Strongest Summon?

[soybomb]

Which single summon is the strongest?
According to the d2skills.com calculator:
(all at level 20 + prereqs)

Valkyrie
Life: 2000-2400
Damage: +475 percent
Attack: +800
Defense Bonus: +190 percent

Shadow Master
Life: 1447
Attack: +800
Resist All: +67 percent

Fire Golem
Life: 1063 (Hell)
Attack: 140
Defense: 235
Damage: 18-47 (Hell)
Fire Damage: 401-449
Holy Fire 34-36

Grizzly
Life: 825-1125
Attack: +50 percent
Defense: +50 percent
Damage: 945-1039

In a tournament of summons, I think the Grizzly would come out on top because he would probably have the greatest damage of the bunch. What do you think?

[sweetalmonds]

Valk gets the d/e/a and a war pike so I'm going with that, although I fail to see why this is pvp related. All of those are one pointers without a purpose to do damage in pvp anyway.

[Master Zap]

Valk gets the d/e/a and a war pike so I'm going with that, although I fail to see why this is pvp related. All of those are one pointers without a purpose to do damage in pvp anyway.

Yeah I'm going to have to go with the valk too, though that bear comes in real close. I have a fairly respectable summoner druid with a jacked up bear and I was sporting a might merc while I wielded a faith bow crusader bow.

I then hostiled this comparable level and what appeared to be a bow zon. I knew she had faith anyhow from the aura. No idea if she pumped up the valk/decoy etc, but I was shocked when It (valk) took out my bear. Most zons likes this do not invest in pumping the valk, while my build was entirely focused around the summons.

Just an observation

[droid]

Valk gets a full set of rare gear, including jewelry, and a rare war pike at high levels. All those mods trump the grizzly's high damage, IMO, even on a relatively weaker roll. If your valk rolls cold damage, IAS, or especially LL, forget about it :)

[Sass]

Valk gets a full set of rare gear, including jewelry, and a rare war pike at high levels. All those mods trump the grizzly's high damage, IMO, even on a relatively weaker roll. If your valk rolls cold damage, IAS, or especially LL, forget about it :)The Shadow Master also gets a full set of gear and a full set of skills. The Master can set traps and convert monsters, so Queen of PvM. She also gets Claw Block (blocks more things than a valk's D/E/A can) and resists. With her skills, she also has venom, fade and Blade Shield.

Fire Golems can tank fire, but not much else. Not even high damage.

Grizzlies are also very slow and clumsy. They can get high life, but not very high, nor does it have a wide range of attacks.


IMO, Shadow Master is by far the best summon.

[wizAdept]

If this thread is about which summon would win in a pretty silly summon vs summon duel, nothing beats bear. It just does too much damage.

If youre talking about which summon is most effective in duels, thats a different story, there you have to take into account the application of the summon. Clay golem is very strong because of slow and good hp for minion stacking. Fire golem is nice for the firesorb and for the little bit of pulse damage poison necros can use. Shadow master for it's aa mindblast spamming and being an elemental immune meatshield. Wolves are useful for minion stacking because there are a bunch of them.
Every summon plays a role, its not just one is stronger than another.

[mephiztophelez]

i'm going to say Shadow WARRIOR.

train it's trap synergies up by forcing it to cast Shockweb/DS/CBS a lot (like 50+ times each. the way it's coded up, each time it casts shockweb, it gets a synergy bonus equal to one hardpoint investment into that synergy from it), then watch in amazement as a shadow gets significantly more powerful traps than the 'sin who cast it.

unfortunately, if the shadow dies, you have to retrain it.

[Sass]

i'm going to say Shadow WARRIOR.

train it's trap synergies up by forcing it to cast Shockweb/DS/CBS a lot (like 50+ times each. the way it's coded up, each time it casts shockweb, it gets a synergy bonus equal to one hardpoint investment into that synergy from it), then watch in amazement as a shadow gets significantly more powerful traps than the 'sin who cast it.

unfortunately, if the shadow dies, you have to retrain it.When you synergize her, the level of the spell cast will be the base level for it. The others will synergize as though other's base lvl was the one cast (so she can have more than 20 as a base, but unlikely to happen)

The same can work for master, but it's harder. Then again, so is buffing the Warrior constantly :P

[superjayson]

Grizzlies are also very slow and clumsy. They can get high life, but not very high, nor does it have a wide range of attacks.


not very high ? grizzly gets a passive synergy to life (that actually works with +to skills) and they have oak sage if the druid chooses to use it. no other summon can touch the grizzly's life in my opinion.

[Narc]

Just a quick thought, can an Iron Golem be made out of something interesting enough? With soooo many masteries, can this work?

Blood Golem has built-in life steall....

[Sass]

Ok, oak wasn't mentioned, but even with that it wouldn't do very well vs a valk or master. They're still too slow and if the valk has cold gear, or the shadow uses phoenix strike (guaranteed), then the grizz is frozen. Grizz can't do anything but a slow phys attack. Lots of damage, but not as fast.

[sweetalmonds]

You know what's interesting? Look at sass and Jason's avatars, they both represent the class that they picked as strongest summons. Also master zap has a bunny as avatar which represents 'playboy bunnies' which is best represented by a zon(blonde, nice figure etc) also 'zap' related to light amazons so he picked valk. Yes I figured you all out.

[Uncle_Mike]

You know what's interesting? Look at sass and Jason's avatars, they both represent the class that they picked as strongest summons. Also master zap has a bunny as avatar which represents 'playboy bunnies' which is best represented by a zon(blonde, nice figure etc) also 'zap' related to light amazons so he picked valk. Yes I figured you all out.

Does your avatar represent off-topic?

:whistling::crazyeyes: :smug:

[DIEnamic]

I have had both a valkyrie zon and a bear druid so maybe I could help you out.

my bear was lvl 51 fully synergized and oak. it would get the majority of its kills with raw damage, usually one or two swipes.

my valkyrie goes up to lvl 48 but can only kill low hp chars such as sorcs and necros in a single hit depending on her weapon roll. the cool thing about valkyrie is people do not suspect it so they tend to stand there while she gets a nice clean hit on them.

another fun thing about valkyrie is it becomes immune to all elements with enough points which makes it extremely difficult to kill. but also note there is a 5 second or so delay between when you can cast valkyrie.

[mephiztophelez]

also note that Valk's use the 'zon skill Impale. while slow as all getout, it hits pretty damn hard when it connects.