GhazzyTV's Chains Of Command Necromancer Build Guide (PoE Necropolis 3.24)

April 5th, 2024, 19:51

Disclaimers

Disclaimer 1: The build requires the Replenishing Remedies Amulet anointment and your Animate Guardian to be level 20 at least, before starting the build. In addition, it requires certain specific unique pieces to function properly.
Player Uniques: Chains of Command, The Writhing Jar x2
AG Uniques: Rebuke of the Vaal, Gravebind, Gruthkul's Pelt and Replica Victario's Charity (Use Victario's Charity if Replica is not available or very expensive)

Disclaimer 2: Due to the above mentions, this build cannot be played until those things are acquired. You will have to level as something else and transition over. Wether that something be Absolution, Summon Raging Spirit, Animate Weapon I or something else is entirely up to you.

Introduction

The Chains Of Command Animate Weapon Build has been one that many of us have wanted to make work since the introduction of Chains of Command. Having been introduced alongside Bestiary League, the play style was truly out there and the concept of buffing up your Animate Guardian, putting insane weapons on the line to make him & the Animate Weapons deal huge damage gave us a truly unique way to play the game. The build in its initial form felt rather clunky and was too difficult to really make work. All of this changed with the introduction of Gravebind in 3.16. Having played & heavily tested the build myself, I am more than happy to say that I can finally bring this concept to life. In 3.19 this insane build was taken to a whole new level with the introduction of going poison like every other minion build at the time. In 3.22 however, we are back to full-blown hit based courtesy of the absurd new support gem Fresh Meat Support. Everyone wanted to make this gem work, and it simply got to clunky everywhere else. But not in Chains, in Chains the support gem supercharges everything we are already doing and it feels amazing.

This build is also available in a video format, which can be seen below. The video covers gameplay as well as the major interactions we make use of with Chains Of Command.

Do note that the video might be outdated in terms of information, you should always look at this guide to make sure you have the updated information.

This video is from back when the build was played as a poison-based Occultist, and as such is no longer accurate. It still showcases most of chain’s mechanics, but it will have visuals and the like that you simply will not.

Build Overview

In this section, I will outline the pros, cons, and general play style. This will allow you to determine if this is the right build for you!

Pros

+ Mapping Very comfortably and highly automated mapping, for a minion build.

+ Fresh Meat While most other minion builds wanted to, and couldn’t, run Fresh Meat we get to keep it up permanently while mapping.

+ Clear Speed – We get to utilise all six of our links and have melee splash at the same time, as it’s built into our armour and we can therefore run dedicated single target supports all around and mow down our enemies.

+ Unique Play Style – Putting items like Rebuke of the Vaal and later Voidforge on your Animate Guardian is outlandish to say the least, and this build makes it work in style.

Cons

– Risky – If you’re not comfortable with the Animate Guardian this build is NOT for you, if he dies you HAVE to purchase new gear for him to be able to play the build.

– Unique Play Style – Due to the nature of this build’s play style, it is a build that not everyone will find enjoyable. I strongly recommend watching the gameplay video before starting this build.

– Gem Levels are necessary – Without a level 20 Animate guardian, he may become squishy and losing it means you have to re-equip it with new gear, including the weapon.

– Bossing can be difficult – while the pure boss DPS is high, your animate weapons may be prone to dying often against larger hits, this means your effective damage uptime can be lower on bosses. This build is primarily a mapper, but it can do pinnacles ina pinch.

Play Style

The unique components of Chains of Command make an Animated Weapon summon of the weapon that your Animate Guardian holds on kill. We equip our Animate Guardian with a Rebuke of the Vaalor high PDPS weapon, alongside the aforementioned Gravebind to ensure that each kill happening around your Guardian is considered to be his. To get the ball rolling, 1 The Writhing Jar is mandatory, and 2 can help make it feel smoother.

Once the initial summons have been created, you are free to run through the map casting your movement skill of choice and convocation as everything around you blows up in spectacular fashion.

You can sustain your The Writhing Jar with flask nodes on the tree.

Damage Scaling And Defensive Layers

Scaling the damage with Chains Of Command relies heavily on the weapon used by the Animate Guardian in the low budget version that is the Rebuke of the Vaal as we are looking to hit really hard for a low price. We get to benefit fully from Fresh Meat Support due to Gravebind and the built in weapon resummoning chance on kill. As swords are replaced frequently, the buff is always active while we are mapping. Higher budget versions of this build will change the weapon to the much better Voidforge. As this weapon tends to be expensive, it will be outlined clearly in the gear progression what steps should be taken before putting this item on your AG.

The defences of this build include using Purity of Elements for Elemental Ailment immunity, Determination for a sizeable boost of Armour. With this setup, we achieve some pretty acceptable levels of physical mitigations, elemental mitigations and once in higher budgets decent chaos resistance as well. This build is by no means a tank, but it can take a punch and it is incredibly fun to play.

PoB And Passive Skill Tree

All my guides use Path of Building. We have a simple guide for you that shows how to import my build into Path of Building, you can find the guide here

Here’s the low budget PoB including gear information for the Animate Guardian : https://pobb.in/mdAxSHCG6ryl
The Voidforge medium budget PoB can be found here: https://pobb.in/yOx6i4e33L5k * read notes below*
The High Budget PoB can be found here: https://pobb.in/LmFZ99Uu-r8k

Due to the jump between low and medium, I have made an alternative medium budget using Rakiatas.
This has worse performance than the Voidforge medium variant but is significantly cheaper.
It’s pob can be found here: https://pobb.in/7nZDC8LzAsdx

GhazzyTV's Chains Of Command Necromancer Pob, Passive Skill Tree & Gem links (PoE Necropolis)

Gearing

The gear for Chains Of Command is rather self-explanatory, our Chains of Command is mandatory for the build, and it does not need to be 6-linked as the sockets will all apply to the skills provided in the body armour in the same way that the Whispering Ice staff works. Also making sure you get The Writhing Jar & flask recovery nodes on the tree which makes the build function smoothly.

GhazzyTV's Chains Of Command Animate Weapon Necromancer Gear, Jewels & Flasks (PoE Necropolis)

Item Slot	Item Name	Rarity
Head	Ancient Skull	Unique
Amulet	Life then Attributes/Res as needed + Replenishing Remedies anointment	Rare
Chest	Chains of Command	Unique
Gloves	Vixen's Entrapment	Rare
Boots	Life & Movement Speed then Res/Attributes as needed	Rare
Belt	Darkness Enthroned	Unique
Rings	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	Rare
Weapon	Increased minion damage, Attack speed, and Trigger Socketed Spell craft	Rare
Shield	Recover on block shield – See Gear page for details	Rare

Animate Guardian Gear

Item Slot	Item Name	Rarity
Head	Mask of the Stitched Demonor Leer Cast	Unique – Mask should be acquired as soon as possible.
Chest	Gruthkul's Pelt	Unique	This is replaced by Doppelgänger Guise as soon a you have a mask.
Gloves	Gravebind	Unique
Weapon	Rebuke of the Vaal	Rakiata's Dance is a solid mid-budget option and high budget we go Voidforge
Shield	Victario's Charity OR better Replica Victario's Charity	Unique	Discarded once we go two-handed weapons

Ascendancy, Bandit & Pantheon Recommendations

You can read about the Ascendancy, Bandit choice, and Pantheon Power recommendations for this build on our dedicated page.

Levelling

I highly recommend following the Absolution Sentinel for levelling, as both builds pick up similar notables, allowing for minimal respeccing to take place. Below you’ll find a generic TLDR starter approach.

The build will not function without the setup mentioned in the disclaimer at the top of the guide.

Levelling this build with Herald of Purity alongside Absolution from lvl 16 & 12 respectively is entirely doable, being the fastest way to level as a minion build. Combining this with Raise Zombie when you have access to Vitality will make for a smooth levelling experience.

As you have to level all the way to maps and purchase certain items to be able to run the build, and I cannot fit more than one setup in the PoB, I have outlined the Absolution levelling here and SRS levelling in the PoB. Both are perfectly serviceable. Absolution is a bit faster, SRS is more laidback. Pick the one that appeals to you the most.

Before You Enable Minions

Before you are able to utilize minions for your levelling experience you will need to make sure they function for actual clearing, this ultimately comes down to unlocking Absolution at level 12.

Stormblast Mine for single target
Freezing Pulse for clearing
Frost Bomb for clearing when you get it instead of the Freezing Pulse

Once you reach level 12 you are able to pick up the Absolution skill and level with the ability all the way. Any links providing extra damage for the minions would be preferable early on:

In Act 3 Library you’re able to pick up Physical to Lightning Support which enhances the damage significantly, auras don’t come in play till Act 3 either, at which point you’ll want to run Wrath Wrath & Zealotry depending on if you’ve taken the reduced mana reservation nodes or not. Mana will be sustained via a mana flask till you are able to pick up the Energy Shield leech node & Eldritch Battery.

Besides our main source of damage you can utilize Raise Zombie with Ruthless Support as well as Vitality early on in the acts to keep yourself & your minions alive better.

For more general levelling advice, we recommend the following guides.

Our step-by-step levelling walkthrough, which allows even more experienced players to save time and speed through the levelling process.
Our guide to Unique Items for levelling, which helps you gear up your characters for the levelling process.

Questions?

To guarantee that my guides are tools you can utilize to enhance your experience in Path of Exile, you may have questions. Please join the PoE Vault discord and they will attend to them as soon as possible.

Final Notes

As much as I love making build guides, it is very crucial in a game like Path of Exile that you play the game the way you enjoy playing it. With that said, if you’ve made any tweaks to the build compared to what I’m showing in this guide I would love it if you shared this in my discord It’s an effective way to show other approaches and it helps me grow as a build guide creator!

I hope you found the build guide useful and I wish you all many Divine Orb drops!