Hey exiles,

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tldr: I realized Ele has a notable that causes killed golems to revive and thought it would be funny to use that with a reaper. I also got sidetracked and wanted to incorporate staff blocking to have a second 6-slot item. POB: https://pobb.in/wVIGJDfz8i4k

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I've been trying to figure out a play style that I enjoy in poe. I am liking minion builds, but I'm not a fan of the reanimated folks that occasionally need maintenance. SRS has been effective for clearing and let me make it to endgame content on my Templar in like a few days, but I wanted to start fresh with an Elementalist to really lean into golems since they're my favorite minions.

As I was looking at what the Elementalist had to offer, I noticed one of their notables causes your killed golems to respawn in 4 seconds which is excellent for how little effort I want to put into maintaining my minions. I'm so lazy that I have made it to endgame content twice with minion builds and I've never cast Convocation. So being guaranteed that I never need to recast my golems if they somehow manage to die is a huge plus for me.

There are two other gimmicks I'm wanting to lean into--I understand they aren't necessarily great options. I wanted a second six-link which led me to considering staves, and learning a bit more about survivability in the game I got inspired to try using staff block as part of my 'first line' of defense. The other silly idea, obviously spoiled by the title, is that a Reaper can eat my golems and it's not a big problem since they'll eventually pop back up on their own. (If I understand correctly.)

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With all that said, I maybe have two months of experience with the game at this point. I joined late in 3.21 and made it to end game and decided to wait for 3.22 to really start digging in. I'm sure there are lots of questionable and suboptimal choices in the pob.

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Are there any uniques I should be looking out for? I haven't minded using Animate Guardian but I am a little concerned that my reaper may decide to use them as a snack. Spectres are a bit of a headache, but I could be convinced to add them to the team, too.

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Main questions, outside of general advice on the build:

• I mentioned that I wanted to use staff blocking as a 'first line' of defense. What other defensive options would you aim for with this kind of build? Opinions on glancing blows? As an inexperienced person, taking 0% seems a lot better than taking 65% of damage although I do understand it's much much easier to get to the cap by doubling your chances.
• I don't especially care about dealing damage myself, but I was curious how Spiritual aid worked with 'reductions' to minion damage. My initial assumption is that this means an item or whatever that has a drawback of causing minions to deal less damage would apply to me--that makes sense. But, does it (also?) account for something like the small [Minion Life and Physical Damage Reduction] as an opportunity for me to pick up damage reduction that way? Feels like a very optimistic interpretation of the wording.