Animate Guardian

Like pretty much everyone else here, I think this gem is totally cool, but so useless it's like a joke skill.


Even if you were to 6-link it and make an absolutely boss guardian, and make him out of totally badass items, that just means you're all the more screwed when he retardedly runs ahead of you every single time and dies.

I've seen other suggestions to improve this skill so here are mine:

1. Allow us to see his items. We could do a lot more to make a resilient guardian if we could see what gear he's wearing, even if we built him six months ago and have long since forgotten.

2. Make him less suicidally stupid. It's like his AI is designed to be an item sink or something. Every time I make one out of cool rares that effectively combine to have nice armour, resists and life, he lasts a lot longer, but still dies at the first thick pack or elite he runs into.

3. Make him revivable. Right now, anything you put into a guardian has an extremely short time period before it's gone forever, largely due to point number 2. By making your items you put into him revivable the skill will reach it's full potential, and people will start to do awesome things like make guardians out of uniques that are actually helpful. This is really the only thing that will ever solve the problem of minions being useless on bosses. If I have to revive him three or four times over the course of a boss fight, that doesn't seem overpowered to me. FWIW I feel the same way about spectres. I love playing as pet classes (in any ARPG), but here they're just a horrible option when compared to any build that deals it's own damage.


I think all three of those are necessary and don't seem contrary to the vision you guys have for game balance. But if I had to choose one of them it would be number 3. That would do more than anything else to make this skill more useful than a novelty.


Edit: I forgot to mention, another reason why I think making it revivable is far and away the best option. Tactically, it's meant to be like a golem right? This game has no Clay Golem or Blood Golem, but Animate Guardian has the potential to be any kind of golem with the right gear. In most any game that uses them, the "big heavy single instance pets" can be restored when they fall (thinking of Titan Quest, D2 (excepting Metal Golem), D3, Torchlight 2). Because otherwise they would all be useless. I don't see any good reason to make this version of the golem so much worse. Even a Clay Golem with no damage would be better than this guy at his best.

I have been using the Skill Animate Guardian since I have attained it on my Scion as a quest reward. My experience echos all of the previously mentioned statements. I cannot add anything since everything that faults it has been extensively covered. However, what I do want to add is my support of the changes, and what changes should take priority.

The first is definitely to improve its AI. It charges into mobs and aggros everything, and pulls them back to me overwhelming me. The other minions I have stick close to me, and when I pull back they follow unlike the Guardian.

The second is to add specific Skill Nodes for the Guardian. You already have several end nodes that allow us to summon more Zombies, Skeletons, and Specters. Having dedicated nodes would go a long way for improving the survivability and effectiveness of the Guardian. Suggestions could be:

1) Summoning an additional Guardian or two in lieu of having other minions.
2) A Guardian that spawns with an identical copy of our stats, but perhaps at a reduced percentage if there is a balance issue.
3) Like someone mentioned before, a node that allows the Guardian to use an active skill.

Lots of potential, but definitely needs tweaking. Thanks for including it anyway, and hopefully more varied Summons/Minions are on the way.

Guardian, and Animate Weapon, for that matter, should drop whatever items they're made out of when they die/expire. For the animated weapons, that means you'd likely have to tone down their power in some way (since an inventory full of even white items can trivialize certain bossfights) but I think this fix would leave the golem viable as-is.

I would like to commend GGG on the idea of this skill. It looks cool, it is a fun mechanic. It just needs some tweeking. It really isn't viable at all. On top of that, pets are kind of in a bad place right now.

I am not worried, as GG has shown incredible aptitude at finding ways to fix problems like this.

Currently the skill has no place. Its like a weak version of a zombie without anything notable in it.

More ideas that would encourage investment of rares/uniques while hopefully maintaining an element of risk:

1. Items on the guardian are dropped at its feet when they are replaced or the guardian dies.

2. One or both of 2a/2b:

2a. Flat mana is reserved based on the level of the items used times their rarity. May be tricky to balance with reduced mana reserved passives.

2b. The guardian needs time to integrate each new item into its form, during which it cannot attack with that item or benefit from its properties. Integration time increases with item rarity. If multiple items are added at once, the guardian integrates them one at a time in the order they were added. Visually, items yet to be integrated could glow with psychokinetic energy or something. Integration time could perhaps be affected by your cast speed.

BTW, unidentified blues should count as whites for the purposes of the above. I do agree with others that the guardian's AI should be closer to that of zombies.

Also, maybe let us teleport the guardian by casting the spell on the ground?

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I actually have a working build with animate guardian if u link it with cast on death it gets easily 200% more dm and can even get 60% more area of effect on meele splash my guardian isnt that tanky but he kills everythin faster than my mauraduer could

I actually have a working build with animate guardian if u link it with cast on death it gets easily 200% more dm and can even get 60% more area of effect on meele splash my guardian isnt that tanky but he kills everythin faster than my mauraduer could.
its not so hard to put an item next to you before kiling yourself and you have to do it only once to get the effect

I find it funny that GGG refuse to comment on either this of Weapon, because they're both horrible skills that need to be completely reworked.
Also the fact that you can't use a bow even though it was in the trailer is a complete slap to the face.
Absolutely embarassing