Summoner: Part 2.

[shoju]

If you've hung around, or read here on the lounge for a while, you know that my first character that I achieved any type of success with, was a summoner.

As Open Beta went along, I was really unhappy with the performance changes made to summoners, and it felt like, the AI within the minions had been downgraded, or diminished in some capacity.

With the last patch being summoner based, and including some nice QOL changes for Summoners, I decided to give summoner another shot, and started a new one in Domination.

I decided that I was going to try out as many of the passives as I could, all the new gems, all the new toys. Here is what I have found, as I cruise towards the end of A2 Cruel.

1.) Summon Raging Spirit: This is fantastic. While I don't know how in the world you would ever have the Max of 50 in play at one time, they do good damage, provides you with something to do beyond arc spam / curse bot, and are fun.

Definitely a plus.

2.) Bone Offering: This gem, is worth it's weight in gold. I was gifted a copy from VinnieJones, and It's my most cast non minion spell.

3.) Flesh Offering: It's not a bad addition. It goes really well with quicksilver flasks, or for just mowing down a bunch of chumps.

4.) Desecrate: Well.... It's an ability. I'm not really that excited about it. I tried it for a while, and I could just never get "optimum" use out of it. It might be interesting to make a build out of, with all the chaos damage that is floating around now, but it's not my cup of tea for a "traditional" summoner build.

5.) The Uniques: I have not run across any of the new uniques yet, so I can't comment on them. As I run across them, I will make sure to update with how they fare.

6.) The Passives. I have to say, the changes to the passive tree, both the summoner specific changes, and the aura based changes, are serving me well. In fact, even the new auras (the purity auras) have come in very handy for me, in making sure that my minions live.

One of the problems that arose in Open Beta, came after the resistance changes for minions, and elemental mobs would just rip through them, quicker than you could replace them, and the Minion Resistance Support on it's own was relatively ineffective at counterbalancing the difference.

I have specced out of minion instability for the time being. While leveling, it hasn't been needed, as I'm cutting through everything that I run across in fairly quick fashion, and with some of the Leech / Regen passive additions for minions, I have gone hours at a time with the same Zombies and Spectres.

7.) Speaking of Spectres: There are TONS of awesome new Spectre worthy monsters in Wraeclast. My personal favorite, is the undying evangelist. They are rather handy to have around. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they find a way to change them up a little as minions, as right now, you can achieve a god like immunity with them if you put a little effort into staying inside their bubbles. I can have 3 spectres currently. I'm normally running with three of them, unless I find myself in a position where I need a little more firepower (the evangelist's attack is great, and hard hitting, but has a cast time, and monsters can and do move out of it) I will run with a Chimeral.

8.) The AI. There are times, when your minions are still stupid. It's unfortunate, but it's just part of the AI limitations I'm assuming. They do seem to be a little more reactive, than previously.

For me though? This patch was a major step in the right direction for the summoner. I'll post my gear, and passives when I have more time, and if you have specific questions, I will do my best to answer them for you.

[LochnarITB]

1.) Summon Raging Spirit: This is fantastic.

QFT

In fact, I will be shocked if this doesn't get nerfed. I've been hooked on racing (although I do mostly suck - season rank 1126th, woohoo! ). Anyway, I run a witch and Brutus used to give me fits. He would desync immediately and suddenly be on top of me or he could even be out of position and his yoink would get me stuck in a wall. I died 3 times to not being able to do anything because of it. Now, with Summon Raging Spirit, I can run in and start tossing skulls. He usually ends up standing in place grunting and dieing. Even mild desyncs let me get away again and start casting more. Flaming skulls for the win!

[shoju]

I have a feeling that they may change the scaling on the Raging Spirits. While I have no doubt that as I level, they are less OP and more balanced, I will say that at lower levels (as in: Pre skeleton Totem levels) I really never bothered trying to use Skellies and Spirits. It just wasn't needed.

Now, as I have Skellie Totem, I find that I hard cast Raging Spirits over top of them, and I feel far sturdier than I ever did on my previous summoner, and I have some plans on testing with the spirits.

So far, Minion Damage, and INcreased Duration are what I am using with the gem. I have the gem in a +1 Fire Gem Wand, which does increase the level of the spirits. I could honestly see a reason to take this gem to a 5L if it continues to do as well as it has. At a 5L, I would probably do:

SRS + Faster Casting + Minion Damage + Minion Speed + Increased Duration.

This becomes the first Minion that I would actively seek to use Minion Speed on. By using the Minion Movement speed support, you are going to get a lot of bang for your buck in terms of attacks out of them. Minion Damage is a no brainer, and at least at low levels, seems to provide superior damage to the attacks as opposed to Fire Penetration, Increased Burning Damage, etc... supports. I'm unsure if this will hold up, and it's REALLY difficult to try and test this in an applicable setting.

At present, My Gem Setup is as follows:

+1 Fire Gem Wand:
Summon Raging Spirit
Increased DUration
Minion Damage

+1 Minion Helm:
Summons Skeletons
Spell Totem
Minion Damage

Bone Offering (which, does get the +1)

Chest:
Purity of Elements
Reduced Mana
Flesh Offering

Gloves:
Summon Spectre
Minion Life
Minion Damage
Minion And Totem Resistance

Boots:
Raise Zombie
Minion Life
Minion Damage
Minion And Totem Resistance

Shield:
Lightning Warp

I am also using Sidhebreath (Minion Amulet)
and Bones of Ullr (Minion Boots)

I am interested in trying out:
Dying Breath - A nice buff to my minions. Would be interesting in some cases I think. It's not a high priority
Skullhead - I think that this helmet could be a very nice substitute for the general +x minion gem helms. Not so much for the armor boost, but the life regen, and the block, could make minions even more tanky than the +flat armor, since there is very little that augments minion armor outside of determination, and at this point, I'm unsure I will get to a point where I can run it.

I'm not as interested in trying out Alberon's Warpath. I don't find it, at least for a "traditional" summoner build, to be superior to the Bones of Ullr. I could see this used to great effect with builds that would like to use Skeleton Totem tactics, but not for a traditional Summoner.

The only major downside, is that the helm is an AR / EV piece, which does make my desire to end up going CI a little tricky, since I'd definitely want to use the Bones of Ullr as well.

We'll see how that all comes out in the wash as I continue to level though. I'm really pushing my "personal" defenses to be fleshed out as late in the build as possible, and I'm trying to focus on just how far I can get without dying, and focusing on minions and auras. I could honestly see myself running

Vitality
Purity of the Elements
Purity of Fire
Purity of Ice
Purity of Lightning
Reduced Mana
While taking several of the aura passives, in a 6L chest piece, and leaving my minions at 4L if I continue to cruise through this as well as I am.

We'll see though. At this point, I also need to figure out what / if I'm going to run a curse. So far, I haven't needed one. I find myself casting Bone Offering more and more, and allowing the minions to tear things down to be the best way to go about it, though I could make a case later on for using a defensive curse. Though... If my Spectres continue to live as well as they are, I could also make a case for just going and grabbing one of the Curse casting necros or Mortality Experimenters (though they do have the downside of blowing up corpses before I can use them) to be my curse bot.

I'm hopeful, that a Summoner has more options available to them than before. I can see a situation where I might actually diversify the types of spectres that I run. I could see using a Curse bot, an Evangelist, and an Arc Mage at the same time being a viable strategy at some point.

I'll keep you posted on how things go.