Iron Mass Build: A Disappointing Path of Exile Experience

The Iron Mass build fails to deliver sufficient damage and purpose, making it an unworthy choice for players.

### The Iron Mass Build: A Disappointing Experiment in Path of Exile
* 💔 " This is one of those builds where it's like, **why exactly did I try and build this anyway?**" The Iron Mass build has proven to be **ineffective**, particularly when compared to the **more powerful skills available in the game**.
* 💀  Minions, especially skeletons, have not received the necessary buffs to compete effectively, leading to a **lack of popularity for summon skeleton builds** in the current meta.
* 📉  Despite some theoretical potential with the Iron Mass, the actual damage output is **dismal**, with only **378,000 damage per minion**, far below the **1.8 to 2 million range** seen in more successful builds.
* ⚔️  The build's reliance on **hitting enemies with the Iron Mass** makes gameplay **clunky and unenjoyable**, compounded by the need for **constant management of minion health and positioning**.
* 🔄  Although the build reached level 88 and performed adequately in T16 maps, it lacked a **clear purpose**, making it difficult to justify its use for **farming or bossing effectively**.
* 🛠️  Significant investment was made into the build, with around **10 to 18 divines spent**, but it ultimately fell short in terms of both fun and effectiveness, leading to the conclusion that "**Iron Mass sucks**."
* 📽️  The creator plans to share gameplay footage to illustrate the build's **struggles**, while also expressing a desire to explore other, **more viable builds** in the future.
* 💡  Ultimately, this experience serves as a learning opportunity, highlighting the **importance of experimentation** in Path of Exile, even when the results are **disappointing**.

welcome back, you filthy Exiles. So, this is one of those builds where it's like, why exactly did I try and build this anyway. Basically, where I got to with the iron Mass build is, it's not good. It's just not like a buffed-up enough item to justify playing over all the skills that exist in the game. Minions are just like, in particular skeletons, are just not very good compared to other skills. And I guess, you know, off the back of, um, I guess changes over the last however many leagues or whatnot, minions just really haven't had much luck, um, sort of excelling. And, you know, I'm just basically searching up how many people are playing, you know, summon skeletons right now. And like, there is definitely a place for them to be played from what we can see on screen here. But like, the ehps and DPSS and whatever are just totally out there and bizarre. Like, yeah, they could work, but it looks like Zoom aners are pretty much the way to go.

and then stacking poison procs. So, like this, as a poison build would probably be quite a good build, um, in particular with Surin. But, um, basically where I got to was iron mass is um, is just not that good of a skill. And in fact, if we look up iron mass as a bit of an example here, um, Iron Mass 2%. Yeah, like this is the total cumulation of players that are using iron MK. So, like there are really cool items in the game, um, that could be a lot cooler if they buffed them up a little bit, uh, in particular for Minion use. But yeah, I don't see there being much purpose in playing Iron Mass builds. I found out the hard way anyway. So yeah, let's talk about the build and I'll show you a bit of gameplay and footage. So, we'll do map and basically you can have a look and see how it plays through a t16. And like I got it working in t16s. It just doesn't work very well. Um, damage per minion is

like 378,000 per minion, which is not very good. Like for a T6 one, like 1.8 to 2 mil per minion, something like that. Um, it just isn't outputting the damage that it needs. And the other big problem with the Iron Mask configuration is you have to hit the enemy. So the best way I figured to do this is Smite and B Smite, but it's clunky as hell. It's not a lot of fun. Anyway, let's run a map. I'll show you what it looks like, and then we can talk about the build. I'm still going to walk through it because I put it together, and there might be someone a lot smarter than me that can figure out how to make this a viable build. I did get this to level 88 for the Iron Mask gullet and Summoner, and I'm probably not going to push it any further. So definitely open to suggestions on what you would want to see with the marauder class. Um, if there's any other cool builds you

want me to have a look at. There's definitely a few others I want to look at, but for the next few weeks, we'll probably just do a bit of currency farming. Anyway, let's have a look at a map and I'll show you how it plays. Okay, so first thing, I really don't know what you would use this build to farm for or farm with, and we just got to get past my GPU and my connection. So basically, like the build works overall, as we can see here, it sort of does do the job. It relies pretty heavy on being carried by penises, which is definitely not something I like in any of my builds. The other thing too is I don't have a movement ability. This too basically you want to keep your valite constantly as you're playing through, and the reason why we use Val is so we don't have to like go up to an enemy and clap the enemy because that's a good way to die. And as you can see, even with four Genesis.

it's just defensive. Defenses are pretty good, actually. It's just high risk because your damage output just isn't keeping up. There are some other issues that I ran into with the build, such as enemies that just totally pursue over the top. You can't play ultimatum with it. I tried. It's a little disappointing, but like as far as build build go, it's definitely not the worst build I've ever played. It's just not a very good build. Actually, this is a bit annoying because like the more map mods you play, this is actually doing pretty well, but I guess there's not a lot of mods on this. So basically like there we go, we get to the end of the map. The other thing like don't need to worry too much about the um about Minion death or Spectre deaths and stuff like that. And then you get to the boss room and it'll actually take down p16 is pretty okay. So like yeah, see there we go and there's that random death that you get which

makes it a build that I don't like. Anyway, let's talk about the build and break it down, and the reasons why it's not really worth looking at if you were looking at trying to get Iron Mass to work. Okay, so the idea behind this build initially, void of I guess the commentary and the introduction and whatnot, was to try and utilize the Iron Mass, right? So basically, what this does is it allows your, so it replaces the weapon that your skeleton minions use with the Iron Mass sword. Sword, and then basically from there, if you hit an enemy with the Iron Mask, then basically your enemy, your skeletons get Unholy Might, and well, they get Unholy Might permanently. It's like permanent uptime, but they also proc triple damage, right? So Unholy Might converts all your damage from your minions to chaos damage. So theoretically, it should be pretty good. In fact, it probably does or could work really well with Eternal Damnation, but I hadn't really tried it. So initially, when I tried to put this

build together. I did try to make it a castle and stun build, but because the defenses just weren't there without running like shields and stuff like that, it just was, it doesn't feel anything like my primary castman stun build that I used to delve, right? So that basically ruled that out. The other problem with trying to run this as castman stun was you would then recast skeletons 'cause you only have a cap of 10 skeletons as it is, and like even if you juice it like 10 to 12, um, but basically then yeah, you would basically just cap out of your skeletons and then just repeat respawn the skeletons over the top of the skeleton, so that would occur so quickly that you couldn't actually hit enemies, which is problematic, right? But the idea was to automate it so then you could just go up and like, you know, tap it with Smite and then not worry about anything, right? That was the idea. That didn't work, so then we went to self-cast to try and figure out

how to make it work with selfcast, and I think like I got pretty far if I was to invest more time and effort into this. And like, there are things like I'm missing, uh, cluster Jewel, like a jewel in here. Um, I'm only level 88, so theoretically seven more points could actually swing a fair bit more damage into the build or defense and whatnot. So like, it could potentially go somewhere, but the problem is I got the t16. I don't find it very fun, number one. I don't like the idea that I have to run a progenesis to make it sustainable. Um, and yeah, it just feels aw. It's hard to explain, but um, yeah. Anyway, that's basically the whole concept of the build, uh, right. And then basically with the Iron Mass, so we then double up with elemental equilibrium, and I spent like an okay amount of currency on this. Um, I think I spent like maybe two div, three div, something like that all up so far. I think I put somewhere in the vicinity of

maybe like I don't know 10, 15, uh, maybe 18 div into the build, and I just couldn't spin this in a direction that could make it work. The other problem with the build that I found was, um, was that I just don't know what you would farm with it. So, like, it's a build without a purpose, if that makes sense. Like, it's not particularly good for bossing. Like, it could be if you switched out Mely Splash for, um, for something else, right? Um, but even that, like, Elemental hit, uh, Elemental damage, sorry, increased Elemental damage. But even then, I don't even know what you would play this build for, um, which is something that, as I was leveling, I was like, Why am I even leveling this? Like, can I deal with it? No. Um, can I ritual with it? It, like, a ritual is okay. Can I play ultimatum with it? No. Can it do, like, blight? Yeah, but the damage is a bit bad, and you constantly have to cast, and, like, there are better

builds like carrying Golems or specters and stuff like that for that, so that's some of the issues I ran into with the build. But yeah, talking through the gearing in the build, so obviously we use like Iron Mass, we use a really like minion, so plus two minion Helm, which isn't very expensive, but this is a pretty decent version. I did have the idea to try and use Wrath because Wrath sort of specs up the damage with this configuration with Unholy Might. And then we use like a stabilizing scepter, so we get Elemental Equilibrium. And then we have Cman Trigger on that, which was where a little bit of currency went. Boots, I sort of threw around the idea of running like Winds of Legacy, Fury, and stuff like that. And then I went, we'll just use Val Greaves in the end. It does use a Darkness and Throne configuration, and we tried to like have it so when you spawn minions constantly, they're doing more

damage um chest piece was just like a really good chest piece, right? So, it was relatively cheap, 2,000 armor, which, you know, all the gear I've got on this can be repurposed. And obviously, I set it up with a bit of a cast one stun setup, but maybe that's the problem with the build. If I took that out and changed that out, but that's where a lot of the defense comes from as well with immutable force and blood uh Notch. And then obviously like a really good, you know, Dex ring, so we reserve a lot of HP, right? So, this is blood magic as well um. And then gloves, I crafted these gloves and they're not the best gloves by any measure, but I get like 40% increased um, you know, uh damage uh with minions. And then beyond that was just my FL setup basically off of my castman stun setup um. And then the other idea like from the pathing tree was to um try and make it Chieftain uh main reason was overcapping, so it did

struggle with Uber Labs too and could probably do Uber lab now, but I don't know. It just didn't really feel very good. And then the other thing with like skeleton minions, you want to have like blessed rebirth and life from death. And so when they constantly like recharge, you get increased regeneration. And when you spawn them, because their HP pool is really low, um, basically, you know, you don't have to worry about minions dying and stuff like that, um, because I don't die. And then basically, you just stack up like ghastly iels throughout the build as much as you can, um, to push damage up. Now I tried like quickening Covenant and Fortress Covenant, but they're just not that good compared to what they used to be. Um, and then yeah, the other, the next idea was to try and like Stack Up minion pen, minion accuracy, minion crit where possible to get as much damage and there's much HP in the build. And for the most, like the tree works like it's still in t16s. There's definitely something

missing with the build um potentially this could be a much better Spectre build uh or like a Golem answer or something of that nature but it's just something I haven't really put too much thought into um now outside of that like gem setups uh we go from like uh petrified blood P Precision purity of fire with eternal blessing um and then we have Smite wrath and we use generosity so when we hit Smite we then like proc that buff onto our allies if anything there are mechanics in here that we can reuse for you know other various builds that we might consider with minions but yeah minion builds just don't feel good um and then basically in the other septer we have desecrate Spirit offering and conductivity so basically we like try and proc up as much Elemental uh you know lightning resist reduction and whatnot as we can then in the chest you know we got summon skeletons we got it to like level 23 and this is V summon skeletons by the way uh

fresh meat which isn't ideal like we'd want to put that on something else actually no fresh meat's fine gives our minions um waken Fury uh and then they you know they do a fair bit of damage off the back of that and then awaken minion damage Wen mely Splash multi strike and volatility right so volatility wasn't fully leveled on this either but it doesn't really make too much of a difference um then in the uh gloves we had Vitality leap slam uh summon Stone Golem of safeguarding which is one that you use to basically um take away or revert damage or divert damage sorry from yourself to your Golem and then Feeding Frenzy is how we get Feeding Frenzy into the build then in the boots we have raise Spectre minion life meat shield and Anime Guardian right so then we run like I just run like Carnage Chieftain and host Chieftain from act s on Ashen field um and that's basically the build right

so yeah, that's more or less the build. Now I'll put the PO in the description as I always do. I add a second PO as well, which I'll put in the description, that just has some attribute issues if you want to work with that. There is another way to play this build on the Chieftain, and it does get a lot more damage, but the problem is you're running Blessing RS, and that's running the boots that provide Blessing RS, and I don't really like that because then it just becomes a button-mashing contest. I wanted to try and make this build relatively automated so you didn't have to press so many buttons, but I just don't think that's doable with this configuration. But yeah, anyway, that's it for the Iron Mass build. I thought I'd do a video like, you know, a lot of creators post up videos about their successes, but they don't post videos about where they learn about something, right? So a lot of builds I

play in League like you see like a few that go up every league, but I play like way more builds, and there's tons of most creators do exactly this. Um, we play like a ton of different builds to see what sticks, and sometimes we get really lucky, sometimes, you know, not so lucky like in this case, and sometimes somewhere in between you find something that's pretty level average. But uh, I'm definitely not against posting up some of the failings because in every failing, this is how you basically learn Path of Exile, and uh, we now know that iron Mass sucks. So anyway um, if you like this type of video, don't forget to like and sub to the channel. Like this is probably a bit more on the chin than usual, and I'll leave you with some mapping footage as a bit of a closeout to this video. I don't want to do like a full-blown guide on this or anything like that because I can't recommend this to anybody, but if you wanted to try it, everything will be

in the description, and maybe you can figure out some mechanics and stuff like that to get it to work. But for now, I'm going to can this build, and we are probably going to farm with the auto bomber for a little bit, and uh, and push down in delve, do a video on delve, do some poe2 content as well, which I got planned. I really need to get my uh, get myself together and get on track with that, and uh, yeah. Anyway, we'll hop on some twitch and uh, and chill with everyone. Anyway, until next time, I'll see you guys later, and enjoy the footage ch w chaos.

WHY DID I TRY THIS BUILD? | Iron Mass Skeleton Warrior Chieftain - Is it Viable? | PoE 3.25 Settlers

Jorgen

The Iron Mass build for summoning skeletons is underwhelming and not worth playing due to the minions' poor performance.

Despite a small number of players using Iron Mass, the skill's damage output is inadequate, making it ineffective for higher-tier maps.

The build's reliance on hitting enemies and the clunky skill combination makes for an unenjoyable gameplay experience.

The build relies heavily on being carried by minions and lacks a movement ability.

It aims to maintain constant valite for defense, but struggles with damage output and high-risk situations.

The strategy of using the Iron Mass to empower skeleton minions for triple damage and chaos damage conversion has potential, but the build overall is not very effective.

The attempt to create a castle and stun build was challenging due to the lack of defenses and the cap on skeletons, leading to ineffective enemy engagement.

Self-casting was explored as an alternative, but the build still felt unsustainable and lacked a clear purpose for farming.

Despite investing a significant amount of currency, the build struggled to gain traction and didn't offer a satisfying gameplay experience.

The build focuses on using minions, with key gear pieces like a +2 minion helm, Iron Mass, and a stabilizing scepter for Elemental Equilibrium.

The setup includes Val Greaves for boots, a strong chest piece for armor, and crafted gloves for increased minion damage.

The tree pathing aims for overcapping and minion regeneration, while stacking minion penetration, accuracy, and crit for maximum damage and HP.

The build focuses on using Petrified Blood, Smite, and Generosity to support allies, while also incorporating mechanics for elemental resist reduction.

It features a combination of skills like Summon Skeletons, Vitality, and Feeding Frenzy for minion damage and support.

The build aims for automation to reduce button-mashing, but acknowledges the challenge in achieving that with the current configuration.

Experimenting with Builds in Path of Exile

The creator plays with various builds in League, aiming to find what works best.

They share both successes and failures, emphasizing that learning from failures is crucial in the game.

The video concludes with mapping footage, and the creator plans to move on to farming and creating content for delve and Path of Exile 2.