I don’t know if that’s the intended purpose, but the only way I’ve seen people using Sacrifice is with Volatile Zombies and the Cycle of Putrescence ring, making them like, constant chain explosions, being revived and exploding again.
So in this case, it really doesn’t matter which type of minion you target, they all gonna be the same.
I never used it, but given Sacrifice is a damage spell, not an utility one, because it offers no support for other skills outside its own tree, and while there are 3 abilities that can make Sacrifice proc, which also aren’t related to other minion skills except Volatile Zombies, I can’t see many reasons to use this ability other than this.
And I believe Sacrifice scales off your own stats, not minion stats. So there is not much of an incentive to have some disposable minions to use sacrifice on, and other permanent ones which would not benefit from Sacrifice at all, all this while you have to spread your stats between minions and self stats. I suppose you either scale your damage and always sacrifice all minions, or you scale minion damage and don’t ever sacrifice them.
But maybe some Necro mains have some other insights.
The best use of sacrifice is to let your Mage’s use their version of it: Profane Oblation.
With the 12% chance on minion death to summon a vanguard, 30% chance on minion death to summon a zombie, and 100% chance on zombie death to summon a vanguard. You can get a chain of explosions without that ring by having Mage’s sacrifice melee wraiths and vanguards!
Which does, of course, have absolutely nothing to do with Sacrifice (which was your point, no doubt). Sadly. Sacrifice is a nice idea but it probably needs a complete rework. Ideally it would have some scaling woth the sacrificed minion health.
Ideally (to me), it should give different bonuses based on separate minion stats. It would make it more fun (to me).
For example, you could get 10% (or whatever number) of pretty much every stat. 10% of their health would mean heal for that amount, or get ward. 10% of their damage would give you spell damage. 10% of their armor would add to yours for X seconds, etc.
This would make it more synergistic and would give you plenty of options on how to gear up and build things.
Also, like I’ve said in a separate post, I would like to have some UI, where I would set the Sacrifice’s minion priority. Basically I want to set it to always target the least priority minions first, like vanguards or bone minions, and now wraiths or abominations
I believe the closest to this we could expect is maybe if they change Sacrifice’s tree to put some nodes that would allow you to specialize which kinds of minions you want to sacrifice, similar to what the Skeleton Mage has for its version of the Sacrifice skill.
It would, indeed. But I don’t believe this is happening, not anytime soon at least.
I say this because I’ve heard Mike saying, during a stream some time ago, that, while they have plans for making minion behavior better, they don’t actually intend to make some super accurate and precise way of controlling and managing minions (or something along these lines, I might look it up when I get home from work.)
It’s not supposed to be super accurate and precise. It’s not an RTS. Minions have their own mind and make their own decisions.
So stances are already more than enough for this, as can be seen in GD.
The only thing I’d add is changing “A” command from “Move here” to “Move and attack”, so they attack mobs on the way if they are in range.
This alone would make playing minions so much better IMO.
I’m trying a Necro for the first time, gonna be a Wraithlord (of course, cause I hate the minions horde), but I’m still leveling using Skelly Archers and Fire Wraiths.
But omg, it’s soooo annoying having the minions attack with the A button and, unless you input a very precise attack command on top of an enemy, they move close range before attacking, when they could’ve attacked from afar.
Also, it’s really bad when you summon a Wraith on the edge of the screen, or in another level of the terrain, while pressing A, trying to make them instantly attack what they have in their range, but instead they move aaaall the way to my side, then return to where I originally commanded them to attack.
@HorusKBZ Yeah, it was just what I remembered at the time. He was answering someone specifically about minion behavior/AI/commands. If I actually find it, I’ll bring it up here.
Fire wraiths work better as turrets. Take the node where they don’t move and then just summon them wherever you want. Basically you treat them like totems and just spam them at the edge of the screen. Usually everything’s dead by the time you get there.
Sacrifice is a bit wonky. I tried using it with hellfire shade and it did not react. In my mind I was expecting hellfire to count as usual but that was not the case.
But hellfire being hit by spirits from Catholic fissure worked wonders. Weird
None of the shades have the minion tag so they aren’t minions. Kinda surprised that this needs to be said.
You know that elemental damage counts as fire, cold and lightning don’t you? And that physical skills aren’t necessarily melee?
That’s because there’s a node for that. Though Personally I’m using the Puritan Fissure, less ceremony involved & everything’s symbolic rather than literal. And you don’t need to apply for forgiveness, it’s kinda assumed.
