Summoners and You: A Guide for Beginners

[RedFeather]

A few quick observations:

Summon Control has an additional effect not mentioned in the talent description, which is very useful: the ability to define tactical talent usage; using "Give Order" on your summons, you can adjust their tactics. For instance, there are certain situations in which you'll want your drakes to stop using Devouring Flame.

I think the fifth point in Nature's Balance is considerably less important than the first four; once you get four points in it, you can reset the cooldown on literally any wild-gift, so all the fifth point does is increase the number of cooldowns reset at once.

Phase Summon can be used as a poor man's teleport, which is useful if you're going Antimagic, since you're not going to have runes. Ideally, you'll get some equipment with a disengage or leap or even teleport effect, but that's not always possible.

The annoying thing about using meditation between battles for the telepathy effect is that auto-explore doesn't stop when you see someone with telepathy, so you'll want at least one point in Heightened Senses until you get some infravision gear.

There's a minor bug with Summon Control which you should be aware of (at least, I assume it's a bug): it starts the cooldown on Relentless Pursuit. So when you open a door with it, be aware that your best debuff removal is going on cooldown for the next fifty turns.

[jotwebe]

There's a minor bug with Summon Control which you should be aware of (at least, I assume it's a bug): it starts the cooldown on Relentless Pursuit. So when you open a door with it, be aware that your best debuff removal is going on cooldown for the next fifty turns.

That might be the AI playing your summoner... badly. Try right clicking on your summoner while inhabiting a summon, you can adjust talent usage weights there. I like to set most stuff to 0 so it doesn't get (mis-) used.

[RedFeather]

That might be the AI playing your summoner... badly. Try right clicking on your summoner while inhabiting a summon, you can adjust talent usage weights there. I like to set most stuff to 0 so it doesn't get (mis-) used.

Ooh, thanks, didn't think of that.

One other thing I forgot to mention: the advice for the room of death won't quite work as written. The wyrms are generated with the "In Vault" effect, which means they can neither act nor be acted upon. Or rather, they can be acted upon, but it won't accomplish anything; all attacks will do 0 damage, and they're immune to all status effects. To get them out of that state, you have to draw their attention -- your summons can't do it, it has to be you. I did it by activating my movement infusion, darting in, then immediately running out before they had time to act. Phase Summon might also work to get out, but I haven't tried it.

[Faeryan]

That might be the AI playing your summoner... badly. Try right clicking on your summoner while inhabiting a summon, you can adjust talent usage weights there. I like to set most stuff to 0 so it doesn't get (mis-) used.

Ooh, thanks, didn't think of that.

One other thing I forgot to mention: the advice for the room of death won't quite work as written. The wyrms are generated with the "In Vault" effect, which means they can neither act nor be acted upon. Or rather, they can be acted upon, but it won't accomplish anything; all attacks will do 0 damage, and they're immune to all status effects. To get them out of that state, you have to draw their attention -- your summons can't do it, it has to be you. I did it by activating my movement infusion, darting in, then immediately running out before they had time to act. Phase Summon might also work to get out, but I haven't tried it.

If you know their locations you can do it so that your summons only fight few wyrms at a time.

[RedFeather]

Oh, a quick mention of an upcoming change that's significant: in 1.0.4, if you manage to get Grand Arrival up to effective level 8 (for instance, by having the Great Caller and spending a category point on Summoning (advanced)), you can get four hatchlings with your drake. In the beta, you'd have to get it to level 12. This is because in 1.0.4, the number is just the talent level divided by 2, whereas in the beta, it's 2.4 * log_5 (talent level) + 0.3

[Niknud]

Is this guide out of date? I actually find the Hydra to be almost essential to bridge to the fire drake. I will admit it does not see as much use as the fire drake but when facing fire resistance it is my go to.

[The Revanchist]

It very well may be outdated.

If you find any dscepancies between what's listed and what happens, feel free to discuss it here. It won't do to advertise falsely, after all.

[spastic]

The issue with hydras is that they seem to not use their breath attack when it might hurt either you or another summon. This means that they often just bump into things, doing negligible damage. If they are summoned with a clear line of attack, though, they can completely decimate the enemy.

Also, I will agree with others that Cornacs make great summoners, even if only for the experience. I just played my first summoner and completely dominated everything, only dying when foolishly digging into the overpowered multihued wyrm vault in Dreadfell, and once more while farming jellies when I forgot about my Sudden Growth heal after two uniques spawned on either side of me. Atamathon only hit me once through my massive wall of spam, taking me down to about 400 hp, which I healed next turn. I may have missed out on some nice racials, but I did hit 50 easily, and I had plenty of generics to spread around antimagic, fungus, and harmony. 5/1/5 Fungus was critical for the longer fights. Maybe smarter playing could have ended those fights quicker without my equilibrium ramping up so high.

I decided to go for Eye of the Tiger to maximize the number of summons I could field, which worked great with a final Cunning of 120. (http://te4.org/characters/37268/tome/f3 ... 516e4148de). The longer battles generally consisted of me spamming whichever summons happened to come off cooldown, with the occasional Rage or reposition thrown in when I hit my max summons count. The most difficult region by far was the oozenest when it got up to spamming constant uniques and bosses.

[Marson]

"corner summon"
Just to clarify, does this mean parking your summoner in the corner in order to limit exposure?

[Theyleon]

It means sitting a ways back from a corner, and summoning something so it can see around the corner. So then your summon can attack whatever nasty is there, and the nasty can't even see, let alone attack, you.

[Marson]

Nice. Thanks.

[Kaerwek]

Earth's Eyes is indeed amazing, but I find summoners to be extremely short on the generic talent front and it involves an awful lot of micromanagement of the meditation skill which can easily trip up even the most experienced player when they leave it on at the start of an important fight.

I started a summoner, and the only points that I seem to have trouble putting anywhere are the Generic Talent points. Could you please give me some advice with my character on that?

http://te4.org/characters/117392/tome/9 ... 09894ddac2

Pumped them especially into the halfling skills, but uh, intend to go AM route in the long run, and if I interpreted you correctly AM would that invalidate them or?

[Doctornull]

http://te4.org/characters/117392/tome/9 ... 09894ddac2

Pumped them especially into the halfling skills, but uh, intend to go AM route in the long run, and if I interpreted you correctly AM would that invalidate them or?

Halfling racial talents are not spells. (Shalore racial talents ARE spells.)

You can't use spells if you go AM, so be sure to replace your Phase Door rune (which is a spell).

[Kaerwek]

Yeah, I'm aware that my Phase Door rune will become useless soonish. But currently I still use it.

I do have that Supercharged Torque of PsyhchoPortation which I'll probably replace it with.

Still, not sure if I should spent my Generic Talent points on the current talent trees that I have available.

[Doctornull]

I personally forget to use Luck of the Little Folk often so I would not have put 5 points into that. If you remember to use it regularly, the +36% crit rate looks pretty brutal.

Meditation 1/5: good.
Nature's Touch 1/5: good, maybe put a couple more points in later.

Since your Cunning will be good, I'd put some points in Survival.

As a Summoner, you're one of the few classes which can go get AM around level 14, then do Urkis before 20 for the Fungus upgrade. Both of these trees (Antimagic and Fungus) are great places to put Generic points.