💀3.15💀 iLL3aT’s Cold Skeleton Warriors/Archers/Mages ❆ League Starter ❆ All Content ❆

Pretty gross patch. Somehow skellies are getting hit harder than zombies - no idea how that happened when the talk of the patch was how hard zombies were going to get hit. Either way - not the end of the world. Updates to come in the next few days. Good news for me at least: The tree doesn't change for now.

Onto the notes, with comments in white:

Added a new Dexterity/Intelligence Support Gem - Second Wind Support: Adds an additional cooldown use to supported skills, and grants those skills increased cooldown recovery rate.

An excellent addition to our triad grips due to being green - this shores up the weakness of dash by giving it another charge. It may or may not work with phase run too.

Sirus buffs

Cool - he needed it

Scorch and Brittle (alternate ailments for Fire and Cold damage respectively) have both had their maximum effects raised. Scorch reduces elemental resistances by a maximum of 30% (from 20%). Brittle now increases the chance to critically strike an afflicted enemy by up to 15% (from 10%). Scorch, Brittle and Sap now all have a base duration of 4 seconds (from 2).

This is low key massive. Brittle (with the new Secrets of Suffering keystone) could be our new bosskiller move. More on this after I theorycraft more.

Dash
Now gains 3% increased travel distance per gem level.

Awesome.

Raise Spectre
Raised Spectres are now level 31 at gem level 1, up to level 76 at gem level 20 (previously level 80 at gem level 20).

Makes our fragile spectres even more fragile. Don't count on spectres in mines past 800.

Spirit Offering
Repeated, rapid casting of Spirit Offering was far too efficient as a means of protecting and recovering Minion Life (and player Life through Mistress of Sacrifice). This still provides valuable protection for minions without it being significantly better than almost every other tool available.
No longer grants a portion of the minion's maximum life as Energy Shield.
Now grants +20% to Chaos Resistance at gem level 1, up to +30% at gem level 20.

Expected, but still hurts. Without the extra ES, spirit offering is no longer the best offering. I'll still use it while I'm gearing, but will swap to flesh offering as soon as I can. I think I won't be running triple offering in 3.10 - freeing up a belt slot for more resistances.

Summon Skeletons
Damage dealt by minions at all gem levels has been lowered by approximately 40%. This change isn't visible on the gem as it is a property of the minion itself, and does not affect Skeleton Mages or any other non-basic Skeleton minions summoned by Vaal Summon Skeletons.
The number of maximum summoned skeletons you can have at gem level 20 is now 7 (from 8).

Ugh...40% less for skellies of all levels...and then losing a skellie on top of that. It's a pretty brutal nerf, but not unexpected and within reason.

Necromancer
Bone Barrier no longer grants Elemental Resistances per minion. Increased Life and Energy Shield Recovery per minion is now 2% (from 3%), capping out at 20% (from 30%).
Commander of Darkness now grants you and nearby allies +30% to all Elemental Resistances (from 20%).

Bone barrier might be the next node to be dropped - some armor, a granite potion, and (vaal) molten shell maybe? Commander of darkness for the fourth ascendency point instead? Still up for debate. Resistances are going to be harder to come by though.

Curse on Hit modifiers (found on rings) are now mutually exclusive. This does not include ones obtained via item corruption.

No more frostbite/assassins mark ring.

The Veiled modifier that grants +1 to you maximum number of Summoned Skeletons and Raised Zombies can now only be unveiled/crafted on the helmet slot. It can no longer be unveiled/crafted on body armours.

Welp. Minus 1 skellie again. This brings our max (15) down to 13 - 12 if level 30 skellies is too hard to get still.

Helmet: Nearby Enemies have -x% Fire Resistance (now from Warlord's Influence), Nearby Enemies have -x% Cold Resistance (now from Redeemer's Influence), Nearby Enemies have -x% Lightning Resistance (now from Crusader's Influence), Nearby Enemies have -x% Chaos Resistance (now from Hunter's Influence), Nearby Enemies take x% increased Physical Damage (now from Elder's Influence), increased effect of Fortify (now from Crusader's Influence).

Annoying. This means no more i86 elder bone helms for crafting - they have to be dual influence elder/redeemer now. This makes getting a nice enchant that much harder.

Feeding Frenzy Support
Now gives minions from supported skills 25% chance to grant Feeding Frenzy to you on hit at gem level 1, up to 44% at gem level 20 (previously 25% at all gem levels).
No longer causes minions from supported skills to deal more damage while you have Feeding Frenzy.

Hurts our mapping somewhat.

All in all - offensively, things get more expensive. We lose two skeletons and 40% damage straight up. Levelling and tier 1-3 gear should remain largely unchanged, except that it is 40%-50% weaker. However, since level 2 gear is more than enough to kill A8 Awakener, this hurts, but is not the end of the world.

I'm most interested in the possibilities once we reach the level 3-4 levels, with the new jewels. As highlighted in my last major post (page 8), the jewels have some exciting nodes on them that we can scale - crit and double damage, both new pools that we barely invest in. We will have less flat minion damage and attack speed, meaning that those points that we do get will be worth more comparatively.

Defensively, bone barrier might switch to something else, and the loss of free resistance (spirit offering, bone barrier) might mean that triple offering's requirement of a unique belt gets replaced by a nice stygian. Jury is still out on that one.

More to come once more math is done. The math is never done. I suspect that at the high (tier 3-3.5 gear+) damage goes...up despite the nerfs.

"

iLL3aT wrote:

Bone barrier might be the next node to be dropped - some armor, a granite potion, and (vaal) molten shell maybe? Commander of darkness for the fourth ascendency point instead? Still up for debate. Resistances are going to be harder to come by though.

Get plaguebringer. It's by far a better node than commander of darkness (or bone barrier).

More damage, less damage taken, more area of effect? What is needed?

Tbh It maybe will be "Easier" to get ggg helmet that way. Not cheaper but easier. You get I86 Bone Helmet with enchant you want. You fuse it with elder influence. Now you alt for +3 lvl and alt another one for -9% cold aura. Then fuse them for those 2 mods. Now either you start from 0 or multimod depending of result

"

Keyen wrote:

Get plaguebringer. It's by far a better node than commander of darkness (or bone barrier).

More damage, less damage taken, more area of effect? What is needed?

I'm thinking no triple offering, so just desecrate/filler/flesh offering in the trigger wand. The offering should consume the corpse pretty quickly unless I space it out with maybe molten shell in there. I'm missing something aren't I?

IMO zombies should count as corpses.

"

Vulgarny wrote:

Tbh It maybe will be "Easier" to get ggg helmet that way. Not cheaper but easier. You get I86 Bone Helmet with enchant you want. You fuse it with elder influence. Now you alt for +3 lvl and alt another one for -9% cold aura. Then fuse them for those 2 mods. Now either you start from 0 or multimod depending of result

The issue is that +3 isn't an elder mod - just minion damage and life are. I think crafting will be just slightly harder once the base is acquired, but nothing too major (three new prefixes are added). Awakener orb has one chance for +3 Definitely worth a shot when making the base.

On the side note HoP were doing almost more 50-60% the damage of single skeleton with your setup. Problem was you had 5 vs 15 now with dmg and number nerfs plus jewels with +1 sentinel you can try to aim towards 6-8 vs 13

Seems like we got hit pretty hard. But i understand minions were super strong and probably still are.
What do you think about the new passives? Maybe they have weakened minions because there is a lot of potential in those?

@Vulgarny - HoP is a cool skill, and the Pure Agony keystone should multiply the damage by quite a bit. I presume that one is a medium node, and thus does not really have much competition (auras/curses don't help that build too much I think). The rebalance does bring skellies more in line with other minions - they were ridiculously strong - and still are.

@itaizilca - Yep, still strong. For lower currency variants, it's just a flat nerf. For higher budget (aka once you can roll jewels), there is tons of potential. I think my new favorite is "Secrets of Suffering" against bosses (so basically spend a regret point every time you boss) - 15% BASE crit is absolutely insane and makes 100% crit chance very real on bosses. While mapping, chilling and freezing are better for survivability. Due to adding crit multi, buffing hatred even more, and more reliable double damage, minions may be able to hit the ailment threshold of hard bosses enough to inflict brittle...maybe.

Still need to see whether the hatred nodes are on large jewels or medium before I finish my theorycrafting there.

As a side effect of the notes, fossils and resonators may be cheaper this league. :)

Just remember to change your elemental focus that you use on your skeletons ^^

"

Vulgarny wrote:

Just remember to change your elemental focus that you use on your skeletons ^^

Yep haha. Was thinking deathmark (ugh, more buttons to press) or going full high damage and going 4R2B with ruthless (less damage overall, but higher maximum for easier afflictions)

Edit: Crit multi is possibly an option as well.