Flaming_Newbie
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Flaming_Newbie's Summoner Guide
Before I begin, if you think that decripfy is better than amp on crowds... get out. Because of its TINY radius and short duration, you be constantly casting it instead of doing other things (i.e. not dieing). Also, decripfy only makes the monster take +50% damage compared to amp’s +100%. As for slowing monsters… you really don’t need it, your skellys can stay alive for a long time.
Also a note on lag: Summoners don't lag as much as people think, revives are the major source of lag. In the previous patches, because skellys generally sucked, most summoners use revives as their main summon. Now with 40+ revives running around THAT will create some lag. So keep in mind to keep your revives to a minimum.
Skill Distribution
Skeleton Mastery: 20
This skill is your hidden helper. It improves the damage of your skellys, magi, and revives.
Raise Skeleton: 20
This is your main damage dealing skill. Skellys own in all difficulty levels unlike in 1.09, they hit often and kill fast, and stay alive.
Raise Skeletal Mage: 20
These are a ranged version of the skelly. When they are summoned they randomly get (you can't choose) 1 of 4 elements that they shoot: fire, cold, lightning, and posion. These babys can spit out some serious damage at high lvls so it’s worth it.
Everything else in the Summon tab: 1
Yes, I know your thinking, "1?!? wtf, you don't max revives or a even a GOLEM?!?!". Yes that’s right, because your main damage dealing skill is skellys so you don't really need to max a golem. As for revives, its hard to keep alive more than 20 revives at a time because they have a little over a 2 minute time limit before they die. And as I mentioned before, revives cause lots of lag.
Amplify Damage: 1
This will help out your skellys by DOUBLING the physical damage the monsters take.
Bone Armor: 1
Even with one skill point, this can mean the difference between dieing and living.
Corpse Explosion: 1
This is the ultimate crowd control skill. Very useful if you wanna help your summons along.
Total points: 72
Now... wondering what to do with the rest of your points? Here you have several options. 1) you can max out bone spear/spirit to do some damage while your summons fight. 2) max bone armor and work on its synergies 3) get some more curses (confusion comes to mind) 4) or max a golem (useless in my opinion, but hey its your char)
Stat Distribution
Strength: varies
Depending on your equipment you may need more or less strength. Just remember, don’t pump ur your strength at lvl 61 to wear trang belt when you have enigma in stash waiting for you at lvl 65.
Dexterity: none, 75, or max block
With dex you can do 3 things. You can leave it at base, which will be bad for blocking but more for life. You can put into dex till 75 with gear bonuses in case you plan on using wiz spike to teleport. Or you can go for max block to keep those attacks from even reaching your health. I suggest leaving it at base to leave more for vit.
Vitality: the rest
Put your points here. This will keep you from dieing. Kinda makes sense, don’t it?
Energy: 60 or none
Here you can put points into it or if you don’t want to you don’t have to. Just keep in mind that at high levels, skellys cost 50 mana EACH to summon. And you use Teleport it can also drain your mana orb very fast.
Mercenary ]
Your merc is a very important part of this build. Of course the one you should get is the might merc, the offensive merc in Act 2 Nightmare.
Gear for your merc:
Helmet: Guilliaume’s Face, Orphans set (good for crushing blow) or Perf eth gaze
Armor: Bramble (your summons get thorns) or Duriel’s shell (can’t be frozen, resists) or Perf Eth Shaft
Weapon: Eth Bonehew with 2xAmn runes
DON’T use doom, this really helps in shattering monsters which is bad for summoners.
The Gear
Im gonna organize this in 3 gear sets, poor, rich, and trang. I wouldn’t recommend using trang because there is a bug with the cast speed so it’s VERY slow with casting (not that you really need a fast cast rate). Trang is just a fun way to play this build.
Poor
Helmet: Shako (socket with um)
Armor: Skin of the Viper Magi
Belt: Glooms Trap
Gloves: Trang gloves
Boots: Silkweave
Amulet: +1 to all skills
Rings: 2xSOJ
Shield: Homunculus
Wand: Arm of King Leoric
Rich
Helemet: +3 summoning skills with life/resits/fhr (socket with um)
Armor: Enigma
Belt: Trangs belt
Gloves: Trang gloves
Boots: Marrow Walks
Amulet: Maras or +3 to summon skills amulet.
Rings: 2xSOJ or 2xBK ring
Shield: Homunculus (socket with um)
Weapon: Arm of King Leoric*
Weapon II: CTA+ Lidless
Inventory: 10xsummon gcs with FHR or life, and small charms with fhr/life/resists and Anni
**NOTE** Im sure someone will say “WTF?!? King Leoric suxOrz! Hoto iz pwnzOr!!†Well its not. Just look at the wand, you get total, +5 to skelly mastery +5 to raise skelly and +4 to magi. THESE are your main damage dealing skills, so +3 to all skills won’t make a difference (it will actually make you cause LESS damage). But it is good to have a hoto in the stash for those situations when high resist is needed.
Trang
Full Trang Set
Weapon: Arm of King Leoric
Boots: Marrow Walks
Amulet: Maras or +3 to summon skills amulet.
Rings: 2xSOJ or 2xBK ring
Inventory: 10xsummon gcs with FHR or life, and small charms with fhr/life/resists and Anni
Strategy
A summoner can solo ANY part of the game with just his minions. Even the bosses are no match for him. This is strictly a PvM build. If you try to duel with this, you WILL be pwned VERY fast. Also, NEVER EVER EVER go into the Arcane Sanctuary or the Maggot Lair. You will die fast.
Remember, revives cause lag so keep them at a low number. And if your gonna revives something make sure its ranged and not melee. If you revives lots of melee monsters they will just get in the way of your skellys, and your skellys do the most damage.
Non-Teleporting Strategy
With your army, walk toward a group of enemies. When the skellys start to attack the monsters, cast amp to cover every single monster. Summon new monsters as needed. Rinse and repeat!
For a boss get as many revives as you can. you need to walk toward him and right past them until your skellys reach the boss. As they are fighting, cast amp and watch him die.
Teleporting Strategy
DON’T teleport into crowds of enemies. This will mean certain death for you. Teleport to the side of a crowd and let your skellys attack. While they keep the monsters busy, cast amp and resummon as necessary.
For a boss get many revives. After this just teleport ON the boss and walk out of his reach. Cast amp. He will die in no time.
**NOTE** When you use “big†revives (i.e. venom lords or gargantum beasts) and teleport, your revives will get “stuck†inside the monster. They won’t budge and will stay clumped in one spot. The can be useful for boss fights and when you are dealing with a small amount of monsters.
This is just a general guide to making a summoner, there are many things you can change about this and still make a great char.
Before I begin, if you think that decripfy is better than amp on crowds... get out. Because of its TINY radius and short duration, you be constantly casting it instead of doing other things (i.e. not dieing). Also, decripfy only makes the monster take +50% damage compared to amp’s +100%. As for slowing monsters… you really don’t need it, your skellys can stay alive for a long time.
Also a note on lag: Summoners don't lag as much as people think, revives are the major source of lag. In the previous patches, because skellys generally sucked, most summoners use revives as their main summon. Now with 40+ revives running around THAT will create some lag. So keep in mind to keep your revives to a minimum.
Skill Distribution
Skeleton Mastery: 20
This skill is your hidden helper. It improves the damage of your skellys, magi, and revives.
Raise Skeleton: 20
This is your main damage dealing skill. Skellys own in all difficulty levels unlike in 1.09, they hit often and kill fast, and stay alive.
Raise Skeletal Mage: 20
These are a ranged version of the skelly. When they are summoned they randomly get (you can't choose) 1 of 4 elements that they shoot: fire, cold, lightning, and posion. These babys can spit out some serious damage at high lvls so it’s worth it.
Everything else in the Summon tab: 1
Yes, I know your thinking, "1?!? wtf, you don't max revives or a even a GOLEM?!?!". Yes that’s right, because your main damage dealing skill is skellys so you don't really need to max a golem. As for revives, its hard to keep alive more than 20 revives at a time because they have a little over a 2 minute time limit before they die. And as I mentioned before, revives cause lots of lag.
Amplify Damage: 1
This will help out your skellys by DOUBLING the physical damage the monsters take.
Bone Armor: 1
Even with one skill point, this can mean the difference between dieing and living.
Corpse Explosion: 1
This is the ultimate crowd control skill. Very useful if you wanna help your summons along.
Total points: 72
Now... wondering what to do with the rest of your points? Here you have several options. 1) you can max out bone spear/spirit to do some damage while your summons fight. 2) max bone armor and work on its synergies 3) get some more curses (confusion comes to mind) 4) or max a golem (useless in my opinion, but hey its your char)
Stat Distribution
Strength: varies
Depending on your equipment you may need more or less strength. Just remember, don’t pump ur your strength at lvl 61 to wear trang belt when you have enigma in stash waiting for you at lvl 65.
Dexterity: none, 75, or max block
With dex you can do 3 things. You can leave it at base, which will be bad for blocking but more for life. You can put into dex till 75 with gear bonuses in case you plan on using wiz spike to teleport. Or you can go for max block to keep those attacks from even reaching your health. I suggest leaving it at base to leave more for vit.
Vitality: the rest
Put your points here. This will keep you from dieing. Kinda makes sense, don’t it?
Energy: 60 or none
Here you can put points into it or if you don’t want to you don’t have to. Just keep in mind that at high levels, skellys cost 50 mana EACH to summon. And you use Teleport it can also drain your mana orb very fast.
Mercenary ]
Your merc is a very important part of this build. Of course the one you should get is the might merc, the offensive merc in Act 2 Nightmare.
Gear for your merc:
Helmet: Guilliaume’s Face, Orphans set (good for crushing blow) or Perf eth gaze
Armor: Bramble (your summons get thorns) or Duriel’s shell (can’t be frozen, resists) or Perf Eth Shaft
Weapon: Eth Bonehew with 2xAmn runes
DON’T use doom, this really helps in shattering monsters which is bad for summoners.
The Gear
Im gonna organize this in 3 gear sets, poor, rich, and trang. I wouldn’t recommend using trang because there is a bug with the cast speed so it’s VERY slow with casting (not that you really need a fast cast rate). Trang is just a fun way to play this build.
Poor
Helmet: Shako (socket with um)
Armor: Skin of the Viper Magi
Belt: Glooms Trap
Gloves: Trang gloves
Boots: Silkweave
Amulet: +1 to all skills
Rings: 2xSOJ
Shield: Homunculus
Wand: Arm of King Leoric
Rich
Helemet: +3 summoning skills with life/resits/fhr (socket with um)
Armor: Enigma
Belt: Trangs belt
Gloves: Trang gloves
Boots: Marrow Walks
Amulet: Maras or +3 to summon skills amulet.
Rings: 2xSOJ or 2xBK ring
Shield: Homunculus (socket with um)
Weapon: Arm of King Leoric*
Weapon II: CTA+ Lidless
Inventory: 10xsummon gcs with FHR or life, and small charms with fhr/life/resists and Anni
**NOTE** Im sure someone will say “WTF?!? King Leoric suxOrz! Hoto iz pwnzOr!!†Well its not. Just look at the wand, you get total, +5 to skelly mastery +5 to raise skelly and +4 to magi. THESE are your main damage dealing skills, so +3 to all skills won’t make a difference (it will actually make you cause LESS damage). But it is good to have a hoto in the stash for those situations when high resist is needed.
Trang
Full Trang Set
Weapon: Arm of King Leoric
Boots: Marrow Walks
Amulet: Maras or +3 to summon skills amulet.
Rings: 2xSOJ or 2xBK ring
Inventory: 10xsummon gcs with FHR or life, and small charms with fhr/life/resists and Anni
Strategy
A summoner can solo ANY part of the game with just his minions. Even the bosses are no match for him. This is strictly a PvM build. If you try to duel with this, you WILL be pwned VERY fast. Also, NEVER EVER EVER go into the Arcane Sanctuary or the Maggot Lair. You will die fast.
Remember, revives cause lag so keep them at a low number. And if your gonna revives something make sure its ranged and not melee. If you revives lots of melee monsters they will just get in the way of your skellys, and your skellys do the most damage.
Non-Teleporting Strategy
With your army, walk toward a group of enemies. When the skellys start to attack the monsters, cast amp to cover every single monster. Summon new monsters as needed. Rinse and repeat!
For a boss get as many revives as you can. you need to walk toward him and right past them until your skellys reach the boss. As they are fighting, cast amp and watch him die.
Teleporting Strategy
DON’T teleport into crowds of enemies. This will mean certain death for you. Teleport to the side of a crowd and let your skellys attack. While they keep the monsters busy, cast amp and resummon as necessary.
For a boss get many revives. After this just teleport ON the boss and walk out of his reach. Cast amp. He will die in no time.
**NOTE** When you use “big†revives (i.e. venom lords or gargantum beasts) and teleport, your revives will get “stuck†inside the monster. They won’t budge and will stay clumped in one spot. The can be useful for boss fights and when you are dealing with a small amount of monsters.
This is just a general guide to making a summoner, there are many things you can change about this and still make a great char.
