Summoners, get in here

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Dreggon wrote:

But would this heal the zombie when it attacks, or would it heal you? Both are good, but healing my Witch would be better since I have a lot of zombies and I want them to explode.

It would heal itself.

Does +item quantity / rarity on your gear actually affect drops if your minions are killing them? I didn't think it did.

I really wanted to stay away from a summoner build with my witch in 095, so dumped almost everything in defensive places (increased shield, recharge rate, life), but when I hit about level 30 or so still found it completely futile.

So, grabbed a zombie gem and started levelling it up. I just don't know how anyone else would survive without these things tanking shit for me.

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dyl666 wrote:

So, grabbed a zombie gem and started levelling it up. I just don't know how anyone else would survive without these things tanking shit for me.

Worked fine on my Ice Witch (now Legacy). Ice Spear is the greatest thing ever, just build spell damage, critical damage, critical chance and have lots of mana flasks. I find that one health potion, one vial and three mana potions does the trick.

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dyl666 wrote:

Does +item quantity / rarity on your gear actually affect drops if your minions are killing them? I didn't think it did.

Yup it works.

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Dreggon wrote:

Worked fine on my Ice Witch (now Legacy). Ice Spear is the greatest thing ever, just build spell damage, critical damage, critical chance and have lots of mana flasks. I find that one health potion, one vial and three mana potions does the trick.

This is how I built my legacy summoner. Frost spells with crit passives, minion instability and +minion damage and +additional minions. I didn't see a point in wasting points in minion health since I want them to explode often for more damage and I never really had times where I didn't have enough corpses to raise as zombies. The only problem I found as frost was shattering mobs and not being able to raise them, after entering a new zone I'd have to finish them off with a wand so i'd have a usable body.

This is how I am levelling my summoner.

Level 38, Templar.

Lines show what I took at what level:

Level 1-12, Green: Straight for explosive minions.

Level 12-16, L.Blue

Level 16-23, Pink

Level 23-34, Yellow

Currently doing red line and will finish purple next.

Once I have all minion clusters, I'll put passives into fire damage, since I use firestorm/ball for added damage.

Not that you actually need a personal damage skill with 12 zombies..

In fact, I currently have 7+6 zombies. 13. Always keep one gem one level below the other, so they stack.

The zombies have increaed minion damage, 30% physical as fire damage, chaos damage, increased crit, magic find and chance to ignite.

Hmm. If I had a wide enough screen I would make a thing showing where all the minion clusters are. I'm currently going into the one up-left of the very middle, then I'm considering getting the Templar one, on the far left/up.

Purple and yellow lines, thanks to the person above me : )

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Dreggon wrote:

Hmm. If I had a wide enough screen I would make a thing showing where all the minion clusters are. I'm currently going into the one up-left of the very middle, then I'm considering getting the Templar one, on the far left/up.

Purple and yellow lines, thanks to the person above me : )

In case I've missed one, the complete tree is in my other post, Here: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/15657

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jawsofhana wrote:

This is how I am levelling my summoner.

Nice graphic.

On the off chance you don't know, there's another minion cluster, but it's a pain in the ass to get to for Templar. Just above and slightly left of the witch starting node, in the middle of the first super thick cluster. Will cost you 11 points to get another tri-node (4 more out of the way than for witch). You'd have to get to it down from your pink line, then up from the witch start.

My very best advice to you comerades is to let go minion life passives and just pick minion number and damage

Why ? simple,2 reasons:
1/Zombies have a ton of hp, if you add the minion life it wil lresult in endless battles,just add some damage support like fire or phy damage or lightning dmg and item rarety
2/Specters got low life and damage,just add minion life support

Use the remaining point to level the element you went for,or go critic or even reach the power charge on minion death

Your summoner will deal good aoe damage and still have his kamikaze army ^^

The most important is the quantity not quality ^^

PS: the node near avatar of fire is for templar summoner only, it takes too much points to reach ,not worth it just for +1 minion only