PoE 3.12 Builds: Soulwrest Phantasm Necromancer Build Guide

Greetings, exiles! Today we’re diving deep into the Soulwrest Phantasm Necromancer – a remarkably cost-effective build that delivers exceptional performance without breaking the bank. This isn’t one of those niche experimental builds that sacrifice power for novelty; this is a proven league starter that can handle endgame content with minimal investment.

The entire build centers around the Soulwrest Staff, an affordable unique weapon that triggers Level 20 Summon Phantasm whenever you consume a corpse. These spectral minions fire piercing projectiles that deal physical damage, creating an army of ghostly spellcasters that clear screens effortlessly.

By default, the staff summons 10 phantasms, but socketing a Summon Phantasm Support gem boosts this cap to 20-21. Crucially, any support gems placed in the Soulwrest automatically affect all your phantasms simultaneously – no linking required. This means you get a fully functional 6-link setup as soon as you acquire 6 sockets, typically achievable by level 60 with minimal Chaos Orb investment.

The automation system uses Cyclone paired with Cast while Channeling to trigger Desecrate (creating corpses) and Flesh Offering (consuming them). This creates a self-sustaining cycle where spinning around generates the resources needed to maintain your minion army.

For damage optimization, we employ The Triad Grip gloves to convert your phantasms’ physical damage entirely to cold. This transformation is essential because scaling physical spell damage for minions presents significant challenges in Path of Exile’s current meta, while elemental damage opens up powerful scaling options like Elemental Equilibrium.

Additional minions like Animate Guardian and spectres provide valuable buffs to your primary phantasm army. The build maintains approximately 30 minions simultaneously, creating an overwhelming force that handles both mapping and bossing with ease.

As a Necromancer ascendancy, you’ll progress through a carefully optimized path that maximizes both offensive and defensive capabilities for your minion army.

Your first ascendancy points should go to Mindless Aggression, providing straightforward damage, cast speed, and movement speed buffs to all minions.

After completing the Cruel Labyrinth, prioritize Commander of Darkness. While the damage bonuses may not benefit you directly, the 30% all elemental resistances dramatically ease gearing requirements, allowing more flexibility with unique item selection.

Plaguebringer becomes your third major node, creating a persistent damage amplification and damage reduction field around corpses. Since you’re constantly generating corpses through your Cyclone setup, this buff maintains 100% uptime during combat.

Bone Barrier completes your defensive package, offering substantial physical damage reduction, life and energy shield recovery, plus 20% increased maximum life for your minions.

For Pantheon selections, Soul of Lunaris as your major god provides crucial evasion, dodge chance, and projectile avoidance – especially valuable given the 30+ minions that can cause projectile chaining. As a minor god, Soul of Gruthkul reduces enemy attack speed and incoming physical damage, essential protection for your melee-range Cyclone positioning.

Common Mistake: Many players underestimate the importance of actually using Bone Armour skill. Make sure to bind it to your hotbar and activate it frequently, as it provides significant hit absorption and bleeding immunity for both you and your minions.

Your primary damage comes from the Soulwrest Staff’s built-in skill, so all other gems socketed in it should be support gems. Remember that linking isn’t necessary – simply having six sockets in the staff provides equivalent power to a fully linked 6-link setup.

The engine driving this build is the Cyclone + Cast while Channeling combination. This setup continuously triggers Desecrate to spawn corpses and Flesh Offering to consume them, simultaneously summoning phantasms and providing massive DPS buffs.

Aura management becomes crucial for fitting all necessary buffs. The Devouring Diadem helmet is recommended best-in-slot specifically because auras socketed in it reserve significantly less mana.

Additional minion setups include Animate Guardian and spectres specifically chosen to provide buffs to your primary phantasm army.

The Triad Grip gloves require careful socket management since each green socket converts 25% of physical damage to cold damage. This conversion is mandatory because physical damage scaling for spell-based minions faces severe limitations in the current game balance.

Utility skills like Bone Armour and Convocation typically require unset rings with their inherent gem sockets to fit into your build comfortably.

Pro Tip: Against bosses, you can pre-summon your entire phantasm army by cycloning in place before engaging – this gives you maximum damage output from the very beginning of the fight.

This build’s gearing strategy focuses on acquiring specific unique items that synergize to create a powerful whole greater than the sum of its parts.

The core items – Soulwrest Staff, The Triad Grip gloves, and Devouring Diadem helmet – are all remarkably affordable, typically costing just a few Chaos Orbs each during league start.

Budget Alternatives: While leveling, you can use a +1 to minion gems wand and a shield until you acquire the Soulwrest Staff around level 60.

For endgame upgrades, focus on rare items with life, resistances, and minion damage modifiers. Jewelry with added minion damage and life will provide significant power spikes.

The build’s strengths include excellent league start viability, dirt-cheap entry cost, beginner-friendly mechanics, insane clear speed, excellent boss-killing capability, and surprisingly solid defensive layers.

The primary limitations involve reliance on specific unique items and the need to level initially as a skeleton necromancer before transitioning to the phantasm setup.

Advanced Optimization: Once you’ve established the core build, consider investing in cluster jewels with minion damage notables or seeking out elevated versions of your core unique items for minor improvements.

No reproduction without permission：OnLineGames Guides » PoE 3.12 Builds: Soulwrest Phantasm Necromancer Build Guide Master the Soulwrest Phantasm Necromancer with this budget-friendly, high-performance Path of Exile build guide