Thread: Conjuror AA Guide

There are many schools of thought when it comes to Conjuror AA. The spec I am posting is, in my opinion, the optimal spec for any conjuror who is raiding and/or grouping. For the sake of analysis, I will discuss every AA enhancement, and why or why not I chose it.

THE BUILD

Summoner



Strength

Animated Dagger: Excellent for procing abilities such as VC due to its short casting time also deals decent dmg on its own. Worth all 10 points.

Theurgistic Prowess: More disruption = more spell dmg. Calculated like mod, but counted as a separate stat. Also reduces chance for spell to be resisted.

Wild Channeling: Strait forward, more crit chance.

Theurgist's Detonation: Fantastic blue, high dmg vs. aoe and single target encounters. Worth casting every time it's up if mobs are in range, unless you are saving it for an incoming swarm. It also has a fast casting time, and is one of the better abilities for triggering proc dmg.

Agility

Transference: Having a large amount of potency and crit bonus makes this a decent single target heal, even with only 1 point spent. Certainly worth having on your hot bars with your name in the target box. It has saved me countless times at clutch moments.

Cabalist's Cover: Great innate tool for personal survival. I do not spec for it currently, and really haven't noticed a difference. For those who choose to spec teamwork, it is worth 8 points.

Cabalistic Conservation: The reason this ability is particularly good now is that most raid encounters put a detrimental on everyone that deals dmg to the caster for amount of power spent. This lowers that dmg, grp wide, by 1% per point spent. It's worth 10 points if you are going for teamwork.

Teamwork: 5% potency grp wide is certainly nice, but it's not game changing considering players can achieve 300% potency with ease now. One bit of information that you will not find in the tool tip is that it automatically causes the pet to engage in combat (not start attacking, don't confuse it) with any mob that has engaged in combat with the summoner. In other words, if a tank body pulls something, and never hits the mob, it will naturally go for your pet because of teamwork. I have found that it leads to more pet deaths than it is worth vs. current content. As many of you may know, I was a huge advocate for specing teamwork in DoV, and cleared the expansion with it. Now playing in skyshrine and raiding in PoW, I don't think it's worth loosing your pet over. There is just too many swarms of mobs that your pet is instantly engaged with. Think of it this way: if you are the only conjuror in group/raid, everyone as a whole is loosing more than 5% potency from your pet dying because of its raid wide buff.

Stamina

Shockwave: Would be a lot nicer if it proc'd things. It deals aoe dmg though, and the ability to activate it while casting something else is certainly nice. Will grant 3 triggers if used while time warp is active. Worth 4 points to get to Perceptor's Bodyguard.

Perceptor's Parry: The pet doesn't really get a chance to parry much considering it's not being auto attacked often (at least you hope not), but it's added survival for physical aoes. Worth 4 points to get to Perceptor's Bodyguard.

Perceptor's Bodyguard: Although some may argue that this AA doesn't really effect their parse, I would disagree, firmly. It is the largest increase to dmg in the entire summoner tree before the endlines because it adds 10% dmg to soulburn. Soulburn is frequently my 2nd source of outgoing dmg vs any given fight, and I enjoy having 1.6-1.8 million dmg soulburns. % HP gains are of massive benefit to a conjuror pet. It doesn't get HP increases from many other sources.

Unflinching Servant: ​ Completely worthless.

Wisdom

Magic Leash: It really just doesn't generate enough dehate considering the amount of dmg the pet is doing to be usefull. Worth 4 points to get to minion's attention.

Minion's Attention: Amazing AA that pretty much nullifies pet agro after 20 seconds or so of your pet dmging a mob in a raid. It is constantly procing positional dehates which can be a massive amount of hate decrease in a raid setting.

Symbiosis: Pales in comparison to Minion's Attention for pet hate managment.

Animist's Evasion: Not worth the amount of points to get to it. Minion's Attention is enough.

Intelligence

Shadow Step: Currently not working as intended, afaik, but who really knows what SoE is intending when they create these mechanics. Will only trigger when the pet is not casting anything, rendering it next to useless. Considering it is the only AA in the tree that deal's dmg though, (even though not often) it's worth the 10 points.

Minion's Uproar: More disruption = more spell dmg. Calculated like mod, but counted as a separate stat. Also reduces chance for spell to be resisted.

Arcane Minion: Pretty lack luster considering your pet is probably already capped on casting speed/reuse and most of its spells don't have recovery time.

Reanimate: I never thought this spell would be necessary because of all of our survival tools, and some still don't see it as necessary, but the barrage of shit that can happen to the pet now makes it worth it imo. I spend much less time worried about keeping my pet alive and more time focusing on dps with this spec'd. I notice that I have considerably less pet deaths when comparing zone wides with/without it. 3 triggers of it happen with time warp active.

SF Attributes

Aptitude of the Theurgist: Increases summoner's base dmg. Stat works like potency except for that it doesn't share with the pet, and even if this AA is the only exception to that, I am not wasting plat testing it because there is no better choice. Worth all 8 points.

Cabalist's Aura: More potency, HP, and armor effectiveness raid wide is a no brainer. Worth all 8 points.

Perceptor's Defence: Unflinching servant is useless and so are abilities that enhance it. And on that note, I am not here to discuss soloing specs. If you are competent enough to solo anything worth the time of specing for soloing, you are competent enough to make logical AA choices.

Symbiotic Bond: ^see above

Magician's Aptitude: A conjuror's pet is rarely resisted due to the amount of other AA enhancements reduce the amount of resistability. I don't see this AA as ever necessary.

Conjuror



Enhance: Summon Spells: Nowhere better to spend the points, which is something you will often find yourself saying on a Conjuror. Just another guarantee that your pet won't get resisted.

Enhance: Heal Servant: Useless because the pet heal is always a complete heal now, and is capped on casting/reuse with mostly heroic gear.

Enhance: Ice Storm/Crystal Blast/Earthquake/Shattered Earth/Petrify: Consolidated because they all do the same thing for the spells they enhance. More crit bonus is always a good thing when it comes to dmg spells. The added casting speed to these spells just gives you more liberty in gear choices.

Enhance Summoning: Worth a point to guarantee pet cast speed capped regardless of debuffs. Also a lil more mit. More of a point dump than anything.

Cure Elemental: Has saved my ass countless times. Some may argue that it's a healers job, but I like to have options when it comes to living or dying.

Enhance: Shard of Essence: I used to use this as a point dump and would cast shards on tanks or healers that were oop and calling for power. I have decided that spending the points in enhance sacrifice offers more utility and I am not specing for both.

Enhance: Geotic Rune: More mitigation vs all grp wide is never a bad thing.

Enhance: Fiery Annihilation/Winds of Velious: Consolidated because they do the same thing. Lowers the duration of the two dots, making the hits happen faster.

Enhance: Stone Skin: More pet survival ftw.

Enhance: Flamesheild: It's very minimal dmg, but for the true min/maxer it is worth the points. On a side note - a lot less useful with 2 conjurors in a raid.

Enhance: Fire Seed: Fire seed already has a very high chance to proc. Specing this is overkill.

Enhance: Plane Shift: 5% more potency granted from shoulder plane shift focus enhancement.

Enhance Vehement Skin: Already capped on reuse, but it actually costs a lot of power and can be a pretty big slice of health if you have the raid detriment that drains hp according to amount of power spent. However I don't find myself casting this much because of re-animate.

Enhance: Master's Intervention: Capped on reuse, and rarely not a complete heal with any gear.

Enhance: Blazing Avatar: Increasing the trigger count on one of our best abilities... yes please!

Enhance: Elemental Unity: Increases duration on one of our best temps, no brainer.

Hydromancer: Conjurors are dps classes, and as such should be using the mage pet. Even though this pet casts an aoe prevent and comes out with communion if you spec it, it also causes the raid wide buff your pet grants to drop off the raid for the duration of communion. No dumbfire pets are worth hotbar space.

Stoneskins: Group wide, duration of 1 min, great to cast in between pulls. I really wish our prestige would have allowed these to be true stone skins rather than giving them an additional trigger.

Bubble: Excellent tool to keep your pet alive on incoming and for certain aoes / red scripts. Attach /pet back off to Call Servant and it is great for keeping the pet alive.

Unabate: Makes conjy hit rates great.

Runes of Geomancy: Awesome innate group survival tool. Although it's only a chance to stone skins physical dmg, it can save your ass on a physical aoe, and really increases tank survivability vs auto attacks.

Strength of the Elements: Stack pet potency every chance you can.

Fury of the Elements: Massive pet nuke, it's a must have.

Elemental Proficiency: If you find yourself grouping with a tank often, this is nice to spec. Strike through chance only benefits people facing mobs, so useless really otherwise.

Sacrificial Lamb: Sacrifice is great now that they removed the stun if you spec it in prestige. May as well get the full advantage of the ability. Seeing some surprisingly big numbers for power regen from that spell.

Servant's Aid: Pet heal is already a complete heal with any gear. Useless.

Elemental Blast: lol

Shadows




General

Pet of the Gods: More sta/int = no brainer, and so is the rest of the shadows AA under General.


Mage

Root Mastery: I don't spend much time rooting mobs.

Runic Protection: More HP is always good.

Strike of the Mage: Particularly good for Conjuror because crystal blast is one of our best spells.

Enhance: Master Strike: Already capped on reuse.

Arcane Barrier: Your Wizards manaburn will thank you a little bit. Point dump otherwise.

Shadow Step: Invis isn't even on my hotbars anymore.

Summoner

Minion's Constitution: Makes for bigger soulburns and more pet survival. Is a must.

Minion's Critical Strike: This is worth specing if you are raiding HM content and people are dying which causes certain mobs to get crit avoidance buffs. Your pet will be last man criting especially with myth proc and plane shift.

Pet Weapon Mastery: More mage pet dmg ftw. Must have.

Summoner's Soothing: Doesn't share with your pet, and if your conjuror is pulling agro over your pet, you have a much bigger problem.

Focused Disciple: Capped on casting speed/reuse, pointless.

Minion's Mark: Awesome dmg, and debuff. Thanks SoE for actually taking our pet's casting order into consideration for once. The pet usually casts this spell first.

Conjuror

Elemental Pact: Bigger debuff, more often, must have. Conjuror's pact is pretty much always up on anything the pet is attacking, including linked encounters because it procs on pet greens as well.

Minion's Protection: Point dump, but more pet survival.

Ancient Calling: Capped reuse.

Blaze of Ro: Fiery Annihilation is one of our best spells. The increases exponentially is nice too, sorta like mini splurt. Must have.

Chilling Winds: Increases dmg considerably for Winds of Velious. Must Have.

Offensive Onslaught: The pet's offensive stance is completely useless for the mage pet, and so are AA's that enhance it.

Magic Mastery: Double dip again on Crystal Blast. Must have.

Blazing Conjuration: Massive pet casted nuke. Must have


Heroic





Attribute Prowess: Not better than ability mod for a Conjuror.

Ability Aptitude: Will be very difficult to cap all spells, pet and conjy, with ability mod. The more you add, the more your spells dmg go up. Test it yourself!

Spirit of Body: When we get lifeburn/manaburn I'll consider this aa.

Expertise: 10 potency, shares with pet. Must have.

Critical Genious: 10 crit bonus, shares with pet. Must have.

Lightening Reflexes: For all those people who are mad that they aren't capped on reuse, here's your chance.

Enhance Elemental Toxicity: Skyshrine content is very encounter heavy. Etox is generally one of my best parsing abilities zone wide. I like anything that makes it last longer.

Minion's Intent: Your pet is close to dehate cap with a trouband illy; Minion's Attention takes care of the rest. No point.

Minion's Power: 20 Crit Bonus for the pet, must have.

Ethernere Resilience: Too much dps lost elsewhere if spec'd.

Energy Clash: Although the heavy linked encounters have had the wheels spinning on this ability, my zone wide % for Soulburn says otherwise.

Soulburn: Good Conjys cast it a lot.

Servant's Intervention: I wish this wasn't an endline, could be cool. In no way better than Soulburn.


Prestige



Left Side
Energy Redirection: Worth specing for bigger soulburns!

Geomancer: I see this as offering more grp utility and personal survival with 3 points than a chance to proc 1% spell double attack.

Geomantic Alacrity: Why would SoE think that elemental barrier is good enough for us to attempt to reset its reuse?

Elemental Barrier: I hope the day I need to spec this never comes.

Planar Dominator: Wish it was on other side of tree and shared with pet.

Conjure Elements: Too bad we can't get this and planar wrack. When I tested this spec, it was pretty entertaining to insta cast EB, BA, EB.

Armor of Earth: If you are specing this side of the tree, you are loosing an incredible amount of DPS for the sake of defensiveness. I don't see it as ever viable, and this prestige especially isnt.
Lingering Flames: Pretty cool I guess. If someone want's to test it to get a base value of dmg, be my guest, but it will never out parse planar wrack unless the abilities are changed, which I don't think is necessary.

Energizing Winds: I would like this more if it didn't have the, "Each ally can trigger thiis once" line on it. Still in no way will compare to planar wrack or even detonation.

Flickering Flames: Oh thanks soe, just what we wanted... a BL / predator buff, or another excuse for a tank to go reckless.


Right Side

Periodic Mastery: Additional dmg dealt for all of our ST dots, must have.

Mystical Leadership: 1% spell double attack isn't very impressive, especially when it's not always up and Illys reset Time Warp.

Crystalline Destruction: Massive nuke tied to crystal blast after this ability procs. Can proc on any other spell cast. Must have.

Fennin's Destruction: This AA is possibly the most entertaining and frustrating part of prestige for a Conjuror. Is possible to EB, cast blazing avatar, and EB again with 1 time warp, if you have enough recovery speed.

Planar Conjurations: I think they had these endlines backwards. Still worth it, but I wish it was crit bonus conversion to potency. Does not share with pet.

Planar Wrack: This is the bread and butter prestige of this xpac. Land lots of hits on lots of mobs as fast as possible. Do your best to maintain 5 triggers on mobs and proc it as much as possible afterwords. UT does not add triggers to proc'd dots.

Planar Detonation: Another fantastic prestige from this xpac, and always nice to have more blue dmg. It procs the blue from the mob you are hitting primarily making it our only blue that we can be all the way out for. Procs don't proc procs, so sorry for elemental tox, still good though.

Planar Dampening: This prestige is horrible considering it's 1 shared trigger, so basically it vanishes instantly and you have no control over timing. Should have been an activatable true grp stone skin upon the 5th trigger of planar wrack with a 15-20 second reuse.

Planar Burst: This spell I cast almost every time it's up to proc more planar wrack. It's not as great as it looks, but also certainly not horrible. Decreased strike through chance added is also nice for tank survival. Good button to push with time warp.

Middle:
Planar Armor: I personally don't spec this, but certainly don't see anything wrong with doing so. It's a pretty significant amount of dmg reduction for the pet. If I start having pet survival issues, this will be first thing I go for. As it stands now: reanimate = gtg.

Blazing Energy: Stacks up to 25x, nice for spell wand ae auto to proc things like CoB and Stampede on swarms.

Focus:



These choices are extremely self explanatory. The only one that is even considerable is the enhanced sacrifice one vs the geotic rune enhancement. Flip a coin... it won't really matter either way.

really nice write up, hopefully people will take heed.


Only thoughts after reading the entire thing twice:
1) Magic Leash: bind to another spell. personally i bind it to pet attack.
2) Shadowstep > arcane minion IMHO so i put the extra points there. (cause im capped)
3) arcane barrier, 5 points instead of Enhanced mind of course! trololol
4) change "Elemental Blast: lol" to "Elemental Blast: TW lol"

Originally Posted by Enderx

really nice write up, hopefully people will take heed.


Only thoughts after reading the entire thing twice:
1) Magic Leash: bind to another spell. personally i bind it to pet attack Good Idea.
2) Shadowstep > arcane minion IMHO so i put the extra points there. (cause im capped) I remember doing this, and then looking to see if I could find any hits of shadow step zone wide and couldn't. Tagrin also debuffs 40% casting speed, but still proably capped lol.
3) arcane barrier, 5 points instead of Enhanced mind of course! trololo Koncept can blow me. I get more power from 1 more point in Enhanced mind hahaha
4) change "Elemental Blast: lol" to "Elemental Blast: TW lol"

.

Fixed shadow step after going over ACT tonight.

+1 Ender!

Originally Posted by aniathor

Fixed shadow step after going over ACT tonight.


+1 Ender!

min/maxing baby

Thanks guys

what spell are you guys macro'ing shadow step to?

is there anything else in AGI that's worth using? i'm actually going down STR, AGI and INT and then the remaining in WIS and that's actually been enough to keep aggro off my pet, tho I'm obv giving up 10% health for the pet but overall i thought maybe AGI was worth it...

There is no way u can get teamwork, reanimate, detonation, and 10% pet health, which you are aware of. The pet agro caused by teamwork isn't preventable or affected by wisdom line, it's problematic when there are swarms of mobs spawning and the first thing they go for is your pet because teamwork causes your pet to immediately be in combat with them.

Furthermore, we are a DPS class, and 10% pet hp + shockwave is helping my parse a lot more than 5% potency and additional pet deaths.