Summoners and summon update.

I have a level 66 summoner witch and find that, despite the dodgy minion AI, she generally does just fine. I use a pretty standard build - All minions and nodes, curses, Firestorm, and Frost Wall, which I only started using when I hit MoC. (Chaos was really tough on minions).
It can be, admittedly, kinda slow going at times, and there certainly were some stages when she struggled - most notably act 2 ruthless and merciless. I rested the char after lvl 60 to wait for the AI patch but gave it another run after the 0.9.11 tree reset, and my build seems a lot stronger now, although I didn't make any spec changes.
Pyramid runs in Merciless are still rough due of the lack of minion elemental and chaos resistance; Necromantic Aegis hasn't helped much there yet - and my gear is pretty crappy. I have a headpiece with +1 to minion gems which is about a level 24 item.
There are at least 2 minion-oriented uniques at the moment - the Sithebreath Paua amulet and the Bones of Ullr silk slippers, neither of which I use. (There are higher-level summoners than I who do).
All in all I think summoners are quite viable at the moment and will be truly epic with a good patch fix. Also, for those who want more minion-friendly unique items... I am planning one for my unique design ; )

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Oudeis wrote:

I have a level 66 summoner witch and find that, despite the dodgy minion AI, she generally does just fine. I use a pretty standard build - All minions and nodes, curses, Firestorm, and Frost Wall, which I only started using when I hit MoC. (Chaos was really tough on minions).
It can be, admittedly, kinda slow going at times, and there certainly were some stages when she struggled - most notably act 2 ruthless and merciless. I rested the char after lvl 60 to wait for the AI patch but gave it another run after the 0.9.11 tree reset, and my build seems a lot stronger now, although I didn't make any spec changes.
Pyramid runs in Merciless are still rough due of the lack of minion elemental and chaos resistance; Necromantic Aegis hasn't helped much there yet - and my gear is pretty crappy. I have a headpiece with +1 to minion gems which is about a level 24 item.
There are at least 2 minion-oriented uniques at the moment - the Sithebreath Paua amulet and the Bones of Ullr silk slippers, neither of which I use. (There are higher-level summoners than I who do).
All in all I think summoners are quite viable at the moment and will be truly epic with a good patch fix. Also, for those who want more minion-friendly unique items... I am planning one for my unique design ; )

My summoners is also "working".Thing is it woks the way its not rly about having minions. I summon skeletons on top of enemies so they explode into their faces almost instantly - since they mostly get 1-shot. It is actiolly very effective build, just not what i'd call using summons.
From what i see you also just add your summons on top of normal firestorm build.

What are you planing as that item of yours specifically?

I'm having a lot of fun playing my templar summoner

I'm aiming for all summon nodes (currently around level 48) and the 2 main curse nodes (forgot what there called)

Currently at 8 zombies and 14 skeletons, I don't even need spectres so far..
While using discipline aura and anger aura they chop and explode through anything I've come up against so far and I'm in act 1 merciless

Really looking forward to the minion AI and UI update it will be awesome I'm sure

In another thread someone else suggested a "raise golem" skill which would basically be a living totem you could give skills, this sounds like a really cool idea to me

The coolest thing is rounding up a huge mob of monsters then having an epic battle while you try and dodge getting one hitted hehe fun times

I think, aside from the braindead AI and minions wandering off, pure CI sumoner is in general pretty strong build.

My witch is 63 level and:
- I only cast Vulnerability as my only non-minion non-aura spell
- Act 2 Boss on Merciless and in fact the entire piramid is ridiculously easy even now in crap gear (my items usually have 50-100 ES, if I had those pieces with 200-500 instead I would probably never have to worry about survivability)
- My DPS is pretty decent mostly because damage in this build doesn't depend on gear at all (except for having 6L which I don't even have yet)

Because of the wandering off issue, Zombies/Spectres are quite ineffective (except for killing rares & bosses) so I mostly rely on endless skeleton army spammed right on top of the enemies.

Once this is fixed my DPS would mostly likely increase greatly, but apart from that and the cosmetic UI changes I don't think there's much to improve, though I would prefer having less minions but more powerful ones instead of the lackluster Zombies (that could be combined with the existing skeleton army).

On the other hand I haven't seen scaling beyond 61 level maps, so the fact that my dps doesn't scale with gear could potentially be an issue at some point, but right now this build pretty much allowed me to faceroll through Merciless & 60-61 maps without any problems at all.

Yea.. well dont get too attatched to minions instability doing 100% hp damage. Once pvp balancing kicks in it will be nerfed, unless summons will be completely ignorable which is the case in most games.

Either way 100% hp damage from minion instability combined with working minion AI is probably going to be too much.

Currently 58 Templar with Totem and Minion mastery.

Without the AI, it is very viable in high level, so I am surprised it will be slightly more powerful. Minion spec is a very complete and well thought, it can be very flexible with many keystones to make things work.

Few things I am unsure, how does the damage and accuracy work. I think if the summons are physical, maybe their accuracy and damage could be based on that.

There should be items that have mods giving certain % of all item stats and bonuses to minions instead of player, this would be easy way to add itemization to summoners.

Or perhaps rare currency that adds this mod.

Chris mentioned in one of old interviews that they plan adding minions for other clases that would bring in untility or more tank-themed aspects for dexterity/strenght users. Would make sense to add such mod if there will be bigger variety of minions.

I'm in Act 1 Ruthless. Elemental resist for minions was a bit of a problem in cruel pyramid and I'm worried about Ruthless. I may have to give up some damage nodes I wanted for Aegis. I have pyro and fire damage, and support my minions with fireballs and firestorm.

The big problem with zombie AI is that they simply disappear sometimes. If you've got a high-level zombie gem with 2 or 3 supports they take a LOT of mana to resummon. The zombies also tend to initiate combat. I'd like to have a "passive" button so I can control the flow of combat better. Sometimes they run off and pull things I would have preferred to skip. Walls, doors, and bridges also need major work. Zombies get stuck in corners in dungeons and they don't always follow across narrow bridges. River Crossings is a pain in the butt on a summoner.

Skeletons really do need better AI. If you cast them on an opponent's head they are fine but otherwise they just mill about idly. I have Minion Instability so I only support my zombies with health and not the skellies. They're more useful as walking bombs than as minions.

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pod11 wrote:

My summoners is also "working".Thing is it woks the way its not rly about having minions. I summon skeletons on top of enemies so they explode into their faces almost instantly - since they mostly get 1-shot. It is actiolly very effective build, just not what i'd call using summons.
From what i see you also just add your summons on top of normal firestorm build.

What are you planing as that item of yours specifically?

I find that minions getting one-shotted is really only an issue for me in the pyramid where the confined spaces can cause the crossfire from casters and constructs to be pretty horrendous. I actually rarely use firestorm - just as "aerial support" to soften up larger mobs a little. Most of my time is spent tending to minions - especially in dungeons where the poor AI is evident and they just run off everywhere - I often end up managing 2 or 3 battles at once in different rooms. Lotsa fun!

As far as my unique goes - and I haven't started discussing it with GGG yet - I'm thinking it will be a weapon of some description. That's all I'm saying!

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Oudeis wrote:

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pod11 wrote:

My summoners is also "working".Thing is it woks the way its not rly about having minions. I summon skeletons on top of enemies so they explode into their faces almost instantly - since they mostly get 1-shot. It is actiolly very effective build, just not what i'd call using summons.
From what i see you also just add your summons on top of normal firestorm build.

What are you planing as that item of yours specifically?

I find that minions getting one-shotted is really only an issue for me in the pyramid where the confined spaces can cause the crossfire from casters and constructs to be pretty horrendous. I actually rarely use firestorm - just as "aerial support" to soften up larger mobs a little. Most of my time is spent tending to minions - especially in dungeons where the poor AI is evident and they just run off everywhere - I often end up managing 2 or 3 battles at once in different rooms. Lotsa fun!

As far as my unique goes - and I haven't started discussing it with GGG yet - I'm thinking it will be a weapon of some description. That's all I'm saying!

PErhaps weapon that would make minions self explode doing fire damage instead of atacks would be good idea.