[2.0]Rathik's NEWBIE FRIENDLY FUN&CHEAP FARMER, DPS Summoner. High AOE DMG, SURVIVAL."The Matriarch"

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LSDelusions wrote:

Many thanks for this guide! It is well written and newbie friendly as you mentioned! :D

Glad you like it :)

Hello! How u regenerate ES without 'regen apply to ES instead of life' ?:O

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Aleunei wrote:

Hello! How u regenerate ES without 'regen apply to ES instead of life' ?:O

You don't. ES auto regenerates after a few seconds when you don't take damage.
There are hardly any regen nodes taken from the skill tree.

If you want ES regen you need to take Zealot's Oath for 3 skill points.

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Great for breaking urns and finding those orbs, personally I found 2 exalted from the urns in Lunaris.

Arc- Culling Strike - IQ - IR works in objects?

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xSirk wrote:

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Great for breaking urns and finding those orbs, personally I found 2 exalted from the urns in Lunaris.

Arc- Culling Strike - IQ - IR works in objects?

IIR/IIQ has no effect on chests and urns/rocks etc.

I haven't played summoner since 2.0, so what's the ideal 4L for my zombies if I'm using 6L for spectres? I've been using Raise-Life-Multistrike-Melee Splash for super tanky zombies, but I don't know how the changes have affected the viability of this setup.

So many options I don't know which way to go. Melee Splash/Multistrike/Melee Phys/Minion life/Minion Damage/Fortify. Ahhh choices.

Edit - Never mind, settled on raise-multi-melee phys-min damage

I started 2 days ago so am still learning the game itself but decided to use this temp to start with and have been enjoying the leveling so far. One thing I'm confused with is the gem system. I notice on the Current CI Gear link you have Melee damage increase support gems linked to zombie gem. Do the melee increase gems affect zombie melee damage? I would assume so but if not, I'm playing this thing completely wrong and am totally lost.

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Balbaines wrote:

I started 2 days ago so am still learning the game itself but decided to use this temp to start with and have been enjoying the leveling so far. One thing I'm confused with is the gem system. I notice on the Current CI Gear link you have Melee damage increase support gems linked to zombie gem. Do the melee increase gems affect zombie melee damage? I would assume so but if not, I'm playing this thing completely wrong and am totally lost.

Yes they do, support gems work on whatever skill they're linked with, so anything linked with a raise zombie/spectre/skeleton gem applies to the summon.

thanks for the response Ellysia, should have edited my post sooner. Played around a little and answered it myself lol. The chemistry of gems is quite different for sure. Enjoying it so far.

Only thing I haven't figure out thus far is the IIQ/IIR gems. since they are support does the spell you have linked to them have to get the killing blow for the increased quality/rarity to come into play or as long as the spell linked to them does damage. I notice Rathik has them both linked to Arc and not the zombies so wasn't sure.

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Balbaines wrote:

Only thing I haven't figure out thus far is the IIQ/IIR gems. since they are support does the spell you have linked to them have to get the killing blow for the increased quality/rarity to come into play or as long as the spell linked to them does damage. I notice Rathik has them both linked to Arc and not the zombies so wasn't sure.

"Since the increased Rarity of Items only applies when landing a killing blow, combining this gem with Culling Strike can be useful […]", from here.

I think the idea of using Arc is to spam it as often as possible (and especially when the enemy is on low HP during boss fights) to trigger the Culling Strike (and with that, the IIR), while not "wasting" one support gem in the zombie link to increase zombie damage / survivability especially when not using a 5/6L.

As for my own thoughts / questions on the guide (only read the last 5-10 pages of this thread, sorry if I'm bringing up stuff that has been discussed before):

Thanks a lot for this guide, the life DPS part brought me up to level 60 on HC, and now on SC I switched to CI and it's a lot of fun (mostly).

First question: Jewels. I saw you took the two jewel passives en route, but I can't see any mention of jewels in the guide. What are your thoughts on useful jewels? Since I'm a bad player mechanically and like to have lots of life (or ES, in this case) I'm thinking about using Energy from within on the right jewel socket, giving me the option to go for Melding for a total of +52% ES. That said, I'm already at 8k ES so it might not be necessary. Would you rather go for something like +x% minion damage (plus something like minion resistances etc.)? Or maybe something like Conqueror's Potency because it improves curses and auras?

Second question: Auras. You state that "You should use Purity until you cap your resistance at 75% from gear then switch to Hatred for extra cold damage on zombies/skeletons." On the other hand, you show Purity in the Generosity link, which seems like a contradiction. Now that my resistances are capped and I switched to CI, I use Discipline instead of Purity as the unlinked aura, only to find my zombies suffering (even more) against bosses and on some maps with elemental damage even against mobs. Should I be able to run 3 auras (without Enlighten, because I have not found Enlighten yet and am still debating with myself over whether to buy a level 1 Enlighten now, or wait until I can afford a level 2 one…)?

Third question: Desecrate. I currently find myself using Desecrate with Spell Echo and Faster Casting instead of Arc, simply because I always run out of corpses during boss fights (especially with Flesh Offering). I saw you had Desecrate in your secondary weapon. Do you often switch, or just during boss fights or when your Zombies die?

Fourth question: Boss fights. As stated before, I'm not the best player when it comes to mechanics and movement, my biggest problem are boss fights, especially in small, sealed boss rooms (I still have not beaten merciless Malachai…). Before the CI switch, I simply ran out of life flasks eventually or was killed too quickly for me to react (during my last attempt, I had 4.5k ES and 3k life, -7% chaos res I think. I was so constantly receiving damage that my ES never regenerated, and then I was killed in what felt like a single attack at some point). Am I just doing it wrong, or is there some better way to stay out of harms way in boss fights, or some way to make sure ES regenerates (Immortal Call… probably not)? Also, my zombies seem to die very quickly (5L with Minion Damage, Fortify, Melee Physical Damage and Culling Strike, for boss fights, otherwise with Melee Splash instead of Fortify), or at least quicker than I can re-summon them (while trying to keep moving to avoid damage, cursing (no pun intended), etc.). Am I too slow?

Sorry for the wall of text. :D

tl;dr:

Which jewels do you recommend?
Should I run three auras, or do two suffice?
How do you not run out of corpses (during boss fights)?
How do you stay alive during boss fights effectively?
How do you keep your zombies alive during boss fights?

Thanks in advance.