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sit back, relax and let the minions do all the work while you pick up loot and admire the scenery in path of exile. if you dream of commanding a small army of minions whose sole purpose is to do our building and out do each other in killing monsters, then you’ve come to the right place. in this beginner guide for a best and easiest play path of exile summoner build, we will cover all aspects of the poe zombiemancer summoner build and provide detailed explanations of the various mechanics, passives skill choices, ascendancy, pantheon, stats priorities, gear, flasks jewels options and more!
with path of exile 3.6 synthesis league in full swing, it is the perfect time to learn the ropes of one of the most beginner friendly builds out there. by far the easiest minion build to play, you just need to summon your undead legion, unleash them and collect sweet loot. as a necromancer in path of exile, lead an army of zombies through wraeclast and obliterate everything in your path. get to experience all in-game content: uber atziri, uber elder, deep delve, pale council, chayula; nothing is off limits to the zombiemancer summoner. now follow us to learn what makes zombiemancer one of the most popular and greatest path of exile necromancer builds! while usually summoner builds are known to be rather complicated, clooney's zombiemancer is one of the easiest to play and at the same time boasting excellent dps and survivability.
here's the high level breakdown of the build's capabilities: one of the most powerful summoner builds of any kind out there! once you have the 7 empowered zombies out they will obliterate everything in their path. they are equally effective at quickly clearing large packs of mobs as well as killing bosses all the way up to uber elder. your minions are incredibly resilient, being able to face tank pretty much everything thrown at them. they have very large health pools, capped resistances and huge amounts of life regen, so even in the toughest fights it will be enough to pull them back for a second or two in case they are in grave danger. the build is designed to be very easy to play without having to cast specific sequences of spells or combos that are generally the staple of summoner builds.
after summoning your small army, pretty much everything after that is automated. while it requires quite a few mandatory uniques, they're all common ones which are really cheap even in the first few days of a new league.
as such it's a more than decent starter build which can be easily funded as you progress through the game. end-game min-maxing and best in slot poe items with very high affix rolls will be expensive. with proper investment and a bit of practice you will be able to clear all the content in the game. however there are two map modes that you should avoid as they will cripple the build too much: physical damage reflect will kill your zombies quick and no mana regen makes it impossible for you to cast anything as your mana pool is very small.
related read: path of exile 3.6 templar purifying flame inquisitor build guide
the build revolves around summoning zombie minions and then using specific pieces of gear, auras and other minions to greatly buff them. zombies are a permanent type of minion, meaning they do not expire, nor have a limited duration and they persist when changing zones. however they do not survive logging out and will have to be re-summoned when coming back online. as the skill description indicates it, summoning a zombie requires a corpse which can belong to a dead monster or created by using a spell such as desecrate. the level of the corpse, the map where it was created or the monster it belonged to have absolutely no influence on the resulting
zombie – its stats depend strictly on the gem level as well as the support gems and other buffs. by default the zombies use a standard attack and and area of effect slam, both dealing physical damage.
as such, most support gems that affect attacks, physical damage or area of effect can be used to support the zombie gem and in turn the summoned minions themselves. for example when using “ruthless” support gem every third attack of each zombie will be a ruthless blow, dealing more damage. normally you are able to summon only 3 zombies, but through several passives, necromancer ascendancy and the baron helmet we will increase that to 14. we then reduce that number to 7 zombies but which will deal twice as much damage by using mon'tregul's grasp sceptre. this weapon also provides huge defenses bonuses for the zombies as well as causing any enemies killed by them to explode dealing fire damage to other nearby monsters. that generally causes a huge chain reaction which will clear entire packs in a split second.
as you can likely deduce from the baron's description, in order to significantly increase the maximum number of zombies you will need to stack a large amount of strength at least 1200 to be more precise. this is a completely realistic number that's not too difficult to achieve while still maintaining very solid defenses and utility. the helmet also grants half of your strength to all minions, in turn boosting their hp and physical damage. moreover, when you get 1000 strength, 2% of the damage dealt by the zombies is leeched to you as life. this is an excellent defensive mechanism which will help you survive through a lot of incoming damage. you then capitalize on that strength to obtain a huge amount of energy shield through items such as geofri's sanctuary or shaper's touch gloves. all in all you will end up with over 6000 hp and 5000 energy shield.
in addition you will make use of several other minions such as spectres, animated guardian, stone golem and holy relic which act as buff bots that will further increase the zombies' dps as well as defenses. finally you top it all off with 2 or 3 auras, a pretty obvious choice for a build that revolves around minions.
related read: path of exile 3.6 witch winter orb builds guide - elementalist, trickster, juggernaut, cwc ice spear builds
pros:
+ very tanky and resilient
+ easy to play
+ excellent hardcore build
+ cheap to gear and farm red maps
+ can clear all game content easily
cons:
- minions ai is not brilliant
- summoner playstyle
- labyrinth is awkward
- can not run reflect and no regen
how to build the minion build? let's actually start with the passive tree and leveling. as briefly mentioned in the build overview, the main objectives are to increase the number of zombies and to gather as much strength as possible. a large part of that will come from the passive tree, especially through jewels, so, getting enough sockets will be a priority.
act 1 (25 levels)
main passive skill: grave intentions, lord of the dead
act 2
main passive skill: cruel preparation, death attunement
act 3-4
main passive skill: spiritual command, sacrifice, quick recovery, gravepact
act 5-6
main passive skill: retribution, sanctity, discipline and training
jewel socket: violet dead
act 7
main passive skill: devotion, shaper
jewel socket: violet dead, efficient training
keystone: elemental equilibrium
act 8
main passive skill: 30 strength, written in blood
jewel socket: efficient training
act 9-10 (80 - 90 level)
main passive skill: constitution, purity of flesh, heart of the warrior, born to fight
jewel socket: brawn
you have several options depending on what you feel like you're lacking: defenses, dps or more attributes such as dex or int. the recommended way is a balance of defenses and damage by picking up “barbarism”, the “melding” wheel and “righteous army”.
the ascendancy class improves pretty much every single aspect of the build. summoning dead stuff to fight for you is clearly the signature of a necromancer, so this is what you'll be picking up as the ascendancy class.
1. invoker - a pretty simple but efficient passive: it buffs both damage and defenses of your minions and reduces the cooldown of convocation. this skill is an excellent tool that you'll be using quite a lot, both offensively and defensively, so being able to cast it more often is more than welcome.
2. flesh binder - the most important passive from the necromancer ascendancy. you get additional zombies with greatly improved slam attack and a decent amount of physical damage reduction for both yourself and the minions.
3. commander of darkness - an excellent way to get much more from your auras. the first bonus stacks for each aura you have active and ideally you should end up with three of them. the other two bonuses will apply just once. however, apart from boosting the zombies' damage they will help you cap both your and the minions' resistances. there are very few sources of minions resistances so this is an excellent defensive buff for them.
4. mistress of sacrifice - this might be a bit surprising but, thanks to this, you will be able to survive huge hits that would otherwise instantly kill you. this passive will apply half the effect of spirit offering to you as well and, in practice, it will act like an instant energy shield heal.
related read: poe 3.6 flashback builds
generally speaking pantheon choices are situational and there isn't a best pair that will outperform all others in any situation. however, there are certain options that complement specific builds quite well in a wide range of situations. for this particular case, here are our recommendations:
for the major god, soul of lunaris: probably the best defensive pantheon for builds which operate mostly in melee range.
for the minor god, soul of shakari: chaos damage bypasses energy shield and poison in particular is encountered quite often while mapping so it is always a good idea to reduce a type of damage that can ignore about half of your effective hp.
main skill & support gems
raise zombies -> minion damage -> melee physical damage -> minion speed -> ruthless -> maim (multistrike)
animate guardian -> raise spectre -> blood magic -> minion life
shield charge -> fortify -> faster attack
cast when damage taken -> desecrate -> convocation
cast when damage taken -> spirit offering
the auras
hatred -> generosity
enlighten -> hasted
other gems
there are 3 other mandatory gems that do not need to be linked with anything and you can just squeeze them wherever you have any room left.
summon stone golem - it provides a large amount of life regen. once you'll be using geofri's sanctuary body armour this bonus will turn into energy shield regen.
summon holy relic - this tiny minion will follow you around and will cast a nova spell whenever you hit an enemy, granting life regeneration. this buff has increased effectiveness on other minions helping them survive even more damage.
flame dash – while some might consider this optional, the impact it has on map clearing speed is so large, you cannot really drop this gem. the simple fact that it can be used to bypass obstacles and climb ledges is sufficient to earn its socket.
convocation - finally, if you have any free sockets left, add another high level “convocation” spell for manually recalling your zombies and making them follow you more easily. this is only a quality of life addition to the build and you can only use it if you have unset rings for the extra sockets.
gearing up for this build isn't too difficult and you can easily farm mid-tier maps with an investment of about 50 poe chaos orbs. of course, you cannot reasonably expect to kill uber elder with that kind of gear, but the more path of exile currency you spend, the better you will perform.
note: you do not care at all about any kind of affixes that add damage to yourself. instead you'll be looking only for the ones granting attributes, defenses and maybe some minion damage, if you can afford it.
helmet
the baron - from it, gather at least 1200 strength to get the full benefit. this is the build's linchpin item and as its description is saying, you are allowed to summon an additional zombie for every 300 strength you have.
main weapon
mon'tregul's grasp - while it halves the number of zombies, when well rolled it will also double their damage so nothing really changes here. on top of that it also gives them a huge amount of hp and resistances.
offhand weapon
behemoth span - in the offhand you will use a rare shield with as much strength, life, resistances and energy shield as possible. attributes such as dex or int are more than welcome as you will need a decent amount of each for your skills and auras.
body armour: geofri's sanctuary - apart from a solid amount of all resistances and life, it provides 2 energy shield for each 5 strength you have.
gloves
the shaper's touch - they provide a somewhat similar benefit as the body armour, namely “2% increased maximum energy shield for each 10 strength”.
boots
alberon's warpath - the insane amount of strength that it provides through its unique bonus of up to 18 percent increased strength. in practice this translates to about 170 strength, way more than any other single item would normally have.
belt
damnation lock stygian vise - with 70+ strength and maximum life, resistances and energy shield.
amulet
astramentis - a very useful amulet that will help you get a large amount of strength as well as enough dex or int for all requirements
rings
cale coil & chimeric eye - this is absolutely necessary for triggering elemental equilibrium with shield charge. also, make sure there is no other elemental damage on the rings.
jewels
efficient training, brawn, violent dead, ghastly eye - first you have 3 pieces of “efficient training”, placed in the sockets located north, east and west of the witch starting area. the rest of the sockets in the passive tree should be filled with “brawn” jewels. depending on how good your gear is and if you're already able to get 1200 strength, you can replace one or two brawn jewels with “violent dead” ones, greatly boosting the damage of your zombies. in case you can afford to drop yet another brawn or you have a stygian vise belt, then use a ghastly eye with “minions have a chance to blind on hit” along with flat physical damage and attack speed.
flasks
1. sapping eternal life flask of staunching
2. experimenter sulphur flask of warding
3. ample quicksilver flask of adrenaline
4. chemist's basalt flask of heat
5. ample silver flask of grounding
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