The Downfall of Zombies and Spectres in late game

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Spoiler

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AmbushRacer wrote:

They didn't buff minions much to balance snapshot, then they buffed late game maps.

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sidtherat wrote:

zombies are weaker and as people are greedy and flock the the most powerful they will ofc go for SRS as long as they are allowed to do so

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Emphasy wrote:

basically all Spectres besides one are worthless. Without the proximity shield you might as well have no spectres at all, because they are just death.
My Zombies survive a lot of stuff. But in higher maps the simple combination of Alchemists + Evangelists kills them in seconds. Again the only way to survive is Evangelists. Even with Necro-Aegis and Saffels, which gives them awesome spell-block they die fairly quickly.

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

oh god , no , no its not , adding a minion that acts like a homing missle fireball spell and then having it be the dominant minion is truely awful.
i cant even fathom why raging spirits are spells anyway , that is crown of eyes level of op. Im gona abuse it because im tired of using the weak builds.
i wont even call SRS players summoners anymore , because they arent.

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Emphasy wrote:

The funny thing though my unsupported SRS already does crazy damage and it I would make a 3l with Increased Duration and Spell-Echo I would propably get fair results considering how cheap it is.

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Starxsword wrote:

Raging Spirits hit really hard at the moment.

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

i used to be a huge proponent of the perm minion build , but now i am seriously considering diverting some of my passives away from auras / minion life and getting increased duration and cast speed. (Summon Raging Spirit)

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Emphasy wrote:

Atziri... well Zombies likely survive a non-crit Flameblast from her. Spectres however don't.

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Cooley wrote:

Minions need better mitigation, especially against AoE damage. A while ago they lowered zombie HP and gave them armor to compensate this. That was a step in the right direction, except that they only gave them like 700 armor.
Anyway, please give zombies, spectres, and skeletons some innate AoE damage reduction. I honestly feel like 30%-50% wouldn't be too out of line.

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Zinja wrote:

Its just so painful and a total waste of space to even think about spectre's in late game. I was forced from being a summoner to a caster just to meet endgame content requirements...

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Cooley wrote:

Speaking of minion instability, that keystone needs to be redesigned. It's counter-productive. In order for your minions to do enough damage to hurt anything they have to get so much health that it takes forever for them to explode.

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Jiero wrote:

still wanting and waiting for them to allow us to link 1 skill to a summon type... zombies with molten shell, artic armor, viper strike, tempest shield or whatever would make summoning quite fun

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Emphasy wrote:

But really physical damage is rarely an issue and honestly determination does nothing for minions, spectres don't have any armor and zombies just a tiny bit (I think around 1k at lvl20).

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Emphasy wrote:

The Spectre/Zombie-Combination works fairly good for all of the normal content and propably... I would guess up to 76 maps with a few exceptions. At this point you stumble across two issues:
1. Massiv AoE (Crematorium...)
2. Your Spectres are likely still lvl68 if Evangelists or 66 if Flame-Sentinals

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Taganov wrote:

Spectre diversity isn't very good. Most creatures are rubbish as allies. This leads to a spectre hunt for the few good ones.

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Atomgun wrote:

I think that specters need to be saved on logout. The process of finding your minions everytime is tedious and a repetitive process that has become necessary for any summoner. What is worse is that only a few minions are ever used. So maybe they should just make gems that summon specific specters or fix it by making the specter level based on gem level instead of map. No other builds suffer power penalties for going outside of their level so why should a summoner? There are plenty of other penalties for playing in lower level maps.

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Jiero wrote:

Spectres need numerous changes, the least of which is to allow us the basics of weighting their AI decisions like so many other games have done and fixes to their pathing nodes. That way we can pick their patrol range, targeting focus, aggro range, skill use frequency and so on. Games have allowed this since the super nintendo...

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Earthslug wrote:

Look at this shit.

Spent 3ex on it and its near useless.
Montregul needs more buff.
My friend is going srs while i go oldschool minions.
So far mine is better.
But have a feeling he'll be catching on me.

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Alea wrote:

i dont really like to push the button all time to summon spirits
i really hope ggg will also improve zombies in lower levels, they are also dying just too fast on Demons...

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DigitalBeating wrote:

I play summoner with my friends who quit. My spectres died a lot in 77-78 maps before Forsaken Masters came out. I always have to recast them all the time and cast whatever trash spectre is available in the map.

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DigitalBeating wrote:

Let's just face it, spectres and zombies combo is just not viable without INSANE GEARING like RMT INSANE GEARING.You want a real summoner? Go play the necromancer in Diablo 2. That's a real summoner for you. Sadly even as bad as D3 is the Witch Doctor still has better summons than PoE's summons.

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Antigegner wrote:

I play a summoner as well and I have actually only started playing other chars cuz I feel I can't achieve anything higher than 75 with zomb/spec....I actually feel pretty useless in a group of 6 ppl. I usually skip most of the higher lvl bosses because either I or my minions are too weak or even both...

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Earthslug wrote:

Yup confirmed again... spectres SUCK
zombies are average
but spectres are a joke!
needs a major buff...
only reason I keep playing now is my gems will hit lvl20 in the next 2 weeks or so.
After that I put them to sleep for good.

Is ggg really pushing me towards the meta SrS build?

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Sverre wrote:

I mostly play summoner. Most lower level maps pose little threat to summoners right up until the mid 70's. DPS isn't the problem, its just that, for one reason or another, your specters will die on the higher level boss fights.

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catalinc wrote:

for every other build there exists gear with which you can become very very powerfull. There is no such thing for spectres/zombies.

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Racthoh wrote:

Minions just need a natural damage reduction to AoE and they'll be fine. If AoE attacks were a rare thing it wouldn't be so bad but they are prevalent everywhere. If something is killing your minions its dealing AoE damage and it's dropping multiples at once.

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Sverre wrote:

As far as I know, no other build can permanently lose large sources of their damage in the middle of a zone. If summoners had a variety of ways to keep their specters alive this would be a non issue.

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Ghostredneck wrote:

At this Current State of the game there is no viable way to roll end game maps with a pure summoner spec , without expensive Uniqes.
This is my Opinion Based on My Experiances..
Hopefully a patch will eventualy Make this Build Viable without gimmicks

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

even if you did not use snapshotting , the nerfs to auras (which translates to losing 25% of your auras and 35% of their effectiveness
that nerf to auras was a massive blow.
now that all those things have been nerfed hard or removed what we have left are the minions flaws and all, and they have many flaws.

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I can't see myself doing Atziri as a Spectre/Zombie summoner ever. This is simply because the minions die far too quickly. Yourself are way too squishy because too many gem slots are occupied by summon gems. 10 of them to be exact. 6L spectre and 4L zobies in +2 helmet.

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With SRS you got 6L spirits and the rest of gem slots can be used for defensive gems, such as; auras, cwdt, curses, Vaal skills etc.
The only way I could see a pure summoner work in high level content is if minions were more tanky, so the player don't have to sacrifice potions slots to heal minions. If I could max my resist on gear instead of using purity of elements for minions, then I could get another defensive aura. There is just so much that could be done to make summoners more viable for endgame.

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meroi wrote:

being a Zombie and Spectre summoner has been absolutely horrible.

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NoeNoe wrote:

When you finaly manage to find high level spectres you crash or you need to log you can start over you need to stay online 24/7 when i find high spectres.
you cant even turn off your pc or logout, what a waste of serverspace, energy, and poor ppl that whisper me for trades.
ggg designes game around logout in hc and when you log back in im back to 67 spectres and have fun doing low level maps until you find high ones and then you lose them to programm not responding

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Sverre wrote:

That being said it would be very nice if spectre level was determined the the actual level of the Raise Spectre gem, raising anything other than an evangelist is already a risk by itself, it really doesn't help spectre variety that most other viable spectre mobs are just to low for anything past level 70 maps.

Until we get renewable spectres, a major buff to spectre survivability, or on demand access to specific high level corpses, we will continue to be shoehorned into using exclusively evangelists from the Scepter of God, who still fall short in the later maps.

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Jiero wrote:

But now I've been avoiding summoner builds until they fix the issues

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Emphasy wrote:

Supports for Spectres. You can't switch them. If one of your spectres dies you can't just switch supports and summon a new one. It also means that if you would be able to do so you would have to use different supports. Sentinals and Voidbearers could do with similar supports, although LMP vs. ConC Effect could be an issue, but Evangelists or Tentacle Miscreations need entirely different ones. So you basically have to carry them all with you.

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As far we all can conclude,

Spoiler

♣ Spectres are prone to death in ultra high end maps, where the real problems arise. You are forced to summon any useless Spectres around as a replacement.

♣ Zombies are moderate and the issues of them are not about DPS entirely, it is about the survivability. Low to half end game, they prevail well but still prone to rapid death due to AOE elemental dmg in ultra high end maps.

♣ Zombies and Spectres are at worst when its involve about damage mitigation. AOE dmg is the real threat to summoner in late game. The 13% hp buff to the Zombie is totally useless since the damage mitigation of AOE dmg in late game will crush them easily without insane amount of gearing cost, etc RMT and no lifer farmings.

♣ Sceptres resummoning is causing the summoner to have uneasy time in this game, not just because their survivability, but the need to find their spawning map are tedious. Most of the time, we are in different map of where they can be summoned.

♣ As for Zombies and Spectres summoner, the only way to finish the game is to have RMT gears or hardcore farmers or years of grinding plays only able to make the build viable for all end game content. While, taking a look at SRS, they can easily achieve all that with 10 exalts.

♣ We cannot deny that SRS as a summon gems too, are more viable by miles than playing Zombies and Spectres. Most of veteran players in Witch section have chosen to play SRS because they are far more superior in terms of DMG and needless to worry about their survivability against high DMG from enemy.

♣ There is no way to make a viable build with Zombies and Spectres without SRS if you don't have 200 exalts for gearings.
There is never been a single guide for summoners that able to make a cheap build and do ultra high end maps, exclusively lvl77 and onwards map.

♣ All the guide that shown to new and old players alike, that able to play Zombies and Spectres successfully if not with limited recorded gameplays, are using 200 exalts build.
Its not a viable option at all.

♣ Do not get carried away by SRS gem because of their success, because right now as the lover of Zombie and Spectre, we must appeal for a further buff for them in order to be more fun to play with and able to do high end maps with moderate budgets, give or take 50 exalts.

♣ Some of us as summoner do not recognize SRS as a summon as a temporary summons that deal DPS based on your cast speed as the prime factor. Therefore, SRS is not a solution proof for summoners to make a more viable build with Zombie and Spectres.

♣ Personally, I hate SRS but at this point, the meta is forcing me to get it in my build because I have no choice.

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AmbushRacer wrote:

last patch even without snapshot minions could do 78 maps and atziri(Thanks to evangelist crutch).

They didn't buff minions much to balance snapshot, then they buffed late game maps.

So far my rank 18(+2) zombies and spectres are facerolling 74 maps in the new leagues, hope it remains that way.

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AmbushRacer wrote:

last patch even without snapshot minions could do 78 maps and atziri(Thanks to evangelist crutch).

They didn't buff minions much to balance snapshot, then they buffed late game maps.

So far my rank 18(+2) zombies and spectres are facerolling 74 maps in the new leagues, hope it remains that way.

As both of us are also summoner, we know well we can faceroll any low level maps up to lvl76.
Without Snapshot or you mean with 200 ex build?

Look at Summon Raging Spirit, with just 10 Ex, they are capable of doing Atziri with no issues at all.
While, Zombies and Spectres are so hectic to geared up with before they can do Atziri.
To summarized my short post,
lvl20 Zombie is a joke in Atziri while SRS lvl20 is enough to faceroll anything in the whole game.

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sidtherat wrote:

what gear costs 200ex that makes a difference? summoners do not rely on gear to deal dps. they rely on it to survive. and with crafting the 'resists' problem is FAR LESS important so the gear to equip is MUCH MUCH easier to get.

times of snapshoted, low life shav, arc summoners with all auras are not coming back (and it is a good thing)

times when summoner is what it is - relatively gear independent build that allows for passive and bit safer gameplay - are ahead of us

SRS is going to be nerfed. it is too good and pretty much everyone playing it is the sign. people flock to overpowered stuff and SRS is one if such. people do not want 'viable'. people want faceroll. Arc is just as viable as it was before the path, yet number of arc builds went down by 95% or more. because it is not free 'i win/look im the best' anymore

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Its all about SRS since they are far cheaper, superior, easier and simplistic to play with.

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

in terms of having resist issues , if you are a necro aegis necro ... you really should be rocking an arumvorax with 50+ resist all.
that is a fun thing about nercos , traditional wand affixes apart from fast speed are meaningless.
the issue isnt the minions , the issue is overcapped resists. none of this would be an issue if atzri was doable with anything less than 90% fire and lightning resists.
raging spirits are nothing new , even last patch the best way to do atzri was with a spam of cheap disposable minions (see skeleton totem).
SRS is just the cheapest now.
but there are plenty of other builds that cant do atzri by simple fact that they dont have block and access to 95% resist all/ 40k + dps

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sidtherat wrote:

this is the point.
zombies are weaker and as people are greedy and flock the the most powerful they will ofc go for SRS as long as they are allowed to do so

without SRS people would make it with zombies. it would be slower or more involved but im pretty sure that they would make it

ill repeat - people flock to op. videos show op, guides show op. why there were 100s of arc guides pre 1.2? because it took a blind monkey to make a great character. same stuff with SRS

btw atziri farming? i think this is a thing of the past. there are so many zones to get fragments that i wonder why people even mention it.. lots of people bought TONS fragments from noobs to chain them but even these run out. and it is standard-only

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btw atziri farming? i think this is a thing of the past. there are so many zones to get fragments that i wonder why people even mention it.. lots of people bought TONS fragments from noobs to chain them but even these run out. and it is standard-only