Here's an early look at the Necromancer Ascendancy in Path of Exile: Blight

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Yeah that 100% dmg loss to spectre's is a very big deal that is a lot of dmg gone that needs to be compensated or it's going to be dookie in terms of min max.

It's viable I've min max'd a spectre summoner pretty hard but yeah losing that dmg is going to bother me a lot.

There is no reason not to assume Soul Weaver will not roll into Raise Spectre. It’ll just look like a buff to the more life and damage per level. That will in turn make increasing Spectre levels more viable.

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Elhazzared wrote:

20% more life is nice, but then again your zombies won't die when your gems are high enough. In essence, this is barely a buff at all.

+2 minion levels is great? are we sure about this? If it was that powerful, people would use empower on minions and they don't. Now yes, gems changed but the fact remains that we don't know how good it is but odds are, underewelming.

We really need far more minion buffs to damage, attack speed and preferably movement to have the ascendency be solind but you know what. Let's have corpse bonus cause that's good...

Those are actually very good upgrades. People spent several exalts on L21 AG just for the hp bonus, it’s a large dps/hp increase for all dps minions (as I said earlier Spectres will probably see more per level than before). It adds a L3 Empower to all minion gems, including support gems, and there are an increased number of minion support gems. That one Ascendency will find its way into nearly every Necro minion build.

Keep in mind that the majority of Bone Sculpter and Flesh Binder were rolled into their skill gems, so summoners are essentially getting 1-2 free Ascendancies out of the deal.

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GoldDragon32 wrote:

I don't understand this..... Necromancer is still offering a LOT to minions of all types. Meanwhile, In looking over guardians (assuming it isn't changed this patch too), I see almost nothing to help minions other then Sentinels of Purity. 20% INCREASED minion damage on Radiant Crusade? 100% increased minion accuracy from unwavering crusade is something I guess. I suppose you could go full on Mana Reservation and give your minions some ES via Radiant Faith? Is giving minions ES really doing much of anything useful?

I mean, sure, if you want to focus on Herald of Purity Guardian is going to buff them in all the ways it has been.... but as a general Minion build, I'm not seeing much to buff other minions, certainly nothing to compete with what Necromancer still has on offer.

Gaurdian works for minions, so does champion and ascendant.

And depending on the passive tree nodes and the base-line gem scaling other builds might utilize minions as meatshields aswell.

Like, people used to do this, play templar firestorm and use zombie's to occupy enemy's while they stood in the cast radius and to absorb projectile attacks etc

I think necromancer will still be the "go-to" but the power gap between necromancer and other options will be smaller in my opinion.

Champion nulls inclination might be a thing again for example.

Peace,

-Boem-

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Elhazzared wrote:

20% more life is nice, but then again your zombies won't die when your gems are high enough. In essence, this is barely a buff at all.

+2 minion levels is great? are we sure about this? If it was that powerful, people would use empower on minions and they don't. Now yes, gems changed but the fact remains that we don't know how good it is but odds are, underewelming.

We really need far more minion buffs to damage, attack speed and preferably movement to have the ascendency be solind but you know what. Let's have corpse bonus cause that's good...

Damage is not a problem here. We have a new Carrion Golem minion and Death Mark, with the new nodes on tree, easily compensate for 100% increased damage.

Spectre life would be lower, but there is a shield in Betrayal League which gives spectre 100% life at max roll. It also provides Arcane Surge for minion to compensate for opportunity cost of Victario Charity. We still have the possibility of new oil nodes. All in all there are plenty of ways to go around this. And who knows if they change the Spectre gems.

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Elhazzared wrote:

20% more life is nice, but then again your zombies won't die when your gems are high enough. In essence, this is barely a buff at all.

+2 minion levels is great? are we sure about this? If it was that powerful, people would use empower on minions and they don't. Now yes, gems changed but the fact remains that we don't know how good it is but odds are, underewelming.

We really need far more minion buffs to damage, attack speed and preferably movement to have the ascendency be solind but you know what. Let's have corpse bonus cause that's good...

You seem misinformed? Yes some minions don't use empower. However, empoer lvl 3 has been the best-in-slot gem for many minions including skeletons, animate guardian, and zombies since it existed. I have never not used that gem on those minions. Furthermore, empower lvl 4 is unquestionably the best gem for most if not all minions (not spectres).

Also, in red maps, fully invested tank zombies were fairly easy to get destroyed and ot was very common to lose every zombie per second in final boss fights. This is part of why convocation was mandatory in several minion builds.

By the way, minions could already put out as much damage as the last League's slayer cyclone vs a boss.

But does the bone armour does that sound and has that animation?
that's really all that matters. Shouldnt be hard to acquire anyway, since its from a dead IP

Some ideas:

* Operation make Kitava's Thirst great again is underway. Essence glutton solves mana issues.
Kitavas thirst with desecrate + bodyswap + flesh offering + flame dash
Where will you end up with one button?

* Operation make skelly mages great again: +2 to gems, 10% cast speed, 30% damage, 10% more damage, then 30% increased and, say 15% cast speed from auras. Then if they dash with aggressive gem, point blank becomes their first support gem.

* Host and carnage chieftans - could be a huge buff to them with essence glutton regening their mana. Will they spam spells quick enough to support volatile minions?

* Stayin alive much? - Essence Glutton + Bone Barrier + commander of darkness + aurumvorax and MOM gives so much raw stats and regen. You could run 2 X essence worm, both kaoms heart and kaoms roots if you wanted and still stay resist capped.

* Spectres/zombies/golems want to live? 50% increased then 20% more is much more life for spectres than the previous ascendency. Zombies get minion life on the gem too, and golems will get top value out of unnatural strength.

* Earendels, bitterdream, realm ender, mon'treguls, etc. all got huge indirect buffs with the triad grip gloves.

* 4 white socket triad grip gloves will make poison minions great again.

* That's just the start, because the buffs to the minion gems themselves will make occultist, scion, jugg, guardian, champion summoner builds improve immensely.

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DemigodParadox wrote:

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GoldDragon32 wrote:

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Aynix wrote:

Nice, time to forget Necromancer even exist. No reason to play it over Guardian for summoner.

I doubt I will ever play Necromancer again. (maybe with Volatile Dead, not as summoner thats for sure)

I don't understand this..... Necromancer is still offering a LOT to minions of all types. Meanwhile, In looking over guardians (assuming it isn't changed this patch too), I see almost nothing to help minions other then Sentinels of Purity. 20% INCREASED minion damage on Radiant Crusade? 100% increased minion accuracy from unwavering crusade is something I guess. I suppose you could go full on Mana Reservation and give your minions some ES via Radiant Faith? Is giving minions ES really doing much of anything useful?

I mean, sure, if you want to focus on Herald of Purity Guardian is going to buff them in all the ways it has been.... but as a general Minion build, I'm not seeing much to buff other minions, certainly nothing to compete with what Necromancer still has on offer.

Those auras reserving mana affect minions...think about that...

OMG, you're right, those Auras you reserve mana on do affect your minions - Which is totally different then how Auras affect minions as a Necromancer, thanks for asking me to think about that!

OK, sure, fine, the small passives of Guardian can give your auras 10% increased aura affect, I guess that's something. Not something I'd ever consider remotely competative with what Necromancer does for minions, but it's "something".

I just dont see how Guardian competes with Necromancer for any minion build other then Herald of Purity. It does so little for minions, while Necromancer still has a lot of pretty powerful minion stuff in it. With the possible exception of Specter builds, it seems stronger then the current necromancer to me. I'm especially excited to see Mistress getting it's self-offering penalty halved.

Never seen empower being used in any minion build. I've never played one, I'll be fair in admiting to that. But absolutely no build whatsoever that I have seen ever used or advised at any point to use empower, even a level 4 one so I'll remain doubtful on that end. Kinda the reason i'm not particularly entused by the want +1 minion gems but they do have other bonus so... Yeah.

As for zombies dying. Again not acording to what I've seen and I've seen them stand in the uber shaper beam like they don't give a damn so. Life doesn't seems like a concern. it is early game when you don't have leech and regen on them but after you get those going, you probably don't care anymore.

I also doubt the carrior golem will be enough damage buff to make up for what the ascendency should be giving, but fair enough I'll reserve judgment there, you could be right and it could be a ridiculously high buff for a golem. I just have my doubts.

The negativity here puzzles me.
+2 to all minion gems is massive.
I will be trying this instead of elementalist golemancer. Hyped for this. Also bone armor looks decent.