Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas brings a host of new changes, from new challenge league mechanics to endgame content to quality of life tweaks, all of which prove that the developers need to achieve a perfect victory with the return of the 3.26 expansion.
With so many updates, it is worth thinking about how we choose a brand new starter build for the new league. However, one change that the developers just announced may lead to a new trend in the popular build rankings in POE 3.26!
The developers said that in the 3.26 expansion, Animate Guardian equipment will not be lost upon death, which means that we no longer need to invest a lot of resources in minion defense. You can invest all your resources in minion damage without being punished. Therefore, we can expect a lot of Animate Guardian builds in the new league!
So, here we go, we’re going to cover how to get Chains of Command Animated Guardian Necromancer Build going with just a low POE currency budget!
How Does It Work?
Like we said, you can get this build going with just 50 Chaos Orbs, and then follow the upgrade process step by step to eventually become a powerful Blighted map farmer.
First, let’s cover how this build works. Our main skill is Animated Guardian, which is a minion skill, just like the mercenary, you can give it equipment and weapons. And its damage depends on the weapon you equip it with, which means that if your Guardian is equipped with a top-tier weapon, it can deal huge damage. So, don’t be stingy about investing in your partners, you only need to spend a little money to buy POE currency to get double the effect!
Next up is our core equipment, Chains of Command. This is a unique armor that automatically triggers an Animated weapon every time your Animated Guardian kills an enemy, and you can have up to 14 weapons.
There is a limitation though: you can’t have any non-animated minions, but all your animated minions will have a free Melee Splash skill.
Ascendancy Class
For Ascendancy class, we chose to use Necromancer.
For the skill node selection, let’s start with Commander of Darkness to increase the damage and elemental resistance of you and your minions. Then advance to Mindless Aggression to provide more damage and maximum life for your minions.
Then there is Unnatural Strength, which grants Unholy Might to your minions, which is very useful at the beginning of the league because all physical damage will be converted to chaos damage, which means you don’t have to care about elemental/physical reflections anymore. In addition, it also increases damage. When we apply Despair curse, it also comes with Wither.
Finally, we choose Bone Barrier, which is also our core node, which increases the defense of the minions. On top of that, the damage caused by your minions will be leeched in the form of life, which means we can still have life regeneration in the case of no regen map.
So, once we have Bone Barrier and Unholy Might, the entire map is full of Alch and Go, and we don’t even need to care about what mods to use on it.
Leveling Tips
Regarding how to level up in this build, since Chains of Command requires a character level of 73 to equip all the unique items we need, in the early stages of the campaign, we use Summon Raging Spirit for leveling up. It can be used in conjunction with Carrion Golem and Raise Spectre.
For Auras, we use Haste, Vitality, and Determination. In addition, we use Flame Dash to speed up movement and Flesh Offering to enhance DPS.
When you reach level 73 and have more than 50 Chaos Orbs, you can switch to Chains of Command.
Equipment
Regarding equipment selection, you need to prioritize minion damage and critical strike rate, as well as a craft bench that can increase minion attack speed.
You can make a Wand with Essences of Fear, and next is a minion shield that increases minion damage and critical strike rate. I recommend getting it directly from the market, it shouldn’t be too expensive.
Next is one of our core items, Ancient Skull. It reduces the life of the minion, but increases its movement speed. It also applies the maximum Power Charge you have to your minion. So the more maximum Power Charges you have, the more critical strike rate your minion gets.
Also, your minion can hear a Whisper for 5 seconds after dealing a critical hit, which is a buff that increases your minion’s attack speed and damage, while taking chaos damage continuously, which means we have to limit the chaos resistance of the minion.
Next, the core item of this build, Chains of Command. This armor only has 6 sockets, so there is no need to use 6-link, and the cost is very low. This means that at the beginning of the league, we can sell all Orb of Fusing to the market, which is a really good advantage.
For the gloves, we only need to focus on the life and resistance stats. Remember, you can use the craft bench to get chaos resistance.
For boots, we just need life, movement speed and the necessary status or resistance.
For amulets, we can use Hyrri’s Truth, which doesn’t apply to your minions, but gives you and your allies accuracy and critical strike chance.
For flasks, we’ll use Witchfire Brew, which will give us a free Despair Curse Aura for the duration of the effect. This is the only way we can apply curses while AFK, so this is very important. For the other flasks, just use some defensive flasks like armor and lightning resistance.
Passive Skill Tree
Finally, we have our passive skill tree. Honestly, this tree is pretty simple, and the skill nodes you need to focus on are as follows:
- Grave Intentions: This provides additional chaos resistance to minions. Since we’re using Ancient Skull, we need to increase the chaos resistance of our minions to overcome the chaos DoT damage.
- Indomitable Army: This gives our minions more physical mitigation and elemental resistances, and makes them immune to bleeding.
- Caster Mastery: Gives you a chance to open nearby chests when casting spells. This is especially useful for farming Blighted maps. Because there are many chests with rich rewards dropping in Blighted maps, and Caster Mastery allows you to open all of them at once, saving a lot of time.
- Enduring Bond: This can extend the duration of minions, otherwise your animated weapons won’t last too long.
- Gravepact: It can increase the hit value and accuracy of minions, and has a chance to make minions deal double damage.
- Devotion: Increases life and damage nodes, and improves mana reservation efficiency.
- Purity of Flesh: It can increase maximum health and maximum energy shield, as well as additional chaos resistance.
That’s all for this low-budget Chains of Command Animated Guardian Necromancer build. If you’re just trying to survive the early game of PoE 3.26 and focus on farming chests in Blighted map, then what are you waiting for? This is the best build for you! Looking forward to seeing you in-game!