[3.17] Cold Conversion Skeleton Archers

(picture by Randy Vargas from a Magic the Gathering card)

Hey fellow Necromancers!

I'm gonna do a Skeleton Warrior into Skeleton Archer build this league and need some suggestions for my PoB.

Right now I'm relatively happy with it, although the damage of the archers is obviously lacking a lot (level 18 gems for day 1 - 10x Skeleton Archers = 820k dps).

Sadly their main dmg is like 1/3 of the base dmg of skeleton warriors, so scaling them is a lot harder.

I like the ranged gameplay and theme of skeleton archers though and think there are enough options with Clusters and Endgame gear to still make them pop everything including new bosses.

Here's a PoB for day 1 mapping gear, if anyone got any cool tips or cheap item suggestions that improve the DMG feel free to share!

https://pastebin.com/eZj4gznu

I went the more tanky way with this build, because I hate dying. Might even be HC viable this way.

77/76/76/75 max res
10k+ Armour even with day 1 gear
Glancing Blows
Freeze, Shock and Blind immune
60% Crit DMG Taken Reduction
EHP is around 35k for each type (phys/cold/fire/light/chaos)

If you just switch to Skeleton Warriors instead of Archers you go from 820k dps to 1,8mil dps. With one or two gem swaps you go to slightly above 2mil, but like I said I wanna go with archers this time.

Removed CWDT - Molten Shell because it was overlapping with Bone Armour.

Used those 2 slots for AG + Desecrate in a better spot.

How is it performing now, if you are still running it?

I switched over to Skeleton Mages because they just perform way better for less investment.

I really liked the clear of the archers and can also do T16s comfortable, just endgame bosses were taking too long due to the huge damage gap.

For a better experience I would probably need another 30-40ex investment with awakened gems and a +2 wand, +1 skill +1 skelly amulet and dual cluster setup.

I fear at that point skeleton mages would still outshine the archers by a lot. A huge upside is the FPS and visibility though :D

With Skeleton Mages you don't see anything on screen.

Skeleton Archers base dmg would need to be upped by about 30% to feel fine in my opinion.

6 link Lioneye's Vision felt really good with Greater Volley. The full cold conversion made everything super safe because they perma froze and shattered everything.