The summoner build isn’t about swinging a weapon yourself — it’s about sending out minions to do the fighting. What makes you strong works completely differently from every other build.
It comes down to one thing. Raise your max summon count, fill those slots with strong minions, then stack even more damage using weapons that don’t cost a slot. Build these three up in step with your progression and by the endgame you’ll have several minions fighting at once.
The flip side: picking up one strong summon weapon won’t make your damage spike. If your slot count is low you’ll only field a couple of minions, and if you raise your slots but your weapon is weak, all those extra hands stay weak. Slots, weapon, and gear have to be planned together — that’s the discipline of a summoner build.
This guide lays out what to craft, what to wear, and what to slot in, in progression order from early to endgame.
The Three Pillars of a Summoner Build
Start with the big picture. Everything a summoner build does boils down to these three things.
- Raise your summon slots — push up the cap on how many minions you can keep out (your max summon count) with armor, trinkets, and potions.
- Field stronger minions — fill those extra slots with high-damage summon weapons. The heavier a weapon is on slots, the stronger a single minion tends to be.
- Stack with no-slot weapons — some weapons don’t consume summon slots at all. They let you add power from “outside” even after your slots are full.
Pillar 3 is built on a commonly misread tooltip, so the back half of this guide and a dedicated article handle it separately. First, let’s build up pillars 1 and 2 in progression order.
Recommended Summon Weapons by Progression
Summon weapons split into two kinds: a “main slot-using weapon” you swap up as you progress, and a “no-slot stacking weapon” you can field at the same time as that main. They aren’t either-or — you combine them — so I’ve split the tables too. Damage is the base attack per minion (before summon-damage bonuses from armor and trinkets are applied). Each is crafted at the anvil listed for its stage.
Slot-using main weapons (worth running as your main at each stage. They compete for the same summon slots, so you generally swap among these as you progress.)
| Stage | Recommended Weapon | Damage | Slot Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early (Iron Anvil) |  Spider Staff | 14.0 | 1 slot / minion |
| Mid (Tungsten Anvil) |  Cryo Staff | 29.0 | 1 slot / minion |
| Mid (Tungsten Anvil) |  Dryad Branch | 39.0 | 1 slot / minion (max 5) |
| Endgame (Fallen Anvil) |  Crystallized Skull | 180.0 | 2 slots / minion |
No-slot stacking weapons (don’t compete with your main for summon slots — you can add them even with every slot filled. Not a replacement for your main weapon; pure addition.)
| Stage | Recommended Weapon | Damage | Simultaneous Summons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Endgame (Fallen Anvil) |  Reapers Call | 75.0 | 5 (does not use summon slots) |
Reapers Call isn’t the only no-slot weapon — there are several, all covered together in “Stacking With No-Slot Weapons” below.
Early Game: Learn “Numbers” With the Spider Staff
The first summon weapon you can craft is the Spider Staff. Its 14 damage is low, but it teaches the core summoner feel of “surround and wear down enemies with multiple bodies.” Early on, how many minions you can field (your slot count) matters more than the damage of any single one.
You’ll also pick up drop-only weapons at this stage (Vulture Staff, Bashy Bush, and so on), but their performance is no better than the Spider Staff. Don’t go out of your way to collect them — invest in raising slots instead.
Mid Game: A Sharp Jump in the Tungsten Tier
Once the Tungsten Anvil opens up, your summon weapon options widen fast.
- Dryad Branch (39 damage): channel to summon up to 5 Baby Dryads. Light on slots per body — a numbers-pressure weapon.
- Cryo Staff (29 damage): a solid, reliable standard summon weapon. Just plain strong.
Run either as your main while raising both slots and damage with the Tungsten-tier armor (the Soulseed set) and trinket (Hysteria Tablet) covered below. That’s where the mid game gains its momentum.
Endgame: The Crystallized Skull + Reapers Call Double Act
Once you reach the Fallen Anvil, the finished form of the summoner build comes into view.
The Crystallized Skull summons ruby dragons. Its 180 damage is overwhelming, but a single minion eats 2 summon slots. With enough slots you can line up multiple dragons, and they become the main damage source of an endgame summoner build. Even measured per slot, one dragon (180 ÷ 2 slots = 90) far outclasses a Baby Dryad (39 ÷ 1 slot). All the work you put into raising slots turns directly into damage with this weapon.
Layer Reapers Call on top. It fields up to 5 defending spirits at 75 damage — and crucially, this weapon does not use summon slots. With your slots already maxed out on dragons, you can add 5 more spirits on a separate budget. In the endgame this double act lets you run slot-filling dragons and no-slot spirits side by side.
How to Raise Your Summon Slots (Max Summon Count)
Slot count is the foundation of a summoner build. Know what raises it and you can plan exactly where in your progression your slots will grow. Here are the main sources, with where to get each.
| Type | Source | Effect | Get / Craft |
|---|---|---|---|
| Potion (buff) |  Minion Potion | Max summons +1 | Craft (Caveglow Alchemy Table) Glacial Shard, Caveglow, Icefish, etc. |
| Trinket |  Hysteria Tablet | Max summons +2 / summon speed +30% | Craft (Tungsten Workstation) |
| Trinket |  Scrying Mirror | Max summons +1 | Craft (Fallen Workstation) / deep underground chests |
| Trinket |  Mesmer Tablet | Max summons +1 | Dungeon chests / raid drops |
| Armor | Summoner armor | +1 max summons per piece and set bonus | See “Gear” below |
The Minion Potion is a buff, so drink it before a fight to gain a slot. The trinket that gives the most is the Hysteria Tablet — one item grants +2 slots and +30% summon speed at once. If you’re going summoner, it’s a top priority craft.
The slot-raising trinkets (Scrying Mirror, Mesmer Tablet) stack, and their max summon counts add up directly. Pile on as many as your trinket slots allow and by the endgame you’ll be lining up multiple dragons.
Combining Summon-Boosting Gear
Once your slots are up, the next step is gear that raises summon damage and summon speed to make the minions themselves stronger. The basic approach is to swap armor sets as you progress.
Swapping Armor Sets
| Stage | Armor Set | Main Summon Boosts | Craft |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early |  Spider armor | Max summons +1 (each piece + set) | Craft (Iron Anvil) |
| Early-mid |  Arachnid set | Summon damage +10% / summon attack speed +5% / max summons +1; set spawns an extra spider | Craft (Demonic Anvil) |
| Late-mid |  Soulseed set | Summon damage +5% / summon attack speed +10% / minion move speed +30% / max summons +1; set explodes all your minions | Craft (Tungsten Anvil) |
| Endgame |  Ruby armor | All-round boost to summon crit, crit damage, speed, targeting, and max summons; +1 max summons per 150 health | Craft (Fallen Anvil) |
The early Spider armor is worth wearing for the max-summon count alone. Once you hit the mid game, swap to the Arachnid set (Demonic tier) → the Soulseed set (Tungsten tier), raising summon damage and slots together.
The endgame Ruby armor is the dedicated summoner endgame set. It boosts nearly every summon-related stat across the board, and its set bonus is +1 max summons for every 150 max health. The more you raise your health, the more slots you get, so survival and damage reinforce each other. It’s the natural home for a Crystallized Skull dragon-stacking build.
Building Your Trinkets
With your foundation set by armor, lean your trinkets toward summoning. The core lineup for a summoner build:
Summon Foci — summon damage +20% (at the cost of −20% non-summon damage). Practically mandatory if you’re going pure summoner.- Hysteria Tablet — max summons +2 / summon speed +30%. Your workhorse for slots and speed in one.
- Scrying Mirror / Mesmer Tablet — +1 max summons each. For when you want to push slots to the limit.
Summoner’s Bestiary — +5% summon damage per type of summon you have out. The more different summon weapons you run together, the better it scales.
Note: the melee / ranged / magic / summon “Foci” trinkets only let one take effect at a time. If you pick Summon Foci, don’t run another class’s Foci alongside it.
Two Ways to Build: Fill the Slots, or Leave Them Open
Here’s where the summoner build gets interesting. After raising your max summon count, the build branches on whether you fill those slots up or deliberately leave them open.
A. Fill-the-slots build (straight damage)
Fill every slot you’ve raised with strong minions. In the endgame, occupy your slots with Crystallized Skull dragons and max out slots and damage with Summon Foci, Hysteria Tablet, and Scrying Mirror. Plainly strong — when in doubt, go here.
B. Open-slots build (empty-slot bonus)
The 
Companion Locket is a trinket that “greatly raises summon damage and speed the more empty summon slots you have.” Build around it and you deliberately keep slots open, putting out damage with weapons that don’t use summon slots (like Reapers Call). It’s an unconventional style that swings a small number of high-power minions.
A and B use slots in opposite ways, so mixing them kills the Companion Locket’s effect. The trick is to commit to one. Start with A, and once your weapons come together, try B to see the full range of the summoner build.
Stacking With No-Slot Weapons
This is the mechanic behind pillar 3. Some summon weapons display “Does not use summon slots.” It looks like a defect that won’t equip, but the real meaning is exactly that: it doesn’t consume a summon slot.
The weapons in question are Stabby Bush, Frost Piercer, Slime Canister, and Reapers Call. Even with your main summon slots filled to the cap, these can be summoned on a separate budget. And since their damage is treated like any normal summon, all the summon-damage boosts you’ve stacked up apply to them too.
The contents, sources, and uses of these four weapons are collected in a dedicated article. If you’re tightening up a summoner build, it’s a must-read.
- What Does “Does not use summon slots” Mean? Necesse’s Easily Misread Summon Weapon Tooltip Explained
Summary
| Stage | Main Summon Weapon | Armor | How to Raise Slots |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early | Spider Staff | Spider armor | Spider armor, Minion Potion |
| Mid | Cryo Staff / Dryad Branch | Arachnid → Soulseed set | Hysteria Tablet, +1 max summons per armor |
| Endgame | Crystallized Skull + Reapers Call | Ruby armor | Hysteria Tablet, Scrying Mirror, Mesmer Tablet |
A summoner build is a stack: “raise your slots → fill them with strong minions → add more with no-slot weapons.” Your damage is decided less by any single weapon’s strength than by how slots, weapon, and gear mesh. Widen the foundation in step with your progression, and by the endgame you’ll keep growing the number of minions you can field at once.
Test Environment
- Version: Necesse v1.2.0
- Weapon, armor, and trinket damage / effect values confirmed against game data
- Summon slot costs and effects confirmed via in-game display and in-game descriptions