👻3.20👻 Kay's Summoner💥SRS Bomber💀Poison SRS💀Melee SRS🕷️Spiders💀Skeleton Mages

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kayella wrote:

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Deadandlivin wrote:

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DontRepairYourselfMind wrote:

If you just compare ascendancies... Guardian are better for minions then necro now, except phys spectres maybe?

Should we swap from necro to guardian? - charges,20% free all res, +30AOE, 10 more dmg, 30 inc damage, 40% attack and movement speed, 80% curse res. Just from ascend.

Personally, I'm not very impressed with Guardian. I think it actually still does less damage than Necro. Necro still gives 100% increased minion dmg, ~20% minion attack speed as a base.

We're also most likely going to be picking Plague Bringer(Assuming Bone Barrier isn't required to keep minions alive). This should give us 30% AoE, 10% more dmg mod and 10% reduced dmg taken which is very strong. With Desecrate on a 4 second Trigger it should be fairly consistent. Might have to selfcast Desecrate though for bosses which is kinda yikes.

Plaguebringer's problem is Offering eats all 5 corpses from desecrate. You need alt quality desecrate to get 6 corpses so there is one extra to activate it.

Necro only gives 10% ias. Maybe 16% because we can run 2 auras in 3.19? So Guardian has +24% ias. It's not too bad!

Guardian has 20% inc + 10% more + 10% damage taken (intimidate/unnerve). So Necro has 80% inc. I think for good gear, Guardian will be better because of stacking inc damage.

Block is a good point, but it's possible to cap block without offering and GB with reckless and brassdome... my updated spider uses that.

Yeah, that's the only problematic thing with Plaguebringer. Triggers consuming Desecrate corpses. That's why I mentioned that you might have to selfcast it for bosses.

When mapping however, there should be a plethora of corpses lying around from all the monster slaying to keep all those buffs permanent though.
Hadn't thought about running Divergent Desecrate though. That's actually pretty genius. Unfortunately, it would require Ashes of the Stars to get 100% chance for it to procc. But if you get the quality up on it, this would always leave 1 corpse after each Desecrate Trigger to maintain the buff which seems like it could work out.

I'm still not sure about Guardian though. If we summarize everything that affects dmg we get:

Guardian:

Dmg
- Increased Minion Dmg: 20%(Small Nodes)
- Minion Attack Speed: 40% attack speed(20% from Onslaught)
- More Dmg: 10% more
- 5% increased Aura effect
- Intimidate/Unnerving: 10% increased phys dmg(Works for conversion)
Discarding this though cause you can easily get Intimidate from Awakened Melee Phys and Unnerve from AG gloves et.c.
Total: 20% increased dmg, 10% more dmg, 40% increased attack speed, 5% aura effect

Minion Survival:
- Around 100 flat energy shield

Your own Survival:
- 80% reduced curse effect.
- Around 100 flat energy shield
- 64% increased armor
- 20% increased ES
- 20 All resistance
Total: 80% curse effect, 20% inc ES, 20 all res, 64% increased armor, ~100 flat ES

Utility:
- 30% life regen every 4 sec
- 30% increased minion AoE
- 20% Movespeed(You)
- 40% movespeed (Minions)

Necromancer: (Assuming Plaguebringer)

Dmg:
- Increased minion dmg: 100%, 40% from small nodes and 60% from Noteables
- 10% more dmg from Plague Bringer
- 10% attackspeed + 3% per aura. Most minion builds have 2-3 Auras so I'd say 16-19% AS depending on how many Auras.
- 5% increased Aura Effect
Total: 100% inc dmg, 10% more dmg, ~16-19% increased attack speed

Minion Survival:
- Minion Life: 20% from small nodes
- 30% all resistances from Commander in Darkness
- 10% reduced dmg taken from Plague Bringer.
Total: 20% inc life, 10% reduced dmg taken, 30 all resistances

Your own Survival:
- 30 all resistances
- 10% reduced dmg taken(Plaguebringer)
Total: 30 all res, 10% reduced dmg taken

Utility:
- 30% increased AoE for minions and you
- 10% movespeed for minions
- 50% increased Duration
- 50% offering effects on you.

If we're straight out looking at pure minion dps, it's basically ~20% attack speed(Guardian) vs 80% increased minion dmg(Necro).
I don't think 20% attackspeed comes close in almost any PoB unless you have insane levels of % minion dmg and no attack speed, which usually doesn't happen.

The only things I find intrigguing with Guardian is the 64% increased Armor and 20% passive movement speed from Onslaught to increase yoru clearspeed if you don't run a Silver Flask. Other than that, it seems kinda lackluster imo.

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Deadandlivin wrote:

If we're straight out looking at pure minion dps, it's basically ~20% attack speed(Guardian) vs 80% increased minion dmg(Necro).
I don't think 20% attackspeed comes close in almost any PoB unless you have insane levels of % minion dmg and no attack speed, which usually doesn't happen.

The only things I find intrigguing with Guardian is the 64% increased Armor and 20% passive movement speed from Onslaught to increase yoru clearspeed if you don't run a Silver Flask. Other than that, it seems kinda lackluster imo.

Just "inc damage" giving not that much in % of damage, how much may give attack|cast speed in certain situations. I'm not saying what something clearly better then other, but this depends. And 10% damage taken are works for both phys and ele damage. So it's not just "20% inc dmg".
Also you can cut that 10% reduction from necro, it will not work most of times as kay mented. And you also forgot about guardian charges for self defense.
Also as i remember "Nearby allies" include you, so all buff is for you too, but there i may be wrong, not much time i play guardian.

So as for me, all is clearly depens on gear mods and uniques buffs.
Except phys/chaos dmg as you say and i ment before, necro there are clearly best now.

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DontRepairYourselfMind wrote:

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Deadandlivin wrote:

If we're straight out looking at pure minion dps, it's basically ~20% attack speed(Guardian) vs 80% increased minion dmg(Necro).
I don't think 20% attackspeed comes close in almost any PoB unless you have insane levels of % minion dmg and no attack speed, which usually doesn't happen.

The only things I find intrigguing with Guardian is the 64% increased Armor and 20% passive movement speed from Onslaught to increase yoru clearspeed if you don't run a Silver Flask. Other than that, it seems kinda lackluster imo.

Just "inc damage" giving not that much in % of damage, how much may give attack|cast speed in certain situations. I'm not saying what something clearly better then other, but this depends. And 10% damage taken are works for both phys and ele damage. So it's not just "20% inc dmg".
Also you can cut that 10% reduction from necro, it will not work most of times as kay mented. And you also forgot about guardian charges for self defense.
Also as i remember "Nearby allies" include you, so all buff is for you too, but there i may be wrong, not much time i play guardian.

So as for me, all is clearly depens on gear mods and uniques buffs.
Except phys/chaos dmg as you say and i ment before, necro there are clearly best now.

I'm pretty sure 80% minion dmg will outperform 20% attack speed by a large margin in most cases. If most minion builds are forced to choose between a Fortress Covenant(40% minion dmg) and a quickening covenant(16% attack speed) almost all builds I've seen get more dmg from the Fortress covenant. We're not talking about 40% increased dmg here though, but 80%.

Not sure what you're trying to say. Guardian has x2 small nodes that give 10% increased minion damage. Combined they are 20% increased dmg taken.
The whole guardian ascendency gives:
20% increased minion dmg, 40% minion attack speed and 10% more dmg. That's the only damage traits you get.

Why wouldn't the 10% dmg reduction work for necro?
When you're mapping there will literally be corpses EVERYWHERE cause you're killing monsters so it should have 100% uptime while mapping, even without Desecrate. For bossing, you'll be running a 4 second trigger wand to trigger Desecrate + Offering. With Divergent Desecrate you'll spawn 6 corpses and Offerings only consume 5 corpses so 1 corpse will always be up.
So it should be very consistent for bossing aswell, if you can get your desecrate quality up to 30%.
You can also run Unearth in your Trigger wand to have 100% uptime if you have room for the socket slot.

No, nearby allies does not include yourself.
Nearby allies only affect your minions. If it affects you, it would say "you and nearby allies".

You do get Onslaught from Radiant Crusader. But you don't get the buffs from Unwavering Stance.

Harmony of Purpose for Endurance charges is VERY weak. It gives you a 20% chance to get a random charge whenever you HIT an enemy. Since we're a minion build, Frenzy and Power does nothing for us, only Enudrance Charges. So on average, you would have to hit a boss 45 times to get 3 Endurance Charges.
As a minion build, you won't be able to sustan 3 Endurance Charges with that Noteable. If you want Endurance charges, run Enduring Composure on a small armor cluster instead. Also, if you didn't know, your minions won't get any of the charges from Haromy of Purpose cause they are allies, not party members.

Finally, I'll use my own build as an example to show that Necro still should be stronger in terms of DPS. I'll use the same build, one will be necro and the other will be guardian:

If you compare my build running Guardian or Necro(WIthout Unnatural Strength) my Necro version still does 80 million(~20%) more dps than the Guardian version. Honestly, Guardian still doesn't even come close.

The only real benefit of running Guardian imo, is that you get 20% movespeed from Onslaught and 64% armor from small nodes which is nice. But you still miss out on Mistress of Sacrifice which is huge.

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Deadandlivin wrote:

If you compare my build running Guardian or Necro(WIthout Unnatural Strength) my Necro version still does 80 million(~20%) more dps than the Guardian version. Honestly, Guardian still doesn't even come close

If you untick charges it drops to 192M vs 162M... still good number, but difference is not so big. and most people never have a build like yours (mageblood, 9link helmet, two +2/DD/ias wands).

The helmet cost 1 mir + fee, right?
https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Sentinel/zvWw3XqI4

I was just thinking if you spend 2 mir on DO build, it would probably be even better than minions.. :P

Overall, mostly the 3.19 nerfs hurt the casual and mid level players, so for them Guardian vs Necro is actually pretty close.

Don't forget movement speed from Guardian. It's 30% ms more than Necro. Almost all minions are melee, so the movement speed will be important. Just remember how terrible league start feels before you get good boots :P


Edit: you use explosion AG, right? Are there any corpses left behind?

Edit 2: So my main point is Guardian is probably better for league start/casual/mid level players. If you have lots of time and good at crafting, then maybe Necro is better.

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kayella wrote:

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Deadandlivin wrote:

If you compare my build running Guardian or Necro(WIthout Unnatural Strength) my Necro version still does 80 million(~20%) more dps than the Guardian version. Honestly, Guardian still doesn't even come close

If you untick charges it drops to 192M vs 162M... still good number, but difference is not so big. and most people never have a build like yours (mageblood, 9link helmet, two +2/DD/ias wands).

The helmet cost 1 mir + fee, right?
https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Sentinel/zvWw3XqI4

I was just thinking if you spend 2 mir on DO build, it would probably be even better than minions.. :P

Overall, mostly the 3.19 nerfs hurt the casual and mid level players, so for them Guardian vs Necro is actually pretty close.

Don't forget movement speed from Guardian. It's 30% ms more than Necro. Almost all minions are melee, so the movement speed will be important. Just remember how terrible league start feels before you get good boots :P


Edit: you use explosion AG, right? Are there any corpses left behind?

Edit 2: So my main point is Guardian is probably better for league start/casual/mid level players. If you have lots of time and good at crafting, then maybe Necro is better.

Yeah that's true, I always minmax my builds :P
But the point is just that I think people are overhyping Guardians for summoners. I just don't see why you would pick them.
It should be less dmg, less survival(Assuming you want Bone Offering) and less minion survival.

What I DO think though, is that Scion, Elementalist and Occultist may replace Necromancers since they actually have quirky niches.

And yeah, doing ~150ish million dps with mirrors worth of gear kinda is fine. What I'm scared about though is league start numbers. Just the removal of Charges alone specifically nerfs my builds by ~50-70% in dmg as you saw(Assuming I won't use Gorillas any longer). Imagine league starting with ~3 million dps and now having it dropped to ~1.4 million or something like that. Then slap the 20% global minion nerf on top of that and another ~10% dmg reduction due to not having Unnatural Strength. Suddenly we're down to 0.9 million dps. I mean, still playable but massive FeelsBad vibes.

Meanwhile other actual meta league starters will continue to casually get 5 million dps in a tabula, farming up Cold Iron Points/Skin of the Lords et.c. during the first day, reach ~10-15 million dps and farm Uber bosses the first week.

These nerfs just feel too targeted imo. These dmg nerfs feel like 3.15 level of nerfs, but specifically for minions. Atleast I was more okay with 3.15 but then we all suffered together due to the support nerfs. Now however, the incentive to play minions is just... not there.

But I guess this is part of GGGs overarching goal to slow down the game for PoE2 or something. The reason why melee never gets buffed probably is because that's the goal power they want builds to be at and will nerf each archetype one by one until everyone's there, like a race to the bottom.

Honestly though, dmg nerfs are fine. Game will still be playable, just slower and more sluggish when fighting bosses/rares. Clear and trash monsters will still be more than fine. But damn, a 40% life reduction on my Zombies/Golems/Spectres et.c. when I reach maps? I think that actually might make permanent minions unplayable. How much HP will SLave Drivers have in maps now? Like 8k?

Animate Guardian for sure explode alot of corpses removing them. But there' still plenty of corpses left. Mainly cause the explode mod on the chest only has a 30% chance to procc which should leave enough corpses for Plaguebringer to have a permanent uptime. Assuming only 30% of the corpses get consumed by the explodey mods ~70% should be left. In my case specifically, there's more than 30% being exploded though since I run Legacy of Fury as boots on my AG aswell, but it only proccs on scorched monsters around him.
Whenever I play there's always plenty of monster corpses left.

For my build specifically though, it's the shattering from Cold converting that may be the biggest problem when I think about it. Might have to playtest my build to see if Plaguebringer actually is useable since shattering frozen corpses aswell as exploding them might be a big problem.

Still not sure whether Guardian will be better for league start. 30% minion movementspeed is nice for sure. But honestly, I think Scion might be the true ascendency replacing necromancer. Scion still gets the best parts of Necromancers(Mistress of Sacrifice) and you're still able to pick Guardian for Onslaught et.c. or maybe even Deadeye for Tailwind. The extra skillpoints from Scion is really strong too.

Have you looked at your league starters and changed them to Guardian or other ascendencies to see how the numbers look yet?

EDIT: The helm only cost a mirror this league since Ghazzy wasn't charging a mirror fee for the helm this time.
I didn't mirror it though, I just bought the helm for 400 ex off of trade from someone who was rerolling from his mage skelly league starter. Still an insane price, but definitely the right move considering mirrors had an insane price of like 650 ex or something.

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kayella wrote:

Edit 2: So my main point is Guardian is probably better for league start/casual/mid level players.

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Deadandlivin wrote:

Still not sure whether Guardian will be better for league start.

Nah, it really depends on build.

If we are talking about melee builds:

Chaos conversion, physical/poison, cold conversion, fire convertion - necro is definitely better.

Lightning conversion*, physical/impale - actually, guardian.

I'm not sure about ranged/caster minions besides herald of agony, which was dominant on guardian before 3.19, but next league necro is the best for it.

To Kay: Generic minion builds are gone in 3.19. Have to go niche.

Deadandlivin: I have a pob, specifically, dor prototype crit lightning conversion AW, and guardian is a stronger than necro w/o +2 and charges there. Simply bc of permanent onslaught and intimidate, since it can run a better gem than aw melee phys. {Edit: 10% less res on guardian matter too). 123m guardian vs 103m necro.

*The thing here is, that w/o dor prototype, necromancer with mastermind of discord would be 14% stronger than guardian with augury of penitence.

While, w/o MoD and AoP, dps is almost the same - guardian does just ~3% more, again bc of intimidate.

However, if i had, for example, second minion which can intimidate, necro would be a bit (same 3%) stronger.

In this case for this specific build (lightning conversion crit animate weapon) i'd definitely go for guardian bc of better scaling with higher budget and a better performance on low budget.

Also, faster minions of guardian feel better if dps numbers are similar to necro.

On the other hand, if i'd run, for example, cold or, especially, chaos conversion AW, i would never thought about going guardian.

I agree with both of you, but my point is that necro vs guardian is really depends on the build.

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monik390 wrote:

Nah, it really depends on build.

To Kay: Generic minion builds are gone in 3.19. Have to go niche.

I guess my thinking of starter is day 1 SSF starting and then specialise later. Also I'm thinking of new players who don't have scion yet! So that's why I like Guardian now. You can get +20% res, onslaught, 10% more damage in Act 3/4. Then upgrade to other builds that match Guardian's ascendancy. SRS guardian will be pretty good to play.

For some specialist minions, you need to pick the witch. Definitely for golems, you play Elementalist now. Occultist for spiders. I'm also thinking Necro might be ok for MI builds... not sure about this yet.

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Deadandlivin wrote:

Still not sure whether Guardian will be better for league start. 30% minion movementspeed is nice for sure. But honestly, I think Scion might be the true ascendency replacing necromancer. Scion still gets the best parts of Necromancers(Mistress of Sacrifice) and you're still able to pick Guardian for Onslaught et.c. or maybe even Deadeye for Tailwind. The extra skillpoints from Scion is really strong too.

Is Mistress really the best? It's possible to block cap without bone offering + mistress. So, bone offering is not as important and I think GGG is pushing us to temporary minions (buffed SRS/phantasms/HoP). Blessed Rebirth will take care of them I think.

Too many things to think about!!

Anyway I just levelled a guardian to 95 and scion to 92. After patch notes I can try to make equivalent build between necro/guardian/scion and see which is better.

Any chance at using SRS with Summon Reaper?

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Vaildez wrote:

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25% damage reduction is the main nerf.

I don't even think 25 is that bad... The build will still be viable but won't likely be anywhere near the meta.

My biggest issue is Spectres... They haven't been very good for awhile and they keep getting less and less viable with each change.

25% straight nerf
50% damage bonus from the gem itself is gone
30% damage nerf for minions across the board
Spectre charges for frenzy/power charges nerfed into oblivion.
No more +2 on ascendancy
No more +3 helmet

Mages are trash tier.

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Tainted_Turkey wrote:

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Vaildez wrote:

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25% damage reduction is the main nerf.

I don't even think 25 is that bad... The build will still be viable but won't likely be anywhere near the meta.

My biggest issue is Spectres... They haven't been very good for awhile and they keep getting less and less viable with each change.

25% straight nerf
50% damage bonus from the gem itself is gone
30% damage nerf for minions across the board
Spectre charges for frenzy/power charges nerfed into oblivion.
No more +2 on ascendancy
No more +3 helmet

Mages are trash tier.

50% added damage... That's not how we are scaling Mages anyhow. Assuming there are more ways to get minion level from other gear I don't think this nerf kills the build. The +3 to helment only really impacts the mirror tier helmet that slots skeletons. I cleared all content in Archnemsis fine without the helm.