Wizard Summons Build: a different way to play

Synalon

Synalon

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Very nice. What're your thoughts on a Dino summon over the werewolf? Do you have both? I only have the latter and would really like to farm up the former
 
vik

vik

Well-known member
Unfortunately no, but I wish I did :) He would make a great tank as well!
 
seph1roth5

seph1roth5

Well-known member
Their damage seems so low/crap, is it all just coming from your mantle? Also, why are YOU opening doors when you have a mob?!
 
vik

vik

Well-known member
I learned that the hard way. I got a little cocky and paid for it.

Correct, primal avatar mantle is the source of most hireling dps. Hireling dps is pretty low, but it is exacerbated by my choices of hirelings and reaper 7 nerfing them further. If I was doing a reaper 1-3 run I'd slot Teal instead of Feywild Muse and Darling instead of Albereth, set them all to attack, and they would do fairly well. The hirelings I chose are centered around healing the tank because these bosses can hit so hard and I don't have a lot of positive healing for the werewolf. To give you an idea, I can't keep the scarecrow from dying higher than r5 for that quest even with reconstruct, repair crit, repair serious, and repair light all slotted. Sometimes you get some burst damage from boss special attacks that you can't heal through.
 
Sarpado Man

Sarpado Man

Active member
I've been playing a necromancer, specifically Wizard Summons, for about five years. It's a character based on a TV series. And it doesn't look anything like it.

To be a summoner you need the speed casting metamagic, be a mage of eclipse, have the summoner feats, and use the deadly diabolist set.
You can also use cry for battle. That character is over-invested; he has more hirelings than character. Furthermore, the selection of spells I see there is a disaster.

Repair spell, fire shield, and extend are for melee characters. You're not supposed to fight in melee. Besides necromancy, you need to level up enchantment because they're supposed to fight each other while your creatures attack them and you deal ranged damage. I see you're using sound and ice spells. I don't know where you got a set with those stats—I mean, ice spell power and sound spell power. It's better to use the ring that already has fire spell power and adapt to that. (IOD ring)

Heighten Spell is also useless because you're supposed to cast so many spells so quickly that it doesn't matter. Intensify is good; a time-stop combo, Gloomspear + Moon's Shadow can deal 70,000+ damage (I have it recorded).
You can see a screenshot here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uSrx3x1aV3EeM45Y-1zHIA8En8JzA9yX/view?usp=sharing
 
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vik

vik

Well-known member
I'm not sure what your video is showing: you have a full party of players and you're running r10. You have a clay golem summon and your skele knight, which aren't really doing much for you. My summons can tank bosses! The whole build is built around that. Did you watch my whole video?

You can indeed go for a more dps focused summons build; see Storm Summoner if you want some ideas. This is another way to play a summons build.

That character is over-invested; he has more hirelings than character.
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That would probably be the most common critique of summons builds on these forums. You do give up a lot to play a summon build to its fullest.
 
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Sarpado Man

Sarpado Man

Active member
vik said:
I'm not sure what your video is showing: you have a full party of players and you're running r10. You have a clay golem summon and your skele knight, which aren't really doing much for you. My summons can tank bosses! The whole build is built around that. Did you watch my whole video?

You can indeed go for a more dps focused summons build; see Storm Summoner if you want some ideas. This is another way to play a summons build.


That would probably be the most common critique of summons builds on these forums. You do give up a lot to play a summon build to its fullest.
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Hirelings and pets aren't meant to tank a boss; they're meant to steal aggro against multiple targets and heal you, sometimes a little. They create a distraction and absorb the damage. Hirelings take a long time to revive on Reaper difficulty. Also, from what I can see, you can't revive them yourself, meaning you don't have any resurrection spells, while the Pale Master does.

The idea behind my build isn't for them to do everything, but for them to sacrifice themselves for me, so I can become invisible, teleport, cast enchantments, curses, etc., and quickly re-summon them, or revive the hireling if it dies, in order to avoid waiting so long.

To kill a boss, you have to understand that each boss is different and that you don't need to specialize in killing every type of monster in the game; that's impossible. The best thing is to specialize in killing a specific type. I don't need to have 20 hirelings in front of me; I just use combos and make them explode. Or at least that's the idea. The advantage of my character is that we can play Reaper 10 with summons, very low gear, without needing hirelings taking up slots, and with almost no investment. Because there's no need to bring tanks, I could easily enchant monsters and that's it.

Many people don't like the golem, but after a lot of experimentation, I've realized it's the best. The golem can act as a barrier, blocking a door. It can also jam bosses, preventing them from passing. And if it dies, it doesn't matter; I can summon another one almost instantly.

It's worth noting that while the golem blocks enemies, it doesn't block your spells, so you can still attack a selected enemy through it. These are small but useful details in tricky situations. I can also open some locks, remove some magical traps, and things like that.

When I want to be a bit more aggressive, I can summon a hezrou that teleports to the enemies instead of the golem. That is, when I want it to attack immediately. And I don't need another spell for that because I do it from the armor.

I can also heal, but it's not my character's main function.

The idea is to go with level 17 wizards and 3 warlocks. At the beginning, there are quests that can be exhausting for mages due to the SP cost. There's nothing worse than running out of mana. But you can use Blast to conserve mana and take out some enemies. After level 20, I switch talent trees and use Enlightened Spirit. This allows me to increase my PRR, MRR, and grant a morale bonus to everyone around me, further increasing the power of my summons. You'd logically think I lose three Wizard levels, but no, actually the level 12 skill lets me cast spells as if I were one level higher. And I use Keeper of the Curse to boost my Pact Dice, so in the end it's like having a level 18 Wizard and a level 6 Warlock.

I also use Aspect of Tar to automatically summon monsters while casting spells. These summoned monsters are my level, meaning level 34, so they have around 19,000 HP.

So, my build isn't that expensive in hirelings or past lives, because they're useless. After all, when you play with others you can't summon them, and even if you could, you'd have to collect their souls, which would waste a lot of time. But it is expensive in gear.

I use: two pieces of Deadly Diabolist, three pieces of Slave Lords, two pieces of Masterful Magewright, five pieces of Isle of the Dread, Legendary Twisted Talisman, Legendary Stygian Wrath and the Aspect of Tar. Follow the link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cxnHuqw_dIz1DzfDnoCSsXXCLwrfhH8A/view?usp=sharing
 
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vik

vik

Well-known member
My summons build is meant for soloing not group play. It makes sense that you wouldn't go all-in on summons if you're grouping with others as that weakens your group contributions.

I have a high enough UMD that I can rez hirelings easily, but part of the fun of the build is trying to keep your summons alive. The more CC you have the better and wizards have good CC for the most part.

I have tried the clay golem but found he gets killed so often in quests that I didn't bother summoning him after that. Makes sense for epics but not legendaries for me anyway. Using summons as obstacles is a fun part of a playing a summons build; I haven't used that to its fullest yet. But I'd probably use the scarecrow, shield golem, or the werewolf due to their durability. Hezrou also dies so fast it's not worth it to me.

Aspect of tar seems like a great addition, but I don't have it since I don't raid. I did get my legendary diabolist set the hard way soloing HoX and Tempest Spine for threads.
 
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Synalon

Synalon

Choose another soldier
Sarpado Man said:
Hirelings and pets aren't meant to tank a boss; they're meant to steal aggro against multiple targets and heal you, sometimes a little. They create a distraction and absorb the damage. Hirelings take a long time to revive on Reaper difficulty. Also, from what I can see, you can't revive them yourself, meaning you don't have any resurrection spells, while the Pale Master does.

The idea behind my build isn't for them to do everything, but for them to sacrifice themselves for me, so I can become invisible, teleport, cast enchantments, curses, etc., and quickly re-summon them, or revive the hireling if it dies, in order to avoid waiting so long.

To kill a boss, you have to understand that each boss is different and that you don't need to specialize in killing every type of monster in the game; that's impossible. The best thing is to specialize in killing a specific type. I don't need to have 20 hirelings in front of me; I just use combos and make them explode. Or at least that's the idea. The advantage of my character is that we can play Reaper 10 with summons, very low gear, without needing hirelings taking up slots, and with almost no investment. Because there's no need to bring tanks, I could easily enchant monsters and that's it.

Many people don't like the golem, but after a lot of experimentation, I've realized it's the best. The golem can act as a barrier, blocking a door. It can also jam bosses, preventing them from passing. And if it dies, it doesn't matter; I can summon another one almost instantly.

It's worth noting that while the golem blocks enemies, it doesn't block your spells, so you can still attack a selected enemy through it. These are small but useful details in tricky situations. I can also open some locks, remove some magical traps, and things like that.

When I want to be a bit more aggressive, I can summon a hezrou that teleports to the enemies instead of the golem. That is, when I want it to attack immediately. And I don't need another spell for that because I do it from the armor.

I can also heal, but it's not my character's main function.

The idea is to go with level 17 wizards and 3 warlocks. At the beginning, there are quests that can be exhausting for mages due to the SP cost. There's nothing worse than running out of mana. But you can use Blast to conserve mana and take out some enemies. After level 20, I switch talent trees and use Enlightened Spirit. This allows me to increase my PRR, MRR, and grant a morale bonus to everyone around me, further increasing the power of my summons. You'd logically think I lose three Wizard levels, but no, actually the level 12 skill lets me cast spells as if I were one level higher. And I use Keeper of the Curse to boost my Pact Dice, so in the end it's like having a level 18 Wizard and a level 6 Warlock.

I also use Aspect of Tar to automatically summon monsters while casting spells. These summoned monsters are my level, meaning level 34, so they have around 19,000 HP.

So, my build isn't that expensive in hirelings or past lives, because they're useless. After all, when you play with others you can't summon them, and even if you could, you'd have to collect their souls, which would waste a lot of time. But it is expensive in gear.

I use: two pieces of Deadly Diabolist, three pieces of Slave Lords, two pieces of Masterful Magewright, five pieces of Isle of the Dread, Legendary Twisted Talisman, Legendary Stygian Wrath and the Aspect of Tar. Follow the link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cxnHuqw_dIz1DzfDnoCSsXXCLwrfhH8A/view?usp=sharing
Click to expand...
"Hirelings and pets aren't meant to tank the boss" the point of this thread is to show a way that they can tank bosses. It's a creative build that pushes the utility of a commonly discarded mechanic.

The stuff you say about how to play a Wizard is neither here nor there. You certainly can use summons as meat shields in the way that you describe, and I use them this way sometimes also. The build described in this thread is doing something different. Your comments are oblique to the point.
 
Synalon

Synalon

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Great video! I have to try that quest out. The unavoidable attack he does makes it very difficult for squishy soloers. Which you circumvented with the scarecrow.
 
Synalon

Synalon

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woq said:
You can lower the damage it deals with dark discorp and blocking significantly
Click to expand...
Good idea... I see one of the cakes has been changed into dark discorp, so that may be of use. Along with the gloves
 
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