[3.10] The Fiery Animancer - Cheap and powerful, good league starter.

Animate Weapon
> Now has the Physical tag.
> Now animates a weapon in an area around where you are targetting (you don't have to target a specific item).
> Animate Weapon has been reworked and undergone some cosmetic upgrades as well.
> The damage multiplier on Animate Weapon was not applying to the minion's damage at all. Whoops! Because of this, the skill has been rebalanced.
> Can now be supported by Unleash and Spell Echo.
> Now has a base duration of 40 seconds (from 37.5 seconds) at all gem levels.
> Now allows a maximum of 5 Animated Weapons at gem level 1, up to 14 at gem level 20 (from 50 at all gem levels).
> Now has a base cast speed of 0.6 seconds (from 0.8).
> Now costs 4 mana at gem level 1 (from 7), up to 12 at gem level 20 (from 26).
> Now grants your minions' attacks 5 to 8 additional Physical Damage at gem level 1 (from 4 to 6), up to 126 to 184 at gem level 20 (from 38 to 56).
> Minions now deal 10% more damage at gem level 1, up to 48% more at gem level 20. Note that there was previously similar (but numerically higher) bonus listed on the skill gem that, as it turns out, did nothing.
> Now grants your minions 10% more attack speed at gem level 1, up to 48% more at gem level 20. Previously the gem granted increased attack speed rather than more.
> Now gains 1% increased Minion Movement Speed per 1% gem quality (from 2% increased Minion Movement Speed).

*The PoB is done with the old Animate Weapon skill. Damage will be increased even more when PoB updates the gem.*

Path of Building Pastebin:
https://pastebin.com/kkVrQ3dB

*Tree only has 104 passive points. 9 left to level 90 are reserved for cluster jewels, which will be discussed later in the guide.*

Tree:
poeurl.com/cMhV

The skill
This build is crafted around the Animate Weapon skill. Since we no longer depend on dropped weapons to use it, being able to use the Lingering Blades from blade skills (Bladefall, Ethereal Knives and Blade Vortex), we can sustain it way easier than before.

The conversion
We will be using the Triad Grip gloves to achieve 100% of physical damage from our animated weapons to be converted to fire. This will allow us to get easier damage from different sources.

The damage sources
By converting all the physical to fire damage, we can achieve higher chance to ignite. Not only the ignite adds damage, but the support gems we are linking to Animate Weapon, specifically Immolate and Combustion.
On top of this, we will be running Anger and Wrath, to add more fire damage and a bit of lighting damage, that will be also useful and boosted.
The last key component is Bladefall, both used for generating Lingering Blades (to spawn more weapons) and to curse enemies on hit with Flammability. This results in -44% fire resist to enemies hit by our Bladefall. Getting some cold damage to spells will make our Bladefall proc Elemental Equilibrium with cold, applying a -50% fire and lightning resistances to any enemy hit by the blades, resulting in a -94% fire resist on Bladefall hit.
Add the typical Animate Guardian, spectres and Carrion Golem, and you have completed the setup!

The mana issue
Socket all the auras into The Devouring Diadem, so they get a +1 level and a +20% mana reservation reduction. Doing this, we are able to run both Anger and Wrath, with some mana left for Flesh and Stone to get better survivability. We may also run a level 1 Precision to boost even more our minions. The fact that The Devouring Diadem gives us Eldritch Battery makes it so we spend Energy Shield instead of Mana to cast our skills.

*To avoid wasting too much Energy Shield using Bladefall, we will keep it level 1, as it only serves as curse on hit. The level of the weapons raised is based on the Animate Weapon skill level.*

Mindless Aggression > Commander of Darkness > Mistress of Sacrifice > Unnatural Strength

Mindless Aggression: Increased movement speed, attack speed and damage. Serves as a connection for Unnatural Strength and Bone Barrier.
Commander of Darkness: 3% increased attack speed per aura (9% in total: Wrath, Anger and Precision). 30 increased elemental damage is really good when converting every physical to fire. 30% to elemental resistances is pretty good to get the cap before maps.
Mistress of Sacrifice: +40% animate weapon duration, allowing us to skip some passive points on the tree. Makes it last from 40s to 56s. Also, if using Bone offering, we would be getting some block chance from it.
Unnatural Strength: +2 levels to our animated weapons. Good damage boost.

*If playing hardcore, Mistress of Sacrifice could be replaced with Bone Barrier for more defence.*

Required Uniques:

Recommended Uniques:

Weapons:

Jewels:

Cluster Jewels:

From here, cap your resists and get as much life as possible. We have 5 slots to do so:
Boots: Life, movement speed, resistances.
Rings and ammy: Life, resistances, minion movement speed craft.
Belt: Life, resistances.

IMPORTANT
Try to get Cold damage to spells in a weapon. If you can't do so, search for a shaper ring with the Cold damage to spells and attacks mod, so you can proc Elemental Equilibrium with Bladefall.

*Gem + Gem means they need to be linked*

Main setup: Body Armour 6L
Animate Weapon + Elemental Damage with Attacks + Multistrike + Minion Damage + Immolate + Combustion
*Gems are set in order of importance*

Bladeall: Boots 4L
Bladefall + Curse on Hit + Flammability
Carrion Golem

Buffs: Helmet 4L
Precision (Level 1) + Wrath + Anger + Generosity
*It's important to run Generosity, so we don't get the fire damage from Anger for Bladefall, which would ruin the Elemental Equilibrium*

Defensive: Gloves 4L
Cast when Damage Taken (Level 4) + Vaal Molten Shell (Level 12)
Flesh and Stone
Animated Guardian
*All the skills socketed in the gloves MUST be red, as we need every socket on them to be red to get the 100% fire conversion.*

Utility: Weapon 3L
Flesh Offering
Convocation
Desecrate

Utility: Weapon 3L
Raise Spectre + Blood Magic
Flame Dash
*Get the frenzy and power charge monkeys from act 7 as spectres. Blood Magic to make them cast the charge generation even quicker.*

Pantheon: Up to preference. My recommendation:
Soul of Lunaris: Damage reduction when there are multiple mobs. Pretty good for Delirium mechanics.
Soul of Shakari: Immunity to poison when upgraded.
Bandits: Kill all.

Work in progress

Isn't Cold Iron Point a good option?
Nope. Cold Iron Point prevents us from dealing elemental damage, which negates the cold damage from our Bladefall to proc Elemental Equilibrium. Just try to get a +2 wand (+1 phys, +1 spells) with some minion damage.

Don't we need the duration nodes on the tree?
We currently have 116% increased duration for our animated weapons. Necro is giving us 70% increased, and the Enduring Bond cluster, 46%. This makes up to 84 seconds, which should me more than enough. Also, we are looking to re-cast Animate Weapon as much as we can to benefit from the Cluster Jewel combo if we have it.

I can't use Precision, even it being level 1.
Make sure to have 1 small mana reservation node in the Sovereignty cluster. You only need 1, getting the other isn't necessary.