Necromancer/Occultist summoner viable in harder difficulty?

[Chef_Geb]

Just bought the game, coming from D2/D3, PoE and Torchlight 2, most of the time summoning build suck late game/harder difficulty. Does the same apply to this game?

[Electroflux]

i don't know if anyone can truly answer that yet, but i'm sure more info will be coming soon.

as of now, this combination is wrecking for me atm. the summons are super strong early-game, but i heard they taper off, as they usually do, later. although, necro/shaman is supposedly strong because of some of the shaman buffs and that might have more longevity but i find it really boring synergy-wise

[caelcyndar5]

Originally posted by Electroflux:

i don't know if anyone can truly answer that yet, but i'm sure more info will be coming soon.

as of now, this combination is wrecking for me atm. the summons are super strong early-game, but i heard they taper off, as they usually do, later. although, necro/shaman is supposedly strong because of some of the shaman buffs and that might have more longevity but i find it really boring synergy-wise

Summons always start off strong. Starting with a Shaman, by the time you get Briarthorn skill to 16/16, it's already hitting for 900-1K damage.

[tutzdes]

Hybrid summoners a garbage. If you try to get summons, but your items and abilities support your damage and performance, the pets would be pretty harmless.

Pure summoners are the ones of the strongest builds out there, all the gear should support your summononig skills, pet bonuses and add new summons, character skills are for keeping pets alive and kicking and deuffing the enemies. You should only cast something when you're sure pets picked up the aggro properly and your main skill is a 'pet attack' button. This kind of build would have a crazy dps, very good survivability and are a bit boring. Gear dependency is high as 80% of best summons are from items.

[GlassDeviant]

There are items with attribute modifiers that affect pets. Pure pet classes are some of the strongest in the game. Every time I get a new piece with pet boni I will toss whatever occupied that slot previously, even if it means losing something else really good, just to get my Hellhound and Raven to be more powerful.

[Takkik]

Originally posted by tutzdes:

Hybrid summoners a garbage. If you try to get summons, but your items and abilities support your damage and performance, the pets would be pretty harmless.

But you have some pets that scale with player bonus instead of pet bonus. You could create 'hybrid' build with them, no?

[Azunai]

there's a ton of devotions and items (both random affixes and unique items) that boost pets. last time i played co-op with my wife, she used a conjurer (shaman/occultist) focussing entirely on pets. her zoo of various animals killed stuff ridiculously fast while all she ever had to do was trying to not die while picking up the loot lol.

necro has even more pets, so i don't see why a pet necro wouldn't work on high difficulties. will probably be both overpowered and boring - just like full pet builds pre-expansion.

regarding the "pets" that scale with player stats - those aren't really pets. that's just stuff like mines, totems, whrilwind, bladespirit. a build that uses them isn't really a hybrid pet build since you don't use pet devotions and pet items at all.

[HorowitzCarilla]

Hi, i played yesterday 8 hours, Necromancer/Ocultist here, full skeletons and full the next ability to have 8 skeletons full power and then the golem full power, next the dog from the ocultist and i can tell you i dont even have an ability in my left click mouse, i just stay watching how everything dies, i highly reccomend you that
(sorry for terrible grammmar, spanish here)

[tutzdes]

Originally posted by Takkik:

But you have some pets that scale with player bonus instead of pet bonus. You could create 'hybrid' build with them, no?

Best pets (who can tank for you and take aggro) scale with pet bonuses: Hellhound, Stormhound, Revenant, Primal Spirit, Harbinger, Yeti etc.

Spawning Swarmlings, ignoring other pets and running in circles like a headless chicken can't really count as a pet build or even 'hybrid pet build'.

[Kotli]

tutzdes you forgot Blight Fiend he a tank as well TBH looks to be the best Agro tank in game due to AOE posion cloud arua.
As for hybrid summoner that possible due to sets like the Shepherd of Lost Souls that gives good player and pet damage boosts.

[ilyude]

caster/summoner hybrid pyromancer has been good for a while, and it seems like necro has a few sets for hybrid summoners too

[ビグ・セクシー]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1197896615

When all of your 10 skeletons hit for 50K+ and you can kill Loghorrean on ultimate in about 25 seconds

They're OK I guess

[guts2501]

I went with the neco/occultist too and had a little trouble at the end of veteran, mostly being to squishy. I just changed some skill points and gear around and rolled with the literal punches until I made something I liked and worked. I'll probably take a different class to ultimate but I don't see why you couldn't make any class combo not work, allbeit with a little more thought and work.