SNEAKY, CONNIVING, SHAMELESS ZOMBIE KILLERS !!!

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Bretherezenx wrote:

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.)

You just killed your own point with this. Summoners should have by far the worst clear in the game. You don't expect to get everything in any game playing on easy mode.

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BloodPuddles420 wrote:

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Bretherezenx wrote:

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.)

You just killed your own point with this. Summoners should have by far the worst clear in the game. You don't expect to get everything in any game playing on easy mode.

Says who? Who says Summoners should have by far the worst clear in the game? Lol, are you stupid? Don't knock a legitimate playstyle if you don't enjoy it man. Get out of here with that crap. You don't see me knocking you for playing that ridiculously broken easy Cyclone + Impale + HH crap, do you?

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Bretherezenx wrote:

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BloodPuddles420 wrote:

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Bretherezenx wrote:

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.)

You just killed your own point with this. Summoners should have by far the worst clear in the game. You don't expect to get everything in any game playing on easy mode.

Says who? Who says Summoners should have by far the worst clear in the game? Lol, are you stupid? Don't knock a legitimate playstyle if you don't enjoy it man. Get out of here with that crap. You don't see me knocking you for playing that ridiculously broken easy Cyclone + Impale + HH crap, do you?

That's dumb, I've never touched Cyclone. And also dumb, because summoner isn't a playstyle, it's the exact opposite.

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BloodPuddles420 wrote:

That's dumb, I've never touched Cyclone. And also dumb, because summoner isn't a playstyle, it's the exact opposite.

It is indeed a play style. Sorry to burst your bubble.

You have more zombies now, so u have more slams. And with agressive mode, i think it will be better than ever. Usually u had to use montregul so u zombies survived, and it reduces number of zombies in half, so u had less slams. Now zombies have 38% more life and u need it no more, u can have lots of zombies, what means more slams.

Think the number of zombies is actually going to drop. They've taken the +1 zombie nodes off the tree, and off the items that are normally associated with increasing the number of zombies, while increasing the number from the gem itself. If what I've read is true, (and please don't assume that it is), we lose a zombie or two from our usual brood.

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HoockBr wrote:

You have more zombies now, so u have more slams. And with agressive mode, i think it will be better than ever. Usually u had to use montregul so u zombies survived, and it reduces number of zombies in half, so u had less slams. Now zombies have 38% more life and u need it no more, u can have lots of zombies, what means more slams.

1 less Zombie total, actually. If I am not mistaken.

You have less Slams, actually.

Aggressive mode is something that should have been added-in long ago, imvho, without the need of a gem support to do it for them; Zombies are iconically a very aggressive thing in lore/mythologies. Am I happy for the gem? Sure I am. Still seems unnecessary imo given that they should have had aggressive awhile ago (imo.)

And yes, you can have a viably large amount of Zombies now, which technically means more Slams, but at the same time, you won't be hitting a boss with your entire masquerade ball of Zombies unless it's some of the larger bosses in the game. At most you might get... 10 Zombies on a boss? I'm averaging, I suppose. Not using Mon'tregul's Grasp, that is (When I was using it, 9 strong, large Zombies was the max I was able to raise it to in PoB with significant investment cost. Without that investment, it is 7 Zombies at nearly budget-level, using Mon'tregul's Grasp.)

So it's over-all, only a few more Zombies in my eyes on any given boss of average possible size, and they will Slam *slightly* harder than pre-Blight, given what my PoB says on my budget build setup (which is literally only a 10k, at best, damage gain per Zombie Slam with Mon'tregul's Grasp on budget Zombie Summoner build for entry-level to Maps), for a 3x lower cooldown rate.

The cooldown rate is the issue here. If it is not baked in to the gem it self, this is a monumental damage loss to Zombies.

Already strapped for gems, you will have to invest in a gem for raising Zombies' accuracy so their basic attacks hit 100% of the time; Precision. In my high-end investment build they're sitting at 95% accuracy for a normal attack, which is 15% higher than it was before with no accuracy investment in a gem. That's a significant boost, but this is still the high-end build I am talking about here.

Also, the attack speed of the Slam has only slightly been improved with the Passive Tree changes over what it was before. This still leaves somewhere around 2.5 seconds of basic attacks between Slams... That's massively attrocious compared to the .7 seconds they would spend basic attacking previously. That is a LOT of lesser attacks.

Mind you: Skeletons only have basic attacks, and they can do comparable or stronger damage than Zombies can, and they can get by using Melee Splash, whereas Zombies literally have an AoE ability to use for this.

Mind you: Their basic attacks are anywhere from 50% to as low as 75% weaker than their Slam damage.

A total Zombie's Slam damage on PoB is not literally what PoB states it is, that is a very wrong factor. These changes are not as large of a buff as PoB would have you believe it is. It's, at most, perhaps 40% damage increase per-Slam, for 1/3 of the total amount of Slams as before. This is a laughable game-changing nerf for dedicated Zombie mains.

Over-all, per hit, it is a buff to a Zombies' Slam damage-per-hit. However, even with investment, it is still a detrimental nerf to their Slam. The loss of the Violent Dead jewels cannot be ignored for a Zombie Summoner.

Unless the stats were baked in to the gem, this is nothing more than a nerf.

You do realize they also changed regular melee attacks into aoe's?... which means zombieslam isn't that important anymore. You are also saving a slot on melee splash. So it kinda evens out.

My big worry about minions is that now +1 to levels and empower have become too important, for multiple things(damage, life, speed, +minions, etc). Meaning wearing minion gear is now even more so a requirement for any minion build, even to how it was with +1 to some specific minions.

PS: Yes we have less zombies and spectres after this patch, but the notes also state you can get more with more gem levels.

meetshield like someone say before

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sarannah101 wrote:

You do realize they also changed regular melee attacks into aoe's?... which means zombieslam isn't that important anymore. You are also saving a slot on melee splash. So it kinda evens out.

My big worry about minions is that now +1 to levels and empower have become too important, for multiple things(damage, life, speed, +minions, etc). Meaning wearing minion gear is now even more so a requirement for any minion build, even to how it was with +1 to some specific minions.

PS: Yes we have less zombies and spectres after this patch, but the notes also state you can get more with more gem levels.

I am inclined to agree, +1 stuff has always been on the expensive end of things already.

It was refreshing to not need an empower on specters.

Kind dumbs down the experience a little

I feel the minion gear part is less of an issue since most top tier minion gear are rares anyway.