Zombiemancer Baron Raise Zombie Necromancer Summoner Gear, Jewels, and Flasks

TbXie

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Summary – TL;DR

Like expected, nothing matters more than capping your Elemental Resistance before anything else. This means modifiers on gear are subordinate to Resistances as long as we’re not capped. Commander of Darkness does help you achieve this more easily which makes it so you can find relevant modifiers on gear more easily.

We’re providing you with an extensive analysis further down the page but chose to start off with an overview / recommendation. As you’ll notice, a lot of the emphasis is on Strength or %Strength rolls as we’re looking to get as much of that as possible.

Our recommendation:

Item Slot Item Name
Head The Baron The Baron – Look for High Rolls across the board
Amulet Rare Warlord Citrine Amulet Citrine Amulet with High Strength & %Increased Strength – Annointed with Death Attunement
Chest Geofri's Sanctuary Geofri's Sanctuary
Gloves Shaper's Touch Shaper's Touch
Boots Alberon's Warpath Alberon's Warpath
Belt Rare Elder Heavy Belt Heavy Belt with High Strength and %Increased Attributes
Rings 2x Rare Two-Stone Ring (Cold / Lightning Resistances) Two-Stone Ring (Cold / Lightning Resistances) with High Resistances & Strength
Weapon Any Well Rolled Multimodded 2-Hander with Minion Damage and +1 to level of Socketed Gems (Ideally a Synthesized base)

For crafting Rare items, you can check out all the affixes that can roll on an item base, depending on its level, influence, and many other factors, using our affix tool.

Armour Pieces

Helmet

The Baron The Baron is what you’re stuck with. Since its “nerf” it does have a high variance on rolls. Look out for a good one, with the most important mods being the ones below:

  1. Minions have #% increased Maximum Life (19+)
  2. #% of Damage dealt by your Zombies is Leeched to you as life (1.9%+)

Body Armour

Geofri's Sanctuary Geofri's Sanctuary is the BiS Body Armour. On top of that its generally reasonably cheap. Make sure to look for decent rolls across the board!

  1. +# to maximum Energy Shield (at least 36)
  2. +#% to all Elemental Resistances (at least 16)
  3. +# to maximum Life (at least 65)
  4. #% increased Armour and Energy Shield

Gloves

Another unique slot, Shaper's Touch Shaper's Touch is used to scale and convert your Strength to Mana and Increased Energy Shield. Shaper’s Touch only rolls on “# increased Armour and Energy Shield” so it should be easy to pick up a very high roll.

Note: It’s possible to get corrupted Shaper’s Touches with “Curses enemies with level # Vulnerability on hit” which means you don’t have to run a Merveil’s Retainer and rely on a Spectre to apply Vulnerability. This is a very viable option!

Boots

The next item in our list is another set in stone Unique item. Alberon's Warpath Alberon's Warpath is irreplaceable because it can offer us up to 18% Increased Strength. Since it is a very common item, getting one with 18% Increased Strength shouldn’t be too hard, so we shouldn’t compromise here.

Belt

The first Rare item slot is found in your Belt. Before finding a really strong Heavy Belt Heavy Belt, you can always opt for a Cyclopean Coil Cyclopean Coil temporarily. You want to use a Heavy Belt Heavy Belt because of its implicit Strength. You want find one with the Elder influence mod #% Increased Attributes, really high Strength and potentially some Resistances and Life.

  1. #% Increased Attributes
  2. +# to Strength (at least 100)
  3. +# to maximum Life
  4. +% to Elemental Resistances

Accessories

Amulet

Astramentis Astramentis is a nice starter Amulet until you can afford a very well rolled Rare Citrine Amulet Citrine Amulet. You’re looking for a Warlord modifier “#% Increased Strength” as well as high Strength and some Life.

  1. #% Increased Strength
  2. +# to Strength (at least 60)
  3. +# to maximum life (at least 50)

Rings

We recommend Two-Stone Ring (Cold / Lightning Resistances) Two-Stone Ring (Cold / Lightning Resistances) because it makes capping Elemental Resistances easier. However, at very high levels of gear, when you can cap your Resistances without the extra Resistances on Two-Stone Ring (Cold / Lightning Resistances) Two-Stone Ring (Cold / Lightning Resistances) you can opt for an Unset Ring Unset Ring and one (or two) Vermillion Ring Vermillion Ring(s). We want to finish off capping our Resistances here as well as get more Strength and Life.

  1. +# to Strength (at least 40)
  2. +# to Elemental Resistances (enough to cap)
  3. +# to maximum life (at least 50)

Note: Do note that using Catalysts on your Belt, Rings and Amulet can scale up your Strength even higher. By using Intrinsic Catalyst Intrinsic Catalysts on those items you’re going to get a lot more bang for your buck!

Weapon

Ideally, ever since the changes to Imperial Maul Imperial Mauls we’d want to use one of those, as they craft 10% Strength implicitly. The modifiers on our weapon are more important than its base, though, so the Imperial Maul Imperial Maul is more of an ideal world type of thing. You’re looking for a weapon that has at least one open prefix & two open suffixes so you can craft “Can have up to 3 crafted modifiers”, as you really want to craft “+2 to Socketed Support gems” as it scales up your Empower Support Empower Support and therefore your Raise Zombie Raise Zombie. We mentioned that having more levels on your Raise Zombie Raise Zombie is more important than anything else and thus getting a “+1 to Socketed Skill Gems” on our weapon would be really nice too.

If you’re looking for an even higher end weapon, you can try to craft it using Essences. Use Deafening Essence of Fear Deafening Essence of Fear and try landing on +1 to Socketed Skill Gems & the Minion Damage roll by themselves. Generally though, if you’re not familiar with this process, you’re better off saving up currency to just outright buy one.

  1. Crafted +2 to Socketed Support Gems
  2. +1 to Socketed Skill Gems
  3. Minions Deal #% Increased Damage
  4. Crafted Minions have #% increased Attack Speed

Optimally, late game, look for these stats on a Synthesized base that has implicit %Strength, such as in the PoB.

Animate Guardian Gear

For an Animate Guardian Animate Guardian to be effective it needs to use specific items. Mainly, you’re focusing on keeping your Animate Guardian alive and using Kingmaker Kingmaker as the only buffs it provides.

For the Boot slot, you’re going to either use a pair of boots with a lot of various resistances and a “Regenerate 2% of Life per second if you were Hit Recently” enchantment. Otherwise, assuming you have appropriate gem levels and gear in other slots, Victario's Flight Victario's Flight can provide you with a decent chunk of movement speed, which is nice.

For its Helmet choice, ideally you want to use a Mask of the Stitched Demon Mask of the Stitched Demon. We’re using it mainly for its “1% Life Regen per 500 Energy Shield” roll which I will get to later. Should this item be unavailable, you’re going for any Rare Helmet that has the “Nearby Enemies take 9% Increased Physical Damage” modifier.

Next up is its Body Armour. This is where you get Energy Shield for your Animate Guardian Animate Guardian. Ideally you want a Redeemer Body Armour with the “Nearby Enemies are Blinded” prefix. Afterwards, you want to craft 10% of Maximum Life as Extra Maximum Energy Shield. This way, since your Animate Guardian Animate Guardian has 50,000 base life, it’ll get 5000 Energy Shield, which will then be removed yet converted into 10% Life Regeneration through Mask of the Stitched Demon Mask of the Stitched Demon. Should you be running a “-9 Physical Damage” Helmet, you want to keep the exact same Body Armour.

For Gloves, Southbound Southbound are essential as they provide your Animate Guardian Animate Guardian with a decent chunk of Life and Resistances.

As mentioned before, we recommend a Kingmaker Kingmaker as its weapon because it is incredibly strong. Giving your minions Fortify, Culling Strike, and Critical Strike Multiplier is just really really solid for one slot on your Animate Guardian Animate Guardian. Should it be too expensive to acquire somehow, you can always use Dying Breath Dying Breath as a temporary solution.

Our Animate Guardian recommendation:

Item Slot Item Name
Head Mask of the Stitched Demon Mask of the Stitched Demon
Boots Victario's Flight Victario's Flight
Chest Any Rare with “Nearby Enemies are Blinded” and crafted Maximum Life as Extra Maximum Energy Shield
Gloves Southbound Southbound
Weapon Kingmaker Kingmaker

Flasks

I believe flasks are highly preference-based. One isn’t just outright better than another one for specific / certain builds. Obviously, sometimes, there’s a set in stone set of Flasks you should be using just because they synergise with your build so well. This build has a couple of those irreplaceable Flasks.

For starters, you can’t go without a Rumi's Concoction Rumi's Concoction. Make sure you’re buying one with as high rolls as you can afford. Block gets a lot better the more you have so having as much as possible is really important.

Secondly, I feel like a Blood of the Karui Blood of the Karui is a really solid option for your Life Flask. Given you have such a tremendously high Life pool, instantly healing 600 HP through a Seething Divine Life Flask Divine Life Flask really doesn’t do much. A Blood of the Karui recovers almost half of your Life over a really short time and recovers all of your Life at the end of the flask effect.

For your utility flasks, my recommended setup will have a Quartz Flask Quartz Flask, a Jade Flask Jade Flask, and a Quicksilver Flask Quicksilver Flask, but this choice is more up to you. Other contenders would be a Granite Flask Granite Flask, a Basalt Flask Basalt Flask, a Amethyst Flask Amethyst Flask, or a Silver Flask Silver Flask.

Regardless of which utility Flasks you go for and whether you follow our recommendations or not, you’ll need to stick to the Suffixes we have picked for you (Staunching, Heat, Warding). The affixes on your non-unique Flasks can be changed around, but I recommend the following setup (based on the Flask duration, charges, and affix priorities):

Our recommendation:

Slot Flask
1 Rumi's Concoction Rumi's Concoction with 10% Spell Block
2 Blood of the Karui Blood of the Karui
3 Chemist’s Basalt Flask Basalt Flask of Warding
4 Experimenter’s Quartz Flask Quartz Flask of Heat
5 Chemist’s Quicksilver Flask Quicksilver Flask of Staunching

Be sure to check out our Flask Crafting Guide to learn everything you need to know about how to set up your non-Unique flasks.

Jewels

Efficient Training

Make sure to pick up an Efficient Training Efficient Training as soon as possible so you can convert the starting Intelligence nodes into extra Strength nodes. With the right amount of “%Increased Strength” or Attributes, an Efficient Training Efficient Training can gives us over 150 Strength for a single Jewel socket. Very well worth it! While a +24 Strength roll might be expensive early in a league, this definitely is an item that you can look to upgrade later on. Perhaps you can even look for one that has the “Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you” corruption to make the Sirius fight a lot easier.

Rare Jewels

You need one Ghastly Eye Jewel Ghastly Eye Jewel because they can roll the “Minions Leech #% of Damage as Life” modifier which is vital to keeping your Zombies alive unless you already have the Mastery that makes them leech. Additionally, you’re looking for Strength / Life or Utility.

  1. Minions Leech #% of Damage as Life (mandatory to keep Zombies alive)
  2. # to maximum Life or # to maximum Energy Shield (at least 35)
  3. # to Strength
  4. Minions have % chance to blind on hit with attacks
  5. Minions have % chance to taunt on hit with attacks
  6. Minions have % increased attack speed if you or your minions killed recently

For your other jewels, I recommend a regular jewel as it can roll both Strength and Strength and Dexterity. If you already have more than 1500 Strength, you’re probably better off finding more Utility by running a second Ghastly Eye Jewel Ghastly Eye Jewel. Try to find an #% increased maximum Life roll on them as well.

Main Page / TL;DR

Changelog

  • Updated for Ritual 3.13.

  • Checked for Heist 3.12 and updated accordingly.

  • Build is now maintained by TbXie and has received a significant rework and upgrade!

  • Revisited and updated the build for Harvest 3.11. It receives a buff via changes on the passive tree and the addition of a Two-hand with 10% increased Strength implicit.

  • Revisited and updated for Delirium 3.10. The build has been nerfed via changes to Raise Zombie, Summon Skeleton and The Baron. Damage has been toned down but the build still remains playable and strong for the endgame.

  • Revisited and updated for Blight 3.9. The build has been hit with a couple of nerfs but both Zombies & Skeletons are still able to carry very hard.

  • Updated passive skill trees for Blight 3.8. The build becomes even stronger and more fun to play due to changes in passive skill tree, gems and the ascendancy class.

  • Updated ascendancy recommendations for Blight 3.8. The build is stronger than ever before because of the changes to Necromancer, along with the buffs to summoner gems and passive nodes on the tree.

  • Updated Passive trees and Gem sections for Legion 3.7. The build received a slight buff.

  • Updated passive trees and recommended new passive tree pathing for Legion 3.7.

  • Improved Gem and Gearing sections.

  • Updated passive skill trees.

  • Revisited and updated for Synthesis 3.6.

  • Made the playstyle section more descriptive, and improved the gearing section by providing more detailed recommendations.

  • Reworked Gem Link and Gem Progression sections for improved visibility

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