Spell Totem and Skeletons damage?
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Does anyone know if Skeletons summoned by totem have their damage reduced by 40%?
Spell totem description says "Mana cost multiplier: 250%, Totem deals 40% less damage, 30% reduced cast speed" Mana is clear - it costs me 2.5 more mana to cast totem than to cast one summon skeleton (but since totem will cast dozens of skellies during its lifetime, it is way more mana efficient). Reduced cast speed is also more or less clear: instead of casting pair of skeletons every 1sec, totem will cast them every 1.3 sec. But "40% less damage" is not clear to me. If totem was used for IceSpear, then clearly it would reduce that spell damage for 40%. But "Summon Skeletons" spell has zero damage itself, so I could understand this in two ways: 1) Skeleton damage is NOT reduced, since only spell itself is -40% dmg, and in this case spell itself has zero damage anyway (only summons, doesnt do any damage) 2) Skeleton damage IS reduced, since not only spell but all its effects (ie skeletons in this case) have -40% damage reduction So, back to my original question: does anyone know if skeletons summoned by totem have 40% less damage than skeletons summoned in regular way without totem? Last edited by gmnenad#5706 on Jan 31, 2013, 5:58:18 AM
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Yes. You automate the process of summoning them and you pay with a damage penalty for it.
That's how it works. |
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http://en.pathofexilewiki.com/wiki/Spell_Totem
However this is affected by +% minion damage passives if Im not mistaken. If you have passives that grant your skeletons +150% damage the totem would summon +110% damage skeleton instead of +60% damage skeletons. |
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" Did you test that, or saw some post by GGG? Or that is your opinion only? Because I see that as imbalanced compared to using totem for regular spell. If I put IceSpear in totem, for 2.5x mana cost I will benefit from 20 or so IceSpears, so 20x more effect that single casted IceSpear. I can see why both -30% cast speed and -40% damage is needed there to balance it. But if I put Summon Skeletons in totem, for 2.5x mana cost I will get only 3-4(!) times more skeletons than single casted Summon Skeletons (due to limit of skeleton numbers). So, using nuke spell in totem gives you some five times (5x=500%: 20x IceSpears vs 3-4x Skeleton pairs, ) more effect than using "Summon Skeleton". Even if Skeletons would NOT be hit by -40% damage, it still leaves totem/Spell 3x more efficient than totem/Skeleton. Of course, things are not so clear: -spell totems tend to be destroyed slightly more often than skeleton totems, so they wont last full time more often than skeleton totems ... but as i said, skeleton totems get destroyed too -in fight, some skeletons will die, and skeleton totem will recast those, thus increasing "useful casts" from 3 to some higher number... but it will never reach 20 (meaning 40 skeletons were killed during one totem lifetime) So, regardless how I look, I see that totem+spell is much more efficient than totem+skeleton, and I would expect that at least -40% damage is NOT effective on skeletons. |
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" The benefit of spelltotem+skeleton is that it constantly spews out an army of skeletons. I dont think minion instability is affected so keep in mind that not only do you get a legion of tanks that will take hits instead of you, but each who dies explodes doing AOE damage. |
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" That is only partly correct. Since totem refreshes your existing skeletons, it actually REDUCE chance for Minion Instability. But my point was not that totem is not useful for Summon Skeleton - I know that it IS useful, since I'm using it ;p My point was that totem is several times more useful for nuke spell than for summon skeletons spell. Which makes obvious reason why -40% damage reduction should not be effective on minions summoned from totems (reason being to make benefit of totem comparable between nuke spells and minion spells). And my original question was if we REALLY KNOW if skeletons from totem have -40% damage? I just show reasons why they should not, and it is quite possible that normal implementation of totems -40% would also not affect minions (ie it would effect only spell damage itself), so GGG would need to do additional effort to reduce also minion damage. Which brings me back to my point that there was NO NEED to further penalize minions from totem, so maybe GGG didnt do that 'additional effort'. That is why I asked if anyone actually saw post from GGG clearing this out, or tested himself. I was thinking about testing myself, but I'm not sure how , since there are no 'Target dummies' in PoE ;p Last edited by gmnenad#5706 on Jan 31, 2013, 6:47:05 AM
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I have no proof or anything but I'm absolutely certain, that they get their dmg reduced. Just play around as a summoner, casting them yourself. After a while use the totem and observe. You will notice the difference.
Your comparison with other spells used via totem might be right, but you can't balance it around every spell attached. I personally value the refreshing (which you mentioned as a downside) way more than the thereby lost possibility of getting a MI explosion. Skeletons are retarded, they wander off like tools and do shit. The totem constantly spamming them, makes sure those guys are focused. All I want my skeletons to do is stand in the way and get one or two hits off and that's what Spell Totem takes care of. In my opinion that's way better than having them wandering around enjoying the view or whatever they might be doing :P |
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hehe, yes - if you need them as better Decoy totem, then it is not important at all if their damage is 40% reduced or not ;p
I was just hoping that since: (a) totem+skeletons is underpowered compared to totem+nuke spells, and (b) it would probably require additional effort for GGG to reduce skeleton damage from totem, that (a)+(b) resulted in GGG leaving summoned skeletons at normal damage. well, I guess we wont know until we get some damage parsers in PoE, or we get answer with GGG post ;p |
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Well, as a summoner their dps does matter. But having a totem still automates the process and maximizes fighting uptime of those bony buddies. Just like with any other spell.
I think your comparison is just off, since you can't compare fired projectiles/casts of offensive spells, to the number of minions summoned. Apples and oranges. Last edited by Unimatrix#6268 on Jan 31, 2013, 7:34:56 AM
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" Let me add to that: Advantages of skele-totem: 1) You can run around doing other things while the skeletons respawn, like shooting fireballs or running for your life 2) The totem spawns skeletons right in front of the enemy's face, bringing them to where they are needed the most 3) You save a truck-load of mana refreshing those skellies over time That's well worth the higher initial manacost, slower cast speed and lower skeleton damage. |
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