Suggestions for upcoming patch

Well, what I mean by elemental only, is that virtually, the only way to even get damage for the minions is by the elemental totems. Take a look at their base physical.

And i'm just in plain disagreement about minion numbers. It's not fun to keep their numbers capped by constant resummoning. The allure of the summoner to me, is the fact that it's like building a sail instead of rowing, but what's the point of building a sail if it's just more work in the long run?

Fewer tougher minions is what I would prefer.

Heathen wrote:Well, what I mean by elemental only, is that virtually, the only way to even get damage for the minions is by the elemental totems. Take a look at their base physical.

And i'm just in plain disagreement about minion numbers. It's not fun to keep their numbers capped by constant resummoning. The allure of the summoner to me, is the fact that it's like building a sail instead of rowing, but what's the point of building a sail if it's just more work in the long run?

Fewer tougher minions is what I would prefer.

Don't forget, a lot can change with the wand's new adjusted cast rate speed. That can open up quite a few things, such as easier casting of Dark Power (IAS/Magic damage/Crushing Blow), and whatever bonuses you may find on nec shields.

If you can supply enough minion life to the summons, you really have no issue of them surviving through destruction. Totemancer is a bit different since you have more immediate, higher damage output in most cases, but the minions rarely die. It just starts to become a lot more demanding on the number of hotkeys in most cases and making sure you cast the right minions, etc. with buffs, totems, teleport, summons, black mass, and more.

My issue is far less than with their efficacy, and more with their micromanaging. I do know summons can be fairly tanky.

I think the biggest problem with skellis is all those moving parts. Besides you do have summon skellis. Slap the mos on your gear, toss out a hand full of sacrifices and violla, skellis.

Besides I think the Paladin should be rebalanced.

LHawkins1 wrote:If you're going to discuss the stacking of minions, that's more of what makes a high-density summoner the main problem. The minions don't all spread out upon teleporting with them. Only a few pop out at a time. You'll see what I mean if you get a high number of summons, especially with Goetia and Ghal Nec Staff. Otherwise, I don't think the damage output in larger areas would be as much of an issue for pure summoner.

It's perfect for totemancer in this case since you have ranged attacks and the minions don't need to spread out to deal damage (in fact its better that they dont because they protect you). But for pure summoner, you either need to add in ranged attacks for the summons or they need to be able to all spread at the same time upon teleporting, so that way, they can go attack enemies instead of only really being able to focus fire on ones that crowd you.

If I understand you correctly (sorry it's late already and I'm slightly drunk) your issue is that minions don't run to enemies once you teleport and at the same time you find that useful for totemancer.

Well, I had that same issue in clod already (and other mods) and I was able to avoid it by walking away. That way, the minions weren't blocked by me and were able to freely move out to the enemies. That "bug"(alias feature) mostly came into effect when you had ranged minions (which is the case with totemancer) or when you simply have too many melee minions that block each other. So reducing numbers would in fact solve that issue already. But in my very previous post about summons (on page 79) I already said that this problem could be also solved by giving minions the ability to pass through everything like lamias do. Cause those really start attacking/moving once you teleport since they can't be blocked by other lamias or other minions. That ability would already solve lots of problems for minions.

EDIT1:

LHawkins1 wrote:Don't forget, a lot can change with the wand's new adjusted cast rate speed. That can open up quite a few things, such as easier casting of Dark Power (IAS/Magic damage/Crushing Blow), and whatever bonuses you may find on nec shields.

If you can supply enough minion life to the summons, you really have no issue of them surviving through destruction. Totemancer is a bit different since you have more immediate, higher damage output in most cases, but the minions rarely die. It just starts to become a lot more demanding on the number of hotkeys in most cases and making sure you cast the right minions, etc. with buffs, totems, teleport, summons, black mass, and more.

I'm indeed very excited about the changes of the wand. But I think the issue that Heathen wanted to point out is the following: You are able to make your minions survive nearly anything. That's what you can do when you solely focus on minion health. BUT as a summoner you also need to focus on damage. So either you're lacking damage in which case your progress is very slow, or you're lacking health in which case you have to resummon your minions constantly.
Both isn't fun to play. And it's hard to find the perfect balance.

EDIT2:

UncleGrimjerk wrote:I think the biggest problem with skellis is all those moving parts. Besides you do have summon skellis. Slap the mos on your gear, toss out a hand full of sacrifices and violla, skellis.

Besides I think the Paladin should be rebalanced.

Yes you're right. I don't know anymore whether it was Laz or Alex (from zephyrus mod) who pointed out that skeletons are very laggy because they have so many parts that are animated... and tbh I don't know when or how exactly it was said... I only know that the current shadows are 8 times less laggy than skeletons simply because of their animations (skeletons have many models... only bone axe, bone axe and shield, boney axe and shield with 4 arrows in it...) (also they have many moving parts as you said, grimjerk, so they become laggy very fast). That's the reason why laz took that model for shadows. This model simply isn't nearly as laggy.

EDIT3:

Heathen wrote:Well, what I mean by elemental only, is that virtually, the only way to even get damage for the minions is by the elemental totems. Take a look at their base physical.

And i'm just in plain disagreement about minion numbers. It's not fun to keep their numbers capped by constant resummoning. The allure of the summoner to me, is the fact that it's like building a sail instead of rowing, but what's the point of building a sail if it's just more work in the long run?

Fewer tougher minions is what I would prefer.

Yeah, I know what you mean. But as LH said, we may be able to receive new viable builds thanks to the wands buff. And I'm also curious on how sigma will change the uniques so that most of them finally become viable as well. I simply hpüe that there's a nice summoners option as well.

Well, the minion numbers already were greatly reduce... I remember times when having 200+ minions was casual for summoner nec. but since it was too laggy in MP, Laz had to reduce it. But minions haven't been touched for ages as it seems. They definitely need a rework or simply a new scaling. I mean, rampagors can stay as they are. And so do shadows. But Lamias need to be changed and VK needs to be replaced. I honestly don't see any other options for summoner nec to become viable, as those 2 are the ones that really need some work. Summon only uses Lamias for a wannabe-AoE. And totem uses them for a fast spreading of minions. That's it. Once the implementation of lamias no-block ability has taken place, they can be fully changed. And VK... well I guess you know that neither summon nor totem nec needs it and that they both are better off without VK.

Ok, so Marco can't say I didn't put it here even though he knows exactly what I think.

Paladin Rebalancing:

A: Replace the two influence trees with:
.................1. A true neutral tree with the same sort of lockout as holy/unholy. Will need some snazzy multipurpose skills to make up for the fact
....................that it is only a one branch tree.
.................2. A shared tree that any can use.

B: Move Stormlord to shared tree. This by itself will get us half way to balancing holy/unholy.

C: Fix Colosseum either by correcting the teleport behavior or getting rid of the teleport. The second option is fine since Paladin already has a teleport skill. Even without it, Colosseum is a pretty bad ass debuff/buff

D: A general buffing of the holy tree, specifically the combat side. Enlarge the AOE of Hammerstrike a bit. Maybe replace Plague as I don't know if there is a sweet spot between useless and OP for it.

I will even be willing to put up with the continued existence of the Tranny Morph, but it will need to do something else because of B. Maybe life/mana regen + damage of some sort.

As it stands the Holy Tree might as well not even exist since the numbers so outrageously favor unholy.

And as always

Besides I think the Paladin should be rebalanced.

So Uncle, how do you feel again about the holy pala tree? And no, those Skeletons are reanimates, and definitely not what I have in mind.

Yeah i'd like to see some changes/ buffs, but it's not nearly as critical to me as it is to grim.

-Pagan Rites for the Priestess merc is a total waste. And she rips all my damn corpses.

-Bearclaw needs love bad. Either a Magic Damage Per Base Str effect, or changed entirely.

Also, I would like to point out, that no matter what Marco ends up doing for next patch, someone will complain about something. In fact, for his own sanity, I doubt he even comes into this thread. Most people prefer to shit all over everything than have a real discussion.

Heathen wrote:So Uncle, how do you feel again about the holy pala tree? And no, those Skeletons are reanimates, and definitely not what I have in mind.

Yeah i'd like to see some changes/ buffs, but it's not nearly as critical to me as it is to grim.

-Pagan Rites for the Priestess merc is a total waste. And she rips all my damn corpses.

-Bearclaw needs love bad. Either a Magic Damage Per Base Str effect, or changed entirely.

Also, I would like to point out, that no matter what Marco ends up doing for next patch, someone will complain about something. In fact, for his own sanity, I doubt he even comes into this thread. Most people prefer to shit all over everything than have a real discussion.

Yeah this thread is just Marco's way of keeping people from PM'ing him. Lol.

But I have shared my Paladin scheme with him in the past. He just hates Holy. It's his way of rebelling against his Catholic upbringing.

Pretty much everything in the throw tree except rebound sucks ass. Stampede used to be better when the pace of the game was less hectic but the timer pretty much screws it now.

Besides I think the Paladin should be rebalanced.

with all respect most of your last posts not making much sence and you should actually test the skills a little bit longer (cast them outside of blood moor for example) before you call them trash and useless.

stampede/screaming eagle are great tactical/debuff skills, overkill and rebound are core skills for two different builds and yea, bear claw is terrible shit indeed :lol:

^^ You are correct, Mahi. I completely forgot about overkill. It's early. Sue me.

Besides I think the Paladin should be rebalanced.