[2.1 Video Guide] Hybrid ES/Life Tanky Zombie/Specter Summoner - The Puppet Master [HC/SC viable]

I feel like your guide is missing few screenshots. For example:
- Character defensive status @merciless (armor, %physc reduction, resists, etc)
- Zombie's HP


I'm @lvl 60 witch using this guide as base and I managed to gather some armor with average gear. Even the armor being kinda low (1481), the physic % reduction is good (28%)...
So I was wondering in case of players putting more effort into getting more armor from gear, would it be worth traveling abit more for armor nodes and dropping some of the mana regen? Life would stay almost the same I guess.

http://tinyurl.com/od4onsz

Changes:
- From 20% to 65% increased armor
- From 148% to 144% increased max life
- From 135% to 95% mana regen
- From 2.8% to 3.3% life regen per sec
- From 30 to 50 max life
- From 50 to 80 base str
- from 108 to 110 skill points spent

"

Wesleysdf wrote:

I feel like your guide is missing few screenshots. For example:
- Character defensive status @merciless (armor, %physc reduction, resists, etc)
- Zombie's HP


I'm @lvl 60 witch using this guide as base and I managed to gather some armor with average gear. Even the armor being kinda low (1481), the physic % reduction is good (28%)...
So I was wondering in case of players putting more effort into getting more armor from gear, would it be worth traveling abit more for armor nodes and dropping some of the mana regen? Life would stay almost the same I guess.

http://tinyurl.com/od4onsz

Changes:
- From 20% to 65% increased armor
- From 148% to 144% increased max life
- From 135% to 95% mana regen
- From 2.8% to 3.3% life regen per sec
- From 30 to 50 max life
- From 50 to 80 base str
- from 108 to 110 skill points spent

As I mention a few times in the video. You shouldn't expect more than a small descent sized armour number.

At level 82 I have about 20% damage reduction, without the use of a granite. With a granite I reach about 50% reduced damage. I personally don't think it is worth scaling armour through extra skill-nodes. The best way to obtain a high armour count is simply by using a granite + the alchemist notable.

"

Galax201 wrote:

It would be wise to skip Foresight and pick the 2dex+1int node
(if you are not planing a hybrid life/es or EB summoner)

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMA34rpAv6zVyu9gm0ZfRgI9GvbwFRMs2pDvOpFfgQHDlyD22r6VcY6WKyY99fMvJuhRAR4L49GEJc5Uh0UpwhNubw3-tK4k9kLWAdmnhcvFm_r7jLRKpjAGmTnJLAkquNqKPqa4EVH-oAaOFXWQqM26ZitgsdFncBmiECQVYCk-ejT-1NSBLOmrCcvE2yiAJAztAwGSfAfkydGcWqsaPIc3IMJ4Yh_xm-eHarKSvGzBx7DOktXlS6btcDj8NUZiklRj_r7CewY9tpwuxqP2RMvb8HFDY1sCyL0

It could save you an affix :)
Summoner are usually low on dex.

"

Use weapon swap to cast Desecrate when necessary.

Summoners with zombies and RS have a lot of free time.
Spamming Desecrate and flesh offering is almost mandatory :)
Mon'tregul's explosion will limit the number of corpses.
As an added bonus you can guide the zombies.

I would put convocation on a swap.

Flask:
A quicksilver of adrenaline would be more beneficial.
With the alchemist passive you should gain around 32 ms.

Running 2 Instant flask is suboptimal because they are not affected by alchemist and belly of the beast 50% flask recovery speed.
You could probably gain more with a higher level bubbling or Catalysed flask.

Good luck.

Going for the 2x dex and 1x int is definitely a viable way of going about it as well. I personally haven't had any issues with gearing and levelling gems even by taking the other route :)

Hi Lifting Bro,

Thanx for the great work you put into this build, love your work and watching your Youtube vids.

I wanted to ask if you had any suggestions for converting this build over to stack item rarity? Also is it viable to do this build with Midnight Bargain aswell? Having 9 Zombies and 4 Specters is kinda cool.

With a level 20 non quality reduced mana this will leave you at 44 mana after your 4 auras. This is not enough mana to do anything more than convocate and use flesh offering. You will have to disable an aura to summon a new zombie or spectre. Is this something you have thought about?

I am level 73 running this. Here is my gear.



I am also thinking of trying the 2 dex node route over the 3 ES nodes above Scion. Let me know what you think.

Again, I have a level 86 Summoner. Zombie Gems: Raise Zombie, Multistrike & Melee Phys are automatic. I prefer added fire over melee splash because the Mon'Tregul's creates an AOE effect and the Evangelists' attack is an AOE. You could use splash for clearing and swap added fire in for bosses, but I prefer not to have to bother.

As for convocation, I use it constantly, weapon-swapping is a no-go. The pattern is 1. move forward 2. convocation to put minions in front of me 3. arc-double curse on hit 4. desecrate 5. flesh offering. Against bosses like piety, I run past her, hit convocation, and then keep running to put the zombies in immediate melee range. Minions will also sometimes be on the wrong side of a wall in an indoor map. And I use convocation to pull minions out of trouble.

Maybe I'm just incompetent, but bosses like the crematorium and torture chamber will tend to kill the minions, but won't kill you, so the time spent resummoning and occasionally having to run back to Sceptre of God is a trade-off.

I should also add that I'm using Pohx's 1.2 buld with prism guardian, hybrid life/ES and haste aura.

Isnt it better to use Herald of Ash instead of Haste? The 16% attack/cast speed isnt something that matters alot and the herald of ash will give you 15% more damage as fire on both your zombies and spectres + it works great with EE.
Im not 100% sure if Herald of Ash works with the spectres but they do physical damage so i am assuming it will work.

Also you can save yourself some points because you will only need like 20-25% reduced mana instead of 34% and spend them on more defence or get attack/cast speed from the tree with the points.

I wonder if empower lvl 3 in the helm is better than the skill setup for the helm currently....

Solid guide.

A question though, the curse cast speed in the whispers of doom area, do they affect anything in this build?

Since you're not actually casting curses yourself, i don't imagine they do.
Why not go for increased duration/AOE? (AOE won't affect anything either but at least you could get 15% increased duration?)

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Two_Dollars wrote:

Hi Lifting Bro,

Thanx for the great work you put into this build, love your work and watching your Youtube vids.

I wanted to ask if you had any suggestions for converting this build over to stack item rarity? Also is it viable to do this build with Midnight Bargain aswell? Having 9 Zombies and 4 Specters is kinda cool.

My pleasure mate, glad you like it!

You can definitely make this a MF build. Summoners is exceptionally easy to gear and because of that you can easily focus on getting MF on rares and use a few different uniques (Andvarius rings fx)

Midnight Bargain is pretty cool but since you are life based it is going to make you a lot less tanky, so I wouldn't suggest it.