A direct message to Adam Jackson

First of all, I want to apologize if it reads strangely, since I don’t speak English and I use a translator. Also, if I use expressions that are out of tone or place, since as I comment on details I may get angry.

This message is direct to Mr. Adam Jackson.

Have you tried any minion setups that actually work?
I mean in “complex” situations, a level 100 dungeon for example.

The moment you try it you will realize that there is not only a general flaw about the necromancer…

I explain:

  • The first section is that we have passives that improve “not using minions” apart from the buffs corresponding to each of the sacrifices.
    Why is using minions so punished then?
    From having improvements everywhere by not using minions, we now have a dozen useless punching bags.

  • I have done hundreds of tests, pure minions, dot minions, overpower minions, thorn minions, curse minions… And none of them seem to work.

The reasons are the following:

  • Starting from the base. When you do not use minions you get many improvements, when you use minions those improvements become - 70% (that is, the 30% of benefits that the minions obtain) In other words, you lower all your damage, critical, everything, 70%

-Who came up with three Glyphs just for minions? In the end what you achieve is to consume all your paragon to improve them. Starting from the fact that you have lowered everything by 70%. In the end you manage to improve it by -68% at most.

  • By consuming so many glyphs, you become a paper being. You have nothing to endure. If you have bone storm, if you have blood mist…

But in the end you are forced to divert so many upgrades to your minions, that you are worthless.

In the end it means that with mobs, your minions are certainly competent. When an elite comes to you with afflictions like “waves of fire” “dome” the minions drop like flies, you can’t do anything, until you run out of corpses and die because of the elite.

All this, having 70% cap of all the elements. Even 81% with pants and buffs. They fall the same, they have no resistance of their own

  • The AI of the minions. It’s quite lazy, yesterday without going any further, I was doing a dungeon and I got out of “Break the three bells to continue advancing” they don’t hit unless they are hit. So I had to take out a primary skill (since my buils are the typical curse + cadaveric explosion) and hit her with the scythe for more than 5 minutes, while she alternated it with a bone shield.

In the middle of the fight, you see the Golem without hitting anyone, running like a headless chicken, losing a lot of dps. And several still skeletons waiting for a space. At the end of having 13 minions in use there are 5 or 6.
And you drop that by 70%… Anyway…

  • On the other hand, although you have two passives that improve various aspects of your character when you do not use minions, you have to choose 3 passives to improve your minions (an improvement that is not really appreciated) Apart from losing two skill slots.

How could this be improved?

  • Improve the minions and see little by little what happens. You could change their attributes from 30% to 60% (It should be remembered that when there was the massive nerf patch, the minions also suffered and it is not the same as taking away 30% of your base damage (For example, of your 10,000 attack, you will lose 3,000)
    To remove 30% of your base damage and from the remaining 70%, inherit 30%) Example: 10000 base - 30% = 7000 30% Minions inherit = 2100
    Must take into account. than by inheriting so little. No matter how many percentages we add, it is not cumulative, it is additive.

That is, if you have 10,000 life, attack and defense.
They inherit 3000.
Of those 3000 you put 60% more damage, for example:
3000 + 60% = 1800 / 1800 + 3000 = 4800 (We use 4800 as a base)

Then you add 40% more attack:

  • The correct way would be:
    4800 + 40% = 1920 / 4800 + 1920 = 6720

  • That doesn’t happen, it happens like this:
    3000 + 40% = 1200 / 4800 + 1200 = 6000
    What happens with this? In the end you have thousands of afflictions to improve your minions, but they still die in one hit. Because it always starts from your base and not from the accumulated base.

  • The main problem is the paragon, instead of three glyphs unify them into one, we already have paragon sections for warriors/mages and Golem, in the end it results in so much of the same thing that that is why the minions do not work.

You could use the two remaining glyphs to increase defenses and another attack, both with conditions.
Example: You increase your life and defense and that of the minions and golem. As long as you have minios and Golem.
Another Glyph: Whenever you have Minions active, your base damage increases and that of your minions, but your Basic abilities will receive 40% of this Glyph.
This way you grossly increase your life, damage and defense. But it is to improve the minios. In the end your character should be a kind of tank that is only good for releasing minions and debuffing.

  • Minions do not have the ability to dodge, which is why their life must be increased significantly. You see how your minions during a poison elite and a fire elite, their lives magically disappear.

  • They attack automatically, by throwing a curse or non-direct blow at priority targets. Example:

  • 1 Rank: Enemies alive.

  • 2 Rank: Inanimate objects with life

  • 3 Rank: Inanimate objects.
    So what you would do is that when a vampire type enemy comes, they attack him, at the moment he becomes immune (They do not detect life) and attack the vial. And once the fight is over, clean the area (Bells for example)

  • Another detail would be to unify the two skills (Resurrect skeletons and Golem attack into one)

3 Likes

Try Mendeln Ring Summoner…

Try with Xfal’s Corroded Signet…

Current design is to have you and your minions survive while everything explodes from Ring of Mendeln and Xfal’s Corroded Signet. Spice it up with Black River’s awesome stats.

You missed Season 1. Most of your upgrades are on you and you wipe the whole screen over and over with Barber + Mendeln Ring explosions.

Release the Unique that would let us use Kalan’s Edict even if we have incurred damage. But I dont think Ring of Mendeln would go away. But it would be fun to use infinite Kalan’s Edict plus the ring.

How are you? Thanks for your answer, but ignore the mendel and x fal because they are necessary in many builds

That is, all these builds are tested with mendel, x fal, Harlequin Crest…

The problem comes down to what you yourself say, in the end the minions become secondary and you are the source of damage.
Removing where the damage comes from, the minions in a fight against elites fall instantly,

And yes I did season one with barber and bone prison “pool”.

I forgot to tell you about the Edict of Kalan, I already tried it, first based on videos and then changing to my liking.

Look, I leave you a compilation of a build I did with Sever.
At most my minions have reached 2 million each.
What is my complaint then? I have to use resurrecting corpses as my main one, to get mana and secondly because they don’t stop dying.
d4builds.gg/builds/bf97b930-d93d-4703-9769-39b0250c9f9b/
Likewise, do not take it into account as something direct, there are tests that exist and I make a thousand changes, be they glyphs, paragons, etc.

That’s the most damaging one I’ve gotten in terms of “minion damage.”
But in the end you either refer everything to improving yourself or you refer everything to improving the minions (And the latter does not work directly)

All the best

1 Like

Working as intended as that is how it is designed. All D4 builds depend on the power of the items. And the main item for the Summoner is “The Ring of Mendeln”. I am fine with it and I find using it fun. I prefer this heavy Actions-Per-Minute gameplay than to have an AFK summoner. Do I want minions to kill everything without pressing keys like AFK? That’s boring.

Their design to me is okay. I had fun on Season 0 and Season 1 with it. I started late on Season 2. I was a Summoner from level 1until level 55 when I killed Capstone Elias to enter WT4. It dropped me a Lidless Wall shield. I looked at how I would get Ring of Mendeln. I know it could drop anywhere but the Beast on Ice at level 85 is the best source to drop it. How would I kill it without decent items? With Lidless Wall? Lidless Wall means sacrifice all my minions and that’s what I did. I made a Blood Lance Build and I indeed kill Beast on Ice at level 85… and it dropped me the Ring of Mendeln.

But I started to like the Minionless Lidless Wall shield gameplay. I just reached level 100
last night and the same Lidless Wall shield that I got from Capstone Elias when I was level 55 is still the one I am using. There were 3 more drops of Lidless Wall on me and the one from Capstone Elias has the bess stats-roll. I would switch to Summoner when I am done with my Minionless Blood Lance build later before the Season ends.

The Summoner on D4 is not bugged. It’s the feature. You guys just dont want to adapt. And that’s on you. Stop being entitled. D4 Summoner will never become D2 Summoner.

1 Like

I don’t agree with what you say.
Keep in mind that yes. You’re fine, of course you can make infernal tides etc. The problem is that you can’t make high content.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no intention of making a zir with minions…
But try it when you’re bored. Look at all the minion builds on YouTube and look for one that teaches you how to clean a level 100 area. There aren’t any. I’m talking about pure minions

If you play with minions enough in level 85 dungeons (I have reached 92) but 80 or 85 you will see that the minions are always left over, because they do nothing. The only thing they can do is pass your damage through Mendel’s explosion… But little more and that’s where luck comes in… I have 35% luck… Good luck if I see several

I have several level 100 necros. One is for making end game content… Use is bone shield with wall + flashing steps and dots. And basically you walk through the dungeons

But then there is none of my favorite which is with minions
The reason for my obsession with this type of builds is that I come from Diablo 3, being with the witch doctor and I miss builds of that type.

greetings

1 Like

The Problem -this isnt D3 and necromancer aint No witch doctor…end of Story

maxroll.gg/d4/planner/nf32309b

if you just want pure minions you can make this build, clears NMD100 pretty easily, just slowly. If you want a slightly faster clear, you can also switch out the blighted aspect, put unyielding commander on gloves and equip mendeln and take kalan’s edict for a less pure but still idealistically pure^^ minion build. You can even kill NMD100 butcher if you have boots with “attacks reduce evades CD by X”, but it takes about 20+ mins to do it LOL.

with regard to the vampiric powers, hemomancy seems like a bad choice, but this is purely a barrier generator, as each hit from that ability generates 650+ barrier depending on gear. if you don’t need the extra barrier gen, take Ravenous for the extra attack speed.

Anyways its not for the faint hearted, gear and 21 glyph levels are mandatory!

For For Unknwn:
First of all, if you are going to talk nonsense and not contribute anything, don’t enter
End of story.

I think I have explained the necromancer’s shortcomings very well. If you only stick with the last sentence, skip this post and go to LOL where you will find people more similar to you.
I also mention the minions in this game, what’s the problem with me complaining about a function of the game that works poorly?

On the other hand, mentioning Ralph
Thanks for the contributions, I’m looking at the build.
I’m going to try it and tell you.
As for the level 100 butcher… I know, the build from necro to just a bone shield takes a long time too.
But if I get a solid build (let’s say solid, regardless of time) I greatly appreciate it.

Greetings and thanks again

1 Like

just lower your expectations of how fast it clears, you can hit a slow map and it can take 22-25mins, other maps maybe 10 on a good day.

Also everyone in AoZ has been saying “omg i now have to watch for monster abilities etc”, yeah I have been doing that since NMD80+, so you cannot just faceroll anything with it. But for me with no frame of reference, it was enjoyable to keep iterating on it and work my way up to my goals that I set myself before hte season of:
Using a pure minion necromancer build where the vast majority of my damage comes from minions.

  • Complete a NMD100 - Complete
  • Kill Butcher on a NMD100 - Complete
  • Kill uber lilith - failed. (its possible with more skill and reaction speed, sadly im lacking in both)

Working as intended. Minions wont work as themselves. Your Necro has to help them. That’s the design.

At level 70, what could you get? Howl from Below, Bloodless Scream and/or Greaves of Empty Tomb. It’s better than your Pure Summoner (which never exist in actual btw… Fueled by Death has Corpse Explosion… if you use this, you’re no longer a Pure Summoner. Who are you joking?).

At level 85, you could could get Razorplate, Temerity and of course, the Ring of Mendeln that could enhance your Summoner build. At level 90, you could start getting kills on Duriel and get Black River and the new Unique goodies.

35% is your Necro’s Luck. Corpse Explosion has 53% Lucky Hits. Blight has has 53% Lucky Hits. And Tendril has 27% I think. So if you do Corpse Explosion, you would have 88% chance (53%+35%) to proc Lucky Hits. If you do Blight, you would have 88% (53%+35%) chance to proc lucky hits. If you do Blight and Corpse Explosion together, you could proc 106% (53%+53%) lucky hits. And you know there is this called Metamorphosis Vampiric Power that has inherent lucky hits chance? What Summoners do now is proc Corpse Explosion (Blighted) and Metamorphosis, and it gets you a guaranteed Mendeln Proc.

Of course, you want to AFK. You want to proc Mendeln by itself. But that’s not how it is designed. YOU HAVE TO ADAPT.

As I said earlier, I havent played Summoner yet above level 55. But I am very excited to have it becoz I have some tons of theories in my mind that I want to see with the Summoner.

Since the gameplay is around Lucky Hits which is how it is designed, adapt and play it. Spam Corpse Explosions, Spam Blight, Spam Metamorphosis… And add Xfal’s Corroded Signet which also plays around Lucky Hits. You would see two sources of Million Damage Explosions… Mendeln and XFal’s.

But no, you want your non-existing Pure Summoner who wears nothing. ROFL. Even the Ball Sorcerer, if he wears no Unique, he would be garbage. ROFL.

BTW, I was a Witch Doctor too on D3. I was blowing Bosses there with Jade Harvester, the first set that they released. Pet builds and Pet Set Gear appeared later. Maybe your Kalan’s Edict Unique or Pet gear would be released on next seasons. But it’s non-existent right now. But I would still say NO to AFK Summoner.

1 Like

These Guys Just dont want to understand, lost cause…they want their Fantasy which doesnt exist…they dont want to Adapt, they want the Game to Adapt to them. Which IS as ignorant und delusional AS IT gets…

You’ve been posting this info. You know what. It motivates me. If a garbage build could do that (a build with no Uniques), what more if I play a build that uses all the overpowered toys/Uniques of the game. It would be a carnage. It excites me. ROFL.

D4 summoner SHOULD be like D2 summoner. D2, we can read minion stats, relocate them via Enigma, have better and more aggressive minion ai, can actually end game, and get to have 30+ skeletons on the map depending on how many +skeleton charms and gear you find. (I literally have my inventory filled with + charms to get 21 Skeleton Warriors and 14 Skeleton Mages.)

Cool Story now lets Go Back to d4

1 Like

tbh D2 minions were not that great and the mages were really bad. Revives were solid for uber trist as they had crushing blow, so a well geared summoner could delete uber meph really fast. Overall though, most clear was done by corpse explosion, just bosses etc were minions.

However what I did enjoy was snap shotting my skeleton warrior level at 51 or so, then switching to a more useful setup with beast runeword etc. You lost a few skeletons by doing this, but they kept the level. So in the end I recall running with 15/15 warriors/mages all level 50-51, with fanaticism, might, and conc.

found a video from early D2R doing uber trist on my summoner.
uber trist with summoner

this is not how math works

4800+40% =6.720
1920 / 4800 + 1920 =1920,4
6720 and 1920,4 are not the same

3000+40%=4200
1200/4800+1200 =1200,25

translaters normaly dont mess up math so i just dont understand what u are calculating there

Good thanks again for the comments.

  • Mention for MrCute512:
    Yes, I adapt, but you don’t understand what I’m trying to say.
    Basically what I’m saying is that minions require too much (skill points, parangon, specific abilities…) to then do ridiculous damage and endurance.
    No matter how much you adapt, what there is is what there is. It’s one thing to defend and another thing is “you don’t want to see reality”
    That is, each class has its variants. They work to a greater or lesser extent, and the minion build…
    Another thing, I assume that when I comment on a build, people who read it already know what I’m talking about.
    The first thing, you came in commenting that the minion build is fine and no changes are needed… That is to say “It works as intended” But in the second message you mention "I was a summoner from level 1 to level 55 when I killed “Capstone Elias”
    Of course, season one with the barber is another topic. And I’m talking about this season, I remind you that there were new nerfs and they also lowered the level of the dungeons… But it doesn’t matter if you nerf minions that are already very nerfed, things don’t improve… Do you understand?

Another thing, could you please stop putting phrases where there are none?
I hate afk builds,
I don’t know about Mendel but you can have whatever you want that doesn’t jump, now I have raised the probability of luck to 50% and now I am starting to see that it jumps a lot more.

I’ve told you before, that I do all that, but the main problem IS NOT THE DAMAGE itself, it’s that the minions don’t have stamina. What’s more, I have put my own build (except the paragon) that I manage to make 2,200,000 per minions. But of course I am causing the explosion with X’fall + mendel + build sever.
Get it now? If you improve your damage, the minions die instantly… If you improve the minions, your damage decreases. If you are proportional in everything… In the end you fall short. You don’t have decent damage and you don’t have good defense either.

And yes I have all the items you mention. I have all the classes at 100 with very different builds. Done lilith, zir… I only need two ubers and the greed mount to have the entire game at 100%

Something else, you start telling me things like…You want to play Afk…And man, it touches on morals quite a bit… If you don’t know me, please don’t put words in my mouth that I don’t say.
more than 5000 hours in diablo 2
more than 15,000 in diablo 3
8 months of playing in WoW and top 1 in the warrior category from 2007 to 2008 (Alias Kültur) With titles such as The Seeker of Magic or Conqueror of Naxxramas…
I think… “I think” I have a slight idea of what I’m talking about…

  • Mention for Ralph:
    I’ve been working on your build. It’s going quite well, especially one big shortcoming that the Necro has is that when you dedicate everything to improving the minions, you end up having shortcomings. With the mixture of recklessness + a lot of healing it is solved. I have to continue improving some sections and continue. But it’s actually quite good and to be honest it’s the one I’m using in general. Then I have another Necro that is the typical mix of dot plus infinite bone shield, it works quite well, but what I was telling you, it is also very slow, that’s why I’m used to it. With my build you can shoot the same as yours against the butcher…
    thanks again.

  • Mention for Gilgamesh:
    AMEN, Exactly. In the end it’s all very ambiguous, you just go to the test dummy, you have no information.
    It happened to me that I made a change in the equipment… And I see that it does less damage… I’m left, HOW?? I restart, I re-enter the game, it works correctly. Or other errors like you have 2 more skeleton magicians, suddenly you get a legendary with that ability and two magicians die and you are left O_O… And the game sometimes recognizes abilities from your inventory and turns off the ones you have. using…And it has already happened to me a couple of times.
    So? How do I know that my improvements are being applied correctly?

  • Mention for Xologamer:
    If the translator sometimes…
    How can I explain it, I tried to do the math to make it clearer but I think it was the opposite.
    What I mean is that if your minions start from a base. Everything that is multiplied will always be from that base and not from the accumulated. I don’t know if I explain myself?

  • Mention for Unknwn:
    Anyway, I’m passing on you boy. I’m here to discuss a topic and you’re just making out-of-place comments.
    By the way, stop being so hypocritical, saying phrases like “they want their Fantasy which doesn’t exist…they don’t want to Adapt, they want the Game to Adapt to them. Which IS as ignorant und delusional AS IT gets…”
    And then you’re in other parts of the forum commenting on things like
    “Esus ferocity working for BL…and No, No Frustration, cleared 15 on barb, 10 in BS necro. Lost interest. But These Things need to get addressed and fixed”
    Adapt, man… If you live in your fantasy world, man. Ains

You use Necro bone spear. Not because you like it because of the way you are, surely because it is what works the most.
But there are people who, as strange as it may seem, want to play the same game as you. It’s one of the builds that the necro has, right?
Well, let Blizzard make it work. End of the discussion.

By the way… Did you know that when the Diablo 4 beta came out the minions were much stronger?
People complained and nerfed them without waiting for the game to come out.
You can’t pretend to say that the necro is not designed with minions, when practically 40% of the glyphs and paragons are intended for them.

Blizzard has a very quick hand to nerf and very slow to correct. And it is something that you, who know so much about everything, should know very well.

1 Like

MRcute512, is very opposed to minions as a build, he throws around allegations like AFK builds and brainless builds.

He ignores the fact that ppl are just expressing what they think about the necromancer builds and want to discuss it as grown ups, in order to help the D4 team on what we think & miss. how will anything change if every one goes around saying “working as intended” all the time, with out giving good arguments.

Also he is ignoring that “brainless builds” have always been apart of many ARPG games and that there are a lot of ppl who love these builds, and makes them able to run around casually picking up items looking at stuff, and not in a rush to compete.

another thing that is completely ignored is the cinematic for the necromancer, which indicates that the main team of the necromancer is minions:

`https://youtu.be/4xam1qjx2iw?t=109

they way it is now the necromancer is all about sacrificing the minions!

(no build should be “off limits”, only re-balanced if needed, this is called build diversity)

1 Like

@ vamers- Dude get yourself some Help…

But Back to topic - Minions need some Love, No doubt about that. But These Changes for the good need to based on how the Game IS Coded and Designed. So WE need to Look at what can BE done Without the need to Turn the whole Game from top to bottom. That Sure AS hell will Not happen.and the Game IS in regards to necromancer Designed in a way that Minions are support Not the Main damage dealer…could they BE improved in that regard-most definitely…could/should their Support function BE improved - Most definitely. IS IT realistic to rewrite a whole class to enable a pure Summoner to BE on par with other builds- straight Up No… denying that reallity is delusional…such a rework simple wont Happen AS IT effects other classes,Mobs, etc as Well…and blizz simply will Not recode a whole to accomodate someones necro Fantasies…

1 Like