Summoner merc woes

I've been starting with a summoner this ladder season and have been relying on my merc a lot.
I'm using

Revive because I like the variety it gives the gameplay and with careful picking they will always outperform skeletons when it comes to tanking.
The problem is the act2 merc will get stuck behind my army, so I tried the act1 merc gave her a grand matron Insight bow.
This seems to be a fairly straightforward solution to this problem but it raises another one: She takes a while produce the first corpse and gets easily distracted and changes targets.
I suppose Fortitude helps but I can't (or am not willing to) afford that yet.

Another idea floating in my head is to give her an

Edge Bow and to rely on

Thorns. I have one on weapon swap but doing that outside situations where my army blocks all mobs is too dicy.
Added to this I'm thinking about making Insight iron golems, the bases seem to occur often enough but I wonder if I'd have to spend all my low runes on replacing them instead of using the for crafting. However since an non- synergized

Bone Spirit is more or less useless perhaps it is possible to make it more or less indestructible by maxing out

Golem Mastery?

I am using an act 1 merc with a 1-4 damage 3s

Short Bow found in act 1 normal with Edge RW, and am clearing all

Terror zones in hell. Go with Edge 100%.

OldManGaming wrote: 1 year ago

I am using an act 1 merc with a 1-4 damage 3s

Short Bow found in act 1 normal with Edge RW, and am clearing all

Terror zones in hell. Go with Edge 100%.

Clearing all areas in the game (except soloing

Baal and ubers) isn't really a problem for a summoner.
The issue I have is doing it fast enough.
What I did notice when trying it out is much of her damage comes from the fire/

Exploding Arrow and that alone is useful in act1 hell.
I suppose finding the fastest bow she can carry is a good solution for that.

Clear speed isn't as bad as you might think. You won't be running it down like a 200%fcr

Nova sorc but enemies die at a running pace

(Pro tip for "soloing

Baal",

Clay Golem and

Decrepify will lock him in his animations and he'll slowly die performing no actions. Takes forever, but you can solo him)

I've solo'd dclone in previous ladder with non-crushing blow revives and Edge A1

Short Bow. Ubers needs Urdars and Enigma, but if you're trying to do ubers make a smiter

I just gave it a go in cows, sure it works, losing Insight isn't this bad at this point. But there were several where I had to stand in the middle of my army and amped cows and wait for a corpse.
The problem with

Thorns as a means for creating corpses I have is it's spread out and circumstantial.
Flayers basically oneshot themselves with amp damage but cows take a while, and with ranged mobs I'll have to skip some areas.
I was playing this way through nightmare because the merc died to fast to be useful without proper gear (holding the bow myself) but transitioned out of it hell.

Regarding

Decrepify, sure I will include that when I do my final respec just going down the tree would take too long at level 88, I have a few superfluous skill points in

Summon Resist that I can use.

IF you're gonna go with

Thorns, I for one would def. go with an A2 merc for it (well, and for everything else as well).

Starting in the mid 70s I believe it was, they give you the same lvl of

Thorns you'd get from Edge. Difference being that once your merc reaches a target, an A2 merc actually has solid damage and can kill stuff. An A1 merc is inherently terrible in that regard, even more so if she's running around with Edge.

If your merc really does never reach anything..use less summons I guess? Yes, that is a bit counterintuitive and against the point of a summoner but realistically, your merc (assuming he's at least half decently geared) will outperform any summons you might otherwise have. And given a tad bit of gear, he really shouldn't need too many (if any) extra summons tanking for him.
Getting

Teleport (be that Enigma or charges) also solves that problem as you can simply telestomp him where he needs to be.

Haha, yes I totally did forget that act2 mercs can have

Thorns.
Second, less summons makes sense, sort of tried that too but it really takes a conscious effort since the unconscious always says: more is better...
Regarding Enigma, haha I don't plan on getting it and short of incredible luck I never will be. I'm one of those people who deletes their old characters after the season.
I despise the non ladder economy that much. :/ It's the reason why I rage quit this game and didn't come back in over a decade.
What I was going to say, yeah I'll just get a

Teleport staff now I freed up my weapon swap slot.

Necro summoner may be THE build that requires Enigma the most in the whole game (with Hammerdin), simply to reposition merc and summons. And usually as you telestomp, a2 with Might is the most classical choice to increase the damage for the whole party.

As for

Thorns, I think they are a good solution in normal, an acceptable one in nightmare, and is clearly worse than Might in hell.

Don't be too hard with the non ladder people, when you have 2-3 hours of play per week, you can't afford to rebuild a char from scratch every season. My own necro, first and only char in hell for me as of now has finally reached level 92 after starting at the very beginning of D2R. ^^

if u r teleporting all the time, yes. but if just for repositioning say 20 times per run-naj's staff on switch, full trang on main. Enigma is out of reach for many...

Check out MacroBioBoi's research on summon necro with

Thorns. Damage scales, hell is made easier with

Thorns than might in later stages. Played through ladders with both playstyles and used to swear by might, but

Thorns is way better until you can actually get some gear. Ranged mobs die fairly quickly to just amp dmg and skele autos. If biggest concern is waiting a few seconds for a corpse then starting summonmancer def isn't the build to go.

Raisin my summoner atm (finally got my hands on him, after s2 ended). Damn he's powerful bein properly geared, ofc.
About merc - I'm stickin to default might one. He wields infi (for cuttin def and fire res of mobs), so skellies chop em easily, when CE clears the crap.
Sweet n easy, never before I enjoyed clearin tombs that much Raised an Insight golem - it feels perfectly fine givin me every mana I need n even more. Later, I'll make anotha one from Pride - when I start sweepin higher ppl games.

About

Thorns - best way i see to benefit from it is Bramble + dweb + trang combo on a hybrid

Nova-skelemancer. Just amp the mobs n torture em xD But no nigma this way, which is rather sad.
High

Iron Maiden curse can be used for such build - but not sure it beats good old amplify. And also, LR is what just askin for it here.
If your choice isn't fast-farm with nigma telestomp + ce, but methodical, grim n noxious waythrough - I'd say go for it. Skellies tank n chop the mobs, who suffer from both amplify n

Thorns effect. While you wash em with poison n CE the bodies. Maybe slower (on high ppl), no tele - but very wicked, some players can really njoy that.

Asha, you'd use Pride over Beast for a Summoner ? Would have bet on Beast + Insight Golem + Might / Infi Merc (which is already a sort of Disco Ball

Skeleton party ^^)

I made Beast a while back and sort of regret it. Only time it gets used is when doing Ubers. Otherwise I stick with HOTO for highest

Teleport break point.

There isn't a single case where I would choose A1 merc over A2 merc for summoner... might aura increases all summon damage and the mercs damage + Beast on your necro and your minions will wreck everything. Even with an A1 Faith bow I wouldn't recommend it.

Insight golem (you could use Pride here) + Beast on your necro + merc with Pride or Infinity (Pride is debatable because the damage on the runeword for the merc himself is low) = the most powerful auras for your minions (i haven't tested

Thorns since the changes, doubt it will ever stack up in comparison, unfortunately)