This guide is about an amazing minion build for those who enjoy having lots of projectiles running crazy on their screen in POE 3.23 Affliction League. I’m talking about the Mage Skeletons Guardian with the Templar class.
I’m sure you will remember that to transform our regular skeletons into major ones, you used to need a unique jewel called Dead Reckoning. That’s changed because of the new Transfigured Gems.
Now, we have the Summon Skeletons of Mages gem that naturally summon Mage Skeletons without the need of any mandatory unique item and for a much lower price. This means that Mage Skeletons became an even better starter than before.
Pros
The primary advantage of this build lies in its survivability.
With the Guardian ascendancy, you get almost 75% chance to block attacks and spells, a huge life regeneration, and a new Sentinel of Radiance that takes 20% of the damage for you.
All of that combined with the fact that this is a minion build that is very safe to play because you stay behind your minions and they can kill enemies from a big distance.
Also, with the new Elemental Relic, you and your minions get 3 damage auras totally for free, resulting in great boss damage.
Cons
To list the cons, I’d start saying that Mage Skeletons don’t move.
They feel more like a totem build. For that reason, you need to keep resummoning them while clearing maps.
The Guardian ascendancy also doesn’t get a speed buff from Flesh Offering like the Necromancer, so it’s a little slower.
Above all, when comparing to the Necromancer. This version also doesn’t get that awesome 30% to all Elemental Resistance for you and your minions. Failure to seek out minion resistance on your rare equipment could potentially result in your Zombies and Specters perishing due to elemental damage.
Budget
As for budget, this build is cheaper than ever. Therefore, this build is very friendly to players who do not have much POE Currency in the early stage.
You can get it to destroy early endgame maps with only around 50 Chaos Orbs.
To comfortably advance to yellow maps, I recommend investing around 120 Chaos Orbs.
And for easily completing your Atlas, I recommend investing around 4 Divine Orbs, but you can totally do it with less.
Clear Speed
For clear speed, I’ll give it 8 out of 10.
You have many skeletons firing many projectiles at a high cast speed rate.
I took 2 points out because the Mage Skeletons don’t move and you need to keep resummoning them and also because the Guardian does not get the Flesh Offering speed buff like the Necromancer.
Boss Damage
The boss damage is also amazing, deserves 9 out of 10.
With the new Returning Projectile support gem, 100% of projectiles will hit enemies twice.
But since it’s not as powerful as the nerfed Anomalous Faster Projectiles, I took 1 point out.
Survivability
For the survivability, I’ll give it 10 out of 10.
This build has a big load of defensive layers such as high armor, 75% chance to block attacks and spells, a minion that takes 20% of the damage for you.
And since it’s a minion build, you are far from danger all the time.