Tanky Summoner?

Hey all!

Like probably many of you, I’ve played since Kickstarter on and off and this is the game I always come back to. That pierce Blademaster on the spreadsheet that can go up to 120 is something I’ve built and is amazing. The next thing I want to play more of is a melee style summoner. I very much understand that you can’t go hybrid and I’m cool with that, but I do want to stand in there with my horde. I’ve tried a few things and not gotten anything to work out.

Any suggestions?

Why would you want to stand in the middle of a fight as a summoner if you aren’t going hybrid and aren’t really contributing in any way to the fight? That simply makes no sense. If you want to play as a melee summoner, you can try using the Winter King items or the Guardian of Death’s Gates.

The Winter King sword provides a decent amount of physical resistance and you can become decently tanky. The playstyle also involves standing close to enemies because of Veil of Shadow but don’t even think for a moment that you are truly a tank. Also, if you are standing close to enemies you might as well contribute with some damage as that also improves your own chances of survival. I made a build using only the sword and it did okay for my own standards which are low. It might not be good enough for you.

The Guardian of Death’s Gates is definitely harder to use because it is meant for skeletons and those are incredibly frail. They need to dish out as much damage as possible and you need to re-summon them constantly. The weapon also doesn’t provide any defense for you. You have to use a hard hitting skill to take advantage of the built-in life steal. Bone Harvest does the job pretty well, specially when paired with Ghol’s Reach.

Melee summoners do exist, i see player in community did one in 1.1.7.1

Here’s the link https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eZPqEaKN

The character quite strong on survive, but to archive the goal “stand in there with my horde”, both player and pet has not much damage as they fight alone. :sweat_smile: