Does summoning minions get any good?

Hi , i started to play a couple days ago , i'm actually a shadow (currently lvl 29 in act 2) but i have a lvl 7 raise zombie gem and recently got a summon skeleton one. Thing is I like the idea of summoning and having an army fighting for me, but so far my zombies die too fast, they aren't of much help and seem like a waste of mana. Was wondering if i should keep leveling those gems and perhaps when I start allocating minion passive skills they'll last longer and deal more damage, or perhaps that's a bad idea. Thanks for any answer.

Gets a lot better around act 3 cruel.

Thanks for the tip, I have another question now. I started summoning skeletongs but they just stay wherever I summonm them, they don't follow like zombies, and if i go too far they vanish. Is this normal? it's meant to be that way?........because im finding skeletons useless so far.

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Drkzaleos wrote:

Thanks for the tip, I have another question now. I started summoning skeletongs but they just stay wherever I summonm them, they don't follow like zombies, and if i go too far they vanish. Is this normal? it's meant to be that way?........because im finding skeletons useless so far.

read the skil description again. they last 20 sec and they are not useless, once you get minion instability they will kill those nasty bosses that shred your zombies apart, and they act as a shield for your zombies aswell

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Drkzaleos wrote:

Thanks for the tip, I have another question now. I started summoning skeletongs but they just stay wherever I summonm them, they don't follow like zombies, and if i go too far they vanish. Is this normal? it's meant to be that way?........because im finding skeletons useless so far.

You effectively have two options about how you want your summons to work:
1) Zombie-focused. Meaning Zombies will be the bulk of your power instead of your spectres. Zombies are a bit more reliable since all you need to summon them is a nearby corpse but they do less damage compared to spectres.

2) Spectre-focused. Meaning Spectres will be the bulk of your damage and your Zombies will be backup or shields. Spectres have the potential to do more damage than Zombies but if a spectre dies, you'll be portaling back to town to get another one from wherever.


All three summons have different behaviors too.

Zombies - Zombies will follow you wherever you go. They can get tanky and do a lot of damage, especially when you pick up more passives and start carrying a mobile army with you. However, Zombies typically don't go through doorways without you and cramped areas can be a bit of a problem. They'll wander about half a screen away from you and always return.

Skeletons - Skeletons are basically zerg fodder. With Minion Instability, they're what summoners use to solo every boss. Skeletons wander wherever they want to and attack generally whatever is closest. They have low damage and low APS. They're used on a totem for ease of summoning (Since they're not very tanky) by a majority of people.

Spectres - Spectres reanimate the mirror copy of a minion. If you Raise Spectre a rare mob, it'll be reduced to its base type and lose all of its rare mods. However, magic mobs typically retain their mods. Spectres have the potential to do more damage than Zombies and Skeletons but you'll have to babysit them when things get rough. If you have 4 Spectres and lose 1, no big deal. If you lose them all, you might as well portal out and go back to whichever map you got them to get more. Spectre focused builds have a lot of damage but you'll pretty much be playing 100% support to keep them alive. Also, some spectre AIs are very cowardly, making them a lot more reliable to stay alive on their own.



Just my 2 cents from playing a pure summoner.
Also, everyone's right. Summoners are very weak and squishy in the early levels. If you're rushing minion passives it gets better a lot faster but Summoners usually scale into late game so they can face roll everything later rather than sooner.

Okey, thanks a lot for the answers.

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However, magic mobs typically retain their mods.

Nope. This is not true. All spectre raised will turn into the mob's base form.

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Not all spectre are squishy. For example I use burning miscreations and I can stack defensive support gems on them because they use unrighteous fire which scales off hp anyways.

To counter the narrow passage AI stupidity you'll want to run past or away from the pack of monsters so your minions can regroup on your character.

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@OP. Don't rely entirely on your minion early-mid game they are really squishy. Try using skills with high base damage like bear/fire traps.

i just started leveling, at lvl 40 I'm still relying on freezing pulse. However with 2 specters, 5 zombies and 8 skeltons it's easy mode. They may not be the best dps atm. but they are an awsome shield

Thanks for the answers. I started a witch now, was building a Shadow and wanted to make an ice caster-summoner combination but then i realised....my enemies were frozen and left no corpses behind, which sadly killed my plans...I still don't like using a female character :( ... but i want to build a good summoner.

Have a couple more questions:

- Can Minion gems stack? for example 2 rase zombie gems in order to summon 6, or only 1 works.
- I read around some old topics that minions hits on monsters wont be affected by character's increased rarity of items found, is that still the same way?

Thanks.

Don't even bother with other spells u really don't need it. Sadly if u want to be point efficient you'll need to start witch.

Well here's some teaser vids of my summoner to show you that u should continue and not be discourage at how weak summoners are early game. B/c they are an absolute beast when you reach end game. My entire youtube ch is pretty much me playing around with my summoner builds and trying different things out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxTlnGJiEjI 70map run

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdnW-EG90xc 72map run

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- Can Minion gems stack? for example 2 rase zombie gems in order to summon 6, or only 1 works.

No they cannot. Only 1 zombie gem works.

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- I read around some old topics that minions hits on monsters wont be affected by character's increased rarity of items found, is that still the same way?

This was an old bug. I believe it is fixed now and minions properly gain IIR/IIQ.