2 Questions on Summons

[jovalleau]

1. What are your favorite Summons for each Rank (Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, Master)?

2. To beef up certain weaker summons, what are some good/useful buffing spells to cast on your summoned friends?

[The Flying Rodent]

1.

Apprentice: Skeletal Minion, because it's dirt cheap to summon and does the job before I've managed to rush Conjuration to 50.

Journeyman: Headless Zombie, because it hits like a truck.

Expert: Clannfear, because it hits like a truck AND is ridiculously manoeuvrable.

Master: Storm Atronach, because it hits like a truck (noticing a pattern here?), is quite tanky (meaning that it can out-duel a lot of high level opponents), and costs waaaaay less than the other Master Summons.

If you’re curious , the full list of summons can be found here :

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Summon

2.

Shield spells can be 'somewhat' efficient for buffing summons, but generally it's cheaper to just resummon something that it is to buff it.

Again, rushing Conjuration to 50 is a good idea if you’re planning on using it regularly; The quality of summons between Apprentice and Journeyman is quite a jump. For some characters, this can be done within the first few levels (level 4 is a good benchmark IMO) and means that your summons stay ahead of the difficulty of opponents for quite some time.

[arottweiler]

I was using real NPCs as followers which was a logistical nightmare at times until I realised I could just have followers I can summon. That way I can travel alone but still have backup I can summon when I need it. The Midas Spells mod adds some quests that are very very hard and you are faced with enemies stronger than anything you've seen before but at the end of each quest you are rewarded with a spell book. There are many spell books to collect and ingredients you need to create the spell but you can summon some very powerful creatures. The Angel summon and Golum summon are very handy to have at your side and it's even more rewarding when you know you went through hell completing the quest to earn it.

The Angel has a blade that slices through health like butter and you can pickpocket it. The Golum is like a giant robot bodyguard that would take a city guard most of the day to take down.