3.2 Leveling a summoner build from scratch

Hello,

I intend this to be more of a guideline to how you can level effectively in the new league, especially if you wish to use minions as early as possible. No matter what type of summoner you aspire to create, these tips might provide helpful.


--EARLY SECTION. LEVEL 1 - 40--

Step 1 - raging spirits. SRS is not the most interesting skill, but they're one of the best options early on. We can craft ourselves a strong weapon to go along with them which will work for quite a while. To do this you need the following:

1x ruby ring (you can get this by selling an iron ring + a red skill gem to a vendor)
1x orb of alteration
1x magic wand/scepter. Make sure to look for one that is 3-linked with the colours blue-blue-red so that you don't waste any currency on it. Socket this with summon raging spirits, minion damage and melee splash and you'll have a good starter.

A bit later on it's possible to create a +1 minions helmet with a similar recipe. What you will need then is:

1x Magic Helm, 4-linked with the right colours is my suggestion
1x Orb of Alteration
1x Magic life flask with the suffix 'of animation' (a portion of restored health is given to minions) remember to save one of these if you find one

If you are playing in a league with trading there's a large number of usually cheap uniques that make leveling easier.

Bones of Ullr, Skullhead, The Baron, Matua Tapuna, Wraithlord, Clayshaper, Bloodbond are all relatively cheap (looking at last league) unique items that can be used early on, from levels 20ish to 40. If you find an early chaos, investing in something with +to minions can be a good idea, as it will make whatever you socket into the item substantially stronger. Raise Spectre doesn't scale as well with + levels as other minions do, however.

Aside from the unique items there are some strong unique jewels that you can make use of in your build such as:

Violent Dead - make Zombies better
Dead Reckoning - Skeletal Mages, usable very early on!
Primordial Harmony/Eminence/Might / Anima stone. Golem jewels, usually more expensive and not directly from the start.


If you're unsure what build you're going with, here's a pretty generic starter for a life / mind over matter based witch:


There's also the posibility that the new Summon Phantasm on Kill gem is going to be a good socket for some types of minions, to help improve clear speed. It's supposedly a gem you get early on so give it a try.

Here's some generic gem links for your early on summons:

Skeleton Warrior: Summon skeleton - minion damage - Melee physical damage/ Melee splash
Skeletal mage: Summon Skeleton - minion damage - lesser multiple projectiles
Zombie: Raise Zombie - minion damage - melee splash - melee physical damage. Try to put zombies in a +1 or +2 minion helmet if you can. If you feel like the zombies are too squishy, put in minion life (available at level 18) instead of minion damage
SRS: Summon Raging Spirits - Minion Damage - Melee Splash - Melee Physical damage, in case you get ahold of a 4-link with at least +1 to minions
Spectres: (Level 28 and onwards) Raise Spectre - Minion Damage - Lesser Multiple Projectiles - Elemental focus. Replace Lesser Multiple Projectiles with the greater version when you can get it. The best thing you can get if you want to level with spectres asap would be a tabula rasa. Before you can find solar guards, use flame sentinels and make sure to level a desecrate gem so that you can replace them every few levels.

--MID SECTION. 40-65--

When you get to act 5 you'll likely have done the first lab and picked an ascendancy. If you are leveling anything but golems you've likely picked necromancer. However, if you want a fast and cheap way to level I would recommend giving golems a try, especially now that you can get 5 golems without using any golem jewelry, and they're pretty strong to boot. If so you'd need to play elementalist (which you can respec out of later should you wish, at the cost of a moderate amount of respec points) but the only investment you would need would be 2x clayshapers - dirt cheap at maybe 1 chaos each and then put the golems in the best linked item you have, either a 4-linked helmet or if you can get ahold of a tabula rasa that would be amazing. A generic golemancer tree around the mid levels would look like this:



If you want to level as a necromancer though, I would do my generic tree like this instead:



--GENERAL TIPS--

Minion life regeneration is immensely helpful early on, it keeps them alive versus pretty much anything as their base regen is zero.

Bone Offering is very helpful if you notice your permanent minions dying a lot, especially versus bosses.

Get a flame dash gem before act two or you'll have to find the correct path through the rivers =P

Kill all bandits, the skill points will most likely be what your build wants

Aside from minions, things that will be immensely helpful: Clarity, flame dash (as mentioned), shield charge, convocation, desecrate and a skill you can proc elemental equilibrium with - arc, ball lightning or freezing pulse are popular choices, as the best minions deal fire-based damage you don't want a fire skill. This also doubles in allowing you to redirect your minions, they will naturally attack what you cast spells at.

Nice write up, one thing I would add as you already mentioned regen is super helpful especially low level with zombies...they die quick and it can be a pain to keep resummoning them.

This will keep them alive through most basic stuff at low lvls: https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Rejuvenation_Totem

I am level 87 now with my spectremancer in beastiary. SRS are pretty so-so at killing the red beasts, I would suggest anyone wanting to level a necromancer in a trade league to seriously get one of the minion helmets (baron, wraithlord or the new one that buffs SRS) because it will help immensely

Bumping this because I get a lot of questions in my other build thread about leveling

This has helped me a lot. My only problem is not be able to get 2B 2r on my +1 and it makes srs feel terrible.

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darciaz написал:

This has helped me a lot. My only problem is not be able to get 2B 2r on my +1 and it makes srs feel terrible.

if you craft a helmet, look for an armor/energy shield one - or best yet find one that already has 4 sockets with the right colours.

However, you might as well go 3 blue 1 red as SRS has many useful gems. The third blue could be elemental focus or minion speed, for example

Greetings,

Is it the same passive skill tree for elementalist than 3.1 or you are expecting a different one? If a different one, may you publish it please?

Thank you