Belora's MI/CI Pure Summoner Build

Okay, gonna post my reworked build. Since acquiring Midnight Bargain, I have dropped CI and am quite pleased with the results, actually. I think CI made me a bit sloppy and not pay attention to how hard I was getting hit or if I was putting myself in a dangerous position.

My life is 1020 (714 with the 30% reserved due to Midnight Bargain).
Energy Shield is 1911, and is boosted to 2758 with lvl 16 Discipline gem aura.
With CI and my gear before, my ES was around 4.5k, but I think it is a worthy trade-off.
Mana is holding steady at 902 with 432 of it reserved for my Discipline, Clarity and Wrath auras. I would run one or two more, but I do not have the linked gear to support that yet (well, I do. I'm just...being lazy).

Non-CI/2 Totem Summoner Build

Skill Setup

Attacks
-Err...zombies, skeletons, spectres and curses, oh my! I honestly love not having to spam anything with a summoner build and, as you can see, I truly choose not to.
--Curse: Temporal Chains, which is included in the 4-link skele-totem setup listed below, simply so I didn't have to use another totem gem to have both out at the same time. I used to use vulnerability, but the reduced move, cast and attack speed of chains is, for my money, far superior simply for the faster enemies (and slowing down casters is nice too)

Auras
-Clarity, Discipline and Wrath. I had Anger linked in there too, but dropped it in place of a reduced mana gem. Can easily switch the other out at any time though.

Minions
-Skeletons linked to a totem gem and minion damage. Since they are linked to a totem and have a limited amount of time on the field anyway, I decided to forgo linking either minion speed or life to them.
-Zombies linked to minion life, minion damage and minion speed.
-Spectre is linked to minion life and minion damage, since the gem itself has quite a nice speed boost and it is capped. Since acquiring the new minion gear, I now use spectres more than ever before. In higher maps, it is hard to maintain helpful ones, but when just doing runs for maps I usually try to get spectres that will help the minions overall. The cheiftans that give 3 frenzy charges to all the other minions and the bandits who cast warlord's mark are always nice to have around.

The Gear

IIR/IIQ is not really a big deal to me, simply because I am giving up 2 big spots for it anyway (amulet and boots) and I figure, if I can find it on a piece of gear with 4-links that I can equip, I will switch over, but until then I will focus on getting whatever better gear I can. I also have a mana flask, but I really do not need it at all anymore. The life flasks are handy for keeping my spectres alive (as well as the rest of my army, but the main reason to use them is for those special spectres that boost the entire army).

I have avoided putting skeletons on a Totem so far because I like to be in control of where they spawn to block doorways.

Not sure giving up the control would be worth the convience but I am sure I will try it eventually.

I like to put a big, fat flame totem in the doorway and as that's blasting the hell out of a room, send in the troops of zombies, spectres and skeletons to finish off the rest with a touch of enfeeble and a fire trap here and there. But I want to get that wand :)

One thing I would like to ask is how safe you are in hard hitting combat situations in high level maps, I ask this question because for hardcore summoners the lack of HP is a bit off putting, I've done the math and done a slight rework of the setup that you have going right now for your build:

The only major change is the reduced mana pool, I know that 44% seems like a lot to cut off but with that being a small portion of your total mana % increase I've calculated you're getting at worst a 400 mana loss and at best a 200 mana loss (It all depends if my calculations are messed up lol), so either way you can drop wrath aura because it wasn't helping you much anyway as a damage boost for you minions very late game in my eyes anyway. So at worst you have to drop wrath to have at least 200+ mana to work with for your summons and totems, which is not bad considering you have clarity, and you're getting a lot more of an hp boost with this setup so its actually something Hardcore players might look at.

"

ProtectorOfFaith wrote:

One thing I would like to ask is how safe you are in hard hitting combat situations in high level maps, I ask this question because for hardcore summoners the lack of HP is a bit off putting, I've done the math and done a slight rework of the setup that you have going right now for your build:

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQMAAIpUSwQjMGQHJsqWC-qvcw0xJ5wPZkxMEcRLvBNrI74VIeEEFgm_0hfhFA8X7xjeGknwSRqdWbQhedp6Ia479jLquew1tSrrP55fTUJM1rxEDfVESUc4nEomSxlKxdMKS68_l0yv9UNNM76rTmKMJ2IW8uNiR7jyZhKo7mdierpnwpenZ-ky1HcAFgl3rHEredK-aXpxx_yDhhvah94lk5BpUyWSgK3YlhxlapptiUehCJm_oap8BKNZqk2nLlnOqb8HYqnblmqtdvcurnNxA7QO8i65Y47FvSG7Vr37qXG_f_fiwL_LyMS4hTzIOTABy0EdEc3KZmPSkScK2Qkd2eIy-3Xi9gc95taq1-0lMkv1Lbu89Tm6j_eSfc39mG3T_yilDv8_eiOmxKf_NiMFVw-Ogp1ZfOmhFl5YadeF0FpnQ2pp4uLXhdJUN_Q=

The only major change is the reduced mana pool, I know that 44% seems like a lot to cut off but with that being a small portion of your total mana % increase I've calculated you're getting at worst a 400 mana loss and at best a 200 mana loss (It all depends if my calculations are messed up lol), so either way you can drop wrath aura because it wasn't helping you much anyway as a damage boost for you minions very late game in my eyes anyway. So at worst you have to drop wrath to have at least 200+ mana to work with for your summons and totems, which is not bad considering you have clarity, and you're getting a lot more of an hp boost with this setup so its actually something Hardcore players might look at.

It looks good and solid, honestly. I am heavily considering respeccing into more life nodes simply because I am vulnerable to chaos damage once again. I was running a map last night and, amid all of the confusion going on, I was hit by something that made me bleed. Even with rapidly using my health potions, my HP was gone before they could help. I will likely invest in a panicked flask as well. Aside from that incident, nothing in maps (only made it to a level 66 one so far. Map drop luck is not on my side) has killed me nor outside of them, even with my astoundingly low HP. Dropping Wrath does not seem like a big deal at all with how boosted my minions are at this point.

"

GoatEatingToilet wrote:

...Dropping Wrath does not seem like a big deal at all with how boosted my minions are at this point.

Yeah I redid my math and I am pretty positive about it now and you should have around 680 mana left with your current spec without that mana under my new setup, I do have to agree that wrath still should go though so u have a very comfortable mana pool to work with. And as far as Chaos damage thats the big problem I worry about XD
Okay this is the final rework XD I tried to make as much use of the life nodes around you at the expense of a 20% mana regen, but now your life should be significantly better :P

"

goslaw3 wrote:

more life for character which is designed to keep distance?

Yes because you can't garauntee you'll always be out of the way of danger <.< (i.e. the map boss of mervil and oak, goatmen, etc.) clearly you have never played hardcore... And how much distance do u expect to have between you and your minions? cause it cant be too much cause your zombies can only stray so far from you.

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ProtectorOfFaith wrote:

And how much distance do u expect to have between you and your minions? cause it cant be too much cause your zombies can only stray so far from you.

Exactly! You need to be in somewhat close range of a mob to aggro your zombies to attack it...otherwise, a caster/archer can take you all out from a safe distance if you are not careful. Of course you can always summon your skeletons to a distanced mob, but you still need to protect yourself if they make a beeline to you and ignore all of your minions. Just like what happened to me in a map. Somehow got hit with puncture in the middle of chaos (mot the element, just the state of things) around me and bled out so fast it was not even funny (healing did not even come close to working fast enough to counter it). If that happened in hardcore, at that level...well, I couldn't even imagine (which is why I don't play HC anyway).
Even though my witch is in default, I'm not a big fan of losing 15% of my experience, lol.
Gonna respec into those health nodes next time I play.

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GoatEatingToilet wrote:

Gonna respec into those health nodes next time I play.

Fair enough :D happy I could help, and this gave me a good idea of my dream setup for my summoner, when you respec please let me know how much safer the build is after the nodes are added so I can decide if max minion build is viable to survive in HC ;D