Preface
Hi, I've noticed that many players are asking for summoner template. I've been playing with this build since the beginning of my journey on Outlands, so decided to write down my experiences. If you notice any errors or typos please let me know, I'm not a native English speaker but I'll do my best!Update 24-AUG-2023
Unfortunately summons have been nerfed twice recently - our earth elemental is significantly more squishy and it will need to be resummoned way more often. New players will shift towards fencer tamer build, but it doesn't mean that pure summoner mage will be useless. It still should be quite strong without any links unlocked, farming speed is still decent, and adaptability is still unbeatable by any other template.Pros & Cons
+ High burst damage, it's easy to secure your looting rights (or out damage other players)+ High damage on bosses with damage over time effects
+ Decent party utility - healing, ressurecting, buffing
+ Decent survivability with Void armor
+ Very good in PvP scenarios without compromising PvE damage
+ About 200 skillpoints which can be assigned to any skill - you can easily fit Tracking, Forensic Evaluation, Camping, Wrestling and Resist etc.
- If you plan to tackle high level content by yourself you will have to ressummon your tank every monster or two
- Mana refund is random, sometimes you can cast 10 flamestrikes in a row, sometimes only two and you'll run out of mana
- Requires lot of micromanagement to squeeze most of your DPS
Skill Choice
New player template
- 100 Magery
- 100 Meditation
- 100 Evaluating Intelligence
- 100 Necromancy
- 100 Spirit Speak
- 100 Tracking
- 100 Forensic Evaluation
If you are wondering why we don't pick Wrestling and Resisting Spells - your summons will soak most of the damage, so it's not really needed unless you want to fight with other players. Tracking will help you avoid PK's and Forensic Eval will make you farm faster. I recommend to not sell your hides but to save them - you should make a character with at least 100 talioring on your every account as early as possible. Trust me, the investment will quickly pay off - you can do crafting society quests, which will give you valuable rewards, such as gold mastery reforge kits.
General solo farming template
Core:- 100 Magery
- 100 Meditation
- 100 Evaluating Intelligence
- 120 Necromancy
- 80-120 Spirit Speak
- Tracking - at least 80, but I recommend 100 so it will be more reliable. Tracking is quite good for solo play, even if you an experienced player. You will feel more comfortable while wearing more expensive gear, such as supremely books
- Camping - at least 80-100 is recommended if you don't want to leave the dungeon every 5 minutes or so, but if you plan to farm Wilderness, it does not matter that much
- Forensic Evaluation - you will need at least 110 in order to get Avarhide, but it's so rare that 100 could also be enough. This skill is good if you farm mostly in wilderness, but you can just ignore it and buy the hides for your societies
- Wrestling - optional, if you want to cap your mana refund (50%) without using Mana Drain. You will need at least 16 Wrestling with Tier 15 supremely book, 26 Wrestling with Tier 14, 36 with Tier 13 and so on. I only recommend this if you have T14+ Aspect.
This is basically the same build as the previous one, Getting scrolls for 120 Necromancy will be quite expensive but it's pretty much mandatory as it will increase your spells damage substantially. Spirit Speak does not scale that well now. There is a slight difference between 80 and 120 SS, but it's better to invest more in offensive abilities - the quicker you kill the less damage your summons take. It's up to you to choose two last skills. I do not recommend Inscription for farming template though. Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing skill for party play because you can buff your entire team and your summons - but all of these three skills will give you more gold per hour. Forensic will give you hides. You won't need to restock with Camping that often. You can avoid getting PK'ed with Tracking - your GPH is zero when you are dead.
PvP/PvM Hybrid template
- 100 Magery
- 100 Meditation
- 100 Evaluating Inteligence
- 100 Spirit Speak
- 120 Necromancy
- 100 Wrestling
- 100 Resisting Spells
It's possible to make a viable PvP template without sacrificing PvE damage potential. While it's not a perfectly optimized build for pvp, it's good enough to cast offensive spells and not to die too soon. Necromancy does not work in pvp but it grants extra 10% damage bonus. Spirit Speak variant is more suited for pve/pvp scenarios in regular dungeons. Accidentally it's also good template for bossfights. Wrestling and resist will prevent your spells from being disrupted, while also increasing your damage and defense stats. One tip: you should consider picking a materal spellbook over magic one if you run wrestling
Optimized template for bossfights/group play
- 100 Magery
- 100 Meditation
- 100 Evaluating Inteligence
- 120 Necromancy
- 120 Inscription
- 100 Taste Id
- 80 Spirit Speak
I recommend to put this template on the echo, as it won't be as effective for general farming. It will be expensive to get Inscription to 120 and both Echo cooldown upgrades, so you can treat this build as an end-game goal. If you don't want to use an Eldritch Armor, you will need two bronze inscription links in order to not burn flamestrike scrolls. Scribes are good force multipliers as they can buff other players and place runes. Taste Id is an amazing skill for killing bosses - it will boost your mana regen and give you a chance to resist bleeds/diseases which are very common during bossfights
Aspects
Book: Eldritch is best in slot. However, this aspect is very expensive, and unfortunately Void or Death book will not be as good. If you are broke Just use Void or Death, but you should start saving gold for Eldritch. Aspect procs don't really matter before T10+ anyway, so you will be not missing much while using other aspects as a new player.Armor: I recommend to start with Void aspect due to the current Eldritch prices. Void aspect is great for farming, free mana is good, and health regen has saved my skin countless times. I prefer to use Void while farming in the dungeons or on a boat. For guild boss runs I prefer to use Eldritch Armor. This is the best aspect for pure DPS, it's more squishy though.
Death aspect is worse version of Eldritch aspect to be honest. It's not bad and it's quite cheap, but Void will be more versatile, and it can be used in other builds.
Links
It's usually recommended to use Spell Aspect Chance links, but you should wait before you reach T13+ Eldtrich aspect. You need a high base proc chance in order to benefit from these linksMeditation rate - this link is very underrated - increasing your mana regen does not only boost your damage, but also improve your ability to heal or ressurrect other players/re-summon your creatures
Necromancy - while the bonus might seem very small, any boost to necromancy will increase your damage substantially - for example, a bronze link will grant extra 1.315% spell damage as damage over time with Corpse Skin + Mind Rot combo (I'll explain it later). It'll also boost other necromancy skills and symbol capacity. It's a good link to pair with death aspect, but there are better options for other aspects.
Spell damage - it's way worse than it seems as it scales additively - I will explain what does it mean in the next paragraph
Damage to Poisoned creatures - you would have to poison creatures by yourself or party with poisoners in order to benefit from this link - however I've included it as it grants multiplicative bonus, so it's couple times better than spell damage
Damage to bosses/dungeon links - best in slot but you have to change them for each scenario.
Additive vs Multiplicative damage scaling
It's very important to know how do the damage bonuses work. Most damage bonuses scale additivelyFor example - let's say that you have:
100 eval int - 50% increased spell damage
100 tracking - 25% increased spell damage
100 camping - 25% increased spell damage
Enemy is cursed - 25% increased spell damage
Evil omen with 120 necromancy - 24% increased spell damage
T14 aspect book - 21% increased spell damage
For example, you cast a spell which deal 100 damage if you don't have any bonuses
If you combine all of these bonuses you will deal:
100 * (1 + 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.24 + 0.21) = 100 * 2.7 = 270 damage
For example you want to upgrade your chain with 10 golden spell damage links. You will get another 22.5% increased spell damage, but with the all bonuses combined you will deal
100 * (1 + 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.24 + 0.21 + 0.225) = 100 * 2.925 = 292.5 damage
The difference between 292.5 and 270 damage is only 8.3%.
It means that if you have a lot of damage bonuses from different skills it's usually better to invest more on another sources of damage, such as mana regen or aspect effect chance
There are few bonuses which do stack multiplicatively though. The list includes guild favours, bard buffs, Damage to Poisoned/Barded creatures links and Dungeon/Boss damage links.
For example you want to upgrade your chain with 10 golden damage to poisoned creatures links. You will get 30% more damage against poisoned creatures
100 * (1 + 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.24 + 0.21) * 1.3 = 100 * 2.7 * 1.3 = 351 damage
Wizard's Grimoire Upgrades
Most important upgrades:Create Food - extra 25 mana every 60 seconds
Mana drain/vampire - you don't have to max this skill if your mana refund already exceeds 50% cap
Flamestrike - extra 35% damage as damage over time is way better than flat damage bonuses, even if some damage will be wasted while farming
Curse - spell damage bonus is always nice
Lightning - hinder is helpful, especially against these spectral marksmans which can one shot you
The rest is up to your personal preference:
Magic arrow/harm will help you finish monsters, Mind Blast upgrade is quite substantial, Greater Heal upgrade will keep your summons / friends / ship crewmates alive
Summoner's Tome Upgrades
For farming I use an Earth Elemental anda Lich (Necromancy Fire Elemental). For bossfights I use two Liches
Recommended Earth elemental upgrades:
Spirit Pact, Corporeal Tether, Grounded, Earthpull, Stonewall
It takes 2 minutes to reach full bonus from Stonewall buff, so you should make sure that your elemental is not dying so often. If the elemental HP goes lower than 66%, you should heal your summon so the Grounded bonus will start healing your elemental again
Recommended Fire elemental/Lich upgrades:
Spirit Pact, Corporeal Tether, Scorched Earth, Controlled Burn, Wildfire, Fanning the Flames
I prefer that my liches are more tanky so I don't have to resummon them that often on bosses, but you can take Glass Cannon or Unstable Sorcery upgrades if you want
Necromancy skills
The most important thing - DO NOT use Auto-Renew checkbox - it will burn all your symbols very quickly. You have to control these abilities manually, so you can use spell damage bonuses while you are spellcasting, and regenerate your symbols while meditating. You can replace your Flamestrike keybind with a script which will cast Flamestrike and then try to trigger abilities - I recommend setting Corpse Skin and Mind Rot as these two are the most important.Vengeful Spirit - use this skill to summon your Lich
Poison Strike - good skill as a finisher, you can resolve up to 8 disease ticks - use this skill while the mob is on low health and has couple of disease stacks on it
Evil Omen - this ability is cheap and Void Aspect will help with mitigating the drawback - feel free to use it when you are not expecting heavy aoe damage from monsters
Corpse Skin - your bread and butter, extra 30% as damage over time. Which is way better than other necromancy spell damage bonuses which stack additively
Vampiric Embrace - I don't use it anymore as liches lose maximum hp over time, so you have to resummon them eventually
Mind Rot - surprisingly, disease damage bonus adds up with Corpse Skin, so with 120 necromancy you will deal extra 54% damage as damage over time. Combined
with the Flamestrike upgrade you will deal extra 89% damage, which will melt bosses. That's why it's worth to use these abilities all the time, even on regular dungeon monsters
Blood Oath - I use it sometimes on bosses when I'm out of mana and I have a lot of symbols
Strangle - I do not recommend using this skill unless you go with necro armor - the damage bonus is tiny compared to Corpse Skin + Mind Rot
Wither - good for resummoning your elementals and liches/ when you are out of mana
Pain Spike - if you have a lot of symbols feel free to use this skill to finish the creatures in dungeons
I think that's all, if you do have some questions or ideas feel free to post it in this thread
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