Animate Guardian

I recently started playing again and was excited to see this skill. I thought, "That's just the thing my summoner needed to give her an edge."

My attitude / expectations were I would invest in the guardian and where my other minions were fodder - it would be my general. My own personal avatar's avatar.

At level 27 - while entering act 3 (going to the crematorium) -- I lost 3 sets of lvl 22ish rares. Which I have to call shenanigans on. I have 4 minion health nodes (passive +40% minion health). The animate guardian gem claims 23% additional health - and I have him linked to both minion resist and minion health (which is currently 34%).

On the skillbar however, the animate guardian only states +34% health -- as if the support gem is overriding everything else. Depending on what math exile uses - he should have either a 77% health bonus or a 69.5% bonus.

In my gear choices, I chose equipment that had the highest health stat - followed by the highest Armor. Most of the items were +30 (or more) health. 2 of his incarnations I equipped a two handed weapon - the 3rd attempt I equipped a 1hander and shield for extra survivability.

He wasn't very survivable at all. I think I would have gotten better returns linking zombies to the minion health & resist.

So after losing 13 rares in 20 minutes -- I simply use white items, but now as I progress I find myself micro-managing trash drops for my guardian as opposed to pushing through content (and generally having fun).

Another issue I ran into with animate guardian - for those who 'invest' quality arms. Lets say I give him a really snazzy helmet, and after playing for a while a rare helmet drops. Unless I keep a journal - I have no idea if this new piece of equipment is actually an upgrade for him.

I think animate guardian should work somewhat similar to the mercinary in D2. Assuming your guardian is alive, you have a small interface - you can take pieces off - put pieces on. See his general stats - health, damage .. chance to hit.. etc.

If he dies, like the mercenary you pay a fee (based on his level + overall gear value) to revive him.

Additionally, since PoE is so socket-centric, the guardian should get a stat bonus for each color of socket equal to it's gem level. So for example, if you gave him a helmet with 2 red and a blue socket. The Animate Guardian gem level was 10 - it would receive a +20 Strength and +10 Intelligence. If it was a level 20 gem, then he would receive +40 Strength and +20 Intelligence. Links should also provide a small bonus.


Animate Guardian should also be able to use level 1 gems. Which is increased by .5 for each rank of quality. So a 20% quality Animate Guardian can use upto level 11 gems. I can't see any reason why the gems themselves should be limited -- players should be able to make caster guardians, tank guardians, raptor guardians ..etc. However, I will say that the players need to provide enough gear that the guardians meet the requirements for gems their attempting to socket. For example, if they're trying to equip a level 7 Dual Strike -- then they have to provide enough gear with 8 green sockets, so that the Guardian has the base dexterity required.

I like your idea about giving guardian gems, but don't try using it at a low level - you want to be able to give it high resistances at the minimum.

Does anyone know the base HP of the guardian per level?

I've read about half of this thread and I'm not having problems with AG myself. I don't know if it's already been tweaked but I like it right now.

I've been using it on my summoner since I first could (10?) and I'm currently 46. Since the zombie AI is still so broken, I've been using AG to keep me alive. I generally just equip him with random stuff I find laying around that I don't want and he has great survivability and damage. I usually go for 2h instead of 1h. Right now he's level 11 and linked to melee damage on full life, life gain on hit, and melee splash gems. He's almost always at full life without my need to heal him and even survives boss fights that the zombies do not but I'm only in act2 cruel.

Out of all the skills GGG has released, I feel that Animate Guardian has the most potential... and is doing the worst job of living up to that potential.

Why so much potential?

MERCENARIES! Having a follower whose gear you can customize is an ARPG staple steeped in rich nostalgia. It gives opportunities for further customization and allows even solo players to feel like they're not playing alone.

Naturally, in Path of Exile, things like this aren't free, so having your own personal henchman costs at least one socket, most likely more than that. And yes, your henchman is essentially an invisible man. But what would you expect?

That's what Animate Guardian can be — something which fills that mercenary niche for players. That's what it should be.

Unfortunately, that's not what it is. Here are some key things holding Animate Guardian back:

1) Leeroy Jenkins AI. Seriously, in situations where a pack of zombies has the common sense to wait for further instructions, the dumb old Guardian goes and charges in headlong. While playtesting the skill, over and over again I'd see this behavior, and I simply couldn't get the LEEEROY JENNNNNKINS! battlecry out of my mind, because that's exactly how he works. Considering that you Guardian is one of your costlier minions, costing considerably more than a corpse, it should be the other way around; the Guardian should be a little more cautious than a zombie. Especially important is that the Guardian realizes when you're retreating from a battle and has the sense to run away with you, rather than fighting to the death.

2) Low survivability. Like I just said, the Guardian is one of your costlier minions; as such, it should be able to take a bit of a beating. I'm not saying it should be able to tank anything the game can throw at it, but it should be resilient enough to take a big hit and give the player enough time to react (retreat on foot) and have the Guardian disengage before death. The Guardian's life should be balanced around not having Minion Life support. If this extra survivability means that the Guardian's DPS isn't all that impressive, that is perfectly fine; a Guardian shouldn't be matching DPS with a pack of zombies, it should just be matching them in terms of survivability.

3) Inability to use ranged weaponry. Not everyone wants a "melee mercenary;" especially considering the lack of (non-Spectre) ranged minions and the value of keeping your Guardian alive, there's a lot of value to be had in making an archer Guardian. As such, this kind of functionality should be allowed.

Now I think the reason this functionality wasn't included in the game was due to stuff like LMP+Culling+IIQ+IIR+FasterAttacks, allowing the Guardian to benefit from both your MF gear and its MF gear. This is because all of your Minions get your MF attributes. Well, in all seriousness, keeping that MF rule for Minions is a lot less important than a strong and interesting Animate Guardian skill, so I'd fully support removing MF-transfer to Minions, and instead having minions only benefit from direct support gems. This doesn't mean summoner MF characters can't work, it just means they have to work in a Culling Strike scheme, which isn't too much to ask.

Another topic worth mentioning here is auras. I don't see why a Guardian shouldn't be able to maintain an aura for the group, but it should definitely have a cost of some kind. Perhaps make it so Guardian reservations cost 50% more, so a 60% aura would normally reserve 90% mana on a Guardian.

4) Inability to use skills. Right now, Animate Guardian is basically an invisible Templar (if you look close you can tell it's the Templar model). So giving it the capability to use skills wouldn't be that hard; the animations are already there. So why not? Let players have a Guardian that uses Leap Slam or Spectral Throw or Lightning Arrow... or even a spellcaster Guardian. In order to get that to work, they'd have to socket the skill gems on the items they're going to use, which would make it a nice sink for random gems you happen to find. And once again, if GGG is worried about Guardian DPS getting too high, not a problem, just keep the base Guardian DPS low and assume players will skill out their Guardians. If giving Guardians an initial damage penalty, such as 20% less Attack Speed, is what needs to be done for balance, then do it... but give us the option to customize our Guardians with the skills we'd like them to have.

5) Inability to receive items with microtransactions on them. You should be able to use Microtransactions to pimp out your Guardian, perhaps making him look the same as you, perhaps just looking badass in a style all his own... and if/when the Guardian dies, just have any microtransactions automatically refund back to the microtransaction stash. GGG might even make some serious bank doing this, as players will no longer be afraid to buy microtransactions, not for themselves, but for one of their summons.

Lastly, although any Guardian in PvP is very likely to die, that doesn't mean one shouldn't consider how the skill might be used in such a format. Instead of always being an invisible Templar, the Guardian should be a random class whenever it's summoned. This could allow a player to make a visual clone of himself for distractions with sufficient preparation, or allow players to get the Guardian model they'd prefer eventually, providing they try using the skill often enough.

TL;DR
Guardian should have/be:

• AI that prevents it from killing itself stupidly
• decent survivability - Minion Life support not required
• able to use ranged weapons
• able to use skill gems
• able to use item-based microtransactions
• more models than Invisible Templar

In exchange, the following points are negotiable:

• Guardian base damage/DPS
• Guardian mana/resource systems
• Minions being able to use caster's IIR/IIQ from gear (as opposed to supports)

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I'd fully support removing MF-transfer to Minions, and instead having minions only benefit from direct support gems.

I agree with most everything you said, except that. Your suggestion would be a significant, annoying and unnecessary change to the playstyle of all pure summoners. If Guardian's MF is a concern, just bugger his MF, don't make summoners lose all their MF unless they actively poach kills from their own minions.

Also, not quite sure if GGG reads this thread. Patch 1.01 buffed Guardian slightly, but literally ignored the fact that the last ten pages all have same complaints and mostly the same suggestions.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Out of all the skills GGG has released, I feel that Animate Guardian has the most potential... and is doing the worst job of living up to that potential.

Agreed.

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Loppy wrote:

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

That's both clever and lol-worthy at the same time.

Any chance this skill is gonna get some love in the foreseeable future, or is it considered "finish" at this point?

So much potential, yet its being held back by the fact that a single skeleton is almost better than it. Hope it gets a rework, as it doesn't really fill any niche spot or brings anything useful in its current incarnation.

Lochtonial Caress item didn't work at animate guardian.
I wanted my guardian to share his charges for me but it didn't work.
Yes, I saw he got frenzy, power, endurance charges just for himself.
Can anyone tell me why it doesn't work?

So from all the replies I've been reading, even as a summoner these are useless for the investment in endgame maps? I use BoR+Monte'gruls sceptre zombies, and 6L spectres, will the guardian even make a difference in 73+ maps?