GhazzyTV's Mage Skeleton Guardian Gear, Jewels & Flasks (PoE Affliction)

Summary – TL;DR

Cap your Elemental Resistances and get the attributes your gems require to make sure you can use them all. Most pieces should be Rare with Life and, of course, any lacking attributes/resistances. Modifiers which increase the level of your skeletons are most favorable, along with those increasing minion damage across the board.

We also have a video explaining gear progression and how to optimise your Mage Skeleton journey. Do keep in mind that the video was recorded when this build was originally played as a Necromancer and not a Guardian. The gear progression approach remains the same though!

My quick list recommended approach for this build would then be:

Item Slot	Item Name	Rarity
Head	Life then Res/Attributes as needed (For higher budget you can get a helmet with “+ level of all minion skill gems)	Rare
Amulet	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	Rare
Chest	Fleshcrafter	Unique
Gloves	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	Rare
Boots	Life & movement speed then Res/Attributes	Rare
Belt	Darkness Enthroned	Unique
Rings	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	Rare
Weapon	Rare with + level of minion and/or spell skills	Rare
Shield	High life, preferably with %life recovery on block or The Surrender	Rare

Armor Pieces

Many of the higher budget examples can either be purchased or crafted. When crafting, I would strongly suggest utilizing Craft of Exile to determine the cheapest approach to crafting the desired items.

Since most items in this build are Rare, the main focus will be to have as much Life as possible and sort any attributes and resistances so we can reach the desired caps. However, there are some juicy choices one can take to increase the build’s efficiency, although they will come with a higher price tag.

Helmet

Main focus is to get high life with any needed resistances and/or attributes. You also want to get a “+1-2 level of all minion skill gems” on this slot and use your bench-craft and put “+1 to maximum number of skeletons (and raised zombies)” craft, this craft can be found by unveiling helmets from the Betrayal league mechanic dropped items.

Modifier Priority List:
1. Life
2. +1-2 level of all minion skills
3. Elemental Resistances
4. Open Prefix modifier to bench-craft “+1 to maximum number of skeletons (and raised zombies)”
5. Attributes if needed
6. Chaos resistance

Body Armour

Since we are dealing damage with all 3 elemental types with our skeletons the most optimal chest piece to use would be the Fleshcrafter. It is important to note that you should avoid giving your Animate Guardian any extra chaos resistances or you might instantly kill him when you’re wearing this unique body armor as it converts 2% of all your minions HP to Energy Shield per 1% chaos resistance!

Gloves

High life, attributes & resistances if needed is the name of the game for most rare items in this build. However, you are able to use the “Fear” essences such as Deafening Essence of Fear to craft extra minion damage gloves.

Modifier Priority List:
1. Life
2. Elemental Resistances
3. Attributes if needed
4. Essence craft increased minion damage (Fear Essence)
5. Chaos resistance

Boots

Generic high life, movement speed pair of boots with any needed resistances or attributes!

Modifier Priority List:
1. Life
2. Movement speed
3. Elemental Resistances
4. Attributes if needed
5. Chaos resistance

Belt

You may consider using Darkness Enthroned with Ghastly Eye Jewel providing Life and “#% minion damage when you’ve used a minion skill recently.” Alternately, you can use any rare belt with Life, resistances and/or attributes as needed. Having Ghastly Eye Jewel with minion cast speed is BIG for this build as the faster they start killing enemies the safer you are.

Jewels

All of our slots not taken by cluster jewel (which are explained later on) will be filled with Ghastly Eye Jewel as they can roll minion related modifiers!

Modifier Priority List:
1. Life
2. Increased minion damage when you’ve used a minion skill recently
3. Added flat cold, lightning or fire damage to your minions
4. Minion cast speed

Accessories

Amulet

High life, resistances & attributes as needed. If you are able to get a hold of an Elder influenced amulet you can get the modifier granting you access to an additional skeleton!

The anoint you want is Death Attunement.

Modifier Priority List:
1. Life
2. Attributes if needed
3. Elemental resistances if needed
4. Elder influenced modifier providing extra skeletons
5. Chaos resistance

Rings

High life, resistances & attributes as usual, if you have an open suffix slot you can also bench-craft “+1 to minimum endurance charges” this increases resistances but also your physical damage mitigation. Make sure you get Bone Ring as they can roll minion related modifiers but most importantly, 1 of those rings allows you to cap your minions elemental resistances!

Modifier Priority List:
1. Life
2. Elemental resistances if needed
3. Attributes if needed
4. Minion damage
5. Minion cast speed
6. Chaos resistance

Weapon

Increasing the level of our skeletons is key for high damage output so the optimal approach would be to get a Convoking Wand with both +1 level of minion skills and +1 level of all spell skill gems, however to keep the budget down you can find any 1-handed weapon with one of those modifiers and if possible with additional minion damage rolled on them:

Shield

We’ll be using a generic shield with high life, preferably with an open suffix so you can bench-craft extra chance to block spells but most importantly it needs to be shaper influenced so you can get yourself “Recover % of life when you block” which will be your biggest source of defense with the build. This is probably the most expensive item for the low budget version. You can replace this with the unique The Surrender though it tends to cost a bit!

Cluster Jewels

There are 2 cluster jewels being used in this build, the medium cluster is very important which should have the notable Blessed Rebirth this makes your recently summoned minions immortal for the next 4 seconds which is important for higher end-game content. It isn’t something you really need until you fight harder bosses or red tier maps. The large cluster isn’t super tricky but optimally you want Call to the Slaughter & Renewal and the amount of passives it has doesn’t really matter but 8-10 would be optimal. These jewels aren’t very expensive unless you go for more nodes on them such as the medium cluster can have Renewal on top of the Blessed Rebirth which makes it a lot better but skyrockets the cost for it as well.
To make things easier I’ll provide you with preset poe-trade search links here:

Large Cluster PoE Trade Search
Medium Cluster PoE Trade Search

Flasks

Flask set-ups are almost always a matter of personal taste when it comes to what utility flasks to use. However, I will list the set-up I’ve been using for a smooth play experience. To find the available list of modifiers the flasks can have, check out these links: Utility Flasks, Life Flasks, Mana Flasks & lastly: Hybrid Flasks

Slot	Flask	Description
1	Seething Divine Life Flask of Assuaging, Sealing, Alleviation or Allaying	Instant life flask with bleed removal
2	Rumi's Concoction	This flask provides us with the remaining block % that we need to reach the cap. This is an optional flask
3	Flagellant’s Basalt Flask	This further scales your defensive scaling vs physical damage, just be careful when you use it as it taunts enemies around you on use
4	Flagellant’s Granite Flask	Only if you’re NOT running the Rumi’s Concoction making this an optional flask.
5	Flagellant’s Quicksilver Flask	Generic movement speed flask

For help crafting your non-Unique flasks, we recommend checking out our Flask Crafting Guide.

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