Level 30 dying in act 2 pyramid constantly.

It says monster level 25, so I would think I should be facerolling them.

I'm a summoner/cold crit so far, have necromantic aegis and mostly int and crit nodes.

My gear is crap, but not for lack of trying.

I play solo.

Someone give me some advice, what should I be looking for on gear, what can I expect out of my minions, because so far they are dying without doing much (4 zombies, 4-5 skeletons) against most the enemies in this particular area.

I use freeze pulse, for some reason shooting through the doorways is like playing operation on crack.

All of the monsters in the pyramid are doing elemental damage. What do your resists look like? If you have low resists, they're going to kill you a lot.

For you, in that area, HP, resists, and energy shield are the main defenses you should be looking for. Almost everything there is a spell, so evasion, armour, and block don't do you any good.

Your minions also need resists. If you want to protect them with aegis, put on a kite shield.

It'd be helpful if you could post your gear and your build.

I am messing around in the pyramid now with a summoner/fire build of sorts.

I really like firestorm for getting the totems, and try to focus on them first, and don't be afraid to duck into a room, take a few shots, and duck back out to let your health/energy shield recuperate.

With the skeletons that are firing off multiple shots of elemental damage, I like to summon 2 skeletons behind them while my zombies make their way across. It draws their fire and seems to help zombie survivability.

I tend to pop skeletons like they are pez candy, and let them be a poor witch's decoy totem.

post your resistances and maximum life

250 max life,
70% fire resist
like 15 or 20% for the rest.

But I don't think those stupid ancient construct spitters are any element. Also, I've gotten owned by fire ranged skeletons in the pyramid despite that resist.

Like I've told someone else, I'm limited in what I can wear by what has the right sockets. I am always looking for something that's compatible, and I'd like to switch from evasion to armor, but so far I'm not finding gear that has the right sockets, not even close really.

I've gone crit, damage, int for most my passives. Not like it matters, still not really dealing phenomenal damage. Apparently you are supposed to go all defense in this game.

The pyramid is just so aggravating. The rooms are small so that if you are inside them with any other enemies they will destroy me, and outside of the rooms my stupid freezing pulse won't go through the doorways. Fireball and other effects can to a very limited extent/angle. Game is way too strict on these doorways.

Like 85% of the fighting is easy, but then there's just certain rooms with those spitters or just a ton of guys at once, where my zombies die and I can't resummon, and skeletons die before I can even cast a second spell.

how am I supposed to have more HP than that? nodes? I was trying to use shield for a buffer, but my shield is only up to 100, so that didn't work out. And yeah the spitters do that stuff off screen most the time, and it's one thing when there's one of them, different when I'm distracted by other enemies or several of them at once.

well the nodes are spoken for. there's no redoing all that now.

as for items, I work with what I've found. I get less now due to necro aegis. I don't know what stats to go for, and no one will tell me, should I just do armor, ES, max life, resist, or what. I can't do them all. Just getting one out of two decent properties on a blue has eaten quite a few orbs.

Chaos damage pierces through energy shield - which is what's keeping you alive. That is by far the hardest thing to defend from (chaos resistance is hard to come by - both from gear and skill tree). The only fairly solid defense is HP - that is why you should considering getting the hp or strength belts/jewelry to complement your othewise caster armor. A solid "+20 all atributes" amulet also helps a lot in that respect.


Also it's fairly easy to get poisoned or get a puncture (bleeding) from a boss and you don't even notice what's killing you.