Summoner Ideas after Snapshot/ Pure Summoner

@GingerBeast

Love your commentary and that True Necromancer passive does sound like a much better idea than my roughly hashed out one. Like I said I already thought it would be over powered and yours seems to balance that to keep only real summoners or summoning hybrids from benefiting and if they are hybrid with that passive then they are probably fairly balanced between minions and self casting/attacking. My only addition would be if they would ever test it that if cannot take any damage is still too strong too often then make it 90% reduction of all damage types or something on top of/before all other damage mitigation (this might make it overpowered and abused again, I'm not that knowledgeable about game mechanics that in depth) whichever is the most potent.

I think its a little disappointing from a role playing perspective that the Templar is best for summoning in your case. The Witch story and passive layout is obvious that it should be witch summoners. But even I switched to Scion because many were finding her more durable for summoning at the time/ I wanted to try the new class on release.

With full respecs being available at 1.2 I am definetely going to be setting up my witch once again and am hoping for these changes to come about so I can finally have the fun with the build idea I love the most.

Another idea I had for a summoner aura/keystone I just had:

Death's Call to Arms
(minor bonuses to current minions)
Summons a random minion type (Zombie, Spectre, Skeleton) for 15 seconds every 30 seconds.
Summoned minion does not replace permanent (semi permenant for skeletons but they don't matter much at all) minions and persist on top of max numbers.
Summoned minion has a stat boost similar to the generals summoned by vaal skeletons.

It's 2 in the morning so I know the above idea is rough and probably overkill in some way. I liked somebody's idea that vaal gems need to act like the regular counterpart until souls are gathered which if that were true, vaal skeletons would take this idea away as it is unnecessary.

"

PleiadesBlackstar wrote:

Spoiler

@GingerBeast

Love your commentary and that True Necromancer passive does sound like a much better idea than my roughly hashed out one. Like I said I already thought it would be over powered and yours seems to balance that to keep only real summoners or summoning hybrids from benefiting and if they are hybrid with that passive then they are probably fairly balanced between minions and self casting/attacking. My only addition would be if they would ever test it that if cannot take any damage is still too strong too often then make it 90% reduction of all damage types or something on top of/before all other damage mitigation (this might make it overpowered and abused again, I'm not that knowledgeable about game mechanics that in depth) whichever is the most potent.

I think its a little disappointing from a role playing perspective that the Templar is best for summoning in your case. The Witch story and passive layout is obvious that it should be witch summoners. But even I switched to Scion because many were finding her more durable for summoning at the time/ I wanted to try the new class on release.

With full respecs being available at 1.2 I am definetely going to be setting up my witch once again and am hoping for these changes to come about so I can finally have the fun with the build idea I love the most.

Another idea I had for a summoner aura/keystone I just had:

Death's Call to Arms
(minor bonuses to current minions)
Summons a random minion type (Zombie, Spectre, Skeleton) for 15 seconds every 30 seconds.
Summoned minion does not replace permanent (semi permenant for skeletons but they don't matter much at all) minions and persist on top of max numbers.
Summoned minion has a stat boost similar to the generals summoned by vaal skeletons.

It's 2 in the morning so I know the above idea is rough and probably overkill in some way. I liked somebody's idea that vaal gems need to act like the regular counterpart until souls are gathered which if that were true, vaal skeletons would take this idea away as it is unnecessary.

I think the Templar is better for the early-mid game survivability that the witch just does not have access to. Spending the first 10 passive points on the life nodes really makes it easier level faster. I actually have a templar summoner build I just recently wrote a guide to, but after reading the guide over, I realized that it does not do a very good job of capturing the build and explaining it very well, so I plan to re-write it and include some more fleshed out ideas.

I think that playing a summoner is much more viable than people realize. The problem is that it hits a glass ceiling quickly....although I do suspect that it is possible to break through that ceiling. I imagine that many people get frustrated when they plateau and suddenly don't seem to be able to increase their kill speed while their survivability just seems to go down as they grind up in levels.

The issue for me is that I feel that the character is one shot (more or less) by methods that are completely unavoidable. If you use minions as your offense and your defense, then you need to be able to avoid all damage in some way - either from mitigation or smart playstyle. Skills like Arc or Rain of Arrows completely rape me because there is absolutely no way to avoid them. Even with over 75% Light res on Merciless, a blue Arc Mage can two shot me from the arc chains. Other AOE attacks are either based on the character doing the attack (Shock Nova for example) or are have some level of warning (Storm Call for example) so the player can move out of the way. Unfortunatley, no matter how fast you are, some of the enemy attacks you can't avoid, and for you to really be a 100% pure summoner, you are squishy as hell; and thats fine. It woudl be really broken if you were tanky as a player AND had a full army of tanky minions, but when some enemies can just completely bypass all of it.....I think that is what needs fixed. Not a buff to summoners of minions, not a nerf to enemies, just something to address what seems to be an obvious gap in balance.


As far as your idea above goes: The first problem I see is with the auto summon of specters. How would it determine the target? What if it summons a great specter that you were trying to summon as a permenant one? I think that maybe just summoning a skeleton woudl be better for the player in the long run. Plus, that seems like too much of an active skill to be included on the passive tree. I think it would be cool as an aura type skill, where it reserves say...25-30% of your mana and summons something at regular intervals.

Your minions don't die.... YET :p.

In general maps of lvl 75+, i lost around 10 zombies (total), so it's ok. Skels die like if there was no tomorrow, but that's ok since they are spammable. Spec's if ranged, never dies.

UNTIL YOU COME TO THE BOSS \o/

Then, all things will die. Even Vaal Skels with HP and RES will die. Xandro can kill everything with 2 atks if much of that AoE for example.

I would like to see some nodes that says:
"If minions are on a group of 20+, they receive less X damage from AoE skills up to a cap at ~80 mininions".

That would help a little with that AoE killer machine bosses .-.


EDITED: the bonus to minions apply to yourself could apply to some builds aswell, but dunno if it's not better to have actual bonus to weapons and etc instead to those builds... Even so, it's not to a typical ranged summoner but to a new kind of fighter summoner.

Anyway i would love to see some kind of defensive steroid attached to nodes that would help the summoner itself at least to take some hits, don't need to be a tank in any way XD.

first sorry for my English

i play a ci mf witch summoner and i never snapshot
i dont have great gear


(when solo i have spell totem+squelli+enpower in the shield otherwise i xp gemms in party)
i run hatred+vitality+discipline+purity and i take 3flamme sentinnelle(nice es mobs)+8zombie and some kind of mob(porcepine for example)rape my zombie;some unique boss/rogue too...i generally skip that kind of boss in maps but 90% of my time i have to make a totem and resummon some zombie to finish my map
i really see my weakness in party but in solo summoner without snapshot are very safe(slower to clean map 75+ but need to resummon zombie a lot)
maybe i will put spectre in chest with culling and zombie in the helmet without iiq/iir and empower to have more dps/survivability for the zombie
the snapshot change will not change my life i think

"

Athanof wrote:

first sorry for my English

i play a ci mf witch summoner and i never snapshot
i dont have great gear

Spoiler

(when solo i have spell totem+squelli+enpower in the shield otherwise i xp gemms in party)
i run hatred+vitality+discipline+purity and i take 3flamme sentinnelle(nice es mobs)+8zombie and some kind of mob(porcepine for example)rape my zombie;some unique boss/rogue too...i generally skip that kind of boss in maps but 90% of my time i have to make a totem and resummon some zombie to finish my map
i really see my weakness in party but in solo summoner without snapshot are very safe(slower to clean map 75+ but need to resummon zombie a lot)
maybe i will put spectre in chest with culling and zombie in the helmet without iiq/iir and empower to have more dps/survivability for the zombie
the snapshot change will not change my life i think

From what I've been seeing lately, spectres need to be in your helm with +2 minion gems over zombies. Zombies need to be the 6l to keep them pumping out and have balanced survivability and damage from the looks of most builds.

Just as an update, I finally played for the first time as a full no snapshot summoner without mon'tregul's zombies. Without even trying to use bigger 4 zombies as my only zombies I can already tell how pathetically useless those 4 would be compared to regular 9 zombies running around. Sadly as I thought, I am only running bone's of ullr and sidhebreathe. All other summoning items would make me way too squishy (I almost died twice with capped resists to enemies that avoided my minions).

"

PleiadesBlackstar wrote:

Just as an update, I finally played for the first time as a full no snapshot summoner without mon'tregul's zombies. Without even trying to use bigger 4 zombies as my only zombies I can already tell how pathetically useless those 4 would be compared to regular 9 zombies running around. Sadly as I thought, I am only running bone's of ullr and sidhebreathe. All other summoning items would make me way too squishy (I almost died twice with capped resists to enemies that avoided my minions).

Yeah... Hard life... :/

I feel that everybody now is just waiting for the patch to hit and see what changes are made. I've kind of run out of things to say on the subject until it happens.

on my aura summoner i run Discipline+purity of ice+purity of light+purity of elements+vitality.

I used to run haste+hate+discipline+purity of elements when I only had a chauber chauber to snapshot. Back then, things were fairly difficult but i _could_ do most of the things I do now. I don't think maps like shrine and definitely not the 78s would be remotely possible without snapshotting. I really hope they buff summoners or their gear in some way if SS is to be removed

For the most part, I've always used a 4L helmet for spectres, and a 6l armor for my zombies.

I also atm run CI+Zealots oath and have 83~ light/cold res and 77 fire.


Having to resummon minions would absolutely kill my build :/


I don't really use any summoner uniques (outside snapshotting)

atm I SS with a 99% montegruls, a 41 total% sidhebreath, a 6L tabulas (i use the same colors as my current armor but have a CwdT setup in the 6L), and a chauber chauber for the other 4 zombies+spectres

even now though, I can't kill bosses like 78 maps, 79 maps, shrine piety is fairly difficult, many others

I have a pure summoner @ level 76, I don't snapshot either as I feel its not the way the game was designed to be. I use Shav's 6l, Queens decree 5l, Skullhead and Bones of Ullr. Besides using Arc to give those "STUPID" Zombies direction, I don't interact and let the minions do their thing, and oh boy YES I have run into a brick wall at maps 72. I can do them (That is level 72 maps not higher) but if something breaks through the horde I'm a gonna. I so wish the Zombies IA would be looked at, as the Spectre's and Skeletons don't seem to suffer from the daftness the Zombies do (although I have seen the Spectre's doing NADA until I use convocation to call them), and convocation's cooldown is far too long, as I've noticed time and again when I use it the horde doesn't come to me and I RIP because I can't use it again in time.

I must say I have enjoyed reading these post (between showers);-) and look forward to GGG implementing something for Summoners that have never used snapshotting in the first place. As the build is far to weak/slow and squishy. There is just no way we could do upper level maps, never mind applying hard mods to those maps.