[2.6] Zombie summoner - 6 Big Zombies

As a foreword, this is the first Life-based Summoner I've played in a long, long time. Summoner is usually my first, and main, build in any of the new leagues. I've tried incorporating a lot of stray elements into Summoner to see how well they work. I've done a ton of spell totems, animated variations, Chaos, Fire, Lightning, Cold spells, etc.

What I usually come back to is the typical SRS CI Summoner with Dying Breath. It just works for me, dunno why.

With that out of the way, my gear:


Firstly, Montegrul's Grasp. I initially leveled with this in mind. Liked the idea of tank zombies ripping shit apart. Haven't used it in a long time so wasn't too up to date with how it works. My experience with it: Awful. Why? Because 99% of maps aren't bosses. They're trash, this is also where a vast majority of my income and exp comes from. Bosses seem to be an obligation for me at this point.

Montegrul's Grasp is an amazing item and I keep it in my switch in case I happen upon something that normal zombies can't handle (It happens more often than you'd think, especially triple essence rares). Aside from that, I've found Queen's Escape to be the all around better alternative. I don't have to worry about slow zombies with bad AI (Their AI is still awful) not catching mobs before they tear me apart. I saw a post earlier in the thread advocating for Queen's Escape and I agree with it for clearing weak bosses and all trash. Montegrul's, however, is also a necessity for higher tier maps.


Secondly, the auras and curses. I had a bit of a hard time leveling this up. Like I said, I'm used to CI Summoners so going back to Life was a bit hard. Commander of Darkness, the Ascendancy keystone, proved invaluable in two ways. First off, it capped my own resists and secondly, it increased Zombie resistance. I'm sure we all know zombies get absolutely shredded by elemental damage. This is also why I've opted for Purity of Elements as one of my main Auras. Both to increase my own resists, thereby lowering the dependency on gear, but also increasing zombie resists even further.
Vitality is the one I had a hard time with. Initially, I went with Hatred but I found myself breaking one of my own rules: Use as many auras as possible but leave enough unreserved mana to raise at least ONE zombie. I can't pull this off with Hatred + Purity, so Vitality is taking the place for now.

On the topic of curses, without an active spell, I found myself fully relying on Zombie AI instead of it just being a benefit (when it worked in my favor (not often)). Temp Chains is an amazing curse. It's also free-aimed so you can herd your undead flock in front of you as you travel along. It's also useful for those FUCKING Necrovigil packs. My runner up was Warlord's Mark for increased Zombie survivability but I found it more beneficial to prioritize my own survivability instead while also increasing minion survivability. Temp Chains was just the clear winner.

Lastly, Umbilicus Immortalis, Defense mechanisms, and Necromantic Aegis.
Umbilicus Immortalis is something I picked up a bit late, somewhere in the 50's. At first, it made me pretty damn nervous. And for the right reasons. I was unable to regenerate my own HP and this bothered me until I changed my passives around and got some neat flasks. The Overflowing Chalice, Sulphur Flask, was one hell of an addition. Consecrated Ground grants ENORMOUS regen to Zombies, as well as myself, and increases the rate at which my other flasks gain charges. The Diamond and Silver Flasks are there purely for DPS. Increased crit chance and Onslaught are pretty awesome. Atziri's Promise is the middle ground between offense and defense. Chaos Damage eats trash mobs and bosses alive, as well as granting some life leech that (unfortunately) I'm not able to provide without a 6th link.

On the topic of defense, I feel this to be the weak point of the build. But in a very interesting way. When playing CI, I usually just face-tank with 6k+ ES and go regen while my minions hold down the fort. I play this build much the same way, except I'm regenerating WHILE face-tanking. I'm only capping at about 4.5k Life, 16% Phys Dmg Reduction (Don't think that includes the ascendancy passive), and capped resists with Purity (9% shy of capped Fire without Purity but with Vitality running due to Ascendancy passive). However, I'm regenerating nearly 600 Life per second with Vitality running. That's a ton, and it gets even higher with Consecrated ground. Aside from that, I can still insta-pop to a large pack of porcupines that all die at once (although that hasn't happened in a long time).

Lastly, Necromantic Aegis. Yes, I was that crazy guy who wanted to go Umbilicus with Aegis. Why? Because why the fuck not? Victario's Charity on Zombies seemed like a great idea. This was until I had the Queen's Escape vs Montegrul's problem outlined earlier. With that concluded, Aegis just wasn't a viable option since I wouldn't be using a shield most of the time anyway. If I weren't using Montegrul's, I'd still use it but I don't think I want to change this build back to include SRS.



Overall, I think this was a pretty fantastic build. I'm not even close to 1k Strength yet so there's still a good amount of room to grow but I don't think this is a bad build. I'm currently lvl 79 rocking 11 Zombies and 3 Spectres. I've cleared up to T12 maps with this build.