[PoE 3.23] SRS DEEP DIVE: Guardian vs Poison vs Lightning — All Summon Raging Spirit Builds Compared

3.23 SRS Lightning Champion with Spectres Standalone endgame PoB SRS Deep Dive: Lightning vs Guardian vs Poison: https://youtu.be/Tl8z5UPazeU Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/phazeplays Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@PhazePlays_ Discord: https://discord.gg/DkUz2Ke6V4 This is a work in progress ================================ ========== 3.23 Affliction ========== ================================ This PoB is only relevant in 3.23 Affliction League These Spectres are a one-league-thing, so this is a separate PoB than the default Lightning SRS for custom config purposes == Important 3.23 Changes == 1. SRS quality changed from "20% increased minion movement speed" to "30% chance to summon an extra Minion" (works with Unleash, slight upgrade overall, very powerful minion recovery with minion life on minion death) 2. Divergent SRS is gone, which is a DPS loss for ultra-lategame bossing with Ashes and Divergent SRS 3. Divergent Melee Splash is gone with the removal of Alternate Quality gems. Not a big deal, use Awakened Melee Splash instead for mapping 4. Tattoos are gone. 3.23 has more than enough borrowed power to make up for this 5. Spectres are stronger than anticipated -- too strong to ignore even on Champion == Lightning... and Fire? == SRS scales incredibly well with flat damage -- Wrath and Anger both provide a lot of flat damage There's no Anger Spectre unfortunately, so we use the Wrath Spectre (Perfect Spirit of Fortune) and then socket Anger into March of the Legion instead This scales damage similarly to Guardian SRS, using Elemental Weakness and Punishment Most of our damage is Lightning, and we have Lucky Lightning damage thanks to the Wrath Spectre We no longer want +1 Lightning on Sceptre, Shield, or Amulet this league because we run Wrath Spectre with Anger in boots == SPECTRE DISCLAIMER == THESE AFFLICTION SPECTRES ARE VERY EASY TO LOSE -- SOME ARE EXPENSIVE AND RARE -- THINK OF THEM AS DISPOSABLE BUFF BOTS, NOT PERMANENT MINIONS THAT YOU KEEP FOREVER DEVOURING DIADEM AND TRIGGER FLESH OFFERING CAN CONSUME (AKA DELETE) YOUR EXPENSIVE CORPSES WHEN YOU DO STUFF LIKE REMOVING YOUR AMULET BE VERY CAREFUL USING EXPENSIVE SPECTRES CARELESSLY, YOU CAN AND WILL LOSE THEM EVENTUALLY TO SILLY STUFF IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE THE SPECTRES YOU'RE USING, USE CHEAPER SPECTRES INSTEAD In Hideout: If you drop below attribute requirements while shuffling around gear, or unequip your Raise Spectre Gem -- your currently active spectres will instantly drop to the ground as corpses. Take off your Devouring Diadem and Trigger Sceptre ASAP if this happens. These corpses will disappear if you leave your hideout and there's no one else there You will very often lose Spectres to stupid stuff like shuffling gear around, or forgetting that the Spectres were on the ground If you're smart and methodical you can minimize the chances of it happening, but it's bound to happen to everyone occasionally --- use cheap disposable Spectres until you're incredibly confident you won't lose them or are rich enough that it doesn't matter == SPECTRES == 2 Spectres is plenty, but if you want to go for 3 or 4 you can. It's much harder to fit more than 2 Spectres on Champ than it is on something like Necro because our weapon cannot roll +1 minion +2 max Spectres baseline +1 max Spectre when Raise Spectre gem reaches level 25 ---- Can get +1 from a level 21 gem, +3 from empower, +1 from amulet, +1 minion shield (fracture only) +1 max Spectre with Death Attunement on passive tree -- you can annoint Death Attunment instead of Whispers of Doom if you'd prefer fewer buttons and less socket pressure -- or path there for 7 passive points Required Spectre: Perfect Spirit of Fortune Wrath, Lightning Damage is Lucky -- Aura Radius appears to be around 7 meters (or 70 units) [~Medium Budget] Visual & Feel: This bad boy is a stationary totem. If you run out of range of his aura, he will Lightning Warp to your location. Also casts Spark and Shock Nova Offensive: Hulking Miscreation: 100% increased Damage / 30% Attack Speed -- after using him for awhile, the uptime on this doesn't seem to be that great, maybe ~40% if I had to guess [med/high budget] Perfect Hulking Miscreation: 100% increased Damage / 30% attack speed / 20% phys as extra lightning -- same ~40% uptime ballpark [high budget, minimal upgrade over non-perfect] Visual & Feel: Miscreations look like Argus and audibly slam the ground every 30 seconds which is annoying in hideout Perfect Forest Tiger: Haste, 5% chance to grant a Frenzy Charge to nearby allies on hit -- [high budget] Blasphemer: Smite -- (still need to apply exposure somehow if you use this, maybe shield charge? idk) [cheap] Perfect Forest Warrior: Onslaught / Culling strike -- cull is equivalent to ~12.5% more damage, more onslaught+armour uptime from Graceful Assaul, great in Sanctum [low budget, easily replaced] --- there appears to be some sort of bug where this spectre will occasionally not give onslaught in specific maps for some odd reason Visual & Feel: Warrior does some sort of magma sunder wave that obscures the ground, its not too bad but can be annoying at times in something like Sanctum Defensive: Perfect Warlord: Vitality, Endurance charges -- [med/high budget] Visual & Feel: Apparently this guy is Oak that audibly Warcries a lot, but I haven't tried him yet If you think something else should be on this list let me know (please dont say determination turtle) Spectre List from Affliction: https://poedb.tw/us/Corpses The power of these Spectres' auras/skills scales with Spectre Level, there's a dropdown on poedb to show stats for a given Spectre level == Animate Guardian (AG) == AG is optional. If you run Sanctum I highly recommend AG. If you don't Sanctum, AG is skippable but you do lose access to Scorch typically (the Scorch Spectre sucks apparently) If he dies, all of this gear is lost -- this can get very frustrating if currency is a problem or you find it tough to pay attention to his HP. Inexperienced players should avoid using AG altogether If you skip AG, running a Hungry Loop setup is a possibility for Spectres which alleviates some socket pressure Here are some decent gear options, there are also many different item options on the Wiki: https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Animate_Guardian Body: Gruthkul's Pelt, Sporeguard, Doppelganger Guise, Belly of the Beast Helm: Leer Cast, Crown of the Tyrant Boots: Legacy of the Fury, maybe Scorched Ground rare boots Gloves: generic resists, intimidate and fire exposure implicits are optional -- another option: Gravebind for Legacy of Fury pops while mapping Weapon: Dying Breath If any of your permanent minions are in a deadly situation, the AG is likely going to be the first to die. Use the AG HP bar at the top of the screen to gauge damage output on your minions == Ubers & Permanent Minions == There's no way around it: bossing with permanent minions sucks -- especially now that both Animate Guardian AND Spectres have a direct currency cost when they die Do not run AG or Spectres on Ubers unless you understand and accept the likelihood of them dying (being deleted) or them getting you killed. That being said, Spectres are usually incredibly tanky during Ubers with a "minion life on minion death" -- Exarch is the only one I would never consider bringing in Spectres For Exarch, Lightning SRS without Spectres is more than enough damage. Swap Anger to Wrath in the boots if you do this Blessed Rebirth is still needed to comfortably do Ubers in most cases To keep Spectres alive on Ubers, generally recommend supporting them with Minion Life and Elemental Army. I very rarely had any Spectres die while farming Ubers in HC == Minion Resistances == Spectres get a baseline +50% to all elemental resistances at 20 quality - this makes capping their res not too difficult (in most cases) Animate Guardian's base resistances are 40/40/40 with 20 chaos resistance -- you can cap elemental resistances with gloves if you want, or throw a belly of the beast on him for res/life These are also options: Elemental Army support 1x Bone Ring implicit with 4x prismatic catalysts (applied before crafting) If you want to find a Spectres' specific base resistances, you can use https://poedb.tw/us/Corpses == Minion Recovery == Get "Life from Death" from a Medium Minion Life Cluster Heavily spam SRS when you know Minions are going to be taking big damage to maximize recovery Banner dropping Defiance Banner is also an extra life recovery option for Champion (5% life/sec regen at 50 stacks) == Charms == One of these: "While there are at least five nearby Allies, you and nearby Allies have Onslaught" -- this appears to have a radius of roughly 7 meters (or 70 units) which is roughly to the top of your screen And two of these: (10-15)% chance to Suppress Spell Damage == Fourth Vow vs Loreweave == Both are great The Affliction mechanic tends to have a substantial amount of chaos damage, giving an edge to Fourth Vow in many cases. It also provides a bigger ES pool which helps ES sustain Some Pros/Cons of each: Fourth Vow + Xibaqua: Pros: Solid physical mitigation, gets to use any amulet, larger ES pool which is nice for spamming SRS if you have "minion life on minion death" on a medium cluster or mastery to sustain support minions Cons: Weaker to elemental damage over time, may require gear or purity swaps for some Uber bosses, rough on attributes (int and dex are both needed) Loreweave + Eternal Damnation + Militant Faith Pros: Great elemental damage over time mitigation, can easily jump between ubers without gear or purity swaps, can run -max resistance maps, unaffected by max resistance reductions such as Exarch grates, easier time managing attribute requirements Cons: Loses the amulet slot to run Eternal Damnation, lower physical mitigation, smaller ES pool may lead to sustain issues Fourth Vow is probably better for Mapping and Sanctum Loreweave is probably better for Bossing, since you don't need to run a Purity and it does much better against elemental DOTs. ES recovery is a bit tighter though == Molten Shell == Even though it's generally a good idea to maintain muscle memory for defensive cooldowns: The nature of minion builds is that the socket pressure is immense (especially this league), so this PoB doesn't include Molten Shell Champion's Adrenaline and Omen of Death Dancing means you shouldn't typically die unless you get 1-shot If you want to run manual Molten Shell, drop a gem somewhere to fit in manual cast molten shell, or maybe run a hungry loop setup == Sanctum == Socket Feeding Frenzy into AG/Spectre links if it's not already Take the "10% movement speed if you haven't been hit recently" mastery Take the "20% flesh offering effect" mastery instead of the "30% minion aoe mastery" Use a Movespeed flask and Castspeed suffix flask if possible, replace Jade flask for Silver flask for more Onslaught uptime ================================= ============= S.R.S. ============== ================================= == When can I swap to SRS? == If you have Diadem, March of the Legion, and Blessed Rebirth (medium cluster jewel), you can probably swap entering maps. If not, swap once you have them If you want to run Spectres or Animate Guardian, I'd highly recommend a Life from Death + Blessed Rebirth medium cluster to sustain their life == Melee Splash / Multistrike / Minion Speed (Gem Swaps) == I'd recommend always keeping Multistrike in your inventory or offhand to gem swap for tanky bosses or Sanctum Gem swapping is unnecessary during general mapping, however I prefer Minion Speed for mapping in place of Elemental Focus, worth trying if you feel your damage is good == How often should I press Smite / Vaal Smite? == Hitting an enemy with Smite gives your minions a lightning damage aura for roughly 5.8 to 7.8 seconds depending on your reservation mastery, along with applying Lightning exposure (as long as you have Avatar of Fire and Elemental Equilibrium) Always hit tanky rares and bosses with Smite, but otherwise it's not incredibly important while mapping unless you're undergeared or underleveled gems Press Vaal Smite whenever you want extra damage, but keep in mind the attack time is rather long I'd recommend pressing Vaal Haste directly before Vaal Smite, as it mitigates Vaal Smite's unusually long attack time (especially important in Sanctum) Wrath should always be active == Smite accuracy == Spend 2 passive points to get "Resolute Technique" until you can craft a "Hits Can't Be Evaded" Stabilizing Sceptre Additional Accuracy Support in March of the Legion is an option as well, though it usually only gives you ~80% chance to hit Only Smite can miss. Vaal Smite will always hit (even without Resolute Technique or Hits Can't be Evaded) == Minion Accuracy == Always check PoB for this. It mostly depends on the monster level, SRS gem level, and minion accuracy mods As a general rule, just run the "+250 minion accuracy" mastery until you get 1 or 2 accuracy rolls on Ghastly jewels "Minions have #% chance to Blind on Hit with Attacks" makes capping accuracy much easier, and provides a bit of defense as well Check accuracy often in PoB when you swap gear around in the endgame == March of the Legion Corruption Implicits == +1 to level of socketed gems +2 to level of socketed aura gems +2 to level of socketed aoe gems All of the above are very good +2 to level of socketed duration gems only affects Smite and not Wrath so it's mediocre but better than nothing == SRS Targeting == Mouseover targets while casting SRS and they'll only attack your mouseover target. Very useful on Uber Uber Elder, Searching Exarch, and Cortex == SRS of Enormity? == This gem seems kind of niche but could be strong in Sanctum as Cold SRS to instantly freeze everything. Doesn't need to run Unleash so gets an extra damage link Has a significantly slower cast time than base SRS ================================= ============= F.A.Q. ============== ================================= == Why Avatar of Fire and Elemental Equilibrium? == Avatar of Fire makes Smite do zero lightning damage which in turn gives our SRS minions lightning exposure via Elemental Equilibrium (minions don't inherit Avatar of Fire or Elemental Equilibrium) == What's with the Stabilizing Sceptre? == Saves a passive point == Why Champion? == Massive aura effect for Smite/Wrath/Determ, cheat death, perma Fortify, tons of Armour/Evasion 0 reserve Defiance Banner, can skip Grace, extra attack speed for Shield Charge / Smite / Vaal Smite == What about Poison? == Covered in the SRS Deep Dive: https://youtu.be/Tl8z5UPazeU == What about Guardian SRS? == Guardian is a very strong leaguestarter, but doesn't scale as well as Lightning lategame Guardian mechanics and PoB are also covered in SRS Deep Dive video: https://youtu.be/Tl8z5UPazeU == Which Reservation Mastery? == "50% increased duration of non-curse auras" is best typically, as it gives a lot of Divine Blessing QoL and makes your Smite Aura last longer == Can I play this build without Diadem? == It would probably not work out in your favor == Which Harvest weapon enchant? == Options: % area of effect for more aura radius % attack speed to help with Smite / Vaal Smite's attack time +weapon range for more reach with Smite == Should I use the 30% minion AoE mastery while mapping? == Yep, it scales your minion splash AoE == Should I drop defiance banner == Banner dropping on a Champion is quite good when you need regen in a pinch and there's no possible line of sight issues. Just remember to turn it back on afterwards if you do For example, dropping a 50-stack defiance banner in the middle of Maven's boss arena covers the entire circular arena and there are no possible line of sight obstacles causing you to lose the buff This also gives your minions life regen == Best Watcher's Eye? == Determ % Additional Physical Damage Reduction in HC, whatever you want in SC == Diadem: Stats or Resists+Chaos? == Dex+Int or Resist+Chaos == Are Grand Spectrums good? == Yep, use 1x endurance 2x maximum life if you want ================================= =========== CRAFTING ============ ================================= == Ghastly Jewels == Craft these using Harvest Reforge Lightning or Alt/Aug/Regal Best mods: Maximum Life Minions deal (15-20)% increased Damage if you've used a Minion Skill Recently (usually best damage mod, as we have a lot of flat lightning/fire from auras) Minions have (4-6)% increased Attack Speed, Minions have (4-6)% increased Cast Speed Minions deal # to # additional Lightning Damage Having at least one of either 220+ minion accuracy or a "minions blind on hit" mod are good, it often lets you drop the minion accuracy mastery lategame (always double check this in PoB) Try to get one jewel with 46%+ Shock Avoidance which will make you Shock immune inside of a well-rolled Darkness Enthroned and Thick Skin on the passive tree Minion Movement Speed is also a decent stat == Medium Cluster (Endgame) == Get an i68-i83 Medium Minion Life Cluster Jewel base We want Blessed Rebirth + Life from Death Two different methods work (along with expected costs) Alt/Aug/Regal = 624 alts, 325 augs, 57 regals, 56 scours, 56 transmutes Alch/Scour = 510 alchemy, 509 scour == Large Cluster (Endgame) == Warning: The base is expensive and crafting it is expensive Get a i84+ 12 Passive Minion Damage Cluster Alteration/Augment until you hit both "3% increased attack/cast speed" and "35% increased effect of passives" ---- takes around 2131 Alterations on average Imprint (Craicic Chimeral), Regal, Exalt, and cross your fingers If you hit a 3rd or 4th good mod, using a Fracturing Orb is an option to finish crafting it For early game clusters, use Harvest Reforge Caster until Call to the Slaughter and 2% increased minion attack cast speed or something equivalent == Stabilizing Sceptre == Covered in Lightning SRS video: https://youtu.be/tu0XeeBt6Ys?t=660 1. Get a Stabilizing Sceptre i83+ (for the possibility of T1 cast speed) 2. Spam Shrieking or Defeaning Essences of Fear on the sceptre until you hit any of: +1 all spell gems, +1 lightning, or +1 fire. This takes ~114 fear essences on average 3. Annul or prefix cannot be changed and scour to isolate ONLY the +1 mod and increased minion damage. Your sceptre should only have +1 and % minion damage on it, nothing else 4. Craft "Can have up to 3 crafted mods", Prefixes cannot be changed, and lastly a generic mana prefix to fill prefixes 5. Tier 4 Aisling, which gives us a veiled suffix 6. Remove crafts using bench, craft any one of the three "increased Damage per Endurance Charge" to block (all are in the same mod pool), then unveil 7. Try to unveil either cast speed or minion attack speed. Should be roughly 42% chance to unveil cast speed or minion attack speed. Could also maybe use the unveiled trigger mod but im not sure what the 4 second CD does to ES sustain 8. If the unveil fails, go back to step 3 9. Craft "Can have up to 3 crafted mods", "Hits Can't Be Evaded", and "Trigger a Socketed Spell when you Use a Skill" 10. Finished! == Minion Shield (Endgame) == - Prefixes - 1. Get a Fossilised Spirit Shield i84 or i85. If fractured, I'd generally recommend a Suffix fracture, since Prefixes are deterministic and it makes finishing Suffixes easier. If not fractured, you can Redeemer Orb a Suffix later 2. Spam Greed Essences (I'd recommend Shrieking usually) until T1, T2, T3, or T4 "% increased Minion Damage" (depends on budget). T1, T2 are both extremely rare 3. Get an open Prefix. The only Prefixes should be Life and % Minion Damage. Annul if needed 4. Craft "Prefixes Cannot Be Changed" to FILL UP SUFFIXES. Suffixes must be full for the next step. If you only have 1 natural suffix, you can craft a Prefix, Exalt, then craft Prefixes Cannot Be Changed. 5. Harvest Augment Fire for guaranteed +1 Fire. Import your shield into CraftOfExile's Emulator before doing this step to confirm everything is correct. Prefixes are done! Suffixes aren't rigid, there are many ways to finish it == Endgame Gloves == 1. Start with Suppression Fracture Gloves (10-14% Suppression depending on Budget) 2. Spam Shrieking or Deafening Essences of Fear 3. Stop on either 2 acceptable suffixes (craft Life to finish) ------- OR a decent Life roll + 1 decent suffix + 1 open suffix (Craft any Suffix to finish) == Rings == 1. Get an i84 Amethyst Ring 2. Scour it to normal 3. Quality it with 4x Prismatic Catalyst 4. Harvest "Reforge Chaos" until good Suffixes 5. Craft "Suffixes Cannot be Changed" 6. Use a Veiled Chaos Orb (1/12 chance to fill Prefixes, in which case you'd Annul) 7. Craft generic flat Mana to block 8. Unveil (75% chance to unveil Life) 9. Craft -mana 10. If there's an open Prefix: Redeemer Orb slam for a chance at "% increased Minion damage"