Looking for strongest build
I know summon is the fastest cleariing but he is fun
Does anyone have any off the wall builds here to make him super strong??

Any advice works thanks guys!!

In general, you'll want to stack +skills. The more skills in summons you have, the more you can bring out.

Auras are great - it's worth holding a beast runeword for the fanatacism aura it gives. A2 might merc is great. Pride or Infinity is great. Iron Golem made from Pride or Infinity is great (pride is cheaper lol).

Your bread and butter to start is Amplify Damage. 1 point along with the +skills should be enough to give you plenty of range. Alternatively, the "safer" option is decrepify, which slows enemies down...but has a static range and doesn't amp as much damage as amp damage does. It also requires much more of a skill investment to get to.

Your bread and butter once you get going is Corpse explosion. It's fun to watch your army wage war on hells' forces, but sometimes you just wanna get to the finish line. Just make sure to amplify damage the group you're gonna explode first!

Enigma is a crutch on most classes imo...EXCEPT this one. A well placed "telestomp" groups all of your minions right on top of you, who then turn and start swinging as one at whatever you teleported next to.

The guy above is 100% wrong.
Summons are just a meat shield.
You do not need any +summon skills.

Merc is doing all the dmg, getting a first kill before any summons even have time to land an attack.
Then CE kills the entire screen.
You can clear the whole game without summons ever attacking.

Insight iron golem (this build is very mana hungry)
A2 infinity might merc
You self-wield beast and cast amp to super-buff your merc.
Telestomp = instant kill
Amp + conviction makes your CE lethal for everything around.

20 CE
20 amp
20 golem mastery
1 iron golem
1 summon resist
1 revive (only used for reviving urdars to kill ubers)
Rest in skeleton + mastery (just so they can be a better meat shield)

Pride is a bad idea. It deals cold dmg, so it shatters corpses = many missed opportunities to cast CE.

CE is 95% of your dmg
The best way to further boost that dmg is by using FF.
It not only makes all your summons invulnerable to fire (the only thing that normally kills them) but it also gives +3 CE for bigger radius, and -15% fire to boost your CE dmg since its half fire, half phys.
It also allows you to put a 15ias/40ed jewel in your merc’s andy instead of a 15ias/30fire res.

FF
Enigma
Beast
Homunculus fire facet
Arach
Magefist
2x fcr rings
2/15fcr amy
Fire sunder
Phys sunder (yes, the only build in the game that should use 2 sunders!)
Torch anni gheed, no need skillers.

Merc :
Infinity GPA (best base when paired with beast) -> get as close as perf ed% you can afford, its the most important item of the build.
Fort
Andy 15ias/40ed

You end up with a merc that can reach up to 74.5k dps (this is where you should invest the most in your build)
-105% fire pen
-100% DR

This post was edited by SinsOfTheSun on Mar 18 2025 08:29pm