best summoner viable for lategame ?

I have a necromancer with summoner or totembuild around 124
and a summoner barb thats 121

Both seems to struggle a lot killing bosses.

Is it even possible?

FreshPro wrote:I have a necromancer with summoner or totembuild around 124
and a summoner barb thats 121

Both seems to struggle a lot killing bosses.

Is it even possible?

welcome here, and yea
it can be a struggle when new to mxl and hit lvl 120 or so, for most builds there is a brickwall and long farmin section to upgrade all gear then...and also
maybe you didnt read or tried the skills from the shaman tree at the barbarian ? like for example >
Spirit Reave is rly good for bossfights

Ancestral Endurance: new passive skill
Upgrades Spirit Reave, activates after using Spirit Reave

i used the skill for example fighting azmodan and the shunks on dmg are significant, one hit and one time kite around the area and two more hits and he was dead

your guardian spirits should have around 50 to 70k health at lvl 120, when done correct gearing and skilltree
the other both spirit types should have around 20 to 35 k health

>Weapon: Uldyssian's Legion tier 4 unique with dol runes or 6 Ist Runes for some mf
>craft the items : sacred rare arreat helmet, high defense body armour sacred rare, sacred rare gilded shield, with magical shrines and bless them with tainted shrines
and use minion bonus magic orbs and runes, jewels with minion dmg or minion life
resis for minions should be at over 50 resis minimum and maximum i dont know, maybe 80 is ok
> gloves, belt and boots, can be also crafted or honorific, means, you get the item as blue sacred and use one each mark item drop from shenk in act 5 quest, he drops one per kill each time, so you need 3 x the mark item and cube one by one with the magic blue item, glove, belt and boot, sacred! - they turn green and then you use 1 tainted shrine with 2 arcane crystal on each of the honorific item, in cube and bless them with the shrine bonus, then after that you put in 1 Perfect gem in each item or 1 Dol rune ( you can fill the other sockets later with finding runes, gems that benefit to the minions ) then why you do so ? to let the level requierement for later magic orbs on the same base level from start at the put in of the 1 Perfect gem or Dol Rune, you put now in 5 x to all resis magic orb, buy from Larzuk in Act 5 or Drognan in Act 2. Then you put in 5 x minion Resis on one of the 3 items and 5 x minion dmg on all of the items you have! and 5 x minion life on all of the items you have and rest of space you can put magic find orbs on everything you like, also on the merc

use wolf stance at max points anywhere, mostly in k3k and other farming areas, BUT only for tran athula use bear stance, one point is enough
for bosses use wolf stance and spam defender guardians on the spot around the boss and place the guardian spirits on range spots, because they use range attacks
for high phys dmg bosses use act 3 necrolyte as merc
and for others you can use act 1 priestess with high dmg reflex bow tier 4 unique or a crafted one with 200 ed + 300 max dmg, gear can be dex crafts or tier uniques with attack speed and dex stats, as helmet cheap option vex nef in amazon helmet for high ias and some ele dmg

i did copy paste the skills down here listed, from a guide here in the forum, for the new barb skills as summoner:
Nomad tree: Wolf Companion 1 | Hunter's Mark 1pt | Spirit Guide 1pt | Ancient Blood 1 | Mountain King MAX| Lion Stance 1pt | Snake Stance 1pt | Bear Stance 1pt | Eagle Stance 1pt | Wolf Stance MAX
Shaman tree: Guardian Spirit MAX | Defender Spirit 1pt | Protector Spirit 1pt | Shamanic Trance MAX | Spirit Reave 1pt | Spirit Walker 1pt | Spirit Bond 1pt
Reward tree: Nephalem Spirit MAX | Immortal 1pt | Thundergod 1pt

*

for summoner necro, i guess you use the Night Hawks
also you can get a act3 mage, Mercenary - Act 3 Necrolyte

ofc, you need to get some tainted shrine crafts and best to read a guide first, when you are new to mxl

take a look here, the section : Level 115-120, more farm and moderate-hard challenges
also: Honorific and Shrine Crafting Section
viewtopic.php?f=40&t=75099

higher level char guides
viewtopic.php?p=562550#p562550

Not even close to new player but appreciate the effort

Why Nephalem Spirit MAX ??

FreshPro wrote:Not even close to new player but appreciate the effort Why Nephalem Spirit MAX ??

nephalem spirit gives huge tri ele dmg to your minions, why not max when you got the points to spend ?

shamanic trance has 600 str as cap and nephalem is not capped...

while i lvld as summoner barb, i used to overcapped to str and maxed out nephalem spirit

oh lmao i forgot to read it affects my minions as well, thx a lot

Doesnt nephalem spirit and shamanic trance use base str only? Why max mountain king over pumping other summons? Do the extra str points do anything for us? It seems the %str wouldnt provide any synergy to those passives unless i am misunderstanding. One other thing, it seems 4 points in wolf may be ideal to have two up in order to provide better coverage.

Any summoners here happen to know the ideal setup for summon barb? is it still build around undead crown?

ErlDabbins wrote:Doesnt nephalem spirit and shamanic trance use base str only? Why max mountain king over pumping other summons? Do the extra str points do anything for us? It seems the %str wouldnt provide any synergy to those passives unless i am misunderstanding. One other thing, it seems 4 points in wolf may be ideal to have two up in order to provide better coverage.

They do, which is why maxing the other spirits are just much better early on due to the insane raw stats hard points give, make them way tankier until you can get your hands on better gears. sMax Wolven Guide is also almost mandatory if you go for Nephalem Spirit instead of Runemaster, otherwise be ready to just randomly die 5 times while farming TA

thanks for the response. I am having trouble figuring out how to scale spirit damage beyond base STR, +skill, and minion dmg%. It seems %str wouldnt do anything for us. I know there are some good items like undead crown for deadly strike, but i am nowhere near that yet. If i do end up switching to nephalem spirit at some point, the dmg it adds seems small? Right now it is 13-27 of both fire and lightning (lvl 116 atm, just started char couple days ago). I don't see how this would do much unless i can scale that some how that i am unaware? I will probably make a separate post discussing this, but let me know if you have a moment.

Even with my complete set I feel my summon necro hit a brick wall and I can barely farm lvl 120-125 zones. I only got one point in Iron golem because it is not worth maxing it, even if you make him out of a very good item with lots of resistances if you die everything is lost. I only rely on skeletons, Aks and Vk.

Devs should replace iron golem with another kind of summon that is not dependent on a good item to be worth maxing.