Poison Skele Archers - Necromancer - ES/Life/Evasion

pob https://pastebin.com/S1JM5CAk

This league I wanted to try another minion variant with different defenses than I've already played. The DPS numbers for Skele Archers in POB seemed weaker than I'd like but I decided to go for it. After about 30 divs of investment, I'm pretty pleased with the results. Wish I had more time to take it further, but life stuff is making me quit this weekend so I'll go ahead and share now.

I assume anyone reading this is already familiar with Skeles or SRS so I'll just focus on what's different here. Here's a couple videos to demonstrate:
The Feared
High-quantity Abyss/Incursion map

I found the high-quantity mapping to feel awesome. My strategy was full Abyss (hoping to drop my own Amamanu's, never happened), Eater Altars (later swapped to Maven Witness for the extra bosses), and Incursion (hoping to corrupt my own lv21 Vaal gem, never happened). Normal bosses and high-quantity Invitations, including The Feared, went from fine at budget to trivial at the current ~30 div investment. Uber Bosses are very difficult, where I only beat Uber Duper Elder 2/5 attempts (probably some skill issues there). I feel that with another couple dozen divs for better rares, Ubers would be more comfortable.

Calculated SDPS is about 5 million, and I say calculated because it feels stronger than that: reason being that Archers are extremely efficient, even more so than SRS. They begin firing immediately on spawn at a range that exceeds your screen. Positioning your Skeles is important to optimize damage efficiency, which I found to be a fun, new element to minion gameplay.
You swap in Volley and Pierce for mapping, and want 3b2g1w sockets to swap in lv4 Empower and Void Manip for bossing (Withering Touch instead of Empower until you get the 1w).

For defenses, I went ES/Evasion/Life with Corrupted Soul, some Spell Suppression, Block, some % Phys Reduction, and 80/79/79 max resists. Keystone Ghost Dance does a great job of keeping the ES up. Spread out the Passives Tree to take all three ES/Life wheels, the Spell Suppression/ES wheel, and an Evasion/ES wheel. Even before squeezing in Defiance Banner it feels very safe in juiced Guardian maps. Uber Bosses feel dangerous, enough that I couldn't record a good video.

Mana needs to be kept comfortable so that you can keep replacing Skeles. Their positioning makes a big difference, especially with Pierce/Volley while mapping to chew through dense packs with tough rares like an Abyss or Incursion. You want to be able to resummon the Skeles to reposition anytime, which I find to be around when you have available Mana around 4x the cost of Skeles.

This build centers around the Cluster Notable Passive Skeletal Atrophy, which gives them 30% Phys to Chaos conversion and 10% Wither chance. You can get two of these from Large Clusters, where literally any second Notable will push Atrophy to the front of the ring, and a third from Megalomaniac. When shopping for Megas, I advise finding one with Mortifying Presence, Frantic Aspect, or Sublime Form because of the Reservation benefit, but any usable third Notable will be fine to start with. A fourth Atrophy might even be good, depending on the other Notables.

Ideal Large Clusters will have Call to the Slaughter, Skeletal Atrophy, and Feasting Fiends to push the good ones to the front of the wheel. These are relatively cheap to buy or craft. You want a single Medium Cluster with Life from Death and Blessed Rebirth, as always with temporary killable minions.

For Auras, I'm running Malevolence on Generosity, and Haste + Grace with lv3 Enlighten in a rare Shield with benchcraft +2 to Supports, plus Defiance Banner. I believe it would be best to squeeze in Tempest Shield after getting a Helm Enchant, but I didn't get that far. Haste is such a nice QOL and actually good damage here.

What's different about damage scaling here is that you don't want The Covenant, instead going for Dendrobate or a Grasping Mail with 60% Minion Poison chance. I opted for a Grasping Mail to save on Mana costs and rare mods, but a nice corrupted Dendrobate should have higher DPS potential. The reason The Covenant isn't very good here is all the Phys converted/gained as Chaos. You want Gem levels and added Phys, not added Chaos, which also makes your Jewels a little cheaper.

Wand doesn't need trigger craft because there's enough downtime between summonings and Curses, which can save you some divs. What's critical is getting your Skele gem to lv25, when you summon 4 Skeles at a time.

To hit 12 maximum Skeles, you just need the benchcraft on helmet and the +1 Amulet mod, which comes from Elder influence or dropped in Delve. That's in addition to the passive Notables, Lord of the Dead and Death Attunement, which are both just grabbed naturally in the Tree.

For leveling, I'd recommend just running melee Skeles until you can get a Phantasmal gem, preferably Vaal asap. I never got my lv21 Vaal gem, not even a chance to buy one at their absurd cost :(
If you corrupt one yourself, its sale alone could nearly fund your next build when you move on!

Pantheons are Brine King for major and Abberath for most things, switching to Ryslatha for Flask sustain against tough bosses that don't Ignite you. Kill all Bandits.

I path right next to Whispers of Doom, which I feel like there's a way to use but don't know how yet (maybe add Punishment?). Vixens has been doing the trick with Temp Chains and Despair.

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I'm sure both the DPS and Defenses could be pushed further with more investment and new ideas, so I'd appreciate the chance to discuss it further or help anyone who wants to give it a try.