Animate Weapon

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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VanguardUa wrote:

2. Range of summoning should be increased. You don't need to run across the screen to the corpse of zombies just to summon it. Same should apply here.

No. This is necessarily short to prevent griefing - if someone is trying to run up to an item to pick it up, you shouldn't be able to animate it unless you legitimately got there first. You have to get to items to pick them up, you also have to get to them to use them up.

I really appreciate your response in here. But this thought you might want to re-examine. If it was possible to animate unidentified weapons, you'd have a solid point. Until then, I find this to be a rather weak argument against increased animate range. Also, isn't there the loot allocation option to counter said griefing already ? I don't party.

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Also, isn't there the loot allocation option to counter said griefing already?

I haven't checked it, so I can only assume that allocation doesn't affect animate weapon.
Moreover, I think that item allocation doesn't affect white items that doesn't have any value in terms of sockets\links.

Some base items can be valuable, but then again, I agree with you, it's a weak point.
People very rarely use any white weapons that don't have a 5\6 links or sockets. Exception is recipes like Chromatics or Chisels.

I think the main problem is that loot allocation doesn't affect white items properly. Fix that, and there won't be any griefs happening. (Not that I think they ever happened)
E.g.. Include items for chancing and recipes into loot allocation, and allocate white weapons to players for like first 20 lvls (idk, maybe even 10 is too much).

I haven't read through all 22 pages of this thread yet to see if this was discussed but I am currently playing my first Animate Weapon character in PSC. Self cast with a Jorrhast and buffed aura's. The build is probably one of my favorites I've played since beta however, there is one large issue with the flow of play.

The time it takes to get going in a zone is hit or miss and can take awhile unless you have some weapons saved up in your inventory. Typically I keep 2 weapons per zone to drop from inventory to get started. It's very frustrating while playing (leveling especially) to build up to a decent army of weapons (20+) and then have to move to the next zone.

Is it possible to make weapons keep their summoned time as you zone into instances just like zombies/spectres are able to follow you through zones? I'm able to get a nearly 100 second duration on weapons which I could easily run through multiple zones and keep my clear speed reasonable.

Having this change would really make this build extremely fun and interactive without having the annoying first minute of every single zone you enter.

It is also my first time playing a Necromancer, and Animate Weapon at that. Honestly there's so many things awful about it, but once you get it going its ok.

* Why is the range so small? I saw that argument up there but its extremely weak when loot allocation exists. Give us another good argument then maybe that range would seem more reasonable.

* Picking up to ID and drop just feels extremely clunky, I rather you animate them unid at the cost of not being able to make use of the magic/rare stats it has.

* The mana cost is unreasonably high, more so than SRS, why is this?

* Can you make it so I don't actually have to target the weapons to animate? I just want to cast and go, tediously pointing at weapons to animate just feels awful.

Became OP since last update, players 1 shooting Uber Atziri with it

hi, weapon animator since 2013 here, just want to say again how much i fucking love this skill and if i had the ability, to create unique items to synergise with it

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acylus wrote:

* Why is the range so small? I saw that argument up there but its extremely weak when loot allocation exists. Give us another good argument then maybe that range would seem more reasonable.

hold shift while you cast the spell. you can cast across the whole goddamn screen when you hold shift. you can even cast through walls and barriers!!! that last bit is probably a bug though.

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acylus wrote:

* Picking up to ID and drop just feels extremely clunky, I rather you animate them unid at the cost of not being able to make use of the magic/rare stats it has.

i agree that it is clunky. so clunky, in fact, that most animators do not even bother identifying. when you start mapping, the volume of white weapon drops is quite generous to keep up a small army going. i would really like the capability to animate unidentified blues though, either inherent in the skill or maybe a unique that says "Animate Weapon can Animate unidentified Magic items".

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acylus wrote:

* The mana cost is unreasonably high, more so than SRS, why is this?

i feel that this is because
1. they last longer than srs.
2. their damage and attack speed can potentially scale much much higher than srs.
3. animate weapon isn't intended to be "spammed" like srs is (though this what ends up happening in maps and parties)

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acylus wrote:

* Can you make it so I don't actually have to target the weapons to animate? I just want to cast and go, tediously pointing at weapons to animate just feels awful.

the developer reason for this is abuse, where you could animate valuable stuff like 6s/6l or chromatics accidentally (or even intentionally, god forbid). but i definitely agree that automation would be soooo much qol for animators. i once tried spell totem with animate weapon. works, but the problem is once you leave the totem alone, it stops animating. plus the totem causes the weapons to have that totem LESS DAMAGE multiplier, which is unfortunate.

other than that, what about a unique that enhances animate weapon depending on the properties of the animated weapon? some ideas:

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Prismatic Frenzy

Animated Weapons have a% increased Projectile Speed per Blue Socket
Animated Weapons have b% increased Attack Speed per Red Socket
Animated Weapons have c% increased Movement Speed per Green Socket
Animated Weapons have +d increased Attack Range per White Socket

Prismatic Endurance

Animated Weapons have a% additional Lightning Resistance per Blue Socket
Animated Weapons have b% additional Fire Resistance per Red Socket
Animated Weapons have c% additional Cold Resistance per Green Socket
Animated Weapons have d% additional Physical Damage Reduction per White Socket

Prismatic Power

Animated Weapons' Attacks deal (a - b) additional Lightning Damage per Blue Socket
Animated Weapons' Attacks deal (c - d) additional Fire Damage per Red Socket
Animated Weapons' Attacks deal (e - f) additional Cold Damage per Green Socket
Animated Weapons' Attacks deal (g - h) additional Physical Damage per White Socket

Prismatic Vigour

Animated Weapons have +a% to Critical Strike Multiplier per Blue Socket
Animated Weapons have b% reduced Enemy Stun Threshold per Red Socket
Animated Weapons have c% increased Critical Strike Chance per Green Socket
Animated Weapons deal d% more Damage per White Socket

Prismatic Zeal

Animated Weapons have a% chance to Block Spells per Blue Socket
Animated Weapons have b% chance to Block per Red Socket
Animated Weapons have c% chance to Dodge per Green Socket
Animated Weapons have d% chance to Dodge Spells per White Socket

Animated Weapons have i% increased Base Duration per Socket (this is the flat duration increase, before increased and more multipliers)

Animated Weapons have j% increased Duration per Link (this is a increased duration multiplier)

Animated Weapons have k% increased maximum Life per Socket in the longest Contiguous Link

Animated Weapons deal (l - m) additional Chaos Damage if they are Corrupted

Animated Weapons have n% increased Damage per 10 Item Levels

Animated Weapons' Implicit Modifiers apply to you at p% effectiveness

Magic Animated Weapons have r% increased Item Rarity
Rare Animated Weapons have q% increased Item Quantity and r% increased Item Rarity

Animate Weapons' Attacks repeat an additional time per 11% Quality

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byron30 wrote:

Is it possible to make weapons keep their summoned time as you zone into instances just like zombies/spectres are able to follow you through zones? I'm able to get a nearly 100 second duration on weapons which I could easily run through multiple zones and keep my clear speed reasonable.

The main reason I want to see this change is because of the labyrinth. Even if the change literally only applies to the labyrinth, that's great! I love my current Animate Weapon character, but I had to save up a few stash tabs of weapons in order to take down Izaro.

One of the worst offenders in the lab is having to go through a door in order to see where it leads. Every time I do this, my army dies. Every time it turns out to be the wrong way and I have to go back the last zone again, I also die a little inside.

I think Animate Weapon easily holds the title of "Worst Normally Viable Skill for the Lab." It just fails so miserably. Lab runs are clearly out of the question. I just upgraded my helm and would like to enchant it, but I'll just make another character entirely instead of running the lab again with this one.

Edit: I forgot about Vaal side areas, master side areas, and anything else similar I'm still not thinking of when I wrote this. Masters who want you to go into a separate area and kill a pack of dudes seriously suck for Animate Weapon. You either skip them or fill your inventory with weapons, zone in, drop weapons, animate weapons, pick up any weapons they drop once the pack's dead, and repeat once you get out. It's the worst. For that matter, master backtracking also sucks more serious balls than usual (and that's a whole lotta balls!) when all of your minions die while you're doing it.

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acylus wrote:

Why is the range so small?

I was really confused while reading the comments about the range being bad until I got to Juicebox360's comment about holding shift. My Animate Weapon key always shift clicks, so Animate Weapon has always had fantastic range for me (and through walls no less!). I'm not sure what the regular functionality is, but the shift click functionality should definitely replace it. If shift clicking feels fantastic and not shift clicking feels so bad that many people complain, I can't see a good reason not to change.

All this skill needs it automatic casting. Doing it manually is super tedious.

Have been looking to play a aw build for a while but don't like the idea of having to bring weapons in or use zombies. Could we not give aw a base damage/weapon with a cool down and allow casting the skill on weapons to bypass this cool down and animate the selected weapon? This would at least allow someone to start a map without having to waste another set of links / get organised unless this is intentional of GGG. What do you guys think?

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FlawedLogik wrote:

Could we not give aw a base damage/weapon with a cool down and allow casting the skill on weapons to bypass this cool down and animate the selected weapon?

That's amazing. Give it three uses with a very long cooldown that summon random melee weapons. Suddenly it's possible to play pure Animate Weapon builds without having to haul around weapons to animate. Portaling into and out of a map isn't so terrible that you just leave good stuff lying on the ground.

GGG, please make this happen. It would be such a huge QOL improvement. It doesn't add any crazy power or anything to the skill, but it removes a massively annoying inconvenience.