Raise Zombie

This gem seriously needs either a way to make zombies much more durable, or the requirement of a corpse for summon needs to go.

As it stands right now most of the time zombies are nice to have but not especially useful if compared to SRS, but if you like the style, they are ok. However certain boss mechanics (void zones) nearly instantly kill your minions, and then you are stuck to spam Desecrate and Raise to get them back into the game until you inevitably run out of mana.

I'd personally would love to see the zombie limit being removed from passives and most uniques, and instead have the limit grow with the level of the gem (like: gem level / 2). And in place of that add survival abilities to passives/uniques. This way zombie builds wouldn't all look the same in terms of skill points spent and equipment, and they'd finally become viable again.

Alternatively - the lazy option - lower mana cost and remove the requirement of a corpse, so that you at least can spam-cast it when facing those bosses that insta-kill your zombies.

I'm currently at a level 20 with my summoner witch build and this is my favorite gem and the primary reason why i play this game. My favorite part is that they're not durational life so they feel like genuine minions and not a glorified spell animation. I love running around with a funny squad of zombies. They attack really slowly though, as it was just that slow to get you to use flash offering.

They're pretty useless for bosses, but that's the norm for summoner builds, i beat the boss of the first act with skeletons.

My biggest gripe about zombies is the way their AI functions. They follow you, they dont go out and aggressively attack, this leave you, the weakest link most vulnerable to enemy attacks. They should be aggressive, or have a keyboard command to be aggressive and no I dont mean blind casting, because again they stop attacking and follow you again the second you move 3 feet. All minions should have different stances you should be able to set in options, Aggressive, defensive, passive, that does not require you equipping another GEM. The summoner is the most taxed hero when it comes to required gems to function.

Since 2 Days Zombies are much much weaker and die in T11 Maps as lvl 23 Gem supported with MinionLife and MinionResi. Even as Meatshields they are bad as it is now -.-

I'd love there to be different types of zombies (animals, giant insects, etc.), either as MTX or as new summon gems which share the zombie limit.

Avoiding the obvious glaring end game problems with zombies, I would like to touch on a problem I experience a lot with early game zombies: lack of sustainability.
During the first act in which you acquire zombies they get worn down incredibly fast by repeated encounters, where you lack the means to heal them. Now, Convocation - as crappy as the life regen is - could be of use... but you get it in Act 3, and by that point you'll probably have picked up some other manner of regeneration for your minions on the skill tree. Rejuvenation Totem? Well, that IS a low-level means to heal them, but Witch is denied access to this due to reasons, and if you're shy, antisocial, stubborn, or SSF, then you're going to be dependent on it to drop for you.

"Just use SRS for leveling" never really sat well with me, because the idea of being forced to use an entirely different skill for leveling even though you got them around the same point in the game.

It doesn't really make sense to provide a rotting corpse with inherent life regeneration - due to being a literal dead body that can't repair itself through natural constitution - but perhaps give them life gain on hit? life gain on kill? life leech? An aspect of zombies in fiction is that they're all about eating stuff, and eating stuff is a way of healing, right? Even though their body is incapable of benefiting from the nutrients, it could be rationalized that they're able to reconstitute their physical forms through consumption due to magical shenanigans. "Yeah, the dark magic used to create them allows them to use flesh rent from their victims to repair their body".

I'd just like to be able to actually use zombies in the early game without constantly resummoning them because a cannibal threw a rock at their squishy zombie head.

End Game survivability is another matter entirely . . .

One most common observation about zombies is that they tend to die a lot more than their spectre counterparts, despite zombies being the meat shield and spectres the damage dealer. For example, a spectre supported by all damage gems can tank Shaper skills reliably compared to a zombie in a +2 helmet, Minion Life, level 3 Empower, and Fortify Support.

One possible reason for this is the Soul Weaver ascendancy node, giving spectres 100% increased life, while Flesh Binder node does not benefit the zombies as much.

Admittedly, zombie survivability is not a problem in normal mapping up to Tier 15. The problem comes when dealing with end game bosses such as Shaper, Elder, and Uber Atziri.

ZOMBIE AI SUCKS

the biggest issue i have with them is not the stats, but the way they behave. when kiting things, the time they spend actually hitting things is no where near that of skeletons

PLEASE for the love of god make them more aggressive and less prone to following you everywhere even while monsters are 15 feet away!

I have a bug with this particular skill. When I first equipped it, it was fine. No problems and all, but after some time, I unequipped it and reequipped it on another item but the skill did not show up on my skills tab anymore. I couldn't use it anymore. I tried reequipping again and again. Changed its support gem or removing the one its been equipped together with. I tried reequipping other skills but they worked fine. Only this skill is the one I can't use anymore. I also tried to restart the game and the computer but nothing happened. I really liked that skill in particular since it helped me in some sticky situations so please fix it.

I'd just like to say, I love what you've done with Raise Zombie.

I've been playing this game for years, primarily as a Summoner, and I'm proud with how far GGG has come into making Zombies as realistic as they should be.

You see, back in the day, Zombies used to be overly-aggressive tanks capable of stomping nearly everything. Now, they're as stupid as they should be. Why, I just got done running a T8 map and a Rare Mob decided to rush me. I looked to my Zombie Armada to come to my aide but... they ran around in circles, barking wildly as the rare mob wittled my health down to 0 and I was dead. As I lay there, cold, broken, and defeated, the enemy decided to start attacking the Zombies, in which they started to retaliate and do zero damage because suicide-summoner builds were a thing and were consequently nerfed. Thanks, GGG, for making them as stupid as they should be.

Back to the topic of survivability, Zombies are even more susceptible to damage than ever before. We all knew you had to have Purity of Elements at Lvl 20, Minion Life, and Minion and Totem Elemental Resistances linked to Raise Zombie just to have them survive any meaningful sort of AoE, but now it just doesn't fucking matter. And this makes sense, because Zombies are re-animated corpses. Of course they wouldn't be able to stand up to something like Dominus smacking the ground and screaming like a Saiyan.

All in all, I'm very satisfied with the realism they've baked into my undead horde. I'm almost ready to try out another popular build just to have a taste of usefulness, satisfaction, and actually being wanted in a party. Unfortunately, it'll just get nerfed next patch.

Thanks.