[Chanter] your favourity summons?

[Voltron]

For me in early game those were of courese Skeletons with upgrade as their were useful as hell :D.

 

Later in game however I really loved Wyrms (Gernisc Slew). There is 3 of them, they are quite tanky and have range attack. My favourites.

 

Ogres were cool but I didn't think like they were doing something special really and Wyrms were 3, instead of 2 so I game me more engage options (like one wyrm per one range enemy if there were 3 of them etc.).

 

Drake is epic, can't deny that but I sort of didn't want to waste slot on him, since there I think Her Brige, Her Courage and Seven Nights (if you like to sometimes deal some damage) were more fun and useful to me.

Animated Weapons are cool, but they did not seem to be worth level IX skill over Wyrms

 

and there is of course Dragon :D :D. Which I think is so epic that not many people can resist :D.

 

 

But my favs so far were Wyrms.

 

Yours?

Edited May 19, 2018 by Voltron

[rheingold]

I really like the ogres. The other summons could very well be better, but from a coolness perspective they are hard to beat.

Of course the dragon is the ultimate in cool, but the ogres are great until then. They also do some sterling work from a damage point of view.

[Edolamberto]

On on a multiclass chanter beckoner in backline you think ogre are the best?

[Sloul]

Ogres and Wyrm (Wyrm are immune to slash or pierce - possibly when upgraded).

 

And I read some user saying that Phantom can themselves summon some lesser entities. Didn't verify that.

[Voltron]

On on a multiclass chanter beckoner in backline you think ogre are the best?

 

Hm, I guess 4 Ogres could be strongt, but 2 Drakes and 6 Wyrms also sound good. I like Range summons as they are easier to manipulate on battlefield.

 

But if you want that front line smash with upgraded Ogres sweep later- I guess 4 of them makes sense :D

[Voltron]

Ogres and Wyrm (Wyrm are immune to slash or pierce - possibly when upgraded).

 

And I read some user saying that Phantom can themselves summon some lesser entities. Didn't verify that.

 

Also didn't use Phantom so can't confirm. As for Wyrm being immune to slash and pierce- didn't notice, but I am from killing, so I never checked.

[The Josip]

Although I'm no fan of skeletons and necromancy, I would currently have to go with PL7 Chant that spawns skeletons, on a Troubadour with Brick Recitation and as high INT as you can get. This is what I'm aiming at. There's so much utility and synergy potential here.

 

 

Notable mentions:

Dragon looks great, and the ground shakes as he moves. But his attacks are kinda meh. No special attack animation, nothing, just an ordinary number pops up as he deals damage.

Swamp plant looks cool, and attack animation is better, but still a bit lacking in satisfaction. If we don't count those skeletons, I think this would be my favorite though.

Ogres.. not a fan of barbarism. But this is a summon that actually has a smashing attack animation. Very satisfying watching them attack someone.

Edited May 19, 2018 by The Josip

[The Josip]

On on a multiclass chanter beckoner in backline you think ogre are the best?

 

No, because Beckoner's summons are so tiny that ogres probably look like midgets. I created Beckoner just to see how much smaller summons are, and as soon as I spawned those skeletons on lvl1 I said no thanks. Wyrms look like mosquitos. Although, in all fairness, Ogres are so huge that maybe even with Beckoner they would look okay as some kind of human-sized barbarians.

[Tosho]

I prefer the  6 weapons. That is 6 empowered attacks from other classes every attack for ~100dmg each if you Micro them and they feel sturdier than Ogres. As a Single class Beckoner Chanter my PC has nothing to do most of the time (he's a explosive expert but no fight is hard enough to need them yet) so I don't mind microing them.

 

 

I'm having problems with the Ogres and Lesser Drakes, they all near instantly kill each other from AOE if AI is on  since their attacks auto cleave. I guess that's a plus for the Drakes though, since the male Drake who comes down from the upgrade is SUPER strong but can't be controlled. So I think the weapons are best.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Tosho

[Tommy1984]

As multiclassed Beckoner/Shieldbearer I used the skeletons in the early game. But as I used the healing chant and the healing paladin aura the upgrade for skeletons almost never triggered. Shadows and Wisps are total garbage. Wurms are nice but melee blockers are more useful. Ogres were my upgrade for the skeletons - they do much more damage. Drakes are nice but here also melee summons feel more useful. I never tried the swamp plant, so I can not say anything about it. The best summon are the animated weapons - they are really strong and you get 6 as a beckoner. As I'm multiclassed I couldn't test the dragon. The chant for summoning skeletons is not really useful as there are better chants and skeletons are one of the weakest summons.

 

For multiclass my recommendations for summon progression are: Skeletons >> Ogres >> Animated Weapons

[Edolamberto]

ok ty i'll try that weapons then

[The Josip]

What exactly do Wisps do? I tried the basic version and they do almost no dmg and no additional effects. Is it about their upgrade and how good is that?

 

Also, if someone is in the last 1/3 of the game, do higher level summons even die? They seem to have a lot of hp, but their damage is very disproportional (low). At least that's the case with Dragon, Drake and Swamp plant. It could be by design that Weapons and Ogres provide more damage, but still, they die?

 

 

PS: As for animated weapons.. Boring. They may be the best numbers-wise but come on, I just can't believe that top level summon is a.. standalone weapon. That's as criminal a design as character creation face selection. Not a single good one, and you only have 1 choice. For example, human and elf #2 face is a female face with I'm-in-love eyes. #3 face is scarred. So you only have 1 male face in an RPG game. Also, Both PL1 summons are skeletons. At least in PoE1 the ghost looked differently. Now it's pretty much the same as skeletons. Again, boring.

Edited May 19, 2018 by The Josip

[Irori]

 

On on a multiclass chanter beckoner in backline you think ogre are the best?

 

No, because Beckoner's summons are so tiny that ogres probably look like midgets. I created Beckoner just to see how much smaller summons are, and as soon as I spawned those skeletons on lvl1 I said no thanks. Wyrms look like mosquitos. Although, in all fairness, Ogres are so huge that maybe even with Beckoner they would look okay as some kind of human-sized barbarians.

 

Smaller size, esp for melee summons, means you can add in more damage per squad inch.  Having more summons also means more targets to distract your enemies.

 

My biggest issue with skeletons is that even at 20 int, they dont last long enough.  Wurms default at 25s while skeletons are at 12.  Using skeletons end up eating up all my phrases while I can weave in a paralyze when it comes to wurms.

 

Part of it depends on your party composition, do I want more DPS or do I want more meat shields?

 

Ogres I love a lot due to their tankiness and cleaving attack + is base 25s.  Drop a HoT on them and they will tank for ages while cleaving everything down.

 

By the time you get to animated weapons and dragons, the game should be over and every encounter trivialized.

[Teacher]

 

No, because Beckoner's summons are so tiny that ogres probably look like midgets. I created Beckoner just to see how much smaller summons are, and as soon as I spawned those skeletons on lvl1 I said no thanks. Wyrms look like mosquitos. Although, in all fairness, Ogres are so huge that maybe even with Beckoner they would look okay as some kind of human-sized barbarians.

 

 

I just had the same reaction! Those skeletons were just... I mean they are probably strong, been hearing a lot about the greatness of beckoners but... Size matters ok?! :D

[The Josip]

 

 

No, because Beckoner's summons are so tiny that ogres probably look like midgets. I created Beckoner just to see how much smaller summons are, and as soon as I spawned those skeletons on lvl1 I said no thanks. Wyrms look like mosquitos. Although, in all fairness, Ogres are so huge that maybe even with Beckoner they would look okay as some kind of human-sized barbarians.

 

 

I just had the same reaction! Those skeletons were just... I mean they are probably strong, been hearing a lot about the greatness of beckoners but... Size matters ok?! :D

 

 

 

Actually, I would say that in serious encounters Troubadour's summons are stronger. Beckoner's summons are win-more summons. If battles are easy, Beckoner will win faster. That's all there is to it. 

 

Troubadour's summons have 4x more hp, last much longer, are much bigger and so they can block corridors more or less just as well as more numerous but smaller summons, and at PL7 Troubadour can block enemies much better because he can summon 2x more skeletons with Brick Recitation + whatever is the name of skeleton Chant. At around 20 INT that's 5 skeletons that Troubadour will have, plus whatever Invocation summon he chose. On top of all that, Troubadour is more versatile and can cast other invocations more frequently than Beckoner. It's not like Beckoner can spam invocations without overriding previous ones.

 

 

And yes, size matters!

[Irori]

 

Troubadour's summons have 4x more hp, last much longer, are much bigger and so they can block corridors more or less just as well as more numerous but smaller summons, and at PL7 Troubadour can block enemies much better because he can summon 2x more skeletons with Brick Recitation + whatever is the name of skeleton Chant. At around 20 INT that's 5 skeletons that Troubadour will have, plus whatever Invocation summon he chose. On top of all that, Troubadour is more versatile and can cast other invocations more frequently than Beckoner. It's not like Beckoner can spam invocations without overriding previous ones.

 

 

And yes, size matters!

 

 

isnt it just x2 more HP?

 

Smaller summons = more surface area = higher dmg.

 

My biggest issue is still the duration of summons.  They just dont last long enough...

[Taevyr]

Beckoner/Wael priest is pretty good: First buff self with Mirrored Image/Displaced Image (no cooldown afterwards ), summon skeleton army/ogres depending on lvl, then rotate with buffing and new ogres. Since the only difference is in hp and defense, dropping 4 ogres on an enemy is usually enough either take him out immediately or follow up with a kill shot from Maia, and i can always wedge enemy groups between the ogres on one side and eder (basically a wall), xoti (self-buffing monk/priest) and myself on the other. Then i add a dire blessing/triumph of the crusaders/watchful blessing, and the stun invocation when it's a low-will boss, and they can happily smash away, healing themselves as they move along, distracting/flanking even krakens when necessary.

 

I was looking forward to getting a free gaze of the adragan, but by the time I get it, it'll be moot.

 

As for the skeletons: beckoner doubles summons, and ancient brittle bones makes them split in two upon death. So imagine dropping 6 skeletons on an enemy before hitting him with a fireball, after which he immediately finds himself surrounded by 12 tiny murderous skellies who each do equal damage as one of the troubadour's 6. And may or may not have been in range of one of my party buffs.

[Tosho]

 

 

 

No, because Beckoner's summons are so tiny that ogres probably look like midgets. I created Beckoner just to see how much smaller summons are, and as soon as I spawned those skeletons on lvl1 I said no thanks. Wyrms look like mosquitos. Although, in all fairness, Ogres are so huge that maybe even with Beckoner they would look okay as some kind of human-sized barbarians.

 

 

I just had the same reaction! Those skeletons were just... I mean they are probably strong, been hearing a lot about the greatness of beckoners but... Size matters ok?! :D

 

 

 

Actually, I would say that in serious encounters Troubadour's summons are stronger. Beckoner's summons are win-more summons. If battles are easy, Beckoner will win faster. That's all there is to it. 

 

Troubadour's summons have 4x more hp, last much longer, are much bigger and so they can block corridors more or less just as well as more numerous but smaller summons, and at PL7 Troubadour can block enemies much better because he can summon 2x more skeletons with Brick Recitation + whatever is the name of skeleton Chant. At around 20 INT that's 5 skeletons that Troubadour will have, plus whatever Invocation summon he chose. On top of all that, Troubadour is more versatile and can cast other invocations more frequently than Beckoner. It's not like Beckoner can spam invocations without overriding previous ones.

 

 

And yes, size matters!

 

 

 

 

What I like about Beckoner is you can gear purely and build purely defensively and still do good damage. 6-8 Weapons hitting for 50-150 is not a joke, and rivals some power dps builds while being super tanky. Double the Summons is double summon damage.  With enough INT they are always out. I don't find any of the damage Invocations really good so not casting them inbetween summons is a non issue. I doubt those invocations do as much as dmg as another 1-4 high end Summons over 30 seconds.

Edited May 20, 2018 by Tosho

[The Josip]

isnt it just x2 more HP?

 

Smaller summons = more surface area = higher dmg.

 

My biggest issue is still the duration of summons.  They just dont last long enough...

 

 

 

It's 4x more hp, but since Beckoner can have twice as many, it's effectively 2x more hp versus single-target attacks. Versus AoE Beckoner's summons do much worse unless they're spread out.

 

Surface area is irrelevant except for bodyblocking because there's enough space for attack, especially since you can cast summons behind enemies. Some summons are also ranged so it's a non-issue, and I'm not sure Drake takes any surface area (just flies?). This is another case of win-more. If you don't have enough surface area to attack, you probably won the battle and now it's just a matter of how fast you finish it.

 

 

 

As for the skeletons: beckoner doubles summons, and ancient brittle bones makes them split in two upon death. So imagine dropping 6 skeletons on an enemy before hitting him with a fireball, after which he immediately finds himself surrounded by 12 tiny murderous skellies who each do equal damage as one of the troubadour's 6. And may or may not have been in range of one of my party buffs.

 

 

Beckoner may be better than I think it is, but you're not making a good case for him. Skeletons splitting into two is not relevant in the comparison with Troubadour because Troubadour can use the same ability as well, so you'll still have the same ratio of 1:2 in damage and 4:1 in hp, and I don't know how much exactly in duration. Also, these Skeletons have to compete with higher level summons and I'm not sure how well that goes for them, despite scaling.

 

 

 

 

 

What I like about Beckoner is you can gear purely and build purely defensively and still do good damage. 6-8 Weapons hitting for 50-150 is not a joke, and rivals some power dps builds while being super tanky. Double the Summons is double summon damage.  With enough INT they are always out. I don't find any of the damage Invocations really good so not casting them inbetween summons is a non issue. I doubt those invocations do as much as dmg as another 1-4 high end Summons over 30 seconds.

 

 

 

But again, we need to differentiate between win-more builds, and builds that get you through tough battles. If you're winning easily anyway, you can as Troubadour increase battle speed to maximum and that's that. But if that's not the case, you want summons to constantly be out there. Perhaps this is currently always the case with some high level summons who have high hp (I can't speak of endgame yet other than limited experiments with the console) and so going for double damage instead of double total hp is fine. 

 

However, Beckoner vs Troubadour is not only about 2x total hp vs 2x total dmg. If it were so, you could argue that there are (theoretically speaking) cases (rare as they might be) in which killing enemy faster is more beneficial because otherwise he would jump directly on your character with teleport, ranged spells or who knows what, and summons wouldn't be able to soak damage in any significant way. What Troubadour has over Beckoner is Brisk Recitation and I think you greatly underestimate the Invocations. "Set to their Purpose.." alone is incredible not just for the Chanter - allied casters will never run out of their spells as long as they are affected by the buff. CC invocations are all great. I would also add corpse explosion and tornado invocations, but I only experimented with that in a limited way with console and not in endgame areas and so I have to be reserved here, but both seemed great. Moreover, all of these invocations target different diffense (fortitude, reflex, will) and thus you can pick and choose. Healing/burn invocation also seems good, and turns your Chanter into priest with "Set to their Purpose..", with unlimited amount of healing 'spells'. I've noticed Skalds like Hel-Hyraf but I didn't use that much so can't say.

 

You're saying that Beckoner is so good that after the summoning invocation he can just go AFK with full defense gear and it's gg, which also means you traded something else for Concentration buff because otherwise you get interrupted and you're done. That all put together I just don't see how Beckoner can compete with Troubadour who has so much going for him. Not to mention, versatility. If you can win every battle by summoning those weapons and going AFK, then okay, but as I said, that's just a win-more situation. I play PotD Ironman, and can't afford having my summons die in 2sec (especially to AoE) and then "ooops, no problem, I'll just reload the game, then spread out my summons so that with their great dps I win fast next time". 

 

I'm going to test stuff more and revise my views accordingly.

[Tommy1984]

In the beta Beckoner summons had half HP. I didn't heard this was changed. But I didn't check this myself - although I play as a Beckoner. I will check this tomorrow, when I have access to my PC.

 

But this all doesn't matter. As Beckoner/Paladin your summons on PotD solo never die. So it is completely irrelevant if the "normal" summons have 2x or 4x HP.

[The Josip]

In the beta Beckoner summons had half HP. I didn't heard this was changed. But I didn't check this myself - although I play as a Beckoner. I will check this tomorrow, when I have access to my PC.

 

But this all doesn't matter. As Beckoner/Paladin your summons on PotD solo never die. So it is completely irrelevant if the "normal" summons have 2x or 4x HP.

 

I've yet to see how their survival is later on, so can't comment on that. So far my summons do die, in a full party of 5, although I don't think I had all of them die yet. Later on summons do seem to have very high hp, but whether they die or not I've yet to see for myself before commenting.

 

Still, as for not dying later on, at higher PL level Troubadour/Shildbearer could cast "Set to their Purpose" while skeleton Chant is on and with Brisk Recitation, and then just spam Lay on Hands on recharge (you become immortal, unless I missed something). Put combat speed on maximum and sooner or later skeletons will kill everyone unless there's some ridiculous hp regen that I don't know of. So, yeah.

 

 

Btw you don't get interrupted as solo summoner? Or you use concentration ability/chant?

Edited May 20, 2018 by The Josip

[Noctaem]

Broke Cantor build 

[Tommy1984]

Btw you don't get interrupted as solo summoner? Or you use concentration ability/chant?

I have the combat focus ability to give me concentration. Also all my defenses are at 130+ (I can look up the real values tomorrow). And I'm immune to Paralyze (from being woodelf) and Stunned (from item) ... the only two afflictions that stop you from chanting. I also skilled both faster casting passives. You almost never get interrupted and when you get interrupted you are sturdy enough to keep you alive while you cast your next summon.

[Edolamberto]

I played both beckoner and troubadour both of them just for the summons and I have to say that troubadour summons looks much cooler (the little one from beckoner seems a joke).. From the only summon prospective efficency clearly beckoner is better but troubadour has much more utility and versatility

[ppscurry]

Having played a loremaster solo, I can safely say that interrupts aren't as bad as you think if you build defensively. Honestly, you can just grab the concentration passive...

 

The moment you get your first wave of summons out, they can tank any mob because of their sheer numbers. As for aoes blasting everything to bits, you're severely underestimating beckoner summons here. The ancient brittle skeletons spawn extra skeletons on death and those persist even when you summon a new batch of skeletons. Thanks to your meat wall, you can easily run to the back where it's perfectly safe and out of range of the enemy. Just cast your summon the moment your phrases charge up. Ogres are beefy enough in most cases as well.

 

By the way, there are hardly any situations where you can't find a choke point...unless you decide to stand there for no rhyme or reason...you can pull mobs you know. Also, there aren't many fast attacking mobs in PoE 2 so even if they kill your summons, you still have a decent chunk of time to finish your invocation. Once more, choke points are everywhere, you just gotta find them. 

 

Ancient weapons are amazing. Give them a shot.

 

One last thing, if you are playing a multiclass chanter, you don't really need that many phrases. Instead of casting invocations, you can just rely on your other class to dps/heal/buff/whatever so not much versatility loss there. You only have one action per recovery after all.

Edited May 20, 2018 by ppscurry