How do you Animate Weapon players cope with minion squish?
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Playing this in HCSSF right now. Animate Weapon of Ranged Poison Necro Damage and clear seems fine, but re-casting minions feels awful. I'm playing a very tanky CI version with Melding of the Flesh and %Armour Perandus Pact where you'd normally place Energised Armour, so mana cost is a bit iffy despite 2x T1 mana regen on rings, reduced mana cost from Insightfulness and 2x -7 mana cost crafts. I don't play minion builds normally and this one especially is new to me. Do I need to divest 4 passive points into Indomitable Army to get some %PDR on the minions, or what is the best course of action here? PoB: https://pobb.in/cXEqYjrmBz4Z Twitch: https://twitch.tv/artcrusader Last edited by ArtCrusade on May 7, 2024, 8:36:50 PM Last bumped on May 8, 2024, 3:10:56 PM
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Not sure what were you expecting. Afaik only minions that don't die ever, be it mapping or pinnacles, are golems on elementalist. Everything else will be recasted (zombies/spectres rarer than others), nothing you can do about it. I have a friend who is a minion/necromancer specialist for many years, and he spams skeletons every few seconds. And passionately hates maps with doors :) You have to resummon everything not following you in every new room regardless of damage they recieve.
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" Are you surprised that people try new skills? I am very knowledgable in most aspects of the game, but my experience using minions is limited to SRS and BAMA for the most part. Your anecdote about your friend who uses Skeletons does not pertain to my build at all, because Skeletons cannot be recalled with Convocation (while AW can be) and their duration is much shorter (while AW last 85 seconds). I don't struggle with doors, I am asking for people's experience playing Animate Weapon of Ranged which have very different AI and can target and shoot enemies from offscreen. " I wouldn't know, that's why I'm asking. Have you played "Animate Weapon of Ranged" before? If you have, I am interested in hearing your personal anecdotes and how you worked around the skill's limitations. Twitch: https://twitch.tv/artcrusader Last edited by ArtCrusade on May 8, 2024, 12:28:49 PM
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What "grievances", jesus? You address undefined range of audience and then get aggressive if you don't like what you hear? Civilized manners should come before any kind of grievances, and in case it needs to be said, no, I wasn't trying to assault Your Knowledgeable Majesty :)
I did try melee animated weapons in the past, along with other squishy minions like phantasms, and the clumsiness of maintaining AW was exactly what stopped me from going further and minmaxing it. Never reached the grade of build your items above show, deemed it wasn't worth the effort. Hope some of your "higher circles" people will come here and answer more to your liking. |
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" This is the center question of the thread. Thank you for your understanding Twitch: https://twitch.tv/artcrusader
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" My lowly opinion is yes for T16, no for T17, enemy mods will penetrate through those meager defenses and single AW unit uptime won't change. Getting more dps and recasting them is better. |
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Your minions PDR is most likely not the issue here, however there are multiple issues worth considering:
1. Your minions ele res is sitting at 40% once the left your auras aoe. Unspec Mistrss of Darkness and turn off your purity, then check minion stats in calc tab. They will pretty much roll over and die as soon as this happens. 2. Your minions have close to zero sustain and cant really recover fast enough, unless you keep killing ofc and that is going to be enough in most situations. Except for bossing, when you cant kill anything and the recovery on kill doesnt kick in. There are multiple solutions which may not be suitable for your build but regardless, here we go: 1. Do spec into Decay Ward to minimize the dmg you minions are taking as well as giving them a way to recover fast enough since they´d be block capped in all those situations you arent able to kill anything or bring a worm flask for exactly that purpose. 2. If you do spec into Decay Ward you could either pick recovery on death mastery for your minions or instead go for leech. Usually leech isnt good enough, especially for extra squishy minions like AW but it might still be worth a shot. Id recommend recovery on death, which wont prevent them from dying but its less annoying to resummon those that do end up dying. 3. Try to get minion res on gear if possible, so they dont have to rely on Mistress of Darkness to stay alive. 4. Be aware of ground degens. For some reason AWs do suffer degen dmg despite them floating above ground. Makes no sense but it is what it is and you will have to convocate them to somewhere safe. 5. Respec the 3 points to Leadership and go for Dreamer instead plus reservation mastery. Im aware this is going to cost 1 additional point but would open up space on your gear for affixes other than mana reg and reduced mana cost. Not sure if that a worthwhile tradeoff but its an option. 6. Spec into Grave Intentions to grant your minions a tiny ES buffer and chaos res. That tiny buffer can make all the difference but its the same cost as Deay Ward and Ward is straight up better but then again, its an option. Cheers Last edited by Orbaal on May 8, 2024, 2:05:50 PM
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" Fair points all around! I am worried about reducing my personal defence too much, butI guess it comes down to a) specc into Dreamer which reduces the mana cost down to 55, making the mana flask obsolete (which means I can run another utility flask) b) specc Decay Ward to keep the minions alive for longer c) craft a new amulet; I need Str/Dex so Citrine is the better base & finish it by benchcrafting minion resistance. Still not perfect, but better than before I can free up some passives by downgrading from a 12 passive cluster down to another 8 passive. Loses me some single target, but I think I can manage. Absolutely had no idea ground degens affect AW because the AW from enemies seem to be unaffected by them. Definitely one of the weirdest PoE quirks I have encountered in recent times. Thanks for all the input and pointers, I have something to work towards now. :) Current plan: https://pobb.in/RNij6VM9eANJ Twitch: https://twitch.tv/artcrusader
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Looks better :)
https://pobb.in/LLgo2nJtdhtu Just 2 things: 1. Dropped 1 mana reservation point in souvereignity and went for aura efficiency instead cuz I can. 2. Grabbed the atk block mastery in Arcane Guarding Not a big deal and does 1 extra skillpoint but I like it better, thats pretty much all there is to it :D | |
" Yeah that's fair. Mana cost is so far down that most things barely cost mana anyway and it makes up for the lost aura effect from Leadership. Thanks! Twitch: https://twitch.tv/artcrusader
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