- Mapper
- Boss Killer
- Medium Budget
- All-Rounder
Introduction
This is the most broken Minion build I have played in years. It has also miraculously survived somehow, and as such we have turned it into a league start guide. It’s my pleasure to bring you the guide in both video & written formats! The PoB covers everything from levelling to end-game.
GhazzyTV wrote up a version of this build done as a Guardian, that goes elemental hit scaling, they are very similar playstyles just with a bit different offensive and defensive scaling.
You can find his guide here GhazzyTV Holy Relic Guide
For our much better Poison Version The video guide can be found below!
Build Overview
In this section will go over the pros/cons of this minion build.
Pro’s
+ With this minion build, we have both full screen clear coverage as well as maximum single target in the same gem setup, with no swapping gems at any stages!
+ The Damage is abnormally high, actually to the point, it seems unbalanced for your level of investment.
+ While still being a poison build, we poison cap with very little investment, meaning a much larger portion of our damage is delt by the hit and so is quite fast to come out.
+ One button playstyle, you just spray Lancing Steel Of Spraying at everything and it auto targets and auto trigger everything.
Cons
– Path of building has no idea how much damage these minions do, and thus the POB’s are very misleading and show a much lower damage value than what we get in the game.
– That’s it, that’s the only downside. It’s the perfect minion build.
– Still uses an Animated Guardian (some people hate that).
Playstyle
Because Holy Relics are permanent minions and we can make them tanky enough to never die ever (even in Ubers and T17 content) we generally don’t need to worry about anything at all. And because our chosen trigger skill is a spray skill that fires many projectiles that all return and all pierce all targets and also Aim assist to anything within a pretty large cone of the direction you attack in, it is also super easy to play. This skill plays almost exactly like a CoC Detonate Dead of Chaining build, or is quite similar to bows or wands. But with the benefits of being a very tanky minion build.
PoB, Passive Skill Tree And Gem Links
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
The League Start & End Game versions have all been rolled into one PoB, which can be found here: https://pobb.in/1CIZ4EoVE1b- Make sure you check the different item-sets & skill-set in this PoB as it will help you navigate progressing the character from the start!
Damage Scaling And Defensive Layers
Damage scaling is mainly handled in 2 ways, the first is minions levels. This is a very good way to scale Damage up to level 30 minions.
The second (and MOST important way) Is Cooldown Recovery of the minion. The ONLY way to gain cooldown recovery that affects the minion is with the quality of the gem. And we MUST hit certain cooldown breakpoints.
Relic Breakpoints of Quality for CDR: 2, 14, 30, 52(5aps), 82(6 aps), 128(7.58 aps)
The different ways to get more quality are – Enhance Support
- Quality on the Summon Holy Relic of Conviction itself (including the 23 corrupted outcome)
- Dialla's Malefaction
- Ashes of the Stars
Through experimentation, the most worthwhile breakpoints are 52 and 82. Aiming for 128 seems to cost too much, and only having 30 isn’t enough for it to feel fantastic in the end game.
So we aim for a combination of some of these to reach a required breakpoint.
This means that if we have 80 CDR, we might as well only have 52. As nothing else changes, but if we can push to 82, suddenly way more damage happens.
Defensive layers in this build Block and Spell block cap, along with Aegis Aurora to top our ES off every block.
As well as 10% reduced damage taken from the Necromancer Ascendancy Plague Bringer. And above 20k armour, as well as ALOT of Life Gain On Hit from our own attack.
Gearing
A lot of our gear is Unique in the end game and the different options are shown in the POB, very little gear is needed for the swap to Holy Relic of Conviction, here is what’s required.
| Item Slot | Item Name | Rarity |
|---|---|---|
| Head | Geofri's Crest | Unique |
| Weapon | Fast attack speed 1 handed sword with Minion Damage Essence, and crafted Trigger Socketed spells | Rare |
We will also need 2 Gems
- Summon Holy Relic of Conviction With 14% quality (or higher, but at this stage higher does nothing)
- Lancing Steel of Spraying no quality required, but its extra projectiles so we want it eventually.
Levelling through the Campaign
Unfortunately, this build is not viable for levelling until we meet the minimum requirements above, so we have opted to level as Summon Raging Spirit until we can either afford to buy the things we need, or farm them ourselves as Merciless Lab.
Before you are able to utilize minions for your leveling experience, you will need to make sure they function for actual clearing: this means giving them tools to use for hitting multiple targets. You are able to level with minions as early as level 8, as that’s the restriction before you can get Melee Splash Support. The skills listed below are the ones I prefer to use until I hit level 8:
- Freezing Pulse
- Arcane Surge Support
As soon as we have extra links we should also setup a totem that will stay with us for a while.
- Holy Flame Totem
- Summon Phantasm Support
- Combustion Support
Once you reach level 8 you are able to purchase Melee Splash Support which costs 1 t Orb of Transmutation. This can then be combined with Summon Raging Spirit. For the first couple of acts you can use Infernal Legion Support instead of the Melee Splash, this is provided by the Tidal Island quest and will require 2 Blue sockets and 1 red (or 3 blues if you cant find that). The links are very straightforward:
- Summon Raging Spirit
- Melee Splash Support or Infernal Legion Support
- Minion Damage Support
Do keep in mind that if you feel like you’re lacking single target damage vs any boss during the acts, you can always change your Melee Splash to a red damage support gem such as Added Fire Damage Support or Melee Physical Damage Support. Once you get a 4-link, I would go for the Melee Physical and later you can change the Splash for Multistrike Support instead, for single target.
The Aura decision comes in Act 2, which is when we enable Summon Skitterbots for optimal damage output. You can also pick up Clarity in Act 1 to help sustain your mana early on. In Act 3 we will bring in Anger for more damage output or Purity of Elements if you prefer the defensive approach.
From mid act 4 when we unlock Unleash Support this leveling build really starts to kick off. Our totem links stay the same but we should have a 4link by then and will use the following links
- Summon Raging Spirit
- Melee Splash Support
- Minion Damage Support
- Unleash Support
For the remaining acts please follow the skills recommended in the PoB, as it has a detailed explanation of all the skills you can use per act of the campaign.
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, I’m very new to writing written guides. So, if you see any mistakes or have any suggestions feel free to reach out to me through Discord or my Twitch Stream!
And remember, all guides no matter how good or bad, are just guides, if something in it doesn’t suit you, change it! Fun is more important than DPS.
