Soo...uhh, is anyone going to actually use Meat Shield?...

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Shagsbeard wrote:

What happens if I summon 4 with Meatshield socketed, and swap it for the aggressive one and then summon 8 more? Are the first four "snapshotted" with the defensive AI and the 8 others aggressive?

do they snapshot with any other gems? i have no idea. pretty easy to test with something like minion speed. 4 slow zombies and 4 fast zombies would be easily noticeable.

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Shagsbeard wrote:

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Thror2k5 wrote:

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Shagsbeard wrote:

Can some zombies be raise as meat shields while others are raised aggressive?

if you have 2 different zombie links, yes

What happens if I summon 4 with Meatshield socketed, and swap it for the aggressive one and then summon 8 more? Are the first four "snapshotted" with the defensive AI and the 8 others aggressive?

Changing gem linked will change already summoned one's behavior

Does anyone else feel like the default minion behavior should of been just to be aggressive in the first place? And if the player wants them to be defensive they just slap on the meatshield gem?

Like who wants their minions to be in the neutral they're in now lol, if everyones gonna use one or the other minion ai gems, we might as well just make one of them the default and have another one be an optional support, otherwise everyones just having to sacrifice a support slot for them

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Shagsbeard wrote:

What happens if I summon 4 with Meatshield socketed, and swap it for the aggressive one and then summon 8 more? Are the first four "snapshotted" with the defensive AI and the 8 others aggressive?

I'm pretty sure it functions like any other skill gem. There isn't any snapshotting. It just uses whatever gem is socketed at the time.

IE.

When you put on meatshield. They all have the meatshield AI.

When you put on the aggressive socket. All of your zombies will be aggressive.

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Mythabril wrote:

Proximity Shield Spectres when you're not specializing on your Spectres for dealing damage. Free immunity to Projectiles.

Cannot tell you how many times speckers or PigPen the chaos golem have stood between me and GGG oneshot bad juju.

Even when I want them to attack and deal some dmg they are also super helpful in slowing enemies and forcing them to have pathing issues.

It would be nice if you could toggle this behaviour like blood/sand.

"To me, remortals!" and they close ranks between you and the assholes.

"Get 'em, lads!" and they go off and rip into the enemy (letting you comfortably use unstable minions/zombombers)

sounds good for hc

could see some use with herald of purity summoner build

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Serakiel wrote:

Why not? Focus your DPS on Spectres / Phantasms / Golems / Skeletons, and keep some Zombies bodyguards close to you who can take the projectiles for you or finish enemies who escaped from your other minions. It allows to have an actual "strategy" while playing summoner builds.

Half of this would have been solved if they would remake one of the guard skills since we dont need 3... one of them should be proxi shield to stop projectiles

Would/will use it if they would also target monsters further away from you that attack you(like offscreen), something which for now is unclear.

Off-screen ranged monsters attacking you would mean close range meat shields are basically useless, unless they can catch/destroy spells, arrows and other ranged attacks from afar.

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yamface wrote:

Does anyone else feel like the default minion behavior should of been just to be aggressive in the first place? And if the player wants them to be defensive they just slap on the meatshield gem?

Like who wants their minions to be in the neutral they're in now lol, if everyones gonna use one or the other minion ai gems, we might as well just make one of them the default and have another one be an optional support, otherwise everyones just having to sacrifice a support slot for them

I suppose they're trying to make it a trade off. Having minions around provide a lot of offensive and defensive utility just in the nature of minions, having bad AI was probably a way to balance it. So to make it aggressive, you gotta use a support gem, which also comes with some benefits of their own. Certain minions are already having decent AI like dancing dervish, so those don't need this support gem, others like zombie would really benefit from it and overall is better than before because being aggressive is better than a loss of a support.