The Achilles' heel of Raise Zombie and the way I feel they could fix it.
" Inherence is fully up to the devs though. If the zombie gem had 'minions are aggressive' baked in, then they would be inherently suited to dealing damage lol. With the amount of supporting unique items given to zombies over the years I think it's reasonable that they have an option to function up-to-standard with the other minions in the game in terms of aggressiveness. |
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" Yeah but most Zombie uniques give them hp more than damage. The baron lets their hp scale with your strength. There is a sceptre that gives them a bunch of flat hp and makes them huge in exchange for halving their number. Their whole thing is to be beefy bodyguards. Making them aggressive is just going to make them better than SRS and Skeles at everything except dealing damage. But even then most SRS and Skele damage comes late game, Zombies get a slam attack which makes them far more effective early game. Last edited by Deathstar699 on Aug 7, 2023, 12:28:37 PM
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" I agree with this, but heck lets not stop there, lets find ways to make summon skeletons more permanent then without the need of a unique, lets make phantasms their own minion instead of being a minion support gem. Lets just throw each minion's niche's out the window and give them all a billion damage for no effort. Thats what POE is about right? Damage no need for utility or anything interesting right? Most other permanent minions are less tanky than Zombies, you have to resummon them an infinite amount of times less than Skeletons and SRS, the only minions you can make an argument for is maybe summon reaper and stone golems, and some spectres like Knitted horrors. Lets go and make minions builds break the meta again, its not as if a lot of them are still killing bosses in seconds like SRS. |
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" The reason why Skeletons were so good in D2 is because you could literally specialize in them, turn some of them into mages and basically sit back while they just kill everything for you. Why bother with effort when you can afk while entire bosses get beaten for no amount of effort. They can maybe use some damage but you are really underestimating how strong Zombies are already. Sure they don't work in Shapers per second like a lot of other builds but again, ya gotta play the game by putting effort into things not letting it play itself and expecting the game to work for you. Sure I guess you don't want minions to be just bodyguards you want them to do damage and stuff, and thats fine, I am sure POE devs will add like a glass cannon support gem so they can do the damage you so want and then we just nerf the hp, like they barely have that going for them already without uniques. |
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@deathstar: your statements are empirically incorrect. The Baron doesn't scale your Minion HP to your Strength. It scales their HP AND damage to your strength. The vast majority of unique items associated to zombies increase their health AND damage. Aukuna's Will is the only zombie-related unique to only offer hp. All the rest offer damage. That "scepter" you mention that offers a chunk of hp....also offers over 100% damage and an explosion effect that deals FIFTY PERCENT of the enemies hp: the largest explosion effect in the game.
Zombies are easily the permanent minion with the LEAST innate survivability. I'm not sure where you pulled this "Most other permanent minions are less tanky" from...Every Golem has more life and more defense, Specters have more inherent life and some even have defensive skills, AG is a defensive powerhouse again with more base life than zombies, etc. Holy Relics heal and have higher hp. And no...the temp minions should NOT be given more options to make them permanent minions. That's completely separate. Skeletons and SRS are designed to be temporary minions, and function as such. Phantasms are designed to be an on-hit minion like DB/Absolution etc. and have no need for multiple avenues to change that nature. If there is a single unique item that changes this, then it should remain on that single unique item. That is the definition of a "build-defining unique" and is a GOOD thing. AI and identity are two entirely separate points, and have very little to do with actual "power". SRS and temporary minions like skeletons are more usable than Zombies in their current state BECAUSE of the AI associated with them. Since they only survive a short amount of time, it makes sense that they are innately aggressive. They don't need damage buffs, and I'm not suggesting they should get any. But zombies DO need buffs and reworks because, at their very core, they do not function in any role. They fail as meatshields and permanent minions with their poor survivability and AI, they fail as dps minions with their poor AI, and they fail as utility minions because...they have no utility (golems for example). And permanent minions, being the more versatile type that don't HAVE to be aggressive like SRS or Skeletons, need a toggle the most. Not a lost link just to make them function correctly, when temp minions function correctly without it. They need the ability to swap function as needed because they are around for longer, and require more player control. Having an AI innate toggle for minions will not change their power level: all it does is make the player have more control over the separate types of minions and how you want to use them. No need for any buffs to be associated with this: it is purely QoL and a sense of control. You are making a lot of incorrect statements in this thread: the OP wanting a "7-link", uh no he wants a normal 6L like every other skill but the problem is because AI requires a dead link he is stuck with a 5L. The "curse on hit" comment: just totally incorrect and unrelated. The uniques: wrong. This weird comment about SRS and skeletons and buffs and turning temp minions into perma minions: totally unrelated. The survivability comments: easily wrong and proven by the numbers on every single minion. Smh. Calls into question your actual experience with minions and credibility in this argument... Last edited by jsuslak313 on Aug 7, 2023, 1:18:59 PM
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Quick Example (from PoB):
Zombie Level 20 base life: 5000ish Holy Relic Level 20 base ehp (life + es): 14000ish Carrion Golem Level 20 base ehp: 12000ish So...in what way are zombies MORE tanky than any other permanent minion? Even the Reaper, which has a self-healing ability and is almost fully offensive by default, has more life than zombies. The base numbers, plus the stats and utility of the uniques associated with them, point to Zombies as being more attuned to dps-status rather than meatshield-status and yet their AI is completely non-supportive of this, unless you give up a very much needed support gem slot just to make them behave correctly....and even after all this they still pretty regularly die and have a conditional re-summon not shared by ANY other minion. The LEAST they could do is let us choose for ourselves, without cost, how the minion will behave instead of having it sit there doing nothing. Last edited by jsuslak313 on Aug 7, 2023, 1:37:51 PM
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I am so pleasantly surprised with all the comments and feedback left on this post, so first of all thank you all.
@jsuslak313 really hit the nail on the head with what he had to say. The reason I have confidence enough in believing a change akin to those I suggested would be non-intrusive and probably overlooked by most non zombie players but massively appreciated by those who like the skill is because making zombies aggressive in my opinion doesn't mess with the identity of the skill in the slightest. There are already ways of making them aggressive but the fact that zombies have to give up a lot more in terms of utility, fun or viability than other summon skills to achieve it seems to me like more of an oversight than an actual decision made in the best interest of the skill identity. | |
" Yeah but you are missing out on the fact that you want to scale Zombie hp, you don't want to do that for any other minion. You also get way more zombies than any other minion. Individually you have a point till you add all the nodes on the passive tree, gem levels and items and you get more zombies than any other minion type quite easily, you start with 3 zombies, 1 spectre,1 golem, 1 reaper, 1 holy relic and only spectre gets more copies with gem levels. With gem levels their combined hp is quite a bit higher than other minions and no other minions want to build hp anyway so where is your point? They also because of their numbers body block better than other minions, take more damage than other minions and individually benefit more from auras. The only downside to their tankyness is Aoe's but that can be remedied by the keystone that gives your shield bonusses to your minions. Yes those uniques give damage but thats where things like leech come into play as having more damage means more leech which means more tankyness. I mean the point of Zombies in lore are dumb so it makes sense that their ai is bad. But say we make it good that they aggro out the gate and its not bound to gems, what makes Zombies special from other minions? Like at all beyond their slam attack which sentinels of Dominance and herald of purity get anyway so what do Zombies have that makes them unique? I mean yes their ai is a detriment but once you fix it their clear speed is really good but now they are a perminant minion unlike their comtemporaries? |
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" I generally agree with you that all minions deserve their own niche, else gems become superfluous pointless bloat. But why should zombies unique thing be that their AI sucks? Like we wouldn't do that with any other archetype right? At least not intentionally. I like to use Creeping Frost as an example back when it was Arctic Breath and didn't have it's newly added niche of the cold dot puddle moving around the map. It used to basically be fireball. Fireball was an AoE projectile that could ignite. Arctic Breath was an AoE projectile that would put a DoT puddle down. Basically the same other than element. Back then, to me, it would have been unacceptable for one to just be strictly worse than the other, because all that would do is fuck over anyone with a frost (or fire depending on which gem was worse) fantasy. Imagine how silly it would be if one did half the damage of the other and you had to explain that to a new player. Oh yeah, Arctic Breath does 50% less damage because if it did the same dmg as Fireball it would be too similar to Fireball. A gem's niche probably shouldn't come from basic usability. And I know this is off topic but it actually reminds me of melee. Does all the damage of ranged, you just have to stand next to your enemies. That's the niche. It's a pretty frustrating niche though in practice. |
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^you missed the mark AGAIN. I'm NOT asking for health buffs. I'm merely pointing out that you are simply wrong in your statements about zombies.
What does it matter how many zombies you have, if they all die? 1 golem that survives serves its purpose BETTER than 10 zombies that all die. Also they benefit EXACTLY THE SAME as any other minion with auras...their numbers have no effect on their aura benefits lol. In fact, it probably makes them harder to use with auras because they spread out and go out of range. Unlike less minions, which are easier to see and easier to maintain coverage with. The POINT is that, if we were able to control the Zombie AI, we wouldn't NEED any buffs to the zombies! As you said, zombies are powerful in their own right and you CAN make a zombie build. The problem is their inherent AI making them a lackluster choice in EVERY situation, unless you can get around the AI issue. At the core of this issue is the identity of the zombie. You yourself said they are more suited by the DEVELOPERS to be meat shields. Yet the stats and their behavior say otherwise. Okay...then you can run them as DPS with feeding frenzy. But then you are left with a 5L minion that likely doesn't deal nearly as much damage as other dps minions and also still dies because now you've had to make up for the dps loss of a 6L with gear and tree damage over survivability nodes. Okay...so what's left? Make them full meat shields with minion life and meat shield support because without the DEFENSIVE AI, they don't act as meat shields...but then all the zombie uniques become mildly useless and they merely serve as "fluff" to the build. The problem is the AI, and how it affects zombies more than most other (possibly ALL other) minions in the game. AI is a basic function, not a buff, and should be treated as such. Golems have Primordial Might as a way to alter their behavior without losing an entire support gem in the process. Temp minions are inherently aggressive with good AI. Specters all have their own AIs. It is the lowly zombie that gets the shaft, all we want is some equality gosh darn it! Last edited by jsuslak313 on Aug 7, 2023, 3:33:22 PM
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