GhazzyTV's Iron Mass Skeleton Necromancer Build Guide (PoE Crucible 3.21)
Due to the latest balancing changes, we do not recommend playing this build anymore, as it does not meet the high standards we apply to our guides in terms of fun and performance. We are leaving it up as a reference and it might be revived in a later patch.
Introduction
This build guide features one of the league-starting builds I’ll be using during 3.20 The Forbidden Sanctum league. It’s designed entirely around The Iron Mass unique sword which allows for some crazy cool interactions that you can check out in detail in this guide.
Seeing as this build is currently only available in a written theoretical form there will be a video posted later once I’m done testing it live on stream over at www.twitch.tv/GhazzyTV
Build Overview
In this section I will outline the pros, cons, & the general play-style. This will allow you to determine if the build is for you or not!
Pros
+ League Starter – For the low budget version of this build you only need the The Iron Mass. Since we are playing as a Necromancer you can easily level with Absolution and stay with that till you get yourself the sword.
+ Bosser – The build will have a much better time fighting bosses than it does clearing maps due to the nature of melee skeleton warriors.
+ Minion Play Style – Minion builds in Path of Exile offers a variety of unique play-styles, this specific build takes this to a whole new level!
Cons
– Minion Play Style – Since the play-style is so unique for this build it might not be for everyone.
– Clear-Speed – Since we are focusing on melee skeleton warriors the clear speed will be very limited in what we can achieve.
Playstyle
We summon our skeleton warriors that will then deal damage, to make sure they deal the highest possible damage we also have to hit enemies with our swords forcing us to use an attack consistently to make sure the damage stays high. Besides this we will be utilizing a variety of buffs to enhance not just our efficiency but also quality of life.
Damage Scaling And Defensive Layers
Damage scaling is mostly taken care of by itself with the chance to wither on hit with our swords from ourselves & from our skeletons, this will increase the chaos damage taken by the enemies. For the low budget version our skeletons will deal physical damage with some added extra chaos damage from the Unholy Might granted by the weapon itself. Besides this we are also making sure to poison enemies which benefits from the increase chaos damage taken by the enemies. Other cool mechanics we’ll be using to scale our damage is the addition of Rallying Cry which grants our minions even more damage based of the weapon we are wielding.
Defensively we’ll be aiming to have high block chance with life recovery on block combined with a good amount of armor & life to sustain even high tier red maps. This is of course besides the fact that our minions will help alleviate threat from enemies to tank for us.
PoB And Passive Skill Tree
All my guides use Path of Building. We have a simple guide for you that shows how to import my build into Path of Building, you can find the guide here
This PoB provides both the low & medium budget versions, make sure to change both the tree, skill section & the gear section to the appropriate budget that you’d like to look at for accurate information: https://pobb.in/Z87yBFn-bVlK
You can find more information on our dedicated page.
Gearing
A lot of the end-game gear can easily be crafted, to learn how to craft as well as learn how to craft specific items check out my crafting guides here.
You can read more details about our gearing recommendations on the dedicated page, but for now you can see a summarized version below.
Item Slot | Item Name | Rarity |
Head | Life then res/attributes as needed | Rare |
Amulet | Life then res/attributes as needed | Rare |
Chest | Tabula Rasa or Life then res/attributes as needed | Unique or Rare |
Gloves | Life then Res/Attributes as needed | Rare |
Boots | Life then Res/Attributes as needed | Rare |
Belt | Darkness Enthroned | Unique |
Rings | Life then Res/Attributes as needed + potentially minion related stats | Rare |
Weapon | The Iron Mass | Unique |
Shield | Life then res/attributes as needed | Rare |
Ascendancy, Bandits & Pantheon Recommendations
You can read about the recommended Ascendancy, Bandit choice, and Pantheon Power recommendations for this build on our dedicated page.
Leveling
The current meta of leveling through the Campaign Acts 1-10 is to simply never use minions. However, this guide is not designed to guide you to finish Kitava in 2 hours, It is a build guide. With that said the following suggestions for leveling makes sure you don’t have to use any Orb of Regret to play. Since we are unable to play with the The Iron Mass approach till we get our hands on one and then also require level 60, it is strongly recommended to level with Absolution as it doesn’t require you to change anything in your tree to save currency for respeccing.
Leveling this build with Herald of Purity alongside Absolution from lvl 16 & 12 respectively is entirely doable, and while not the fastest it will feel great to see your build scale up without having to respec from a levelling steup.
Before You Enable Minions
Before you are able to utilize minions for your leveling experience you will need to get to level 12 as that’s when Absolution truly kicks of and excels your speed. Prior to that you’ll run the following:
- Stormblast Mine for single target
- Freezing Pulse for clearing
- Frost Bomb for clearing when you get it instead of the Freezing Pulse
Once you reach level 12 you are able to pick up the Absolution skill and level with the ability all the way. Any links providing extra damage for the minions would be preferable early on:
- Absolution
- Minion Damage Support
- Added Cold Damage Support
- Added Fire Damage Support
- Added Lightning Damage Support
In Act 3 Library you’re able to pick up Physical to Lightning Support which enhances the damage significantly, auras doesn’t come in play till Act 3 either, at which point you’ll want to run Wrath & Zealotry depending on if you’ve taken the reduced mana reservation nodes or not. Mana will be sustained via a mana flask till you are able to pick up the Energy Shield leech node & Eldritch Battery.
Besides our main source of damage you can utilize Raise Zombie with Ruthless Support as well as Vitality early on in the acts to keep yourself & your minions alive better.
For more general leveling advice, we recommend the following guides.
- Our step-by-step leveling walkthrough, which allows even more experienced players to save time and speed through the leveling process.
- Our guide to Unique Items for leveling, which helps you gear up your characters for the leveling process.
- Our beginner leveling guide, which answers many of the questions new players might have and will set you on the right path.
Questions?
To guarantee that my guides are tools you can utilize to enhance your experience in Path of Exile, you may have questions. Please join the PoE Vault discord and they will attend to them as soon as possible.
Final Notes
As much as I love making build guides, it is very crucial in a game like Path of Exile that you play the game the way you enjoy playing it. With that said, if you’ve made any tweaks to the build compared to what I’m showing in this guide I would love if you’d posted it in my discord! It’s an effective way to show other approaches and it helps me grow as a build guide creator!
I hope you found the build guide useful and I wish you all many Divine Orb drops!