Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Padre]

Ripped at lvl 55. Killed Cruel Dominus, killed Hillock. Saw that my resists are not maxed so decided to farm Coast for some better gear. 5 seconds after leaving Lioneye's Watch I get ambushed and 1 shotted by Soilmaker, the invasion devourer. Was a great deal of fun. And it was right after I have found LMP and my Flame Totem started to deal some serious damage.

 

[Aothan]

I generally agree Zdzisiu, what I meant was that even for the decidedly casual players there is still a fair possibility for them to be eligible for a number of the interesting prizes available in this event. As for myself I'm just about level 30 and preparing to travel into the Evasion cluster close to the Scion section and then transition to the Armour+Evasion notable and linked resist skill nodes. It is an early diversion from closer skill nodes but the resists and heightened evasion will prove useful for all other levels, however the delay in additional life nodes might be a little on the risky side.

I already have Dodge and should probably just finish the remaining dodge passives as well as Spell Dodging, but that would warrant additional life (because of limited resists), most of this divided approach comes from my odd habit of not wanting to focus on resist properties when choosing items.

other than that, since I'm using Lightning Strike it has dawned on me this is a good example of a skill where using two different sets of linked gems could be used effectively, that is, using two (or in some cases more) of the same skill gems in different skill sets to emphasise different effects or aspects of the skill. For example with Lightning Strike, its close range melee potential compared to its utility as a ranged attack (e.g. multiple projectiles, fork/chain, pierce etc). However because I'm travelling along the Ranger's periphery I'm inclined to try Point Blank and if that is effective will limit the feasibility of using two different Lightning Strike gems for different skill effects.


Padre, by "AA', do you mean Arctic Armour ? For some reason I have never properly used that skill, well mainly because it is difficult to incorporate with my other approaches due to its high mana costs, but I'm sure its effectiveness is more than worth those intensive requirements and could likely be of better use than some of my other defensive options. I wonder if there has been any extensive use of Mind over Matter with Arctic Armour, well I guess it depends in part on which order the damage conversion would go.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Padre, by "AA', do you mean Arctic Armour ? For some reason I have never properly used that skill, well mainly because it is difficult to incorporate with my other approaches due to its high mana costs, but I'm sure its effectiveness is more than worth those intensive requirements and could likely be of better use than some of my other defensive options. I wonder if there has been any extensive use of Mind over Matter with Arctic Armour, well I guess it depends in part on which order the damage conversion would go.

ZiggyD uses Arctic Armor with Mind over Matter on his Ethereal knives scion build here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juBozFqFvio and it seems to work very nice.

From my personal experience: Arctic Armor is awesome. If you can sustain the cost of it, and it is quite high, it is definitely a skill to use. It basically uses just one green socket, no real need for any supports linked, and reduced mana does not work with it. And you dont need to level it up to the maximum, I keep mine at level 17, and it makes me completly immune to fire damage from those pesky Tentacle Miscreations and voidbears. I can literary stay in their fire for hours, even the map bosses, and take no damage. It was a game changer for my CI build because the Tentacle miscreations used to microstun me a lot but now they can't do jack shit. All in all, highly recommended skill, and if you can get it with 20% quality it gives +7% movement speed which is nice too!

 

[T. Reich]

Arctic Armour + token amount of evasion/dodge/block >>>>> huge armor score.

Personally, I've taken to using the AA + EB + Acrobatics combo, even despite the fact that Acro cuts the benefit of EB in half. It's just so strong.

 

[Nim]

Enter Solaris, click on rare strongbox, sick lag, be dead Wtf is this shit, I couldn't even try to get away. And the stuff that spawned around wasn't even that bad.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Enter Solaris, click on rare strongbox, sick lag, be dead Wtf is this shit, I couldn't even try to get away. And the stuff that spawned around wasn't even that bad.

Stronbox lag is the most deadly part of them Some tips for opening stronboxes. Pop some granite flasks, and quicksilver flasks, and maybe quartz (the one that lets you run through mobs) before opening the stronbox and you should be fine. Or you can use the smoke mine teleport ability, drop the mine, click on the strongbox, teleport away. You can do similar thing with lightning warp. And always identify the boxes because some of them have the nasty "Freeze on opening" afix. If yours has it, pop an unfreezing flask right after opening the box.

 

[Nim]

I kinda doubt any of that would have worked, I had really zero control after clicking on it till death. Haven't had any lag this nasty before while opening a box. The worst part is that I can't even be mad that I did something dumb like my last 2 deaths lol.

Oh well, invasion is shit anyway and the strongboxes aren't that much better, just more useless loot pinatas.

 

[Eyeball]

Arctic Armour + token amount of evasion/dodge/block >>>>> huge armor score.

Personally, I've taken to using the AA + EB + Acrobatics combo, even despite the fact that Acro cuts the benefit of EB in half. It's just so strong.

What's so good about Eldritch Battery? Surely having more energy shield is lbetter than oodles of mana. Is it because it allows you to run shitloads of extra auras?

 

[Padre]

It boosts your mana regen to insane levels letting you use high level Arctic Armour. With high level Clarity, Discipline and EB you can get more than 200mana/sec

 

[T. Reich]

200 mana/sec regen is just the lowest decent value, which you can get with just a modest investment. Hell, I've had 200 mana/sec on a non-EB char, it's nothing special.

300 mana/sec is the better value to work towards.

 

[Padre]

Never got that far. My AA EK Scion on Nemesis got mauled by a storm herald. I didn't like EK too much either because of low single target damage. Right now levelling another Templar on Ambush. Gonna go Searing Bond + Flame Totem and see if he can clear a map faster than my witch with her 8 zombies.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Decided to finally pick this up again. Last time I played there were only 2 acts.

Thinking of trying a summoner build, how do supports work with that? Do things like additional melee damage work with minions, or only the minion specific stuff?

 

[Zdzisiu]

Minion damage is affected by Minion Damage passives, support gems linked to the minion skill gem, Auras and Necromantic Aegis. Flesh Offering will temporary increase their move, attack and cast speed while Bone Offering grants attack and spell block chance to your minions. Of particular note, support gems will support the attacks and spells of the minion if the skill is relevant. Minions can critically strike but cannot proc Cast on Critical Strike. Unlike totems, minions can gain charges.

Neither passive skills nor stats from your other equipment affect minions unless they specifically say "Minions _____".

Straight from the wiki.

So it seems only minion specific supports will work.

 

[Padre]

Melee support gems work with some minions. Currently have Raise Zombie with Multistrikeelee Splash+Increased Minion Damage in a +2 levels minion gems helm. With additional 2 raised Evangelist from Sceptre of God and while running Cold damage aura you can clear maps easily.

The key to levelling a summoner is to play as one only after lvl 50 or so. Before that minions are quite weak and your Life Regen aura doesn't do much (better to use life regen totem because it adds flat regen instead of %). I suggest levelling with a Searing Bond gem. It doesn't really need any supports (Increased burning damage is just icing on the cake) and even without any +spell damage nodes it clears whole rooms quickly.

Never used Necromantic Aegis because usually in late game you will die much sooner than your zombies.

You can also direct your minions to a specific monster by using a single target skill. Arc works wonders because it has high shock chance and fast animation.

Currently rolling with 2 curses: Enfeeble+Temp Chains for hard maps and bosses or Enfeeble+Vulnerability for some extra pew-pew.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Melee support gems work with some minions. Currently have Raise Zombie with Multistrikeelee Splash+Increased Minion Damage in a +2 levels minion gems helm. With additional 2 raised Evangelist from Sceptre of God and while running Cold damage aura you can clear maps easily.

The key to levelling a summoner is to play as one only after lvl 50 or so. Before that minions are quite weak and your Life Regen aura doesn't do much (better to use life regen totem because it adds flat regen instead of %). I suggest levelling with a Searing Bond gem. It doesn't really need any supports (Increased burning damage is just icing on the cake) and even without any +spell damage nodes it clears whole rooms quickly.

Never used Necromantic Aegis because usually in late game you will die much sooner than your zombies.

You can also direct your minions to a specific monster by using a single target skill. Arc works wonders because it has high shock chance and fast animation.

Currently rolling with 2 curses: Enfeeble+Temp Chains for hard maps and bosses or Enfeeble+Vulnerability for some extra pew-pew.

Oh, that makes summoners more interesting. Still, isnt the gameplay a bit boring when all you do is run behind your horde and drop curses?

 

[Veelq]

From what i know they nerfed evangelists but i dont know any details. If you want good spectres that, for a change, got buffed but almost no one is using them - try fire alchemists. I really dont know why ppl never mention them in guides - good aoe, can ignite, you can use elemental weakness + flammability curses for big dmg, even vulnerablility works with burn effect of their bombs and ignite.

I played a bow summoner once, its less boring then pure one - i used poison arrow and desecrate as my main skills for dmg. It was a nice non-hardcore build cuz a little low on life. And you can control your minions with a bow attack pretty well, you can even aim on a place behind a wall and they will go through the closest door to that place - which is handy.

Summoner can be one of the best magic find character in PoE.

And last one thing - if vaal haste aura works with minions then its gg. They will massacre everything with that and flesh offering on.

 

[Padre]

Matter of preference. I like that laidback style. Always picked Fishymancer in D2X.

The whole fun of this build is not how you play it but how you build it because there are so many interesting paths you can take that no two summoners are the same.

Just remember that without some better gear and empower gems it might be difficult to kill those corrupted area bosses. They deal a shitton of damage, usually elemental with high aoe and your Zombies reallly don't like that.

During levelling you can pick Minion Instability keystone which makes zombies walking bombs but I would drop it around lvl 50 because it cuts their hp by 33%. There is also a new gem called Convocation I think. It recalls all of your minions to you. Useful in a tight area because Evangelist give you immunity bubble. Also you can teleport your minions on top of a boss.

edit

From what i know they nerfed evangelists but i dont know any details. If you want good spectres that, for a difference, got buffed but almost no one is using them - try fire alchemists. I really dont know why ppl never mention them in guides - good aoe, can ignite, you can use elemental weakness + flammability curses for big dmg, even vulnerablility works with burn effect of their bombs and ignite.

Evangelist got nerfed in their bubble duration - doesn't really matter for me that much. Ppl don't mention flame alchemist because the chaos damage dealing one (from the sewers) are superior. Vulnerability not only increases phys damage but also degen effects. Their downside is that they die too fast.

Another minion to consider is Flame Sentinel from Solaris Temple although 3 of them with some added gems can bring your fps down significantly.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I was actually thinking of using Raging Spirits. I figure if they aren't being targeted (and they aren't around long anyways) they'll be at full health, so they can benefit from +melee damage while full life. So that, + more melee damage + more speed + minion damage should add up to a lot of damage. But I've never tried any of the summons really, so I dunno.

Edit: I was going to mention earlier, the Vaal skills are so fucking fun. Vaal spark is insane even without any supports, I want to try it with LMP. And Vaal Storm Call is really powerful considering it only uses 8 souls on normal.

 

[T. Reich]

Melee support gems work with some minions. Currently have Raise Zombie with Multistrike, melee Splash+Increased Minion Damage in a +2 levels minion gems helm. With additional 2 raised Evangelist from Sceptre of God and while running Cold damage aura you can clear maps easily.

The key to levelling a summoner is to play as one only after lvl 50 or so. Before that minions are quite weak and your Life Regen aura doesn't do much (better to use life regen totem because it adds flat regen instead of %). I suggest levelling with a Searing Bond gem. It doesn't really need any supports (Increased burning damage is just icing on the cake) and even without any +spell damage nodes it clears whole rooms quickly.

You can also direct your minions to a specific monster by using a single target skill. Arc works wonders because it has high shock chance and fast animation.

Some wrongs and omissions here that I'm bound to right .

ALL of the support gems work with minions, as long as minions' means of attacking have the same attributes as the ones support gems are boosting.

All the melee summons - zombies, skellies, raging spirits, animated stuff, melee spectres - are boosted by melee supports, popular ones meing melee physical dmg, multistrike, melee splash. In fact, melee physical damage >> minion damage, if you took a lot of minion dmg passives.
All the ranged summons - ranged spectres atm only - are boosted by ranged-specific supports, like PPAD or LMP or Fork.
All the non-caster summons are affected by skills that are applied to attacks only, like faster attacks or whatnot.
All the caster summons - caster spectres atm only - are affected by spell-only passives.
And, of course, you can use all the other supports as well - like concentrated effect for minions whose attacks are AoE, or knockback, or stun, or whatever.

Leveling summoner as a summoner is easy-peasy actually, if you know how to play it and twink it just a leeetle bit. You definitely want matua tupuna at lvl 23 and bones of ullr at lvl 22. Getting multistrike for zombies at lvl 19 is also beneficial. The rest of gear is totally optional.
With skills that were introduced in 1.1.0, summoner is really easy to play early on now (not that it wasn't before, mind you, I've leveled more than one summoner as summoner as far back as early open beta).
Skeleton totem solves a lot of your problems from lvl 31 on as well.

Directing minions is now also done by using ANY targeted/aoe skill whatsoever, doesnt' have to be single-target. Curses work just as good in this regard.

I was actually thinking of using Raging Spirits. I figure if they aren't being targeted (and they aren't around long anyways) they'll be at full health, so they can benefit from +melee damage while full life. So that, + more melee damage + more speed + minion damage should add up to a lot of damage. But I've never tried any of the summons really, so I dunno.

Edit: I was going to mention earlier, the Vaal skills are so fucking fun. Vaal spark is insane even without any supports, I want to try it with LMP. And Vaal Storm Call is really powerful considering it only uses 8 souls on normal.

Just because raging spirits can't be targeted, doesn't mean that they can't be damaged. They take damage from stray projectiles and from AoE splash damage, and they aren't that tough to start with. Beware.
Plus, since mobs won't target them, it means they will target you. Haha!

 

[Veelq]

Evangelist got nerfed in their bubble duration - doesn't really matter for me that much. Ppl don't mention flame alchemist because the chaos damage dealing one (from the sewers) are superior. Vulnerability not only increases phys damage but also degen effects. Their downside is that they die too fast.

Another minion to consider is Flame Sentinel from Solaris Temple although 3 of them with some added gems can bring your fps down significantly.

Maybe for me fire alchems were better cuz i use poison arrow+desecrate for chaos dmg. But if you are dual curse - fire alchems are better imo cuz chaos dmg can be boosted only by vulnerablility curse and its only the degen part of it, not the initial hit.
With fire ones you can also try elemental proliferate support gem for extra burn but i never tested it. Funny thing is that you can support their attack with added elemental dmg gem and they will have additional effects - mine were for example freezing when crit happend.
Flame Sentinels are great if you can handle fps drops ( i used them and it was fine for me ). They have lesser multiple projectiles and fork by default.

 

[Padre]

That's the 2 week race infographic. I guess nobody likes Duelist.

Spoiler

Maybe for me fire alchems were better cuz i use poison arrow+desecrate for chaos dmg. But if you are dual curse - fire alchems are better imo cuz chaos dmg can be boosted only by vulnerablility curse and its only the degen part of it, not the initial hit.
With fire ones you can also try elemental proliferate support gem for extra burn but i never tested it. Funny thing is that you can support their attack with added elemental dmg gem and they will have additional effects - mine were for example freezing when crit happend.

I will try them when my zombies are sturdy enough to survive without any defensive curses. Right now they need Enfeeble to not get one shotted by some bosses. And if you want to run two offensive curses I would go for Zombies + Evangelist (both deal phys damage), run Hatred aura (%cold damage based on phys damage), add Vulnerability + Frostbite.

Leveling summoner as a summoner is easy-peasy actually, if you know how to play it and twink it just a leeetle bit. You definitely want matua tupuna at lvl 23 and bones of ullr at lvl 22. Getting multistrike for zombies at lvl 19 is also beneficial. The rest of gear is totally optional.

I love playing untwinked and having levelled many characters I can assure you before lvl 50 (untwinked) you can't match Searing Bond when it comes to kill speed. Zombies are just too slow and you lack many good gems (have I mentioned I don't use trade in this game?).

To each his own though. There is really no wrong way to build a character unless you go Chaos Inoculation + Eldrich Battery + Blood Magic.

 

[Eyeball]

How come Molten strike is that popular? Only played with it for a few minutes, but it seemed to be rather awkward to use and gimmicky.

 

[Zdzisiu]

It was a new gem introduced right before the race, so everybody wanted to try it. Also, GGG released a build video with Moltem Strike before the race so people used that build a lot.

 

[Arkeus]

How come Molten strike is that popular? Only played with it for a few minutes, but it seemed to be rather awkward to use and gimmicky.

Molten Strike works stupidly well with the Point Blank (all the projectiles are right next to you) and Iron Grip passive, and the Multistrike support gem. It's basically a powerful melee equivalent to Ice Nova that's viable endgame.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Finally got the Scion unlocked so I could start my summoner (raging spirits seems like it would be fairly shit in the long run without increased duration, and Scion pretty much has the market cornered there, unless you want to eat a shitload of use passives.) Spirits are a little more effective than I was expecting tbh. They aggro well around corners and can fly up ledges that you couldn't fire a projectile up, so they're very easy to attack with. Not nearly as efficient damage output wise as an AoE hitting lots of stuff or a focused melee build with a good weapon, but my items are shit and I'm not even level 20 yet. Only spot they really felt inadequate for was vs an invader that was just spamming the fuck out of some AoE crap (I forget which.) But enemies like that are easy to handle, since they like to stand in one spot so you can play popamole games with them and some cover.

Next few levels will be where I take increased duration, which I'm expecting to have a huge impact. On paper it's +45% duration so +45% damage, but in practice you waste the first second or two of 3.5 seconds just moving to a target, so adding ~1.5 seconds to the remainder should be even better. I still have no cast speed at all and only ~35% minion damage, and no supports linked, so tons of room for improvement on them.