The Summoner Compendium

You've got what you were warned about. You should have gone for the Minion Instability first ignoring everyithing else. Then the Normal would have been a breeze. Then after getting MI and 2nd Spectre (they're awesome in act 3. Especially those flying fireball-shooting coats from Solar Templar) you should have gone for "normal" long route to MI and respec unnecessary 6 points. And then on lvl42 you would have all minion nodes+MI. And will be free to choose whatever you want - ES nodes or health nodes, dual curses, elemental damage, etc

For a summoning witch, which "Deal with the Bandits" quest reward path is ideal?

(Sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere in the thread, but I didn't see it (I just skimmed many of the pages))

Normal: 8% all res, +40 mana, +40 life, 1 passive skill point

Cruel: +4% attack speed, +4% cast speed, +12% physical damage, 1 passive skill point

Merciless: +1 max frenzy charge, +1 max power charge, +1 max endurance charge, 1 passive skill point

I'm leaning towards: +40 life, +4% cast speed, 1 passive skill point

My reasoning is:

Normal reward: There seems to be a general consensus that the +40 life is the best option.

But since my minions will be being tanking a lot of my damage, would any of the other choices be better (+40 mana maybe)?

Also, I'm not really sure how many +% life nodes I will be taking in the long run, and if it's not many, would the +40 life not be worth it? Or should I be taking a lot anyway? Or is there a critical amount that I need to be taking to make the +40 life worth it? I'm really torn on this one, and would greatly appreciate any advice.

Cruel: The +4% cast speed seems the obvious choice for my summoning witch.

Merciless: I haven't used any of the charges yet and I'm not really planning to, so I'm thinking the 1 passive point would be better.

Anyway, I would greatly appreciate any and all advice on this, particularly about the Normal reward because I'm really torn on that one.

Thank you in advance for any help!

+4% CS seems bleak. There're better nodes. And for what reason do you need CS on a summoner?
I'm going for all passive skill points. They definetely won't be useless.

all skill points? fair enough...

i like to spam firestorm on whatever my minions are fighting, so i figured the extra cast speed can't hurt...

any other advice?

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Geneq wrote:

I just killed Vaal and entered act3 normal, and my summons die almost instantly..and my fireball has crap damage as well and i'm pretty much stuck. Im currently lvl 27, zombies with 418hp, skelletons 109hp.

Here are my passives:

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAB2MI9BzcJ6k74UZxVytr220Zc1N5A30Yfll_xoLHi3qTJ5UgoqOnK7QMv5fAVMHzyT3i9-yK8h4=

Any help would be appreciated.

if you wanted to be able to solo Vaal, then unlock Minion Instability and minion life nodes



you're too far away from MI with your build though, so group up to kill Vaal

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potis wrote:

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.

Were you around before minions teleported to you? It was kinda painful before that. Zombies would just run off in random directions and you would never see them again (unless you went looking, which was dangerous in most areas). There also wasn't the minion counter in the top left corner (which is awesome), so you always had to guess how many zombies you had out and sometimes ended up wasting corpses when you were already at your max, but three of them were all the way back at the beginning of the instance. I'll admit that they could use a bit of enhanced range before porting back to you, but not too much or you are left to your own defenses... which most pure summoners would not be too fond of.

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GoatEatingToilet wrote:

Were you around before minions teleported to you? It was kinda painful before that. Zombies would just run off in random directions and you would never see them again (unless you went looking, which was dangerous in most areas). There also wasn't the minion counter in the top left corner (which is awesome), so you always had to guess how many zombies you had out and sometimes ended up wasting corpses when you were already at your max, but three of them were all the way back at the beginning of the instance. I'll admit that they could use a bit of enhanced range before porting back to you, but not too much or you are left to your own defenses... which most pure summoners would not be too fond of.

Thats just the initial stuff i guess that you mention but my point is.

When i am standing with my monsters at the left side of the screen and the monsters are at the right side, they shouldnt stand around my like idiots.

Hey I wanna go CI build Summoner can anyone help me out with it?
I like his build but not exactly sure which to switch out.

I'm into act 3 and I still think minions need a big buff to their durability. The "wait until lvl 40 +" argument is shit - why should a spec be atrocious until level 45?

People are charging crazy amounts for spell totem. If I wanted a build where I'm spam-clicking 3 4 different abilities I would have just played an elemental witch. I'm just constantly re-summoning EVERY type of my minions constantly.

Can we get a friggin durability buff Devs? It would be cool if my zombies didn't get 1-3 shotted. Or that nice archer I've been waiting to make a spectre out of lasted more than 15 seconds.

Kind of a frustrating build because you're not really summoning a huge army and slowly rolling over things a-la d2 Necromancer... You're just spam-casting paper targets that die before they get the first swing off half the time.

And yes I have minion life on everything and yes and I have almost every +minion health node available.

They just feel more like spells than actual minions. Maybe I'm in the minority of loving minions that actually last once you summon them - because it seems like developers just keep moving away from it since DII.

I'm not asking for something OP - just a slow and steady PVE grinder play style where I can spam curses while my minions tank and dps.

The minion instability meta is cool, but I'd like it to be possible to have minions that actually last as well as that path.

I got to lvl42 with a breeze. If you have a problem with minion durability than you're doing something wrong. And skelies are cool walking bombs, not really summons. as for the zombies - they're quite durable. And half of your spectres in act 3 can clean entire areas by themself.