{3.10} Speaker for the Dead | The Mass Minion Summoner | League Starter, Leveling Guide 💀

@ akavangop:

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akavangop escribió:

Dude, the guide formatting.. really.. horrible to read. I would suggest to restructure and clean up the mess of images, sections, walls of flavor text

This isn't much for me to go on. "It's terrible, change everything." It'd help me understand your perspective if you could go into more detail on why you feel this way and what you want. Otherwise I can only assume.

I'll be moving some parts into a section, like DPS into DPS Breakdown, so the initial scroll isn't so long. I'll also off-color the free verse poem so it's easier on the eyes to skim past.

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@ pfal0799:

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pfal0799 escribió:

Thanks for your response. It makes perfect sense. To be honest I've been looking at alot of summoner build lately trying to fit in dancing duo. I've tried to do a double scaling of dancing dervish with facebreaker with the flat phys like you said but it gets really hard to get tanky with those kind of build. I saw alot of pure dancing dervish build. I'm trying to fit more minions in there. I was thinking maybe zombie or spectre. I guess other summons just don't fit very well with other summoning minions :(

I know that feeling too well, of wanting so badly to make an idea work. I've spent more time than I care to admit, over the years of playing PoE, pouring over lists of uniques, skills, and supports trying to piece something interesting together.

Double scaling? You mean trying to scale two things at once, right? Because flat damage for Facebreakers and flat damage for minions are not the same. If you know that, no worries, I just wanted to make it clear in case you were assuming generic flat damage could affect both. They don't.

If I were to add minions to a Dancing Dervish build, I'd want minions that benefit strongly from flat damage due to having low base damage but fast attacks. I'd also target where a pure Dervish build struggles, and fill in that gap with suitable minions. For example, if the Dervishes are fine on clear but could use help on bosses, I'd try Cannibal Fire-Eater Spectres, whose rapid flamethrower spell benefits strongly from flat damage and is up there with Tukohama Vanguards for bossing. Anger and Envy auras would work great here. Raging Spirits or Animated Weapons on a Spell Totem might be a nice addition, too.

You could also theme it to "immortal" minions, and go Dervish with Agony Crawler. Occultist's explosions and Dervishes would solve your clear, and pumping up Agony's damage would solve bossing. For defense, go hybrid ES, get an "ES On Hit" Discipline Watcher's Eye since you'll be hitting a lot for Agony Crawler, and pair it with lvl1 CWDT + lvl8 Spirit Offering + lvl1 Unearth + GMP. You'll gain 5%-9% of your base life, multiplied by both your life and ES %, as ES when you take 538 damage on a 0.25 second cooldown.

I might try something like this next league, since every league I like to attempt a new summoner in order to compare and find the best summoner build.

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Hercanic escribió:

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akavangop escribió:

Dude, the guide formatting.. really.. horrible to read. I would suggest to restructure and clean up the mess of images, sections, walls of flavor text

This isn't much for me to go on. "It's terrible, change everything." It'd help me understand your perspective if you could go into more detail on why you feel this way and what you want. Otherwise I can only assume.

What I think he's saying, and I agree up to a point, is that you have too much fluff in the post.

You open it up and you have a useless description, followed by a very pretty but equally useless image.

In the "Accept" tab, that doesn't tell you what it does, you are greeted by another image, more fluff, another image, and then finally actual useful information, but not without the promise of yet another image in the future.
And then you have even more images in each tab. Every time I want some info, I'm greeted by an image that takes up all my screen instead of a simple header image or something.

You have some good and well structured information here, but you have to really dig to get to it.

GUIDE UPDATE
I've added a new Feedback section called Acclaim! Quoted within is a collection of the praise you guys have had for the guide and build.

For all your kind words, again, thank you!


Art by Willian Murai

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Guide and Build Updates have been standardized to the above format. Previous update posts now have their own artwork as well. You can quickly find these hidden gems through the Change Log links.

@ Sionnach26 and akavangop:

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Sionnach26 escribió:

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Hercanic escribió:

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akavangop escribió:

Dude, the guide formatting.. really.. horrible to read. I would suggest to restructure and clean up the mess of images, sections, walls of flavor text

This isn't much for me to go on. "It's terrible, change everything." It'd help me understand your perspective if you could go into more detail on why you feel this way and what you want. Otherwise I can only assume.

What I think he's saying, and I agree up to a point, is that you have too much fluff in the post.

You open it up and you have a useless description, followed by a very pretty but equally useless image.

In the "Accept" tab, that doesn't tell you what it does, you are greeted by another image, more fluff, another image, and then finally actual useful information, but not without the promise of yet another image in the future.
And then you have even more images in each tab. Every time I want some info, I'm greeted by an image that takes up all my screen instead of a simple header image or something.

You have some good and well structured information here, but you have to really dig to get to it.

Summoners aren't the best at clearing. For that, you want a build like Poet's Pen, Inpulsa's, Tornado Shot, Kinetic Blast, or anything that can instantly cover several screens and cause chain explosions.

Summoners aren't the best at bossing. For that, you want a build like Molten Strike, Blade Flurry, Indigon, Glacial Cascade mines, Volatile Dead, or anything that has multiple ways of scaling to absurd levels and can be pre-stacked to burst down a boss.

Summoners aren't the best at delving. For that, you want a build whose source of damage can't die, avoids or mitigates most damage, and uses monster scaling against the monsters like on-kill %life explosions.

If you want to be efficient with your time, in other words, there are better builds out there for each major challenge.

So why play summoner? Well, they are pretty solid for new players, so they're great to start out with. That's why I invested time into creating the New Player Guides section. Ultimately, I don't think new players will mind some fluff to ease them into the complexity of PoE. They likely wouldn't know what to even do with a shotgun blast of info, so they probably wouldn't seek it out either. Rather, it's more important that they feel excited and intrigued, motivating them to want to learn more.

For veterans, they might be curious for a new experience, or they already enjoy commander-type playstyles. Or, like me, they simply love the theme of summoners and necromancers.

The latter is who I wrote this guide for. I didn't want to make just another infodump of a guide. I wanted to engage players with a wisp of story, mystery, and reward each click of the spoiler button with beautiful art that captures the fantasy of the Necromancer.

Is it a bit inefficient to scroll past a "useless" image? Sure. It's a second of your life you won't be getting back. A tiny moment that I stole... No, no, that's not right. This was a proper agreement. You read the fine print, did you not? For my knowledge, you pay a modicum of your soul. If you didn't think it a fair exchange, why click "I accept"? Tsk, tsk, youths these days...

Summoners are inefficient masters of none. Losing Zombies is annoying. Nurturing your Spectres' level is tedious. Doorways are frustrating. If you didn't like scrolling past a few pictures, I don't think summoners will be fun for you.

Put bluntly, I am weeding out those who wouldn't have the patience for a summoner to begin with. I know my approach won't appeal to everyone, and I don't intend to.

Thank you, though, for the morsel of soul. It was tasty.

Only thing left is uberelder. Any advice on flasks/gem switches for the fight? I find tough bosses hard, like guardians as well where it feels like skeletons die as soon as i summon them :/ even though ive done a lot of em but most of the time not deathless except chimera



And i like the way your guide is written. I dont wanna read a guide where i wish it had more "sections" explaining missing stuff.
I like that i can spend time where im bored reading all the detailed explanations and really understanding the build and its mechanics and the time and effort u put into this, as well as the uptading and answearing questions here is exactly what i apreciate and am looking for when i check for interesting builds i'd like to play

@ Schnubbel_:

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Schnubbel_ escribió:

Only thing left is uberelder. Any advice on flasks/gem switches for the fight?

Replace GMP in your gloves with Fortify (get a second pair so you don't have to recolor), like I did in the Red Elder video. In it you can see I am able to always have Fortify up.

Use Enfeeble instead of Projectile Weakness, or another Shaper ring with high life and LoH for spells. Enfeeble will cause you to take 6% less damage and if the boss crits it'll have a 24% multiplier instead of 30%. Alternatively, a rare ring with 100 life will be worth almost 5% more life, and you gain another 105 life per second per target from Ball Lightning.


You could use Vulnerability for 3.7% more damage from your Skeletons, but I'd personally opt for more defenses in a phase-heavy fight like Uber Elder.

A +1 Curse ammy and Temp Chains glove corruption would be nice, but those gloves might be hard to find. I got mine for only 20c, a real steal, but that was pure luck of opportunity.


For Spectres, focus on DPS. We can get 724,351 Shaper DPS from them with:
1. Raise Spectre
2. Minion Damage
3. Controlled Destruction (replaces Phantasms)
4. Spell Echo (replaces Elemental Proliferation)
5. Pierce (replaces GMP)
6. Vile Toxins (replaces Faster Projectiles)

Minimally chilling Elder or Shaper requires a hit of 66k, so Hypothermia is iffy to use but still possible. Instead we take Pierce to help with portal phase, since we're not using Projectile Weakness. Elemental Focus would be 51.5% more damage compared to Controlled Destruction at 46.3%, but we would lose all chills/freezes/ignites. The difference in damage is negligible, in my opinion, so I'd rather bet on chill helping me out a little. Up to you, though.

You can check out the stats of Shaper and Elder on poeDB. Cold damage spells are dominant in this fight, followed by physical. Sapphire (6% max cold resist), Basalt (15% reduced physical), and Quartz (10% attack/spell dodge) flasks would help counter this, but their uses are limited so timing is crucial.

Shaper's Celestial Beam deals damage in all three elements. Divination Distillate can give another 4% max to all elemental resistances. Rumi's Concoction might be reduced by Acrobatics, but it's still solid protection. Taste of Hate would be great, but it'll interfere with EE.

Quicksilver is really good for increasing the speed of Charged Dash and Shield Charge, letting you manually dodge faster.

Aside from those possibilities, you want life flasks to bounce your health back up after a big burst, or you're liable to die to something random. We don't rely on flasks for damage, so we have room for an extra life flask. We'll be less likely to run dry when we need recovery most.

For Pantheon, use Solaris and Yugul to reduce cold damage. Alternatively, Ryslatha can help keep your life flasks charged up if you can manage for 15 seconds.

As for how to use Charged Dash in the fight, you can refer to Mathil here. Our advantage compared to him is we don't use it to deal damage, our minions do that, so we can focus on maneuvering to keep safe.

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Schnubbel_ escribió:

I find tough bosses hard, like guardians as well where it feels like skeletons die as soon as i summon them :/ even though ive done a lot of em but most of the time not deathless except chimera

Nice job on your gear. My only criticism is you don't need so many sources of minion taunt/hinder/blind. One is plenty. Freeze does well enough on its own to protect you while mapping, and bosses get wailed on by so many minions they're inflicted by all effects within one to two seconds. I could see it possibly helping in deeper delves, though.

By 94 you should be able to break into 7k life. That should really help with these endgame fights.

How often to resummon your skeletons becomes a feeling that comes with enough experience. Just make peace with the fact that you won't always be able to have all of them up. Sometimes you have to prioritize your safety. A nice part about this build is the Agony Crawler and Spectres are still there to back you up.

These fights are designed to kill players. There's no shame in dying to them once or twice. A lot of dangers can be avoided just by being very familiar with the boss mechanics (e.g. 4k Mathil builds) and keeping calm. For Guardians, some map mods are hazardous to your XP bar, like Increased AOE on Minotaur, so be careful what you roll.

I've added a new "Endgame Bosses" section to the New Player section. Nothing's really in it yet, but eventually I'll fill it with details about each major fight, what dangers to watch out for, and tactics to employ.

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Schnubbel_ escribió:

And i like the way your guide is written. I dont wanna read a guide where i wish it had more "sections" explaining missing stuff.
I like that i can spend time where im bored reading all the detailed explanations and really understanding the build and its mechanics and the time and effort u put into this, as well as the uptading and answearing questions here is exactly what i apreciate and am looking for when i check for interesting builds i'd like to play

I'm glad you like it. Thus far I've had three complaints and nearly two dozen compliments, as shown in the Acclaim section. I'm open to suggestions, of course, and willing to work in compromises like off-coloring the fluff, but I will not compromise my overall vision.

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Hercanic escribió:

Summoners are inefficient masters of none. Losing Zombies is annoying. Nurturing your Spectres' level is tedious. Doorways are frustrating. If you didn't like scrolling past a few pictures, I don't think summoners will be fun for you.

Put bluntly, I am weeding out those who wouldn't have the patience for a summoner to begin with. I know my approach won't appeal to everyone, and I don't intend to.

I'm a relatively new player, and summoner is my second favorite build. And I'll actually be following this guide in the next league for one of my summoners, unless something drastic changes in the playstyle.

I get it, you're playing up the fantasy. These kinds of games give people inspiration for these kinds of illustrations, and seeing them might make someone think "Yeah, that's the kind of thing I want to do, the kind of character I want to be", and improve their experience. I just personally think it's a bit too much, is all.

I will however do something I should have made in my other post, and that is thanking you for the leveling breakdown (something I have loved and look for since I first saw Enki's Arc witch) and poe-profile, which I did not know was a thing and provides a very good breakdown of the whole thing.

Can you give me a brief explanation of your formatting in the leveling doc?

For example:

Level 1 Zombies | Freezing Pulse - Elemental Proliferation - (Arcane Surge)

Level 4 Zombies | Holy Relic - Summon Phantasm on Kill | Smite - Ancestral Call

Is there a significance when skills are bold/nonbold or when a skill is black? What about parenthesis, is that meant to be optional?

Also it shows using smite for a few levels but I don't think you can get that as a witch until act 3, am I meant to make an alt quickly there to grab smite?

Sorry if these seem like simple/noobish questions.

Thanks very much for the guide I think the rest of it is great including all the art!

I look forward to leveling once or twice this weekend in preparation for betrayal.

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term escribió:

Can you give me a brief explanation of your formatting in the leveling doc?

For example:

Level 1 Zombies | Freezing Pulse - Elemental Proliferation - (Arcane Surge)

Level 4 Zombies | Holy Relic - Summon Phantasm on Kill | Smite - Ancestral Call

Is there a significance when skills are bold/nonbold or when a skill is black? What about parenthesis, is that meant to be optional?

Also it shows using smite for a few levels but I don't think you can get that as a witch until act 3, am I meant to make an alt quickly there to grab smite?

Sorry if these seem like simple/noobish questions.

Thanks very much for the guide I think the rest of it is great including all the art!

I look forward to leveling once or twice this weekend in preparation for betrayal.

Check 2nd post of page 9, it should answear most your questions

Skills connected with a "-" are to be linked in sockets, "|" are standalones/not needed to be linked and "()" are optional if you already have items with the neccessary sockets/links. At least thats how i would interpret it

@ Sionnach26:

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Sionnach26 escribió:

I just personally think it's a bit too much, is all.

The options I can think of:

• 1. Cut down on the art - I'm opposed to this, as stated before. The pattern is every spoiler contains a surprise. I want to establish that expectation, so those who appreciate the art have something to look forward to as they chew through an otherwise dense guide.
  
  
• 2. Move the art to the bottom - Like in the Change Log section. I made the change there because I expected frequent access to this section over time. The other sections generally won't change much once I'm finished, and thus will only need to be read once. The reason why I head with the art is to set the mood, acting as "white space" to break up the walls of text, like an illustrated Chapter page in a book.
  
  
• 3. Crop the art - I don't like the idea of altering the artist's intended portrayal of their work. The art would lose a lot of cool parts, too.
  
  
• 4. Only use horizontally oriented art - I don't like this option, either, as it would limit a lot of great art. Each piece is meant to correlate in some way to the section or post it's in.

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Sionnach26 escribió:

I'm a relatively new player, and summoner is my second favorite build. And I'll actually be following this guide in the next league for one of my summoners, unless something drastic changes in the playstyle.

I will however do something I should have made in my other post, and that is thanking you for the leveling breakdown (something I have loved and look for since I first saw Enki's Arc witch) and poe-profile, which I did not know was a thing and provides a very good breakdown of the whole thing.

Great! By 3.5 I should have finished the leveling guide, so I hope it'll be helpful!

There's quite a few useful sites out there. I will be trying to work many of them into the guide wherever appropriate. If you know of any I haven't mentioned yet, I'd like to hear about it!

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Schnubbel_ escribió:

"

term escribió:

Can you give me a brief explanation of your formatting in the leveling doc?

For example:

Level 1 Zombies | Freezing Pulse - Elemental Proliferation - (Arcane Surge)

Level 4 Zombies | Holy Relic - Summon Phantasm on Kill | Smite - Ancestral Call

Is there a significance when skills are bold/nonbold or when a skill is black? What about parenthesis, is that meant to be optional?

Also it shows using smite for a few levels but I don't think you can get that as a witch until act 3, am I meant to make an alt quickly there to grab smite?

Sorry if these seem like simple/noobish questions.

Thanks very much for the guide I think the rest of it is great including all the art!

I look forward to leveling once or twice this weekend in preparation for betrayal.

Check 2nd post of page 9, it should answear most your questions

Skills connected with a "-" are to be linked in sockets, "|" are standalones/not needed to be linked and "()" are optional if you already have items with the neccessary sockets/links. At least thats how i would interpret it

@ Schnubbel_:
Thanks Schnubbel_! (It's technically the first post of page 9, I just now use [ hr ] breaks to help distinguish different replies within the same post.)


@ term:
Awesome! Thanks!

Format legend:

• Bold = Skill Gem
  
• Non-bold = Support Gem
  
• - = Link
  
• | = Separator
  
• () = Optional
  
• [] = Put in your weapon swap to level
  
• Color = Gem Color, newly introduced
  
• Black = Previously introduced, no change; support gems become acronyms to save space.
  
• Missing = It's been dropped or replaced. You can keep any supports used in the main build in your weapon swap to keep them leveled. Don't worry too much, it's not a big deal either way, aside from Desecrate, since they'll level pretty fast when you get to maps.

Gems unavailable to the Witch must be found, traded for, muled over by an alt, or waited on until Siosa/Lilly sells them.

The GoogleDoc is meant as a cheatsheet you could potentially print out, so it uses shorthand to keep it concise. I plan to add full explanations for each gem in the guide itself.

Don't worry about following this guide to the letter. The intent is to help anyone lost or unsure what to do. Since this was written in retrospect rather than during an actual leveling session, some of my advice might be out of touch until I level again. For example, I'm currently debating whether I should move SPoK to Zombies or keep them on the Holy Relic. Feel free to experiment or make a change where you feel appropriate.

I'd love to hear about any issues you encounter, so I can improve the guide! I have added a format legend to the GoogleDoc and a quick explanation in the link's paragraph, too.