Animate Guardian
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'just some brief feedback.
First off, WHAT'S WITH THE NOSE ITCHING?! Anyone who has used this skill enough knows exactly what I'm talking about here, unless only my gem is cursed. I guess this could be part of the prominent "the AI sucks" complaint, but this, of all things, bothers me so much. Also, this skill is seriously gimping customization possibilities by only increasing physical damage. When gearing my guardian with elemental damage, I can only reach decent area damage (Melee Splash) in maps with the fastest swords possible, Multistrike, Weapon Elemental Damage, Faster Attacks, a bunch of minion damage nodes, Sidhebreath, Elemental Weakness, and Elemental Equilibrium. That's a lot of investment to see an okay return. Adding Chaos damage to the mix is also pretty much worthless. If I was to change the modifiers of Animate Guardian, it'd have the following;
Also, edit "invisible" out of the gem description or make it clear that the equipment it wears isn't. To some (my friends) this gives the initial impression that the guardian can't be seen, and thus can't be targeted by enemies. same name in-game
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Aesthetically I'd like the guardian to become a "double" of your class.
From a mechanical standpoint 1) Needs better defensive scaling (in the form of +% Ar/Es/Ev) 2) More flexible offensive 3) Needs some more base stats overall (it has 6 item slots, and very little base health or damage to back it up) I'd also like to see the guardian gain "base stats" based on the stat requirement of what it equips something like the sum of total stat requirements. In this way an "Ar guardian" would gain significant "free" life, while an "Ev guardian" would gain a large evasion bonus. IGN - PlutoChthon, Talvathir
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Just read my next post, it`s actually informed.
Spoiler
I'll jump in with some quick ideas;
- Seems like broadening conduit to include the guardian would be a nice simple way to buff it, while still requiring specific build considerations. It thinks it's people! - Passives supporting the guardian specifically could really make it shine. While there are generic minion passives, I mean something on par with Ancestral bond. I would absolutely love to have two powerful guardians running around, even if it meant considerable build limitations. The nodes could be near the two int nodes between templar and marauder - makes summoning slightly more available to more builds, and gives a reason to enter that zone of basically worthless nodes. Even if the nodes weren't quite so powerful, guardian specific nodes would be nice. (At the very least I'd suggest a health regen node, perhaps a move/attack speed node, and maybe something a bit more exotic, like optional nodes giving the guardian increased AoE, stun, etc) - It'd be great if it worked with more weapons. Not as "crucial" as my above suggestions, just a little quality of life boost for it. (EDIT) - Oh, making trigger gems work with it has amazing potential. Give it a CwDT and watch it molten shell, or ice nova. (EDIT2) - Could have a blood magic passive that lets you reserve guardian life to run auras. I don't know how you'd work it, but it could be very interesting. (EDIT3) - Since the guardian can't equip jewelry, a passive letting it benefit from the jewelry you're wearing could be extremely strong - sidhebreath alone would make a guardian worthwhile. I think people underestimate Animate Guardian's power quite considerably. That said, it's still not quite on par with other summoning skills, particularly when you consider that it's the only skill which actually costs you money to run. |
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Sorry for the double post, but up to this point the above one doesn't need more edits. The below feedback is going to be much longer, and more experience based. Sorry for the weird apostrophes.
I've been leveling up a scion build based around Animate guardian - lots of minion life nodes, a rejuvenation totem, vitality + purity of elements, necromantic aegis, building the guardian with found rares, using LMP ice spear + curse on hit temp chains to keep enemies nice and still for my lil' friend. Up to about level 40, here's updated/refined feedback. - Reaching into the minion clusters in order to support him feels underwhelming. While the durability increase from life passives is notable, he doesn`t benefit from the + summons nodes that are almost the point of the clusters. Personally, I`d reinforce my suggestion of making a guardian specific cluster-or-three, and placing them in the templar, scion, or maurader areas. - Spells just absolutely eviscerate even a pimped out (considering level) guardian. My guardian is currently at around +50% to all resists (without gear), and the only thing that makes me afraid for him is low level spell mobs. The guardian can tank Kole, Black Death or double rares, but a couple of mages and he`s done. Rathpith globe would essentially eliminate this issue (with necromatic aegis), however that`s a pretty high barrier to entry for a lot of players - I can`t afford it. - The guardian`s AI is a little prone to leroy-jenkins-ing a pack of mobs. Not a huge issue with physical mobs (can be desirable), enormous issue with spellcasters. He also pays no attention to environmental damage (burning ground, shrines before they`re grabbed, etc.), which is less than ideal. - Boss battles. The guardian is build-crippling garbage (when you`re building for him) if he goes down in a boss fight. I was handling solo dominus reasonably well, until my guardian died (to, primarily, spells). - The skill isn`t, in playstyle terms, a summoning skill. You`re assembling a bro, not constantly propping up corpses. It needs some support to reflect this fundamental difference - you can bond with a guardian, while skeletons are more disposable than tissue paper. - The power curve is nice and linear. The guardian durable when properly supported, from 10 to 40. - I just want to reiterate, the fact you`re actively spending currency to support a skill kind of kills it. My guardian build is great in parties, other than the fact I`m sucking up people`s items to support my skill. - Zealots Oath would really benefit the build I have (because of the totem), although it`s not cost effective to reach for it. Positioning guardian passives near it would allow for a significantly different and more durable build. As a whole, I was actually amazingly pleased with how the skill functioned when you support it as hard as you can, but I still think it needs some love. Here`s the broad strokes of what I would suggest, having had time with a guardian based build under my belt. - Make it possible to construct a guardian without consuming items. While this is partially due to the cost of maintaining a guardian, it`s also in order to make boss fights more viable. Giving the skill a thirty second cooldown on guardian death would still make guardian death undesirable (or even deadly), but it would make the skill substantially more viable versus bosses, and more desirable in parties. I would suggest a little mini character screen for the guardian that appears as a tab off of yours. This would also let you actually check what your guardian is wearing. I would highly encourage making the ability to do this a keystone passive, with negatives pertaining to non-guardian summons. (I never dared equip my guardian with my uniques. If item destruction was a non-issue, a unique-strength guardian would become much more available to people) - Anything to address spell damage. You could make it a passive (flat spell reduction for the guardian, or some spell block chance), or give the guardian the ability to equip a necklace through the mini-character screen (a stone of lazhwar would solve the issue very nicely). -If the above mini character UI for the guardian idea was implemented,the ability to give the guardian some skill gems could be a fantastic, controllable way to boost its power. Rather than inserting the gems in equipment slots, it could be limited to three or four white slots to the side, or even a single melee-only gem slot. I`d love a guardian that could glacial hammer with me, since we could be smash bros. We could both melt face in the parlance of our time with Nycta`s Lantern. - Giving the Guardian its own light radius would help for when it decides to run off and YOLO a bunch of mages, since you`d actually be able to see where it`s running off to. |
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I'm very much against making guardian-specific clusters. If anything add "+X% Something for Guardians" to current clusters.
Because you're taking those clusters anyway there's no real reason NOT to run other summons in addition to your guardian. IGN - PlutoChthon, Talvathir
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After deploying today's summoner friendly patch, a sadly noticed that the +% life regen and +% life leech minion nodes doesn't affect my Guardian.
Is this intended, or just a bug, maybe I overlooked something? ------------ Nevermind, I just had to resummon him completely for the effect to apply. Last edited by Manorith on Jan 30, 2014, 3:10:54 PM
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So if you use Auromvorax or other uniques on your Guardian and he dies you have to buy another one? I am confused as to how this works.
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" That is correct. I don't think making him eat items is a bad idea per se, but I think it really ruins the skill when he eats items *and* wanders so far away from you constantly. If he was revivable, or dropped the items on death, or just had less range, I wouldn't feel the need to mother my precious investment so constantly. Animate Guardian still lame, pls make better. |
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" I completely agree! It would be cool if the items can be dropped upon death. Then again, the greatest penalty of losing items is a great trade-off to get the developers to improve Animate Guardian with more power. If the penalty is to stay, make Animate Guardian worthwhile enough to make up for the unfortunate penalty. When game developers ignore the criticism that would improve their game, the game fails. Just because a game receives a great amount of praise vs. only a small amount of criticism does not mean to call it a day and make a foolish misplaced assumption that it is perfect. (me) Last edited by HeavyMetalGear on Jan 30, 2014, 6:37:28 PM
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Would not favour item drop on death, in the economic sense. GGG desires those item sinks and this is one of them.
The AI could be modified to better match zombie AIs. Leeroy Jenkins is for disposable minions. Yes, global defenses would help - although, have people tried Necromantic Aegis as well? Double shield stats would max resists very easily, then max block with bone offering. AS for spell-block, people will cry if you decide to go for 2x Rathpith Globe though in end-game (a single one on you with Necro Aegis might be sufficient). OTOH, playing king-maker and puppet-master to your guardian isn't so easy in HC. Mathematics: 30% (rathpith) + 24% (archon on guardian) + lvl15(32/32) bone offering. -> 86% overmax block without extra minion block passives. -> 75% max spell block. Assuming block doesn't get capped before conversion to spellblock. Only 27% without offering so significant difference. NB: Scion has access to the increased duration cluster that is very useful for constant offering up-time. Feel gimped as other characters. I think, instead of buffing stats perhaps GGG could consider enabling users to animate a single melee attack gem, separate to other items, as part of the guardian. Then it could use the unsupported skill, at least. This is in line with the original vision in Chris's video on ranged weapons and skills on the guardian. Last edited by zharmad on Feb 1, 2014, 3:05:35 AM
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