[2.4] Occultist Summoner - You will never want to play Necro again!
|
Videos:
Spoiler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE6jIjKJUCQ
Here is a shaped t15 Courtyard with elemental reflect to demonstrate. You have to slow down and watch your spectres when they fire into packs of 20 mobs, as the splash damage they do adds up fast. However, very doable. I did lose them on the boss due to a combination of carelessness and them only being level 68 (since it was my first map). In my experience higher level spectres are much easier to keep alive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI8Bt3614Yc Here is a dark forest, with the bonus of Shaper buffing Rigwald and giving him The Unshaped's abilities. I did have to tp out for flasks and to resummon zombies once due to the extra AoE damage. I also totally forgot about the last circle and ran around like an idiot trying to find Rigwald half way through! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DglwOrSuPI Here is a pit of the chimera, which actually reminded me of something else I wanted to say. Chain is doable as a summoner but extremely dangerous, always watch out for it. There is absolutely no way I would have done this with chain on hardcore (or with the crit mod probably), and I died once to the snakes chaining here. I also nearly got one shotted in EHC by a level 72 Anatalie - one lightning arrow wall can hit dozens of times, managed to drop me from 11k to about 1k in a single hit. So, a few things to look out for, luckily you won't find Anatalie much randomly, and you can be careful when extra exiles mods are active. Greetings, I'm going to explain my design theory for this build first and foremost, if you want to just see the meat and potatoes of the build, skip to the spoilers below.  I've been playing this build for three leagues now, and am finally ready to publish the build as I believe it is finalized. This is a standard summoner build most people will be familiar with, using spectres as a primary source of damage supported by zombies, auras, curses, and animate guardian. However, there are two big differences. First, we're going to use a bow instead of a wand dagger staff or any other inferior weapon. This is for a few reasons. One, it lets us use Soul Strike, which is easily one of the best defensive items in the game, more on that later. Two, it gives us access to blink arrow which is godly and makes the build feel much faster than other summoners that have to crawl around a map. Three, it gives us access to a second 5/6 link which allows us to use more curses in a curse on hit setup, and even toss in cull/blind with ease. Second, we are going to be an Occultist, not a Necromancer. Necromancer seems like an obvious choice for summoners...after all, it has all the summon nodes, right? So it must be the best? Well, we all have our opinions! Advantages of Occultist for summoners: A free extra curse, which is a ton of free extra damage/defense Wicked Ward, easily one of the best defensive mechanics in the game Vile Bastion, all but removing the one biggest downsides of playing CI Lots of extra ES and therefore EHP Advantages of Necromancer for summoners: Self-offering, which is nice for some speed or block, but neither will get you to the mobility or durability of blink arrow/wicked ward, in my opinion. That's it! You get a bit of extra damage, but it does not make up for the extra curse and extra damage on cursed enemies of Occultist. You get more health for spectres, but they will not die anyway. You get a minor amount of reduction from zombies, but it does not make a huge difference. In the end, Occultist is a clear winner in my opinion, and I will likely never play Necromancer again, unless, ironically, I want to make a non-summoner build that exploits the aura buff for supporting or the self bone offering. What's so great about wicked ward and soul strike? As many people know, the interaction between these two is quite incredible. Soul Strike gets the recharge timer of your energy shield down to under a second, and wicked ward allows you to keep regenerating energy shield once it starts. The end result is that you virtually always have your ES regenerating at full capacity, allowing you to flat out ignore pretty much anything that doesn't one shot you. With the large "health" pool of a CI build, this is pretty much all content in the game. I did inevitably die at level 91 in the EHC league, so the build isn't totally immortal (but how many builds are?) Sadly, I ran face first into an Orra with GMP and crit mods and ate a 8 arrow barrage crit to the face. Even this fate would have been completely avoidable had I been more careful and let my minions go first, giving me time to curse her and reduce her damage to nothing. My accomplishments with this build so far: Up to t14 maps with absolutely no trouble with any boss in the game, chimera and hydra deathless so far. Quite certain minotaur and phoenix are very easily doable as well after what I saw of their two friends. Shaper would be interesting, I would want a 6 link for spectres before trying him but he might actually be possible as well. Chimera was totally AFKable, he can't get past wicked ward. Uber Lab has been farmed more times than I can count, 4/5 keys every time depending on his buffs. Even spirit-tormented Argus is an easy task. Uber Izaro is easily face tankable, simply using flasks and watching spectres melt him. Poorjoy's/Oba's cleared easily. Have yet to try Atziri, sadly, she doesn't seem worth killing anymore, heh. All map mods are possible except blood magic (because we can't use any abilities with CI, though still probably possible if you don't mind the minion AI). Passives:
Spoiler
www.poeurl.com/Nrt A pretty generic summoner CI build for the most part, with Energy From Within in the Witch jewel cluster for some extra ES. There are a few things of note here for people new to CI or summoners. NOTE Since people keep asking about this I'll say it here. The life nodes are only there to use the Energy From Within jewel (converts them to more ES%). You can certainly drop them in favor of other points if you want and use a different jewel. I leveled with Unending Hunger for a long time, it was quite fun. 1) Zealot's Oath, I don't consider this optional, really. Even with Wicked Ward, you will end up not regenerating any ES at all when hit by even the smallest damage over time. In maps with burning ground and other hazards, this can quickly become annoying and cause you to slowly lose your ES. This can be especially frustrating during a boss and other intense situations. It's also just free EHP, unless you die instantly any regeneration in the window between when you first start taking damage and when you might potentially die is more damage you can absorb. With stone golem, vitality, and the small amount of regeneration from passives, I was closing in on 1000 ES/second regeneration before wicked ward kicks in, which is quite substantial. In addition, we are immune to stun while at full energy shield. As CI, even small hits can stun us, but if we regenerate the damage quickly, we get our stun immunity back in no time at all. The end effect is that we run around immune to stun pretty much all the time, without needing eye of chayula or valyrium. 2) Essence Surge, also mandatory, you want to both get your ES recharge timer down as short as possible and get the maximum regeneration you can while regenerating. This node is very easily worth the 4 points. 3) Elemental Equilibrium, a huge source of damage for your spectres. -50 resist that you can endlessly spam on everything combines with your elemental specific curse/elemental weakness for a massive amount of reduced resist. Not only does this give a huge damage boost, it allows you to swap out a penetration gem for a far superior alternative. 4) 2 jewel sockets for minion resists, this is important in keeping your army alive. With the 16% resist from the tree and a max level purity of elements with the aura nodes available, you are still only giving minions around 50% to all resists. An extra 20 or so percent to cap them out will cut the damage they take from elemental clean in half. This is also vital for protecting them from ele reflect maps, which are fully possible as long as you keep your spectres at max resist, but otherwise not. 5) All curse, aura, and minion nodes are selected for their effectiveness. Don't bother wasting points on nodes that don't give extra benefits, they aren't hugely effective in the grand scheme of the things and there are always better things to spend a point on than 10% minion life. For leveling, you can pretty much just grab a spell and throw it in an amp/reverb rod and go nuts. I leveled as life with bladefall until I respecced CI around level 70 (when you can use the highest base ES armors). You will want to wait until you have soul strike and a bow to respec, most likely. For bandits, kill all 3 in each difficulty, there is nothing better than a point for CI summoners there. Gear:
Spoiler
One of the highlights of Essence league, being able to throw minion damage on a bow is great. You will also probably want attack/projectile speed, or spare resists if possible. Cold or lightning damage to proc your elemental equilibrium is also very useful. Before Essence, a Quill Rain is extremely good. The speed is absolutely fantastic, and they are easy to color and affordable. You will be able to spray and pray your curse on hit attack everywhere with ease, and it will make the build feel very quick and responsive. I will probably go back to Quill Rain if I ever get one that is 6 linked, but this league it was easier to buy a white 6 link bow and essence craft it for blind/culling strike. If you can get a +1 curse amulet, a 4th curse would also be extremely good. All that matters in this slot is as much ES as possible. There is a lot of improvement for my chest, and I think if I could get one that had 800-850 or so ES and some better gloves this build could easily have 12500 ES or so, as a rough guess. Not bad for a build with no shield! +2 minion gems is extremely important, it makes your zombies and animate guardian way tankier. As any CI build, you also want as much ES as possible. For enchants, spectre damage is good, stone golem buff effect is good, curse effect is probably best. I recently upgraded my helmet here before I died, had managed to get stone golem effect for some extra ES regeneration Soul Strike, the quiver quickly becoming a flavor of the month item (price went up literally 1000% this league) for its extreme power in conjunction with Wicked Ward. Absolutely vital for this build, in my opinion. Bones of Ullr, not entirely necessary but I would probably never pass on them. Going from 2 to 3 spectres is a 50% DPS increase, pretty nice, and blink arrow will make up for the pitiful movespeed. Nothing special here, just getting some more ES. If you can fit in some minion damage, more power to you! Jewelry is pretty easy, it's a great place to get more ES and resists. Since we don't need life, DPS stats, or anything else, they are also often affordable. Great improvements can be made to my rings, especially, getting more ES and ES% on them would be ideal. My amulet is pretty much perfect for my build, though +1 curse would be the dream. Should've probably upgraded this a long time ago, was waiting for a crystal belt to drop so I could craft it myself. You can definitely get 100+ ES on this now in addition to great resists, which will go a long way to getting you to that 13-14k ES bragging rights level. Anti-shock is pretty important, and throwing in a resistance to whatever element you are currently fighting is always nice. As CI we don't need health flasks, so there is room to use whatever you need. Sulphur flasks are extremely good here. The regen works with ZO, putting us above 1k ES/sec easily. It also heals your minions quite a lot and will help them tank through stupidly hard bosses and bleed traps from the labyrinth (seriously screw those things) Another often underrated flask, blind is a clean 50% additional chance to miss on anything in the game, and works on bosses that don't have resolute technique (which is almost all of them). Not only will this help you survive, it will keep your minions alive with ease. Nothing wrong with a bit more speed, quicksilvers are also an ideal choice for immunities because they last a long time and don't require a lot of charges. Things you absolutely need on your flasks - immunity to bleed/ignite. These damage over time effects will prevent wicked ward from happening, and will be your downfall if you are not prepared for them. Anti-curse is also very helpful, as curses are one of the most effective damage boosting mechanics in the game. As any CI build, anti-freeze is absolutely essential as well. Here are my stats with this gear: http://imgur.com/a/kWnCX Gem setup:
Spoiler
Hat: Raise Zombie + Animate Guardian + Fortify + Minion life This is your meat shield, and they will be fantastic for it. With +2 levels, they will easily get 10k/15k health, respectively, which allows them to survive pretty much anything when combined with some regeneration. For the animate guardian, I craft it out of dying breath/leer cast, the classic combo for increased damage, curse effectiveness, and damage taken. Zahndethus' Cassock is a great chest, helping to cap the guardian's chaos resist while also providing more consecrated ground from time to time, you would be surprised how often he can keep this up on bosses, ensuring he and your zombies stay at 100% health at all times. After that, rare gloves and boots can be used to ensure your guardian has all max resistances at all times, making him completely immortal (I have only lost guardians to bleed traps (which can be prevented by simply unsocketing him for a second) and Hydra spamming barrage (a very slow death I could have prevented by simply porting out for a second - but I was trying to do the fight without using any portals)). Weapon: Rain of Arrows + Curse on Hit + Enfeeble + Temporal Chains + Flammability/etc + blind/cull/elemental weakness Our curse on hit setup, rain of arrows is chosen because it is AoE and easy to aim without needing GMP, pierce, or anything else. Enfeeble/temp chains are perfect for the survivability of both us and our army. Temp chains is especially nice because making mobs slower makes it more difficult for them to damage you twice before your Wicked Ward kicks in. Flammability can be substituted with any other resistance curse, or vulnerability if you use physical spectres, but I believe flame sentinels are by far the best choice right now, which is why I have it listed specifically. Chest: Raise Spectre + Minion Damage + Spell Echo + Controlled Destruction + LMP/pierce/slower projectiles/etc + Concentrated Effect For flame sentinels, nothing beats more more multipliers. Because equilibrium + curses reduce enemy resists by as much as 100 or more already, an elemental penetration gem is unnecessary. Controlled destruction is perfect because their crit chance is already terrible. Elemental Focus is an option, but the ignite on sentinels is actually quite potent and easy to keep up with flammability. Minion damage and spell echo are an easy choice, as well as concentrated effect for a 6th link. LMP provides more coverage for clearing, and can be swapped with pierce or slower projectiles for bosses. Gloves: Flesh Offering + Desecrate + Purity of Elements + Blink Arrow Simple utility here Boots: Stone Golem + Convocation + Vitality + Vaal Discipline Stone golem is easily worth it, he taunts which distracts AND reduces the damage the boss does to you, and he also gives you more regeneration with ZO, and vaal discipline will help save you from some very "oh sh**" situations. In my 91 levels, I was never actually forced into using vaal discipline a single time, but I still wouldn't play without it, it would have saved my life had I used it on Orra. Ring : Discipline, flame dash If your chest is a 5 link like mine, toss Disc in the 6th socket, otherwise you will need a ring for it. Flame dash is a nice extra if you get a ring for it, as it will give you a movement ability for when blink arrow is down, which can come in handy at times. Most of the playstyle of this build will revolve around shooting arrows at people to curse them and keep equilibrium up, while using blink arrow/convocation to drag your dumb minions around. Since minions tank a lot of the damage, it is extremely difficult to die with the wicked ward/soul strike combination. Best of all, like any good summoner, this build is very budget friendly and quite easy to get moving with. For new characters, focus on getting a 5 link bow first, spectres do plenty of damage with just a 4 link thanks to the massively reduced resists we are putting out. Purity of elements and the availability of accessories without life will make getting resistance capped easy. All in all, this build is very friendly to newer players and will help you make quick work of all content in the game. Thanks for reading, let me know if you have questions or want more information about something! Last edited by IceyDevil#4662 on Oct 14, 2016, 9:34:53 AM Last bumped on Dec 9, 2016, 10:54:03 AM
|
|
|
Very interesting Summoner. Since this season I started to love play Summoners in EHC and already bookmarked your build.
Thanks for share this! Really would enjoy 1 or 2 videos of you clearing a high map. Last edited by Phobozz#6123 on Sep 30, 2016, 6:29:03 AM
|
|
|
Absolutely
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE6jIjKJUCQ Here is a shaped t15 Courtyard with elemental reflect to demonstrate. You have to slow down and watch your spectres when they fire into packs of 20 mobs, as the splash damage they do adds up fast. However, very doable. I did lose them on the boss due to a combination of carelessness and them only being level 68 (since it was my first map). In my experience higher level spectres are much easier to keep alive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI8Bt3614Yc Here is a dark forest, with the bonus of Shaper buffing Rigwald and giving him The Unshaped's abilities. I did have to tp out for flasks and to resummon zombies once due to the extra AoE damage. I also totally forgot about the last circle and ran around like an idiot trying to find Rigwald half way through! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DglwOrSuPI Here is a pit of the chimera, which actually reminded me of something else I wanted to say. Chain is doable as a summoner but extremely dangerous, always watch out for it. There is absolutely no way I would have done this with chain on hardcore (or with the crit mod probably), and I died once to the snakes chaining here. I also nearly got one shotted in EHC by a level 72 Anatalie - one lightning arrow wall can hit dozens of times, managed to drop me from 11k to about 1k in a single hit. So, a few things to look out for, luckily you won't find Anatalie much randomly, and you can be careful when extra exiles mods are active. Last edited by IceyDevil#4662 on Sep 30, 2016, 12:19:30 PM
|
|
|
Chain is the true summoner killer lol.
Especially that rouge exile that shoots lightning arrow with chain on the map. Had some surprise one shots from that. Necronomicon: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1617098
Build: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/409940 Summoner Dischord: https://discord.gg/XwWdSUa Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/zhoukon |
|
|
Yeah for sure, when I got slapped for around 9500-10000 damage in one hit from her in a low level Zana map I just about peed my pants. Luckily, if you know she is there you can just stay away from your army until she's dead. Every build has weaknesses, so if the scariest monster is one that only shows up once every few hundred maps, I think that's okay.
|
|
|
is this hardcore viable build? are you plaing in hardcore?
|
|
" I played up to level 91 in EHC, died, stopped. The character you see in standard is exactly how she was when she died. I was farming t12/t13 maps, did Volcano, prayed for more maps but neverlucky. My only t15 Core I got from upgrading 3 volcanoes, and I bricked it with a vaal (2x aoe mods, crits, extra damage, hexproof). Once I got to Standard I bought a few t15/t16 maps to test and they were no problem. I would say this is probably the most hardcore viable build I've ever played. Between the huge ES pool, wicked ward that keeps you constantly regenerating ~4k es/second, minions that tank most of the stuff coming your way, and extremely buffed curses that reduce most mobs to frozen weaklings, I doubt there are many builds that are more survivable outside of a 100k armor Juggernaut. Last edited by IceyDevil#4662 on Oct 1, 2016, 11:25:42 PM
|
|
|
Very nice build, gona play it on ehc, thanks man.
Btw, you got some life nodes in passive tree (around cruel preparation node and around heart and soul). Last edited by ghostINsky#2782 on Oct 2, 2016, 12:13:00 AM
|
|
" Those are for the "Energy from Within" jewel which coverts life to ES, it is totally optional and you can just path through the jewel socket instead. I leveled for quite a while with the Unending Hunger jewel in that spot without the life nodes, but swapped at level 90. |
|
|
Hello, thanks for great build.
Please, do you have some tips for lvling? When should I start to use a bow (from which lvl or which item need)? Thx |
|
