It’s being a while since Sienna’s fourth career was released but I still didn’t manage to get any real value out of army of the dead. At first point I thought that the idea behind it was only to temporarily give the player more skeletons to distract the enemies. But they barely survive more than one stormvermin at the same time.
A nd aren’t even close to be as versatile or useful as the other two talents. Would like to see if it’s only a skill issue from my part, or if they are just bad indeed.
Yep, pretty garbage.
The only use I can think of is magic spamming. But why the hell would I play that with my Necromancer when Sienna already have other magic spamming careers.
The talent needs an extra oomph. Like passive skeleton generation when performing certain actions alongside the current garbage effect.
It was buffed a little bit by giving you an extra 6 that last 20 seconds when it used to be only 6, and you had to use your ability again to get the extra 6, but it’s still pretty bad.
In the Chaos Wastes, it’s excellent. You can get it as a Veteran Boon alongside either of the other level 30 talents. Even if you don’t get those, the Chaos Wastes includes many cooldown boons allowing you to get a bunch quite often, which is fun, even if not super effective. The moment when you get 24 Dread Senechal’s is pretty dope, but even still, it’s a brief 20 seconds for each additional group of 6.
In regular campaign mode, the cooldown on Necromancer’s ability is just too long. It’s not a viable strategy to depend on the Decanter trait with purple Concentration Potions to get a large number of skeletons. Even taking all the cooldown you can get from traits and talents, you’re not going to get more than 12-18 for more than a brief moment, and since they’re just regular skeletons, they’re going to die easily.
The idea of Army of the Dead is so much fun, but the problem with Necromancer for me is that regardless of efficacy, you can’t pick a talent tree that gives you the maximum opportunity to get more skeletons, and that’s the allure of the career for me, so I rarely play Necromancer, and I’m already seeing very little of her.
Army of the Dead is the only talent geared towards getting more skeletons and even with more of them, the team doesn’t benefit much from having more. 6 Dread Senechals will hold the line longer than 24 regular skeletons that disappear in groups of 6 after 20 seconds. They all clump together anyway, no matter the number, and having more doesn’t give you more damage either. The utility is just not there.
I think it would be a much more attractive option if they lasted longer and you got some ability cooldown on that talent. Efficacy aside, 1:45 to summon 12, and 6 decay in 20 seconds really doesn’t feel satisfying.
Here are my suggestions:
Have ‘Army of the Dead’ have the extra 6 skeletons last 30 seconds and grant Sienna 20% more cooldown (bringing the cooldown time from 1:45 to 1:25 – 1:15 with 10% reduced cooldown on trinket. )
For the level 25 talent ‘Spirit Leech’, in addition to 15% cooldown on elite kill, have each elite kill give a 25% chance of raising one additional skeleton that lasts 30 seconds.
I also think it would be neat to add a Staff for some DLC down the road that gives Sienna a chance to raise some additional undead like a pair of ghouls or wraiths; something capable of dealing damage and only lasts for a short duration like 10-20 seconds. Give the staff a weak projectile on the standard attack for sniping specials similar to coruscation or fireball, but with a charged attack that grants the extra couple summons that deal damage for a bit.
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I like this idea. I’ve considered tacking it onto army of the dead as an added bonus as it’s kind of trash in its current state.
I’ve also been wondering if the timed lifespan even necessary considering how little impact the skeletons have when they’re not Seneschals or equipped with narrow blades
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Most other games with summoner classes and talent trees simply offer a way to increase your number of summons. If Army of the Dead increased max skeleton crew size from 6 to ~10 that would be fun.