Queen Atziri vs. Summoners

Nice post Emphasy.

In few days Montreguls Graps will receive a buff, +2000 Zombies Life, which convert to 4200 more life. It's very significant boost to survivability and interesting option for both non-LL and LL summoners as +30% Increased DMG & +20% Runs Speed from Midnight Bargain isn't that huge boost to minions. Damage output will be hit heavily due to 10 vs. 4 zombies but in my opinion in Apex instance survivability matter more. On top of that in new patch zombies base life will be increased by 13%.
Theoretically zombies can reach 14.9k life with not much of effort;
Raise Zombie lv21/20 - Empower lv3 - Minions Life lv20/20 - Faster Attacks - Multistrike - Melee Physical Damage
+110% from Passive Tree
+2000 Montreguls Grasp

I will definitely try out this setup at some point.

Btw. Prism Guardian can be used with Necromatis Aegis. Minions receive +% Block Chance / Armour / ES and Auras in slots benefit from shield bonuses.

That's my setup for Forsaken Masters, not much changes compared to current one, just gained some ES and dual curse + 100% duration. Still able to run 8 auras but need to get two +40% Manna Regen on rings.

https://www.poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMA2VsbJUuu6QLfin0YbRnsimvbHNwNjWwLIvSnKzW5EVAdT7-XyT3yHi9v2RNwu-wYwcV_xpwyTm2lxJMnsHdGcbQMHarhiBqP9tr7CRmKm7XDOspKb56DCWqsWpGofdP7gsco-lfJDXzqugZJE2zGnhB_DH36gCqY2QunCLiT6-6QM4hApqwabJ2uWAd85RhqeC-boY9GTbkQl0QEzLz314VgqsTDbVxrhEgBb-L3i3qApCSwhtEXL_rSHRRV1mTnncRY9bcxQ2Oaz3FNZp73wSSLfLs62Ow4KU_kIox2Tdj56A==

Actually it isn't so much the increase in Life that is nice, it is the fact that more life means a lot more sustain via regeneration. Thats one of the prime-source of zombie-survival.

But I don't think just buffing Montreguls is enough. It is nice and gives summoners an option for heavy-aoe bosses, although Montreguls still decreases the damage done by your zombies overall.

I'm a bit uncertain if it can compete with Midnight Bargain. Midnight Bargain offers one Spectre, which means one more bubble to protect you. Thats a really important benefit. It is still fairly easy to resummon zombies if they die, but if you or your spectres die it's often game over (well in the first case it is always game over :P).

I still feel that some other summoner-uniques might be looked at too, exspecially the ones not increasing the numbers, but granting certain boni. Giving up a +2 Minion-Helm for Skullhead feels like a fairly bad trade, although it is propably really nice for Montreguls again, but other summoners don't benefit that much from those stats.

Matua Tupuna might be fairly nice considering the nerf to Aura-Nodes, but why not make it more of a summoner-item? Drop the aura-increase for you and increase the one for minions and make zombies spread tar on death, not the summoner when he receives a critical strike.

But in general it is the right direction and maybe some of the new uniques are designed for summoners in some way. My summoners are both propably alright after the patch, since I never bothered with snapshotting (it is too time-consuming if you just play in short intervalls).

What I would really love is the ability to bring my spectres to my hideout and place them there. So if I happen to run past high-level evangelist or ribbons in a map I can raise them and keep them. It is always sad if you run across ribbons in a 70+ map and you only get them until you log out, since although not as good for survival as evangelists a simple 3l with Fire-Pen, Spell-Echo and Raise Spectre makes them fairly devastating and they have a good AI that makes them avoid Melee-combat (although they sometimes circle enemies and run into other packs, but thats what convocation is for).

I didn't know about PG, in that case I might just skill Aegis, I thought you lose the 25% Mana-Reduction.