Jordanbcool
23-12-2005, 23:19
After searching through the different guides in the druid forum I noticed a lack of a pure summoner guide. Even though there already is a guide by Lothric (which is very good I might add) the guide I am about to make will focus completely on summons rather then employing different skills to compliment them.
Introduction
Summoning druids are one of the greatest builds to play out there. They focus completely on their mercenary and summons to decimate their enemies. Even though they will not destroy everything in sight, they are much more fun to play then other MvP builds. With the right equipment you can give your summons a host of auras to further help them along the way and make them into an effective killing unit. A summoner “draws his power from others” as a necromancer would put it. However even though you will not have as many summons as a necromancer, you will be able to summon your pets out of thin air, making your playing style less restrictive and more adaptable.
First I will discuss your stat points and how to allocate them. This will give you a general idea on what you should accomplish but will leave some room to customize your build.
Strength- since you are a summoner you wont really need many points in here. I would suggest putting enough points in here to wear your heaviest armor.
Dexterity- you can decide whether to put 0 points in here or to put enough to get max block. I found that max block was a great thing to have and saved my butt many times. Put as many points as you like either nothing or enough for max block.
Vitality- everything else, more life is always better for any build.
Energy- none, you don’t really need energy because your summoning will be in town. When you run out of mana simply go to the town healer and fill up your bulb and continue to summon. If however you want to be more versatile 10 points in here is the maximum points you should put.
Next I will discuss the build and the differences between this guide and Lothric’s guide.
Skills
As you would imagine all your skills will be put into summoning but I would also advise a few points in one other tree. This will give you more life and be able to help out your summons in a way.
You may only have the following summoned at one time.
1-5 Ravens
1 Vine
1 Spirit
1 Grizzly, 3 dire wolves or 5 spirit wolves.
There are many different opinions on what is the best combination to have. Some people argue for grizzly and some people argue for dire wolf. I will explain the pros and cons of each so you can make your own deductions about what’s best.
Grizzly (pro)- This summon is the strongest one you have. A fully synergized grizzly will have life in the thousands rather then hundreds. He also has knock back, which is great for keeping monsters off your other summons/merc. He does great damage (1k and up) and combined with some good auras will be able to tank and kill any monster you come across.
Grizzly (con)- You will only be allowed to have one grizzly out at a time, which means less summons and less crown control.
I found the Grizzly to be a huge help to me for Act bosses and against smaller packs of stronger monsters. However I found him to be less help when dealing with larger crowds.
Dire wolves (pro)- These guys do double the damage when they eat corpses. They are also much stronger then spirit wolves but there are more of them then one grizzly. These guys are very powerful and are my personal favorite because of their great crowd control.
Dire wolves (con)- Against Act bosses and stronger packs of monsters these guys usually get owned very badly.
Spirit wolves (pro)- These guys use teleport to offensively attack monsters and kill them even before you come across them. You can also have five of them, which is much more then one grizzly or three dire wolves.
Spirit wolves (con)- Even though there are more of these guys then with one grizzly or 3 dire wolves their power is greatly diminished because it is split 5 ways. This means that in hell these guys will last only a minute or two before being destroyed. Also they do teleport a lot, which separates them from the rest of the party. This way they cant get the bonuses from your spirit or mercenary and become even weaker.
In my personal experience I relied on spirit wolves only through normal, then I moved on to dire wolves, which I used almost exclusively, even through hell. However in hell I found myself using grizzly a lot on random uniques because he could handle them much better then my dire wolves.
Spirits
Oak sage- this spirit gives you more life. The basic principle is life over damage. I will not bore you will mathematical calculations because I think they aren’t needed. All you have to do is decide which one you think is better and max it.
HOW- This spirit gives you more damage and AR. This is my personal favorite because summons has had their life increased greatly in 1.10. Also if your pet does die they can quickly be resummoned without any further duress.
A special thing I wanted to note is that Lothric had a very good point. I would like to quote him because after all he is the one how originally said it.
“One final point on the debate: Spirits die quickly in Hell. No matter where you cast them they will wander right back into the middle of combat, roll over and die. When you’re in the middle of combat and this happens to your Oak Sage the sudden loss of life can be fatal to both you and your minions. On the other hand, having your HoW killed in Hell is less serious as you and your minions are only losing out on a few seconds of additional damage.”
Again however it is all up to you to decide what’s best. I am merely presenting you with the necessary information to make that conclusion.
Vines- I used only one vine the entire time I played my summoner. Poison creeper was very useful to me to stop monster healing in hell.
Now since I have giving you a basic overview of the differences in this build and the summons it employs I will give you how many points you should actually put into these skills.
Ravens- 1 point. These guys cannot be hit but their damage is pathetic even at low levels. There is no reason why you should put more then 1 point in here because anymore would be a huge waste.
Poison creeper- 20 points. You might think that this is a huge waste to go ahead and max this but it really isn’t. I decided to max this not because of the damage (which was small) but so the vine can simply survive in hell. If the vine is always dead he cant be much of a help in stopping a super unique from simply healing all the damage it takes from my other summons.
Carrion vine- 0-1 point. This vine I only used a few times to get my life full. This vine isn’t actually needed so if you want to use it put only one point. If not then don’t but any points in here.
Oak sage- 1-20 points. I decided to max HOW instead of this so I only put one point in here. If however you feel you need more life then this should be maxed.
HOW- 0-20 points. I think you should max this because this spirit gives you a huge bonus in AR and damage so that your summons can actually kill monsters in hell. What good is having summons that never die, but struggle to kill monsters anyways?
Spirit wolves- 20 points. This skill is a must. Even though Lothric made a good point about defense being less of an issue I found it very difficult for my summons to hit monsters in hell even with my HOW. If you max this skill you will get a healthy AR bonus to your Grizzly and Dire wolves.
Dire wolves- 20 points. These guys will be your main killing source in nightmare and hell. They also give passive bonuses to your grizzly and spirit wolves so you cant lose when maxing this. If you do not max this, your summons will be to weak to make it in hell mode the way monsters are in 1.11.
Grizzly- 20 points. This guy is the best summon of all the character classes because of the skills he uses. I used him almost as much as I did Dire wolves in hell because of his knock back effect. He is a great companion and is a very tough animal to kill even for something like a super unique venom lord.
Shape shifting
The 5 points you will spend in here are more then necessary to help your monsters kill in hell. I went down the WereBear path so I could have more life and so I could have access to a stun skill.
Werewolf- 1 point- needed prerequisite.
Lycanthropy- 1 point- gives you more life.
Werebear- 1 point- needed to actually change into a bear. You get a good life bonus, which will help you to stay alive in hell.
Maul- 1 point- prerequisite
Shockwave- 1 point- with you plus skills you can stun for a couple of seconds. What danger are monsters to you or your minions if they can’t attack?
Some people might say you could go down other paths to make yourself more versatile later on in hell such as going elemental. Since you are a pure summoner the damage you would do is insignificant in hell and therefore a waste if you were to do that. I also found shockwave to be a huge help in stunning monsters so my minions could deal with them and the life bonus of werebear saved me many times
Equipment
I will not give you low level or mid level options because I think you should focus on the end result of your build rather then its lower stages. I will suggest only the best weapons and armor to make you a better summoner. If however you cannot afford what I propose you need not worry because your killing power is based on your summons rather then equipment unlike a barbarian who relies solely on equipment to be good.
Helmet
Jalal’s Mane (+2 druid skills, +2 shapeshifting, +20 Str/Energy, +20% AR, Resists)
Harlequin Crest (+2 skills, +1.5 life per level, +1.5 mana per level, 10% PDR, +2 stats)
These two options are really the only options you have when making a summoner. If you cannot afford these though, a peasant crown will suffice.
Armor
Arkaine’s Valor (+1-2 Skills, 30% FHR, +0.5 Vitality per level)
Chains of Honor Rune word (+2 skills, +20 Str, Replenish Life, +65% Resist all)
My personal favorite is the COH rune word because of the resists and plus skills it adds.
Belts
Arachnid Mesh (+1 Skills, 20% FCR, Slows Target 10%, +5% Max Mana)
Verdungo’s Hearty Cord (10% FHR, 10-15% PDR, +30-40 Vitality, Replenish Life)
Trang-Oul’s Girth (Cannot Be Frozen, +25-50 Mana, +66 Life, Replenish Life)
I liked to use Arachnids mesh simply for its + skills.
Gloves
Frostburn (Maximum Mana 40%, Adds 1-6 Cold Damage)
The only real options for gloves, since you wont need open wounds or IAS because you wont be doing much actual killing.
Boots
For summoners there aren’t many options here. Basically whatever you want is probably a good choice as far as boots go. You could use marrowalks or something as simple as Nat’s boots. There really isn’t a wrong or right piece to use for this. Since there are so few options of which to choose from I decided to leave this “blank” and let you come up with what’s best.
Amulets
Mara’s Kaleidoscope (+2 skills, +5 all stats, +20-30% Resistances)
An even better amulet to use then this would be one that gives you a bonus to your summoning skills. If however you want better resistances and stats then Mara’s is a good choice. I decided to get a pure +3 summoner amulet because it boosted my summons significantly.
Rings
Bul-Katho’s Wedding Band (+1 skills, +0.5 life per level, 3-5% LL)
Stone of Jordan (+1 skills, Increase Max Mana 25%, +20 Mana)
There aren’t really any other choices here then these two. If you don’t want to worry about being frozen though I’d advise you throw in a raven frost to protect you against that.
Shields
Stormshield (35% PDR, +60% Cold Resist, +25% Lightning Resist, +30 Str)
The best shield out there for obvious reasons; max block saved me so many times and this shield helped out a lot with the damage reduce it provides.
Weapons
Heart of the Oak Runeword (+3 Skills, 40% FCR, 7% ML, +10 Dex, Increase Max Mana 15%, +30-40% Resistances, Level 4 Oak Sage, Level 14 Raven)
Beast Runeword (Level 9 Fanaticism Aura, 40% IAS, 20%CB, 25% OW, 240-270% ED, +3 Werebear, +3 Lycanthropy, PMH, +25-40 Str, +10 Energy, Level 13 Summon Grizzly)
Call to Arms Runeword (+1 Skills, +40% IAS, +250-290%, 7% LL, +2-6 Battle Command, +1-6 Battle Orders, +1-4 Battle Cry, PMH, 30% MF)
Doom Runeword (+2 Skills, Level 12 Holy Freeze Aura, +45% IAS, +330%-370% ED, -40%-60% Enemy Cold Resistance, 20% DS, 25% OW, PMH, Freezes Target)
These are all great choices and you CANNOT go wrong with any of them. Also against PI’s I suggest carrying around a gimmershed or some other form (bow or lightsabre) of elemental/magical damage. This way you and your merc can do the killing while your other summons tank.
Mercenary Act 2
This is a must to make your party stronger and better able to kill PI’s. He not only provides extra killing power but also helps your party defensively or offensively. He does however need some good gear to be able to kill and tank so this should be your main concern when building your summoner.
Armor- Eth Stone or COH
Weapon- EBOTD war pike or ariocs needle
Helmet- COA or Gaze
These are the ideal setup for your merc and will provide him with a lot of killing power and survivability in hell. You can either choose to go defense or offense when choosing a merc. Again this is all up to you and both are good choices.
Conclusion
I would like to thank Lothric because he was the basis of my first summoner druid and is were I got a lot of my information from. Afterwards however I tried out a pure summoner and found that he is indeed viable in hell. In this guide I gave a basic overview of what you need to do to accomplish a very fun and effective animal party. I hope you have as much fun as I did building and playing this summoner. Good luck to you and if anyone has any comments or suggestions fell free to leave them!
Introduction
Summoning druids are one of the greatest builds to play out there. They focus completely on their mercenary and summons to decimate their enemies. Even though they will not destroy everything in sight, they are much more fun to play then other MvP builds. With the right equipment you can give your summons a host of auras to further help them along the way and make them into an effective killing unit. A summoner “draws his power from others” as a necromancer would put it. However even though you will not have as many summons as a necromancer, you will be able to summon your pets out of thin air, making your playing style less restrictive and more adaptable.
First I will discuss your stat points and how to allocate them. This will give you a general idea on what you should accomplish but will leave some room to customize your build.
Strength- since you are a summoner you wont really need many points in here. I would suggest putting enough points in here to wear your heaviest armor.
Dexterity- you can decide whether to put 0 points in here or to put enough to get max block. I found that max block was a great thing to have and saved my butt many times. Put as many points as you like either nothing or enough for max block.
Vitality- everything else, more life is always better for any build.
Energy- none, you don’t really need energy because your summoning will be in town. When you run out of mana simply go to the town healer and fill up your bulb and continue to summon. If however you want to be more versatile 10 points in here is the maximum points you should put.
Next I will discuss the build and the differences between this guide and Lothric’s guide.
Skills
As you would imagine all your skills will be put into summoning but I would also advise a few points in one other tree. This will give you more life and be able to help out your summons in a way.
You may only have the following summoned at one time.
1-5 Ravens
1 Vine
1 Spirit
1 Grizzly, 3 dire wolves or 5 spirit wolves.
There are many different opinions on what is the best combination to have. Some people argue for grizzly and some people argue for dire wolf. I will explain the pros and cons of each so you can make your own deductions about what’s best.
Grizzly (pro)- This summon is the strongest one you have. A fully synergized grizzly will have life in the thousands rather then hundreds. He also has knock back, which is great for keeping monsters off your other summons/merc. He does great damage (1k and up) and combined with some good auras will be able to tank and kill any monster you come across.
Grizzly (con)- You will only be allowed to have one grizzly out at a time, which means less summons and less crown control.
I found the Grizzly to be a huge help to me for Act bosses and against smaller packs of stronger monsters. However I found him to be less help when dealing with larger crowds.
Dire wolves (pro)- These guys do double the damage when they eat corpses. They are also much stronger then spirit wolves but there are more of them then one grizzly. These guys are very powerful and are my personal favorite because of their great crowd control.
Dire wolves (con)- Against Act bosses and stronger packs of monsters these guys usually get owned very badly.
Spirit wolves (pro)- These guys use teleport to offensively attack monsters and kill them even before you come across them. You can also have five of them, which is much more then one grizzly or three dire wolves.
Spirit wolves (con)- Even though there are more of these guys then with one grizzly or 3 dire wolves their power is greatly diminished because it is split 5 ways. This means that in hell these guys will last only a minute or two before being destroyed. Also they do teleport a lot, which separates them from the rest of the party. This way they cant get the bonuses from your spirit or mercenary and become even weaker.
In my personal experience I relied on spirit wolves only through normal, then I moved on to dire wolves, which I used almost exclusively, even through hell. However in hell I found myself using grizzly a lot on random uniques because he could handle them much better then my dire wolves.
Spirits
Oak sage- this spirit gives you more life. The basic principle is life over damage. I will not bore you will mathematical calculations because I think they aren’t needed. All you have to do is decide which one you think is better and max it.
HOW- This spirit gives you more damage and AR. This is my personal favorite because summons has had their life increased greatly in 1.10. Also if your pet does die they can quickly be resummoned without any further duress.
A special thing I wanted to note is that Lothric had a very good point. I would like to quote him because after all he is the one how originally said it.
“One final point on the debate: Spirits die quickly in Hell. No matter where you cast them they will wander right back into the middle of combat, roll over and die. When you’re in the middle of combat and this happens to your Oak Sage the sudden loss of life can be fatal to both you and your minions. On the other hand, having your HoW killed in Hell is less serious as you and your minions are only losing out on a few seconds of additional damage.”
Again however it is all up to you to decide what’s best. I am merely presenting you with the necessary information to make that conclusion.
Vines- I used only one vine the entire time I played my summoner. Poison creeper was very useful to me to stop monster healing in hell.
Now since I have giving you a basic overview of the differences in this build and the summons it employs I will give you how many points you should actually put into these skills.
Ravens- 1 point. These guys cannot be hit but their damage is pathetic even at low levels. There is no reason why you should put more then 1 point in here because anymore would be a huge waste.
Poison creeper- 20 points. You might think that this is a huge waste to go ahead and max this but it really isn’t. I decided to max this not because of the damage (which was small) but so the vine can simply survive in hell. If the vine is always dead he cant be much of a help in stopping a super unique from simply healing all the damage it takes from my other summons.
Carrion vine- 0-1 point. This vine I only used a few times to get my life full. This vine isn’t actually needed so if you want to use it put only one point. If not then don’t but any points in here.
Oak sage- 1-20 points. I decided to max HOW instead of this so I only put one point in here. If however you feel you need more life then this should be maxed.
HOW- 0-20 points. I think you should max this because this spirit gives you a huge bonus in AR and damage so that your summons can actually kill monsters in hell. What good is having summons that never die, but struggle to kill monsters anyways?
Spirit wolves- 20 points. This skill is a must. Even though Lothric made a good point about defense being less of an issue I found it very difficult for my summons to hit monsters in hell even with my HOW. If you max this skill you will get a healthy AR bonus to your Grizzly and Dire wolves.
Dire wolves- 20 points. These guys will be your main killing source in nightmare and hell. They also give passive bonuses to your grizzly and spirit wolves so you cant lose when maxing this. If you do not max this, your summons will be to weak to make it in hell mode the way monsters are in 1.11.
Grizzly- 20 points. This guy is the best summon of all the character classes because of the skills he uses. I used him almost as much as I did Dire wolves in hell because of his knock back effect. He is a great companion and is a very tough animal to kill even for something like a super unique venom lord.
Shape shifting
The 5 points you will spend in here are more then necessary to help your monsters kill in hell. I went down the WereBear path so I could have more life and so I could have access to a stun skill.
Werewolf- 1 point- needed prerequisite.
Lycanthropy- 1 point- gives you more life.
Werebear- 1 point- needed to actually change into a bear. You get a good life bonus, which will help you to stay alive in hell.
Maul- 1 point- prerequisite
Shockwave- 1 point- with you plus skills you can stun for a couple of seconds. What danger are monsters to you or your minions if they can’t attack?
Some people might say you could go down other paths to make yourself more versatile later on in hell such as going elemental. Since you are a pure summoner the damage you would do is insignificant in hell and therefore a waste if you were to do that. I also found shockwave to be a huge help in stunning monsters so my minions could deal with them and the life bonus of werebear saved me many times
Equipment
I will not give you low level or mid level options because I think you should focus on the end result of your build rather then its lower stages. I will suggest only the best weapons and armor to make you a better summoner. If however you cannot afford what I propose you need not worry because your killing power is based on your summons rather then equipment unlike a barbarian who relies solely on equipment to be good.
Helmet
Jalal’s Mane (+2 druid skills, +2 shapeshifting, +20 Str/Energy, +20% AR, Resists)
Harlequin Crest (+2 skills, +1.5 life per level, +1.5 mana per level, 10% PDR, +2 stats)
These two options are really the only options you have when making a summoner. If you cannot afford these though, a peasant crown will suffice.
Armor
Arkaine’s Valor (+1-2 Skills, 30% FHR, +0.5 Vitality per level)
Chains of Honor Rune word (+2 skills, +20 Str, Replenish Life, +65% Resist all)
My personal favorite is the COH rune word because of the resists and plus skills it adds.
Belts
Arachnid Mesh (+1 Skills, 20% FCR, Slows Target 10%, +5% Max Mana)
Verdungo’s Hearty Cord (10% FHR, 10-15% PDR, +30-40 Vitality, Replenish Life)
Trang-Oul’s Girth (Cannot Be Frozen, +25-50 Mana, +66 Life, Replenish Life)
I liked to use Arachnids mesh simply for its + skills.
Gloves
Frostburn (Maximum Mana 40%, Adds 1-6 Cold Damage)
The only real options for gloves, since you wont need open wounds or IAS because you wont be doing much actual killing.
Boots
For summoners there aren’t many options here. Basically whatever you want is probably a good choice as far as boots go. You could use marrowalks or something as simple as Nat’s boots. There really isn’t a wrong or right piece to use for this. Since there are so few options of which to choose from I decided to leave this “blank” and let you come up with what’s best.
Amulets
Mara’s Kaleidoscope (+2 skills, +5 all stats, +20-30% Resistances)
An even better amulet to use then this would be one that gives you a bonus to your summoning skills. If however you want better resistances and stats then Mara’s is a good choice. I decided to get a pure +3 summoner amulet because it boosted my summons significantly.
Rings
Bul-Katho’s Wedding Band (+1 skills, +0.5 life per level, 3-5% LL)
Stone of Jordan (+1 skills, Increase Max Mana 25%, +20 Mana)
There aren’t really any other choices here then these two. If you don’t want to worry about being frozen though I’d advise you throw in a raven frost to protect you against that.
Shields
Stormshield (35% PDR, +60% Cold Resist, +25% Lightning Resist, +30 Str)
The best shield out there for obvious reasons; max block saved me so many times and this shield helped out a lot with the damage reduce it provides.
Weapons
Heart of the Oak Runeword (+3 Skills, 40% FCR, 7% ML, +10 Dex, Increase Max Mana 15%, +30-40% Resistances, Level 4 Oak Sage, Level 14 Raven)
Beast Runeword (Level 9 Fanaticism Aura, 40% IAS, 20%CB, 25% OW, 240-270% ED, +3 Werebear, +3 Lycanthropy, PMH, +25-40 Str, +10 Energy, Level 13 Summon Grizzly)
Call to Arms Runeword (+1 Skills, +40% IAS, +250-290%, 7% LL, +2-6 Battle Command, +1-6 Battle Orders, +1-4 Battle Cry, PMH, 30% MF)
Doom Runeword (+2 Skills, Level 12 Holy Freeze Aura, +45% IAS, +330%-370% ED, -40%-60% Enemy Cold Resistance, 20% DS, 25% OW, PMH, Freezes Target)
These are all great choices and you CANNOT go wrong with any of them. Also against PI’s I suggest carrying around a gimmershed or some other form (bow or lightsabre) of elemental/magical damage. This way you and your merc can do the killing while your other summons tank.
Mercenary Act 2
This is a must to make your party stronger and better able to kill PI’s. He not only provides extra killing power but also helps your party defensively or offensively. He does however need some good gear to be able to kill and tank so this should be your main concern when building your summoner.
Armor- Eth Stone or COH
Weapon- EBOTD war pike or ariocs needle
Helmet- COA or Gaze
These are the ideal setup for your merc and will provide him with a lot of killing power and survivability in hell. You can either choose to go defense or offense when choosing a merc. Again this is all up to you and both are good choices.
Conclusion
I would like to thank Lothric because he was the basis of my first summoner druid and is were I got a lot of my information from. Afterwards however I tried out a pure summoner and found that he is indeed viable in hell. In this guide I gave a basic overview of what you need to do to accomplish a very fun and effective animal party. I hope you have as much fun as I did building and playing this summoner. Good luck to you and if anyone has any comments or suggestions fell free to leave them!