{3.10} Speaker for the Dead | The Mass Minion Summoner | League Starter, Leveling Guide 💀

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ABOUT - Why did you direct me here? What's this all about?

Blight 3.8 brings with it significant changes to summoners, which necessitate key changes to the build from its original Delve 3.4 to Legion 3.7 run. The guide grew fairly comprehensive over these past 11 months. Any change must not only be reflected in the main guide, but also the leveling guide, FAQ, videos, endgame boss guides, trade & craft guide, minion and mechanic explanations, etc. Leaving any of these out will cause readers to become confused when they come across conflicting or outdated information.

This patch is the single greatest change to the build since its creation. Two days from patch notes to league launch is not feasible for me to rewrite such a significant amount of content, especially when so much is still unknown about the performance of these new features.

In order to avoid as much confusion as possible, I have instead directed everyone to this one post, where I will be covering all the major changes as if it were a fresh build guide.

There is plenty of valuable information in the main guide, so it's still worth a look. The core build can even still be played with a few tweaks. My aim, however, is to take full advantage of new features to bring you the best possible build, and that will require bigger changes. So just keep that in mind when looking over the original guide until I am able to fully remodel it.

This post will become a template for the eventual rewrite, so I hope you can bear with me until then.

CHANGES - Key differences from Original Build

We have dropped Acrobatics and Belly of the Beast in favor of Energy Shield nodes and gear. This allows us to take catastrophic hits that we couldn't have otherwise survived before, but this also creates a new problem: lack of ES recovery.

To solve this, we use the Mistress of Sacrifice ascendancy combined with L1 CWDT (Level 1 Cast When Damage Taken Support) to trigger a L1 Desecrate and a L8 Spirit Offering. Mistress causes our Offerings to affect us, and the key component of Spirit Offering for us is it grants 3% of Life as Extra Energy Shield per consumed corpse, up to 15% for 5 corpses.

We can achieve ~2000 flat life, ~200% life, and ~200% ES. So Spirit Offering works out to grant us (2000 * 0.15 * 5 =) 1500 ES. This not only increases our total ES, but also heals our ES for the same amount. Meaning we gain 1500 ES back every time Spirit Offering triggers.

When we take at least 528 damage, CWDT fires off Desecrate, creating 5 corpses, followed by Spirit Offering, which consumes those corpses (gem order in item = trigger order, so make sure Desecrate comes first). This can happen up to 4 times per second, or 6000 ES per second. Needless to say, this is fantastic protection, which is why we are scaling both Life and ES on our passive tree and gear now.

(Unearth will be replaced with Desecrate after 3.8 released)

It is not invulnerable, however. Rapid hits can overcome CWDT's 0.25sec cooldown, and big hits can't trigger more than one cast of Spirit Offering despite being well over 528 damage. So how do we solve those?

First, we use Cyclone instead of Charged Dash. It grants phasing, stun immunity, knockback immunity, and keeps us mobile. This allows us to control how surrounded we are, so as not to be overwhelmed by rapid hits. Most monsters have a delay in their attack animation before they actually deal their damage, which means if you are no longer at the spot they were aiming you'll completely avoid their attack. Mobility is supreme.

Second, with 6k life and 3k+ ES, we have at least 9k eHP. With Spirit Offering up, this becomes 10-11k eHP. We can survive a surprising amount of things that would one-shot a 7k life build, giving us time to pull back, chug a flask, and let recovery rate enter the equation. We now also have Bone Armour, a free L20 Steelskin from the Bone Barrier ascendancy, that we can pop on during these dangerous moments.

Cyclone is a channeled skill, which allows us to cast a spell every 0.35 seconds with CwC (Cast While Channeling Support). We use Ball Lighting because it can hit a target 7 times or more per second. Through these rapid hits, we can recover life and ES with two particular items: a Shaper-influenced ring with 15 Life per Spell Hit and a Watcher's Eye jewel that grants 30 ES per Hit while affected by the Discipline aura. With both these items we can recover 105 life and 210 ES per Ball Lightning per target hit. We launch nearly three balls per second, becoming 300 Life and 600 ES per second per target. Shoot those into a pack of 10 or 20 monsters? That's 3000-6000 Life and 6000-12000 ES back in a second. Needless to say, unless you take a big hit, your Life and ES won't even appear to move even while Spirit Offering is rapidly firing off.

Ball Lightning also performs other duties for us. Its rapid hits ensure Victario's Charity is generating max Frenzy Charges for our minions in less than a second, and its Lightning Damage is also perfect for applying Elemental Equilibrium. This keystone causes targets to have -50% Cold Resistance, -50% Fire Resistance, and +25% Lightning Resistance when we hit them with Lightning Damage. Because our minions only deal Cold Damage through Hatred and Fire Damage through Added Fire Damage, we don't have to worry about Lightning Damage being buffed.

We have dropped Herald of Agony. Ball Lightning was also our way of rapidly Poisoning to build up Virulence stacks. While the Agony Crawler is massively powerful, clocking in at 1-1.5M DPS for us and being a beast while clearing, it comes at some high costs. Namely the rest of our mana, after Hatred has taken its half. This meant we couldn't use Discipline or the ES on Hit Watcher's Eye without something absurdly expensive like an Aul's Uprising amulet to make Hatred reserve no mana. While the Watcher's Eye can also be a tad expensive, it isn't anywhere near how rare and in-demand the amulet is.

We have dropped Shield Charge. With our switch from Charged Dash to Cyclone, we lacked a teleport. So we're using Flame Dash, despite having virtually no cast speed. Patch 3.7 made movement skills instant on first use, followed by an animation we can skip through. Most movement skills now work great without any supports, unlike before. You can also try Leap Slam if you don't like the charge system of Flame Dash.

We have dropped Mark of Submission and Projectile Weakness. Its main benefit was the Pierce it gave the Agony Crawler. Since we are no longer using Herald of Agony, we don't have as much use for the pierce beyond our Spectres. Phantasms already pierce, though the damage buff was nice for clear speed. Knockback may prove very powerful against Blight lanes, so there is cause for possibly bringing this curse back into play.

We have dropped Vile Toxins and Bloodlust. We needed room for the new support gems on Skeletons. By dropping Herald of Agony, we no longer Poison. By moving Cyclone to our boots and dropping Chance to Bleed, we open up our glove slot for something like Grip of the Council. Overall, it makes Skeleton damage less conditional and uncomplicates a key part of the build. We now have many competitive damage supports to take their place, too.

GEM LINKS & GEAR

Skeletons (in helm with +3, Minion Damage affix, and optionally Minion Life but this takes up your Life prefix)
+ Feeding Frenzy (for Dash) -> Deathmark (if the Dash isn't useful enough)
+ Melee Physical Damage
+ Minion Damage (until you upgrade your helm to have it built-in) -> Multistrike (if no sources of Knockback) / Fortify / Melee Splash (potentially very powerful against congested Blight lanes) / Deathmark

Spectres (in ES chest)
+ Summon Phantasms (since we get 4 Spectres without gear investment now, you can achieve similar base DPS without Phantasms, and Phantasms will fall behind once Soul Eater comes into play, but then again dropping 11 minions goes against the theme of the build so it's a tough choice; if you want to go pure Spectres, I recommend using Goatman Fire-raisers with the Fearsome Force passive cluster to take full advantage of AOE overlap damage.) -> Spell Echo
+ Minion Damage
+ Controlled Destruction -> Elemental Proliferation (might be very strong against Blight lanes) -> Elemental Army (if pure Spectres)
+ Greater Multiple Projectiles
+ Faster Projectiles -> Elemental Focus (if pure Spectres and wanting damage over clear speed)

Zombies (in weapon, ideally a claw, with +1, Maim, and any other built-in supports; alternatively, use Spiders from Arakaali's Fang, or focus Zombies on defense and use a Scourge claw)
+ Feeding Frenzy / Meat Shield (depends how these feel with Cyclone) -> Herald of Agony (original build, beware of mana reservation with regard to having too many built-in supports) -> Carrion Golem
+ Empower

Hatred (in shield)
+ Generosity
Flame Dash
For any aura or minion skill in your weapon slots that you don't want to deactivate every time you weapon swap, just place another of the same skill gem in the same socket number of your second weapon set.

Cyclone (in boots with Fortify affix)
+ Cast While Channeling
+ Ball Lightning -> Summon Raging Spirit (~500k DPS but harder to generate Frenzy Charges; you will also need to add some Lightning Damage to your attack to trigger EE, such as a ring mod/craft or jewel)
+ Fortify (until you trade in your boots for ones with Fortify built in) -> Poison/Lesser Poison (if using Herald of Agony) -> Greater Multiple Projectiles (easier aiming, greater coverage) -> Infused Channeling (8% less phys damage taken) -> Minion Damage/Melee Splash/Combustion (if using Raging Spirits) -> really whatever you want.

Cast When Damage Taken (L1)
+ Desecrate (make sure this comes before Spirit Offering, so it triggers first)
+ Spirit Offering
+ Purifying Flames (6% regen and 100% crit chance) -> Convocation -> Immortal Call (might interfere with Bone Armour) -> Curse -> whatever you want.

Discipline (if using Watcher's Eye with ES on Hit) -> Skitterbots (20% more damage) -> Flesh and Stone (Blind aura) -> Projectile Weakness (in Mark of Submission ring if using Herald of Agony) -> Animated Guardian (in Hungry Loop ring with Minion Life, Meat Shield, Fortify, and Empower/Combustion/Culling Strike/etc; equip him as detailed in the FAQ)
Ring itself is just a junk ring from when I was trying out using only Cyclone without Ball Lightning, so I needed Lightning Damage added to Attacks to trigger Elemental Equilibrium.

Holy Relic -> Chaos Golem (for 5% phys reduction) -> Carrion Golem -> Stone Golem -> Convocation -> manual curse -> whatever you want.
Precision was just to simulate upcoming minion accuracy buff.

Nothing special here. Life, resistances, and some DEX will be good. Room to craft +1 Minimum Endurance Charges on all your jewelry is ideal for another 12% phys reduction, stacking with the 10% from Bone Barrier and any other sources.

For jewels, you want:

• 1 Unending Hunger (2 if pure Spectre; a good place to get the Corrupting Blood immunity corruption)
  
• 1 Minion Blind chance
  
• 1 Minion Taunt chance (unless using Meat Shield)
  
• Optional: 1 Watcher's Eye with ES on Hit
  
• Optional: 1 Intuitive Leap (if you want to grab Golem Commander without spending 4 points)
  
• Optional: 1 Minion Hinder chance

Then try to get as much Life, ES, and Minion Attack/Cast Speed as possible on your jewels.

LEVELING

I have given the Path of Building pastebin a full suite of passive trees for each stage of leveling:



The original leveling guide should work mostly the same, aside from the passive tree and Ascendancy order (1. Mistress of Sacrifice -> 2. Mindless Aggression -> 3. Bone Barrier -> 4. Unnatural Strength). We also want to use the new Feeding Frenzy on Zombies and Skeletons, but don't gain access to it until level 31 after Act 3's "A Fixture of Fate" quest.

LEVELING GEAR & EARLY GEM LINKS - An example from my own leveling

I wouldn't stress too much about leveling gear. We're extremely flexible and gear-independent. Just cap your resists, stack movement speed and life, and get to maps quickly. As long as you have all the linked sockets possible, even if they're white items, you're golden.

Here's the gear and gem links I used for each Act:

ACT 1
You're just going to go for anything with linked sockets. Use whatever fits the colors, don't bother trying to use Chromatic Orbs. Got a green socket on Zombie link? Use Lesser Poison, Added Cold Damage, or Onslaught. Just use whatever's available and make due. Don't worry, Act 1 is easy with just a few minions and a few supports. Take a look at the original leveling guide for more information.

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ACT 2

Leveling is going swell. Skitterbots do in fact run up to enemies, exactly what I hoped, but had feared they'd only interact with mines. If you're not doing Discipline/Watcher's Eye, then definitely use Skitterbots. It's 20% more damage for all our minions and all our Blight towers, with only 35% reservation compared to, say, Zealotry's 50%. Its only downside is its small area, so it gives an incentive to invest in Minion AOE.

During a Blight, I like to build mostly Minion Towers. Holy Relic heals the minions and Smite gives them added Lightning. Skitterbots increase the damage monsters take. So it works out well.

Don't forget to use your crafting bench to add resistances to your gear!

---

ACT 3

When you arrive in Sarn for the first time, you must immediately do one thing: head to the arena and dominate.



After a few dozen deathless kills, everyone ran away. I don't know why my new friends left so quickly. I had hoped to add them to my collection...

---

ACT 4

Static Strike is great, everything falls over while I waltz past. Feeding Frenzy on Zombies is a little hard to tell the difference unless I sit still or just casually run around. On Skeletons, though, that Dash is very awesome. Seeing them zip everywhere is very satisfying.

Build is completing every single Blight encounter without issue.

---

ACT 5

Once high minion movement speed comes into play, Feeding Frenzy becomes crazy-good. Carrion Golem is doing quite well for himself. I am considering using my anointment for Golem Commander for the time being.

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ACT 6
GGG's forum seems to be having trouble linking items. Last post I couldn't even post my chest armour without it throwing back an error.

Same error again with the body armour. It's a different chest, so it might be from the skill gems in the armour: Raise Spectre, Phantasms, Volley, Minion Damage.

In any case, damage is so insane that I am just running through areas and everything falls down. Mini-bosses fall down. Bosses fall down. Phased bosses instantly phase. It's a good time to be a summoner, that's for sure!

---

ACT 7

Looks like the bug is fixed; I can post the body armour finally.

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ACT 8

So if you noticed from the previous Act, I had Spirit Offering and Desecrate in the wrong order. The colors wouldn't line up on a pure DEX item, so I just let it be. As a result, the protection of Mistress of Sacrifice and Spirit Offering was unreliable. In the end, I just grabbed a white melee weapon with the right linked color order from a vendor, slammed an Essence of Fear on it, and called it a day. Now it's working as it should, regularly triggering and giving a fantastic 500 ES when I only have 2000 life.

I'm kind of in the same situation with the shield. I like the movement speed implicit, but I really want 3R. This is because Static Strike with Life on Hit Support is incredibly strong. Like, Delve Darkness runner strong.

I am still using Volley with my Flame Sentinels despite having access to GMP. The reason is due to how Volley keeps the fireballs close together even at a distance so when they explode they are more likely to overlap. Flame Sentinels also have extra projectiles, so it works out.

Feeding Frenzy continues to be amazing. I fear GGG will hit summoners with nerfs next league as a result. =o(

---

ACT 9

Volley is great in Blood Aqueducts. Keeps all projectiles flying straight down the corridors.

Frost Sentinels received a visual update, becoming a soft white instead of a glowing blue. Much easier on the eyes. The ghostly shader of Spectres themselves were also updated to be much, much softer on the eyes. It's a great improvement.

I should swap Static Strike to Cyclone + Fortify + Life Gain on Hit Support (1G2R). It'd be far better defensively.

My corrupted amulet can't be anointed, which is expected but also a little disappointing. I should probably try to get a different amulet. Diamond Skin or a DEX notable are both cheap. The DEX would save me a passive point.

Since I don't have gems, I skipped all jewel sockets.

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ACT 10
Not too much time to play, so I'm still leveling...

ACT 1
0. We take the shorter outer path and skip the minor minion nodes due to their inefficiency when compared to all the new minion clusters we could take. The first few levels go by very quickly in PoE, so they're not even worthwhile as a temporary measure.

1. Practical Applications - Gives Strength so we can continue leveling Smite/Ancestral Call. You can skip this if you solve your stat requirements another way, like an amulet.

2. Arcane Will - Solves early mana problems.

3. Lord of the Dead - First boon to minions. More Zombies and Skeletons.


ACT 2
4. Death Attunement - Second boon to minions. More Zombies and Skeletons. Temporarily take the 1% life regen after it to solve early attrition damage when outside of combat, where Holy Relic doesn't cut it.

5. Alacrity & Physique - Replaces Practical Application. Take both if you need even more stats. Skip if you solve it another way.


ACT 3
6. Ravenous Horde - Minion movement speed.

7. Written in Blood - Early life, a bit more STR. Skip until later if you want to pursue damage first.


ACT 4
8. Heart and Soul - Life and mana.

9. Spiritual Aid - You now benefit from minion damage. Gives regen to summoner and minions, so the 1% regen near Death Attunement can be removed.


ACT 5
10. Redemption - Minion movement speed.

11. Purity of Flesh - Life and STR.

12. Jewel socket - First socket. Take earlier or skip depending on what you have for jewels. We get a jewel reward in Act 2, and two more jewel rewards in Act 5.


ACT 6
13. Quick Recovery - Life, life regen, mana regen.

14. Retribution - Damage and STR.


ACT 7
15. Discipline and Training - High life.

16. Sacrifice - Life regen. Minion life regen and ele res.

17. Spiritual Command - You now benefit from minion attack speed.

18. Sanctity - Life regen, ES, STR.


ACT 8
19. Gravepact - Minion accuracy, double damage chance.

20. Jewel socket - Skip if no jewels.


ACT 9
21. Constitution - High life, lots of STR from travel nodes.


ACT 10
22. Devotion - Life and STR. Drop Physique, you probably don't need it anymore. Drop Arcane Will, mana should be fine by this point.

23. Melding - Life and ES.


T5 Maps
24. Complete Heart and Soul cluster.

26. Jewel socket.

27. Jewel socket.


T10 Maps
28. Wicked Ward - It's right there for 1 point. May or may not be useful. Once ES recharge starts we can continue to take damage and not lose the regen. Good for countering degen ground effects.

29. Elemental Equilibrium - You can go for this earlier. I held off since leveling gear can be a wash and worrying about added elemental damage is a pain. By this point your gear should have come together and so this'll be less of a concern.

30. Indomitable Army - Our minions will start to need more tankiness in higher level maps, as well as Uber Lab.

31. Foresight - It's time for more ES.

32. Arcane Focus - More ES.


T15 Maps
33. Grave Intentions - Unholy Might.

34. Jewel socket.

35. Constitution cluster - Start earlier if you need more life.


Endgame
36. Finish Constitution cluster.


Final
37. Jewel socket or Unnatural Calm.

38. Complete Purity of Flesh cluster.

3.8 INFO - Chronological reactions and analysis

• Blight first announced
  
  
• Triad Grip gloves & ideal Notable Anointment options
  (continued)
  
  
• New summoner gems
  
  
• My Reddit thread addressing some summoner issues
  
  
• Fortress Covenant jewel
  
  
• Convoking Wand base + beating UE within 2-3 days of new league
  
  
• Siegebreaker belt + Cyclone and Multistrike rework
  
  
• +# to All X Gems
  
  
• Skeleton and Zombie reworks
  
  
• Minion Miner theorycraft
  (continued)
  
  
• Necromancer rework analysis
  (continued)
  
  
• Atlas rework + thoughts on dropping Herald of Agony
  (continued)
  
  
• Raise Spectre rework
  
  
• Blight Development Manifesto
  
  
• 3.8 Patch Notes
  
  
• Gem Information
  
  
• Minion info from Rory
  
  
• Minimum level requirements for new gems
  
  
• Datamined tower and other info, The Jinxed Juju amulet for Spectres, Bone Armour description, Quickening Covenant jewel

3.8 PoB Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/esibGJaW

Includes multiple leveling trees through all Acts, maps, and endgame.

Ascendancy order

• 1. Mistress of Sacrifice - To take advantage of ES heals from CWDT + Spirit Offering. Duration means longer Vaal Skeletons.
  
• 2. Mindless Aggression - No choice, our other picks are behind this one. Provides great movement speed, though.
  
• 3. Bone Barrier - Incredible defense. We'll want that phys reduction and recovery rate to protect us in Uber Lab. The free Bone Armour skill also removes Bleeds.
  
• 4. Unnatural Strength - It's tempting to take this earlier, to hit minion breakpoints sooner. I prioritized defense, but you are free to go for this earlier if you're fine with taking more risk.

Bandits - Kill All, we want passive points.

Pantheon

• 1a. Solaris - Crit and AOE protection, good phys reduction for bosses. I prefer this one overall.
  
• 1b. Lunaris - Chain immunity, solid while clearing but weaker vs. bosses.
  
  
• 2a. Garukhan - Movement speed is a nice QoL.
  
• 2b. Ryslatha - More potent flasks is good for long boss fights (Chimera) and recovering from Delve darkness.
  
• 2c. Shakari - Poison immunity. Chaos damage bypasses ES, so some protection from it is welcomed.
  
• 2d. Ralakesh - Helps a bit in Uber Lab against bleed. Bloodgrip amulet is a better alternative, but this pantheon can suffice in Solo Self-Found leagues and such.

ES Hybrid, originally an experimental variant in 3.7, is now the official version of Speaker for the Dead. In this new version, you can:

• 1. Continue to use Herald of Agony as before, but with Cyclone + CwC + Ball Lighting + Poison. You can use Gloves with Poison affix or Boots with Fortify affix. You can still use Charged Dash if you prefer, but Cyclone offers more control, stun immunity, doesn't lose out on speed with Quicksilver flask up, and teleportation can now be competently covered by an unsupported Flame Dash.
  
  
• 2. Drop HoA to focus on Zombies (or Carrion Golem) and Discipline with a 30 ES on Hit Watcher's Eye. (Featured in PoB link) If the Watcher's Eye is too expensive, you can replace Discipline with Skitterbots for 20% more damage or Flesh&Stone for a Blind aura.
  
  
• 3. Or even maximize your minion count (+40) with Arakaali's Fang and Cyclone + CwC + Raging Spirits + Minion Damage + Fortify affix boots.

Gem data has not been added to PoB, so not everything will be accurate until after 3.8 releases. Notably, I plan to use Feeding Frenzy on Skeletons and possibly Zombies (or Meat Shield).

Precision is used to represent the upcoming accuracy buff for all minions.

Jewels are just what I used in 3.7 on a very low budget. Yours can be much better. Minion Elemental Resistances are now covered on the tree, so the resist jewels are no longer needed. All you want are Life, ES, and minion damage/speed. You want one source of Minion Taunt and Minion Blind, but do not need to stack it.

If you do not have good jewels, skip the sockets. You can direct those points toward completing the Life and ES clusters sooner. If you want more damage, take the Fearsome Force, Aligned Spirits, and/or Enduring Bond clusters.