Animate Weapon

I really enjoy using this skill when enough weapons are dropping and I can keep at least 3-4 weapons up. I like almost everything about it aside from that limitation, and if something was done to make it more reliable it would be a great skill.

The best solution would be to make it work something like remote mines. Rather than being animated immediately, up to five weapons are stored and shown as icons in a column on the right side of the screen, with a button/hotkey that animates the most recent weapon. This would remove inventory micromanagement for the most common usage of the skill (animating whites as you clear an area) and allow us to keep a backup stash in case we get unlucky with drops. We would still be able to use the skill the way we do now, by carrying items in the inventory and then dropping them.

It's unfortunate that there's so little to differentiate minion builds that use Animate Weapon/Guardian from zombie/skeleton builds. A good way to fix this would be to add minion clusters without additional zombie/skeleton nodes to the int paths near Totemic Mastery in the templar/marauder area and near Charisma in the shadow/ranger area. This would enable a ton of fun hybrid summoner builds.

The skill should work with ranged weapons, but they should fire from a very short range. The important thing is that we're able to animate any weapon that drops, not the fact that they're ranged.

I don't mind a limited duration for the most part; I like the fact that the skill needs duration passives/support. That said, 43.5 seconds with the scion duration cluster really feels much, much better than 30, so I think increasing the base duration to 45 seconds would a good idea. Exchanging duration for mana reservation would be a really interesting support gem, though.

The only aspect of the limited duration that I don't like is that if you're animating weapons as you go, a lot of the duration is wasted as the animated weapon navigates obstacles. It would be incredibly cool if the mob holding the weapon was able to use movement skills to get over obstacles. These would be similar to Whirling Blades, Leap Slam (usable for bows), or Lightning Warp (for wands), but would be purely for movement and would do normal attack damage to a single enemy.

Watching for weapon drops and targeting them is an aspect of the skill that I actually enjoy, unlike a lot of the people giving feedback. I wouldn't use a spell totem even if the skill worked with one and it was safe to use around 5L/6L items. We should at least be able to use the skill without an item targeted in order to animate the nearest valid weapon, which is almost always what you want to do. I do agree that we should be able to animate unidentified blues, even if that reverts them to white items.

Thanks for reading.

I've used this skill a tiny bit and I have some comments. Ultimately I think the skill is an awesome comment, but needs some quality of life changes, and needs a somewhat substantial rework in terms of some balancing.

Quality of Life

Cast range is too short - I'm not sure if this is intended as a balance mechanic or just something that wasn't thought too much about. But it is annoying to have to run very close to every weapon to animate it. Perhaps it was made this way because animate was intended to supplement the damage of a melee character, but I don't know if that's really a vision that would pan out. Doubling the cast range would go a long way to making the skill more usable.

Cast should auto-acquire a target - The way the skill works currently is onerous with you having to mouse directly over the item. It would be great if it worked like raise zombie, and selected the nearest white item (though the auto selection should probably ignore 5 links and 6 slot items).

These two changes would instantly make the skill less tedious to use.

The level restriction is BAD - this might have more to do with design, but the fact that you are restricted by weapon level if you use the gem is really crappy. With other skills the gem gains effectiveness as you level. It doesn't become unusable entirely. So if you plan on using this skill gem, you have to plan way in advance which isn't the case for any other skill. If I want to switch from Infernal Blow to Glacial Hammer, for example, I can pop in a level 1 glacial hammer in A3 cruel and be less effective maybe, but still able to kill things. If you pop in a level 1 animate weapon in A3 cruel you won't be able to animate any weapons. It's the only gem which has to be on a parity with the area level to even be usable, and that doesn't make sense to me.

While I appreciate the balance implications (i.e. animating a weapon from merciless in a1 normal would be imbalanced) the way it is handled could be far better, and the concern is somewhat silly anyway - primarily due to the extremely limited duration of the skill. It would already be infeasible to stash a bunch of merciless weapons and walk through normal, because normal takes a long time, and the weapons just don't last long enough. On top of that, you already have tons of ways to level incredibly fast with different combinations of uniques (i.e. facebreaker), so I don't think the level restriction is saving anything balancewise. If the balance concerns are REALLY important to someone for some reason, they could be better solved by limiting the weapon level to something not higher than the caster's level, rather than having it scale in a static manner as the gem levels.

Weapons should not despawn when zoning - This is somewhat curious, as its my understanding that zombies/spectres do not despawn when zoning. It's incredibly punishing when you find the exit of the map. Also, this makes it really iffy to use in on boss fights.

The nature of the skill conflicts design - I think something often asked for (or used to be asked for) in PoE was charms. One of the reasons many (including the devs, I believe) opposed charms because requiring you to sacrifice inventory space to make your character effective is a really crappy mechanic. But this skill encroaches on that territory due to the short duration and the fact that weapons despawn. If you rely on this skill and go to say, dominus, you will need an inventory full of white weapons for the first wave of mobs (if they can even survive), and probably will need to go "refill" on white weapons after that wave is over.

I don't know if there is a good way to deal with this. Some people may actually like this, but I think that it really detracts from the skill.

Balance/Reworks?

30 Second Base Duration is too short - It really is. It becomes absolutely necessary to spec into the 15% increased duration nodes, and even then it is only 46 second with 3 points invested. Having a limited duration is fine, imo, and is a neat mechanic, and provides an interesting use for the increased duration support. But 30 seconds isn't enough for this skill. The "raise" animation is already quite long (and I'm not sure whether or not it starts counting on cast or only once its active) and the weapons have to deal with pathing issues, not to mention any time spent searching for more enemies is basically wasted time.

There are several potential solutions to this issue.
a. Simply increase the base duration and/or have the gem scale duration as it levels (or with quality).
b. Add node clusters in the tree specifically for animate skills - i.e. increased minion damage and/or life, with a notable that increases the duration of animate skills by 5-10 seconds.
c. Make the duration only count down during "attack" time (i.e. 30 seconds = 30 seconds of attacks, a primitive staff could attack 30 times baseline, while a saber would attack 49.5 times).
d. Fundamentally rework the skill (i.e. change it to a reserved mana type thing with no duration).
e. Introduce a max number and make it like zombies where they only despawn when they die (least interesting solution, imo, reduces diversity).

Note that d. and e. would destroy the fairly interesting interaction between increased duration and the skill. I personally like solution c. as I think it's the most elegant, but I think solution a. is almost required as well, from a balance standpoint (see below). On the other hand, suggestion c. would change the boom-or-bust "rush to the next pack of enemies and pray for item drops!" nature of the skill.

The weapon life is too low - The weapons already have a very low uptime, it seems excessive to also have them be killed so easily. If the weapons are going to have the very limited duration, I think making them invulnerable should be considered, or at least immune to magic damage.

The boom/bust nature of the skill can be too much - Being able to "bank" them, ala mines, would be an interesting solution (as suggested by OnmyojiOmn). But something should really be done to make it so you run into the "no weapons to spawn and none up" problem less often. (i.e. bosses). Such a solution may require a limit on the max number available.

The skill isn't well supported by the passive tree - This one is a somewhat big overarching problem, imo. What I expected from this skill was a skill that let me summon weapons that would temporarily supplement the damage of a melee/ranged character and would require some attention to maintain. What it ends up being is a dex based minion that isn't affected by any of the notable minion nodes. I suppose other people felt it was appropriate to have another spell for summoners to summon, but I always felt like they had enough between skeletons/zombies/spectres. So giving them another seemed excessive and unnecessary as well, and requiring the same set of nodes for the skills seems strange.

But if you want to focus on this skill as a significant part of your build, you're kind of pushed into the minion nodes, which feels very unnatural due to the fact that you end up getting the precursor nodes and ignoring the notables. Not only does this sort of pull you all over the tree (Primarily to areas which don't have enough dex to support animate weapon). It just makes builds focused on animate weapon feel like they're lacking something important.

I can really only think of two ways to solve this:
a. put some node clusters near the Ranger/Shadow/Duelist area which support animate weapon minions.
b. fundamentally rework animate weapon.

A proposed fundamental rework

I had an idea but I realized it was too much like animate guardian. I think an interesting rework would be for them to be permanent, but require a (small) % of mana or just a flat cost reserved for each one.

It would also be interesting if instead of scaling with minion damage they scaled with whatever damage you had (i.e. 1h melee weapons animated scaled with your 1h melee damage).

Anyhow, I love the skill in concept, there are just a lot of factors which make its use very tedious and questionable. I look forward to changes to the skill.

I'm in love with this skill. Has anyone tried it with spell totem yet? If so, that would make this skill pretty awesome (If it avoided casting it on 5 and 6 links ><)

I think the duration is perfect. I'm afraid that if they increase it, they will have to put a limit on the number that you can summon, which would ruin the real appeal of the skill.


I imagine this with added duration, melee splash, and multistrike would be beastly.

Having to target each weapon individually is a little tiresome, and only being able to use the mouse while key pickup is on kinda sucks.

I do like the idea of them falling to the ground after their duration, and maybe only summonable 3 times before they are destroyed for good.

If spell totem works with this, I think that would make it a very viable skill. (can't test it out atm).

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PanicAK wrote:

I'm in love with this skill. Has anyone tried it with spell totem yet? If so, that would make this skill pretty awesome (If it avoided casting it on 5 and 6 links ><)

I think the duration is perfect. I'm afraid that if they increase it, they will have to put a limit on the number that you can summon, which would ruin the real appeal of the skill.


I imagine this with added duration, melee splash, and multistrike would be beastly.

Having to target each weapon individually is a little tiresome, and only being able to use the mouse while key pickup is on kinda sucks.

I do like the idea of them falling to the ground after their duration, and maybe only summonable 3 times before they are destroyed for good.

If spell totem works with this, I think that would make it a very viable skill. (can't test it out atm).

Even if it did work with spell totem, the problem would be the insanely short casting range. So you may be able to summon them, but you would have to re-summon the totem basically on top of every item which drops.

Also, as far as I can tell these summons have less health and durability than zombies in general, which makes it somewhat dubious.

I had to give up on my weapon summoner because it just wasn't working out and I didn't want to turn into the run of the mill zombie/skeleton/spectre summoner, because at that point more summons is excessive anyway.

If you wanted to auto cast it, essentially, I think the only reliable way would be to use Cast on Melee Kill, because it's the only way you will always be in range of weapons when they drop (though it could make for interesting supports, i.e. melee splash + Multistrike + double strike + cast on melee kill + Animate weapon).

I think my biggest problem with the skill though is that it absolutely requires the increased duration, which puts it 1 step behind summon zombies or summon spectres from the start. It would be fine if it had some other advantage, but the fact that you still need to get the summon HP up so they don't get 1 shot by basic enemies or aoe attacks, which puts them even further behind, imo.

I'm curious how far you've gotten with the skill though, and what kind of build you used. It's a really fun skill to use, but having to carry items to bosses just to see the boss 1 shot all your summons is irritating.

I stand by the idea that they should be invulnerable and untargetable (so they can't tank for you) at least then you'll get the full duration of the skill every time you cast it.

i am playing a summoner level 83, 8 zombies and 2 spectres.

please dont make timed out weapons disappear. this would solve most issues i have with this skill -> 6 socket weapons, tricolor weapons. then i will even play with it, now it just would eat up the currency i am farming. i am not willing to invest much time in choosing which weapon to reanimate for two reasons:

first, the cooldown of 30 seconds doesnt leave much time for micromanaging the reanimation.
second, i have to manage my active army as well as avoiding getting hit in the heat of battle.

having timed out weapons drop on the ground removes the issue that the skill needs a lot of attention comparable searching for undying evangelists in a pile of corpses.

thx

Sometimes the minion AI is so bad it hurts just to watch. What's with the random pauses between attacking? Sometimes the animated weapons just sit there doing nothing, even when I'm surrounded by enemies. Has anyone else noticed this? Their range is too wide, by the way. By that I mean I often can't get all my weapons down the stairs in City of Sarn.

Their maximum life seems to be a bit low. Either that or they have terrible resistances. I understand that these are meant to be the glass cannons of minions, but even with the following shield I am having a ton of trouble against the Lightning Arrow skeletons in Merciless City of Sarn. This is a problem even when they're cursed with Enfeeble. The gem level is 16 and I'm using Necromantic Aegis of course.


(Yes, I know Weapon Elemental Damage doesn't do anything for zombies.)

Also, Storm Herald. Is it simply meant to be a death trap for minions? There is absolutely no way for me to kill them in time. At the moment I just use Conversion Trap on them, let it kill its own allies, and flee before the duration runs out so it doesn't follow.

I'd very much like to see bows and wands be able to be animated. As a summoner, I'd kill to have ranged minions offer support to my zombies and skeletons in the front line.

I wouldn't mind ranged animations either. Of course ranged weapons would need different balance. If necessary it could be a separate skill: Animate Ranged Weapon.

Animated weapon/guardian passives could be located in the strength part of the tree while undead summon passives are located in the intelligence area. That leaves the Dexterity area for Druid style summons.

I'm all for being able to animate ranged weapons, but I do think it should be with a separate skill gem. The skill would be overpowered if not, even if the ranged weapon is properly balanced with special modifiers.

Also, I think animated guardians and weapons are similar in style but definitely aligned to different attributes. Just look at their modifiers and gem colors. The guardians align with Strength and the weapons with Dexterity. I imagine if there were nodes for either they'd be in the Intelligence hybrid sections of the tree. Druid-style minions ("call" skills, such as enemies' "Call Monkeys") would probably be pure Dexterity.

In fact, I've been thinking about interesting minion node possibilities over the past few days. Hopefully the current minion nodes are revamped in the fashion of remote skills, though I don't necessarily mean by adding more. Stuff like additional/increased minion duration would be pretty interesting.

I apologize as this is only tangentially related but I too have been thinking about changes to minions, minion passives and additional minion types. I wrote a short post about how summoning builds could be more interesting here.