PoE Beginner Friendly Animate Weapon League Starter Build Guide – Tanky & Budget

This Path of Exile Animate Weapon League Starter Build Guide will get you through the atlas and beyond at a quick, comfortable pace. The speed, damage, survivability, recovery and minion playstyle are a must-have for a beginner-friendly league starter.

Key Takeaways

• Mistress of Sacrifice + pathing gives huge duration: near-perm Animate Weapons, Bone Offering and Vaal skills.
• Two recovery layers—leech (up to ~20%/s via Bone Barrier + anoint) and life regen—very tanky and forgiving.
• Beginner-friendly SSF viable league starter: minion playstyle, budget gear, high sustain, modest clear.

Path of Building

Import the link above into Path of Building for the passive tree.

Key Concept

1. The Necromancer's Mistress of Sacrifice ascendancy alongside some efficient pathing adds up to a massive amount of increased skill effect duration. With this powerful foundation, it makes temporary buffs feel near permanent:

• Almost two minutes Animate Weapons
• 47 Seconds Vaal Absolution
• 42 Seconds Vaal Animate Weapons
• 16 Seconds Bone Offering
• 13 seconds Vaal Haste

2. Two layers of life recovery: Leech and Life Regen make for a very forgiving playstyle.

• Recover up to 20% of your life per second from Leech with the Bone Barrier Necromancer ascendancy and anointing Martial Experience on your amulet to double the amount of life recovered (Clear, Verdant and Azure oil).
• Life regen comes from the passive tree, Vitality and modifiers on gear.

Alongside 75% chance of blocking, any damage short of one-shotting you will be recovered back.

Be careful with these map modifiers: reduced chance to block, no regen, no leech and less recovery rate.

Playstyle

Despite the many buttons on this build, the playstyle is simple. Cast Bladefall and Animate Weapons at the start of the zone up to your maximum number of summons. Cast Absolution once or twice on the first pack of monsters, then, Shield Charge and Frostblink around while your minions do the dirty work. Once you have enough souls obtained by killing monsters, Vaal Animate weapon, Vaal Absolution and Vaal Haste will become available. Cast all three for a massive boost of damage when you need it.

Video

Below is a short video showcasing the playstyle and performance of the build in Solo Self-Found fresh start.

Leveling

In the guide below, you will find the optimal leveling for this build up to act 10 Kitava.

Skill and Support gems

Support gems are listed in order of importance from left to right.

Main Skill:

Vaal Animate Weapon — Added Lightning — Melee Splash — Volatility — Ruthless — Minion Speed

*Before you have a six-linked body armour, use Sigil of Power in the unlinked socket

**You can swap Melee Splash for Minion Damage if you need extra damage for a boss.

Secondary Skill:

Vaal Asbolution — Physical to Lightning — Spell Echo — Elemental Army

Utility #1:

Raise Spectre — Summon Lightning Golem — Minion Life — Feeding Frenzy (Desecrate and raise Carnage Chieftains from The Old Fields in Act 2)

Utility #2 (socket these in your wand):

Desecrate — Bone Offering — Conductivity

Auras:

Vaal Haste — Vitality — Wrath — Bladefall

Movement:

Shield Charge — Frostblink — Faster Attacks

Gear

In this section you will find the modifiers to prioritize on each piece of equipment for your character. The core principle for itemization on this build is to maximize the amount of life and life regeneration while you simultaneously:

• Cap your elemental resistances to 75%.
• Have at least 40% chaos resistance (75% against chaos damage over time).
• Have 155 dexterity to equip a level 20 Vaal Haste.

Check out the Tips and Tricks section further below for different ways to acquire these items yourself.

Wand

Wands must have the implicit for minion damage to be able to roll minion modifiers on them. These are Calling Wand, Convening Wand and Convoking Wand. Look for the following modifiers on your wand:

• Minions deal increased damage
• Minions have increased attack speed
• +1 to level of all spell skill gems
• +1 to level of all minion skill gems
• +1 to level of all physical spell skill gems
• An open suffix to bench craft: Trigger a Socketed Spell when you Use a Skill, with an eight second Cooldown

Shield

The shield is special as it needs to have a minimum of 36% block chance. You can bench craft a prefix for up to 50% increased chance to block. In other words, your shield either needs 36% block chance or at least 24% with an open prefix. Then you're looking for:

• Movement Speed (implicit)
• Evasion
• Life
• Life Regen
• Resistances
• Dexterity

Body Armour

The Body Armour is also special; it's a very efficient source of armour and evasion rather than life, and this synergizes nicely with the life mastery on your passive tree: 15% increased maximum life if there are no life modifiers on your body armour.

So you are better off prioritizing:

• At least 1500 Armour and Evasion Rating
• Physical Damage Reduction
• Resistances
• Dexterity

Helmet

Look for:

• +1-2 to level of all minion skill gems
• At least 120 Life
• Life Regen
• Resistances
• Dexterity

Boots

Look for:

• 30% Movement speed
• At least 80 Life
• Life Regen
• Resistances
• Dexterity

Gloves

Look for:

• At least 100 Life
• Life Regen
• Resistances
• Dexterity

Amulet

Look for:

• +1 to level of all skill gems
• +1 to level of all physical skill gems
• At least 100 Life
• Life Regen
• Resistances
• Dexterity

Rings

Look for:

• Minions have increased attack and cast speed
• Minions have increased movement speed
• Minions have increased damage
• At least 80 Life
• Life Regen
• Resistances
• Dexterity

Belt

Look for:

• Open suffix to bench craft Chaos Resistance against Damage Over Time
• At least 120 Life
• Life Regen
• Resistances
• Dexterity

Every tiny bit of life matters, it makes your character stronger on multiple levels. The build has 10% more life, 160% increased life, 4.8% of life regenerated per second and up to 20% life recovery from leech. So, every +100 to maximum life from gear ends up giving you 286 life, which then ends up giving you up to +70 life recovery per second while also increasing your ailments and stun thresholds.

Trade League

If you're playing this build in Trade League, here are a couple of nice upgrades to look for that can substantially improve your character:

• Chains of Command (automates animating weapons and animates the weapon of your Animated Guardian instead of the crappy lingering blades from Bladefall). You will obviously need an Animated Guardian for this. Replace Vitality with Clarity so you can safely replace your Lightning Golem with an Animated Guardian. Equip him with the highest DPS weapon you can find, Leer Cast helmet, Zahndethus' Cassock body armour, Kahuturoa's Certainty boots and Grave Bind gloves. You will also need a Writhing Jar flask or two to have things to kill to trigger the Animate Weapon for bosses with this setup.

• Even if you don't have Chains of Command in Trade League, you should still use an Animated Guardian with Leer Cast, Dying Breath and Zahndethus' Cassock.
• Foulborn Soul Tether Cloth Belt gives you instant leech, overleech and energy shield leech. Once you have it, grab the armour/energy shield mastery for 100% increased armour and energy shield from body armour if your helmet, gloves and boots all have armour and energy shield on them. You can then equip Chains of Command or a large energy shield chest such as a Twilight Regalia and have their energy shield value increased by 100%
• Ghastly Eye Jewels. priotitize minions have added lightning damage, life, and at least one with minions have a chance to blind on hit and one with minions have a chance to taunt on hit.

Tips and Tricks

• You can craft a cheap wand with Orbs of Alteration, Orbs of Augmentation and Regal Orbs. Bound Fossils are a great option too.
• Faustus is your best friend. Gamble all your gold on gear upgrades.
• You can sell any rare amulet with a red, green and blue gem to any vendor for a normal onyx amulet. You can then use your Orbs of Alchemy and Binding liberally on these normal onyx amulets, and sell them back if the resulting item is not good enough. You can sell up to 4 amulets at a time with 4 gems of each color to speed up this process.
• If the colors of a gem and its socket match, the gem will receive 10% quality: Use a chromatic on your wand for Bone Offering, on your shield for either Shield Charge or Faster Attack and on your body armour for Vaal Animate Weapon
• Have at least one piece of equipment with energy shield on it. The Safeguard notable makes you recover 50 energy shield on block and having any amount of energy shield gives you a 50% chance to avoid stuns
• Allocate the Brine King Pantheon to prevent being chain stunned

If you have any tips, suggestions, or improvements you’d like to add, feel free to leave a comment below and share your experience with the community.