I love bees. They feel special. They feel unique.
In this season they got some love with the Apiarist set.
Good stuff. More bees are good.
By using up both your weapon slots and body armor, or combinations between, you get a
larger or smaller X amount of bees. This way every class can have fun with their little friends.
The problem is that the set pieces are not that good. Almost any other thing outshines them. Especially on non-minion classes.
If you combine the set with other weapons you soon end up with a very small amount of bees that acts more like your friends than something suited for the battlefield.
Other way to get bees includes idols. My primalist runs idols and Reliquary Nest to get 40+ bees.
That’s an impressive number, but they still get outshined by almost anything, and you sacrifice all the idol slots and the relic slot.
On the plus side I don’t use the Apiarist set.
Corrupted idol bee affixes? Good luck with that.
I have tried bees on almost every class, by now.
Sentinel: No use. Not even the Forge Guard.
Rogue: Falconer has some use. You can summon bees with some uniqes, idols and spamming Acid Flasks. But good? Not really.
Marksman, Bladedancer? No real use found.
Mage: Ooh, how I want the Summoner class. But bees has no use here. This is likely the class that has the least support for minions.
Acolyte: This one is interesting. Aura of Decay can support them. Sacrifice can be done on them. Marrow Shards, and so on.
Still, if you don’t have corrupted idols I can’t see bees outshining any other weapon. Ghost Maker, for example, can do all this and more in some fashion.
Primalist: Now we are talking the real bee fantasy. Go the Druid route, be a bear and bring your bee friends with you.
Bees, though, can only procc Storm Bolt if converted to physical (but when you do, you have a steady supply of 15 stacks), so no bear-lightning fantasy here. They cannot procc tornadoes with Simoon gloves.
They don’t do any huge amount of difference, besides looking adorable.
Summary: To use bees to any degree you have to sacrifice a lot of other potential, which is good.
Limitations are good. The outcome is not. I most likely have missed some awesome interaction that makes bees supreme, so for now this is my opinion of them.
But here’s my suggestion:
A unique ring that gives bees (or minions in general) a chance to have their attack to count as yours.
Maybe the possibility to get one in four between melee, ranged, throwing or spell (just as Pearls of the Swine works).
Something like this: +(3% to 6%) Chance that your Bees melee attack count as yours.
Or: +(2% to 7%) Chance that your Bees melee attack count as a ranged attack from you.
Why? Think of the Sentinel.
With the Apiarist set and idols to cast Smite on throwing attacks (or corrupted affixes for bees on these) you can have bees casting Smite for you. Or with Palarus’s Sacred Light.
Or with Bane of Winter they can procc the Voidwinter Bolts. Or with Trident of the Last Abyss procc Abyssal Echoes.
With Primalist and Storm Breaker they can procc Storm Bolts even if they arent converted.
Equipped with Aurelis mages can electrify on melee. Or cast meteors with Harbinger of Stars.
Wildfire Embers could be a sea of ignite.
There are so, so many interactions that sounds fun.
So why a ring?
I thought about a relic, but then you have Reliquary Nest and Bloodkeeper’s Nest which both are ways to even get the bees or up the amount.
Weapon? Same here. If you don’t have the idols these are needed for some classes.
Body armor? Same as above.
With rings you have a choice of either using one ring or both for this.
Sacrifice every other rings potential, or lower your chance of proccing? Your choice.
Sound OP. Maybe sounds OP, but the amount of stuff you have to swap for this to work is what I really think makes it work. Not to mention every other OP build out there.
And, as this is a grind game, getting the right idols with the corrupted bee affixes should make you able to swap back from the Apiarist set to get that boost in defense and offense.
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