Skeleton Mages and why they suck (and how to fix them)

GGG please fix skeleton mages.

After having tested Spirit Guards to animate ranged weapons, I can with 100% certainty say that Spirit Guards is fine, actually does good damage, isn't clunky and annoying to use, and feels great. I don't necessarily approve of it being a Dex gem because it almost wants to relegate anim weapon to Null's Inclination, but I made the effort to get it on my summoner (an eight point investment) and it was worth the time if not only for the fun I've been having with it.

But I had to remove Dead Reckoning just because it sux. It's not worth the effort to hard cast and the minions frankly suck having them on the same skill as your melee minions makes supporting them with anything other than Minion Speed awkward.

GGG please fix skeleton mages. I want to use them so badly but I can't justify it right now.

bump for visibility.

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SybilCut wrote:

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Khargan wrote:

I really like this idea, pretty elegant solution.

Thanks!

I really wouldn't be surprised if that's the fix they go with. It seems like the best choice as it is, honestly. It keeps the tie-in that they're looking for and allows for totems to do what they want and allows for more tactically positioned mages.

I'd like to see them solve the jewel that way.

3 skeletons from 1 cast instead of 2? That's like 50% MORE cast speed! Too OP, won't be implemented ever ;)

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silumit wrote:

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SybilCut wrote:

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Khargan wrote:

I really like this idea, pretty elegant solution.

Thanks!

I really wouldn't be surprised if that's the fix they go with. It seems like the best choice as it is, honestly. It keeps the tie-in that they're looking for and allows for totems to do what they want and allows for more tactically positioned mages.

I'd like to see them solve the jewel that way.

3 skeletons from 1 cast instead of 2? That's like 50% MORE cast speed! Too OP, won't be implemented ever ;)

while I know you're joking, I could see this becoming a problem if they decided to buff skeleton mages to actually do damage. basically, to solve this, they could change the skill so that it only spawns mages up to a cap (as it currently is) but that would make tactical repositioning of those mages very difficult (and thus take away from the satisfaction of the skill).

I thought about it and I figure that the best solution if that seems to be the case is to slap a (probably small) reduced or less cast speed modifier on it to compensate (at least slightly) for the overall power and utility increase, the same way that Army of Bones reduces skeleton duration to compensate for the numbers. It would also look cool because it'd be like your character is working a little harder for your summon. I thought about other solutions ( how many you can have, how many spawn at a time, spawning once every second cast, removing a warrior, etc etc) and I feel like just reducing cast speed would be the best option.

I'm still wondering if running two of the jewel would allow 6 mages or not.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I'm still wondering if running two of the jewel would allow 6 mages or not.

After reading into the design philosophy of their threshold gems, I can only assume so.

From the Threshold Jewel announcement page:

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Jewels as Skill Modifiers
[snip]
At this stage we knew:
-They need to be stackable.
-They need to affect a specific skill.
-They need to be worthwhile to at least some specific builds, even if they're niche.

Which causes me to rethink my original solution. The solution I suggested of having it spawn a mage at your feet, if stacked, would spawn two at your feet. Perhaps, instead of giving a 100% chance to spawn an additional skeleton mage at your feet, you could certainly have a percent chance to do so (as a sort of "crit" summon skeletons). And stackable could either mean that the percentages are additive, or that each jewel rolls individually (giving a small chance of spawning two at once).

And even assuming they are stackable, it unfortunately leaves an awkward interaction between the jewel itself and what then becomes the most obvious support, Spell Echo. It would cause the first cast to hard-spawn 4 mages, and the second cast to spawn 2 mages and two warriors which is as awkward for positioning as a single mage and warrior on a limit of three.

im bunping this thread because i want ggg to be thinking about mages tahts all

I like the idea of summoning skeletton mages as your main DPS output, but after some testing they seem completly broken, mainly because of

1, weak AI (instead of immidiatly attacking nearest target, they walk some time and then attack. They seem to be very unresponsive)
2, Much lower damage(like only 1/4 of normal skeletons, wtf?. It should be the same damage)


If the supports works as you might expect them to work, skeletton mages can be supported very effciently:
-faster casting
-spellecho

both incredible useful, because they benefit both minions and caster

-pierce/greater multiple projectiles(work)
-elemental damage supports

So you see: There is a lot potential to make this a viable choice.


My plan was to make a build which can summon up to 12(4x jewel) skeleton mages, but I will abandon this idea, because it does not seem viable.

What I suggest to change is:

-better AI (even with spell echo and faster casting it takes ~2 sec for minions to start attacking)
-same base damage like normal skeletons
for the unique jewel:
-no 50 int requirement (not build breaking, but its annoying, what is his good for?)
-4 instead of 3 mage skelettons (so you will need 3 jewels for a maximum of 12 skeleton mages)


In theory the build would have an incredible scaling(also because skel mages scale very well with projectile and elemental weakness, stronger than with vulnerability fpr physical builds) but the mechanics are gimped.

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Zephryl wrote:

Your rating is very very generous considering how broken the jewel is.

The skeletons are un-supportable. They're not considered Attacks, Spells, Ranged, Projectiles... nothing. No Support Gem, I think except ones that apply universally to Minions, affects them.

I sincerely hope it gets buffed, I was actually considering a skeleton summoner.

Unsupportable?

Raise Skeleton - Minion Damage - Minion Speed - Multistrike - Melee Physical Damage - melee splash/poison

You're welcome

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SybilCut wrote:

A. Skeletons spawn in packs of two.

Sounds like you need the Labyrinth Enchant.