Convocation

Oh, the basic function of the skill is useful, don't get me wrong, especially for DB's super-slow minions. If you figure up to 74% increased duration from a 20/20 Increased Duration gem and 45% from the passive tree, you can have 119% increased duration, or 4.38 seconds on Convocation's heal. If under constant use, you're looking at 50hp per second.

I just feel like it's a missed opportunity for the designers not to include a reason to level the gem, as it's counter-intuitive to the entire gem-leveling system they built. With most gems, you're happy when they level up, because it means something.

Lovely skill, I just wanted to pop in and voice my support for it working with skeletons. While it is true that they don't usually follow the player, I think the utility of not having to re-cast them each room is far more valuable then what's gained by convocation not working on them.

Level 75 Witch summoner with most of the minion passives (Lord of the Dead, Death Attunement, all the "Grave" nodes) on Ambush.

Convocation so far has been a great utility spell for me, which mainly is just to recall my minions to me. The healing part is pathetic, but I figured that GGG might have wanted players to socket support gems with it. So I tried increased duration with it while leveling throughout cruel and it did an ok job keeping the zombies and spectres alive. Later on I could run vitality so I dropped the inc duration and instead just use it to recall my minions to me.

This skill gem works well for my minions so far in pathing "correction" , protecting and prolonging them, as well as de-aggro'ing me from mobs which manage to get through my army to me.

From what I gather, part of the reason this skill does not work (and possibly should not?) on the skeletons is because they are not really meant to follow you. They are just fire-and-forget meat shield, aggro magnet, and complimentary dps (with suicide bombing if you have minion instability) to your zombies and spectres. Neither is the healing part worth it for the skeletons since they will be spam- or totem-cast. I figure for summoners the player would just pop a rejuv totem or run vitality and some other defensive auras (not sure about the minion healing flasks) apart from spamming to keep the skeletons up. For Vaal skeletons, you are really supposed to somewhat skillfully time and place the spell since it is so powerful. I don't see GGG extending Convocation to either summon skeleton gems.

Having the spell working on skeletons just to save a few seconds from summoning them again in another room seems more of a quality of life issue to me. For me they get summoned all the time, and I'd rather not recalling them to me.

Having said that, I would love to see the cooldown reduced and increased healing potential as the gem levels.

For me it is one of the best skill gems for spectre summoner who uses Evangelists. Healing part of the spell is irrelevant with all those regenerate nodes all my minions are rarely killed.

Spectres are practically indestructible with their bauble and zombies and guardian (capped HP and all protections on them) I use like meat shield most of the time (skeletons i don't use at all). In that light Convocation is a good tactical spell to protect my self by wall of minions whenever I'me in trouble. Warping my self in middle of large group of mobs and casting convocation makes a short work of all enemies thanks to Evangelists + fast casting + Spell echo and several + damage support gems like minion damage, Add fire damage and increased area of effect when i'm not using rarity gem.

All in all this gem has brought some new strategies in summoners business, making that style of play much more interesting and safe and adding considerable speed to the play.

Add a bit of Flesh Offering and cursing totem (Temporal Chains) and Summoner becomes OP in all respects.

If I couple teleport skeletons queens decree would become way more useful, because you'd get use out of the long duration if you keep your skeles alive. Tankskeles would be tough to make but with the recent buff probably a fun build.

I got so thrilled about this skill when trying to make a pure Skeleton summoner, figure my face when i found out convocation doesnt affect minions that doesnt follow you...
but yea.. might be too good with a constant 14+ skelies and zombies too.

Hmm after looking at this thread, it seems that im not the only one who had plans with the Queens decree unique.
I guess there is room for an other unique as in "Your skeletons follow you"!

Figured I'd post my findings here.


I've always been an avid fan of the summoner builds. My first toon was a summoner, although failed, and my first and constant main through every league is always a summoner.
I recently rolled a Summoner in the new Standard league after a lengthy break and tried out Convocation. My friends and I would always joke that doorways are the bane of summoners because Zombies are too stupid to walk through the fucking doorway, however, Convocation makes that a non-issue. In fact, Convocation is also useful for focusing a mob out of a pack.

An example is the chaos bombers. They're always hanging in the back, however, running/Lightning Warping right back there and blowing Convocation is instant focus on the mob in question. Quite an improvement. Although I'd still prefer an AI rework.

The heal is pretty weak. I've been leveling the Gem since I got it and I'm only 50, however, it's nowhere near noticeable. Given the utility of the skill, I guess this is a decent compromise.

All in all, it's not bad. It takes up a gem slot but it's sorta worth it.

Is anyone else having problems with spectre and zombies not recalling to your location?

Since last nights patch, I have been unable to use Convocation to summon my Blink and Mirror arrow clones to my location.

I have been using Multi-trap, Blink/Mirror arrow, Weapon elemental damage, and Lesser Multiple Projectiles in a 4 linked Deerstalker boots. (to give me a 5l with trap) And a similar 5l setup on my chest (Bronn's Lithe)

I saw no mention of this skill allowing or disallowing Clones that are summoned from Blink/Mirror arrow to be "recalled" with Convocation in the latest set of patch notes either. Feels like a ninja nerf (even if its supposed to work this way, I would appreciate an official statement so I'm not left "waiting around" to play a very fun build.

Edit: I Just tested to see if This was a bug with the interaction between traps, the Minion Clones, and Convocation. When I removed the Trap variable, and summoned the Clones directly, Convocation is still not functioning as it did previously.

Does reduced duration decrease cooldown?

Also do multiple convocation's share the same cooldown?

I need it for a new build I just made. 8 Seconds drastically reduces my clear speed :p.