Summoner auras
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What's the latest thinking about the best auras for a zombie summoner?
I'm CI, so Discipline is a given. Hatred I think is best flat DPS aura so that's probably #2 choice. Purity of Elements - I've tried running this but haven't noticed a big difference in minion survivability with it on. How can I figure out what this is really adding to my zombie's resistance? Wrath - Seems good due to shocking effect. Anger - Wrath is probably better but I'm just assuming here? Vitality - Haven't tried it yet Defiance - Also haven't tried it yet Haste - Seems like it might be good and I could swap Faster Attacks gem for some other gem in my 5L zombies I'm able to run 3 %60 auras with my current passive tree but am not sure what to run as my third after Discipline + Hatred Last edited by litmusdragon#6801 on Mar 6, 2014, 1:01:38 PM
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I'd also get clarity in order to get more mana back for casting.
Purity of elements may not be useful for you if you're only using it to boost your minions rather than yourself, as the buff to minion passives make your zombies even more resistant to elements. PoE players: Our game has a wide diversity of builds.
Also PoE players: The [league mechanic] doesn't need to be nerfed, you just need to play a [current meta] build! And the winds will cry / and many men will die / and all the waves will bow down / to the Loreley |
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here is the order of importance:
hatred purity vitality discipline purity of x haste determination grace clarity now to explain wrath and hanger are terrible since your minions will be a combination of very slow hitting zombies (which means hatred is much better choice for zombies) skeletons that do less elemental damage specters that are spell casters and guardians and weapons that really dont matter dps wise for the traditional summoner. a proper purity + minion resist node then your minions will have capped resists. vitality is good because 2 - 2.5 life regen is nice discipline does nothing for your minions , it is there only if you aren't going eb , if you are a life based summoner .. you probably should be going EB. the same is true of clarity, if you go eb then no need for clairy. this is important because summoners have gem space issues. haste grace and determination are optional and should never be core auras. and the purity of x elements are for bosses Last edited by Saltychipmunk#1430 on Mar 6, 2014, 3:08:45 PM
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" At my current level 85 I have picked up a lot of regen from my tree and gear, and find that I don't need clarity any more. I used to use it but I removed it recently and found I didn't miss it. I think you may be right about purity + minion resistance, it seems like at L20 my zombies already have pretty nice resists. " I beg to differ on this point, I think zombies with Faster Attacks plus Flesh Offering buff are quite fast hitting. I think I'll probably need to test out various things for the third aura. Last edited by litmusdragon#6801 on Mar 6, 2014, 6:30:33 PM
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" The moment of power shift in my summoner was from; Vitality Haste Grace If you have every aura buff node, I think you under-value these auras greatly. Haste for example; 33-36% AS/CS and around 20% movement. Always. You know how good flesh offering is? Imagine running it full time. Then doubling it. Vitality is around 3% hp/sec. For a 7k HP zombie, that's 210hp/sec. Add on Rejuv totem (as every auramancer should) and your up to 500hp/sec. With 500 base evasion rating from dex only, with grace I get around 36-8% evade chance. That's nothing to base a build off of, but that is still near 40% of all physical attacks missing. That is pound for pound the largest gain in survival for a permanent tank minion out of all the auras. Nothing has as large an impact. Purity of All is the only truly needed aura for pets in this case. You get near 60% all res, with every aura node from one aura. This caps ALL summons at 75% with the 16% node. With 500hp/sec, they endure almost any attack. Bone Offering giving another 35ish%, and you have pets that can tank near anything. I would change the rank order based on level. The most important aura in early game stages is clarity. This is because summons are weak, and die off a lot. Especially to certain enemies, like the snakes in act 3. Having mana to summon infinitely is the best power jump you can make. Later on, Vitality with Rejuv totem takes over. Pets can stand up, and this will keep them up longer than anything else. Damage is never an issue until merc. This is when Hatred should definitely come in, as should blind and dual, permanent curses. Enfeeble + blind on skeles with multistrike + Grace + Temporal chains = the road to 100. You can stack auras as you please at this point, but the for the most overall gains (player + pets) I would go with; Vitality Purity of Elements Grace Haste Clarity Discipline Hatred +Rejuvenation Totem. Don't forget! This is an AURA and benefits from all the buff nodes. This is like running 2.5 vitality auras together! I have near 400/ES per second regen (3700 ES) with the Zealot node. Use this skill! It only takes ONE socket! Or, put it in a 4L with your two curses and a greater AoE gem. Absolutely fantastic with the 30% aura range node too. The rest are of lesser importance, drastically, and you probably won't have slots left counting pets for any more. Cheers, Last edited by gr00grams#5298 on Mar 6, 2014, 9:29:48 PM
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I run discipline, hatred and purity of elements, which are more than enough to handle all maps. I could probably squeeze in haste or vitality, but with recent changes (flesh offering and new minion passives) they are not as crucial imo, but to be honest haven't really bothered trying since, as mentioned, I can do all maps with current setup.
Hejren / Triceps / Regnbuen / Sarinti / Striglen / Mareridt / Spoegelset / Doktoren / Dobbelganger / Skjoldtrold / Forkynderen
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" ugh, you do know that hatred with full auras is 60% more damage as cold? that is basically a 60% multi on top of everything where as haste is additve, just the run it, suppose you have 40% faster attacks , 50% flesh , 20 from passives for 110 inc attack speed that 30% attack speed from haste is really only a 20% improvement in terms of damage when using physical minions (which would know evangelists are physical) 20% bonus , vs a flat 60% bonus on a pure physical mobs. sure you can argue you can use wrath and anger but then that makes using things like EE harder since now you are using every damage aura. Another thing to point out is how many auras you are running. A beefy summoner that doesnt have the money for CI or shavs (which are both prohibitively expensive) cant run more then 5 or 6 auras. realistically 4 is what you will see. as for clarity and re summoning that is only true for certain boss fights, i don't know about you , but my minions actually survive boss fights without re-summoning even in the new league with garbage gear. i could even drop the skeletons i don't know why you would need or use grace. its not like minions get evasion nodes plus blind would already give far more evasion than what grace could ever do, From what i can tell you seem to have an excess amount of resources with which to make your build. tell me exactly how many auras are you running and what uniques you are using to back up these claims. because a twinked summoner has vastly different build priorities than one that is just starting out. Last edited by Saltychipmunk#1430 on Mar 7, 2014, 9:03:27 AM
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I've been playtesting Wrath + Hatred and stuff just melts. There is a big difference. I ran half a Dry Peninsula map with Wrath + Hatred and half with Hatred + Purity and there was no mistaking how much faster everything died. L20 Zombies, Faster Attacks -> Melee Splash -> Item Rarity -> Multistrike, and L19 gem BMs with Concentrated Effect -> Minion Damage -> Rarity. No shapshot, no + minion stuff on gear. I am leveling Vitality and Determination to try out next. I do feel my minions are a little squishy but Purity doesn't seem to help much. May have better luck with Vitality/Defiance. My build has %70 increased aura effect.
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Grace, vitality, and purity of elements are my main auras
(purity changes with my gear composition and zone I'm playing in. I may not run any purity or may go for a purity fire etc. as the situation calls) This is with my current summoner build of Life and Iron reflexes. when I can run another aura I stack determination on top of Grace. You have to consider that this is a hardcore league build and I value survival over dmg. I couldn't say this is preferred in all cases but for me I have found this to be my bread and butter. With the downfall of burning miscreations I may opt for a dmg aura at some point and hatred will be my first choice. I agree with Salty's assessment and believe haste to be one of the poorer aura choices. If you want more minion dmg there is a better aura to use. If your looking for quicker minions to increase dmg uptime link a minion speed support. Haste splits its benefit between two stats which in my opinion leads to minimal gains to two aspects. IGN: Fourist Last edited by Fourist#2774 on Mar 7, 2014, 3:12:25 PM
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" well you are using wrath and hatred , which is two damage auras in a 6l i am guessing which is a good option now that the big specter was obliterated. You have to understand that capped resists isnt special it is expected, so getting purity to max minion resists is in reality nothing more than checking off an item on the list of prerequisites. alone it wont do much of anything in merci. As for making minions tanky, the big thing is actually block and blind. having block and blind dramatically increases minion durability to a silly level. (this is why you should always keep slots open for both flesh and bone offering) Minions have no base evasion and arguably inconsequential armor so using grace and determination while cool to have is only good if nothing better exists ... which isnt the case at all. Last edited by Saltychipmunk#1430 on Mar 7, 2014, 3:14:43 PM
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