{3.10} Speaker for the Dead | The Mass Minion Summoner | League Starter, Leveling Guide 💀

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Rory wrote:

Carrion Golem's Leap Slam has a 4 second cooldown, and doesn't repeat with Multistrike unlike some Spectre leap slams. It deals 180% of their base damage. The Bone Cascade has a 4 second cooldown, can multistrike, has 10% less attack speed and deals 65% of base damage, but can hit enemies multiple times with each cascade. The non-cooldown attack deals 135% of their base damage with the first two swings which are wide cones, while the third to sixth swing deals 162% of base damage with 200% more attack speed, but in a smaller rectangle (For bursting down enemies that survive the first two swings). At level 20 of the gem, they do an average of 372 damage per hit, with an attack time of 0.9 seconds. They have 1067 accuracy rating at gem level 20, the same as other minions.

The no-repeat only applies to the Leap Slam, not their cascade slam, because it was a bit pointless when they jumped on the spot. Stone Golem slams still repeat as usual.

Everything from Multistrike will apply to their leap, but they won't get that second or third repeat damage bonus.

If they did their full 6 hit combo, that'd be two multistrike sequences. Visually, it'd just look like they did their normal sequence, but faster, but the damage would be more loaded towards the rapid final attacks.

Ah, the damage boost Carrion Golems get is from your minions, and the range is 60. Ideally close enough that you don't need to constantly worry about it unless you're using the Meat Shield support on your doods.

Carrion Golems have 11384 life at gem level 20.

[Q: Base average hit for ice golems, 1090, is 3x carrion golem?] That looks correct, because Ice Golems skills have lower damage multipliers by comparison. It's more a artifact of how we tweaked the balance on the minion, and the fact the Carrion Golem gets up to 80% more damage if you have 10 non-golem minions near them.

Carrion Golems have no basic attack, just their comboish non-cooldown attack.

The Leap is only used if the target is more than a certain distance away. It'll have different chances for different abilities based on positioning of all enemies in range, it's not a guaranteed order.

[Q: Will CG interrupt its combo when other skills go off cooldown?] The Carrion Golem's combo attack is much more likely to complete once it gets going, unless the chosen target dies. If the primary target dies it'll likely switch to the cascade if it's available.

A quick test shows that Bone Cascade hits 1-5 times based on position and chance, but larger monsters will be hit by more spikes, similar to Glacial Cascade.

[Q: Skill priority?] The Bone Cascade is usually used in the next few hits every time it's active, unless the melee combo is in the part of the sequence that does high damage and the enemy it was targeting is still alive. Chance still plays a part, they're not fully reliable in their use.

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Hercanic wrote:

@ everyone:
Alright, let's calculate the Carrion Golem's true DPS. Here's what we know:

Info from Rory_GGG

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Rory wrote:

Carrion Golem's Leap Slam has a 4 second cooldown, and doesn't repeat with Multistrike unlike some Spectre leap slams. It deals 180% of their base damage. The Bone Cascade has a 4 second cooldown, can multistrike, has 10% less attack speed and deals 65% of base damage, but can hit enemies multiple times with each cascade. The non-cooldown attack deals 135% of their base damage with the first two swings which are wide cones, while the third to sixth swing deals 162% of base damage with 200% more attack speed, but in a smaller rectangle (For bursting down enemies that survive the first two swings). At level 20 of the gem, they do an average of 372 damage per hit, with an attack time of 0.9 seconds. They have 1067 accuracy rating at gem level 20, the same as other minions.

The no-repeat only applies to the Leap Slam, not their cascade slam, because it was a bit pointless when they jumped on the spot. Stone Golem slams still repeat as usual.

Everything from Multistrike will apply to their leap, but they won't get that second or third repeat damage bonus.

If they did their full 6 hit combo, that'd be two multistrike sequences. Visually, it'd just look like they did their normal sequence, but faster, but the damage would be more loaded towards the rapid final attacks.

Ah, the damage boost Carrion Golems get is from your minions, and the range is 60. Ideally close enough that you don't need to constantly worry about it unless you're using the Meat Shield support on your doods.

Carrion Golems have 11384 life at gem level 20.

[Q: Base average hit for ice golems, 1090, is 3x carrion golem?] That looks correct, because Ice Golems skills have lower damage multipliers by comparison. It's more a artifact of how we tweaked the balance on the minion, and the fact the Carrion Golem gets up to 80% more damage if you have 10 non-golem minions near them.

Carrion Golems have no basic attack, just their comboish non-cooldown attack.

The Leap is only used if the target is more than a certain distance away. It'll have different chances for different abilities based on positioning of all enemies in range, it's not a guaranteed order.

[Q: Will CG interrupt its combo when other skills go off cooldown?] The Carrion Golem's combo attack is much more likely to complete once it gets going, unless the chosen target dies. If the primary target dies it'll likely switch to the cascade if it's available.

A quick test shows that Bone Cascade hits 1-5 times based on position and chance, but larger monsters will be hit by more spikes, similar to Glacial Cascade.

[Q: Skill priority?] The Bone Cascade is usually used in the next few hits every time it's active, unless the melee combo is in the part of the sequence that does high damage and the enemy it was targeting is still alive. Chance still plays a part, they're not fully reliable in their use.

(3D model)

372 base damage (= flat damage is very effective for them)
0.9 sec attack delay / 1.11 attack speed
80% more damage with 10 nearby minions (60 unit radius)

Leap Slam Attack = 4sec cooldown, cannot Multistrike
670 (180%) damage, 0.9 sec attack delay
1206 damage with 10 nearby minions

Bone Cascade Attack = 4sec cooldown, can Multistrike
242 (65%) damage, 1 sec attack delay (10% less attack speed), hits 1-5 times (up to 1210 damage) with multiple small AOEs
436 damage with 10 nearby minions
= 2178 damage @ 5 hits

Combo Attack = No cooldown, Multistrike plays through the first three combo attacks, then the final three, causing no visual difference but makes the combo play out faster and with more damage on the second and third hits (= Multistrike is really good).

1. 502 (135%) damage, 0.9 attack delay, wide cone AOE
2. 502 (135%) damage, 0.9 attack delay, wide cone AOE
3. 603 (162%) damage, 0.3 attack delay (200% more attack speed), smaller rectangle AOE
= 1607 damage in 2.1 seconds

4. 603 (162%) damage, 0.3 attack delay (200% more attack speed), smaller rectangle AOE
5. 603 (162%) damage, 0.3 attack delay (200% more attack speed), smaller rectangle AOE
6. 603 (162%) damage, 0.3 attack delay (200% more attack speed), smaller rectangle AOE
= 1809 damage in 0.9 seconds

All six combo strikes = 3416 damage in 3 seconds
= 1139 DPS
= 2049 DPS with 10 nearby minions

For comparison, a L20 Zombie deals 1059 base damage, 1.18 attack delay (0.85 attack speed), or 900 DPS.

A L20 Skeleton deals 1338 base damage, 0.8 attack delay (1.25 attack speed), or 1673 DPS.

Individually, the Carrion Golem is 128% stronger than a Zombie (or put another way, counts as 2.28 Zombies) and 23% stronger than a Skeleton, not counting its inherent AOE for clear speed. As a skill, however, both Zombies and Skeletons easily have 10-11 minions, meaning their boss DPS can inflate by a factor of 10+, or 9k and 17k respectively.

One Carrion Golem is therefore only 23% of Zombie single-target DPS, meaning they're beat out by most support gems when sharing a link. You need at least 2 Golems for them to be competitive (46%).

To replace Zombies, you need at least 4 Carrion Golems (92%).

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WHAT ABOUT THE DAMAGE BUFF?

The flat physical damage buff from the Carrion Golem provides 34 average damage @L20, or 41 @L23. If we were to also spend 4 passive points for Golem Commander, the 70% increased buff effect would boost the L23 amount to 70 damage. With this much investment, it becomes worth 6.6% more damage for L20 Zombies who have 1059 base damage. Or 3.2% @L20 with no investment.

But if we also increase our Zombie level to 23, their base damage becomes 1425. This drops the value of the buff down to 4.9% more damage. If we push our Zombies to level 30, the value of the buff drops further to 2.5%. Without the Golem Commander cluster, it drops to 1.5%.

You'll get the best return from minions with low base damage. L20 Phantasms have 763 base damage. They also have a hidden 50% more Added Damage multiplier. For them, 70 flat phys is worth 13.7% more damage. Or 6.7% more for 34 flat damage.

L23 Raging Spirits have 324 base damage. 70 flat * 0.85 less Added Damage = 18% more damage.


EDIT: I made a Reddit post to share these calculations.