Animates are trash, how to make them good

I've played a lot of summoner. Played it since early in the beta. Played it every league. Currently have one of the most popular summoner builds.

I WANT to use the animate skills. But I can't.


Every time I cast animate weapon over SRS I lose dps. Guardian dies too easy, eats all the gear (except the chest) and doesn't do much better dps than a zombie.

They just simply aren't worth using, are a huge hassle, and feel clunky.




Here are my suggestions:

Animate weapon: Make it have infinite duration like zombies. Have each animate weapon either: Drain 0.5-13 mana (depending on gem level), reserve 7% mana, or reserve a flat 4-50 mana (depending on gem level).

Animate Guardian: Items can only be cast from your stash. When cast they go to a remove only tab titled "Animate Guardian" where you can see what he's wearing and take it off. Equipping the same item twice drops the old one on the ground. Using the gem outside of the stash will summon an animate guardian with these items. Items are never destroyed never drop. Probably have to nerf him a bit to accommodate.


Make these changes and people will probably start using these gems.

Those skills, especially animate weapon, aren't trash. You can make viable builds using them.

The main problem is the comparison with SRS and that it is actually something that a lot of other skills suffer from, too. They are decent and viable and still totally outclassed by some other skills.

Do we really want AG to become the Valk from D2... an immortal damage source that outshines the character that summoned it?

I think animate weapon would be great if they worked like blood rage, so the timer is reset upon kill. And also if you could take them with you when entering a new zone.

Entering a boss fight after mass animating daggers is quite fun, though.
The problem I had when I tried to make a character using AW was that surprisingly few white weapons actually dropped.

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Mikrotherion wrote:

The problem I had when I tried to make a character using AW was that surprisingly few white weapons actually dropped.

Yeah, that's indeed a problem in non-map areas. On the other hand, equipping IIQ items to support your build is unique and cool :)

Animate weapon really only starts to shine when you enter maps. Like mentioned before prior to maps to few weapons drop.

ON THE OTHER HAND! Nothing beats owning an act boss by deploying a ninja 15 rare weapons before activating them.

I think vaal oversoul dropped dead in roughly 3 seconds when i was leveling with my AW build, no other build ever did that self-found.(on merciless)

Also they can be supported by the WeD gem which makes them unique and an extremely high damage source.

The only real PITA i encountered with this build was that they don't transfer to next zones, this problem became exceedingly compounded when Masters where added which always happen in a new loaded zone, making it impossible for AW builds to complete.

Or come with an annoyance of having to take a full inventory of small weapons in your inventory before you do the master.

On the topic of animate gaurdian, i feel he should have a 45second cooldown and never drop his items.

Basically, once you add a new item to his gear set, the old one is lost forever, however given the addition of the modifier McBscrotie added to the game, this would be a real slap in his face. (although he ain't particularly happy with it's implementation, so maybe he can be persuaded)

I really did love my animate weapon summoner, extremely strong build if done correctly. But the zoning issue is really bad.

Peace,

-Boem-

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Boem wrote:

Animate weapon really only starts to shine when you enter maps. Like mentioned before prior to maps to few weapons drop.

-Boem-

That's where it gets lack luster actually. Less damage than an SRS with less constraints.

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Crowcide wrote:

"

Boem wrote:

Animate weapon really only starts to shine when you enter maps. Like mentioned before prior to maps to few weapons drop.

-Boem-

That's where it gets lack luster actually. Less damage than an SRS with less constraints.

I am not comparing it to SRS to make my statement, just considering the functionality of the build itself.

From my experience my AW build had an amazing clearspeed which only ramped up after half a minute in a map and you get the weapons going.

I think i could get roughly 16 weapons easily. And that was before vaal haste etc was added to the game, so i think atm it would be a lot stronger in comparison.

I consider it pretty useless to compare it with SRS honestly. SRS is on a different level entirely, it outshines ANY and ALL summoner builds atm. It's not exclusive to AW to perform worse.

Fact is AW is on a pretty solid viability curve in maps atm. All it would need to be a REALLY good and fun skill is for the weapons to transition with you in zones so you can continue rolling once you find a few, hell it might even make it a solid leveling strategy then.

I would also love if you could summon blue weapons unidentified, but that might make it to strong all together.

Peace,

-Boem-

edit : it would be funny if they could be supported by a +2/+1 melee weapon btw, but as far as i can tell that is not the case.

"

"Oh, my precious dps goes down i cant use a skill in this game because of that boohoo" <- is all i had to read to know this isnt a thread i could ever take serious. Yeah, duh sometimes dps does go down but guess what, its not always about that.

Logic isn't really your thing is it? If two skills are the same in every respect except one does less damage and has constraints about when you can cast it, why would you other use the second.