[3.10] Spidermancer | Arakaali's Fang Necromancer | Everything dead in 3ex | Level 100 reached

Before 3.5.1 Phase Run Nerf
Showcase Video https://youtu.be/WLFSAakQrpU
I did not swap out melee splash for any fight, even Uber Elder.

T15 Clear Speed Video https://youtu.be/uKzg0dmzQgw
This map has no regen, didn't even notice. Can do any combination of map mods all at once.

After 3.5.1 Phase Run Nerf
Deathless Uber Elder https://youtu.be/Nl2T3jztQq8
As you can see, the build allows for some mistakes.

T16 without Phase Run https://youtu.be/P3xcCOMsv5s
Spiders give you attack speed that makes shield charge fast.

1 Hour of General Gameplay https://youtu.be/iQepovjrUwo
A variety of Red Maps, 83 Temple, and Delve to showcase the average build play time.

3.8 Speaker's Wreath Clearing
Shock Spiders https://youtu.be/_ijbCY9RcnQ
Using Speakers' Wreath, Inpulsa's, and Corpse Pact in conjuctions results in cool clear speed.

To summon 20 spiders you need to spell cascase+desecrate. Then use

When you kill the 1-hp worm 2 spiders will be created for each nearby corpse. So you only need to kill 1 worm to create 20 spiders as long as there is 10 corpses near the worm you killed.

Resummoning Spiders Mid-Fight



Necromancer gives minion duration, and we take some of the duration nodes on the passive tree.

Spiders last 1.5 minutes and Uber Elder dies in 3 minutes. With reduced flask charge mod on belt you get 3 worm jar uses. That's 4.5 minutes of spiders without gaining a single flask charge.

This dagger. That's it. The rest of the gear is merely a recommendation. You can make this work with just about any ascendency and even the most potato gear.

All of the usual Pros/Cons of any other Minion build also apply here.

Pros

• Very High DPS without needing 6-Link
• Easy to play
• Great Clear Speed
• Relatively cheap for its performance
• Can do any combination of map mods

Cons

• Requires unique items, not SSF friendly
• Good defenses require some currency investment
• Summoning spiders mid-fight can be difficult
• Gear ceiling is low
• Convoluted summoning mechanic

Defensive Mechanics

• 8k+ EHP (6k Life / 2k ES) at 95
• Immune to reflect - spiders are invulnerable!
• Feast of Flesh instantly restores both HP and ES
• Fortify from Shield Charge
• Can focus on dodging because minions are so aggressive
• Dread Banner reduces accuracy to nearby enemies (stacks with enfeeble)
• Aspect of the Spider applies a 30% Slow (on bosses too!)
• Temporal Chains on COH or Blasphemy
• Enemies permanently blinded
• CWDT Steelskin

Level 1-30
At Level 1 take Raise Zombie as your quest reward. Zombies are very powerful now, link them with Minion Damage and Minion Speed. At level 4 take Summon Raging Spirits and Link with Infernal Legion at level 8. This will cause your SRS minions to die, so pick up Minion Instability to make them explode. This combo, combined with Zombies, will easily get you through all of the early game content.

Level 30-53
We'll want to take Enduring Bond and Potency of Will early on for the increased duration. This will make our spider last longer, and as an added bonus also makes SRS last longer too. Don't forget to get all your auras. You won't be able to use them all yet, but it's good to start leveling them.

Level 53-70
Once you equip Arakaali's Fang leveling becomes trivial. Don't forget to take Sovereignty before reaching level 70 so you can use all of your auras. In addition, you'll need to find dex on your gear so you can use Haste.

Level 70+
After you've obtained a good amulet, anoint Ravenous Horde onto it then drop the Ravenous Horde passive tree points. This saves you 7 points which you can allocate to Fearsome Force and Aligned Spirits. If you don't have Devouring Diadem, drop Haste.

3.10 introduced cluster jewels. The build will be more expensive if you use them, but you gain a huge damage boost if you do. Check the cluster jewel section for more details.

Cluster Jewel Passive Tree (Level 95)
Passive Tree (Level 95)
Passive Tree (Level 70)
Passive Tree (Level 53)
Passive Tree (Level 30)

You can also trade a jewel socket (3 points) for Whisper of Doom +1 curse. I would only recommend doing so if you plan to use the poison variant of support gems.

Elemental Equilibrium - a staple in the majority of minion builds. Your minion hits do not trigger this effect, which allows us to use a lighting or fire spells to trigger a permanent -50% cold resistance for cold-damage scaling from hatred.

Eldritch Battery - Obtained from Devouring Diadem, this causes us to spend energy shield as mana. We can then reserve all of our mana for auras

Mind Over Matter - If we're using Devouring Diadem we "lose" all of our ES, MoM gives it back. Now when we take damage we take 70% as life and 30% as ES. This ratio can be further improved with a Watcher's Eye jewel.

Minion Instability - Used only for leveling with Infernal Legion SRS, unallocate after lv 53.

Scaling 6 Medium War Cry Cluster Jewels
All 6 of your Medium Jewels should be:
1 Cry Wolf
1 Rattling Below
1 Jewel Socket

It buffs war crys to such an extreme extent that you can literally drop every other damage node on your passive tree and we're still doing 300% more damage than what the normal passive tree can offer.

Using 3 Optimized Large Cluster Jewels:
Large Cluster Jewels give 2 more jewel sockets. It turns out that the war cry medium cluster jewel is absolutely busted strong. Because of this, we want to change our boots to Farrul's Chase to also get Intimidating Cry.

Cluster Jewels are only available to socket in the outer-most jewel slots. There is only one large cluster jewel that is good for this build, the large cluster jewel with "Added Small Passive Skills grant: Minions deal 10% increased Damage". They can have 8-12 added passives, we want 8. Don't forgot we will need 4 more Abyss jewels to fill in to our cluster jewel's.

These are the notables we can get on these cluster jewels. From best to worst.

Prefix:
-Renewal
-Raze and Pillage
-Rotten Claws

Suffix:
-2 Added Passive Skills are Jewel Sockets (Requires ilvl 75 jewel)***
-Minions have 3% increased Attack and Cast Speed (Requires ilvl 84)
-Call to the Slaughter

These notables are not good: Feasting Fiends, Skeletal Atrophy, Vicious Bite, and Primordial Bond. It's okay to still have these notables as you're able to circle around them.

Here's a trade search: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Delirium/B9W7YjKh8
Cluster jewels should always have 2 jewel sockets and renewal. If you cannot afford to craft or buy this quality of cluster jewel then please forgo this version of the build.

Because "Added Small Passive Skills also grant: Minions have 3% increased Attack and Cast Speed" is extremely rare and Call to Slaughter isn't that good, we can look for other added passive bonuses. I like the +all stats,+life, and +%all resistance.

Crafting Cluster Jewels
Essentially you just roll until you hit Cry Wolf. Then there's a nearly 80% chance you hit jewel socket with the aug. Another ~45% chance you hit Rattling Below (super common) with the regal. You don't want to regal the rattlingbelow/jewel combo, because cry wolf is rare and you'll most likely be wasting scour+regal costs.

The minion jewels are a kick in the nuts still. lv75+ 8passive minion jewels are 60c+ base price. Good luck I guess, I got them when people didn't know lv 75 was important early on in the league.

Part of the problem with playing minion builds is we can't use any "on kill" items because minion kills don't count as player kills. However if a mob dies to a DoT even if that DoT was applied by your minion it counts as a player kill.

This helmet has the unique line "Minions' Hits Can Only Kill Ignited Enemies". Because we don't ignite it forces mobs to always die to the poison DoT, which in turns lets us utilize "on kill" items. There's a few things we can do with this.

The first is obvious, Arakaali's Fang is an on kill effect. Instead of summoning 15 corpses with desecrate unlink spell-cascade so only 5 corpses are summoned. This causes us to only summon 10 spiders at a time. Those 10 spiders will then help create 10 more spiders because mobs are always counting as your kills. The timing of the 10 newly summoned spiders are jagged with the first 10, which means when the first 10 spiders expire the next 10 spiders will be around to resummon 10 more. This creates a resummon loop so we never have to resummon spiders during a map.

Another easy synergy to utilize is to craft on "10% Chance to Summon Spectral Wolf on Kill" to our rare amulet. Giving us a wolf pack in tandem with our spider hoard

Wolf Pack in Action


Instead of a shield we could equip Bino's Kitchen Knife which propagates the poisons and gives free life regen. In addition, the Blight-specific unique Sporeguard will cause chaos explosions on death which helps with map clear. Impulsa's will also let utilize the explosion effect, because Corpse Pact ascendancy node shocks nearby enemies.

If you plan to use this helmet definitely take advantage of these synergies.

IMPORTANT! You cannot use the cluster jewel notable "Raze and Pillage" with Speaker's Wreath.

Damage Gems:
Poison:
In Dagger = Withering Touch - Minion Damage - Melee Splash
In Devour Diadem = Malevolence - Dread Banner - Generosity
-----OR-----
Cold: (recommended)
In Dagger = Multistrike - Minion Damage - Melee Splash
In Devour Diadem = Hatred - Dread Banner - Generosity

Poison theoretical damage is slightly higher, but the cold based one does about ~2x higher initial hit damage which is significantly better in nearly all scenarios. This is because the poison damage takes time to ramp up.

Auras:
in Devouring Diadem: Malevolence/Hatred - Dread Banner - Generosity
in Devouring Diadem: Haste
Clarity (lv 1)
Precision (lv 1)
Aspect of the Spider (crafted onto rare gear)

Curse Setup:
Storm Brand - Curse on Hit - Temporal Chains - Enhance

or with Solstice Vigil: Temporal Chains - Blasphemy - Enhance
You will still need a damage skill to kill worms if you use solstice vigil

Bane - Despair - Temporal Chains - Enhance
Use this curse on hit setup if you're going poison

Offering:
Spirit Offering

Cast When Damage Taken Setup
CWDT (lv 11) - Steelskin (lv 16)
You can lower the level of your offering and link to CWDT if you don't want to self-cast the offering.

Golems:
Summon Carrion Golem - Feeding Frenzy - Elemental Army
Carrion Golem provides a huge damage boost as it gives flat phys to spiders, cold exposure, and feeding frenzy.

Movement:
Whirling Blades - Fortify
or Shield Charge - Fortify
or Withering Step
Linking Fortify to a movement spell does nothing, only use it with an attack movement skill such as Whirling Blades or Shield Charge.

Minion Utility:
Desecrate - Spell Cascade
Convocation

Awakened Gems:
Awakened Minion Damage is fairly affordable and should be the first awakened gem you get.

Awakened Generosity and Blasphemy gives +1 level to gems at 20% quality, and are also on the cheaper end.

If you can afford it, swap your dagger gems for Awakened Melee Splash, and Awakened Melee Physical Damage. Awakened Multistrike is too expensive to be worth it.

By far the largest damage increase in damage comes from a Awakened Curse on Hit, because at 20% quality it gives +1 curses. However, this gem is usually around 8ex, which is more than double the entire cost of the rest of the build.

If you plan to use another minion type they may prevent you from summoning spiders easily. There are not enough gem slots for more than 1 extra linked up minion gem.

--Utility Spectres:--
We will have 3 spectres total (2 from gem, 1 from passive tree).

Spectre #1-2 Stygian Silverback
Location: Act 2 - The Riverways
Utility: Generates Frenzy Charges

Spectre #3 Host Chieftain
Location: Act 7 - The Ashen Fields
Utility: Generates Power Charges



You may also want to consider Undying Evangelist for the Proximity Shield. This makes fights like Uber Elder and Sirus incredibly easy. Be sure to link with Meat Shield Support so they don't go running off on you!

Spectre #1-3 Undying Evangelist
Location: Act 3 - The Sceptre of God
Utility: Proximity Shield

--Animate Weapon:--
Animated Weapon - Withering Touch - Minion Damage - Minion Speed - Multistrike - Melee Physical Damage

Animate Weapon is the new DPS option. They require you to use Bladefall to create "Blades" to animate. They are very squishy, so I struggle to recommend them.

IMPORTANT! You will also need at least a 5-link for DPS minions to be worth it.

Ascendency Order
Commander of Darkness > Mistress of Sacrifice > Plaguebringer > (Mindless Aggression OR Corpse Pact)

Mindless Aggression would help with faster clear speed, Corpse Pact provides 15% shock, so it'd be better for bossing. Up to you, both are strong.

Bandits
Kill all

Pantheons
Soul of Lunaris is good for the 100% chance to avoid chained projectiles. Soul of Shakari makes you immune to poison which is really nice. You might also consider Soul of Ryslatha so you never run out of The Writhing Jar.

Lab Enchants
Gloves - of Light (creates Conc ground)
Boots - Movement speed, Regeneration, Attack Speed
Helmet - Dread Banner effectiveness, Spirit Offering Added as Chaos Bonus
If you're not using Devouring Diadem you'll need reduced mana reservation for Hatred or Haste

Is this build still viable after Phase Run nerf?
Yes, you have to dodge now instead of AFK.

How do I gain more survivability?
Spec out of Necromantic Aegis and equip a good defensive shield.

Why take Mind Over Matter if we're reserving all our Mana?
The Devouring Diadem gives us Eldritch Battery. Taking MoM "gives back" our ES.

Can you refresh spiders' duration?
No, they need to expire before resummoning. Check the Speakers' Wreath section of the guide to get around this.

Can I play a different ascendency?
Necromancer gives 70% increased minion duration. You will get annoyed if you have to constantly summon spiders, but it's up to you. I'd recommend Guardian and stacking mana with CI for an absolutely absurd amount of ES, easily 15k+. It's a huge shift in the build, but worth it if you want to be very tanky.

Do the rolls on Arakaali's Fang matter?
No.

The dagger grants the skill "Level 1 Raise Spiders". Think of it like Level 1 Summon Raging Spirits. The stats of your weapon don't matter for minions, even if the minion gem is socketed within the weapon. Corruption Mods do not matter either

How do I get 4 off-color sockets in The Devouring Diadem?
Use the Jeweler Orb method to easily get 4 off color. Here's a great video by Pohx explaining how it works.

Why do we want Clarity if all of our mana is reserved?
Necromancer's "Commander of Darkness" gives 3% attack speed per aura. A level 1 clarity is free 3% attack speed for very little reserved mana. No reason not to unless you need the gem sockets. You can also get awesome Watcher's Eye mods with clarity:

How do I get Aspect of the Spider on gear?
You can use bestiary to craft Aspect of the Spider onto any piece of rare gear with an open Suffix. Also, you can buy the unique beast "Fenumus, First of the Night" from players if you don't ever find Fenemus yourself.

Why connect Enhance to Temporal Chains?
Enhance improves the quality of supported gems (24% at lv 4). Quality on curse gems increase their effectiveness at a much geater rate than the gem level itself. For an example, and extra 24% quality gives us 12% less action speed on TC, whereas +3 levels (Empower) only improves TC by 1%.

I've maxed out my gear, how do I get more DPS?
Use 6L Zombies in body armour. You can also simply go zombiemacer with arakaali's fang if you feel like spending 20ex+. The passive tree and gems are similar, but the gear is vastly more expensive.

3.10 Changes

---

Slight buff; Commander of Darkness now gives +30% all res

Slight nerf; Spirit Offering no longer gives +ES, but we get +chaos res in return.

Slight buff; feeding frenzy has a global minion buff, we can have our utility minions proc this buff for our spiders

HUGE buff; optimized cluster jewels can provide up to 50% more damage, holy shit!

Again this minion build dodged the nerf hammer. I don't think GGG cares about spiders :P

3.9 Changes

---

Bosses are harder to kill now, so the DPS will seem worse. I feel like you will need to go an off-hand minion dps scepter for bossing to feel smooth again.

Awakened gems are a straight buff to the build if you can afford it.

New unique belt is interesting, but not amazing.

3.8 Changes

---

Definitely a buff.

There's a lot of changes for summoners, I'll be changing my guide as I play through this league. The big one is which Passive to take for "free" on amulet. My bet is get Ravenous Horde on amulet as its travels nodes are the most inconvenient.

Carrion Golem also gives us another more multiplier, but that might mean using an unset ring to fit it in.

I like dropping the bottom half of the tree, because we can get increased duration from Enduring Bond.

Spider accuracy was hugely buffed, I'll need to mess around with how much increased accuracy we'll need from the tree first, but for now I'm taking Gravepact.

If you find any important changes that should be addressed, please let me know via thread reply.

3.7 Changes

---

Buffed

Changes to accuracy calculation benefits minions immensely.

Command of the Pit -> Grip of the Council
Added Generosity - Precision (lv 5)

3.7 Warning: Spiders (and all other minions) have trouble breaking legion mobs out of stasis effectively. Minion AI doesn't seem to play nice with this mechanic. Using Sentinel spectres on a 4L+ should help alleviate Legion stasis clear speed.



3.6 Changes

---

Buffed

Melee Physical Damage Support -> Withering Touch
Hatred -> Malevolence
DPS increased by around 10% with this change.

Spectres no longer spam skills when linking with Blood Magic support gem.

3.5.1b Changes

---

Nerfed/Exploit Removed


"Fixed a bug where Phase Run could make you completely invisible to all enemies."

You have to actually dodge now :( Use Shield Charge or Whirling Blades. Each spider gives attack speed, so movement skills are fast.

On the upside, dagger is cheaper!

People have been reporting that Phase Run doesn't work at all now. Ideally it will be 50% visibility, right now its 0%. You can still use it with Decoy Totem, because the movement speed is nice, but you're better off using Shield Charge.