Idea for a Summoner Witch Skill gem

My summoner witch is now level 63. I would very much appreciate and use a command minion gem.

I get very tired of having to cast new minions when I actually want to go a specific direction rather than following my mob.

Also, my mob tends to split up in different directions because there's enemies in all directions in the open areas. I've pounded those mana flasks so many times that it's irritating. It is quite easy to die; start running in the direction YOU want to go, and get ambushed before you have time to summon 10+ minions to distract the aggro. I don't consider myself a wreckless player, but I've died over 50 times because I want to go in my own direction and not the direction of the running zombies. I do not believe that this would make summoners too powerful, but it would actually give us a choice on which direction we want to go.

I've found that I often will find valuable loot in places on the map where I did not explore. This is due to my zombies running 1.5-2 screens away. I have to comb the level again to look for stuff where I didn't go.

Please add a "Command minion" gem to help give direction to the wandering minions. I am so sick of them wandering all over the place.

So its been a few patches and i decided to lvl another Summoner witch, seeing as my old one was in legacy. I got her 31 within 2 days of casual playing and i can say ive already encountered the same problems as i did before. Thought to myself if i just change up my playstyle it would be easier to deal with...but that didnt really work out. JMacker your post is a great summerization of how i feel when i play my summoner witch and im a great number of us aswell feel the same way.

Funny thing is no matter how aggravating it may get, I still love playing my summoner! oh woe is me :[

"

JMacker wrote:

I've found that I often will find valuable loot in places on the map where I did not explore. This is due to my zombies running 1.5-2 screens away. I have to comb the level again to look for stuff where I didn't go.

This!

I often have no problem just following some of my zombies, most times there's no rush to get to a certain point... exploration can be fun too. However once they split, it's very annoying to start searching through the instance for drops they left behind.

A command gem would be awesome, or better AI for 'em summons, something which I believe GGG said they're already working on.

Yesterday my first ever unique dropped to a minion kill, off-screen, behind me. It was only good luck that I got sidetracked by something and when I came back I happened to go the wrong way to find it.

I thought this should be a built in UI feature actually. But it would work quite well as a skill also.

Sounds like a good idea.
It would certainly be very useful, and open up a few more playstyles for summoners.

"

MightyForest wrote:

I suggest we make this an active skill. The animation could be the character throwing a flask at where the mouse is which explodes. Minions run towards that area.

The explanation behind this is inside the flask is some sort of explosive liquid which creates an odor (stench?) that attracts the minions. Also ties in with the general stereotype of medieval necromancers brewing bizarre alchemical potions with weird ingredients like newt's eyes and lizard tails. In this case it has the effect of the primitive grenade + undead attraction.

To allow the skill to be viable independently by classes who don't use minions the skill can deal a small AoE physical damage and possibly some fire and/or chaos DoT.

Hope this doesn't count as spamming. Here's quoting my own suggestion which I still stand by so more people can feedback without digging the pages.

When I was playing my witch who only has up to 5 zombies and a few spectres at most I kept remembering
how I hated summoning classes in most any game for
this reason:

You end up following the stupid things because
they all seem hell bent to chase things you can't
even see. Some end up going this way, some that way.

At the same time I loved playing my witch.

I also remembered fondly the D2 FOCUS skill a
Necro could use. While not a excellent solution
it did help.

I like the OP's idea and had similar thoughts while
playing the witch.

However I don't like the idea of a 'skill gem' yet
another damn skill slot, so precious few, devoted
to another new skill.

Either build this into the UI or drop the whole
concept of FORCING a limitation of so few concurrent
skills available via hot keys to the players.

One thing Diablo 2 had right was we could do upward of
12 concurrent hot keys if we so damn chose to.

For certain class's like necros built for FUN play
in NightMare you could damn well use more than six measly
damn skills at once.
(Note I say FUN because you could either chose to play for FUn or force build for HELL and ended up only using say 4 skills max no matter what class. )

So my PREFERED fix is to remove the ANTAL RETENTIVE
limitations on concurrent spells forced on players and expand that then if you so chose to add a spell needed to the line up, I can then mount it with no issue on my hotkey lineup.


Thank you for making a game with the potential to be far superior to D3 is.

"

MightyForest wrote:

"

MightyForest wrote:

I suggest we make this an active skill. The animation could be the character throwing a flask at where the mouse is which explodes. Minions run towards that area.

The explanation behind this is inside the flask is some sort of explosive liquid which creates an odor (stench?) that attracts the minions. Also ties in with the general stereotype of medieval necromancers brewing bizarre alchemical potions with weird ingredients like newt's eyes and lizard tails. In this case it has the effect of the primitive grenade + undead attraction.

To allow the skill to be viable independently by classes who don't use minions the skill can deal a small AoE physical damage and possibly some fire and/or chaos DoT.

Hope this doesn't count as spamming. Here's quoting my own suggestion which I still stand by so more people can feedback without digging the pages.

You Dont have to worry about that MightyForest, I threw what you suggested into the main post with your name next to it.

Bumping