[Invasion] Sarah the Self-found Solo Summoner
" I'd imagine those traps and curses would drop your horde pretty quick, smart move :D |
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Rima's a lot weaker in 1.13 than previously. But I am unsure if you want to try her out, as she is quite dangerous if she gets that ice storm on you.
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Just got a curious question, I see you always have LMP with your Raise Spectre? Why is this or am I correct in saying if you summon a "spectre" you look for a ranged creature?
Would you please give us a quick write up on your gems again, and why you use certain combo's. Thanks once again for this awesome write up and continual continuation of the post. EDIT: Which are self cast as well please? EDIT: Thanks for the lengthily explanation, far more than I was expecting. To Die Is Not An Option, To Fight Until DIESync Is The Only Answer. ☺☻☺ Happy Hunting Exiles. Last edited by GrumpyBear5043#3315 on May 15, 2014, 3:36:51 PM
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" I guess it's the lack of red mana that's hurting you. Maybe templar/mara brotem builds are easier for solo self-found, as you get everything you need and still don't have to tank yourself. Can't think of a catchy name however, so I guess that's out. |
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" " Yeah, I figured she probably got the nerf bat, but on a summoner even a weaker boss with crazy AoE is nasty. I've killed her a few times in Ambush league in the Neglected Cellar corrupted zone, so I feel no need to have that particular experience again. " If I found a Blood Magic, I'd be seriously tempted to use it with Clarity. But the thing that's really causing mana issues is the lack of a Reduced Mana gem. If one of those dropped, life would get easier in a hurry. Still, even the current situation isn't too bad, now that I have those extra life/mana nodes. I can't resummon spectres in battle, but everything else works fine, with flasks needed only rarely. " Sure, no problem. I pretty much always choose ranged spectres because they live a lot longer than melee, plus they do more damage since they spend a lot less time moving into attack range, which means more time actually attacking. Lesser Multiple Projectiles is a huge damage boost for any projectile-based spectre since it triples the number of possible hits, and in the vast majority of cases you want your spectres hitting as many targets as possible. I've also got Minion Damage and Fire Penetration linked to the spectres for more damage. Ever since I got Desecrate and made it to the Solaris Temple waypoint, I've used pretty much nothing but Flame Sentinels, which is why Fire Penetration is a good fit. My other minion gems: Summon Raging Spirit-Increased Duration-Melee Splash. The spirits obviously do more damage with the increased duration since they're alive longer, and the Melee Splash really helps clear packs quickly. Plus Melee Splash is huge against cannot-die-aura bosses since it lets the spirits do damage to the boss even if their path is blocked by a undying escort. Someday I'd like to add a Faster Casting as well, but that's going to need better mana management as well as the right links on my gear. Raise Zombie-Animate Guardian-Minion Damage: I don't have the gems I'd really like for the zombies yet. My preference is Zombies-Minion Damage-Faster Attacks-Multistrike, and I'll build toward that as I find the right gems. In the meantime this fits in my gear. Summon Skeleton-Spell Totem: This is key. You need tanking in many situations and the Skeletotem is about the best tanking you can get. Makes a great scout, too...if I'm not sure of the upcoming terrain I'll drop the totem at the edge of my screen so it gets initial aggro. Eventually I'd like to also link Culling Strike to this, once I have the right gear links and a bit more mana free. Other stuff includes: Desecrate: Mainly used to make corpses for Flesh Offering in cases where none are available. Also used when I first log in (or something kills the horde) to get the right corpses at a Solaris Temple level 2 waypoint. Flesh Offering-Increased Duration: Key skill to improve DPS by improving minion attack/cast speed. I use this pretty much every fight. The duration is a nice bonus but not really required, as I can always just recast Desecrate-Flesh Offering to refresh it if needed. Convocation: Big fan of this gather-the-horde skill as a utility spell. Keeps the horde alive in cases when they want to kill themselves on the environment (burning ground, poison clouds, etc), as well as being useful when the terrain causes them to get confused and separated away from me. I only leveled it up to 7 for now to keep the mana cost down, as the secondary regen effect isn't really a big deal, but I'll probably level it up more eventually. Enfeeble: My favorite curse since it keeps the horde alive longer in massive damage situations, such as massed voidbearers or nasty AoE bosses. As a general rule, you don't need a lot more damage from your curse, since the horde under the Flesh Offering effect is going to put out a ton of damage...but only if they stay upright. Enfeeble helps with that. Purity of Fire/Lightning: Zombies are inherently good against Cold damage but not the other two, so running these auras maximizes their survival as well as my own. I could have chosen a single Purity of Elements instead of running these two, but the extra max resist points can really help, and I had these two available earlier on anyway. Clarity: Can always use more mana. Other than a full horde resummon (which I can run out of a battle and take my time with), everything I cast is fairly low mana cost, and I want to cast it quickly. So good mana regen is a good way to keep things moving. Right now I cast everything myself (well, except skeletons from the totem). Eventually I'd like to do the standard Cast on Damage Taken-Molten Shell-Enduring Cry combo that almost every build uses, but the gems haven't dropped yet and I'd need to rework my gear sockets anyway. Current gear: |
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Level 65-66
Forward into the Caverns level 1. Lots of devourers, including Kamaq, but this time he spawned in a fairly open area so I could move away from him easily. Didn't last long. More of the same in level 2, but no Invasion boss on the trip to the waypoint. Headed out into the Old Fields to find the Den. Fought Bladeback Guardian, who incinerated all the zombies but had no answer for a stream of raging spirits cast just outside the nova range. Found the Den and took out the beast without seeing an Invasion boss. Reward ring was mediocre, not worth keeping. Back to Caverns level 2 and onward into the pyramid. Found the stairs up after just a couple of rooms, then had to kill Alpha Paradisae right away. Fairly easy since he didn't spawn near a lot of other monsters, and Flesh Offering ate some of the corpses before he could. Uneventful trip the rest of the way up. The horde destroyed the Vaal Oversoul, who got to make about six moves before he croaked - I counted four summons, one lightning blast, and he waddled around a bit once. He killed off three zombies but that was the extent of the damage. Sped through the City of Sarn, slowing down only to put down Glassmaul. Found Bladetooth in the Slums, who required a bit of moving around since his poison clouds kept eating zombies. Didn't last too long, though. Found the Warehouse entrance before the Crematorium, so decided I'd go through there first and come back later for Clarissa and the remains of Tolman. Lots of nasty snake and lightning archer crossfire there, so I got a lot of mileage out of Convocation to pull the zombies out of the line of fire. Moved on to the Marketplace and made quick work of Marceus the Defaced. No Invasion boss in either of those zones. Found the decanter, so I won't have to backtrack for that later. Proceeded through the Battlefront to the waypoint and then the Docks entrance, without seeing an Invasion boss. In the Docks, roamed around until I found the waypoint, fighting the Book Burner along the way. Had to make use of Convocation several times to keep the horde from standing in the whirlwinds and freezing pulse spam from his buddies, and do some resummoning as well. Once all his friends were down, I just had to avoid his whirlwinds and lightning warp while the horde killed him. Talked to Fairgraves to get rid of the flask. Hit level 66 and finished out that set of three life/mana nodes. |
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I'm just curious, what's your plan for Sarah? Are you going to "finish" the game with Dom or is it onwards to mapping? If you do hang on to those dawn/dusk sacrifice pieces btw, they're basically extra chisels.
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" I'll keep going as long as she survives, so I do intend to try maps at some point. I assume you're talking about the stone hammer recipe to get the chisels? Hadn't really thought about it, but that's a good use for them, thanks for pointing it out. |
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" This is something I didn't know until I read this and looked it up on wiki: "Placing any one of the sacrifice vaal fragments with a map into the map device will increase the IIQ of that map by 5% per sacrifice piece. Doubles or triples of the same piece will not work." |
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Oh, nice, that's even better than the stone hammer recipe. Thanks for pointing it out!
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