PvM summoner guide (by Sladeinflame7)


First of all summoner is a build with who you can rush hell naked, so saying that faith merc won’t work or hoto won’t work is illogical. All setups would work, but I feel like this one is the most effective overall.
This build will contain runewords and expensive items, so if you like old-school summoner just make yourself whatever you like, because this build made to be as effective as possible.
I know that there are many summoner guides around but I never seen exactly what I liked. This build can be made in two different ways – 125fcr or 75fcr.
Why so much fcr? It is for teleing and casting CE. It’s a pleasure for me when I can tele and cast CE so fast =)
This build can be used in PvP, but made for PvM (I will not explain PvP tactics)

Necro’s equipment:

Helm:
- 2 necro 20fcr rare circlet with mods like life/mana/resists/rep life/strength/2sox/MF (um).
- 3 summon skills 20fcr 2sox magic circlet (um, um).
Armor:
- Enigma – no better option available – teleport. Armor should be low strength req.
Amulet:
- 2 necro 10fcr rare amulet with mods like life/mana/resists/rep life/strength/MF.
- 3 summon skills 10fcr magic amulet.
Weapon:
- Beast – fanaticism will make summons faster and increase damage/ar. You can use beast in ba cause you should have enough strength from items and you will have no problem to resell it later.
There are more possible weapons for summoner, but only beast corresponds this setup.
Shield:
- Spirit monarch with 35fcr. It is nice shield overall and the only one which gives 35fcr.
Gloves:
- Trang-oul’s gloves are the best option.
- Magefist – I am mentioning that only cause it also give 20fcr, but I can’t see why you should use that over trang’s.
Belt:
- Arachnid – good and cheap.
- 10fcr crafted belt. This can be an option if you manage to get 20fcr amu, and only if this belt got nice stats, like 24fhr/life/mana. But since arach is so simple and so good just take it.
Boots:
- Aldurs – I found those boots very good. They give 50life, 50 fire resist, and damage goes to mana. Since our resists won’t be super high I suggest aldurs.
- Triple resist rare boots with frw/fhr/life rep.
- Marrowalk – 2 to master won’t make big difference and dexterity is not really needed, but strength can help.
- War traveler – up to 50mf and vitality.
Rings:
- 10fcr life/mana/resists/rep life/strength/MF rare ring.
- 10fcr life/mana/resists/rep life/strength/MF rare ring.

Of course all those stats which I posted on amu/rings/helm are not must (they can't even spawn all together) – it’s just what you should look for. The must is fcr – you must have 125fcr on this setup. Also if you got, let's say, circlet with a lot of strength and you see that you don't need it anymore to use items, then don't aim for strength on rings/amu anymore (just an example).

Charms:
- Torch
- Annihilus
- 6x life skillers. 1x 5fhr sc and 6x resist/life scs. You should have 4x4 free spaces for items to pick up. If you feel you need magic find, simply take off some skillers and put 7mf scs instead.

For switch (you got two options here, use one of them ofc):
- CTA + eth spirit monarch. (For boosting life and +1skill)
- Arm of king leoric + Darkforce spawn shield (For summoning minions)

Actually I am using cta myself and I don’t really care about +some skills since my minions never dies in random places. But keep in mind this option, it can be useful.

If you can get jewels like 7fhr / 30 single res / 10all res/ xx, then you can socket it in your helm and it will be much better than just um. Just be sure single res is fire/lightning and not a poison. That way you don’t need 5fhr sc in you inventory. Also if you feel like you need to hit 86fhr bp you can shael your helm and just put 1x fhr skiller in your inventory, but I feel like resists is a bigger problem in this build.

Note on items: as I said before there are two choices here – 125fcr or 75fcr. Above I posted 125fcr build, but if you can’t manage to get nice circlet/amu/rings then simply make 75fcr build. It is also be very good and effective. What you need to do is to take those items:
- Helm: shako (um)
- Amulet: maras
- Rings: sojs/bks/rare stat rings.
All rest would be as in main setup.

Merc’s equipment (Act2 nightmare offensive):

Weapon:
- Infinity eth cv (-def, -res, CB, high damage). That mean your mages and CE will deal more damage.
Armor:
- Fortitude eth bugged - increases merc’s damage a lot.
- Treachery – also excellent armor for merc.
- Bramble - all your minions will get thorns aura, which return damage against monsters. The reason I am not using it, is that all monsters in hell got high life and low damage comparing to players. That mean thorns won’t be very effective, but you can still try it.
Helm:
- Andariel’s visage or guillaume’s face. Both have their +.

Skills:

- Max raise skeleton
- Max skeleton mastery
- Max raise skeletal mage
- Max corpse explosion** (main damage dealer in crowds)

**Some people prefer to put 1pt here, but having maxed it gives very high range which means you can cast CE and monsters will die on whole your screen. Now for those who say 1pt in CE: so where to put rest skills if not here?

1pt in:
- Decrepify (and prerequisites) – vs ubers (not needed vs random bosses)
- Life tap (and prerequisites) – for healing merc
- Dim vision - for souls
- Attract - can be useful in chaos
- Lower resist – only if planning to team duel
- Iron maiden – only if planning BM duels (can be useful vs most melee chars)
- Clay golem
- Iron golem
- Blood golem
- Revive
- Golem mastery
- Summon resist
- Bone armor (if you planning to recast it all the time)
- Rest point can go into bone armor synergies or summon resist or golem mastery.

There are several options which golems to use:
- Clay golem – it slows target. Very cheap and useful, especially vs bosses.
- Iron golem – can be made from items to obtain useful auras. I see two good choices here:
1. Made from insight. You will have like infinite mana, that makes game play much easier.
2. Made from pride. Gives concentration aura for skeletons and mercenary. That’s the best choice if you want to have as much damage on your skeles as possible. Also it is a great boost for you mercenary (my merc was doing almost 15k damage).

Note: some people say that sometimes IG just disappears without any reason. Actually I had never experienced this bug so it should be pretty rare. Also I lost many pride golems cause of Iron maiden or my death (I don’t say that I am dying a lot, just sometimes there are such situations). I am not playing hardcore so I am pretty relaxed and sometimes that causes death due to careless playing Also Iron maiden casted on IG will cause him death in some hits, so keep eye on him in such places as worldstone or chaos (I am not recommending to chaos with IG made from good item).
What I want to say is that if you don’t want to make IG or just have no resources for it, just simply make clay golem – it will work great and in some situations (vs ubers) can be even better.

Stats:

Strength – enough for gear***
Dexterity – enough for gear (usually nothing)
Vitality – all rest points
Energy – nothing

***don’t forget that on switch you got no beast so you need extra strength to wear spirit monarch.

Tactics:

Summoning minions take 20secs max so that is not a problem. You can go in anya’s portal and summon from dead zombies and rest when killed pindle.
But I am going to eldritch, killing some mobs – CE – summon, then tele on shenk killing some mobs – CE – all dead – summon rest.
The main curse is amplify damage. Also I am using dim vision vs souls and decrepify vs ubers - that's all, i am not using any other curses.
The most of time you should play so: kill 1-2 monsters and then start CE, result - no alive left

You can mf wherever you like, the only hard place is chaos. You can run it, but it requires revives, also your merc will die – so that’s the pain for me that’s why i am never doing chaos with summoner.

Also give me ideas if you think I done something wrong.
Sorry for poor English and thanks for reading

good guide
you forgot in tactics to use bone cage versus ubers^^

I gave no advices vs ubers at all
It's pretty simple and most guides in stickes already have tactics vs ubers.

If you use CtA on switch, I'd use Lidless to avoid adding STR.

not bad

this guide is pretty good. nothing drastic to change but i disagree about running chaos. ive used a full mf geared summon necro to run chaos and it was amazing.i had over 700 magic find. instead of an act 2 merc i used a faith merc with gface and fort. with skillers torch and anni shako magic find summon ammy i had plenty of skelletons and did not need revives. around 700 dmg without fanat cleared chaos fast. i would revive 10 or so minions from the last hall to the right of chaos since they are fire imune and tnak d very well. diablo dies fast with amp dmg or safely with decrep. fun build and easy to run with lot of magic find. attract and amp together are an amazing combo for curses. decrep works well on fast moving monsters. very easy to clear large areas just cast amp once in a while and follow and pick up your findings.

So you need act1 - it's a little problem. And also from IM your skeles should die pretty quickly (at least my were dying fast). Anyway thanks =)

believe it or not iron maiden hardly goes off. with attract out and amp you should kill off a few monsters befor your army is depleted. and corpse explode will clear the field after the first few. i suggest not blowing up all the corpses befor you re summon your skelletons. if there are a lot of oblivion knights they will continue to recast there own curses and prevent iron maiden from hardly ever being casted. IF YOU PLAN ON RUNNING CHAOS DO NOT USE MAGES OR REVIVES UNTIL THE LAST HALL. revives and mages just slow down the game and lagg is not our friend. with 600 skelly dmg you should be more then good to kill monsters especially with fanat.

Yes, it is possible ofc, but it's a bit complicated and i personaly don't like chaosing with my summoner.

I like act1 faith merc and infinity golem more. But nice guide.