The Ultimate Summoner

[Marigoldran]

Monk/Chanter.

 

Key idea: Turning Wheel.  Intellect bonus.

 

With Turning wheel, it's possible to hit 30+ int, at which point all of your summons have double duration.  

 

Play Beckoner/Nazpalca or no subclass.   

 

And with 10 wounds you can keep 2 drakes permanently in combat.  If one of them dies, it gets reborn.  

 

Just summon the drakes and micro them.  You don't do much, but your drakes do a lot. 

 

Enjoy.  

Edited July 1, 2018 by Marigoldran

[Boeroer]

Why Turning Wheel? It does nothing for your summons. You already get +10 INT via Duality of Mortal Presence...?

Edited July 1, 2018 by Boeroer

[Marigoldran]

I meant Duality.  I guess Iron Wheel for Armor so you're even tankier.  

 

Hell, lets do this.  Going to make a group of 5 Monk/Beckoners in heavy armor and Max Dex and Con.  

 

Later on with Dichotomous Soul you get even more summons.  

Edited July 1, 2018 by Marigoldran

[mosspit]

But then, it means you don't receive the Int bonus from Duality if you go Iron Wheel mode.

Edited July 1, 2018 by mosspit

[Boeroer]

Remember that you only can have one instance of summons on the field.

 

With 1.2 Dichotomous Soul should be viable - at the the moment it's just terrible.

[Boeroer]

Iron Wheel and Turning Wheel are not mutually exclusive by the way. This is a rare case where you can pick both upgrades.

[mosspit]

Well, I am well aware both upgrades can be gotten. But the fact is the 2 modes are mutually exclusive in their states. Unless we are talking about snapshotting the int bonus in before summoning is done, but I was hoping OP would be the one to point that out.

[Marigoldran]

If you can figure it out you don't need my help.  

[Incendax]

It’s a good build because you are basically mashing the most powerful class together with the most powerful multi class. But you won’t have Duality for a loooong time, so you will be counting on Nalpazca drugs for most of the game.

[mosspit]

If you can figure it out you don't need my help.  

 

It was not for my benefit.

[Boeroer]

Also Power Level gives a bonus to base duration of summons (or used to) - multiplies with INT.

[Kaylon]

What happens when your pets are charmed/dominated? What happens if you're cc/interrupted and can't summon?

 

I'm not even sure if the summons have enough penetration to deal with the toughest enemies in PotD. Also I doubt the summons will always stay alive long enough to protect you.

 

For me the only viable summoner is the wildrhymer who can remain stealthed the entire fight... Also, I think it's preferable to summon faster than keep your summons longer - personally I consider troubadour>beckoner. And I haven't tested to see which summons have the best penetration, because if they do 3-4dmg/hit you can fall asleep during fights.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Kaylon

[Boeroer]

They had enough PEN at lvl 6-9 even now with the buffed AR of PotD - and it also scales with char level. Edit: rechecked: it does not scale with level on skeletons because those use actual swords wich will not get improved with level (oversight?). Also skeletons now have swords of poor quality which results in all kinds of bad stuff like damage malus, ACC malus and PEN malus.  Same with Ogres: no scaling. No summon scales its weapons.  But higher tier summons have higher base PEN. You can add Animancy Cat which adds +1 PEN to summons.

 

I didn't have severe problems with PEN so far (also because of Hel Hyraf) but I didn't take it beyond lvl 9. But seeing now that it doesn't scale at all I will be pretty sure that this is a severe problem at higher levels. Low level summons are only good at body-blocking, dealing lots of small hits (Combusting Wounds, Confounding Blind, Death ot 1000 Cuts?) and cannon fodder then. You will need to summon higher tier summons to keep up the PEN. 

Afflictions can be countered with gear (there is an item for most kinds of resistance and you can combine them with racial resistance) and monks can use Clarity and Crucible to take the edge off the remaining lower tier afflictons.

As I already said: You need to cast Hel Hyraf (was obviously a no brainer pre nerf, but still works ok). With the upgrade and six summons you generate so many hits that it will last forever (on a single enemy). So usually PEN is not a severe problem at mid levels - but as I said it will be bad at higher levels (if you don't use higher tier summons).

However- while the prolonged duration via Duality is nice I think that a Paladin is a better candidate for a multiclass with a summoning Chanter. You can switch to Exhalted Endurance or give them more ACC, you can give them more dps via Shared Flames, you'll have better passive defenses and can use other items because you can get several resistances via passives. The upgraded Beacon which does +40% dmg is also not bad once the summons surrounded the enemy (as long as they are not severly underpenetrating). Paladin/Chanter for me is the perfect summoner so far. Build yourself very tanky while using summons as damage dealing cannon fodder is very effective. It's even ok if skeletons die because they split. I can't say if I like Troubadour better than Beckoner when it comes to summons. The body blocking and dps of twice the summons is really good while the Troubadour is a lot more versatile.

For me skeletons are the best summons overall because they have engagement which reliably stops enemies' movement. Their damage output is bad after mid level unfortunately but still...

Edited July 2, 2018 by Boeroer

[Marigoldran]

You get the core parts by level 10 (Ogres and Duality).  Drakes come in at 13.  With high DEX your cast time is 3 seconds.  

Edited July 2, 2018 by Marigoldran

[Marigoldran]

Also: Instruments of Pain, Heartbeat Drumming, and Wahai Poraga at high levels.  

 

Remember: you're still a monk.  

Edited July 2, 2018 by Marigoldran

[Boeroer]

Instruments of Pain doesn't work well with Wahaī Pōraga: only the "normal" intital single target attack roll is ranged - the circular AoE attack still takes place around you monk. That is an interesting behavior: doing ranged dmg AND melee AoE at the same time. But since the base damage is pretty low it's not really worth it.

[AndreaColombo]

^ probably bug. I’ll try to remember to report it when I have time to build a repro case.

[Archaven]

What happens when your pets are charmed/dominated? What happens if you're cc/interrupted and can't summon?

 

I'm not even sure if the summons have enough penetration to deal with the toughest enemies in PotD. Also I doubt the summons will always stay alive long enough to protect you.

 

For me the only viable summoner is the wildrhymer who can remain stealthed the entire fight... Also, I think it's preferable to summon faster than keep your summons longer - personally I consider troubadour>beckoner. And I haven't tested to see which summons have the best penetration, because if they do 3-4dmg/hit you can fall asleep during fights.

 

I find myself with this repeating strategy. Summoning Ogres as meatshields. They are there as blockers. With so many enemies on screen, without blockers it's really hard to manage the battle. I like those skeletons but alas, i would have hope that there's some upgrade teir to make them death knight. Basically more powerful version of it. Since chanter has limited space on skill tree, i was thinking if obsidian can expand the summoner class by having grimoires that allow you to summon different types of creature and that will be neat.

 

Right now i'm using figurines as part of a summoning build which it will be neat if there are grimoires or teacher that can teach you different summoning spells.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Archaven

[Marigoldran]

Troubador's probably better.  

 

In a party, you're also the ultimate party buffer.  

 

60 second Quick and Insightful Invocation at lvl 5.  60 second Strong and Steadfast at lvl 4.  +5 Might, Resolve, Con bonuses for the entire party at lvl 6 for 60 seconds.  

 

And that's ignoring the passive chants.  In a party you could just be a buffbot 9000.  

 

Build a party of 4 Tankbots (Paladin/Fighters), and you, the BuffBot, and go to town on everyone.  

Edited July 2, 2018 by Marigoldran

[Yougottawanna]

Remember that you only can have one instance of summons on the field.

 

With 1.2 Dichotomous Soul should be viable - at the the moment it's just terrible.

Will something change about dichotomous soul in 1.2? The beta patch notes on the forum don't say anything about it in the "class" section.

[Boeroer]

I hope so. In its current form the elemental twins are only good as body blockers, not at dealing any damage. I saw changes about the wizard's phantoms - I just hope they forgot to mention Dichotomous Soul.

[dunehunter]

Dichotomous Soul can use items! Like the seven bolt from the cloak, the good thing is it doesn't consume the use limit of per rest items.

[AndreaColombo]

So, two bugs and no fix. The first one is pretty glaring though; it makes the ability worthless unless you know about the other bug and exploit it. Frankly it’s odd to see it there still.

[Boeroer]

Dichotomous Soul can use items! Like the seven bolt from the cloak, the good thing is it doesn't consume the use limit of per rest items.

That is the same behaviour as in PoE where your Essential Phantoms could be made supergood with some cool per-rest gear (that got its uses refreshed with each summoning). They removed that quickly. I wonder why they re-introduce it now. There are several items with powerful per-rest abilites in Deadfire. I'll put money on it that it's not gonna last. It's just too prone to abuse.

[knownastherat]

Dichotomous Soul can use items! Like the seven bolt from the cloak, the good thing is it doesn't consume the use limit of per rest items.

 

Last time I tried, in 1.1 iirc, it did not work for me or I was doing something wrong.