{3.2.0} Spectral Gods: [Life Based Spectre/Golem Hybrid Summoner | Clear Speed | End Game Bossing]

coming up with an optimum summons protection strategy is still a bit of a mystery.

* Do zombies have armor ? Will determination help them ? i don't need determination. i'm squishy as hell and i have _no_ survivability problems as long as my minions don't go down.

* If I use IR and run grace, do the minions get armor from IR + grace ? I don't believe they would.

* Should I run purity ? or should i get rid of hatred and run purity of cold & purity of lightning ?

* is necromantic aegis worth getting ?

I need an allies cannot die totem. Why do the bad guys get one ?

I mean really, the best strategy is that they kill stuff before taking too much damage.

I cannot stress, for me, how much tougher the bosses are than mobs. I was in catacombs the other night with my friend and it was pure comedy. Stuff was dead before I could get curses cast. I would have to use flasks about once every 2 or 3 minutes. But piety's _initial_ attack will generally kill 1/2 my zombies + BMs. The difference is just crazy. I watch mattc's dominus video and just can't believe it, even knowing, in theory, how he does it.

And by the way, if you spam your flasks, run out, and she's not dead, forget it. portal out and try again. and trying to portal back in with fresh summons doesn't work. she hits you with cold attack from off screen- and all the minions die again.

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Moows wrote:

I've never had that much of a trouble on bosses.. maibe cus i run 3 defensive curses and my flasks are all 57%+minion heal, i killed everything on solo except the 78 dominous because i didnt have the chance to do that map yet, the only thing that gets me is reflect, and spells like firestorm from crematorium(because once the boss dies the curses go away and firestorm hits for its full damage).

I definitely agree they need more suvivability ,and th other day i changed some points (lost 400 hp meh:( back to 4.1k) but got my third curse and got the 2 15% health recovery from flasks,which basicly makes each one of my flasks heal me for 500 hp, that boosted their survivability alot.

that's great ! more details about your set-up please ! how about gear and links that you are using.

what curses are you running ?

examples are always very helpful, and enquiring minds want to know !

"my stuff lives" doesn't provide enough information...

Since minion survivability seems to be a problem, here are some of the best ways to keep them alive.

1. Level 20 skill gems - Sorry, there is no easy way around this, but its a dramatic boost in almost every way regardless of what your using. Minion gems especially. Quality depends on the gem, but be careful about qualitiying your zombie gem if you don't have a backup.

2. Passives - Grab all the life passives. While some may say the damage passives are optional, they indirectly improve minions life span. Faster the boss is dead the less you need to worry about keeping them up. Aura effect passives are also amazing on minions, allowing you to provide even higher max resist with the purity auras.

3. Auras - I find Vitality and purity of elements/ice/fire/lightning to be mandatory. Optionally, you can throw in rejuvenation totem. Grace, Determination, and Discipline will provide "small" survivability benefits. If you can afford to run DPS auras the same logic applies as with passives.

4. Curses - Enfeeble + Temp Chains is the ultimate defensive tool. After that there is Warlords, then your DPS curses (Vulnerability, Elemental Weakness, Flammability). Same logic as before.

5. Potions - 5x Seething Animation Flasks. You can try trading for them, but if the trade chat channel makes you sick to your stomach like it does me, expect approximately 200 Alts per craft.

6. Misc. Debuffs - Ground Ice and Blind. Blind is incredibly easy to apply and maintain. Your minions will have less than a 5% chance to be hit with auto attacks. Ground Ice DOES stack with temp chains, and can lead to hilarious effects on Piety. You also have your DPS debuffs of Elemental Equilibrium and Shock stacking to speed up boss kills.

7. Snapshotting Gear - Chober Chaber + Sidehebreath. No reason anyone can't afford these as their at most 2 Chaos, and likely even less. These 2 simple items can provide with top rolls 55% more life.

8. Support Spectre - When all else fails, get an evangelist with Increased Duration for a permanent bubble.

9. Walls - I no longer really use this tactic, but you can use frost wall to block some projectiles, as well as making a disposable "meatwall" of skeletons either through totems or manual casting. Totems have the advantage of providing an additional distraction (the totem itself) as well as allowing you to focus on other matters, such as running wildly around the boss.

This may seem like a lot, so to sum it up these are the three core ideas on keeping minions alive. Increasing their life, maxing their resists, and reducing incoming damage flow.

thanks very much, that's extremely helpful.

This is currently my gear


My spec


I am currently at 4.2k hp 222mps, 228 mana with Grace/Pur of elems/Vit/Clar/Disci(or pur of lightning which i just switch on some bosses for discipl).Capped on all resists including chaos, currently looking for a decent ring/amulet with mana regen so i can run AA, having no problems when it comes to surviving, but having it just makes me safer.

When it comes to bosses all i do is depending on the boss, just get a good positioning to fight him, tri curse enfeeble/warlods/tempchains and spam arctic breath.
Some people say temp chains isnt worth using, me, imo i love it.Having temp chains + chill = a 70%+ movement/att/cast speed on monsters, thats a huge damage reduction for your minions, thats why i like runing arctic breath with gmp,blind and chain, basicly making sure that even big packs get chilled/blinded.Most of my gems are just there because i wanna level them, got plenty of free gems slots because snapshotting allows me to.

I picked the double flask nodes near thick skin, because i think they make a huge difference, atm my instant flask heal me for 500hp each, and my minions for the % the flask is.
There could definitely be improvements, specially on bms, but i think iam pretty good atm, able to survive and kill mostly everything.Yet, reflect is still a problem killing montreguls zombies instantly if they get the change to hit a big pack... still working on that>.<

Basicly thats all , there's nothing special on how i run it, but it has allowed me to kill every kind of boss i've met.

*And forgot, summoning zombies on tabula with RZ-CoD-fasteratts-MeleeSplash-Multistrike-Meleephysdamage, and 2 BMs on tabula, with RS-miniondamage-minionlife-incburn-conceffect(1 bm with conc and another with increased aoe).

Noticed you got enhance supporting LW, is it better than faster casting?

"

Moows wrote:

I am currently at 4.2k hp 222mps, 228 mana with Grace/Pur of elems/Vit/Clar/Disci(or pur of lightning which i just switch on some bosses for discipl).Capped on all resists including chaos, currently looking for a decent ring/amulet with mana regen so i can run AA, having no problems when it comes to surviving, but having it just makes me safer.

When it comes to bosses all i do is depending on the boss, just get a good positioning to fight him, tri curse enfeeble/warlods/tempchains and spam arctic breath.
Some people say temp chains isnt worth using, me, imo i love it.Having temp chains + chill = a 70%+ movement/att/cast speed on monsters, thats a huge damage reduction for your minions, thats why i like runing arctic breath with gmp,blind and chain, basicly making sure that even big packs get chilled/blinded.Most of my gems are just there because i wanna level them, got plenty of free gems slots because snapshotting allows me to.

maxed chaos ? that's damn impressive.

i'm going to try artic breath + TC as soon as i get an arctic breath gem leveled up, I love your arctic breath combo.

thanks very much for the help !

"

Allnamestaken wrote:

Noticed you got enhance supporting LW, is it better than faster casting?

Well depends on what you're looking for, the only reason i have enchance there is because i just want to level it up.. tho the quality bonus it gives improves cast speed on LW, i'd say faster casting is better, but it comes to a point where it simply makes no difference because italready cast at the fastest speed possible, so it really makes no difference for me.

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plasticeyes wrote:

maxed chaos ? that's damn impressive.

i'm going to try artic breath + TC as soon as i get an arctic breath gem leveled up, I love your arctic breath combo.

thanks very much for the help !

Yeah I've been running Arctic Breath + GMP + Blind for awhile. When I did have the 4th Link though, Pierce is another option instead of Chain. It doesn't jack up the mana cost as bad, and it has the benefit of being able to keep bosses snared who like to backpedal since it'll continue the ice trail behind them.

does iiq/iir from gear works, if the tigger dmg from bm´s does the "last hit"?