Animate Guardian

^too stupid to use wands. I'd imagine hack and slash is best as it involves on a movement.. whereas firing stuff out of thin air doesn't work lore wise for inanimate objects.

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Sneakypaw wrote:

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Scol91 wrote:

- When 'Key Pickup' option is enabled, I can only use this skill when it's bound to mouse hotkey. Q-T Hotkeys does not work.
- Guardian can use 2 shields: 1 animated and 1 on yourself with Necromantic Aegis. With that setup he get's pretty high block. I would love to make him dualshield Rathpith Globe's. :D
- I wonder if Bringer of Rain's 'Can't use Chest armour' works on it as intended. I'm not rich enough to test it.
- He can be easily healed by removing and reinserting gem. Putting it in weapon and using weapon swap works great.
- He deals much less damage than spectres, and AFAIK there is no way to summon more than one of them.

I think he's best used as tank.

That's not true. I have 'key pickup' enabled and use animate guardian with a hotkey.
You have hold the 'Key pickup' key and mouseover the Item while casting the skill.

Edit: Did anyone try linking Skills to the gem to see if they can use it? Or putting skills into the items?

Tried that, for me it works only when using mouse hotkeys.

Important question!

Do support gems apply to every piece of gear? Do every piece counts as seperate skill being cast?

For example, I have added cold damage and animate helm. Then I animate boots.
Will guardian have double flat damage cold?

Another case. I have added cold damage and animate helm. Then I link gem with added lightning damage. Will guardian have added lightning and added cold at one time?

Okay, the iron golem is alright. I'd have preferred it if he were a support gem that could use linked Melee Skills, like the melee version of the totems. But he's fine as a blocky meat bucket.

Comments:

* His anchor distance is too far. In diablo 2 it was simple to pull back your minions by stepping away from combat. But here he's suicidal, willing to go multiple screens away from you.

* It would be nice if at all possible to be able to use this skill on unidentified blue items. They're as often considered trash as white ones are.

* With some items (circlets, claws) he's very difficult to see.

I wonder how does he stand up against lvl 70 monsters. I would like a way to heal him without cheating. I would like to save him somehow too, when the bug with unsummoning him is removed. I love this companion idea. Perhaps paying some currency to bring him back to life would be nice.

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Kaskar wrote:

Important question!

Do support gems apply to every piece of gear? Do every piece counts as seperate skill being cast?

For example, I have added cold damage and animate helm. Then I animate boots.
Will guardian have double flat damage cold?

Another case. I have added cold damage and animate helm. Then I link gem with added lightning damage. Will guardian have added lightning and added cold at one time?

Tested it a bit. This is how I figure it works.

1) Supports only apply once.

2) In your example it will only be affected by added cold damage, untill it is resummened, than it will only be affected by added lightning.

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lososthefish wrote:

I wonder how does he stand up against lvl 70 monsters. I would like a way to heal him without cheating. I would like to save him somehow too, when the bug with unsummoning him is removed. I love this companion idea. Perhaps paying some currency to bring him back to life would be nice.

Have you tried flasks with mods that heal minions?

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Scol91 wrote:

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Sneakypaw wrote:

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Scol91 wrote:

- When 'Key Pickup' option is enabled, I can only use this skill when it's bound to mouse hotkey. Q-T Hotkeys does not work.
- Guardian can use 2 shields: 1 animated and 1 on yourself with Necromantic Aegis. With that setup he get's pretty high block. I would love to make him dualshield Rathpith Globe's. :D
- I wonder if Bringer of Rain's 'Can't use Chest armour' works on it as intended. I'm not rich enough to test it.
- He can be easily healed by removing and reinserting gem. Putting it in weapon and using weapon swap works great.
- He deals much less damage than spectres, and AFAIK there is no way to summon more than one of them.

I think he's best used as tank.

That's not true. I have 'key pickup' enabled and use animate guardian with a hotkey.
You have hold the 'Key pickup' key and mouseover the Item while casting the skill.

Edit: Did anyone try linking Skills to the gem to see if they can use it? Or putting skills into the items?

Tried that, for me it works only when using mouse hotkeys.

If your 'key pickup' key is 'alt' then it won't work at the moment. Pressing 'alt' changes how the other keys on the Keyboard are recognized, so if you press your skill hotkey it won't work.
Change the key to something different than 'alt' and it should work.

key key key.

There are many ways to heal him:

regen totem
vitality aura
warlord's curse on enemies for him to leech
using items with flat regen/leech/life on hit
flask

At the moment, I have found (normal difficulty) best way to run him is get a good damage 1her, and pure ES gear.

The Es gear means he is more likely to survive the odd knock, and I focus my 'turn around' range of ST on his position so that enemies die while trying to attack him.

I do agree he is best suited as a tank.

The current 'unsummon resummon' with 'x' 'x' seems to be the best method at the moment, as otherwise his health is very pitiful and he dies very quickly (zombies last about 3x as long easily), unless you stack the ES items.


Finally the 'unsommon resummon' is almost required in any area that has AoE ground effects. In places with burning dogs (prisoners gate for example), he will just walk over them as often as possible to kill himself, and if you don't unsummon resummon to move his location, he will die every time, either wasting your items, or making you never use a blue for fear of this occuring.



Best method of using him at the moment, waste white items you see on the ground but save up ES items (of highest possible level), trans them (so cheap) and then once you have a full set, let the 'floor trash' guardian die and summon the super tank