Animate Guardian and Animate Weapon.

So, patch 1.0.0 has been released almost one month ago, and so far I haven't see any top builds utilize these two gems yet. Spectral Throw has been the most dominant and commonly used skill, leaving these two others on the sidelines..

Or are there any builds out there that already utilize these gems, if any at all?

If not, why so? How could it be made better so that people will want to use it?

Discuss below :)

Link to Animate Weapon: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Animate_Weapon

Link to Animate Guardian: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Animate_Guardian

Any player out here who is already using Animate Weapon/Guardian, please show us a video or screenshot of the DPS it can dish out. Or players who have previously used them but stopped, please share your experience as well.

Thanks.

I didn't use any of them in the later game for now, but what i've read on the forums most people say that the guardian is rather bad (thanks to the rather suicidal AI), but that animate weapon is a usefull skill for later content.

I tried to use AG with my summoner and laughed constantly has it was outperformed by a single Zombie, nay a single Skeleton! It keeps getting one or two shotted.

Animate weapon would be decent if it didnt have friggin timer.

Animate Weapon is very good once you know how to use it. The duration is a bit too short and the mana cost can be a pain but I think they'll probably be changed. Well, at least the duration unless they add new mechanics for it.

Basically you want to focus on skill duration, minion attack/movement speed, and added damage. To be specific, added lightning and fire damage so you can process Elemental Equilibrium with cold damage. That's perfect considering Wrath and Anger. Check out my guide if you'd like a more in-depth explanation. I'll be recording a video probably by the end of the week, once I finish and assemble my PC build on Black Friday.

Animate Guardian I can't really comment on. I've used it for a little bit for some tanking but switched back to Raise Zombie. I think the recent change to it is interesting but I haven't tried it out myself.

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NagiSoi wrote:

Animate weapon would be decent if it didnt have friggin timer.

Without timer they could be quite imba. Level 20 is 220% base weapon damage and 30% attack speed. A 6L of them could create a wrecking chainsaw of permanent flying doom around you.
They need some sort of persistence still though. Like they persist only in the zone you summon them. As of now they re just wasting potential.

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battled wrote:

"

NagiSoi wrote:

Animate weapon would be decent if it didnt have friggin timer.

Without timer they could be quite imba. Level 20 is 220% base weapon damage and 30% attack speed. A 6L of them could create a wrecking chainsaw of permanent flying doom around you.
They need some sort of persistence still though. Like they persist only in the zone you summon them. As of now they re just wasting potential.

Its mana cost is too large to consider a 6L without Reduced Mana/Blood Magic or sacrificing your energy shield for Eldritch Battery. The skill is best suited for an auramancer so your unreserved mana pool will be pretty low if you want to maximize the skill's potential.

At level 77 with 96% increased maximum mana, 3 60% mana reservation auras, and 41% reduced mana reservation I still need to stack some mana on my gear to cast it supported by Increased Duration, Weapon Elemental Damage, and Multistrike. For me, with Alpha's Howl and 4 60% mana reservation auras Reduced Mana will be required.

Reduced Mana Cost nodes exist.

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Autocthon wrote:

Reduced Mana Cost nodes exist.

Indeed they do. It'd be difficult to make a Hardcore/Nemesis-viable build that fits them in amongst all the other necessary nodes, though. You'd need ~35% reduced mana cost to match the effect of a high level Reduced Mana with 20% quality, which is at least an 8 node investment, normally 11 for an auramancer.