Minions - Pure Mages

This build scales Skeletal Mages to insane values to pump out damage while being fairly tanky thanks to Soulrift

1. Keep up Soulrift
2. Decrepify enemies
3. Keep up Fueled by Death buff and the Raise Skeleton buff
4. Cast Corpse Tendrils to group up enemies and gain damage

This build is designed to buff up your Skeletal Mages as much as possible so that they can deal massive amounts of damage through either the Ring of Mendeln or from your mages auto attacks. The new The Hand of Naz gloves are incredibly powerful both for pushing and speed farming. For harder content they add a load of damage as well as allowing us to run Aspect of Service and Sacrifice on our weapon. For speed farming they add a fantastic AOE effect to our Skeletal Mages attacks. Overall Mages are a very powerful build that comes online very easily and scales into a late game power house.

Attack Speed Requirement

It is extremely important that you get to 100% minion attack speed to fully scale the Cult Leader paragon node. To make sure you have enough attack speed, go into your character sheet and add your attack speed with the stat, "Minion Attack Speed". That numbers needs to be 100% or greater. If you need more attack speed you can always run the Aspect of Frenzied Dead or pop Elixir of Precision for extra attack speed.

Soul Rift

Traditionally minions builds have played Army of the Dead to get access to the Unyielding Commander's Aspect aspect but there's big issues with uptime on Army of the Dead due to its longer cooldown and the lack of Increased Duration temperings unlike Soulrift that has duration tempers. Soulrift ends up having much more consistent damage while also giving a massive amount of survivability.

Because minions are able to proc lucky hit, they are able to proc Abhorrent Decrepify for increased cooldown reduction. This allows us to easily get great uptime on Soulrift

Mage Damage

Mages are great for scaling the Ring of Mendeln because you get 7 of them constantly attacking. This allows for a steady stream of damage from the Ring of Mendeln. It is important to note that when using Ring of Mendeln, it does physical damage and does not gain damage from shadow damage bonuses.

Elixers and Incenses

With the abundance of herbs now in the game it is now very easy to grab some consumables to either shore up big weakness with your character or to massively increase your strengths. It is highly advisable you regularly keep Elixirs and Incenses running. Below are the best consumables to use for every situation.

Elixirs

If you need more of any specific resistance or armor, use those elixirs first. Once your armor capped and resistance capped, look to use the Elixir of Advantage for the extra attack speed if needed for Cult Leader. If you're having trouble staying alive and your armor capped and resistance capped, you can use the Elixir of Fortitude to gain a 20% hp multiplier. Finally, if you aren't 100% crit chance, you can use the Elixir of Precision for extra crit chance and crit damage.

Incenses

For incense you have a couple of options, depending on what your character needs.

Core Stat

• Sage's Whisper: Generally the best option as it gives the most amount of damage.
• Spiral Morning: Not a bad alternative, as the all stat gives some armor and also helps hit breakpoints in paragon tree. Only use if there's specific paragon nodes you're trying to reach.

Resistance

• Soothing Spices: Best all around option as it gives +10% all resistances and +2% max resistance to everything. Only use another option if needed to hit resistance caps.

Defensive

• Song of the Mountain: Great early game option for the +300 Armor
• Reddamine Buzz: Gives +750hp, best option if you are already armor capped.

Mercenary

In general Subo gives the most damage via high uptime on Cover Fire. However if you are low on resistances you can pick up Raheir for a smaller amount of damage but lots of all res. For our support we are always using Aldkin with Flame Surge as this will proc loads of Lucky Hits.

Leveling

Use this build for leveling and then rotate into Ring of Power Mages when you find your Ring of Mendeln.

FAQ

Why no Golem?

Minion builds are much stronger if you focus entirely on either buffing mages or buffing the golem. For a mage build, sacrificial the golem for the extra crit damage multiplier ends up being significantly more damage.

Why no Army of the Dead?

Army of the Dead is just a lot weaker than Supreme Soulrift and requires an aspect slot to do anything. It's better to go Soulrift for the extra damage and vulnerable application than to run Army of the Dead with Unyielding Commander's Aspect

Fastest Way to get Ring of Mendeln?

Farm Nightmare Dungeons to get Distilled Fear to summon Beast in Ice. Also spend all of your Obals on rings after reaching Torment 1.

1/12: Updated Pit Push for Patch 2.5.2

12/8 Updated For Season 11