3.9 Xeratule's King of Summoners Variant - 90% Phys Res, Stun Immune, 1k more HP, more damage

Hi everyone, I've been tinkering with brunowa's famously powerful Zombie necro build like crazy to eek even more power out of it, and let me be clear that this new variant of Zombie necro is built ENTIRELY on the foundations of brunowa's original build, found here:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2642810

The following is not a complete build guide, but instead shows and explains how my variant to the original will make you nigh unkillable thanks to capped phys resist and stun immunity. To be clear, the original build already makes you incredibly hard to kill, however this build turns that up to 11 while still increasing Shaper DPS. Please familiarize yourself with the original build above.

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Features of this variant:

-90% Phys Resistance (75% from gear/auras, 15% from Basalt Flask)
-Stun Immunity!
-Pride aura now works since we dropped Victario's Influence (Pride does not work with Generosity support)
-1200+ strength (Extra zombie)
-Uses all of the existing Jewels, and most of the existing items from brunowa's Victario's Influence speedrunning PoB.
Note: For the curious, the gear choices I made represent good stat rolls, but are far from being perfect rolls.

From my PoB:
https://imgur.com/gallery/VMn2KiW

Pastebin:
https://pastebin.com/hLrH8Kqg

Skill Tree:
https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/3.9.2/AAAABAMAAQHnBAcEswUtC2EQUREtFCAUTRZvFy8YkRodGjgaPhv6HNwhYCSaJd8nCycvKS4ppSycLR8y0TWSOlI6xjrYPC1AoEVHRZ1Kn0yzTaxQR1NSVcZV1lcNWfNakV4TXz9hUmO7ZOdmVGaeZ3Fnm2hlaPJqQ2qsa9tyD3LFdPF673yDfLh8u4Ckg1-DtoPMg9uGYIbRibyOvo8akFWSwZRvlSCYTZrgns2fy6DmogCkGacwqH2tSK4-r2y3PryfvOrAZsHzwmzFisau0B_SIdP72L3fsONq5FHr7uyK7w7vTu_r8B_xrPOb-tL8S_4K_o8=
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How was this achieved?

1) Swap Astramentis with Aul's Uprising
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Aul%27s_Uprising_(Strength)
The strength variant of Aul's Uprising gives "Determination reserves no mana" as well as +% armor, +all stats, +strength and +life.

2) Swap Death Attunement Anoint with Charisma Anoint
The extra 8% reduced mana reserved lets us fit in multiple new auras. Champion of the Cause conveniently adds in another 4% reduced mana reserved, and the +18% aura effectiveness from related passives improves upon the +10-15% aura effectiveness which will be lost when we remove Victario's Influence.

3) Swap Victario's Influence with Saqawal's Nest
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Saqawal%27s_Nest
Saqawal's gives 10% reduced mana reservation which is actually a global reduction to mana reserved, while Victario's 30% only applies to socketed gems. Victario's Influence forces generosity on socketed gems, meaning that Pride, Grace, and Determination would not be applied to your character if socketed into Victario's Influence.
Saqawal's also gives up to +75 to all stats which gives you back the necessary dexterity to use lvl 20 Hatred and lvl 20 Grace, which was lost when we dropped Astramentis.

4) Take Unwavering Stance
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Unwavering_Stance
Gives immunity to all stuns. The one weakness of most summoners is getting hit by that random, massive crit that stuns you for that one critical second when you can't cyclone spin your energy shield back. It also gives you 0% evasion, but this doesn't matter because:

5) Take Iron Reflexes
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Iron_Reflexes
...Iron Reflexes gives us 0% evasion anyway. Now all of the evasion on our gear gets converted into armor. This isn't all that much armor (~35% phys resist) but we have an ace up our sleeve:

6) Use Grace + free Determination aura from Aul's
Grace gives a flat >2500 evasion, which is amplified >50% by Determination. All of that gets amplified again by the passive armor nodes we would have taken anyway while trying to cap our elemental resistances. These two auras increase minion survival substantially, and get us to between 70% and 79% phys resistance depending upon gear (75% in the PoB).

7) Swap Rumi's Concoction for a 2nd Basalt Flask
The 3000 armor gained from Rumi's concoction only increases our armor from 29 to 32k, which translates to going from 75% phys res to 82% phys res. A 2nd Basalt Flask gives that flat +15% phys res needed to hit the 90% phys res cap, and obviously a 2nd Basalt Flask doubles our time at 90% phys resist.

8) Swap Minion Damage support link on Spectre + Animate Golem with Maim Support
Maimed enemies translate to a free 14% increased physical damage. Most small enemies won't be maimed since enemies usually die before the Spectres hit them, but a maimed Shaper takes more phys damage from zombies relative to the +minion damage node that was socketed previously. Another option is to socket Blind Support which gives enemies a 50% chance to miss. I believe that Blind miss chance is independent of your lost % evasion from Unwavering Stance.

9) More life nodes taken
Swapping out nodes in the top-right (Influence, Written in Blood) frees up a ton of points that let us take the rest of the Life nodes next to Constitution (max at lvl 100), big Life + regen with Golem's Blood, and life + regen + mana regen in Quick Recovery). This build reaches into 6500 hp and 2300 es BEFORE spirit offering is applied, and even gets into the 7000 hp range depending on gear and level.


Final Thoughts
Thank you again to brunowa
for inspiring me to make these adjustments. His original is build is so well made that it was a big challenge for me to make any meaningful changes!

1) I swapped out some Impale gems to compare Shaper DPS in a way that PoB can understand, but I'm curious how these damage nodes compare to Impale. Also there are 8 passive nodes which are local to my current node chain (some of which can be accessed using a Tether of Fate in a nearby Jewel Socket) which increase Impale effectiveness. I'd love input into whether or not these nodes work on minion impale and if they provide more meaningful damage.

2) A very large radius Tether of Fate in the upper-left side Jewel Socket (next to Devotion) lets us get the 3 mana reserved nodes in the Sovereignty chain while cutting out 4 skill points from +10 int, aura AoE, and the two life+chaos resist nodes (Purity of Flesh). Those freed points let us take the Jewel Socket next to Golem's Blood (so we don't lose a Jewel socket to Tether of Fate) and leave us with 2 extra skill points which can be used to take the +5% Maximum Life node next to Golem's Blood and the +5% Life and +8% Mana node next to Heart and Soul. There might be a way to free up more points since this Tether socket also gives Discipline and Training + the 2 adjacent Life nodes, but without Tether of Fate functionality in PoB this is difficult to test. Looking for input here.

3) If you REALLY need more damage, there's another option in which you take the Jewel Socket next to Golem's Blood, remove Golem's Blood, take the Jewel socket below Constitution, and remove the Jewel socket to the left of Diamond Skin. With these two new Jewel Sockets, socket:
-Quickening Covenant: https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Quickening_Covenant
-Fortress Covenant: https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Fortress_Covenant
We have to make these changes so we don't incur the penalties of these Jewels.

This build is by no means done, but is in a presentable-enough form for all of you.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post! May this help you on your journey.
Last edited by Xeratule#3406 on Jan 17, 2020, 1:38:34 PM
Last bumped on Jan 23, 2020, 5:39:01 PM
/reserved
Hi, nice build. I was looking for some ideas to use when ggg will nerf cwc+spirit offering combo and you have good innovation. Build looks solid but unflexible atm. I am in a hurry for improvements.
You may craft '+1 to minimum endurance charges' on your rings for extra elemental resist and physical dmg reduction.
Hi just wanting to give attention to your build and don't want it to sink into obscurity. Are you sure this has higher damage than brunowas build? Might be wrong but just at first glance it looks impossible.
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Hi just wanting to give attention to your build and don't want it to sink into obscurity. Are you sure this has higher damage than brunowas build? Might be wrong but just at first glance it looks impossible.


It's not by much. Like I was saying before it was REALLY hard to optimize better than his build. The actual PoB shaper DPS increase is not much more, but the increase comes from using Pride instead of Haste, and from Maim support. Vaal Haste does actually have more DPS than my build, but without 100% uptime on Vaal Haste, the regular Haste doesn't quite match the damage.

Brunowa couldn't use Pride in his build since Pride cannot be socketed into Victario's Influence and still function, but especially in longer fights it ends up being nuts. Maim is a free +14% phys as well.

Edit: Lemme add too that the radius on Pride is not very large (+8 radius and +40% AoE with a 20/20% Pride gem). Pride is usually ignored for that reason as well, however the 90% phys res make standing near a boss much more doable.
Last edited by Xeratule#3406 on Jan 19, 2020, 1:28:16 PM
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Cruonit wrote:
Hi, nice build. I was looking for some ideas to use when ggg will nerf cwc+spirit offering combo and you have good innovation. Build looks solid but unflexible atm. I am in a hurry for improvements.
You may craft '+1 to minimum endurance charges' on your rings for extra elemental resist and physical dmg reduction.


Oh I agree it's fairly inflexible. I think of it like this, if Brunowa's build is a 10, and full mirror gear is a 12, this is the 11. More expensive than Brunowa's but not impossible to attain.
I know that Pride doesn't get affected by Generosity, but it still functions by itself in a Victario's Influence right? Just wanted to clarify because your wording sounds like Pride just stops working entirely?
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sabermetrics wrote:
I know that Pride doesn't get affected by Generosity, but it still functions by itself in a Victario's Influence right? Just wanted to clarify because your wording sounds like Pride just stops working entirely?


Hmmm, I might be mistaken here, but I was under the impression that when Pride is affected by Generosity it fails entirely.

The game cannot apply the aura to allies (zombies) since unlike other auras the Pride aura emanates from your character. Also the aura cannot emanate from you since generosity forces it to be given to allies. As a result, no bonus is provided and there are no visuals for Pride in a Generosity setup at all.

This is why despite providing a ton of bonus physical damage you don't typically see Pride in a Victario's Influence setup. Switching to Saqawal's removes that generosity bonus damage from other auras, but also allows Pride to make up that difference.
I took another look at it, and the tooltip in game actually doesn't show Pride being supported by Generosity while it's in the Victario's. The red "G" symbol just doesn't appear on the skill icon, which leads me to believe that the game understands that they don't work together, and therefore Pride still functions by itself.

I am definitely looking at swapping to a Saqawal's though, just having a tough time figuring out if I want to run Purity of Elements with it as well
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sabermetrics wrote:
I took another look at it, and the tooltip in game actually doesn't show Pride being supported by Generosity while it's in the Victario's. The red "G" symbol just doesn't appear on the skill icon, which leads me to believe that the game understands that they don't work together, and therefore Pride still functions by itself.

I am definitely looking at swapping to a Saqawal's though, just having a tough time figuring out if I want to run Purity of Elements with it as well


You probably also have a Watcher's Eye with chaos res w/ Purity of Ele like me. I was trying very hard to make it fit into the build but I don't know that I can without sacrificing another aura. A possible plan B is that since Grace provides more armour than Determination at lvl 20, you could take an Aul's with free Grace on it and pop that into a +3 soc gems rare ring, and add in Purity of the Elements. There's definitely no way to reach 90% phys resist by doing that, but the sacrifice might be worth it to achieve capped chaos and +109% ele res.

Update me on your progress :)

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