Summoner Ideas after Snapshot/ Pure Summoner

WARNING: This has become a discussion about how Summoners as pure summoners are severely lacking. There have been several people come in and state along the lines of "summoners are fine. All you have to do is run Shavronne's stack 4+ auras and faceroll everything." This is exactly what we want changed. If you decide to post anything similar again I will laugh at you from my laptop and then post for you to leave until you have read this paragraph and find an actual contribution.

I don't know if anybody else has had a discussion about this recently in my skimming of the first 7 pages or so but I want to know people's thoughts of summoner uniques changes that in my opinion need to take place in some form or another.

I am currently a snapshot summoner moving towards no snaps since the removal announcement. I know I can do okay without snapshots. Many people have proven that we can to some degree. The problems I see are with spectres and animated guardians and being a pure summoner. I will try to address these things how I see them being wrong or in need of fixing as best as I can.

1) Minion survivability

I agree with many people on these recent snapshot threads that minions are meant to die. I would also argue that they shouldn't die all too quickly. Minion life against bosses is negotiable. I think many summoners would be willing to settle that after a certain point they should have to resummon their meat shields requiring corpses to be available (desecrate solves this).

I do not believe spectres and animated guardians deserve to be on this list of killable minions though. Yes they can die if you are stupid/lag/desync and so on but right now either Evangelists or high dps spectres seem necessary for survivability of at least the user or main damage source. I think there is room to negotiate that spectres need less life reduction from the skill and animated guardians seem very squishy since most people use them to be as tanky as possible so they can run Death's Breath to aid the other minions and as soon as the army is gone or depleting that guardian and all the effort gone into making it viable is toast. I don't believe convocation solves this. Melee minions run right back into the battle if close enough and the healing is pitiful per second against end game mobs/bosses.

2) Auramancer for suvivability

Right now I feel as though I am forced to run the four aura vitality, grace, determination, purity of elements combo I do right now to at least keep the above mentioned spectres alive when in trouble/ keep the army of meat-shield from becoming corpses again in a matter of seconds against the harder stuff. This is probably more true without snapping. Again I agree minions should be killable but I would like them to be more durable without any auras at all. Ideally, I want a minion only aura to be introduced so that is the one aura I would even want to use. Not only my minions but I myself would get my ass handed to me without the current aura setup I have if I didn't think extremely fast if a few leapers piled up on me. This seems even more of a problem with my next point. But I feel that enough change is defensible for summoners to their minions that auramancer shouldn't be the only choice for more survivability. Some could say that I could just run dps auras to kill everything before it gets to my character but that still is auramancy. I desire, as well as others I am sure a pure summoner. A pure summoner would ideally run every minion and minion supporting skill or support gem they could without having to think about other gems unless they prefer to be something else like an auramancer. I feel that I am stuck with auramancy for the time being or risk a lot of survivability/dps and thus becoming inadequate as a build. This relates to the third point of...

3) Pure Summoner Item Synergy If anything please read this through the entirety.

I haven't gotten a Vis Mortis yet but loved the idea since it was released. So I think it is a vital piece of equipment for a summoner. So try building around it with pure summon equipment to become the ultimate lord of the dead and let them do your bidding. Also got to remember though that minion AI and enemy interaction still isn't the greatest. Ideally the enemy mobs would ignore you if you are far back enough and tackle only the minions that you have flooding the room but I have painfully learned first hand that they still like to skip past them and attack you very often. So survivability is appreciated as well (at least enough to run away and recover, skipping bosses for now with this issue). So Vis Mortis is ES based and it is fairly low compared to a 700 ES rare chest I could craft so we need to make up for that with our other gear.

Could we go CI? Maybe but we want everything focused on minions as well if we want to boast being a pure summoner. So Sidebreathe amulet is the only option for its slot. No defenses for us there. No unique belts for summoners specifically except headhunter could be nice but lets assume a lucky triple 30% ele resist chain belt and max implicit. Again, no summon specific rings so I'm going to assume two two-stone rings with 2 30% resists explicit and some amount of +ES on each in some combo and max implicit on each (I'm not even sure about the possibilities on two stone rings. Not enough experience). Assume 275 max ES Vis Mortis for chest. For boots we could do Ullr or Alberon's Warpath. But Alberon's seems less pure summoner and more melee with a skeletion army or something. Besides it has Armour no ES for CI so Ullr it is. 32 ES assumed for these... Great... Rare ES gloves are the most fitting for this slot right now. I'm going to guess that without dishing out a ton of ex 200 ES is the most we can hope for with 3 30% resists and that's if we are really lucky with nice traders or crafting. Skullhead is the only helm so we are forced to take it if we want to stick to the minions first motto so no ES to speak of here. Otherwise we skimp on the helm being army of the dead-esque and get a Rare ES helm with +2 minion gems. So I'm going to assume only two 30% resists as well on a 350 ES helm for price/crafting's sake. And I still want the Skullhead benefits damnit! Matua Tepuna also the only minion item for that slot to speak of. So again forgo it or deal with the absolute garbage 45 ES and no Resists. And I want to use necromatic aegis anyway or what kind of summoner would I be? So no matter what there is no defense of any kind going to me as the puppet master regardless of shield choice. Chober Chaber and Queen's decree are 2h and both seem to be for different builds anyway. so we have Midnight Bargain or Mon'tregul's grasp are our only 1h options to use necromatic aegis. CI can't do Midnights so its Mon'tregul's unless we go life which would cut more passives from going full minion passives and ES/CI and even one Midnight would probably demand a shavronne's at this point. so Mon'tregul's it is. I feel like this weapon is missing a shield counterpart that reduces zombies by half again and making them giant wrecking balls of decaying flesh. But anyway lets see the results of our armour choices.

275 (chest)+ ~70 (Belt)+ 32 (Boots)+ 200 (gloves)+ 0 or 350 (helm)+ ~80 (2rings)= 657 ES With Skullhead and 1007 with rare +2 helm. I'm sorry but I'm not even going to bother with resistances right now since I stated before this build shouldn't be running purity auras. 657 or 1007 either way #%@* no. No matter how much ES nodes I stack on the passive tree after getting all minion nodes this feels like I'm handing my ass on a platter to the first magic or rare mob that ignores my minions. Can't use granite or jade flasks if I'm not running grace or determination to save myself if I'm not using auras and that cuts out Discipline out too.

So these problems are circumvented by being CI auramancer is some way but I don't want that and this is where the massive halt of survivability comes in. This is already dangerous with regular mobs. What about bosses? I want to cry thinking about attempting Atziri like this...


Please lend me your thoughts or if I missed a thread already like this so I can close this down and put my thoughts there. Thank you. Sorry about the tl;dr format but I want discussion please.

And sorry I am not providing any support for any other builds that noticeably weaker without snapping, I don't know enough about them but do feel sympathy to them as well.

Further Ideas that have come to my attention or thoughts

Minion Life Gem or effect seems necessary to some people. The base minion life may need reworking and the life gem nerfed.

Passive changes that would give bonuses of the minions to character as well (seems more like a dominating blow build idea to me). Alternative of mine: Keystone or aura opposite of rare mobs - Cannot die as long as character has a minion alive. This seems like it could be overpowered in some cases.

Smaller life reduction on spectre gem.

Animated Guardian on a timer based on items used and removing life completely from the guardian or have time go down as damaged (here's where the above keystone idea or maybe an aura would become a little overpowered if timer only).

Updated to be more coherent, not much less tl;dr though so be prepared to read.

I consider Auras a vital part of being a pure summoner, since we don't really need that much mana anyway (that statement obv becomes debatable considering we will have to resummon much more frequently without snapshotting).
Other than that i couldn't agree more. The uniques that are currently available are abysmal. And even taking into consideration that someone might have deep pockets and could afford gg gear on all non-unique slots, summoners will still not be up there with the top tier builds and the endgame capability is mediocre at best without ss (i tried it myself and i'm by no means poor). you just hit the glass ceiling way earlier than with other builds, since there are no rare stats that could improve dmg or survivability for your minions (besides +2 helm, but then you only have a 4link). btw: this has nothing to do with summoners whining that they can't use their iir gear anymore. that has nothing to do with it. my options to buff my minions are just as limited, iir gear or no.
unfortunately i can't add much to the discussion since i'm not a game designer. i just know that the current non-snapshot options are not worthwhile.

I'd like to see Minion Life go away, it's just too mandatory. Makes it feel like raise zombie/spectre is really a skill that takes 2 slots. Take the bonus and consolidate it into the base HP of the zombie/specter skill.

That is again where I think a minion aura of some sort would be much appreciated/due. Something that brings a weaker but collective version of all current aura's that would be minion only based is what comes to mind where the aura would necessary, hopefully not op as a collective, and have actual synergy with the build concept. I personally just feel that the moment I'm bringing two or more auras into the mix of pure summoning that it becomes deformed and twisted because it is necessary at the moment for user survival even if army death is an option.

I mostly made this thread because of these problems I personally had but also because those who are on the forums currently that object any changes to help current snaps characters can't really argue against these without being based on pure emotion and ad hominem accusations. They see streamer summoners doing okay-ish or equal to other builds without snaps and ignore key details such as low life shavronne setups, close to perfect rolled rare gear and such that a typical player like myself has never had access to even though I've played since Open Beta.

I do want to see if anybody has outright objections to my thoughts though and see if I can't prove my argument to be more sound or end up changing my stance if necessary.

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vifoxe wrote:

I'd like to see Minion Life go away, it's just too mandatory. Makes it feel like raise zombie/spectre is really a skill that takes 2 slots. Take the bonus and consolidate it into the base HP of the zombie/specter skill.

One of the things I was thinking about too. Later today I'll probably update the post to list more suggestions like these to see if anybody else supports them as well or somebody can object to them with solid reasoning that the change would be a bad idea.

Right now, I am in dilemma trying to figure out the same thing. Never open up the game client but just doing thinking and planning with offline skill simulator.
It's been an exciting moment for me being a summoner in the mean time, all the decision goes for a solid standalone build.

Considering the changes I am making, my passive skills might need a lot of rework, although this might sounds demanding but I'm just curious to know if GGG will implement server wide passive reset like before. Anyhow, I think some items will be completely unwanted anymore such as Monstregul Grasp, I don't think it worth it anymore for the slot compare to more minions as meatshield.
I can't be so sure for other snapshot items since they might be viable to wear in the new build such as Alpha's Howl, Skullhead, sidhebreath and Midnight Bargain (previously, I would utilize the Increase Damage as snapshot, but it seems +zombie and spectre seems viable as a good choice to wear over other weapon)

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vifoxe wrote:

I'd like to see Minion Life go away, it's just too mandatory. Makes it feel like raise zombie/spectre is really a skill that takes 2 slots. Take the bonus and consolidate it into the base HP of the zombie/specter skill.

I feel minions are totally at a low life pool without Chober Chaber, that Minion Life gem seems to be a necessity for a summoner like you have said.
Wish the gems would get nerfed and eventually the base life of minions get increased instead.

It's not ideal to wear Chober Chaber over another better weapon (s) and/or considerable shield.
Not sure how others think about it, but minions indeed have a low life pool without chober chaber or Minion Life. It seems one of them are required badly.

@bunnyxian90

Like I said with Midnight bargains up above, even wearing one seems like the player must move to shavronne's wrappings territory or risk the terror of squishy times or be very careful. I also think that due to the manifesto article having mentioned that snapshot abuse of mon'tregul and other items was preventing further items from being released or risked becoming one of the massively over powered builds by adding on to snapshot setups that would be hands down the best to run for survival and damage. My assumption is that there might be a shield that is supposed to synergize with mon'tregul's that would reduce zombies even further and turn them into like 1 or 2 incredibly durible and damage heavy zombies or do something to spectres or another minion gem. My plans so far are to actually try running mont'regul with saffell's frame for necromatic aegis at this point if no changes are made for summoners otherwise yes it will be a shame that I got the grasp very early on only to let it waste away in my stash hoping it will become viable again.

For Chober Chaber as I said above, it seems like that the unique was meant to be for 6 linking dominating blow inside of it since it has the same crest as the skill and the skill duration increase looks like dominating blow army beneficial. Of course this again comes to how the two minion 2hers are jokes in terms of how much they actually give for stats minion or player-wise.

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PleiadesBlackstar wrote:

@bunnyxian90

Like I said with Midnight bargains up above, even wearing one seems like the player must move to shavronne's wrappings territory or risk the terror of squishy times or be very careful. I also think that due to the manifesto article having mentioned that snapshot abuse of mon'tregul and other items was preventing further items from being released or risked becoming one of the massively over powered builds by adding on to snapshot setups that would be hands down the best to run for survival and damage. My assumption is that there might be a shield that is supposed to synergize with mon'tregul's that would reduce zombies even further and turn them into like 1 or 2 incredibly durible and damage heavy zombies or do something to spectres or another minion gem. My plans so far are to actually try running mont'regul with saffell's frame for necromatic aegis at this point if no changes are made for summoners otherwise yes it will be a shame that I got the grasp very early on only to let it waste away in my stash hoping it will become viable again.

For Chober Chaber as I said above, it seems like that the unique was meant to be for 6 linking dominating blow inside of it since it has the same crest as the skill and the skill duration increase looks like dominating blow army beneficial. Of course this again comes to how the two minion 2hers are jokes in terms of how much they actually give for stats minion or player-wise.

I tried running with a single Midnight bargain in high level map, the 30% reduction of maximum life is a lot and often put me at near death risk. Indeed, ES gearing is almost a must for Midnight Bargain users.
Good idea on the new item with further advancement to fewer zombie but with greater stats. In the mean time, the Monstregul add so little benefit over the loss of the zombies amount. I did some comparison between using a monstregul and without, the lost is too big and significant when there is no snapshot done.

On the other hand, Necromantic Aegis dynamically update whatever equipped shield on the spot to the minions even during snapshotting "era" now. Summoners can equip any shield depending on situation and that means a player can use any shield depending what map or area they are running, so I don't think sticking with Saffel's Frame all the time is a good idea. As of now, I have few shields to use such as Lioneye Remorse (or any high armour shield) for high physical mod variants in map) and a Saffels Frame for high elemental damage boss such as Dominus, Piety and Rima.