Summoner Ideas after Snapshot/ Pure Summoner

So Mon'tregul seems pitiful as I thought which is disappointing, I got the massive zombies idea from RoS since a friend gifted it to me after release and many witch doctors ran Tall Man's Ring which made all zombie dogs into one giant dog that had all combined dogs damage and life plus some extra making it hands down better than regular zombie dogs. This is what I see needing to happen with Mon'tregul's in order for it to be viable without another unique synergizing.

As for the shields I come back to my issue of wanting a shield that is actual meant to synergize with minions with or without Necromatic Aegis. Simple idea would be to give benefits and when character has NA the effects are doubled on the minions or something. And Matua Tepuna is pitiful even as a low level summoner because of the pathetic ES for the character and the minions would be too weak for the benefits to work much anyway. Other shields can do for now. But having to have a shield for each and every map combo at the ready is expensive and time consuming. Yes some are all around good for most maps or all of them but then it comes back to wanting an actual summoner shield that is good in my opinion.

Oh boy! OP just said EVERYTHING i think while in shower o.o.

I'm running a summoner, all summoner uniques possible. Head-Zombie shield, SkullHeadh, Midnight, Vis Mortis, Ulrs Boots. Quadra-Resist Rings, Belt, Gloves. Also Siddbreath. (the all quadra worth almost 0 ES). So i run 4 auras (3 most of the time dues mana isues, being Discipline, Purity of Elements and Clarity. 4 sometimes with Wrath).

And mine 700 Health and 1k ES (cuz of aura) is having a HARD time on lvl 79 now (almost 80). I must play with VERY VERY VERY extra-maximum-care. And ofc i die sometimes cuz of lags and stuff, it happens.

I really want some new Shield for minions, wands, rods, helmets, armors and belts rings gloves etc. WE NEED IT.

Pure summoner is a lot cool, but very very weak :/.

I did never snaps, it ruins the summoners in all ways.

I really want to be able to hunt with a little less fear of every single monsters in the game above lvl 50 XD. :p

Also, the summons die like if there was no tomorrow hahaha.

I'm running a Summon Raging Spirit/Summon. SUMMONS ONLY. SRS on totens for extra damage and numbers. It's a very cool build and i never saw someone using this (maybe because it sux hahaha).

Anyway, i hope for some buffs now that our snapshoters will be out.

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loinator wrote:

Oh boy! OP just said EVERYTHING i think while in shower o.o.

I'm running a summoner, all summoner uniques possible. Head-Zombie shield, SkullHeadh, Midnight, Vis Mortis, Ulrs Boots. Quadra-Resist Rings, Belt, Gloves. Also Siddbreath. (the all quadra worth almost 0 ES). So i run 4 auras (3 most of the time dues mana isues, being Discipline, Purity of Elements and Clarity. 4 sometimes with Wrath).

And mine 700 Health and 1k ES (cuz of aura) is having a HARD time on lvl 79 now (almost 80). I must play with VERY VERY VERY extra-maximum-care. And ofc i die sometimes cuz of lags and stuff, it happens.

700 health and 1k ES seems so low even if any players wear all of these items that benefit minions. I really think its better if a summoner discard one or two of those "summon" items to wear better survivability gears.

Pure summoners can be strong as hell with weak gear and no snapshotting if you build it right.

Yes summoners in general hit the clear speed ceiling faster but that is just the nature of the character type and is the same for summoners in almost any game. Reason being that while other builds can reach the point that they can kill anything instantly just by clicking on it summoners will always have to wait longer for their minions to reach things and build up plus have to deal with AI herp derp moments.

The above is balanced by summoners being less gear dependent(this carries into things like mfing or playing self found), safer against desync and disconnects and just plain safer in general.

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Splift wrote:

Pure summoners can be strong as hell with weak gear and no snapshotting if you build it right.

Yes summoners in general hit the clear speed ceiling faster but that is just the nature of the character type and is the same for summoners in almost any game. Reason being that while other builds can reach the point that they can kill anything instantly just by clicking on it summoners will always have to wait longer for their minions to reach things and build up plus have to deal with AI herp derp moments.

The above is balanced by summoners being less gear dependent(this carries into things like mfing or playing self found), safer against desync and disconnects and just plain safer in general.

General desync is still an issue for me as a summoner. I don't even remember how many times I've sat dumbfounded at my computer looking at the nice resurrect button with a swarm of enemies that navigated their way around my minions since they were actually in the last room. I guess you do provide a point that right now with auramancer, we are not specific gear reliant where my plea is to become gear reliant and have it be good gear instead of the garbage we have at the moment.

Edit: I think you would probably agree that a less cooldown on convocation would be allowable for summoners at the very least to combat the AI issues and stuck-on-wall moments.

I just recently levelled my CI summoner to Lvl 90. Do not use snapshot (can't be bothered) NOR do I use any uniques (because i never found anything worth using).

However, during that long, LONG grind, it became apparent that without uber gear (I'm self-found) it was just ridiculously hard for a summoner to fight the absolute hardest bosses in the game. Courtyard map trio boss left me a writhing mess killing me twice before I got them down and that was on a map without mods. All my minion gems were lvl 20 or higher and my auras were almost all L20 with full quality so full radius effect. Not much more I could do. Despite this, the courtyard trio would just rip them apart. I was left to simply run around continuously casting desecrate and summon zombies (dying twice, once to desync since the so-called battle was so long). Not really my idea of fun or challenging.

And Olmec's sanctum, err yeah.

So I basically did not even have a crack at Atziri.

Not sure how they can fix this - ie making the hardest boss battles more of a strategic thing rather than a run around and spam summon battle - without making the uber gear drop more readily (which they won't do) but I sure do hope they find a way otherwise my summoner I think will gather dust for awhile. As a non-snapshotter I'm hoping they might provide some kind of buff for the removal of snapshot but whether it benefit my build guess have to wait and see.

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cdchi1 wrote:

Not sure how they can fix this - ie making the hardest boss battles more of a strategic thing rather than a run around and spam summon battle - without making the uber gear drop more readily (which they won't do) but I sure do hope they find a way otherwise my summoner I think will gather dust for awhile. As a non-snapshotter I'm hoping they might provide some kind of buff for the removal of snapshot but whether it benefit my build guess have to wait and see.

And this is where a lot of anti-bufing people on the forums seem to attack RF and summoners. They claim we don't need changes and buffs. In the manifesto that was recently put up, RF was intended to be for a short bust of damage increase so change can't really be asked for all of those who made RF main attack builds. They do the best they can without snaps or not do it at all since it is seeming more and more clear that GGG is leaning on it not being used this way (although it kills creativity). At the same time, I feel its original intent is laughable. RF should be doing massive damage increase for what it asks for in return/ there should be a control put on it so the user can flip on and off rather than having to go to 1 life every time they use it. That is becoming way too risky.

As for summoners, I made this thread because the things I cover don't seem to be arguable against so far and would still be considered buffs or changes without making summoners OP again but rather work better than they ever possibly could right now. And this will also make the build style itself a new entity rather than running auramancer and the like.

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PleiadesBlackstar wrote:

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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.

This logic can be appliet to any other skill in the game

Heavy strike with no melee physical? lol

Yea, but you're only going in one direction with that, more damage. Summons need survive-ability and damage in one piece of armor. Not to mention that you need to put specters and zombies in separate pieces.

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vifoxe wrote:

Yea, but you're only going in one direction with that, more damage. Summons need survive-ability and damage in one piece of armor. Not to mention that you need to put specters and zombies in separate pieces.

For zombie based dps summoner, I think I might leave my Spectres to a four slot item possibly my glove now and my Zombies on 5 linked armor.
I think its for the best since the spectres I'm using are Evangelist and they are pretty tanky than Zombie.