GhazzyTV's Iron Mass Skeleton Necromancer Build Guide (PoE Necropolis 3.24)

May 14th, 2024, 20:04

Introduction

Have you ever looked at The Iron Mass and really wanted to make it work, but couldn’t? So have I, but thankfully PhazePlays cleverly solved this by going Lightning! This means we get to activate Iron Mass at range and we get a huge flat lightning damage buff to the skeletons!
If you ever wanted to play skeletons with the funny swords, this guide might be for you.

This build is heavily inspired by the work of PhazePlays and is written up with his express consent. We have made some changes here and there, so our version is different.

Below you will see him playing his version of the build in all its glory! This should also give you a pretty good idea of how the build plays, and might help you decide if it is something for you or not.

Build Overview

In this section I will outline the pros, cons, & the general play-style. This will allow you to determine if the build is for you or not!

Pros

+ League Starter – For the low budget version of this build you only need the The Iron Mass. Since we are playing as a Necromancer you can easily level with Absolution and stay with that till you get yourself the sword.

+ Minion Play Style – Minion builds in Path of Exile offers a variety of unique play-styles, this specific build takes this to a whole new level!

Cons

– Minion Play Style – Since the play-style is so unique for this build it might not be for everyone.

– Clear-Speed – Since we are focusing on melee skeleton warriors the clear speed will be very limited in what we can achieve.

– Bosser – If you’re looking for an allrounder or a mapper, this is NOT the build for that. Iron mass bosses, and that is all it does.

Playstyle

We summon our skeleton warriors that will then deal damage, to make sure they deal the highest possible damage we also have to hit enemies with our swords forcing us to use an attack consistently to make sure the damage stays high. Through the use of Smite Smite we get to do this at range, and no longer need to walk into melee range. Besides this we will be utilizing a variety of buffs to enhance not just our efficiency but also quality of life.

Damage Scaling And Defensive Layers

Damage scaling is mostly taken care of by itself through a combination of Smite Smite and the chance to wither on hit with our swords from ourselves & from our skeletons, this will increase the chaos damage taken by the enemies. The build deals entirely chaos damage courtesy of Unholy Might granted by the weapon itself. We also heavily lean into raw lightning damage through Smite. Besides this we are also making use Avatar of Fire and Elemental Equilibrium. This means the target is always taking extra lightning damage.

Defensively we are making use of armour, a tiny bit of evasion and spell suppression. This keeps us reasonably safe in earlier budgets, but it does not make us a raid boss by any means. In later budgets we will be making use of items such as The Fourth Vow, Glorious Vanity – Xibaqua and Progenesis.

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

You will find the PoBs below

Low budget: https://pobb.in/lNrLREmKF-2y
Medium budget: https://pobb.in/1miwJeH8QFmN
High budget: https://pobb.in/bn1G8YFgVgXF

You can find more information on our dedicated page.

Iron Mass Skeleton Necromancer PoB, Passive Skill Tree & Gem Links

Gearing

You can read more details about our gearing recommendations on the dedicated page, but for now you can see a summarized version below.

Iron Mass Skeleton NecromancerGear, Jewels & Flasks

Item Slot	Item Name	Rarity
Head	Ancient Skull	Unique
Amulet	Life then res/attributes as needed	Rare
Chest	Suppression then life/res/attributes as needed	Rare
Gloves	Asenath's Gentle Touch	Unique
Boots	March of the Legion	Unique
Belt	Darkness Enthroned OR rare for stats	Unique or Rare
Rings	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	Rare
Weapon	The Iron Mass	Unique
Weapon	Stabilising Sceptre	Rare

Ascendancy, Bandits & Pantheon Recommendations

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

Iron Mass Skeleton Necromancer Ascendancy, Bandits & Pantheon Powers

Levelling

The current meta of levelling through the Campaign Acts 1-10 is to simply never use minions. However, this guide is not designed to guide you to finish Kitava in 2 hours, It is a build guide. With that said the following suggestions for leveling makes sure you don’t have to use any Orb of Regret to play. Since we are unable to play with the The Iron Mass approach till we get our hands on one and then also require level 60, it is strongly recommended to level with Absolution as it doesn’t require you to change anything in your tree to save currency for respeccing.

Leveling this build with Herald of Purity alongside Absolution from lvl 16 & 12 respectively is entirely doable, and while not the fastest it will feel great to see your build scale up without having to respec from a levelling steup.

Before You Enable Minions

Before you are able to utilize minions for your leveling experience you will need to get to level 12 as that’s when Absolution truly kicks of and excels your speed. Prior to that you’ll run the following:

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

You can consider playing Summon Raging Spirit on your way to merveils caverns where you enable Absolution.
You can if you prefer stick with Summon Raging Spirit through the campaign, but we will be sticking with Absolution

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 doesn’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 leveling advice, we recommend the following guides.

Our step-by-step leveling walkthrough, which allows even more experienced players to save time and speed through the leveling process.
Our guide to Unique Items for leveling, which helps you gear up your characters for the leveling process.
“Our beginner leveling guide”: Beginners guide , which answers many of the questions new players might have and will set you on the right path.

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.

FAQ

Triple Damage Triggering & You
Iron Mass MUST be in your main hand!
When you hit with Iron Mass, it gives minions triple damage for 4 seconds

Smite: If Dual Welding, hits with Both weapons. If wearing Shield, hits with Mainhand.
Leap Slam: If Dual Wielding, hits with a Random weapon (50/50). If Dual Wielding (Stabilizing Sceptre offhand possibly) your mapping uptime suffers a bit, so you have to Smite more often. If wearing Shield, it hits with Mainhand.
Whirling Blades: If dual wielding, hits with Both weapons. If wearing a shield, it hits with Mainhand.
Shield Charge: Hits with your Shield, thus does NOT work for triggering Iron Mass

Double damage

As we’re dealing triple damage due to Iron Mass, double damage has no value to us.
Notables like Renewal are largely meaningless, and we only take Gravepact (and its wheel) due to its accuracy and raw minion damage portions.

Vaal Skills
Best to Worst (roughly):
1. Vaal Summon Skeletons – this seems to do enormous damage on single target, it feels like more than double damage ingame (assuming they don’t die)
2. Vaal Haste – solid damage boost on top of extra mobility
3. Vaal Smite – decent damage boost but not quite as powerful as the above two — don’t kill yourself to elemental reflect with this!

Do not compromise Vaal Skeletons uptime for any of the other buffs. It is without question the best vaal skill and should always be the priority!

Fresh Meat Support
If Crit-based, always run this Support!
You need to reach 40 second skeleton duration to maintain the buff throughout the Blessed Rebirth window. As Necromancer you will achieve this through Enduring Bond and Mistress alone!

Why Avatar of Fire and Elemental Equilibrium?
Avatar of Fire makes Smite do Zero Lightning damage, which in turn gives Skeletons Lightning Exposure via Elemental Equilibrium (minions don’t inherit Avatar of Fire or Elemental Equilibrium)
This isn’t required but is a nice damage boost where possible

Minion Accuracy
Precision helps a lot with Accuracy if crit-based
One Blind mod on a Ghastly jewel also does big work
With Endgame gear you may be able to drop the entire Gravepact wheel with Precision and Blind
Always check your Minion Accuracy in PoB (CALCS tab -> Socket Group: Summon Skeletons -> Check box “Show Minion Stats”)

March of the Legion Implicits
As the boots are dirt cheap, double corruptions are common. Good ones include:
+1 to level of socketed gems
+2 to level of socketed aura gems
+2 to level of socketed aoe gems

Ubers
Maven: Skeletons don’t “float” like SRS, so put Maven Puddles at the Edge of the arena instead of the Center, as they’ll get chilled (and killed after 4 seconds). Predator is also an ok option for the brain phase
Sirus: Consider using a “ranged” attack to trigger Triple Damage if your damage is low (Spectral Throw, Frostblades of Katabasis, Lightning Strike, etc)

Misc
Run the 30% minion AoE mastery for mapping where possible
Double Damage does not work with the Triple damage on Iron Mass, so Renewal from Clusters isn’t good and Gravepact loses value but is usually still necessary

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 if you’d posted it 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!