Primordial Golemstones - Awesome? [Y/N]

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1453R wrote:

I feel like that's more to do with Spectres being busted beyond comprehension than it is golems being weak. Solar Guards are fucking stupid, and Tukohama's Vanguards aren't really much better. It's like...

"Take critter GGG has balanced to be a threat to the player as a one or two-off centerpiece of a larger pack."
"Allow player to make 6L-supported version of said critter."
"Allow player to build entire skilltree to grant said critter massive damage, life, and action speed boosts."
"Allow player to summon seventey-three of said critter."
"Remove all barriers and annoyances to Summon Spectre play."
"Wonder why Summon Spectre builds are utterly fucking ridiculous."

Also for golemancers, the required jewels are too rare. And I almost never say that about anything in present state of the game. So, I mean it.

For their current power, rarity of the jewels is unjustified. You can make spectre build on any Ssf toon, and srs was always the generic summoner go-to build

Golemancer is the build people use as an example of why to not play SSF

First of all, thanks for Mark for confirming that the bug really is happening as the stats are hidden for players. There might be 3 different conclusions after the bug is fixed :

1) Slight nerf / unchanged for Golems damage

This is the conclusion I'm hoping that will happen. As Mark said "In some circumstances, the stat for the cooldown of the golem skill will also pass down to the golem.". This may include only special cases like :
- Cooldown overridden for newly casted Golems
- Some specific socketing of primordial jewels
- Some outer force affecting the Golems (aura, charges, etc)

However it seems that the bug has not been happening for all Golem players if GGG decided to patch it in secret. When I ran my own testes to verify if Golems really used charge based system, I constantly noticed them stopping casting after 3x casts for about 2-3 seconds which is the reported cooldown from Path of Building.

Also in boss fights I have not been able to keep Golems ranged and casting Orbs at boss constantly, but rather engage in melee range at which point the extra cooldown wont really matter as they will just cycle between weaker spells.

2) Noticable nerf for Golems damage

If the Golems really can only cast 3x charges with 2x projectiles per cast with spell echo and have to be on cooldown for 2-3 seconds before being able to cast new orbs they will have to be buffed with mixing Specters with them. Golems have already pretty low boss kill damage for their cost, and Specters being totally broken atm, there will be no reason to add Solar Guards of Tukohama Varguards to boost boss killing to 3-4x faster time.

This will however seriously impair Golems place as main skill, as the gear is already costly and almost impossible to attain in SSF. Specters will see even more play as main skill.

3) Heavy nerf for Golems damage

If the cooldown reduction nerf hurts all Golem players, and Golems wont be able to load new skill after previous ones are spent :
- 3x Magma Ball
- 3x Flame Wave
- 3x Immolate
and will remain standing while waiting for new charge after cycling through all existing charges their place as main skill is doomed. There are already very few Golems builds and most use only Flame Golems as other Golems skills are badly mixed for optimizing links (physical & spells on same Golem, etc), the complete existence of Golems as viable skill is at risk.

Specters builds only use Golems as way to "increase" clear-speed as Specters can be slower at trash clearing, but if Golems will just remain standing in place after emptying their charges (especially with only 1-2 Harmonies, Anima Stone and Primordial Might) they will be dropped from support role also.

Final thoughts

I'm really hoping that this will be only fix for certain situations and not nerf to Golems build as a whole.

I'm especially afraid for players who are using minimum amount of Primordial jewels just to summon 4x Golems out. Using only 1-2x "fixed" Harmonies makes the 6 second cooldown just too brutal and will result in players dropping Golems.

Golems are pretty well balanced if not even bit under-performing at the moment with (safety <-> cost <-> effectiveness) and I would rather like to see other Golems buffed, than the few existing ones nerfed to oblivion.