Summoner: A Guide to Create your own - By Sheyz and Feighn

[sarny_]

THE SUMMONER
Brought to you by Feighn and Sheyzung



Message from the authors:
Feighn: Hello everybody! My name is Feighn, and I'm a level 44 Demonologist from Tensess server. The summoner is, and always has been, my favorite class. I love the thought of always having a pet that will come to your aid. I've always enjoyed playing a summoner/warlock style class, so I didn't even think twice about creating a summoner when I came to Allods. I created Feighn several months back in July, though I've known about Allods since pre-gipat. Even way back then, I was playing the summoner. So I've seen this class through some of its best and worst times. Yet I haven't even considered quitting it; It's simply too much fun for me!

Shey: Hello Summoner Fellows! My name is Sheyzung (although, everyone calls me Shey), and I’m a level 45 Demonologist from Tensses server. Allods was actually my first MMO so I had no idea of what a class was. When I first started the game, I picked a Warden because of the pet, but when I reached level 10 I didn't like the way they were set up, so I asked a friend if there was any other class with a pet. That’s when Sheyzung was created. Around 1 week after the Gipat patch hit I created Shey, and from the very beginning I loved it. The thought that I was slowly leeching life from my enemies completely fascinated me, especially when I got to contested zones and applied that thought to the Empire Players. Been here not as long as Feighn, but I take his words: I’ve seen this class back when it was overpowered, and I’ve seen it in it’s worst times, although, never quitting. Its WAY too much fun!

Anyway, onto the topic of this guide: We wrote this because we felt that there was too much QQing and not enough adapting. Every class goes through a difficult time; these days that class is the summoner. We agree, we're nowhere near as powerful as we used to be. However, we overlook the fact that pre-patch we were pretty over powered. Fighting in pvp was SO easy, all we had to do was DoT 'n run (in other words, fever and then /dance). So this nerf was to be expected.
But don't worry! We can still be a class to reckon with, in PvP, PvE, raiding--you name it. It’s just going to take more work than it did in the past. So, if you're ready to adapt, to move on, then continue reading!

[sarny_]

Introduction

What is a summoner?

A summoner is a master of harnessing the energy of his animated minions along with his own magical talents to become one powerful killing unit. We have the power of the dead and corruption at our fingertips (our DoTs). Our heals combined with the lethality of our dps makes us one of the most versatile classes out there, and one of the most fun.
By choosing to play a summoner, you have given yourself the ability to work entirely solo. Think of yourself as an entire dungeon party all in one toon. You can tank with your hellion, heal both you and your pet with a single Plague of Mending, and dps like a monster. We may not be the best at one thing, but just to give our ego a boost, it is safe to say that we are good at just about everything.

Arisen? Xadaganian? Elven? What's the difference anyway?

As a summoner, you have three choices (race wise): The Arisen Savant (Empire), The Xadaganian Defiler (Empire), and The Elven Demonologist (League). Each archetype has its own racial ability:

Demonic Curse (Demonologist racial): Deals X damage every 2 seconds for 16 seconds, and heals you and your minion for X amount.

Art of Reanimation (Defiler Racial): Temporarily increases the Strength and Expertise of the summoner’s pet by 30% for a certain period of time.

Dark Touch (Savant Racial): Fully heals the summoner’s pet.

My personal opinion (Shey) makes me LOVE the Xadaganian Racial, although, I like my little Walter (Feighn: Shey’s stupid hellion) more than I would like a zombie running around me. Although, at the end of the day, it really comes out to your personal preference, as in - do you like a sexy elf, or do you prefer playing a robot better? Would you rather be league or Empire? Human, fantasy or futurist character, good guys, bad guys... You pick what you heart likes more

What are our roles endgame?

PvP: Endgame PvP as a summoner is relatively simple. We have a fantastic level of survivability, including powerful heals and an armor-increasing spell, Blood Aegis. While our damage is rather slow, we can easily outlast most classes long enough to see our DoTs and occasional vamps/howls drop them dead. In mass PvP, volatile infection combined with withering touch can be a very powerful combination, especially when it spreads to all five enemies. We also have the ability to heal party wide with Plague of Mending. So, as you can imagine, we definitely have our uses in PvP. More on PvP towards the end of the guide.

PvE: Our main role in heroics and raiding is dps and offhealing. We can dish out some nice AOE damage on a large group of mobs with volatile, and withering if you included it in your build. We also have the potential to have some impressive single target dps when built correctly. Some summoners choose to take a support role, in which they focus more on their heals and support abilities. While there are fewer summoners specced in this manner, its still a possible build for heroics if you really enjoy it.

[sarny_]

Abilities

Talent tree:




Acid Bolt: Cast time: 1.5/2.5 seconds (R1 and R2 respectively)
Description/comment: Hurls a clot of acid at the target for X damage. Damage and cast time increase from R1-R2, damage slightly increases from R2-R3. Used in Acid builds.


Putrefy: Cast time: Instant
Description/comment: Causes target to take X damage every 2 seconds for 20 seconds. Damage increases with each rank. This is our bread and butter, and R3 is pretty much a must for any summoner.


Vampirism: Cast time: 2.5/3.5 seconds (R1 and R2 respectively)
Description/comment: Sends bats to attack the target and hit them for X damage. Generates 1/2 drops of blood (R1 and R2 respectively). Damage, cast time, and blood generation increase from R1-R2.


Blood Injection: Cast time: 3 seconds
Description/comment: Heals the target for X amount of health. Consumes one drop of blood. Skip this, we get better heals to spend points on along the way.


Blood Aegis: Cast time: Instant
Description/comment: Covers you with a shield of blood for 30 minutes. The buff has 6/8/10 stacks (R1-R3 respectively). Each stack increases your armor by 8%. Consumes 3 drops of blood. A must for any summoner, usually R3, although, you can use it at r2.


Summon Hellion: Cast Time: 15 seconds (can be reduced to 5.5 seconds)
Description/comment: Summoner a Hellion under your control that can cast Hateful Blow, Charge and Crush. Each rank of Hellion deals more damage than the last. Your Wisdom affects your Hellion’s Finesse, your Intelligence affects your Hellion’s Strength, and your Perception affects your Hellion’s Expertise.


Fear Cast Time: Instant
Description/Comment: Causes the target to flee in terror for 6 seconds. Must have at rank 3 if you want to run a pvp build. Must have at r1 for leveling just to use as a S.O.S button.


Dark Pact Cast Time: Instant
Description/Comment: Inflicts damage to you equal to 50%/30%/15% of your maximum health. Generates 5 drops of blood. Generates 1 drop of blood every 5 seconds when out of combat, and there are less than 3/5/10 drops of blood in your blood bank. R2 is advisable in pretty much every build, R3 is a matter of personal preference. R1 isn’t smart.


Summon Fiend Cast Time: 15 seconds (can be reduced to 5.5 seconds)
Description/Comment: Summons a Fiend under your control that has Acid Bolt and Acid Splash abilities, which inflict X damage each. When Fiend’s health reaches 25%, it explodes, leaving an acid cloud on the ground for 10 seconds, that reduces movement speed by 50% and inflicts X damage every 2 seconds. This is the most used pet in Acid Builds, although, a lot of summoners use it on Vampirism builds as well. Before the patch, the skill “Acid Cloud” was bugged and didn’t inflict damage or reduce movement speed. Hopefully, they fixed it.


Plague of Mending: Cast Time: Instant
Description/Comment: Heals a friendly target for X every 2 seconds for 16 seconds. Spreads to all party members within a 10 yard radius of the target. When the Plague of Mending effect fades, the target becomes immune to the Plague of Mending effect for 1 minute 30 seconds. Consumes 4 drops of blood. Must have at R3 on every build. Less than that and you are gimping yourself on your heals.


Dark Renewal: Cast Time: 2.5 seconds
Description/Comment: Heals a friendly target for X initially and for X every 2 seconds for 16 seconds. Consumes 1 drop of blood. R2 is enough, R3 is a matter of personal preference.


Volatile Infection: Cast Time: 2 seconds
Description/Comment: Infects the target and all enemies within a 10 yard radius a 10 yard radius of the target with a virus that explodes when the Volatile Infection effect fades and inflicts X damage to the targets and up to 3 enemies withing a 10 yard radius of the targets. R2 is good, R3 is awesome. For mass pvp, have at least R2, and for support builds, it’s a matter of preference. For pve, its r3 or you fail .


Reanimation:
Description/Comment: Heals a friendly target for X. The effect is increased if the target’s health is low. Consumes 4 drops of blood. This is the “Oh crap, I’m screwed” heal. Getting it or not is a matter of preference, although, R1 is more than enough, don’t even spend more than 1 point on this heal if you want to get it.


Summon Lurker: Cast Time: 15 seconds (Can be reduced to 5.5 seconds)
Description/Comment: Summons a Lurker under your control that can cast Blood Meal. Each rank of Lurker has a shorter cooldown duration of Blood Meal and deals more damage than the last. This is a pure support pet. The only thing it does good is give you blood. Nice to have for mass pvp at R3 because of the AoE silence. From R2+ your Lurker will always be invisible unless it is in combat, and at R3 it can Silence.


Siphoning Fever: Cast Time: Instant
Description/Comment: Infects the target with a fever that has a 15%/20%/25% chance to generate 1 drop of blood every 2 seconds for 90 seconds. Inflicts X damage when the Siphoning Fever effect fades or the target is healed to full (wrong description, it is actually when the effect is cleansed). Only 1 target can be affected by the Siphoning Fever effect at a time. Pve wise, R1 because you use it for the damage and the difference between R1 and R3 is not big enough to be worth to spend 5 more talent points here. Pvp wise R3 because you use it for the blood so you need to the highest chance of getting 1 drop as you can, support wise R3 as well for the same reasons as for PvP.


Aura of Potency: Cast time: Instant
Description/Comment: Decreases your healing done by 50%. Causes your spells to increase the magic damage dealt by all party members for 5%/10%/15%, Can be removed by casting Aura of Potency again. Cannon be used while your Aura of Heath effect is active. I skipped this talent, and now you think “But it increases your damage done by 15%”, and then I say: “Yes it does, although, it decreases your healing done by 50%”. Being you a off-healer class, having whatever spec you choose, this is BAD. Besides, mages get it in order to get some important rubies, so if you are in a party, it’s most likely that you will have a mage with you (specially, because this talent is only unlocked at a high level). Although, it’s up to your personal preference .


Rise From the Dead:
Description/Comment: Resurrects you with 20%/40%/60% of your health and mana. Makes you immune to all damage for 6 seconds after resurrection. Stuns you for 7/5/3 seconds making you unable to move or use abilities. this effect may not happen more than once every 30/15/5 minutes. Never, in any case, should you have this lower than R3. It’s R3 no matter what.

Abilities unlocked at level 44 (requires the main ability to be at the desired rank of the improved ability):



Blood Shot: Cast Time: 3 seconds
Description/Comment: Heals the target for X amount of health. Consumes one drop of blood. I reccomend skipping this. Blood injection is nowhere near as viable as dark renewal for healing due to the lack of the HoT and the longer cast time.


Life Tap: Cast Time: 3.5 seconds/2.5 seconds (R1/R2)
Description/Comment: Infllicts X damage to the target. All the life lost by the target will be transfered to you. Generates 1/ 2 drops of blood. In the case that you are vampirism spec-ed, Life Tap needs to be at R3.


Decomposition: Cast Time: Instant
Description/Comment: Inflicts X poison damage every 2 seconds for 20 seconds. Decomposition effect replaces the Putrefy effect on the same target applied by the same summoners. If you are Vampirism spec-ed, don’t bother getting it, and if you do, it needs to be at R2 at least so that it does more damage than the original skill (Putrefy). In PvP specs, its a must have as high as you can, which is R2. Acid Specs, don’t bother getting it either.


Summon Cadaver: Cast Time: 15 seconds (Can be reduced to 5.5 seconds)
Description/Comment: Summoner a Cadaver under your control that ahs Acid Bolt and Acid Splash abilities, which inflicts X damage each. When Cadaver’s health reaches 25%, it explodes, leaving an acid cloud on the ground for 10 seconds that reduces movement speed for 50% and inflicts X damage every 2 seconds. Vampirism builds shouldn’t get it, even if they choose going with Fiend, Acid Builds should get it. R2 or you fail !

[sarny_]

Rubies that every build should have:

As with any other class, there are some rubies that every build should have, and if you are thinking about not getting them, your build may not be at the level it is supposed to be.

~ Acid Bolt Grid:


Calculating Mind - Increases your Perception and Faith by 3%/6%/9%. These rubies are a matter of personal preference, although, our advice is that you get them.

~ Putrefy Grid:


Evil Genious: Increases your Intelligence by 3%/6%/9%.


Neurotoxin: Inflicts X damage every 3 seconds. When the target is affected by 6 stacks of the Neurotoxin effect the toxin will explode and inflict X damage and stun the target for 3 seconds, making them unable to move or use abilities.


Necropotency: Grants Putrefy and Decomposition a 32% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Acid Bolt, Vampirism, Life Tap, Dark Renewal, or Blood Injections by 20%. Effect can stack up to 5 times. This ruby should be at least R2. R3 in pvp builds.


Empowered Infections: Increases the damage dealt by putrefy, Siphoning Fever, Volatile Infection and Neurotoxin by 5%/10%/15% and increases the healing done by Plague of Mending by 5%/10%/15%. R3 to every build.

~ Vampirism Grid:


Reservoir of Blood: Increases the size of your Blood Bank by 2/4/6 drops of blood.


Call of the Grave: Increases the effect of Vampirism by 30% when your health is below 50%. Increases the damage dealt by Acid Bolt and Howl of Death by 30% if the target’s health is below 50%.


Howl of Death: Inflicts X damage and reduces the target’s movement speed by 50% for 5 seconds. Consumes 6 drops of blood.

[sarny_]

Talents that every build should have:

Again, as with every other class, there are common talents to every build. These specific talents should not be skipped.


~ Putrefy: Putrefy has become a summoner’s main DoT. You want to have this skill at R3, unless you plan on getting Decomposition, and if that is the case,there is no reason to have it higher than R2, since Decomposition does more damage at R2 than Putrefy at R3 and you can’t have Decomposition at a higher rank than 2.


~ Blood Aegis: This is our main protection. It is highly recommended to get it to R3, although some summoners prefer to only get it to R2. It comes to personal preference.


~ Dark Pact: The only source of passive blood, and your “Oh crap I’m out of blood” button. R2 is your best option, since you don’t spend a lot of talent points but you don’t use a lot of life either. Some builds don’t have it, although it is highly recommended that you get it.


~ Plague of Mending: This heal should be R3 no matter what build you have. It is your stronger heal, and it is instant cast. Besides, it heals your entire party.


~Dark Renewal: A summoner’s main heal. At least R2, but R3 is a matter of personal preference.


Rise From the Dead: Your second life, your mana return, your life return, you pick what you want to call it. R3 in all builds, if it is not R3, then the build will fail.

[sarny_]

Endgame Builds

~ Vamp dps:
http://ru.allodsbase.com/calc#a71xmcgfh ... 0dh5p4p3jg

Comments:The strategy with this build is very basic, all you have to do is spam vamp (unless you are level 47 and have Lifetap and R3) until you see reanimator proc, and then you use howl twice. There’s nothing else to it - Just remember to keep your DoTs up and make sure your pet is attacking. If it starts getting below 30% due to aoe, throw a renewal on it so your dps doesn’t suffer. Your pet will be about 10-15% of your dps. As for the build itself, most of the talents/rubies shown there are standard, although there is room for variation. Any leftover rubies would go into what you prefer.
Of the new talents/rubies, the ones that have the most potential for increasing dps are Lifetap and Toxic weakness. With both neuro and putrefy up at the same time, toxic weakness appears relatively often and boosts the damage from lifetap/vamp by very large amounts. For instance, my vamp does around 30k on average when I crit. With toxic weakness, damage dealt by your next Vampirism or Life Tap is increased by 100%, being Life Tap around 15% strnget than Vampirism. Also, considering that you are always spamming vamp, you are better off getting lifetap to R3 rather than decomposition and lifetap to R2.

Recent Edit: This is the most viable build for PVE farming, end game if you also want to help with support.

~Acid dps:
http://allodsbase.com/ru/talents#-3hx20 ... 2y10c13ow5

Comments: Your basic strategy with this build is to throw your DoTs and corrosive acid, and begin to spam acid bolt. Use howl of death when you can, but don’t expect to be using it too often. The stacks that increase acid damage will eventually build up and provide a nice boost to your single target dps. Leftover rubies can be assigned according to preference.
This build ditches out surviability in order to achieve higher DPS. It requires less wisdom, therefore you can bump your intelligence and luck way more than in a Vamp build.

Recent Edit: Best dps build for PVE DPS. Ditches surviability for DPS.

~ PvP:
http://allodsbase.com/ru/talents#-3hxkc ... 2dh690o7w2

Comments: This is what you would use primarily for 1v1 PvP. The strategy will be covered more in-depth later, but basically, you will throw decomposition and neurotoxin onto your opponent and start kiting. When fear is off cooldown, you can use it and attempt to get blood with vamp OR burst damage when fever is about to explode and annihilate them. This is what I (Feighn) do 99% of the time and it typically results in a win. Remember to only heal when the target is stunned, feared, or when you have 5 necropotency stacks. Do not use your necropotency stacks on vamp unless you need blood. And obviously, with fever, you shouldn’t need blood anyway. The reason you don’t use vamp is because vamp rarely heals you a strong amount in pvp, and you will also want the HoT from renewal to slowly regain your health as you kite.

~Support:
http://allodsbase.com/ru/talents#-3hxce ... 3o821or7g0

Comments: This build is really only for people who are truly passionate about healing heroics/not mashing vamp. The strategy with this build is to keep our party alive while at the same time chucking in the occassionally volatile infection for added dps. For healing you’ll want to spam dark renewal on the tank and only use PoM when renewal alone can’t handle the situation. If the target’s health drops to around 20-30%, then use reanimation which should remain precasted at all times. There isn’t much room for variation in this build. However, blood injection is more of a wasted point than a serious talent. If you want that point elsewhere, it wouldn’t change anything. Other than that, there isn’t much to this build.

~ Pure healer build

http://ru.allodsbase.com/calc#a71x1sn3p ... 3081hsr400

[i]Comments[/u]: This is a Pure healer build. In my oppinion, builds without Blood Shot are more of support builds, where you are kind of the Jack of All Trades, with decent dps and decent heals.
With this build, you totally ditch out dps in order to get the top spot on the healing meter.
There are 2 ways of playing this build, it really comes to your playstyle, there is none better than the other.

1 - You want to have Reanimation pre-casted no matter what. That will be your emergency button. Use PoM everytime it is off cooldown, spam renewal on the tank until dark weaver procs. When it procs, use blood shot that became 1,5sec cast time and get a burst heal out.
If anyone takes damage, use dark renewal. If it isn't enough, cast a Blood Shot to make them come back to full health.

2 - You want to have Reanimation pre-caster no matter what. Use Dark renewal on the tank, spam blood shot. Use dark renewal on who ever is taking damage, and if it isnt enough, use blood shot on them as well.
If too much people are taking damage at the same time, cast PoM and let it spread. If people are too spread out, cast PoM on yourself and run around like crazy spreading it to people (this is what happens most of the times ).

I've had people asking me in-game why I do not use PoM as often as other healer summies. My answer is simple: I see PoM as a burst heal since it ticks for real high ammounts (mine is currently doing 80-100k crits with legend level 47 wand), and if everyoneis high on health, and I'm spamming PoM, I am just wasting blood and mana.
Also, since I use the second method, I never really feel the need of using PoM, so I usually saved it for when people take huge ammounts of damage, fast (last boss in Abandoned Pyramid for example).

At the end of the day, it comes up to personal prefence. Both away work fine. Main difference is, in the first one, you have burst heals, in the second one, you maintain your heals per second, with the ocasional burst of PoM

[sarny_]

Strategy

PvP:

In PvP situations, a summoner needs to analyze what his/her opponent is doing, and pay special attention to his/her cooldowns, blood bank, and aegis. Also, make sure to keep all of your DoT’s up, and do your best to keep the renewal HoT on you.
So the first thing you should do when you face a 1vs1 situation is put fever up, followed by putrefy/decomposition and of course neurotoxin, and then you send your pet. In case it is a class that absorbs the damage (for example paladins and mages), don’t use any vampirism, life tap or howl of death (on a mage you should use them when you can, after reflections are down). Never waste stacks of necropotency with a vamp, unless you have Toxic Weakness in your build and that effect is active, or you desperately need blood. Never use vampirism on a paladin or mage with illusions, since it won’t give you blood or deal damage. Essentially, you’d just be throwing your mana away.
Besides that, the one, single, most important key to summoner pvp is: NEVER stand still while the target is not disabled. You should always be kiting. The type of kiting you use is really up to personal preference. I (Shey) like to run around in a circular pattern, for example. Some people prefer to kite in a more unpredictable pattern, and that’s alright too. Another thing you can’t forget is timing your neurotoxin bursts. For example, if you see that a warrior/paladin is about to charge you and your neurotoxin is not going to blow anytime soon, either spam it to make it blow or fear the charge in the case that it is off of cooldown. This will give you time to heal, use vamp to get some blood, and will also prevent you from getting stun locked. Another really important thing is that you don’t walk back, because it will make you go slower. Usually, summoners prefer to strife right or left This way, you are still evading the enemy, but you are not losing speed in process. It also allows you to continually face your enemy, so you don’t have to be moving towards them to cast a spell.

PvE:
In PvE situation it really depends on the type of fight, whether they are long and short. Let’s pretend that you are fighting a GT boss. Your pet goes first, whether you are in a party or alone. After that, use fever, putrefy/decomposition, and neurotoxin. Start spamming Vampirism until you have a full blood bank. By the time you have a full blood bank you will probably have the Reanimator effect, so use howl of death twice. Start vamping again while howl of death is on cooldown. You can usually get 4 vamps within the timeframe, which is enough to throw 2 howls of death again when you get Reanimator, which will probably show up after the 4 vamps hit the target. You could use how of death as soon as Reanimator procs; however, the problem is that by the time you would have blood to throw the second howl of death, it has been 10 seconds and you only used it once instead of 2 times, and those 10 seconds that you aren’t using it are really important for maintaining a constant dps.
In the case that you are acid, the strategy is the same as vampirism;the big difference is that you will only be able to use Howl of Death when your blood bank as at least 6 drops of blood given by fever. Use fever everytime you can, keep your DoT’s up, and spam acid bolt.

[sarny_]

Stats:

As a summoner, you have 5 primary stats: Luck, Intelligence, Wisdom, Perception, and Faith.

~Luck: Your chance to deal a critical/glancing blow. This stat can either double your damage/heals if it is a crit, or it can make you deal half damage/heals if it is a glancing blow.

~Intelligence: This is the stat that directly increases your damage spells/heals. If you can, make it as high as it will go. Although, if you are having problems between this stat and luck, the option would be get a higher chance to crit, since it doubles your damage

~Wisdom: This is what gives you mana. It also affects your Hellion’s Finesse (how much it ignores the enemy’s armor). Have it out of the red because of your pet, and high enough to make you not run out of mana easy. Keep in mind that the majority of our spells cost a lot of mana, even with the mana cost reduction rubies.

Perception: This stat tells you your chance to miss an offensive skill (damage wise), but is actually the amount of your attacks that get resisted. Values for each build described later in the guide

~Faith: Tells you how much of your heals get resisted due to wound complexity. Really important for PvP summoners and Support summoners. Dps summoners need this skill too, however, because you will still throw out plague of mending when your party needs it. The good thing about this stat is that you can pretty much ignore it, since perception gear ALWAYS has faith on it. So if your perception is where its supposed to be, your faith will be too.

Depending on what build you use, you will need to change your stats according to the situations you will face (PvP, PvE, and Support). Note that this information is based mainly on level 45-47 stats.

~ PvP: In PvP, you need to have high Luck (around 50% chance to crit), Perception shouldn’t be less than 20% chance to miss. Your mana pool should be far out of the red (because of hellion’s finesse and because of the mana you need for the fight itself. Summoners with no mana are they dead summoners). The rest is on Intelligence. Keep in mind that perception gear comes with faith which you will need for your heals. Also, perception is important to have at least at 20% because a player’s resistances are different than a mob’s.

~ PvE: In PvE, Luck is important to be at around at 50% chance to crit, although, if you will be fighting mobs that are 1 or 2 levels lower than you, you don’t need more than 35% chance to crit. Perception’s dead line is 25% chance to miss. Wisdom needs to be at least 14k, in the case that you have a hellion and need to substain vampirism’s massive mana needs. If you are an Acid spec, you can drop it to around 12k and you should be fine. Faith comes with Perception, and if your perception is around 25% chance to miss, you’ll be fine on heals and damage. Intelligence should be as high as you can get it, always depending on your other stats.

Support: A support summoner essentially needs faith, luck and intel. You don’t need more than 12k mana for heals. Faith should be around 15%, and perception is not really important when it comes to heals, although, you will have a good amount. Choose pieces of gear that have more perception than faith, instead of vice versa. You need at least a 50% chance to crit. Intelligence as high as you can get it.

Staff/2h Spear vs. Dagger & Offhand
Another really common question is whether to go for Staves or Dagger+Offhand. The short answer is: go with whatever you have that has the best stats at the moment.

The longer answer is: Dagger+Offhand frequently gives more and better bonuses than a single Staff. You can also customize Dagger+Offhand more because you have more control over the combination of stats you will get. Offhands give either Stam or Endurance, so you can wear whichever one you feel you need. Also, Offhands have different elemental resistances, so if you wanna micromanage you can wear the appropriate Offhand for the instance or area you're in.

IMPORTANT NOTE for noobs: you will NEVER be using the DPS of your weapon, you ONLY care about the stats. We are not a melee class! If you somehow find a dagger with better DPS but worse stats, just get rid of it. I know this seems obvious, but for those people just starting out, this is good to know.

Wands and Magic Power:

This is rarely covered and it took me a while to figure out, but Magic Power makes a HUGE difference in your damage output. I wish someone would post the formula, 'cause I sure don't know it, but I found that even a 5 point magic power increase at low/mid levels is noticeable.

For instance, when I was level 32 I got ahold of a new Wand with +15 more Intelligence than my current wand, but -4 Magic Power. I equipped the new Wand, only to find my crits going from 11k down to 9.5k. This was the first time I realized how much MP affected my DPS.

Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong, or if they can chime in with better numbers or something. In the meantime, I advise taking a higher Magic Power even if you're not psyched over the stats, especially at lower levels (you'll be replacing it soon enough)

[sarny_]

Brief Leveling Walk-through

~Final Build:
http://allodsbase.com/ru/talents#-3hxc8 ... 25h7p4p43g
Comments: This is the build I would recommend for leveling, but you can also you the vamp dps build if you wanted to, or even the support build (if you swapped the hellion for a lurker). Do not level with an acid build, however. You will seriously regret it.


~Level 5:
http://allodsbase.com/ru/talents#-3gx10pxyy
Comments: At level 4 put your first two talent points into putrefy, and then pick up your hellion at level 5. This point of the game is very easy for us. Send your pet, cast putrefy, and vamp away.

~Level 10:
http://allodsbase.com/ru/talents#-3hx30pxy6w6y
Comments: By now you should have your hellion at rank 3. At level 10 you start getting rubies, which allow you to put points into 3 new talent grids. The first ruby you should go for is neurotoxin. Do so by taking the Intelligence ruby path.

~Level 15:
http://allodsbase.com/ru/talents#-3gxn8txyu4108w2y
Comments: At this point you should have picked up your aegis, making your life a hell of a lot easier, and you also should have gotten putrefy to R3.With your last 2 points from level 15, you should pick up fear and dark pact. If you wanted to, you could also get aegis to r2 instead of the aforementioned talents. Ruby-wise, you should have neurotoxin, your second DoT.

~Level 20:
http://allodsbase.com/ru/talents#-3hx18 ... 0gu4108w2y
Comments: At level 20 you will have R2 vamp, R2 aegis, and your two main heals: Dark renewal and Plague of mending. You will find that your survivability level skyrockets with these new heals. You should have also gotten empowered infections and necropotency, which are both very useful rubies. At this point, the mobs/quests should still be relatively easy.

~Level 25:
http://allodsbase.com/ru/talents#-3hx2g ... w2yf20g6w6
Comments: This is where the game starts getting difficult. Once you hit Asee Teph, do not expect to kill mobs as fast or as easily as you did before. Also, the factor of pvp comes into play here, so you may get ganked a few times. However, do not worry! Once you get past Asee, life gets much easier. You will just go through some hardships until you get rep gear and the 3rd level of patronage.
So, at this point you have picked up R2 fear (for pvp), R2 Plague, and R2 Renewal. Ruby-wise, you should be starting to go for howl of death through the healing shield path. You get an extra 2 rubies from CB/Lab13, so from 20-25 you will receive a total of 7 rubies.

~Level 30-40:
See build at the top.
Comments: By the time you reach this point you have learned enough about how your class works to make your own decisions. The same goes for level 40-47. Typically, at level 40, most players respec out of the leveling build and into one of the aforementioned builds. However, you might want to stick with it until level 47. If this is the case, get lifetap to R2 and Decomposition to R2. This way, you’ll have versatility in pvp and pve while leveling. Do not, however, use this build for dps at 47. As for rubies, I would personally put them into the vamp damage rubies.

[sarny_]

Closing Remarks:

~ All the values used in this guide (besides on leveling part) apply to high level players.

~ Builds described in this guide are just guide lines. As described above, there are rubies and talents you need to have in every build, although, certain skills come down to your personal preference and play style. Keep in mind that this guide was made to help you, and any questions you might have in the future will be answered.

~ Having two summoners writing this guide made it more complete with two different opinions on builds. For example, Shey likes to run R3 Blood Aegis, while Feighn prefers R2 more. As stated above, some skills come to personal preference, and our choice to write this guide as a team was mostly to show that two summoners can both be good with different builds.

~ Most of all, our fellow Summoners, have FUN while playing your toon. When people STILL say we are underpowered, we have to emphasize that we are not. The difference between the people that play summoners who really enjoy their class and the people who play and QQ that we cant just throw fever and win is that they do everything they can to make the toon good. In the end, it’s not the class that makes a toon OP, it’s the player.

~ Special thanks to Reeapz and Illdefileu who let me take screenshots of their characters for the art work on the beggining. Also, thanks to King who did the math on Decomposition and Life Tap. Thanks to Scrape for throwing out some information that we missed on weapons. Last but not least, special thanks to the group of Apex members that let Feighn run an acid build during Thiefs Map and almost got us all dead .

Feighn: Wow, I can’t believe we just wrote this.
Shey: /chuckle