



So why this guide/build? What's the point?



I made this character specifically to test the assertion that "summoners can't do maps over 75 without snapshotting" or something to that effect. Whatever it was, I heard it a lot around the beginning of Ambush when I started this character. I knew it was BS, because I'd started getting up higher in maps on my std & domination summoners, but just hadn't had the luck and time to accrue a pool yet. Ambush seemed like the perfect league, given carto boxes and the general "feel" of more common currency.



I also wanted to try out Skullhead and (later) Vis Mortis. And I'm cheap. So, three pronged attack: do 75+ maps, use Skullhead & Vis and be cheap (aside from the Vis, which I saved up for while leveling the character and was able to purchase in my 60s, I think).



NOTE!: Vis Mortis is 100% unnecessary for this build - your minions will only be slightly weaker without it and you - the important one - will be much sturdier. It's just here because it's what I'm currently using and it wouldn't be honest of me not to mention it.





Passive tree at 87 (retired)

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgAABkkIZxCXEZYTbBZvFy8YPBmFGYoaOBpsGo8c3B2qHpQkPCSqJLAnqSj6KpgvbzbpOuE8jkGHRARFnUZxSVFNuVXGVdZWLVfJWm1akWTnZp5qrG-ecLt6qn5Zf8aApIIegseDCYVghtGIQIjxj0aQM5BVkyeTOpitmuCboZu1na6io6ZXpqynCKdcp4SofarErD-sf7QMtz64k70nv5fAGsHzwzrJPcpKzLzPZdDQ0_vZC9kT2t3bC9xX4Yjjauq66-7yHvJF89322vfX-ej6gPrS-wn-Cg==





bandits: all 3 skillpoints : because I like flexibility. In the long run though, taking Oak in normal for the HP is a solid, if not better, choice.



Why "retired"? Because leveling is too slow and boring for me, time to move on to a new alt.



tree stats

EB

EE

most of the aura nodes

*41% reduced reserve

*70% increased aura strength

190% life

100% mana regen

96% mana

All the minion nodes except the Lord of the Dead cluster

*90% life

*75% damage

*4% leech

*2.5% regen

*20% attack/cast speed

*4(3) total spectres

*8 total zombies

*16% res all, 20% chaos (48/75(81)/48/20 @ level 15)





notes on stats and SC/HC

I don't have nearly as much life as most builds I see and I'm fine with that. There are a ton of things that can (and do) one shot me - some of the skill in playing this (or many other) builds is in avoiding those attacks. This is a softcore (Ambush) build - so I'm cool with that too. So far, I've been dying 0-1 times per level, and usually to stupidity (like zoning into a map, taking a step forward and getting triple rhoa smashed because I wasn't focused yet and didn't manually dodge like I usually do). I can't recall the last time "desync" killed me.



bandits: all 3 skillpoints : because I like flexibility. In the long run though, taking Oak in normal for the HP is a solid, if not better, choice.Why "retired"? Because leveling is too slow and boring for me, time to move on to a new alt.







skills/links/gems



head: arc-rarity-cull-desecrate

*arc is used primarily to spread EE debuff (-50% fire and cold resist), but also to cull bosses.

*desecrate could be on weapon swap and a different support (convocation) could be here.



chest: zombie-minion life-remote mine/minion damage-melee splash-multistrike + flesh offering (unlinked)

*Rory hadn't released the minion spreadsheet yet (

*If I need/want Vaal Skeletons I will swap it in for one of my blue supports here. OMG 4l zombies in l78 maps! Yup. They die sometimes. Make more.



weapon: +3 cold skills, mana regen: AA, coldsnap, <inc aoe>

*Here you could run a backup curse (enfeeble) or choose a different offensive option. I enjoyed leveling up with coldsnap because of the nice stacking with EE via arc and hatred. The freezing was noticeable.



shield: reduced mana-purity of lightning-clarity

*my shield is corrupted, so I'm stuck with purity of lightning or purity of elements, but lighting is a pretty solid choice.



gloves: reduced mana-purity of ice-hatred-purity of fire/vitality

*I swap PoF and vitality as needed. Ideally, I'd probably rather have vitality instead of PoI, but I haven't got around to re-chroming yet. I leveled up with haste instead of two purities, but wasn't able to level it past level 12 with my current +dex from gear.



boots: spectre-inc aoe-inc duration/add fire-minion damage

*You could use remote mine here for more damage, but I hate using remote mine so I pretty much just take the damage hit. I do plenty.

*You don't actually *need* much damage on the specs - right now I'm using two of the links for Rejuvenation Totem and Convocation for some maps.

head: arc-rarity-cull-desecrate*arc is used primarily to spread EE debuff (-50% fire and cold resist), but also to cull bosses.*desecrate could be on weapon swap and a different support (convocation) could be here.chest: zombie-minion life-remote mine/minion damage-melee splash-multistrike + flesh offering (unlinked)*Rory hadn't released the minion spreadsheet yet ( https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ahqk9lptRHcMdHdjM1hTNTV1NzhBeEtQYlVvM1NvSFE#gid=0 ) when I got this. Now that I have those, you or I can see that a +2 helm with zombie-splash-multistrike-remotemine/faster attacks gets you more dps and almost the same hp as the 5l. The 5l shines if you want more glass cannon-ish minions and can drop the minion life for faster attacks or melee phys or minion damage.*If I need/want Vaal Skeletons I will swap it in for one of my blue supports here. OMG 4l zombies in l78 maps! Yup. They die sometimes. Make more.weapon: +3 cold skills, mana regen: AA, coldsnap, *Here you could run a backup curse (enfeeble) or choose a different offensive option. I enjoyed leveling up with coldsnap because of the nice stacking with EE via arc and hatred. The freezing was noticeable.shield: reduced mana-purity of lightning-clarity*my shield is corrupted, so I'm stuck with purity of lightning or purity of elements, but lighting is a pretty solid choice.gloves: reduced mana-purity of ice-hatred-purity of fire/vitality*I swap PoF and vitality as needed. Ideally, I'd probably rather have vitality instead of PoI, but I haven't got around to re-chroming yet. I leveled up with haste instead of two purities, but wasn't able to level it past level 12 with my current +dex from gear.boots: spectre-inc aoe-inc duration/add fire-minion damage*You could use remote mine here for more damage, but I hate using remote mine so I pretty much just take the damage hit. I do plenty.*You don't actually *need* much damage on the specs - right now I'm using two of the links for Rejuvenation Totem and Convocation for some maps.



Playstyle



General strategy is pretty simple: Shock stuff with arc to trigger EE, curse with Frostebite for overkill and more freeze. Curse is really just whatever you want. Blue is a good color for your curse slot, as you can easily swap out for Enfeeble or EW. Swapping Temp Chains in for Desecrate is also a solid option (and keeping the other on weapon swap).



For certain fights, throw out Rejuv totem and load convocation for positioning. It's not rocket surgery.



Also note that you can't just faceroll. It takes some skill to stay alive and choose which targets to focus your pets on. Especially the staying alive bit. You can and will be one shot so DODGE. MANUALLY. You know, like in other video games... you see some serious shit coming at you, you click somewhere else and move. Be aware of your surroundings. Rhoas, etc. My least favorite enemy to face in maps are leapers of various shapes and sizes. Even worse than devourers.



maps!

Alright! Now to the meat of the thing. "Summoners can't do 75+" maps without snapshotting is 100% bullshit. However, that doesn't mean we CAN do every single map or every single map mod. Honestly I don't think most builds should have that capability - only the most streamlined, exalted out powerbuilds should be able to. Of course, that's not actually the case as there are some balance and exploit (snapshotting) issues that allow some builds to do every single map out there but hey, I don't get too worked up about those things. Games are meant to be fun, not work!



Aside from certain mods (blood magic is the only one, really) you shouldn't have trouble with any of of the maps I don't mention by name. Vaal Skeleton is your friend - swap it in for one of your Zombie supports (I usually take out life or damage) - it goes a long way toward giving bosses other targets and does pretty solid damage too. I used it a ton leveling up, but not so much lately.



Note that I generally don't alc maps utnil 75, so it's easy and cheap to reroll 66-74s. I have no problem rerolling an annoying map - as I said already, I don't expect a build to be able to do everything.



68 Museum: Some people have issues with the bosses, but I didn't - even double boss. Evangelists + Vaal Skeleton swarm and go to town.

68 Ghetto: The boss hits hard and blends in. Much like an exile he can kill you out of nowhere if you're not aware. So be aware!

69 Tunnel & 72 Mine: Were super annoying before smoke mine/convocation because pets would get split and separated and killed. Much less of an issue now.

71 Temple : The first "hard boss" for me. It took me a couple tries to get a strategy down but I could do her pretty reliably by the time I moved on to 72/73s. Close with her quickly & teleport minions onto her face. Maul. Run Purity of Lightning and use Rejuv totem + animation flask to offset her constant damage. Vaal Skeletons can actually be a negative here if they prevent your zombies for surrounding and mauling her. She tends to go down pretty quickly when you are close. I try to avoid mods like -max & +lightning here, but they are doable.

72 Jungle Valley : One of the worst bosses for me. Honestly I just stopped doing these maps. The boss itself isn't hard, but all the adds, the potential for rares with nasty auras, and the general chaos of the boss room makes it a skip for me.

72 Torture Chamber : I've heard this one is pretty bad, but I found it less "scary" than Temple because the fight feels a bit slower paced. The last time I ran one of these I had to go out and re-gather minions once. No big deal.

74 Maze: I have yet to die to Maze Vaal. Just hasn't happened and I've run a ton of these maps with varying mods. I know I've done twinned at least once. Vaal Skeletons works well here to distract one (if twinned) while you work on the other.

74 Residence: It took me a while to defeat Residence Dom. At least 3 separate maps. The fight is tough. Not Dom so much - I can manage him easy enough - the problem I have most of the time is the suicide bombers. They are very hard for me to see in the dark and amidst all the minion spam. The fight got significantly easier after convocation was added. Use Vaal Skellies and regroup your minions to heal with totem/animation flasks as needed. Run all 3 purities. Avoid nasty boss mods. No shame in rerolling a -max, +dmg or twinned Dominus. -max doesn't hurt your minions, but makes it much easier for suicide bombers and an occasional lightning spray or missed lighting-punch dodge to one shot you.

75s - All the 75s are easy! I love them.

76 Crematorium: This is a tough fight. It's not a fight I would choose if I had other map options, but it's doable. Purity of Fire + Rejuv totem + 3 animation flasks + convocation would be ideal. She tears through evangelists like paper with her ground fire, so this might be a good place to try flame curtains. If I get another drop I'll give it a shot with different specs. I went through a ton of zombies last time I did this - run to a far corner of the room, desecrate x3, make 8 zombies and go zerg her a bit, rinse, repeat. I wound up killing her with no pets and just arc :P.

76 Precinct: Cake.

77 Shipyard: Cake. Or Pie.

78 Courtyard: I have yet to kill the bosses. To be fair, I've only tried once and it was twinned+fractured... I definitely can't kill 6x 78 bosses with a room full of blue fracturing gulls. NOPE. And I'm OK with that. That being said, I cleared the entire rest of the nasty map with zero issues. With level 19 NO quality zombies. So we definitely can do 78 maps in general, but bosses may be out of reach. I have another courtyard, so I may just try it blue to see if I can take the bosses at their base strength, but it feels like wasting an expensive map running it blue.... maybe I'll throw a few chaos at it. We'll see.





Note that the following maps haven't dropped for me yet:

76 Academy

77 Shrine

78 Palace

And no corrupted 78->79s.



I'm hoping to be able to try the Academy, Shrine and Palace before too long so I can complete this section of the guide, but I've mostly moved on from this character beyond MF, so we'll see. If I get some spare cash maybe I'll just buy some.









corrupted area bosses

I honestly haven't done many of these in a long, long time since I've spent most of my time focusing on mapping and building a map pool. I never found the multiplying snake that people seem to hate, but I was able to kill every one that I came across. And they seem to have been nerfed once or twice since I leveled up anyway, so most of these should be cakewalks. If there's one in particular you think is troublesome let me know and I'll see if I can farm up a zone and test it.



General strategy is pretty simple: Shock stuff with arc to trigger EE, curse with Frostebite for overkill and more freeze. Curse is really just whatever you want. Blue is a good color for your curse slot, as you can easily swap out for Enfeeble or EW. Swapping Temp Chains in for Desecrate is also a solid option (and keeping the other on weapon swap).For certain fights, throw out Rejuv totem and load convocation for positioning. It's not rocket surgery.Also note that you can't just faceroll. It takes some skill to stay alive and choose which targets to focus your pets on. Especially the staying alive bit. You can and will be one shot so DODGE. MANUALLY. You know, like in other video games... you see some serious shit coming at you, you click somewhere else and move. Be aware of your surroundings. Rhoas, etc. My least favorite enemy to face in maps are leapers of various shapes and sizes. Even worse than devourers.



Gear

current







You'll notice most of it isn't that great. That being said, the last I checked XYZ, upgrading my individual pieces would be very expensive - some of them I couldn't even find direct upgrades for (even though I don't consider them that great, nor did I pay more than like 3-8c for most pieces). I'd have to basically do a total gear swap-out, which I don't feel like doing as I consider this character pretty much done.



The most expensive piece is the 5l6s Vis Mortis, which I think I paid 3ex for (looks like they go for about 5 at the time of this writing) and the great thing about it? It's ONE HUNDRED PERCENT unnecessary. It's just flavor, something I wanted to do for fun. 4 specs! Wee!



Also, I started out with Skullhead - it's great for leveling - but wound up trading it in for more personal survivability around level 74-75 maps.



I would be quite a bit more survivable with a solid hybrid chest with life and maybe some resists (which would let me loosen up elsewhere) on it. Also, with better ES on the head and shield, you could forgot ES and use something more defensive like Belly of the Beast for the bonus hp, etc.



flasks





You'll note that my flasks are kinda/sorta just "whatever". Only one animation flask and some anti-bleed and anti-freeze for popping boxes. Like I said, easy/cheap! I'd recommend at least one anti-freeze and one anti-bleed. Some folks like lots of animation flasks, but generally one is enough. I mean, just make more, right? ;) (There are times where this is not possible in a timely manner, so yeah, more animation flasks would be good. Two is probably a better number!)

You'll note that my flasks are kinda/sorta just "whatever". Only one animation flask and some anti-bleed and anti-freeze for popping boxes. Like I said, easy/cheap! I'd recommend at least one anti-freeze and one anti-bleed. Some folks like lots of animation flasks, but generally one is enough. I mean, just make more, right? ;) (There are times where this is not possible in a timely manner, so yeah, more animation flasks would be good. Two is probably a better number!)





Gear to look for

*Bones of Ullr - For the 3rd spectre. If you don't want 3, fine go with MF+movement+life+resist, but I like overkill (why I went with 4 specs, and why I will test 5 and 6 once I drop through to standard).

*The usual high life & resist, add +mana regen and moderate ES to that.

*Misc stats as needed for gear and gems. Str for rejuv totem and reduced mana, dex for hatred and haste if you need it.



You'll notice most of it isn't that great. That being said, the last I checked XYZ, upgrading my individual pieces would be very expensive - some of them I couldn't even find direct upgrades for (even though I don't consider them that great, nor did I pay more than like 3-8c for most pieces). I'd have to basically do a total gear swap-out, which I don't feel like doing as I consider this character pretty much done.The most expensive piece is the 5l6s Vis Mortis, which I think I paid 3ex for (looks like they go for about 5 at the time of this writing) and the great thing about it? It's ONE HUNDRED PERCENT unnecessary. It's just flavor, something I wanted to do for fun. 4 specs! Wee!Also, I started out with Skullhead - it's great for leveling - but wound up trading it in for more personal survivability around level 74-75 maps.I would be quite a bit more survivable with a solid hybrid chest with life and maybe some resists (which would let me loosen up elsewhere) on it. Also, with better ES on the head and shield, you could forgot ES and use something more defensive like Belly of the Beast for the bonus hp, etc.





Leveling



Early game/normal

Zombies still start a bit weak, but not *that* weak. Once you get rejuvenation totem, normal should be pretty easy. I leveled with haste+hatred+purity of elements as soon as I could afford too via the reduced aura nodes+reduced mana and then moved to my current aura setup later.



Spectre-wise, the previous difficulty Evangelists should last you until you can get the next tier. Pre-evangelist I would just raise whatever or forget about spectres.



Also, arc does pretty decent damage now, even with no spell damage nodes - just a decent wand is enough. Normal is really easy in general.





cruel

You should be solid by now. Just steamroll onwards. I didn't farm at all. Nothing shou be difficult until the end of the act, where I found that Cruel Dominus's guards were harder than he was (with respect to chewing up minions). Vaal Skeletons helps with them.





merc

Some people will say to farm Ledge or Docks or Piety or Dom runs, but I didn't farm at all -I had enough 66 maps from the alt I leveled to 67 before this one that I just jumped in, possibly before I could even kill Piety. If this is your first character, you will probably need to farm a bit. I prefer Riverways over Ledge if you want to farm to 65 safely and can't yet do Docks or Piety runs. Either way, that's just time to burn and not difficult.



Vaal Skeletons makes Piety much easier.



I don't think I bothered with Dom until I was mid-70s, and by that point he was easy.







Level 50 tree

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgAACGeTOr0nGDz56ILHKPrT--vuV8mofbiTPI5akacI6rpqrNrdna6PRrQMBkkabNDQkydGcRmFpqyboc9lHNzcV-GIgwkkqohA99dVxn_GHpQdqm-eNumQM8y8oqMnqRGWrD_KSuNqhWDB83C7wzqqxIIe2RObtVYtTbnbCy9vGYqsf0QE-wn22hqP



Depending on when you finish Cruel, your tree should be about here. I generally finish early 40s to early 50s, depending on how many corrupted areas I did and what build I'm running.

Depending on when you finish Cruel, your tree should be about here. I generally finish early 40s to early 50s, depending on how many corrupted areas I did and what build I'm running.



Level ~70 tree

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgAACGeTOr0nGDz56ILHKPrT--vuV8mofbiTeqo8jlqRpwia4Oq6aqza3Z2uj0bZC0WdtAwGSRps0NAqmJMnRnEZhaasm6HPZfqAHNy_l9xX4YiDCSSqiED311XGf8bxdsk9HpQdqm-eNumQM8y8oqMnqRGW8h6sP8pK42r60hCXhWDB81ptcLvDOhcvRASqxIIeJDzZE5u1Vi1k54bRTbnbCy9vGYqsf1XWJLD7CYCk9toajw==



Yep, I only had 110% life. I didn't start stacking life until I was done with everything else. Softcore, baby!

Yep, I only had 110% life. I didn't start stacking life until I was done with everything else. Softcore, baby!



Notes:

The main goal is to grab the minion leech and regen node asap, along with EB and grabbing the aura reserve reduction. After that I filled in the rest of my minions then, after I had all my minions and most of my aura nodes, then I started working on life.

Gear:





Leveling Gear:

Obviously grab Bones of Ullr as soon as you can.



I leveled with Skullhead - that and Vis Mortis were my "summoner experiment" for this league (I have played a lot of summoners, I like to try something at least a little different with each new summoner). Skullhead is pretty strong, and goes very well with a 5l zombies - the two together are probably stronger than the +2 helm. Unfortunately, I felt I needed more survivability (and wanted more IIR) going into 75+ maps, so I dropped Skullhead mid 80s. If you wanted to do a 5l zombie build, I'd advise a strong hybrid chest over Vis so you can make up the lack of hp & resists on a helm.



Beyond those three items it really doesn't matter what gear you use, as long as it gets you "enough" resist and HP. Since you'll probably be running some elemental auras, you won't need much resist either and can focus on IIR, life & Mana regen.





The only tough spots on the way up were cruel dom and... I think that's it. Merc dom you just wait until you can do him. Same with Piety. Piety is generally pretty cake with l18 zombies (l16 in a +2 helmet), but I think I started her when they were around 15-16. I had enough maps that I jumped right into 66s and pretty much skipped farming Piety and Dom entirely.

Notes:The main goal is to grab the minion leech and regen node asap, along with EB and grabbing the aura reserve reduction. After that I filled in the rest of my minions then, after I had all my minions and most of my aura nodes, then I started working on life.Gear:The only tough spots on the way up were cruel dom and... I think that's it. Merc dom you just wait until you can do him. Same with Piety. Piety is generally pretty cake with l18 zombies (l16 in a +2 helmet), but I think I started her when they were around 15-16. I had enough maps that I jumped right into 66s and pretty much skipped farming Piety and Dom entirely.



misc

Apologies for the lack of videos, I don't stream and I haven't had the time or energy to figure out how to record stuff, but if there's some crazy need to see that and it's not too time consuming, maybe I could record some requests?



Also, this is my first guide in a while, and maybe the first for PoE, so I may have missed a bunch of relevant points. Let me know if there's anything else you want me to talk about.





In summary: We can 100% do general (but possibly not all!) endgame maps (all 75s confirmed, 2/3 76s confirmed, 1/2 77s confirmed, 1 78 sans boss). I saw a number of people say that our minions couldn't even survive 78 maps to make it to the bosses - 100% untrue. However, bosses are a separate issue. My boss drops have been terrible lately so this doesn't bother me much. And, I have a feeling with exalt-worthy gear these bosses would be even more doable.



There's plenty of room to improve the survivability of this build with sick gear. Survivability means more time to summon and zerg zombies, and might be all it takes to kill those extra map bosses easier.



There's also plenty of room to improve the damage. You'll note that I'm only running level 19 (mostly) non quality gems. Level 21 gems with quality and a corrupted empower would be such an improvement for zombies.



I made it this far without pushing the gear or gem power levels much at all. I'm sure others can go farther.



Summoners are fine

Summoners are fine.







I've had a couple people ask me in game and via reddit what's up with my build, generally after I mention that a) I don't snapshot and b)I'm running higher maps and c) I haven't spent much on gear (outside of my chest, which we'll get to).So why this guide/build? What's the point?I made this character specifically to test the assertion that "summoners can't do maps over 75 without snapshotting" or something to that effect. Whatever it was, I heard it a lot around the beginning of Ambush when I started this character. I knew it was BS, because I'd started getting up higher in maps on my std & domination summoners, but just hadn't had the luck and time to accrue a pool yet. Ambush seemed like the perfect league, given carto boxes and the general "feel" of more common currency.I also wanted to try out Skullhead and (later) Vis Mortis. And I'm cheap. So, three pronged attack: do 75+ maps, use Skullhead & Vis and be cheap (aside from the Vis, which I saved up for while leveling the character and was able to purchase in my 60s, I think).NOTE!: Vis Mortis is 100% unnecessary for this build - your minions will only be slightly weaker without it and you - the important one - will be much sturdier. It's just here because it's what I'm currently using and it wouldn't be honest of me not to mention it.In summary: We can 100% do general (but possibly not all!) endgame maps (all 75s confirmed, 2/3 76s confirmed, 1/2 77s confirmed, 1 78 sans boss). I saw a number of people say that our minions couldn't even survive 78 maps to make it to the bosses - 100% untrue. However, bosses are a separate issue. My boss drops have been terrible lately so this doesn't bother me much. And, I have a feeling with exalt-worthy gear these bosses would be even more doable.There's plenty of room to improve the survivability of this build with sick gear. Survivability means more time to summon and zerg zombies, and might be all it takes to kill those extra map bosses easier.There's also plenty of room to improve the damage. You'll note that I'm only running level 19 (mostly) non quality gems. Level 21 gems with quality and a corrupted empower would be such an improvement for zombies.I made it this far without pushing the gear or gem power levels much at all. I'm sure others can go farther. Last edited by onefinemess on May 7, 2014, 3:38:07 PM