Anybody create a Meat Shield Summoner?

Necromancer
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I LOVED playing the Mendeln Summoner a few months ago with Howl From Below gloves - running NM Dungeons in the low 80’s and climbing… boss fights lasted 5-15 seconds… and then the developers decided they would fix it. Overnight my necro went from running NMDin the 80’s to the 60’s with boss fights lasting A LOT longer and sometimes never being able to finish =( so I switched to WW Barb only to see that was broken too (HOTA Barb is kinda fun).

Yesterday, Blizzard was supposed to fix the summoner Necro but so far I can’t find a setup that I like. Maxroll and IcyVeins have PURE summoner necro builds which I haven’t tried but reviews are ungood.

For me, I want the minions to hold/distract/slow the enemies so I can bone spear and corpse explode them. Necro needs enough offense to take down enemies with just enough defense to survive the ones the teleport or jump through the meat shield.

Anyone have a build recommendation? Icyveins or Maxroll - whatcha got???

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Board 1: Bone Graft, Board 2: Cult Leader, for board 2, path to the glyph slot and place Deadraiser. That’s all you really need to do what you’re talking about.

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Did that - took me about 20min to finish a lvl 68 NM dungeon and I wasn’t sure I was gonna make it through haha. I found an old icyveins Mendeln build I’m gonna try next… but at this time, I’m thinking the changes the developers made did not bring Summoner Nec back into the A or S tier.

Thank you for your response

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Here’s my current mendeln build. With a bit of caution, I clear nm100s with no problems. It’s mostly just learning to watch and avoid CC.

maxroll.gg/d4/planner/oq940agf

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the changes they made did not buff mendeln summoners, it buffed minion damage which unfortunately doesn’t effect mendeln damage.

Mendeln bone spear is a legit build, I have not played any mendeln so I cannot say from personal experience, but this guy had a pretty good video demonstrating his build: mobalytics.gg/diablo-4/profile/294d6a05-33c1-4191-be52-75f1a5f2c639/builds/62be3627-305d-4d2e-ae70-3339755e1182?tab=skills-and-gear

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Thanks Ralph - a lot of the builds including the one you linked (thank you for that) uses Mendeln. I dropped bone storm for decrepify and that helped quite a bit. I just barely finished a lvl 76 NM Dungeon. Next, I’m gonna drop Blood Mist and add Bone Storm to see how that works out…

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Unless you are really attached to minions, i would recommend finding a meta build to play if you just want to demolish monsters. Minions are still to weak for the pace most players want to play at, I also think making them effective is a lot of hard work and knowledge with a payoff significantly less then any meta build will offer you.

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It’s true, they are slow if you are trying to go as fast as everyone else.

However, if you are playing just to enjoy playing and doing your own thing, then they’re actually pretty fun.

I have zero intention to touch the gauntlet, and I only did aoz for the glyph, then ditched it. I pretty much play like it’s single player unless a friend logs in. So minions can actually be great if you just play to enjoy the game.

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yep for me personally minions are ok, because I play the exact same way as you, solo and also I enjoy a slower pace. I only did the gauntlet for the worthy cash and that was very easy to obtain, in fact I found it impossible not to get the cash the 3-4 times I tried it :smiley:

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I finally got thru 2 lvl 80 NM dungeons without too much difficulty (Lev Maw and Komdor Temple). Wiped several times in KT due to 2 elites dropping electricity everywhere - popped an Electricity potion and got them down…

Skills: Summon, Bone Spear, Decrepify, C Tendrils, C Explosion, Bone Storm (no blood mist & no golem)
Gear: Deathless Visage, Mendeln ring, Sacriligeous ring, Howl From Below (gonna see if gloves with crit + attack speed + ranks bone spear are better at some point)
Aspects: extra mages, extra warriors, make enemies vulnerable on 1h weapon, minions do more damage after they have been alive awhile on off hand, extra armor % when I do damage, and corpse tendrils damage on the amulet (apologies for those that got their panties in a twist for me not memorizing all aspect names) many good aspects were left out because I’m using 4 uniques.
Necro is lvl 100 / glyphs used are lvl 21

The main thing I had to learn (and still the challenge of the build for me) is stacking decrepify on top of corpse tendrils while spamming bone spear. Most of the trash goes down pretty easy with decrepify and bone spear - one decrepify, three bone spears, one corpse explosion felt like a good rotation. But large groups with one or more elites will require using corpse tendrils to cc and gotta get decrepify on top of the tendrils while repositioning to avoid big melee, poison pools, electricty and still firing off some bone spears and a corpse explosion or two for DOTs.

NM80 dungeon bosses go down with a reasonable fight (20-90 sec) and gotta follow some mechanics (no one shots, no face tanking, and no standing in pools of whatever)

Going forward, I will be using my Summoner Meat Shield necro mostly for hell tides and whispers and farming whatever Blizzard has for the future as it is super fun to spend half the time picking up loot because all them minions are clearing trash crazy fast!!! My HOTA Barb will be used more for Uber bosses as it can one shot Duriel (less than 5 sec consistently). Necro can clear an entire screen of trash as the minions spread out whereas the Barb has to run around the screen to stack 'em ‘n’ smack 'em. I’m not sure going forward how much I will play the Necro to try to optimize gear just to see if it can be reliable against the bigger bosses…

And don’t ask about Lillith - I’ve done about 50 runs wtih my HOTA Barb and 50 runs with the Necro (months ago not recently) and studied a ton of videos. Honestly, I would rather WORK on finding apartment complexes to buy than hope for an eventual lucky break and kill Lillith. I guess I just don’t hate myself enough…

Thank you Wukong, Serpint and Ralph for the advice and interaction. I hope our “blog” helps other Summoner Necro players enjoy the game more. I will check in on this thread periodically but gonna go back to work and enjoying the game (mostly work until the next DLC comes out)

Hey Blizzard - Please consider adding a feature where ALL MINIONS APPEAR when we enter a dungeon or get wiped just like when we enter a boss lair; it sucks to have to leave the dungeon find some trash to kill to raise minions and then go back in to try to kill whatever. The code is already written - just add it to a few more situations. Thanks in advance for reading.

UPDATE: I swapped out Howl From Below w gloves w Lucky, Crit and Ranks of Bone Spear; I think it is MARGINALLY better for NM dungeons but for trash, I like getting my corpse explosion on a target.

I have tried most Uber Bosses (except for Lilith because I still don’t hate myself enough for more of that experience) and they all go down in 10 to 60 seconds max (Duriel is more like 30-60 seconds).

But overall, the build I have is super fun. It’s not the one shot kill everything like my Shout HOTA Barb, but my summoner Necro can clear trash MUCH faster and bosses and uber bosses are a bit more fun because they go down fast enough and I actually have to obey the mechanics =)

Shout HOTA Barb is still S Tier but I’d put my Meat Shield Necro in the A Tier

Once again - Hey Blizzard - please make the minions appear after wipes and entering dungeons. Thank you.

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