Raise Zombie

With the new Zombie Jewel coming soon can we have some visual updates for the Zombie specifically how we can tell if they're doing the Slam Attack.

Hello,

I was wondering if we could get confirmation if the "zombie stat sheet" provided in early 2014 (nearly 3 years ago now!) is still accurate? If not, would it be possible to get an updated one? I know many things have changed, and there's undoubtedly a lot of work going on with 3.0 coming, so no high priority. Would be nice to have with the new items/modifications to old ones, etc. :)

Thanks for everything, keep up the great work!

Hey,

With the new threshold jewel, is there going to be an update to Zombie AI? It's a little frustrating to watch them dance back and forth and not attack an enemy only a few steps away. I'm also not playing a close-up build and so I don't want to walk closer to entice them to attack. Perhaps add something to the threshold jewel that's similar to the golem jewels, giving them more aggression?

Back again for the new league.

Zombie AI is still pretty awful. Got a Baron Summoner to 79 and it's still painful, at any level.
Of course, at earlier levels, Zombies are slow, squishy, and dumb. However, as levels increase, the only thing that seems to change is the squishy factor.

There are items to fix and augment certain elements of Zombies, such as increasing damage, AoE abilities, tankyness, supports like Blind, etc. However, there's no option to make them smarter. There's no "Privately Funded Higher Education, Cobalt Jewel" item that makes their IQ higher than their shoe size.

The AI is what makes certain staples necessary, such as, as Magi pointed out, having to fucking direct them like a pack of lost puppies (Murderous, lost puppies). I still remember the old AI, being able to put these things aside and walk through a map watching them murder everything that isn't me. Those days are long gone and it's really sad.

Adding to this...they could easily just add the same New AI mod to the Jewels. Similar to the Primordial Might so socketing Violent Dead lets them ignore the Leash Logic it currently has. (It even fits the naming)

Violent Dead Jewell, could you make that it also makes zombie agressive?, just like primordial migth works for golems.

So I've made Zombies-Summoner build (2.6 Legacy)

The idea was 1000+ str Brutal Fervour Slayer with The Baron, zombies only. it works, it sucks.
I've been warned the skill sucks in every way possible, so the result isn't surprise for me.

• Main skill problem: "why are they so squishy?!"
Even such trivial situation like burning ground + uRF beyond + beyond chaos degen cloud wrecks them almost instantly.
Amount of damage they take makes me think there is some kind of minion-degen related bug.

I assume mana cost and skill cast time are balanced around 'strong unkillable minions' as that was true in Anarchy league, 9% life leech gem and purity was enough to not lose a single zombie during game session.
But in reality they are 'consumables' just like SRS, if my 13 zombies died during boss fight I have to leave map and resummon them outside, because 230 mana cost and 0.87 cast time is sort of developers' sadistic joke.

Any boss fight more complicated than 'hit one static target' is painfull.

• Zombies' stomp is too loud, I can't afk in hideout w/o unsummoning them all.
Could you please make them immobile while in hideout or release 'soft slippers' MTX for zombies.

• The only way to control zombies HP is 'overhead green bar' (turned off by default) 13 zombies is too much to make that bar informative, they are constantly desync/resync, it's impossible to track specific health bar. After hours of playing brain just starting to skip that fluttering madness.
Could you make that bar appear only if minions' HP goes under 100%

So I have some 'endgame' feedback for that minion type:
Normal Atziri, Shaped t15, Abyss, Colosseum, Dark Forest just a piece of cake.

Overgrown Ruins is pure random, sometimes whole zombies pack dies instantly, sometimes I have to double check the boss room because I can't believe that bosses have died in 5 sec. Isn't this a bad design mark?
How can I predict fight type? Area shape and lack of lights prevent boss spotting, once fight is started whole area turns into a mess.

Core would be fine if convocation had no cd, boss arena is too small to lure minions away from the '20k slam'. Boss hp is manageable, damage from 'unavoidable for minions' attacks is too high.

Surprisingly, Chimera the easiest t16 boss for my 'poison based build', delay in between phases and relatively low avg damage provides enough time to heal / resummon during the fight.

Minotaur is doable but it's so damn unfair, the boss Slam radius is higher than minion 'follow-trigger' range, so if 'slam' area is active I simply can't move or otherwise my zombies stop attacking the boss and start off running back and forth through falling rocks. normally it takes me 3 portals to kill 2 extra damage mods minotaur (logging out - resummon minions - jump in - repeat) Bone offering is mostly useless, such high boss damage turns 66% attack block in 'your minion can survive one additional hit, maybe…'

Phoenix just like core malachai - small arena, absurd aoe damage, probably the fight newer meant to be done with 'pure zombies summoner', takes at least 2 portals, undoable with any extra AoE map mod.

Hydra. well, it's hard to keep swear words. While running from boss arena entrance through active frostbolts to the other side of the room I usually losing 1-3 zombies (75% cold res, 12k hp)
For permanent minions there is no way to survive if fight takes longer than 30 sec. Even if convocation had no cd.

HoGM is simply can't be completed with pure zombies, lack of pvp reduction for minions, bunch of AoE degen, non penalized enhanced curses, all of that turns the map into endless pain in the butt. (at the same time SRS works just fine because they are 'invisible')
Please force someone from Q/A to commit a HoGM clear with MI zombies summoner.

I haven't tried uber atziri yet but it's not hard to predict the result, split phase flamebast will oneshot all minions.

Shaper's beam/ball/vortex damage is to high, zombies' idle roaming range is higher than Zana's bubble size, they simply constantly die.

Shortly - as for endgame content Zombies are less effective than SRS but cost more mana per minion lifetime (9 sec SRS for 48 mana vs ~15 sec zombie for 208 mana). Most of boss encounters designed w/o taking minions into account. T16+ turns 'permanent' zombies into 'poor AI SRS-like' minion with insane mana cost.

As a_z0_9 posted above,

• Main skill problem: "why are they so squishy?!"

Currently lv.23 zombie of 8 units, but I do not think lv.25 (which is reasonably attainable) can solve any problem.

The game is designed to kite the bosses, yet for Zombie builds it is not reasonably possible.

Convocation has way too long cool downtime. Desecrate also has cool down where most of boss room luck corpses and zombies die in bulk and offering skills also need corpses. To add, to summon the minions again, it requires to switch the skill binding. And the mana cost, cast speed, --- the gem design is not to resummon them frequently yet the skill requires to resummon many times.

I stacked minion speed from the quality on gem 20, amulet + rings 70, flesh offering 29, 3 frenzy charges, the Victario boots on AG, yet they are way too slow to evacuate from danger. Minion speed gem is way too low DPS wise to use, so unless GGG changes the AT as the level of AT of the Faster Attack support it won't cut.


• gear requirements are way too intense for mid game (400c budget), and also forces too much screaming essence crafted gears to be below average for mid game

When comparing with other build, Zombie build are similar to 2h-melee 0% block leech builds since Necro Agis is a mandatory, yet the essence crafting for minion speed is a MUST that is why the essences are so expensive which complicates the crafting and the supply of good item is so low, and you must craft by yourself which is kind of SSF like even playing in the trading leagues. For 2h, essence crafting is not a must to be able to play T10 or above maps efficiently.

2h builds can use Kaoms and easily achieve 8k to 9k life. 300c Kaoms is very cheap for what it offers. For zombies, The skin is the only item since zombies needs +1 and the Necro agis. In addition it must be corrupted with +1 gem. The baron? it costs 200 chaos and it requires again Strength essence crafting to achieve below average HP.

For mid game, MOM ES hybrid without any defenses is the only way to get decent life., which is not survivable in HC without high effective HC, yet the zombies easily die anywhere.

I opted out the necro agis and resulted in 8k HP and 11k amour, 300% damage, without leech, which sucks. I hope GGG test mid game zombie builds if you have time to.


The mid game zombie build, which means without the baron, 300% damage, lv.23 gems, 8 zombies, sucks hard. How does it suck?
In Caer Blaidd map, all zombies literally instantly dies.
In poorjoy's map, every a few packs I need to resummon them.
Edit: Of course I use the best animated flask with flask nodes on tree. Amulet is essence crafted one because that is a must, no other options.


To enjoy the build, I need to have a way to gather them around anytime I want, since GGG cannot make them tank everything. But I know GGG cannot change the convocation to have a shorter cool down. Maybe Essences should give more movement speed so that zombie build can have an amulet freely.


If convocation's 8 seconds cool down is reasonable, other skills like Blink Arrow should have 8 seconds cool down. Zombie builds have been punished way too hard.


My guess is Scion HC normal end game zombie build somehow could be an average build if invested in it a gigantic amount of currencies though.