GhazzyTV's Zoomancer Necromancer Build Guide (PoE Crucible 3.21)

May 29th, 2023, 16:24

Introduction

This is the closest to that Diablo 2 Necromancer minion playstyle you can get in Path of Exile. The build is not the fastest nor the best for clearing maps, instead this build provides an incredibly comfortable league-start experience combined with a very enjoyable playstyle. You will be able to reach well over 70 minions on the screen making enemies unlikely to ever attack you & still pack a ton of defensive layers. Best use the Zoomancer is to league-start & clear red tier maps as well as end-game pinnacle bosses, if you’d like you can invest a lot more currency to it and make it burn uber end-game bosses as well but this will require a lot of currency.

Below you can see the build guide from the YouTube Guide. Do note that the video might be outdated in terms of information, and you should always look at this guide to make sure you have the updated version. The video showcases the gameplay of the build so make sure you give it a look!

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 – Since the build can be used as early as from level 8 and is very easy to gear it excels as a league starter build. There are early & cheap available levelling unique options that carry the build well in to end-game content.

+ Bosser – Despite not being the best at killing bosses the build handles initial end-game pinnacle bosses with ease.

+ Unique Play Style – Unlike most summoner builds, this provides you with a different way of playing the game and in my opinion is more than welcome in order to avoid doing the same thing every league.

Cons

– Visual Clarity – When you bring 70+ minions to the screen, visual clarity is not something you should expect!

– Minion Build – Since your minions are doing the heavy lifting, defensive layers, such as leeching, are not possible in this build; this means you don’t want to be having any kissing sessions with packs of enemies or bosses. Higher budget version(s) of the build solves this by becoming incredibly tanky.

– Damage Halts – In super low budget, you might encounter bosses with heavy AoE damage, and if the map modifiers are nasty there’s a risk that your entire skeleton army gets wiped, forcing you to re-summon your skeletons again. This is a rather rare situation in the end-game. For higher tier maps you will encounter the problem of Skeletons dying, when this happens you’ll want to look into moving in to the medium budget PoB, most notably this means running a Medium Cluster Jewel with the notable “Blessed Rebirth”, this can easily be rolled using Orb of Alteration on an item level 68 or higher Medium Cluster Jewel with minion life. Here’s a link for how to search for this jewel to make it easier for you once your skeletons start dying: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Crucible/Gl3OGw8ib

Playstyle

The build uses Zombies, Spectres, Golems & Skeletons as the main sources of damage output. In the low budget version we’ll use the Alberon's Warpath which makes our skeletons permanent minions. The playstyle is rather straight forward; you’re a walking, talking minion overlord commanding an actual army, like, literally an army. To keep the low budget cheap there are very few sources of recovery so hugging enemies is not the play, instead you’ll want to keep distance to your enemies and let your army demolish everything in your way. You’ll be manually casting a curse & supply Bone Offering for further defensive scaling yourself.

Damage Scaling And Defensive Layers

Damage scaling is mainly handled via the sheer quantity of minions & level of our minion gems, which we achieve through our gear.

Defensively, the build uses so many minions that you should very rarely be the target of enemies as long as you’re not standing next to them. It works alright in Hardcore as well as in Softcore.

PoB, Passive Skill Tree And Gem Links

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

The PoB can be found here: https://pobb.in/Hogye-vVHzI5
For the medium budget you will have to disable the * in front of AGs modifier to enable them for calculations.

HelmBreaker, a member of our community has provided us with a high budget version here: https://pobb.in/jtkEUFye7yKP

You can find more information about the passive skill tree, as well as about the build’s gem links on our dedicated page.

PoB, Passive Skill Tree, and Gem Link 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.

Gear, Jewel & Flask Page

Item Slot	Item Name	Rarity
Head	Life then Res/Attributes as needed, also include +1-2 lvl of all minion skills	Rare
Amulet	Life, resistances but most importantly attributes	Rare
Chest	Skin of the Loyal or a Tabula Rasa	Unique
Gloves	4-green socket Triad Grip	Unique
Boots	Bones of Ullr	Unique
Belt	Darkness Enthroned	Unique
Rings	1x The Hungry Loop Only in medium budget	Unique
Rings	1x Bone Ring and 1x Life then Res/Attributes on them as needed	Rare
Weapon	Bitterdream	Unique
Shield	Recover life on block, spell damage block, Life or The Surrender cheaper option could be a Daresso's Courage	Unique/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.

Ascendancy, Bandit & Pantheon Power Page

Leveling

The PoB covers most of this in detail, below you’ll find a TLDR of how to get started early on.

Before You Enable Minions

Before you are able to utilize minions for your leveling experience, you will need to make sure they function for actual clearing: this means giving them tools to use for hitting multiple targets. You are able to level with minions as early as level 8, as that’s the restriction before you can get Melee Splash Support. The skills listed below are the ones I prefer to use until I hit level 8:

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 8 you are able to purchase Melee Splash Support which costs 1 t Orb of Transmutation. This can then be combined with Summon Raging Spirit. First couple of acts you can use Infernal Legion Support instead of the Melee Splash, this is provided by the Tidal Island quest and will require 3 Blue sockets. The links are very straightforward:

Do keep in mind that you can continue using any skill you feel is comfortable up to level 12 and switch to Absolution which we’ll be using throughout the entire leveling of the campaign. Links for that would be:

The Aura decision comes in Act 2, which is when we enable Summon Skitterbots for optimal damage output.

For the remaining acts please follow the skills recommended in the PoB, as it has a detailed explanation of all the skills you can use per act of the campaign.

If you’re able to get yourself 1 or even 2 Bitterdream you can start using Zombies, Spectres & Golems in those weapons as you’re levelling for an absolutely insane levelling experience!

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!