Stress-Free PoE! SLOW-MO GUNSLINGER (AW): No Required Items|1-Button Play|SSF League Start-End|3.14

Hi, thank you very much for the buid. I wanted to throw in my two cents since i was reading the replies and people seem to have issues with rituals and the animated weapons dying too often to the ultimatum encounters, for this i would recommend a Medium cluster jewel with Minion life as a modifier and Blessed Rebirth notable.

If you could work it into a tree it would be amazing as i'm not very good for that sort of tree modifications.

If I understand correctly, the spellslinger gem comes with lvl 20ish!? Until then Animate Weapon is a pain and the whole build far from one button chill :)
So what do you suggest until Act 3 when this key skill become available?

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HappyGoo wrote:

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If I understand correctly, the spellslinger gem comes with lvl 20ish!? Until then Animate Weapon is a pain and the whole build far from one button chill :)
So what do you suggest until Act 3 when this key skill become available?

I ran with Ethereal Knives(they leave lingering blades) and Animate Weapon and just self cast both of them until spellslinger. So its a two button build until spellslinger.

Hey all!

Hopefully you've been having a stable start since the online issues got fixed. Thanks for your patience! Let's see what questions we have.

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Asinoeh wrote:

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I tried your build yesterday, but I was having serious problems in the Ultimatum challenges. The Animated Weapons died, and resummoning them was a major pain, especially since Kinetic Blast is an attack, not a spell, we have no attack speed whatsoever, and it takes at least two attacks to resummon one blade. That means standing still for a comparatively long time.

Just out of curiosity I switched over to melee skeletons (I had branched towards Sovereignty first, so the tree was still suitable for both), and that went notably smoother.

Now this was in early Act 4 before the first trial, so I am wondering if it just takes more time for this build to come into its own, if I just played it wrong, or if a 'regular' skeleton necromancer is just stronger once you are willing to drop the one-button restriction.

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shift81 wrote:

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I'm finding the same problem as Asinoeh at level 50. I love my blades, but they seem to die to a stiff wind. Any tips?

Hi Asinoeh and shift81!

Sorry you're having a rough start. I do find that needing to cast for blades separately is a big pain in the butt. It's not my style of play either. Things become a lot easier once Spellslinger is unlocked for sure. I find , like you did, that using Summon Raging Spirits or Summon Skeletons a great way to level until the build becomes more natural and easy. The nice thing about skeletons is that they are easy on mana (creating 3 per cast) while also aggroing enemies. The build really comes into it's own once you unlock Blasphemy Support and Hextouch Support. That turns things around quick noticably. Also, I find Bladefall way easier to get blades from (instead of EK).

I know this wasn't too big of help but if the build is still fun for you, though progress may be slow for you, it really will pay off. You're not doing anything wrong, it's just one of those setups. 3.14 gets released on console tomorrow and I'll be doing my best to put up new example videos throughout the week.

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evilsonofgod wrote:

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Hi, just wanted to point out that the Summon Holy Relic is not in the gem list guide on where to get it. :)

Oh shoot! Thanks evilsonofgod!

I appreciate it. I'll fix it right away.

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Artophwar wrote:

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So I know it says that only minion damage affects minions, but was wondering if for example Lightning Damage to Spells works with the Animate Weapon??

I have some random added damage to spells on my gear and it shows up in the game stats screen for AW. https://imgur.com/a/QAKleMt

Is the game wrong? I know the in game info is pretty bad for minions.

Hey Artophwar!

Correct. Only Ally and Minion nodes will impact minions. I'm not sure which item is was that was adding that but you're correct that the game is horrible/pointless with the tooltip and minions. That tooltip only shows YOUR stats. You want to hover over the skill itself to get the details you want, and even then it only shows what's linked to the skill, not what's impacting it.

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Astorede wrote:

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First of all, thank you for this amazing and complete guide. That's probably at the same level or even better than 30 minutes vid' !

I needed a few douzens of level to understand how to play this build (brainlets you know) and I finally realized that I HAD TO activate both Spellslinger + a wand projectile spell to get my AW functional. That aside I'm just going brrrrr at every boss feels good and that's a change of peace compared to TR Trickster.

Not gonna hide that the beginning (pre-act 3) was a nightmare : no spellslinger to help me and only SRS + Skeleton against bandits felt horrible. But once you overcome this trial, oh man.

Tho... biggest problem isn't bossing, it's going very smooth tbh, it's more ultimatum. Likes others said, blades die super fast and mobs just rush at you. I'm also around level 50-55 (end of act 7) and still haven't got all my 3 curses. I put Enfeeble at the top of priority list to avoid getting wrecked but that doesn't improve much.

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And that also because the trialmaster thinks I'm a brainded and rubs it into my face everytime

So my question is going to be the same : By the time I'll have complete link with all 3 curses working, will the build improves and shines ? I'm just playing it badly, because this is my 2nd league and roughly ~20 days playing ? Or is the build too squishy to fight off Ultimatum ?

In the end, I don't want you to get it wrong, still amazing build, and whatever happens I'll still play it until the end (of this league ?) because I just love it, that's super genius to use Spellslinger x2 with AW and BF. Thanks again for all this hard work !

Hey Astorede!

I appreciate the post. Always be honest with them :). The guide can't get better without honest feedback. So don't worry about offending or anything. I agree the roughly the first three acts are rough, though I was quite content using SRS and skeletons to level. The build totally picks up. It's more of a caster build so positioning yourself and knowing how much time you have in one spot is key, but the build REALLY picks up with Profane Bloom. If you like the process now, though levelling may be slow, it gets better for sure.

Thanks for the encouraging words. I'm glad you're having fun despite the slow start. I'll make a new video in the coming week for everyone.

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A3ar0k666 wrote:

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Hi, thank you very much for the buid. I wanted to throw in my two cents since i was reading the replies and people seem to have issues with rituals and the animated weapons dying too often to the ultimatum encounters, for this i would recommend a Medium cluster jewel with Minion life as a modifier and Blessed Rebirth notable.

If you could work it into a tree it would be amazing as i'm not very good for that sort of tree modifications.

Thanks for the thanks A3ar0k666! I appreciate it. Hopefully it's treating you well.

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HappyGoo wrote:

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If I understand correctly, the spellslinger gem comes with lvl 20ish!? Until then Animate Weapon is a pain and the whole build far from one button chill :)
So what do you suggest until Act 3 when this key skill become available?

Hey HappyGoo!

Yup. Spellslinger doesn't really come into play until you mentioned so in the levelling section I mention "...you can use Summon Raging Spirits (SRS) or Summon Skeleton. You'll want to keep a mana flask for SRS. Feel free to use SRS until any point in the game, just be sure that you're levelling the build's gems too. Animate Weapon/SRS-Minion Damage-Summon Phantasm is a great 3 link to level with."

I'll likely reword or emphasize some of the pros and cons of levelling this build to set some expectations.

Keep in mind that AW doesn't need Bladefall, BF just guarantees weapons to animate. Hopefully this helped.


Sweet! Thanks everyone! Hopefully people are enjoying the build despite the fact that it takes a bit to get going. I'm always up for honest feedback so feel free to post what you like.

Remember, AW doesn't need Bladefall (or EK), BF just guarantees weapons to animate.

See you all Friday. Happy farming!

For those who have trouble or no fun leveling with SRS and skeletons (as those are not really strong in the beginning), here is what I do for characters without viable early game variants:

Get blastchain mine and bomb ahead. Damage is sufficent, area clear is most welcome. Link it with Swift Assembly to get better dps.
Link with "added [element] damage" as you get those support gems. You want to add flat elemental damage.

Get Orb of Storms at level 4. Blastchain Mine as well as Lightning Trap will trigger it, so you will have additional boss damage.

Get Frost Bomb as well, as it can be used while running and will be enough damage to oneshot groups, so you can actually get XP without stopping to run.

Link Flame Dash with Arcane Surge.

Make sure to pick up 2 alteration orbs (this probably means picking up a lot of trash, identify and sell it), 2 transmutation orbs, 2 topaz rings (can be crafted by selling an iron ring+green spellgems).
Try to pick up 2 magic wands with sockets and links as you need them. If you don't find magic ones, you turn them magic with transmutation orbs.

At level 8 sell those magic wands each with a topaz ring and an alteration orb to receive wands with added lightning damage to spells. Your traps now deal good damage.

At level 12, replace Blastchain Mine with Lightning Trap.

Make sure to still pick up topaz rings (or iron rings and keep green spellgems to make use of the vendor recipe).
At level 14 you want to sell magic topaz rings with your wands and an alteration orb for more flat damage.

Pick up essences you find along the way until you have at least 2. Keep looking for topaz rings.
At level 20, turn those topaz rings rare with your essences and sell them with your wands and alteration orbs to get the next tier of flat damage to spells on your wands.

Don't forget to use Summon Skitterbots as you get it.

This works for every class with access to the gems I mentioned and carries you through the first three acts without big trouble, even if you don't put a single passive point in spell/trap/elemental damage. Somewhere in A4 the damage becomes a bit low until you get a 4link and add another support gem. If you don't care about drinking a lot you can also add Anger for more flat damage.

Have fun with your SSF-early-game-screenclear-no-passive-point-required run until you can make use of your actual gem setup.

Disclaimer: This is ofc not as good as some builds which invest into damage nodes from the very beginning and have their skills and supports available from the start. But it's a good way to level if you don't have access to any items, your build comes online later in the game and you are running a witch/shadow/scion.

Thanks for this great build guide.
having a lot of fun so far, just hit act 3 made it this far with ethereal knives, animate weapon, zombies and occasional skeletons if things got a bit hectic.

to avoid running out of animated knives at the wrong time, I got into the habit of animating 2-3 knives after each fight.

I did die a few times, but always because I kinda forgot I have health potions, or not finding the 1 key ;-)

Now that I have got spellslingers and desecrate the gameplay has changed markedly.

I only had a couple 3 links that were suitable colours, so have one spellslinger linked to desecrate and spirit offering, and the other to animate weapon and lesser poison (although maybe minion damage would be better??)

basically now left click creates a bunch of corpses, a second click and they all explode.
until i got use to it I was just mashing left click, bodies exploding everywhere, at some point remembering I need knives on the ground to animate and finally right click a couple times to fire some ethereal knives.

at that point I should get into a rhythm of right click twice then left click twice, but by that stage everything's dead and its just me and my zombies and a barrage of exploding corpses on the screen.

hopefully some decent 4links will drop and I can sort this mess out. but even so I am still blasting though packs of mobs and have completed 3-4 trials to boot.

***EDIT***
Have blasted my way through to the library, so now have access to a bunch of skills. and in a couple of 4 links and I am a lot closer to intended playstyle.

kinetic blast on left click to trigger spellslingers.

and bladefall in a 3 link with spellslinger and culling support
and the other SS with animate, minion damage and chaos support

I still run zombies and found a vaal skele - very handy when I charge in without thinking and the shtf ;-)

although I'm now manually popping desecrate and spirit offering - which means I rarely do because who has time to remember how to play properly???? ;-)

I only remember temporal chains because I put it on right click

Does temporal chains stack with despair? or does 1 curse cancel the other??

I would recommend buying Awakened Added Chaos Damage early as it is a super cheap damage upgrade and it takes a while to level, so getting it at the start of mapping really helps.

https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Ultimatum/G6ZaXo3Ub

Another suggestion, I have swapped Purifying Flame with Void Sphere.

Void Sphere is really useful for Ultimatums since it sucks the enemies in and they are so close already it grabs a lot of them. It also Hinders enemies, which synergizes with our ascendancy Withering Presence(Nearby Hindered Enemies deal 15% reduced Damage over Time).

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Artophwar wrote:

Another suggestion, I have swapped Purifying Flame with Void Sphere.

Void Sphere is really useful for Ultimatums since it sucks the enemies in and they are so close already it grabs a lot of them. It also Hinders enemies, which synergizes with our ascendancy Withering Presence(Nearby Hindered Enemies deal 15% reduced Damage over Time).

this sounds interesting, but wont the void sphere interfere with spirit offering? because description says it consumes all corpses (and we need those for our offering)

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Xjustagamer wrote:

this sounds interesting, but wont the void sphere interfere with spirit offering? because description says it consumes all corpses (and we need those for our offering)

Void sphere only consumes the corpses of enemies that DIE in its area, NOT ALL corpses. :)

So since we also use Desecrate to create corpses, it doesnt affect those corspes, since they didnt DIE.

I have been playing with it for a while now and it works great. Spirit Offering is triggering just the same as before.