Heavy Summoner Arc Witch Guide [ Video Included ]

Spoiler Warning: The contained video shows gameplay footage from act 3.

Today I will be discussing my current build in open beta. At the time of posting I am level 76. The video showcasing the build and describing it in detail can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QmGHmemC2Y

This shows my build in act 3 merciless at Lunaris Temple Floor 2. This zone will be your final destination to grind maps.



Your passive tree skills should look like this at the following levels ( allowing a small disparity in levels due to optional quest rewards )
Note: Get static blows as soon as you have gotten minion instability, this was forgotten when I was making these urls.

Level 20: http://tinyurl.com/heavysummoner20

Level 30: http://tinyurl.com/heavysummoner30

Level 40: http://tinyurl.com/heavysummoner40

Level 50: http://tinyurl.com/heavysummoner50

Level 60: http://tinyurl.com/heavysummoner60

Level 70: http://tinyurl.com/heavysummoner70

Level 75: http://tinyurl.com/heavysummoner75

The basics of this build are to have an army of zombies that do immense amounts of damage while you debuff the enemy with a chained arc. Your
basic fight consists of approaching an enemy group and dropping a spell totem with summon skeletons attached. These skeletons act as a meat
shield between you and your enemies, providing damage in their melee attacks and significant AOE damage to enemies as they explode with minion
instability.

The benefits of this build include:
High Damage, Both AoE and single target
Extremely High Survivability
Great group synergy by protecting the group with zombies and debuffing the enemies with arc
Extremely easy to solo with at high levels
Excellent clear rate for Maps


The drawbacks of this build:
May be annoying to group members due to summons
Mediocre at lower levels
Tough on act bosses such as Merveil, Vaal, and Piety


The gear, gems, and support gems you want with this build are as follows:


Weapon -
Wand with high spell damage.
With this weapon you will have your arc attached. It is necessary to have chain attached to hit 2 extra targets. Arc is used as a tool to spread
shock, not intended for high amounts of damage. If your mana regen allows it your other support gem can be faster casting or lightening pen.

Amulet:
Sidhebreath Paula Amulet. This amulet increases your minions' movement speed, health, and damage.

Helm -
Energy shield helm with plus 2 to minion level gems.
With this armor you will have your raise zombie gem, along with increased minion health, increased minion speed, and increased minion damage
attached as supports.

Boots -
Increased movement spead.

Shield -
High increased spell damage.


Other gems and supports:

Spell totem with summon skeletons, and a faster casting gem attached as a support.

Clarity with reduced mana as a support.

Wrath with reduced mana as a support.

Raise specter with increased minion damage and greater multiple projectiles attached as supports.

Conductivity gem.


Fight rotation:

You will start by summoning your zombies and specters. Once you approach a group of monsters you will summon a skeleton totem
nearby. This will summon your waves of skeletons that act as a meat wall, and provide good dps as they explode. Next you will cast conductivity on the group
to reduce their lightning resistance and increase their chance to be shocked. Once they are cursed spam arc until they are destroyed. Re-summon your
zombies and spectres as they die, and try to keep them at max.

A note on specters:
It is beneficial to summon ranged specters as your pets. Melee specters die quickly, and don't put out the same amount of damage that ranged specters with
lmp or gmp are capable of.



A note to low levels:
At low levels I believe it is not only safer, but much quicker to run freezing pulse than arc. You will be using this spell until around level 40 when you have minion
health gems attached to your zombies, chain equiped to your arc, and have a sidhebreath paula amulet equiped. Attach a faster projectiles to freezing pulse
(as it does more damage the closer you are to an enemy, thus making this range extended due to the distance freezing pulse travels with faster projectiles)
along with a LMP until you get your zombie health gem, amulet, and chain.

Leveling a summoner may be harsh at first but mid 30's and especially once you get spell totem with skeletons you will notice a big increase in survivability and
killing speed.



If you found this helpful or to keep up on my builds and guides please subscribe to my youtube page www.youtube.com/voidmoongaming and follow me on my twitch stream www.twitch.tv/void_moon. I answer questions here live to the best of my ability so feel free to pop in and ask away!

Do you think that this build is objectively better than your fire build, or just different? Did you decide to switch to arc specifically because of the complication you ran into where pierce wasn't making your fireballs explode the way you thought they did?

Do you have any tips at the start or is it just something you have to push though until the mid 30's? I'm at level 15 right now and it just seems like minions die in like .1 seconds. If they even walk in anything that's elemental they all fall over dead in a blink of an eye.

"

ViktorNY13 wrote:

Do you have any tips at the start or is it just something you have to push though until the mid 30's? I'm at level 15 right now and it just seems like minions die in like .1 seconds. If they even walk in anything that's elemental they all fall over dead in a blink of an eye.

Yes, I suggest practically not even summoning minions and just using freezing pulse to level until you get skeleton totem. Freezing pulse is just so easy to level with.

"

ViktorNY13 wrote:

Do you have any tips at the start or is it just something you have to push though until the mid 30's? I'm at level 15 right now and it just seems like minions die in like .1 seconds. If they even walk in anything that's elemental they all fall over dead in a blink of an eye.

I personally like this build more. Arc makes everything super lazy, and the debuff is excellent in a group. At my level my minions just chew through everything, it is quite a safe and fast build.
I still find it debatable whether or not fireballs work the way I thought they did and pierce can easily be replaced with fork. Even so, the build still did a lot of damage, fire trap is nothing to mess with.

Another great build Void. I started out using your Fire Summoner build and have now transitioned to this one(lvl 19 atm). Thankfully your didn't change the first half of the build from the previous one =P


Would you recommend picking up the Minion Life and Minion Damage support gems? I'm waiting on choosing these as quest rewards as the choices also include Flammability, Conductivity, Fork, Summon Skellies and of course Arc.


Which would be the best pick out of those?

"

Demious wrote:

Another great build Void. I started out using your Fire Summoner build and have now transitioned to this one(lvl 19 atm). Thankfully your didn't change the first half of the build from the previous one =P


Would you recommend picking up the Minion Life and Minion Damage support gems? I'm waiting on choosing these as quest rewards as the choices also include Flammability, Conductivity, Fork, Summon Skellies and of course Arc.


Which would be the best pick out of those?

Yes minion life and minion damage are both necessary. You will also need skellies, arc, and conductivity. You can buy them fairly cheap from people though, around an alc each and you'll get them within minutes.

Why not spend a point for Static Blows? Figured it'd be key in shock based builds.

"

Vantana wrote:

Why not spend a point for Static Blows? Figured it'd be key in shock based builds.

"

VoidMoon wrote:

Note: Get static blows as soon as you have gotten minion instability, this was forgotten when I was making these urls.

Edit:- Ah void beat me to it