Summoner equipment

[Immortal2563]

Due to the fact that Contra has reworked the Daily Quest and is a gift, you can assemble the whole set for him and play a little with it. It is a tragedy in the catacombs on legendary items. Fear to approach anyone because you die instantly.

1. Weapons. What are the most desirable if costly and time spent do not matter? Mythic XM909 has similar stats to Valley of Death if they are well rolled Hokus Lokus Pokus for + 1skill? Hidra? I don't want to fight it in person because Swarm is practically the only skill it has and the projectile flies along the parabola.

2. Does weapon upgrade in nanoforge to +15 increase minions damage?

3. What skills on weapons work with minions? xx% xxx Nova after Kill etc ...

4. What mods to weapons if I don't want to fight it personally? If I put + 9% Toxic damage in the weapon, for example, does Toxic Minion increase damage by 9% or maybe all mnions at once or all not?

5. Hes minions cant crits so how can i raise dps drastically?

There aren't many tutorials on the net for Summoner other than how to beat Dessy with him.

Great fighting summoner guide:https://hellgateaus.cyou/forum/class-discussion/the-poison-summoner-spirits-and-creepy-insects/msg49643/?topicseen#msg49643

[Bryan]

Global was where I found my love for the class, hence the guide that came of that. Unfortunately, the class has a glaring design flaw, fueled by Global's/Steam's monetization model - as the answers here should demonstrate.

But first, a quick detour.

1. Weapons. What are the most desirable if costly and time spent do not matter? Mythic XM909 has similar stats to Valley of Death if they are well rolled Hokus Lokus Pokus for + 1skill? Hidra? I don't want to fight it in person because Swarm is practically the only skill it has and the projectile flies along the parabola.

This strongly depends on what your build intends to do with your hands. Master's Hands were quite popular, for instance, but they won't increase your damage as you seem to intend.
There are also two crucial factors that make this hard for any Global veteran to answer; one, getting desirable affixes was hard enough that nobody has likely tried every ideal combination on every gun, and two, +15 was out of the question. +7 was the practical cap for most non-payers, save for massive luck, and Forge enhancements are so massive they can tip the scales.

I'd assume, based on my +7 tests and guide findings:
-Crit-based Glyphs if you're going for VS/Swarm builds
-XM909s if you're going for a spell-free build
Between the two at +15, you can compare CDB returns and determine which one works best. I'm assuming that, at +15 and with some +radius, XM909s might come out on top and still suffice for crowds.
That is, unless another gun can outperform them at +15. Perhaps one might, but that's anyone's guess.

(Quick note here,

Hokus Lokus Pokus for + 1skill?

this won't work as Hokus Pokus Locus gives +1 to all Evoker skills: https://hellgateaus.cyou/wiki/Hokus_Pokus_Locus.)

There's no point in trying to gear for other builds but gun or spell ones, sadly:
-ZF builds don't allow for VS/Swarm, and ZS doesn't crit (see RedHerd's observations here: https://hellgateaus.cyou/wiki/Summoner).
-Non-gun, non-spell, non-ZF builds have nothing to do with their hands, and thus lose out on the massive potential of CDB.
Unless, through +15 and some massive +STR/+damage/+ele, you can make ZF autoattacks work. But even then, the "shape" of those attacks is poor, and won't be convenient for crowds.

CDB is a one-way street toward raising damage ceilings, too, as the following questions will make clear.

2. Does weapon upgrade in nanoforge to +15 increase minions damage?

No, minions are entirely unaffected by weapons (except for their +minion stats affixes).

3. What skills on weapons work with minions? xx% xxx Nova after Kill etc ...

None, minions don't benefit from or activate any weapon affixes.

4. What mods to weapons if I don't want to fight it personally? If I put + 9% Toxic damage in the weapon, for example, does Toxic Minion increase damage by 9% or maybe all mnions at once or all not?

The only mods that affect minions are +minion stats (go through the list for ones applicable to mods: https://hellgateaus.cyou/wiki/Affixes).

5. Hes minions cant crits so how can i raise dps drastically?

There's no way to do so except through +minion damage. Minions' crit chance, if at all existent in Global/Steam, is unaffected by the player's crit/CDB values and cannot be buffed in any way.

So this is the class's design flaw; it has much more to gain from crit than from minions, which was why I eventually ditched the Warper and most non-Force Elementals.

First, the original design didn't account for any minion stats or interactions beyond the basics. The only tweakable stats were damage, health, and armor, with very few skill-bound exceptions like the Spectral Elemental gaining sfx with skill levels and the Warper gaining phase str during Spellstorm. Minions didn't get player stats or affix procs either, so all they could get to benefit from were 3 specific affixes.

Then, Global needed to push each and every class to the Forge. Rather, it couldn't let minion-based classes benefit much less from it, or compensate too much for it from other sources. To achieve this, it nerfed down minions' base stats; any +% affix's value is only as impactful as the base value it's buffing. Then, it steered clear of any kind of sfx synergies (eg Empowerment giving +sfx strengths, Eles buffing each other that way, etc). And finally, just to be sure, it *allegedly* (as this was never confirmed code-side to my knowledge, but might be confirmed now by modders) imposed a maximum +minion damage cap (https://hellgateaus.cyou/forum/class-discussion/is-there-a-cap-on-minion-dmg/msg52271/#msg52271).

So, in this crit-obsessed context that best facilitates the +base damage Forge against inflated Hell mode bosses, the class has immeasurably more to gain by leveraging crit than by focusing on its minions' damage. Global gave zero new ways for minions to be built, and limited the effects of the one they did have down to a fraction of crit's.
There's just no reason to not become either half an Evoker with Forces or a crit-based gunslinger, because there's simply no other alternative - minion-based or otherwise.

Now, if you want to change that, you'd need to mod the class quite extensively. Say,
-tweak minions' base damage/health/armor/crit/CDB values
-locate the +minion damage cap, if one exists, and remove it
-modify minion skills to provide more damage, attack speed, crit, sfx, or other standalone or synergistic effects
-modify minions to somehow be affected by more fitting affixes, like +toxic damage on mods
-have minions somehow take up the player's stats (eg shield penetration)
And if you're really feeling adventurous and ambitious, craft proper inventories for them so they can equip tailor-made gear for even more bonuses. It should work for Demons, at the very least, and there's the Drone's precedent for that.

But without mods to how the class or the game itself functions, that's pretty much where the class stands. I'm still reserved on just how the option of +15 (or higher, as mods have done) affects weapon choices, but minions are now stuck in a rudimentary state; basic in their build options, and extremely secondary to total or maximum class performance.
Unless, of course, you care for Commands to spice up your gameplay.

[Immortal2563]

Thanks a lot Bryan for the explanation.

I'll play some games with Kurodon to get 2 Valley of Death. I have them on Evoker but I have no way to switch to Summoner. Put together the whole set (three augments each: armor / damage / health for minions) and see if you can play it as a pure sumoner.

Now it's just a tragedy. Even the boss in the catacombs of Hell is hard to do.

1. Is there a stronger pure summoner in Revival mod? I mean changes, extra equipment because if it is made by players, they would see that pure summoner is simply too weak.

2. Tailor-made gear?

[Bryan]

see if you can play it as a pure sumoner.

Ah, then that's the goal; purely relying on minions. I can very much relate with that goal.

As a note on both this and the above, you'd likely make do with such a build. As in, it could be sufficient to clear a decent amount of content. For example:

So pure minion-based builds can be decent. Where they lack is in maximum performance; they *can*, for instance, use Valleys and ZF for added survivability, but there comes a point where the trade becomes moot. They can't raise their damage ceilings beyond what minions can do either, which is abysmally lower than what crit can do.

The problem with that comes into view with later content, like BD and Dawn. Such content was designed with maximum performance in mind, so non-crit, non-Forge builds fall behind quite sharply.
Consider this, for instance:

Compared to this:

Now imagine this is just Nightmare, too. Trying to buff the former build further you'd eventually cap out on possible +minion damage and hit its ceiling. The latter build has *at least* another 8 enchantments per foci to go, plus better ele/CCM/CDB affixes, augments, and mods.
Losing out on literally all damage minions (except the Phase Elemental) is still inconsequential, just because crit has such a massively higher ceiling. And that's why I find this such a glaring design flaw...

1. Is there a stronger pure summoner in Revival mod? I mean changes, extra equipment because if it is made by players, they would see that pure summoner is simply too weak.

Revival has a different gameplay context on the whole; no Tokyo and no inflated Hell mode, no Forge enchantments, and so on. So in pure numbers, it most probably doesn't have a more powerful "pure" Summoner class - but it also doesn't need one. As in, if a pure Summoner can still beat all content, it wouldn't need a higher performance ceiling - unless it introduced new inflated content, which required a higher player power ceiling to beat.
I say "most probably", because I haven't played Revival in ages. But I'd suppose that SP modders have added some class support in new items or skills; Nagahaku even added swords to the class, for instance, which is not a "pure" direction but it's a new power ceiling and a response to the need to do something with one's hands.

In my books, but without extensive SP mod knowledge for full and fair comparisons, the best version of the class can be found in 2038. That's not me praising our work, but it's that it delivers much of what I always wanted the class to do.
For reference: https://waipahe.co.uk/web_drive/Tree/tree.html

Here, Elementals can buff each other in different ways beyond existing in tandem (eg Master of the Arcane gives them all +sfx strengths and Master of Lightning gives them all shield penetration). They themselves get more attributes to tweak (eg Fires get splash damage which Master of the Flame buffs). They even belong to their proper skillgroup now, which means the player can buff them through new affixes (eg https://wiki.london2038.com/Way_of_the_Eternal_Mist) or get specific +All Skillgroup Skills (eg https://wiki.london2038.com/The_Master%27s_Wand - it's actually +3 to all Masteries).

Demons got their own buffs too; the Carnagor taunts more frequently, the Warper became less of a glass cannon, the WD now heals in an AoE, and the Reaper got something unique of its own in deflection. Focusing on Attunement gives the player stats and the Demons some Demon-specific +damage, while Summoning Circle gives passive hp regen for the tankier ones.

Finally, DF now allows toxic spells to be used, and DO focuses on sfx based on the tree's gameplay. Swarm is also affected by +minion damage, giving the affix a new outlet. And those two build spearheads (ie DO and Swarm) also belong to different skillgroups (ie Naturalism and Spiritualism respectively), so the player can even benefit from those affixes now beyond +damage.

It's definitely not perfect, but it's the best version of the class I've played. It's varied enough, much more complex than before, and very potent. It does benefit from crit, like all classes do, but it doesn't need to rely on it to beat endgame content - because it's a minion class at its core.

2. Tailor-made gear?

I meant this entirely as a hypothetical. Give Demons inventories and equippable gear, like Drones have, and then craft tailor-made gear specifically for Demons.
Say, have one that affects healing frequency or amount for the WD. Or have another with massive +phase for the Warper, but make it equippable only by Warpers so it's not abused by others. Stuff along these lines, that opens up customization options and caters to how the Demons function and what they need.
This is, of course, highly hypothetical. I know it'd be extremely hard to do so, but it'd have some merit and it'd provide some welcome variety.

[Immortal2563]

Revival has no Tokyo? I think they were giving weapons and equipment there but i have never seen such a complete list of changes from the original. If there are no Tokyo bosses there, the rest of the set is probably only obtained from those gifts that Contra did.

One minute, that was the summoner it needed to kill Imhotep. It's impressive. And probably on weapons +7 not +15. I wonder if I would have killed him in a minute with my Evoker with +15

I like this Summoner in 2038. I think I will install at least the SP version because if the characters are online on the server and I have only one approach to everything. No thank you.

If you went further and changed the summoner, why his minions / deamons cant crit?

The worst thing is that minions are not immortal, I entered Kurodon with half the set and I smashed it for about 15 minutes and didn't keep summoning new minions. Any spell and they die one by one, often several at a time.

[Bryan]

Revival has no Tokyo? I think they were giving weapons and equipment there but i have never seen such a complete list of changes from the original. If there are no Tokyo bosses there, the rest of the set is probably only obtained from those gifts that Contra did.

Not that I know of, no. Revival has, to my knowledge, steered clear of Tokyo content, as it can't likely be added to the existing original content without much heavier tweaks. Say, wielding 2-handed swords was seemingly impossible - so you can imagine how hard it must be to extract entire maps and bosses and add them to the 2007 version.
For clarity, Revival would be this mod series: https://hellgateaus.cyou/forum/hellgate-london-modification-downloads/unofficial-revival-sp-modification-4-4/
Whereas Contra's mods would be
-the Steam modification (https://hellgateaus.cyou/forum/steam/hellgate-london-2018-modification-v0-1-for-hgl-steam-version-2-1-0-4/), and
-the 2038 SP port (https://hellgateaus.cyou/forum/hellgate-london-modification-downloads/unofficial-london-2038-client-sp-modification-version-1-5-6b/).

One minute, that was the summoner it needed to kill Imhotep. It's impressive. And probably on weapons +7 not +15. I wonder if I would have killed him in a minute with my Evoker with +15

I'm fairly sure you could, and I did indeed use just decent +7 Glyphs. The guide thankfully details those:

Vraedna's numbers:
- Critcapped +7 Glyphs with a total of +71% elemental damage
- 1k clean cdb and 400 caste cdb
- +90% minion hp,+40% minion armor from set/stat pieces,and an added ~110% hp and ~125% armor from the cast set (2 Masters of the Dark)

One may consider both times to be mildly to extremely lacking in comparison to other classes.However,the comparison that should be made is with other summoner setups,as summoners are not evokers,and of course not engineers or marksmen.

On to what was lacking in terms of personal gear and party buffs:
- Enchants,as the top-notch players use weapons of an average +9.
- 10 ranks,and thus 100 clean cdb and 1 more expertise apart from crit/armor/power/power regen.
- Additional points saved from optimal cabal stat gear,and thus a decent amount of cdb.
- 14% elemental damage if the comparison is made with plain maxed 2x ele Glyphs and only 8x 4% relics,up to a maximum of 28% if the comparison is made with 3x ele Glyphs and the shop bracelet.
- The Moloch pet,and thus 5% more armor penetration.

If you went further and changed the summoner, why his minions / deamons cant crit?

Some minions can crit; by memory, Demons and Shadows have some base chance. The main reasons we didn't go further with this was that this would need "+minion crit" affixes to properly build towards, which are quite hard to do, and that it doesn't seem necessary in 2038's context and difficulty.

The worst thing is that minions are not immortal, I entered Kurodon with half the set and I smashed it for about 15 minutes and didn't keep summoning new minions. Any spell and they die one by one, often several at a time.

Minions won't ever be truly immortal, I'd imagine, as that would entirely invalidate the +minion hp/armor affixes. Or the WD itself, for that matter, as it's designed to be able to heal multiple targets. Remove the minions' ability to die, and neither of those elements makes much sense anymore.
But mods might do so; I do think at least one mod has done this before. I don't think it makes much sense design-wise, myself, but I get the reason behind it.

Otherwise, you can alleviate this by focusing on +minion hp/armor and keeping them alive.
For Steam, relying on the WD and Forces should make for a mostly-immortal core. That's pretty much what I did with my Global build too.
For 2038, the same should work even better with Forces' passive hp regen through Master of Gaia. The WD now heals all minions within its range, too, so expanding to more Elementals should be safer.

[Immortal2563]

A clean summoner is just too weak. Even with the whole set he doesn't have dps enough to eliminate bosses quickly. 10 minutes to kill Kurodon. Kaibutsnatan doesn't even want to try.

Most of the items in the set, and two or three augments: minion armor / damage / health and they die a few at a time if someone casts a spell. Gremory or that Moloch from the catacombs for example. At least several times as much HP as they have or better Broom Curse also several times stronger so that minions steal more life than lose it. Not even two or three WDs will keep them alive.

I'll just take your advice and find two Glyphs and make half a mage half summoner. I will see what such a hybrid will do with Imhotep when both weapons are + 7 / + 15. What are the best range minions besides poison? Fire or Lighting? In the catacombs, the melee fighters do not make sense because I have to approach the opponent literally one meter for them to approach him. There is no problem on flat terrain, but in the catacombs the summoner is not good.

[Bryan]

A clean summoner is just too weak. Even with the whole set he doesn't have dps enough to eliminate bosses quickly. 10 minutes to kill Kurodon. Kaibutsnatan doesn't even want to try.

I definitely agree, as the class simply wasn't allowed to perform well enough outside the Forge. They'd lose money if it could, so minions had to be scaled down while crit reigned supreme and got the Forge to back it up.

Still, a couple notes on the Set items.
-For one, not all Sets were great. The Summoner one I ended up skipping almost entirely, like many Evokers did back in the day, as the feeds were too massive for the benefits. In the context of pumping CDB, the best bet was to use +stat-heavy Legendaries instead; more total attributes, so more total ACC to pump CDB through. A couple pieces might be worth it for the base CC, but with perfect Glyphs you might even be able to skip those.
-Second, I'm not sure the Set pieces allow for dual +minion stat augments if you're exploring that direction. For instance, the Lazy Envoy shoulders (https://hellgateaus.cyou/wiki/Lazy_Envoy%27s_Shoulder_Protect_(Cabalist)) allowed me to stack a +hpb% augment on top of the inherent one, raising the stat total's maximum ceiling. If the set doesn't do the same for +minion stats you might best seek other options, like earlier Uniques with good augments or Mythics/Uniques with these affixes and +stats.
...a propos, a great way to discreetly make the set better would be to make the pieces' +minion stat affixes unique so they become stackable with identical augments. If they're not already, that could be a great step in the right direction.

But yes,

Most of the items in the set, and two or three augments: minion armor / damage / health and they die a few at a time if someone casts a spell. Gremory or that Moloch from the catacombs for example. At least several times as much HP as they have or better Broom Curse also several times stronger so that minions steal more life than lose it. Not even two or three WDs will keep them alive.

most minions are generally a bit too fragile. Rebalancing the class *would* require base stat tweaks, as almost everything non-Force dies too easily. And maybe a WD tweak to make its healing spell more potent or more convenient.
Though mind you, Brom's does not heal minions. Minions' hits heal the player, not the minions themselves.

What are the best range minions besides poison? Fire or Lighting?

I'd go with Fires, myself, as they bring a chance to ignite with them. If you can also get Elemental Drain (and maybe some +fire/ignite in your mods) you *might* be able to ignite enemies every now and then, poison from Toxics and Swarm aside.
Not that Storms are terrible, they aren't. If you're having trouble with flying enemies they can be of use too. But if you have to choose, and primarily want to kill bosses, Fires should be the better option.

[Immortal2563]

Minion stats on set items are internal stats and if the item has increased minions health and damage from augments, you can also choose health and damage.

As for set, you are right no matter what form the feeding is just too big for the benefit.

Summoner uniques are good, but all of these items are low-level items like the Balbi Ring or slightly higher. There are no such unique items from the top shelf that would give a specific amount of armor / shield and offer beyond the minion stats, say 10AA and Willpower, which is what the summoner needs.

Evoker is even worse there, it just runs on legendary items. 16% Elemental Strenght / 10AA / 13ACC / 13WIL / 13STAM. This is what my items for him look like. I'm only looking for newer versions with no useless stats that require strength / willpower.

In such a combination, even Veiled Threat is unprofitable. Let's assume that from the augments we choose 10AA / 13STAM / 13WILL. Compared to the legendary item above, we lose 27 stats for feeding and 13ACC, which translates into a loss of 80CDB. What do we gain? 1% CC, 7% Damage, 62% CDB. So less CDB, 7% weapon mod can be replaced, 1% CC left. If he would give 3% CC, I would agree. No thanks and stay with the legend.

[Bryan]

Minion stats on set items are internal stats and if the item has increased minions health and damage from augments, you can also choose health and damage.

As for set, you are right no matter what form the feeding is just too big for the benefit.

Oh they *are* unique affixes already then, that's good. Changing these into ones would be more work than lowering the pieces' feeds, if one wants to make modifications.
Though I suppose creating new Sets altogether would be an option too. If they've defined these on a data level, all that's left to find is how different set bonuses check for set piece numbers and apply accordingly.

In such a combination, even Veiled Threat is unprofitable. [...] If he would give 3% CC, I would agree. No thanks and stay with the legend.

Agreed. Putting on a couple of pieces with decent CC would be worth the cost - and it can still be if you need base CC to critcap through CCM. But generally, there's little final benefit to most Set pieces when they come with such massive feeds and Legendaries can come with effectively zero.

[Immortal2563]

I was supposed to ask early and I forgot. Where can I find the current CC formula on Steam? In one guide it was written that he had 50% CC on one weapon and 25% CC on the other, and it turned out that he had 45% not 75%. Let's go a little further and we have a double CCM mod in the weapon. 75% Beast CCM and 95% Deamon CCM. Let's add Moloch Pet which I know that multiplies the whole CC by 1.1. What will CC have for each of the two races?

If he scored 45 not 75 then the weapons have to be considered separately and then added up. In one guide I read that this whole multiplies by 0.6 and in the other that it is not. How is it really?

If weapons are considered separately, what about mod stats? Let's say splash damage. In one mod 17% and in the other gun let's put three 17%. Adding one to three or counting as 4 * 17% right away? My aim is whether putting specific mods into specific weapons makes sense or it doesnt matter?

[Bryan]

That's a very complicated subject, sadly. You won't find the formula anywhere in data, that I know of, so you'd need to delve into code and how it handles different cases.
Now, the 0.6 factor at least has been confirmed; this means that one focus item will perform at 100% if used alone, but two foci will each perform at 60% when dual-wielded.

There are also other factors at play, like spells and enemy hitboxes, and other theories, like independent crits from each hand, that muddy up tests. That means that, for the most part, players have had to find a "close enough" theory on what seems to work well enough. The formula I leaned on was close to this one, outlined in a thread on this subject: https://hellgateaus.cyou/forum/hellgate-global-general/evo-crit-evidence-for-0-6-additive-base-cc-calculation/msg51219/#msg51219
Specifically,
CC=total non-foci CC+[(left foci CC + right foci CC)*0.6]
So for instance, if you had 20% CC before foci, and then wielded 2 foci with 10% CC each, you'd get 20+(20*0.6) = 32.  Conversely, if you applied 0.6 to the entire CC value, you'd get 24% total CC (20 base * 0.6 and each foci's 10*0.6).

From IA's CDB tests, it seems to be that CDB on each foci *and* base CDB are all subject to the 0.6 factor: https://hellgateaus.cyou/forum/hellgate-global-general/evo-crit-evidence-for-0-6-additive-base-cc-calculation/msg51274/#msg51274
That is, CDB=(non-foci CDB+left foci CDB+right foci CDB)*0.6
Harrowing's tests agree with this too: https://hellgateaus.cyou/forum/hellgate-global-general/evo-crit-evidence-for-0-6-additive-base-cc-calculation/msg51039/#msg51039

What this tells me is that CCM mods *should* also be subject to 0.6. Which would mean which foci carries them should matter - but many theories say otherwise.
For instance, Harrowing asserts that each hand can crit independently: https://hellgateaus.cyou/forum/hellgate-global-general/evo-crit-evidence-for-0-6-additive-base-cc-calculation/msg50833/#msg50833

The most logical way for FSS to set this up that I can think of would indeed be to sum everything on foci up and then multiply by 0.6 (so base + all foci values*0.6). This would effectively still be the desired 120% total performance (ie two foci each at 60%) of dual-wielding, just in a rather convoluted way the player isn't told about.
Which would mean *all* affixes, as far as what spells get to draw from foci, would be subject to the same 0.6 - including +radius.

[Immortal2563]

Well, this is even more fucked up than I thought it was. Yet the mods have 0.6. How did the people playing at Global know how much they needed and how much CCM? I think they took as much as possible.

I will read the entire post.

Thanks Bryan

[Bryan]

Happy to help, though it is indeed quite convoluted and unclear. I don't think anyone has an entirely solid answer for every front of this.
Global players, yeah. For the most part, I'd assume people did what I did; secure all base CC you can, and then stack up enough CCM that it looks like you've hit the 95% cap. It's not a great approach and you might overdo it with CCM, where you could pump more CDB in its place, but it works. At worst you can then start removing individual mods one at a time, ensuring you're still not going below, say, 90%.