Get a new minion and especially spectre responsible guy

https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1f0rfux/psa_affliction_spectres_will_be_lost_kingsmarch/

You nerfed spectres several times in the past for them just to be used mainly as support spectres instead of attacking spectres. Yes, one can use them for main damage, however there are only very few suitable for that and you need some good investment. And you can't choose just any spectre - you need specific ones, which was not the case in the past, otherwise you'll do zdps.

WHY are the afflictions spectres nerfed? I tried the Perfect Frozen Cannibal - it provides Purity of Ice. It provided me with _ONE_ max cold res. For the price of one spectre slot and annoying sound it does. Nobody will waste one spectre slot for one max res point.
And WHY are they not in the desecrate pool?! Some are so rare - I have run ritual since the start of the league and never seen a Perfect Judgemental Spirit for example. WHY are they so rare?! And WHY are there three tiers? Nobody will use the not-perfect-ones or rather rarely if at all.

You guys are failing miserably when it comes to spectres, so get someone who actually cares about the playstyle.

Main points:

- Spectre gem level 20: monster level 75 and gem level 25: monster level 80
- Unnerf all affliction spectres as well as previously good spectres, e.g. redemption sentry
- Put affliction spectres in. the. desecrate. pool. and unrare them
- Do an UI for spectre and AG inventory management - easily replacing or summoning them

Regardless of their rebalancing, the rarity of some corpse types are absurdly unreasonable. I don't expect I will ever get to swap into my intended Wraithlord build in SSF. Genuinely, it seems like it'll take weeks for me to get enough corpses. And that's if I don't run into any mishaps that suddenly delete them all.

Imagine you want 4+ corpse-only spectres. You'd need to run hundreds, if not thousands, ritual encounters. And then imagine you make a wrong spectre cast and you can't replace the last one without losing the others. Fun and immersion!

I need a job xD And i would love to perform this specific function.

+1 to spectres and monsters in general needing some love, gotta say i've daydreamed and posted quite a bit on the topic as this is probably my favorite rpg and the main reason why is Raise Spectre.

Support spectres are great but as you said OP there was almost an emphasis on "support" and dps was rather lackluster but this is due to a variety of reasons including melee range versus the monsters size making more than 1-2 unable to effectively stay on a target or getting stuck on eachother frequently and in doorways.

I test every monster every league in a variety of setups and the affliction patch i could not make a single one of those suckers actually deal enough damage without making my party angry because the ones that were effective were loud in every possible way, visual clutter, visually in general and audio lines that play far too often.

There's tons of spectres from the old times that would make viable and exciting builds in the current age, the problem in many cases is that the kit the monster has is working against itself for example: Templar Tactition is a pretty cool monster casting lightning themed spells with physical base damage and only has two spells but it also has a physical basic attack and once it starts using that it barely casts its spells.

Well you would run non perfect specters if you are using them for damage and don't need 4 redundant auras.

hydra comes to mind. you only need one hatred

But I do agree I fail to see why they needed to gimp the auras so bad.

From what I can tell the auras on all of the minions are so universally terrible
that it is often better to invest in the affliction specters that provide non aura utility.

Like the miscreation providing that flat 100% increased damage to constructs
or
the perfect warlord sharing charges (no one really cares about the vitality aura anyway)

And that poor guardian turtle , holy shit I do not understand why it exists with stats so terrible.

+1

Permanent minions, especially spectres, have been in a dire state for a long time. I've been playing poison SRS for a long time now, but I miss playing with zombies and combat spectres. Their poor survivability just makes them unviable these days, coupled with needing grossly overpriced helmets just to compete with SRS.

The current aura nerfs should go to the imperfect ones.
A better version to the normal corpses.
The unnerfed version should return to the perfect ones.
Make them far more common.

I play since Abyss league, and the Raise Spectre gem was what made me fall in love with the game. I was already a sucker for the FF7 materia system; using it on any monster of my choosing? Priceless: the game felt even more creative than what already was at its core.

But as long as I remember (at least since I started playing) the dev team always found that skill "problematic", and that sentiment - I think - led to the countless nerfs over the years that rendered the skill useless or a pain to use - and non desecratable corspes was the last nail in the coffin.

In a recent interview they even admitted (I think he was Mark, but I may remember incorrectly) that they view the skill as something you should cast on every map, on the monsters you find on the map itself, showing a clear disconnect between them and part of their playerbase.

I never understood their "nerf-always" philosophy, especially when the originality of the game is at the expense, but with spectres they really overdid themselves.

In the end, their game, their decision, but I'm also free to do something else with my free time.

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Notoriousxl wrote:

In a recent interview they even admitted (I think he was Mark, but I may remember incorrectly) that they view the skill as something you should cast on every map, on the monsters you find on the map itself, showing a clear disconnect between them and part of their playerbase.

I am pretty happy with their direction going away from brain dead pressing one button doing Simu while watching TV. Idea is good, just the game became abomination.

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Dxt44 wrote:

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Notoriousxl wrote:

In a recent interview they even admitted (I think he was Mark, but I may remember incorrectly) that they view the skill as something you should cast on every map, on the monsters you find on the map itself, showing a clear disconnect between them and part of their playerbase.

I am pretty happy with their direction going away from brain dead pressing one button doing Simu while watching TV. Idea is good, just the game became abomination.

I was talking about a time when you couldn't make minions aggressive, and they usually attacked in the same direction you were attacking or casting a spell (e.g. where you cast a curse, or were you made cast a skill in order to apply elemental equlibrium, etc.), with no support gem available to change their behaviour.

So it was far from the AFK playstyle they promoted leagues later with "minions are aggressive"... something they could have easily reverted, instead of gutting an entire skill gem.

Also, there are not enough generic support gems that benefits random spectres (just crit, hypothermia and minion damage, and the latter decreases their life), it's really hard and clunky to use it that way.