The Summoner Compendium

Could someone make a list of all the neccesary and compulsory gems, and the recommended ones as well.

Thanks!

I took my Summons a little further and honestly they start to get pretty durable eventually.

Granted, i'm only in cruel so far, but they no longer get one shotted all the time... Which is great ...

My point is .. Stick with it , level those gems and get minion damage and minion life as soon as you can...

cruel is fine till act3...there they get nearly one shoted again by aoe mobs :/

First of all I'd like to thank PyrosEien for the very informative post. Has truly helped me. Also I'd like to add that this is my first ARPG. And to be honest I haven't played many PC games. So this whole theory crafting thing is new to me. But I have to say its definitely part of the fun! I'd love if some of you would take a look and critique my build idea. I'm currently in Act 2 Normal HC. Using the health build listed in PyrosEien's main post. I'm wondering how this build will work for end game content. I Also realize that getting a 6L piece of armor is extremely rare. But as I said this is for end game content..

TL;DR New to ARPG looking for build advice.

Without further adieu:

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Passive Skills Needed
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Minion Instability
Hex Master
Whispers Of Doom

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Skill Slots
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Left Click: Enfeeble
Scroll Button: Flammability
Right Click:Spell Totem > Summon Skeletons
Q: Raise Zombie
W: Raise Spectre
E: Determination Or Discipline
R: Purity
T: Vitality

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Items Needed
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Body Armor 6L with 4 Blue / 1 Green / 1 Red
For Summoning Gems

Helm 4L with 3 Blue / 1 Red
For Minion Instability Skeleton Gems

Boots 4L with 3 Red / 1 Blue or 2 Red / 2 Blue
For Aura Gems

Weapon 3L with 3 Blue
For Curse Gems

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Minion Instability Gems
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Summon Skeletons = Blue
Spell Totem = Blue
Faster Casting = Blue
Fire Penetration = Red

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Summoning Gems
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Raise Spectre = Blue
Raise Zombie = Blue
Minion Damage = Blue
Minion Life = Blue
Life Leech = Red
Faster Attacks = Green

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Aura Gems
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Reduced Mana = Red
Detmination or Discipline = Red or Blue
Vitality = Red
Purity = Blue

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Curse Gems
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Enfeeble = Blue
Flammability = Blue
Increased Area of Affect = Blue

Hi,

I'm basically a PoE noob - I bought a pack so I could play in the closed beta but ended up not playing very much.

I'm playing a witch in hardcore - basically what I want to shoot for is a build where I let pets take the aggro while I stand back and nuke/aoe the crap out of everything. Alternatively, if pets get killed and I can't get them back up (due to no corpses) run/kite like a madman. I will mostly be soloing.

I am looking at doing something like this, as a core:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAVysHY3NTa9vAVHkDCPSLeqcrAuNJsiycSRuvt4dlnC0fAjbF2CSnCNkLKpj6gJ2uGmymrIhAkDOPRtDQm6G4k-vuKPqCx9P7qH1akWqslSBGcbQMkye_l8k98h5I5w==

Is that a reasonably decent core build for what I want to go for, or is it terrible? (the idea being that I can pick up the early spell damage nodes I'm skipping later, or not, depending on if I think I want them - while taking all the minion nodes I want, and leaving me close to some of the spell dmg/aoe increases there in the center so I can pick those up sometime)

Or even, is what I want to go for terrible in the first place?

I haven't leveled very far yet, so if I ought to rethink everything I can easily reroll. Thoughts appreciated.

Is it a good idea to get a couple of +30 dex and +30 str nodes? For green/red support gems and Spell Totem?

Btw, does Inner Force work for your minions? I don't think so but maybe... Not sure about spending 3 points on it.
And is it a good idea to get Elemental Equilibrium and link Zombies or Skeletons with Add Lightning damage to increase the damage of MI?

Just finished Merciless as level 65.

My Zombies/Skelies/Specters killed Piety in about 3 seconds, not sure what happened but i have a feeling that Chaos damage destroys her instantly since it seemed the moment the specters attacked, she died, those multiple projectile attack mobs that look like Andariel from D2 in Lunaris Temple 3 along with the fact she killed 9 Zombies 8k life each exploding on her face because of her Lightning Orb :P

Either way, the only problem with Summoners to me seems to be:

1)Chaos damage.

The Cobra's in Slums/Warehouses and the Unduying Alchemist at the sewers are our worst enemies since they deal AoE chaos damage and the zombies have 0 resist to that.

The Monstrosities with multiple projectile attacks like a machine gun that i mentioned above are the other but since they arent splash or piercing they arent such a huge problem.

2)Zombies and specters are really badly programmed since they are programmed to stay a certain range from the Summoner instead of fighting.

The moment you move half of them if not all move also and your damage goes down insanely.

That really needs to get addressed, i have mobs all around me and the Zombies are running around me like retards because i moved to avoid some melee hit.


Other than the above nothing was/is a problem during the game, havent tried maps yet so cant really comment on that, but generally:

AoE Chaos damage= Summoner has a huge problem.

I don't know if it's so much Chaos damage that is rough on the minions of if it's simply AOE damage. I just died on my level 57 Hardcore summoner to Cruel Piety, I simply could not keep any minions alive against her and she also easily killed my Skeleton Totem.

Do minions have resistances at all? I think they really need a survivability boost. Necromantic Aegis I suppose by I don't see how I can drop my shield, I'm already weak enough as it is due to spending all my points on minions.

Basically anything that did AOE Chaos or Elemental damage rocked my minions. From the little sea witches that blow up in Act 1, the suicidal guys in the Western Forest in Act 2, to the fireball beetles, snakes, alchemists, and Piety in act 3. All of them destroyed my minions and the AOE damage meant that they destroyed all of my minions.

When I died to Piety at level 57 my Zombies had 3601 Life yet they would be dead before I could get them away from the lightning and even the cold arrows.



How did you guys kill Cruel Piety?

"

Grabbler wrote:

Is it a good idea to get a couple of +30 dex and +30 str nodes? For green/red support gems and Spell Totem?

if you need those nodes imo take them

you can always refund them back if you're able to get gear that adds to dex or str later