without talking at all about whether summoners are “good” or “bad” in terms of power, having raised 3 pure summoners to 100 (s1, s2, s3) and doing uber lilith + nmv 100 with the build, i have to say that the lack of unique options and especially the ability to really utilize any of the uber uniques in the game has been the most discouraging part of the gameplay. i got a selig this season and it was kind of cool. i was able to switch to cold skeletal mages from bone mages which gave me a huge amount of resource generation to make the amulet effective, but the loss of dps from losing all the ranks on hellbent commander + summoning skill dmg + minion atk speed was just unreal.
it feels like im missing out on a major aspect of the excitement which is core to the game for every other build. getting a shako and realizing oh +4 ranks to ALL SKILLS literally does nothing for minions is devastating, especially when literally everyone else in the game will be so stoked to get their shako.
and even with the 100% inheritance of stats a lot of these issues are still going to exist. i think grandfather MIGHT be worth using now on some summoner setups because of this change but every other uber unique is just not good. and i don’t see tyrael’s might really being used either because we need so many legendary aspects not just for the dmg they give but because most minion builds require a lot of the aspects working together with the book of the dead and other elements to really make it functional at all (for me so far all my summoners have relied on lucky hit/mendeln/xfals). and some of the legendary aspects that give DR/armor are just too good in comparison (ex: 20% dmg reduc for you and your minions on top of all the items other stats).
not sure if there is a big overhaul coming to all uniques in the patch notes to combat the tempering system but i think this will be a big issue across the board.
i know the whole message is “oh, well, the whole game is gonna be different we’re gonna have to figure it out together” but i think the issue of uber unique functionality with regards to minions is obviously going to remain an issue. combined with the lack of other uniques and its just kinda sad even if they are very powerful in s4.
i don’t know if there are some new, amazing summoner affixes in store within tempering and the “new” affix pool on basic drops, but please add some real summoner uniques or AT LEAST evaluate the uber uniques and see if there’s some way you can make them more viable for summoners. especially shako. thx.
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I hope to seee some changes to mendeln so it benefits from minion aspects, alternatively changes to minion aspects so they buff the player and the minions.
Xfal’s is not a minion unique, so i dont think that matters either way.
They did say they have some changes for existing uniques as well as 2 new uniques per class.
I think tyreal’s might could be a nice uber unique for a pure summoner as it will scale directly with attack speed. more attacks your minions do, more spam it does. in addition it will work amazingly well with curses, which most summoners use.
I hope it scales with minion aspects as well as standard ones… but that is only likely if they change existing aspects if im honest.
I think grandfather is interesting, however if minions still get most of their damage from weapon damage, its significantly worse then a scythe. Also is the 100% crit better then 80% [ x] minion damage or 240% [ x] blighted aspect (as minions will receive 100% of this now)? I have absolutely zero knowledge on the grandfather weapon lol
But I really hope its good, because I love the defensive stats on it LOL
Another little point, if minion survival is important, life on kill from scythes might be important still, though they are introducing life on hit which will be game changing i think.
Are curses even worth it anymore with the cooldown not procing?
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in season 3 for me yes. I still hit the monsters with “my spells” to reduce CD’s. tendrils hits a lot of targets, as does the blight puddle in my bone prison. So though those spells do extremely low damage its the hit that matters.
Also Army of the dead still proc’s CDR like crazy.
Remember it was only player thorns procing it which didnt hit monsters that much anyway when you stun and freeze so much. I only noticed a small drop off on CDR after the nerf.
Here’s something that might interest you guys, at 6:08.
https://youtu.be/RBz0st2Ex_0?si=yD3guVLUny_kw39w
Aphotic Aspect
Skeletal Priest empowers your Skeletal Warriors to do shadow damage and…
That’s certainly interesting
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I don’t see how curses wouldn’t be worth it. Decrepify reduces the amount of incoming damage so that in turn increases your and your minions survivability. Even Iron Maiden can be good if you want to build in that direction as a Shadow Summoner.
For how I made my build I would need to Decrepify and KE to pick up blight and SB.
My rings are mand & sacrilegious. So I would also drop one of those for xfals.
I have been focusing lucky hit and crit where i can fit it in. So other gear will need to change.
If the curse is worth it I will keep mend summoner. Blight would make things faster.
Part 2 i am not sure blight pool will actually trigger xfals. I haven’t tested
If you’re running Mendeln, Decrepify is really good there. Control glyph partial additive and the multiplier. Blight Pool does trigger X’fals.
This makes me want to get rid of +2 to skeletal warrior/mage aspect to be gone, and it’s function added elsewhere even more. Adding more minion aspects is okay, but we don’t have enough slots for it.
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That would be a pretty obvious choice for getting rid of unnecessary aspects…Just Up the Base Numbers +2 and BE done With IT…frees Up 2 aspects Slots, easy solution… maybe replaced These aspects with some fancy new Interactions…bone mages shout Out bone Spears, Shadow mages shoot Out blight, Something Like that…
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I never understood the decision why a basic functionality wasn’t added to the skill tree somewhere, and instead got locked behind aspect slots. I hope we get surprised in the patch notes.
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Just one of many mind boggling decisions that need correction…
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i would like to see aspects that completely change minions or their attacks.
things like: You now gain one giant skeletal warrior that does x/y/z
But rather then it being a short/tall mans finger where it feels mandatory, make it build specific. So it only works if you build a perticular way.
Alternatively it would be nice like you say to just change their attacks. Cold mages now just cast blizzards for example. Or your minions AoE spells are now significantly larger.
Just something to really change how you gear, rather then things like "your minions now do 80% more damage after being alive for 10s… that to me is boring and mandatory.
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I wonder if auto summon of skeletons from sacrelgious ring would trigger tyreals might.
I also think greater affix roll on DR on tyreals might would be good too!
It’s such an obvious choice for the key passive, too.
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Agree on all of this; from the moment D4 hit beta I was shocked at how few skill investments actually mattered for minions, how there honestly still no real minion Uniques (britches are just such a letdown)
I would take a D3 short/tall mans finger at this point, in the spirit of uniques that give an extra golem, or unlock an additional attack for every skeleton subclass, its all just so lackluster
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In regards to curses… did I imagine the whole “minions will prioritize cursed targets”?
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