hello everyone.
1st question : If on secondary weapons I have a HOTO and spirit and I summon my wolves , lets say they’re level 38. then switch to my primary weapon which is lets say beast + Spirit shield. as long as the wolves are alive do they remain level 38 ?
2nd question : This is more for those experienced with the 2.4 version of the summoner. Are they tanky enough on their own that i can use heart of the wolverine instead of Oak ?
thankyou for taking the time to read this !
1st question. Yes. All summons and skills with a duration will remain at the level they were summoned/casted. Hence skill shrines and +skill swap weapons are your friends. You can get more +skills with secondary amulets and charms in town, summon your pets, then switch to other equipment.
2nd question. Not sure about the 2.4 new summoner. I played a SSF summoner with a mod to allow all 3 summons. I had only low 20 skills on the summons and still used HoW. They were tanky enough then. If you have skills at 38, I can only presume your summons will be more than tanky.
Thankyou for the answers !
You are welcome. Happy hunting.
BTW, a big part of the tankiness comes from the ravens’ dim vision. Mobs under the effect of dim vision are forced to use normal melee attacks. Their special abilities are temporarily disable. For example, pit lords can’t use inferno, maggots can’t lay eggs, etc.
Ah didn’t know that I’ll remember it.
I’m searching for both sur and Jah runes so I can give my act 2 merc Pride and use faith bow for myself, giving my summons 3 auras. The reason I asked the second question about oak is that if they’re tanky enough my summons could benefit from a 4th damage source.
Anyways thanks again for the input !
Glad to help.
I have always used HoW myself, because all the old summons do physical damage. When they die, just summon a new one. Extra tankiness was not really needed.
Something to keep in mind when choosing Wolverine vs Oak. Wolverine’s damage increase doesn’t boost Spirit Wolves (in 2.4) or Ravens.
Either way, if you are fully invested in summons and have decent + skills your summons are quite sturdy and in the rare case they die re-summoning is not the same task it is for Necromancers.
This is very true.
For the new 2.4, I would imagine people will go with 20 raven, 20 SW, 20 DW and 20 G. That leaves very little room for the spirits.
Maybe one can drop DW because the new SW and grizzly will gain life by themselves. Then the only summon that will benefit from HoW will be the grizzly.
Maybe it is the time for oak sage. I do like how it looks in D2R.
My personal opinion for spirits is go oak sage for hp boost since 2/4 summons dont get the effect from wolverine like zenji mentioned above (or any dmg auras).
So now on ptr i had my merc with holy freeze aura and reapers toll or obedience till i find reapers toll.
I wouldn’t drop DW because points in DW also is a dmg synergy for Ravens.
I leveled several times in PTR looking for the “best” skill path. What my conclusion is.
5 Pts in Ravens
5 Pts in SW, then continue to skill up Ravens
1 pt in Oak before level 18
DW to 3, then finish maxing Ravens
Max Grizzly > Max DW > Max SW
1 Pt Lycanthropy, WereBear and Shockwave once I have +3 to all skills.
(Shockwave is very strong)
While leveling I found Act 3 Fire Merc for enchant to be great. He enchants all of your summons. Obviously swap mercs if you find good Merc gear while leveling up.
Once you can make Lawbringer (Amn Lem Ko) use Act 5 Merc, Until you can get Reaper’s Toll then swap to Act 2 Might Merc. Decrepify boosts 3/4 summons damage.
Once I had decent gear on a Merc and they were doing good damage I swapped from my 1pt Oak to Wolverine and finished putting any points I had left there.
True, I forgot about that. Then 20 in all summons is the best.
I was thinking SW before DW, just for the cold damage to deal with PIs. What is your opinion on prioritizing DW over SW? I didn’t really play the PTR as you did. I appreciate your experience.
Great news. I was wondering if he would be active enough to enchant all the summons.
Did you find the ravens’ dim vision overwrite decrepify?
Cold damage on SW is thematically nice and helpful against Stoneskins, but they really don’t do that much damage even maxed. So when you come across Phys Immunes, you’re better off just using a teleport charges staff and skipping.
He does a good job getting enchant out and even at lower levels it lasts a couple minutes, unfortunately he doesn’t cast it unless you are in combat.
It does happen occasionally, but it wasn’t ever really a problem. If you cast a Raven on a mob the other Ravens will change to that target (most of the time). So you can direct them off Phys immunes if you need to keep Decrep on it.
hmm i saw among the coments that druid summons don’t benefit from any damage auras is that true ? im hoping this is a typo lol. Concerning HOW if spirit wolves arent affected by it this would encourage me to pick oak instead then. Not sure
Thank you. Excellent info.
On the SW damage being low. I remember they are something like 200 cold damage at skill level 23 (I could be wrong). Indeed quite low for hell. But I think they will be okay. Between the SW and the enchant, PIs are probably doable.
I play HC SSF. Teleporting to avoid PIs can be very dangerous.
Ravens: No aura benefits
SW: No damage benefits. Only attack rating and speed.
DW and grizzly: full aura benefits
ok thanxs a bunch . For a moment there I was worried ahah
Ya around there, I think at level 30 mine were doing about 400 each. I have suggested they change the SW damage to a Phys to Cold convert like Amazons have on their arrows so they could still scale somewhat with Auras.
1st question,
Nope? In POD presummon only works for spirits and necros. Not for the grizzly.
They have the skill dmg of your current +skills gear.
I have test it out, go +40 skills grizlly and then one try cast them naked… a huge difference.
Maybe they fixed that in d2r? Don´t think that.
Well good news, I just tested it and it works for the Oak sage at least. I summoned it with my second hand gear then switched to first hand gear and my hp did not decrease hence my oak sage’s level did not go down to the lower skill level i have on my first hand gear.
I do not know how to test this with my summons but I assume the same rule applies ? if anyone has tested the summon damage when toggling 1st and 2nd hand gear I’d like to know what you found.
Make the same test for the summons… oak sage works 