Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer - Path of Exile 3.24

Minion builds in Path of Exile have gotten a lot of love in the 3.24 Necropolis League, especially with the introduction of the new Transfigured Gems. There is one Transfigured Gem that is used by a lot of Necromancers lately and that is the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones.

Although this is an attack skill, it does summon a few minions that fire projectiles upward, causing a bombardment a la Rain of Arrows. This skill gem can be used to great effect if you incorporate it with the Necromancer ascendancy class.

If you want to try something unique, particularly a build that uses minions, then read ahead! This is our comprehensive build guide for the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer in Patch 3.23!

Basics

The Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer is a minion build in Path of Exile that deals incredible amounts of damage thanks to the new Transfigured Gem that was added in the 3.23 Affliction League.

This new attack skill gem works similarly to the regular version, except for the fact that you summon clones that fire Rain of Arrows in your wake. Because of how Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones works on a fundamental level, you can quickly finish maps while also executing any monster you come across with ease!

Even though the skill itself is easy to use, there are plenty of mechanics at play here to make the build more effective. Chief among them is the spectres and Animate Guardian which provide you with meaningful buffs so long as they are active.

Thanks to the Necromancer ascendancy class, you are affected by the buffs given by the "Offering" skills as well.

If you have played minion builds in PoE before, you know that you typically bolster your defenses while you let the minions do the dirty work. Well, the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer takes defenses to a whole new level because this build is incredibly tanky!

A huge portion of the damage you take is mitigated by the combo of The Fourth Vow unique armor and the Divine Flesh keystone passive. In case you didn't know, Divine Flesh is granted by a specific Glorious Vanity Timeless Jewel. Do not worry, all of these things will be discussed in greater detail in the appropriate sections of the build guide.

In addition, the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer utilizes other layers of defense, including spell suppression, armor, and spectres.

Since this build requires some crafted items, you may want to bookmark our ultimate crafting guide to learn step-by-step instructions on how to create each one.

Now, you might be wondering how this build performs, especially after GGG removed the Wildwood Ascendancies in the Necropolis League. You see, this build used to rely on certain spectres, which you could summon by purchasing usable corpses from the Breaker of Oaths NPC.

Sadly, that NPC is no longer available in the game. The good news, however, is that you can summon new spectres to fight for you. What's more, these spectres are pretty awesome, making the build feel so much better to use than in the previous league.

That said, the spectres in question are the Wretched Defiler, Flame Creator, and Necrotic Bones. They deal incredible amounts of damage, making quick work of any enemy that they encounter.

So, where can you find them? To summon these spectres, all you have to do is go to any of the new Tier 17 maps, namely Ziggurat, Citadel, Abomination, Fortress, and Sanctuary. Once you're inside a T17 map, cast Desecrate, look for their corpses, and use Raise Spectre.

Playstyle

So, how is this build played? There are several usable corpses that you need to buy from the Breaker of Oaths NPC. These are:

So, how is this build played? Use Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones on any monster you encounter and let your minions do the dirty work.

For tough monsters and bosses, cast Blink Arrow to summon the clones and Haste (with Divine Blessing Support) for them to gain an increase in attack speed. Once the monster/boss can be attacked, use Arcanist Brand to apply curses that will weaken their defenses.

In the 3.24 Necropolis League iteration of the build, keep an eye on the Stone Golem of Safeguarding as this minion helps you survive longer on the battlefield.

Since you can no longer bind any instant skills on the left mouse button, you'll have to manually cast some of the spells you normally would place on that hotkey.

Ascendancy

The Necromancer is the quintessential ascendancy class to choose for minion builds in Path of Exile. This class has access to some amazing nodes that truly bring out the best in your minions.

Commander of Darkness grants you and your minions increased damage, increased attack/cast speed, as well as elemental resistances. This node, by itself, can help you breeze through the campaign!

Mindless Aggression is all about your minions. This notable ascendancy passive skill grants your minions increased movement speed, increased attack/cast speed, and a considerable 30% damage boost.

Bone Barrier helps you last longer on the battlefield by giving you the ability to use Bone Armour. When activated, Bone Armour applies a buff to you and your minions, which soaks up damage from enemy hits. On top of that, Bone Barrier not only increases your physical damage reduction, but also increases your life and energy shield recovery rate depending on the number of minions you have summoned at the time. Moreover, your minions gain 20% more life, thus making them incredibly hard to defeat.

Mistress of Sacrifice enables you to gain the bonuses provided by your "Offering" skills, though at only 50% effectiveness. That is ok since this node increases their duration by 40% anyway.

Gear

Remember that we are talking about the endgame version of the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer, which means that some of the items that will be highlighted here are a bit expensive. Do not worry, they are worth every PoE currency you spend in obtaining them!

Weapon

The Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones is an attack skill gem in Path of Exile that can only be used if you equip a bow. That said, the bow you are going to use on this build is a self-crafted Ivory Bow with the veiled modifier: "Attacks with This Weapon Penetrate 16% Elemental Resistances".

If you are wondering why Ivory Bow is utilized as the crafting base here as opposed to the Spine Bow, the answer is really simple; the latter has a higher DEX requirement. The Ivory Bow does deal slightly lower damage than its higher-level counterpart, but it has the same base attack speed and critical strike chance, making it the perfect choice!

So, how do you craft the endgame bow for this build? Well, the process of crafting it is lengthy. However, you can read the full instructions in our ultimate crafting guide.

Now, the crafted bow certainly needs enough investment to pull off. So, if you do not have the PoE currency yet, you could use the Doomfletch for the time being. This bow has a unique effect that converts all of the weapon's physical damage as extra damage of each element. Besides that, it has other good mods that can benefit the build, such as increased attack speed, increased mana regeneration rate, and added physical damage.

Quiver

To complement the bow, you will need to craft the quiver as well, preferably using an ilvl 86+ Broadhead Arrow Quiver as the base. This quiver contains some useful mods, including life, added lightning damage to attacks, damage with bow skills, crit chance, critical strike multiplier, and a chance to gain Frenzy Charge veiled modifier.

If the quiver sounds interesting, that's because it is! Luckily for you, we've got you covered! Head to our crafting guide and follow the steps to a tee.

Body Armor

The Fourth Vow is one of the reasons why this build is tanky. This thing has a unique effect where armor also applies to chaos damage taken from hits. What this means is that this body armor can mitigate incoming chaos damage from monster attacks, similar to how armor reduces the physical damage you take.

When looking at its other mods, you might be discouraged by the fact that physical damage taken while wearing this body armor bypasses your energy shield. However, this is actually a good thing as it improves your survivability by spreading the damage you take over multiple damage types.

To maximize the body armor, corrupt it with a Vaal Orb for a chance to obtain the "+2 to Level of Socketed Minion Gems" corrupted implicit modifier. Alternatively, you can purchase this armor with the exact mod from the trade website.

Helmet

The Devouring Diadem is an incredible helmet for the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer. It grants you Eldritch Battery, which is a keystone passive that forces your energy shield to protect your mana instead of life. But in doing so, you gain considerable amounts of "mana" to work with, giving you the freedom to use any of your skills without worrying about anything.

Eldritch Battery is actually a lifesaver to hedge yourself from the mana changes that GGG has implemented in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League. This keystone passive allows you to continue using your skills without worrying about mana.

This unique helmet also increases the mana reservation efficiency of the gems that are socketed into it. As to what gems you will put inside The Devouring Diadem, it will be explained later in the "Gems" section of the build guide.

Gloves

For the gloves, you are going to craft a pair using the Murder Mitts as the base. Since you need a bit of DEX to equip the bow and whatnot, you will use Deafening Essence of Sorrow to guarantee the said attribute.

Spam the gloves with the said essence until you get chaos resistance, elemental resistance, life, and spell suppression. Leave a prefix slot open so that you can bench-craft minion damage.

Alternatively, you can use the Deafening Essence of Fear (Minion Damage) if you already have your DEX attribute sorted out. The other modifiers should be the same; with the only difference being that you bench-craft life instead of minion damage.

In terms of the implicit modifiers, spam the Murder Mitts with Grand Eldritch Ichors for spell suppression and Grand Eldritch Embers for minion damage.

Boots

The boots actually have an implicit modifier that you need. But before that, refer to our ultimate crafting guide so that you will learn how to craft the Onslaught Boots. Use the Murder Boots as the crafting base.

Because Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones is considered a "travel" skill, you can gain great benefits by obtaining the implicit mod: "% Increased Cooldown Recovery Rate of Travel Skills". You can get this modifier by spamming the boots with Grand Eldritch Ichors.

How about the other implicit mod? Well, use Grand Eldritch Embers until you get Spirit Offering increased effect.

For best results, use a few Orbs of Conflict to attain the "perfect" tier for the travel skill CDR implicit mentioned above.

Amulet

The best amulet for this build is The Jinxed Juju. This thing increases your chances of survival by making your spectres take 10% damage from enemy hits before your HP gets reduced.

Ideally, you want to corrupt it with a Vaal Orb for a chance to obtain the implicit modifier that allows you to apply an additional curse. This is so that you can anoint the amulet with Inveterate (Golden Oil, 2x Black Oils) to help you cap your spell suppression.

However, if you do not have the corrupted implicit mod, you can anoint it with Whispers of Doom (3x Golden Oils) instead.

Rings

You will equip a couple of self-crafted rings for the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer. The first one is a Bone Ring with all of the minion mods that you need, as well as some life and energy shield. Full instructions on how to craft this thing can be found in, you guessed it, our ultimate crafting guide!

The other one is an Unset Ring with some chaos resistance, damage recouped as life, and a bench-crafted maximum power charge suffix. To craft this, get an ilvl 85+ Unset Ring and use Harvest Reforge Chaos from the Horticrafting Station.

Belt

Ghastly Eye abyss jewels provide a ton of value to the build. Hence, one viable belt you can wear is the Darkness Enthroned – a unique Stygian Vise that can increase the effect of socketed abyss jewels by up to 100%

If you have the budget, we highly recommend the Mageblood. This belt just resolves a lot of issues you may have with the build, such as elemental resistances, armor, and critical strike chance, among others.

Flasks

• Granite Flask
• Jade Flask
• Diamond Flask
• Quicksilver Flask
• Life Flask/Progenesis

Armor is an important defensive layer on this build, which is why you will use the Granite Flask to give you a considerable boost.

The Jade Flask is a complementary flask to give you a bit of evasion rating to dodge enemy hits.

Do not forget about the Diamond Flask! You want your minions to deal critical strikes to make quick work of the enemy. This flask just ensures that you and your minions have enough crit chance to make that happen.

The Quicksilver Flask just helps you move around the map as quickly as possible.

A Life Flask can go a long way. Whenever you receive a huge chunk of damage, just use a Life Flask to recover the HP you have lost in a jiffy.

If you have the PoE currency, you can replace the Life Flask with a Progenesis Flask for even better survivability. This flask is akin to Petrified Blood, where a portion of the damage you take is spread over several seconds instead of being applied in an instant.

Flask Mods

• 60% Increased Armor (of the Armadillo)
• 60% Increased Evasion Rating (of the Impala)
• 55% Increased Critical Strike Chance (of Incision)
• 14% Increased Movement Speed (of the Cheetah)
• Masochist/Flagellant (Prefix, only when you use Darkness Enthroned belt)
• Abecedarian/Alchemist/Dabbler (Prefix, only when you have the Mageblood)

Jewels

Some jewels are mandatory for the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer. The first one that you should get your hands on is a Glorious Vanity (Xibaqua). Inserting this Timeless Jewel on your passive tree transforms the nearest keystone passive into Divine Flesh, which synergizes really well with The Fourth Vow unique body armor.

How does it work with The Fourth Vow, you ask? Divine Flesh basically converts half of the elemental damage you take into chaos damage. If you can recall, the said body armor mitigates the chaos damage you receive thanks to its unique effect.

Another jewel that bolsters your defenses is The Green Nightmare. This provides you with a significant increase in spell suppression. Insert this into the jewel socket that is just slightly above Sentinel, which is a node that is situated in the middle portion of the passive tree.

The next jewels that will be mentioned are just complementary pieces, so get them only if you have the currency to do so. 

While a Watcher's Eye is not mandatory, you can obtain one with the following modifiers:

• % Increased Cooldown Recovery Rate of Movement Skills Used While Affected by Haste
• % of Physical Damage from Hits Taken as Fire Damage While Affected by Purity of Elements
• +% to Chaos Resistance While Affected by Purity of Elements
• + to Armour While Affected by Determination

A single 12-passive Large Cluster Jewel (Minion Damage) goes a long way for the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer. Use Harvest Reforge Speed until you get minion attack speed, attributes, armor, and a 35% increased effect. The last mod can only be acquired if your cluster jewel is ilvl 84 or above.

If you do not have access to a 12-passive Large Cluster Jewel, you can opt for an 8-passive version in the meantime. Use Harvest Reforge Critical until you get Vicious Bite, Renewal, and a third random passive skill. The last one does not matter; it just has to be in the middle of the first two so that you can save a couple of passive skill points in the process.

The rest of the jewel sockets should be populated with Ghastly Eye Jewels. Here are some of the modifiers you should look for:

• + to Maximum Life
• Minions Deal % Increased Damage if You've Used a Minion Skill Recently
• % of Damage Recouped as Mana
• Minions Have % Increased Attack Speed
• Minions Have % Increased Cast Speed
• Minions Regenerate Life per Second
• Minions Deal Additional Lightning Damage
• Minions Have % Chance to Blind on Hit with Attacks
• Minions Have +% to Chaos Resistance
• Minions Have % Chance to Taunt on Hit with Attacks

Now, with the removal of That Which Was Taken in the 3.24 Necropolis League, The Adorned has certainly become more appealing to use when it comes to improving the damage of your minions.

Get one that is as close to 150% increased effect of jewels as possible to make it count. Furthermore, grab as many Ghastly Eye Jewels as you can and spam them with Orb of Alteration until you get “Minions Deal Additional Lightning Damage” and “Minions Deal % Increased Damage if You’ve Used a Minion Skill Recently.”

Gems

There are two mandatory gem setups for the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer. Apart from these, you can swap some gems with the ones that you prefer using. Of course, you can just follow our recommendations if you just want something that works.

Weapon

• Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones
• Awakened Elemental Damage with Attacks
• Awakened Minion Damage Support
• Fresh Meat Support
• Volatility Support
• Increased Critical Damage Support

Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones is not only your primary attack skill on this build, but it serves as your travel skill as well. Every time you use it, you instantly teleport to a target location, leaving behind a clone that uses Rain of Arrows to kill your enemies.

You might be wondering why Awakened Elemental Damage with Attacks is included in this setup. The reason for its inclusion is that your minions primarily deal lightning damage, which is enhanced by the bow, quiver, and spectres.

Fresh Meat Support grants your minions a couple of useful buffs, namely Adrenaline and Wakened Fury. The former increases their attack damage, movement speed, and physical damage reduction. The latter boosts their crit chance and critical strike multiplier.

The rest of the support gems are mainly there to boost the damage of the clones even further.

Body Armor

• Raise Spectre
• Animate Guardian
• Meat Shield Support
• Feeding Frenzy Support
• Minion Life Support
• Empower Support (Lvl 4)

Raise Spectre is a crucial part of the build. With the usable corpses that you can purchase from the Breaker of Oaths NPC, you can use this spell skill gem to summon them.

You can summon up to four spectres at a time (three from the gem and one from the "Death Attunement" notable passive). As to what spectres you should get, we recommend that you raise the Flame Creator, Wretched Defiler, Necrotic Bones, and the Spectral Leader. The last one can also be acquired from T17 maps and its inclusion in your army is because it increases your other minion's action speed by a whopping 20%!

Animate Guardian is another mandatory gem because it allows you to summon an invisible minion from the weapon or armor that is on the ground. Having said that, here are the recommended items you can use Animate Guardian on:

• Garb of the Ephemeral

  • Prevents enemies from landing critical strikes

• Kingmaker

  • Grants 10 fortification for added defense
  • Enables you and your minions to instantly slay enemies that are below 10% life thanks to Culling Strike
  • Hefty 50% critical strike multiplier

• Dying Breath

  • Increases damage output
  • Enhances the effect of non-curse auras
  • Makes your curses even more potent

• Victario's Charity

  • Grants your minions a chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on hit
  • Grants your minions a chance to gain a Power Charge on kill

Meat Shield Support, Feeding Frenzy Support, and Minion Life Support are amazing because they can improve both the offense and defense of your spectres and animated guardian.

Empower Support just makes Raise Spectre and Animate Guardian better by increasing their gem levels by two.

Helmet

• Determination
• Purity of Elements
• Precision
• Defiance Banner

Determination and Defiance Banner heavily bolsters you and your allies' damage mitigation. Purity of Elements provides you with a significant boost to elemental resistances. Not only that but it also makes you immune to Freeze, Chill, Shock, and Ignite.

Precision is a great way to increase the critical strike chance and accuracy of your minions, making them more lethal.

These aura gems are inserted in the helmet mainly because you are using The Devouring Diadem, which has a 25% increased mana reservation efficiency of socketed gems.

Boots

• Spirit Offering
• Frostblink
• Divine Blessing Support
• Vaal Haste

While you can still use your active skills thanks to Eldritch Battery, you only have a small amount of mana left after reserving your main auras. As a result, you will not have enough mana to activate Haste via normal means. Fortunately, there is Divine Blessing Support to address that.

You see, Divine Blessing Support turns Haste into a temporary buff that you can use on a whim. Utilize this whenever you are facing tough monsters or bosses.

Spirit Offering allows you to boost your minion's offensive capabilities by increasing their crit chance and critical strike multiplier against enemies. You have to cast it manually, either by using Desecrate first or by casting it on the corpses of slain monsters.

Frostblink is your secondary travel skill that lets you escape tough situations immediately. However, it can do more than that. When you use Frostblink, it leaves behind a chilled ground that hampers enemy movement so long as they are within its area of effect.

Gloves

• Arcanist Brand
• Conductivity
• Spirit Offering
• Desecrate

Conductivity reduces the lightning resistance of affected enemies. Monsters that are hit by this curse can also be shocked after receiving damage from your clones.

Elemental Weakness further decreases the elemental resistances of enemies that are affected by the curse spell.

Desecrate lets you create a pool of corpses for your Spirit Offering. Additionally, if one of your spectres dies for some reason, you can use Desecrate along with Raise Spectre to have them resummoned.

Arcanist Brand enables you to attach a Brand on your foes that will apply all of the gems socketed into the gloves for you, one after another.

Take note that you must follow the exact order of gems mentioned above because Arcanist Brand activates them sequentially.

Ring

• Summon Stone Golem of Safeguarding

There is a reason why you should wear an Unset Ring if you are going to play the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer, and that is because you are starved for gem slots. Well, you actually need only one more, which is reserved for the Summon Stone Golem of Safeguarding.

This gem has been buffed in Patch 3.24 in that the stone golem now soaks up more melee damage that you receive from monster attacks. In other words, this minion grants you a buff that redirects 15% of the melee damage you take to its life instead of yours.

Tattoos

The Tattoos from a couple of leagues ago have returned in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League. This is a nice compensation, especially after the removal of the secondary ascendancy classes. Anyway, here are the Tattoos that we recommend for the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer:

• Tattoo of the Hinekora Warmonger

  • Minions Have 5% Increased Maximum Life

• Tattoo of the Hinekora Storyteller

  • +3% to Chaos Resistance

• Tattoo of the Hinekora Warrior

  • 3% Increased Maximum Energy Shield

• Tattoo of the Hinekora Deathwarden

  • 6% Reduced Effect of Curses on You

• Tattoo of the Rongokurai Warrior

  • 6% Increased Armour

• Tattoo of the Rongokurai Turtle

  • 5% Reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strikes

Passive Tree

POB

Main Setup

Final Thoughts

The Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer is still one of the best minion builds in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League. Even though the old spectres are gone with the removal of the Breaker of Oaths NPC, GGG has added a bunch of new ones that are much better damage-wise.

To complement your clones, you will summon an animated guardian and some spectres as well. You'll have to pay the Breaker of Oaths a visit so that you can purchase some powerful spectres to fight for you and provide some meaningful buffs.

It may take some time to get used to the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer because of the many mechanics at play. Besides that, you have to keep an eye on your spectres. Make sure that they are alive so that you can avail of their buffs and whatnot.

This build is very tanky and has enough firepower to take down even the hardest bosses in PoE.

The only real downside here is that this build has some mandatory items. For this reason, do not attempt this unless you can get all of the necessary pieces together.

If you are looking for an incredibly tanky minion build that is capable of handling any type of content in the game, then set your sights on the Blink Arrow of Bombarding Clones Necromancer!

With all of that said, good luck on your adventures in Wraeclast, Exile!

PROS

+Incredibly tanky

+Can take on even the hardest bosses in the game

+Excellent mapping potential

+Clones are quite devastating, especially when you have secured all of the necessary items

+Now even better in Patch 3.24

CONS

-This version of the build is quite expensive to put up

-Requires some items to work

-You have to press multiple buttons, which may not be ideal if you want a more relaxed build to play