Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Lone wolf summoner. Is 20 summoning worth it?

Hey everyone,

I play a tactician coop game with a friend of mine and I've decided to play a dex based summoner. I rushed my summoning to 10 at level 3 to get the beafed up incarnate and got a skill point (2) in hunstman at 4. At that time I didn't realise that I could push summoning at 20. So my questions to you is:

Should I rush summoning to 20 or 10 is fine and I should put points in other skills (ranged or warfare for more damage with my bow or magic schools for buffs and heals)? My friend plays a ranger type build.

Thanks!

In early game it is said to be pretty broken, if I am not mistaken. Level 10 summoning will most likely lose its worth later on, because of the halted progression, not sure about level 20.

I agree that early game (level 3 in this case) 10 points in summoning is really strong. I thought that summons kept getting stronger as you level up even though you don't put point in summoning since they scale with character level and summoning level. Since a non lone wolf character is maxed at 10 in that skill, I assume that they can use their summons at end game with some efficiency, if not everyone would pass up on the skill.

I'm still torn between pushing it to 20 or investing in other skills to start dealing damage myself.

I finished a duo lone wolf playthrough (tactitian, first playthrough at all for me) with a strength summoner and a finesse archer some weeks ago, but the balancing hasn't seen much change ever since, so maybe my impressions could be of use for you.

• In the early game summoning and especially infusing the incarnation was really powerful not even paying attention to the tactical opportunities you get by opening combat with the incarnation. The surface based infusions are also very helpful and versatile, but you will soon stop making use of them in such a team composition because of the armor system. I'd say summoning is outright overpowered in Act 1 when playing lone wolves.
• Because of the armor system you want to avoid spreading damage types and rather focus on either magical or physical damage. Unless you have an elf in your party (flesh sacrifice) this means that with an archer and a physical based summoner you will want to avoid surface based infusions on your incarnation, except for the blood infusion. They turn the incarnation's damage type to the corresponding element, so you'd have to take down both armor ratings. By the way, Source Points don't have their own infusion type. The Source Point will be absorbed and you'll have an uninfused incarnation. ^-^
• Elemental Totems very quickly grow less powerful than attacking with weapons.
• After you hit 10 Summoning, go for 1st) some support skills such as haste and clear mind, 2nd) for warfare. Warfare's impact on your dealt damage surpasses that of all the weapon based skills due to how it is calculated, as frequently discussed in these forums. Some support skills will keep your team able to act at all, as blind, charmed or crippled team members will likely be useless.
• Actual healing skills aren't too helpful. You'll rather want to further increase your damage output or add other layers of defense, such as living on the edge and numerous mobility skills such as tactical retreat and teleportation. (Get on high ground and teleport that nasty melee boss 30 meters away, allowing you to fire another 6 arrows on him before he, if he was to survive that which is unlikely, may reach you again!) For healing purposes, put 1-2 points (=2-4 due to lone wolf) in necromancy. Unless your foes have retribution, which is quite seldom, your selfheal with necromancy is sufficient. If they do have retribution, go for living on the edge.
• If you play a melee, get Blitz Attack, Phoenix Dive, Battering Ram and if possible 1-2 more mobility skills. Never again waste a whole turn on getting close your opponent or delaying your turn in order to have them get close to you first.
• The further you get, the more your weapon attacks will outshine the incarnation. You hit harder than it does, you have better abilities for applying status effects such as knocked down, you have some more skills which allow for AoE damage. With ending Act 2 and going for Act 3 I thought about dropping summoning completely as it felt like a waste of action points mid-combat, but using it before combat was still a nice to have and I didn't feel like hunting for new non-summoner equipment.
• If you keep your plan to play a finesse based summoner, try a spear. Spears will make use of warfare, have the warfare skills skale with finesse and their range is glorious. Enjoy the Opportunist Talent and, iirc, increased range for all your weapon skills including battle stomp.
• As of late Act 2 and definitely in Act 3 lone wolves will be grotesquely overpowered. A warfare/huntman archer will onehit boss foes with skills such as ballistic shot without further preparation. Skyshot will become really strong while no high ground is available.
• There are some foes with permanent evading (auras for their whole team), so you should have glitter dust on one of your lone wolves in order to hit them.
• Special arrows are very powerful. Knockdown arrows, e.g., turn the whole combat. Slowing arrows deal double damage. I never wanted to waste them so I didn't use any of them until the end of the game xD Use consumables, don't save them for later. The later it is in the game, the less you need them. Unless you happen to face a troll, of course. Then those arrows shine.

Well, maybe I'll add some more points to the list at a later point, but now I have to hurry and do something else. Feel free to ask any more specific question, I may share some experience, as well as the other players around here.

@ Krschkr: You mentionned that summoning had less of an impact the further you got in the game, did you stayed at 10 summoning or pushed it at 20? That could've changed your view on it.

That being said, I think I'll do as you did: diversify myself to get more skills and better weapon damage. I'll try a ranged build, so hunstman, warfare, ranged and necromancy seams the way to go. Would it be worth it then to put one point in geo and hydro for the armor boosts and other utility spells?

Thanks for your reply btw.

I didn't delve into geomancy and hydromancy, as I prefered aerothurge (teleportation for usage in and out of combat, teleporting foes away from you, next to another or next to the melee; uncanny evasion as a sorts-of one-turn living on the edge) and pyromancy (haste/clear mind). But fortify and armor of frost should prove quite useful as they can remove some status effects from your team member which would otherwise be annoying or nasty. Just keep in mind that fortify prohibits teleporting effects.

At some point my summoning skill was ~28 due to some nice equipment. Of course the Incarnation would hit really hard and now and then onehit weaker foes, but I felt like spending the points in other skill lines would've been more useful and fun. If you plan to wield a bow on your summoner, investing more than 5 (=10) points in summoning will always make you wonder whether those points wouldn't be more effective or fun if they gave you access to more utility skills or warfare/huntsman damage multipliers.

I'm not a min-maxer and can only recall the experience from a single playthrough though, so my advice is bound to be incomplete – dangerously so!

Im not sure if pushing past 10 makes a difference but player leveling does seem to change the scale of the summons though I am not sure that lone wolf has any impact on summons. That said, just 10 summoning kept the incarnate relevant all game long on the highest difficulty for me. Actually, the incarnate is best skill in the game and extremely useful in hard battles. The reason is the are like having another character on the field which means more actions, more hps, more targets, and more damage.

Honestly, even if they did half their current damage, they would still be worth the 1st round casting. The reason is that this game revolved around control of the battlefield. As long as you can control your enemies, you will win but if you lose the control, you will have a hard time. Summons block paths making them very useful. The fact that they can cast spells and do damage is a bonus. Even the debuffed skele-spider is still useful for blocking enemies and delaying them for cooldowns and for wasting their attacks. They also make for great lures in large battlefields and some of their immunities are very useful in certain battles. They never got old in my playthrough and frankly, having 4 characters with level 10 incarnates is practically broken. 8 units that can all move is very strong.