Animate Guardian

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turtleken wrote:

thanks sil

now back to my original point, how do I use animate guardian on my pvp only toon???

You can't, currently. I think I remember GGG responing to a thread about this but I can't find it so I might've imagined it.

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

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Mokihiki wrote:

The concerns being items getting consumed on death? That's a core mechanic, like Storm Call dealing delayed damage or Spark flying around randomly. People like different things so why not use a skill that's appealing?

How constructive is it to repeatedly complain that a skill designed to appeal to people who enjoy risk management has a high amount of risk involed?

Yeah the AI is weird. It's still "fine" dispite this though, as I've posted about in a more constructive manner several times before in this thread.

then post the link, or dont post at all,

And i fail to see how having a skill as a 1 link to minionlife which spends the entirety of its life being that thing you put leercast and dying breath on or that thing you use to not get one shot by multistrike items in pvp is good.


how would you know it was designed for people who like risk management?

there is an entire optional game type for that crap . it is called hardcore. And at-least with hardcore i can quote a dev saying it is designed to be for those who want risk.

the guardian not so much , because you know what reality is? reality is that no one is willing to put anything of value on the guardian because of that risk. Ive seen maybe 5 people put something worth more than an exa on a guardian, that guardian is also dead and they dont care because they were all rich.

how many people do you know that arent wealthier than god would seriously consider using guardians as a core damage skill with items they would consider valuable.

and no having 3 chaos worth of gimmicky uniques so you can get a 30% increased damage mod for your REAL skills is not a convincing argument.

that is like saying sweep is a fine skill because it is a decent method of applying curse on hit to things.

Link? To my constructive posts? You've respended to some of them... I guess you didn't find them very memorable lol.

Here's one: Link. And to answer the second part: The Rampage effect doesn't work on the Guardian :(

You are really over exaggerate the inadequacies of the guardian. As usual. Only worth a 1 link? Just an aura whore? No one puts things of value on him? Honeslty now..?

It's probably not gonna mean much to you if I talk about my own usage of this gem so I'll make it short: I'm generally piss poor yet I don't mind throwing a few exalts on my guardian every now and then. My next plan is to try a Goddess Scorned with an Abyssus which is probably lunacy to most but it's the sort of lunacy that's fun for me. People like this exists.

As for the intent of the developers, I guess I'm mostly basing my stance on the video that introduced the gem: gamespot video. The part with the Guardian starts at 12:30.

I think the last part of your post shows how fundementally we disagree on what a skill needs to do in general.

Like your example with sweep. If sweep actually was amazing at applying curse on hit that'd be fine. Like how Barrage is just a skill for CoC or Shock nova is just a skill for proliferating shock. There are skills that are stright up good and there are skills "that have limeted appeal". Different strokes for different folks.
Although considering how GGG ruined Viper Strike perhaps they don't agree as much with me now as I believe they did in the past.

Anyway, we aren't gonna see eye to eye on this so lets just agree that every now and then you complain that the guardian is shit and that no one uses it and every now and then I complain about people complaining.

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Karkadinn wrote:

Something being a 'core mechanic' doesn't actually address whether it's a good idea or not, it's just stating the obvious.

And on average, risk is ideally balanced out by roughly equivalent reward. The reward end of this skill is, as with many of the game's clunkier skills, kind of lacking for the trouble and risk required to use it in a build.

It offers mechanics no other skill offers. I literally think that's justification enough.

As for an uneven balance of risk vs reward; look at Shield Charge. There are people rolling shield charge build entirely because the skill is "bad" and risky. To some the best reward is overcoming a challenge.

So, I've been looking around and havnt found anything on this sooo... I think there may be an exploit with this skill.

1.When the guardian dies in pvp it does not lose its armor and stuff, the guardian will respawn, as it was, in the next match.

2.The armor bench for your hideout offers a mod to have the guardian drop the item upon death rather than destroy it...

With the two above, is it now possible to create infinite armor pieces and simply wreck the economy while getting rich off of it? Because if so, I need to get busy making infinite orbs n stuff...

Also, like, seriously, just let the guardian use a bow. I mean really, the bugger isnt exactly the toughest minion and he's damn near suicidal as it is. You can cut his health in half while using the bow to balance it a little.
Cmon, the skill needs that much at least don't you think?

OR, just hear me out.
MAKE THE GUARDIAN WORK A BIT LIKE A TOTEM!
Y'know, with the whole same stats as you deal. So the guardian cant use items you dont have the lvl or stat requirements for.

In exchange, let it use all item types freely! eh? eh?

And if this gem is all about risk, let it make use of a single skill gem attached to an armor piece! eh? eh?... ok that might be pushing it, but what if it only works if the skill gem is in a weapon piece? There arent any mods that make weapons survive deaths, so attaching it to a weapon should be a sort of risk reward right?

...now that I think about it.. can the guardian use passive skills like reckoning, riposte, and vengeance?

NO, he is just a single minion that has a standard attack, that is all he has.

you can use supports that would effect minions and melee skills like multi strike melee physical minion life etc. which depending on who you ask .. is a rather wasteful use of gem slots since he shares every support with zombies and skeletons

hence why an overwhelming majority of players basically write him off as a gimmick skill as the uniques you can throw on him are more more potent than his damage potential with any set of rare items imaginable.


which is 1 half to why a lot of people see him as terrible. even if we eliminate the loss of items on death which no other skill in the game has , it wont really change the fact that his AI and base stats ( with the best weapons imaginable) don't exactly yield earth shattering results.


The skill itself seem to be built so that you dont use permanent weapon set ups , as demonstrated by the fact that he heals when new items are applied. But then this would suggest he would need to have a base damage or a rather insane damage multiplier to be able to utilize white weapons on the ground in a manner as such.

I would agree with moki on his point if it weren't for so many inconsistencies ( such as this) being present

his implicit skill abilities suggest a certain level of disposability , but his stats are not even close to what would be needed to make using disposable white item drops viable.

And this doesn't even factor in using uniques in a permanent manner, which gain no benefit from that mechanic.

Not to mention if you fuck up and cast it on a slot you don't want to lose.

No I stay by my assertion that the guardian is a muddled mess of design flaws.

I don't care if a niche crowd has *found* a means to use it. the changes we are suggesting do not affect any of the niche builds listed here apart from the intangible loss of thrill based on the personal enjoyment of risk.

which is a rather stupid thing to build an entire skill for in a game that in not just about hardcore.

It is just selfish to claim a skill is fine because compulsive risk takers find it enjoyable.

Personally I find the fact that he disappears and you must spend 10 minutes rebuilding him (if he is going to effective, he needs decent gear) the killer to using him. My son loves the skill and made both this league and last league a toon that uses only guardian and specters. But he ends up quitting after the 4th or 5th time the guardian mysteriously dies. Sometimes this just happens for no identifable cause.

I mean it has something like 8k health with 2.5% minimum regen (more from gear), 4% minimum leach (more from gear), several K armor with aura, max resists and 60% or better block with aegis, the mob can be dbl cursed, yet sometimes it just instantly dies for no reason. If that happens his build which uses guardian as primary or even secondary skill (if you consider specters primary) is basically screwed until he goes to town and looks though his inventory so he can rebuild it. He can rebuild with whites but it doesn't last very long in maps built from whites. Now if you have zombies and they get wiped, you can desecrate and summon them again at full power.

One of his main gripes is the idiotic AI that has him running off screen to attack packs of blues, or pointing at an enemy instead of attacking it.

But what I really don't understand is why the devs are dead set against allow you to re-summon with the same gear. Put a 2 minute timer on it or something if you think it abusable. No other "skill" consumes items. As it is now, I think most people will give up on it (or just get frustrated and quit playing as my son does).

I've tried using it on my summoner with many more minions, but its just not worth it. Even with all Yellows hes no comparison to a group of 3-4 zombies.

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He can rebuild with whites but it doesn't last very long in maps built from whites. Now if you have zombies and they get wiped, you can desecrate and summon them again at full power.

This should no longer be true. Assuming you have a good shield and Necromantic Aegis, which you said he has, then, Animate Guardian can actually start with max resists. You get the base 16% from tree and 25% from minion, that is already 41% resistance to elemental damage. You only need 34% more and you will cap your Guardian's resists.
So to make your Guardian tanky, you really only need a white shield with high block chance. It helps if the level of the Animate Guardian gem is high. It gets loads of HP, like zombies, per level.

Armor doesn't actually help your Animate Guardian much... Since it doesn't get % bonuses to Armor or Evasion.

This is one of the worst skills ever if

1: your not a summoner and just using it to try it
2: are in merc (didn't test lower merc maps but it can't even kill things in doms place and dies to 1 blue mob in all rare gear)

My guardians gem is lvl 19 right now cause i wanted to test if it could be useful at all and really it can't
The AI is bad he is slow and attacks slow he doesn't have skills and you can't see his stats (clicking the skill icon doesn't show his stats at all)

Never tried with summoner passives and gear maybe he is a bit better with it