For a more detailed explanation of the build check out the video guide: Lich Queen Skeleton Summoner Build Guide Video
If you are new or uncertain how summoners work, how they are scaled or behave, check out this video guide: Generic Summoner Mechanic Guide
Soulwrest version can be found here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2239049/page/1#p15896938
If you have any questions you can always come to my twitch stream to get them answered or just to enjoy the stream: Ghazzy's Livestreaming Channel
Melee Skelly PoB:
Path of Building Link for the guide: https://pastebin.com/tkdRE95D
Simply go to 'Import/Export Build' > Click the 'Import from Pastebin' paste the link in there, and then click 'Import'
Mage Skelly PoB:
Path of Building Link for the guide: https://pastebin.com/hYb2hLSa
Simply go to 'Import/Export Build' > Click the 'Import from Pastebin' paste the link in there, and then click 'Import' (For this build please read the notes in the PoB)
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Is this build for you?
1. If you are looking for an actual skelly build that can be played properly as both melee or mage skellies!
2. A build that is not only viable in both hardcore & sofcore, but also Uber Atziri, Uber Izaro & Uber Elder viable!
3. Insanely high eHP with really good clearing speed that is neither SRS nor Zombie.
4. A build with a high budget version allowing you to literally deal with ALL content in the game.
5. If you prefer a build guide that has a video linked to it.
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Build Enabling Items:
Mage Skelly Approach:
The Baron is an insanely effective item for this build later on when you switch over to using Mage Skellies you are able to add Iron Will support gem. Not only is this a great item enabling IW for you, it also carries you well in to yellow tier maps with the links 'SRS - Minion DMG - Melee Splash - Melee Physical' as you are lvling the build!
Melee Skelly Approach:
The Baron is an insanely effective item for this build and unlike the mage skellies we don't use IW support gem. It also carries you well in to yellow tier maps with the links 'SRS - Minion DMG - Melee Splash - Melee Physical' as you are lvling the build! Though keep in mind that you still need to cap your resistances and the ammount of uniques utilized in the build can make this troublesome so my general preference on this approach is to simply not strength stack and only use The Baron for the sake of lvling and then get more rares and focus on either To Dust jewels and later switch to rare abyss jewels with flat life/%min dmg when you've used a min skill/minions taunt on hit which are extremely good! This also allows for an Elder helmet later to further push up the efficiency of your spectres.
A solution to their effectiveness is to use the keystone Necromantic Aegis together with Victario's Charity which also allows you to use any weapon of your preference, I would suggest Brightbeak for increased clear speed with the use of Leap Slam.
Note:
This solution is strongly recommended to be used in softcore, not hardcore as you lose a lot of possible eHP & resistances from removing your shield slot. To make this a possibility simply drop some life nodes and/or jewels to make room for the keystone.
We are not using any skilltree points nor any support gems that affects our cast speed of summoning skeletons, instead we are scaling this from our Ascendancy tree with: Mistress of Sacrifice.
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Defence & Utility
Large meatshield army & high HP pool together with the Fortify enabling Shield Charging makes you very fast & durable.
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Pantheon Choices:
Pantheon List
Major God:
- Soul of Lunaris
Basically just helps with avoiding some projectile damage
Minor God:
- Soul of Ryslatha
Basically just an additional layer of defence when you're on low life.
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Skill-gems & Setups:
Mage Skellies:
- Summon Skeletons, Minion Damage, Spell Echo, Greater Multiple Projectiles, Pierce, Iron Will
(If you don't have the Baron helmet, use Controlled Destruction instead of Iron Will)
Melee Skellies:
- Summon Skeletons, Minion Damage, Melee Splash, Melee Physical,Faster Attacks, Ruthless
Also note that if you hit 4R2B you can switch Faster Attacks for Multistrike!
Switch Melee Splash for Added Fire vs single target (or the next gem in order of efficiency if you don't have a 6L)
NOTE ABOUT VAAL SUMMON SKELETON:
It can absolutely be used to give you a significant damage increase to killing bosses, but has very little use outside of that aspect.
Note:
Unlike mages, you're gonna want to get as many skeletons as possible in your army to further push the efficiency of your dmg output!
Also, if you chose to run Melee you're gonna want to switch the Anger for Hatred and consider adding Grip of the Council.
-----------------------------
Golem & AG:
- Carrion Golem, Animate Guardian, Meat Shield, Minion Life
Animate Guardian Gear is very straight forward thanks to the Dyadus nerf in patch 3.3:
Solar Guard (Spectres):
Leer Cast
Dying Breath
Ambus Charge
Victario's Flight
Southbound
Tukohama Vanguard (Spectres):
- Raise Spectre, Minion Damage, Increased Burning Damage, Elemental Focus
Note:
For a Mage skelly approach you're gonna want to use: Tukohama's Vanguards found in act 6 and then resummonable in maps with Desecrate!
However, you could use Solar Guard as well which is generally recommended for the melee skelly approach, they can be found in these areas:
[58] The Battlefront
[59] The Solaris Temple Level 1
[59] The Solaris Temple Level 2
[60] Harbour Bridge
Solar Guards:
- Raise Spectre, Minion Damage, Spell Echo, Elemental Focus
Utility:
- Flesh Offering, Vaal Haste, Vaal Lightning Trap, Increased Duration
Utility:
- Convocation, Desecrate
Aura:
- Generosity, Anger
Mobility:
- Leap Slam, Faster Attacks, Fortify
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Skill-tree & Ascendancy Nodes:
Ascendancy Nodes:
You start with Mistress of Sacrifice, then you grab Mindless Agression to get to Unnatural Strength. Once these are done you can either go with Commander of Darkness, Essence Glutton or Bone Barrier. It's up to you!
Leveling skill-tree, 48 points
Leveling skill-tree, 84 points
Finished skill-tree
Notes:
Once the skill-tree is finished, just focus 100% on more jewel slots.
Mage skelly approach notes:
Switch from SRS to Skellies once you have a 5L and the Dead Reckoning Jewel, this also allows you to remove the +2 minion helmet as well as respeccing out of the duration cluster near the scion.
Melee skelly approach notes:
Switch whenever you feel comfortable with the playstyle.
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Leveling Tips:
Use Freezing Pulse till you hit lvl 8 where you get yourself Melee Splash, remember to pick up SRS after 'Breaking Some Eggs' quest in Mud Flats and if you lack Strength to use the Melee Splash gem, simply equip yourself with a Heavy Belt or any strength providing item.
Once you've reached lvl 20 you can equip a Brightbeak to use together with Faster Attacks linked to Leap Slam or Shield Charge to speed through the content.
Simply use any +1 or +2 minion gem helmet before you feel comfortable switching over to skelly summoner which I'd recommend doing when you get 5L or 6L setup for your skellies.
The Baron is an insanely effective item for this build later on when you switch over to using Mage Skellies you are able to add Iron Will support gem. Not only is this a great item enabling IW for you, it also carries you well in to yellow tier maps with the links 'SRS - Minion DMG - Melee Splash - Melee Physical' as you are lvling the build, AND it's equippable from lvl 26!
Bandits:
- Kill them all, they give nothing of proper value for you.
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Gearing & Stat Priorities
What base items to use:
The base items of this build really doesn't matter as we don't care about the base defensive stats such as armour(str), evasion(dex) or energy shield(int). So instead the base items will follow the stat priority listed in this guide.
However, the attribute requirement of the items will base how hard it is to chrome (color) which will be the only thing we will think about when planing our gearing.
So, if you need 4 blue sockets in an item the recommendation is to get an item that has Energy Shield (int) base or a hybrid base which includes Energy Shield (int).
By using this chrome calculating website: https://siveran.github.io/calc.html you can easily track how hard it will be to chrome the colors you need. This YouTube playlist can help a lot for new players and also includes a few tricks when coloring items with the 'wrong attribute requirements' for your build: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuu-MdPs0Af8A4e3gSsJ1xDKNNcdFwY1r
Defensive Stats:
1. Life
2. ES
3. Resistances
4. Dexterity
Offensive Stats:
1. Minion Damage
2. Minion Life
Jewels:
Mage Skelly approach:
Dead Reckoning
Rest of your jewel slots should be good rolled Brawn Jewels
Melee Skelly approach:
If strength stacking Baron:
Any jewel granting more strength usch as Brawn or if it's too expensive, get any jewel granting minion damage!
If not strength stacking:
Rare jewels with flat life/minions taunt on hit/%minion dmg when you've used a minion skill recently are top tier jewels for you.
Keep in mind that as a melee skelly approach you're gonna want to use 1x From Dust Jewel! You could squize in To Dust Jewels as well but it's a matter of taste of adding those vs adding strength providing jewels to scale the Baron further.
Flasks:
2x Seething Divine Life Flasks <w/e sufix>
1x Ample Eternal Life Flask of Staunching
1x Ample Granite Flask of Staunching
1x Ample Quicksilver Flask of Heat
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Recommended Unique Items:

Recommended LvLing Uniques:

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Outro:
This build thread is merely a rough guide to lead you in to the builds basics. If you wish to see more details about this beautiful build check out the video guide: Lich Queen Skeleton Summoner Build Guide Video
Before you start posting questions I would recommend checking the video. I am as always available in my stream!
Hope you guys will enjoy the build! Below you can access my other build guides:
Build Guides
//Ghazzy

Due to popular demand and me not being a full-time streamer I'm unable to go through all forum threads as I used to, however, I still respond to every question on my YouTube videos!
Build Guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1686036
https://www.youtube.com/GhazzyTV

Last bumped on Sep 12, 2019, 10:11:19 PM

Posted by
on Jul 22, 2016, 2:38:24 AM

* Reserved
NOTICE:
I've reached a point where I have too many build guides to keep up with responding personally on each comment as I've always done on my threads in the past. I will obviously continue doing this but on the youtube videos instead. I hope you guys will understand, sadly I'm not a fulltime streamer and for me to keep build guides like this posted this was an inevitable result!

Due to popular demand and me not being a full-time streamer I'm unable to go through all forum threads as I used to, however, I still respond to every question on my YouTube videos!
Build Guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1686036
https://www.youtube.com/GhazzyTV

Posted by
on Jul 22, 2016, 2:38:43 AM

Nice to see another summoner guide from you Ghazzy!

Posted by
on Jul 22, 2016, 3:11:44 AM

'

Nice to see another summoner guide from you Ghazzy!

Glad you like it bro! :D

Due to popular demand and me not being a full-time streamer I'm unable to go through all forum threads as I used to, however, I still respond to every question on my YouTube videos!
Build Guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1686036
https://www.youtube.com/GhazzyTV

Posted by
on Jul 22, 2016, 3:27:07 AM

I can concur that skeletons are really strong!. I tried them on my standard summoner this monday (with midnight bargain and prism guardian for that matter even, not even optimized for skeletons) and they do loads of dmg actually.

Ign: Leary_AscendedNecro
Twitchtv: leary93
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfzgUpVcv6wzrs5TwKZaGJQ

Posted by
on Jul 22, 2016, 1:58:01 PM

'

I can concur that skeletons are really strong!. I tried them on my standard summoner this monday (with midnight bargain and prism guardian for that matter even, not even optimized for skeletons) and they do loads of dmg actually.

About 90 DPS below Zombies, problem is their movement speed :)

Due to popular demand and me not being a full-time streamer I'm unable to go through all forum threads as I used to, however, I still respond to every question on my YouTube videos!
Build Guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1686036
https://www.youtube.com/GhazzyTV

Posted by
on Jul 22, 2016, 3:09:55 PM

and the fact that you have to cast them and their hp. the build up was always their issue.
the enchant / upgraded queens makes the build in terms of viability.
until those two things were made . it was simply faster to run around with zombies spectres or srs.
probably still is faster . but now skeletons are at a point where they are fast enough to no longer detract from their damage potential as they are a very snowbally kind of minion.
still going to do my zombie summoner in standard before this . but i do have a 100% queen's escape waiting to be linked.
it is curious as this build is almost opposite to it.
i have a suggestion / curiosity that maybe you can sandbox, ghazzy. have you tried running atziri with blood magic frenzy monkeys? i hear they spam the aoe while under blood magic and you clearly have more than enough minion to take advantage of it.

Last edited by Saltychipmunk on Jul 22, 2016, 4:31:13 PM

Posted by
Saltychipmunk
on Jul 22, 2016, 4:25:14 PM

'

and the fact that you have to cast them and their hp. the build up was always their issue.
the enchant / upgraded queens makes the build in terms of viability.
until those two things were made . it was simply faster to run around with zombies spectres or srs.
probably still is faster . but now skeletons are at a point where they are fast enough to no longer detract from their damage potential as they are a very snowbally kind of minion.
still going to do my zombie summoner in standard before this . but i do have a 100% queen's escape waiting to be linked.
it is curious as this build is almost opposite to it.
i have a suggestion / curiosity that maybe you can sandbox, ghazzy. have you tried running atziri with blood magic frenzy monkeys? i hear they spam the aoe while under blood magic and you clearly have more than enough minion to take advantage of it.

Aye indeed.
The enchant makes the build much smoother but it is viable before hand. Effeciency skyrockets with it though.
With Queen's I think zombies will still be better in general clearing now since you can approach it differently but skellies should still be stronger for boss kills.
If you're not focusing on Spectres (Soul Weaver) then the only spectres surviving in Atziri is generally the Undying Evangelists unless you strictly put a lot of focus on making them survive. I personally prefer the bubble boys for defensive purposes as we are socket starved we don't have room for CWDT setups or the luxoury of armour or other defensive stats in the same way most other builds do.

Due to popular demand and me not being a full-time streamer I'm unable to go through all forum threads as I used to, however, I still respond to every question on my YouTube videos!
Build Guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1686036
https://www.youtube.com/GhazzyTV

Posted by
on Jul 22, 2016, 10:20:09 PM

looks cool, how about dead reckoning unique jewel for skeleton mages? do you think it would be viable if we change the setup a little bit?

Last edited by mefitis16 on Jul 23, 2016, 9:40:02 PM

Posted by
mefitis16
on Jul 23, 2016, 9:38:22 PM

'

looks cool, how about dead reckoning unique jewel for skeleton mages? do you think it would be viable if we change the setup a little bit?

Seeing as we can't control which summons become mages and which does not unlike Animate Weapon where we are targeting a specific weapon type to become an ally.
With the enchant we are summoning 4 skeletons per click which means we need more than 1 reckoning either way it wont add up equally. The first 'X' ammount of skellies becomes mages, rest becomes physical damage dealers. If we hit the cap of our summons or if a skeleton dies due to hp dropping to 0 or duration it will screw up the entire process making us unreliably summon skeletons not knowing if the majority of that summon will be mages or not. So using 2 different link setups to unreliable use them is making 0 sence. The threshold jewel needs a rework for it to work.
Animate Weapon is completely different and makes it work due to the fact you are targeting a specific weapon type.

Due to popular demand and me not being a full-time streamer I'm unable to go through all forum threads as I used to, however, I still respond to every question on my YouTube videos!
Build Guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1686036
https://www.youtube.com/GhazzyTV

Posted by
on Jul 24, 2016, 1:20:43 PM