Author Topic: Summoner - nature+earth (Designed for hardcore, xmax, no potions)  (Read 5882 times)

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Offline stormyboy

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Very few of you know me. I rarely post on this forum and when i do, i stay in the challenge section. I started playing when the game launched (so around 2006-2007). Right now i don't have that many hours on steam as i just got the game there, having no need of the steam version until the devs started rolling new content.

As a player, i am an average guy who likes to have fun after a hard day of work; of course, sometimes all the fun comes from being challenged so i like to challenge myself in the games that i love. These days i mostly play titan quest with the xmax mod on, world of warcraft where i do heroic raids and 15-20 key dungeons (all of this means mid difficulty content).
Other games that i have experience with are gothic 1, 2, 3 (yea, the old series), skyrim, metro

I am not a pro player and i am not a guide writer. In this topic i just want to present to you a few of the things that worked for me.

About my Summoner.

My summoner was designed with hardcore, no potions, xmax in mind and all skills and play style are directed towards achieving this. There are a lot of possibilities to this class, spells that would improve it, but the risk/reward ratio isn't worth the hustle.

Pros:
-moderate, constant damage output
-you don't have to get close or touch a monster, ever in your life (that means that you can also get the steam achievement for finishing normal with less than 100 kills)
-extremely easy to gear up.
-good and safe boss killer

Cons
-moderate, constant damage output (both as pro as a con, i know). If you ever feel that the difficulty of an act is more than you can handle and you already have the best pet gear that the act can provide, tough luck. You will feel like that in act 4 and 5 normal and most of the time in act 5 all difficulties
-little to no aoe. Yes, you have a lot of good skills in earth, BUT, if you trigger one the entire population of monsters will murder you, with or without core
- slow boss killer
-playing with pets can sometimes feel like an RTS game. You have your troops which you control (for me this was a pro but i know it's...different)

Skill choice (always use gear with +1 to skills. having +2 skills will allow you summon 3 wolves)

https://www.tqcalc.com/TitanCalc44c344c344c3.html?mastery=Summoner&master1=4&master2=1&sa=30&m1=40-10-16-12-8-12-0-0-16-0-6-0-0-16-6-12-12-0-1-0-12-0-8-0-0&m2=40-1-0-1-12-0-0-0-16-0-1-8-0-0-0-1-0-0-0-8-0-0-0-0-0

-Call of the wild: the 3 puppies will be your main damage provider
-Core dweller: immortal tank
-Nymph: ranged support with AOE and a truly amazing shield
-Hearth of the oak: Amazing aura. Max it out in higher difficulties BUT max out the synergies as soon as possible.
-Regrowth: throw in a point in there every now and then.

Progression:
Level:
1-6 - +1 to nature mastery and max out Call of the wild
 7-15 - +10 in earth and max out Summon core dweller
16-28 - +23 in nature >+1 to hearth of oak (for now you only need it for the speed buff), +1 to maul, +1 to survival instinct +16 to strength of the pack

By now the content should have gotten more difficult. So, we need a bit more survivability
29+ - +22 earth mastery. Now, your aim is to get inner fire and metamorphosis to max, and do have +1 to nymph and max out overgrowth. Of course, you should have stoneform, regrowth and heat shield to +1, just for a bit of support. There is no order to get this, you just add points in either one as you feel. 


Attribute points:

-get 170 strength and 425 dex by legendary act 1 (stonebinder cuffs). So, with a small calculation, you will get to 170 dex from your mastery increase so you will need to invest 64 more points in dex to get there. For strength you need 30 points. Just go 1:1 dex:int with one to str every now and then and all quest attribute points into strength. You will be ok.

Gear:

Being a petmancer, your most important resource are pet spells. So, you will need a staff, rings and an amulet with pet bonus:
-rings and staff +physical damage and as an amulet i found an "of convocation" item that gave 20% damage and 20% attack damage conv to health. Other than your pet gear, get only items that add to your survivability  (armor, resist, reduce duration to sleep/entrapment etc).
-stonebinder cuffs (+1/+2/+3 to skills)
-Hallowed helmet
-try to stay way from blue/purple gear unless it is amazing. Usually you will be able to balance out your resistances better if you have green/MI gear and you enchant it with relics and charms.

Farming spots:

I have only farmed vendors because of the gear i wanted. I found that using the portals to teleport between regions (to reset the goods that the vendor has to offer) is more efficient than parking your character to a fountain and log in/log out:
-Chang'an <->the great wall: i recomand doing this only if you are in a bad position with your gear. Chang'an will start spawning items with immortal throne aff/suff so if you feel the need for it, farm it out (Chang'an will spawn more often hallowed helmet in my experience)
-Rhodes <->Gadir. Go on the beach and teleport to the atlantis act. Rhodes will give you a lot of good items with the portal being next to the vendor while Gadir will give you the chance to get some pet gear "of the Tinkerer " that will allow you to enchant 2 relics on that item
-Elysium <-> Plains of judgement. For me Elysium was very generous. It gave me an amulet of convocation WITH another +70pet damage and a robe with elemental and pierce resist and a hallowed helmet.
-Scandia <->Glauberg - got a staff with pet health/armor and pet damage so, yeah. Another generous route.

Relics and charms:

Demon blood with vitality resist
Crystal of erebus with +1 to all skills
For the rest, just try to balance out your resistances with relics.

Artifact:

Start with razor claw and work your way up to Summoner totem (as you advance to higher difficulties, 10% speed will be better than 18 damage and 5% phys damage)

Tips and tricks:

-WOW I FOUND A PURPLE ITEM THAT WILL GIVE ME 129384% TO ALL DAMAGE TYPE. Yeah.....don't. Put back on the yellow vendor item with +10% pierce. As a pet master you don't need damage. Your aim is gear with pet bonus and resistances.
-if you go into the key binding menu, you will find there buttons to control your pets. always use the button to select all pets, the one to control the nymph and the one to control core.
-ALWAYS use the button to control your nymph. Sylvan protection is an incredible AOE skills that deals good damage and de-buffs the enemies. But, for your pet to use it, you must position the pet in melee range (in the middle of the monster pack)
-as soon as you get to Megara, farm out the vendor until you get an amulet with +1 to nature and a staff with +1 to nature. I found that Megara is where they start spawning. You will want to equip those 2 items just enough to summon 3 wolves then you switch back to pet damage gear.
-don't heal your wolves before they get below 30% health and their survival instinct activates. That skill will reduce all damage they take and increase their damage. And if you have an amulet of convocation you will have the surprise of their health going back to 100% through damage converted to health.
-right click the pet portrait and set it to aggressive.

Disclaimer: this is my take on a summoner designed to complete hardcore, xmax, no potions. For me, it worked just fine and it got me to my goal. The character will work fine without xmax but it will be mind-numbing boring because it will be so powerful that you won't need to "play starcraft" with your pets.

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