Must have skills for Summoner

Hello everyone, this is my first post in the forum. I just wanna congratulate the team of Path of Exile. I believe this is a true contender to any Hack & Slash game out there (yeap you heard me, i said ANY). Just looking at the concept of skills and passives... wow... it blew my mind.

Ok, let's get to the point shall we. I have been reading the forums for a while now... eventually i decided to join in and wait for that precious beta key like everyone else.

I am a huge fan o Necromancer class... yeap... another one right?

Anyway, i was wondering which where the main skills a soon-to-be Necromancer should be looking for. For what i read around the forum...

- Minion Instability
- Lord of the Dead
- Necromantic Aegis

...are a must, plus any "minion" passive one can get.

Is there any other "MAIN" passive one should be for the look out? For pure summoner i mean?

Having that on mind, the obvious 3 classes for summoner would be Templar, Witch or Shadow.

Personally i am more interested in a hybrid build. I've heard Templar is pretty descent as a Necro-like character, but i must admit I am really intrigued by the latest addition to the game.

The Shadow has a creepy look to him that screams necromancer... i wonder if anyone is actually trying that build on him? It seems kind of rough for the first lvls since some of the main "minion" passives are kind of far from him. But i believe he could be a VERY descent necro IF one has enough patience. It would NOT have the toughness of a templar but getting enough evasion and/or traps could do the trick. He is not that far from curses either.

What would u guys think? Shadow or Templar? Any other passives i should be looking for?

Cheers

Shadow-wise you'd be looking at this:

This is your basic setup of all additional minions:
50/111

Then you have 2 choices, stronger minions or survivability. Stronger minions takes the minion passives, though they'll be more durable lowering the effectiveness of Minion Instability in a way(You don't want them to die as much as you do when they're weak, and they won't until end of the current game). Survivability goes for Chaos Inoculation and Energy Shield to build yourself up to be able to take some damage for them.

Stronger Minions:
61/111

or

Easy access Energy Shield:
67/111

Ending with something like this:
78/111

Though some people have probably came up with better setups for Shadow on the forums. There should be a few Templar setups already as well. And being hybrid with this build doesn't matter so much because you're really going to be focusing heavier on int based gems anyways. The toughness really should be on Energy Shield, using robes over evasion or armor hybrid gear.

All in all, both Shadow and Templar work, but I still see Witch as the best due to a lower point spread required for the same amount of content.

Just pulled this Witch setup using the same idea as the above. 6 less points into the build actually turns up getting 12% more Energy Shield:
72/111

And for the sake of argument, the Templar version of the same idea giving equal values of the Witch:
79/111

And on Necromantic Aegis. I've heard a lot of negative, it's a big hit to lose out on the effects yourself, it could be decent if you got one that did damage to attackers, but it would have be to a sizable increase to be worth it at all because they don't get any sort of REAL solid bonus from it.

I would say Templar, you are quite near to those 'main' passives you mentioned and you can get on the way some shield passive (i think (havent tried ot out myself though, so please correct me if i'm wrong), since necromantic aegis sais that the bonuses you would receive from the shield apply to your minions, that any shield passive whill buff them). Also he is quite close to some additional aura passives (haveing a few auras on, could IMHO provide a huge additional bonus to nearby minions)

Also i might see some survivability problems with a Shadow... he is already quite far from strenght and health nodes and when he has to spend quite some points to get in the right area of the passive that probem could get even worse.

Just my 2 cents :)

Thanks for your replies...

I guess Templar is a better choice, specially if we considered survivability. Is not that i don't like the witch, it's just that i find hybrids more fun. But i guess the witch get's more out of any int build like this.

Guess i'll try the templar. And i have to really think the Necromantic Aegis if it's not really worth it... maybe getting some Hex bonus or Auras could be better...

Cheers

You need to understand that you're most likely not doing a hybrid build. You're probably going to end up using a wand or scepter, a focus type offhand, all robes(Because any other armor is ineffective for necromancers unless you build a LOT of +life% nodes). To supplement your minions, you're most likely going to be casting.

Thus we have:
Necromancer + Caster - Witch's paths have better nodes.
Wand/Scepter + Shield/Focus - Nodes aren't important except ES which Witch has better access to.
Robes - Witch has better access to.

All in all, you think you're going hybrid, but you're not doing anything with the hybrid stats. In the end if you're doing it for cosmetics(Which is what you seem to be doing) you do whatever you want, but if you want the power build you go Witch.

I get what u r saying. I actually tried out the Passive Skill Tree again... with the Witch this time... and you are right. She seems a better choice for the pure necro/summoner.

The thing is that i just saw so many vids of Templar Necros AND so many posts in the forum stating that the Templar could do better than the Witch i thought i could give it a try.

What is all this "Templar summoner build" then?... and how could i play a hybrid Templar like it should be played keeping some summons?

The Skill tree is kind of intimidating maybe y haven't got a hang of it yet?

Maybe building some "Overlord" Templar... that has minions but putting some points into Str so that he doesn't depend on them to take down enemies. So he could actually take and do some damage himself. And have the minions more for croud control than actual damage... suggestions??

Still have a while for the open beta, or close beta invite [crosses fingers] so i guess i'll play around with the tree and see what i can get.

I just want to learn what kind of summoner one can get while playing the Templar and using the passive slots the best way possible... what should i expect from that class??

Cheers and thanks for your comments

I actually play a necromancer templar and love it. This is the passive skill tree guide I used. I say guide because I went of to grab minion instability and shield Aegis.

Now as for your actives. Aside from summoning skills I think the most important things you can grab aura various auras:

Wrath: Lightning Damage
Anger: Fire Damage
Hatred: Ice Damage
Discipline: Energy Shield

Now keep in mind that these auras all affect your minions. Although at first you'll have to be rather close to them.

To prevent rares and bosses bee-lining for you I recommend Decoy Totem. It does a nice job of drawing in the aggro (maybe too good.)

I use a wand and ended up using Power Siphon as my main attack mostly because it gets buffed by all elements (trade off is that it can sometimes miss.)

It may sound like you'll need a lot of mana, and this is true. I still recommend Templar mostly for the shields. I think either Kite(ES/armor) or tower shields(more armor and my choice) are beneficial to your summons more then the others.

WoW... thanks for the tips! It's gonna help me a lot.

BTW i started a new thread cause i rework my original idea for the necro. I decided to go minions and armor/shield to me more meaty and be able to help my minions take down stuff...

Coudl you check it out and tell me what do you think?

Here's the link>
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/32996


Cheers

Hi, I was thinking myself of a similar build, and I too leaned towards the Templar necro build (mostly for the aesthetics).
But while reading up on necro builds in the Witch sections, a lot of emphasis was put on ES and working towards CI


Can templar versions bypass the ES nods and take +life or +shield/armor ones instead or is it not feasible?
If anyone can answer from experience, I'd be very thankful.

I believe that the enphasis on ES in basically because the Witch is very low on HP. This is just a hypothesis since i haven't tried the game yet.

A witch or shadow for the matter, without ES would not last long. The templar on the contrary are more meaty and can wistand more damage. Still ... if you check out my build... you can see that i have selected some ES nodes AND some armor/shield ones too... to avoid going ALL ES...

Honestly i don't know how this would work on the game... but i think it's pretty soild (in theory at least)

Cheers