Testing Metal Grid Iron Golem Survivability:

General Discussion
1

So, with the latest patch notes if you summon an iron golem from charges it will stay on your account between games as long as you keep that item equipped when 2.5 goes live. This means if you make a golem from a more expensive item, you can keep it in between games. This also means a summon can give you an aura from certain items as well in addition to your own gear and mercenary. So, I thought I would go ahead and test to see how well this works even if we are still in 2.4. Let’s take a look.

So, for starters if we are running Metal grid, we get 400 to 450 AR, 25 to 35 all res, and 350 def. Additionally we get level 12 iron Maden and level 22 iron golem charges. Really not a bad amulet, if you are willing to give up +skills, life, mana, leech and FCR. So, it’s a decent choice on any physical based character who doesn’t need +skills. There are a number of good candidates, but I won’t list them all here. You can decide if it fits your build yourself. Now let’s take a look at the iron golem.

At level 22: Base Life 980
Def: 900
Damage 12 to 33
thorns damage 450%
AR 80

So, that’s our Golem, he also comes equipped wearing basically whatever item you made him out of. So, as he sits his def is not terrible, but for hell difficulty it’s not high enough. Likewise, his damage and base life are relatively on the low end. So, unless you are a necromancer, without synergies, his life expectancy isn’t amazing even if he is built from a really powerful item or if you can buff him up.

So, for this experiment I wanted to see how well I could keep him alive on players 1 on the hell difficulty online. So, I went with what I thought was my best chance which would be my druid. My druid is primarily a summoner supplemented with fury and a werewolf. My base skills are as follows.

Shape Shifting:
Werewolf: 1
Lycanthrope: 1
Rabies: 1
Feral Rage: 1
Fury: 20

Summoning
Raven: 1
Oak Sage: 20
Spirit Wolf: 20
Dire wolf: 14
Grizzly Bear: 20

I am not going to go through all my gear, but I am fielding 8 wolves, a maxed oak sage at level 34 which is 195% health, the bear, my merc and myself. So, there are a lot of targets drawing enemy fire and I am buffing up the golem’s health significantly. My mercenary is an Act 3 fire iron wolf wielding +3 enchant oramus robe, flickering flame, an ethereal spirit monarch, and law bringer. So, the golem also has level 37 enchant, a level 7 resist fire aura (102 %), and the sanctuary Aura stripping undead enemies of their physical protections. So, that was about the strongest chance I could assemble in an attempt to keep the golem alive.

I started doing runs on chaos sanctuary on players one and here are the results.

Golem 1: Bing Sz Wang Dacian Falx

So, not most people’s first choice, but it has moderate damage, freezes target and 5% chance to proc level 3 frozen orb. We made it up through the river of flame and got about halfway to Lord De Seis before this the golem got pinned and beaten to death by a bunch of death nights. He did manage to get off around 20 frozen orbs during his short life span. I should note I am not using teleport or CTA on these tests. But I do have decent gear for this build and no surprise. The golem died before any of my wolves went down.

Golem 2: Insight

So, for this one I had an ethereal colossus Valgue that I crafted an insight in. After all this would be a common pick as the runes are relatively affordable. It gives you a meditation Aura while freeing up your mercenary for something else. I will admit this particular golem hit pretty darn hard. It lived a good while two I managed to get two of the mini bosses brought down before infector finally drew a strong set of attributes and put him down. But, still there is some viability to this approach.

Golem 3: Paladin Resist Sheild:

So, maybe weapons don’t offer a lot of survivability. After all, aside from my merc’s hat this thing doesn’t have any resistances. In the Chaos Sanctuary that can be a problem. So, I’ve seen some people suggest a paladin shield for their high base resist. So, I grabbed one from my stash that had 4 sockets with a base of 31 all res and 174 def. I added 4 perfect diamonds and animated the stupid thing. So, at this point unless he gets hit with lower resist, he is completely immune to non-physical damage. Now, we did make it to diablo and the golem did survive the encounter.

That being said, this wasn’t a particularly practical idea as aside from being another body to draw fire he didn’t really do much. His thorns was next to useless given the physical resist on this difficult. Likewise, his 12 to 33 physical damage and the fire damage from enchant just weren’t enough to make a significant impact. If you want a golem that is going to stay alive this is a viable option. But all it’s going to do is draw fire. Probably not the best use of 4 perfect diamonds.

Golem 4: Lawbringer

So, I grabbed my merc’s lawbringer sword and swapped it for a hex fire shamshir. Then I turned his sword into the golem. This was really an interesting one. This gave the sanctuary Aura, and we had a lot of decripfy procs as we made our way up into the sanctuary. Unfortunately, my merc’s lawbringer wasn’t a high-end base and the golem died by the third seal. But this has some protentional on the offensive side. But lem runes are a little more expensive than some of the other stuff we have used so far.

Golem 5: Reaper’s Toll

Lawbringer worked pretty well, so I thought I would try one more. I had an extra reaper, not an ethereal one. But it worked well enough for a proof of concept. The golem did pretty well having life leech and procing decrepify every 10 seconds or so. However, again he didn’t make it through the whole sanctuary run as diablo’s lightning did my oak sage and the golem in.

Conclusions:

Well, there we have it 5 golems and 5 chaos runs. Aside from the paladin shield none of them lived through a player’s one chaos run. Now, again I wasn’t using teleport and I was doing a general combat clear. I am aware if you have enigma or are a sorceress. Having teleport to reposition and careful movement could in theory keep the golem alive better. That being said, this really is a general look at how it behaves in combat. I don’t think I could provide a stronger character in terms of supporting it outright. I trippled it’s health, provided 2 auras, level 37 enchant and gave the mobs another dozen targets to chew on.

That beings said, I am aware that if you made the golem out of some really high-end items or rune words. Then it could probably survive multiple areas. But overall, either the silly thing is too fragile or in the event it is built for survivability. Then it really doesn’t offer a whole lot than another body for the mobs to chew on. Likewise, nobody who isn’t theory crafting with hero editor is going to animate anything that costs more than an ist rune.

Metal Grid is certainly a solid choice for several builds given the def, resistances and AR boost it provides. Likewise, having the iron golem as an added body is a welcome addition to any class. However, it’s really not enough to make this a meta shifting strategy. The golem just isn’t going to live long enough to be worth making it out of something of substantial value. Instead, it’s just another body you can add to the field to suppliment whatever else you are doing. It’s a strategy that has some merits. But it’s not the new meta of the game by any stretch of the imagination. Thanks for reading replys and comments are always welcome. I would be curious to see if anybody else did any testing on this and what their results were.

7 Likes
2

If you make one out of Phoenix does it get an extra life?

1 Like
3

i think the idea not let the golem kill or tank enemy for you, i wont let enemy touch my iron golem. i think optimize are the one with enigma / teleport to reposition golem. if you cant kill enemy fast, enemy will kill your golem.
there a video by sweetphil in youtube, he test it.

4

This completely defeats the purpose of a meat shield pet…

1 Like
5

You should max ravens instead of fury. It provides good damage and “blind” which will keep your IG alive longer. But no synergy IG will die very fast, so you have to keep him safe with repositioning and never let him tank for you.

1 Like
6

Yes teleport helps a lot. And by a lot i mean F. ton of lot.

7

Fortitude on a weapon sounds promising - in theory. Bit expensive though, and no life leech.

This. + Oak is wasted, i never use it and my minions rarely die, and can be endlessly recasted if you switch to 1 point solar on demand.

And i switched from A3 fire merc to A1 fire merc with flickering and edge, which increases the ravens hit chance alot thanks to frequently casted inner sight, it’s really nearly always on every monster, and the prevent monster heal works great against bosses, even clone is easy for the summon druid with it.

8

I think a good way to keep your iron golem alive is to use act 2 with a holy freeze aura w/ flickering flame. I think you can increase the survivability @ chaos.

9

I should point out that this wasn’t meant to be an exercise in how to build a character to keep the iron golem alive. This druid is one of my ladder characters that I play quite often. If I am playing with lower level players on hell difficult, he makes a nice mobile safe space they can fall back to in order to stay alive. Likewise, there are some other options that we could theory craft to keep the golem alive better. But how many of them would be worth playing as your main strategy.

Overall, the Golem has 980 health and 0% resistances. Even on players 1 on the hell difficulty he is going to die in 4 to 7 hits from a stronger elemental attack if you don’t do something to up his health and survivability. Metalgrid is a perfectly viable amulet for a lot of builds. Likewise, there is enough random magical junk loot floating around you could keep a golem upright by resummoning him as you go for whatever purpose you want. It’s just this weird theory craft idea that you are going to build him out of an uber item and keep him around for a whole ladder season is a myth. 4 out of the 5 I built died on a players 1 chaos sactuary run. So, how useful is he really depends on the rest of your build and what purpose you want to serve.

10

I wouldn’t let my IG tank either, he would strictly be an aura slave.

11

Wait what?

Did they just stealth buff the Golems?

I checked the stats on D2Planner three days ago and it was 595 Life, and I recommended doubling the life for both the Iron and Fire Golem.

Checking D2Planner again, it now says 980 Life like you say. Fire Golem, Clay, and Blood Golem all have higher starting life now too. Clay has 275 starting life now instead of 175. Blood has 637 instead of 388. Fire has 1013 instead of 613.

Was D2Planner just wrong and they updated it? Or was there an actual buff in game?

12

My values were from the in game tool tip

13

I wanted to mention, if it hasn’t been pointed out by now, that Lawbringer on an A3 Mercenary is a complete and utter waste of a gear slot. Sanctuary Aura is exclusive to your A3 Mercenary when it comes to removing Physical Resistance on Undead. The A3 Mercenary rarely, if ever, swings its sword to proc the Decrepify curse on the Weapon so you’re not benefiting your Druid Summons one iota. You’d be better off plopping Spirit for the +2 Skills to bolster its Enchant and Fire Spells.

Also Heart of Wolverine > Oak Sage and Ravens are way better than you think. I’d also flip Dire/Spirit Wolf allocation due to how weak Spirit Wolves happen to be Offensively. That said, Iron Golem still could use some work but I’ve found that Defensive items tend to do better than Offensive ones since they will survive for longer. Weapons hit harder but you have Druid Summons for a reason.

1 Like
14

A couple of things, first the sanctuary Aura completely removes physical resistance from any undead in its radius. It doesn’t matter whether you have the aura or something else does. You are correct that only the merc gets the added damage to undead and decertify procs which are extremely rare. But it lets me use physical damage to kill any undead in the game.

My wolf is using an oath rune word in an ethereal cryptic sword for his primary weapon. That’s a 38 to 485 one handed base, which translates to 600 to 5200 with Fury. The bear is the summon that boosts damage, so I need to max him out. The spirit wolves deal 550 to 700 cold damage on each attack along with the 338 fire damage my merc adds to each of them. The bear and the dire wolves get this fire damage as well as myself. Between me and the bear I have plenty of physical damage. So, I went with the spirit wolves to add an elemental option to supplement my physical. Likewise, there are 5 spirit wolves to the 3 dire wolves.

My fire merc’s enchant offers 400% increased attack rating everybody and adds 300 fire damage to each attack I and my 9 minions make giving 3 elements in total. I am also running Medusa’s gaze for my shield which procs lower resist when I get struck. That ups the effectiveness of the fire from the merc and the cold from the spirit wolves. With level 15 feral rage combined with my fury damage and 4,400 health this guy is very durable. But, there are many different ways to build a druid. This is just what I settled on.

1 Like
15

It does work only for user of sanctuary.

16

and i think dont bring the golem to trav, definetly will die with hidra, wsk with ghost shooting lighting off screen, enemy that shoot lots of lighting bolt(?) or something that will kill melee fast. not all maps all viable in my prediction. also you need to quick kill enemy. if you slow kill, chance are enemy will kill u golem first.

1 Like
17

He has i think immunity to poison on hell or 90% res, his light res is 50%, others 0% so yeah, without summon resist skill its bad.

18

Good for bone nec which has short skill point.

19

I mean i get it hybrid builds are tempting, also like them alot, sadly 1.10 happened and indirectly weakened alot of the hybrid possibilities through synergies. + Druid is in general a bit underpowered compared to Paladin e.g.

My main in first season was summon druid and respec’d sometimes, and i tested variations in PTR before, so i run with poison creeper, wear forms, hurrican, and i got to say raven is (by far) the most effective build.

Ravens just deal an huge amount of damage, it’s like having 5 bears able to jump over obstacles using a direct path to an enemy. Not using ravens is a huge wasted potential.

And with ravens the rogue easily outperforms the iron wolf. She can also wear flickering flame and deal fire damage, so phys/cold dual immunes still dye quite fast.
Plus you don’t have to worry about losing enchant due recasting (and you want to reposition alot in labyrinth like levels).
Plus she can wear edge, which allows you to very easily kill d-clone.
Plus visual she fits really well into the pack :see_no_evil:
Plus, and this is the dot on the i that makes her a beast - she frequently casts inner sight, which is (besides A2 + Infinity) your only way to boost the ravens hit chance. For some boss monsters from 7x to 9x hitchance, which is an huge overall damage boost. And she really applies it frequently, everytime you encounter a new group it takes just very few seconds and everything sparkles.
And yes enchant sounds tempting, but the major fire damage is still where iron wolf fires directly, so :man_shrugging:t3:

And you don’t need an oak, your summons just don’t dye even without oak, except some extreme scenarios (Standing in Diablos lightning arc) but compared to necro, you can just recast them out of thin air. And if mana gets an issue you still can switch in demand from carrion to solar (Most of the time you don’t need any vine, i have carrion casted most of the time just as safety). I just went 20 raven + every synergy, 1 every vine, rest in HoW.

But yes it’s totally up to you how you play your druid, i can just tell you: pure summon is way more effective then primary summon hybrids.

20

doesn’t the blind from ravens just remove inner sight most of the time?