Animate Guardian

I just wanted to chime in to agree with the bulk of what others have said here. I'm a relatively new player and have a laundry list of builds I want to play with, one of which is an "alternate" summoner using animate weapon and animate guardian. After starting a new character, getting a few minion passives and minion support gems, I still find animate guardian to be very disappointing. Rather than the build-your-own-pet concept it promises, I instead have to go nuts trying to keep it alive until eventually I run into enough mobs (like, more than 4) that I have to worry about my own health, and the thing dies as soon as I stop babying it. This skill screams out to be a primary skill that provides a different playstyle, but sadly I don't think it's worth messing with at the moment. My alternate-summoner is getting set aside for now until Animate Guardian gets a rework. It's sad because this could probably become my favorite skill of the game if it worked well. Instead it's currently only good for lols and not really even for that.

So, basically, I agree that the combination of off-the-screen aggro range, low survivability, and consumption of items makes this promising skill worthless in practice. Having some way of looking at the current gear of the guardian to see if a new item would be an upgrade or not would also be nice, but sort of pointless right now since they don't live long enough to even get the chance.

A 6L AG geats pretty much beaten by a 2L Skellie BROtem in every aspect. Sad truth :(

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Quark wrote:

I must say i'm pretty disappointed in this skill. I was very much hoping for some kind of persistent guardian that you could trick out with some items...

I agree the skill is underwhelming and doesn't realise its full potential. If I could redesign this skill it might work something like this:


Animate Guardian 2.0

I feel this would not only make Animate Guardian a better skill but also improve the summoner build substantially by adding strategy to the battlefield and introducing a meta game of building and customising the ideal guardian.


* The guardian would be persistent and would not consume items used to build it.

* On death the guardian would drop all its pieces, permanently allocating them to its summoner.

* The guardian could be killed by the player in the same way remote mines are detonated. This would deal damage in the same way instability works.

* To build a guardian the player would cast once for each piece of equipment to be added.

* Casting on a piece of equipment the guardian already contains would have no effect.

* A guardian's total life would increase with each piece of equipment added.

* Proc supports would work with Animate Guardian allowing the guardian to use skills linked to it.

* The guardian would be based on the marauder body type rather than the templar to give it a larger more menacing stature. Character size mods on equipment used in its construction would affect it.

* All microtransaction effects on equipment used in a guardian's construction would apply.


Using this implementation replacing parts would require the player killed/detonated their guardian and rebuilt it from scratch. Therefore the player could not heal a guardian mid fight by swapping parts and a guardian's equipment could not be overwritten or dropped by adding something it already contained. The player could strategically detonate a guardian to damage foes but would have to rebuild it each time adding a unique strategic element to the skill and preventing abuse.

This approach would open up additional sales opportunities for cosmetic effects.

Detonating the guardian could be super cool. All that armor acts as shrapnel :D

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BlastMonkey wrote:

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Quark wrote:

I must say i'm pretty disappointed in this skill. I was very much hoping for some kind of persistent guardian that you could trick out with some items...

I agree the skill is underwhelming and doesn't realise its full potential. If I could redesign this skill it might work something like this:


Animate Guardian 2.0

I feel this would not only make Animate Guardian a better skill but also improve the summoner build substantially by adding strategy to the battlefield and introducing a meta game of building and customising the ideal guardian.


* The guardian would be persistent and would not consume items used to build it.

* On death the guardian would drop all its pieces, permanently allocating them to its summoner.

* The guardian could be killed by the player in the same way remote mines are detonated. This would deal damage in the same way instability works.

* To build a guardian the player would cast once for each piece of equipment to be added.

* Casting on a piece of equipment the guardian already contains would have no effect.

* A guardian's total life would increase with each piece of equipment added.

* Proc supports would work with Animate Guardian allowing the guardian to use skills linked to it.

* The guardian would be based on the marauder body type rather than the templar to give it a larger more menacing stature. Character size mods on equipment used in its construction would affect it.

* All microtransaction effects on equipment used in a guardian's construction would apply.


Using this implementation replacing parts would require the player killed/detonated their guardian and rebuilt it from scratch. Therefore the player could not heal a guardian mid fight by swapping parts and a guardian's equipment could not be overwritten or dropped by adding something it already contained. The player could strategically detonate a guardian to damage foes but would have to rebuild it each time adding a unique strategic element to the skill and preventing abuse.

This approach would open up additional sales opportunities for cosmetic effects.

It also needs a helluva lot more HP and damage output. We're essentially looking at a different approach to D2's Iron Golem here. It's a standalone minion capable of using traits from equipment it consumes to be animated. It has potential to be incredibly strong, but it really needs buffing to make it possible.

Right now, it's nothing more than cannon fodder and a short-term distraction for the enemy.

Being able to animated unidentified items as well as animated ranged weapons including wands is also a good start. I'd like to have ranged minions, it seems to be often ignored aspect of summoners. Back in Diablo 2, I loved having skeletal magi in the back offering ranged support to skeleton warriors on the front. All you get for that in this game are just spectres. And while 1-3 spectres at range are pretty good, I really wanted a good sized group of ranged support.

The main problem is it can't be snapshot, doesn't work I tested it.

It would probably be usable if it could be snapped, but right now it's abysmally weak and completely useless except for cutesy factor - and it's not too cute :)

I think it would be sweet to add mods when you mouseover your guardian, like they have for monsters. Have armored if the gear you put on him has high armor, extra life and extra es if you give him that, ect. It would be a way to keep track of what peice of gear you put on him without giving too much info and also a sweet way to show off some those unique items invested in your guardian.

As others have said, the skill is underwhelming in it's current state. An interesting rework that came to mind would have the guardian function sort of like a katamari, gaining tankability and damage as it consumes more and more items.

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Psomm wrote:

The main problem is it can't be snapshot, doesn't work I tested it.

It would probably be usable if it could be snapped, but right now it's abysmally weak and completely useless except for cutesy factor - and it's not too cute :)

Don't worry, other summons will lose their ability to be snapshot eventually too.

Just like auras.

While I agree this skill is underwhelming, I hope they won't introduce a way to get items back from it - i really like that idea! I would prefer other buffs like:
- raw hp/dmg increase
- ability to use ranged weapons
- ability to use a skill (linked to Animate Guardian/slotted in consumed item/consumed skill gem)
And ofc AI fix.