Spellslinger VD (Volatile Dead) & Detonate Dead Necromancer Passive Skill Tree & Gem Links

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March 5th, 2023, 15:47

Life-Based Version or Low-Life Version

As mentioned in the main page of our guide, we decided to cover two variants of this build. There’s a standard Life-Based variant which is the easiest to gear for and League start with and a Low-Life version with a bit more late game scaling, should you think that is required. If you are not an advanced player or are starting in a fresh environment where you have no access to currency, you should really stick to the Life-Based variant rather than trying to get the Low-Life version going without having any currency to back it up.

Passive Skill Tree

Life-Based League-Starter-viable Variant

Again, as mentioned before, this is the version you should pick if you’re either new to the game or don’t have high amounts of currency to back your build up. It hardly requires anything to get going and doesn’t require many Orb of Regrets in the late game to get you set up. It is an alright build to get through the leveling with and will start shining post Cruel Labyrinth.

You can find an optimized Path of Building here. Every build I release will use the community fork of Path of Building, which is maintained and updated in a much more regular fashion than the original one. You can find PoB’s Fork, by LocalIdentity, here.

If you are not comfortable with Path of Building, we also have a PoePlanner for you. Do note that PoE Planner does not support Cluster Jewels and some specific unique jewels and it is highly recommended you install Path of Building to follow builds most optimally. If you are seeking more information or a more thorough item breakdown, please refer to the Gear page.

Gear, Jewels and Flasks

Progression Advice

Since it’s vital you improve your build throughout the level-ups and keep dealing an appropriate amount of damage, we’re also going to provide you a lower level option. That way you can feel confident about the way you’re building your character at every step of the way. Obviously, the choices you made until Level 60 were set in stone, as explained in our leveling section.

Next up, we’re going to leave you with a level 80 Path of Building and a Passive Skill Tree give you an indication of how your Passive Skill Tree should look at that point. Obviously, we’ve retained our endgame gear, so don’t worry if yours looks like it has a little bit less damage or Health. I’m sure you will do fine!

Low-Life Variant

The Low-Life variation of this build runs about 30.000.000 damage, making it deal about 4x as much as the Life-Based variation. While it is able to compete with it for effective HP Pool (running around 9000 Energy Shield), it is forced to use a Prism Guardian. This means you’re not making use of an “Energy Shield gained when you Block” shield, and since we’re Energy Shield-based, our Bone Offering‘s “Life gained when you Block” goes to waste entirely. On the upside, however, we do get to run an Aspect of The Spider modifier on one of our Rare pieces. Aspect of the Spider probably is the most underrated Aura in the game, as it provides up to 30% Reduced Movement Speed for Enemies which is an insanely strong defensive mechanic as well as granting basically 15% More Damage. I’d argue that both builds run pretty close when it comes to defenses.

Other than not offering you much extra tankiness, the gear for a Low-Life Variant is incredibly expensive. You’re gonna be dishing out infinite amounts of damage yet are going to have to invest appropriately. Here’s an example Path of Building and PoePlanner for a Low-Life variant of this Spellslinger Support build.

Its main advantages are that you’ll get to run a Herald of Ash as well as Zealotry and Anger Anger, which allows you to go for a Crit route rather than speccing Elemental Overload. Obviously, we’re now looking for High Energy Shield, High Resistance (as there are a lot of Uniques in the build), sources of Critical Strike Multiplier and Generic damage mods on gear. Compared to the fact that we really could be running around with some high Life Rares before, this is a lot harder to gear for.

Gem Links

We will be covering both Low-Life & regular Life-based setups in our Gem Links section. Obviously, as we transition into one or the other, some gems will change.

Pre-Trigger Wand Environment

If you’re League-starting as a Volatile Dead, Detonate Dead Spellslinger, you will probably have to play without a Wand that has the Trigger a Socketed Spell when you Use a Skill modifier.

This greatly alters your playstyle and makes it so you will have to either press some buttons or rely on Cast when Damage Taken Support setups to mimic the wand. The skills we would generally automate through this wand are Bone Offering, Wave of Conviction, Flammability.

You might have already seen builds put their Wave of Conviction in a Cast when Damage Taken Support link which, honestly, is fine. It won’t cost you too much DPS if you’re using a Level 1 Wave of Conviction with a Level 1 Cast when Damage Taken Support. Flammability, however, does really like level ups and thus is less fit to be linked to a low Cast when Damage Taken Support. You could run multiple setups to keep guaranteeing the uptime of skills, but I’d generally advise to just run a low level Flammability for the time being.

Bone Offering is the odd one out here. Our entire character is based on having Bone Offering up at all times and it’s really not all that impressive at Level 1. I suggest you manually cast it as long as you don’t have a “Trigger Wand”.

Cast when Damage Taken Support (Level 1)
Flammability (Level 1)
Wave of Conviction (Level 1)

Aside from that, use Bone Offering elsewhere.

Life-Based Variant

Automated Setup in a Wand

After we’ve acquired the aforementioned craft on your wand, you’re going to want the following gems to be socketed in your wand so you can automatically keep all of their buffs up.

Frenzy – Main Skill

Frenzy Frenzy will be used to start our chain of Fireballs and Explosions. It can be socketed in any 4-Linked item, as there’s no benefit to putting it in a specific piece of gear. As for your support gems of choice, you want Combustion Support, Inspiration Support, and Barrage Support. The Combustion Support support makes it so that when you attack an enemy with Frenzy Frenzy there’s a high chance you’ll Ignite the target. Targets that have been ignited by Combustion Support have -19% Fire Resistance, which is a huge buff to our damage.

Next up, there’s the usage of Barrage Support. The reason why this gem is prevalent is because of the interactions between your skills. Barrage Support changes the dynamic of your Frenzy Frenzy, which makes the game check Spellslinger Support procs multiple times per single attack. If you were not to run a Barrage Support, you would have to attack one time to cast Desecrate and then another time to cast Volatile Dead and so on. Obviously, casting all of our sequence in a single attack is a lot more convenient as well as just being a more efficient usage of our Desecrate Corpses.

Desecrate Spellslinger in a Shield

This setup is used to automatically proc Desecrate linked to Spell Cascade Support to spawn 15 Corpses per cast. These Corpses are used to then consume for things like Bone Offering, Vaal Detonate Dead, or Volatile Dead. I recommend you to socket this in your Shield, as it will always remain a 3-Linked Setup.

Vaal Detonate Dead & Volatile Dead Spellslinger in your Body Armour

This is where the magic happens! Your main 6L and the source of your damage spells. Your body armour will be the home of 2 “Active Skills” and 4 Support Gems. As explained earlier, we’d rather Spellsling some more Detonate Deads then getting an extra support for Volatile Dead. As for the supports that are chosen, we obviously need a Spellslinger Support. Next up, a Spell Cascade Support is also mandatory as it triples your effective damage (because it spawns more VDs per Spellsling). The last two supports are a little more up in the air. Combining Inspiration Support and Hypothermia Support is the most consistent way, in our opinion. These are potentially to be swapped out for Elemental Focus Support or Concentrated Effect Support, but in general we feel like the recommended setup is the most versatile.

Note: If you don’t have access to the Charisma anoint or a Helmet with the Spellslinger Reduced Mana Reservation Enchant, you drop Hypothermia and play on 5-Link for now.

Utility Gems

As per usual, you can socket these wherever you feel like. We recommend you run Cast when Damage Taken Support (Level 17) with Steelskin (Level 19) and a Vaal Grace (+- Level 10 or as high as you can level it). Next up, you’re going to want to 3-Link a Flame Dash somewhere, linked to Arcane Surge Support for that nice bonus Spell Damage and Second Wind Support because it makes your Flame Dash so much more reliable.

Note: Since you’ll be reserving most of your Mana if you’re going for the Charisma option, you’re not going to have enough Mana to cast level 20 Flame Dash. Therefore, you need to keep it at level 1 if you’re opting into this way of dealing with the nerfs. In case you’re going for the Helmet-enchant route, you don’t have to worry about this, and you’re free to level up the gem.

Flame Dash (level 1 / 20 Quality)
Second Wind Support
Arcane Surge Support (level 1)

This should leave you with 2 free sockets in which you can setup your Primal Crushclaw Spectres!

Low-Life Variant

As per usual in Low-Life Shavronne's Wrappings builds, you’ll be able to run a couple extra Auras. In this particular setup, you’ll be running Anger Anger, Discipline, Zealotry, Herald of Ash, Aspect of The Spider and of, course, your three Spellslinger Supports. Let’s go over how you should be socketing those for maximum optimization!

Automated Setup in Wand

Nothing changed here. We still want the same three gems as we did in the Life-Based version to be automatically cast whenever we use Frenzy Frenzy ( Bone Offering, Wave of Conviction, Flammability).

Frenzy Setup in Gloves or Boots

Again, no major changes here. We’re running the exact same setup as we did in the Life-Based Variant for exactly the same reasons. No reason to deviate here.

Desecrate Spellslinger in Helmet

We’re using the same links for Desecrate, but we can’t optimize it socket-wise by putting them in our Shield, as we’re running the unique Prism Guardian and we need to put our Auras in there.

The 4th socket in this link can be used for a Raise Spectre gem to summon some Primal Crushclaws to optimize the Corpse Explosion damage from both Detonate Dead and Volatile Dead.

Vaal Detonate Dead & Volatile Dead Spellslinger in your Body Armour

I would generally recommend not to change too much here but there’s something to be said about the Energy Leech Support gem. It has a very tiny amount more damage than Inspiration Support and we have plenty of Unreserved Mana since we had to take a lot of Reduced Mana Nodes and items to be able to fix our Auras that are run on our Life Pool. Energy Leech Support also obviously has the benefit that it offers you some extra Energy Shield Leech so its definitely something to consider.

Note: If you don’t have access to the Charisma anoint or a Helmet with the Spellslinger Reduced Mana Reservation Enchant, you drop Hypothermia and play on 5-Link for now.

Auras in Prism Guardian

Since Prism Guardian allows you to reserve Auras on your Life for cheap, you’ll socket your three main Auras in here. Anger Anger, Discipline, and Zealotry will become a lot cheaper to run this way.

Herald & Utility Skills in Gloves

Disclaimer: the pieces you are socketing your gems in highly depend on where you got your Aspect of the Spider craft. You can’t have Aspect of the Spider on the same item as where you’re socketing your Herald of Ash because we’ll be linking the Herald to a ###item:Blood-Magic-Support###. If we do so in the item that has the Aspect of the Spider craft, the Aspect will reserve Life instead of Mana and we don’t want that. You could just exchange these links for the Frenzy Frenzy setup or the Desecrate setup should you happen to get the Aspect on your Gloves.

You’re going to want your Gloves to be a double 2-Link, as we’re also going to link Flame Dash and Arcane Surge Support. If we however make the Herald of Ash linked to the Arcane Surge Support it’ll reserve extra Mana and we can’t have that.

Herald of Ash
###item:Blood-Magic-Support###

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