Tundravalco wrote:
Also are there any common tricks that I might be unaware of for a summoner? For example a merc that really shines with summons or a way to get some nice auras for my minions at a lower level.
For golems, Golem Mastery gives +15%HP per level, while a point in the golem itself gives +30%HP. If you do max a golem then it's life will be noticeably larger, but so will it's mana cost. Just about every summon in HU gains 2%res per level capped at 66%, this doesn't include the absorbs that the golems have to their specified element (Monster absorb works as just a resistance which can't be lowered, there is no life added like with Player absorbs (Soulmancer tested this long ago when he gave absorbs >50% to act bosses)). In NM and Hell Difficulties, the base life of all summons is improved by 50% and 100% respectively, and their base damage is improved as well (probably by the same values). Unfortunately, this means that Clay Golem is never that useful except for it's slow feature because in Hell it is only as strong as Force Golem was in Norm. Flesh Golem can be alright when it can leach, but it's probably not the best placement of skills.
Spirit Blade is a decent summon, especially since it's mana cost is relatively low, and their cool-down is just one second, making them ideal for tanking bosses. However, if you're just using them for tanking bosses then they only need 1 HP, since just about any hit from an act boss will kill one regardless of it's level. If you do choose to max these, then know that their damage only gets relatively high after level 28, before then their damage is about 1/4 to 1/2 of a Golem or Death Knight. Since they do magic damage, you won't need to worry about Amp or LRes as much, since neither affects magic resistance.
If you want to max summon skills, then I'd go with DeathKnight, ForceGolem or IronGolem, and perhaps SpiritBlades (depending on whether I have the gear to boost them to high levels since I view them as an all-or-nothing summon).
Amplify Damage around 33% should be effective enough for most situations. Using Amp to break an immunity was never useful (the creature would still be resisting 95% of the damage), so at 30% you can consider Amp to cap monster resistance at about 66% (Phys builds do 1/3 of their listed damage). Here's a table to show how 100 damage is affected by enemy resistance, and how Amp of different levels will effectively boost your damage (the damage is first resisted, then the monster has it's resistance reduced by Amp, then the damage is calculated for the lowered resistance, and the improvement in damage is given as an Enhanced Damage %):
Code:
Dmg0: 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Res1: 99 99 50 50 50 30 30 30
Dmg1: 1 1 50 50 50 70 70 70
Amp : 40 55 33 40 55 33 40 55
Res2: 59 44 17 10 -5 -3 -10 -25
Dmg2: 41 56 83 90 105 103 110 125
+ED%: 4100 5600 66 80 110 47 57 78
These numbers should illustrate that while having a very high Amp is nice, it's not that big a deal (you're spending skill points to increase your golem's kill speeds by about the % given). LowerResistance Curse is a different matter though, since it's main purpose is to break immunities, and 55% should break most of them.
If kill-speed is your goal, then there are better ways to do it. As Abominae implied, CorpseExplosion is very effective. Corpse Explosion will kill all trash-creatures in it's radius after casting it 2 to 4 times. However, as more players enter the game, this number gets increased to around 10 to 20 at 8 players. CExplosion was recently changed to double the mana cost, and a 1-second cast delay was introduced. The delay might be problematic for you since it will prevent casting CE for the 10 seconds after a golem has been cast (they have a 10 second cool-down).
For a merc, consider A3 Lightning or fire. These mercs reduce enemy lit res by 10% with their aura (used to be 20%, but I assume this was reduced along with the Paladin's HolyAuras), making 55% LowerRes less important. Unlike cold A1 or A3 mercs, lightning or fire mercs will leave corpses for you to use CE on. Unlike A1 mercs, A3 mercs are a more potent source of non-physical damage. I didn't recommend a tanking merc (A2 and A5) since you probably don't need additional tanks, and those mercs generally do physical damage.
Auras generally don't benefit summons much, since an aura like Might will only boost their base damage (just like points in the summon themselves, or their Mastery). For example, 20 point Golem and 20 point GMastery nets about +2400%ED, while a Might aura of 300%ED (level 18) would boost this to 2700%, not 9600%.