Legacy of Phrecia change for Puppeteer, because of permanent Zombie Builds
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Graveyard Shift gives you 30% more zombies that directly translates to damage output (ofc taking rounding down into consideration) AND solves trivial yet still irritating issue of re-summoning
this is FAR more than just a travel node tax. if that 'treat as copse' line is removed you get for 4 points: +5 to zombies (around 55% more damage) +30% more zombies (most likely around 25% depending on zombie count, Monty's or not etc) +ability to resummon them anywhere, anytime (minor but still a positive) dont you think it is a bit MUCH? esp on an ascendancy that already has minion focus AND given that you can use any of the minion Bloodlines to bump that even more? there is nothing even remotely comparable targeting single archetype, not mentioning a single skill, anywhere in the game. i consider asking for that 'treat as corpse' removal as outright unreasonable request for freebies. perma zombies can be played using other nodes or other ascendancies. they do not need free +5 'just because', nothing in this patch makes perma zombies less 'viable' than in the base game. btw - want to balance +5 to zombies? here: +2 to zombies, balanced i do not like the playstyle of it (some do, i do not) but this Ascendancy looks like tailor made for Zombie of Falling (+curse, zombie nodes, caustic ground) with monty (if it works as expected). falling zombie does boom, caustic ground clears whats left im not a fan of such playstyle but i cannot stop thinking that this was the build they had in mind creating this ascendancy |
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" Wrong. And every subsequent post shows this is wrong. Read the first page again. The OP is asking for this because 1) He doesn't understand how to utilize it (hence his "2 build" comment) and the entire impetus for this thread stating (which no one needed to hear) that this line "disables" permanent zombies and 2) He wants the power without the drawback. It has very little to do with "enable this build because it would be a good idea"......it's just "enable this build because I want that obscene power boost". The line is not a mistake to be corrected: it is a feature to be used and built around. I refer again to Aukuna's Will and the fact that this is NOT something brand new. But even if it were...this is nothing like the "Your spells are disabled" nonsense for the other ascendancy. This hardly limits anything. If one is running a permazombie build....they aren't very likely going to choose assassin as their ascendancy would they? The same principle applies here. Or are you saying its a justified argument to make that the assassin nodes should buff things they....aren't designed for just because it limits build choice? Imagine someone running a surfcaster wants the benefits of the fishing pole nodes...but complains that requiring the use of a fishing pole makes any build that requires a specific unique weapon unusable with those nodes. Furthermore it is ABSOLUTELY crucial to the discussion to bring up the "intended usage" of the nodes. Doesn't add to the discussion lol? It IS the discussion. These two nodes are not made for permanent zombies. There are numerous other nodes across multiple phrecia ascendancies....even others within the SAME ascendancy that do that job. There is zero meaningful discussion to be had without recognizing that. Starting anew....with PoE 2 Last edited by cowmoo275#3095 on Jan 29, 2026, 4:35:30 PM
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Puppeteer comes with a double strength siegebreaker floor effect, which should be a pretty good hint about things you could try to do with it.
-Corpse explosion spells on your own zombies -Minion Instability zombie bombs with infernal legion -Zombie of Falling (rain of stinky men) All of the above should also be really funny with the ability to dual wield mon'treguls to turbocrank the size, melee damage, and life of your zombies. I would go as far as to say that there is some really funny potential with a detonate dead heartbound loop autocycler with this setup. If you really want to play a zombie build, there are all kinds of other minion and/or party support ascends you could try. Flame linked zombies from a paladin could be potentially really REALLY powerful if you can get it rolling. After all, thats the whole point (in my view) of the phrecia events: "heres a whole bunch of funny ideas for classes, go see what weird stuff you can cobble togethor". Last edited by Bigwilleh#1842 on Jan 29, 2026, 10:27:26 PM
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" Personally i find that issue not to be trivial at all. having to resummone many or all of your zombies multiple times every 2-3 maps or something sounds so annoying that i wouldn´t want to play that even if it was somehow numerically way stronger than it´s alternatives. Being able to summon them anytime doesn´t really matter for a permanent summoner as you´d have to stop killing stuff anyway to resummon them (you usually wouldn´t even have enough unreserved mana to resummon a single one of them, if you somehow tried to incorporate the need to resummon them regularly, you´d probably be dropping a huge amount of damage or survivability) - might as well drop a few consecrations before starting the resummoning. If one could simply counteract it by "wasting" a single flask slot on a mana flask it might not be too detrimental stat-budget-wise but it would still be very annoying to do it regularly, which is very detrimental to the fun one would have, which matters even more than numbers. " how to you get to that number? if i just enable that node in my PoB i would be getting about 30% more damage out of the +5 to raise zombies skill. Edit: This is with extremely good gear, with worse gear it´s probably a lot closer to your estimation. " which is about 25-30% more damage. If i´m going for Enervating Presence instead i get 25% more damage and a pretty huge defensive node (Marination). It doesn´t feel THAT much apart. I also think that zombies aren´t the strongest minions you could go for, so them having a bit more support than other minion skills might be warranted. At the very least i don´t feel like it would be absolutely busted. " Doesn´t have to be that way. this was just one suggestion. Another suggestion i´ve read was to make Graveyard Shift a choice node. So the current iteration could be one choice and another could have something entirely else (and more balanced), which could bring the combo of Graveyard Shift and Flesh Puppets it pretty much in line with the Enervating Presence and Marination nodes damage wise. Even if that suggestions also doesn´t strike your fancy, there should always be a way to get balance in line. Your suggestion to reduce the +levels to zombies might actually be very detrimental to the builds that might be the "intended" use for these nodes, so i´m not sure about that. If it would be worth the hassle to implement these changes is a completely different story and would have to be considered by the devs taking in the feedback. cowmoo275#3095 The problem is that you´re taking everything you´re reading at face value. That´s not how one properly evaluates feedback. " He doesn´t need to understand how to utilize it. He´s saying that he can´t utilize it in a way, that he would like to. And he´s by far not the only person to do so. That doesn´t mean that the only possible way to adress his concern would be to exactly implement the suggestion he made. They Keypoint here is that the nodes Flesh Puppets and Graveyard Shift are obviously made to play with Raise Zombie but will bait people into playing it in a way that won´t work well. The line "Your Raised Zombies count as corpses" is actually extremely unfun if you´d go for a permanent zombie summoner which is pretty much build-disabling. It´s also a noob trap as a new player wouldn´t even know what they´d get themselves into. (However after doing a few levels in this league i´m certain that this is a non-issue as a new player would never be able to even get to their first ascendancy points. :D) There are countless ways to make people not feel that way. That´s what the discussion should be about. " And you know that because GGG has never ever had a single instance when they´ve implemented something and then later changed it because they were convinced that there was a better way to do it (either after evaluating player feedback of their own data)? " Well i can remember the time when ascendancy classes were released and there was a huge uproar about them reducing the build diversity in the game. So things like this have happened. And i do understand all these points and they´re definitely valid. However only GGG knows what they want their classes, ascendancies etc. to look like and i´m pretty sure that GGG actually is interested in feedback concerning these things, because it might lead to something that will make the game better. They´re not omniscient gods and they know it. " Adding the "intended usage" to the discussion would only have value if it was actually confirmed by someone from GGG - which afaik hasn´t happened yet. Apart from that you can only speculate on what these nodes are intended for. I mean i even agree with you here - i also think that they´re meant to be played with either some kind of exploding zombies (either MI or DD/BW/...) or falling zombies. But saying that i would know it to be a fact would be presumptous. Telling people that are suggesting the change of a node that they´re using that node wrong because you THINK they´re intended for something else and not contending with the suggestion itself really is not adding to the discussion but trying to end it. "you can´t change it because i think it´s for something else" is basically what you´re saying. Do you really think this adds to the discussion? If anything you should give reasons for why you believe it should stay that way. " I do recognize that, but i don´t think it´s an argument against changing these two nodes. You can play many skills with a whole bunch of different ascendancies. Why would having two more nodes being viable for a perma-zombie summoner build be problematic? Just to make things clear: I personally don´t really care for these nodes as i´ve long abandoned the idea of using them (maybe i´ll try them to see how bad it actually would be, but i´ve settled for something else). I just don´t get why people are trying to shoot down suggestions without a proper discussion about pros and cons and instead telling the people that made the suggestion to essentially "git gud". I´d think that it´d be in everyones interest to make the game as good as it can be. Last edited by Thomsiy#7106 on Jan 30, 2026, 9:58:43 AM
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my napkin math returns ~55% more damage from +5 because of a) natural damage increase AND +1 zombie count from gem levels. you can ofc argue it is nullified by body blocking and general pathing issues but in vacuum it is ~50+ more damage from this one node alone (i am ignoring hp increases -> less survivability needed -> more damage via less opportunity cost) (for zombies of slamming, the increase is larger because of slam cooldown reduction)
no matter how you spin it - you want +5 zombies because it is bonkers strong. if it was +2 you wouldnt even consider it and we wouldnt have this conversation power of that node is FAR above standard power level of ascendancy nodes and to exist it requires something truly 'rubbish' to a) balance it out b) prevent its usage in unwanted form. thats why the treat as corpses node it simply says - 'look the other way' if you want perma zombies, because they WILL kill you but opens several interesting ways of building 'plastic straw' zombies that i actually kinda considered for my 2nd character. but because they added gauntlet i might skip this even entirely, not a fan of artificial time tax |
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" You´re probably right about the damage increase in most cases. I pob'd this with pretty insane gear, with less +skills on gear pob shows a higher increase in damage. " So aren´t you actually agreeing with me? People are complaining about b). You yourself come to the conclusion that a) would be a possible solution? In that case it would allow for the desired playstyle and wouldn´t be overpowered. It is possible to have a) and b) - there´s plenty of other "choice" nodes on other ascendancies, so the interesting ways of building you´re speaking of would still be there. Or am i missing something? |
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+5 is BROKEN. it has no place in the game UNLESS it is coupled with something really nasty - just like it currently is.
if you want to play a permanent zombie summoner in Phrecia - you can, nothing stops you. existence of these two nodes in question have 0 impact on your ability in this regard. I see no reasonable way of leaving +5 in the game and removing the deliberate bricking mechanic they have added. these two have to be inseparable. so, no, i do not agree that this should be removed. it is a cool set of nodes that promotes NEW, non-standard zombie builds. take it or leave it. asking for 'i just want the good bit' is unreasonable balancing this node out means +5 -> +1 or something similar. making it a dead node. i have little summoner experience but even I know that POE's minions scale extremely potently via levels because both damage AND survivability depend on the level. +5 for a minion is FAR more important than +5 for a fireball how would you balance +5 node? lets skip all ideas that are 'smartly' bypassed (aka penalties that are not penalties) - like 'no other minions' (unique helmet). |
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" I think you´re very much overestimating how impactful +5 on Raise Zombie is. It is definitely strong but it´s not strong in a way that can´t be balanced around, since in the end it is effectively just a numerical multiplier for DMG and HP. You´ve even stated yourself that there just would need to be an equivalent drawback and that´s exactly what i´ve been talking about. So how are you not agreeing with me? " I mean the laziest thing would be to add a choice node that had something like "your zombies deal x% less damage"/"your zombies take x% more damage" or something like that. This would be pretty bad design, but there, it´s possible to balance it out. I think that not having other minions than zombies would be a crazy drawback. You would have to give up support spectres and AG, which are pretty strong. Another way could be to make zombies not be affected by offerings (which is also pretty much a side effect of the "your zombies count as corpses" of the current Graveyard Shift node). However that´s exactly the point of what my initial statements were aimed at. People shot down the suggestion without even discussing it. Talking about HOW to balance things out is an actual discussion and is exactly what i was advocating for. So thanks for doing that. :) I didn´t actually want to participate in said discussion, as i´m not really interested in making these nodes viable for a permanent zombie summoner myself. Personally i think GGG should rather spend their time polishing the next league etc. than investing a lot of time in making a single playstyle compatible with a certain ascendancy node. If they had the spare time, sure, i wouldn´t see a problem with that, but i don´t see it happening for the phrecia 2.0 anyway. Maybe they can take something out of the discussion for future content. |
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