That's not a summoner... *THIS* is a summoner!

[loimprevisto]

This is what I started with:

Psionic / Thought-Forms
Spell / Golemancy
Wild-gift / Summoning (melee)
Wild-gift / Summoning (ranged)

...I've played around with adding necromantic minions, but the synergy just wasn't there. Eventually I gave up the golem (and stone alchemy) to go get mucas and slime. It's working out rather well and helping me learn my way through nightmare roguelike. I might actually make it through dreadfall this time!

[StarKeep]

Hmm, never thought of a summons heavy build.

I'll have to give this a shot with the Gardener's Talent that increased physical/mental/magic power by the amount of allies affected.

[Elroniel]

When it comes to the amount of summons you can have out, do the summon talent creatures count towards the same limit as the Oozes/slimes? I would think the golem and the necro minions would bypass it, since their talents don't say anything about limits (Outside of the talent level for the necro).

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Have you considered adding forgery of haze? (And letting it summon more of the same crap you can?)

Or perhaps, a racial summon? (Yeek offers this, along with a global spped bonus, though others might tell you to go with Thaloren Trees.)

Actually, Yeek might work there, since your summons power isn't related to your weakness, it's their talent levels. And fast EXP gain might equate to stronger summons, MUCH faster. Hmmmm.... Now if we could just add stone warden talents, and get there pets as well.

[loimprevisto]

When it comes to the amount of summons you can have out, do the summon talent creatures count towards the same limit as the Oozes/slimes? I would think the golem and the necro minions would bypass it, since their talents don't say anything about limits (Outside of the talent level for the necro).

It seems that only the wild-gift based summons count against the cunning based limit, so yeah the oozes limit the number of summons I can have out. The golem, thought forms, and minions are completely independent of it.

Have you considered adding forgery of haze? (And letting it summon more of the same crap you can?)

Or perhaps, a racial summon? (Yeek offers this, along with a global spped bonus, though others might tell you to go with Thaloren Trees.)

I haven't played with forgery of haze much... it definitely sounds like its worth a try though. I also looked at the chronomancy tree that lets you make a temporal clone of a monster, but without a way to get rid of paradox it didn't seem worth taking. I absolutely *love* yeeks and went with it for the first few iterations of this concept, but ended up abandoning it for Cormac's extra category point. Maybe I'll go with a yeek for my Insane run

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Temporal clone of enemy is garbage. (Ano has a similar trick without paradox, but same issue.) Try temporal clone of SELF. Summon forge of haze, summon temporal clone of self, clone summons forge of haze, all 4 spam summons.

The only good kill is OVERkill.

EDIT: Additionally, rune of the rift is available to all characters and reduces paradox when used. Also, there's a sword that has an activation that reduces paradox when used. Might be some others as well. (and of course, using the rune hints at 'side effects' which I can't comment on. Plus, it takes up an infusion slot.)

I assume when you run this it will be named either 'Mick' or 'Dundee'?

[Mopman43]

How about shadows? Seems like they would fit.

[StarKeep]

Well, shadows require an INSANE investment to reach their max power.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

15 class talent points, that's big, but no more then the wilder summons already are. And it's all on one tree, so it's only one cat point. Wouldn't be to terrible to shuffle in, though if you wanted to max all 5 you might need to picky about your other summons talent level. (Wilder ranged tends to go X/5/1/5 if I can afford it, and melee tends to go X/1/5/5, both of those are already significant investment, Thought forms can be a simple 5/x/x/x, but if you want some of the other intrinsic bonuses from a thought form, they require more investment.) Depends on just how much you want to focus this. If you want to push them, they do at least fit into the same stat scheme. (Necro stuff is mag, instead of will/cun, so it takes a bit more investment in the stat point direction.)