Pure Summoner Build

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Sickman wrote:

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RoterRamses wrote:

lol no ES = fail

Very in depth and thought out reply. Thanks.

He's right though. And Necromantic Aegis is bad to, especialy at hardcore.

A witch has very little life to start with and not nearly enough life passives to get anything decent. Any necromancer build will focus heavely on the int tree giving huge bonusses to ES. The minion nodes all have very good ES nodes close by. You easely get over 8.000 ES with a basic CI setup for your summoner late game. Any life based build will die every time some ranged attacks pass by the minions. Summoners will get hit more often than they'd like especialy at maps with huge amounts of ranged enemies and with low life and es parts chaos damage will hurt a lot.

There are so many arguments why a summoner witch without CI = an autofail that I can't even name them all.

People that necromancer builds over level 65 know what I mean.

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Hellskin wrote:

[...]People that necromancer builds over level 65 know what I mean.

Not really, no.

(I'm 68)

I'm currently 65 and have done a dozen or so maps of varying quality/mods and have not encountered any problems dying aside from what I previously mentioned (not paying attention)

I agree with NEc-Aegis being a not so favorable passive for a summoner and most definitely allow the witch herself to stack up more defenses/stats/whatever for herself, but it's a personal choice.

I think a lot of people are missing the point behind POE and that is versatility through and through. There is no wrong or right way to build your character as long as you are enjoying the game and can survive the content you are playing.

Are there more optimal builds? Sure, lots and lots of them but what is enjoyable to me may only be enjoyable to a handful of others and even those people may favor different passives over what I chose but stick to the same basic principal of the core build (in this case pure summoner).

So with that in mind, there is absolutely no fail builds, just builds that work differently to varying degrees to the player behind the character.

This isn't a type of game that there is a cookie cutter build that everyone emulates and everything else is not only sub-optimal, but complete garbage.

This (among other things) is what makes POE a great game.

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Sickman wrote:

This (among other things) is what makes POE a great game.

I agree, but it can also be very confusing for the player just starting out. Sometimes when I read these Class forums I feel like I've stepped into a medical convention, with people talking in technical terms and acronyms, and I have no idea what they are talking about. :-)

Anyway, very nice guide. I had a hardcore Necro in D2 and had been considering playing a summoner in PoE for a while.

Just a few hours ago I heard a *plink* noise when a rare mob died, and found this:



Not sure if this amulet is any good, but will try it out, and see how it goes!

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Sickman wrote:

So with that in mind, there is absolutely no fail builds, just builds that work differently to varying degrees to the player behind the character.

Agreed. Yet I'd advise anybody to go CI instead of a life build. It has so many advantages.

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Onds wrote:

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Hellskin wrote:

[...]People that necromancer builds over level 65 know what I mean.

Not really, no.

(I'm 68)

Hardcore or default?

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Hellskin wrote:

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Sickman wrote:

So with that in mind, there is absolutely no fail builds, just builds that work differently to varying degrees to the player behind the character.

Agreed. Yet I'd advise anybody to go CI instead of a life build. It has so many advantages.

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Onds wrote:

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Hellskin wrote:

[...]People that necromancer builds over level 65 know what I mean.

Not really, no.

(I'm 68)

Hardcore or default?

Not that it matters, but default for now. If i die it's because i didn't pay attention watching tv/bathroom/afk/whatever. Obviously that would'nt be the case if i cared.

I do agree 100% that there are really no fail builds in PoE! Every build is fun, which is what the game's about! But what I'm curious about is how there's so much hate for EB when apparently it's one of, if not THE, most over powered keystones in the game when used properly! O.o And that's coming from a Dev!!! It's a little old now, but here's the page:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/19656/page/1

first response is from a Dev Quoted:

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Qarl wrote:

While there have been several well reasoned posts about the weakness of Eldritch Battery, there is one thing that prevents us from making it better.

By far the most abusive, overpowered character we have ever seen used Eldritch Battery (and no other keystone would have worked for what the build needed).

The person with that character (actually they built it twice, in different release versions), never shared their secret, and its not that easy a build to get right.

I've been trying to figure out what it could POSSIBLY be!?!?!? I want to be over powered!!!!! RRRRRRRR!! Haha! >.<

Anyways, back to the topic, I've started a Summoning witch on Hardcore and it's been great so far! It was a little slow starting off and you have to be careful, but it just gets easier and easier as you level up! I'm only in my 20's, but I was able to just get MI before Merveil and she was a breeze solo! I think she took out my ES and took a little life away twice throughout the battle, but I just used a pot those two times and it was no big deal. It was definitely a fun fight!

So far my plan is to go CI though for end game. It does seem like there'd be more survivability, but it's all about personal preference! :) I'll probably post my build later on when I get to higher levels, just for fun. ^_^

I'll be taking a break from posting/playing until open beta reset. With the latest D3 patch and the paragon system and the latest WoW patch and MoP to come soon I'll have my hands full gaming wise.

Soon as we get to Open Beta I will be playing my HC Summoner and updating any changes to my build as I play.

Thank you all for the great ideas and insight to this build and all the possibilities it holds for HC success. I look forward to progressing through with no character wipes hopefully soon.

Keep the discussions active!

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Sickman wrote:

I'll be taking a break from posting/playing until open beta reset.

Ah, darn. I'd been putting off this post until after I finished the game on Merciless, which I did this morning.

I was hoping to do it proudly, saying this build is so strong, you can solo the game without dying. Alas, my Summoner suffered her first death at level 62 to the Act II boss.

Like your video, I was kinda alive one second, and dead the next. I honestly have no idea what killed me. I was nowhere near the boss. The sky was not falling. I was just . . . dead. (And I have about 500 ES and 800 life -- not huge, but not insubstantial either.)

I'm kinda ticked. This was my first character past Act I Cruel, so the first to "finish" the game, and I wanted to do it so badly with zero deaths.

I don't mind deaths I can learn from, but I seriously have no idea what killed me. I was so careful to stay out of melee range and keep moving.

Maybe the laser beam of death that did it, I fully expect to have much more HP or ES (depending on which way I go) on OB HC than I did my first play.

Sorry to hear you died at such a high level, at least you don't lose your character completely.