Death Must Die: Skadi’s Hoard | Summoning Build

This build revolves around using Summon Damage as your primary source of damage output. Specifically the two wolves Selki and Torr as they gain bonuses from your character stats.

The “Hoard” part of the build comes from the gear rolls where you will be accompanied by 2x Dragons, 3x Skeletal Hoards, 3 Parrots, Selki, and Torr. We will make great use of the Summon Count Affix with Skeletal Hoard.

I have run this build in Darkness 30 successfully multiple times and have always gotten subpar Blessing RNG. I would imagine if you got better blessings you could push higher, but there is not much of a reason outside the personal challenge.

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Currently as the game sits the summons AI is extremely bad. This is subject to change in the Procedural Patch in September 2024.

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The gearing is pretty simple for this build. You mainly want to focus on Summon Damage & Summon Count while also rolling for Onyx Dragons and Skeletal Hoards.

The most important piece of the set will be your Feet with the Curse of Slowing Affix paired with Summon Movement Speed. Those two rolls will give your summons the needed mobility to keep up with the enemies to kill them before they can kill you.

• Amulet

  

• Ring

  

• Relic

  

• Jewel

  

• Head

  

• Torso

  

• Waist

  

• Feet

  

• Hands

  

Using Skadi as a summoning focused hero is a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion. Her Wolves have some good potential, but the rest of her tree is pretty lacking.

With that being said its still a decently viable build due to Selki and Torr gaining a portion of your Attack Speed, Damage, and Attack Damage stats on your character. We will utilize this greatly by stacking as much Summon Damage on our gear as we can. They will hit like a decent sized truck right off the bat with no blessings.

The Parrots benefit from the same ability as the wolves do, so having them as well on our Colorful Gloves will be a nice added bonus for damage.

The Talent tree does have some flexibility just make sure you max out all the skills for Selki & Torr.

Going forward it is important to note that you can only have three separate gods in a single run. You can roll them all at first, but the first three that you select you’ll be stuck with them the entire run. With the exception of the Fates. You can pull them anytime just at a lower chance.

• Time

  The Summoner is Time’s really only perk when it comes to building around summons unless you end up picking Necromancy, which will benefit greatly from Deathlessness. The other decent skill is Alteration if you can snag it early on.

  If you manage to pull The Summoner early on it would be wise to level that every chance you get as it is time based for how much it can actually buff you by the end of the run.

  

  

  

• Mort

  Mort is the GOAT of summons. The Ravens are an absolute beast of a summon due to providing Curse and Influence is probably one of the best blessings you can get this entire run.

  Influence is nice as it scales greatly off your already obtained Summon Damage. Once you get this leveled up fully you’ll be on your way to 1,000+% Summon Damage. Combine that with Selki, Torr, and the Parrot’s passive and they will hit like a massive box truck isekai’ing your enemies into oblivion.

  Necromancy can be great as well if you built more Duration/Summon Duration, but otherwise it is pretty meh especially for Act II where there is less hoards compared to Act I.

  

  

  

• Lady Justice

  Justice is a great third choice for your God. She is the best when it comes to anything and all defensive and as a summoner you will need some of that for sure.

  The 10/10 roll will of course be Inner Peace, which will work well combined with Skadi’s bonus from the Talen Tree for increased life regeneration. If you pull this blessing you can pretty much count on your run being a successful run.

  Retribution and Protection will give you that nice boost in healing and armor that you may need if you are not too lucky with the rest of your god and blessing roles. This will be key to finishing a run where your damage might be a bit more lacking due to not rolling the above gods with their designated blessings of choice.

  

  

  

• Winter

  Winter is a great alternative to Time and Mort, but mostly Time. She provides great utility with her blessings they will definitely help ease the burden of the summon AI. If you up your Darkness Level and try to push further I would highly recommend her over Time as the more you push into difficulty the faster and harder the enemies will become, thus making your summons less performative due tot he current state of their AI.

  Frost Wolves are also a great summon to pair with Cursed as it will be another status effect applied on enemies. Both Mort & Winter will provide more damage to enemies with their status effect, so will make a pretty decent combo if get lucky with blessing rng.

  

  

  

  

• Krom

  Last and kinda least..Krom. He is great for two things. Blood Swords and God of War.

  Blood Swords is an amazing summon to use. Probably one of the highest performing DPS wise. God of War is one of the best damaging blessings in the game. With that being said…its really all he has going for in this build. If you can pull God of War at the start or a Master tier Blood Swords then GG. Otherwise will be a skip.

  

  

This build is definitely not the most optimal or viable build in the game currently when it comes to summons, but I think it is well worth playing and trying out if you are into summon builds.

We just got a peak at the new Hero, which seems to be a pure Necromancer class. Great news for us summoning fans where summons have been a bit lacking in this game in my opinion..especially late game.

Hope you enjoy the build and of course everything is flexible. Have fun and tweak things to your liking if you think something should change or you just weren’t able to find all the same gear.

Discord: @orangeredbluegreen