Necromancer/Summoner build?

Hey guys, trying to build a witch summoner build. In theory, the abilities would be Raise Zombies, Raise Skeletons, Raise Spectre, Detonate Dead, Flammability, Vulnerability, Elemental Weakness (yes, I know, only 2 curses. I'd use them situationally: more spare corpses, more elemental/flammable. If there aren't enough corpses, vulnerable so minions do more damage), and maybe a fire-based spell such as Fireball or Firestorm. Depending on the items I find, I'll toss some minion support items (Damage/Life/Speed), and, if space permits, Added Fire Damage or Fire Penetration.

Here's what my skill tree looks like:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBVysHY3NTa9t9GOyKEHQOXEV-bRktH-aBfdIi9GwLTLMEBx8CNsXYJKcI2QsqmPqAj0bQ0JuhSOe4k-vuKPqCx9P7qH1akWqslSBGcREPsHeTJ7-XyT3yHp2uGmymrIhAkDP318y8hWCqxBCXRARNuayYFLA6MDlSvDdObVgHNtjxbOxVl4UqjYgb74WcLYdlr7dJGxJpFxxxeRzcLUdQQow2pLHljp1j5CIpT4Kb1HznanrmMtEdFPrSZp7AGlnzrKpyqfcy-OtBqhRxBg4Dxv0LY_0lrQn25RkNjbQ4

Any suggestions or alterations to this build? Or does it flat out not work at all? Thanks for your input!

too glass cannon

first off, you need to decide whos doing the damage, either you or the minions, otherwise your just gonna be wasting points.

if your doing the damage, then you wont need minion damage nodes, and you wont need so many minions nodes at all, since you only need enough to use them as a meat shield to keep enemies away from you as you rain hell on them

if they are doing the damage, then you dont need so many fire nodes. especially the burn ones since you wont have much crit chance at all to actually set enemies on fire.

now once you got rid of those nodes, you'll have to decide what defense you'll use. either get health nodes, or get Chaos inoculate. each has it's pros and cons, but you have to choose one or the other. if you dont you'll end up getting 1 shotted even with a full army because stray shots happen, or an unlucky flicker strike.

also necromantic ageis should only be taken if you have planned out exactly what shield your using.

also necromantic builds tend to be mana intensive, so you should really focus some points into that as well. mainly because you'll want a few auras to help support your minions since they do not take any stats from you thus the only way to improve them is through auras and curses.

also really should only go for 2 curses, non of that situational stuff. mostly because you'll never find yourself in it. you wont be able to switch on the fly that easily. plus having extra spells that are situational tends to eat up socket space, which could have been used to further improve your abilities with support gems.

for more information, you can check out my basic specific guide to pure summoner for new players. http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/92385

theres also another link that talks about all the minion mechanics as well that someone else did, I suggest reading that as well

Darken, I think the reason he went with all the fire damage increases is because he might be thinking that it will increase the damage from minion explosion, which is not true.

Jester, was that your intention in putting points into those nodes? Because it wont increase damage from explosion. Only minion life, I believe, will increase the damage of that.

it doesn't matter after the 3 summon skills + flammability. Once you get the extra raise spectre passive and the two uniques that give + 1 spectre you break the game with GMP + raise spectre.

In act 3 in the Temple of Solaris a monster called flame sentinel shoots 3 augmented fire balls and be able to summon 4 of these makes the game trivial to the say the least but when you throw in GMP into the mix they each shoot 7 fire balls, totaling at 28 near non stop fire balls spamming.

While you're 4 spectres decimate everything you can run around casting skeletons as shields to protect your spectres from taking ranged damage, by 45 you should be at minion cap and have 27 minions total, 4 spectres, 10 zombies and 13 skeletons.

At at the point where I get frame rate issues due to the amount of clutter on my screen haha.

I can't wait to have that many minions!!!

I am using an Totem Build with spectres, with my Gear i got 3 Spectres, 8 Zombies, 12 Skeletons.


My Build

Note before we start know that people dislike the use of summoners, and will likely be kick from most groups at high level, unless playing with friends of course. Until the fix particle spamming.

Raise Spectre - Numbered in ordered of what to get first.
(1)Raise Spectres
(2)Minion Damage
(3)Greater Multiple Projectiles
(4)Added Chaos Damage
(5)-(6) Once you find a 5L-6L chest of course!
Chain(good but less damage)
Faster Casting(good for casting mobs)
Faster Attacks(good for projectile mobs)
Lesser Multiple Projectiles(good but less damage)
Elemental Proliferation(increased Damage)
Item Rarity(stacks with your own)

These are your damage. Getting the right spectres is EXTREAMELY important. i use the minions at Solaris Temple Level 3 they are called Flame Sentinel. I am also a big fan of getting the range mobs in Lunaris level 2-3 i forget what they are called but they fire 1 projectile from each hand. So they fire 8 projectile every .3 sec(INSANE). alot harder to get thou.
-Tip press A when summoning a spectre to select the right one.

Raise Zombie - Numbered in ordered of what to get first.
(1)Raise Zombie
(3)Minion Life
(2)Minion Damage
(4)Melee Physical Damage

Next you want personal guards to tank Bosses/Mobs that want to get to you, best scaling hp in the game. Currently mine have 9.6k hp each (x10 of them), which is insane when you have minion instability which deals 30% of total life when it dies(big dps).

Raise Skeleton - Numbered in ordered of what to get first.
(1)Raise Skeleton
(3)Minion Life
(2)Minion Damage
(4)Spell Totem

I also have raise Skeleton which are attached to a totem and the Skeletons swarmed the boss so he cant move, while your spectres kill them. Really good trick while dealing with boss such as Brutes etc.

Secondly you should be running auras and curses to assist your undead. Purity, Discipline, Warlords Mark, Flammability, Elemental Weakness.

Currently level 67 and have:
10 Zombies
4 Spectres
16 Skeletons

Unique Minion Amulet.
Unique Minion Shoes.
Unique Minion Wand.

A side note i should is that for your health flasks you should try to get "Grants 57% of life recovery to minions" keep rolling for it until you do, though the highest flask is 960 so you need to spam the flask to keep them up in boss fights.

57% of 960 = 547.2
9600 / 547.2 = 17.5 Times to heal a zombie to max hp.


Overview: use spectres to kill, use zombie/Skeleton to be a meat shield and tank the boss to death. Also soloed Piety on cruel. Brutes took me less than 1 min on Merciless solo.

Skill Tree(Still have somethings to refine)