[2.0] 200k+ DPS, 7k hp, on a 1ex budget: The Summoner

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Chromodar wrote:

Basically I moved the zombies into the 6th slot of the staff so they share support gems with SRS in order to make room for a bunch of spells that all benefit from sharing a link with Increased Duration. This made room for Spectres with one support gem. Zombies are getting the same bonuses they would in the helm, SRS loses MPD as a result, but also become cheaper to spam. Ani-mates benefit decently from the minion level on the helm, Flesh Offering not so much and Vaal Haste not at all. I'm not sure what I would include instead of Flesh Offering. Desecrate is the only real candidate I think, maybe Vaal skellies as an outsider choice, with Desecrate as a swap-out for rebooting zombies? There's also unset rings to consider.

This has ups and downs. It buys you an extra piece of gear to put spectre or something in. But your SRS and Zombies won't be optimize anymore. But I could see this working nicely.

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Maybe swap skele-totem and Spectres into helm and keep the Increased Duration stack in gloves or boots? Or you could go helm: Animate Weapon, Spectres, Empower and whatever depending on what Spectres you go for, with skele-totem and Vaal Haste in boots or gloves. Maybe that actually makes the most sense.

Never really liked animate weapon. I plan on playing around with it at some point with on of my ring slots

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There's some things I'm uncertain about.. First of all, I hope Echo doesn't react badly with zombies heh. Please tell me it doesn't.

They lose 10% damage, but that's it

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Secondly, I have no clue which Spectres would be best. My initial thinking is titty bitches since they fit well with the phys+fire thing SRS and zombies have going already. I guess anything that shoots physical and converts some of it to fire or cold will do. LMP seems to make the most sense, if you consider each projectile a sub-delivery system of your force multiplier. Archer statues with Ice Shot have been working out very well recently. Alternatively, curse or aura pets with sensible support gem for them?

The guys that make the bubble work great with this build. You get protection from projectile and you they deal massive damage from your EE and curse.

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Thirdly, does Vulnerability make more sense, considering Ani-mates don't do any elemental damage besides Hatred? Or maybe I should fit in a Doedre's Damning or something and use both.. But then no GMP, less targets hit. I don't think I like that. Rather have Vulnerability from Spectre, if anything.

Between hatred and SRS fire damage, they literally do almost the EXACT same damage vs targets with no res. Vs targets with res Elemental weakness pulls ahead hard.

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Fourthly.. Do you think any of this makes sense? I feel like if this will work anywhere near as effectively as your version, that I'm finally working towards a build I can have some confidence in, and one that I have put my own spin on (well, assuming someone else hasn't made this exact build and I just don't know about it heh - I guess it doesn't matter though). So what do you think? Will it work?

I think it could work. The build has much wiggle room. Not sure it's optimal though.

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I guess it doesn't matter. You inspired me to try again, and I'm having a ton of fun with it so far. Awesome build with a lot of room to play around. The presentation of your guide could maybe use a little more work, but regardless, it did the job for me. Thanks Crowcide! :)

Thanks!

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Crowcide wrote:

This has ups and downs. It buys you an extra piece of gear to put spectre or something in. But your SRS and Zombies won't be optimize anymore. But I could see this working nicely.

If that's my tax for wanting more spells with more support gems, then so be it!

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Never really liked animate weapon. I plan on playing around with it at some point with on of my ring slots

Here's my thoughts on Animate Weapon.. It scales with any minion bonus, auras, and through Hatred, the elemental debuffs, as well as skill duration. In a way it also scales with item quantity. And movement speed. In fact, movement speed, item quantity and increases to duration together significantly increases swarm size. And it takes one slot. Two if you want increased duration from gem, which you can get by including it in the link that has Vaal Haste. In other words, it makes a lot of sense to me considering what I'm trying to do with your build.

Then again, I have very little experience with this type of build, and I have no idea how good Animate Weapon is at higher levels. Maybe they need Melee Splash. Or Empower. Or both. I really don't know. After linking it to a level 1 Increased Duration with no skill duration nodes yet, I typically have between 4 and 7 weapons in the air, sometimes spiking up to 11-12 after opening rare chests. I'm really looking forward to getting Haste up and running ;)

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They lose 10% damage, but that's it

Right.. Does taking out Echo while summoning zombies work? Or will they get the damage penalty once you put Echo back in? I suppose the +0.5% increased Spell Damage from a quality Echo does nothing as well, if you happen to have one of those. Probably does nothing for SRS either, so meh.

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The guys that make the bubble work great with this build. You get protection from projectile and you they deal massive damage from your EE and curse.

Oh yeah, those guys. The bubbles can maybe help a bit to prevent my lower minion health from becoming a problem.

Speaking of Spectres.. Vis Mortis is not worth it, right? Even if getting defensive stats from other items was not an issue? Just checking..

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I think it could work. The build has much wiggle room. Not sure it's optimal though.

As long as it's good enough to keep me motivated through act 2 merciless, I'll be a happy camper. So far I feel like I gain more momentum each time I pick up a new cluster of nodes, that's gotta be a good sign :)

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Here's my thoughts on Animate Weapon.. It scales with any minion bonus, auras, and through Hatred, the elemental debuffs, as well as skill duration. In a way it also scales with item quantity. And movement speed. In fact, movement speed, item quantity and increases to duration together significantly increases swarm size. And it takes one slot. Two if you want increased duration from gem, which you can get by including it in the link that has Vaal Haste. In other words, it makes a lot of sense to me considering what I'm trying to do with your build.

Then again, I have very little experience with this type of build, and I have no idea how good Animate Weapon is at higher levels. Maybe they need Melee Splash. Or Empower. Or both. I really don't know. After linking it to a level 1 Increased Duration with no skill duration nodes yet, I typically have between 4 and 7 weapons in the air, sometimes spiking up to 11-12 after opening rare chests. I'm really looking forward to getting Haste up and running ;)

You'll have to report back, I haven't toyed much with animate weapon. Let me know what you think of it.

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Right.. Does taking out Echo while summoning zombies work? Or will they get the damage penalty once you put Echo back in? I suppose the +0.5% increased Spell Damage from a quality Echo does nothing as well, if you happen to have one of those. Probably does nothing for SRS either, so meh.

What you are describing is call "snap shots" That's how zombies USED to work, not how they currently work.

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Oh yeah, those guys. The bubbles can maybe help a bit to prevent my lower minion health from becoming a problem.

Speaking of Spectres.. Vis Mortis is not worth it, right? Even if getting defensive stats from other items was not an issue? Just checking..

i think it's pure poop. If i was using spectre i'd use boots of ullr though.

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As long as it's good enough to keep me motivated through act 2 merciless, I'll be a happy camper. So far I feel like I gain more momentum each time I pick up a new cluster of nodes, that's gotta be a good sign :)

I'm super open to any feed back, let me know how it goes.

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Crowcide wrote:

i think it's pure poop. If i was using spectre i'd use boots of ullr though.

Honestly, the main appeal for me was the visual effect of the Unholy Might buff :P

Been playing with both animates. In their current form i'm convinced they are rubish.

Now i'm toying with using spectre or vaal skelly with my extra gem slot.

I cannot fathom why you don't have Vaal Skeletons anywhere....there isn't a single Vaal gem more powerful other than Vaal Haste.

Otherwise, I'm about to go down this path and might try what you've got here.

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jaredh wrote:

I cannot fathom why you don't have Vaal Skeletons anywhere....there isn't a single Vaal gem more powerful other than Vaal Haste.

Otherwise, I'm about to go down this path and might try what you've got here.

Choice comes down to spectre or vaal skelly. And that's only if you have every possible soc a character can have.

Vaal skelly gets less and less powerful as you climb in content. It rocks a lvl 66 map. Doesn't do as well against double palace dom.

I'm trying this build as i had a witch with full respect points. I'm currently at level 64, but i'm felling the character is a bit glassy, with only 2027 life, and the clear speed is nothing special.

Mas is low (1121) but is not a problem with clarity.

I'm using:

SRS (17) - Echo (16) - Multistrike (15) - MPD (15) - Melee Splash (17)
Zombie (16) - Melee Splash (15) - Multistrike (12) - Empower (1) (On Geofri's)
Hatred (16) - Generosity (18) - Reduced Mana (13)
Clarity (15) - Haste (4) - Reduced Mana (15)

Any idea on what's happening? Am i missing anything?

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SorHodor wrote:

I'm trying this build as i had a witch with full respect points. I'm currently at level 64, but i'm felling the character is a bit glassy, with only 2027 life, and the clear speed is nothing special.

Mas is low (1121) but is not a problem with clarity.

I'm using:

SRS (17) - Echo (16) - Multistrike (15) - MPD (15) - Melee Splash (17)
Zombie (16) - Melee Splash (15) - Multistrike (12) - Empower (1) (On Geofri's)
Hatred (16) - Generosity (18) - Reduced Mana (13)
Clarity (15) - Haste (4) - Reduced Mana (15)

Any idea on what's happening? Am i missing anything?

2027 is insanely low. Are you capped res with + hp on all your gear? Cause if not you need to be.

i've been using this build for a few days now, and i love it. I have HP on most of my gear and my res are capped. I'm just leveling up gems at this point. I bought a +2 to fire +1 to all gems staff, and it really helped out. I wish the one i bought had +% to cast speed tho. But meh.