Raise Zombie

you can have multiple summon zombies skills up as long the skill gems dont have the same lvl.
i dont know if this is intended or not.
when you have all skill gems on same lvl the max number of zombies is reduced to the limit of the skill gem + passives

so effectively you can walk with 30+ zombies out as long as gems are of diferent lvl.

Im sorry to compare PoE with D2 this time but summoning here reminds me of the Necromancer for obvious reasons. And if I recall correctly those little skeletons had no problem whatsoever to keep up with the player.

D2 is very old but yet it has a superior Minion KI.

One might say this is a deliberate design decision. That GGG wanted the zombies to trail off and in the end be all over the map. Im not convinced this is the case. First the fact that they reset some of your minions back to your location stands against this assumption. Second and most importantly I dont think they wanted to make minions drop items all over the map where you cant see them. As it is of now, this is a huge problem.

I think we are having this problem because of several other reasons. The most important one being the close camera angle. The screen only shows a small portion of the world so that having all your minions around you makes the screen a crowded place. D2 simply had more room to place them.

Another thing is that there is just oh so much space around an enemy to whack away at him. If there are four minions around the enemy at the front (maybe +the player) then "all the slots are taken" and the other minions walk away from the fight - lacking the space they would need in order to participate.

Additionaly zombies are deliberately designed as being slow. Naturally one might add. But this causes them to fall behind. And this part is essential in order to solve the whole minion issue. How do you bring back minions that fell behind? (and once brought back how do they behave?)

There are some good suggestions in this thread already let me list the ones I find important:

* Reset minions more often.
* Reset all minions that are not onscreen (or in the near vicinity) ...
* ... even the ones currently in battle!
* Make it a high priority for minions to stay onscreen...
* ... while moving around the player in near circles...
* .. with tightly controlled agro ranges.

My new minion witch thanks you for the well needed speed buff!

I'm only level 28 atm with 4 zombies and think their speed and damage is fine. It should not be a minigame in itself to guess how many zones behind you the minions are if they were slowed down again.

The damage too is fine, when you spend so many points into summoning and minions then the minions ARE your way of killing things, not the generic you must be 1 of the three elements or you're screwed. If zombies group up on mobs and kill them fast then how is that anymore "overpowered" than any of the other witch speccs that spam nova that clears entire screens in seconds?

If they're meant to be just wall for projectiles then why is there damage talents in the tree to begin with. IMHO summoner is and should be viable "main" specc in PoE, otherwise the only difference in witch speccs is do you want to clear the screen with lightning or frost nova.

Also the amount of passive points you spend going around the tree to get your spread around minion talents is pretty hefty, every point spend going towards minions is a point away from elemental damage, crit or larger aoe range.

On another note I agree the way to controll your minions that ran around with huge aggro range and refusing to follow you is too lacking. Once they lock onto something it only ends in something dying.

P.S. Chris firestorm was a letdown, don't take our zombie summoners away too :(

I'd like more stats on the character sheet under the raised zombie skill. At the moment, with no supports added, it shows:
Casts per second
Cast speed increase
Spell critical strike chance
Spell critical strike damage multiplyer.

Firstly, aren't the last 2 stats meaningless? Or do my zombies have a 5% crit chance and my spell crit multiplyer added to their attacks? I'd like to see at the very least, health and dps. When I add lightning damage support, the lightning damage shows up, as well as a dps stat, but it looks more like its my cast speed x average lightning damage.

i dont know about chaos difficulty yet, but at mid lvls summoner finally is fun to play with last changes. At level 45 i have army of 7 fast moving zombies with ~1300 hp and 5 spectres. With minion instability i dont have any problem with killing anything so far. I dont care about zombies's IQ anymore because i just follow them and help to finish off mobs.

For now it is very good alternative for nova spamming, dont overnerf it pls.

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timgod wrote:

Can this gem work with the +life gain on hit support gem? I was messing with it last night and I didn't seem to be getting any health gain from my minion's hits.

Wouldn't life gain on hit give life to the zombies, not you?

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Mantar wrote:

* ... while moving around the player in near circles...

I think this could be a key point, reminds me of how skeleton minions would behave in D2. Nice and tight.


As for how do i find zombies with the speed change? Not particularly overpowered tbh. In fact they might need bigger buffs still. I have to force myself not to spam some random witch spell to 3-shot everything while my zombies take 8 hits to kill stuff.

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Crenssi wrote:

Also the amount of passive points you spend going around the tree to get your spread around minion talents is pretty hefty, every point spend going towards minions is a point away from elemental damage, crit or larger aoe range.

I kinda disagree here. At 65 i could have all 7 summon nodes, as well as Minion Instability and Hex Master. The stat highways make getting around very easy, with minimal "waste".

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Semarogin wrote:

For now it is very good alternative for nova spamming, dont overnerf it pls.

THIS. It needs to be toned down, however please don't nerf it too much xD.

The movement speed buff was overkill. These things just zip across the screen like no one's business. Something like 1.5x there original speed would have sufficed.

EDIT: Oh, and I use the minion speed gem.

Since my last post 0.9.4c happened and with it one of my major concerns had been adressed. So zombies are not slow anymore. And this little change made gameplay from being a somewhat more tedious experience into fun. Good work!

I foresee that in the near future after we got our display about how many minions are currently alive and minions crossing zones summoner will finally be what it is meant to be.

Zombie movement looks hilarious now. I dont mind. Makes me smile every now and then, hehe.

Somewhat related question: I found an "after minion death" reactive node on the skill tree. Are there more than one of these?

zombie speed right now does feel a bit too high, in my opinion 2.x from old speed would have sufficed with additional speed from support gem+quality adding up to 2.5x - 3x most likely would be perfect.

about multiple zombie skills, in my opinion this is a unintended feature resulting from the group links splitting between gear, altho i think with several summoning gems wont be so much a problem, i love it having a truck load of minions and oposite of many may think this is a heavy management build if not the build with highest "different" spam build.

and now for lols: