Recommended stat/skills for a Summoner?

So I'm a little bit funded now with some uniques, gems, and I even have a Mirror of Kalasia or whatever it's called, but this character I've built is no longer viable to me since it can't kill anything on its own and nobody really needs it in a party.

So I want to build a Summoner, one that can do well in solo play and survive easily on Hardcore mode. I want to focus on summons primarily, curses/totems secondarily, and then support in the form of multiple auras and whatever other buffs I can beef my army with.

I was told that I can either choose one spell to have a direct form of damage (fire would be the best choice I guess for the dovetailing effect with summon instability and the fire curse), or I could focus on wand damage. What would you guys recommend to go along with summoning.

Finally, would I be better off starting as a Witch and beefing my mana/ES or a Templar and beefing my armor/health? Keep in mind I do NOT intend to get Chaos Innoculation.

You can always go pure summoning with double curse. Summoners can do ridiculous amounts of damage with sentinels.

So if I grabbed Fire Sentinels and a Fire Spell for myself to cast, and used the auras/curses that reduce physical and fire resistance (as well as purity, clarity, and vitality for myself and my minions), what kind of damage could I expect.

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Foxhound3857 wrote:

So if I grabbed Fire Sentinels and a Fire Spell for myself to cast, and used the auras/curses that reduce physical and fire resistance (as well as purity, clarity, and vitality for myself and my minions), what kind of damage could I expect.

You don't need any spell. Just spec into all summoner nodes(+HP) and your army of sentinels + zombies should be able to destroy all content(till 70+ maps where you need a better strategy). Enemies will die as soon as you cast those 2 curses. Elemental weakness and flammability are ideal.

For beginners, a summoner is one of the easiest builds to play since they become so powerful with very little work. You just need the links to make sentinels and zombies powerful.

Let's say I did want a Fire spell for myself though, so I can still kill stuff incase my army gets demolished in later content. What Fire spells would you recommend?

You would need links and the mana regen to support those spells. You simply won't have enough mana regen and would be wasting slots for that spell. Even if you got eldritch it's far better to stack auras than rely on any spell.

The only real good spell use is elemental equilibrium with arc. Minions won't activate the EE effect but your spells would. You can also try shocking with it although it's better to just double curse. Keep temporal, enfeeble, elemental weakness and flammability for double cursing.. mixing them depending on the enemy.

well when your army is dead you wont have the firepower to kill anything on your own

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kasub wrote:

You would need links and the mana regen to support those spells. You simply won't have enough mana regen and would be wasting slots for that spell. Even if you got eldritch it's far better to stack auras than rely on any spell.

The only real good spell use is elemental equilibrium with arc. Minions won't activate the EE effect but your spells would. You can also try shocking with it although it's better to just double curse. Keep temporal, enfeeble, elemental weakness and flammability for double cursing.. mixing them depending on the enemy.

Can I do any notable damage whatsoever by attacking alongside my minions with a Wand?

Just try out the build. You simply won't have time to even hit enemies if you do it right. Some tough immune to curse + resist elites might pop up but EE should take care of them.

My build is focused on building up IIQ/IIR and uses Firestorm with Culling Strike, Rarity and Quantity. The DPS on Firestorm is laughable at best - the point is that the minions are the main source of damage by a large margin, but Firestorm helps in pointing the minions towards targets (they're pretty slow if you don't help them out) and provides a good amount of Magic Find. Increased Area of Effect might also help since you're trying to make sure any target at 10% health is hit by a meteor as quick as possible.

As for curses, I mostly use Temporal Chains when facing quicker/deadlier mobs, and will switch to Flammability or Enfeeble accordingly.

You'll have to stay alert for Lightning Thorns while using Firestorm... it will destroy you and you won't be able to cancel the casting once it's begun!