[3.17] Cheapbunny's Summon Reaper Build (Hit based + Bleed + Poison) + Animate Weapon

First, I gotta warn you that I'm wasting all my currency on constantly respeccing in order to find sufficient levels of damage and QOL. I'm lazy and don't like constantly summoning Animate Weapon, when using Skeletons I even spent a valuable jewel socket on From Dust.

Absolution linked to Feeding Frenzy and Increased Area of Effect (swap with Unleash for bosses) with a Vulnerability Curse on Hit effect from gloves or ring is a fantastic QOL improvement, the Sentinels keep Frenzy up very well. Unleash for bosses since it's a 25% chance to summon a Sentinel when hitting a unique enemy.

"

cheapbunny wrote:

I actually knew that chance to poison and envy is not a optimized setup for single target. I used chance to poison just because it feels good to have 100% chance to poison and not too far off from other damage support. I choose Envy over Pride is because Envy performs better for clearing map, and single target is not a problem for Reaper.

And you know what, having to be close by enemies for Pride & Banner to work requires you build more defensively, which is its own dps loss for having to use Bone Offering and Corrupted Soul in my case.

"

cheapbunny wrote:

It would be very strange if melee physical damage support does not affect Reaper's ultimate attack. In fact, the Ensnaring Arrow Reaper build is swapping melee physical damage support for single target as well.

I agree and still suspect I'm wrong, but poedb backs up POB here: https://poedb.tw/us/Summon_Reaper#Reaper
Most of his slashes have "triggerable" tag, which suggests the Dash command, but no "melee" tag, so no benefit from Melee Physical.

"

cheapbunny wrote:

What do you think about Ensnaring Summon Reaper build after trying it out? I know it does insane damage in the end game, curious about how it performs in early game and mapping.

It was fine on a budget, I went with a Silverbough and hooked Mirage Archer to Ensnaring Arrow. Asenath's Gentle Touch is 5ex, though, and the clear speed is worse without it. Enlighten and Whispers of Doom anoint are also super expensive, plus Hexproof enemies are a problem.

So I came back to your side because you had cleared t16s, Feared, etc on a much lower budget.

I saved up and got an Asenath's Gentle Touch:


Holy shit it's nice for clear speed! Expensive, I know, but really helps with Expeditions. About 5ex.

"

Pampero wrote:

Hello all AoE.
About the ascendency, i am trying Command Of Darkness instead of Plaguebringer.
+30 resistances, attack speed and damage to all party look a must to me.
Why do you suggest Plaguebringer (maybe for the increased area of effect) ?
Thanks in advance!

Plaguebringer provide damage to minions and defense to you, and minion resistance is not a problem in later game, but you can freely swap it with command of darkness.

"

Pampero wrote:

And...
Could be better Absolution than Carrion Golem to 'spread' the debuff AoE (culling strike, main, feeding frenzy) ??

You can try it out, but I feel it is too much to do both Animate Weapon and Absolution at the same time, especially during boss fight.

"

Siym wrote:

"

Cluster jewel is a new mechanic added in Delirium map, main source to obtain it is from Delirium encounter. However, it is very hard to get the cluster jewel you need, so it is better too buy from other people.

Thanks so much for the response and thank you for the build. I am enjoying it, shopping for jewels at the moment.

I am a little confused about the jewel section in the gear. Do I want to go with cluster jewel and those two unique jewels. OR Just go with the eye jewels and the unique eye jewel? Or do all of them?! :D Thanks in advance.

Do all of them and put the unique jewels in cluster jewel's slot. You can get an extra abyss jewel slot from your belt too.

"

therealtoothman wrote:

I saved up and got an Asenath's Gentle Touch:

Holy shit it's nice for clear speed! Expensive, I know, but really helps with Expeditions. About 5ex.

Nice one :O.

Currently doing T14+ with pretty good results, definitely a lot of buttons to press but I personally don't mind. I decided to give the Asenath's a try and they're pretty nice overall but a little weird to use in general map clear since I just use bladefall to proc them.

Overall though I think I have ~5700 life with more to come as I spec into the nodes. Here's my current gear. I still need to sort out my resists as I got that amulet last night for ~6ex (which I think ended up being a bargain to get a life roll and + gems).

I'm thinking of transitioning to bow if I can get the 8ex to craft a minion bow and get the other items and give that a shot.

With Asenath's you don't need to worry about scaling your Animate Weapon or Skeletons anymore. They never contributed much to single-target damage besides Maim, Wither, etc. The POPS are where your clear speed comes from now!

So what's important is a great way to apply curse to packs. You can just cast Vulnerability yourself or use a big AOE spell. Asenath's gives curse-on-hit Temp Chains which isn't bad but not as good as Vulnerability. Hextouch or a COH Vulnerability ring will OVERRIDE Temp Chains, whether to anoint Whispers of Doom is up to you (3x golden oil, yikes).

Absolution with Feeding Frenzy is GREAT for curse-on-hit. Frenzy uptime is 100% and the Sentinels help clear speed. I link Culling Strike, too.

I know Animate Weapon boosts off Cold Iron Point but it's no longer needed after you put on Asenath's Gentle Touch. 4-link Skeletons with Maim, Withering Touch, and Melee Splash are more than good enough. Skeletal Atrophy in minion cluster would be nice.

I already switched to bow/bleed version but the damage doesn't scale a whole lot more until you get a multimod bow, from which I'm a few Exalts away. To keep using Absolution AND Ensnaring Arrow, I put Absolution in Asenath's Chant:

So now I use the same button for single-target AND clear speed debuffs. Playstyle's smooth now!

I think bow/bleed version has the most scaling potential but if you get a nice body armour like Cheapbunny does it'll get quite good as he's demonstrated.

Dendrobate is NO LONGER a cheap 6-link option as the price has SKYROCKETED to 3-4ex (wonder what happened?). The Covenant is still cheap af, but hard to color.

For me The Covenant is perfect because you don't need mana to cast Animate Weapon (so +2/3 free points more to spend).
Great QoL and plus you have a level 15 chaos damage.

Put up a clear speed demonstration for Asenath's Gentle Touch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXK8DgRQoLw

I'm using bow/bleed but clear would be the same with poison build. I think you need something better than Bladefall to curse-on-hit, though, which means using Skeles instead of Animate Weapon. I just use 4-link Skels and it's perfectly fine, your secondary minions do not need to be scaled much.

"

Pampero wrote:

For me The Covenant is perfect because you don't need mana to cast Animate Weapon (so +2/3 free points more to spend).
Great QoL and plus you have a level 15 chaos damage.

You put Animate Weapon in body armour? Where's Reaper?