Disclaimer

The post is a guideline not a guide, feel free to experiment with your own ideas to fit into the build. I have been trying to form in a HC environment, I personally play HC trade outside of events like gauntlet. The guideline will not make you inherently love playing absolution style gameplay, some people hate it just like traps, totems and other minions. These guidelines will be for mostly experienced players, and will contain quite a bit of information.

TLDR Absolution bossing

Absolution requires you to apply many absolution casts on the boss for all the 3 absolution minions to spawn, they have a 25% chance with refreshing duration. Necro has extra duration, and you can get it on the tree. Using spell echo might feel too clunky for many players, getting more cast speed improves this.

I recommend using predator for bossing, when you are not actively attacking the boss with your personal spell. The absolution minions tend to idle, predator on boss fixes this a number of times.

PoB

https://pastebin.com/XTeScgDY (Necro)

https://pastebin.com/TKZR3Xjz (Guardian)

These are just templates for going into a league, if you do not get jinxed juju or algor you can switch to a rare with res/spell sup. You can alternate the build with speccing into more minion defense if that is a problem, more damage or other needed points. The tree is not set in stone, but I will follow this template myself. I will go Necro as a starter fyi

Mana sustain

Absolution with many supports will get hard to sustain in an endgame setting, I strongly recommend going for the Eldrich battery keystone. This will make you able to cast an aura with blessing (if you got enough energy shield) and sustain the mana cost from casting absolution. Other strategies will be to incorporate a lot of mana regen from gear and tree, also using clarity.

Early progression

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Sidhebreath will make your early game with SRS very potent, usually I recommend going with SRS until you can get convocation (requires level 24). The amulet will start to fall off in the act 3-4, and you can switch to an Absolution build.

Valid links for leveling pred, faster casting, lightning pen, minion damage, elemental army, physical to lightning, spell echo, summon phantasms and controlled destruction.

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/The_Jinxed_Juju really good amulet for level 48.

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Reverberation_Rod pseudo 6-link from level 24.

I like picking up unholy might mastery early on for a quick chaos damage boost when levelling in acts.

Rolling early minion wands, bone rings and minion shields will boost your way to maps. Remember minion damage is very effective until you get a lot of it.

Eldrich battery + MOM

It is possible to get defenses from your energy shield with MOM, but at the cost of making your ES be susceptible to not recharging from damage taken. I strongly recommend you to get a way to fill your ES (regen %, energy leech from tree/flask, Regenerate # Energy Shield per second while a Rare or Unique Enemy is Nearby, Ghost dance keystone if you have sufficient evasion)

Minion defenses

The strongest minion defenses in my opinion is regen %, after you have capped their resistances. You can spec minion regen on tree if you feel your minions die a lot.

Getting your minion resistance can be achieved from purity of elements (I prefer 20% qual for aoe), minion shield and bone rings. Getting the minion mastery for +8% maximum resistances is highly recommended.

Early on you can link any minion skill to summon phantasms, taking the 5% recovery per minion death mastery. This should boost all survivability of your minions early on.

Getting consecrated ground, the 5% flat regen from this will be very big for your minions. You can get it through zealotry (not linked with generosity), flasks or conc path spell. You can also get it on your AG with https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Zahndethus%27_Cassock (having bone armor or shield on your AG will improve it a lot.)

Minion shields can roll flat phys reduction, which helps a lot against corrupted blood.

Minion defense mastery 30% max life is decent, since the increased life should make up for the loss in regen.

Convocation (always get it to high qual for CDR) must be mastered to get your minions out of kinky situations. Spot abilities/boss abilities that are dangerous to your minions, a quick convocation away can save them often. Keep an eye out on the minion health (especially AG in your peripheral vision)

Ghastly jewels can roll some very good defensive mods for minions (I recommend % leech)

Good defensive minion supports (elemental army, meatshield and minion life)

Animate Guardian

One of the most important stepstones for a good minion build. Building up your AG can make your minion build from a mediocre one to something in the top tier. Will list some items and uses.

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Legacy_of_Fury + https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Gravebind (absolutely killer combo, making your clear improve on a new level. This is similar with RF builds) scorched effect can run up to 15% ele pen. https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Inpulsa%27s_Broken_Heart is a substitute for legacy of fury, but I feel the maven boots are superior.

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Zahndethus%27_Cassock ( early regen with block from bone offering and other sources)

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Bloodbond (decent regen/life early on)

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Gruthkul%27s_Pelt (endgame option for regen)

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Leer_Cast (50% inc damage, one of the best ones)

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Dying_Breath ( inc damage and curse effect, strong with new curses)

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Kingmaker (A lot of defenses, rarity,culling + crit multi, depending changes to item rarity, it might be too rare)

And many more check https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Animate_Guardian

You can get items with +1 curse and get the corruption of curse on hit, very powerful. There are a ton of ways you can go forward with building your AG to be both good utility and damage. Make sure he survives your encounters in Wraeclast.

Raise Spectre

Spectres can be powerful additions to your lineup, there are a few stars for absolution.

https://poedb.tw/us/Arena_Master (tanky, provides a cast/atk/movment speed aura)

https://poedb.tw/us/Primal_Rhex_Matriarch (decently tanky, provides 20% inc lightning damage on target)

https://poedb.tw/us/Ruins_Hellion (VERY squishy NOT RECOMMENDED, provides less damage taken and inc dmg)

https://poedb.tw/us/Baranite_Cleric (squishy, provides an small area with 30% extra phys as lightning)

There are a few spectres with +1 to curses, these might be good, but require more testing. They tend to be squishy, so you will need to invest in defense.

Valuable uniques

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Legacy_of_Fury + https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Gravebind (it is hot on AG)

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Windscream (aoe + 1 curse, can be good for getting enfeeble)

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/The_Jinxed_Juju (aura effect, less dmg with spectre, chaos res)

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Algor_Mortis (provides a ton of inc damage on target, sap, non-damaging ailment, might be BIS for many occasions) You need to use vortex (pref on left

click)

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Ashes_of_the_Stars (very rare, improves many of the alt quals, reservation and +1 skills)

Minion crit

I do tend to go crit for endgame with absolution, the crit nodes are strong, brittle (from exarch on boots)provides base crit (more with non-damaging ailment stat). Crits will make the shock value higher on the target, and make it apply without shock %.

Kingmaker on AG provides 50% crit multi, WARNING might be very expensive.

Minion shields/Minion wands can roll very good crit related affixes for endgame. This is a good aspiration for endgame gear.

Ascendancies

For early progression in the league I recommend Necro and Guardian, Guardian got the best early acts progression, while necro gets your minion survivability up quickly. For the hipster approach you can play inquisitor (good survival with regen, almost useless uber lab), ascendant (can get strong in endgame), jugg/trickster strictly for defenses (you can sacrifice your own defenses for more minion damage and defense)

Softcore Approach

I usually do not play softcore, so my opinion might not be valid. For softcore I would still use many of the guidelines above, but you can get a 12 passive cluster jewel for more damage. Build towards a doriyani’s prototype version of the build (ghazzytv usually got a decent one in the making)

Getting less spell suppression, I do not recommend this, since not dying is comfortable for softcore and hardcore.

Alternate gem qualities

There are plenty of alt quals to improve your absolution build, here are a few.

Feeding frenzy (anomalous, 1% life on hit)

Animate guardian (anomalous, 60% aoe (works with legacy of fury boots) and divergent, 40% minion life)

Lightning penetration (divergent, 20% lightning effect)

Arctic armor (anomalous, 20% chance to freeze with 350 ms, very good if you can pick up arctic armor)

Raise spectre (anomalous, 20% inc life, hard to get gem to 21)

There are more you can incorporate, keep a lookout for good alt gems.

Doriyani’s prototype

I do not recommend this build for HC, the only way for me is to build with the Mahuxotl's Machination + timeless jewels approach. This is not an early league build, and will be very expensive. So it is not included in this guideline

Thank you for reading

I’m Lucious or Luc, you can check my absolution builds on hardcore trade over the last few leagues for inspiration. Will be responding to questions in the comments.