[3.12] Necromantic Scribe - [Fun Playstyle] [6.5k Life] [5mil boss dps]

For earlier, I apologize for my English, I use a translator, I am from the RU forum. I wanted to ask a couple of questions. Could you sketch a tree to use new gems? What can be used instead of zombies \ skeletons (I do not like additional minions).
And as I understand it, in the new league, monsters beat with physical damage, how can you take less damage from them? Could blinding be used instead of GMP?

I think this build is the most fun I had for a while. You were right it was a little rough transitioning from leveling to poet's pen but then it exploded.

On another note, lone messenger was giving me 60 stacks of virulence yesterday but with todays patch it is back to 40. Was that a bug to start with? Or is it bugged now?

Most likely a bug that it increased virulence to 60 since that would be retardedly even more overpowered than what agony already is. There is one jewel passive skill that increases virulence by 5 and increases minion damage at the same time which most likely would benefit this build.

So im interested in getting a jewel for:
- Renewal (Minions have 10% chance to deal Double Damage while they are on Full Life)
- Pure Agony (+5 to Maximum Virulence, Minions deal 20% increased Damage while you are affected by a Herald)

And use Lone messenger with it, which I feel would be pretty damn strong overall.

What im wondering abit about is if:

- Disciples (You lose Virulence 30% slower, Minions deal 20% increased Damage while you are affected by a Herald)

Would even be worth it which I dont rly feel as long as we are pathfinder.

"

oWolkodaWo wrote:

For earlier, I apologize for my English, I use a translator, I am from the RU forum. I wanted to ask a couple of questions. Could you sketch a tree to use new gems? What can be used instead of zombies \ skeletons (I do not like additional minions).
And as I understand it, in the new league, monsters beat with physical damage, how can you take less damage from them? Could blinding be used instead of GMP?

That's fine, if I can understand what you're asking then some mistakes don't matter :)

Zombies are just added because we have the extra sockets and the feeding frenzy buff is nice. They can also help tank from you if you give them Meat Shield support. If you're feeling really lazy, link it to cwdt so you don't need to summon them manually.

If you don't want to use them, you could maybe fit in a shield charge setup with fortify. I didn't like this because I was actually getting myself killed more by shield charging into mobs to try and get fortify up. We use quite a lot of knockback and blind so staying at range is probably better.

You could use some vaal skills like Vaal grace in the extra sockets, or a cwdt setup like ball cwdt-ball lightning (or arc)-blind. Things like that.. you can get creative :)

We already do get blind from a number of places. The Silent Steps wheel on the skill tree gives 5% blind on hit, you can get blind on hit on an abyssal jewel, Flesh and Stone blinds nearby enemies, and also I believe stibnite flask's smoke cloud might count as a blind.
You could replace GMP with blind, but I didn't like doing this - you really feel the difference.

GMP on volley fire barrage adds projectiles in the middle cone (like normal barrage) and does not effect the side projectiles added by volley fire.
This means that you will get many more projectiles in the centre of where you are attacking. This means:

1. More knockback procs
2. More life gain on hit
3. Faster/higher/more sustained procs of virulence and poisons
4. Faster proc rate on your blind on hit

All of these may not be that essential on trash mobs when you are AoEing, but on single targets it makes a big difference.




For the skill tree with new cluster jewels, we are a bit stretched for points.

Ideally, we want to still travel over to get Acrobatics, but we need to go over to the templar minion wheel. Picking up all the life, etc. along the way, this doesn't leave a lot of extra points.

What I would do currently, is:

- Drop the three points to Barbarism

The following nodes and travel points are not required and can be removed as needed:

- Possibly 4 points to Swift Venom, though you need to make sure you have 100% poison from elsewhere (eg. jewels) and this also gives attack speed.
- Quickstep (2 points) - QoL movement/atk speed
- Scion jewel socket (3 points, currently gives resistances)
- Any other jewel socket (2 points)
- Silent Steps (3 points) - some dmg reduction and blind chance
- Exceptional Performance (can be supplemented by a cluster jewel with skill effect duration)
- Some life from scion area

Another option is removing all the points up to and including Whispers of Doom, and anointing it instead of Grave Intentions.
This saves 7 points, but it doesn't seem like a good idea because:
- Grave Intentions is a lot of damage if your herald is able to kill
- The int gained from the travel nodes is actually useful to hit our stat requirements
- The extra curse effect from the Whispers of Doom wheel is nice because of how many curses we are running


For cluster jewels, take the 3 point socket just above Resolute Technique.
Good options for cluster jewels:

Large jewel (Minion damage): Renewal, Feasting Fiends
Medium jewel (Minion damage with Herald, curse effect): Pure Agony, Disciples, Cult-Leader, Master of Fear, Evil Eye
Small jewel (Life): Feast of Flesh (life gain on hit)

I have been playing around with them in PoB. Because this build is so strange in terms of itemisation and stats, a lot of the notables are not that great for us. Also you need to take into account the amount of points you are spending to reach these "OP" nodes.

+5 Maximum virulence seems that it would add a lot of damage (although PoB doesn't allow up to 45 virulence yet, just compare the difference between 35 and 40).
The reduced virulence loss may not be necessary as we are pathfinder, but with the cap being raised, it might still help on messy boss fights to keep our herald at higher stacks for longer. I think it would be better to take this node than a flat damage increase like Cult-Leader.


Currently I think the best option is to run a Medium jewel (get one with minimum nodes added) directly in the socket, roll one with Pure Agony, Disciples and a socket. Put Calamitous Visions into the socket for Lone Messenger, then put the rest of your points into the Scion life wheel.

You could always drop some of the other nodes on the skill tree (see above) to fit more cluster jewel sockets, but you would have to compare these things yourself and decide if it's worth it.

"

ArrivingSomewhere wrote:

I think this build is the most fun I had for a while. You were right it was a little rough transitioning from leveling to poet's pen but then it exploded.

On another note, lone messenger was giving me 60 stacks of virulence yesterday but with todays patch it is back to 40. Was that a bug to start with? Or is it bugged now?

Great! I'm glad you're enjoying it.
That sounds bugged - it should definitely be 40 (or 45/50 if you are increasing it with Pure Agony)

"

Verissaugh wrote:

What im wondering abit about is if:

- Disciples (You lose Virulence 30% slower, Minions deal 20% increased Damage while you are affected by a Herald)

Would even be worth it which I dont rly feel as long as we are pathfinder.

See above discussion. I agree with you on most points - I'm not too sure about taking Renewal (10% chance for double damage). It looks really nice on paper, it's around 9% more damage. But if it takes 3 points to get to, that's 3% per point.

You can also only get it either on the minion damage large jewel, or on the minion life medium jewel.
It's hard to find points to fit a large jewel and most of the stats on them are just filler for us anyway. The really nice stuff is on the mediums and small (the keystone one), so a large jewel doesn't seem all that great.

If you take the minion life medium jewel, then you miss out on all the virulence stuff and minion life is a completely dead stat, so it seems like a waste as well.

The slower virulence may or may not be needed. I find that on a boss, often you can sit at 40 stacks just fine. But if you're increasing the cap with the cluster jewel, it may help. And every second not at max stacks is a moment you're doing less dps, so it's probably still a good notable to get.

Its a really interesting idea though, and I can honestly see that Renewal might not be worth it since its too many points for just 10% double dmg on it.

But I might give it a shot with the pure agony + disciples one just to see how it works in general, but buying one outright is abit expensive so need to farm more until then.

But what ive read aswell is that Aspect of the spider is not considered an Aura, so that should most likely be used instead of flesh and stone since that is an aura. Atleast if u use lone messenger.

Sidenote:

Unless you like the "summon zombie every 5 seconds in delirium" playstyle then yea, like Bobblybook said, use it with CWDT.

So I'm thinking of using this one, thoughts?

I personally do not feel the curse cluster jewel would be worth it for this build, but thats my opinion. Hard to explain why since I just feel buffing the agony minion just is better.

"

Verissaugh wrote:

I personally do not feel the curse cluster jewel would be worth it for this build, but thats my opinion. Hard to explain why since I just feel buffing the agony minion just is better.

I don't either. Although I like the nodes, and 10% more spell dmg (for clearing) and intimidate for bosses is really nice, I don't think it's worth the amount of points it takes.

Also, increased damage taken by enemy does not stack well with itself (eg. Wither totem). A single debuff of this nature is effectively a more multiplier, but stacking them provide deminishing returns, so it isn't as good as it would be on some other builds (provides less than 10% more damage in our case).

"Unspeakable Gifts" is nice for clearing. Does anyone know if it stacks with "Explosive Force" combined with "Wish for Death" (Culling Strike on cursed targets)?

So putting Plague Bearer into this build feels really good, helps with those tight maps where you're convoking the crawler around. Apparently there's some bug where Delirium mobs don't get damage reduction vs the skill so it's very useful and just 1 gem slot.