Sharing my 3.22 Off Meta Zombie Bombing Journey

TL;DR, just play a proper ignite build.

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For those that are interested, below are my journey of making/improving said build.

It all started with a +1 All and +2 Minion Bones of Ullr, and the minion life tattoo, sparked my interest to build a Aukuna's Will Zombie DD build, along with reviving Mon'tregul's Grasp

You may ask why DD? the thought process was wanting to build a balanced build with Proximity Shield Spectre and frenzy monkey, along with a good animate guardian.

As for ascendancy choice, i went with necro wanting to use bone offering to cap block/spell block.

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After whipping in PoB, i quickly went on to buy the core pieces, Shaper of Flames forbidden jewels and as well as minion life timeless jewel with supreme ostentation, +3 Zombie dragonfang yada yada, things are unsurprisingly cheap, don't think people are interested in playing such build.

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Quickly went into realization that the bone of ullr's boots movement speed just aint gonna cut it, and i move on hunting for other possible replacement, and a +1/+2 The Ghastly Theatre popped up.

Obviously the better choice would be a +1 All and +2 Minion Magna Eclipsis, but this is highly unlikely to be available, second best would be a +2 Minion Vix Lunaris or Invictus Solaris which was not available during time of purchase.

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Turns out that The Ghastly Theatre is actually a really good shield for the price it is, avoid bleed, physical aegis and blind enemies while not depleted all that jazz.

This allows me to swap to a proper boots for movement speed, resistance and action speed from searing exarch implicit, making the build much much smoother, and since i got avoid bleed from shield, i went ahead to craft said boots with a fractured essence mod cannot be poison for extra safety, as well as the capabilities to run chance to poison maps.

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And yet again same story, PoB doesn't always means everything, i learn that DD Zombie plays awfully bad, especially during mapping,

Compare to an actual minion build, self casting bone offering IS NOT the best playstyle if you actively needs to be fighting, it becomes a 3.5 button build, desecrate>bone offering, Summon zombie > DD

and you have to be careful not to summon more than 1 zombies at a time, as enemy DD will obliterate you and your minion in no time.

Other than that, when the tempo goes right, its bone offering on enemies corpses, Summon Zombie > DD, a few splody tattoo and fan the flame medium cluster was all it needed to map comfortably.

Or so i thought, DD ignite has more issues than i realize, if you encounter a stronger enemy, or stray mob, with a bunch of previous trash mobs corpses on the ground, you ARE IN FOR A TREAT! you will have to either spam DD until you get to your zombie, or keep spamming bone offering to clear the dance floor, neither felt good to map with.

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Told my self that DD ignite is one of the best HC starters, this cant be that bad right? rewatch videos on proper showcasing of DD ignite elementalist bossing, yep, the dps wont come online if your DD didn't hit the jackpot high lifepool spectre corpse.

Adding insult to injury, i lost my fully equipped AG (the usual Kingmaker/Mask of Stitched Demon/ bla bla) too, to the enemy DD that i feared most.

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At this point i was very well prepared to just dump the character, but guess what, the dying of AG turned out to be a blessing in disguise, Maw of Mischief came to the rescue.

I managed to free up gem slots by dumping AG/Spectre and meat shield, swapping and adding auras into body armor with enlighten 3, fitting in shield charge with faster attack and all that jazz.

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Oh Boy! i wished i have looked into Maw of Mischief right at the start before going on a minion life stacking ignite build, mapping is super smooth, it's just summon zombie and one tap dead wish, and voila, IT NEVER MISS, not like DD.

For tougher enemies like essence monster, i can pre-load summon skeletons and zombies, arcanist brand, unlock, flame dash away and channel, it's super safe.

As for bossing, actually not that great for channeling the highest 13 stack, most of the time the combo is 1 zombie and 8 skele, or rather 1 zombie and 4 skele, making a 5 stack Deadwish a average benchmark.

That said, build is exceptionally good at "sniping" bosses, you need to get yourself to a safespot, summon your "bombs" and start channeling, they get into "turbo" agro mode and chase down enemies even like half/one screen away.

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All in all, i was still happy that i learn something from this side project, there are high and lows.

For how cheap and effective this build is, this should be a great alternative from golem deadwish elementalist, you get to summon the zombies on demand.

In league start scenario, without shaper of flame forbidden jewels, just need to swap points/gears around to get 100% ignite chance and things should be good to go.

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Pardon that i don't have a video to showcase this, playing on a toaster on lowest settings.

https://pobb.in/BwSEKcZ9OxRB

My actual setup with 371k zombie life, faster casting support is on swap for mapping, replacing summon skeleton, this is for a smoother desecrate + bone offering.

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Swapping to a +2 Minion Helm with the exact same setup will boost minion life to 402k, can be a tad more with the minion life implicit.

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9 Stack dps coming from summoning 2x4 Skele + 1 Zombie

How a 5 stack dps looks like on fast moving monster