Vaal Summon Skeletons

Did the recent patch noticably affect the skeletons?

First post for me, I usually just read forums and do not participate but this skill has great potential to be included in a summoner build IMO but the current iteration is flawed.

As some people have mentioned, this skill does not play well with summon skeletons. I can summon 12 max skeletons at the moment and my vaal summon skeletons has a max summon amount of 37.

The vaal summon skeletons skill itself summons a total of 30 skeletons at its current level (aprox. 14-15).

What I find is if I have 6-7 or less regular skeletons, I can use vaal summon skeletons and have all 30 vaal skeletons without problem (within the 37 max skeleton amount permitted by the Vaal skill as per tooltip)

If I use summon skeleton with totem support or have more then 6-7 skeletons out, when I use the Vaal summon skeleton skill my General and a few mages disappear after the last Vaal skeletons are being summoned.

This is the worst possible outcome for a conflict between Summon Skeleton and Vaal Summon skeleton because the most valuable minions from Vaal Summon Skeletons (The general, mages & archers) are replaced by more melee skeletons when there is hardly enough room for them to be actively fighting.

I would propose various ways to fix this unfortunate situation that is reducing the effectiveness of this gem. Any of the following solutions would improve upon the current interaction between the two skill gems of the same name.

1. Allow the Vaal summoned skeletons to overwrite standard skeletons which were summoned before Vaal summon skeletons was used. (The most restrictive solution as after using Vaal summon you would not be able to summon anymore regular skeletons without risking replacing your general or other ranged minions)

2. Lower the number of melee skeletons summoned by Vaal Summon Skeleton because they end up being more clutter then anything else. (A good solution to reduce FPS lag and useless clutter when we can already summon many skeletons & zombies for melee)

3. Remove melee skeleons from Vaal summon skeleton and have it only summon the General, Mages & Archers as we can already summon melee skeletons easily and do not really need more of the same type. (Between zombies & normal skeletons, we have plenty of melee tanks / distractions and need more ranged minions for more time on target / might need to increase damage on mages / archers to compensate for loss of melee skeletons)

4. Raise the maximum allowed summons on Vaal Summon skeleton to include the amount normally summonable by the regular skeleton summon skill. (Allows full functionality as normal without replacing / losing vital general or ranged minions)

5. Disable the replacement of the General / Mages / Archer skeletons by regular skeletons from summon skeleton or Vaal summon skeleton (Allows full functionality as normal as per the previous suggestion)

Please GGG consider this post and fix what seems to be a bugged skill that is not working 100% within the current summoner skillset. Thanks!


TLDR Please fix this skill so that my General or other ranged minions summoned from this skill are NOT replaced by regular skeletons due to incompatibility with regular summon skeleton gem

Great first post blackthorn!

In a nutshell, I recommend that you don't use skeletan gem and only focus on vaal skeletan for late game. Most sumoners only focus on zombies and specters and ditch skeletan all together. Vaal skeletan should really just be your supplementay POW move while the back bone is zombies and specters.

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Catchafire2000 wrote:

Great first post blackthorn!

In a nutshell, I recommend that you don't use skeletan gem and only focus on vaal skeletan for late game. Most sumoners only focus on zombies and specters and ditch skeletan all together. Vaal skeletan should really just be your supplementay POW move while the back bone is zombies and specters.

i sorta use skeletons for the MI and "put stuff between me and foes" before zombies come into play. not sure how i'd adapt for the flame skulls and desecrate removes need to kill before zombie'ing... additionally totems are an ok substitute for skeletons in the way i first described.

Hi,

I have used a vaal orb on my summon skeletons and here is what i got... I see no difference but the corrupt status. No special effect.

Is it normal ?

Thank you.

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sdftbhedrtretyre wrote:

Hi,

I have used a vaal orb on my summon skeletons and here is what i got... I see no difference but the corrupt status. No special effect.

Is it normal ?

Thank you.

The main reason people use vaal orbs on gems is to get a +1 on the gem. So, if my original gem is 20, I want to vaal orb it to 21. What you did to your gem was to make it useless at that level, because it won't level anymore. That is how I understand it.

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Anyone else have a gripe with the pathing/AI for Vaal Skeletons? They are completely stupid compared to regular minions.

As someone who has a played many summoners, and is currently leveling another one up in ambush (48ish currently in A3 cruel), I am pretty happy with this gem.



Basically, it's taken the place of skeletotem in my "default summoner loadout" (before customization). It's proved very strong, basically a "minion nuke" thus far. They have destroyed Cruel Merveil/Oak/Vaal. I wouldn't call it OP at this point, as I'm glass cannon specced into minion nodes and have them slotted with duration & damage AND I run wrath+hatred - so they should rock - but they are quite strong. Great for treasure boxes as well.

Many corrupted bosses still trash them. (Not complaining, just pointing this out as a counter to my comment about their strength).

I'm very curious to see how they will carry into Merc (should be this weekend, I'll report back after I've finished merc Dominus) and how they do against Cruel Dominus (normal Dom did kind of trash them, but they did some decent damage first).

One thing I will note is that lately I haven't really been able to pick the mages out in the mess, so it would be nice if they were more visible somehow - maybe some kind of elemental glow?

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Suggestion/request: Now that we know you have skeleton archers and mages coded, could we please, please please get them as separate minion gems? I would use a summon skeleton archer gem that had a much lower cap than the current skellies (like /3 or something). Same with mages. The general would be a handy option as well - he could be that "no preparation, single summon" tank pet that I've suggested in the past (akin to D2x Druid's bear). They could be permanent and use zombie ai, or temp and use skelly ai. Either way, I would find room for them in various builds. The more options summoners have - the more build variety!

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Catchafire2000 wrote:

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sdftbhedrtretyre wrote:

Hi,

I have used a vaal orb on my summon skeletons and here is what i got... I see no difference but the corrupt status. No special effect.

Is it normal ?

Thank you.

The main reason people use vaal orbs on gems is to get a +1 on the gem. So, if my original gem is 20, I want to vaal orb it to 21. What you did to your gem was to make it useless at that level, because it won't level anymore. That is how I understand it.

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Anyone else have a gripe with the pathing/AI for Vaal Skeletons? They are completely stupid compared to regular minions.

Corrupted gems can still level.

I want a microtransaction for this gem. Not the normal one for skeleton...