Animate Weapon

Most posters in this thread seem to agree on one single thing: The skill is neither too powerful nor not powerful enough, but it is simply NOT FUN to use.

I think the most painless (for GGG) change to make this skill fun is simply to make it an AoE skill, but keeping everything else about it as is. White items only, melee weapons only, single zone only.

If you want to get fancy, you could make % quality add to the AoE, instead of the current (typically boring) bonus of +speed.

These changes wouldn't suddenly change the skill into a viable primary skill, but not all skills have to be primary skills, you know? Utility skills are fine, too. (Who runs decoy totem and no other skill? :P)

So, no need for a major overhaul. Just take out the tedious busywork attached to the skill and make it FUN to use.

I really enjoy this skill. Indeed, it's my favorite. I am trying to build around it as a main skill. Currently 68 Witch(hc) and she's doing okay. I still rely quite a bit on those raging spirits but I suppose that's fine at the start of maps.

My main concern about it, though, is the lack of specialization you can do. There are no unique items designed around AW, except Jorrhast's Blacksteel which unfortunately was a "temporary" thing in the Tempest League. So in terms of items, there is really nothing to look forward to. Some animate weapon specific duration nodes would be neat too, or something ...

Also as others pointed out, it's most unfortunate that they won't come with you into other zones - most annoying with master quests; even though one can kind of ease the problem with backup weapons in the inventory, space there is precious. I'm not exactly sure how one could solve this problem, since it seems to be a technical limitation of the engine ... I guess we'll have to live with it. I don't really like the idea of animating a spectral copy of my own weapons - for me it would vastly compromise the uniqueness of the skill.

Maybe they are a little bit on the low end with the damage too, but perhaps I'll see better results later on when I get more auras running. On the other hand, it is quite surprising how much damage I can get out of SRS without that many auras and only little investment into faster casting ...

I kinda wish we still had some +iiq nodes in the skill drasil like in the old days ;)

Edit:

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Jintoboy wrote:

a) Let animate weapon work on unidentified weapons on the ground. Let it work as if it were a white weapon. Just hover over it and click.

a1) If GGG absolutely insists on having to spend currency to use this skill with any sort of reliability, let us animate unidentified weapons on ground like regular white weapons, but have it consume a wisdom scroll from the player's inventory, automatically, instead of making players jump through hoops by picking up the weapon, clearing out inventory space, identifying it, dropping it, and animating it.

I quite like this suggestion. Being able to animate blue trash would up its usefulness significantly. It would also somewhat alleviate the need to keep item rarity low.

Another very interesting idea that I've read somewhere was having each weapon reserve a small percentage of your mana pool, like auras - and make them permanent.

I feel as though this skill would just be 100% more fun if it was an aoe cast (so you don't actually have to hover exactly over the item). Since the minions are timed, it takes stupidly long to actually target all the items you want to animate.

Is there any chance this skill can one day be updated to automatically identify items it is cast on using scrolls in your inventory? I really like it but it completely stops the game every time you have to stop to pick up magic and rare items, then identify them, then drop all of them again, and then finally cast the spell individually on each of them. By the time you have completed all of this many of your previous weapons have expired and it is a serious hindrance to the flow of the game.

I love animate weapon, I think the main thing that would improve my enjoyment of it is to make it an area of effect based on where my cursor is.
Just have it animate the closest weapon near my cursor.

Maybe its just me being a bit older and not quite as dexterous as I used to be, but having to exactly click on the nameplate of an item on the ground is a bit aggravating. Sometimes it doesnt register or the spell is on cooldown or something when I do click accurately on them, its a bit clunky.

I could adjust my loot filter to make animatable weapon items bigger and easier to click, but this makes the screen cluttered and terrible for gameplay.

I hear some threshold jewels are a real success.

Wish one could say the same about all of them. I for one are pretty disappointed in Spirit Guards. Although Animated Weapon is broken in general right now due to "improved AI", summon up to 4 unidentified Weapons might have been more helpful I think.

There really need to be something like that .. The number of white weapon drops are just not consistent enough if you really want to specialize into this gem.

This is a much-ignored skill that is not helped by its lackadaisical "Spirit Guard" - threshold jewel.

The jewel takes too much for what it offers - requires you to literally spec into the dex part of the tree just to get more than one jewel.

I would not feel so bad if Animate weapon was a viable skill by itself - but it isn't. It has too many strings attached - no start, does not preserve when you jump areas, too chance dependent if the RNG does not favour you, etc.

Why would someone pick this skill over others that are far more reliable when this does not outperform them?

With this jewel, they just restricted those who want to use it to a particular area on the tree.

All they needed to do was also provide the specific items, skills and path that was being targeted when the jewel was being developed.

Instead of being build-enabling, like so many other items, this one is build-constricting.........

Repost from Reddit. Please GGG I beg you guys to considerate changes on AW.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/417cir/good_mornin_do_you_have_a_moment_to_hear_the_word/

I am one of the three people playing Animate Weapon in TSC. Like, literaly. And the reason why AW isn't as popular as other summon builds (SRS, spectres, zombies) is because it is clunky and has negative quality of life.

The skill itself is extremely strong and viable, but it heavily countered by:

> Having to buy an inventory of weapons everytime before entering a map. This is part of the nature of AW itself, but I think it can be reworked to become manageable. Maybe when the animated weapons die or expire, they could drop the weapon again (similar to the animated guardian chest mod). This would be awesome because then you would have the possibility to choose a few trusty weapons to carry with you everywhere and you would not have to rely on another skill to get the snowball going EVERY. SINGLE. TIME you enter a new map/switch zones/switch instances and so on.

> Having to click every single weapon on the ground to animate it. Better yet, having to shift + click them, because otherwise your toon will just run after it and position is crucial when playing a summoner. This is VERY, VERY, EXTREMELY clunky and I think it can be reworked to a manageable level by turning AW into an aoe that animates all weapons in a radius. This is just an extreme quality of life feature that I have no idea why wasn't there since the very creation of the gem..

> Having to use one precious gem slot just to animate mere 4 ranged weapons. WHAT. I mean, really? I don't see ONE INSTANCE where this could be useful instead of using a regular jewel. Instead, why won't you GGG sir, allow us to simply animate any weapons as it should be? I don't think this would create any disbalances since weapons are extremely squishy anyway, maybe make the ranged ones even squishier? Instead of (trying to) force us to use one precious gem slot just to have fun with 4 bows? Please, let us have fun with lots of bows, swords, daggers, maces and whatever weapon lies there begging to be animated.

> Mana cost is off the charts. This I can't explain. SRS (which in its current state is just a better version of AW) with the same links has about 1/5 of the mana cost of AW.. Except that, compared to AW, it has NO DOWNSIDES WHATSOEVER. It lasts 1/3 of the duration, but it is spammable, has no downtime and is simply a button click instead of a full fledged managery training that Animate Weapon is.
I think this closes my reasons of why AW isn't a more popular skill and my ideas to rework it into a fun and viable one. I find AW extremely fun to play but it has way, way, waaaay more downsides than upsides. People can simply choose to go with SRS for a clickable summon with more damage, more usability and incredibly more quality of life.

Please GGG. You guys know that AW is in a terrible state and needs a rework.

I really love the visuals of animate weapon. Having played it at least 3 times in my 2 year career I was done with the skill until I saw the new threshold jewel. Since rampage I loved the concept of animated bows.

Honestly? it's disappointing. The investment required to have at least 2 of those jewels socketed on the opposite side of the tree , does not match the output. This is because naturally there are more melee weapon drops per map than bow type (because so many melee bases). You cant use multistrike because then, that would only affect melee type animations while at the same time multistrike is one the most powerful supports for animate weapon. Once I reached level 70 I was done. The build did not produce the level of fun I expected from the threshold jewel revamp. The fundamental problems still exist.

As it now stands, animate weapon is a carpal tunnel syndrome inducing skill. In this day and age partying is the go to solution if you want map drops. While having other players help getting the drops going it is sometimes difficult to keep up.

Solutions to problems..

1) The need to hold "SHIFT" (attack in place) with animate weapon should be abolished. It really is silly how near your character has to be to a weapon on the floor to summon it without the need to hold shift.

2)The bow threshold jewel proved how gated the gameplay really is. I suggest reworking the jewel so that a player can create multiple animated copies of a weapon they have in their INVENTORY. This enables the threshold jewel more efficiently. If a player wants to specialize in elemental or physical damage they can do so by havng the appropriate weapon type in inventory. With such a feature a cap should be placed on how many weapons can be summoned (25 sounds balanced).

3) The mana cost is still abysmal as ever. I have clocked over 150 mana in a 5L :/. Unlike dominating blow there is no soultaker type solution.

4)Animated weapons should be immortal (should only expire once timer runs out). Unlike Srs, skellies,zombies etc once AW's die in a boss fight (which they can easily in atziri etc) you are done. You have to tp out buy some weapons, rinse and repeat. This is the definition of unfun. No other summoner type faces this problem. You take the same passives as srs what is the incentive to using this skill? This should not be an issue i.e having immortal/un targetable AW's because as a summoner (besides SRS) you will have zombies to "tank" incoming damage

Animate Weapon is fine as it is, mostly

The only QoL improvement i would like to see is that the Cast is an AoE, so you don't have to click directly on the Weapon to Summon it. But changing it to summon all Weapons in a Radius...dudes...

I've played (and still play) AW in various Leagues and in very Endgame situations.
Have you ever played an AW Build in a 6-Man Party T14+ rotation, where Domination (Pre 2.1 mostly Ambush) mods on 100+ Quantity and 20%+ Packsize is standart?

If not, give it a try first and then think about your suggestion again.

Same with Immortality..changes as this would make AW completely broken.

The Mana costs are high and could be reduced, but they are manageable, if Build right.
What i would like to see is an improvement to the Base Cast Speed (from 0.8 to 0.6), which will help to Keep Up.

The Jewel is complete trash right now, it has only a use in Null's Inclination Builds and should be changed. Something like the Tempest league only Unique Jorrhast's Blacksteel, it should give a chance to create an additional copy when a Weapon is Summoned and it should be Intelligence based, not Dexterity or increased/additional duration for every Jewel that is socket (like 20-30% increased Duration or 5 sec base duration).

When you buy Weapons everytime before you enter a Map, then this is your choice to play. You can grab 4-5 Weapons after you have finished the map. This is what i do and it works fine. When you want to play in a Group, you don't need any Weapon from the Start.

Most of the suggestions, in my Opinion, are broken and will (most likely) never find their way into the Game