Path of Exile free to play in about six hours.

[shoju]

So..... Summoners are broken. Seriously. 440 HP 399 ES. non maxed Resists. Blew through the Fetid Pool Cruel, no problem. It was over before I realized it, Was NEVER in danger.

Having 10 Skellies
6 zombies
2 spectres

Makes life great.

I had a single issue playing a summoner. It was BORING! It was actually going fast but I felt like I was just a bystander. I enjoy my ice spear/fire trap witch so much more. I'm always getting her into trouble and having to work my way out. The biggest drag on playing her now is that she does die. I'm in act 3 merciless and having trouble getting past level 64. I've probably lost at least a few levels in XP from deaths.

I'm running a Lightning Summoner, to deal with the lack of interactivity that you can sometimes have.

Currently, I'm using 2 auras, (prepping to add a third when My mana will support still casting summons)
Then I use
Arc, with added Lightning damage, as I was told (and I hope this is right) that the added lightning damage rolls seperately from the spell on checking for Shock, since it's "2" effects), and then the Lightning Damage Aura.

Then I'm running Summon Spectre, with damage + Life
Skellie totem (does anyone not run that?) with + Life, in a +1 Minion
Helm
Raise Zombie with Life, Added Lightning Damage, and 5% melee physical damage.
My other spell depends on where I'm at. For Fetid Pool, I was running Corpse Explosion, Sometimes I run Lightning Warp (bosses mainly).

Now, I'm debating on what to do from here. The Next Skill point gets me more minions (+1 Z/S). Then, I really don't have anymore "close" minion nodes. There is one, but it's 4 points away, and then +3 points to fill it out. Then pay off is another +1 Z/S

OR, I could finally start adding some survivability to my little summoner. I made bee lines to all of the summoner stuff, Stopping only briefly at the beginning of the witch tree for a pittance of life and ES early on, just so I could survive early.

My tree looks like this

Personally, at this point, I'm not losing minions too often unless it's a boss fight, or something goes bad, and I'm thinking it might be time to invest some time in the witch, and improve it.

I was thinking building towards this when I'm in the 60's But not going over towards the other Summoner Node until the very end of it.

Not sure though.

I have to say, the Summoner chews things up so much faster than the Templar does. I know I said the Witch was a side project, but beating the pants off the fetid pool on Cruel was great. I had just hit 39, had no xp to lose, and said "let's see how fast I die"

Turns out? Spectre Roa Carcasses are AWESOME, if you don't mind that they will die from time to time.


EDITING
because I don't want to reply to the botter, in case it makes removing harder.

Went to Brutus last night, fearful he was going to hook me, pound me, and crush me. I had

11 skellies
7 Zombies
2 Spectres (using bone archers from the prison)

If the fight lasted 10 seconds, I'd be amazed. I dropped the totem, arc'd twice, used my Animation Health Flask, My Mana Flask, Arc'd Again, and he was dead. Man.... This is silly.