My Fire Summoner - Critiques Appreciated ^.^ (updated for OB)

@RulerofAsgard

I can get +60 dex for 2 skill points to allow me to run with dex skills!, I haven't decided on which spells I will go with and which auras because I have never played the game so it is notorious hard to see if I have enough mana for 4 or 7 auras and what level I would level them to w/o having any feeling for the game.

I have also had a hard time finding up to date mana cost / level chart for auras, and therefore have a really hard time picking which ones are best, but I am sure that will sort itself out when I level.

for attack spells I think I will make 1 wich and kill brutos and then start over so I can get:

Spark, Freezing Pulse
Phase Run (if it still exists), raise zombie
firestorm, ice spear
summon skeleton, (clarity or wrath?)

then I will have 1 aoe and 1 single target spell and be good to go, I am to cheap to use currency items to resocked before I reach the second difficulty so I wil most likely try all spells I find and see which one I prefere. Until reading this forum I was sure I would lightning enchant all my minions and use arch and lightning wrap, and the extra shock stack passive, and the wrath aura, but after reading that bosses can't be shocked and that fire spells might be rescaled (in beta stuff is not nerfed and boosted :D) it suddenly didn't sound less appealing.

I also think I will summon my skeletons myself as I cannot bare for them to do less damage :D

I have however taught long and hard about whether shields or staffs would be best, and because kripp always talked bad about staffs I figured they might be cheap to trade for due low demand, but if they are all crap due to being able to roll to manny stats then maybe I will stick with shield and wand.

Your reply was much appreciated

Sorry for highjacking the thread, I taught I was writing in the summoner thread but obviously I wasn't

One thing on staff. Obviously stuff is subject to change since this was on alpha and it might not make it on live, but apparently they're increasing the type of +skill gem level stuff you can have on weapons and apparently 2H weapons have higher potential mods for this, so you could get up to +3minion gem on a staff(from my understand of kripp's discussing it). I assume 1H would be limited at +2(maybe +1) and with only 3gems. This makes a huge difference I think in the very lategame, as a 6L staff with +3minion gem would be off the charts for a summoner.

I mean it comes with a guaranteed fix(I doubt they'd remove that) of letting gems go higher than lvl 20 with +skill mods, like they have the stats for 21-23, and the scaling lategame on zombies health and damage is pretty crazy, which is why they suck early and lategame they're super beast. Getting lvl 23 zombies with minion health, minion damage, faster attacks, more physical damage and either spectre or reduced mana, you'd probably get a massive increase in power, both defensive and offensive as anyone who played a high lvl summoner knows zombies hit for a completely stupid amount of damage lategame(like literally a zombie kills a rare without defensive mods in like 3-4hits, and that's just one out of 6-10zombie).

Also as pointed out, staves do have block and if you were crazy enough with your points, you can grab a +13%block down in the templar area(there's a lot of filler str nodes on the way however so it comes at a pretty hefty cost). Still even without that, you get a fairly decent block. The main issue is the defensive stats on the shield(especially if CI, with bulwark ES% nodes and such, it's like 1000-2000 ES lost) including the implicit all resists and the offensive caster stats on the wand since staves tend to have fairly terrible caster stats unless you're super lucky with the rolls.

Food for thought, but I think it'll be an interesting choice come OB late game to go staff or 1h+shield. Which is great since at the moment I don't really see a point in going staff other than the 6L more but to be honest as a summoner one 6L is generally enough and isn't worth sacrificing the benefits of the shield especially with CI as strong as it is currently.

The +3 to skill gems is a very good point to consider, and it might be a great reason to go staff late-game (once you're high level and know you won't die without the block/HP/ES/Resists that come with a shield).

The way I might do things is get the unique fire staff (The Searing Touch) for low level play (raises the level of Firestorm (or any fire skill) +2 levels) then go wand + shield for mid-game play, then switch to staff again when you get something amazing (6L, +3 fire or minion gems, % fire damage, %spell damage, stuff like that) for high-level play.

Yes, staves do have %block (12 and 18 I believe), but I think a build that starts as a Templar is more suited to building around that fact (cheaper access to the nodes). It's something I'll most likely do when I roll a Templar to get Reduced Mana gems.

Bump for update.

Hey RulerofAsgard ^^

Thanks for this build/idea of a Fire Summoner.
I was so confused about my summoner build(my crappy build I mean) since OB started, but you made it clear :)

hi, this is my idea of fire summoner with firestorm.
i posted in The Summoner Compendium already(last post) ;-)

with 120+ skill points i can take on the left side the +25% chance no interrupt, 2nd body&soul, and lifereg on ES.


http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMB37AsnEkbr7eHZZwtHwJXKwdjc1Nr230Y7Io2xdgkpwiPRtDQm6FI5_fXzLyFYKrETblEBBCXNtjxbOxVFLA6MDlSvDdObVgHAP10VXzO6-RfKoIeiELyHcHFLL_B88NtbRk74eL3pyuLeuaBwFR_xhzckye_l8k98h6drhpspqyIQJAz2QsqmPqABAeXlVJTPV9Pvx3ZQ1Q3Ziympuu4k-vuKPqCx9P7qH1akWqsEVC71gLjSbKsmIIQB6XkIrUEXcZG193zYG2dgIM473wpT-w4OthN2Ix2l4UqjYgb

@RulerofAsgard

I really like this build and am trying to build something similar in OB after my experiences with a similar, more summons focused build in CB.

I was wondering what your thoughts were about the extra burning damage passives. How much of a difference do you think those passives make for a spell like Firestorm? When I play, I tend to just spam Firestorm pretty hard on enemies, and with each falling ball of fire not doing a heck of a lot of damage on its own, it wouldn't seem like extra burning damage wouldn't be that effective or noticeable.

"

battlecrow wrote:

@RulerofAsgard

I really like this build and am trying to build something similar in OB after my experiences with a similar, more summons focused build in CB.

I was wondering what your thoughts were about the extra burning damage passives. How much of a difference do you think those passives make for a spell like Firestorm? When I play, I tend to just spam Firestorm pretty hard on enemies, and with each falling ball of fire not doing a heck of a lot of damage on its own, it wouldn't seem like extra burning damage wouldn't be that effective or noticeable.

My reasoning for the extra burning damage is this:

For champion/rare/unique enemies, who have a lot of HP, spamming Firestorm will kill them eventually, sure. The burning damage just boosts the kill speed of these enemies a bit, since it will take longer to kill them. Since the burn does 4/3 the damage of the hit over 4 seconds (1/3 per second), having 50% extra burning damage increases the damage dealt by a considerable amount.

Example: Say I have a Firestorm attack that does 100 Damage per Fireball and a 200% Crit Multiplier. I score a critical hit that does 300 Damage - but since it's fire damage, it creates a DoT instead of hurting them outright. So now I do 1/3 of the damage - 100 - for 4 seconds, for a total of 400 damage.

Now, say I do that same attack, but have 50% more burn damage. My original hit now does 450 Damage for a critical strike (300*(1+.5)) which means I now do 1/3 of that damage per second, or 150/second, for a total of 600 Damage done over 4 seconds.

In this case, 50% burning damage literally increased my damage by 50% - from 400 to 600.

This DoT will last during the entire champion/rare/unique fight because of the amount of HP they have, so I'm just doing a bit more damage over the same time interval than if I did not have the burning damage. Plus, since I stack AoE radius, I'll hit 1/3 of the screen with each attack, so any white mobs nearby also get hit for a 600 Damage burn, which eats a good bit of their HP away while they're running toward the fight. (and if they're the right enemy type, they'll flee instead)

Mechanics thread on Fire Damage:

"

Fire damage
If you land a critical strike with an attack or spell that deals fire damage, the enemy begins Burning. Burning causes damage over time. Humanoids, Monkeys and Sea Witches will flee while burning.
Burning lasts 4 seconds, and the amount of damage over time is 1/3 of the fire damage dealt per second. So a total of 4/3 of the original damage, over 4 seconds.
Multiple instances of burning can be applied at the same time, however the damage from them does not stack. Only the highest-damage burning effect that is on a creature at any one time will deal damage.

Thanks for the response. Are you building your crit chance and multiplier through your gear to make use of this effect? Your build only has a handful of crit nodes taken.

"

battlecrow wrote:

Thanks for the response. Are you building your crit chance and multiplier through your gear to make use of this effect? Your build only has a handful of crit nodes taken.

The build has been changing as I've been going along. I'm level 25 right now and have Blast Radius, for example. Some of the changes are gear-based - need more STR or something for a gem, some are just preference (like Blast Radius early on for Firestorm). I will probably add in some more crit chance/multiplier in favor of something else, it just depends on how it pans out once I'm there.

The build is more of a guideline for something I think will be survivable and decently strong, to be altered as the user sees fit. (yes, I'm thinking of picking up a crit multiplier support gem for Firestorm - since the base damage is low, you don't run the risk of one-shotting yourself on reflect mobs)