SNEAKY, CONNIVING, SHAMELESS ZOMBIE KILLERS !!!

Zombies will still slam... just not as often. Most of the time, they're running to their next target anyway. The chicken-little effect is strong on this one.

What I found weird is that GGG said that violent dead cannot be obtained through drops or quests, yet they didn't say that it's unobtainable. Unique jewel div cards maybe?

People seem to be presuming such. We'll have to wait and see. Kind of depends on their usage of the word "drop". Does a div card cause a drop? Don't know. Words are only symbols to represent a thing. We have to wait and see what that word means in this context. If so, it will be a new chase item... and the game definitely needs more chase items.

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

Zombies will still slam... just not as often. Most of the time, they're running to their next target anyway. The chicken-little effect is strong on this one.

Probably.

One scenario is it is what it appears to be, they'll slam less and with a smaller AoE in order to encourage people to start using melee splash or that other one again (and your right, 90% of the time everything is dead after each zombie has done their slam, including rares).

The other scenario is one of the 16 new uniques grants zombie slam cooldown or some other unique minion jewel that provides a buff in a different way.

I do wonder, will sources of +1 zombie grant +1 to zombie gem levels across the board like with Spectres?

People need to chill, keep overreacting at every new tidbit of information. Wait till you get the full story.

"

DarkJen wrote:

Welcome to the madhouse xD

"

mightyhavan wrote:

Theo dont want you to play zombie. instead go spectre, problem solve

I wonder how much will cost +1 spectre chest now. Even a worthless one.

xD

I doubt they already deleted that from the game and forgot to mention in patch notes.

"

Asmosis wrote:

People need to chill, keep overreacting at every new tidbit of information. Wait till you get the full story.

Sorry... Go add 3x the cooldown (Or if your ability doesn't have one, make it 3.8 seconds), and knock off around 95% increased damage scaling, as well as 100% increased AoE radius modifiers from your favorite abilities, especially the ones that have been around for the longest time in Path of Exile, then come back and tell somebody that plays a dedicated Zombie Summoner build to calm down. This nerf is beyond atrocious, and for absolutely zero sensible reason.

The nerf murders their AoE clear, and subsequently, their bossing as well.

Everything that a Zombie could do pre-Blight, a Skeleton could already do, up to at least 2x better, on just as little, or greater investment. Yet Zombies get shafted in the hardest way imagineable; Their staple ability, Slam, now becoming nothing but a wet noodle to attack an AoE mob with with zero reasons as to why. Why is this? There's no reason for it. Literally almost any other build out there, pre-Blight, and possibly even during Blight as well, has a huge lead over Zombie Summoner's clear and bossing potential. There is literally no logical or comprehensible reason for this blatant nerf to their staple skill--a skill that made playing a Zombie Summoner at best bearable.

[Removed by Support]

We do not even know how long the cd is after the changes to the gem/the minions.

But yeah, lets start crying. Maybe you all play the game first and stop being impolite to the devs.

"

Bretherezenx wrote:

"

Asmosis wrote:

People need to chill, keep overreacting at every new tidbit of information. Wait till you get the full story.

Sorry... Go add 3x the cooldown (Or if your ability doesn't have one, make it 3.8 seconds), and knock off around 95% increased damage scaling, as well as 100% increased AoE radius modifiers from your favorite abilities, especially the ones that have been around for the longest time in Path of Exile, then come back and tell somebody that plays a dedicated Zombie Summoner build to calm down. This nerf is beyond atrocious, and for absolutely zero sensible reason.

The nerf murders their AoE clear, and subsequently, their bossing as well.

Everything that a Zombie could do pre-Blight, a Skeleton could already do, up to at least 2x better, on just as little, or greater investment. Yet Zombies get shafted in the hardest way imagineable; Their staple ability, Slam, now becoming nothing but a wet noodle to attack an AoE mob with with zero reasons as to why. Why is this? There's no reason for it. Literally almost any other build out there, pre-Blight, and possibly even during Blight as well, has a huge lead over Zombie Summoner's clear and bossing potential. There is literally no logical or comprehensible reason for this blatant nerf to their staple skill--a skill that made playing a Zombie Summoner at best bearable.

You're presuming that the skill gem is unchanged. It's not. Therefor all your conclusions are suspect. They're not necessarily wrong, but we don't have any evidence to argue until we see the new skills at work. I think you're exaggerating the negatives and ignoring any positives. Good for you. Makes for better drama that way.

"

Siegfried87 wrote:

[Removed by Support]

We do not even know how long the cd is after the changes to the gem/the minions.

But yeah, lets start crying. Maybe you all play the game first and stop being impolite to the devs.

I've already asked this in the Patch Notes thread, and others are already asking it on Reddit. Whether or not we're going to receive a reply, however, is anybodies' guess. I am on the side of asking if it has been, while still reserving the notion that it wasn't. No mention of it, like that of Golems skills being altered in the base gem themselves, was made, after all. This could very well be GGG overlooking how much information like this for Zombies matters, but over-all it's still an ill-received thing by Zombie Summoners at this point.

Nothing tells I or others that anything other possibly the AoE radius, and the cooldown recovery speed (up to a laughable 76%) was added to the base gem of Raise Zombie at all. This leads I, and others, to believe the removal of the Violent Dead jewels is an intentional blatant nerf to their staple Slam ability, and that no other form of increasing their cooldown recovery speed exists, or that the jewels were baked in to gem it self.

So yes, using the information I have at hand, I am justifiably upset. A nonseniscal nerf to a niche build, while something like Skeletons will continue to reign as King among the Summoner playstyle archetype. Bravo.

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

"

Bretherezenx wrote:

"

Asmosis wrote:

People need to chill, keep overreacting at every new tidbit of information. Wait till you get the full story.

Sorry... Go add 3x the cooldown (Or if your ability doesn't have one, make it 3.8 seconds), and knock off around 95% increased damage scaling, as well as 100% increased AoE radius modifiers from your favorite abilities, especially the ones that have been around for the longest time in Path of Exile, then come back and tell somebody that plays a dedicated Zombie Summoner build to calm down. This nerf is beyond atrocious, and for absolutely zero sensible reason.

The nerf murders their AoE clear, and subsequently, their bossing as well.

Everything that a Zombie could do pre-Blight, a Skeleton could already do, up to at least 2x better, on just as little, or greater investment. Yet Zombies get shafted in the hardest way imagineable; Their staple ability, Slam, now becoming nothing but a wet noodle to attack an AoE mob with with zero reasons as to why. Why is this? There's no reason for it. Literally almost any other build out there, pre-Blight, and possibly even during Blight as well, has a huge lead over Zombie Summoner's clear and bossing potential. There is literally no logical or comprehensible reason for this blatant nerf to their staple skill--a skill that made playing a Zombie Summoner at best bearable.

You're presuming that the skill gem is unchanged. It's not. Therefor all your conclusions are suspect. They're not necessarily wrong, but we don't have any evidence to argue until we see the new skills at work. I think you're exaggerating the negatives and ignoring any positives. Good for you. Makes for better drama that way.

I am not ignoring any positives, mind you.

The ~95% increased damage from the loss of the jewels is inconsequential. It is the cooldown recovery speed that is the core issue here, and so far, there is no way to get that, other than through the Violent Dead jewels.

I've said it elsewhere, in the Patch Notes thread:

If the cooldown recovery speed was added in to the base gem it self, then that is okay. No issue.

If the cooldown recovery speed of minion abilities is a roll-able prefix/suffix on Minion Wands, then that is okay. To certain degrees, anyhow; Anything less than 1.25s total of cooldown for a Zombie Slam is going to feel off, but so long as it's not an atrocious 2.0 seconds or less, it shouldn't feel so incredibly detrimental.

You can raise the damage of a Zombies' Slam attack with most of the new changes fairly well, but it won't be something that goes absolutely bonkers. It'll still require quite an investment to reach absurd levels, to the point that you will be absolutely hard-pressed to earn such gear for a Zombie Summoner outside of Standard (which the game is absolutely NOT balanced towards.) With the information given to us so far: There is no reason to nerf Zombies in such a manner. It's beyond necessary and completely unwarranted.

If I were to just run a few numbers right now and crunch them in to a calculator, i'm sure that this would equate to something somewhere in the lines of a 40-60% over-all nerf to the damage output of Zombies. That is blatantly bull.... .