[Major Damage/Mapping Improvements-Update 7.1.22 PoB/Vid] The Fortified Summoner: HoP MI Champion

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Aldora_the_Summoner wrote:

Appreciate the play update there, I'm thinking about running a version of this in the Endless Delve event coming up soon so thought I'd revisit the thread.

One tiny piece of advice for your build though: You've taken the 12% increased minion life node just to the right of Minion Instability. If you respec that point and instead take Lord of the Dead you'll gain an extra 3% minion life (on top of the 12% you just respeced), 20% increased Minion Damage plus an extra Zombie which will be an enormous damage increase for you :)

Good catch! When I was in that part of the tree I was mainly concerned with pathing to all the keystones we need, and obviously Minion Instability is a big one. And, for whatever reason, the powers that be decided to move it from the upper left hand corner to clear on the other side of the Witch region. A bit annoying, really.

Thanks for pointing out Lord of the Dead! I doubt would've noticed it all league. :p :D

Greetings exiles! After a 3 league break I am back and updating this guide for 3.17! For now I've updated the top of the guide with a (mostly) optimized 3.17 pathing at lvl 95, as well as outlined a skill change (zombies to skellies because of the reduced mana cost), and posted a video of the build in action. I wanted to show that the build still works great, so I ran a quick T16 to show the mapping/bossing speed with skeletons.

I will work on updating the guide over the next little bit, and let me know if you have any questions as always.

Edit: looks like there's been a fair amount of people experimenting with this build over my break, so you very well may have found some innovations I haven't thought of yet. I'll read back through previous pages but if you have any ideas that can make the build better let me know and I'll be glad to try them out.

Big update coming: I have extensively reworked this build to function with all the changes in the past couple leagues. I will update the guide soon, but for now a summary. Changes include:

1. Using skeletons instead of zombies for mapping (solves mana issues and frees up a slot for rare gloves and chaos/ele resists)

2. Dropped Transcendence for Divine Flesh, and capping chaos resistance at 87%. This gives us significantly more safety vs poisons than previously

3. Dropped Enduring Cry. Because armor now is mitigating physical hits again, we don't need 100% uptime on the EC buff anymore. Endurance charges are maintained by Enduring Composure notable. Overall, the play is significantly improved as you don't need to constantly press EC or loose your charge stacks.

4. Major pathing changes. Since EC is no longer used, we have no reason to go over to the armor section of the tree anymore. This lets us invest more in the witch area and pick up some juicy minion life/damage nodes.

Overall, the resulting build is simpler to play, and significantly better vs chaos degen. Bonus: Skin of the Lords are dirt cheap and actually a really good choice as a 6link for this build; that's what I'm running now. I am also running fire/lightning/cold flasks for extra elemental damage reduction.


lvl 95 PoB with my current gear (moderate/low budget):

https://pastebin.com/6Lup3RM2


lvl 95 PoB with high end gear (~2x the damage as the link above)

https://pastebin.com/NmiyRz9w

This looks like a lot of fun!

Is there any way you can start this build before lvl 80? I enjoy leveling as the same build I'm playing. I understand not being able to do CWC and infernal legion until 38 or maybe even 45. But is 80 really the level to change?

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CircAGG wrote:

This looks like a lot of fun!

Is there any way you can start this build before lvl 80? I enjoy leveling as the same build I'm playing. I understand not being able to do CWC and infernal legion until 38 or maybe even 45. But is 80 really the level to change?

Good question. Previous leagues, I'd say yes somewhere around lvl 80 was where you got enough points to make it work, but the recent pathing changes have changed that equation somewhat. Check out the paste below, this is what I would call the "bare bones" tree to make the build work mechanically. Basically, you absolutely need Necomantic Aegis, Minion Instability, and Fortress Covenant or else you won't get exploding skellies. Turns out you can get all this by lvl 43! Quite the improvement over previous versions.

Big disclaimer: I don't know how well the build will perform on such a bare-bones tree. I have not tested it, and don't know how good your damage/survivability will be, so ymmv. I'd be interested in hearing from someone testing it out though!

Here is the absolute bare-bones tree. Note: it still has all my endgame gear, not leveling gear, so take the numbers shown with a grain of salt

https://pastebin.com/Qsrv3fFq

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Peterrabbit_01 wrote:

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CircAGG wrote:

This looks like a lot of fun!

Is there any way you can start this build before lvl 80? I enjoy leveling as the same build I'm playing. I understand not being able to do CWC and infernal legion until 38 or maybe even 45. But is 80 really the level to change?

Good question. Previous leagues, I'd say yes somewhere around lvl 80 was where you got enough points to make it work, but the recent pathing changes have changed that equation somewhat. Check out the paste below, this is what I would call the "bare bones" tree to make the build work mechanically. Basically, you absolutely need Necomantic Aegis, Minion Instability, and Fortress Covenant or else you won't get exploding skellies. Turns out you can get all this by lvl 43! Quite the improvement over previous versions.

Big disclaimer: I don't know how well the build will perform on such a bare-bones tree. I have not tested it, and don't know how good your damage/survivability will be, so ymmv. I'd be interested in hearing from someone testing it out though!

Here is the absolute bare-bones tree. Note: it still has all my endgame gear, not leveling gear, so take the numbers shown with a grain of salt

https://pastebin.com/Qsrv3fFq

Thanks so much man! I'm lvl 29 so far, so I will try this around that level. However, wouldn't you need to be lvl 45? Since Maligaro's Lens requires lvl 45. I mean it's 2 levels, so that's not a big deal at all. But I'm assuming Necromantic Aegis is exclusively used for that shield. I'll keep you posted today on how it goes!


Edit: The PoB still shows that you should have minion damage. Since the new minion damage lowers life, should you only use minion life? Or do you still think minion damage is worth it?

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CircAGG wrote:

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Peterrabbit_01 wrote:

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CircAGG wrote:

This looks like a lot of fun!

Is there any way you can start this build before lvl 80? I enjoy leveling as the same build I'm playing. I understand not being able to do CWC and infernal legion until 38 or maybe even 45. But is 80 really the level to change?

Good question. Previous leagues, I'd say yes somewhere around lvl 80 was where you got enough points to make it work, but the recent pathing changes have changed that equation somewhat. Check out the paste below, this is what I would call the "bare bones" tree to make the build work mechanically. Basically, you absolutely need Necomantic Aegis, Minion Instability, and Fortress Covenant or else you won't get exploding skellies. Turns out you can get all this by lvl 43! Quite the improvement over previous versions.

Big disclaimer: I don't know how well the build will perform on such a bare-bones tree. I have not tested it, and don't know how good your damage/survivability will be, so ymmv. I'd be interested in hearing from someone testing it out though!

Here is the absolute bare-bones tree. Note: it still has all my endgame gear, not leveling gear, so take the numbers shown with a grain of salt

https://pastebin.com/Qsrv3fFq

Thanks so much man! I'm lvl 29 so far, so I will try this around that level. However, wouldn't you need to be lvl 45? Since Maligaro's Lens requires lvl 45. I mean it's 2 levels, so that's not a big deal at all. But I'm assuming Necromantic Aegis is exclusively used for that shield. I'll keep you posted today on how it goes!


Edit: The PoB still shows that you should have minion damage. Since the new minion damage lowers life, should you only use minion life? Or do you still think minion damage is worth it?

Oh good point. Yes you definitely need Maligaro's Lense; the build just flat doesn't work without it, so I guess 45 is the new min level :)

Regarding minion damage...which PoB has it? My latest ones should not...it was indeed replaced, by concentrated effect in the helmet for HoP, and by fire penetration in the chest for skellies, so lmk where you see it and I'll fix

New video up! I wanted to show how the build performs with all the changes.

Chimera Map:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXU20X4Wats

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Thanks so much man! I'm lvl 29 so far, so I will try this around that level. However, wouldn't you need to be lvl 45? Since Maligaro's Lens requires lvl 45. I mean it's 2 levels, so that's not a big deal at all. But I'm assuming Necromantic Aegis is exclusively used for that shield. I'll keep you posted today on how it goes!


Edit: The PoB still shows that you should have minion damage. Since the new minion damage lowers life, should you only use minion life? Or do you still think minion damage is worth it?

Oh good point. Yes you definitely need Maligaro's Lense; the build just flat doesn't work without it, so I guess 45 is the new min level :)

Regarding minion damage...which PoB has it? My latest ones should not...it was indeed replaced, by concentrated effect in the helmet for HoP, and by fire penetration in the chest for skellies, so lmk where you see it and I'll fix

In your "Initial 3.17 update" PoB, your helmet has: +3 socketed minion gems, minion life, minion damage, and hypothermia.

However, in the leveling PoB you sent me recently, your helmet has: +2 socketed minion gems, conc effect, minion life.

So conc effect and minion life are the way to go in the helmet now? :)

Also, I noticed in your leveling PoB, you use a determination reservation amulet instead of Aul's Uprising. With Determination Aul's being about 6-7ex, would you say that's the way to go?

Thanks!

BTW, 45 is a fine level to do it. It's slow at first, but not bad.

45 = Not bad damage, but very squishy (make sure none of your items have flat fire damage due to EE).
52 = More tanky since you can run determination now with both HoP rings.
57 = I was able to get a flat mana gained for attack in a claw (these are rare for this low I guess). That helped a ton with mana. Before that, I just used an enduring flask.

The rest is great!

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In your "Initial 3.17 update" PoB, your helmet has: +3 socketed minion gems, minion life, minion damage, and hypothermia.

However, in the leveling PoB you sent me recently, your helmet has: +2 socketed minion gems, conc effect, minion life.

So conc effect and minion life are the way to go in the helmet now? :)

Also, I noticed in your leveling PoB, you use a determination reservation amulet instead of Aul's Uprising. With Determination Aul's being about 6-7ex, would you say that's the way to go?

Thanks!

BTW, 45 is a fine level to do it. It's slow at first, but not bad.

45 = Not bad damage, but very squishy (make sure none of your items have flat fire damage due to EE).
52 = More tanky since you can run determination now with both HoP rings.
57 = I was able to get a flat mana gained for attack in a claw (these are rare for this low I guess). That helped a ton with mana. Before that, I just used an enduring flask.

The rest is great!

Ah yeah, that was using gear in Standard from back in 3,14...definitely don't run minion damage. I'll be updating the guide over the weekend and I'll take down those old pob's. In the meantime use the pob's a few comments up as they are up to date.

As to auls, I will eventually swap to it when I get the currency, as it lets you run skitterbota, but it's a bit rich for my budget at the moment. I have a build with auls in the comments above, I consider that+a min life/+3/conc effect/hypothermia bone helmet to be the main "luxury" items on this build to max damage.

Edit: I forgot, you make a good point about the claw. Gemini claws are pretty much a must in my book for the mana gain on hit. Even swapping from zombies to skellies, your regen alone will not be enough. The claw solves this problem and lets you run no regen maps as well.