Summon Lightning Golem Build - PoE 3.25

Do you like to play a powerful minion build in Path of Exile? If so, can we interest you in a build that utilizes one of the new Transfigured Gems in Patch 3.23?

The Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer is a great minion build that utilizes some mechanics to make it shine. As you can tell by the name, this character uses the transfigured version of Summon Lightning Golem, which is actually better than its base counterpart.

So, if you are interested in creating this character for yourself, then go ahead and study this article well. This is our comprehensive build guide for the Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer!

Basics

This build makes great use of the new Transfigured Gem, Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes. This skill does not grant an attack/cast speed buff unlike the original. However, it allows you to summon three golems instead of one.

The Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer also makes use of three different "Offering" spells to take this build to a whole new level. These are the Flesh Offering, Bone Offering, and Spirit Offering.

In order for you to take advantage of these Offerings, you will use the Leash of Oblation unique belt so that you can have an Offering of each type activated at any time. These will be socketed into a self-crafted wand that has the mod, "Trigger a Socketed Spell on Using a Skill..." to automate their activation.

Speaking of which, you will bind the Convocation spell on the left mouse button so that the Offerings are summoned without you having to think about them. Thanks to this loop, your minions will deal incredible amounts of damage so long as everything is in place.

To provide you with corpses for the Offering spells immediately when you enter a map, you are going to equip the Corpsewalker. You simply walk a bit and usable corpses will spawn in your wake.

Curses provide a ton of value in Path of Exile, which is why you will use Vixen's Entrapment unique gloves in this build. Thanks to this pair of gloves, you can have Assassin's Mark and another curse spell cast on monsters, enabling your minions to dispose of them quickly.

Playstyle

The Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer requires some setup in order for your minions to deal the maximum amount of damage possible.

When you enter a new area or map, you walk around a bit to activate the "Offerings Loop" to provide your minions a huge boost in damage, movement speed, attack speed, crit chance, and critical strike damage.

Walk around the map until you find a pack of monsters. Once you encounter a huge mob, cast your preferred curse spell, and then let your minions do the attacking for you. Focus on surviving while they decimate any monster that is within their vicinity.

Ascendancy

Even though some golem builds in PoE require you to use the Elementalist, this build, in particular, goes for the Necromancer instead.

The first notable ascendancy passive you should take is Commander of Darkness. This grants a huge boost to damage and elemental resistances for you and your minions, allowing you to breeze through Path of Exile's campaign without dying too often.

Next, you go for Plaguebringer. This notable ascendancy passive not only increases the damage of your minions, but also weakens enemies, causing them to deal slightly less damage if there is at least one corpse nearby. Since you will be using spectres on this build, the 30% increased area of effect provided by this node is quite useful as well.

By the time you finish the third labyrinth, you will most likely be able to get your hands on the self-crafted wand, or at least, the budget version of it. For this reason, you should allocate points to get Mistress of Sacrifice. What this does is it allows you to gain the effects of the Offering spells mentioned earlier in the build guide, though at only 50% effectiveness. Do not worry, they should be enough to help you last longer on the battlefield.

Speaking of survival, the last notable ascendancy passive for this build is Essence Glutton. This essentially lets you and your minions recover a ton of mana and energy shield, so you don't have to worry about these when mapping or bossing in Path of Exile.

The third and fourth notable ascendancy passives mentioned above are interchangeable, particularly when you still do not have the self-crafted trigger wand equipped.

You are still not done yet! When you have enough PoE currency, you must purchase Forbidden Flame and Forbidden Flesh jewels from the trade website that have the "Elemancer" as the matching modifier. This Elementalist-only notable ascendancy passive allows you to summon one more Lightning Golem. But more importantly, this makes your golems immune to elemental damage, which is quite huge no matter where you are in your Path of Exile journey.

Gear

Apart from a few self-crafted pieces of gear, most of the items you will be using for the Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer are unique, which alleviates the need to delve into the world of crafting in Path of Exile. Do not worry, if you decide to craft some of the items yourself, we have the ultimate crafting guide to help you.

Weapon

The main weapon for this build is a self-crafted Convoking Wand that has the mod, "Trigger a Socketed Spell on Using a Skill..." The budget version of this wand has the aforementioned modifier added via the Crafting Bench.

To craft the budget version of the weapon, you simply spam the Convoking Wand with Bound Fossils and leave a suffix slot open to bench craft the trigger mod.

The problem with the budget version, however, is that the trigger mod has a relatively long cooldown of eight seconds. If you want near-permanent uptime of your Offering spells, then you'd have to craft a better wand.

To do that, get an ilvl 84+ Convoking Wand with "+1 to Level of All Minion Skill Gems" already fractured. This is to make the entire process a lot easier. Once you have your hands on the weapon, use Bound Fossils until you get minion attack/cast speed, minion crit chance, and minion damage.

Make sure that you have one prefix and one suffix slot open. You might have to use an Orb of Annulment to achieve this. Then, lock the suffixes by adding the metamod from the Crafting Bench and put an Aisling veiled mod, hoping that the minion damage prefix is not replaced when doing so. After that's done, go to Jun and unveil. Be sure to get the trigger mod when it pops up. If you still have an open prefix, just fill it up using an Exalted Orb.

Offhand

As is typical with most minion builds in PoE, you must do your best to survive while your minions do all of the dirty work. That said, one of the ways you can bolster your defenses is by equipping a good shield, which is why you are going for the Aegis Aurora.

Now, the Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer is pretty tight on the gems you can use, meaning, there is no room for flexibility. Hence, you should obtain an Aegis Aurora that has the corrupted implicit modifier, "Grants Level 23 Discipline Skill" to save a gem slot for other defensive skills.

Body Armor

The Fleshcrafter provides a ton of value for this build. Its unique effect, where your minion's attacks ignore monster elemental resistances when they have some energy shield, is pretty insane for both map clear and boss fights.

This body armor also improves your minion's defenses by making sure that the chaos damage they take does not bypass their energy shield.

When you are shopping for the Fleshcrafter on the trade website, get your hands on one that has the "+2 to Level of Socketed Minion Gems" corrupted implicit mod.

Helmet

You need a considerable amount of increased mana reservation efficiency for the Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer. The helmet is one of the pieces of gear that can provide you with that modifier; both implicit and explicit.

Having said that, you can craft a good minion helmet by spamming Deafening Essence of Loathing on an ilvl 84+ Bone Helmet. It is ideal to get one that has the "+2 to Level of All Minion Skill Gems" already fractured.

At this point, you are probably wondering why you should get modifiers that increase the level of all minion skill gems wherever possible. The reason is simple: minion gems in PoE are spell skill gems, meaning, they get a ton of value the higher their gem levels are.

Anyway, use Deafening Essence of Loathing until you get some elemental resistances, life, and attributes (if you need more STR or INT). Leave a prefix open so that you can put "+1 to Level of Socketed AoE Gems" from the Crafting Bench.

For the implicit modifiers, spam the Bone Helmet with Grand Eldritch Ichors until you obtain "9% Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills" and Grand Eldritch Embers for "12% of Physical Damage Taken Recouped as Life".

Gloves

There is only one pair of gloves you should use for the Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer and that is Vixen's Entrapment. These unique Embroidered Gloves trigger a socketed curse spell whenever you manually cast a curse spell yourself. This ensures that your minions deal maximum damage whenever they attack the enemy.

Boots

The Corpsewalker unique Carnal Boots is a vital piece of the build. Without it, you will not have a sustainable and reliable way of casting your Offering spells, especially when you first enter a new map or area.

These unique boots not only provide you with some corpses you can use, but they give you a huge boost to life regeneration and movement speed for each nearby corpse as well!

Amulet

Replica Dragonfang's Flight is tough to beat. It grants increased mana reservation efficiency, reduces the attribute requirements of your gems and items, and raises the level of a particular skill gem.

If you are going to buy a Replica Dragonfang's Flight on the trade website, make sure that you get one with "+3 to Level of All Summon Lightning Golem Gems".

Don't forget to anoint it with Charisma (Opalescent Oil, 2x Golden Oils) for that increased mana reservation efficiency of skills.

Rings

Bone Rings provide immense value to any minion build in PoE. That is why you are going to craft a pair of Bone Rings using Bound Fossils until you get minion damage, minion life, and minion attack/cast speed. Leave a prefix open so that you can add "Non-Channelling Skills Have -8 to Total Mana Cost" from the Crafting Bench.

You could also purchase a Bone Ring with a fractured minion damage mod. Spam it with Bound Fossils until you get the aforementioned modifiers. Lock the suffixes and use a Veiled Chaos Orb. Bench craft mana to prevent it from appearing during the unveil. Go to Jun, unveil the ring, and look for the "+ to Maximum Life, Regenerate Mana per Second" prefix.

To finish the ring, bench craft the non-channeling mod and use Fertile Catalysts to improve the effects of all life and mana modifiers.

Belt

Another mandatory item, the Leash of Oblation allows you to have an Offering spell of each type. Although this unique belt reduces the duration of Offering spells by 50%, you can somehow mitigate this by getting a Leash of Oblation that has the "15% Increased Skill Effect Duration" corrupted implicit.

Flasks

• Granite Flask
• Ruby Flask
• Topaz Flask
• Taste of Hate

There is a reason why you only use four flasks on this build. That is simply because you will be putting a point on "The Traitor" keystone passive, which will be discussed in greater detail in the "Jewels" section of the build guide.

Apart from the Granite Flask, you will be using the elemental flasks for the Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer. This is to help you cap your elemental resistances to 75%.

Taste of Hate is a great flask to use because it not only grants a 50% boost to your cold resistance, but it reduces the cold damage you take as well, which greatly aids in your survivability.

Flask Mods

• 60% Increased Armour (of the Armadillo)
• 14% Increased Movement Speed (of the Cheetah)
• 25% Reduced Mana Cost of Skills During Effect (bench craft)

Jewels

While there are no mandatory jewels for the Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer, you can certainly use some to improve the build in various ways.

Primordial Eminence and Primordial Might both offer a ton of value for the build. The former increases the attack/cast speed and armor of your Lightning Golems. The latter increases the maximum life of your Lightning Golems. They also gain a damage boost if they are summoned in the past eight seconds.

When you have at least three "Primordial" jewels placed on the passive tree, you should acquire The Anima Stone as a complementary piece. This enables you to raise one more Lightning Golem, provided that you satisfy its condition.

Now, you might be wondering why this build only uses four flasks. Well, that is because you are going to insert the Brutal Restraint (Balbala) on the passive tree to gain access to "The Traitor". This keystone passive essentially gives you flask charges every five seconds. This makes you gain flask charges consistently even when you are not attacking.

When you are shopping for a Brutal Restraint, you can use the POB's "Find Timeless Jewel" feature to help you get one with the following modifiers on the notable passives:

• 8% Increased Effect of Non-Curse Auras from Your Skills
• 10% Increased Flask Charges Gained
• 4% Increased Maximum Life
• +20 to Dexterity

While the Leash of Oblation is great as it enables you to use each type of Offering spell there is in PoE, it has a huge downside where these spells only last for several seconds. To help you mitigate its downside, obtain an Impossible Escape (Necromantic Aegis) so that you can get Potency of Will (and the small nodes connecting to it), as well as Foresight without spending a ton of points to do so.

Once you have acquired all of the necessary notable skills on the passive tree, you can spend the remaining points on the nodes found in Large Cluster Jewels. For this reason, acquire at least a couple of ilvl 84+ 12-passive Large Cluster Jewels (minion damage) and spam them with Chaos Orbs until you acquire the following:

• 3% Increased Minion Attack/Cast Speed
• +12 to Maximum Energy Shield
• +8 to Strength OR Dexterity
• 35% Increased Effect

Introduced in 3.23 Affliction League, That Which Was Taken is a new jewel that is becoming a staple in most builds in PoE. That is primarily because it can roll modifiers that can benefit you in more ways than one. Here are the modifiers that we recommend if you are shopping for That Which Was Taken on the trade website:

• Your Offerings Have % Increased Effect on You
• While There Are at Least Five Nearby Allies, You and Nearby Allies Have Onslaught
• Regenerate % of Mana Over 2 Seconds When You Consume a Corpse
• Minions gain Added Physical Damage Equal to 10% of Maximum Energy Shield on Your Equipped Helmet
• (6-8)% Increased Effect of Your Curses
• Cursed Enemies You or Your Minions Kill Have a 12% Chance to Explode, Dealing a Quarter of Their Maximum Life as Chaos Damage
• Gain % of Maximum Mana as Extra Maximum Energy Shield
• Regenerate % of Energy Shield per Second

Gems

Even though the Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer is a pretty fun and awesome build to play, there is no room for flexibility on this one. This can be a good or bad thing depending on your perspective.

This is a good thing because you do not have to worry about replacing the gems at any point during your playthrough. Conversely, it is a bad thing because if you have other gems in mind, you cannot fit them into this build.

Body Armor

• Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes
• Awakened Minion Damage
• Awakened Spell Echo Support
• Awakened Chain Support
• Increased Critical Strikes Support
• Increased Critical Damage Support

Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes is the transfigured version of Summon Lightning Golem. This version enables you to summon three golems to fight for you instead of one. To ensure that you summon all of the golems without breaking your keyboard, Awakened Spell Echo Support is included in the setup to help you with that.

Since the Lightning Golems zap your enemies with lightning projectiles, you should add Awakened Chain Support to allow these projectiles to hit multiple targets on the screen.

Awakened Minion Damage, Increased Critical Strikes Support, and Increased Critical Damage Support are all there to provide a significant damage boost to your golems. Awakened Minion Damage raises the gem level of Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes by one, which is a welcome bonus.

Helmet

• Determination
• Purity of Elements
• Punishment
• Arctic Armour

Determination grants you a considerable boost to your armor. Remember, the point of this build is to let your minions do the dirty work while you command them from a safe distance. Of course, sometimes monsters will attack you, which is why you need to be tanky enough to survive their onslaught.

To help improve your survivability, Purity of Elements should be activated as well. This makes you immune to elemental ailments, including Chill, Freeze, Shock, and Ignite. Furthermore, it grants a considerable amount of fire, cold, and lightning resistance, giving you a much easier time to cap them to 75%.

Because there are times that you will stay in place while mapping or bossing, you can get a ton of value by utilizing Arctic Armour. When active, this buff makes you take less physical and fire damage from hits while you’re stationary.

The curse spell that you will cast manually is Punishment. This serves two purposes. First, it aids in your survivability because cursed enemies are debilitated for a few seconds, reducing the damage they deal by 10%, and slowing their movement speed down by 20%. Second, enemies affected by Punishment take increased damage while they are on low life, thus making it easier for your minions to eliminate them.

Gloves

• Assassin's Mark
• Raise Zombie
• Feeding Frenzy
• Flame Dash

Vixen's Entrapment automatically triggers a socketed curse spell whenever you self-cast a curse spell on your enemies. In this case, every time you use Punishment, Assassin's Mark will also be cast thanks to this unique pair of gloves.

The Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer allows you to set up a legion of minions to fight for you. So, aside from the golems, you have zombies and spectres to aid you in battle.

That said, Raise Zombie lets you summon eight zombies that can contribute to the overall damage output of the build. It is linked to Feeding Frenzy Support so that all of your minions gain a slight boost in damage, attack/cast speed, and movement speed when your zombies start whacking nearby monsters.

Flame Dash is your main movement skill for this build. You can replace it with Frostblink if you want a way to slow your enemies down a bit.

Boots

• Animate Guardian
• Raise Spectre
• Meat Shield Support
• Minion Life Support

Animate Guardian is an interesting gem in Path of Exile because it allows you to summon a powerful minion by using the spell on an identified weapon or armor on the ground. That said, you can use the Animate Guardian on the following items for maximum effect:

• Garb of the Ephemeral

  • Nearby enemies cannot deal critical strikes
  • Nearby allies' action speed cannot be modified to below base value

• Blood Price

  • Nearby enemies have at least 8% of life reserved (in other words, monsters start with lower HP)

• Kingmaker

  • Nearby allies have +10 Fortification
  • Nearby allies have +50% to critical strike multiplier
  • Nearby allies have culling strike

• Gravebind

  • Nearby enemies killed by anyone count as being killed by you

• Legacy of Fury

  • Nearby enemies are scorched

Raise Spectre is another minion gem that you should incorporate in the build. It allows you to raise subservient spectres from corpses when used. That said, buy the following usable corpses from the Breaker of Oaths NPC to get some insane buffs for you and your minions:

• Perfect Pain Artist

  • Casts Zealotry
  • Nearby Allies Have +30% to Critical Strike Multiplier

• Perfect Warlord

  • Casts Vitality
  • Shares Endurance Charges with Allies

• Perfect Spirit of Fortune

  • Casts Wrath
  • Lightning Damage of Nearby Allies is Lucky

• Perfect Forest Tiger

  • Casts Haste
  • 5% Chance to Grant a Frenzy Charge to Nearby Allies on Hit

To ensure that your animated guardian and raised spectres are able to take hits from monsters without dying, you should link them to Minion Life Support and Meat Shield Support.

Weapon

• Bone Offering
• Flesh Offering
• Spirit Offering

Thanks to the self-crafted Convoking Wand, these Offering spells will be cast automatically whenever Convocation is used. These spells grant the following bonuses:

• +% Chance to Block Attack/Spell Damage
• % Increased Critical Strike Chance
• +% to Critical Strike Multiplier
• % Increased Attack/Cast Speed
• % Increased Movement Speed

Offhand

• Convocation
• Vaal Molten Shell (lvl 5)
• Cast When Damage Taken (lvl 1)

Convocation is a build enabler because using it will automatically cast the Offering spells mentioned earlier.

Molten Shell is your guard skill for this build. Its activation is automated because you will be linking it to Cast When Damage Taken Support. Don't forget to activate the "Vaal" skill whenever you are surrounded by enemies.

It is worth noting that you should not link Convocation with Vaal Molten Shell and CWDT. This is so that you can use Convocation on the left mouse click.

Secondary Ascendancy

You might assume that the best secondary ascendancy class for the Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer is the Warlock of the Mists. Well, that is not true. You are actually going for the Wildwood Primalist for the simple fact that you can equip a few useful Charms.

Get your hands on Charms that have any of the these modifiers:

• Your Offerings Have % Increased Effect on You
• You and Nearby Allies Have +% to Elemental Resistances
• % Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills
• Corpses You Spawn Have % Increased Maximum Life
• If You've Cast a Spell Recently, You and Nearby Allies Have +% Chance to Block Spell Damage
• While There Are at Least Five Nearby Allies, You and Nearby Allies Have Onslaught
• Gain Adrenaline for 4 Seconds When You Reach Low Life
• Flasks Gain a Charge Every 3 Seconds

Passive Tree

POB

Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer

Final Thoughts

The Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer is, without a doubt, one of the best minion builds in Path of Exile 3.23 Affliction League. It utilizes the new Transfigured Gem to great effect. It is further complemented by other minions, including zombies, animated guardians, and raised spectres.

Additionally, the build is able to utilize three Offering spells to improve its damage and survivability. This is possible thanks to the self-crafted weapon, as well as the Leash of Oblation unique belt.

Although there is no room for flexibility in terms of the gems you can use, this can be a blessing, especially if you just want gems that you can rely on right off the bat.

The Summon Lightning Golem of Hordes Necromancer is definitely one that you should try in PoE, especially if you like commanding a legion of powerful minions.

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

PROS

+One of the best minion builds today

+Promises fast map-clearing speeds

+Able to take down pinnacle bosses with enough investment

+Quite tanky thanks to numerous buffs and item interactions

+Command a legion of powerful minions

CONS

-Requires a few self-crafted pieces of gear, some of which are expensive to make

-Uses an awful lot of unique items

-Minion playstyle is not for everyone