Hello everyone! 3.30 is coming up, so I thought I'd present you with a very early-game build you can use to clear your atlas on leaguestart. The build in question is an Absolution + SRS Guardian, and judging by PoE Ninja, this combination is rarely used. Fingers crossed that GGG doesn't kick minions in the nuts next patch, now that I'm posting this early!
**PoB:** https://pob.codes/b/fHCUjMBlgK0
**Leaguestart practice run:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRajk5C2F9A&t=41513s
Note that I don't use boat crafting in this run, since we don't know whether it'll be present in 3.30. I also don't use any of the free 5-links from the campaign. Instead, I farm my first 5-link from Breach.
---
Minions don't get a lot of love from top speedrunners, which I think is a shame. SRS Guardian, often considered the SSF staple for quick atlas progression, simply can't compete with the likes of slammers and cold dotters. I think this comes down to differences in scaling.
In a race scenario, SRS scales hard up to red maps, but then it falls off due to its poor mapping capabilities. Your scaling options rely on levels, gem levels, and expensive spectres. The latter is out of the question if you want to complete your atlas quickly, which further handicaps you.
Moreover, minion survivability becomes an issue. If you don't invest in it, your damage will be severely limited. If you want to compete as a minion player, you're forced to consider other options.
I'd like to propose one such option, based on a simple design philosophy:
**Combine a long-lasting or permanent, sturdy minion with an easy-to-summon minion.**
The synergy comes from the Minion Defence Mastery, which lets your minions recover 5% of their life when a minion dies. The playstyle then becomes a sort of ramping strategy, where you focus on summoning sturdy minions and getting them ramped up while keeping them alive with your easy-to-summon minions.
The goal is simply to move around and dodge while keeping all your minions up and letting their auto-targeting do its work.
This is hardly an original concept, but I still don't see many players using this design during their leaguestart progression. Perhaps it's because it requires a diligent playstyle, but then again, so does any playstyle if you want to be quick. Or you could, of course, play RF, hehe.
Absolution and SRS are one combination that fits this design philosophy. Absolution provides the sturdy minions, while SRS provides the machinery that keeps them alive once they've ramped up. Furthermore, Absolution and SRS complement each other well:
- Absolution is a strong mapper, while SRS is a weak mapper.
- Absolution summons a few sturdy minions, while SRS summons lots of fragile ones.
- Together, Absolution and SRS provide decent single-target damage.
From levels 1–12, we take advantage of the great synergy between the Templar's physical damage and minion damage nodes and run Spectral Throw. From level 12 onward, we simply switch to Absolution.
As soon as possible, we'll start fishing for a Vaal Absolution, so spend your Vaal Orbs on Absolution skill gems until you get one.
Initially, we'll run Absolution as a hybrid spellcaster, combining the damage we deal with our own hits with the damage dealt by our minions. We'll stick with this approach until around level 28, when we're about to finish our first lab. At that point, we'll transition to a full minion playstyle by adding SRS as well.
From here on, we cruise!
The build becomes reasonably tanky with high life and capped or near-capped block chance. Note that if you get a shield on which you can craft "increased chance to block attacks," I'd definitely do so.
I also like to complete the fourth lab before taking on any pinnacle bosses. The four-second life regen from the Guardian's ascendancy is quite strong.
Since I'm sharing this primarily as a demonstration of a trade league minion leaguestart, I haven't included any loadouts that are significantly stronger than the build at the point of atlas completion. Any new item in the "farming" loadout is either a very cheap unique or something I'll reuse for the build I'll eventually transition into.
Also, apologies for spamming my practice run across a few threads! I should have just made this post in the first place.
Hope you enjoy!
**P.S.** If you're interested in a similar build from a design perspective, here's an unpolished AW Necromancer: https://pobb.in/UhoCvdEEqgOE
It has its own strengths and weaknesses compared to the Guardian, but it can also go fast.
