Summoning talents¶
Three paths for the summoner. Dominion (Offensive) makes your summoned creatures hit harder and hands you the burst buttons. Communion (Defensive) makes them tougher and lets them take hits for you. Efficiency makes the spells cheaper and pays you back when a summon falls.
Every talent on this page reaches summoned creatures only: the elementals, the daemon, the bound shade, and the spectral echoes of Legion. The journey itself, binding levels, traits, names and the elemental pages, is under Bindings and attunement below. Tamed pets are the Pet / Taming tree's business, and nothing on either tree touches the other family. Every damage number here bites creatures only; none of it applies against another player or another player's pets and summons.
The talents stack on top of what your Spirit Speak already gives every summon. See Spirit Speak for the slot table and the power curve.
Offensive path (Dominion)¶
T1 - Spirit Lash¶
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Passive |
| Max ranks | 5 |
| Cost / rank | 1 pt |
| Effect / rank | Your summons deal +5% damage to creatures |
| Rank | Summon damage |
|---|---|
| 1 | +5% |
| 5 | +25% |
T2 - Hastened Spirits¶
Prereq: Spirit Lash.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Passive |
| Max ranks | 3 |
| Cost / rank | 1 pt |
| Effect / rank | Your summons attack 5% faster |
Feeds the same swing-speed stack every creature uses, so a daemon at rank 3 swings 15% sooner. Switches off while you are in PvP heat.
T3 - Conduit¶
Prereq: Hastened Spirits.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Passive (conditional) |
| Max ranks | 1 |
| Cost | 2 pt |
| Trigger | One of your own direct-damage spells lands on a creature |
| Effect | For 8 seconds, your summons deal +30% damage to that creature. |
The focus-fire talent. Cast to mark, and the board punishes. The mark moves to whatever you spell next.
T4A - Sacrificial Rite¶
Prereq: Conduit. Branch-exclusive with Elemental Wrath.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Active |
| Max ranks | 1 |
| Cost | 2 pt |
| Cooldown | 45 s |
| Effect | Consume your nearest summon (within 8 tiles). It detonates for its current hit points against every hostile creature within 3 tiles of it, and its slots are freed at once. Spirit Tithe pays out as if it had died. |
| Hotbar verb | sacrificialrite |
A full-health earth elemental at grandmaster Spirit Speak is a 400-point blast. Recast afterwards and it returns at full health; the one-of-each rule only cares about what is standing.
T4B - Elemental Wrath¶
Prereq: Conduit. Branch-exclusive with Sacrificial Rite.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Active |
| Max ranks | 1 |
| Cost | 2 pt |
| Cooldown | 60 s |
| Duration | 10 s |
| Effect | Your summons deal +50% damage to creatures, but the damage reduction your Spirit Speak gives them is suspended for the window. |
| Hotbar verb | elementalwrath |
T5 - Legion¶
Prereq: Sacrificial Rite OR Elemental Wrath. Capstone.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Active (summon) |
| Max ranks | 1 |
| Cost | 3 pt |
| Cooldown | 180 s |
| Duration | 30 s |
| Effect | Every summon you control spawns a spectral echo of itself: half its hit points and damage, 0 slots, attacking your current target (or guarding you if you have none). Echoes scale with your Spirit Speak like their originals. |
| Hotbar verb | legion |
Defensive path (Communion)¶
T1 - Spirit Ward¶
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Passive |
| Max ranks | 5 |
| Cost / rank | 1 pt |
| Effect / rank | Your summons have +5% maximum hit points |
T2 - Tether¶
Prereq: Spirit Ward.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Passive |
| Max ranks | 3 |
| Cost / rank | 1 pt |
| Effect / rank | Your summons take -5% damage from creatures |
Tether and the Spirit Speak reduction add together and the total is capped at 60%. At 150 Spirit Speak (50% on its own) only two ranks of Tether still count.
T3 - Soul Link¶
Prereq: Tether.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Passive |
| Max ranks | 1 |
| Cost | 2 pt |
| Trigger | A creature damages you |
| Effect | A quarter of that damage is taken by your healthiest summon within 6 tiles instead. The summon takes it through its own resists. |
The inverse of the tamer's Shared Vitality: the summoner tanks through the bond.
T4A - Rebind¶
Prereq: Soul Link. Branch-exclusive with Elemental Aegis.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Active |
| Max ranks | 1 |
| Cost | 2 pt |
| Cooldown | 45 s |
| Effect | Every summon you control heals 40% of its maximum hit points and is cured of poison. If nothing needed it, the cooldown is not spent. |
| Hotbar verb | rebind |
T4B - Elemental Aegis¶
Prereq: Soul Link. Branch-exclusive with Rebind.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Active |
| Max ranks | 1 |
| Cost | 2 pt |
| Cooldown | 90 s |
| Duration | 8 s |
| Effect | You take 50% less damage from creatures while one of your summons is within 3 tiles of you. |
| Hotbar verb | elementalaegis |
T5 - Spirit Anchor¶
Prereq: Rebind OR Elemental Aegis. Capstone.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Active |
| Max ranks | 1 |
| Cost | 3 pt |
| Cooldown | 300 s |
| Duration | Armed for 60 s |
| Effect | If a creature would kill you while the anchor is armed, your healthiest summon within 8 tiles is unmade in your place and you are restored to half your hit points. The anchor is spent the moment it fires. |
| Hotbar verb | spiritanchor |
Checked before Force Field, so a summoner with both spends the anchor only on a lethal hit.
Efficiency path¶
T1 - Swift Binding¶
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Passive |
| Max ranks | 5 |
| Cost / rank | 1 pt |
| Effect / rank | Summoning spells cost 8% less mana |
Covers Summon Creature, Blade Spirits, Energy Vortex, the four elementals and Summon Daemon. Rank 5 takes an 8th-circle summon from 50 mana to 30.
T2 - Spirit Tithe¶
Prereq: Swift Binding.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Passive |
| Max ranks | 3 |
| Cost / rank | 1 pt |
| Effect / rank | When one of your summons dies, is consumed by Sacrificial Rite, or is spent by Spirit Anchor, you regain 15 mana |
Bindings and attunement¶
Every summon you command belongs to a binding: one record per type (bound shade, earth, fire, air, water, daemon) that lives with your character. Bindings level from 0 to 10 the way a tamed pet levels: when a summon of that type helps kill a creature, its binding earns the kill's worth. Spectral echoes, blade spirits and the energy vortex earn nothing.
| Level | What it gives that type |
|---|---|
| each | +3% damage and +3% maximum hit points, to +30% at level 10, inside the same 3x cap every summon bonus shares |
| 5 | the binding's trait (below) |
| 10 | the greater form: a pale spirit-teal livery and a stronger trait |
Each level costs more than the last: 600 for the first, 1,200 for the second, up to 6,000 for the tenth. The bound shade levels at half price, so the starter binding reaches level 5 on the first evening.
Traits by binding¶
| Binding | Trait (level 5) | Greater form (level 10) |
|---|---|---|
| Bound Shade | Shadow Step: steps through shadow to a target more than three tiles away | its step lands a bonus strike |
| Earth Elemental | Stoneform: when hurt below 60%, takes 30% less for ten seconds (every 45 s) | stoneform staggers every creature beside it |
| Fire Elemental | Barrage: three bolts of fire at its target every twenty seconds, scaled by your Spirit Speak | five bolts |
| Air Elemental | Cleave: 60% of each melee hit splashes to one neighbouring creature | splashes to every neighbour |
| Water Elemental | Regenerate: mends you and your party within six tiles every twenty seconds | also cures, and mends the elemental itself |
| Daemon | Fury: +5% damage for every half minute it fights, to +30% | to +45% |
Names¶
The five unique bindings take a name: two to twelve letters, single spaces. Every cast of that type wears it, the arrival line reads "Grumm, your earth elemental binding (level 7), answers you for about ten minutes", and Legion's echo of it is a spectral echo of Grumm. Name a binding from the Bindings panel or with [bindname earth Grumm. Shades are never named; they come and go.
Earning the elemental pages¶
A summoner earns each elemental's spell page without buying the full book:
| Milestone | Page written into your spellbook |
|---|---|
| Bound Shade at level 3 | Earth Elemental |
| any binding at level 5 | Fire Elemental |
| two bindings at level 5 | Air Elemental |
| three bindings at level 5 | Water Elemental |
| two bindings at level 8 | Summon Daemon |
The page is written the moment the milestone lands (carry a spellbook). A bought book is never disturbed.
The Bindings panel¶
[bindings, or Bindings on your own single-click menu, opens the Bindings panel: your Spirit Speak, your summon damage multiplier and mitigation, combat slots in use and the next threshold, the next page to earn, and one row per binding with its name, level, experience bar, trait, greater form, the milestone that earns a locked page, and the three lines that explain its numbers: base, your Spirit Speak's share, and the attunement share. The panel refreshes itself whenever a binding changes.
Build notes¶
- Spirit Lash + Spirit Ward is the first ten points in any dungeon: harder-hitting, fatter summons with no conditions attached.
- Conduit rewards a summoner who keeps casting. Mark with a cheap Lightning or Energy Bolt and let the board do the rest.
- Sacrificial Rite vs Elemental Wrath: take the Rite if you fight packs and recast anyway. Take Wrath for boss windows where a free slot is worth nothing.
- Rebind vs Elemental Aegis: take Rebind if your board is dying. Take Aegis if you are.
- Spirit Anchor is once-per-fight insurance that costs your best summon. Pair it with Spirit Tithe so the death at least refunds the recast.