Builds / 8 min read
Summoner Guide: Necromancer and Summons
The Summoner is one of the seven base classes the Steam store page lists for SpiritVale, and this site's class atlas pairs it with the Necromancer advanced specialization. Official notes have changed how summons behave more than once — 0.31.0 added a Bond Targets stat and gave every book Bond Targets, while 0.33.0 adjusted skeleton mages. This guide keeps those published statements separate from community claims about the strongest companion setup.
What the official sources confirm about the Summoner
The Steam store page lists seven base classes — Acolyte, Mage, Summoner, Knight, Warrior, Scout and Rogue — and says players "Unlock unique skill trees and advanced specializations as you grow". Necromancer appears in the same listing as one of the advanced specializations, alongside Priest, Wizard, Paladin, Berserker, Gunslinger, Shinobi and Weaver. That is the full extent of the class description on the store page: it publishes no skill list, no summon table, no stat growth curve and no tier ranking. Everything below therefore comes from dated patch notes rather than from a description of the class, and anything you read elsewhere should be traced back to a patch note or to your own client before you act on it.
Bond Targets is the stat 0.31.0 added for summons
The 0.31.0 Dark Fortress notes state that skill splash no longer affects Bonds, and that a new stat called Bond Targets was introduced in the same update. The same notes list six separate entries that grant Bond Targets: all books give +1, Oathbound Artifact Set gives +1, Spirit Familiar and Chains of Binding each give +1, Soulbinders Armor Set gives +2, and the Weaver Card Combo gives +1. Read that list as a set of levers rather than as a build. The notes do not publish a cap, a stacking rule, or a formula that converts Bond Targets into a damage number, so any claim about an optimal Bond Targets total is not something the developer has stated. What the notes do establish is that the stat is granted by books, by two named armor or artifact sets, by two named summons or skills, and by one card combination — which is enough to know that a summoner's Bond Targets investment spans several systems at once.
How summons behave after 0.31.0
Three changes in the same patch affect how a summon acts rather than how much it hits for. First, summons now take 50% less splash damage, and the notes define splash damage explicitly as damage from attacks that were not directly targeted at them — a definition worth keeping, because it tells you what the change does not cover. Second, summons now auto attack and cast at the same time, which removes the either-or behaviour a companion previously had. Third, the Wraith summon had its stats reshaped: Str moved from 30 to 45 and Luk from 45 to 30. The patch also added summon all stats +1 per refine to the Necronomoicon, and made Grimoires character bound. None of those entries says how the changes combine, and none of them claims a damage ranking, so the honest reading is that summon uptime and summon survivability both improved while the Wraith's attribute split changed direction.
What 0.33.0 changed about skeleton mages
The 0.33.0 Halloween Event notes devote a short section to the summoner archetype, headed "Necro Nerf skele mages, to be more in line with other builds". Two named entries lose one skeleton mage each: Dancing Dead and Bone Choir. The same section lists three fixes — summons were not auto-attacking sometimes, summons were able to use Burning Rage, and reanimation could be used with Dancing Choir. It is worth separating the two kinds of statement. The skeleton-mage reduction is a deliberate balance change aimed at aligning the archetype with other builds; the fixes are corrections to unintended behaviour. A player reading the section as a general nerf to summons would be overreading it, because the developer named skeleton mages specifically and left the 0.31.0 summon behaviour changes in place.
Cards the notes document for this path
0.31.0 gives three concrete entries for a summoner. The Summoner Card accessory grants +5 summon all stats, and the Necromancer Card weapon grants +5 All Summon Stats, with the Weaver Card Combo adding +1 Bond Targets on top. The Necro Master Card, a head slot item, grants +2% mdef pierce per refine. Note the shape of those entries: two of them are flat additions to every summon's stats, one is the Bond Targets lever described above, and one scales per refine. Because the values are tied to refine counts and to specific slots, comparing a card by name alone tells you nothing — a +5 summon all stats card and a per-refine stat are not interchangeable, and the notes give no conversion between them.
Minions in the 0.34.0 fix list
The 0.34.0 PvP Conquest notes include, among the fixes, "Snapshotting exploits with necromancer minions". That sentence is the only minion reference in the update, and it is recorded as an exploit fix rather than as a balance change. Two practical consequences follow. Any guide written before 0.34.0 that relied on snapshot behaviour to produce a number is describing behaviour the developer has closed, and any observation you make now is being made against the corrected version. The same update also states that damage to and from element mods no longer works on Players and Summons, and that this affects Faith as well — a change that lands on summons regardless of class. Check both entries against the version you are playing before comparing a result from before October with one from after.
Advanced Grimoires for a summoner
The 0.32.0 update introduced Advanced Grimoires and states how they are made: craft at class masters using the matching artifact set, 25 Masterwork Cores and one corrupted core, and the result is account bound. The 0.33.0 notes then reduced the Grimoire crafting cost from 25 Masterwork Cores to 20. For a summoner, that means the Grimoire route runs through content rather than through the market, because the box that produces advanced artifacts drops from A-rank and S-rank maps at a stated 0.1% rate and dismantling an advanced artifact is what yields a Masterwork Core. The artifact sets guide on this site walks through that acquisition chain in detail; the point to carry into a build plan is that a Grimoire purchase price is really a quantity of ranked-map clears.
Leveling and party maths are class-agnostic
Nothing in the published EXP rules distinguishes one base class from another. The 0.32.0 ranked-map table applies the same multipliers to every class — x3.00 at S tier down to x1.00 at D — and the over-level bonus of +2% EXP per level with a +30% cap is likewise stated without reference to class. The 0.34.0 notes then clarify party sharing: under Each Take there is no bonus and each member is paid by the damage they dealt, while under Even Share each member adds +20% EXP and +10% gold and drops, with EXP and gold shared evenly across the whole map. For a summoner specifically, the Each Take rule is worth re-reading, because a companion dealing damage is the case where the two modes diverge most visibly. Use the leveling guide for the published route arithmetic, then measure your own clear rate rather than copying another class's map choice.
A re-check routine for the next patch
Write down four things whenever you change a summoner setup: the patch version, whether the target is PvE or PvP, the refine level of any card or set you are relying on, and the activity the setup is meant to solve. Then, when a new note lands, re-read only the parts that mention summons, Bond Targets, the Necronomoicon, the named armor sets, the class cards or minions — those are the surfaces this archetype has actually been changed on. Keeping the version next to each note is what makes the next balance pass a bounded question instead of a reason to rebuild the character from scratch.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Necromancer in SpiritVale?
Necromancer appears in the official Steam store page listing as one of the game's advanced specializations, and this site's class atlas pairs it with the Summoner base class. The store page does not publish the unlock requirements or a skill list, so confirm those in your own client.
What are Bond Targets in SpiritVale?
Bond Targets is a stat introduced in the official 0.31.0 notes, in the same update that stated skill splash no longer affects Bonds. Those notes list six sources of it, including +1 from all books, +1 from Oathbound Artifact Set, +2 from Soulbinders Armor Set and +1 from a Weaver Card Combo.
Did SpiritVale nerf summons in 0.33.0?
The 0.33.0 notes head the summoner section 'Necro Nerf skele mages, to be more in line with other builds' and list Dancing Dead and Bone Choir each losing one skeleton mage. The same section also fixes summons not auto-attacking, so it is a narrower change than a general summons nerf.
How much splash damage do SpiritVale summons take?
The 0.31.0 notes state that summons take 50% less splash damage, which the same entry defines as damage from attacks not directly targeted at them.