Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Help/Tips/Tricks Summoning and You

I ran a Geo/Aero side specialized summoner with lone wolf in a two man party. the geo/aero allows you to pump out the max possible dps as summoner, as well as give you an edge in survival with uncanny dodge. gear allowed fortify and peace of mind for myself before casting my incarnate. My rotation was: flesh sacrifice peace of mind, poison dart, summon incarnate, power and farsight infusion. poison dart could be substituted for a wand attack if the enemy is immune to poison. the resulting incarnate could then pop out some free dps or outright kill some enemies. late game it changed to flesh sac, tactical retreat onto high ground, pyroclastic bombardment, fire wand attack, then uncanny dodge. second turn was a fire summon with power/farsight supercharge and haste, then self fortify and frost armor. the supercharge was if i could finish with a final burst, if i couldnt then it was a poison dart. if i was in a solid safe position, id save the two AP for an 8 AP turn. didnt use bone spider or bloated corpse too often. never saw a need when i could focus on dps.

Interesting guide. I was thinking of going for summoner too but I was wondering how much combat points and attribute points this would all take. Because if you have to take summoner + other schools it might take a lot of memory/combat points.

I read on reddit (correct me if I'm wrong), that on average playthrough you would get about 22 Combat points (with talent) and 53 attributes point (with 10 poly + talent).

With 22 attribute points I can put 10 point in summon and I have 12 points: do I put 3 points in each elements school, or 3 in necro and 2 in elements schools ? It seems tight. Especially if you want to take Polymorph to 10 for the extra attribute points.

Same thing for the memory, with all the infusion you can easily have 15 slot just for summoner school. And then if you want to take at least two or three spells for the other school you need 12 or 15 points. It's 20 points in memory almost half the total number of attribute points, which would make memory a priority. Maybe not a bad thing (thinking out loud).

Is it better to be spread out between magic school or juste take one or two ? Like Hydro + summon + poly with maybe 1 point in some school for the haste or adrenaline for exemple. And if Memory is your main stat could you completly ignore int/finesse/strenght to go for full wits/mem and take summon + support skills (that are not attribute dependent) ?

I may be absolutly wrong there but I feel there is so few points to distribute when I see all the summoning skills + magic skills to have it all. I guess I would understand it better if you would have given a typical "build" example.

I try and try to find comprehensive builds for DOS:2 but most of them don't give points or all the skills just schools and general ideas which feels often random.

First off, almost 10k views, holy hells. Secondly, summoning is a tight niche to fill. You are better off specializing in one element or school alongside it as opposed to building everywhere. Here was my build, for example.

10 summoning, 5 geo, 5 aero, 1 pyro, 1 hydro. stats were heavy into INT, with 8 into MEM, and 6 into WIT.
typical armament was wand and shield. this build works in a party or lone wolf with some tinkering. Necro is powerful, but unneeded. pyro is for haste/ignition/peace of mind. hydro is for rain, frost armor, restoration. geo for dps, oil spread, entangle, and fortify. Aero is for rain/dazzling combos as well as dps. You could easily allocate 1 point from both geo and aero into poly to get spread your wings, with the extra attribute points going to INT or WIT as you see fit.

As a summoner, you need AT MOST one or two elemental infusions to go alongside power and farsight. the rest is taken up by frost, fortify, restoration. This leaves you with 4 slots for damaging/mobility/control/utility/infusion spells. Remember, as a summoner, your greatest strength is your summon. That monster has 100% increased stats at this point, 200% if a lone wolf. He can, and will, go toe to toe with anything in the game with Zero Fox Given. The Oil Infusion most of all since its immune to slows, aka, the only debuff to ignore armor.

Does Wild magic talent work with summons? And what for you opinion best talents for pure wolf summoner?

Best talents in my opinion are far out man, all skilled up, pet pal, and mnemomic.

summon from further away (get the drop on a mob group by dropping an incarnate in their faces, saving you AP) bonus points into summoning earlier (Saves you some pain and gets the ball rolling faster) The most useful talent in the game out of combat (duh.) and who doesnt love free skill slots? Especially on a summoner.

Pure wolf build? You do realize that the wolf is kinda... bad... right? Stick to the incarnate, slug, and flower. Spider is only good for supercharge cycling, and bloated corpse is a fun party trick when paired with flaming crescendo. The cat, wolf, and condor all have their... purposes. But there are much better options. Dragonling and Inner Demon not mentioned due to spoiler purposes and because they (like the wolf) are character centric.

I meant a "Lone Wolf" )) And what about "Wild magic"?

Whoops! And I can't say I'm familiar with "Wild Magic"

Share with everyone what it is and (in a spoiler) where you can get it? Because if it warrants asking, it warrants knowing.

Sry wrong translation:
Savage Sortilege - Gives all magical skills a critical chance equal to 50% of your critical chance score.

First of all, thanks a lot for your reply and your guide. It helps me visualize better what you meant and it's really going to help me.

Just to be sure I understand correctly, I still have a few question, interrogation.
If I understand correctly (I may be wrong) you have 3 fire, 3 water, 3-4 earth, and I'm gonna guess 3-4 Air, so about 12 to 14 elemental spells.
Then you have Incarnate, Totems (?), and 3-4 infusions, maybe the dimensional bolt, so about 5 to 7.
That's a total of 17 to 21 spells. With 18 memory + 3 (talent) you just reach 21. So to have 4 free slot for mobility skills that means you don't take the totem or the dimensional bolt, and you take only 3 skills in Air and Geo ?

Another question comes to my mind, do you put 5 points in air and geo for the earth meteor strike and the thunderstorm (that requires 5 points), or is it to boost the elemental incarnate of that school ? I read in your original post that it made your incarnate better but I didn't really understand how (1 point = what ?).

Also, why Geo and Air at 5 ? Don't hydro and air or fire and earth have better synergy ? Geo deals physical damage and Air magical damage, is it not better to just focus on magic armor or physical armor ? Is it because the oil incarnate is better than the other one as you mentioned ?

Anyway, sorry for all the questions, some maybe stupid, but I like to be thourough.

Thanks again !

Okay, here are the answers to your questions: I only carry 1 elemental infusion on me at any given time, to do any more than that would be to invite disaster as I wouldn't have enough memory slots for my DPS or utility spells. so it's 3 infusions, plus fortify and frost armor. That's 6 spells so far. Carrying shadow and warp infusion is niche, good, but niche. Are you in a situation where you need your incarnate to be able to jump from place to place? Why does he need corrupted blade? Can he be in a situation to even USE corrupted blade? If not, then why does he need chameleon skin? Summoning, unlike the other schools, is all about thought. The other schools are all DPS or CC oriented. They are simple. Heal, Burn, Slow, Stun, Freeze. Necro and Summoning both require thought to use, beyond AoE management of course. Do you need a Physical incarnate, or a magical one? Is there a risk of being slowed down? Is there a massive fire hazard? Do you need a healer? Are the enemies undead? Before you enter combat, think about who, and what, you will be fighting, and the terrain you'll be fighting in.

Another thing to take note of is resistances. Loremaster is an incredibly powerful skill that allows you to see exactly what your opponents can do, and what they are strong or weak against. Put points into it, and for heaven's sake, abuse its power, because the AI certainly does (Poor Fane).

As for my school choice, I discovered I was dead wrong about summoning electric incarnates. If a water or blood surface is electrified, you can summon an electric incarnate off that surface. That being said, fewer enemies have resistance to air or earth that they do to poison, fire, or water. It's just the way it is. Furthermore, slow is the only debuff to go through armor, as I said before, and it's incredibly powerful. Furthermore, Oil surfaces can be combo'd into any number of things. Oily carapace, fire, bless, living wall traps, etc. Geo is an incredibly versatile school that doesn't sacrifice damage for all the utility it has. Aero has fewer damaging abilities than any other elemental school in the game, tied with hydro and necro. But those few spells have a lot of large AoE's and combo into stuns very easily. Furthermore, can you recall how many enemies are resistant to it off the top of your head? Not many. Sure electric discharge isnt the best spell in the game due to its single target focus, but a cursed electric incarnate can walk into a crowd of enemies and drop down a static cloud for a hell of a lot of damage.

What I meant by the incarnate's skill in a school is tjis: Every incarnate gains your current skill level in all elements. So if you have 5 pyro, a pyro incarnate will have 5. BUT all infused incarnates have a bonus to their specific school as well. So that fire incarnate would have your 5 skill points + 3 for a total of 8.You can go a hydro pyro focus if you want, it wont bring your abilities down, I just preferred geo/aero myself. Aero is harder to pull off as far as summoning wise, but its utility, and its singular ability to remove ANY AND ALL surfaces is insane. Don't ignore it.

To answer the question of Savage Sortilege, Are you going to be a DPS or a Utility mage? If DPS then yes, if Utility then no. Everything has a purpose, and savage sortilege is no different. I've seen some insane numbers from it, and whole heartedly love it to death. But if you won't be doing the damage, dont grab the damage talent.

So the summons don`t take advantage from it? I saw sometimes that incarnates did the critical hits, so they have some critical chance, are they? If so, are you sure that SS doesn't work with summons, and the Hothead in that case also.

Yes, they have a crit chance, but it is NOT affected by your crit chance (tested with a 100% crit chance summoner respec)

Greetings.

Stumbled across this thread and was fascinated with amount of time you've put into researching this topic. I am playing COOP with my friend and we are having a hard time with the campaign. Would you kindly give some feedback and tips (Submitted to this topic because My character is summoner if I've done something wrong feel free to throw rocks at me).

Our party consists of Summoner Sebille (me Spec into INT), Ranger Ifan (My friend), Drain Tank dual wielder Fane and Enchantress Loyse. Currently we just captured "Lady Vengeance" and are LvL 8 characters. My summoner has 11 in summoning and several points in other schools due to equipment. Currently I am using Fane and Incarnate (Power+Farsight+Blood) as our frontline but those 2 still have trouble chewing through enemy Phys Armor while rest of our team struggles with mage armor.

Only way we are able to cheese hard opponents is to Strip them from phys armor in one turn and then keep chaining knockdowns on them. However when encountered a 800 armor enemy (Khm Khm lvl 13 Dallis) we got absolutely wrecked.

Now that the exposition is set Is there a good way for a summoner to "Soften" (Shred armor and apply some kind of "Vulnurability") enemies or are we doing something incredibly wrong? Because not only with this encounter but in general we really struggle with enemy armor.

Thank you in advance.

[quote=AngryBB]Greetings... [/quote]

Adding my 2 cents to this if you don't mind. I assume you are on tactiction, please correct me if I'm wrong.

I've seen many on this forum say that they have trouble with armor when in a hybrid team (a team that deals both physical and magical damage). This always puzzles me since that's not my own experince. Sure, you probably can't CC your opponent turn 1, but if you could, combat would be really boring. Positioning and targeting just gets a lot more important.

Only thing I can think of that might surprise you, is that staff is really bad weapong if you never instead to hit with it. It's a cool weapon for a battlemage, making your warfare skills scale with INT, but as a summorner it sucks. Go wand+shield any day for the extra buffer against CC.

That, and that gear scales very quickly. You really shouldn't have gear more than 2 levels behind your level. This means a lot of time spent shopping, and in turn, acquiring gold to do said shopping, with thievering/barter/lucky charm, or all 3.

Also, it isn't cheese to swarm a guy with phys damage to chain knockdown all fight long. That's just good strategy ^_^

NB: If you're lvl 8, you are not meant to be able to easily tackle a lvl 13. Also have no idea where you'd incounter that, do you mean Dallis in the fight on Lady Vengeance?

Hello. Thanks for the reply. Yes I meant that fight. And Other things too. I've finally started to chew through enemy armor with Blood infused incarnates which do roughly 300 damage per turn (Summoning 11 + Farsight + Power) thought it is still hard. Talked to people and they suggested Acid from geomancy to debuff enemy armor. About higher level mobs there is incredible amount of frustration. 4 lvl 4 PCs easily murder lvl 8 character (The skeleton trader in fort Joy), however on the reaper's coast the scarecrow which is lvl 13 against lvl 9 party straight up oneshots any partymember including the tank. I just can't seem to wrap my head around the scaling of enemies and skills. Currently planning to branch out into Geomancy and Pyromancy to let my summoner stand back and act as an artillery. Why did the author of the thread said that Aero + Geo is the best combo for dps? Is there something I am missing because I don't see the synergy between Aero and Geo so far.

Ah yes, the Geo/Aero thing is brought up once again! For a summoner I specified those two because of 3 reasons. Pyroclastic Eruption and Thunderstorm are the two highest damaging spells in the game. Period. They just eat a turn. Pyroclastic(geo) is all alpha damage, and requires good positioning, something that hailstorm and meteor dont. Furthermore, it only applies a slow while hail storm freezes and meteor burns the shit out of someone. And even further, meteor and hailstorm are more concentrated, while pyroclastic truly shines when enemies are in many clumps of two or three instead of one huge clump (Still shreks them though). Thunderstorm is damage over time and air has few enemies resistant to it, and applies Stun. Through its entire duration, it does more damage than any other spell bar none. But as I mentioned earlier in the thread, its a personal choice.

Second reason: Geo gives access to three things. Oil, Poison, and Fortify. Thats two infusions and one of the only mandatory spells in the game. Aero gives access to a truck load of utility and the ability to buff your entire team repeatedly (Blessed smoke, teleport, uncanny evasion, evasion aura, pressure spike, tornado, evaporate, vacuum (and its aura), nether swap, etc.) Plus dazzling bolt is an insanely good spell.

Third, those two elements dont synergize with each other at all, they just synergize with literally anything else, even your opponents. Most encounters are near a source of fire, or water. In fact, almost ALL encounters do. For the ones that don't, a flame wand fulfills the void. If there is water or blood (there WILL be blood barring the undead) then aero can be used to stun, chain stun, group stun, or cut off avenues of approach. Again, its all personal preference, but I find that those two elements help mid to late game mroe than pyro or hydro do, especially since just about everything above, below, and in the ground seems to be resistant to fire and hydro just doesnt have enough going for it beyond heals and a couple DPS spells.

As for your party (the lvl 8 query) I would have to agree with Elidan, positioning is key. Sebille summoner is great because the instant access to blood, the extra AP (Dump one point into scoundrel for the adrenaline, totally worth it) and the free spells (nummy nummy dead people parts), but I went with fane because play dead is just so damned useful. The stereotype is for summoners to drop their incarnates and flee for their lives while it does everything for them. This isn't exactly wrong! Part of flesh sacrifice is the 10% damage increase, which is kinda wasted on a summoner since the incarnate (or other summons) wont benefit from it. So, once more, positioning becomes key. Another issue is that you have to summon the incarnate on top of yourself instead of in the thick of the fight where it would get two free attacks instead of one ranged attack or spell cast. 11 points into summon is fantastic. 13 pretty much cements your place as a summoner and says "Yep, I'm done here." So don't spec any more into it with either points OR gear. Runes. Runes are important. Sometimes crappy gear with 2 rune slots makes up for the fact that its crappy gear. Venom runes on armor gives 1 summoning, so that cloak you picked up from that festering sack of flesh we call Alexander? Yeah. That's +2 summoning. those two rings you got? They got summoning on them im guessing, thats 4 now. Spec into other things to keep your summoner alive for at LEAST 7 turns. Turn 1 incarnate, buff, etc, turn 2-6 survive and aid the team as best you can. Due to the nature of what you are, your damage will not match your party's... YET! Turn 7, you can resummon the incarnate as a new one and re-buff it if you need to. Blood is great for taking on mages and rangers, but fire and poison will rofl-stomp on warriors due to how armor and class stereotypes are set up. Aero-summons will hold their own, but they are pathetic compared to their evolved cursed brothers. Oil summons are great if nothing is on fire yet. Water summon? Are you dying? Do you need healing? Is there an undead schmuck running around? Then do it. If you have a plain incarnate on the field, You. Are. Wrong. Stahp. Please. try the fight again, but mind your positioning, and remember, huntsman affects spells too. The lady vengeance has a very nice sniper point if I recall correctly :P

Edit: If at ANY point in time you want to try and get with me on the topic of summoning, don't hesitate to inbox me either, I'm on here regularly and would be happy to talk via steam/other mediums to answer questions when possible!)

The scaling is insane in this game and tactician only highlights that because its increase is % based. Act 1 is very open compared to act 2 (and future acts I'm told) You simply can't go around as you want to and expect to live. You level 9? Stay in Driftwood and do quests there. Lots of them just in town and you really need to get levels, and then gear to that level, before you explore north.

Just fought that scarecrow you mentioned today, party lvl 12, and the fight was quite easy. We had just gotten a few new epics so we were quite strong for our lvl. Our knight/necro could knockdown the adds with just a battle stomp, no setup needed, and our rouge 1 turn CC'd the boss. The scarecrows have very low armor, so exploit that and make a blood incarnate. At the time, my incarnetes charge hit for just under their full armor, so with a little help, easy to achieve knockdown there as well.

If you want the freedom of going up against opponents several levels higher than you, I think mods are needed. Otherwise the armor scaling is too brutal.

With proper setup, anything is possible in this game. Summoning just serves to highlight that fact. It is, more so than any other school, the magic of opportunity and should be treated as such.

Look around, study your opponent, the area it is in, what your height advantage/disadvantage is. You can easily handle most anything with the right setup

Fight enemies on your level. All problems solved. The game is very fair in this. If there seams to be some unfairness, you are probably doing something wrong. In the special fight mentioned your are not meant to fight Dallis. Or Vredeman. Simply ignore them. And keep Malady alive.

Why would you fight a lvl 13 mob with lvl 9? Even if you are such a good player that you succeed, you did everything to bore yourself in the game later. What will you do when lvl 13? Fighting lvl 9 mobs? It is terrible in this game to be above mob level.

To your group: if dual wielding fane and the incarnate struggle against physical armor, what is your ranger doing? Fighting magical armor? Bad idea in my opinion. If you have a mixed group, there should be enough damage against each armor. A ranger can act against magical armor but not as good as against physical armor. Only the summoner is really good against both armors.

Because you like the challenge? In RPG fighting higher level is always about testing your limits, getting better stuff earlier and roaming freely. But regarding how scaling works in this game, you are pretty railroaded as far as i hear.