The Downfall of Zombies and Spectres in late game

Well it isn't so much zombies, since they are disposable it is the issue with spectres.

If a spectre dies, you have to get a new one. Since you as a summoner are fairly unlikely to die (similar to totem-chars basically) you can often retreat and reengage. However after the first engage your spectres are dead. And they die incredbly easy. The other reason why Evangelists are good is not only because they have their bubbles, they also have high base-resistances. Flame Sentinels are extremly vulnerable to fire and lightning (a purity won't cap them, since they lack base-resists).

I'm also a bit unsure how much worth Minion-Flasks have. My Zombies have about 9k HP with a lvl19 gem. A Divine-Flask with 60% Minion-Heal will either replenish a total of about 3900 HP for LL-Summoners or a bit more than 1700 HP for a non-LL Summoner. That isn't really a lot. They are good for some damage-intense fights, exspecially with a bit of burst earlier on, like Rima or Dominus, but in higher maps the enemies don't die quick enough for this.

The big issue are really spectres, having to resummon a zombie every once in a while isn't too bad. But Spectres are hard to replace and still fairly important.

1. There are only a few good ones. Evangelists are the best by far. They have incredble resistance (as anybody knows fighting against them) their shield is a really good defense and they have nice damage. Tentacle Miscreations and Voidbearers also deal nice damage but the first are very squishy and the later have a bad AI often bringing them in Melee-Range and they aren't that tanky either. Flame Sentinals have a good AI for open areas, since they try to kite and do good damage, I prefer them over Miscreations and Voidbearers, but all 3 of them have poor resists although the native ES of Sentinals make them a bit more durable. Avian Retchs are a bit mäh... they often go fairly deep for a corpse and die.

This leads to the issue that if your Spectres die you are likely not finding the right replacements.

2. 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. Because this would weaken your other spectres. 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.

3. The AI of some of them. Although this kinda belongs to 1. even the used spectres sometimes behave fairly odd. Sentinals are hard to use in indoor areals with smaller rooms like Dungeon or Crematorium and Archers often decide to do nothing and just wander around.

@sidtherat

All those hints may help.

BUT you always seem to miss the fact:

you lose a spectre... it's a disaster already
lose em all its DONE... you can leave ur map

And as it is now... some shit exiles are capable of raping em all atm.
even if u run those auras, even if u run necro aegis...

there is no way to restore em but to leave map, waste a portal and try again.
That's not viable that's plain BS


YES, not all builds can do all content but ALL "okay" balanced builds should not port out a map every 5 rooms to restore their shit while at lvl 90.


After this league I may try a shavs LL version and see what it brings.
However broke as fuck in this new league.

perm:


edit: dont mind the 5L ... got 2k fuse waiting... didn't want to link before 1.2

"

Regarding the Storm Herald DMG from nemesis monster, Sidtherat made some his point right.
By simply having a lvl20 Purity of Elements, minions tend to get tankier against such DMG. Most of the time, by having capped resistance, Minions able to survive DMG from the Nemesis enemy long enough to kill it before it kills them.
Though, it is safe not to conclude such DMG mitigation is safe from heavy dealing DMG storm herald of Piety, Lightning spells from Dominus, Magaera's Firestorms and etc because it is those kind of elemental DMG that nullify Zombies and Spectres build.

Most forms of AOE elemental DMG such as I have mentioned including Ice Arrows from Piety avatar can wipe even 11k hp Zombies with 75% Ice Resistance. Taking Necromantic Aegis is a debatable option, if your character is not uberly geared, not just Elemental but physical damage can one shot the player in ultra end maps.

Such flaws, such end game fate, I can hardly cheat myself to say this build is doing fine, let alone saying there are choices to be made.

Yeah, but now guess what I need to be? Auramancer and I have to take reduce mana reservation nodes and I have to use Shavronne's to run more than 2 auras and use Prism Guardian to run auras on life. You get pushed to Shavronnes to run multiple auras to buff your minions and yourself. There goes the build diversity. At the time a 6L Shavronnes was average 125-130 Exalted Orbs, we're already inching towards the 200 EX barrier.

I was auramancer pre-Forsaken masters. You end up having nearly no defense because you sacrifice so many points to get into the reduce mana reservation nodes and also put them into minon nodes. You either end up being Armor/ES with Faith & Steel/Body & Soul or end up going Evasion which does not work well when you're wearing an ES chest trying to run Grace. So you end up using Discipline trying to build a giant ES buffer cause of no armor to not die or you end up being hybrid half ES half Armor running both Discipline and Determination. But Determination doesn't work as well to get you about 10K armor because well you wear an ES chest and have to use a Armor/ES shield or a pure Armor shield to get armor defense. Your helmet will most likely be an ES so no armor defense boost because +2 minion helmet affix pretty much gets rid of any armor you could've got on your helmet if you wanted to use a +2 minion armor helmet. You're left with trying to get armor on your gloves and boots with either pure armor or hybrid armor/es.

Believe me, I've looked at every single summoner build on the forums for the Witch trying to theorycraft and rebuild so I wouldn't die. If you use Purity of Elements you end up pushing yourself to use Shavronne's Wrappings and Prism Guardian. Thus pushing everyone towards the same build and most likely pushing yourself to over 200 EX plus build.

I had been trying to build out of Shavronne's LL with auras because when you have Shavronne's all you can do is LL builds and Prism Guardian provides little to no defense. The only other way around this is to not use auras. So I found a high armor shield (pre-Forsaken Masters) and decent ES (since the ES/Life nerfs) which I need to craft resists on. You end up either trying to craft a shield yourself, finding one, or paying a lot of Exalts for a good one.




In my current build I have 12K armor, good enough for physical defense. In my previous pre-Forsaken Master build I had around 2K armor and 5K ES which was not enough. But I sacrificed auras in exchange for defense so I wouldn't die.

If there was a good build out there someone would've theorycrafted it and tested it out already instead of cheesing it and caving in to all Shavronnes Aura builds or the current SRS FoTM. And I'm not talking about those snap shotting builds either.

With 60% mana reserved on a defensive aura and 40% on a Purity of Elements it literally leaves you no breathing room to further put any other offensive aura buffs on or whatever other aura you want on mana.

Thats exactly the issue. To strengthen the minions, we have to invest in Auras because we all know well in late game, Minion Life, lvl3/4 Empower and +2 Helm is not enough to survive anything. The only thing that able to push the minions over the imaginary limit is Aura.
That's to say, a Summoner has to run Auras regardless.
By needing to cap their elemental defense which is the main threat DMG in this game, we are forced to take Purity of Elements and don't even mention taking Purity of Lightning, Purity of Fire and Purity of Ice.

By having these defensive Aura(s), summoner have to occupy the same gemming path and consume lots of slots for that.
Zombie and Spectres summoner running on 3 Auras only are not contented enough to be viable. Assuming Purity of Elements, Vitality and Discipline is taken, what about the DPS Auras such as Hatred and Haste that are critically needed for ultra end maps?

Zombies and Spectres are near to 50% lost of DPS without Hatred and Haste.
(According to my calculation on the Zombies Calculator by foolroach. http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/860989). That alone factors in Zombies DPS, the Spectres suffered from the loss as well. Needless to calculate, a summoner without DPS Auras is not viable in end game content.


Saying Solaris Lorica can substitute Shavronne Wrapping is a joke. The 40% Lightning Resistance from Shav able to exclude another item required to have that resistance.
Summoner are forced to take Auromvorax and if not, a Mirrored Rare with Tier 1 Resistance in order to avoid using the unique.
There is no alternative cheap build to be viable in ultra end game.
Most summoners are simply avoiding certain Maps and being satisfied with what their 200ex and more build cost can reach rather than admitting they can't do certain high elemental DMG map.


and btw, well said DigitalBeating.

It might be interesting if zombies followed the same logic as the offering spells, so that you can click a pile of corpses and summon a whole army with one cast. Would make avoiding cast speed more viable.

As for requiring auras to make summons work, it definitely does limit diversity. With no hard limit to auras, shavs bm ends up being the end all be all for summoners (and most other builds, but that's another discussion). Currently SRS reigns due to the fast minion attack speed and lack of lowered elemental damage like there is on skeletons. If minions were given damage effectiveness like other skills then stacking speed to scale auras would no longer be the only option. So SRS would get a lower DE, zombies and skellies a higher, spectres left as is.

On to minion survability, it seems like problems mostly stem from RNG blocking, necessary resists and spectres being too valuable.
Theres no way to rely on block as a primary defence due to its RNG, so I'd be interest to see an additional keystone being necromantic that turns block chance into simple % mitigation. It wouldnt always be better but would help zombies the most.
As for resists there needs to be more ways to grant them. Currently only purity, 1 passive and a support do it. Resists should be available as item mods as well as a buff skill like the offerings and convocation. Perhaps animation able to roll on resist flasks to have part of the bonus apply to minions. Maybe even make it work for granite and jade too.
Finally its a radical idea but how about spectres become less valuable? Like adding a vaal summon spectre that resummons your last spectre. No more hunting for necessary corpse again once your main guys died. By being a vaal skill it would steal souls from vaal haste or summon skeles. Again, radical idea, but I think probably better for spectres frustrating necessity overall.

More build variance is what's needed in all. Give players more options for what they're trying to create.

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

odd build

Why odd? For me is like summoner build should look like.

"

b) Weak zombies/spectres

The new Corrupted Skullbearer or whatever its name is, is pretty crazy. Can be gotten in Elreon missions. His Raging Spirit lasts for like 7 seconds or something. He also uses Raise Spectre and has pretty decent defenses.
The plus side is he is usually away from the fight, so is unlikely to be in any danger.

"

Maybe just let them have rare mods and not nemesis mods? Any suggestions from u?

The one issue I see isn't the mods or anything Spectres need, Spectres are strong enough as is. The issue is resummoning the ones you want, the good ones really. The top Spectres I can think of are Corrupted Skullbearer, Undying Evangelist and Flame Sentinel. These guys have good offense and defense. They don't die if they are in zones not too high above their level, not even to bosses.
If say Raise Spectre ignores corpse level and raises accordingly to gem level, it would be fine. It is still limited by area level, but that's not too big of a deal. This also means you are able to go to some lower level zones and raise a Flame Sentinel and bring it to an end game area and have it be effective.
They can make it something like base level 16 + 3 per gem level. So something like level 20 gem raises a level 76 (16 + 60) Spectre. Of course, area cap will apply, so it won't be level 76 in a 66 zone.

"

1. There are only a few good ones. Evangelists are the best by far.

Not anymore. I would say Corrupted Skullbearer are stronger.

"

Assuming Purity of Elements, Vitality and Discipline is taken, what about the DPS Auras such as Hatred and Haste that are critically needed for ultra end maps?

Neither Vitality or Discipline are necessary, only Purity of Elements is. Hatred is important, not too sure about Haste. Wrath is also important, depending on the Spectre, but generally speaking Hatred is more important.
So the 2 auras I would definitely run are Purity of Elements and Hatred. Everything else are maybes.

"

tmaciak wrote:

"

Saltychipmunk wrote:

odd build

Why odd? For me is like summoner build should look like.

sorry that is just a place holder i use when i start to look at some one elses build and find inefficiencies , but don't have the immediate time to explain them all.

I will properly explain what i mean when i get time.

"

Starxsword wrote:

"

b) Weak zombies/spectres

The new Corrupted Skullbearer or whatever its name is, is pretty crazy. Can be gotten in Elreon missions. His Raging Spirit lasts for like 7 seconds or something. He also uses Raise Spectre and has pretty decent defenses.
The plus side is he is usually away from the fight, so is unlikely to be in any danger.

That specter can also cause a memory leak so there is that to consider

"

Starxsword wrote:

"

Maybe just let them have rare mods and not nemesis mods? Any suggestions from u?

The one issue I see isn't the mods or anything Spectres need, Spectres are strong enough as is. The issue is resummoning the ones you want, the good ones really. The top Spectres I can think of are Corrupted Skullbearer, Undying Evangelist and Flame Sentinel. These guys have good offense and defense. They don't die if they are in zones not too high above their level, not even to bosses.
If say Raise Spectre ignores corpse level and raises accordingly to gem level, it would be fine. It is still limited by area level, but that's not too big of a deal. This also means you are able to go to some lower level zones and raise a Flame Sentinel and bring it to an end game area and have it be effective.
They can make it something like base level 16 + 3 per gem level. So something like level 20 gem raises a level 76 (16 + 60) Spectre. Of course, area cap will apply, so it won't be level 76 in a 66 zone.

"

1. There are only a few good ones. Evangelists are the best by far.

Not anymore. I would say Corrupted Skullbearer are stronger.

That is debatable, skull bearers have less useable supports where as evangelists have many more. and they dont melt machines

"

Starxsword wrote:

"

Assuming Purity of Elements, Vitality and Discipline is taken, what about the DPS Auras such as Hatred and Haste that are critically needed for ultra end maps?

Neither Vitality or Discipline are necessary, only Purity of Elements is. Hatred is important, not too sure about Haste. Wrath is also important, depending on the Spectre, but generally speaking Hatred is more important.
So the 2 auras I would definitely run are Purity of Elements and Hatred. Everything else are maybes.

[/quote]

vitality has always been optional ,because it only really gives 3% regen at most which sound great until you realize that wont do anything against the ultra dps in end game.

wrath is also not a good choice since most minions including specters are physical (which hatred scales better for)

but more importantly wrath often conflicts with arc EE which is something you should be using to buff your minions . or should i say debuff your enemies.


haste is a weird one , it is true that its bonus doesn't seem as powerful , and lord knows it is worthless for non aura builds. but dont forget that using it means you move faster and cast faster , which i find is way more helpful than using wrath.


purity of elements works until you get to the elemental bosses in maps , ie shock and horror piety dominus .. war monger etc... then you need to switch out for mono elemental auras for the + max resist.

"

Saltychipmunk wrote:

sorry that is just a place holder i use when i start to look at some one elses build and find inefficiencies , but don't have the immediate time to explain them all.

I will properly explain what i mean when i get time.

I know that as Auramancer or pure SRSeer I would be more "efficient", the point is, that I don't want to be either of those. I don't want to use any skill just to trigger EE, use curses, be walking aura totem etc. I want to have build which uses strictly necromancers skills and have shitload of strong minions.

For me it's normal way summoner build should work. And if it will not work for all game content, it's pity for the game.

And title of my showcase is quite purposeful, I wanted WD PoE version ;)

Its all about my experience and playstyle that made me use this Vitality aura.
I have a different perspective of view on Vitality since I use it due to the nature of my character using ES.

General speaking of ES build, there is not much regeneration for it given it is taken by summoner build. Pure summoners deal no direct DMG since I rely on summoners to do the job. Even if there is life leech on the character by other sorts of spells, we can't assume we got time to do DMG to leech life to maintain survivabily while resumming Zombies that keep dying, aren't we? Not in end game maps.

By my experience, maps with heavy chaos DMG, burning, and minimal to moderate dmg dealt my enemy able to be voided on my character since the regeneration is stronger than the DMG. I have taken it to enhance my character's survivabily. I have no trouble standing on Fire spots and Chaos spots while doing my resummoning on Zombies in ultra end game maps.

Though, right now I'm thinking twice what good Vitality aura gives to Zombies if they just die in few blast or even once of elemental AOE dmg.
Indeed, this aura is optional like you guys said. Yet, I still take one slot for this aura for my own character. I used to play my summoner without it but right now, this Aura in my new build made a bit appealing for end games.
Though, don't get mistaken by my words, I am still using a 140 exalt builds to make it viable. Same shet gearing and almost no apparent difference with gemmings and stuff to be able to play end games.

Regarding the Haste Aura, sometimes I do feel they are unnecessary, sometimes it is.
Most of the time, in lvl76 Maps and onwards, all Zombies just get wiped out, be it the cast speed is optimal for resummoning. The character has to retreat to safer place to resummon like a coward due to the defence of it being so weak.

So, those auras might be personal choices after all.