{3.2.0} Spectral Gods: [Life Based Spectre/Golem Hybrid Summoner | Clear Speed | End Game Bossing]

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mattc3303 wrote:

With the cloak build I have 500 armor. So that basically means I have nothing in regards to physical damage reduction.

To be honest I was fairly surprised at the amount of damage I was able to tank purely by using just AA and MoM.

I tested this by destroying all my minions and just throwing myself at packs in a level 73 map. The game changer was probably AA. I tried tanking packs with and without it and AA makes a gigantic difference. Its safe to say that AA is incredibly OP.

that's odd because with my level 18 AA and MoM, a mana pool of at least 600, 3.5k life, and all my minions I died just fine, and quickly, in a level 68 map.

in fact, i've been doing runs trying to figure out a strategy to farm dominus, and it's a serious chore.
although i am happy to report that i survived a direct hit from fist of god on more than 1 occasion. basically zombie damage sucks. i have melee physical and multistrike linked in and run flesh offering the whole time on 7 zombies and it takes them for freaking ever to kill the minions, never mind dominus. and because the kill speed is so slow they get killed of course (yes my seething flasks run dry, on the minions !!). enfeeble helps, but not that much. i'm going to try temp chains next.

don't get me wrong, AA is a _big_ difference and running without it is crazy, but i don't have any idea how you can survive those packs in a 73 map without minions. what's your life now ?

p.s. my friend the summoner can farm DoM with BoR minions. not an option for me....

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plasticeyes wrote:

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mattc3303 wrote:

With the cloak build I have 500 armor. So that basically means I have nothing in regards to physical damage reduction.

To be honest I was fairly surprised at the amount of damage I was able to tank purely by using just AA and MoM.

I tested this by destroying all my minions and just throwing myself at packs in a level 73 map. The game changer was probably AA. I tried tanking packs with and without it and AA makes a gigantic difference. Its safe to say that AA is incredibly OP.

that's odd because with my level 18 AA and MoM, a mana pool of at least 600, 3.5k life, and all my minions I died just fine, and quickly, in a level 68 map.

in fact, i've been doing runs trying to figure out a strategy to farm dominus, and it's a serious chore.
although i am happy to report that i survived a direct hit from fist of god on more than 1 occasion. basically zombie damage sucks. i have melee physical and multistrike linked in and run flesh offering the whole time on 7 zombies and it takes them for freaking ever to kill the minions, never mind dominus. and because the kill speed is so slow they get killed of course (yes my seething flasks run dry, on the minions !!). enfeeble helps, but not that much. i'm going to try temp chains next.

don't get me wrong, AA is a _big_ difference and running without it is crazy, but i don't have any idea how you can survive those packs in a 73 map without minions. what's your life now ?

p.s. my friend the summoner can farm DoM with BoR minions. not an option for me....

try useing warlords mark to give your minions life leech or use vulnerability for more damage and thus more leach from their passives. what auras are you running? grace gives them a ton of evasion to dodge hits. i dont really ever fight dominus even on normal mode (my comp goes like 1 fps in there) i ahve fought him 1 or 2 times though. but does he only do lightning damage (aside from the first adds)? if he does you can drop purity of elements if you are running that. and cast purity of lightning mid fight once you start fighting the humanoid dominus. can also try linking zombies with life leech + vuln. or was it that they are getting 1 shot? you wernt clear to what method they were dieing.

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mayainverse wrote:

try useing warlords mark to give your minions life leech or use vulnerability for more damage and thus more leach from their passives. what auras are you running? grace gives them a ton of evasion to dodge hits. i dont really ever fight dominus even on normal mode (my comp goes like 1 fps in there) i ahve fought him 1 or 2 times though. but does he only do lightning damage (aside from the first adds)? if he does you can drop purity of elements if you are running that. and cast purity of lightning mid fight once you start fighting the humanoid dominus. can also try linking zombies with life leech + vuln. or was it that they are getting 1 shot? you wernt clear to what method they were dieing.

it's a work in progress.

they are not getting 1-shot but it's a war of attrition, and takes a while. I ALWAYS lose zombies, all of them in fact. Without desecrate the fight would be such that I wouldn't even bother and just stick to farming Piety.

I'm running Hatred, Purity of Elements and Clarity of course. I'm trying to find that optimum point of running auras and leaving enough mana to make that very expensive trip down to MoM worthwhile.

one option is to run purity of lightning to cap lightning resists. on the list. i'm relatively unconvinced that 4% more resist is going to make that big a difference. mathematically it surely shouldn't.

the curse stategy is my main problem. i went away from the curse nodes to take more life and i think that was worth the trade-off. the obvious thing to do is either use doedre's damning or windscream to use double curses. it's quite possible that having both temp chains AND enfeeble will do the trick.

the other thing i have yet to investigate is using smoke mine to get the blind. that's where the BoR really makes the difference, generating blinding zombies. In fact, i may try and link up zombies with blind and see if that's more effective than one of the damage gems. i bet it will be. grace is the other option. grace + blind seems _really_ effective.

last but not least. i'm out of sockets. i HATE snapshotting, swapping, whatever. i lose the key assignments. i forget to put gems back in and raise zombies without minion life or damage, or both.
it's an incredible hassle. so i'm trying to come up with a _single_ configuration. for example i may _not_ be able to double-curse without swapping gems and then i probably don't have the hot keys available. it's a problem. the best idea i've got so far is to put useful stuff in the alternate weapon/shield so i can quickly switch between the two. haven't tried yet.

lots to try. it's just kind of pathetic that a 14-level over summoner can't just faceroll Dom. I have decent gear (5L chest), level 18/19 gems and it's still a bunch of work. at +14 levels. that's just nuts. tells you how strong Dom is, because i absolutely roll over piety and theoretically she's only 3 levels lower. GGG's level progression is extremely non-linear.

I saw no mention of rejuv toteem in your post. And 6L zombies are far more powerfull than 5L

For example zombies with high damage output but 2k less life with usually survive better because they kill stuff fasterband leech more.

I suggest you also look at your gameplay they are not supposed to tank big aoe without a scratch. If you were 59 with all zombies passives but with lv 20 gems you will have way less issues with dom


I was used to farmnit with 200hp and less than 1700 es.. but i had to compensate, use terrain and features ;)

What does Mon'tregul go for around these days (Ambush)? For days now I can't seem to spot anyone in trade chat offering it for sale.

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lk_77lk wrote:

I saw no mention of rejuv toteem in your post. And 6L zombies are far more powerfull than 5L

For example zombies with high damage output but 2k less life with usually survive better because they kill stuff fasterband leech more.

I suggest you also look at your gameplay they are not supposed to tank big aoe without a scratch. If you were 59 with all zombies passives but with lv 20 gems you will have way less issues with dom


I was used to farmnit with 200hp and less than 1700 es.. but i had to compensate, use terrain and features ;)

lol. with bone offering they can actually tank dom pretty well. i mean they die, but they don't get wiped out. i use rejuv totem. you _have_ to. my staunching flask always runs dry and that's the only thing that keeps me alive. as good as the life recovery from rejuv is, it can't keep the zombies alive in the first part of the fight. but it absolutely is helping the spectres survive as they can regenerate quite a bit of life while they are safe in their bubbles.

zombies are: RZ ML MD MPD MS

maybe melee splash instead of multistrike ? almost certainly not. loss of that attack speed would really hurt. melee splash instead of melee physical damage might be work but would lower single target damage considerably, so that doesn't seem like a good idea.

i still say it's pathetic that you need a 6L to make a summoner viable to take on Dom, and that's precisely what snapshotting with tabula rasa means.

my spectres are 21. I have a level 19 raise spectre in a +2 minion gem helm. generally the evangelists will survive, they are quite tough. my zombies are level 19.

i _am_ looking at my gameplay. that's precisely why i'm making lots of dom runs trying to fine tune strategy and configuration. i need to integrate smoke mine IF i can find a slot for it without giving up something important.

I still a lot of work to do on the best aura configuration. grace seems like it could greatly extend the zombie life and that would take care of the minions.

finally 1 flame sentinel and 1 evangelist might be the key. you really need a good AoE attack for both the minions AND those stupid totems. whatever those silly freezing searing bond things are they do a lot of damage and are hard to destroy.

BTW, remember i'm trying to use as much MF gear as possible :-)

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plasticeyes wrote:

I'm running Hatred, Purity of Elements and Clarity of course.

That's why you died in a pack of mobs on 73 map. And that's the reason you'll die a lot. You need at least 6 auras to be ok if you choosed MoM build. If you can't run 6-forget about MoM and spend those nodes into +max life.

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plasticeyes wrote:

level 18/19 gems and it's still a bunch of work. at +14 levels.

That's the first reason of your crap damage and low survivability. After BM nerf summoners become ok only with 20\20 all gems(some need to be only lvl 20)

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plasticeyes wrote:

zombies are: RZ ML MD MPD MS

That's the second reason of your crap damage. Swap MD with remote mine-huge DPS increase. Swap ML with FA-another huge DPS increase. Don't swap it if you feel your zombies are dying a lot.

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plasticeyes wrote:

I have a level 19 raise spectre in a +2 minion gem helm. generally the evangelists will survive, they are quite tough. my zombies are level 19.

That's the third reason of our crap damage. 4link spectres(evangelists or flame sentinels) deal, i would say, x3 less dmg in comparison with 6l ones. And yeah, all of them also need 20\20 support gems.

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plasticeyes wrote:

i HATE snapshotting, swapping, whatever.

Then you will NEVER be a summoner. The key of summoner build is snapshoting. Summon'em'all once and make your way through maps with your army without losing anyone. Perma summoning is a waste of time and DPS.



If you still want to be a MoM summoner, then:
Get Tabula Rasa ASAP-the key element of any summoner.
Get Cloak Of Defiance-the key element of MoM without taking those nodes.
Take IR passive if you haven't done it yet. The key element to survive.
Get this gear

Also, would be nice if you get

Sound advice.

Although the only 2 gems you absolutely need to get to level 20 is zombie and raise spectre. The rest is great but not crucial. My stand summoner still doesn't have everything 20/20 yet.

Thou am working on getting a 21/20 zombie and a +1 to gems Tabula by corrupting everything and feeling sad every time it fails =/.

As for the Grasp. Its about 15 ex on ambush. Pricey I know. This is why it is more of a recommended item getting or not getting it is not build breaking or anything.

Mattc, you really like zombies, i see)
Me not, that's why i'm trying to get 21\20 spectre!
But we both the same want that +1 gems tabula!
And +1 gems chober(or white 6L one) would also be nice. I can't paint mine into 6 off to use it with spectres and swap main dmg using dual bargains+Graps on zombies.

And the guy said he has only 14+ other gems, that's why i posted he needs lvl 20. Especially if he uses spectres in only 4l.

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alfapf wrote:

That's why you died in a pack of mobs on 73 map. And that's the reason you'll die a lot. You need at least 6 auras to be ok if you choosed MoM build. If you can't run 6-forget about MoM and spend those nodes into +max life.

i didn't die in a 73 map. it was a 68 map. lol.

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plasticeyes wrote:

zombies are: RZ ML MD MPD MS

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That's the second reason of your crap damage. Swap MD with remote mine-huge DPS increase. Swap ML with FA-another huge DPS increase. Don't swap it if you feel your zombies are dying a lot.

i keep seeing this but the math doesn't seem to support it. I'll go through the math, i'm probably doing something wrong.

without remote mine:

D (1 + X + Y1)
X damage from tree (let's just say 90%)
Y1 from melee damage (47 % )

with remote mine

D (1 + X) (1 + Y2)
Y2 damage from remote mine (47 %)

(1 + 0.9 + 0.47) = 2.37
(1 + 0.9) (1 + 0.47) = 2.79

17% increase in damage. Not what i would call a "huge" damage increase. and now it's much harder for me to summon during combat. when i did this test with BM and remote mine I absolutely could not see any difference.

Faster attacks instead of minion life. minion life _is_ a huge life increase. I find that very hard to believe, but I can try it, maybe (easy with a TR of course).

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plasticeyes wrote:

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I have a level 19 raise spectre in a +2 minion gem helm. generally the evangelists will survive, they are quite tough. my zombies are level 19.

That's the third reason of our crap damage. 4link spectres(evangelists or flame sentinels) deal, i would say, x3 less dmg in comparison with 6l ones. And yeah, all of them also need 20\20 support gems.

ok. i'm working on doing that. i'll get there.

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plasticeyes wrote:

i HATE snapshotting, swapping, whatever.

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Then you will NEVER be a summoner. The key of summoner build is snapshoting. Summon'em'all once and make your way through maps with your army without losing anyone. Perma summoning is a waste of time and DPS.

hey ! you're going to make me cry. ;-)

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If you still want to be a MoM summoner, then:
Get Tabula Rasa ASAP-the key element of any summoner.
Get Cloak Of Defiance-the key element of MoM without taking those nodes.
Take IR passive if you haven't done it yet. The key element to survive.

the TR and alpha's howl are going to be 7-8 ex. so i won't be getting those.

the secutor helm is definitely something i could get and looks quite good. i didn't know that it existed.

I have a chober of course. you'd be crazy not to since they are not very expensive. they probably are now.
i have a sidhebreath.

My zombies have almost 7k life. the fact that they can't survive tells you just how bad their damage is, even when buffed. minion damage, melee damage, multistrike to buff offense and bone offering to buff defense and they still die to level 68 content ? that's just messed up.

IR is probably the most important thing i have yet to try. i will work out the auras to make absolutely sure i can run grace + hatred + PoE + clarity and still have enough mana left to support MoM. if i have to run PoF PoC PoL + grace + hatred + clarity then i'm out of luck. i would expect my next best plan is to run PoL + PoE.

however, if my summons survive, I survive. so i'm unconvinced that IR is that critical, but it's very easy to try since the trip down to MoM put me right next to it.

i still maintain that the snapshotting requirement absolutely shows that the balance around summoners is still broken. they are only viable end-game by using a broken game mechanic. and yeah- snapshotting is a broken mechanic. at this point though, it would amazing if GGG ever fixed it. it would break so many builds.... but then again they nerfed the heck out of VP so anything's possible.

i'll try to provide feedback on what worked for my gear limited build. i still think that it will be useful information.

thanks very much for the advice. i've got lots of things to try.