GhazzyTV's Dark Pact Necromancer Gear, Jewels & Flasks (PoE Keepers of the Flame)

Summary

Cap your Elemental Resistances and get the attributes your gems require to make sure you can use them all. Most pieces should be Rare with Life and, of course, any lacking attributes/resistances. Modifiers which increase the level of your skeletons or Dark Pact are most favorable, along with those increasing minion life across the board.

My quick list recommended approach for this build would then be:

Item Slot	Item Name	Rarity
Head	Life then Res/Attributes as needed + level modifiers for minions preferred	Rare
Amulet	The Jinxed Juju	Unique
Chest	Life then Res/Attributes as needed (or a Tabula Rasa)	Rare
Gloves	Vaal Caress	Unique
Boots	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	Rare
Belt	Darkness Enthroned	Unique
Rings	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	Rare
Weapon	Rare with + level of minion and/or spell skills	Rare
Shield	High life, ES base preferably with level modifier for minions	Rare

Armour Pieces

Many of the slightly higher budget examples can either be purchased or crafted. When crafting, I would strongly suggest utilising Craft of Exile to determine the cheapest approach to crafting the desired items.

Since most items in this build are Rare, the main focus will be to have as much Life as possible and sort any attributes and resistances so we can reach the desired caps. However, there are some juicy choices one can take to increase the build’s efficiency, although they will come with a higher price tag.

Below you’ll find a simple priority list of modifiers for each item slot. Do keep in mind that if you have enough resistance and/or attributes to cover your character’s needs to reach 75% elemental resistance cap and enough attributes to use all the gear and gems you have equipped, you are simply not in need of more of that modifier.

Helmet

It is crucial to make sure you have Life Rolls on your gear and preferably on an energy shield base, as we are using both Life and Energy shield as our life pool. Any needed resistances and/or attributes will always be required where possible if you’re in need. Higher budget helmets will have much higher Energy shield and +2 minions, along with resistances.

The strong recommendation here is start by looking for a helmet with +1 level of all minion skill gems, decent life and if possible, any resistance/attributes is a bonus.

Modifier Priority List:

1. Level of all minion skill gems
2. Life (if you are making a +2 helmet, skip life, as we don’t want it later)
3. Energy Shield
3. Elemental Resistances and/or Attributes if needed
4. Chaos Resistance

Body Armour

For the lower budget, you’ll simply be looking for high Life with any Resistances and/or Attributes as needed. We can use Tabula Rasa or purchase a corrupted 6-Linked chest piece with the correct colours. I would strongly recommend the latter.

In higher budgets, we will craft a double-influenced chest with spell crit, power charge on hit and energy shield.

Gloves

For the low budget, we’ll be utilising the unique Vaal Caress to push the level of the skeletons as high as possible, while avoiding splurging on an Empower Support yet. We will grab one in higher budgets, at which point we discard these gloves.

In higher budgets, we move over to pure ES gloves with resistances.

Boots

Look for Movement Speed, high Life, attributes, and resistances as needed. For higher budget, you will want Elusive and Tailwind with Life and movement speed, which are modifiers available from the Redeemer and Hunter-influenced pools.

The cheap initial pair of boots you’ll be looking for will not be influenced and will have a very straightforward priority list of modifiers.

Modifier Priority List:

1. Movement speed (25%+ preferably)
2. Life
3. Elemental Resistances and/or Attributes if needed
4. Chaos Resistance

In higher budgets, we move into High ES value boots with resistance values and eldritch implicit for avoid shock. Exactly value will vary depending on your Ghastly eye with corresponding value.

Belt

We will be utilising Darkness Enthroned with Ghastly Eye Jewel providing Life, Energy Shield, and “#% minion damage when you’ve used a minion skill recently.” If they are out of price range, a rare that fixes your current problem is the solution. Often a Leather Belt.

In the higher budget, we simply get a better rolled version of the belt.

If you have to settle for a rare belt, make sure to follow the priority list.

Modifier Priority List:

1. Life
2. Elemental Resistances and/or Attributes if needed
3. Chaos Resistance

Accessories

Amulet

Similar to the other rare items we are looking for high Life with resistances and attributes as required. For end-game it’s very attractive to get a Hunter influenced amulet to get the modifier “#% of chaos damage leeched as life” which will significantly help the life sustain of the build. We are able to get the chaos damage leeched as life on our rings and also later when we upgrade our gloves from the unique in to a rare pair via eldritch influences.

Modifier Priority List:

1. Life
2. Attributes if needed
3. Chaos damage leeched as life (only if you don’t have this from any other source such as: Rings, Glove implicit (Eldritch influence on rare gloves), Glorious Vanity Timeless Jewel which are for the higher budget versions of the build
4. Elemental Resistances if needed
5. Critical Strike Multiplier
6. Chaos Resistance

The anoint you want is Retribution.

Rings

Both of the rings should simply feature high Life with resistances and/or attributes if needed. If you can make it work while squeezing in a Bone Ring, for yet another “Minions have #% increased maximum life” roll, do so.

Modifier Priority List:

1. Life
2. Elemental Resistances and/or Attributes if needed
4. Chaos Resistance
5. Minions have #% increased Maximum Life

In higher budgets we replace them with 2x Bone Ring with Energy shield, minion life and attributes as required.

Weapon

Increasing the level of our Skeletons as well as our Dark Pact skills is crucial for optimal damage output, so that will be our main focus. Other favourable stats to prioritise include spell damage, critical strike chance, critical strike multiplier, and, if possible, cast speed. Below is an example of a good wand:

Modifier Priority List:

1. Level of all (and/or Minion) skill gems
2. Spell damage (or minion damage, the spell damage modifier should in most cases be much cheaper to buy)
3. Open suffix slot to bench-craft “Trigger a socketed spell when you use a skill” (This craft is found by unveiling veiled items from the betrayal encounters)
4. Critical Strike Chance for spells
5. Cast Speed
6. Critical Strike Multiplier

Shield

Use a generic high Life shield on an Energy Shield base, preferably with “% critical strike chance increase for spells”.

Higher budgets get better values along with spell crit.

Modifier Priority List:

1. Life (energy shield for high budget)
2. Critical Strike chance for spells
3. Elemental Resistances if needed
4. Chance to block spell damage

Jewels

For jewel sockets, we are looking for increased Life as the main modifier and the second modifier should always be increased minion life. These modifiers are found together only on the Cobalt Jewel. Don’t overspend on these as we will be replacing all of them in higher budgets, just life and minion life, nothing fancy.

Modifier Priority List Low Budget jewels:

1. Life
2. Minion Life
3. Any critical strike multiplier modifier for spells and/or generic global critical strike multiplier

Modifier Priority List Medium Budget jewels:

1. #% increased Maximum Energy Shield
2. Minions have #% increased Maximum Life
3. #% increased critical strike multiplier

Ghastly Eyes

In Low Budget, we simply look for the following:
1. Maximum life
2. Minions have #% increased maximum life

In Higher Budgets, they become a bit more specific:
1. + maximum energy shield
2. Minions have #% increased maximum life
3. Chance to avoid being shocked, 40% is ideal here (only one of them needs this mod).
4. Minions have #% chance to taunt on hit with attacks. This acts as a pseudo-defensive layer, usually on the other belt jewel and ideally at 4%.

Clusters

We want a medium cluster of the “minions have #% increased life” variety, specifically with the notable “Blessed Rebirth”. This to keep skeletons alive longer. Don’t overspend on this, we discard it later.

We want a small cluster of the #% increased armour” variety and preferably only 2 points. The notable we’re looking for is called “Enduring Composure”. If you get any additional stat here, that is nice.

• Unholy Grace
• Unwaveringly Evil
• Dark Ideation

We want exactly this combination as it allows us to not take dark ideation, but still get both good notables and both jewel sockets for a low point cost.

Unique Jewels

Stormshroud

This is why our one shock avoid ghastly and the boot implicit mattered. This jewel allows us to take our modifier to avoid shock, and apply it to all elemental ailments. This makes up immune, similar to when we had Purity of Elements in the lower budget.

Watcher’s Eye

1. 8% increased physical mitigation while affected by determination, to help fix our physical max hit. We enable this through the turtle spectre giving us determination.
2. Gain # energy shield per enemy hit while affected by Discipline. This helps sustain our energy shield.

Glorious Vanity, Timeless Jewel

There are two modifiers in the PoB affected by this jewel, Ritual of Shadows and Automaton Studies. We do not care about the conqueror, as long as we get Ritual of Shadows.
Ideally we want both, but we need ritual of shadows so our DP can start applying wither instead of the skeletons. The timeless search in the PoB will generate a string that gets you the notable; if you don’t get Automaton Studies, it’s not that big of a deal. Ideally, ofc, you want both.

Flasks

Flask set-ups are almost always a matter of personal taste when it comes to what utility flasks to use. However, I will list the set-up I’ve been using for a smooth play experience. To find the available list of modifiers the flasks can have, check out these links: Utility Flasks, Life Flasks, Mana Flasks and lastly: Hybrid Flasks.

Slot	Flask	Description
1	“Seething” Divine Life Flask of “Sealing”, “Alleviation”, “Allaying” or “Assuaging”	Instant life flask that also removes bleed effects from you
2	“Seething” Divine Life Flask of “Sealing”, “Alleviation”, “Allaying” or “Assuaging”	Instant life flask that also removes bleed effects from you
3	Rumi's Concoction	This flask provides us with the remaining block % that we need to reach the cap
4	Quicksilver Flask	Generic movement speed increasing flask, the modifiers can literally be anything you feel like having here
5	Basalt Flask of “Abalone”, “Tortoise”, “Pangolin” or “Arbamdillo”	This flask is here to increase our armour

For higher budget versions, you drop the life flasks as you go CI. Diamond Flask and Sulphur Flasks are both good options.

For help crafting your non-Unique flasks, we recommend checking out our Flask Crafting Guide.

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