Hi! This is primarily a post to share some test results and findings about how summons from gear work (as opposed to summon powers), along with a build example of the kinds of zoo adventures they can (or cannot) take you on.

 

The Generalities

Most do not inherit regular damage stats (e.g. DR), or summon damage. About half are extended by both power duration and summon duration. Most are affected by the Mape Spear buff, making it a BiS buff. They all appear to inherit Summon Health, making Trident a BiS buff. The cooldowns for the next summon start immediately, not when the summon leaves. Some will remain spawned when the item is unequiped. There is a wide range of damage done, achievable uptimes, and usefulness. There is a wide range of swag. What each one is affected by/how they work is all over the place and if you want to know specifically you'll need to look at that individual item.

Attack powers and DoT powers appear to all roll for proc'ing the summons (with no internal cooldown), e.g. a basic attack against one mob will roll once, an area basic will roll for each mob hit, and a DoT will roll for each tick of each mob. Summon powers appear not to proc summons, e.g. Rocket's turrets. Characters like Strange and Rogue are likely able to build for massively higher hit counts than Rocket and have a lot more room to play with these items, some of which like the ARMOR Chaos artifact and Unique 2 Symbiotes are nice items/summons but too difficult to proc with Rocket. Signet of Frigga is untested, likely does nothing, but may be the only way besides Spear to notably boost gear summon damage and in a dream world multiplies with the spear buff for a significant increase.

 

The Info

Below is a chart including a knee-jerk overall tier rank, a general estimate rank of how often they can be present, which stats apply, etc. The damage numbers are a pretty rough estimate on the low end of what they put out over 10s, with a similarly measured lvl60 RR basic (nonfinal equipment) - while the numbers aren't a great data set, they were measured consistently so at least give a good estimate of where things shake out relative to each other. It's all low anyhow.

 

Tier

Uptime

Item

Type

Mob

Summ%

Duration

Cooldown

PowDur

SumDur

SummDR

PlainDR

Spear Buff

Persistence

ROUGH 10s Dmg Estimate

In Build

Notes

B

F

ARMOR

Artifact

Random

%1

20s

-

Y

Y

-

-

Y

-

?

Neat spawns, Summ% too low

S

B

Bandana

Artifact

Elektra

Sig

10s

30s

Y

N

Y

Y

Y

-

303k

x

A

A

AIM Dispenser

Artifact

Death Machines

%7

1m

10s

-

-

-

-

Y

-

22k

x

F

C

Squirrel Distress

Artifact

Squirrel

%15

30s

1m

-

-

-

-

Y

-

2.5k

A

A

Mask of Doom

Artifact

Doomdrones

%10

1m

10s

-

-

-

-

Y

-

31k

x

B

C

Shield Badge

Artifact

Shield Agent

%12

30s

1m

-

-

-

-

Y

-

37k

B

B

Symb Infestation

Artifact

Spawns

%10

15s

30s

Y

Y

-

-

Y

-

33k

C

A

Wundagore

Artifact

Raptor

%15

60s

10s

-

-

-

-

Y

-

24k

A

F

Sharabus

Artifact

Demons

Sig

30s

5m

-

-

-

-

Y

-

26k

x

D

C

Raptor stone

Artifact

Raptor

%10

30s

1m

Y

Y

-

-

Y

-

20k

F

Broken crown

Artifact

Lokillusions

HP<30%

3s

30s

-

-

-

-

-

10k

S

S

Wizard ID

Artifact

Wizard

Sig

25s

30s

Y

Y

-

-

Y

-

110k

x

A

A

Fury

Insignia

Shield Agent

Heal

30s

30s

Y

Y

-

-

-

Y

44k

x

Seems to crit a lot, can get multiple

A

S

Insig of Groot

Insignia

Sapling

%10

30s*

15s

Y

Y

-

-

-

Y

70k

x

Slow to spawn, really 25s duration

C

C

MoleMed

Medallion

Moloid Bounder

%3

30s

1m

-

-

-

-

Y

-

54k

x

B

B

Sinister

Medallion

Clones

%2(x3)

30s

3x1m

Y

Y

-

-

Y

-

10.5k

x

Multiple, hard to gauge dmg

A

C

Fire Giant

Unique 1

Fire Giant

%5

30s

1m

-

-

-

-

-

-

80k

x

Pathing struggles

D

C

Claws Sisters

Unique 1

Winged Demon

HP<40%

20s

1m

Y

Y

-

-

Y

-

17k

Absorbs 10% dmg (untested)

A

B

Doomsday Chair

Unique 2

Headwalker

%5

30s

1m

Y

Y

-

-

Y

-

19k

x

A

A

Eidolon

Unique 2

Drone

%9

30s

-

-

-

-

-

Y

-

16k

Will get multiple out

A

A

Symbiote Infest

Unique 2

Symbiote

%4

30s

?

-

-

-

-

-

Y

76k

B

C

Girdle

Unique 3

FrostGiantShaper

%5

30s

1m

-

-

-

-

-

-

58k

x

S

C

Trask

Unique 5

Sentinel

%5

30s

1m

-

-

-

-

-

Y

83k

x

Large AoE

S

C

Omega Blaster

Unique 5

Sentinel

%5

30s

1m

-

-

-

-

-

83k

x

A

C

Mask of Algrim

Unique 5

FrostGiantSpear

%5

30s

1m

Y

Y

-

-

Y

54k

x

Big McLargehuge

 

The APM

A handful of summons do not despawn when the item is unequipped, meaning you can hotswap it to another summoning item to try and double up the screen clutter per slot. For example, pictured below: Using a Nick Fury insignia to spawn a SHIELD Agent on medkit use and swapping to a Groot insignia during the cooldown, briefly swapping back to Fury when the cooldown is up (timed by sig use cooldown), coupled with Power and Summon Duration to get 4 spawns from one slot.

Sentinel brings his mvc2 energy with the Unique 5 Team Big slot getting the most from unequip persistence. Pictured below: Omega unique spawning Sentinel, swapping to Trask which works independently for another Sentinel, and to Algrim (+dur%!) for the 3 biggest summons from one slot.

Some tips to maintain 'channeled' DPS and summon uptime: Position yourself NE of the enemy, use C instead of I to open inventory to keep the team-up box off the screen, and instead of shift-click free aiming, click and hold on the enemy to aim which allows you to have the mouse cursor near the item you'll be switching to (and provide some mental buffer time), and switch as fast as you're able to release click, right-click the item to swap, and click on the enemy again. For artifacts, you're able to swap into the third slot with right-click.

 

The Build

What's in the builder is what I keep slotted most of the time to balance stats, screen spam, and effort. In inventory I keep ready: Fire Giant's Sword unique 1, Mole Man medallion, Girdle of Strength unique 3, Sharabus artifact, Insignia of Groot, Trask Helm unique 5, and Mask of Algrim unique 5.

I also keep a duplicate power set trading Minigun & Shoot and Run for Photon Pistols basic & M78 Plasma Launcher. Minigun is better for higher DPS and # of hits vs. a single target (terminal farm) and a more interactive rotation, piercing basic with AoE is better for multi-target (patrols) and is a LOT more chill to play really without much DPS loss even vs. a single target. Real world time difference example AIM terminal start to Wizard TTK of 1:04 for minigun, 1:14 for basic.

To activate Racc the Stampede mode the rotation is:

Slot FireSword, MoleMed, Giant, Shar > Vuln, turrets, AoE, Sig > During sig animation medpack and swap GrootInsig > Ult

Start watching for spawns: FireGiant, GiantIce, Moloid, Sentinel.

Use Sharabus demons leaving to time momentarily swapping FuryIns in to medkit, and swapping Sharbus out. The ult countdown now works to time the Sharabus cooldown, especially with sufficient ult buffs.

As any FireGiant, GiantIce, or Moloid despawns, swap their item out.

When an Omega Sentinel spawns swap to Trask, when one spawns swap to Algrim, and when GiantSpear despawns swap back to Omega.

There is a lot of burst spawn at the start of that, however as shown below (sans Sharabus) quite a bit can continually be out on the map.

 

This Is What It Looks Like