In its Current state it consumes your minions and depending on what type and number of minions gains certain abilities, damage, and health. This is a cool mechanic on paper, but in gameplay it just feels bad sacrificing your own minions.
New Idea For Abomination
Just a Quick Suggestion for abomination that could make it feel better. It now consumes the corpses of the enemies that you kill. Very Much like diablo 2 yes. But this way it wouldn’t feel bad consuming your own minions. It could continue to get different abilities depending on what Active Minions you have when it is summoned. Perhaps even abilities depending on the number of corpses or types of corpses that you feed it.
Also would like to see the decay of abominations life altered just a little bit. If abomination gets a kill is slows down its health decay by x%.
Current Form Infernal Shade
Infernal shade in its current form is ok, but it just feels bad picking it over dread shade and if you run both the Decay of life on a minion is just to much.
New idea for Infernal Shade
Infernal Shade is now a shade minion that decays health as long as it doesn’t have a host. It moves with you until an enemy comes within range of it then it “possesses it” dealing damage over time and “healing” itself. If the enemy its attached to dies, it goes back to moving with you and having its life decay. Shades are like wandering spirits where they do not get attacked by enemies, they only die from going to long without having a host. They would still share a cap limit with dread shade. If there used for attaching to a minion they would work as they currently do and buff the minion while killing it.
I like the Abomination idea. The only problem is, that you need to kill some enemies first. The summoning of LE I always found better than D2 because you do not need corpses. If you’re running a pure minion build you might have problems at the start of the map. Or you need to port to low level areas to summon your Abomination.
But the Abomination then could continue consuming corpses of fallen enemies to expand its lifespan.
An idea for the minion skills I had recently:
What about locking minion skills when the Abomination is summoned. So you cannot resummon your minions as long as your Abomination is alive. But the minion skills would turn into active skills that let the Abomination perform specific attacks.
The Abomination already has some special abilities for consuming certain minions. Would ne cool to be able to actively trigger them.
Also you would not think about a possible DPS loss if you do not resummon all your minions after summoning the Abomination.
Abomination should always instantly consume all minions in range and not be a channelled skill.
I am also attracted to the different and unique concept of Abomination. I want to like it! It’s the part where concept meets reality that I don’t like. For example:
True, but in my experience, if you resummon all your minions they just get in his way and largely make him useless. He has a gigantic hitbox, and he collides with other minions constantly. Going melee or ranged didn’t really make a difference when I tried it - Ranged minions will usually kill mobs faster than he can ever reach them, and he gets blocked from mobs by melee minions even more frequently. This also makes it really hard to use leech to extend his life.
So, it feels to me like the only way to play with him effectively without also wasting multiple other specialized skills is as a solo minion using the Bone Prison trick.
Because its really not new player friendly, it combines a channeling skill with doing no damage (Comparable to focus for mage)
I love the abomination. He looks cool. He (While summoned) can do all sorts of great things. Its the creation of him and how its done that feels so bad.
If you became invincible while channeling to summon him OR:
+1
Id be all sorts of happy with it, but in its current form its slow, its deadly trying to summon in battle, and its just behind where the other skills are. The mechanics and everything about his abilitys and skill tree are good.
Yeah, this post wasn’t about saying there aren’t other options or that I want it changed just for me. As you already stated above: MANY people dislike it and instead of a complete rework simply changing the way you consume or summon it can perhaps change it enough to feel smoother and more likable.
Yeah that would be a cool node to build into.
Yeah… As stated above its the Process of the channeling summon thats more a pain. Having to resummon your minions directly after just channeling and being hit for 5 seconds straight is also a pain, but yes completely do able.
If this is the design philosophy of EHG, were done here. Very poor argument, sorry!
99% of people like the concept of the skill, but dislike the summon mechanic. It’s tedious and clunky. And it’s not very viable mid fight.
So what’s the problem with suggestions that make summoning the Abomination less of a chore? You can’t tell me that the summon mechanic is the key part of the skill that makes it fun for you.
Yeah, I summon 10 skeletons, 5 mages and some Wraiths, need to wait for mana reg inbetween, channel Abomination for 10 seconds, wait for mana reg, resummon my minions again. I can’t think of having more fun in a video game.
In multiplayer your group can go and clear 1-2 echoes before you are even ready.
I really don’t get why you defend this mechanic that kills the fun of the skill for the huge majority of the player base.
Also the skilltree looks interesting. But effectively people just play max damage (damage per minion consumed) and everything with lowering decay rate. I haven’t seen that many different Abomination builds so far.
Got a question: when you guys actually use the skill do you take the nodes that consumes faster and more minions per tick? Do you always or sometimes take them over damage, just for the extra convenience?
They steal Abominations kills/damage that it needs to survive longer, they dont work well together
? There is 5 Points for 7%/1point for less HP decay and 1 point for another 50% less decay for 20% reduced damage, I always took those nodes as they felt mandatory when I played it
I took the less Decay nodes, and the ‘more damage per minion’ ‘more damage per type of minion’ in the end my setup was skeleton warriors/archers/Bone - so abomination would auto shoot arrows and I would just run to the objective dragging the monsters for it to kill
Nope. The only scenario where it make sense to me to care about consumption speed is if I’m trying to bring out an Abomination mid-combat. But since I’m eating all my other minions to make him and then have to resummon them, I’m not willing to deal with that mid-combat.
Also, the work, rush, and stress of trying to make an Abomb last between echoes is not worth it to me (if it can even be done reliably), so I’d always be making a new one at the start of an echo (which is also the most convenient time to resummon my other minions). That means I want to maximize his uptime so he lasts through the whole echo, and maximize his damage while he’s up. Shaving a few seconds off that doesn’t have any value, comparably.
This nodes feel like a huge tradeoff. They add a bit more convenience. But in the end you lose damage or survivability.
Skipping the decay stuff to have a faster summon feels like trading one bad thing for another. I can summon faster, but also have to do it more often.
Skipping the damage stuff makes the Abomination weaker. Then why should I take it over another minion skill. All the summoning ritual has to be worth it. If it’s just an ok-ish minion with no real punch, it doesn’t feel worth it.
I’m not sure what you’re doing that has an Abomb last more than a single echo, or even a full echo at all, reliably. That never happened for me when I’ve tried it.
On basically every Abomination build and variant I played it at least lasted 2 echoes by the time I reached ~lvl 75.
The time it stays alive usually goes up with increased investment into various different things like Minion Health, Minion Resistances, Damage for faster completion and also sustain through minion hp regen or leech.
Those nodes work completely different than the suggested node of having the decay slow down or even maybe stop temporary when abomination gets a kill.
While I havent tried every variant of the skill. I have tried every node. Dont get me Wrong. This is a great skill! Everything about it screams unique, it is simply the time consumption in its standard form. While it works great if your in a safe zone, trying to resummon him in mid combat in high arena, or in empowered higher corruption echoes is dangerous and feels “tedious”. In Multiplayer are other players really going to wait around every few minutes while you take 30 seconds to rebuild?
For your question about consuming minions faster. It Does indeed feel “better” once you have spent 6 points and get 100% increased + 2 at a time. 6 Points to just consume faster with no interested effects given to the abomination does feel pretty bad though. I would suggest changed the 5 point not at 20% each to a 2 point node with 50% Each. 3 Points would feel better.
The best time I had with abomination where it felt smoother and wasnt to worried in combat if he did die was when i used the node “Devour” which changed it from a channeled to a non channeled skill and just consumed the 5 nearest minions. Downside to this was you only consumed 5, no more. Now when you did this the skill technically still channeled its not an Instant creation of abomination. This is how I believe the skill should feel be default. You cast it, then it sits there and channels consuming in minions while you can still move around or possible even summon more minions for it to consume. with it setup this way i would recommend having a node to increase how many it can consume, perhaps even a node to remove the cap at some sort of cost (Not channeling again)
This is the biggest problem that I hear from most. And while yes, it is possible to resummon and prep him before every echo to try and avoid this scenario, most just find it to “tedious” and its a shame to see such a good skill get used so little for this reason.
I believe this is the best option and would definitely appeal to the masses without overall changing the uniqueness of the skill.
That’s the thing, though. I feel like those choices are all at odds with either each other, other minions, or both.
Minion Health: For other minion builds, I haven’t needed this more than incidentals from passives and implicits. It doesn’t really benefit anything else except Wraiths, which Abomb will collide with and get blocked from doing damage by.
Minion Resistances: Not many sources. The passive is only 16% for 8 points, which is pretty bad and much better used elsewhere even though you also get Vitality. Using a Blessing slot for it is a very bad value proposition. Sinathia’s Mace has no other benefit for minions and is a big damage loss. Finally, my experience was that Abomb is much more likely to die from escalating health decay than from taking damage, so it doesn’t feel like investing so much in it is worth the tradeoffs.
Damage: Maximizing damage is the biggest offender in “things being at odds with each other”. Abomb’s biggest damage boosts come from eating lots of minions, and a variety of them. Either you’re resummoning your minions after Abomb eats them, and he collides with them constantly and can’t hit anything, or you’re not resummoning, and then either wasting specialization slots on now unused minion skills, or have to be swapping skills in and out of your hotbar to use unspecialized skills. This is why I said in the earlier comment that I feel like the only way that makes any sense to build an Abomb is solo, using the Bone Prison trick.
Minion Regen: Same problem as Minion Health. Too much investment, too little benefit to everything except Abomb. Or Wraiths, which will then block him out of doing anything.
Leech: Only works for sustain if other minions are absent and he can actually hit stuff. The only thing I haven’t tried yet to solve this problem is Corrupt Palate, which with Abomb being primarily a melee minion I can’t imagine it would be enough (Arrow Nova was terrible), and it has the huge drawbacks of requiring you take a 40% boost to his health decay to get it and requiring too many points to take either Epicurean or Consume without losing Stitched Flesh and having even worse health decay.
I’ve written quite a lot about the Abomination itself, including a lot of leveling and testing the skill. Here’s what I’ve written half a year ago about it specifically, and that was before the leveling tests:
From December '20
Voracity (5 points): Now that you no longer have particular affixes that give you defensive benefits when channeling, you’re a bit of a sitting duck when you use this ability. So I would instead use these points to provide more resistances + armor + anything while channeling so that you can feel your survival improve when you need to remain planted.
Domination, Quick & the Dead, Stiched Flesh Imprisoned Horror, & Cadaverous Carapace (15 points total): This is way too many points for what is effectively the same purpose (some amount of damage for some amount of health decay). I would just focus on getting an acceptable damage numbers and acceptable health decay, and focus these nodes on things that are really important.
Fractured End (3 points): Unless the Skeletal Vanguards have more damage and overall usefulness than regular Skeletons, I don’t know 3 points is necessary for 3 additional Skeletons.
Increased Melee AoE (5 points): A common theme with these Necro minions - if you feel like the minions don’t have acceptable AoE off the bat, don’t force us to spend up to a fourth of our points just to have the skill feel useable.
With little conversions and little incentive to prioritize consuming some minions over others, this skill looks so disappointing. This is supposed to be the cream of the crop of the Necromancer minions, and I’m here sitting wondering “what’s the point of having this?” This minion needs to be a real hulking mass.
Consume enough Mages and be able to throw a giant flamethrower parallel to the dragons. If it consumes a Rogue, it should be able to use Transplant from your tree, and it should be able to transplant toward one of your other minions, blow it up, and use the bones to whack the enemies with. Consuming Warriors should give it blades for arms and with them a chance to deliver a flurry of strikes. If you’re consuming a minion who’s under the Infernal Shade, the Abomination should have a large flat Fire damage bonus.
Maybe give it nodes where if you can get it to survive over a certain period of time, it becomes increasingly unstable and parts of its body explodes in a small but damaging AoE while stunning the Abomination. There should be nodes where if you spec into Sacrifice, the minion first explodes giving heavy damage and then the spirit of the minion gets absorbed into the hulking mass of bones and flesh.
What ended up especially horrible was that I died in multiple occasions because the instant I decided to bring the Abomination into battle, a giant telegraphed “move now or you die!” attack came right where I was channeling and I was forced to either go through all that effort for nothing or simply die.
The only time that combat with the Abomination felt good was when it had both the Double Strike from the Skeleton Warriors and the huge AoE cleave from the Wraiths - otherwise it does way too much standing around for something that decays as quick as it does.
And yes, no other skill in the game requires so much preparation in an empty echo just to feel usable. Think about how Mages would riot if their Lightning abilities required 20 seconds of standing outside just for enough Lightning to charge their reserves, and then having to do that every 2-3 echoes.
I like the idea of taking corpses in the area to summon this new minion, but it comes at odds at having multiple enemies having telegraphed 1-shot attacks. That’s why I suggested to link it with Sacrifice, so that the exploding minions have a chance to take out the enemy threats while contributing to the Abomination. Additionally, Sacrifice’s Chain Reaction node allows for multiple minions to explode very quickly, making for a much smoother summoning than any of Abomination’s consuming nodes.
The nodes that grant it damage multipliers for sucking more minions has already proven to be nothing but a “let’s exploit large numbers of minions to grant it ludicrous damage.” I would instead take RawSuicide’s suggestion of using the active minion skills to grant it unique attacks. There’s so many nodes that could be used for potential synergy, but instead you fill the tree with a lot of “exchange damage for health decay” nodes that could be done away with entirely.
Find an acceptable amount of summoning speed, damage and decay, then delete those nodes and instead fill them with real creative ideas that make the Abomination a truly unique pet.
It will now “eat” one and only one of each type of minion you have. When it eats that minion, it gains the abilities of it.
Adjust its life, damage, etc. accordingly, so that the # of minions mechanic to “power it up” no longer exists, and it has enough base life, damage, etc.
In combat, if it scores a kill, it gets a temporary buff/set of buffs. Possibilities include a small pause on decay (2 secs) or a heal, damage bonus, speed bonus, crit bonus, etc. depending on what kind of enemy it kills (i.e. some enemy types grant heal, some grant damage, some grant speed, some grant crit, etc.)
