PoE Builds 3.23: Absolution Guardian Build

The Absolution Guardian represents a formidable minion-focused archetype that leverages the powerful Absolution skill to summon fiery Sentinels of Absolution. These spectral warriors deal substantial fire damage and possess the unique ability to potentially spawn additional Sentinels upon their demise. The build strategically employs multiple auras including Herald of Purity, Vitality, and Anger to significantly enhance both your minion army and your personal combat capabilities. With exceptional tankiness, impressive clear speed, and the capacity to conquer nearly all end-game challenges, this build offers a rewarding playstyle for minion enthusiasts.

Build Advantages

This minion build excels in accessibility, requiring minimal initial investment and functioning effectively with basic gear configurations. As you progress, the build demonstrates remarkable scaling potential, growing substantially more powerful with both character level advancement and strategic equipment upgrades. The damage output proves consistently impressive, drawing from multiple fire damage sources that synergize effectively. Survivability stands as a key strength, achieved through robust life regeneration mechanics, reliable block chance, and the inherent defensive bonuses provided by the Guardian ascendancy class. The flexible skill tree and diverse gem selection options allow for extensive customization to match individual playstyles.

Build Challenges

Minion durability can become problematic in specific high-damage scenarios, necessitating frequent re-summoning during intense encounters. The Absolution skill’s 25% chance to summon a Sentinel introduces an element of inconsistency that requires strategic management. The reliance on Doryani’s Prototype for negative lightning resistance scaling presents both financial considerations and gameplay risks that demand careful attention.

Core Skill Links

The foundation of this build revolves around the Absolution skill, which should be connected with these essential support gems:

● Minion Damage Support: Substantially amplifies the damage output of both your Sentinels and the explosive effects they generate upon death.

● Elemental Focus Support: Boosts elemental damage significantly while preventing elemental ailment application, which aligns perfectly with this build’s damage focus.

● Combustion Support: Enhances fire damage and penetration capabilities while simultaneously reducing enemy fire resistance for comprehensive damage enhancement.

● Feeding Frenzy Support: Provides the valuable Feeding Frenzy buff to your Sentinels, increasing their aggression while granting additional damage and movement speed benefits to both you and your entire minion contingent.

● Deathmark Support: Enables targeted enemy marking for focused minion assault, proving particularly effective against bosses and resilient enemies.

Utility and Defense Skills

● Herald of Purity: Delivers enhanced physical damage and summons Sentinels of Purity upon defeating enemies, which deal physical damage and can intimidate targets to reduce their damage reduction.

● Vitality: Provides sustained life regeneration for both you and your minions, crucial for survival and sustained combat performance.

● Anger: Provides substantial fire damage augmentation for both you and your minions, perfectly complementing the build’s fiery thematic elements.

● Convocation: Instantly recalls all minions to your position, essential for strategic repositioning and avoiding hazardous situations.

● Flame Dash: A versatile mobility skill enabling rapid teleportation while temporarily boosting spell dodge chance.

● Immortal Call: A defensive ability consuming endurance charges to grant brief physical damage immunity, typically automated through Cast when Damage Taken Support.

● Summon Stone Golem: Creates a durable Stone Golem dealing physical damage while providing additional life regeneration to enhance overall survivability.

● Desecrate: Generates corpse patches to fuel Absolution and facilitate additional Sentinel creation.

Advanced Gem Strategies

For experienced players, consider swapping Elemental Focus for Elemental Army in content where applying elemental ailments proves beneficial. The timing of Convocation usage separates novice players from experts – deploy it preemptively when anticipating large incoming damage bursts rather than reactively after your minions have taken significant damage.

The Guardian ascendancy class provides an exceptional foundation for this build, delivering comprehensive defensive and offensive enhancements for both you and your minion army. The optimal ascendancy progression includes Radiant Crusade for minion damage and onslaught, Unwavering Crusade for additional aura effects and minion buffs, Time of Need for enhanced regeneration and ailment removal, and Bastion of Hope for substantial block chance improvements and stun immunity. This combination creates a synergistic defensive framework that allows you to withstand substantial punishment while your minions dismantle enemies.

For players seeking alternative approaches, consider the Necromancer ascendancy for more aggressive minion damage at the cost of personal survivability. Understanding these ascendancy interactions is crucial for optimizing your class selection and build performance.

Core Equipment Strategy

The equipment selection for this build primarily focuses on maximizing damage output and survivability for both you and your minions, while ensuring capped elemental resistances and reasonable chaos resistance. The build’s centerpiece remains Doryani’s Prototype, a unique chest armor that enables powerful lightning damage scaling based on enemy lightning resistance while synchronizing your lightning resistance with your lowest elemental resistance. This sophisticated mechanic requires careful gearing to maintain negative lightning resistance alongside elevated fire and cold resistances while aggressively reducing enemy lightning resistance.

● Weapon: Prioritize a rare bow featuring substantial physical damage, high attack speed, and minion damage modifiers. The Thicket Bow base stands as the optimal choice due to its superior attack speed characteristics. Consider crafting a trigger socketed spell mod to automate Desecrate and Convocation for smoother gameplay.

● Helmet: Select a rare helmet with significant life, elemental resistance, and minion damage attributes. The Royal Burgonet base offers excellent armor values, while enchantments boosting Absolution damage or reducing its mana cost provide significant benefits.

● Body Armour: Doryani’s Prototype serves as the build’s cornerstone, enabling advanced lightning damage mechanics that demand precise resistance management.

● Gloves: Opt for rare gloves providing substantial life, elemental resistances, and minion damage enhancements. Fingerless Silk Gloves represent the ideal base due to their spell damage enhancement. Crafted modifiers increasing attack and cast speed or damage during leech can further enhance performance.

Jewel Selection

● Cluster Jewels: Incorporate large cluster jewels featuring Minion Damage or Minion Life notables, alongside medium cluster jewels with Renewal or Feasting Fiends notables, all contributing to minion damage and survivability. Small cluster jewels with Fettle or Surging Vitality notables significantly boost your life pool and regeneration capabilities.

● Unique Jewels: Consider these specialized jewels for enhanced performance:

● Anatomical Knowledge: Provides increased maximum life and damage scaling based on jewel socket distance from your starting location, optimally positioned near the Scion life wheel.

● Energised Armour: Enhances armor values and damage output based on your total armor, synergizing effectively with Granite Flasks and the Iron Reflexes keystone.

● Spreading Rot: Boosts chaos damage and increases chaos damage taken by enemies hindered by Blight, typically applied through a weapon swap or ring socket.

● Rare Jewels: Target these specific modifiers for optimal performance:

 Prefixes: Increased maximum life, increased minion damage, increased fire damage

 Suffixes: Increased minion life, increased minion speed, increased elemental resistance

Flasks and Consumables

● Life Flask: Utilize a Divine Life Flask or Eternal Life Flask with instant recovery on low life and bleeding immunity modifiers.

● Mana Flask: Lavianga’s Spirit provides exceptional mana, regeneration, and area of effect enhancements during activation.

● Utility Flask 1: A Granite Flask with increased armor and curse immunity provides substantial defensive and offensive benefits.

● Utility Flask 2: A Quicksilver Flask delivering movement speed boosts alongside freeze and chill immunity enhances both mobility and safety.

● Utility Flask 3: A Silver Flask with extended duration and shock immunity grants the valuable Onslaught buff while protecting against shock effects.

Leveling Progression

This build transitions smoothly through the leveling process, initially utilizing any available minion skill such as Summon Raging Spirit, Summon Skeleton, or Raise Zombie until accessing Absolution at level 28. A Tabula Rasa provides an excellent leveling solution with its six-linked white sockets, eliminating gem color and link concerns. Several unique items significantly enhance the leveling experience:

● Wanderlust: These unique boots deliver movement speed, mana regeneration, and freeze/chill immunity – all invaluable during the early game.

● Sidhebreath: This distinctive amulet boosts minion damage, movement speed, and regeneration while reducing minion skill mana costs.

● Skullhead: A unique helmet augmenting minion damage, life, and resistances while improving your personal defenses.

● Bones of Ullr: These specialized boots increase minion damage and movement speed while expanding your maximum zombie and spectre limits.

● The Baron: A powerful helmet enhancing minion damage and life while providing additional zombies based on strength investment.

Advanced Gameplay Tactics

The gameplay approach remains intuitive yet requires strategic positioning and minion management. This build demonstrates exceptional performance across most end-game content including maps, boss encounters, and delve expeditions. Most map modifiers prove manageable except for elemental reflect, no mana regeneration, and no life regeneration, which can create substantial challenges. Beneficial map mods include increased area of effect, enhanced monster life, and boosted fire damage, all amplifying the build’s effectiveness. For comprehensive game strategy fundamentals, master the art of positioning – stay behind your minion line while using Convocation strategically to reposition your army during dangerous mechanics.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

New players often underestimate the importance of maintaining proper resistance values when using Doryani’s Prototype. Ensure your fire and cold resistances remain maximized while your lightning resistance stays negative. Avoid standing in the frontline; your minions should absorb damage while you provide support from a safe distance. Proper flask management separates successful players from those who struggle – time your Granite Flask usage before entering high-damage situations rather than reactively.

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