Summon Skeletons

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Kotumser wrote:

i quite like this skill gem although i wish the # of skeletons summoned could be increased some way either by item affix or via skill tree. also on a side note there appears to be a problem with the skill, the first time you use the skill after logging in it seems to stop the game for maybe a second or so and then returns to normal for the rest of the time playing

There's a ton of nodes in the passive tree that increase maximum skeleton. All of them are around the Witch area so that's a bit annoying if you're tying to use them on something other than witch shadow templar, but it's still kinda doable. There's also uniques.

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There's a ton of nodes in the passive tree that increase maximum skeleton. All of them are around the Witch area so that's a bit annoying if you're tying to use them on something other than witch shadow templar, but it's still kinda doable. There's also uniques.

Yeah I understand you can increase the maximum but what I was referring to was the number of skeletons summoned per cast. At 2 it takes quite some time and mana (can't forget all that mana) to summon them which is quite a hassle and feels like you're almost forced to use a totem for the skill.

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Kotumser wrote:

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There's a ton of nodes in the passive tree that increase maximum skeleton. All of them are around the Witch area so that's a bit annoying if you're tying to use them on something other than witch shadow templar, but it's still kinda doable. There's also uniques.

Yeah I understand you can increase the maximum but what I was referring to was the number of skeletons summoned per cast. At 2 it takes quite some time and mana (can't forget all that mana) to summon them which is quite a hassle and feels like you're almost forced to use a totem for the skill.

Oh I see, I guess it could turn to 3 per skeleton at lvl 15+ or something, but I guess the mana cost balance is based on the amount of skeletons you summon. Wouldn't mind if the mana cost was bumped at these levels to compensate and give the same mana/skeleton cost, just faster casting, would be a nice change indeed.

Personally my main complaint is I wish the skeletons spawned more aggressive, so they attacked whatever next to them right away. This is especially annoying early in the game when you don't have MI or mobs kill the skeletons in one hit(which apparently means it doesn't proc MI) so skeletons are completely worthless because they take like 2secs to "wake up" and attack which means they never land an attack. The first Merveil kill is pretty terrible as a summoner because of that, between the lack of corpses for zombies and skeletons instantly dying when summoned, the only thing you end up doing is spamming normal spells. By the time you get to Vaal though it's fine as you have MI, plenty of health % nodes and skeletons rarely die instantly anymore so they proc MI and still do good dmg even when they die right away.

It looks like skeleton duration is set when cast, so you can hot-swap Queens decree for some long lasting skeletons if you like. Not sure if this is a bug or a feature :)

Along the same lines, you can have a skeleton totem and replace it with another totem when skeletons are up.

Weron.

Whenever my friend uses Summon Skeletons it causes both our games to freeze for approximately 1 second.

The amount & size + visual representation of skelettons is a real mess, if you play with others. The whole screen is full of monster + summoned monster + auras + debuffs. And within this bulk of moving & teleporting monster, you are going to search the boss, which needs to be killed. If the boss is also able to teleport, it's nearly impossible to find the right one :(. Summoned monsters are teleporting from time to time, while everything else is moving like ants on stereoids, so if you scanned a part of the screen and want to move to the next, everything has already changed completly.

Ontop of this it is very difficult to distinguish, if your are currently doing damage or doing nothing. Summoned monsters and real monsters have the same HP-Plate with the very same visual style at the top. If you are using a skill, you are also using it, if nothing or a wrong target is standing in front of you. And there is no scrolling damage text or special sound, if you had a hit. Thus there is no feedback, if you are doing anything productive or not.

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wahnvorstellung wrote:

The amount & size + visual representation of skelettons is a real mess, if you play with others. The whole screen is full of monster + summoned monster + auras + debuffs. And within this bulk of moving & teleporting monster, you are going to search the boss, which needs to be killed. If the boss is also able to teleport, it's nearly impossible to find the right one :(. Summoned monsters are teleporting from time to time, while everything else is moving like ants on stereoids, so if you scanned a part of the screen and want to move to the next, everything has already changed completly.

Ontop of this it is very difficult to distinguish, if your are currently doing damage or doing nothing. Summoned monsters and real monsters have the same HP-Plate with the very same visual style at the top. If you are using a skill, you are also using it, if nothing or a wrong target is standing in front of you. And there is no scrolling damage text or special sound, if you had a hit. Thus there is no feedback, if you are doing anything productive or not.

This I agree with. It is particularly frustrating as a melee character as you need to get close and you end up targeting the skeletons or nothing at all making it near impossible to target the boss. It's not quite so bad with ranged but it still has issues with targeting they just aren't quiet so bad.

Summoning skeletons causes the game to freeze for 1-2 seconds. What's that all about and does this happen on Windows side too?

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Vipermagi wrote:

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krifFinn wrote:

Summoning skeletons causes the game to freeze for 1-2 seconds. What's that all about and does this happen on Windows side too?

It does happen on Windows as well. It's the game loading resources; Skeletons are particularly 'heavy' in this regard, making the stutter much more noticable. Expect this to be streamlined in the future.

All right then. Shame that I can't really use that skill for now, but hopefully this issue will be addresssed soon.

Thank you for the info, though.