Summoner build is viable now but needs lv 30 to work

[makmakkabab]

Well, servers are up, I also want to see that video

[Gralhota]

I play on cannith, come with me do LOD when server opens. Xamanic.

Game says: Xamanic does not exist

[newmart]

Sorry for the amateurism of the video, I just downloaded the recorder and editor.

This is just to show that pets can handle the figths in R1.

Bear in mind that i dont have metamagic feats (maximize, empower, higthen) so the damage is not optimal at this point.

I dont have all enhancement to reduce my threat at lv 20, they are mostly in epic trees. This hireling paladin is not that tanky (not using shield), thaark and wolf tank a lot better, but his intimidate was bigger so he pulls the agro. I cutted most of video to reduce upload.

The dmg of summons only increse in lv 23 with mantle.

[newmart]

Now with shared mantle and a bit more dmg.

Note when karas is hitting dog, dmg is very small, but eventually rogue hire gets agro and need to be healed.

Is this quest, playing normally, i killer 44 mobs, living meteor/thaark 15, hire 7 and wolf 1. Living meteor can most times kill cultists in one meteor shower. Statistically speaking they are responsible by about half my dps.

My poison and acid spell power is around 200, as i said i had problems with this build, a caster will do much better.

[makmakkabab]

LOD on level 30?

LoD is quest level 21.


WPM, you can solo on R???

First life, no tomes, no reaper points, without knowing the quest and tried to kill as little as possible outside of healing and cc (had to fight with my minions in boss fights and blobs where there were a lot of champions and reapers).

I present you my fresh summoner - WPM R1 Solo



Edit
Unfortunately I forgot to re-summon my lich and thorn (AKA - Misadventure) for the picture, but they were there too!

[dredre9987]

First life, no tomes, no reaper points, without knowing the quest and tried to kill as little as possible outside of healing and cc (had to fight with my minions in boss fights and blobs where there were a lot of champions and reapers).

I present you my fresh summoner - WPM R1 Solo



Edit
Unfortunately I forgot to re-summon my lich and thorn (AKA - Misadventure) for the picture, but they were there too!

Would Love to see the time of completion since this can be soloed...

[makmakkabab]

Would Love to see the time of completion since this can be soloed...

Unfortunately I did not timed it, as someone who didn't really know the quest, time completion was the least of my worries. I am sure you can appreciate that. However, because you ask about it, we really need to discuss what "Viable" actually means.

I want to start and say that I started this character after this thread was started as it piqued my curiosity, so this was not an attempt to prove someone right or wrong, and I definitely did not register to any competition to prove this build viability. Just
wanted to see for myself if it can work for me and my play style or not. my previous experience with summons wasn't very good I will say that.

Back to the matter at hand, it seems to me, that you definition for "viable" might be different to that of the OP. Reading his posts in this thread gives me the impression that the OP used the word "viable" as a term to define the ability to go into a quest
on reaper difficulty, have the pets tank for him while doing some damage and successfully completing the dungeon. It doesn't look like he meant it in a way that the build is equivalent in power and completion speed to a meta build. In that sense I can
completely confirm that the playstyle is viable. However, If the definition of "viable" is the ability to complete a dungeon in a specific timeframe, then I cannot answer that, as I don't know what timeframe you have in mind, not to mention that different
players have their own feeling on what is a valid timeframe.

Outside of time of completion, there is also the question of what are the conditions for such test? what I mean is, what is considered a valid playstyle as a summoner? Am I allowed to go all out offense along my minions? or I am only allowed to stand aside
and watch them if they can complete the dungeon on their own? or something in the middle, I cannot deal damage but can cc and heal? When I ran that quest, I tried to minimize my involvement, but had I gone full attack mode I would have completed it faster.

To me, The playstyle proved its viability, in that that it got me to complete the quests and was entertaining. YMMV.

[dredre9987]

Unfortunately I did not timed it, as someone who didn't really know the quest, time completion was the least of my worries. I am sure you can appreciate that. However, because you ask about it, we really need to discuss what "Viable" actually means.

I want to start and say that I started this character after this thread was started as it piqued my curiosity, so this was not an attempt to prove someone right or wrong, and I definitely did not register to any competition to prove this build viability. Just
wanted to see for myself if it can work for me and my play style or not. my previous experience with summons wasn't very good I will say that.

Back to the matter at hand, it seems to me, that you definition for "viable" might be different to that of the OP. Reading his posts in this thread gives me the impression that the OP used the word "viable" as a term to define the ability to go into a quest
on reaper difficulty, have the pets tank for him while doing some damage and successfully completing the dungeon. It doesn't look like he meant it in a way that the build is equivalent in power and completion speed to a meta build. In that sense I can
completely confirm that the playstyle is viable. However, If the definition of "viable" is the ability to complete a dungeon in a specific timeframe, then I cannot answer that, as I don't know what timeframe you have in mind, not to mention that different
players have their own feeling on what is a valid timeframe.

Outside of time of completion, there is also the question of what are the conditions for such test? what I mean is, what is considered a valid playstyle as a summoner? Am I allowed to go all out offense along my minions? or I am only allowed to stand aside
and watch them if they can complete the dungeon on their own? or something in the middle, I cannot deal damage but can cc and heal? When I ran that quest, I tried to minimize my involvement, but had I gone full attack mode I would have completed it faster.

To me, The playstyle proved its viability, in that that it got me to complete the quests and was entertaining. YMMV.

Completion time is on you xp page near the bottom.

My point is simply if I can do it solo and it takes less time is it really viable to have a bunch of summons and it takes twice as long?

[SpartanKiller13]

Does draconic cast while rage work? or shifter version?

Draconic cast while raged allowed my Barbarian to use clickies and epic SLA's just fine (was 50 MRR capped so swapped for THTH, used Divine Energy Resist). Wasn't trying to test it at all, just picked it up by accident lmao.

Possibly a more specialist build can test, but you'd really want a multiclass so you could test heroic casting as well.

Back to the matter at hand, it seems to me, that you definition for "viable" might be different to that of the OP. Reading his posts in this thread gives me the impression that the OP used the word "viable" as a term to define the ability to go into a quest on reaper difficulty, have the pets tank for him while doing some damage and successfully completing the dungeon. It doesn't look like he meant it in a way that the build is equivalent in power and completion speed to a meta build. In that sense I can completely confirm that the playstyle is viable. However, If the definition of "viable" is the ability to complete a dungeon in a specific timeframe, then I cannot answer that, as I don't know what timeframe you have in mind, not to mention that different players have their own feeling on what is a valid timeframe.

Viable to me is "can complete with a reasonable amount of effort" like if it took 2 hours to do WPM I wouldn't say that's viable IMO; but I'm not expecting a 15-minute run either

Like IMO the scale goes from "can't do it" < "can technically complete" < "viable" < "really strong". Viable is something I would help someone build, with the knowledge that it's not cutting-edge but if you're having fun who cares? I don't like helping for builds that are below viable; it's hard for me to recommend something that will cause someone to seriously struggle at their desired difficulty level.

Note that all of these points are X with reference to Y - like in this context we're talking "first-life summoner is in the range of viable in WPM on LR1" which is really cool to me. With Druid PL's and some more investment etc it could get a bit stronger too so that's not a hard cap on the build.

Note that there's not really a mention of meta. To me meta builds are just those where a lot of people are noticing something is really strong and it's popular for one reason or another (ease of use, significantly overperforming, multipurpose, good for XYZ popular content, etc). Like when THF Paladin is strong it's usually meta since it has a lot of strong points, it's very accessible, it's easy to operate, and it has few weaknesses.

IMO for considering a build a "summoner" build vs "a build that uses summons as an aside" I'm looking for the summons to deal >60% of your DPS while tanking >80% of the damage. I'm totally fine with the player throwing CC/heals/DPS, but like if you're blasting everything while your summon looks pretty that's a blaster build IMO. To me there's a second more niche category of "AFK summoner" where you summon & throw buffs but after that I expect like 10 APM or something lmao. Something that allows you to watch play pinball in the other screen while farming chests if ya know what I mean; and I still expect the first caveats to apply: like if your 10 APM are hitting Meteor Swarm I'm not sold. YMMV on expectations, but those are mine There's also less-restrictive niches available like a build for DPS summons or Tank summons (where you tank while your summons DPS or vice versa) as well but you'd have to lead with those expectations and those aren't true summoner builds IMO.

Edit to respond to this comment too:

Completion time is on you xp page near the bottom.

Maybe they went to make popcorn in the middle especially when soloing unless you're trying for a time trial it's not always the best judgement.

My point is simply if I can do it solo and it takes less time is it really viable to have a bunch of summons and it takes twice as long?

IMO yes. If your solo time is (eg) 18 mins and your summoner can do it in 30 I'd say that's viable. Sure it's less optimal, but that's not the discussion if another build can do it in (eg) 17 mins your build isn't suddenly non-viable I mean last year summoner builds were like "can't do this at all" lmao I'm not expecting them to beat times vs meta builds.

If you're soloing in 18 and your summoner build takes an hour it's getting into the "can technically complete" range where I'd agree it's not really viable (for that difficulty/content) though. Gotta draw a line somewhere, but double time isn't bad for "strong build" vs summoner lmao.

[Jaxtan]

This is getting interesting. For the hell of it, I took the ED summons enhancements on a couple of trees last time my main was at 30 on a sorc that was not summon's focused and it was a good improvement over the past. Gold hirelings on legendary R1 while still a bit stupid in their actions, sucked up damage, survived and even killed a couple of mobs.

What are some good summons race/class/builds? Any way we could do one on an arty that could still do some ranged damage and traps? Or maybe an alchemist that has a lot of CC, boost and heals? This could be a lot of fun.

[makmakkabab]

Completion time is on you xp page near the bottom.

My point is simply if I can do it solo and it takes less time is it really viable to have a bunch of summons and it takes twice as long?

I did another run, took me 46 min. Keep in mind I tried to let the minions do most of the work again, with me killing 13 mobs total and my minions killed 85! Lack of Experience in this dungeon is also an issue, so sometimes I make mistakes, but that's on me, not on the build. I also need to rethink the hireling I bring, I took Andaro, he is only level 24, and apparently likes to die. If I would play normally and not insist on my minions do most of the work this will be much shorter. I have a video of the whole thing, but it is 40GB. Will upload some of the boss fights to YouTube to make it more reasonable. Anyway :

Viable to me is "can complete with a reasonable amount of effort" like if it took 2 hours to do WPM I wouldn't say that's viable IMO; but I'm not expecting a 15-minute run either

Like IMO the scale goes from "can't do it" < "can technically complete" < "viable" < "really strong". Viable is something I would help someone build, with the knowledge that it's not cutting-edge but if you're having fun who cares? I don't like helping for builds that are below viable; it's hard for me to recommend something that will cause someone to seriously struggle at their desired difficulty level.

Note that all of these points are X with reference to Y - like in this context we're talking "first-life summoner is in the range of viable in WPM on LR1" which is really cool to me. With Druid PL's and some more investment etc it could get a bit stronger too so that's not a hard cap on the build.

Note that there's not really a mention of meta. To me meta builds are just those where a lot of people are noticing something is really strong and it's popular for one reason or another (ease of use, significantly overperforming, multipurpose, good for XYZ popular content, etc). Like when THF Paladin is strong it's usually meta since it has a lot of strong points, it's very accessible, it's easy to operate, and it has few weaknesses.

IMO for considering a build a "summoner" build vs "a build that uses summons as an aside" I'm looking for the summons to deal >60% of your DPS while tanking >80% of the damage. I'm totally fine with the player throwing CC/heals/DPS, but like if you're blasting everything while your summon looks pretty that's a blaster build IMO. To me there's a second more niche category of "AFK summoner" where you summon & throw buffs but after that I expect like 10 APM or something lmao. Something that allows you to watch play pinball in the other screen while farming chests if ya know what I mean; and I still expect the first caveats to apply: like if your 10 APM are hitting Meteor Swarm I'm not sold. YMMV on expectations, but those are mine There's also less-restrictive niches available like a build for DPS summons or Tank summons (where you tank while your summons DPS or vice versa) as well but you'd have to lead with those expectations and those aren't true summoner builds IMO.

Personally, I think the build is completely viable for the average player, remember, you don't have to let the minions do everything (although you can!), you are full fledged wizard after all. I think its a very strong first life character, on a F2P class.

As for what is a summoner, you mentioned deal more than 60% of the damage and taking over 80% of the damage, now, taking more than 80% of the damage - checked. However, doing over 60% of the damage is only possible if you decide to force it upon yourself, as there is no chance the minions can do that unless you are tying your own hands (like I did in my runs). There is only 1 summon that is actually a damage dealer, and that is the tier 5 primal avatar level 30 summon (I use thorn). the ranger and the rogue hirelings can do some damage but are low level, so survivability is an issue (maybe even hit chance issue, don't remember). The level 20 summons from magus are more of a distraction then anything else. the casting summons are ok while leveling, and lich actually provide some nice cc via fear paralyzing touch etc. along some damage spells. He also a reaper magnet, they really hate him, and usually can go toe to toe with them for a while until you can turn on the reaper yourself. Succubus is just a sweetheart and living meteor swarm while doing the most damage, dies in couple of hits, and runs out of sp really fast. The melee summons from magus are quite worthless, even while leveling they mostly miss their attacks, I think they hit only on a roll of 20, they are really bad. Shame.

The best way to treat summons in my experience is to consider the primal avatar summon as a damage dealer while all other summons are there for tanking and distracting. That is why they cannot do 60% damage, you only get 1 damage dealing summon.

Last thing, I only have 1 low level hireling, 1 pet (skeleton knight) and 2 summons (lich and thorn), If I get my hands on the level 30 gold seal hirelings (shield guardian, scarecrow and Frogo) I expect a very laid back experience (and lol's). Oh, and I still haven't added the cry of battle filigrees for extra summons power. so there is that.

This is getting interesting. For the hell of it, I took the ED summons enhancements on a couple of trees last time my main was at 30 on a sorc that was not summon's focused and it was a good improvement over the past. Gold hirelings on legendary R1 while still a bit stupid in their actions, sucked up damage, survived and even killed a couple of mobs.

What are some good summons race/class/builds? Any way we could do one on an arty that could still do some ranged damage and traps? Or maybe an alchemist that has a lot of CC, boost and heals? This could be a lot of fun.

Currently I am using Palemaster Illusionist combo, I chose it because the augment summon feats provide extra benefit if you take tier 5 in feydark illusionist, each of the 2 feats provides +1 to Illusion DC. There is no reason a summoner build wont work on almost any character you want. Summoner is basically 3 or 4 feats. 2 Heroic, 1 Epic, and an optional legendary if you choose to take it (which I did). I haven't played the classes you mentioned, but Wizards, Warlocks, Druids, Bards and Artificers are natural for summoners. If you have the gold seal hirelings I would even say that Warlock (possibly Bards also for their buffing nature) seems to be a head, just because the enlightened spirit tree has a line for buffing summons, and unlike Wizard and the rest, the warlock summon line effects ALL summons, not just the class pets. Artificer caster can go straight up Primal avatar and still be a good caster and summoner, if going xbow, all you need is few points in shiradi for the mantle and some upgrades and still have the points for primal avatar. Just remember that 32 points are needed in Avatar for the lvl 30 summon( which is a must on anything that is called summoner), and 35 if you want the extra +3 DC to all spells.

Here are a couple of short videos :

[makmakkabab]

BTW, Is the Epic Satyr Bard hireling from feywild still broken? Or SSG made some changes to him?