ 23,121 damage --- 1.25/2.50 seconds elapsed --- 0.55 Default delay @ 23,121 damage --- 1.80/2.50 seconds elapsed --- 0.55 Default delay @ 23,121 damage --- 2.35/2.50 seconds elapsed --- 0.55 Default delay @ 23,121 damage --- 2.90/2.50 seconds elapsed --- --- can Slam again = 4 Default Attacks per Slam --- = 2.90 total delay @ 133,103 total damage dealt = 133,103 / 2.90 = 45,898 DPS * 8 Zombies = 367,181 total Zombie DPS That's 3 times more damage than your Zombies, and they're in a 3L weapon while yours are in a 6L chest. You've also dedicated two jewel sockets to Violent Dead, whereas mine does not. You said Zombies were your main weapon, while for Speaker for the Dead the Zombies are our weakest minion. ----------------------------------- As for the rest of your minions: Raging Spirits only have 40% increased duration = 7sec duration * 2.46 cast rate = only 17 Raging Spirits possible. They have 4,376 DPS * 17 = 74,392 total Raging Spirit DPS. Skeletons on Spell Totem deal 12,417 DPS * 12 Skeletons = 149,004 total Skeleton DPS. You'd have been better off putting Raging Spirits on Spell Totem and manually casting Skeletons, considering Skeletons will last you 28 seconds compared to standing around to constantly cast Raging Spirits. Phantasms deal 6,972 * 10 Phantasms = 69,727 total Phantasm DPS. Since you are not supporting them with GMP or Faster Projectiles, their coverage is exceedingly limited. Spectres, if I assume level 84 Solar Guards, deal 21,442 * 4 Spectres = 85,768 total Spectre DPS. Again, no GMP so limited coverage. Vaal Skeletons break down to: Warriors = 18,471 * 21 = 387,891 (assuming that many melee minions can all surround and reach the same target in addition to the other 24 melee minions) Archers = 4,470 * 8 = 35,757 Mages = 1165/953/1310 fire/cold/lightning = 1,143 average * 5 = 5,713 General = Varies Total = 429,361 total Vaal Skeletons DPS (for 28 seconds w/ 10 second soul gain prevention; 50 souls takes a minimum 16.6 seconds to earn against a single boss @ 3 souls per 2% boss life per second) 123,699 Zombies 74,392 Raging Spirits 149,004 Skeletons 69,727 Phantasms 85,768 Spectres = 502,590 + 429,361 Vaal = 931,951 total peak Shaper DPS ----------------------------------- Speaker for the Dead's Vaal Skeletons: Warriors = 276,010 * 23 = 6,348,230 Archers = 29,878 * 10 = 298,780 Mages = 26501/21719/6554 fire/cold/lightning = 18,258 average * 6 = 109,548 General = Varies Total = 6,756,558 6,756,558 Vaal + 4,726,230 peak minion DPS = 11,482,788 In other words, Speaker for the Dead has achieved more than 12 times your build's DPS, and we're not even including its AOE map clearing, freeze proliferations, overall mobility, and other notable perks. Last edited by Hercanic on Dec 30, 2018, 3:09:10 AM
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Hey Hercanic,
Can you share your pastebin for your speaker of the dead build plz cuz i can't find it in the lvling section! Also wouldn't (Astramentis Onyx Amulet) solve all the str/dex problems early on? And is a baron a good helm for this build? Last edited by Crashoverride788 on Dec 30, 2018, 12:19:44 PM
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@ Crashoverride788:
" The Pastebin is in the main Build thread. A link to it is the very first thing provided at the top of the thread. As this is only a leveling guide, I want to keep the two threads distinct in what they offer. Astramentis tends to be an expensive item, so I'd hesitate to recommend it to new players. It's also unnecessary. We can get all necessary DEX and STR on the tree itself. Baron is no good for us. We don't get much strength, let alone stack it. |
