[3.12] Radiating Carrion Golems. 90% resistances + 10-20 Mil DPS

Earlier version of league starting Golems

Phoenix clearing Map
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Vn8bxp-BU

Awakening 8 Sirus
I just finish my atlas and unlocked this. One death, should have dodged the big lazer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUyQt7B_QOM

Dom Blow Endgame

Phoenix clearing Map
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7pl00vwNSo

Hydra clearing Map
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jR__cTCv2M

Uber Elder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrnIyUEZoUM

Gear Breakdown

Weapon
I stick with clayshaper for +1 golem and 25% better coverage while clearing. Cold Iron point is about +15% DPS and better life for rippy content but worse map clear

Buying a +2 convoking wand (+1 Spell +1 Minion) with other good rolls is a straight upgrade from iron point allowing far more flexibility from +1 to all aura gems and global minion life. More expensive and still has the 1 less golem annoyance from clayshaper

Shield
This item is pretty much the core of the build. Enables running an extra 3 auras at low reservation cost which justifies pushing aura effect so high. Cheap too with good other stats

In endgame we buy one with physical damage taken as cold/fire/lightning
https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Harvest/Mdv0jbLiJ
Then use our crafting bench to force it into correct sockets and colours

Two socket craft = 1 Jewelers + 1 Vaal
Two Green Socket = 25 Chrome + 25 Vaal
Thee socket Craft = 3 Jewelers + 3 Vaal

This has 50% chance to get red on the third socket so you might need to do it down to two sockets then up to 3 once more for another 4 Jewelers + 4 Vaal so average cost of 33 Vaal + 25 Chrome + 8 Jewelers. No need to link anything

Helmet
Vertex for +1 gems to help keep zombies alive and good evasion + ES. Possible to craft better rares with +minion gems and ES but the currency is better spent elsewhere until very late in the min/maxing process.

Chest
Lowlife build so shavs. I completed 90% of the atlas and got to level 93 with a 6-link Solaris lorica for cheap before I upgraded, build can clear very well with the lorica. Important to use the lorica before shavs or you will die to chaos damage

Colouring the shavs with enough red sockets can be tricky.
If you are using impale support you need 2B 3R 1G which is a avg 478 chrome cost with the crafting bench "1 red socket" craft

Without impale support needs 2B 4R which is a avg 754 chrome cost with the crafting bench "3 red socket" craft

Some league mechanics can make this task easier like putting Vorchi into Fortification on your betrayal board for up to 3 white sockets

Gloves
Only rare item in the build. Needs high ES and high INT along with a free suffix to craft + to all attributes for extra STR and DEX

Boots
Sin Trek for ES, Evasion, DEX and INT. We need all these things.

Can be enchanted with "Life regen if hit recently" or "Movement speed if not hit recently" in lab/uber lab. Worth doing unless you get unlucky and can't hit either.

Doryani's Delusion can be used instead for a lvl 25 version of one of the purity gems allowing all three to hit 90% and freeing up a gem slot. This requires much moving around as you need to account for 30 less dex and the boots cannot have blood magic or generosity inside them both of which are big benefits to the build. I wouldn't bother unless you really want to refine in endgame.

Amulet
In 3.12 we can use Presence of Chayula while still hitting 200% aura effect so Its now the best option

Jinxed Juju is the leveling amulet and *almost* as good as Chayula. STR, DEX, INT, aura effect, chaos resistance and 10% less damage taken is amazing for its price. It has better DPS but slightly worse defense, the stun immunity of chayula is what pushes it into being better.

Anointing Charisma has a pricetag on it so in the budget stage you anoint Wisdom of the Glade and travel to get charisma manually

Rings
Vivinsect rings are great for flat ES regen and all attributes plus they boost our discipline and purity up for extra defenses. The unveil can be endurance charge for physical defense, chaos resistance for chaos or +attributes if you are struggling to hit the requirements there

Since they have ballooned in price to absurd levels this league I recommend the Pariah for discipline and a +2 unset ring with attributes and ES for the purity gem. In endgame I would still want to replace pariah with vivinsect eventually as it is outright better

Belt
With good Ghastly eye jewels its very difficult to beat darkness enthroned.

Torrent's Reclamation is another popular choice as the minion it grants does give better peak DPS then enthroned along with better ES regeneration. Personally I don't think its as good since the enthroned has such flexibility allowing you to fill holes in your attribute requirements and providing a permanent blind effect on bosses through a chance to blind jewel.

Also the buff granted by the reclamation has a tiny radius so its only even good damage while the golems are right next to you which is a hassle I prefer not to deal with.

For the minion gems I think 21/0 is better then any of the 20/20 alternative quality options & I think it'll be hard to get 21/20 versions of them.

All support gems with an awakened version already have a better option then the alt quality so I would just save for that

Feeding Frenzy Support
Alternate Quality 1 Minions from Supported Skills recover 1% of Life on Hit
Alternate Quality 2 Supported Skills have 10% increased Minion Movement Speed

Both these are better but I'm particularity interested in recover on hit. That seems like a massive boost for our support zombies

Damage on Full Life Support
Alternate Quality 1 Supported Skills Leech 0.5% of Attack Damage Leeched as Life

I'd lose 10% increased damage to give golems leech, why not

Vulnerability
Alternate Quality 1 10% increased Effect of Curse

Better then base quality. Not that much impact

Dominating Blow
Alternate Quality 3 Maximum 2 Summoned Normal Sentinels of Dominance

Bonus for those who want to do the dominating blow version of the build. If you are against a boss where you can only spawn normal sentinels then this one is 10% more damage then a 21/0 dom blow gem. Good but not massive since the sentinals will have less life and its not even better damage until you get them all up which takes time and won't always happen.

Auras

Alt quality aura gems got nerfed hard. Hardly worth buying now

This character can run anything except physical reflect.

We are way overcapped on resistances so ele weakness/getting cursed is not a problem and we shrug off most of the "added damage as extra element" mods.

No regen maps are annoying as they make you rely on recharge rate and turn off your shield charge. I only run these if I corrupt a juicy map into it

Porcupines on Vulnerability maps can be dangerous. Watch for that

Necromancer

Commander of Darkness scales super well with aura stacking/effect and the first pick

Mindless Agression + Unnatural Strength is just minion damage and life. Both of these things are good.

Bone Barrior's physical damage reduction + life regen is very useful. Also grants us a guard skill without taking a gem slot. Great but last pick since it doesn't have any damage on it

Elementalist
This ascendency works better with stacking a whole bunch of primordial harmonies and multiple different golem types. Carrion golems don't need as much cooldown recovery as the other golem types but we need global minion defenses to keep our support zombies/spectres alive which elementlist doesn't do

Other
I've tested scion and guardian in Pob as their extra physical damage reduction is appealing but they cannot match the necromancer in terms of DPS or more importantly minion life. Your minions do no damage if they are dead and even after giving them 90% resistances they need a very healthy HP supply to survive in endgame content which is only available on the necromancer

4 defensive flasks and 1 movement speed one

Standard removes bleed and freeze flasks. Third immunity is users choice.

Taste of hate with this much cold resistance is better protection then basalt flask and helps cover the physical weakness

Cluster Jewels

Replenishing Presence Jewel
You will need 4 of these. The cheapest way of getting these is to buy a 4 or 5 passive aura jewel

https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Ritual/78ja68BS5

Replenishing presence is reasonably easy to hit and hitting only that mod is enough to use the jewel. Its a good idea to keep Extra copies in your stash so when you hit harvest crafting zones you can throw all the seed crafting that rerolls the jewel with a greater chance of whatever tags hoping for replenishing + something good

The best jewel is Replenishing + First among equals but there are other mods that are also good to pair with replenishing.
- Pure aptitude
- Precise Commander
- Master of Command

- Reduced reservation Notables open up a few options. Just two of these give you enough spare mana to run flesh and stone for good extra damage but does require losing a gem slot.

Suffixes are not important. We only take 1 minor node now so none of them really matter

Large Minion Cluster Jewel Crafting
There is 2 options here. First is to buy an ilevel 75 jewel which can roll good high tier mods like vicious bites and higher tier flat ES. This is *expensive*. Both the base jewel and the crafting as the number of bad combinations is significantly higher

Second option is much easier where you buy a lower ilevel base which eliminates the possibility of rolling all the bad notables except call to slaughter

https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Harvest/Y9wVlZrFY

The list of good possible mods is

- Renewal
- Flat ES
- Added Small Passive Skills have 25% increased Effect
- Rotten claws
- Attributes of any kind
- Life regen
- Chaos resistance
- Minion attack speed
- Feasting Fiends (little bit of minion life)

More good options make it easier to hit something good and many of these are defensive which the build generally wants more then offense.

Rotten claws and Renewal both got nerfs and are less good then they used to be. They are still worth using but are on par with the other options. Less pressure to get perfect jewels since the impact is less now.

Abyss Jewels
Ideally flat ES on both of these.

Blinding minions on one is very helpful

Useful slot to pick up needed STR/DEX. Minion Movement speed & Added minion flat physical damage are also good

Primordial jewels
Anima Stone is high priority for any golem build.
You need 3x primodial jewels to get another golem from anima stone.
Eminence is slightly better tooltip dps then harmony but harmonies are better in very endgame as the extra life regen is more important to keep them always at full life for renewal/damage on full life support

Primordial might is often picked up eventually for aggressive minions but if you get enough minion movement speed and engage by shield charging into packs then there is little noticeable difference. You can choose when/if to pick this up. Be warned that aggressive golems sometimes stray out of aura range which plummets their DPS and survivability.

Watcher's Eye
Many good options for a defensive watcher's eye in this build

Here is a search for a watcher's eye with 2 good mods, check Item purchase order first as there is higher priorities then an expensive jewel here

https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Harvest/MYP9mZMCJ

This build was made in the Path of Building Community Fork and uses features that do not work in regular path of building. Please google "pob community fork" as you need to have the community fork to use the links.


Jewels in pastebins will be outdated. I will update once I have played and figured out what new aura jewels are best while also being attainable for people playing the build.

Base Carrion Build
This is what my gear was at when I finished the atlas at league start

https://pastebin.com/Gx0aRS7k

Endgame Carrions
This is what I got my character up to. Still some upgrades to be made but better dps and swapped into Chayula Amulet
https://pastebin.com/S6NAvsE1
Now have 20 Mil combined DPS & 8,600 ES

Dom Blow Variant (Endgame)
https://pastebin.com/py3PefNE

The tree is very similar I just cut Unnatural calm & Golem Commander to pick up Insightfulness & Aligned Spirits so I have enough mana to attack constantly

Swapped Curse into Stone golem

Precision now cannot be supported by generosity as we need good accuracy too and needs a few more levels

After making the vids I got some gloves with "Strike skills target 1 additional target" which has made things smoother

Poe planner link

www.poeurl.com/c1gH
Much less informative but here is a link for the golems planner tree. About one third of the build is points spent filling out the cluster jewels which doesn't show in poe planner

Chest

Carrion Golem with pure damage gems. Eventually will replace more of these with awakened versions. If you have rotten claws from a cluster jewel impale can be swapped for Damage on Full Life or Ruthless

Helm

Support zombies. Provides Maim and feeding frenzy buffs along with keeping 'nearby' golems for their innate damage requirement. Maim can be replaced with lvl 21 Animate Guardian if you have bought the good items to deck it out

Gloves

Support Spectres that need blood magic to spam their charge spell. Blood magic also supporting clarity and vitality to give us enough room for everything

Clarity is just here for another "commander of darkness" aura giving 9% attack speed, in endgame you can swap it with empower for +1 Spectre or minion life support if you worry about keeping them alive

Base build uses 2x Host Chieften and 1x Carnage Chieften. Check FAQ for other options

Boots

Dread banner and precision get a nice boost from generosity but more important is giving them +40% increased AOE so it has more coverage. Also spot for our curse. I used Temp chains for most of my playthrough until I hit a white socket to swap back and forth.

Keep precision at level 10 so we have enough mana to curse and shield charge


Weapon

Shield Charge with fortify, good movement skill and the 3rd purity gem

Shield

Prism Guardian gives us more auras then normally possible. Corrupting to level 21 haste gives +3% movement speed. Corrupted lvl 21 purity of ice for +3% max cold resistance

Rings

Vivisect rings give +5 to level of aura, this is very good on discipline for extra ES. Purity of fire gives us +3% fire resistance and we don't need to buy a lvl 21 version for the aura in this ring

Other
Endgame Changes

Clarity in gloves swapped into lvl 3 empower for +1 support spectre (Requires lvl 21 spectre gem). Spectre options discussed in FAQ

Maim Support in helm swapped into Animate Guardian. Itemisation discussed in FAQ

Convocation is often used instead of clarity (not linked to blood magic) to keep minions close and drastically improves their survivability during leveling, you can choose to keep this up if you don't mind monitering its cooldown.

Its very hard to make cuts in the build. Fortify & shield charge can be swapped out if thats your preference.

Flesh offering can be used over curse for better paper DPS but it only works while there is corpses and cannot be used to 'point' your minions to a target like a curse can.

Soul of Brine King for stun avoidance until you get Chayula then swap to Soul of Lunaris for chain immunity

Soul of Garukhan for movement speed once upgraded

Skill gems
You will swap into golems at lvl 41 when you can use clayshaper. Before then its a generic necromancer start and you can choose whichever minion skills you want to use. SRS + Infernal Legion + minion instability or mule yourself a smite gem and level as herald of purity + zombies + holy relic

Use either leap slam or flamedash as your movement skill while leveling

Once you complete the library be sure to buy a copy of all the gems this build uses and level them in gear and secondary weapon slots. If you don't have the right colours keep them in your inventory as a reminder that they need leveling. Lvl 1 gems will make things much harder on yourself later when you swap into the full setup.

If you only have a 4-link then put the golems in the +2 helm. Make sure you pair Carrion golem with multistrike then the other 2 links can be any of the 4 other gems depending on what colour it chromes (they are all damage gems of similar effect at this stage)

The leveling auras will be Dread banner, Pride, Vitality and Discipline. You should be able to swap over to running everything at level 68 when you can equip the prism guardian so long as you have picked up all the reservation nodes including charisma

I swap right away at 2-3k ES and just play safe building up that number

Once you hit lvl 70 I recommend buying a lvl 20 Summon Carrion Golem gem. It should be a cheap significant power boost and you can resell it later when you come to replace it

You can use the 20% quality recipe (lvl 20 gem + 1 gcp) to fully quality the support gems of the build. Blood magic and maim get no benefit from this, don't bother. Minion and aura gems will make playing painful if you suddenly revert them to lvl 1/20 version so don't do it to them either.

Gear


Some good leveling uniques to make things smoother. Early rings, gloves and amulet should be anything you find with good strength on them as you'll need it to equip the clayshapers early. You don't need unset rings yet as you are leveling your unused gems in offhand gear.

I highly recommend solaris lorica over tabula even at a 4 or 5-link. You don't really need damage much at this stage but you will die to chaos damage plenty without its "chaos damage does not bypass energy shield" stat, even before you go lowlife at level 68 this is a good leveling chest.

Other then this gear and before you can buy a copy (even the super cheap stuff) Just use any rares you find off the ground with decent stats. Necromancers don't really get damage off gear so attributes ES and resistances are all you're after

Tree
Rush wicked ward first. You will rely on ES recharge until you get a good amount of the ES regen mostly from vitality + aura effect but replenishing presence will also help. Once you have enough regen be sure to unspec Wicked ward as it halves your regen rate.

- Wicked Ward
- Ravenous Horde (faster minion speed)
- Death Attunement (minion life to keep them alive)
- Golem Commander (you should be almost lvl 41 now so +1 golem)
- Zealots Oath

At this point its just aura effect + reservation nodes and the better ES nodes. You want to have all the reduced reservation nodes taken by lvl 68

You'll need to manually travel down to Charisma and keep those nodes until you can afford 2x golden oils for the anoint on the amulet

If you've completed the tree but still have points to spare and do not have good cluster jewels yet there is many good ES nodes to pick up or Aligned Spirits/Rightious Army for damage. There is no need to rush in a bad jewel when there is perfectly decent tree nodes that can be unspeced out of later

Breakdown
My ordering based on price vs impact.

Vivinsect rings changed from a 10c item to a 300c item this league. I have removed them from the purchase order as now they are not really worth the price until the final upgrades. For ring 1 with blue socket I recommend the Pariah. For the second unset ring with the purity gem levels is less important so I would just get attributes and ES for now

Leveling
- Clayshaper x2
- Temporary items mentioned in the leveling section.
- Max aura effect Jinxed Juju
- 5-Link Solaris Lorica
- Prism Guardian

Mapping
- Sin Trek
- ES Rare Gloves
- Vertex
- 6-link Solaris Lorica
- Anima Stone (Vendor recipe using 1 of each primordial is usually cheaper)
- 3x Primordial jewels for +1 golem (Can buy Eminence then upgrade to Harmonies later)
- 2x Golden Oil for Charisma Anoint (Choose between Juju or Presence of Chayula)
- Replenishing Presence Jewel Purchase/crafting x4
- Large Minion Cluster jewel Purchase/Crafting x2

Mid/High Tier Mapping
- 20/20 Purity of Fire/Lightning (quality AOE to cover minions more reliably)
- lvl 21 Golem
- lvl 21 Vaal Impurity of Ice (vaal is cheaper)
- Lvl 21 Haste
- 6-link Shavronns Wrappings
- Corrupted Shield with "physical damage taken as Fire/Cold/Lightning" (See Gear section for link)
- Defensive Watcher's Eye
- Awakened Brutality/Melee Physical damage
- lvl 21 Discipline

Endgame Refinement
- lvl 21 Zombies & Spectres
- lvl 3 Empower for +1 Spectre (optional)
- Lvl 21 Animate Guardian + Good guardian gear (optional, see FAQ)
- 21/20 Summon Carrion Golem gem
- Attribute quality catalyst on Rings
- Craft top tier gloves with ES + Attributes + minion damage
- 21/20 vaal impurity of ice (quality AOE to cover minions more reliably)
- Crafting to make perfect cluster and Abyss Jewels
- Carrion Golem enchant on good base to crafted into top tier helm
- Awakened Mutistrike
- 3 Good Mod Watcher's Eye

I can't run all the auras
The most common thing people miss is Charisma but all the mana reservation nodes from the Leadership, Sovereignty and Influence cluster all are taken too

Charisma is first obtained by pathing down to pick it up manually but when you can afford it you anoint it onto the amulet and refund those pathing points

Depending on how much life you have available you may need to have Vitality at less then lvl 20. This is common for those who have quality on presence of Chayula without the es/life hybrid nodes.

Clarity and Precision reserve more mana the higher level they are. This build keeps clarity at lvl 1 and Precision at lvl 10. Any higher could make you unable to use them. If you cannot curse then lower precision a few more levels and wait until you have enough mana before leveling it up again.

I can't get my resistances up to 90%
You want 200% aura effect which is also worth doing as that breakpoint gives commander of darkness an extra 1% attack speed per aura.

You can check your current aura effect total by importing your character into Pob then going to the "calc" tab then selecting one of your auras which should be at 3x base

If its not then usually this is because one of your medium cluster jewels has less then 6 passives or it has rolled one of the notables that do not contain global aura effect

With my current setup your lightning resistance will only be 88%. There is a few ways to get it up to 90% and I used to use one but now I think the opportunity cost is a bit high and just leave that one at 88%

How can I get a 4th Spectre/Which spectres to use?
To get a 4th spectre you need gem lvl 25 so lvl 21 gem +2 (ascendancy) +2 (Empower) so you need to add in empower to the gloves setup

I think 2x frenzy monkies is good because charges fall off while waiting on boss animations and double monkies will speed up reapplying them once the fighting starts but using just 1 should be fine in most situations if you prefer. Frenzies are the biggest dps boost along with reliable movement speed during mapping

Power charge monkies are pure dps

"Arena Master" is a spectre that is only encountered coming out of the portals that are created in Drox, The Warlord (yellow influence) maps. The speed buff they give is roughly equal to power charge damage from host chieftain but also provides movement speed that makes mapping a bit smoother. Their buff doesn't have any ramp up time on bosses but with 1 spectre its only going to be up about half the time

They of Thul is commonly suggested and casts "snow cloak" a great defensive spell that gives the party dodge and less damage taken in an area. This is good on bosses but useless while mapping as you don't stay still enough to be in its radius

For clearspeed 2x frenzy monkies and 2x arena master will be smoothest. If you are bossing or have vicious bites on your large cluster jewels then 2x frenzy 1x Power and 1x arena or 1 of each will be best

Should I run an Animate Guardian? What Items should it have?

Having an Animate guardian die and take all your items with it is *very* annoying so I wouldn't bother using one until you can buy a lvl 21 gem to put in the +1 helm with minion life (replacing maim support). 20/20 gem might also be acceptable as mine has survived fine so far but there is some surprise burst damage in maps like acid caverns that could risk it with too many damage mods

Weapon
Dying Breath (Budget)
Kingmaker (Endgame)

Most expensive but best item for your guardian. Aura fortify, crit multi and culling strike

Body Armour
Bloodbond (Budget)
Belly of the Beast (Option)
Garb of the Ephemeral (Very Expensive)

Our Guardian will already have really solid regen but we want to push its life total as high as possible to protect against one-shot damage. %Life has far far more impact then flat life so items like bloodbond with %Life + Regen or belly for pure %Life are good. Bloodbond being a nice balance and dirt cheap

Garb of the Ephemeral is the best aura chestpiece but very expensive just for "Nearby Enemies cannot deal Critical Strikes". It has no life so you would need to get more from alternative sources like extra gem levels (via weapon swap or +3 minions helm) or %minion life on jewels to make sure it doesn't die

Gloves
Southbound (Budget)
Southbound corrupted with curse on hit (Option)

Good %increased life gloves. Can buy with Enfeeble or Vulnerability curse on hit. This will override your self cast curse with an inferior version so only use if you want to gem swap with another utility gem as your main cast

Helm
Leer Cast (budget)
Rare with "nearby enemies take 9% increased physical damage" (Endgame)

Good damage items. It would also be nice if the rare has chaos resistance too but just the damage mod is good

Boots
Victario's Flight (Budget & Endgame)

Movement speed aura. Good boots

My minions Keep dying
It can be hard to identify why this is happening sometimes and different problems have different solutions so I'll list several factors

First and most obvious is gem levels of the minions. Lvl 21 versions of all of them are bought eventually. 21/20 is even better as it gives more life but +1 level is better life then 20% quality and getting both can be expensive

The more regen the better. Endgame the build has 4x replenishing presence and 2x renewal but until you have all this up their regen will be lower so improving their base life will be most of the focus

If you are doing rippy content then swapping from clayshaper to Cold Iron Point will help the golems live and better damage. Better animate guardian life too. Downside is worse clear and zombie + spectre life.

Carnage chieftens have good but not amazing life. If they are struggling to live then consider using minion life support in the gloves setup.

Zombies are harder to get life for but the alternative quality on feeding frenzy can give them life on hit which will help keep them up.

Quality on the purity gems should not be overlooked. The extra AOE really helps reach them when they dive into danger, they are considerably more vulnerable to elemental damage anytime they get out of range.

This is often a problem for those with 'aggressive' golems from feeding frenzy or primordial might. It can lead to golems jumping into Sirus storms and out of range. Removing the 'aggressive' tag can help if you have this problem and just curse to target them onto the boss.

Use convocation to recuse them from "die" lazer or anything else that shotguns with stupid damage

Why is my damage so much lower when I import my character?
So this character requires many adjustments after importing

The pob fork now calculates for Carrion golems itself and we no longer need to add anything onto an item but we do need to check many boxes in the config tab.

You must disable any vaal auras and enable the normal version. Things like vaal haste will default as vaal haste "on" but Haste itself "off"

In the gems section you need to disable the stone golem gem as it'll be giving some extra damage that doesn't exist

The config tab we have
- Pride Aura effect set to maximum effect
- Carrion golems are nearby 10 non-golem minions
- Minions are always on full life
- Minions use power charges
- Minions use frenzy charges
- # of summoned minions = 15
- Feeding Frenzy is Active
- Enemy is Maimed
- Enemy is intimidated (if you have woke melee phys)
- Set target to Shaper or Sirus