A 1.0.6 Skill Prototype Video

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Artanthos wrote:

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FireSkull wrote:

I hope that this will prevent all summoners from being cookie cutter.

Not likely.

In gaming, even a 1% advantage can be the difference between an ability being accepted as viable or labeled junk.

The skill will be analyzed, parsed and either become part of a new cookie cutter build or discarded.

omg yes Shape shifting skills would blow my damn mind , and custom wolf skins you could purchase. And I would like to see some chaos spells like the poison nova in d2. As for this skill, it looks like just another fire skill.

things this skill needs to be viable ...

projectile, spell, minion, 50% physical/50% fire damage, duration. if its is pure fire its junk.

animate guardian is supposed to be a tank and its junk. animate weapon is junk. u gotta do somethin here to fix these minions that are completely useless. this one looks good but do it right ffs.

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willianvon wrote:

Projectiles?!? hope so!

Animate Spell




remember where you first saw it called this way

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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thinkingofaname wrote:

Hate to play the devil's advocate here but how is this a summoner skill? It is really different (functionality wise) than say a fireball with fork?

Yes, it's substantially different. This is much more similar to Summon Skeletons or Animate Weapon than to Fireball, other than the art being small and on fire. It's an individual minion that has it's own AI and movement, and hits things with melee attacks multiple times.

Is this skill meant to be good enough to make a build with it, or is it more of a fodder skill, like skeletons, searing bond, and animated wpns/guardians, aka waste of time skill just to release something for the sake of releasing it.

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Melkrow wrote:

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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thinkingofaname wrote:

Hate to play the devil's advocate here but how is this a summoner skill? It is really different (functionality wise) than say a fireball with fork?

Yes, it's substantially different. This is much more similar to Summon Skeletons or Animate Weapon than to Fireball, other than the art being small and on fire. It's an individual minion that has it's own AI and movement, and hits things with melee attacks multiple times.

Is this skill meant to be good enough to make a build with it, or is it more of a fodder skill, like skeletons, searing bond, and animated wpns/guardians, aka waste of time skill just to release something for the sake of releasing it.

yep i figured...really sad.

You are halfway there.... a summoned mage who follows me around and cast these projectiles might work. If 6-10 of these projectiles whirl around my character after casting and then fly off to attack when a monsters comes into range with a lengthy life span then maybe we have something. Until then it is not a minion spell by what I define a minion as.... a summon that responds on it's own or with a predictable result to my actions based upon an AI. Fly go boom is not an AI. The one area I can see it being used is heavy reflect maps but skellies already fill that role and work fine from a totem. The last thing a leveled summoner needs currently is a direct damage single shot minion that doesn't last and takes gem slots. Summoners want to summon their minions and use their auras and curses to influence the battle not cast a spell where we end up looking at a DPS tooltip. As far as actual functionality an ice skull or lightning skull is a better choice with EE and it still looks like arc is better with it's ability to be aimed and built-in chain.

Looks neat, looking forward to trying it.

I <3 you GGG

Mad props for the Doom reference.

Looks fun guys!

Looks like a direct summon skeletons replacement. Other than the fact that they don't last as long and spawn beside you instead of on cursor, what is the difference? Looks like you use them pretty much the same way, except they are worse unless their stats are much better than skeletons so it might be worth using them on totems. What was the intended goal of making this skill? overall, the preview is very disappointing. I hope the support skills are worthwhile.

One thing I think that could be done: list this skill as a projectile, have it benefit from projectile support gems and things like gmp/lmp. That would widen the gap of usability from skeletons, although they would still fit the exact same role so it would take more changes than that to make it not a skeleton replacement.

Why is a direct replacement bad? Example: "oh hey these 2 skills are exactly the same, I can spam either of these 2 short duration minions, and they both do damage, work well when linked with blind and spell totem, and distract. Well I guess I'll just pick the one that is stronger overall" bam, nobody uses one of them, everybody uses the other. At least it working with projectile support gems will make it be able to look better for some niche build :(


Also, still sad to see that piety lightning ball and summon skeleton mage will never happen.