👻3.20👻 Kay's Summoner💥SRS Bomber💀Poison SRS💀Melee SRS🕷️Spiders💀Skeleton Mages

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DontRepairYourselfMind wrote:

If you just compare ascendancies... Guardian are better for minions then necro now, except phys spectres maybe?

Should we swap from necro to guardian? - charges,20% free all res, +30AOE, 10 more dmg, 30 inc damage, 40% attack and movement speed, 80% curse res. Just from ascend.

Personally, I'm not very impressed with Guardian. I think it actually still does less damage than Necro. Necro still gives 100% increased minion dmg, ~20% minion attack speed as a base.

We're also most likely going to be picking Plague Bringer(Assuming Bone Barrier isn't required to keep minions alive). This should give us 30% AoE, 10% more dmg mod and 10% reduced dmg taken which is very strong. With Desecrate on a 4 second Trigger it should be fairly consistent. Might have to selfcast Desecrate though for bosses which is kinda yikes.

30% minion elemental resistance is also extremely undervalued. No one wants to get minion resistances from gear or in the tree. Without Commander in Darkness, your minions are most likely not going to be resistance capped unless you invest alot into your gear or run something like Elemental Army.

And finally, the most important thing for Summoners in general is the quasi requirement to run Mistress of Sacrifice for Bone Offering to cap both spell and attack block. But maybe running Glancing Blows as a guardian would allow minion builds to continue abusing Aegis Aurora, even if you're dropping Bone Offering.

If I had to guess, Necromancers will still be the best minion ascendency in general. I think Elementalist will be the best conversion/elemental minion build(Not Mages), especially if you run Mistress of Sacrifice on forbidden Jewels.

I also think Occultist most likely is better than Guardians, especially with mistress from forbidden Jewels.

Honestly, I personally don't think Guardians offer too much.
(Btw, Harmony of Purpose does not work for your minions. They are not Party Members, had it worked, then maybe Guardian would edge out Necromancers)

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Torguemada wrote:

I would assume vicious projectile support works with Skeleton Archers from Phantasmal summon Skeletons but POB doesn't show them getting any damage form it so now it has me doupting myself.

Anyone know for sure whether that combination works or not?

It should work!

There are some gems that don't work for minions in POB but work in the game. It's because the minion skill doesn't have all the right tags. For example some spectres don't show damage increase when you use multistrike in POB. But if you link it in the game they will repeat their melee hit.

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Torguemada wrote:

I would assume vicious projectile support works with Skeleton Archers from Phantasmal summon Skeletons but POB doesn't show them getting any damage form it so now it has me doupting myself.

Anyone know for sure whether that combination works or not?

A tip, don't use Phantasmal Skellies. Archers are the weakest minion in the game, they're more undertuned than raising the small crab spectres in the Strand when you start the game.

For some reason, they have an abyssmal scaling.
Here's their numbers on their only attacking move:

For reference, these are the numbers of normal skeletons:

The reason why you probably aren't seeing the dmg increase from Vicious Projectiles is probably because you don't have Skeleton Archers checked in your PoB, but the base Summon Skeleton.

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Deadandlivin wrote:

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DontRepairYourselfMind wrote:

If you just compare ascendancies... Guardian are better for minions then necro now, except phys spectres maybe?

Should we swap from necro to guardian? - charges,20% free all res, +30AOE, 10 more dmg, 30 inc damage, 40% attack and movement speed, 80% curse res. Just from ascend.

Personally, I'm not very impressed with Guardian. I think it actually still does less damage than Necro. Necro still gives 100% increased minion dmg, ~20% minion attack speed as a base.

We're also most likely going to be picking Plague Bringer(Assuming Bone Barrier isn't required to keep minions alive). This should give us 30% AoE, 10% more dmg mod and 10% reduced dmg taken which is very strong. With Desecrate on a 4 second Trigger it should be fairly consistent. Might have to selfcast Desecrate though for bosses which is kinda yikes.

Plaguebringer's problem is Offering eats all 5 corpses from desecrate. You need alt quality desecrate to get 6 corpses so there is one extra to activate it.

Necro only gives 10% ias. Maybe 16% because we can run 2 auras in 3.19? So Guardian has +24% ias. It's not too bad!

Guardian has 20% inc + 10% more + 10% damage taken (intimidate/unnerve). So Necro has 80% inc. I think for good gear, Guardian will be better because of stacking inc damage.

Block is a good point, but it's possible to cap block without offering and GB with reckless and brassdome... my updated spider uses that.

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DontRepairYourselfMind wrote:

Guardian are better for minions then necro now, except phys spectres maybe?

Not really.

Necromancer undispudetly is the strongest summoner for full chaos conversion (4 white sockets Triad Grip) in 3.19:

Herald of agony, zombies, animate weapon, skeletons (melee/archers), etc.

Permanent unholy might is super strong for it, just slightly weaker than +2.

Basically, changes of necromancer pretty much binding it to chaos/poison damage, but its definitely worth it.

Full chaos convertion is very beneficial - monsters and bosses have less chaos resistance than elemental, there is no chaos reflect, and some more.

For builds like herald of agony or animate weapon, getting 4 sockets triad grip was better than running hatred aura.

Overall, all minion builds are severely nerfed.

But in 3.19 ascendancies become more niche: Necromancer is for physical/chaos/poison builds, Elementalist is for golems again. I can't say that Guardian is for everything else tho.

So, yes, Necromancer isn't a go-to minion ascendancy now, but it doesn't change the fact that it definitely excells in its niche.

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kayella wrote:

It's kinda funny to read GGG's solution actually!

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Generally minion life and damage is unchanged in the very early game. 30% lower at gem level 1.

Is 30% less the same as unchanged? Maybe my English is not good.

I think you're misinterpreting the information by merging two quotes together.

There's:

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Generally speaking, minion life and damage is unchanged in the very early game, roughly 30% lower in mid acts, roughly 20% lower at level 20 of the minion skill, and roughly 10% lower at level 30 of the minion skill.

Basically, this says that minions very early game (Act 1) will be the same, mid acts (Act 4-6) will be about 30% worse. There's nothing about gem level there so for example Zombies, which you get almost right away, will be unchanged at gem level 1, but Golems which require level 34 for gem level 1 will already be somewhere like -20% to -30% (depending on the definition of "mid acts").

Then there's the next section which contains things like:

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Summon Skeletons: No longer has Minions gain 50% more Added Damage. Skeletal Mages now deal approximately 5% less damage at gem level 1, scaling to approximately 25% less damage at gem level 20. Now costs 5 mana at gem level 1 (previously 4), up to 16 at gem level 20 (previously 12).

Note, that this second section is in addition to the information from the first.

So level 20 skeleton mages:

-20% from general minion nerf
-25% from targeted nerf
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-40% total nerf (60% of 3.18 damage)

Not counting the "added damage" change, but since those stats made very little difference before, it's not very important here.

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kayella wrote:

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Deadandlivin wrote:

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DontRepairYourselfMind wrote:

If you just compare ascendancies... Guardian are better for minions then necro now, except phys spectres maybe?

Should we swap from necro to guardian? - charges,20% free all res, +30AOE, 10 more dmg, 30 inc damage, 40% attack and movement speed, 80% curse res. Just from ascend.

Personally, I'm not very impressed with Guardian. I think it actually still does less damage than Necro. Necro still gives 100% increased minion dmg, ~20% minion attack speed as a base.

We're also most likely going to be picking Plague Bringer(Assuming Bone Barrier isn't required to keep minions alive). This should give us 30% AoE, 10% more dmg mod and 10% reduced dmg taken which is very strong. With Desecrate on a 4 second Trigger it should be fairly consistent. Might have to selfcast Desecrate though for bosses which is kinda yikes.

Plaguebringer's problem is Offering eats all 5 corpses from desecrate. You need alt quality desecrate to get 6 corpses so there is one extra to activate it.

Necro only gives 10% ias. Maybe 16% because we can run 2 auras in 3.19? So Guardian has +24% ias. It's not too bad!

Guardian has 20% inc + 10% more + 10% damage taken (intimidate/unnerve). So Necro has 80% inc. I think for good gear, Guardian will be better because of stacking inc damage.

Block is a good point, but it's possible to cap block without offering and GB with reckless and brassdome... my updated spider uses that.

Yeah, that's the only problematic thing with Plaguebringer. Triggers consuming Desecrate corpses. That's why I mentioned that you might have to selfcast it for bosses.

When mapping however, there should be a plethora of corpses lying around from all the monster slaying to keep all those buffs permanent though.
Hadn't thought about running Divergent Desecrate though. That's actually pretty genius. Unfortunately, it would require Ashes of the Stars to get 100% chance for it to procc. But if you get the quality up on it, this would always leave 1 corpse after each Desecrate Trigger to maintain the buff which seems like it could work out.

I'm still not sure about Guardian though. If we summarize everything that affects dmg we get:

Guardian:

Dmg
- Increased Minion Dmg: 20%(Small Nodes)
- Minion Attack Speed: 40% attack speed(20% from Onslaught)
- More Dmg: 10% more
- 5% increased Aura effect
- Intimidate/Unnerving: 10% increased phys dmg(Works for conversion)
Discarding this though cause you can easily get Intimidate from Awakened Melee Phys and Unnerve from AG gloves et.c.
Total: 20% increased dmg, 10% more dmg, 40% increased attack speed, 5% aura effect

Minion Survival:
- Around 100 flat energy shield

Your own Survival:
- 80% reduced curse effect.
- Around 100 flat energy shield
- 64% increased armor
- 20% increased ES
- 20 All resistance
Total: 80% curse effect, 20% inc ES, 20 all res, 64% increased armor, ~100 flat ES

Utility:
- 30% life regen every 4 sec
- 30% increased minion AoE
- 20% Movespeed(You)
- 40% movespeed (Minions)

Necromancer: (Assuming Plaguebringer)

Dmg:
- Increased minion dmg: 100%, 40% from small nodes and 60% from Noteables
- 10% more dmg from Plague Bringer
- 10% attackspeed + 3% per aura. Most minion builds have 2-3 Auras so I'd say 16-19% AS depending on how many Auras.
- 5% increased Aura Effect
Total: 100% inc dmg, 10% more dmg, ~16-19% increased attack speed

Minion Survival:
- Minion Life: 20% from small nodes
- 30% all resistances from Commander in Darkness
- 10% reduced dmg taken from Plague Bringer.
Total: 20% inc life, 10% reduced dmg taken, 30 all resistances

Your own Survival:
- 30 all resistances
- 10% reduced dmg taken(Plaguebringer)
Total: 30 all res, 10% reduced dmg taken

Utility:
- 30% increased AoE for minions and you
- 10% movespeed for minions
- 50% increased Duration
- 50% offering effects on you.

If we're straight out looking at pure minion dps, it's basically ~20% attack speed(Guardian) vs 80% increased minion dmg(Necro).
I don't think 20% attackspeed comes close in almost any PoB unless you have insane levels of % minion dmg and no attack speed, which usually doesn't happen.

The only things I find intrigguing with Guardian is the 64% increased Armor and 20% passive movement speed from Onslaught to increase yoru clearspeed if you don't run a Silver Flask. Other than that, it seems kinda lackluster imo.

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Deadandlivin wrote:

If we're straight out looking at pure minion dps, it's basically ~20% attack speed(Guardian) vs 80% increased minion dmg(Necro).
I don't think 20% attackspeed comes close in almost any PoB unless you have insane levels of % minion dmg and no attack speed, which usually doesn't happen.

The only things I find intrigguing with Guardian is the 64% increased Armor and 20% passive movement speed from Onslaught to increase yoru clearspeed if you don't run a Silver Flask. Other than that, it seems kinda lackluster imo.

Just "inc damage" giving not that much in % of damage, how much may give attack|cast speed in certain situations. I'm not saying what something clearly better then other, but this depends. And 10% damage taken are works for both phys and ele damage. So it's not just "20% inc dmg".
Also you can cut that 10% reduction from necro, it will not work most of times as kay mented. And you also forgot about guardian charges for self defense.
Also as i remember "Nearby allies" include you, so all buff is for you too, but there i may be wrong, not much time i play guardian.

So as for me, all is clearly depens on gear mods and uniques buffs.
Except phys/chaos dmg as you say and i ment before, necro there are clearly best now.

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DontRepairYourselfMind wrote:

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Deadandlivin wrote:

If we're straight out looking at pure minion dps, it's basically ~20% attack speed(Guardian) vs 80% increased minion dmg(Necro).
I don't think 20% attackspeed comes close in almost any PoB unless you have insane levels of % minion dmg and no attack speed, which usually doesn't happen.

The only things I find intrigguing with Guardian is the 64% increased Armor and 20% passive movement speed from Onslaught to increase yoru clearspeed if you don't run a Silver Flask. Other than that, it seems kinda lackluster imo.

Just "inc damage" giving not that much in % of damage, how much may give attack|cast speed in certain situations. I'm not saying what something clearly better then other, but this depends. And 10% damage taken are works for both phys and ele damage. So it's not just "20% inc dmg".
Also you can cut that 10% reduction from necro, it will not work most of times as kay mented. And you also forgot about guardian charges for self defense.
Also as i remember "Nearby allies" include you, so all buff is for you too, but there i may be wrong, not much time i play guardian.

So as for me, all is clearly depens on gear mods and uniques buffs.
Except phys/chaos dmg as you say and i ment before, necro there are clearly best now.

I'm pretty sure 80% minion dmg will outperform 20% attack speed by a large margin in most cases. If most minion builds are forced to choose between a Fortress Covenant(40% minion dmg) and a quickening covenant(16% attack speed) almost all builds I've seen get more dmg from the Fortress covenant. We're not talking about 40% increased dmg here though, but 80%.

Not sure what you're trying to say. Guardian has x2 small nodes that give 10% increased minion damage. Combined they are 20% increased dmg taken.
The whole guardian ascendency gives:
20% increased minion dmg, 40% minion attack speed and 10% more dmg. That's the only damage traits you get.

Why wouldn't the 10% dmg reduction work for necro?
When you're mapping there will literally be corpses EVERYWHERE cause you're killing monsters so it should have 100% uptime while mapping, even without Desecrate. For bossing, you'll be running a 4 second trigger wand to trigger Desecrate + Offering. With Divergent Desecrate you'll spawn 6 corpses and Offerings only consume 5 corpses so 1 corpse will always be up.
So it should be very consistent for bossing aswell, if you can get your desecrate quality up to 30%.
You can also run Unearth in your Trigger wand to have 100% uptime if you have room for the socket slot.

No, nearby allies does not include yourself.
Nearby allies only affect your minions. If it affects you, it would say "you and nearby allies".

You do get Onslaught from Radiant Crusader. But you don't get the buffs from Unwavering Stance.

Harmony of Purpose for Endurance charges is VERY weak. It gives you a 20% chance to get a random charge whenever you HIT an enemy. Since we're a minion build, Frenzy and Power does nothing for us, only Enudrance Charges. So on average, you would have to hit a boss 45 times to get 3 Endurance Charges.
As a minion build, you won't be able to sustan 3 Endurance Charges with that Noteable. If you want Endurance charges, run Enduring Composure on a small armor cluster instead. Also, if you didn't know, your minions won't get any of the charges from Haromy of Purpose cause they are allies, not party members.

Finally, I'll use my own build as an example to show that Necro still should be stronger in terms of DPS. I'll use the same build, one will be necro and the other will be guardian:

If you compare my build running Guardian or Necro(WIthout Unnatural Strength) my Necro version still does 80 million(~20%) more dps than the Guardian version. Honestly, Guardian still doesn't even come close.

The only real benefit of running Guardian imo, is that you get 20% movespeed from Onslaught and 64% armor from small nodes which is nice. But you still miss out on Mistress of Sacrifice which is huge.

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Deadandlivin wrote:

If you compare my build running Guardian or Necro(WIthout Unnatural Strength) my Necro version still does 80 million(~20%) more dps than the Guardian version. Honestly, Guardian still doesn't even come close

If you untick charges it drops to 192M vs 162M... still good number, but difference is not so big. and most people never have a build like yours (mageblood, 9link helmet, two +2/DD/ias wands).

The helmet cost 1 mir + fee, right?
https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Sentinel/zvWw3XqI4

I was just thinking if you spend 2 mir on DO build, it would probably be even better than minions.. :P

Overall, mostly the 3.19 nerfs hurt the casual and mid level players, so for them Guardian vs Necro is actually pretty close.

Don't forget movement speed from Guardian. It's 30% ms more than Necro. Almost all minions are melee, so the movement speed will be important. Just remember how terrible league start feels before you get good boots :P


Edit: you use explosion AG, right? Are there any corpses left behind?

Edit 2: So my main point is Guardian is probably better for league start/casual/mid level players. If you have lots of time and good at crafting, then maybe Necro is better.