{3.2.0} Spectral Gods: [Life Based Spectre/Golem Hybrid Summoner | Clear Speed | End Game Bossing]

Is there a good point "switching" to Eldritch Battery?

Right now I'm farming the Ledge and sitting at around 1900 HP and 650 Energy shield, running haste and clarity with enough mana left to do anything I like.

I feel taking EB now will greatly reduce my survivability. Would a good point to pick up EB be - for example - when trying to add even more auras?

wrong thread

No Minion Instability? I think it would really help with those Beyond spawns that tend to wipe out my minions anyway. Might as well blow them up with fire when they do that.

Or is there a specific reason not to want your minions to blow up?

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MrSparkle001 wrote:

No Minion Instability? I think it would really help with those Beyond spawns that tend to wipe out my minions anyway. Might as well blow them up with fire when they do that.

Or is there a specific reason not to want your minions to blow up?

Its been mentioned recently I think but let me quote Reddit

"MI is fiendishly powerful at low levels before summoners hit their stride. Low-level summons die very easily, do little damage and are easily reproduced. At this stage of the game, MI complements summoners perfectly.

Once summoners hit their stride around level 40 or so, minions take a complete flip on their characteristics. They become extremely hard to kill and dish out tons of damage, far outstripping the damage MI does. Furthermore, spectres and snapshotting become viable (and vital) tools in a summoner's arsenal, making minions extremely painful to replace. At later stages of play, MI sacrifices 33% of your minion's life for no gain whatsoever.

MI's current design means that it will only ever be unusable, or a vital part of every summoner's arsenal, which is horrendously boring. It scales off of HP, which directly reduces the frequency at which it is cast. Decreasing minion damage to make MI more useful makes summoner unviable compared to other classes. Thus, the only alternative is to buff MI's damage so much it becomes worth it, snapshotting or not. In that situation, it would be included in virtually every summoner build, since it is directly next to the path every summoner build takes en route to the +1 spectre wheel.

In order to be an effective and interesting passive, MI will need to be reworked to the point that it might as well be a new passive entirely."

So you technically lowering the HP of your minions by 33% to gain a small (really small at this point) AOE damage. Minions output way more damage during while that 33% hp getting depleted.

If they would blow up at 0% HP I think nobody would argue about taking this keystone.

Is that assuming snapshotting though? I wonder how viable MI is without it.

At level 45 my minions are becoming more resilient. In combination with flesh offering and a rejuvenation totem they do a good job vs beyond packs. I may be swapping out the rejuv totem for a skeleton totem for more meatshields and unique/boss distraction (just got the skeleton gem and have been leveling a spell totem for a few levels in a spare socket). I don't know yet. I even tried an enfeeble spell totem.

I don't have the best support gems for any of them, but I use SRS and spectre linked to minion damage and item rarity (used to be added lightning but want the IR now) and zombies linked to multistrike, chance to flee and minion life. All augmented with Hatred aura, the occasional rejuv totem, flesh offering and enfeeble curse. This is my first and only Beyond character so I have to use what I find, from scratch. When I find more sockets and links I'll have more options.

I last played POE last year, when Piety was the final act 3 boss. Back then my summoner struggled greatly with bosses, but with SRS it's no big deal. It has the added benefit of getting in the way of projectiles so I can occasionally stand still while a boss is firing at me and not take damage. Great skill, and it's not even echoed yet or boosted by duration passives. I can only cast 5 at a time.

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MrSparkle001 wrote:

Is that assuming snapshotting though? I wonder how viable MI is without it.

The lack of snapshotting doesn't change the fundamental game design issue that we're never in a position where we want to have to resummon zombies, spectres, or skeletons. MI goes against the grain of a good summoner build which promotes the fewest resummons possible for the highest DPS uptime. 33% of life as damage just doesn't scale against the actual damage output of summons.

As it stands, a lvl 22 zombie with no passives or links will do ~1k damage from MI, but they'll also do ~1k damage per hit. Now, we tend to buff damage far more than life (dmg nodes, dmg supports, etc) so the damage per hit number will scale disproportionately compared to the MI damage number. In most circumstance you're better off letting your summons hit 1 more time between low-life and death rather than exploding for MI damage. Not to mention you can use life leech, health pots, etc. to keep summons alive to guarantee a few more hits. MI requires you to let something die and then resummon for more damage.

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tnaro wrote:

Is there a good point "switching" to Eldritch Battery?

Right now I'm farming the Ledge and sitting at around 1900 HP and 650 Energy shield, running haste and clarity with enough mana left to do anything I like.

I feel taking EB now will greatly reduce my survivability. Would a good point to pick up EB be - for example - when trying to add even more auras?

I had the same question! My summoner is currently lvl 57 (great fun to play!!), 1900 HP, 340 ES, 850 mana. So far everything is going very smooth, I have leveled (but not used) the gems for Arctic Armor to 9 and Clarity to 12. Like Tnaro I'm now wondering when I should switch to EB and AA? I assume EB is dangerous without AA but it won't help much if my witch can't sustain it... Any advice?

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Targhul wrote:

I had the same question! My summoner is currently lvl 57 (great fun to play!!), 1900 HP, 340 ES, 850 mana. So far everything is going very smooth, I have leveled (but not used) the gems for Arctic Armor to 9 and Clarity to 12. Like Tnaro I'm now wondering when I should switch to EB and AA? I assume EB is dangerous without AA but it won't help much if my witch can't sustain it... Any advice?

I switched when I got my hands on vitality. I wasn't able to keep up my stuff, and more mana means more mana regen.

I could use some tips on leveling this build, I understand that pets are not good until later on? I plan on getting MI when I can, but what DMG spells should I use until then? any advice would be greatly appreciated :)

edit: I only plan on using MI until the pets become stronger.

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mtwilliams717 wrote:

could use some tips on leveling this build, I understand that pets are not good until later on? I plan on getting MI when I can, but what DMG spells should I use until then? any advice would be greatly appreciated :)

edit: I only plan on using MI until the pets become stronger.

I thought about it and consider stormcall a decent choice combined with minions. Minions do okay damage early on, the biggest problem is their survivability, which get's pretty horrible at AOE Heavy encounters.

The thing is: When there are no minions, you are basically constantly running to avoid hits. Keep that in mind!
Long channeling times like flameblast don't supplement this situation as you can't run and cast. I personally just used fireball as it deals both single target and AoE damage, but in retrospect, I'd use stormcall!

There is this easy recipe to get a +1 lightning/fire/cold gem level on weapons (poe wiki is down right now, you might want to check that later), and combined with 3-link you are able to get a pretty powerfull stormcall which should be able to aid you until your minions get to be the real deal, around mid/late cruel.

edit: Oh and don't forget to level all the important minion gems as soon as possible! Minions greatly scale with their minion level gem, it is not just the passive tree.