Allods Online Summoner In Depth Guide

Allods Online Summoner In Depth Guide by mesolimbus

Hi, I’m Mesolimbo from Tensess server, a level 46 elven demonologist (level 40 at the time of writing this guide, but I kept updating it). The first guide I made didn’t feel perfect; I felt so restrained space-wise and it felt overall very chaotic when I kept adding to it. Due to lack of space, I didn’t give as much information as I wanted since I didn’t want the guide to be one large wall of text. I’m going to address this issues here as well as significantly improving and overhauling the guide.

What I’m aiming for in this guide:

• Offering the basic information regarding the Summoner archetype.
• Explaining certain in-game mechanisms related to this archetype.
• Giving examples of endgame Acid, Vampirism, and PvP builds.
• Adding sufficient PvE and PvP gameplay tips.
• Providing youtube video tutorials whenever possible.
• Making this guide user-friendly by enhancing visibility and ease-of-access.

With that on mind, let’s get re-started!

Table of Contents

Section 1:

1. Introduction
2. Races – Overview
3. Minions – Overview
4. Blood Bank – OverviewSection 2:
5. Stats Distribution
6. Endgame Vampirism build
7. Endgame Acid build
8. Endgame PvP buildSection 3:
9. In-game Mechanics
10. PvE/PvP Gameplay Tips
11. Video Tutorials
12. Author’s Notes & Special Thanks

Disclaimer: The builds discussed in this guide are based on my own gameplay preference. Therefore, it’s just there to stir your creativity and thinking while highlighting the possibilities in order to help you improvise your version according to your own gameplay preference. Thank you.

I. Introduction
The Summoner archetype is the jack-of-all-trades; knows it all but never a master of any. Very versatile; we got healing spells, DPS, DoT, AoE-DoT, a couple of crowd control spells, instant damage spells, resurrection, self-resurrection, and 3 different pets. Summoners are self-sufficient, and don’t need to play a major role when it comes to large groups in PvP and PvE.

Pros:

• Self-sufficient survivalist. Has the ability to self-resurrect.
• Dependable off-healer and can resurrect fallen allies.
• PvE mass grinding machine when built correctly.
• Pretty potent in mass PvP/PvE due to DoTs and stunning.
• Can summon and command minions that have different roles, what more do I need to say.

Neutral:

• Like any caster, requires a lot of kiting in PvP. Especially in mass PvP.
• Compared to dedicated archetypes, the summoner will neither be the best damage dealer nor the best healer by default.

Cons:

• Can only wear cloth armor and has only one protection spell (Blood Aegis).
• A little challenging to master; you will need to simultaneously manage blood, pet, Blood Aegis, health and mana. In PvP, you will have to do all of that while kiting.

Through practice, any summoner can adapt to those cons; it’s just a matter of time and IRL skills. What you need to keep in mind though is that the summoner class has been a target of heavy nerfing recently, but so far you can work-around those nerfs with a bit of in-game tactic changing/optimizing.

– Demonologist –

Race: The Elves.
Background: Summoning is only for the Chosen few. Not every Elf is ready to accept the prospect of beauty, death and creation. There was a time when this kind of magic was forbidden, in additional to mind magic. Mainly due to the activities of the de Desirae Family, members of the class who usually practice the magic of Death has become an integral part of some Elven life.
Minions:
Hellion: An undead mole-like creature carrying a shovel, a gravedigger.
Fiend: A large purple-bluish spider.
Lurker: An harpy, a fly female creature.

Racial Ability:

Demonic Curse

It deals DoT to an enemy and heals you and your pet for the same amount of damage that it has dealt.

– Savant –

Race: The Arisens.
Background: Summoning is a natural gift to all Arisen. In the past, an Arisen summoner’s main task was to prepare the dead for resurrection. Known for their thoroughness and great abilities to use magic and learn quickly, Arisen are now solving others matters; hence appeared a new name for this chosen path: Savant.
Minions:
Hellion: A large mechanical Scorpion.
Fiend: A Mechanical Sentry Turret.
Lurker: A fly “Tep Blades” which resembles a mechanical saucer.

Racial Ability:

Dark Touch

Fully heals the summoner’s minion.

– Defiler –

Race: The Xadaganians.
Background: Xadaganian Defilers are all-purpose soldiers, capable of protecting themselves and helping their allies. In combat, Defilers are self-reliant. At the same time there is no one else in the Imperial or League armies with equal skills when it comes to dealing with the resurrected undead.
Minions:
Hellion: An undead zombie-soldier.
Fiend: An undead zombie-archer.
Lurker: Banshee – A floating ghastly creature.

Racial Ability:

Art of Reanimation

Temporarily increases the Strength and Expertise of the summoner’s minions by 30%.

All of these races are pretty awesome! The racial ability won’t matter much, so just play whatever suits your taste more, look-wise and faction-wise.

Hellion:

Description:
This a melee minion that plays a tank role during earlier levels and DPS at later levels. Your Wisdom affects your Hellion’s Finesse, your Intelligence affects your Hellion’s Strength, and your Perception affects your Hellion’s Expertise. It’s usually the main minion in Vampirism and PvP builds since it can Disarm melee classes and it’s fast attack speed makes it good at interrupting spell casting.

Skills:
Hateful Blow (R1): Deals damage to an enemy, gets better with each rank.
Charge (R2): Increases the movement speed of your Hellion temporarily.
Crush (R3): Disarms an enemy for a few seconds.

Lurker:

Description:
This is a PvP-inclined minion; it helps you generate blood and can cast mass Silence. It also remains invisible to other players at rank 3.

Skills:
Blood Meal (R1): Deals damage to an enemy while generating drops of blood. The cooldown of Blood Meal becomes shorter and the damage improves with every rank.
Invisibility (R2): The Lurker becomes invisible to enemies, increasing its own survivability.
Defending Howl (R3): Inflicts an AoE silence spell that lasts for 8 seconds and has a cooldown of 1 minute.

Fiend:

Description:
It’s an acid pet that has ranged single target, and ranged AoE acid spells. It differs from other minions since you can choose which spell it would cast manually, switching from single target to AoE at will. It’s excellent with acid builds since it gets a major buff from acid rubies. After v2, you can get Cadaver talent which is basically a Fiend with better stats.

Skills:
Acid Spit: Deals ranged Acid damage to a single enemy.
Acid Splash: Deals ranged AoE Acid damage.
Toxic Cloud: The Fiend explodes when its HP goes bellow 25%, casting an AoE-DoT spell while slowing down the movement speed of all enemies in range by 50%.

Higher ranks deal more damage than the last.

Please note that the minions’ images provided here are the Demonologist’s minions and would differ significantly from Savant/Defiler’s minion look-wise.

IV. Blood Bank – Overview

The summoner class has a unique blood bank system. Every summoner has spells that require certain amount of ‘blood drops’ to cast. This system is a limitation set in order to prevent us from spamming our powerful spells. There are many ways of which you can generate blood, though!

Black circles represent the space within the Blood Bank that is locked and cannot be filled with blood drops. There are 6 locked circles in total. They can be unlocked through Reservoir of Blood rubies found in Vampirism grid:

R3 Reservoir of Blood:

Description: Increases your blood bank size by 6 drops of blood.

Dark red circles represent the available empty space within the blood bank that can be filled with blood drops when you utilize spells that generate blood drops.

Bright red circles represent the filled space within the Blood Bank. Those are the available blood drops that you currently have. Those can be used to cast spells that requires blood drops.

Therefore, the image above has 4 locked circles, 7 empty circles, and 5 filled circles.

Every build depends on certain set of talents and grid skills in order to cover its blood need. However, they all have 1 spell in common which is extremely important for all builds:

Dark Pact:

Description: 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.

As you can see, this is one of the most helpful blood generation spell; it works both actively and passively. It’s most practical at R2, but in most Acid builds R3 is necessary since you don’t have Vampirism for blood generation.

There are other talents/skills that fills your blood bank which I will mention in each build.

5 major stats:

1. Intelligence: Directly increases the damage dealt by your offensive spells and your Hellion’s strength.
   Optimal Range: It’s linear, so keep pumping it up when possible.
2. Perception: Reduces the chance to miss with your spells and improves your Hellion’s expertise.
   Optimal Range: 25-30% miss chance, any higher than that and you will start to miss a lot.
3. Luck: Affects the chance to deal Critical Strikes and Glancing Blows. If you are low on luck, you will be dealing a lot of Glancing Blows which lowers your DPS significantly.
   Optimal Range 30-35% critical strike chance would be enough. If you want more, I advice you to use Luck Potions instead of getting more luck through gear, you won’t need more luck for PvE though.
4. Wisdom: The more wisdom you have, the bigger your mana pool is. It also increases your Hellion’s finesse.
   Optimal Range: A good amount is when the game stop giving you the “Your stat is very low for your level” message. Although, some people can live with less wisdom because it suits their gameplay.
5. Faith: Increases healing done against target’s wound complexity. The higher this stat is, the higher healing you’ll be doing if the target is wounded.
   Optimal Range: Whatever comes on Perception gear should be enough for PvE.

4 minor stats:

1. Endurance: Lowers the chance to receive a Critical Strike, and increases the chance that the incoming attack will be a Glancing Blow.
2. Agility: Increases chance to Dodge, Block or Parry incoming physical attacks.
3. Stamina: Increases maximum hitpoints.
4. Rage: Affects your ability to inflict complex wounds. Wound Complexity reduces the effects of healing done to the target.

There isn’t an optimal range for these stats, so whatever comes on gear should suffice as long as you don’t get the message “This stat is very low for your level”. However, try to keep them balanced through gear since this is extremely important for PvE/PvP.

Stats Points/Patron:
As a good rule of thumb, all stat points received from leveling should go to Luck attribute regardless of build. The reason for this is that gear tends to give enough Intelligence and Perception, and Faith comes naturally on Perception gear. Luck is low on gear and you’d be sacrificing a lot of important stats if you decided to equip Luck-based gear. Needless to say, attribute bonus received from your Patron should also go to Luck as well.

Choice of Weapon:
I get asked this question a lot: Which is better, a two-handed staff or a Dagger + Offhand?

Dagger + Offhand is much better than a two-handed staff for the summoner class. This is because you get a lot of extra elemental resists on the Offhand, and you won’t use the Dagger/Staff to deal damage anyway. You only benefit from the Magical Power on your Rod when it comes to your spells. So yeah, stay away from staves.

This is an example of how a Vampirism build looks like: Click Here!
Note: These russian server grids are slightly different than our North America since they have extra grid skills, but this won’t matter much since I didn’t highlight any of the skills that are not available in our version of the game.

Talents and Grid Skills:
Talents:

• R3 Vampirism:
  
  Description: Inflicts direct damage to the target. All life lost by the target will be transferred to you. Generates 2 drop of blood. Casting time at R3 is 3.5 seconds.
  Comment: You main offensive spell for this build.
• R3 Putrefy:
  
  Description: Inflicts damage every 2 seconds for 20 seconds.
  Comment: This is your first DoT spell. It’s the middle-man in many combo’s since it triggers other skills automatically as well as being triggered by some skills itself.
• R3 Blood Aegis:
  
  Description: Surrounds you with 10 walls of blood that increase your armor by 8% for each stack and prevent spell casting interruption. Taking damage cancels 1 stack of the Blood Aegis effect. Consumes 3 drops of blood.
  Comment:This is your only protection spell so it’s very impotant to get this to R3 since you get a 8% boost for each stack.
• R3 Summon Hellion:
  
  Description: Summons 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.
  Comment: Most useful summon, in my opinion, and works quite well with this build. Hateful Blow is an offensive skill, Charge increases Hellion’s movement speed, and Crush disarms the enemy.
• R2 Dark Pact:
  
  Description: Inflicts damage to you equal to 30% 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 of 5 drops of blood in your blood bank.
  Comment: It’s a very helpful blood generation spell, both active and passive. I learned to live without it though, but it’s important for most people.
• R1 Siphoning Fever:
  
  Description: Infects the target with a fever that has a 15% chance to generate 1 drop of blood every 2 seconds for 1.5 minutes. Inflicts damage when Siphoning Fever effect fades. Only 1 target can be affected by the Siphoning Fever effect at a time.
  Comment: This is for extra damage and blood generation in PvP/boss battles.
• R1 Fear:
  
  Description: Causes the target to flee in terror for 6 seconds.
  Comment: Very, very useful in PvP if a melee class got uncomfortably close. It will save your life many times.
• R3 Volatile Infection:
  
  Description: Infects the target but inflicts no damage until 8 seconds have passed. During the no-damage (incubatory) stage, this infection can spread to nearby enemies within 10 yards.
  Comment: It’s a great spell for AoE grinding, and when it explodes it deals tons of damage to all affected mobs. It’s also somewhat useful in mass PvP.
• R2 Dark Renewal:
  
  Description: Heals a friendly target for a certain amount initially and then heals over time every 2 seconds for 16 seconds. Consumes 1 drop of blood.
  Comment: This is the main healing spell for the build. Many people go for R3 but I can live with R2 along with R3 Plague of Mending since I get nice healing from vampirism any way.
• R3 Plague of Mending:
  
  Description: Heals a friendly target over time, every 2 seconds for 16 seconds. Spreads to all allies within a 10 yard radius of the target. It also triggers Powerful Antibodies effect which makes you immune to the effect of PoM for 1.33 mintues (i.e. ~64 seconds after PoM fades). Consumes 6 drops of blood.
  Comment: It’s a very powerful instant-cast healing spell. Very useful in all situations.
• R3 Rise from the Dead:
  
  Description: Resurrects you with 60% of your total health and mana. Makes you immune to all damage for 6 seconds after resurrection. Stuns you for 3 seconds, making you unable to move or use abilities. This effect may not happen more than once every 5 minutes.
  Comment: Awesome self-resurrect spell with a cool down of 5 mins. It gives you a few seconds of invincibility after the stun wear off.
• R3 Life Tap:
  
  Description: An improved version of Vampirism which can be unlocked through a quest. A new v2 spell.
  Comment: This should further improve the potential of this build in PvP since you will be able to receive more healing.
• R0 Decomposition:
  
  Description: An improved version of Putrefy which can be unlocked through a quest. A new v2 spell.
  Comment: I did not get this spell since it’s not triggered through Withering Touch. It’s an improved Putrefy, yet Putrefy also over-writes it. I hope that this is merely a bug. Currently, it’s not possible to get R3 until they raise the level cap from 47 to 49.

Grid Skills:

(Acid Grid)

• R3 Blood Tap:
  
  Description: Generate 3 drops of blood and 15% of your mana after killing an enemy.
  Comment: Extremely useful for any build, in any situation, especially in PvE 4-6 mob grinding. You have to be the one dealing the final blow to the target in order to get the bonus, though.

Alternative:

• R3 Blood Flow:
  
  Description: Grants Vampirism a 100% chance and Siphoning Fever a 9% chance to generate an additional drop of blood.
  Comment: Extremely useful alternative to Blood Tap. However, it doesn’t regenerate your mana. On the other hand, you don’t have to be the one dealing the final blow to receive the blood bonus. I prefer playing with Blood Tap, but that’s just my humble opinion.(Vampirism Grid)
• R3 Dark Leech:
  
  Description: Reduces the cast time and mana cost of Vampirism by 30%.
  Comment: Extremely important skill for this build. Lower casting time and mana cost translate into more DPS and healing.
• R3 Endless Pain:
  
  Description: Increases the critical strike chance of Vampirism, Life Tap, Blood Injection, Howl of Death and Dark Renewal by 100% of your current critical strike chance.
  Comment: With a decent Luck, you would be critting every other hit.
• R3 Healing Shield:
  
  Description: Heals you every 3 seconds for 9 seconds each time you lose 1 stack of the Blood Aegis effect.
  Comment: This is a useful bridge that leads to Howl of Death. It’s definitely more useful than Dark Gift since Dark Gift gives you extra 9% HP so that’s 18K HP per 200K HP. Healing Shield heals you for 5-10K a tic, so even if it doesn’t stack, it’s still superior.
• R1 Howl of Death:
  
  Description: Inflicts instant damage and reduces the target’s movement speed by 50% for 5 seconds. Consumes 6 drops of blood and has a cooldown of 10 seconds
  Comment: Very, very powerful spell. It’s instant-cast, deals tons of damage especially when it crits, and it slows down the target. With Reanimator effect, you can cast it two times in a row without any cool down!
• R3 Reanimator:
  
  Description: This skill grants a 50% chance to reduce the cooldown of Howl of Death by 100% when you deal a critical strike with Vampirism or Life Tap. Also reduces the summoning time by 45%, and generates extra drops of blood when you deal a critical strike with Blood Injection or Blood Shot.
  Comment: With some luck, you can dish out nice damage with the help of this skills.
• R3 Call of the Grave:
  
  Description: 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% to targets whose health is below 50%.
  Comment: This skill makes you much more deadly while increasing your survivability. At low health, your vampirism will deal more damage which means it will heal you better, and when the enemy’s HP is lower than 50% your Howl of Death will deal even more damage, pushing the enemy into their grave.
• R3 Reservoir of Blood:
  
  Description: Increases your blood bank size by 6 drops of blood.
  Comment: It’s an important passive skill for spamming Howl of Death.
• R3 Endless Thirst:
  
  Description: Increases damage dealt by your Vampirism and Life Tap by 12%.
  Comment: This is a significant increase when you take other skills and critical damage into consideration.
• R1 Summon Soul:
  
  Description: Returns a friendly target’s soul to their dead body to resurrect them with 60% health and 60% mana or energy.
  Comment: It used to be a talent skill, but now it’s a grid skill which is more convenient.(Putrefy Grid)
• R3 Evil Genius:
  
  Description: Increases your Intelligence by 9%.
  Comment: This skill is more of a useful bridge to Withering Touch and Necropotency.
• R3 Withering Touch:
  
  Description: This skill grants Volatile Infection a 100% chance to inflict the Putrefy effect, and Neurotoxin a 45% chance inflict the Putrefy effect.
  Comment: Very important skill. When you get this, you won’t have to manually cast Putrefy ever again.
• R1 Neurotoxin:
  
  Description: Inflicts DoT and when the target is affected by 6 stacks, the toxin explodes, inflicting damage and stunning for 3 seconds.
  Comment: Very useful for PvE grinding, and exceptional for PvP. It’s an instant-cast spell with low mana cost.
• R3 Necropotency:
  
  Descrption: This skill grants Putrefy a 50% chance to reduce the cast time of the next Acid Bolt, Vampirism, Dark Renewal, or Blood Injection by 20%. Effect can stack up to 5 times.
  Comment: Note that each stack of Necropotency reduces the casting time by 20%, which means at 5 stacks those spells become instant-casts. With Dark Leech, you only need 4 stack to make Vampirism almost instant-cast.
• R3 Empowered Infections:
  
  Description: Increases the effects of Putrefy, Plague of Mending, Siphoning Fever, and Neurotoxin by 15%.
  Comment: A good skill; increases your total DPS and healing done by PoM. Win win.
• R3 Toxic Weakness:
  
  Description: Putrefy, Decomposition, and Neurotoxin DoT have a 9% chance to increase the damage of your next Volatile Infection, Vampirism, and Life Tap. Lasts 10 seconds.
  Comment: This skill would add some damage to the tactic used in this build. I’m not sure how much the damage is increased since they don’t mention it any where.

Note:The rubies setup is different in this russian game server calculator compared to our North America version, but here it is just for example’s sake: Click here!

Here is a screenshot taken on my char in North America version:

Talents and Grid Skills:
Talents:

• R3 Acid Bolt:
  
  Description: Throws a clot of acid that inflicts direct damage. Casting time is 2.5 seconds at R3.
  Comment: Main offensive spell for this build.
• R3 Putrefy:
  
  Description: Inflicts damage every 2 seconds for 20 seconds.
  Comment: This is your first DoT spell. It’s the middle-man in many combo’s since it triggers other skills automatically as well as being triggered by some skills itself.
• R3 Blood Injection:
  
  Description: Heals a friendly target. Consumes 1 drop of blood.
  Comment: This is a basic healing spells. The reason for picking this and not Dark Renewal is because R3 Darkweaver greatly reduces the casting time of this spell as well as Dark Shot. You need to use the Necropotency effect for casting Acid Bolt, so Darkweaver + Blood Injection/Shot would make much sense here.
• R3 Plague of Mending:
  
  Description: Heals a friendly target over time, every 2 seconds for 16 seconds. Spreads to all allies within a 10 yard radius of the target. It also triggers Powerful Antibodies effect which makes you immune to the effect of PoM for 1.33 mintues (i.e. ~64 seconds after PoM fades). Consumes 6 drops of blood.
  Comment: It’s a very powerful instant-cast healing spell. Very useful in all situations.
• R3 Blood Aegis:
  
  Description: Surrounds you with 10 walls of blood that increase your armor by 8% for each stack and prevent spell casting interruption. Taking damage cancels 1 stack of the Blood Aegis effect. Consumes 3 drops of blood.
  Comment:This is your only protection spell so it’s very impotant to get this to R3 since you get a 8% boost for each stack.
• R3 Dark Pact:
  
  Description: Inflicts damage to you equal to 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 of 10 drops of blood in your blood bank.
  Comment: Main blood generation skill for this build. Absolutely important. If you cast it while not having enough HP, you are gonna die.
• R3 Summon Fiend:
  
  Description: Summons a Fiend under your control that can cast Acid Spit and Acid Splash. When your Fiend’s health drops below 25% it explodes, casting Toxic Cloud and creating a cloud of acid for 10 seconds that inflicts damage every 2 seconds to all enemies that enter the area, and reduces the movement speed of all enemies that enter the area by 50%.
  Comment: This summon is more useful for this build than Hellion since it benefits greatly from certain Acid grid skills. Hellion would still work with this build but I don’t recommend getting that.
• R1 Fear:
  
  Description: Causes the target to flee in terror for 6 seconds.
  Comment: Very, very useful in PvP if a melee class got uncomfortably close. It will save your life.
• R2 Volatile Infection:
  
  Description: Infects the target but inflicts no damage until 8 seconds have passed. During the no-damage (incubatory) stage, this infection can spread to nearby enemies within 10 yards.
  Comment: It’s a great spell for AoE grinding, and when it explodes it deals tons of damage to all affected mobs. It’s also somewhat useful in mass PvP.
• R3 Rise from the Dead:
  
  Description: Resurrects you with 60% of your total health and mana. Makes you immune to all damage for 6 seconds after resurrection. Stuns you for 3 seconds, making you unable to move or use abilities. This effect may not happen more than once every 5 minutes.
  Comment: Awesome self-resurrect spell with a cool down of 5 mins. It gives you a few seconds of invincibility after the stun wear off.
• R1 Siphoning Fever:
  
  Description: Infects the target with a fever that has a 15% chance to generate 1 drop of blood every 2 seconds for 1.5 minutes. Inflicts damage when Siphoning Fever effect fades. Only 1 target can be affected by the Siphoning Fever effect at a time.
  Comment: This is for extra damage and blood generation in PvP/boss battles.
• R2 Cadaver:
  
  Description: An improved version of Fiend.
  Comment: It was added with patch v2. As of now, you can’t get R3 until they raise the level cap to 49

Grid Skills:

(Acid Grid)

• R3 Blood Tap:
  
  Description: Generate 3 drops of blood and 15% of your mana after killing an enemy.
  Comment: Extremely useful for any build, in any situation, especially in PvE 4-6 mob grinding. You have to be the one dealing the final blow to the target in order to get the bonus, though.
• R3 Burning Acid:
  
  Description: Increases the critical strike chance of Acid Bolt and your Fiend’s abilities by 100% of your current critical strike chance.
  Comment: Synergistic with other grid skills and pretty good with decent luck.
• R3 Corrosive Acid:
  
  Description: Increases Acid damage dealt to the target for 60 seconds or for the next 20 attacks. 15 seconds cool down.
  Comment: Very useful for 1vs 1 PvP and PvE.
• R3 Desecration:
  
  Description: Reduces the mana cost of Acid Bolt and Blood Injection by 30%.
  Comment: It’s more of a useful bridge, along with R1 Calculating Mind, to reach the Concentrated Acid rubies.
• R3 Calculating Mind:
  
  Description: Increases your Perception and Faith by 9%.
  Comment: A useful bridge to reach the Concentrated Acid rubies as well as getting a considerable boost to Faith and Perception.
• R3 Concentrated Acid:
  
  Descritpion: Increases the critical strike damage of Acid Bolt and your Fiend’s abilities by 60%.
  Comment: Very synergistic with Burning Acid’s 100% boost to your critical strike chance, now you also got 60% more damage!
• R3 Catalytic Blood:
  
  Description: Inflicts direct damage to all enemies in an 8 yard radius when you receive a critical strike. Also grants the next Acid spell cast on the targets a 100% chance to knock them down.
  Comment: Very handy in PvE grinding and even PvP if you can sustain a critical hit and survive long enough to spam Acid Bolt.
• R3 Darkweaver:
  
  Description: Grants Acid Bolt and Dark Renewal a 30% chance to reduce the cast time of the next Vampirism or Blood Injection by 50% for 15 seconds.
  Comment: Very helpful for rapidly casting Blood Injection/Shots when needed. It’s crucial for this build since these are your only healing spells.(Vampirism Grid)
• R1 Insidious Touch:
  
  Description: Increases the healing done by all your spells by 3% and lowers the cooldown duration of Immitate Death by 15%.
  Comment: Very useful bridge to reach Endless Pain rubies.
• R3 Endless Pain:
  
  Description: Increases the critical hit chance of Blood Injection by 100%.
  Comment: Very important to get these rubies, it would increase the healing done significantly, something this builds really needs.
  —
  Alternative:
• R3 Reanimator:
  
  Description: Grants a 50% chance to generate drops of blood when dealing a critical strike with Blood Injection or Blood Shot. Reduces the cast time of your summoning spells by 45%.
  Comment: It could be an alternative to Endless Pain & Insidious Touch if you want to grab Call of the Grave rubies for extra acid bolt damage, and later grab Howl of Death when they raise the level cap or through items that give you extra rubies. Just being far-sighted here.
• R1 Summon Soul:
  
  Description: Returns a friendly target’s soul to their dead body to resurrect them with 60% health and 60% mana or energy.
  Comment: It used to be a talent skill, but now it’s a grid skill which is more convenient.(Putrefy Grid)
• R3 Evil Genius:
  
  Description: Increases your Intelligence by 9%.
  Comment: This skill is more of a useful bridge to Withering Touch and Necropotency.
• R3 Withering Touch:
  
  Description: This skill grants Volatile Infection a 100% chance to inflict the Putrefy effect, and Neurotoxin a 45% chance inflict the Putrefy effect.
  Comment: Very important skill. When you get this, you won’t have to manually cast Putrefy ever again.
• R1 Neurotoxin:
  
  Description: Inflicts DoT and when the target is affected by 6 stacks, the toxin explodes, inflicting damage and stunning for 3 seconds.
  Comment: Very useful for PvE grinding, and exceptional for PvP. It’s an instant-cast spell with low mana cost.
• R3 Necropotency:
  
  Descrption: This skill grants Putrefy a 50% chance to reduce the cast time of the next Acid Bolt, Vampirism, Dark Renewal, or Blood Injection by 20%. Effect can stack up to 5 times.
  Comment: Note that each stack of Necropotency reduces the casting time by 20%, which means at 5 stacks those spells become instant-casts. With Dark Leech, you only need 4 stack to make Vampirism almost instant-cast.
• R3 Empowered Infections:
  
  Description: Increases the effects of Putrefy, Plague of Mending, Siphoning Fever, and Neurotoxin by 15%.
  Comment: A good skill; increases your total DPS and healing done by PoM. Win win.
• R3 Delayed Healing:
  
  Description: Blood Injection and Blood Shot heal the target for additional amount after 5 seconds.
  Comment: Nice, Blood Injection/Shot now get a boost.

Must-have spells for any PvP build:

• R3 Fear:
  
  Description: Causes the target to flee in terror for 6 seconds.
  Comment: At R3, the cool down will go down significantly.
• R3 Siphoning Fever:
  
  Description: Infects the target with a fever that has a 25% chance to generate 1 drop of blood every 2 seconds for 1.5 minutes. Inflicts damage when Siphoning Fever effect fades. Only 1 target can be affected by the Siphoning Fever effect at a time.
  Comment: I prefer R2 while getting Life Tap to R3, but most people go with R3 Fever.
• R3 Panic Monger:
  
  Description: Reduces the cooldown duration of Fear by 30% and increases the range of Fear by 60%.
  Comment: Extremely useful in PvP since your Fear cooldown will be ~22 seconds, and with a much longer reach.
• R3 Frightful Presence:
  
  Description: Grants a 15% chance for enemies to flee in terror for 2 seconds after they attack you from a distance of 10 yards or less.
  Comment: This is crucial in mass PvP and will save your life numerous times.

IX. In-game Mechanics
Here, I’ll explain how certain spells work in-depth for the new summoners.

Infection Chain-Triggering Mechanism
As you may have noticed, all PvE builds are essentially Acid/Putrefy or Vamp/Putrefy hybrids. This is because the bulk of your damage comes from DoT spells in mass PvE, and there is a certain automated chain triggering mechanism that benefits all builds:

Neurotoxin/Volatile Infection –triggers-> Putrefy –triggers-> Necropotency.

Necropotency stacks up to 5 times and reduces the cast time of Vampirism/Acid Bolt/Dark Renewal/Blood Injection by 20% for each stack, which means those spell become instant-cast at 5 stacks. However, when you cast any of those spells once, you use up all of the stacks.

Blood Aegis: Mechanics
Blood Aegis is one of the most crucial spells a summoner must have; this is our only protection spell. At R3, you get 10 stacks of Blood Aegis. Each stack increases armor by a 8% bonus and each hit received will cancel 1 stack.

So it works something like this:
Let’s say we have 1000 armor points, then:
10 stacks = 80% bonus (1000 base + 800 bonus = 1800 total armor)
9 stacks = 72% bonus (1000 base + 720 bonus = 1720)
8 stacks = 64% bonus (1000 + 640 = 1640)
.. and so on.

The shortcoming of this spell is that it’s very easy to receive 10 rapid consequent hits. The blood cost of this spell is also kinda high (3 drops of blood).

Blood Injection VS. Dark Renewal in my Acid build
Some people wondered why I took Blood Injection instead of Dark Renewal in my Acid build. Here’s why:

Neurotoxin/VI –triggers-> Putrefy –triggers–> Necropotency.
Necropotency can be used for Acid Bolt or Blood Injection, thus:

Acid Bolt –triggers–> Darkweaver.
Darkweaver reduces the cast time of Blood Injection by 50%.

This gives you 2 chances to reduce the cast time of Blood Injection, unlike in Vampirism builds where you can only reduce the cast time of Dark Renewal through Necropotency.

Overall, this greatly reduces the cast time of both Acid Bolt and Blood Injection simultaneously (i.e. both at the same time), which covers up the shortcoming of this build versus vampirism-based builds. With Blood Injection, you even have a chance to generate additional blood drops.

What if I urgently need to heal without waiting for those stacks to build up?

Casting spells repeatedly (2 times in a row without Necro/Weaver):
Dark Renewal = 75K + 75K (initially) + 140K over 16 seconds = 290K within 19* seconds frame.
* (1.5 seconds + 1.5 seconds + 16 seconds, since HoT would start after the first cast, I’ve added extra 20K to the HoT since the effects renews with the second cast)
Cost: 2 drops of blood.

Blood Injection = 200K + 200K (initially) + 60K after 5 seconds = 460K within 11* seconds frame.
* (3 + 3 + 5 = 11)
Cost: 2 drops of blood.

The acid build can’t deal damage and heals at the same time, so we need to get around this. Necropotency stacks for rapid Acid Bolts and Darkweaver for rapid Blood Injections will cover this pretty well.

Therefore, Blood Injection blows Dark Renewal out of the water for this build, and with the new grid skill in later patches Delayed Healing is getting a considerable boost.

X. PvE/PvP Gameplay Tips

-PvE:

• Single Target:
  • Vampirism: Start the battle by sending your minion first, this will cause aggro towards your minion. Cast Neurotoxin then keep spamming Vampirism until the Reanimator effect gets triggered or til your blood bank gets full. Cast 2 Howl of Death in a row and watch the mob go down. If the mob has a lot of HP (i.e. boss/crown etc), re-cast your Neurotoxin and keep spamming Vampirism again until you trigger Reanimator. Cast your 2x Howl of Death again if you have the Blood Flow rubies since you would have generated enough blood within 10 seconds, otherwise just cast 1 HoD. Rinse and repeat.
  • Acid: Start the battle by sending your minion first, don’t forget to switch your Fiend to Acid Spit (single target). Cast Neurotoxin and Corrosive Acid then keep spamming Acid Bolt and watch the mob go down as the target receives a lot of Acid damage from you and your Fiend. You don’t have Howl of Death for this build, but you can get (R3 Reanimator + R3 Call of the Grave + R1 Dark Gift + R1 Howl of Death) instead of the (R3 Endless Pain + R1 Insideous Touch + R3 Delayed Healing) rubies for extra DPS, but that will cost extra ruby and you’d be missing out on a lot of healing since your Blood Injection will lose the 100% extra critical chance.
• Mass PvE (Grinding):
  • Vampirism: Start the battle by pre-casting your Volatile Infection. Do not send your minion, let it attack the first target that attacks you; this way you will have a closer gathering-point. Cast Neurotoxin on 4-6 mobs then cast Volatile Infection when you get the mobs around the gathering-point. Keep running around while keeping a close eye on Blood Aegis. Your Necropotency stacks will shoot up fast, when you get 4-5 stacks, cast 1 Vampirism and keep running again. Rinse and repeat until Volatile Infection explodes which is usually enough to kills all mobs. Cast a couple of Vampirism/HoD to finish off any remaining mobs. (You can find a video tutorial in the video section)
  • Acid: Make sure that your Blood Bank is full (Dark Pact). Switch your Fiend to Acid Splash (AoE). Pre-cast your Volatile Infection. Follow the same strategy as the Vampirism build except that when you get low on health (around 50%), cast a rapid Blood Injection. Also, you should let your minion attack first in this build. If one of the mobs dealt a critical strike to you, the Catalytic Blood effect will become active, dealing damage to all mobs around you and making your Acid Bolt able to knock them down. I find this pretty decent.

When the situation looks dire and you already used your Rise from the Dead, never forget that you have a very handy spell that you get from completing world quests, which is:

Imitate Death:

Causes you to imitate the dead and trick all enemies into ignoring you, reducing threat level. This spell, along with R3 Rise from the Dead, will make you almost invincible in PvE as long as you know when and how to use it. 2 minutes cool down.

-PvP:

• 1vs1:
  • Vampirism: Send your minion while casting your infections on the target. Start spamming Vampirism/HoD unless you are facing a Mage or a Paladin then don’t bother with casting those since they can block them. The Mage’s reflections and barriers will eventually go down so keep a close eye on that since you will get to cast your most powerful spells and they won’t be able to block them. Also, don’t forget to renew your DoTs when they wear off. When the target is low on health and you have the Reanimator effect active, 2 HoDs should take care of them, especially if you have Call of the Grave rubies.

Versus Paladins, find a large obstacle and keep going around it while renewing DoTs and casting healing spells when necessary. I find this to offer more protection than a normal circular kiting, and would give me enough time to deal my DoTs and finish off the Paladin. If the Paladin gets uncomfortably close, cast Fear.

Versus Psis, there is a certain type of kiting that is very effective against them. Their powerful spells have a long cast time so you can simply “go-though” their toon and emerge at the back, giving them “your target is not in front of you” message. Frightful Presence can give you a few laughs sometimes. Keep spamming Vampirism/HoD while renewing your DoTS. They usually go down within a couple of minutes.

As long as you are good with kiting, the only trouble you would have in 1vs1 PvP is against Healers. If you got R2 Decomposition instead of Life Tap (i.e. a full-PvP build), you will have troubles with Psis as well.

• Acid: It’s the same general concept of casting infection and kiting away while casting Acid Bolt when 4-5 Necropotency stacks build up. Don’t forget to put Corrosive Acid on your target first. If they killed your Fiend, it will explode and they will be slowed down winning you time to kite away and later cast Fear when they get too close. If the enemy deals a critical strike to you, they will get affected by Catalytic Blood and your Acid Bolt spell will be able to knock them down!
• Mass PvP:
  Your role in mass PvP is confined to spreading infections and kiting away while healing yourself and your allies. Frightful Presence and Fear should keep enemies away if the situation got bad. You can also cast Debilitating Plague if you got the ruby for crowd-control in case there are many enemies and less allies. Just try to survive as long as possible in mass PvP to deal the most damage with your DoTs. I prefer having a Lurker than Hellion for mass Silence in my PvP/Vamp hybrid build. If you feel like having enough mana and want to cast Vampirism/Acid bolt, just focus on a single target, especially if you are gonna cast Corrosive Acid.

Kiting in PvP:
I’m always using one of these types of kiting:
– Go-through: Works against Psis and Mages, when you see them casting a spell, simply go through them and emerge at their back.
– Circular: Works against melee classes best. (Press D/Q then A/E)
– Jump-Cast: When you build up 5 stacks of Necropotency, and you are giving your back (or side) to the enemy, you can jump, switch camera to enemy, cast in mid-air, then switch camera to your direction the same time you land and keep running.
– Obstacle “merry-go-round”: Self explanatory.

Important addon for PvP:
Dark Premonition: Absolutely important for knowing when enemy players are around. It saved my life many times already.

XI. Video Tutorials
I’ll upload videos of my gameplay here.

PvE:

• PvE Tutorial – Grinding with vamp build (Summoner):
  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtwvtO1l0JU]
  Details: I’m playing a level 39 Summoner in this vid. Mostly blue (rare) gear and only 2 level 4 runes in offense. Those mobs are level 37-38 and I can easily take 4-6 on.

PvP:

• PvP Tutorial – Circular Kiting:
  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-LsumgugCE]
  Details: Note that we are not trying to kill each others off; this is just a friendly battle to show you how to perform this type of kiting.

Press A+E then D+Q. Make sure that your front is always facing the enemy’s back.

• PvP Tutorial – Jumpcast:
  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA7iXLADLas]
  Details: This is how you can perform the jump-cast method if someone is running behind you and you want to cast a spell without stopping or losing speed.Note that in the video, I had 5 stacks of Necropotency which made my Vampirism instant-cast. This way you can cast it in mid-air without a problem. You can use this method to cast any instant-cast spells in mid-air while keeping your speed/direction constant.

XII. Author’s Notes & Special Thanks

Author’s Notes:
The initial guide took 2 weeks to write and a lot of in-game experimenting within a short frame of time (FoD event). However, I had to re-write it since that first one felt largely restricting. So, here it is, the overhauled version!

Special Thanks to:

• The GMs/devs for motivating us into writing guides in the first place.
• My friends, Sodak and Aldohun, for being a great friends and elevating my morale.
• Sheyz, for her “constructive criticism” to my older guide. I’ve taken what she said into consideration and the builds are more balance now for newbies. I will be the better person and still thank you despite the accusations.
• Scrape, for pointing out the Toxic Weakness rubies. Those are great!
• This community, for offering a suitable atmosphere in general.And finally,
• You, the reader, for taking your time reading my guide.

Thank you all. See you in game!