[2.6] Springleaf Zombies - Super Cheap - got Atziri

Atziri Kill by Grebble Goodheart, on Flickr

Concept: Take advantage of the high health pools of Zombies and Stone Golems by combining with high percentage life regeneration primarily from the much underrated Springleaf shield with the Necromantic Aegis notable passive. Your late game zombies and golems will regen over two thousand health a second.

There are a lot of goodies for summoner witches now, but they can be too pricey for very casual players like myself. I just wanted to throw together something that would let me take my summoner witch to the next level and get my first Atziri kill on the cheap, and this build did it for me on a really low budget.

My first POE character was a summoner witch. Dominus cast some lightning, and all my zombies died. Very sad. I made another when Act IV came out and Malachi shredded those zombos like paper. This time around, I had the upper hand. My zombies didn't die, and I didn't recast a single zombie until Merciless Act IV when Daresso finally managed to kill one of them before the rest dropped him. Merciless Malachi got three if I remember correctly, but my zombo crew dropped him, too. Yawn.

Here are the two things you need. You can get each one for an alchemy shard or less.



The Clayshaper will give us use two tanky Stone Golems along with our zombies. These guys are really destructive especially when they get multistrike and do their slam aoe three times in a row. Not much survives that, but if something does, that attack is also a taunt which will take heat off your zombies.

The Springleaf shield gives 3% life regen and another 3% when your zombies and golems hit low life or less than 35% health. Combined with the two and half percent life regen your minions get from passives on the skill tree, your guys will walk around with over five percent regen all the time and 8.5% if they get low. Doesn't sound like much till you consider their ridiculous health pools. Your zombies late game will easily have over 12k health and will regen over 1,000 life/sec if low. Your stone golems will have more than double that health and will regen over 2,000 life/sec. They also get some life leech from the minion passives. All together, they can hang in and keep swinging through almost any fight. They can swallow great big hits and shake them off completely in a couple seconds. When you do finally find something that can kill a zombie, your stone golems will keep the baddies off of you so you can recast. (**Edit: This combo worked extremely well until around Tier 11 maps when my zombies would sometimes die in maps. If you plan on playing that far, just swap out the Clayshaper for a Mon'tegrul's Grasp. It's also super cheap. It will reduce the size of your army, but it will double your zombies health pool and make them just as tanky as your stone golems and they will return to being nearly unkillable. With all the plus zombie passives, Catarina's plus zombie mod on chest piece, and a zombie talisman, I had five zombies and a golem using Mon'tegrul's and that was still very strong.**)



Gems: Raise Zombie, Minion Damage, Multistrike, Melee Splash (use +1/+2 minion helm)
Summon Stone Golem, Minion Damage, Multistrike, Melee Physical (if you get 5L add Added Fire or Empower)
Spell Totem, Summon Skeletons, Minion Speed, plus any other support
Arc, Curse on Hit, Temporal Chain, Enfeeble
Vaal Summon Skeletons, Increased Duration
Hatred - Generosity
Leap Slam
Desecrate

Put your zombie gem in a +1/+2 helm. They need the extra levels for survivability a lot more than your stone golems will. I ran my golem gem setup on my chest and was able to eventually find a five link for them.

The skelly totem is dual purpose. Not only does it provide safety by adding some bones to your meat shield, it also helps steer your minions. If you haven’t run a summoner witch before, you should know that unlike Raging Skulls which are hunter/seekers, zombies and golems need input on what and where to attack. They will attack in the direction you are facing or hit where you are attacking or casting. When you see bad guys, throw the skelly totem forward and that will engage your army. They will run to the battle. During the fight, you can slowly advance the totem forward as your guys take ground. I never walk into a room without throwing the skelly totem in first. Be advised that the skellies are really slow, so I like running Minion Speed support with them so they actually make it to the fight.

My curse set up uses Arc to apply a dual curse of Temporal Chains and Enfeeble. That makes your tanky army even tankier. Since Elemental Equilibrium is right by a minion passive cluster, I went ahead and took it. It synergizes well with our setup. Most of our damage is physical, but about a third is elemental that comes from the Hatred/Generosity aura and the Added Fire support. Our lightning damage from Arc that applies the curses will also apply Elemental Equilibrium and cut the bad guys resists to the minions cold and fire damage by half. Gotta be worth a passive point. Arc has a very long reach and it often chains way offscreen to curse things you can’t see. In most of my boss fights, I just stay way back advancing the skelly totem and chaining Arc, and the boss dies offscreen before I ever really get a good look at him.

Vaal Summon Skeletons is for boss fights. Get in the habit of using it. It’s very good. The boss will have to chew through an awful lot to get to you after you drop it. It’s especially good when facing multiple boss mobs at once, like the three who guard Atziri. You can let the Vaal crew occupy one boss while you and your guys wreck the other one. I ran Increased Duration with it to take it from twenty seconds to thirty but that was rarely useful.

I ran Leap Slam for my movement skill. I didn’t level it up or use supports with it, but it is better with Faster Attacks. I also ran a Desecrate that I didn’t level up. I mostly cast it in my hideout to summon my zombies at the start of the day, but it’s good to have around if you lose a zombie in a boss room with no trash or adds.

I went with an Armor/Life setup instead of going Energy Shield. I usually do better with Armor/Life and I needed a lot of red gem sockets for my build and a lot of strength to equip the Clayshaper, so armor seemed a better fit. It was pretty fun having a heavily armored Witch. Since I ended up with a lot of extra mana, I took Mind over Matter to improve my effective health pool.

For jewels, anything with minion damage is good. If you can get a couple Violent Dead threshold jewels for the zombies, they will slam all the time and you should trade out Melee Splash for Melee Phys support. That's a nice upgrade. For flasks, I took a Staunching and Curing since degen effects were what seemed to hit me hardest. I also ran a Qucksilver with remove freeze/chill for speed, and a Lion’s Roar for knockback and armor boost if anything got too close. For Bandits, I did Oak/Kill All/Kill All.

I rarely swapped my gems around, but if facing a hard hitting boss, I would swap in Fortify on the zombies in place of Melee Splash. When facing a curse immune/reflector boss, I would take out Curse on Hit and Temp Chains and support my Arc with Cull. Those were my only changes for Atziri I believe.

For Ascendancy, I went Necromancer and took Commander of Darkness first, then Spirit Eater, and then Flesh Binder. I was able to do uber lab and take Beacon of Corruption also before I went after Atziri.

Levelling: I like to level up with the skills I’m going to use late game. Yes, I know there are faster ways, but that’s the way I roll. I got Raise Zombie right away and started using it. I ran Summon Raging Skulls with it at first but not for long. I got the first minion cluster of passives with Lord of the Dead for an extra zombie and then the Grave Intentions cluster off to the right for another. After that I headed right for Necromantic Aegis to activate the Springleaf shield effects and had it working in time for normal Dominus, and he wasn’t able to kill any of my five zombie army. From there I just kept adding minion passives and all the health and resists I could grab. Fun, fun, fun.

Passive Tree:https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMDAASzBkkN4hCXES0TbBUnFm8Yaho4Gmwc3CL0JKonLyepKPopTyqYLJwy0TWSNuk5CzpYOtg64UGHRARFR0WdRnFHhUiOSU9KyE25TeNTUlXGVytYB1qRaPJqrGvbbAttGW6qeC98g3zlfRh-WX_GgpuCx4UyhWCIQIx2jLGPGo9GkDOQVZMnly2YrZrgm6GePKEvogCmV6aspwiofarErJiwd7QMtfK3PriTvKq9gr6Kv5fAZsk9ytPMvNOP0_vYvdkL2t3fiuNq5CLpAuvu7Djsg-yK8B_yHvJF99f56PqA_gr-j_6z?accountName=Grebble&characterName=FrostLegionQueen


Thanks for reading. I’m not a PoE pro or anything, but I just wanted to share a build that was successful and fun for me.

Grebble

May i ask how did you do your bandit choises? Life/Kill/Kill ?

you can upgrade springleaf to the oak

Yes, Kenichi, it was Life/Kill/Kill for bandits

Allana, I did eventually get the prophecy to upgrade the Springleaf to Oak.

I also got a couple of +15% Minion Damage Violent Dead threshold jewels for the zombies and then replaced Melee splash with Melee Phys support on the zombies since they AOE slam all the the time now. Very nice upgrade.

Grebble