Elder Shaman - Summon Barbarian Guide [1.3]

Pheasant
Jungle Hunter
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So what does this aura give to the mercenary? Only +speeds and +chance to block or other stuff as well?
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aerial
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I can confirm, using khazra on merc didn't work so well, too anoying to reequip (and weaken the merc by doing it). Self equipped khazra in the other hand will be better than literally even goetia with doubled stats. 50% life aura multiplier on top of every other buff is god tier.

As for abjurer gear, I found that I didn't need any teleports when struck on it, instead just +3 circlet. Qor shield for pierce was also good. What also helped big time is nihs to extend his superbeast duration buff, and cap out cast speed breakpoint.

I'm unsure about use of neph spirit though. Yeah you can make wdm merc to take advantage of it (by equipping it with enemy all pierce gear), but it is pretty expensive gear. Spirits will always get 0 pierce, so their damage is greatly reduced because of it. Always feels like lack of synergy there. Neph spirit is strong on its own, so not that it doesn't work. But then having runemaster has some perks, like being able to jump around farming ubers without caring because you have millions of defense with ease. And using abjurer then or pure physical merc. If you wanna farm place like k3ba early on with super budget summon+barb merc, neph spirit wont work there vs shielded skeletons, because bear stance only pierces physical resistance, so thats also worth noting.
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ScarletEdge
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aerial wrote:I'm unsure about use of neph spirit though. Yeah you can make wdm merc to take advantage of it (by equipping it with enemy all pierce gear), but it is pretty expensive gear. Spirits will always get 0 pierce, so their damage is greatly reduced because of it. Always feels like lack of synergy there. Neph spirit is strong on its own, so not that it doesn't work. But then having runemaster has some perks, like being able to jump around farming ubers without caring because you have millions of defense with ease. And using abjurer then or pure physical merc. If you wanna farm place like k3ba early on with super budget summon+barb merc, neph spirit wont work there vs shielded skeletons, because bear stance only pierces physical resistance, so thats also worth noting.


The last part about all pierce setup is purely optional given how expensive the gear setup is for a mere mercenary. Although since most damage aside from single target mostly comes from your merc, only she needs to have high pierce.

While I plan on adding runemaster/abjurer spec in the end game farming section, I mostly stuck to neph spirit since its the ideal choice while grinding through charms. As for k3k farming, yes. Runemaster would be much more helpful there. I just didn't bother mentioning that because even with neph spirit, your character still survives fairly well as long as you have bear stance.
Fumbles
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I'd like to speak on behalf of the barb mercenary. I'm playing the ragnar barb summon for chuck challenge. The rules are pretty strict about most things so I've only used the barb merc so far. My merc currently has
Urada
,
Erawan

Erawan
Body Armors

'LemKoCham'
Runeword Level: 83
15% Combat Speeds
5% Chance of Crushing Blow
+(144 to 171)% Enhanced Defense
(27 to 30)% to Strength
(27 to 30)% to Vitality
Physical Resist (13 to 15)%
(15 to 20)% Bonus to Defense
,
Kali
Kali
Gloves

'LumKo'
Runeword Level: 48
15% Chance to cast level 13 Seal of Fire on Kill
+2 to All Skills
+15% to Summoned Minion Resistances
-214 Defense
5% to Strength
Maximum Fire Resist +4%
Fire Resist +25%
,
Fawkes
Fawkes
Barbarian Helms

'PulRhal'
Runeword Level: 100
20% Chance to cast level 40 Ember Spirit on Melee Attack
+(2 to 3) to All Skills
50% Cast Speed
1% to Fire Spell Damage (Based on Character Level)
+(26 to 32) to Powder Keg
+150 to Energy
(5 to 10)% to Energy
Fire Resist +30%
+(61 to 90) Life after each Kill
,
Deadfall
Deadfall
Heavy Belt (4)

Defense: (135 - 159) to (178 - 210)
Required Level: 7
Required Strength: 36
Item Level: 19
2% Chance to cast level 2 Shower of Rocks on Kill
1% Chance of Crushing Blow
+(24 to 46)% Enhanced Defense
+(16 to 25) to Strength
Lightning Resist +(11 to 15)%
Socketed (1)
Defense: (485 - 551) to (616 - 700)
Required Level: 24
Required Strength: 62
Item Level: 36
2% Chance to cast level 4 Shower of Rocks on Kill
2% Chance of Crushing Blow
+(69 to 92)% Enhanced Defense
+(36 to 45) to Strength
Lightning Resist +(21 to 25)%
Socketed (2)
Defense: (1270 - 1400) to (1595 - 1758)
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 218
Item Level: 51
2% Chance to cast level 8 Shower of Rocks on Kill
3% Chance of Crushing Blow
+(115 to 137)% Enhanced Defense
+(56 to 65) to Strength
Lightning Resist +(31 to 35)%
Socketed (2)
Defense: (1918 - 2095) to (2403 - 2626)
Required Level: 50
Required Strength: 436
Item Level: 85
2% Chance to cast level 12 Shower of Rocks on Kill
4% Chance of Crushing Blow
+(138 to 160)% Enhanced Defense
+(66 to 75) to Strength
Lightning Resist +(36 to 40)%
Socketed (2)
, random rare boots and a rare amulet with banish. I didn't prep the runewords before making them and they are all 1 socket. I did add about 30% in skeleton orbs though. The gear is cheap. Necrobots from urada are nice meat shields, the spell dmg from Fawkes boosts the elemental proc on the helm and fire splash on gloves. Deadfall cause shower of rocks. The skills the merc uses are all useful. Gift of the Wild is dmg for the whole party, shower of rocks is a great de-buff for bosses and he uses it regularly. Thunder slam is additional full screen stuns in-between thundergod proccing and Ancient's Hand is good for asshole phys immunes, like necrobots. Again I was sloppy when gearing the merc and haven't tried the other ones but this one has been a great value the party cause hes constantly all over the screen, soaking up damage and causing mayhem. I should probably mention that I'm using wolf stance though, cause its not bear.

About the runemaster discussion above, I'd like to try it because I die a lot if I don't have merc around. But the loss of minion life/damage/other stats seems like it would be significant loss when switching from jewels to runes.
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aerial
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From my experience variant around barb merc is cheapest to gear and really probably best to start with. A5 merc is extremely solid with really basic items. If you cap his attack speed, you just teleport around. What helps is to teleport as soon as he triggers sor, don't have to wait for it to fall, it will still kill stuff behind.
Bear stance + a5 merc with like tu gear/basic rw is really one of the best cheap farmers, especially in k3ba.
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ScarletEdge
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Yes, A5 is really good early on. Gear is fairly cheap with RWs since you barely have to waste any Arcane Crystals making TUs. While he'doesn't have abjurer-tier clear speed, he has great crowd control, aoe damage and serves as an additional tank. He also moves so fast that it hardly matters that he's melee. He's what I had before I began testing A1 merc and things worked well.

As for Runemaster, the fact that I'm using Nas Runes instead of minion stat jewels has never really felt like an issue once you've transitioned from using TUs. Even without Runemaster I still tend to use runes for the additional defense per rune bonus in the barb class charm.
gigasbot
Prowler
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I am planning to roll a summon barb to farm, especially TA...i had one in the past ladder, very cheap build, used tainted crafted items, not a single unique, runemaster instead of spirit, i was around 700-750k def (sacred ida helps alot here) abjurer merc with -100% light and TA was so easy, actually is kinda of boring since you just jump around while your merc kills everything, barb ftw
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ScarletEdge
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gigasbot wrote:I am planning to roll a summon barb to farm, especially TA...i had one in the past ladder, very cheap build, used tainted crafted items, not a single unique, runemaster instead of spirit, i was around 700-750k def (sacred ida helps alot here) abjurer merc with -100% light and TA was so easy, actually is kinda of boring since you just jump around while your merc kills everything, barb ftw


With the abjurer nerf it would take a bit more Investment in merc gear to achieve the same clear speed, but nevertheless it should be fine. Runemaster/abjurer spec is like a pounce build, but slower and you don't have to go back to pick up items or worry about stopping since your party kills everything for you.
Grasshopper
Azure Drake
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It would be useful to add a section on gameplay and mechanics perhaps?

More experienced players may know why all the things are working but I cannot see for example why the crafted weapon should have ED. I thought the minions were killing. Unless you are using one of the 1-point melee skills some of the time? Or is the weapon damage/ED somehow transferred to the minions?
Also - if you have a situation where there is only a boss and no other enemies, do you have to target the boss to teleport? That seems a bit dangerous. I imagine there might be lots of gameplay tactics to talk about in this area?

I seem to remember aerial said in one of his posts something like "minions are always slow kill speed because they have to get to the enemy and they are slow compared to other ways to kill". Or something like that. So does this build not compare well against, say, a snake stance throw barb?
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Muilpeer
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Grasshopper wrote:It would be useful to add a section on gameplay and mechanics perhaps?

More experienced players may know why all the things are working but I cannot see for example why the crafted weapon should have ED. I thought the minions were killing. Unless you are using one of the 1-point melee skills some of the time? Or is the weapon damage/ED somehow transferred to the minions?
Also - if you have a situation where there is only a boss and no other enemies, do you have to target the boss to teleport? That seems a bit dangerous. I imagine there might be lots of gameplay tactics to talk about in this area?

I seem to remember aerial said in one of his posts something like "minions are always slow kill speed because they have to get to the enemy and they are slow compared to other ways to kill". Or something like that. So does this build not compare well against, say, a snake stance throw barb?


I think there is always a tradeoff between speed and safety. There are builds that can cruise most areas safely behind their superstrong minions that 1-shot most enemies in the game, while being slow. At the same time there's bosskillers that do remarkably bad in farming and there are superfast farmers that have trouble running even the easier bosses.

Some summoners are really good at bosses because you can teleport very close to them. But for enemies like Astrogha I would never use a summoner, because you need single target damage for a boss like that.

Right now I am trying to combine different builds to reach game completion as I've noticed it's just hardheaded of me to try and beat the game with just one char. Even though it should be possible it's not efficient O-)