Spectres should "save" to the Raise Spectre Gem itself

Raise Spectre is an incredibly interesting and diverse skill gem. Not only can you create a copy of any non-unique enemy in the game, but you also copy it's AI and skills. Those skills can then be modified with support gems. I think everyone can agree, whether they play minion master builds or not, that raise spectre is an amazingly skill gem. No other game has done necromancy as well as path of exile has. Except there's one glaring problem.

Background

There are 3 core aspects to a "viable" spectre:

Skills:



AI:


Availability\Usability:

This, to me, is the single biggest reason why Raise Spectre builds are suffering. Of those 5% of minions that use both powerful skills AND have good AI only 2 or 3 of them are readily available in high level zones. Flame Sentinels aren't just popular because they have good AI, they're popular because of how easy it is to get them.

And keep in mind those Flame Sentinels that were desecrated in Eternal Laboratory will then need to be desecrated AGAIN in a high level map so your spectres don't die half-way through mapping. This process takes an unreasonable amount of time.

The Problem:

Spending the first 10+ minutes "setting up" your Spectres is not enjoyable. Chris Wilson has stated multiple times that he'd like the average PoE player to get home from work and run a few maps for a couple hours. No one wants to play a build that takes away so much of an average players limited time.

The Solution:

When using the Raise Spectre gem have the ability to assign a minion to the gem. Notice how the gem itself determines the level of the spectre, not the location you found them in. Keep in mind, Spectres already automatically down-level to match the zone they're in.

Alternatively you could assign the minion to desecrate, which already has a level limit tied to it's gem level. So when you desecrate it creates 1 guaranteed copy of the minion you're looking for regardless of the zone you're in.




Impact on PoE:

-Losing a spectre will no longer be game breaking

To some this may be a downside, as keeping your spectre alive was part of the fun of playing a minion master build. Though I feel I can speak for most of us, that a spectre dying is simply frustrating.

-More diverse selection of raise spectre builds

90%+ of raise spectre builds use either Flame Sentinel or Cannibal Fire-Eater. And this is due mostly because of their availability. With the ability to save spectres to gems, we should expect a lot of different and creative minion masters out there.

-More players willing to try raise spectre builds

Raise Spectre builds teach new players a lot about PoE. They'll pay more attention to mobs, simply because of the aspect of using them for themselves. It also teaches new players how support gems interact with a wide variety of spells. Not to mention that when they get to mapping, map mods won't be an issue. And it prevents new players from becoming obsessed with tooltip dps

I love the idea and the UI mockup:

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skyscan wrote:

Spoiler

though I don't know how hard it would be for GGG to code this in

One of the problems playing a summoner with Specters are things like Lab where you can't exit Lab and recast your Specters and go back in.

I think everyone will agree:


summoner are strong enough they do not need buff what they need is love and quality of life <3

spectres need some love, zombie maybe, skeletons.... well skeletons needs a rework to be useful

It'll probably get spectre builds nerfed though.
I think things are fine, spectre builds are quite powerful and the flame sentinel hunt actually is sortof like a balancing factor for such builds.

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World_Destructor wrote:

It'll probably get spectre builds nerfed though.
I think things are fine, spectre builds are quite powerful and the flame sentinel hunt actually is sortof like a balancing factor for such builds.

That's the thing though. There isn't really a "hunt" for flame sentinels. It's more of..

-Go to eternal lab.
-Desecrate a few times.
-Unsocket spell echo from raise spectre
-Fiddle with corpse targeting to target flame sentinels
-Open the correct t13+ map
-Desecrate for a few minutes
-Fiddle with corpse targeting to raise the correct spectre
-Complete the t13+ map because they're a few chaos each
-Start playing the game.

That's my problem with it. I don't think spectres would require a nerf if all they changed was how quickly you can start playing the game.

"

skyscan wrote:

"

World_Destructor wrote:

It'll probably get spectre builds nerfed though.
I think things are fine, spectre builds are quite powerful and the flame sentinel hunt actually is sortof like a balancing factor for such builds.

That's the thing though. There isn't really a "hunt" for flame sentinels. It's more of..

-Go to eternal lab.
-Desecrate a few times.
-Unsocket spell echo from raise spectre
-Fiddle with corpse targeting to target flame sentinels
-Open the correct t13+ map
-Desecrate for a few minutes
-Fiddle with corpse targeting to raise the correct spectre
-Complete the t13+ map because they're a few chaos each
-Start playing the game.

That's my problem with it. I don't think spectres would require a nerf if all they changed was how quickly you can start playing the game.

Yeah, it's frustrating.

And it's also tempting to just leave my computer running PoE while I'm away so that I don't have to go through that again at non-negligible cost to my electric bill and hardware lifetime.

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Raise Spectre stats being based purely on the gem has been a suggestion since day one and GGG won't hear it. They are way too enamored with raising "something you've killed" to change this.

A "Bestiary" or "Necronomicon" of sorts to pick the spectre has also been suggested and also ignored. I would love it as a pokemon-esque addition to the game personally, even if it didn't interact with Raise Spectre.

A middle ground might be attaching the corpse selection to Desecrate instead of Raise Spectre. Change nothing about Raise Spectre, change Desecrate to let you pick 1 of the 3(5) corpses that get spawned. I think I like that the most, with bonus points for the aforementioned Bestiary/Necronomicon.

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pneuma wrote:

A "Bestiary" or "Necronomicon" of sorts to pick the spectre has also been suggested and also ignored. I would love it as a pokemon-esque addition to the game personally, even if it didn't interact with Raise Spectre.

I've once suggested it would be very neat to have a skill gem (or have the spectres gem) to act as pokeball and collect all monsters. I think it could be a very interesting way to play the summoner, having to walk around all over wraeclast and find the monsters you need for your build

You could just save the info to the character, like AG. It is that easy.

"

skyscan wrote:

"

World_Destructor wrote:

It'll probably get spectre builds nerfed though.
I think things are fine, spectre builds are quite powerful and the flame sentinel hunt actually is sortof like a balancing factor for such builds.

That's the thing though. There isn't really a "hunt" for flame sentinels. It's more of..

-Go to eternal lab.
-Desecrate a few times.
-Unsocket spell echo from raise spectre
-Fiddle with corpse targeting to target flame sentinels
-Open the correct t13+ map
-Desecrate for a few minutes
-Fiddle with corpse targeting to raise the correct spectre
-Complete the t13+ map because they're a few chaos each
-Start playing the game.

That's my problem with it. I don't think spectres would require a nerf if all they changed was how quickly you can start playing the game.

I think I know which map you mean, lol.
And it's horrible having to run that map multiple times/day.
I would say there's a T15 guaranteed with them too though.