Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Summoner VS necro... bone to pick with larian

It really isn't as bad as you're making it out to be. The Widow is undead, and it also has NO magic armor at all. The Incarnate has a longer duration, and for the same AP cost has access to more abilities (and can be buffed even more).

Furthermore, it's a lot easier to keep the Incarnate alive than it is the Widow. On top of that, the Widow is purely physical. The Incarnate can be pretty much any element, which makes it a lot more versatile for any given fight.

Both have their uses, and your stats of each is pretty off.
Rank 13 Summons at level 11:

Incarnate (2 AP) = 155 Physical, 155 Magic, 509 HP, Taunt
Incarnate (3 AP) = 463 Physical, 155 Magic, 509 HP, Taunt, Rush, Whirlwind
Incarnate (4 AP) = 463 Physical, 463 Magic, 509 HP, Taunt, Rush, Whirlwind, Projectile Attack
You can add more infusions, but I don't particularly care for the shadow version, and I don't have teleport yet.

That's for the normal physical version. If you summon it as an elemental (or infuse it later), it gets a ranged spell. In the case of fire, it gets Fireball, which is massive damage potential to both physical and magic armors. It hits more than a single target, which is all the Widow can do, and the Widow can't combo with another caster.

Widow (3 AP) = 309 Physical, 0 Magic (very easy to control), 2034 HP, hits harder per normal attack, gets a free teleport, and a 30% damage boost with a heal when it consumes a corpse. Corpse consuming takes a while, and that's if you're even near one already or want to spend AP to get to one. You can't heal the Widow anywhere near as easily as you can the Incarnate (if it ever even needs it), it gets controlled by enemy casters extremely easy too. You can buff it with Armor of Frost, but it's rather weak compared to the Incarnate buff.

Again, both have their uses, but I normally only bother with the Widow as my first summon if I need to have something across the screen ASAP. It's also very useful to have two powerful summons in general. Some fights last long enough that one will expire before their cooldown is up.

If there's one thing I agree with however, it's that the Widow is insanely good for the skill investment. For only 2 into Necromancy and none in Summoning you get a rather beefy distraction that works well with any class type. Summoners still own everyone else for pets though by a wide margin.