Advice for a newbie Summoner Witch?

I started playing about a week ago and I've read up on some of the Summoner Witch builds. I think I've got the basic idea, which is to pretty much let the minions do the work. Act 1 and 2 were pretty easy and I breezed through them. However, in act 3 my witch is dying at least once in ever instance. I don't think averaging that kind of death rate is going to work out well in the next level of difficulty. So any advice on what I can improve?


Current Passive Tree

The plan for my Passive Tree so far is to open all the Minion nodes, get some elemental resistance, and probably get the Hex Master and maybe Whispers of Doom if I can't choose between Vulnerability and Enfeeble, the two curse gems I have so far. I was also planning on getting passives for increased fire damage if I could verify that it would also increase the damage for Raging Spirit. As for Raise Specter, I don't think I'll be using it. Seems kind of pointless to spend skill points on boosting my minions only to have the specter decrease their life, energy shield, and damage.

However, seeing as to how my witch only has 399 hp/566 energy shield at level 35, I'm guessing my plans need to change before I finish act 3. Do I need to get more hp/energy shield passives before the Minion nodes or should I get the stats from gear? Should I get a dexterity passive or two?


Gear


As for the chest piece, I have a Jeweller's orb I could use to get a 4 slot which I'd like to link my Raise Skeletons gem with Minion Damage and Life, but what are the chances I could end up with 2 or fewer slots? Should I wait to find another witch piece with 4 slots and upgrade it?

Thanks in advance.

For curse go for enfeeble if you want survivability.

As for socket / link your items.. you can wait til later. At Normal it makes not much difference. I literally ignore socket/link stuff until at least I got into A1 Merc.

Use Desecrate + Flesh Offering for offense with lots of summons. You should have no problem until you hit A3 Merc.

At low level, you might want to consider using something else to level up. Until at least when your zombies can withstand decent amts of dmg.

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KuteKitteh wrote:

People generally don't level up summoners as a summoner. Some people go Spectral Throw or Infernal Blow with Facebreaker for some fast leveling, but I prefer to level up as a spellcaster with Firetrap + Ice Nova for AOE and Fireball for single-target up to level ~20-30ish, when I switch over to Arc + Glacial cascade + Flame Totem. Setups like these are dependent on gems for DPS more so than on the passive tree, so they allow you to transition smoothly into the build you were originally planning on running.


This is the generic start of a basic spellcaster build. Once you have these nodes, you can then work your way to getting the summoner nodes. Your DPS and health come first, your summons' DPS and health come second!

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAuMHYwelCPQsnDGIRKtJslWuVytzU3kDghCPpsBU37A=

It's kinda hard to go energy shield based right from the beginning. Change to life instead is my advice.

Here a good guide for you to follow: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/479976/page/1

I give this tip for free.

I am new, and though it was not my first character (main is melee), I made a summoner scion to play with my brother who was starting for first time. It was crazy. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. Normal everyday survival +hp% nodes, every minion node and necromantic aegis. I also have a pair of boots that give one extra minion and a helmet with +1 lvl minion gems. I don't know if its useful or not, but I also have animated guardian and I always identify items to give him (instead of just white items) and in Act 1 Merciless he is killing things in two hits.

Starting out though, I just had basics. Zombies and Animated Guardian. Other than that, I used whatever Vaal gem I wanted to screw around with and Ice Nova! I would just spam ice nova as long as I could until things died, sometimes the nova alone did the trick. It just sucked when corpses would shatter and I couldn't raise them hehe. I also used the energy shield aura when I could. It was a crazy class. It did not get difficult until Act 3 Cruel for me (I died on Dominus a ton). Good luck buddy!