So I thought after accepting the alchemist's quest that I'd check out the river encircling the town... well, I made it toward the northeastern side, and found that I was drowning, and didn't have enough air to make it back to dry land! So much for my character's questing...

Usually, playing a fighter is just not my style. Hack, slash, more hack, more slash, and someone dies. Well, this is not the case with the fighter here, as I was happy to find out yesterday.
Yes, it does include a lot of h&s. Aside of that, you also have crowd control abilities. On these first levels these are abilities that can stun or knockback. Both of these can be very handy if you find yourself cornered and attacked by several monsters at once. (Ever seen four or more 'h' monsters speeding up and running towards you, when you are standing in the middle of a huge room? It is frightening.)

My choice of skills included the following (and I try to keep spoilers low here):
Shield pummel: Can stun the enemy and offers decent damage.
Repulse: Knocks back and dazes your attackers (the ones that stand next to you). It won't work if someone or something is behind the monster though, so the usage is somewhat limited.
Rush: Very useful for ranged attackers (archers and mages both), partly because you move there in an instant, but the daze effect is also very handy.
Riposte: Attacking enemies for free is always a good idea. Especially when you are surrounded.
Overpower: An effective attack with an additional chance of knockback. Very useful.

So I've just unlocked the summoner yesterday, and decided to give it a go. As my previous experiences with Tome4 were only limited to getting a warrior up to lvl 11, I'd say I had no idea how hard it will be.. but I was able to survive the first 6 levels, and kill the boss in the first dungeon. This post is just a very simple strategy guide for those early levels for others who would like to try this class.

Level 1: Run!
The first rule of survival is simple: summon and run. Your main goal here is to get some weapon, which can be accomplished in two ways: one is to find a suitable weapon (it helps if you raise your str to 11), the other one is to collect enough useless stuff to sell them and buy one in the shop. For this, you need to explore the wilderness, but - because your are pretty squishy yet - the best possible tactic is to stay close to the entrance and flee if needed.
If you learn the turtle - which is a very good idea to do, btw - you can try to hold back single monsters. Summon it, wait until the monster starts to attack it, then run away a few steps. When the turtle disappears, summon your ranged pet a few steps away from the monster, and move again. Then the same with your wolf, next to the monster. You can repeat this until the monster dies or until your equilibrium prevents you from summoning. In that case (and the same for several monsters coming towards you at once) run to the entrance and leave the area.

Level 1-3: Deal damage
After you found at least one decent weapon, you can change your tactics. First of all, improve your ranged pet, so it will deal decent damage, and maybe also your turtle, so it will stay for a longer period of time. Now you can team with your pet: You can tank for your ranged pet, you can work together with your melee pet or you can deal damage while your turtle holds back the enemy. The damage you can deal together is now enough to kill a group of enemies - if they come one after another. Never stay in the open, always get to some corridor where you and your pet can hit, but there is space only for one enemy. A useful tip here: if you don't see any space where you can summon your pet, try to summon it on top the monster. If there is an open space next to it, your pet will appear there, even if it is behind the monster or outside of your LoS.

Level 3: Kill the troll
Now you should be able to kill that first boss. It helps if your cunning is 20+, but not required. Probably the easiest way is to run around and use your turtle to hinder it and your ranged pet to damage it.

All in all, the first levels of the summoners are not easy, but doable with a little patience. On the other hand, it's good fun, I really enjoyed it, and I suspect that the summoner can become really powerful after some levelling.

So I went to the last floor of the crypt with my cursed thalore. I thought I wouldn't make it without better speed, even with my charge and movement infusion, keeping in mind that I play an almost total melee character (excepting gloom bolts). The cultists and I had fun playing axe tag and I was surprised to see the BBED appear. While she let me trade blows with her I started planning to get -some- range options so I could avoid having to finish a chase.. and then she dropped arrows of unerring flight annihilation. I picked them up and the game crashed. Lol too much awesome?

The first bug: mindslayer uses his psi-fighting during "Movement" infusion. Because of this many dangerous bosses were killed by my character with using the simple scheme: use "Movement" and then go around the opponent during infusion effect.

The second bug: doomed shadow, created during "Movement" duration will be fast forever... And it can use not only psi-fighting but usual attacks too. So, my own character was killed ~8 times to the final death with this scheme.

Moral: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself."

PS. Mindslayer is unbelievable powerful, but has too much generic talents and not enought class talents. If you learn "Antimagic" branch, this disproportion becames even more notable.

PSS. Sorry for my english.

It's not the claustrophobic architecture or the hordes of the undead, it's because the place itself is a jerk. I just finished running the ruins with my lvl 30 Cursed, a cursed who received a voratun greatsword at lvl 20ish. He still takes it out of his pack sometimes to stare at wistfully, "If only you were an axe," he whispers to it nightly. So I enter the ruins and its like entering CRAZY BOB'S VORATUN WAREHOUSE. Just for fun I picked up every voratun weapon I came across and I now have a copy or three of every type of voratun weapon made, oh except NO axes of any variety. If you'd like I can melt down one of my three longswords and try to make you some voratun underpants because damn if I know what else to do with all this. Damn you elven ruins, DAMN YOU!

Wrathroot..

He's quite scary, actually, most of the bosses are. Well, my berserker Hajmin would think he would be able to take on ol' magical tree, even forgot to activate his dwarfly powers. If you don't know what happens to a berserker vs. a tree(may apply to most bare melee chars), perma-stun and freeze imminent. I show my face, hid.. barely made plans but to bash him in the face, showed myself again, and PEEK-A-BOO, it's Wrathroot. No biggie, I try to smack him in the face with a stun, and in flashes of like 10 or more frames, I was dead. Freeze and stun was my last known inflicted damage, as I couldn't scroll up to see how my ass was handed to me, but lesson learned, FEAR THE CASTERS.

tl;dr: My dwarf berserker phailed fighting Wrathroot. Note: Perma-stun and freeze.

Question is, how do I ensure that is doesn't happen again? Cold resist sounds like the most viable plan, but.. my manly dwaft was getting stunned right back, which tells me there isn't enough muscle or something in him.

O' well. YADS.. I forgot.. DS is death story.. whatever..

I've just cleaned out a level 52 vault in the Infinite Dungeon. Here is a partial list of what I found:

Light source:
'Gorofast'
Armor 0 Defense 4
Spell Save: 15
Blindness imm: 80%
Knockback imm: 5%
Light radius: 4
Increases all healing by 15%

Infusion/Rune
Regeneration 466 over 5 turns
Wild: 25% over 7 turns (i already have 30% over 8 turns though, and healing rune of 578)
manasurge rune (1312% over 10 turns, 65 instant mana)
controlled phase door rune [range 10] - my first one in 52 levels!!
heroism infusion: inc STR, DEX, CON by 8 for 13 turns
heatbeam: 360 over 5 turns

Amulet:
Shielding Voratun amulet
24% blindness
26% confusion

Enraging gold amulte
phsyical power 8
increases damage 8% physical

Rings:
titan's voratun ring: +10 con + 10 physical save

'Noonquill'steel ring
ATK 3

+ 2 MAG +3 DEX

Increases damage 8% lightning
light radius 3 (I already have Vargh, Elemental Fury, and Glory of the Pride though.)

Armour:
'Menik the Purecrack'
Physical Power: 5
Armour 4 Defense 2 Rnaged 0
Fatigue 7%
Damage on hit(melee) 10 fire 9 acid
Resistances: Lightning 15%, Nature 3%
Critical Damage Modifier: +0.10%
Increases physical save: 3
Physical Crit: 4%

radiant elven-silk robe of Linanil
defense 5
resists: 15%light, 12% darkness,
increases damage: 18% light, 14% darkness
regenerates 0.36 mana per turn
maximum mana 74
spell power 6, spell crit 6%
light radius 1

helmet:
prismatic drakeskin leather cap of trickery
apr 7
armour 5

+ 4 Dex +4 cun

reistances: 18% light, 20% darkness (needed as light damage down here is horrendous)

Gauntlets:
dwarven-steel gauntlets of attack
attack 17

Weapons:
elemental greatmaul of crippling (63-94.5 power, 4 apr)
63 power
Damage on strike: 18 fire, 19 ice, 29 acid 29 lightning
Physical crit when worn: 9%

elemental dwarvensteel greatmaul of daylight
power 32
damage on strike: 19 acid, 12 ice, 27 light, 15 lightning, 16 fire

slime-covered voratun greatmaul of corruption
power 68
damage on strike: 23 blight, 17 darkness, 51 slime (yes, 51!)
physical crit: 13%
see invisible: 25

'Turisatar' longsword
power 21
damage on strike 25 poison
when wielded:
atk 9

+ 5 Dex +4 cunning

regen: 1.5 hps/turn (mind you, I'm wearing Sanguine Shield...)
max stamina 25
increases all healing 15%

might drakeskin leather sling
power 52
increases damage: 32% physical

gems:
pearl x2
bloodstone
fire opal
lapis lazuli
Crystal Focus

arrows:
flaming shocking dragonebone arrow
power 52
18 apr
damage on hit: 20 lightning, 21 fire

and my favorite find yet, even though I can't shoot:
189 poisonous poisonous dragonebone arrow (yes, it says it twice!)
52 power
18 apr
damage on hit: 70 poison

There were about anoth 5-6 random artifacts (bows, great swords, armour etc), that I didn't bother to record!

On to level 53!

Finally saved Melinda from the corrupters, that damn quest has claimed more characters pride than any other. I think half of them die with that ignored scream still ringing in their ears. Level 23 Yeek summoner finally did it. The combination of dominate will and the ability to tie up multiple groups at once got me down to the girl and getting her out again was just a matter of safe summoning around corners to check for baddies. This dungeon made me fall in love with dominate, getting two companions out in the first actions was crucial to just about every encounter. It also made me realize the points I spent in war hound were a waste, the poor guys life doesn't scale at all. Even with maxed resilience he only has 196 which lets him pull off one hit before being toasted. All in all it was a lot of fun, and the most tense I've ever been during a video game.

Vimak the Cornac cursed was a powerful warrior casting his depression on his foes and though he rarely hit them with his powerful attacks in a battle of attrition he always won.

that is until he met a lvl 10, a lvl 11, and a lvl 12 rogue whilst trying to save a merchant. those enemies also had regen infusions and after much boredom and three wasted rezzes he sacrifices his life for nothing.