How do people play Summoner? '-'

Kats

Kats

Pixel Pirate
Just wondering how people even start playing summoner.
First summoner item you can get is the rarest mob dropped item in the game, except from Pinky, which is rare aswell so still is the rarest item.

Next is Queen Bee? You won't kill her without some gear in Expert Mode.
Third is hellstone ore.

So yeah, just wondering how it's possibly to play exclusively summoner.
Other than farm for hours for the Slime staff. xD

Or do everyone just play hybrid mage/summoner?

All summoner items should be reworked in that you gain the attack/property of the summon aswell, when you right click with Slime staff you shoot out gel for example.
Hornet Staff you shoot out stingers and so on.

Would make an exclusive summoner playthrough more... involved.

Why are all summoner items in hardmode?
There's three staffs in pre-hardmode.
Why don't we have Zombie, Vulture, Skeleton or Bat staffs? '-'
 
How I play summoner:

Step 1: Summon critters.
Step 2: Jump around while critters do all the fighting.
Step 3: Maybe cut some fools if they get too close.
Step 4: I can kill the bee queen with gold armor.
 
Hmm I had huge problems with Queen Bee in Plat armor on my archer character on Expert Mode, was really close to kill her every time but her berserk was too much for me lol.
Not sure at all how I'll kill her with a Slime Staff lol.
 
How I handle Queen Bee charges: wait until she's almost there, then fling a Thorn Chakram at her, jump out of her way, and get ready to do the same from the other side. For me this is a lot easier than archery. (In real life I love archery and it loves me. In Terraria I'm not so good at it.)

How I usually play as a summoner: play as an ordinary melee, ranged, and/or magic character until I can kill enough Queen Bees to make Bee Armor and a Hornet Staff. When I'm lucky enough to get a Slime Staff early, so much the better.

[eta] Expert mode I can't tell you about. But it seems to me the situation would be about the same, just tougher.
 
Her rapid fire with stingers is the problem really. :p
Her charges are something I find fairly easy to avoid, stingers however are hard to see, and not often you get a good hive to kill her in.

I just figured I'd try playing summoner for once after a few years of playing and well, was surprised at the lack of summoner items pre-hardmode, hadn't really looked before.

First is extremely rare.
Second you need to kill a boss for, which is fine, though to get there you need the slime staff, or rely on other weapon types, in which case you could just play that class instead.
Third is from Hellstone bars, which, well, you need to get a good enough pickaxe to farm. :p

I love summoners, I play summoners on most games, not sure why I didn't on this one when it came out.
But here, hmm, I'd like it more if the summoning system was reworked, like I mentioned in the first post, where you gain the attack/property of the staff you're using.
And also see more summoner staffs early on lol, there's a dozen Magic/Melee/Archer weapons, but 3 summoner, but a wide variety of pre-hardmode mobs they could use.

Hie said:
Expert mode can be beaten with the same gear if you play it right.
Click to expand...

I know. :p
I've gotten to the point where I need to kill The Twins on my archer, can kill them too, just haven't yet, ran out of time last time I did. xP

Thread wasn't really about the Queen Bee, though I did mention her, but only because of the summoner gear she drops.
Thread is mostly about the lack of summoner items pre-hardmode.
Having you rely on every weapon BUT summoner items until you can get them. :p
 
Thing is; the summoner is supposed to use other weapons as well as the summons. A jack of all trades.

This topic has been discussed loooots of times; people have a hard time understanding the summoner class.

While your ten spiders wreck one side of the destroyer, you can also wreck the opposite side of it with holy arrows at the same time. That's how it works.


What I've devised for a summoner playthrough ever since the class was first introduced was to start my character with a Slime Staff from creation. Then use other weapons along the way. Today I was just thinking about this same topic, and came up with a list of weapons that not only help you kill stuff by yourself while the summons attack something else, but also kind of fit the "summoner" idea of a commander of creatures/entities. Living weapons such as the Crystal Serpent or Swordfish, or weapons that shoot living things (or semi-turrets) like the Meowmere, Frost Daggerfishes, Magnet Sphere, etc.

Just plan the rules for your summoner playthrough, and have fun. Restricting yourself so badly is sometimes not fun (in my opinion), and is also not the intended gameplay of a "summoner" (with quotes): That's why there's some sort of a division between the "jack of all trades summoner" and the "purist summoner" (to assign them names). The purist summoner is a completely different gameplay from anything else in the game though, that's probably why so many people want to try it (also because of the famous youtuber Yrimir, who played with this exact formula).
 
Even if you do insist on only using summons, and refuse to cheat yourself an early-game boost, I think you can fish for a Reaver Shark and craft an Imp Staff before fighting anything significant.

It's not an especially appealing option, but the option is there.
 
Shadowaltz said:
Even if you do insist on only using summons, and refuse to cheat yourself an early-game boost, I think you can fish for a Reaver Shark and craft an Imp Staff before fighting anything significant.

It's not an especially appealing option, but the option is there.
Click to expand...
Yeah. It will get you killed more than a few times, but it'll work in the end.
 
I finished an expert summoner playthrough about a week ago, only using summon weapons would just be extremely tedious. You just do the standard space gun rush until bee armor then you kill WoF with imps. Then it's obvious what to do from there. I like summoner in expert because I can just spray and pray with a ranged weapons + chlorophyte bullets while my minions do all the work, and I can focus on my character and dodging. A lot of the times I will get hit by a projectile or enemy that is small or blends in with the background which will kill me or deal hundreds of damage to me, but when I was playing summoner I managed to dash out of the way of everything and spray and pray down everything fairly quickly with a ranged secondary weapon. Like bees knees pre-hardmode, deadalus stormbow/hallowed repeater pre-plantera, sniper rifle up until pillars then vortex beater.
 
Im playing exclusively summoner with tremor/thorium/pumpkings mods in expert but queen bee seems too difficult without a good arena. (ps. I am using an early modded summoner armor before queen bee)..... any tips. (dont say use range/mage/melee weapons.. like i say exclusively summons)
 
I saw @Pedguin do a summoner play-through where he did the eater of worlds first, then got the nightmare pickaxe and he then got the fire imp, and that seems like a good way to do it if you're doing a purely summoner playthrough
 
I usually just fish for the reaver shark and get the hellstone summon right away. When you have magma armor and weapons its easy to fight the queen bee
 
Most people actually play summoner wrong:
Class Intent.png


This means that you are supposed to actually use weapons from other classes on top of your minions. You are NOT supposed to exclusively use minions. This gimmick is difficult for many people to wrap their head around, so summoner almost always gets lumped into the back and considered "bad" when it actually has even more potential than even ranger.
 
Summoner is a late-game class; you're gonna be meh at best in pre-hardmode and only alright until post-Plantera (assuming she drops the Pygmy Staff first try). Using other weapons to supplement your damage is a must, but that can be whatever you want from whatever class really, unless you're using some mana-guzzling weapon like Last Prism. In pre-hardmode, pretend you're not playing summoner at all until you've beaten Queen Bee a few times and can craft bee armor and perhaps the matching staff. From there, get your Imp Staff if you haven't already (you can actually get this before fighting Queen Bee), go into hardmode and farm up 78 spider fangs, and keep your eyes peeled for the following milestones in power:

The Optic Staff which you can craft from Souls of Sight (The Twins). This can in theory be skipped if you're having trouble getting a black lens, but if you can make it I would heavily advise it.
The Pygmy Staff dropped by Plantera. Having this is when you well and truly go live, since carrying it causes the Witch Doctor to sell Pygmy Armor (inferior to Spooky Armor but oh well) and matching necklace as well as the Hercules Beetle (you'll want one of these later).
Pumpkin Moon event just in general. From Mourning Wood's drops, Spooky Wood is used to craft your armor, and the Necromantic Scroll increases your minion slots (you'll want two of the latter, one of which combines with the aforementioned beetle). Pumpking also drops a Raven Staff which is pretty good.
Stardust Fragments to create your endgame weapons, and Moon Lord for your endgame armor/sentries.

Martian Saucers are also good for you since they drop the Xeno Staff (poor man's Stardust Cell Staff) and the UFO mount, but both of these drops are so unreliable on such a rare event that I wouldn't blame you for thinking "can't I just skip that?"

In combat, you are the squishiest class in the game. Melee class armor will have higher armor than your post-Moon Lord armor as early as gathering hardmode ores, with the rest of the classes matching or exceeding your 38 endgame armor as "early" as chlorophyte. So rather than investing your reforges into Warding, I find it better to go full damage with Menacing everything (the best modifier for summon weapons is Ruthless, by the by) and mastering the art of dodging. The UFO mount, Rod of Discord, or even a good set of wings (Betsy?) will do you wonders in this respect. If you want to be a tanky summoner on the other hand, invest in the Valhalla Knight set available from the post-Golem Tavernkeep. Its 64 armor is higher than what rangers get post-Moon Lord, and the health regen is nothing to scoff at either. Keep in mind that by doing this, you'll need to get a UFO mount or other flying mount with sufficient airtime, and sacrifice your wings and every other mobility accessory for pure summoning power. I'd suggest doing this on a normal summoner too, but I'd super-suggest it on Valhalla Knight summoner.

Speaking of the Tavernkeep, I hope you like Old One's Army. Because you'll be doing that event a lot as a summoner. There's no summoner gear directly related to the event, but the sentries available for Defender Medals are usually quite powerful for where you are in the game, so grinding out those 100 medals for the Ballista Staff is a good investment. You'll be doing even more grinding if you want to go Valhalla Knight as well. On that note, take a protip from me, and upgrade your ballista ASAP each time the Old One's Army increases in tier (after killing a mech and post-Golem). Getting the upgrades is that much harder if you're starting with the small baby ballista against a tier 3 army.

I probably missed something but I only got out of bed a little bit ago and felt like offering up as much advice as I could on this topic. If I did, let me know and I'll get back to you on it. I should probably also clarify that I haven't owned Terraria as long as most players, but as if to compensate I've exclusively played summoner in all my playthroughs (except for one unfinished Calamity run where I tried the mod's rogue class). Good luck, aspiring new summoner.
 
How 2 summoner in hard mode: 1:get dirt 2 : make walls. 3: if u don’t already, get slimy saddle. 4: make dummies and place them down right next to each other. 5: spider time ( get spider armour + summon). 6: make tiny hut of leftover dirt. 7: place down walls. 8(the last) : time to cheese like all the bosses lol. I do this because spider summon can crawl on walls and stick to targets so it makes most hard mode bosses easy
 
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RandomAxolotl said:
How 2 summoner in hard mode: 1:get dirt 2 : make walls. 3: if u don’t already, get slimy saddle. 4: make dummies and place them down right next to each other. 5: spider time ( get spider armour + summon). 6: make tiny hut of leftover dirt. 7: place down walls. 8(the last) : time to cheese like all the bosses lol. I do this because spider summon can crawl on walls and stick to targets so it makes hard mode bosses easy
Click to expand...
That doesn’t work on moon lord. And they could patch that out ridiculously easily.
 
Derpling Ω said:
That doesn’t work on moon lord. And they could patch that out ridiculously easily.
Click to expand...
To patch it they have to get rid of the instant invincibility when you bounce on enemy’s with the slime mount and for moon lord, well, he is literally a god (and ultra annoying)
 
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