Summon Skeletons

heh, a minion mage and minion ranged gem would be awesome.
Skeleton Archers and Mages, Zombies that puke toxic bile on enemies ... ok, I got inspiration from somewhere else there.

Also a giant minion gem, please, for minions that take double the slots, have 50% more hp (+2% per level) and use Heavy Strike or Ground Slam or something.

I think this skill is going to need a rehaul in the not so distant future.

With no investment in skeletons and linking this skill to spell totem you basically get an unkillable wall of meatshield to hide behind. With enough cast speed, it's literally impossible for hordes of monsters to kill the totem or dispense with the skeletons faster than they're created. With zero minion investment, just leveling up the base skill.

Overall, I think minions need to have a greater itemization component and a harder means to max them via passives, but that's for another discussion - this skill should probably have a longer base cast time, longer lasting minions (which are more inherently sturdier), and a more clear purpose. Because right now, I can easily use this as a free distraction vs any otherwise difficult encounter, almost trivializing it. I'm not sure how skeletons fair as being a "zombie alternative" and I don't think they really invite much clever play or strategy.

I also don't think many people like this skill BECAUSE of its nature. You need to keep spamming it to keep skeletons up. Lots of people dump it on a totem and leave it like that, even as a pure summoner.

The only time this spell totem + summon skeleton strategy fails is when monsters have good AOE attacks. Lightning Arrow skeleton arches are some of the only monsters I know of to counter this strategy quickly.

Minions might be great, but I think that is a totem problem. I have a hard time imagining a reason why someone would not want to have a totem. It's an NPC you can cast that can then spam whatever you want for free. Given that you can only do one thing at a time, doing two things at a time with a totem can increase your effectiveness by 100%... few others things can do that.

True, but I wonder, would people continue to use skeletons without a totem?

I do agree totems are problematic to balance as well, perhaps they should have a cast time and spell damage penalty, or a greater cost attached to utilizing them (technically, you only need a level 1 spell totem support for skeletons, so only a little minimum strength, and to max totem support, you don't need THAT much strength from gear/passives), but that would hurt a lot of builds that I think are only just barely viable right now (like fireball totem? or firestorm totem? or spark totem? etc)

A 10% damage penalty or the like wouldn't be that harsh; The ranged totem could get a bit more damage in turn.^^

Though, with skeletons, the cast speed is really no penalty.
Maybe also have 10% less minion damage/health on totems?
Also, Yes, totems are always good, but for most builds, so are zombies.
Three walking meatshields that you can quickly recast after every battle.

i had a derp moment i think. Due to the 50% less elemental damage, would minion instability be half damage per skeleton too? There's no difference due to there's two skeletons made at a single time but just making sure i understand.

Were can I find that gem ?

I did a little searching an couldn't find anything. Will the skeletons that are summoned by a spell totem do 40% less damage? It says "totem deals 40% less damage" so it leads me to believe that the skeletons are unaffected but that seems a bit imbalanced if that's the case.

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anubite wrote:

True, but I wonder, would people continue to use skeletons without a totem?

I do agree totems are problematic to balance as well, perhaps they should have a cast time and spell damage penalty, or a greater cost attached to utilizing them (technically, you only need a level 1 spell totem support for skeletons, so only a little minimum strength, and to max totem support, you don't need THAT much strength from gear/passives), but that would hurt a lot of builds that I think are only just barely viable right now (like fireball totem? or firestorm totem? or spark totem? etc)

I use skeletons without a totem, personally I prefer it that way as I have control as to where I summon them. I already have my zombies as walking meat shields (7 of them). By casting this spell myself I can summon my 10 skeletons in different places, whereas a totem can't really do that. Also the other disadvantage of putting them on a totem is that the totem just keeps casting it and so they won't last as long, as if you cast them when you need them.

i quite like this skill gem although i wish the # of skeletons summoned could be increased some way either by item affix or via skill tree. also on a side note there appears to be a problem with the skill, the first time you use the skill after logging in it seems to stop the game for maybe a second or so and then returns to normal for the rest of the time playing