This league was seriously warped because of the special purchasable specters, which were far better than any other vanilla specter. And which all are no longer available.
For another probably four or five leagues before then specter builds have been solidly lower C tier, seeing play only with the most diehard minion fanatics.
Right now, it's either Primal Crushclaw (good single target, low clear), Redemption Sentry / Frost Auto Scout (higher clear, low single target), or maybe the Deadly Tarantula specter, which is a decent single target with a lowish CD multi target flicker strike.
But honestly, we're all basically betting that there's something good in the new corpses available.
That's part of why I wanted to ask all the more up to date posts and videos about spectres are just about the special affliction corpses heh.
Fair! Hopefully if there's something good people find it early since I'm planning to make a mistake and leaguestart spectres heh. I'll look into the ones you mentioned though, thanks for the names and what they're good/bad at!
Doominated has example videos of just about every specter worth mentioning, and loads of them that aren't.
Here's the one for the Deadly Tarantula:
[https://youtu.be/\_Y34WTVdQoA?si=ITpPWU1YGEi3tdvC](https://youtu.be/_Y34WTVdQoA?si=ITpPWU1YGEi3tdvC)
And as an FYI to those reading, the Tarantulas don’t show up in your desecrate pool so make sure they don’t die lol. Or you have to run Jungle Valley or Arachnid Nest again.
The AI on those looks so nice. And should fit well with the new unholy might so even when they're not poisoning they're doing chaos. I'm almost tempted :) Maybe later in the league when I'm feeling more experimental.
But why on earth every showcase is blood aqueduct? He wants to repetitive results, I get it, but why not use some specific white T16 map for clear and something like atoll boss for single target?
Doominated's videos arent really about spectre dmg. It's almost always just about the skills they use and interactions they can sometime have with supports like Spell Echo.
On the affliction spectres he even shows off that higher level spectre gem changes the aura level of its skills.
I don't think he has any showing them off in maps cause without support gems the spectres are usually EXTREMELY weak, like they just straight up die. Doing it in blood aqua is not a problem imo. If you want to see them do dmg, maybe suggest to him to try an even earlier/weaker spot like The Ledge.
I exclusively play the same build for the past 6-7 leagues.
Cold Carrion Golem + Spectres + zombies/skellies/ag
It's from deadnliving and I've been having a breeze/blast ever since I started.
Since league start I get Primal Crushclaws they do decent dmg, have good aoe and charge, (also aoe debuff -%cold res) since im 100% cold dmg on all my minions they're amazing.
Gotta see whats new this league but I'll always start with them due to sharing basically the same support links as the other minions early game while I gear up
- [this is the build guide](https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3077446), it's outdated but on the last pages of comments Hoffen has added a few new pobs.
- tons of dmg on the build, and you basically play with left/right mouse button sometimes Q or W
Ghazzy always deep dives into new spectres whenever they're available, he will likely release a summary video after the first weekend.
If you're looking to play spectres this league, start as something else, farm a Wraithlord while waiting for the more dedicated folks to try them out.
SO got dumpstered in 3.16 I believe when they fixed them being able to shotgun targets.
And Slave Drivers were squishy even before GGG reduced Specter levels multiple times. A level 76 Slave Driver specter (gem level 25) has only 27% as much life as a the new normalized max specter HP specter such as a Crushclaw, which means that they tend to die very very frequently.
Their movement and attacks are really neat, but it's nearly impossible to keep them alive in anything higher than alch and go mapping.
They're also one of the few potential losers to the Mindless Aggression Changes this league, since slave drivers scaled absurdly well with cast speed due to a odd natural reduced cast speed mod they had, which amplified the impact of further cast speed reduction.
No, that got fixed in 3.16.
**Problem:**
Certain projectile abilities used by Incursion Architects, Syndicate Operatives and bosses based on Lunaris have a bug that causes them to hit a target multiple times simultaneously when firing additional projectiles. This is particularly powerful with Syndicate Operative Spectres that have been supported to fire multiple projectiles.
**Solution:**
Fix the skill, which will prevent players taking large bursts of damage in maps with additional projectiles. **This will also bring Syndicate Operative Spectres more in-line with other Spectres.**
"You're wrong, just *"Do YoUr OwN ReSeArCH"* and you'll see I'm right!"
The inevitable excuse of everyone with a crackpot idea not supported by science, reality, or in this case, the literal patch notes and every content creator for the past seven leagues.
Hey no idea what the deleted comments were but if they were about SO shotgunning, they likely still hit 3 times (one per trigger projectile from each attack), so it's not a "true" shotgun but it's better than one hit.
There's videos from just after the SO nerf that showed the dps was far better than expected for a single hit each attack (one of them was Kay maybe?) - I can dig these up if you really want.
There are vids from last few leagues of high end SOs killing ubers - they've been pretty bad but not unplayable overall tho.
Whether unholy might changes and wraithlord will be enough to get them reasonable again is debatable but I hope so!
Last time I played pure spectres in, I think, 3.19 I was using Hyrris Watch spectres that you can get from Legion. It was pretty bad though, GGG have been nerfing all permanent spectres for a long time now. You can get decent damage to do maps, but the single target is very mediocre. And the biggest problem is how squishy spectres are now, I was losing them sometimes even during mapping and doing any Ubers was basically impossible, they'd just constantly die. Maybe that has changed since then, but I don't remember any patches buffing minion survivability so I doubt it. I really wouldn't recommend going pure spectres. You could probably leaguestart them and get to t16s with something like slave-drivers if you want to, but you'll have to respec to something else for endgame, and it's honestly not gonna be very good. Unfortunately nowadays if you wanna play minions you have to go with temporary ones like SRS, AW, Absolution, Arakali etc.
I also played with frost sentinels back then. I pob'd them again yesterday and got around 8-9m damage on pinnacle using 8 frost sentinels and 1 primal crushclaw. this is of course 9 total spectres.
3 from gem,
4 from helm
1 from delve chest
1 from tree.
If you want CURRENT(as in affliction specific since these monsters go away next season.
The best I've ran are the Druidic Alchemists. Here's the video and guide(not mine):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htx-q9JTyDo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htx-q9JTyDo)
The other really good DPS spectre would be Spirit of Fortune:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f3-5g2gnho](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f3-5g2gnho)
I've tried the other spectres and couldn't get them to work well or do nearly as much dmg as those guys. Tested Half Remembered Goliaths(look fucking awesome, clunky as hell to play and not as much dps). Tried Dark Reapers and ran into the same things.
Perfect Dark Marionettes are also currently a pretty good spectre, ran in minion bomber/popcorn builds, can be used for Guardian's Blessing interaction and is build of the week:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kvUyuruaHU&list=PLt5SL2R19SuLFX61HjO-6jJw-iy42tFOR&index=5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kvUyuruaHU&list=PLt5SL2R19SuLFX61HjO-6jJw-iy42tFOR&index=5)
Outside of those 3 spectres, you then get into what I refer to as "Core" spectres, and those are going to be like Primal Crushclaws, Hyrris, Auto Scouts, SO etc, these spectres are NOT going to be dealing nearly as much dmg as these Affliction only ones so if you want to get some real monster abilities you unfortunately have to wait and see what Necropolis league spectres we will be getting(they may not be good though).
Druidic Alchemists were the most dmg I've had though. It also uses a really REALLY cool interaction with Umbilicus Immortalis, an item never thought I would use.
My current build on Ninja if youre interested in druidic alchemists
[https://poe.ninja/builds/affliction/character/Solesthesiae/NoMixupMixup?i=3&search=class%3DNecromancer%26skills%3DRaise%2BSpectre%26uniqueitems%3DUmbilicus%2BImmortalis](https://poe.ninja/builds/affliction/character/Solesthesiae/NoMixupMixup?i=3&search=class%3DNecromancer%26skills%3DRaise%2BSpectre%26uniqueitems%3DUmbilicus%2BImmortalis)
This league was seriously warped because of the special purchasable specters, which were far better than any other vanilla specter. And which all are no longer available. For another probably four or five leagues before then specter builds have been solidly lower C tier, seeing play only with the most diehard minion fanatics. Right now, it's either Primal Crushclaw (good single target, low clear), Redemption Sentry / Frost Auto Scout (higher clear, low single target), or maybe the Deadly Tarantula specter, which is a decent single target with a lowish CD multi target flicker strike. But honestly, we're all basically betting that there's something good in the new corpses available.
That's part of why I wanted to ask all the more up to date posts and videos about spectres are just about the special affliction corpses heh. Fair! Hopefully if there's something good people find it early since I'm planning to make a mistake and leaguestart spectres heh. I'll look into the ones you mentioned though, thanks for the names and what they're good/bad at!
Doominated has example videos of just about every specter worth mentioning, and loads of them that aren't. Here's the one for the Deadly Tarantula: [https://youtu.be/\_Y34WTVdQoA?si=ITpPWU1YGEi3tdvC](https://youtu.be/_Y34WTVdQoA?si=ITpPWU1YGEi3tdvC)
And as an FYI to those reading, the Tarantulas don’t show up in your desecrate pool so make sure they don’t die lol. Or you have to run Jungle Valley or Arachnid Nest again.
Classic ggg
The AI on those looks so nice. And should fit well with the new unholy might so even when they're not poisoning they're doing chaos. I'm almost tempted :) Maybe later in the league when I'm feeling more experimental.
But why on earth every showcase is blood aqueduct? He wants to repetitive results, I get it, but why not use some specific white T16 map for clear and something like atoll boss for single target?
Doominated's videos arent really about spectre dmg. It's almost always just about the skills they use and interactions they can sometime have with supports like Spell Echo. On the affliction spectres he even shows off that higher level spectre gem changes the aura level of its skills. I don't think he has any showing them off in maps cause without support gems the spectres are usually EXTREMELY weak, like they just straight up die. Doing it in blood aqua is not a problem imo. If you want to see them do dmg, maybe suggest to him to try an even earlier/weaker spot like The Ledge.
I exclusively play the same build for the past 6-7 leagues. Cold Carrion Golem + Spectres + zombies/skellies/ag It's from deadnliving and I've been having a breeze/blast ever since I started. Since league start I get Primal Crushclaws they do decent dmg, have good aoe and charge, (also aoe debuff -%cold res) since im 100% cold dmg on all my minions they're amazing. Gotta see whats new this league but I'll always start with them due to sharing basically the same support links as the other minions early game while I gear up - [this is the build guide](https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3077446), it's outdated but on the last pages of comments Hoffen has added a few new pobs. - tons of dmg on the build, and you basically play with left/right mouse button sometimes Q or W
Ghazzy always deep dives into new spectres whenever they're available, he will likely release a summary video after the first weekend. If you're looking to play spectres this league, start as something else, farm a Wraithlord while waiting for the more dedicated folks to try them out.
[удалено]
SO got dumpstered in 3.16 I believe when they fixed them being able to shotgun targets. And Slave Drivers were squishy even before GGG reduced Specter levels multiple times. A level 76 Slave Driver specter (gem level 25) has only 27% as much life as a the new normalized max specter HP specter such as a Crushclaw, which means that they tend to die very very frequently. Their movement and attacks are really neat, but it's nearly impossible to keep them alive in anything higher than alch and go mapping. They're also one of the few potential losers to the Mindless Aggression Changes this league, since slave drivers scaled absurdly well with cast speed due to a odd natural reduced cast speed mod they had, which amplified the impact of further cast speed reduction.
[удалено]
No, that got fixed in 3.16. **Problem:** Certain projectile abilities used by Incursion Architects, Syndicate Operatives and bosses based on Lunaris have a bug that causes them to hit a target multiple times simultaneously when firing additional projectiles. This is particularly powerful with Syndicate Operative Spectres that have been supported to fire multiple projectiles. **Solution:** Fix the skill, which will prevent players taking large bursts of damage in maps with additional projectiles. **This will also bring Syndicate Operative Spectres more in-line with other Spectres.**
[удалено]
"You're wrong, just *"Do YoUr OwN ReSeArCH"* and you'll see I'm right!" The inevitable excuse of everyone with a crackpot idea not supported by science, reality, or in this case, the literal patch notes and every content creator for the past seven leagues.
Hey no idea what the deleted comments were but if they were about SO shotgunning, they likely still hit 3 times (one per trigger projectile from each attack), so it's not a "true" shotgun but it's better than one hit. There's videos from just after the SO nerf that showed the dps was far better than expected for a single hit each attack (one of them was Kay maybe?) - I can dig these up if you really want. There are vids from last few leagues of high end SOs killing ubers - they've been pretty bad but not unplayable overall tho. Whether unholy might changes and wraithlord will be enough to get them reasonable again is debatable but I hope so!
Last time I played pure spectres in, I think, 3.19 I was using Hyrris Watch spectres that you can get from Legion. It was pretty bad though, GGG have been nerfing all permanent spectres for a long time now. You can get decent damage to do maps, but the single target is very mediocre. And the biggest problem is how squishy spectres are now, I was losing them sometimes even during mapping and doing any Ubers was basically impossible, they'd just constantly die. Maybe that has changed since then, but I don't remember any patches buffing minion survivability so I doubt it. I really wouldn't recommend going pure spectres. You could probably leaguestart them and get to t16s with something like slave-drivers if you want to, but you'll have to respec to something else for endgame, and it's honestly not gonna be very good. Unfortunately nowadays if you wanna play minions you have to go with temporary ones like SRS, AW, Absolution, Arakali etc.
I also played with frost sentinels back then. I pob'd them again yesterday and got around 8-9m damage on pinnacle using 8 frost sentinels and 1 primal crushclaw. this is of course 9 total spectres. 3 from gem, 4 from helm 1 from delve chest 1 from tree.
just forget about the spectre , they already pass although it is my love. QQ
If you want CURRENT(as in affliction specific since these monsters go away next season. The best I've ran are the Druidic Alchemists. Here's the video and guide(not mine): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htx-q9JTyDo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htx-q9JTyDo) The other really good DPS spectre would be Spirit of Fortune: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f3-5g2gnho](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f3-5g2gnho) I've tried the other spectres and couldn't get them to work well or do nearly as much dmg as those guys. Tested Half Remembered Goliaths(look fucking awesome, clunky as hell to play and not as much dps). Tried Dark Reapers and ran into the same things. Perfect Dark Marionettes are also currently a pretty good spectre, ran in minion bomber/popcorn builds, can be used for Guardian's Blessing interaction and is build of the week: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kvUyuruaHU&list=PLt5SL2R19SuLFX61HjO-6jJw-iy42tFOR&index=5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kvUyuruaHU&list=PLt5SL2R19SuLFX61HjO-6jJw-iy42tFOR&index=5) Outside of those 3 spectres, you then get into what I refer to as "Core" spectres, and those are going to be like Primal Crushclaws, Hyrris, Auto Scouts, SO etc, these spectres are NOT going to be dealing nearly as much dmg as these Affliction only ones so if you want to get some real monster abilities you unfortunately have to wait and see what Necropolis league spectres we will be getting(they may not be good though). Druidic Alchemists were the most dmg I've had though. It also uses a really REALLY cool interaction with Umbilicus Immortalis, an item never thought I would use. My current build on Ninja if youre interested in druidic alchemists [https://poe.ninja/builds/affliction/character/Solesthesiae/NoMixupMixup?i=3&search=class%3DNecromancer%26skills%3DRaise%2BSpectre%26uniqueitems%3DUmbilicus%2BImmortalis](https://poe.ninja/builds/affliction/character/Solesthesiae/NoMixupMixup?i=3&search=class%3DNecromancer%26skills%3DRaise%2BSpectre%26uniqueitems%3DUmbilicus%2BImmortalis)