[3.16 updated] BRO, DO YOU EVEN SUMMON? Life/ES Dark Pact Skeleton Caster League Starter

Go with that build when you need a solid league starter which can carry you to the very endgame with a few ex invested. Go with it if you are looking for a single build for a whole league. Go with it if you need decent clearspeed and big singletarget potential. It's a great allrounder.

Don't go with this build if you are looking for a good HC or SSF build. There are better builds for that. Don't play it if you want the fastest build, the biggest dps, the best lab runner etc. It's a jack of all trades but master of none.

Dark Pact dps looks better in PoB than it feels in a real life scenario. 30-50m sDPS with like 5ex invested is totally achievable, but using its full potential in the actual gameplay is often not doable when a boss moves around a lot, your Wither Totems are being easily killed, when you can't use Vaal Skills etc.

Gear and gem links

Important Mods:

https://pastebin.com/gu4Nc1JU

List of things you need to set up manually after importing your char in PoB:

-check 'Do you use Power Charges' [Configuration]
-check 'Are you Focussed' [Configuration]
-check 'Do you use Frenzy Charges' [Configuration]
-set 'is the enemy a Boss' at Shaper/Guardians [Configuration]
-set '# of Intensity' at 4 [Configuration]
-set 'Frost Shield stages' at 4 [Configuration]
-set Wither stacks at 15 [Configuration]
-set Dark Pact at 'Cast on Skeleton' [left side panel]
-check all your flasks [Items]
-check 'Show Minion Stats' window [Calcs\Summon Skeleton]
-manually type in Skeleton Life value into 'Skeleton Life' window [Configuration]
-add '300% MORE Damage' mod to any of your items (200% if you are not using Gloomfang)

My videos:

Your videos:

Start off with a Freezing Pulse as a main skill. At the end of Act 1 replace Freezing Pulse with Storm Burst and use it until Act 3.

After killing Gravicius in Act 3 you can now use Dark Pact as a main skill. At that point you may craft yourself a +1 Minion helmet:
(life flask + bone spirit shield + transmute = life flask of animation)
(life flask of animation + magic helmet + alt = +1 minion helm)

After helping Siosa in Act 3 and before doing Normal Lab pick Blasphemy and 1 curse of your choice (Temp Chains, Despair, Enfeeble).

After completing Cruel Lab take Malediction (so now you can apply 2 curses) as well as the mana reservation efficiency Curse and Energy Shield masteries (so you are able to reserve enough mana to use Discipline + 2 curses).

After completing the campaign buy some items with resistances and increases to Life. Buy Replica Doedre's Damning, amulet with 'chaos spell leech' and +2 Minion helmet.

Buy ilvl 86 Hubris Circlet to boost your Temp Chains Blasphemy aura when map or league monsters become too dangerous.

Buy Gloomfang when you feel you need more damage. Remember to also buy 'life gain on spell hit' ring to compensate for Gloomfang's life loss.

Buy +2 to Frenzy Charge shield to have a lazy way of generating Frenzy Charges any time you want.

Buy 2x Void Batteries when you are at least around lvl 90 and you already picked all 3 Power Charge nodes on a tree and did an Uber Lab. Along with VB buy a Brinerot Flag so you have a good way of generating Power Charges before bosses, Incursions etc.

Buy Assassin's Mark ring when you need to upgrade your dps against Guardian-tier endgame bosses.

Start crafting your gear with Essences of Fear when you are comfortable with spending at least 10 essences per item and anytime you feel like you need a damage upgrade. Decent gloves should be the easiest one to craft that way.

On a league I usually push my char to be worth like 15-20ex. You might push it further if you are willing to spend more currency to have a biggest DPS in a hood. -#% to chaos res on helmet, +1 Power Charge on helmet, +1 to socketed gems corrupted implicit on body armour, essence crafted rings, Synthesis bases, Bottled Faith, augmented flasks and awakened gems are expamles of multiple option to push this build to the limit.

We are casting Dark Pact on our skeletons and sacrificing their life to deal damage. The more life they have the higher damage we deal, so in order to scale our DPS we invest into minion life. Also, with +1 chain from Gloomfang, Dark Pact deals damage 4 times with single cast. Furthermore, we invest into Power Charges, crit, cast speed, spell / chaos / AoE damage so typical spellcaster stuff.

Our first layer of defense is a Blasphemy Temporal Chains + Enfeeble aura. With enough increassed effect it slows down monsters so much that they very rarely manage to hit us before we kill them but even when they do their damage is significantly reduced. By default we can apply 1 curse and we get +1 increase from Malediction (Ascendancy). Keep in mind that Replica Doedre's Damning has a -1 decrease to the curse limit so to compensate for that we also need either Windshriek boots or Whispers of Doom (Passive Tree / amulet annoint).

When we get hit we do have a few ways of recovery. It's 2% of ES and life gained on kill (Passive Tree), ES leech (Passive Tree), Vaal Discipline, ES gained on hit (Watcher's Eye), life leech (amulet), life gained on hit ring (only if the value is reasonably higher than the life loss value on Gloomfang), life flask. This build is a hybrid life / ES build - that means approximately half of our eHP is life and the other half is ES.

ES recovery also has an additional function - it lets us sustain Righteous Fire without burning ourselves to death.

Frost Shield is also for both defensive and offensive purposes. If we are standing within its radius it absorbs a portion of monster damage and gives us a dps boost. It also slows down any monsters within the radius.

+2 Frenzy Charge shield in a secondary weapon swap grants us 2 frenzy charges upon pressing 'X' two times. This can be done even during intense boss fights. Before boss fights or during phase transitions we can hit Hydrosphere with a Frenzy skill and get an additional charge for each hit.

Speaking of frenzy charges, Phase Run can consume them to increase its duration (be careful to not consume them by accidentaly casting it during boss fights).

To boost our damage against bosses we are using Wither Totems, Focus buffs, Righteous Fire, Vaal Righteous Fire, Vaal Blight and Vaal Haste (depending on your setup you might not be able to use all of it - in my Scourge Dark Pact char I'm not using Vaal Blight in favor of using Animate Guardian and Summon Spectre).

Animate Guardian

Spectres

Travel to the right side of the tree first.

Green colored nodes are some good alternatives you might consider to pick.

Red colored clusters are the ones you choose between depending on if you decide to use an Animate Guardian or not. By default pick curse effect cluster and when you decide to use AG pick minion cluster instead.

Occultist

Help Alira

Life Mastery

+50 to Maximum Life

10% increased Maximum Life
10% reduced Life Recovery Rate

50% increased Life Recovery from Flasks used when on Low Life
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Caster Mastery

+1 to max Intensify
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Evasion and ES Mastery

30% of Chaos Damage does not bypass Energy Shield
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Charge Mastery

100% increased Charge Duration
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ES Mastery

Discipline has 25% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency
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Chaos Mastery

0.5% of Chaos Damage Leeched as Energy Shield or 20% increased Effect of Withered or +17% to Chaos Resistance
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Curse Mastery

30% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Curse Aura Skills
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Critical Mastery

+25% to Critical Strike Multiplier against Unique Enemies
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Minion Deffence Mastery

Minions have 15% reduced Life Recovery rate
Minions have 30% increased maximum Life

Minions Recover 5% of Life on Minion Death

You should organize your flasks and Pantheon in such a way that most ailments won't be problematic to you. There is some flexibility with the way of doing that.

There are 2 most important ones: the first one is the immunity to freeze and I recommend getting it in the Soul of the Brine King Pantheon as soon as possible and using a flask with freeze removal until that. The second one is the immunity to bleed / corrupted blood and the best way is to get it on enduring mana flask.

The other important one is silence and you can get the immunity to it on a corrupted jewel or by stacking reduced curse effect on you to 100% (flask, jewels, Pantheon).

Make sure your life flask is the one with the burning removal as it works as a killswitch to your Righteous Fire.

Your life flask should also provide instant recovery and it should be as high as possible. This combined with the Sorrow of the Divine and the single increase to life recovery on low life (Passive Tree or the Pantheon) will make you recover almost all of your Life + ES by one use of your life flask.

Shuffle you Pantheon, flasks, jewels and Passive Tree to get the protection against any other ailments you need (shock, poison, burning ground etc).

Exile: I'm dying too much on higher maps.
Me: Try to get as much life and strength on your gear as you can. Take all life nodes and jewel slots on Passive Tree as early as possible. Put life jewels into that slots. Use Temporal Chains, Phase Run, Warlord's Mark, Cast When Damage Taken setup and Vaal Blight. Pre-cast Cold Snap on bosses before they activate to slow them even more. Swap out Spell Echo and put Faster Casting into your 6L to prevent being locked by casting animation.

Exile: Which gems use for 4L/5L?
Me: You should always check it in Path of Building. As you progress, certain supprt gems become more or less effective than others (e.g. Power Charge on Critical is pretty useless at the begining of your adventure, but it becomes really powerful once you have picked all +1 Power Charge nodes on a tree and you have 2 Void Batteries).

Exile: My dps is't satisfying.
Me: Show me your gear and Passive Tree so I could help you.

Exile: I'm confused what scales my dps the best.
Me: It depends on your current gear/tree. Let me quote my representation when I was having 8.4mil dps and my skeleton hp was 15210:

"

10% increased spell damage gives me 100k dps.
10% increased cast speed gives me 330k dps.
10% increased crit multi gives me 190k dps.
10% increased crit chance gives me 44k dps.
10% increased minion life gives me 218k dps.

It may vary depending on your current gear, e.g. if your crit chance is low then crit multi won't be that effective. Or if you maybe have low cast speed, any cast speed modifier will be godlike for your dps. You should always import your char into Path Of Building and compare all increases there.