The Downfall of Zombies and Spectres in late game

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DigitalBeating wrote:

http://i.imgur.com/jiEuSZv.jpg

Finished a Bazaar Map that is corrupted. See picture for mods. I only lost 1 spectre but I used SRS+Totem to finish the map. I haven't tried without SRS+Totem. Not sure how I will fair with my build in further maps. Will post more results later.

The interesting thing about summoners is that they give a fuck about map-mods. There are a few exceptions, exspecially multiple projectiles and shocked ground are terrible for minions.

But those mods on your map... well most of them only affect the player -max-res and Ele-Weakness and 50% less recovery don't really do something to minions. So the only mod affecting minions is the deal additional damage as fire, which only applies to attacks if I'm not mistaken (at least I never got a aligning status-ailment from a spell).

Besides the point that you have to be more careful a +100% IIQ map often is as hard as a white map for summoners. The issue is that with certain mob-constallations, basically anything that has good area-damage or a lot of projectiles it gets problematic.

The only way to survive is evangelists... lots of them. I think if you are lucky and they use their shield at the right time 4 evangelists can perma-shield, which is awesome for them if they stay close together. However that is really the only useful spectre in this situation.

Also never open Exploding/Curseing Strongboxes as a summoner... they oneshot spectres :P (well you could be lucky to block the explosions I assume). I use LW and open the chest during the delay to get to safety. However due to the silence from the curse I wasn't able to convocate my spectres to me and lost all 3 of them to the explosion.

High end mapping is not on my to do list anymore with this build.
Made it into MF version and it works really great.

Dumped srs to offhand weapons and placed ball light culling iir combo.

Dumped bones of ullr for nubuks and equipped perandus belt.
Lost 700 life and got some iir ringd. 2500life/3700es remain.
Result is 205/27 dominus farm build.

I know its nothing compared to those 500/120 mf runs but does the job under 2 mins. Get 2 full screen of yellows per run.

Seems thoe minions have found their destiny

That is interesting, I am pretty sure Summon Raging Spirits will outpace Ball Lightning any day.

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Starxsword wrote:

That is interesting, I am pretty sure Summon Raging Spirits will outpace Ball Lightning any day.

Thing is It assume it isn't used with many supports. Unsupported spirits aren't that good. And they aren't good for culling either.

They are god if you want to direct your minions to attack stuff behind an obstacle because they go their automatically, but for a summoner that mainly uses Spectres and Zombies and something to cull SRS isn't that good, since he normally lacks Cast-Speed for SRS and another well linked item.

I'm using an MF-Summoner to farm Piety and lvl66 maps with insane IIQ. I basically just Alch every tropical island, ledge, promenade, dry woods or strand map and do them. If their IIQ is too low I throw a Vaal Orb on them. It isn't as efficient as Dominus and Piety Farming but hell it is a lot less boring.

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That is debatable, skull bearers have less useable supports where as evangelists have many more. and they dont melt machines

Missed this response. Wasn't aware of the memory leak thing. It didn't cause any issues with my computer, so I didn't know.
Skull Bearers can use Faster Casting, Spell Echo, Minion Life, Minion Damage, Minion Speed, and Minion and Totem Resistance. The last two isn't all that amazing, but its better than nothing.
They are perfect in a 4 link though, with Faster Casting, Spell Echo, Minion Life, and Minion Damage. Their Raging Spirits also seemed to last a long time.

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Thing is It assume it isn't used with many supports. Unsupported spirits aren't that good. And they aren't good for culling either.

Well yeah... but little support on Ball Lightning is not very good either. I kind of just assumed they will use the same amount of links. I can't really see Raging Spirits falling behind Ball Lightning, especially if you already have minion nodes. With Minion Damage and Melee Splash, it is already pretty good. Especially if you take the Duration nodes.

Once I get to the map areas, I am expecting to recast zombies many times, especially against AoE bosses. I am unsure how much cast speed bonuses I will take, but I will most likely take them in order to recast the zombies more quickly.

when you have 3 of them buffed with echo , faster casting , haste , and flesh offering

and also have zombies and skeletons , things get insane fast . solo it is no problem, but get into groups and you will obliterate hardware.

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Emphasy wrote:

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Starxsword wrote:

That is interesting, I am pretty sure Summon Raging Spirits will outpace Ball Lightning any day.

Thing is It assume it isn't used with many supports. Unsupported spirits aren't that good. And they aren't good for culling either.

tnx for reply. u saved me from doing.
my 40 dps ball light is great cullingspell.
srs too random and was 3 link supported anyway.
i actually never use it

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Earthslug wrote:

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Emphasy wrote:

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Starxsword wrote:

That is interesting, I am pretty sure Summon Raging Spirits will outpace Ball Lightning any day.

Thing is It assume it isn't used with many supports. Unsupported spirits aren't that good. And they aren't good for culling either.

tnx for reply. u saved me from doing.
my 40 dps ball light is great cullingspell.
srs too random and was 3 link supported anyway.
i actually never use it

SRS is still worth trying at least with blind attached to it if nothing else, keeps your other minions alive a lot longer vs non-spellcasters

Im playing spectre/zombie summoner currently lv 88 on beyond. i mainly made this char as mfer
because i thought it would not be good anymore for high maps.
still just leveling up Having 67 evangelist really you cant go higher then 75maps they get slaughterd.

When you finaly manage to find high level spectres you crash or you need to log you can start over you need to stay online 24/7 when i find high spectres.
you cant even turn off your pc or logout, what a waste of serverspace, energy, and poor ppl that whisper me for trades.

ggg designes game around logout in hc and when you log back in im back to 67 spectres and have fun doing low level maps until you find high ones and then you lose them to ''programm not responding''

currently ggg not letting spectres stay after logging im stuck. im going to try to reach level 90 go mfing piety then reroll and never look back.

ggg removing snapshotting was good for the game it was a hassle, current balance aside my biggest beef atm is not keeping spectres upon crash/logout cant even reach lategame.

i still think it would be easier if the specters you summon from the corpses of desecrate .. were actually the level advertised on desecrate....
between that and the removal of the arbitrary and .. rather perplexing specter deleveling mechanic and you have a fixed gem

can anyone actually explain to me why specters have to lose power when going into lower level areas?
i mean my zombies dont , my skelleys dont , franky the guardian doesnt.

crit builds dont suddenly go from 100k+ dps to 10k just because they go into cruel difficulty .

i dont get it , i just dont. the summoner isnt nearly powerful enough to warrant such a mechanic and seems like it needlessly complicates things.