As a hardcore Remnant 2 enthusiast with over 500 hours played, I‘ve developed comprehensive knowledge of the game‘s classes, mechanics, and meta builds. Across repeated playthroughs utilizing various archetypes, I discovered my personal favorite: the summoner.
Today, I‘ll leverage my expertise to guide you through constructing the objectively strongest summoner build possible using the Engineer subclass. You‘ll command unstoppable armies that eradicate foes while practically playing themselves. This build strips away Remnant 2‘s difficulty, letting you relax and soak in the carnage!
Why I Fell in Love with Summoners
I wasn‘t always a summoner fanatic. When I first tried Remnant 2‘s closed beta, I insta-locked the flashy Invader class. Zipping between dimensions delivering rapid melee combos perfectly suited my aggressive playstyle in similar titles.
While learning the ropes, I occasionally crossed paths with summoner mains that awed me with their overwhelming hordes. I watched hapless enemies swallowed by transforming waves of minions as summoners casually looted in the aftermath.
After release, I decided to dabble with the summoner archetype that so thoroughly dispatched my previous Invader build. Immediately, the relaxed gameplay enraptured me. I was no longer dashing into the fray by myself – now I had minions for that!
Lording over thrashing legions that mocked once-threatening enemy mobs gave me a supreme sense of power. This class allowed me to literally lean back while my loyal troops served up a massacre. I discovered firsthand why the pros strongly rated summoners for top-tier endgame potential.
Now with extensive experience piloting this archetype, I‘ll guide you through unlocking its full dominance!
Why Play Summoner
Before digging into build specifics, let‘s recap core summoner gameplay elements and advantages:
- Mindless Gameplay – Your army does the heavy lifting while you relax! Excellent for laidback players.
- Safe Playstyle – Never directly engage enemies with your hero.
- Stat Scaling Synergies – Multiple mechanics exponentially amplify summon power.
- Easy Mode for All Content – Effortlessly crush story, expeditions, and Dynasty mode!
If that appeals to you, this guide details the best practices for constructing truly game-breaking summoner builds! Let‘s examine the source of their immense power – the signature summoned minions themselves.
Understanding Minion Mechanics
All summoner builds revolve around maximizing your minion legions. Therefore, we must first analyze their underlying functionality.
Minion Types
The summoner archetype offers three distinct minion varieties with unique traits:
As highlighted in this comparison, the Flyer Minion brings the best overall utility and damage potential. Its balanced attributes allow it to adeptly adapt to any combat scenario. You‘ll rely predominantly on Flyers to carry you through all stages of Remnant 2.
Now let‘s explore tactics for juicing their strength through Traits, Perks, and synergies.
Scaling Minion Strength
Unlike vanilla weapon attacks, boosts from Perks/Traits compound multiplicatively on minions to enable ludicrous stat scaling. Observe the key sources contributing to this runaway damage amplification:
- Dominator Perk – Direct 35% minion damage increase.
- Regrowth Trait – Enables limitless minion summoning via HP regen.
- Synergistic Secondary Class – Vulcan turret gains all minion bonuses.
- Gear Bonuses – Massive flat minion damage boosts from targeted Jewelry/Amulets.
Combining these intersecting damage bonuses causes your minions‘ DPS to scale exponentially rather than linearly. We will meticulously construct every aspect of this build to compound that limitless stat potential.
Now let‘s delve into the optimal skill, trait, and perk selections that form this build‘s core.
Build Framework: Skills & Traits
As with all Remnant 2 classes, the summoner‘s style arises from the chosen combination of skills, traits, and perks. I‘ve rigorously tested endless permutations to determine the mathematically superior specialization for maxing summon effectiveness.
Here are the ideal choices with reasoning:
Flyer Minion Skill
This low-cost summon strikes the perfect balance of offense and sustainability, excelling in all combat scenarios. Flyers reliably whittle down all enemies from long range without threat of retaliation.
You‘ll spend most of your time repeatedly summoning Flyers to saturate the arena with their overwhelming numbers and laser-focused fire.
Regrowth Trait
This Trait deserves mandatory inclusion on every Summoner build thanks to one pivotal benefit: passive HP regeneration based on missing health.
As summoned minions deplete huge chunks of your max HP, Regrowth enables stable sustain. With sufficient regeneration, you achieve virtually infinite summon potential!
Additionally, various other build mechanics synergize directly with consistent healing effects. This multi-purpose Trait delivers enormous dividends across all content difficulties.
Dominator Perk
The categorically superior damage option, Dominator‘s twin offensive bonuses directly fuel exponential minion scaling. First, a 35% flat damage increase hugely amplifies their lethal potential.
Second, gaining +5% crit chance while minions are active further boosts overall DPS. Since Flyers last 13 seconds base duration, this bonus stays up perpetually.
No substitute Perk even approaches Dominator‘s sheer damage amplification. It forms the very foundation of competitive summoner builds.
Secondary Class: Engineer
Remnant 2 permits equipping a secondary class to unlock additional gear, traits, and skills. Smart selection here magnifies the summoner build‘s already formidable strength even further.
Engineers gain access to deployable turrets possessing unique properties. Happily, these turrets are also classified as minions! This means all your nasty summon bonuses dish out double duty, multiplying the power of your turret fleet.
Specifically, we‘ll utilize the Vulcan turret – a brutal minigun possessed of staggering raw DPS and leech potential. Deploying just one nearly doubles your overall damage output thanks to minion stat inheritance.
Now let‘s review complementary Engineer perks and the Vulcan turret skill:
Vulcan Turret
This menacing minigun absolutely erases waves of enemies with sheer bullet hell fury. It also uniquely transfers lifeforce from targets directly to yourself and adjacent allies via its small damage-over-time component.
Since the Vulcan qualifies as a minion, it gains all bonuses bestowed upon your Flyers. After just a few multipliers, it disintegrates even raid bosses in seconds!
Just be sure to pick up and redeploy Vulcans between combat arenas. Their immobility remains the sole weakness.
Metalworker Perk
This Engineer Perk amplifies ALL minion damage by a whopping 50% – both your Flyers and Vulcan sentry cannons! Such an astronomical spike makes it numerically mandatory for serious summon builds.
It also generously boosts minion crit chance by 10%, supplementing Dominator‘s crit contribution. Together, these enable your automated forces to inflict lethal critical strikes with extreme frequency.
High Tech Perk
High Tech supercharges your deployed turrets via Overclocking, boosting their fire rate and DPS by 25% for extended durations. Again, this benefit doubly applies to your Vulcan by qualifying as a minion itself.
With Vulcans already melting targets, becoming 25% faster deleting bosses borders on overkill! But why not min-max your build‘s performance?
Weapons & Mods
Since your minions handle killing duty, allocate weapons mainly for utility rather than damage. Equip rapid-fire guns with crowd control mods supporting your Flyer squads:
Recommended Weapons:
- Chicago Typewriter (highest ammo reserves)
- Devastator (explosive bullet AoE)
Recommended Mods:
- Root Lash (snares enemies in place)
- Space Crabs (bonus targets/AoE explosions)
These provide supplemental DPS while controlling mobs for your Flyers/Vulcan to safely focus. Their moderate damage remains largely irrelevant – your legions deal the real destruction!
Now let‘s examine the true cornerstone of summoner dominance: perfectly-tuned complementary gear.
Gear & Jewelry
Carefully-selected equipment undertakes the vital task of carrying your minions to untold heights of world-ending power. Here I‘ll outline the undisputed best accessories for summon supremacy:
Anastasia‘s Haste Ring
This brilliant Ring bestows permanent max-stack Haste whenever healing is received from any source. Thanks to omnipresent healing from the Regrowth Trait, your Flyers enjoy crazed attack/movement speeds at all times!
This vastly improves maneuverability while allowing them to dump increasingly lethal barrages upon hapless foes. Anastasia‘s Haste also independently buffs minion DPS when you stand still – trivial to achieve during chilled summoner gameplay!
Soul Link Amulet
Soul Link introduces even more reliable sustain through passive life leech. It causes all minions to vampirically convert 5% of damage directly into HP for their master.
Given your legions easily hurl thousands of damage per second, this generates tremendous healing that further enables endless Flyer/Vulcan dominance!
It also procs Anastasia‘s Haste Ring by qualifying as a healing effect. Everything synergizes towards infinite, unstoppable minion armies.
Black Pawn Stamp Ring
This Ring reduces cooldowns of all minion summoning skills by 10%. While that may seem modest, maintaining 100% Flyer uptime becomes critical when leveraging their exponential scaling.
With buffers in downtime window and resource costs, permanently saturating the arena with dozens of these zippy murderbots kills enemies before they can even react!
Supplementary Accessories
While the above trio of equipment forms the core trifecta mandatory on all minion builds, the following provide smaller supporting benefts:
- Kinetic Stone (minions attack 20% faster)
- Serpent‘s Greed Bracelet (+15% minion damage)
- Fanatic‘s Insignia Charm (minions explode on death for AoE damage)
Mixing in one or two of these nicely complements the main gear. But I recommend keeping Anastasia‘s Haste, Soul Link, and the Black Pawn 100% equipped at all times.
Let‘s now envision this masterpiece build in action!
Gameplay & Combat Dynamics
In practice, piloting this summoner build feels akin to directing a personal army of hyper-lethal guardian angels. Effortlessly obliterating enemies while scarcely lifted your finger is truly relaxing gameplay perfected!
Here‘s an overview of basic combat sequencing:
- Prebuff – Stand still for 5 seconds to trigger Anastasia‘s full +60% minion damage aura.
- Engage – Drop Vulcan turret(s) and spam Flyers on key targets.
- Support – Use weapon mods to snare targets within your minions‘ interlocking fields of fire.
- Repeat – Constantly resummon Flyers; reposition turrets as needed.
Via this cycle of set-and-forget order issuance, you reign as an invincible harbinger of slaughter. Lay waste to any enemy in your path without once directly partaking in violence yourself!
Let‘s visualize practical applications against raid bosses. The humanoid Shamaeth presents the quintessential difficulty spike check. I‘ll outline step-by-step tactics to effortlessly dominate this encounter:
- Setup – Prebuff damage, then plant your Vulcan heartward of Shamaeth‘s arena to hold threat.
- Pull – Drag the boss towards your turret using Root Lash to chain its movement.
- Delete – Unleash specced Flyers and watch its health evaporate under sustained focused fire.
- Repeat – Effortlessly dance at max range, dodging occasional slams while your minions seal its fate.
Ultimately, no single target or mob pack survives prolonged exposure to your exponential army scaling into the stratosphere. Other classes may kill normal enemies faster by attacking themselves – but why bother when your loyal servants handle the dirty work?
Thank you for reading my extensive summoner guide! Please reach out with any other questions about min-maxing your own Remnant 2 builds. I‘m always seeking the next target dummy for testing my ludicrous damage limits on bosses!
About the Author
I‘m a long-time ARPG gaming enthusiast with deep passion for min-maxing powerful builds. Over 10 years playing Path of Exile honed theorycrafting and specialization mastery.
I speedran Remnant 1‘s initial launch, claiming top 10 expedition times for the first month. Upon Remnant 2‘s beta release, I extensively playtested every class combination, meticulously documenting optimal selections.
Now I leverage my expertise to create gaming content full-time on my Twitch/YouTube channels. I love assisting fellow ARPG fans push overpowered builds to their absolute limits!
You can find me streaming Remnant 2 regularly at: www.twitch.tv/
