How do Minion Builds work?

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AnimateMe a écrit :

Is it viable to just blast with Wands, and pump the wand skills some? Or am I better off picking up 100% or more fire damage and going with Firestorm and the Unstable minions?

Thanks for all the replies btw!

For summoner build, the main character won't need any damage, minion will do that for you.

Minion instability won't do much damage or none when facing ranged monsters.

IMO, for DPS it is better to rely on spectres.

I have a summoner using dual totem & tri-curse (pre-patch), she is doing OK in maps.

In the beginning the witch is somehow strange to play, but its getting better with every level. The only thing you need to keep an ey on, is that you got enough mana, and in your first levels you should get a few dexterity/evasion notes plus some life.

Its hard in the beginning, because the Zombies always stay nearby you ( they act like a kind of "bodyguards" and this causes problems because you can easily get hit from an enemy.Later on you will have skeletons too and they will look actively for enemies and sometimes do the job pretty far away, while you do not even realize they killed a mob :))

You just need to take all the minion nodes to make them stronger and longer living, but not necessarily the nodes that give you one more minions You can save this to higher levels.

To your question: Yes, you have to constantly reactive your minions, they are like your army and without them you will be a very nude and weak general, but you will soon get used to that and find out how many of them you have to rise to get their job done. I have tried a few extra nodes for my witch, to give her a chance to help her minions fight and found that the best ability is cold (iceshard and coldsnap get very strong) made bad experience with fire and medium experience with lightning.

I deleted minion instability, it turned out to be less useful than expected and in some cases more harmful than helpful, but found out that it is a good idea, once you find an aura, link it with the gem that causes enemys to flee. Solved some of my problems. Have fun with your witch, she gets more fascinating the higher she gets:)

My main on regular league is a level 75 summoner and I don't use Minion Instability. I use two totems that just spam cast temp chains and enfeeble (it's great for sticking them in rooms so you don't get your face melted when you walk somewhere you can't see) I also put on vulnerably myself. You can make spectures do a lot of damage but if they die you have to go though the pain of finding suitable replacements. Buffing your minions with auras and debuffing your enemies with curses is key. I do fine in max level maps although my playstyle is a bit more defensive. IMO even skeletons can take a couple of hits from regular mobs when you get to high level and I don't have minion life linked either. My gear is not crazy good either.

Here's my gear for reference. Almost all of it is self found/crafted other than the ring and boots and also all of the quality gems I use I found as well. I only traded for the specture and skeleton quality gems. (some of the gems are just there so they stay leveled with me)

And heres what I'm gunning for in my build

Hello, you can check out my summoner build: http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAVysHY3NTa9t9GOyKwFR5AzGICPSLeqcr4vc74W0ZwfOio3_GJ6labSQ8p1xJURzc45_UGbyfkyefe3i6v5fJPfIegh7bC0wtF1AA_RSwOjA5Urw3Tm1YB6yY99fMvBCXRASFYKrEm6Fnve5vSOfQ0M9lVcYWb49GpwjZCyqY-oCdrhpsGYUkqjbp42qmrIhAkDPkIilP7DgaOKeEkFU62E3YjHaePIFvBLMCcfAfogAUTbiT6-4o-oLH0_uofVqRaqxBh3q4rpOmVzrhiPFuqj8nKk0VICzp3Q1brxjbQ5wOrSml_MVnoId2iELyHUp9 (final)

I am using: Summon zombie/skeleton, Arc (to shock), Curses: Vunerablity & Enfeeble, Lighting warp to shock and short way =D and Clarity & discipline & vitality aura (vitality to regen zombies mainly)

Zombies/skelets supported by minion life/dmg/speed
curses by increse AoE/Cast speed
Lighting warp by cast speed
clarity, discipline, vitality by reduced mana
arc with faster casting and lighting penetration.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAVysHY3NTa9t9GMBUeQMxiAj0i3qnK-L3O-FtGcHzgh7bC4hC8h1MLRdQAP0UsKyYOjD318y8EJdEBJuhSOdnve5v0NDPZVXGFm-PRqcIna4abBmFJKo26eNqpqyIQJAz2QsqmPqA5CIpT-w4GjinhJBVOthN2Ix2njyBbwSzAnHwH6IA (actualy)

Wokrks perfect ;-)

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BerMalBerIst1 a écrit :

Basically the player cowers behind his wall of spamminions like a scared little girl.

Summoners = cowards

Nope, we are generals having our own army. :)))

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BerMalBerIst1 a écrit :

Basically the player cowers behind his wall of spamminions like a scared little girl.

Summoners = cowards

doesnt work that way you have to go in to trigger attack modus otherwise your whole army looks like berbermals doing nothing and just troll you the whole day

btt my new summoner idea is kind of fun idea is to throw suicide bomber at the enemy so far it works great

For what its worth, I strongly disagree to not get every minion node first if you want a full sommoner. The more nodes you pick for yourself, the weaker your army is. With a strong army, you do not need much at all.

I walk behind my army and look for good drops and spam a potion once in a while to give my spectres health. Now with the health bars, it is a lot easier.

Which looks like this:


If you find yourself dying, then pick up a resist or life node. No need to get too many though. And, IMO, one extra spectre or zombie is worth a lot more than +x attributes.

The only thing I'd recommend getting before all minion nodes is the hexmaster, so you don't have to recast curses.

And for the curse, it should be punishment. Punishment was made for minions. It causes reflect damage.

Then, I built up my resists and chaos damage resistance, and got some more life. I never picked up too much ES (especially the small +6 nodes, but would go for more powerful keystones). The few times I'd die would be when I was too lazy to get more spectres and came upon a large group of chaos damage snakes.

For a summoner, IMO its all about the minions. Sure, you could want to have your witch more involved and more on the front line - being 80% minions and 20% your witch - that is fine if that is what you want. For me, I like walking around and picking up drops :)

Thanks for all the additional replies. I will digest this info and keep trying.

Gracias!

Read this

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/114301

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AnimateMe a écrit :

All,

I made a witch and I know I am only level 5 but man ... zombies die so fast. I just got my Minion Master or whatever passive, and I am constantly re-casting them. I hate having to do lots of re-casts, and I have never cleared the tidal flats and mud flats slower on a character.

So I am sure I just need to pump my minion passives, but it just makes me wonder. Are summoners constantly re-casting minions? Or do they ever become hardy?

And can you build for minions + wands? I kinda dont want to cast spells other than summons, curses, and then direct target wand action. But I am open to other options.

But I guess I am just feeling uncertain based on my struggle so far.

Thanks!

I am a summoner, check out my build

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAW8HYxCXEVAR2xSwFVAV1xbzGmwc3B3ZJjwnqSj6KpgquiymLL8vnTQKN2Y3gzgbOVI6MDvhPI5DVEQERZ1GcUjnTblObU-_VmNXK1fJWAdakWKVaqxr220Zc1N6qn0Yfll_xoLHhEiFYIauiECLeo9GkDORz5I4kyeVIJrgm6Gdrp97oqOmrKbrpwinK6h9qsSsmLJwtAy4k7vWvDe_l8BUwcXB88NtyT3MvNDQ0_vXhtkL2t3i9-QR5oHquuvu7BjsivIe99f6gA==


Full magic find


You can check my gear here


http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/217933