Summoners in the CB:

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hlq567 wrote:

It's a pain to level as a summoner at the very start of a league, unlike other builds.

Summoner is without a doubt one of the most painful builds to level with in a new league, without a matua or bones of ullr boots you're going to have a very long and painful journey getting to maps.

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Shadoman55 wrote:

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xSyK0TiC wrote:

Leveling as a summoner was/is hard mainly because of the need for support gems, and the lack of them early on. The zombies are also slow, and deal little to no damage, and are squishy to boot. Getting to the early 20's for the Matua shield is nice, and helps leveling as a summoner a bit easier, though using a spell like Glacial Cascade, FP, etc to help is a must.

I find zombie damage quite adequate at low levels, they one or two shot most white enemies and move around at a decent speed, quality on the gem of course helps. Their life amount is somewhat lackluster but it's just part of leveling with minions, you don't focus solely on them from the start.

This is what we have to stop saying.

"Their life is lackluster at low level, but that's just a part of summoner."

Well, WHY is that a part of summoner?

What's the problem with making summons viable at low level?


Summons have stats that increase independently every level, they can tool up lower levels very easily without affecting high levels. Hell, put a flat HP buff on every zombie/skeleton passive to avoid people using the gem just for leveling... Imagine if every +1 zombies passive also gave zombies +200 base hp? Getting your first zombie point would make the zombies live well and truly until you get your second one, and people who weren't using summoner passives wouldn't get the bonus and thus would still have dysfunctional pets.

To balance out pet hp, remove base hp from high and higher gem levels with the implication that each +zombie passive will also balance out the hp. This makes zombies for leveling viable, while maintaining low hp on non-summoner zombies.

We need to change how we talk about the summoner leveling paradigm if we have any expectation that GGG will do the same. Leveling as summoner sucks NOW; there is no reason that it HAS to suck. I'm not saying I want zombies to be the next flame blast, but I should be able to equip the zombie gem at level one, get a passive at level ~6 and have the zombies actually FUNCTION as a gem. That much, at least, should be possible.

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Pathological wrote:

This is what we have to stop saying.

"Their life is lackluster at low level, but that's just a part of summoner."

Well, WHY is that a part of summoner?

What's the problem with making summons viable at low level?


Summons have stats that increase independently every level, they can tool up lower levels very easily without affecting high levels. Hell, put a flat HP buff on every zombie/skeleton passive to avoid people using the gem just for leveling... Imagine if every +1 zombies passive also gave zombies +200 base hp? Getting your first zombie point would make the zombies live well and truly until you get your second one, and people who weren't using summoner passives wouldn't get the bonus and thus would still have dysfunctional pets.

To balance out pet hp, remove base hp from high and higher gem levels with the implication that each +zombie passive will also balance out the hp. This makes zombies for leveling viable, while maintaining low hp on non-summoner zombies.

We need to change how we talk about the summoner leveling paradigm if we have any expectation that GGG will do the same. Leveling as summoner sucks NOW; there is no reason that it HAS to suck. I'm not saying I want zombies to be the next flame blast, but I should be able to equip the zombie gem at level one, get a passive at level ~6 and have the zombies actually FUNCTION as a gem. That much, at least, should be possible.

Never did I say that I was happy with how you have to level a summoner, I was merely stating how to level efficiently as one in the current meta of the game. Your suggestion however is very sound and I recommend you private message a developer of GGG or two about the suggestion and try to get a response. I did so with what I would do to change spectres and have received a response saying they don't have the tech for it yet.

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kamilrogoz wrote:

I don't get why so many people complains on lack of gem slots. How many auras, cwdt or spell totem setups would you like to run on your summoner to be happy?
We can easily slot all mandatory gems for this build, including bunch of auras, dual curse, offering, desecrate and convocation.

Are you serious?

You need chest + helm for zombies and specs.

You need 4L for arc + curses

You need either 3L for hatred+generosity+rm

you need a 2L for clarity somehwere

You need 3L for offering + vaal haste + ID

You need space for convo and desecrate

You need a 4L for CWDT since you have 0 defense

You also want a 3L for skele+totem+FC

Well from what I've seen this thread has been consistently hostile and derailing but since i mostly play summoner ill weigh in.

I'll start off by stating that i think summoners are just fine as far as high level maps are concerned. A properly built summoner can easily clear lvl 75+ maps safely and effectively, their clear speed doesn't compare to other popular builds admittedly (CoC,Buzzsaw,mjolnir,flameblast ect) but otherwise it preforms just fine.

It should be noted that spectres are defiantly an issue however, their mechanics continue to be frustrating,clunky and time consuming, but its has been stated before that this is more due to technical limitations that an actual unwillingness to make them persistent(forgive me for being unable to find an exact source).

As far as gem slots are concerned, summoners are most defiantly starved as many people have stated, the basic summoner usually involves:
6L chest for spectres (mandatory)
4L helm for Zombies (mandatory)
3L for Generosity Hatred (mandatory)
4L for auras (Triple purity or generosity Discipline/Haste)
4L for Double curse CoH (mandatory)
Then the last 3L and unset rings for a combination of Flesh offer/Bone Offering Convocation Vaal Haste/Vaal Grace/Vaal Discipline (perhaps with increased duration)and Desecrate.

Most summoners would be unwilling to drop anything in this setup, and i dont belive golems provide sufficient utility to summoners to justify their inclusion, we may see a few chaos golems in some builds but they will be the minority.

Now the only rough patch i have ever hit as a summoner when clearing content are specific bosses and spectre survivability. Certain bosses (and i don't just mean trio and atziri), with their constant elemental aoe, can kill most, if not all of your minions in seconds. This issue will become more pronounced once act 4 hits and the almighty Evangelist is downscaled, that broken little bubble of theirs is the only thing keeping summoner viable atm since it keeps them alive consistently in many dangerous situations, though even the bubble becomes moot on certain bosses. Once your spectres have died you have effectively lost all ability to continue, Zombies have decent dps true, but your spectres account for the majority of your damage. As far as i can tell, no other build can be so thoroughly rendered impotent in the middle of a fight. You are then required to then leave the map, waypoint over to your specific zone, desecrate up new corpses, turn off your auras to have enough mana to use raise spectre, raise the spectres,turn your auras back on, then waste another portal to get back and PRAY you can keep your minions alive long enough to finish the boss.
While summoners do have some tools to keep your minions alive, such as bone offering and convocation, they are not enough in most cases.

During these dangerous bosses, summoner survivability can also be an issue. As many have pointed out, summoners usually have to forgo standard mitigation to even function properly, which means we are fragile, an have no active way to keep ourselves alive other than flasks, and many times those are animation flasks that may have already been used in a desperate attempt to keep our also fragile spectres alive.

Now minion and master survivbility as well as the lack of gem slots available to summoners are all concerns in the live version but..... both these issue seem to be fixed with the addition of the jewel system.

Jewels allow summoners to customize and improve their mechanics further without needing to re-balance the gem system. The addition of jewels such as [SPOILERS] Bulwark of the Legion and Cannibalistic Habits greatly help to fix many problems facing summoners, in addition to the fact that rare jewels have many new mods that benefit summoners, such as minion block (this allows us to get max attack/spell minion block without the need for Skullhead). Also don't forget the many general purpose unique jewels summoners benefit from, such as Sacrificial Harvest and Dark Thoughts.

The jewel system, coupled with the consistent buffs to various support gems making them "more" modifiers instead of "increased" modifiers(we can make use of all of them one way or another if we chose)and the advent of the Fortify gem, i feel summoners are in a much better spot than they have been in a long time.

NOTE: I'am not in beta and thus much of this is speculation. In addition, I cannot comment on the fact that minions draw less aggro than they have previously, as well as the fact that bosses do less damage and exactly where these changes apply and what they entail.

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posterier wrote:

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kamilrogoz wrote:

I don't get why so many people complains on lack of gem slots. How many auras, cwdt or spell totem setups would you like to run on your summoner to be happy?
We can easily slot all mandatory gems for this build, including bunch of auras, dual curse, offering, desecrate and convocation.

Are you serious?

You need chest + helm for zombies and specs.

You need 4L for arc + curses

You need either 3L for hatred+generosity+rm

you need a 2L for clarity somehwere

You need 3L for offering + vaal haste + ID

You need space for convo and desecrate

You need a 4L for CWDT since you have 0 defense

You also want a 3L for skele+totem+FC

Most of your list are optional. CWDT on summoner is must have? I got over 1,5k played hours on mine and never though of getting it.
Clarity, Vaal Haste, Skeletons as must? C'mon.

Reading the last few posts on what people use as a summoner, and most using spectres as main minions, it seems I play my summoner a totally different way. I also do not use melee splash or any other aoe abilities on my minions. Never had any dps issues.

I use zombies as main, with minion damage, minion life and minion resistance gems. Then use skeletons as the main form of attack, by summoning them near the monsters I want to kill first. I use spectres and SRS as secondaries, when my skeletons are full. With the spectres just following the herd. I'm not rich enough to use 5 or 6 linked gear, nor do I use any uniques to boost minions. My minions dps is always fine though.

With minion life, minion resists, all tree minion nodes and me running almost maxed discipline and purity of elements aura's it still leaves my minions open to be 1-2 shot by most aoe's. Which totally surprises me to be honest. When all minion survivability is maxed(except for unique items) they should NOT die that fast!

Like I said, I use zombies as mains and they either barely take any damage or they are being one/two shot. When 1 or more of my zombies disappears from the upper left corner's list, I know I'm in trouble.

My gear(the one month hc summoner I made):

Keep in mind the gear is not perfect, as this was only my latest summoner in the one month hc event. CI, 8.3k ES, all resists maxed. I use vaal discipline as a sort of potion to refill my ES. Edit: My passive tree is simple, all aura, ES and minion nodes.

Anyways, that is just my way of playing a summoner :)

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kamilrogoz wrote:

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posterier wrote:

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kamilrogoz wrote:

I don't get why so many people complains on lack of gem slots. How many auras, cwdt or spell totem setups would you like to run on your summoner to be happy?
We can easily slot all mandatory gems for this build, including bunch of auras, dual curse, offering, desecrate and convocation.

Are you serious?

You need chest + helm for zombies and specs.

You need 4L for arc + curses

You need either 3L for hatred+generosity+rm

you need a 2L for clarity somehwere

You need 3L for offering + vaal haste + ID

You need space for convo and desecrate

You need a 4L for CWDT since you have 0 defense

You also want a 3L for skele+totem+FC

Most of your list are optional. CWDT on summoner is must have? I got over 1,5k played hours on mine and never though of getting it.
Clarity, Vaal Haste, Skeletons as must? C'mon.

In HC CWDT is a must for a summoner, obviously not in softcore.

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sarannah101 wrote:

Reading the last few posts on what people use as a summoner, and most using spectres as main minions, it seems I play my summoner a totally different way. I also do not use melee splash or any other aoe abilities on my minions. Never had any dps issues.

I use zombies as main, with minion damage, minion life and minion resistance gems. Then use skeletons as the main form of attack, by summoning them near the monsters I want to kill first. I use spectres and SRS as secondaries, when my skeletons are full. With the spectres just following the herd. I'm not rich enough to use 5 or 6 linked gear, nor do I use any uniques to boost minions. My minions dps is always fine though.

With minion life, minion resists, all tree minion nodes and me running almost maxed discipline and purity of elements aura's it still leaves my minions open to be 1-2 shot by most aoe's. Which totally surprises me to be honest. When all minion survivability is maxed(except for unique items) they should NOT die that fast!

Like I said, I use zombies as mains and they either barely take any damage or they are being one/two shot. When 1 or more of my zombies disappears from the upper left corner's list, I know I'm in trouble.

My gear(the one month hc summoner I made):

Spoiler

Keep in mind the gear is not perfect, as this was only my latest summoner in the one month hc event. CI, 8.3k ES, all resists maxed. I use vaal discipline as a sort of potion to refill my ES. Edit: My passive tree is simple, all aura, ES and minion nodes.

Anyways, that is just my way of playing a summoner :)

I'm not trying to be mean in any way here, but if you are using those gems then you ARE having DPS issues, you just don't know it. When your gem levels are getting to 15+ your minions wont die anyway, and not having melee splash or multistrike is a MASSIVE dps loss for clearing stuff on your zombies.

For some simple napkin math, at melee splash level 15, at 2 targets you do 148% of normal damage. At 5 targets, you do 340% of normal damage. At 10 targets, you do 660% of normal damage. That is to say, for clearing all those monster packs in maps, you are killing them something like 3 to 6 times slower than you could be, overhead time aside (running to mobs, etc etc). This isn't even considering multistrike.

The main reason your zombies are struggling is because you aren't using them in a +minion gems item. You can get +2 minion gem level in your helm, and use it as a 4 link over a 5 link, and your zombies will be RIDICULOUSLY stronger than they are now. In base stats alone, going from level 18 to level 20 on zombies they go from 1989 hp to 2450 hp (20% gain), 641 armor to 795 armor (20% gain), and damage range is 382-891 to 466-1088 (~15% gain). They also gain significant resistances although I can't remember how much off the top of my head.

Basically, if you are using zombies, they will gain far more from being in a +minion level item than any summon other than srs. In my experience, one of the strongest ways to use zombies (that probably isn't realistic in a 1 month race) is using them in a vaaled matua tupuna shield that gets +1 to all gem levels. This means your zombie gem gets +3 levels, your support gems get +1 level, and you have some of the strongest zombies in the game taking up only a 3 link item.

Zombies decimate single target anyway at high levels, the aoe is certainly the most notable weakness of the spec (and the main reason why early level summoner doesn't level as summoner).

I'm glad it's working out for you, but you're probably killing most stuff half as fast as you could be.

Skeletons are frankly useless right now, they hit for almost nothing.

I kinda want the summoner to play a bit more like in d2

Of course thats easyer said than done