Zombie´s suck since latest Patch - 135% resists... Endgame Summoner screwed. Help us Pls

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Elynole wrote:

MI works with skeletons as well, for serpents and carrion queens - try to get out of line of sight of their attacks but still close enough to spam cast skeletons on top of them - this is easily done in the slums with all the corners and such that it has. If the skeletons are close enough, they'll blow up and easily kill these.

My Playstyle:

Disclaimer: This is based on what I've experienced playing a summoner, and the correct way to play one based on the way it "feels".

So some notes. Zombies tend to aggro mobs prior to even hitting them, much as if they have an aggro aura. Skeletons do not - skeletons need to attack the mob prior to gaining any aggro.

Summoners are a great build due to the low gear investments in early and mid game, and due to the low skill tree investments overall - allowing for you to pick up and gear towards defense for your character and resource management.

High level summoners use a ton of mana in my experience, gearing towards lots of mana regeneration I feel is a necessity. Especially if you plan on running multiple auras to buff your minions. As an example my main has around 1,500 mana with around 165 mana regen per second.

Energy Shield Recovery is also very valuable if going CI, I think mine is around 1900 per second with 5.5k ES.

Due to zombies tending to aggro way before even attacking a monster, my plan of attack when meeting a mob is based on casting skeletons on top of the mob, and sitting back with my zombies near me, so that they don't aggro the mob ahead of me. I do this so that I continue to have 360 degree protection of myself for any strays that come along - the zombies can pick them up, and the spectres and skeletons can continue to kill off the pack.

I do not focus on spectre as my main DPS, my main DPS comes from Minion Instability. There's a reason for this. Spectres become rather useless in indoor maps due to pathing AI, while Minion Instability shines. You can continue to spam cast skeletons in rooms without even having to walk into the room, thus taking yourself out of danger, and letting the damage of the mobs do the rest to initiate MI. You can clear whole rooms in a matter of seconds by doing this. Since a good majority of maps are either tight-knit cornered or indoor maps, this is especially important for late game.

AoE Splash Damage from Mobs - Again, this is a problem that many young late-game summoners have problems with. Minion Instability can again take care of this issue, as long as the summoner learns to stay out of LOS. Sometimes it's a bit tricky, sometimes you need to pull the mobs back a bit to secure a good position - but it's most doable.

With regards to AoE Splash Damage and Heavy Hitting Bosses - this was one area of summoner that I felt summoners were really weak. On my main, my attack of choice has been Freezing Pulse so that I can slow any mobs that get near me and get back behind my pack of zombies. I found though that this left me vulnerable in times when my minions were wiped clean in a matter of seconds.

Due to this, I've been experimenting with Poison Arrow. Yes, I'm walking around with a bow and a quiver currently and I, myself, place the poison arrows in strategic locations during the fight. This also helps with splash damage AoE and heavy hitting bosses. Since Poison Arrow really only requires the gem to level for it's DPS, and no gear changes or heavy support gems it makes the perfect combination to add into my summoner build. It allows me to fire once and get behind cover to recast my minions while the mobs continue to soak and melt in the poison clouds.

My playstyle clears a bit slower, but at the added advantage of not dying. In HC, well YOLO - and late game Standard league - 15% of your current XP on the level is something you never want to have to redo again, it could be days of farming.

And that's all I can think of at the moment.