Heavy Summoner Arc Witch Guide [ Video Included ]

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Raggr wrote:

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Hi, I've been following this guide and I have a question!

We only need Spell totem and Summon skeletons? Why not added support gems like minion life or/and minion damage?

Im guessing this is because we want the skellies to blow up asap, thus causing a ton of more dmg. More life = less explotions. But perhaps there's another explanation?

Faster Casting / Minion Damage / Spell Totem / Skellies

I don't think its debateable that this is the best set up for the totem for this build.

On a side note - I'm now running level 70-72 maps on a regular basis with this build and I've come to believe the Silk Summoner Boots are indeed to0 good - not to use.

A few pages back I believed that a good pair of 30% speed / 80+ life boots was better (It still would be for hardcore I believe) but the 3rd spectre just makes everything so much safer/faster.

For me, Death's Bargain is out because I want to max Arc's damage (I'm up to 1560 tooltip dps on it) - so the boots are the only place left to get the Spectre.

Only bad part is its hard to get your Silk boots to be four linked. I burned about 20 fusings and 30 Chroms to get them linked BBBR and have skellies in them.

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Snowhammer wrote:

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Raggr wrote:

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Hi, I've been following this guide and I have a question!

We only need Spell totem and Summon skeletons? Why not added support gems like minion life or/and minion damage?

Im guessing this is because we want the skellies to blow up asap, thus causing a ton of more dmg. More life = less explotions. But perhaps there's another explanation?

Faster Casting / Minion Damage / Spell Totem / Skellies

I don't think its debateable that this is the best set up for the totem for this build.

On a side note - I'm now running level 70-72 maps on a regular basis with this build and I've come to believe the Silk Summoner Boots are indeed to0 good - not to use.

A few pages back I believed that a good pair of 30% speed / 80+ life boots was better (It still would be for hardcore I believe) but the 3rd spectre just makes everything so much safer/faster.

For me, Death's Bargain is out because I want to max Arc's damage (I'm up to 1560 tooltip dps on it) - so the boots are the only place left to get the Spectre.

Only bad part is its hard to get your Silk boots to be four linked. I burned about 20 fusings and 30 Chroms to get them linked BBBR and have skellies in them.

On a side note - Snowhammer: how fast do you reckon your killspeed is in comparison to other classes? Do you primarily solo maps or are you generally allowed in parties, even though you summon a shitload of zombies etc?

Thanks in advance.

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Raggr wrote:

On a side note - Snowhammer: how fast do you reckon your killspeed is in comparison to other classes? Do you primarily solo maps or are you generally allowed in parties, even though you summon a shitload of zombies etc?

Thanks in advance.

Its hard to saw when I haven't played any other build my self at the end game.

I feel like I go really fast when I solo. On average, 1 map may take me 10-12 min - longer if its got nasty mods on it (like chaos per second - added 90% monster damage - 50% slower mana/life regen)

I solo alot - however, I'm lucky enough to have found a good group of people who don't mind summoners, so I run with them too.

Walking up and spamming my Arc will never compare to someone with chain/gmp stacked on somthing like Multi Shot or Power Siphon - but overall - Me+ my minions makes up for it I think.

We have speed and a wall of saftey to stand behind.

questions on gem lvling.

Which gem not to lvl? or maintain at certain lvl?

For both summoner arc / fireball

many thanks

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Snowhammer wrote:

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Raggr wrote:

On a side note - Snowhammer: how fast do you reckon your killspeed is in comparison to other classes? Do you primarily solo maps or are you generally allowed in parties, even though you summon a shitload of zombies etc?

Thanks in advance.

Its hard to saw when I haven't played any other build my self at the end game.

I feel like I go really fast when I solo. On average, 1 map may take me 10-12 min - longer if its got nasty mods on it (like chaos per second - added 90% monster damage - 50% slower mana/life regen)

I solo alot - however, I'm lucky enough to have found a good group of people who don't mind summoners, so I run with them too.

Walking up and spamming my Arc will never compare to someone with chain/gmp stacked on somthing like Multi Shot or Power Siphon - but overall - Me+ my minions makes up for it I think.

We have speed and a wall of saftey to stand behind.

Thanks a ton. I'll get a feel for my ranger and then decide. I've only reached level 38 with this build & I guess I'm just finding its charm.


Once again, thanks for your quick answer.

If arc only is used to spread shock, why bother with so much damage on the wand+shield? What about using the biggest badest 2-hander you could ever find? And pair it with Hatred. Perhaps an extra +18% dmg node or two and wazooom, your skellys and meatshields will hit quite hard.

Think this would work? Not asking you to rebuild, just thinking out loud of how I might try to build for diversity. I hate copying others :p

Read most of the posts but there are a lot of pages, so sorry if this has been posted/answered before.

The thread uses:

// spell totem + summon skeletons + faster casting + minion damage
// arc + chain + elemental proliferation

I was wondering about maybe:

// spell totem + arc + chain + elemental proliferation
// summon skeletons + faster casting + minion damage + (something else, maybe minion life)

My assumption is that arc+chain+EP is quite mana intensive, which makes a third support difficult, while skele/FC/MD is fairly cheap comparatively and could possibly use a third support.

The benefits then would be less mana usage and/or a third support for skeletons. Also, arguably greater ability to deploy skeletons strategically. Lastly, if no more summoning is needed you can also cast arc as well as the totem.

The negatives would be lower arc damage if just the totem is casting it (which also means less shock duration). Summoning skeletons could be more irritating than casting arc (or just less fun for some people).

I would like to try this out but I am currently not high enough to use spell totem, neither do I have chain. Will be trying it once I can though.

What do people think? Would the skele-combo with a third support be mana-sustainable (as opposed to the arc-combo with a third support)? Could the benefits outweigh the negatives? What third support for skeletons would be best?

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Whakapapa wrote:

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Krisp wrote:

would this build work in HC?

Yes, but it is not easy to play pre-35'ish and requiers you got most minion support gems and summoning skills as well as a spell totem.

So I wouldn't make it as a first HC character

I made it as my first HC (and first POE) char, and I've loved it the whole time (except maybe 29-30)

I play too a summoner with lightning magic (arc) and till now it works ok (mid 30 only). Had a firestorm-summon mix in CB which was quite strong and wanted to try something different while staying with summoons

Thought about using 2 arc totems and concentrate my self-casting on summons and curses. Using a dagger with 51% added spell damage and 80% global crit chance.

You think that could work as well? I mean i havent seen the idea of 2 totems in the whole thread (perhaps i overlooked) so i get a bit worried if its not a that good idea with arc ^^ Not to mention no one seems to use daggers while hoping on alot of criticals.

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Aimeryan wrote:

// spell totem + summon skeletons + faster casting + minion damage
// arc + chain + elemental proliferation

I was wondering about maybe:

// spell totem + arc + chain + elemental proliferation
// summon skeletons + faster casting + minion damage + (something else, maybe minion life)

You could of course try this - but from my expirience it would not be optimal at all.

First - casting Arc at level 19 with Proliferation and Faster Casting costs right about 62 Mana (62.4 by my math)

Casting Summon Skellies with Minion Life, Minion Damage and Faster Casting would cost about 94.5 mana.

Right now, at level 77 I have nearly enough mana regen to endlessly cast Arc (I'm not quite there yet) - if I were to reverese this, I would need to find another 50+% mana regen to spam skellies.

The only plus I see is that you can position your skellies more - but I find (espicaily in high level maps) more often than not you want to be able to throw your totem into the next room and let your skellies "pave the way" while you sit back and either wait or Arc what you can.

Any way - end of the day youcan do/try what ever you like! Thats the beauty of this game :) But I don't see it as being nearly as efficicient as the "normal" way.

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Shurakai wrote:

I play too a summoner with lightning magic (arc) and till now it works ok (mid 30 only). Had a firestorm-summon mix in CB which was quite strong and wanted to try something different while staying with summoons

Thought about using 2 arc totems and concentrate my self-casting on summons and curses. Using a dagger with 51% added spell damage and 80% global crit chance.

You think that could work as well? I mean i havent seen the idea of 2 totems in the whole thread (perhaps i overlooked) so i get a bit worried if its not a that good idea with arc ^^ Not to mention no one seems to use daggers while hoping on alot of criticals.

On the same line as above - I don't see this as being more efficient, but it could be fun? Double arc Totems, but neither one is doing the damage you could do if your casting it your self (and as you say lesser shock times).

Plus, call me crazy, but I don't think of spamming skellies as fun - I like minions, but the thought of keeping 13 of the things up during every fight - compared to casting one totem doesn't sound appealing (gameplay wise).

Also - we're not hoping on Criticals. The passive node that grants you 10% chance to shock and the 10% chance from Conductivity - along with 6-8% from a Quality Arc Gem means you don't need to hope for Crits. Just spam - Proliferation does the rest.