Blink/Mirror Arrow questions

Thinking of building a bow summoner specced for these skills, had a few questions about how they worked exactly and what they could benefit from.

I've read up on the skills so I know some stuff about them, but some questions remain unanswered. For instance, I know that the clones benefit from your bow and quiver but pretty much no other equipment you're wearing, I know the Heralds will add damage to your clones but not proc their effects, and I know that the minion nodes on the passive tree will benefit the clones. Here's some stuff I don't know:

1) Will putting the clones in a trap increase their damage? If not, will putting them in a Ranged Attack Totem, or using Trap > Multiple Traps affect their damage at all (that is to say, the damage of the clones, not the initial hit of the skill)?

2) Will the appropriate damage/attack speed nodes on the skill tree affect the clones (bow physical damage, projectile damage, crits, attack speed, etc)?

3) If put in a trap or totem, will the trap/totem nodes apply? Like increased totem/trap damage, for instance?

4) If put in Ranged Attack Totem, is there a limit on the attack speed of the skill? i.e., does it still have a cooldown for the totem or will IAS boost its effectiveness?

5) Will the clones benefit from anything on your passive tree (aside from minion nodes, obviously)? I'm mostly thinking about the keystones here. Will the clones, for example, have Point Blank if you have it? Or Acrobatics > Phase Acrobatics?

I havent tested these skills precisely yet, but these are the general rules that always apply:

minions are separate entities, they do not benefit from your tree/gear unless stated otherwise

support gems do affect the skill directly. trap support says "more trap damage" so it affects minion spawned via traps as long as they use traps to do the damage. similar with totems, totems nodes affects only damage done directly by totems. Note that spell totem support gem says "less damage", it does not specify the type so it affects all damage, including damage of spawned minions

e: minions from these skills use your bow and quiver, which most likely means they use your bow base damage (unmodified by passives and/or gear) and quiver mods

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TheMongrel wrote:

I know the Heralds will add damage to your clones but not proc their effects

They won't, heralds will add damage only to your attacks/spells, minions just use your bow and quiver, nothing else.

Asides from the bow and quiver thingy, they are minions just like any other so they are affected by all the usual stuff, there are no exceptions.

...

I actually have a summoner/attack hybrid that uses them, check the 'Adramel' char in my list.

It's possible to use blink arrow followed by mirror arrow on the same spot to quickly use both skills which is convenient because you got only one cooldown timer to watch out for. If you take both duration clusters you can get almost 6s duration which allows you to have four clones out there for approximately a quarter of their duration. Totems aren't really a good option for them but you could use traps to get a few extra clones, maybe I could have found space on action bar for the trap, but I got none in gear slots, unfortunately.

The bad news is they don't really do enough damage to be the primary skill in my opinion, you will need to use other summons too. My build is also a hybrid that invested a bit in personal offense nodes, just because I dig hybrid builds in general, so it can do a nice bit of damage on his own, not exactly pulverizing content but it adds up.

Overall, it isn't a very powerful build but it's very fun and unusual, you have quite a bit of skills on rotation and blink arrow keeps you mobile. It could probably be stronger, but I made it as a themed build using 'poltergeist' set of skills, so spectres are used for tanking instead of dps, and it also uses guardian and animated weapons, no zombies or skeletons. I expect it will be able to make use of that new summoner bow in 2.0 and get some more flavor.

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Ludvator wrote:

I havent tested these skills precisely yet, but these are the general rules that always apply:

minions are separate entities, they do not benefit from your tree/gear unless stated otherwise

e: minions from these skills use your bow and quiver, which most likely means they use your bow base damage (unmodified by passives and/or gear) and quiver mods

Well yeah, minions are normally separate entities, and I certainly wouldn't expect, say, a zombie to benefit from an attack speed node I take, but these minions are clones of your character so they're a little unique. Are you sure they don't benefit from anything on the passive tree save for minion nodes? Is there perhaps a source you can cite?

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TheMongrel wrote:

Are you sure they don't benefit from anything on the passive tree save for minion nodes? Is there perhaps a source you can cite?

Can't remember of any, but we would certainly get some info if their mechanics differed in any way from a normal minion. And there's pretty much nothing besides the fact they are spawning at same percentage of life you got at the time of summoning, they aren't the only minions that use weapons meant for players so there's nothing new there.

Besides, if you need proof, like I said already my build is a hybrid so my clones should be much stronger than me with all the minion passives and bow passives I took for myself, but they aren't.

P.S.
I remembered that Pneuma made a build that has them as a main skill and uses multiple traps to bypass cooldown and spawn more minions, you may want to check that one out.

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raics wrote:

P.S.
I remembered that Pneuma made a build that has them as a main skill and uses multiple traps to bypass cooldown and spawn more minions, you may want to check that one out.

Yeah I saw that build heh, it's kinda what I was modeling this one after. My initial intent, though, was to make a ranger and build her with bow nodes, but after learning that that doesn't help the minions I went witch instead.

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TheMongrel wrote:

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Ludvator wrote:

I havent tested these skills precisely yet, but these are the general rules that always apply:

minions are separate entities, they do not benefit from your tree/gear unless stated otherwise

e: minions from these skills use your bow and quiver, which most likely means they use your bow base damage (unmodified by passives and/or gear) and quiver mods

Well yeah, minions are normally separate entities, and I certainly wouldn't expect, say, a zombie to benefit from an attack speed node I take, but these minions are clones of your character so they're a little unique. Are you sure they don't benefit from anything on the passive tree save for minion nodes? Is there perhaps a source you can cite?

thats the way minions work. the fact that they look like a players character can be a bit confusing, sure, but theres nothing unique with them expect they use your bow and quiver (similar to other minions using your shield when specced into Necromantic aegis)

What happens if I crit the blink arrow skill? Not if the clone crits a hit, which I figure is just normal crit damage for that bow, but if they initial creation skill usage rolls a crit. Will there be an extra clone? Does the clone last longer? Does that clone crit their hits in turn?

So, if i use a corrupted quiver with "adds an additional arrow", will the skill shot 2 arrows with clones?