Embarking on the journey of a Summoner Druid in Path of Exile is an exciting and rewarding experience, but it can also be complex and demanding. This guide aims to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date leveling guide for the Summoner Druid, helping you navigate through the early stages and ensuring your character's smooth progression.
Understanding the fundamentals of a Summoner Druid is crucial before diving into the leveling process. As a Summoner Druid, you'll rely heavily on your animal companions to deal damage and tank for you, while you focus on summoned creatures and support spells. Your primary stats will be Intelligence for more mana, and Dexterity for accuracy and evasion.
Early Leveling: Act 1-3
The primary focus during these acts is to build a strong foundation for your character. You'll want to prioritize summoning and minion support notables, and start investing in your key skills like Zombie and Raise Spectre.
Don't neglect your defensive capabilities during this phase. Make sure to grab Life Leech from Death Aura and Bone Armour leather belts, and use Alpha Howl whenever available for losses.
Early Summoning Spells
At the start, focus on leveling up Zombie and Raise Zombie. These are cheap and efficient for early leveling. Make sure to pick up the Zombie has a few great notables like 10% increased area of effect of zombie, and increasing maximum number of zombies.
Around level 12-15, start leveling up your Raise Spectre. This is a pivotal skill for Summoner Druids, allowing you to bring forth powerful minions that can deal significant damage and tank for you.
Early Defense and Utility
Focus on acquiring Life Leech gear to stay alive in battles. Alpha Howl is also a great utility skill, providing a temporary hier archy advantage, which is essential for early game boss fights.
Zombie, Raise Zombie, and Raise Spectre are your key skills during this phase. Dixie's Butcher and Trang-Oul's Set will help tremendously to maintain strong minion population.
Act 4-7: Mid-game Progression
By now, your character should be well-established, and you have a formidable number of minions at your disposal. Here, focus on scaling your summons and building more damage.
Start investing in higher tier minions like Fleshripper and Maggots. Remember to support them with good damage over time (DoT) and chaos damage.
Minion Scaling and Damage
Pick up various notable passives to boost your minion damage and life. Notable passives like Increased Damage of Minions, Increased Duration of Minions, and Increased Minimum level of Minions are crucial.
Start using the Voll's Devotion of the Ruler here, which gives your zombies a 25% chance to agro on approach. Really helps to control the battlefield and keeps enemy focus off of you.
Bands and Buffs
Start using Anni's HBands to trigger set effects more often. Bysời 35 chance to trigger, you can get decent results in increased damage and life leech.
Use Blood Magic on your Raise Spectre to minimize mana use and and Blood Magic on Fleshripper for even more CAST ON KILL effect.
Act 8-10: Late-game and End-game
By now, you should be facing tougher enemies and challenges. This phase is all about min-maxing your character and pushing it towards its maximum potential.
Stygian Vise and Vortex provide excellent crowd control and damage amplification. Revolution and older Zombie, Ω variants offer great single-target damage.
Bossing and End-game Prep
Study boss mechanics and optimize your character for these encounters. Max out all your important skills, and start investing in Elemental Overload and Swift Affliction.
Prepare to push the combat encounter a bit further with this build too. Start planning for robot lords by investing in % Increased Projectile Damage and planning for wands.
In the vast world of Path of Exile, the Summoner Druid is a unique and powerful spectacle to behold. Stay committed to your minions, and always look for ways to abuse mechanics that favor them. Each battle is a dance, with your minions doing most of the work. Enjoy the show!