Help with skills for a summoning witch?

After deciding frost/crit was not for me I've gone for a summoning witch. My current passives are http://goo.gl/Z49ex) and I'll be going for minion instability and improved aura range next; I'm also almost old enough to be trusted with a skeleton summoning totem.

Where I'm rather uncertain is of the best setup for skill gems and equipment. I can get by with using whatever falls into my lap, but I'd like to try and improve beyond "acceptable." Preferably into "unstoppable godlike necromantic overlord" but I'll settle for "Moderately Good" :-)

* What supports should I be linking to my zombies/skeletons/spectres? I've got minion health and minion damage on my zombies at the moment, are there any other really good ones?

* What are the best aura/curses to use with minions? I'm using what I have for now (lightning weakness curse/lightning damage aura) but again this could probably be done with thought instead of by default.

* What is a good damage spell to use to support the minions, preferably something that doesn't need exact targeting because it's very hard to target with minions (or even just other players) running around?

* Are there other non-obvious skills/combos/bits of equipment I should know about?

I've seen lots of info on passive skills but not much for the other choices that need to be made.

[Edit] I play softcore, which is probably worth mentioning.

Well my feedback is for hardcore, and for playing alone, so not sure if that feats you, but here is my 2 cents:

You can link zombies with (after ml and md) something like: item rarity/quantity (good for default), add lightning, add chaos (it bypass ES monsters), faster attacks or increase physical damage. I think all of them are nice adds.

For skeletons, you should think about fire penetration for damage explosions, or faster casting for totem too.

CURSES: I use enfeeble. Temporary chains is good. Both are defensive curses, and that is because I'm hc. You can choose others, like vulnerabilty or even flammability.

AURAS: I use clarity+discipline. You can really take anyone with adds damage if you prefer in default, like hatred or others.

DAMAGE: I use firestorm, easy to target enemy totems or necromancers, or to make your minions go wherever you like. But I dont use it for damage, just for redirect my minions, because I'm full summoner.

TIP: go for Minion Instability asap.

Hope that helps-



You should also check this one:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/63871

Thanks!

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or to make your minions go wherever you like

Do minions move to follow spell attack commands? I've been wondering how exactly their AI works but with no spell totem I just place skeletons next to what needs hitting and let zombies run all over.

Well, from my observations, they react.
So if you run away from monsters or don't move at all, they normally wonder somewhere.
But if you cast a curse/skill/attack (even a wand attack) to a monster, they usually go there.
So i usually just cast firestorm nonstop and my zombies normally attack the monster/boss till the end. If I move or run away, they normally come to me.

If when they are attacking some random monster I see a boss in other place, I firestorm him and zombies change and go there too.

Passive tree:



Unique Gear:



Skills and More Gear:

Skills:

Purity and whatever aura you want, i use Wrath cause i found it first with Reduced mana cost. (For you and the Zombies and because of that sometimes they might Shock i think so Wrath is a great choice)
Enfeeble
Vulnerability
Raise Zombies with HP/Damage/Speed support.
Skeletons with Totem/HP/DMG/Speed <- 5L can be hard to find so ignore speed if needed.
Raise Specter with HP/DMG.

Spec for a proper pure summoner:



Thats what i am running..certainly 75, should have been 80 but i got lazy grinding docks all day >_> right now i am going for the HP nodes down at the templar to get 30% more HP.

I have 2.1k HP 1.7k mana, ~75 to all resists on proper gear, since i am wearing magic find stuff its lower..

Zombies have 9.6k HP, pretty much 1 shot or 2 shot anything 1 vs 1, maps included.

Specters simply destroy everything when i get the proper caster mobs.

Skellies are there to be used as meat/exploding shields really, Zombies are too strong to even care what the skeletons are doing.

You want Queen's Decree 2hand, dont listen to anyone saying otherwise or telling you to use Necromantic Aegis, you want the summons to die as fast as possible so they explode for insane amounts.

You want the neck, i dont remember the name, easy to find Minion % everywhere and the boots Bones of Ulrr or something.

There only times i might die or this spec has a problem is two situations.

1)A ton of blue serpents in maps..The chaos damage piercing cleaving snakes Bard Serpent or something, since they pierce the summons, they destroy everything and when all of them might sync and land on me at the same time, they might kill me, died once in the last week or so by that ;/

2)Insane blue packs of AoE damage, and those packs usually die along with my summons so i dont really care about those.

Example: 5-10 blue void bears together, 5 Carrion Queen's in map with multiple projectile, fire damage splash hurts the summons ;p

Also, i did spec Arc for a bit and tried it out.

Basically the concept of lighting damage and Shock is awesome but there is a small problem.

Unless your Arc deals something like 20%-30% per attack, to stack on the target for a long time, its a waste of points since you cant spec Summons/Lightning Damage and have the Health to survive attacks simply because of two things.

1)Zombies destroy everything anyway.

2)Your spec will suck to actually deal damage to stack Shock properly.

And to clarify why Health and not ES.

The only thing that ever touches me in my spec is the piercing chaos serpents and i rarely meet those anymore, and they pierce ES therefor ES is useless, everything else in the game simply doesnt touch me ever, well lies, now and then some arrows might hit me for ~300 or so, and some random spell effect might touch me for 50-200 damage.


Most people fail to grasp the concept of a summoner in PoE, cause they expect the OP Necromancer from D2.

Minions are supposed to die now and then , if they didnt one of the most OP things they have, Minion Instability would be useless, your job is to make sure they dont die in 1 hit, cause then they dont explode, you want them to EXPLODE along with bitchslapping hard, which is what zombies do.

Skeletons EXPLODE, Zombies bitchslap, while Specters nuke from around you (Always raise caster/ranged Specters)

Im doing a very similar build. I am end game going for something like this:




the main difference is that i am putting a bunch of focus in defense. HOWEVER, I am not sure if i did it right, well or otherwise, its just what i am theory crafting so far. Figure im going cold/ minions/ traps and ill put other elemnts on my summons so that elemental equilibrium will make my summons do more damage as the mobs get hit by an ice lance totem.

Anyways my point is at the base of my build, exist your build, and the difference is i went for early energy shield nodes.

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potis wrote:

Minions are supposed to die now and then , if they didnt one of the most OP things they have, Minion Instability would be useless, your job is to make sure they dont die in 1 hit, cause then they dont explode, you want them to EXPLODE along with bitchslapping hard, which is what zombies do.

Skeletons EXPLODE, Zombies bitchslap, while Specters nuke from around you (Always raise caster/ranged Specters)

How do you get your zombies to that point? i got to level 23 on HC and died to the dex bandit because all my minions died and i couldnt do anything to keep them up.

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sweetaction wrote:

How do you get your zombies to that point? i got to level 23 on HC and died to the dex bandit because all my minions died and i couldnt do anything to keep them up.

One of the bandits has an AoE that tears minions apart, but in my low 20s I was able to keep summoning skeletons two by two and they were able to slowly take him down. Not a vey impressive fight, but I won. I'd never have attempted that in hardcore though.

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DrStalker wrote:

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sweetaction wrote:

How do you get your zombies to that point? i got to level 23 on HC and died to the dex bandit because all my minions died and i couldnt do anything to keep them up.

One of the bandits has an AoE that tears minions apart, but in my low 20s I was able to keep summoning skeletons two by two and they were able to slowly take him down. Not a vey impressive fight, but I won. I'd never have attempted that in hardcore though.

So how do you level a summoner in HC past that point?