Raise Spectre

the simple solution to most specter summoner gripes would be to remove the upwards levle cap on spectres so they scale with you as you progress content.

what would this accomplish: summoners who use spectres can go grab their spectre of choice in a regular zone where they know they appear, and get to playing right away instead of having to spend time and maps cycling through until a map finally has the monster they need (which is not always guaranteed)

what exactly is the downside to this option?, no other build type in the gmae is as dependant on being able to locate specific monsters as a summoner is, no other build type in the game suffers from being forced to select their maps with such precision.

Army summoners aren't even the fastest clearers in the game, AW mgiht be up there, but regular zombie/spectre spam sure isn't, minion AI is simply too dumb for that to even be within the realm of possible.

Pretty safe builds, but that'sa encessity since it's tough to boost hp/ES high enough to really matter

I run life based summoners myself, with whatever es i get considered jsut a bonus, often switching to EB lategame, if i can break 5k HP

and you can't even claim GGG doesn't have the data for this, they must have that since it's possible to downscale spectres to any zone already in the game.

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TL;dr
Removing the upper cap on spectre scaling so they always scale to zone, would not break the game in any way, and would be a massive QoL improvement for summoners who use spectres.
Would get as close to just letting us log in and play the gmae as reasonable to ask.

Please GGG before 3.0 please remove the spectre movement speed cap.

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Mrowen70 wrote:

Please GGG before 3.0 please remove the spectre movement speed cap.

This. Playing POE since beta and my first char was a spectre summoner. Loving summoner! Biggest problem of spectres in my view is the speed cap. Would love to make use of some melee spectres but they are too slow. Cant make use of movement speed for minions on equip/gems, which feels bad :(

30% Convocation cooldown recovery speed enchantment is a must have because of this, even for most ranged spectres. Please give some love to spectres.

I would also love some way to give spectres additional projectile speed. For that, a cap would make sense, so that minions with already huge range don't get over the top. I am especially looking at the Cannibal Fire-Eaters. I Love these monsters, because they don't put my PC to sleep. But their range is quite meh without projectile speed.

My suggestion is, to add minion projectile speed to the minion speed support gem while removing minion movement speed from it. Also remove spectre speed cap and add a max projectile range for spectres.

(It was only a matter of time before I posted here.)

It would seem spectres haven't changed at all. How sad. Just to go over a few problems and proposed solutions...

1) Access

To a certain degree, this depends on what kind of spectre you're using. Flame Banners aren't too uncommon whereas Knitted Horrors or Stygian Revenants are Mewtwo rarity. For any Summoner that makes use of Spectres, having to find them is a big nuisance and a continued problem. Let's face it, this game has a lot of AoE and high alpha potential. As a result, it's not uncommon to see entire packs of minions being vaporized before your eyes.
For Zombies, this isn't too much of a deal since you can just Desecrate some corpses and spend the next 4 hours raising 10+ Zombies but for Spectres, it's a HUGE problem since it's entirely plausible that the map either doesn't have the appropriate spectre or doesn't have any that work with the gem setup you're using.

We've suggested it before and here it goes again: Spectre Templating. If I raise a Stygian Revenant and it dies, I should be able to raise another Stygian Revenant. Having to leave the map, go somewhere else, and spend the next 6 days praying to [Insert God Here] for Desecrate to create the appropriate corpse is a huge detractor.

2) Levels

Spectres have a level-ceiling depending on two factors: The level of the gem and the level of the zone. Have you ever taken A4 Merc Spectres into T12+ maps? Even with every minion node on the tree, Bones of Ullr, and another obligatory unique, they're pretty squishy. Furthermore, you're not guaranteed access to a certain corpse type in every map. Yea, I just cleared a T4 map to complete [Insert Recipe Here] and got some Knitted Horrors. Too bad they got one-shotted in that T13.

An appropriate solution would be to have the spectre match the base level of the zone. This way, if you happen to be rushing through the story like a madman and somehow held onto that A4N Revenant/Knitted Horror all the way until A4M, it's still relevant.

3) Movement Speed

Others have already mentioned it. We can make Sanic Zombies but spectres that move faster than the speed of a tree is apparently too much to ask for. This should be removed, entirely.

Quality of life and diversity improvements:
* Reverse desecrate gem(Burial) that stores corpse type on character (1-3 slots, persists logouts). When desecrate is used atleast (1-3) corpses will be of the type stored. Level of the corpse would depend on Zone + Desecrate.

* Make specters spam their special skill and remove default attack (if monster types become more dangerous most people probably won't mind i think) like some types already do (Drapes).
I believe this would open up people to using more specters (if above fixes level/availability issue)

* AOE rezist for mobs (even if it costs points) since they have a mental handicap in their AI (single target skills should do full ofc.)

* Tooltips

Playing summoner again in legacy league with a big focus on spectres and damage over time. This time i am utilizing Knitted horrors from dried lake in act 4. They tag enemies with bleed by default and deal physical ranged damage so they make a good spectre to add poison to.

Still only lvl 71 so i haven't got all the endgame items i plan for yet but i'm doing great as usual with a summoner.

Only cursing with Temporal chains so far but i will likely add Vulnerability as well later on.

My items:


+ Spectres are quite sturdy with Soul weaver and Soul eater expecially Knitted horrors.
+ Summon once and forget.
+ Pretty good ai. Stay with caster and attack on command. Just how i like it.
+ Some good spectre types are easy to get.

- Spectres are lost upon logout/taking out the gem/crash/disconnect. For some reason the Animated guardian is not.
- The quality bonus of the gem is useless. Some extra minion speed that can be easily obtained by Flesh offering or Vaal haste. This can be an advantage however. Don't need to level the gem twice to try to corrupt it to lvl 21.
- Bad variety of monsters available for spectres. Mostly because of them not being persistant so there is little incentive hunting for the rare ones only to lose them on logout.
- Some monsters cannot be made into spectres for example the interesting Maelströms or the various types of elementals unburrowing when a player gets close.
- Some monsters like Knitted horrors can be made into spectres yet do not work with Desecrate.
- Spectres are tied to zone level. Adds to bad variety. Monsters from act 1 are quite low level to take to endgame.
- Some monsters that'd make good spectres struggle with bad ai unfortunately.

I give this skill a 4/5 rating. Despite all the issues the skill is saved by the fact that Flame sentinels, Stygian revenants and Undying evangelists some of the best spectre types are easily available from waypoints in later acts.

QoL suggestion:
 Add 0.85sec cooldown.

Considering how corpse targeting works this change would have no negative effects, at same time it would prevent frustrating experience with spell echo as main link.

So i been wondering about this for a while now, Is there a way that GGG could implement a drop down menu for our Specter that we have met thus far? like if we have completed an act it would list all possible specters for the act that was completed by our class. so this way it isn't necessarily attached to the gem itself rather to the build we currently playing. This way we wouldn't need to rely on going into lower end acts and summoning low end specters just for them to be fodder food.

Is any news about raise spectre mechanics change in 3.0?

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The movement speed cap on players' Raised Spectres has been doubled.

- from 3.0 patch notes