Summon Skeletons

It would be nice if you get melee/ranged/caster skeletons when summoning them. Like 33% of the summoned skeletons are melee fighters, 33% are archers and 33% are casters.

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Serika wrote:

- reduce the number of skeletons possible in total

Anything but this. GGG needs to find a way to let us play with a screen full of minions and balance it properly.

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OnmyojiOmn wrote:

Anything but this. GGG needs to find a way to let us play with a screen full of minions and balance it properly.

Aye, I played a summon necro in D2 too. It wasn't very strong but filling the screen with minions is fun.

That's why I'd propose to get increased numbers of skeletons through the passive skill tree and not just so many through the skill gem itself.

I'm not specced at all into summoning or summon passives, all I got is a Minion Health Gem socketed with an Added Ice Damage gem, don't use any Aura's on them either.

What they're used for is that I can plop 4 down a cast, that's a wall of bone between me and my enemy, ranged ones quickly change target to them if I drop them close by.

I think the reason I like it so much is that I'm treating it like a curse, I'm casting the spell probably once every ten or so seconds, popping them into new rooms or ahead of me where I think some enemies are at, or if I'm surprised I just deploy them between me and the target.

It's fun actually, I'm teleporting around with Lightning Warp, deploying Skeletons all over, and novaing things to death since they can't move past the wall of bone.

Way better than my icewall, that thing didn't even block enemy shots from hitting me :(.

I actually wouldn't want them to last longer, their damage is weak and they don't attack very fast, the low duration fits well enough since I'm gonna have to be recasting it all the time anyways.

It's great that it can be popped up whenever, now I feel like It's not such a bad idea to recast it to reposition things if it's more suited to the moment.

In skill description/Character screen
PLEASE post DAMAGE and LIFE of these minions per each level.

Personally I would like the see the skeleton duration timer removed and replaced with a "health loss over time" debuff present on all skeletons summoned. This would allow for better synergy with Necromantic Aegis and many support gems as any health increase or regeneration effects would extend the skeletons' duration on the field.

As it stands there is a bit of "intent confusion" between skeletons and zombies that should probably be addressed. Zombies are permanent, high health, moderate to high damage summons. This makes them very good in a damage support role and very good in a tank role. Skeletons high numbers make them excellent blockers (when they aren't one shot) and a fairly hefty source of damage which in certain situations make them excellent tanks and damage support, and in others make them terrible tanks and a decent source of damage. I believe the best way to fix this problem would be to turn skeletons into the tanks and zombies into the damage. One way (among many) to accomplish this would be by making skeletons more fragile and weaker, but more numerous and permanent; while at the same time making zombies more damaging yet fewer in number. This would effectively turn skeletons into a "tank by numbers" army with zombie "shock troop" damage support. Which is what I feel the system is currently trying (and in my opinion, failing) to represent.

i hate this spell... recasting minions every other 10-15s? this majorly sucks. if you want to make a d2 experience better? get rid of this skill.

I found that recasting them so often was a serious drain on mana, and that about half of them would wander off and not attack a target.

Is that something that other people have noticed?

Using this skill on my witch which is currently lvl 55 and spec'd as a fire witch with light summon skills (having only the lord of death passive to support). Currently playing in act 2 Merciless.
Related gem set up is Summon skeletons (13) supported with Minion life (10), Increased duration (8) and running Discipline l(13).
I'm using this skill tactically, summoning one set at a time to draw hostiles then moving up to support them while summoning on the flanks to contain while I pound them usually.

With this skill I find that there slow movement makes them good for placement as they don't tend to run off.
They tend to stay alive ok, except against a few aura enhanced boss packs which I feel is well balanced as they can still be over run preventing them from feeling OP.
The number that can be summoned at one time feels about right (I'd be happy if it stayed at about 4 tbh as it works for my game style), and there max number is ok as well as 3/4 summon groups works for me.

Overall happy with this skill its good for a tactical / defensive play style. I feel it fills the gape between the summon zombie and frost wall skills nicely.

Summoned skeletons need to have their model changed so that they are easily distinguishable between player minions and enemy mobs. I know there are differences already between the two, but when you're in a dark dungeon with a large amount of monsters on your screen, it's still too easy to mistake summoned minions and monsters.

Since skeletons are relatively weak and summoned in large quantities, in my opinion they should appear smaller than they are right now. If they were half the size and looked like "mini-skeletons", I feel that would be more appropriate.