Minion Balance Changes in The Fall of Oriath Beta

As part of our balance adjustments in The Fall of Oriath, we're going to be making some significant changes to the undead minion skills. Below are the first set of changes we'll be trying out in the Beta, and we'll be making further adjustments based on beta testers' experiences with minions in the new content.

While many of these changes are to improve the power and usability of these skills, we're also trying to improve performance by reducing the maximum number of minions, but increasing their power to compensate.

Zombies
Raised Zombies have had their damage increased, and now do 45% more damage with a level 20 minion gem. Alongside the new zombie threshold jewel, they should be a more reliable source of damage while maintaining their defensive capabilities.

Skeleton Warriors
These have been significantly increased in damage, and now deal 135% more damage per second with a level 20 gem. Their attack animation has been sped up and improved so that they strike earlier in the swing. The Summon Skeletons skill has had its cast time reduced to 0.5 seconds from 0.8 seconds, and now only summons one skeleton per cast. The mana cost of the skill has been significantly reduced. Skeletal Warriors now have an inherent 20% chance to block. The skill now summons up to 5 skeletons at all levels of the gem, instead of growing from 4 to 6 as the skill increased in level. They now have a -30% multiplier to added damage, down from -50%, bringing them in-line with the multiplier on Raging Spirits.

There are now fewer sources of additional skeletons; Uniques and items that granted additional skeletons (Including existing items) will now grant no more than 1 additional skeleton, and there are fewer sources of additional skeletons to be found in the passive tree. The helmet enchantment that spawned additional skeletons per cast will be reworked or replaced. With investment in uniques and passives, a player should be able to reach around 15 skeletons. The Army of Bones jewel will now grant 1 additional skeleton, has a limit of 1, and is being reworked.

Skeletal Mages
These minions have had their projectile skill's damage significantly increased, and have a much faster cast time on their spell. This projectile now deals 50% more damage at level 20 of the skill gem. They benefit from many of the changes to the base skill that summons that are noted above, including the cast time, mana cost, and maximum number of skeletons. The Dead Reckoning jewel that lets players summon Skeletal Mages is now limited to 3, and lets the skill summon 5 additional skeletal mages, up from 3 per jewel.

Previously, skeletal mages dealt significantly more damage at level 19 and above of the gem, as an unintentional result of changes to monster spells. Their damage now grows much more evenly, making them significantly more powerful at lower levels.

Spectres
We're hoping to have improvements to how spectres are stored, with the eventual goal of having spectres persist through logouts.

Spectres now also have a higher movement speed multiplier cap, so they can travel faster than before if their movement speed is significantly increased.

You can see a spreadsheet of existing 2.6.0 minion damage values here.
To modify the values, you can save a copy of the spreadsheet.