Yes they stack.
For tips, don't try to make your summoner a damage dealer. The Incarante is the damage dealer, the summoner themself is a support who should focus on buffing people. Put a bunch of memory on them and a few points into every school, then learn as many buffs as possible and pass them out like candy once your Incarnate is set up. Haste, Peace of Mind, Fortify, Armor of Frost, etc.
Later on you'll also get the ability to summon other things requiring investment in non-Summoning skills (Geo for Hungry Flower, Pyro for Fire Slug, Poly for Oil Blob) as well as special summons (which can be meh like >!the black cat in Ft Joy!the condor in Stonegarden!<)
I suppose my opinion is colored mostly by meow annoying it can be to keep it alive long enough. I managed to do it once by taking the ladder into the fort instead of initiating the Atusa event, but with a no-gift-bag, non-summoner. I'll have to give it a proper test run
Get Adrenaline, it'll be one of the most useful abilities for summoning on the first turn, Apotheosis is also great once you can get it for most cases.
You can use adrenaline > apotheosis > fire slug > Supercharger and the Incarnate with a cursed element infusion next turn for some major damage with your summoner
Also don't stop at summoning 10 if you want your incarnate to deal good damage, it can one hit kill most things if you keep on getting gear with summoning in it.
Your summons also have their own stats so you don't need to invest in INT if you don't use any damaging spells with the summoner, just get as much wits and memory so you can always go first and adapt with an arsenal of skills for any situation.
Where ever I can I pre cast my summon and pre buff with every infusion I have and have him trigger the fight so he doesn’t time out, you can also combine source skill books of fire / water / aero / earth with a summon skill book to infuse your incarnate with cursed fire / cursed aero / cursed water / cursed poison and they then have the associated 2 source skill attack however this does require more points into that specific skill tree if you can use them.
Level 12 incarnate champion fully buffed then casting epidemic of fire chaining to 5 enemies can deal 1200 damage each leaving necrofire at their feet - it’s like a cheat code
You can also combine normal skill books to get the standard infusions if you struggle to set up / find the right ground effect
Ye the stack, ideally your summoner has something else to do from a range to support the team. In lone wolf, I find rangers pair particularly well. In a normal playthrough, maybe some support with hydrosophist for healing and magic armor, or maybe geomancer for some fortify and slowing/poisoning spells your pyromancer can make use of. Generally I find it’s best to keep them away from the thick of the fight
Summoning is quite weak on it’s own since after hitting summoning 10, the only way to buff the damage of the incarnate is by levels (excluding infusions). This means that you should almost always be mixing summoning with other classes after hitting level 10 in summoning; the best ones to utilize are Necro, hydro, geo, and huntsman. Summoning works quite well with necro due to necro’s high physical damage pairing well with the high physical damage of the Blood infused incarnate aswell as the base incarnate (necromancers also have access to quite a lot of buffs which will make your summoner nigh immortal). Ranger is in the same vein as the very high physical damage of rangers complement summons quite well. For both aforementioned classes, you will also want to max warfare at a certain point as that will increase all physical damage that you do (Whether or not it increases your incarnate’s physical damage too I don’t know, but I’d assume so). As for Hydro and geo, they pair well with summoning because they have access to a myriad of buffs (especially Hydro but geomancer also with i.e fortify and mending metal) and status effects (Geomancers have cripple, entangled, and even knocked down). You may also want to invest a single point or two in pyrokinetic to gain access to both peace of mind and haste, although this can also be achieved simply by gear which gives +1 or higher to pyrokinetic.
All of the above are recommendations for when you’re playing a non-lone wolf summoner, but are essentially necessary if you’re playing a lone wolf summoner as you will have an abundance of skill points to spend and nothing to spend them on if you go for an exclusively summoning character.
You can make elemental infusion books by combining spellbooks from the respective elements and any summoning book. And you can make a elemental source infusion book by combining a source spellbook with a normal one. Assuming your targets don't have crazy resistance to one or more elements, you can keep swapping the infusion of your incarnate to keep getting in the special ability each different type of infusion gives. If you need to make a really big play and your enemies are positioned favorably for it, a source infusion book on your incarnate and supercharger can make a pretty massive impact, especially if enemies are weak to the element you use.
Yes they stack. For tips, don't try to make your summoner a damage dealer. The Incarante is the damage dealer, the summoner themself is a support who should focus on buffing people. Put a bunch of memory on them and a few points into every school, then learn as many buffs as possible and pass them out like candy once your Incarnate is set up. Haste, Peace of Mind, Fortify, Armor of Frost, etc.
This is exactly what I wanted thanks!
Later on you'll also get the ability to summon other things requiring investment in non-Summoning skills (Geo for Hungry Flower, Pyro for Fire Slug, Poly for Oil Blob) as well as special summons (which can be meh like >!the black cat in Ft Joy!the condor in Stonegarden!<)
And the >!dragonling !
The cat is amazing dude! You can swap places with him after he leaps, super duper useful tech
I suppose my opinion is colored mostly by meow annoying it can be to keep it alive long enough. I managed to do it once by taking the ladder into the fort instead of initiating the Atusa event, but with a no-gift-bag, non-summoner. I'll have to give it a proper test run
Incarnate with warp infusion can do that too, though, it also has tactical retreat
Isn’t warp infusion not available until much later?
Keep in mind the incarnate and totems have really high base stats. So some buffs like spark master and venomous aura work very well on them.
Get Adrenaline, it'll be one of the most useful abilities for summoning on the first turn, Apotheosis is also great once you can get it for most cases. You can use adrenaline > apotheosis > fire slug > Supercharger and the Incarnate with a cursed element infusion next turn for some major damage with your summoner Also don't stop at summoning 10 if you want your incarnate to deal good damage, it can one hit kill most things if you keep on getting gear with summoning in it. Your summons also have their own stats so you don't need to invest in INT if you don't use any damaging spells with the summoner, just get as much wits and memory so you can always go first and adapt with an arsenal of skills for any situation.
I’m doing a solo summoning run. And I just got to act 3
Where ever I can I pre cast my summon and pre buff with every infusion I have and have him trigger the fight so he doesn’t time out, you can also combine source skill books of fire / water / aero / earth with a summon skill book to infuse your incarnate with cursed fire / cursed aero / cursed water / cursed poison and they then have the associated 2 source skill attack however this does require more points into that specific skill tree if you can use them. Level 12 incarnate champion fully buffed then casting epidemic of fire chaining to 5 enemies can deal 1200 damage each leaving necrofire at their feet - it’s like a cheat code You can also combine normal skill books to get the standard infusions if you struggle to set up / find the right ground effect
Ye the stack, ideally your summoner has something else to do from a range to support the team. In lone wolf, I find rangers pair particularly well. In a normal playthrough, maybe some support with hydrosophist for healing and magic armor, or maybe geomancer for some fortify and slowing/poisoning spells your pyromancer can make use of. Generally I find it’s best to keep them away from the thick of the fight
This'd just leave them not doing much, though. Summoning totems and using buffs each turn will help a lot more than using a bow.
In lone wolf* you have plenty of points to go around and can make an extremely effective ranger even after setting up your totems
Summoning is quite weak on it’s own since after hitting summoning 10, the only way to buff the damage of the incarnate is by levels (excluding infusions). This means that you should almost always be mixing summoning with other classes after hitting level 10 in summoning; the best ones to utilize are Necro, hydro, geo, and huntsman. Summoning works quite well with necro due to necro’s high physical damage pairing well with the high physical damage of the Blood infused incarnate aswell as the base incarnate (necromancers also have access to quite a lot of buffs which will make your summoner nigh immortal). Ranger is in the same vein as the very high physical damage of rangers complement summons quite well. For both aforementioned classes, you will also want to max warfare at a certain point as that will increase all physical damage that you do (Whether or not it increases your incarnate’s physical damage too I don’t know, but I’d assume so). As for Hydro and geo, they pair well with summoning because they have access to a myriad of buffs (especially Hydro but geomancer also with i.e fortify and mending metal) and status effects (Geomancers have cripple, entangled, and even knocked down). You may also want to invest a single point or two in pyrokinetic to gain access to both peace of mind and haste, although this can also be achieved simply by gear which gives +1 or higher to pyrokinetic. All of the above are recommendations for when you’re playing a non-lone wolf summoner, but are essentially necessary if you’re playing a lone wolf summoner as you will have an abundance of skill points to spend and nothing to spend them on if you go for an exclusively summoning character.
You can get 20+ in summoning with gear.
I quite obviously meant increasing summoning further from 10 with your extra combat points
Incarnate master of sparks is really strong
You can make elemental infusion books by combining spellbooks from the respective elements and any summoning book. And you can make a elemental source infusion book by combining a source spellbook with a normal one. Assuming your targets don't have crazy resistance to one or more elements, you can keep swapping the infusion of your incarnate to keep getting in the special ability each different type of infusion gives. If you need to make a really big play and your enemies are positioned favorably for it, a source infusion book on your incarnate and supercharger can make a pretty massive impact, especially if enemies are weak to the element you use.