Temporary raising skill levels for Summons

Hello all,

Will it work to temporary raise my skill levels for only when I summon stuff?

I want to believe that my

Iron Golem remains as strong as the moment I made him, but I am not sure.

Will he remain strong if I switch all the gear I can for + levels and also Summon skillers for moment I create him, even after I remove gear/skillers?

When I use multiple Summon skills after I find a Skill Shrine I can often summon more things, but after the shrine wears off the extra summons break.

Does that mean that the Skills are dynamic in that sense, meaning that there would be no point in temporary raising levels just to summon, in the long-run?

And same with

Valkyrie, will she remain strong if I bump up levels as I summon her?

Kind regards,
Kempa

They stay at the level of casting them. They also dont lose

Battle Orders from Call To Arms or any other cast.

Just the limit of skeletons/minions is instant decreased when losing skillpoints.

That would be a funny build with using tokens. Cast an army, then reskill to a boner.

The number of summons is dynamic but the stats of the summons are based on your skill levels at the time they were spawned. They won't get weaker from a skill shrine expiring or you switching to a different set of weapons.

The only special case I know of is

Iron Golem -- Every time you start a new game it will treat it as though you had freshly summoned it with your current skill levels. In most cases this will make it weaker.

Thanks a lot, very helpful replies!

I actually did try to optimize with a Token, but to no avail.

I even equiped a

Wand with +

Iron Golem (and no requirements) but as soon as I took the Token the Golem broke, so couldn't pull a sneaky on the game there

And thanks for letting me know that Golem is freshly made according to skills when creating game. I did not realize and will adapt, maybe I won't have to tp to town to save my Golem when doing

Baal runs any more

ToX-I-qUc wrote: 8 months ago

They also dont lose

Battle Orders from Call To Arms or any other cast.

Just to be sure, you mean that they don't lose

Battle Orders buff after you swap/remove Call To Arms, but the effect ends normally after the duration has passed, right?

Actually any temporary buff/de-buff and all summons work like that, they are "snapshotted" the moment of the cast.
For temporary buffs/de-buff Increase/decrease the skill level or even remove the skill completely after has no effect.
For summons, increase skill level after has no effect. remove the skill completely after will unsummon the minions, and decrease the skill level may unsummon part of the minions if current skill level don't enable too many minions...

Because of that It is a common strategy to use itens with +X to Skill Y on swap/inventory instead of spend points on it (in the case of buffs/de-buffs) or just to raise the skill level at the moment of the cast.

NecroSandro wrote: 8 months ago

The only special case I know of is

Iron Golem -- Every time you start a new game it will treat it as though you had freshly summoned it with your current skill levels. In most cases this will make it weaker.

Which is why you should swap to your CtA+Spirit or whatever before saveexitting, so you get +3 skills on it whenever you log in again.

fredkid wrote: 8 months ago

Actually any temporary buff/de-buff and all summons work like that, they are "snapshotted" the moment of the cast.
For temporary buffs/de-buff Increase/decrease the skill level or even remove the skill completely after has no effect.
For summons, increase skill level after has no effect. remove the skill completely after will unsummon the minions, and decrease the skill level may unsummon part of the minions if current skill level don't enable too many minions...

Because of that It is a common strategy to use itens with +X to Skill Y on swap/inventory instead of spend points on it (in the case of buffs/de-buffs) or just to raise the skill level at the moment of the cast.

This implies the correct order of buffs and summoning:

1. Battle Command
2. summons
3. buffs, including party buffs (
   Shout,
   Battle Orders,
   Battle Command,
   Enchant)

Builds without summons typically use

Battle Command twice in a row (for convenience), so the second cast uses a buffed skill level, but for summoners the second BC has to be cast later to affect the summons as well.

Queegon wrote: 8 months ago

Which is why you should swap to your CtA+Spirit or whatever before saveexitting, so you get +3 skills on it whenever you log in again.

So you are telling me, using a Skill Shrine to create a Ethereal

Thresher Insight

Iron Golem does nothing for future use?!

yep.
On your next game the

Iron Golem with be "re-created" by the game using your current equipment.

fredkid wrote: 8 months ago

yep.
On your next game the

Iron Golem with be "re-created" by the game using your current equipment.

Well isn't that Spicey. looks like I'm gonna start searching for some +3 IG +3 summon +3 Mastery gear ha

Saw someone selling +3 IG +3 Summon Wands on the site a few days ago
(but dot save the trade...)

fredkid wrote: 8 months ago

Saw someone selling +3 IG +3 Summon Wands on the site a few days ago
(but dot save the trade...)

You'd want +3

Golem Mastery +3 summoning anyway. + IG is worthless. But yeah, usable on swap, if you don't use cta for some reason (which you should as the health bonus is huge)

Every spell that lasts or has a duration engages in behavior known as "snapshotting;" the level (as well as other modifiers) of the skill are only checked at the time it is cast/applies. Any changes to your skill or even other effects that modify it will be ignored once the effect has started. The stats (skill level, etc.) that went into that cast/application have been "snapshotted" from the moment of time when you used that skill.

There are a few easy examples to test this:

• Use
  Battle Orders; as each extra level is worth another 3% max HP, you can easily see the effect of levels. removing sources of +skills after applying it (shrine, gear,
  Annihilus, etc.) will not reduce your HP... But casting BO again after dropping its level will cut your max HP to reflect the new level.
• Druid's
  Oak Sage will do much of the same thing, but as an example for something that lasts indefinitely. You can also return to town (which prevents auras from applying) to see that the snapshot applies to the minion itself, not the buff it grants: bump your level, summon OS, drop your skill level back down, and you can return to town (which de-buffs your max HP) then leave town (which applies the buff again) to see it still applies the same higher "snapshotted" level. But re-summon the OS with a lower level and you can see your max HP promptly drops to reflect the worse skill.
• A less-obvious example that shows this applies to non-summon/buffs can be tried with poison skills; (most easily on a poison necro) if you don't carry any other sources of poison penetration, a
  Rotting Fissure will push normally poison-immune mobs to 95% poison resist. Hit them with a
  Poison Nova or other skill to see they only slowly lose HP, even if you cast
  Lower Resist on them after they were poisoned. However, if you cast
  Lower Resist on them before you hit them with poison, then they lose HP a lot faster: the poison's effect is snapshotted based upon their poison resist at the time the poison applied.

As a pseudo-exception, as others have mentioned, the quantity of summons is dynamically capped, so if your level drops below enough to maintain the number you have it will unsummon enough to bring you within your limit. But for the remaining summons, their stats will be unchanged. The other pseudo-exception, as mentioned, is

Iron Golem. As this is the sole summon that persists after logging out, it has a unique mechanic to effectively "re-create" the

Iron Golem once you log back in.

Wait, do i undestand it correctly? Playing druid I can summon my minions wearing + skill items for them to be awsome and keep my pets strong even after I undress?

shaciu wrote: 3 months ago

Wait, do i undestand it correctly? Playing druid I can summon my minions wearing + skill items for them to be awsome and keep my pets strong even after I undress?

Yep.
I keep a "+Skill set" on my stash with my Druid and Amazon just to summon stronger minions before starting my run

But can be a little annoying if you are doing very short games... or you want to switch a lot equipment...
And if you switch many pieces, sometimes you forget to put back one or two items, specially if they are visually similar...
(once I ended up facing Ubers with my "summon helm" instead of my "ubers helm" because of this...)

Still want to have at least 1 point in bear, 5 in Spirit wolves, and 3 in dire wolves in case you die and need to reclaim your corpse. And so that you don't lose a wolf or two when you take off the equipment, tho.

'Bear' minimum.

Oh, same thing goes with

Enchant on sorceress. I always keep a

Hexfire and +3 fireskill amulet in my cube for when it eventually wears off. Beautiful skill

Enchant.

BoringTitle wrote: 3 months ago

Still want to have at least 1 point in bear, 5 in Spirit wolves, and 3 in dire wolves in case you die and need to reclaim your corpse. And so that you don't lose a wolf or two when you take off the equipment, tho.

'Bear' minimum.

with +Skill charms you only need 1 point in each
(

Annihilus and

Hellfire Torch are enough to give +4)

True enough, but through the levelling process. 1 3 5 1, especially if in single player. Because you are definitely not going to have those.

fredkid wrote: 3 months ago

BoringTitle wrote: 3 months ago

Still want to have at least 1 point in bear, 5 in Spirit wolves, and 3 in dire wolves in case you die and need to reclaim your corpse. And so that you don't lose a wolf or two when you take off the equipment, tho.

'Bear' minimum.

with +Skill charms you only need 1 point in each
(

Annihilus and

Hellfire Torch are enough to give +4)