Please, recommend a good pet build. This build must have:
1. Good tanking pet. It might be just one pet, but it must be able to endure a lot of damage and grab attention of foes.
2. Character must have half-decent ranged casting abilities.

Edit: can nature healing spell be used on pets?

I have a pretty good pet build

Nature & Dream, 3wolfs + 1 dryad get dmg boost by dream pet which is also a tank.

Yes you can heal pets also.

First difficulty they are going to die easily, when you get to elite and legendary, pets start to shine.



Plague also weakens the enemies considerably :P

The single best tanking pet is probably the core dweller in the earth mastery, since he has quite a few immunities, a skill to boost his hp and resistances, and the ability to draw aggro. Second would be the lich king in spirit since he has undead immunities and the ability to heal itself by leeching life.

The problem is that all pets become very squishy in Acts 3/4 normal, and only get good in epic/legendary thanks to the huge boosts they get there. So it would be a good idea to focus on your own ranged dps abilities first, dropping a single point in the pets you want to serve as a distraction, then get to work on being a real summoner when you get to epic difficulty.

I'd advise you to get earth/nature, focus on earth enchantment + volcanic orb and their synergies first with a few points in eruption for bosses. Then once you're satisfied with your fire spells, work on both the core dweller and the wolves so they're ready to shine when you get to epic.

After reading more about it I think I will go earth/nature, it seems exactly what I want.

On the highest difficulty, it is extremely difficult to even get to the last boss of the OC campaign with that build.
I have it and used it to great effect before hand, but it's just horrible trying to get through this level with all the life eating enemies.

The core dweller survives one life sucker and then it has to be resummoned.
Multiple lifesuckers and it auto-dies after a short time, then you die.


Ah and that ridiculously overpowered boss.... all pets are useless against it.
It is the worst designed boss I've ever fought.
Though from what I understand, originally it was pretty well designed.

Yes, after the redesign I had no qualms ever about turning on God Mode for that one fight.

By life-eating enemies you mean those who deal %-based damage and several times almost killed my testing character with over 1 million Health? Good thing I also had 10k in all stats.

Yeah I am ready for problems. I have already completed the game by my testing character. So I won't be much upset if I find some fights/enemies/bosses unwinnable with pet reliant build.

How does one turn that on? That's good.
It is the ONE battle in the entire game which I cannot legitimately win.
Even with the whole rotating enemy thing, the second Typhon battle is totally doable.

Core Dweller (Earth Mastery) is the only reliable tank pet. Earth mastery also has a lot of damage spells, so you could do Earth + (anything) if you wanted spell casting and a tank. (Hunting, Warfare, and Defense are not caster-friendly, though Hunting has a nice debuff and Defense has some survivability passive stuff, but can be boring)

Nature has wolves and the Dryad, as well as healing and an aura. It is the best tree for full summoning, but can get ripped apart in between bet health rewards. (I think they make you complete Act 3 and then the entire campaign to get your two buffs) Wolves tend to die a lot, but I haven't played enough on Anniversary Edition to really know if they're viable or not now.

Earth + Nature = full Summoner, and you can invest in Earth spells for damage if you choose. If you do not want want to do as much direct damage, then the Dryad is the superior DPS pet.

Earth + (magic) = spell damage + tank. Spirit has a good pet as well.

I can recommend earth and nature.
Earth has the core dweller which is not only a tough bastard, but he also provokes enemies so they don't attack you very often.

Earth:
Summon Core Dweller: (Rank: 16 of 16)
- Inner Fire: (Rank: 8 of 8)
- Wildfire: (Rank: 1 of 12)
- Metamorphosis: (Rank: 1 of 8)
Eruption: (Rank: 12 of 12)
Earth Enchantment (still not sure how much I can/should invest)


Nature offers you wolves, a nymph and several support abilities, not to mention the plague which weakens and slows down enemies (not as good as the curse of frailty from Grim Dawn though).

Nature:
Call of the Wild: (Rank: 16 of 16)
- Maul (Rank: 1 of 12)
- Survival Instinct (Rank: 1 of 16)
- Strength of the Pack (Rank: 6 of 12)
Plague (Rank: 8 of 8)
- Fatigue (Rank: 8 of 8)
- Susceptibility (Rank: 8 of 8)
Heart of Oak (still not sure how much I can/should invest)


Items:
Get a fire staff (earth enhances fire) and equipment that increases your pets.
As weapon, I use a fire staff which adds +2 to the core dweller and does 100 damage.
My armour adds +2 to all skills which means that I can summon three wolves instead of 2.
The cursed pearl set (a ring, an amulet and some bracers) strengthens my pet.

Any ideas how I can further improve my build?