Well, recently I hit 40 and completed my quests to become an elemental summoner. Prior to reaching 40 I used my unicorns as either damage during raid bosses or for recharge. Now that I've reached 40 I am wondering if my playstyle should change since I haven't really gotten any upgrades to my existing nukes. Basically, this is my list of questions:
Does the duration at which your unicorns stay out increase signicantly compared to the short time they stay out prior to 40?
Which stat is most important to ES? What's the best kind of weapon?
Should the summoner fight alongside their servitor using phys. or magical attacks? (very little updating at 40 in the forms of magical attack)
Your level 40 summons stay out for a **** long time and when they do go away you can resummon right away. Your play style is up to you after 40. You wont get any new nukes so eventually they will not be much good. After 50 I just stopped using a weapon all together and let my summon do the killing.
The best way is to have your summon out doing damage and you doing damage as well. This of course requires a buffer of some kind as you won't do much damage at all self buffed. If this is the case, just support your summon with heals, otherwise wip out some duals and deal damage along side your summon.
In a party you can act as healer and damage dealer, your summon acts as part of the damage and if it has VR you probably won't need to heal it so you can use your mana to keep everyones HP high in the party.
I agree with Kos, stay out of the melee till u well onto ur b grade. Dont think of urself as a weaker nuker but a glorified 39 elven mysitic with better servitors and buffs. Remember, those servitor skills transfer over to any pet u decide to level.
My experiance:
Get at least a Elven Jewl set
Get an acumen weop prefer homuc
Get a Demon set
Get @20,000 C-BSpS
Get Acumen 3 pots(30) or scrolls(10)
Beg, Borrow or steal a SE for EMP3 and recharges from someone
Go to Aligator Island
Level to 48, 6000-7000 exp a kill 3 shots each by worshipers necro
One level to 50% a buff round depending on how good you are(remember to get your party summon pony off the fahalids or whatever the mobs with the huge horn @ level 43 before you fly by the mobs level. They are south of Saints necro)
At level 48 your pony(Merrow) starts to hold its own, pick a spot to have the pony mele as you heal/windshakle and sleep adds
I like Ench Valley(remember you need Spell books!)
Self-buffed: Get your servitor out, have it beat on mobs and find a mob that takes exactly so much damage from the servitor that you can take care of the rest of the damage in exactly one or two nukes.
Outside-buffed: Grab a melee weapon and head to your nearest catacomb of choice until 48, where you can start AoEing in SMeadow.
Ok, thanks for asking my questions so far. You guys have been a great help. After playing a little of ES after 40 I've found that even with beastshots the servitors don't seem to be doing a lot of damage and I seem to spend a lot of mp just trying to heal both merrow and boxer. From 41-43 I was killing those Farheit things near alligator island without my servitors because I could easily kill those with 2-3 spells using blessed c-grade ss. Also the 30% exp cost for boxer sucks. It's almost like partying with another person, except it's costing a lot more money and taking longer to exp. I didn't get merrow until 43, which was quite a task soloing those Liangma without aggroing what was around them.
Also, after watching 2 videos on youtube which showed a ES with a prophet poleing some golems in Cruma tower, I got the idea that I could do the same since the merrow was the main source of damage. Problem is, I can't find this camp. There's a small room with 5 Porta, but no huge room with only those floating eye things and Krators. So from 44-45 I poled those 5 Porta and got around 21k every time. This was safe exp and it didn't really cost me much since I was using blessed beast ss. I would still like to find that other room though because that would be some nice exp. Anyway, within this in mind, I was wondering the following:
For those of you who have had experience leveling ES, where did you go to exp while using your servitors?
Are there any other good exp spots with slow moving mobs, somewhat weak to magic? Maybe higher level golems?
When you exped did you use merrow or boxer? (Both have their advantages and disadvantages. I personally like recharge from boxer, but the 30% exp loss sucks.)
Is there a fast way of getting exp on ES? (For me, it's somewhat slow and boring. I always run out of mp trying to keep my servitor alive.)
Is it safe to pole in the catacombs before 48? And if so which one?
I've noticed a lot of stuff you guys replied with was with a buffer, and believe it or not people just don't buff. There's also a lack of people around my level. Of course I could offer money for buffs, but I don't really have much money to begin with. Once again, thanks everyone for answering my questions. :)
Edit: I also wanted to say that I tried out a few places like Enchanted Valley and Forest of Mirrors, of which neither one was servitor friendly lol. The trees in enchanted valley were pretty nice, but the Saytr and Liele have so much HP. The exp returned wasn't very good either. It was only like 4,000-4,500 for a long kill, compared to the mobs on alligator island. For now I guess I'll continue poleing those 5 Porta until they go purple.
I played my summoner to lvl 56 then stopped, but I found the only good way to lvl fast is to put on demon robes, grab high enchanted homu (well even +3 does the job) and go to forest of mirrors, cemetery and just nuke with your lvl 35 spells.
That works until youre 52, every time you run out of mp, summon your boxer and it can recharge you. Thats what i did, and worked pretty nicely :)
I've noticed that 2 people so far have suggested using a Demon robe. Is this better than Karmian? At the moment I have a +3 Homu. Acumen and a full Karmian+3 set. Also, is there anything you hunted specifically in Forest of Mirrors?
Demon robes for the extra damage, to make a little up for the fact that you got your last offensive spell at 35. A lot of "real" nukers keep their demon robes forever (for pve).
I'm not speaking out of experience though :p I was done nuking when I hit 40 on my ES. No more of that [censored] for me. I'd have gone sps if I wanted to nuke. Playing as a summoner may not be the best xp wise in the beginning, but it works. Can't remember where I went to xp though ;_; Sorry I can't be of more help.
40-52 I spent 1 shotting group mobs in Tanor Canyon (The Chieften/ Nightmare Lord groups). 52-55 where spent in Aden area killing Hartar Hanishee, Hartar Ratman Leaders, and Deprives. Spells on Deprives failed about 1 in 10 mobs... but the extra shot did little to slow me down. At 54 the Ratman Leaders turned light blue but with my overhit nuke they still gave over 4k exp each. The others where like 4.3k and 4.5k exp.
I did this with karmian/Avadon, +11 homu, and an OOP SE with Emp 3. I also used +4int +5 wit -12 men tats.
Im 55 atm and Im leveling another character instead... but I will tell you how it goes.
I did this within the span of two weeks. I am not counting off days or days spent doing something else ingame~