Pure Summoner Build

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imthedan wrote:

Is there a curse like amp damage from D2? if not, any plans to add one? that would go a long way for us pure summoners, i'd think...

As previously mentioned Vulnerability is close to Amp Damage as it increases the physical damage taken by 25-31% as you level the gem for it as well as some other nifty bonuses such as:
Reduced Enemy Block and Stun Recovery
Increased Enemy Energy Shield Recharge Delay
Reduced Enemy Energy Shield Regeneration Rate
Increased Damage Over Time Effects (Ignite)

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Which works best with a summoner build? I see the OP using temporal chains, but the other seems to resemble amp damage and would help kill faster.

I use Temporal Chains because I like to slow down inherently fast mobs (monkeys and snakes and fast affix champion/elite) and slowing down caster/archer types that like to run from my minions to get distance. When I farm areas that do not have fast moving mobs, I use Vulnerability.

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what path did u go first for your talents? did u go directly to instability? or did you choose a couple of increased # of minions before acquiring that? and what type of stat priority do you use for gearing yourself?

I went directly for MI before anything else. With the +1 free talent from the Act 1 quest you can get it at level 11.

My stat priority is gem colors and links first and foremost, then Int/Max Mana, Max Life, Max ES/ES % (on gear not passives - more ES from gear is more mana) Cast Speed (on gear) and Rarity of items because I like yellows :P

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Probably a stupid question, but what is your play style like? Do you play it like a Fishy from D2 where you stand back and let your minions kill everything? If so, what's the point of Minion Instability? Don't you want to keep your minions up at all times?

If your goal is to have them die and act like bombs, then how does that work for you later in the game?

No such thing as stupid questions!

I play just like Fishy and let minions kill everything. MI plays a huge role in this play style, especially with skeletons because when a mob kills the minion, they do huge damage to themselves in the process. This is most prevalent on bosses where you do not have Zombies/Specters. Like Brutus for example, I just drop skeletons on top of him, when he kills them I drop more. I killed Merciless Brutus in roughly 10 seconds.

So for the second question, yes they are my little moving bombs, which makes just about everything a piece of cake.

The final boss of Merciless was a concern but using the same technique as other bosses worked perfectly using skeletons to bomb the boss and raise the adds he drops for added bonus damage.

Also, the pyramid areas leading up to the final boss that has totems buffing the mobs, I can drop skeletons on the totems and when the mobs kill the skeletons they explode and kill the totems, this helps a ton on those "cannot die" buff totems and champion affixes.

I'll try to get a video made of this build in action. I just got a boot upgrade last night that has 30% run speed, so life will be much easier!

Thanks for the replies and questions!

at lvl 20 what is the skills you used? , and you think is better just rush to Minion Instability?

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mtspraes wrote:

at lvl 20 what is the skills you used? , and you think is better just rush to Minion Instability?

Here is what my skill tree looked like at or around level 20.



MI is the bread and butter of this build. By level 20 you should be able to summon 4 Zombies and 7 skeletons IIRC.

The next 2 points I put into the next +1 minion node on the way to Hex Master and then moved over to HM then east around to Eldritch Battery.

After that it was moving towards more minion nodes and Leadership, picking up any Dex/Str nodes I needed for gear or gem upgrades but not moving out of the way to pick them up.

The beauty of PoE is you can choose what you think is best for your distinctive play style.

One thing I want to mention, by the time you get to the final boss Act 2 in Ruthless (3rd difficulty) you should try to have around 700 HP. Although he is busy with minions, his ability that drops rocks around the room killed me twice because I took 2 hits before my life flask could recover, but I only had around 400 HP at the time. I rectified that by having 900+ HP in merciless.

As requested I added a video on the main post.

For the lazy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQk4_Kg-gUE

I also changed a few things in my set up around, I dropped the Decoy totem and have 2 curses on my hot bar; Vulnerability and Temporal Chains as I am working towards getting Whispers of Doom by level 63.

After that I will probably dump points into health nodes as I start looking to play some maps and want to have a HC worthy build by the time Open Beta rolls out and I remake this character in HC.

This guys build is weak...
This is my build.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3adlnQpY-4&feature=plcp

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PogKing wrote:

This guys build is weak...
This is my build.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3adlnQpY-4&feature=plcp

I could be wrong, but stacking different levels of gems and being able to summon multiple zombies is a bug. So I wouldn't go around touting your build as anything but an exploit.

Plus, stacking 32 zombies isn't really interesting... And we don't know what your build look, except for the bug/flax exploit. But it's kind to show GGG that, so they can fix it with the minion's IA for the summoner patch :D

By the way, I wondered if there were high level stuff with the "+1 lvl to summons gems" in PoE, because I got one really early in the game (so quite useless now...). Or can we obtain one with some luck and an alchemy orb?

Guys, I was imagine a thing...

Now i just have a lvl 35 full summoner witch, and stars to plan a combo, but i don´t know if works. I´ll apreciate if someone could help me..

The plan is, get Chaos Inoculation and become imune to chaos damage, than put the blood rage gem e let it on, my question is: If my summons kill an enemy i will be buffed with frensy charge? and the most important if a get Conduit myu summons will be buffed with this frensy charges?

If ir works i thing is very interesting see ours summons with +15% IAS

Sory for bad writing, that is not my matter language...


ATT OPN

A couple of slight changes as I recently hit level 62 and started doing Maps.

Removed the decoy totem and replaced it with another curse (now using Temporal Chains and Vulnerability) and used a respec point to pick up Whispers of Doom by removing one of my minion damage nodes temporarily until 63. I feel the dual curses will be more beneficial to mob control and quicker kills.

Added Hatred to my Auras, now rockin' 4 auras.

Also, I dumped Fireball and replaced with Freezing Pulse + Lesser Multiple Projectiles. I rarely use the main attack except for breaking things, I figured I might as well use a cold based attack just in case I need to slow mobs who get through the army of my minions and decide to wail on me.

I found a couple of pieces of Item Rarity replacement gear, but I can't the get gem color combo I want on one of them yet and I also lose a ton of HP, which I am not ready to do until I put more points into passive HP nodes.

I simply love this build and love the variety of ways the passive tree and gem system allows you to try different things without re-rolling a whole new character.

Just watched your video. Would love to see one of a full party of this style of summoner. What utter chaos.