BalorMage's Poison Summon Raging Spirits Necromancer Build Guide (PoE Settlers of Kalguur 3.25)

July 28th, 2024, 13:09

Introduction

One of the craziest minions builds that somehow keeps getting buffed when it’s meant to get nerfed we’ve seen over the past few years, and it’s my pleasure to bring you the guide in both video & written formats! The PoB covers everything from levelling to end-game with and without poison as it is expected to be somewhat expensive to go poison due to the popularity of this type of build in the game!

If you have any questions about the build you can always swing by my Twitch or YouTube channel for direct assistance or join the PoE Vault discord to get help there as well.

Below you can see the build-in action from the YouTube Guide. Do note that the video might get outdated in terms of information, and you should always look at this guide to make sure you have the updated version.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 level 8 and is very easy to gear it excels as a league starter build. To keep the budget as low as possible we will begin with not utilizing poison as currency will allow for that transition later.

+ Bosser – Minion builds are in a current state of bliss where bosses simply just melt with the damage output available.

+ 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

– Slight Ramp-Up Time – The build requires you to consistently re-summon your Raging Spirits to keep damage output going. The damage output comes from ramping up poison stacks on the enemy so your full damage output potential will take a few seconds to build up.

– 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. A higher budget version(s) of the build solves this by becoming incredibly tanky.

– Damage Halts – In the 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 army gets wiped, forcing you to re-summon your minions again. This is a rather rare situation in the end game.

Playstyle

Since the SRS are time-limited minions, it is crucial that we pick up increased duration nodes from the tree as well as our ascendancy nodes to make this build feel smooth, which is done very early in the leveling stage. The play-style is oriented around summoning your Raging Spirits, which will then proceed to fly towards the enemies and kill everything in their way. SRS minions are not able to be directly targeted by enemies but will soak any projectiles and take damage from AoE effects, which means that enemies will be targeting you or your utility minions rather than your actual damage source. This can make the build feel a bit squishy in higher-tier maps and you’ll have to adjust the way you position yourself to avoid dying when you do maps that have modifiers increasing the speed of enemies.

Damage Scaling And Defensive Layers

Damage scaling is mainly handled via the level of our main minion gem(s), which we achieve through our gear. Once we go poison the damage scaling is entirely coming from our gear.

Defensively, the build uses utility minions to help cover us on the lower budgets and later you’ll have over 200,000 eHP with proper gearing & the sky will be the limit if you want to push it further. 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 League Start & medium budget & MinMax Version have all been rolled into one PoB, which can be found here: https://pobb.in/ZtALU_fbxHf0 Make sure you check the different item-sets & skill-set in this PoB as it will help you navigate progressing the character from the start!

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 Ghazzy’s 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

Hybrid

Item Slot	Item Name	Rarity
Head	Life then Res/Attributes as needed +1-2 level of all minion skills	Rare
Amulet	The Jinxed Juju	Unique
Chest	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	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	Rare
Weapon	+1 to level of all spell (or minion) skill gems	Rare
Shield	Recover Life on block, spell damage block, Life or Aegis Aurora (but then you Take Mind Over Matter)	Unique/Rare

Poison

Item Slot	Item Name	Rarity
Head	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	Rare
Amulet	The Jinxed Juju	Unique
Chest	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	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	Rare
Weapon	Severed in Sleep untill you can afford: United in Dream	Rare/Unique
Shield	Recover Life on block, spell damage block, Life or Aegis Aurora (but then you Take Mind Over Matter)	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 best feeling when levelling through the campaign is to use the skill you’re supposed to use for the end-game content as well, this build provides this in a VERY effective manner! 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. For the 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:

If you have some extra links because you got lucky in Act 1, we can use the following setup but it’s dropped by Act 2 anyway so it’s just an extra optional link.

Do keep in mind that if you feel like you’re lacking single target damage vs any boss during the acts, you can always change your Melee Splash to a red damage support gem such as Added Fire Damage Support or Melee Physical Damage Support. Once you get a 4-link, I would go for the Melee Physical and later you can change the Splash for Multistrike Support instead, for single target.

The Aura decision comes in Act 2, which is when we enable Summon Skitterbots for optimal damage output. You can also pick up Clarity Clarity in Act 1 to help sustain your mana early on. In Act 3 we will bring in Anger Anger for more 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.

Poision SRS summoner leveling skills

The “LvLing Tree 90 points” will take you to the end game and around level 68 (after finishing the campaign) you can swap to the endgame tree in the PoB. Do keep in mind that going from the “Leveling Tree 90 points” to “End-game Tree” you will have to use some respec points.

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.

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, I’m very new to writing written guides. Ghazzy was nice enough to let me take over this guide now that I’ve joined POE Vault but it’s also my first time using the backend of this site at all! So, if you see any mistakes or have any suggestions feel free to reach out to me through Discord!

And remember, all guides no matter how good or bad, are just guides, if something in it doesn’t suit you, change it! Fun is more important than DPS.