Golem FAQ Revised

[Pherdnut]

Golem FAQ Revised

Necro Community Golem FAQ

Started by Pherdnut, Completed With a Ton of Help from RTB, Mad Mantis, an old post of JoJeck's, and much encouragement from others.

I've both asked a lot of questions and read a lot of answers on Golems so I figured I'd throw together a FAQ of everything I've learned and then maybe we can add to it until it's worthy of a sticky or something. I'll put a * next to everything I'm not 90% certain of so you guys can correct away in addition to anything else I completely misunderstood.

Golems in General

Useful, Not Deadly

Even when fully synergized at the unreasonable price of 100 skill points, none of the golems will rack up the kills like a well equipped Merc, a Grizzly Bear, a Valkyrie, or one of the assassin's Shadow minions. You might be able to get some decent damage out of an iron golem, but only at great point expenditure and using really powerful items that will be lost if your golem disappears or gets killed. The chief source of a summoner's killing power comes from skeletons, revives, and corpse explode. Golems work best as utility tanks. Consequently, putting all of your money on golems has not proven to be an effective build strategy in 1.10.

Golem Mastery

If you decide you want to be able to switch between two or more golems putting a full 20 points here is a much cheaper way to enhance their survivability and effectiveness than putting 20 into each golem you want to use. Golem mastery adds 100% to a golem's life every five skill points with no diminishing returns, adds a signifigant but diminishing speed bonus, and gives a nondiminishing attack bonus that will be important if you really need your golem to be hitting on a regular basis. Any attempt at a focused golem-based build (good luck!) starts with this skill.

Stats

I listed the base stats for each golem. They all have the same resistances regardless of difficulty (they don’t suffer a penalty like you do) and skill level. Golems do not have resist caps like players do. Anything that brings their resists over 100% makes them immune to that element. Only Summon Resists, resist items used to make the Iron Golem, or an aura will increase their resistances. Some Golems gain health as you level them up, while others only gain health from Mastery. All golems have increased health in every difficulty.

Clay Golem (AKA Gumby)

General

Like most other golems, Gumby will never do enough damage to be a primary killer. This guy gets lots of life and an extra fast healing rate however, and his slow ability is one of the most useful and cheaply attained skills in the game. He is also so cheap to resummon that you can effectively teleport him around by simply resummoning right in front of enemies that you want to be slowed. When you're in serious trouble, dropping gumby on a pack of pursuers while you run can be a life saver.

Base Stats

Damage: 2 - 5
Attack Rating: 60
Defense: 20
Hit Points: 100/183/288

Slows Effect: 11%
Immune to Life Leech
Synergy to other Golems: +20 to attack/level

Resists

Physical: 25%
Lightning: 20%
Cold: 50%
Fire: 0%
Poison: 0%

Points to Put in Clay Golem

1 in CG and 1 Golem Mastery is the typical answer. Generally we assume you're going to have roughly at least 7-10 +skills when you've put some decent gear together (this isn't as unlikely as it sounds to new players). A Clay golem at 10/10 should have about 1,245 hit points and a slow effect of 51%. If you want a speedier golem, more points in Golem Mastery is recommended. The slow effect hits serious diminishing returns at around level 16 where it gets 60% so make that your goal if you want to maximize his slowing ability (5% DOES make a noticeable difference). Both skills enhance the golem's life which, coupled with its outstanding healing rate, is one of the reasons it becomes so survivable with only plus skills to enhance it. It takes 100 skills to make a fire golem almost not worthless and 2 skills to make Gumby one of the most valuable additions to your army.

Slow and Decripify:

Yes, they stack. So do freeze attacks. This is one of the most effective strategies to use on any boss or particularly tough champion or super unique. It will nearly paralyze nightmare and normal bosses and make it easy for your skeletons to interrupt enemy attacks, upping their survivability considerably.

*The Slow Effect

Gumby’s Slow Effect kicks in when he is hit 100% of the time. If you plan on using him a lot, you may not want to put too many points into the IG for a defense bonus. He’s plenty survivable with a paltry 55 Def. It has not yet been confirmed whether he also slows enemies by hitting them, but that would seem likely since he seems to slow bosses down that don’t use physical attacks very frequently.

Monster Magnet

Monsters will actively prioritize Gumby over all other targets, which is exactly what you want in a tank that slows enemies when they hit it. I don’t know if this holds true for any of the other golems but it’s a beautiful thing on our little buddy, the CG.

*Slow in Hell and Nightmare

While I'm not clear on the details, chill and slow effects do appear to get reduced in Hell. Fortunately, attacks from different types of slowing abilities continue to stack, so hitting enemies with every source you have is still very effective. Hitting bosses with decrepify, your clay golem, and chilling attacks (typically from a merc or a skeleton mage) will almost completely cripple bosses in normal and nightmare and significantly slow them down in Hell. Necros can take on any boss with ease using this combination.

Possibilities

I can't see anything new to be done with this golem. Its perks are pretty straightforward. It's probably more ideal for a damage return build than any other since its survivability comes from massive health and healing rate rather than difficulty to hit. Dumping full points into it could make it a terror against slower duellers due to its speed upgrade and enhanced slow effect. It's also cheap enough to effectively teleport by resummoning it right in front of people.

Blood Golem

General

This is the most nerfed golem in version 1.10. Although its universal synergy is additional life to all other golems, it has the lowest number of starting hit points itself and only gains more life through golem mastery. Furthermore, it has pitiful defense and pretty low damage without dumping full points into the fire golem.

Stats

Mana cost: 25
Damage: 6 - 16
Attack Rating: 60
Defense: 80
Hit Points: 201/388/637

Susceptible to Life Leech
Synergy to Other Golems: +5% life/level

Resists

Magic: 20%
Poison: 20%
Lightning: 0%
Cold: 0%
Fire: 0%

Life Sharing Ability

When you summon a blood golem, your hit points are pooled together with its. Consequently, if it's taking a beating so are you. A blood golem must be constantly using its life drain ability to keep your health up since it's constantly going to be taking damage due to its low def. Damage return skills and auras can help this situation but see below for a caveat. A blood golem taking damage can never kill you directly, but it can bring you down to one point.

Life Draining Ability

Disregard what Arreat says on the matter. The BG's life drain is now based completely on its own attack rather than the total amount of your enemy's hit points. Furthermore, if it is affected by a damage return ability like Thorns or Iron Maiden, the life drained is based off of its attack rather than how much damage the enemy attacker did to it. Without a heavy investment in points, it's not likely that it will be making up the difference against some of the nastier melee attackers in Hell and it remains highly vulnerable against elemental attacks.

Possibilities

With heavy point investment in the fire golem and golem mastery, I suspect the BG/Thorn combo will still work in areas where you're having trouble with getting swarmed by melee attackers. Unfortunately, the BG is an easy target for ranged attackers and magic attacks, putting you at a severe disadvantage in areas with lots of these enemies. You can spend 60-80 points to try and get this golem to work, or you can just play a melee or commandomancer with 1 point in life tap.

Final Analysis

Thumbs down all around. Too expensive to make any kind of build strategy that focuses on it for any reason other than novelty. Maybe, just maybe it will have some utitlity with a Bramble armor based damage return build, but I suspect even then, you would be wanting to switch to another golem in certain areas. The only other reason to put points here is to give more life to other golems.

 

[Pherdnut]

Iron Golem

General

This golem is summoned from any metal object and it can gain the mods from magic, rare, and unique items. This gives it the most potential as a damage dealer at lower levels and with certain resist items it can become completely immune to all the elements. Its disadvantage is in the cost of using such items and it is not easily resummonable. A popular misconception with people is that items used on an Iron Golem will have an affect on your caster, like using +skill or –resist items. These will not help you in any way although the –resist may help the IG if it has an appropriate elemental attack on the same item used. IGs are not smart enough to take advantage of any charge skills on an item either. It is the only Golem type that can become elementally immune to everything by stacking resistances from the Summon Resist Skill, its innate resists, and resists from an item to get to 100% or above (see below for the cheapest way to do this).

Base Stats

Mana cost: 35
Damage: 12 - 33
Attack Rating: 217
Defense: 175
Hit Points: 306/595/980 *

Thorns Damage Returned: 150%
Immune to Life Leech
Synergy to Other Golems: +35% Defense

Resists

Lightning: 50%
Poison: 100%
Fire: 0%
Cold: 0%

*Note: Hit points don’t include the one level synergy in Blood Golem a necro would need to take to get IG without a charged item. All other golem stats are listed without the synergy.

Thorns Ability

This is not like the aura. An IG's thorns ability only affects itself and does not stack with the Thorns aura. It does stack with Iron Maiden and Spirit of Barbs, however. For this reason it is ironically not the ideal damage return golem since the Thorns aura is a much more powerful damage return ability.

Death, Glitches, and Letting it Get Too Far Away

These are the things that make an iron golem go away, causing you to lose whatever item you spent on it permanently. It DOES reappear after you quit and start a new game but there have been reports of it being lost between games for no reason. For this reason, not many people drop their BotDs or Tyrael's Mights on it. People using Iron Golems from a charged item WILL lose the iron golem between games.

Abilities an Iron Golem Can Gain

I've never seen a complete list of what does and doesn't work on an iron golem. Anything with a level dependent mod doesn’t do anything to our knowledge (I plan on testing this with +life/level item). An iron golem does gain the full damage amount from weapons and this stacks with its pitiful normal damage. Weapon damage is affected by the fire golem's damage synergy bonus as well as its base crappy damage. I'm pretty sure all of the following work. Please correct me if I'm wrong and help add to the list.

-All bonus elemental damage
-Weapon, and armor stats (Def Value, %enhancements, damage values)
-Resistances
-Proc Skills (magic effects that take place "when struck" or "when striking")
-Crushing Blow, Open Wounds, Deadly Strike (these can be gained from dirt cheap runewords)
-Life Steal
-+ Life items

Abilities an Iron Golem Can't Gain

According to Arreat, mana steal (there would be no point anyway), and Magic Find don’t do anything so no MF stacking with your IG like you can with a merc. I'm guessing this info is accurate since there wouldn't have really been any reason to change it in more recent versions for any kind of a balancing issue. It stands to reason that anything that enhances casting ability or plus skills has no effect since there is nothing there to affect in the first place. Likewise with mods that add to your attributes. There is the slim possibility that charges on an item could add synergies to a proc skill, but I can’t think of any items that this happens on. Also, I think Mad Mantis mentioned that items granting Increased Attack Speed don't have any obvious effect, but that someone was experimenting to see if putting excessive amounts of IAS on an item (like a weapon with 6 shaels) would do something.

Effects on Gumby

Since the Iron Golem enhances the Clay Golem’s defense and the CG relies on getting hit to slow enemies down, you may want to consider the ramifications of putting more than one point into this skill if you still want to switch back to the CG from time to time. Since more points only increases defense and the thorns ability, Golem Mastery is probably a better option so you don’t make Gumby too hard to hit (although, even at 540 Def he’s not exactly impossible to land a blow on).

Runeword Auras

Runeword auras will work with the IG. This has made it popular with caster necros using it with the Insight polearm for a meditation aura to give a major boost to their mana. Unfortunately, most other runeword items with auras are too expensive to make it worthwile for most of us to expend them on an iron golem that may die or get lost. Keep in mind, items must be metal, so none of the exciting new ladder bow runewords will work on the IG.

Suggested Items List

I did some research on this update

Basic Socketed Items

2 Socket Shield With a P Ruby and P Sapphire – Combined with the Summon Resist skill at 60% (level 12) this will render your IG completely element immune. No need for socketed pally shields, Wizard Spikes, or excessive P Diamonds. There are plenty of enemies with the Conviction aura in Hell, however so it doesn’t hurt to get more resists than necessary. No conviction aura can break immunities over 130% by itself, so if you want immunity from any and all conviction using critters try to get all your IG’s resists to 131 or above.

*El Runes - Good stuff for lighting up darkened corridors and increasing your IG's AR or Def simultaneously. Hey, you were just going to leave them on the ground anyway. (not 100% sure light radius is helped by IGs since it typicall focuses around you)

Nef Runes - One of these and you get knockback. If you're just using your IG to tank enemies, knockback will slow them down. Knockback can also be useful against particularly tough enemies that your merc or other minions are having trouble with. I’ve turned many an ugly Fire/Ice immune Lister encounter around using telekinesis to slap him around while my merc took the kill with my meteorber.

Element Pgems/Runes - Any weapon socketed with a few of these will give you a significant damage boost in normal/early nightmare difficulty. Not of much relevance to rushers but people who like to play through the game, quest by quest with no help will find this useful.

Amn Runes - Drop a few of these on a weapon for some serious life drain for when the IG’s healing rate doesn’t cut it.

Eth Runes - A couple of these will go a long way in helping your IG hit regular monsters if you don't have many clay golem synergies.

Cheap Rune Words (runes up to Sol)

Holy Thunder - Uses all cheap runes and gives nice bonuses to hit, and some strong elemental damage for Normal/Early Nightmare Difficulty.

*Malice - I haven't tried this. If the life drain affects the golem, this is a stupid idea, but if it doesn't, it's a dirt cheap rune word that will give you 100% open wounds and reduce an enemy's defense every time it hits.

Steel - A good choice if Malice doesn't work for the 50% Open Wounds.

Strength - 25% Crushing blow and life drain. Very nice on bosses. Much cheaper than Black (40% crushing blow).

Medium Rune Words (runes up to a single Mal)

Black - Higher CB than Strength.

Obedience - This one's a little costly for an IG, but it's one of those rare weapon runewords that bolsters defense and offense significantly. Great damage, defensive boost, 21 proc enchant, 40% CB, AND elemental resists that will push two of its resistances close to immunity and the rest well over it. If I was a little bit richer I'd use it regularly for an IG.

Crescent Moon - 25% open wounds, ignores target defense, the occasional lvl 17 chain lightning blast at reduced lightning resists, and a reasonable damage boost make this one pretty cool.

Stone - Should make your IG one tough hombre against physical attacks and the +15 all resists don't hurt either.

Fortitude - Probably a better choice than stone. Major boost to damage and elemental resists and that chilling armor will make your IG much like a clay golem if it kicks in.

Voice of Reason - Nice proc cold attacks, enhanced damage to undead and demons, and reasonably hefty elemental attack on top of the physical. Another Clay Golemish IG.

Set Items

Ik’s Maul - Expensive but has great damage, CB, and 2 Sockets

Hwanin’s Refuge – 10% Static Charge when struck, bonuses to Life and Defense

 

[Pherdnut]

Normal Uniques

There are lots of low level uniques with useful IG mods. We’ll add more in as people chime in with suggestions and success stories. Basically, anything with resists, high enhanced damage, strong elemental attacks, or open wounds is good. And no minion will do the kind of initial damage that an IG with crushing blow can to bosses in Hell.

Rixot’s Xeen (sword) – Dirt cheap 25% crushing blow for an otherwise untradable unique.

Bonesnap – (maul) Crushing blow and good resists for the IG

Steel Driver (maul) – Very nice damage for such a low level item (not 100% sure this will work).

Woe Stave (polearm) – VERY nice utility on this low level polearm. Slows, blinds, prevents heal, reduces Def with every hit, AND 50% open wounds.

Exceptional Uniques

Getting more expensive and rare here but some of these items still have really low trade value while doing great things for an golem. I left out the really valuable items that would still make a great IG.

Moser’s Blessed Circle – Nice Enhanced Defense along with full elemental immunity with only 1 P Diamond for a relatively cheap shield.

Tiamat’s Rebuke (shield) – Some decent elemental damage here along with “when struck†magic but at a pretty low CTC. Kind of pricey for the use you’ll get out of it.

Coldkill (shield) – Ice Blast and Frost Nova at 10% on striking.

Stormrider (axe) – Lots of potential lightning attacks on striking and I’ve never heard of people looking to trade for this thing.

The Minotaur (axe) – Slow 50%, CB, Blind, and decent damage for early nightmare.

Blackbog’s Sharp (dagger) – Probably better to trade or use this, but it does have a lengthy poison attack as well as 50% slow.

Bloodtree Stump (maul) – I’d Bonesnap is more ideal for getting the resists up, but Bloodtree does more damage and has 10% more CB

The Impaler (spear) – 40% Open Wounds, ITD, Prevent Monster Heal

Kelpie Snare (spear) – 75% slow and fire immunity for your IG after Summon Resists.

Hone Sudan (spear) – 45% CB, 3 Sockets for Customization

Elite Uniques

There aren’t many elites I would blow on a Clay Golem and the higher end ones are really hard to find, but here’s a few to consider.

Fleshripper (dagger) – Really pricey but OW, CB, DS, Prevent Heal, Slow, and -50% target defense would make fore a pretty cool IG.

Stormlash (flail) – 15% chance of lvl 10 Static Field, 33% CB, 20% lvl 18 tornado. I’ve never seen a build based on this weapon so it probably doesn’t have crazy trade value, but still hard to find.

Bone Hew (polearm) – Nice damage, 50% lvl 16 bonespear on striking, 2 Sockets, easy to get a low Enhanced Damage one (Note: Your synergies will not help the Iron Golem’s Bone Spear). Bone Hews are actually pretty common and the lower ED ones aren’t that sought after.

Novelty/Humor

*Delirium Runeword - Don't know if this will give you a shiny bone fetish every 100 hits or so, but it's gotta be worth a try. The proc curses, unfortunately, are more likely to be a hindrance to a necro than a boost since they will overwrite ones that he's already cast.

*The Occulus - (Are orbs considered metal?) No good reason for using this whatsoever, but it would be pretty funny to have a golem that teleports every time something hits it. Yeah yeah, too expensive even for a good joke golem.

The Diggler - Tee hee. It's called, "The Diggler."

Fire Golem (AKA Sparky, or Worthless Piece of !@#$%)

General

The fire golem is simply a fire absorbing tank capable of withstanding mindblowing amounts of damage when fully synergized. Actually it doesn’t really absorb unless being hit by a conviction aura (see below). Unfortunately, even with excessive +skills its damage only begins to approach almost mediocre and it's so prohibitively expensive to cast that it's summoning fire damage isn't even worth taking advantage of at lower levels. Since it doesn't actually do much of anything to anybody at higher difficulty levels but stay alive, you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a use for this thing that wouldn't be better served with far fewer skill points in other places. The only reason to put a full 20 into the fire golem is to increase the damage of Iron Golems and (maybe) blood golems. Clay Golems don’t do enough damage beyond Act 1 Normal regardless.

Base Stats

Mana cost: 50
Damage: 10 - 27
Fire damage: 37 - 66
Aura Fire Damage: 4 - 6
Attack Rating: 120
Defense: 160
Hit Points: 313/613/1013

Fire Absorb: 36%
Life Leech Immune
Synergy to Other Golems: +6% Enhanced Damage/Lvl

Resist

Fire: 100%
Cold: 0%
Lightning: 0%
Poison: 0%

Fire Aura Damage

The fire aura damage is a cruel joke played on all Necromancers with dreams of adding fiery death to their armies. Since the effect is not being cast by you, no items will increase it's damage from pathetic to at least "cute." I don't think this aspect of the fire golem has been balanced since classic. A very exciting ability to watch in action if you use it in Act 1 Normal Blood Moor.

Fire Summoning Damage

The Fire golem does 100 physical and 100 fire damage whenever it dies, is unsummoned, or replaced by another golem. Poisonmancers enjoy having 1 point in Fire Golem to use it for finishing off other players when they've reached 1 hit point. Otherwise, this effect is pretty worthless when enemy HP climbs into the thousands at higher difficulties and there appears to be no way to enhance it other than lowering resists.

Fire Absorb

Since it’s immune to fire damage, there is nothing for the fire golem to absorb unless it is being attacked by something with resist lowering gear or a hefty conviction aura and you don’t have Summon Resist yet (which would make it immune to conviction presumably). Strange but truly worthless.

Possibilities

See above for what poisonmancers can do with it.

Standing in town and irritating (but not really hurting) fire sorcs during duels.

Putting a full 100 points into it then clenching fists and screaming upwards, "Why Blizzard!? WHYYYYyyyyyy!!!!?"

 

[Mad Mantis]

So... What's "metal" and what's not?

Well this is what I got from the AS:

You can only create Iron Golems from metal items, and you cannot make them from Clubs, Wands, Crystal Swords, Gloves, Belts, Throwing Weapons, Staves, Bows, Crossbows, Quest Items, Jewelry, Leather Armor and Leather Boots.

From what I can tell this seems to be a pretty accurate list.

 

[Pherdnut]

Ew... I really edited a lot of redundancy into the Clay Golem slow stuff. Wish I'd caught that last night.

I thought I had that list in there MM, but I must have taken it out at some point. I don't know why.

 

[RTB]

Base Stats

Damage: 2 - 5
Attack Rating: 60
Defense: 20
Hit Points: 100/183/288

Slows Effect: 11%
Immune to Life Leech
Synergy to other Golems: +20 to attack/level

Here's a runthrough of how the skill Clay Golem is set up:
He has an aura using the stat item_slow, which slows as if it came from an item. Range unknown, but problably 1 yard. The aura hits whenever he's damaged in melee, thus the melee range of the monster that hit him is used to see if that monster is slowed is my guess.
Skill FR/W from Golem Mastery
+ar from Golem Mastery (+25/Slvl) and from itself (+20/Slvl)

skill ed% from this formulaar2 * (lvl - 1) + (skill('FireGolem'.blvl)*skill('FireGolem'.par8))
Simplifies to:
0.35 * (Slvl - 1) + (0.06 * baseSlvl_FireGolem)

+35 defense from Iron Golem per Slvl (base)
1 Clay Golem max (modders love to adjust this kinda stats :teeth: )
15 mana cost base, +3 mana cost per Slvl
Can be cast in Town

"hp% adjustment":
(100+(par1 * (lvl - 1)))*(100+skill('Golem Mastery'.ln12) + (skill('BloodGolem'.blvl)*skill('BloodGolem'.par8)))/100-100
Long formula, simplifies to this:
(0.65 + 0.35Slvl) * (1 + .2Slvl_GolemMastery) + (0.05 * baseSlvl_BloodGolem) - 1
Which is interesting, since the bonus from Golem Mastery multiplies the life% bonus from the Clay Golem skill, and the Blood Golem synergy only multiplies the base life. When maxed, the Blood Golem synergy adds 110 life in hell.

Formula for the slow%:
0.75 * ((110*lvl) / (lvl+6))

Clay golem synergy: +20

Onto the monster Clay Golem:
Clay Golem uses standard NecroPet AI, same as Skeletons for example.

Base walk and run speed of Clay Golem: 5.33 yards/sec
Mlvl of Clay golem = Clvl of Caster (99% sure on this.)
Threat = 11, higher is more dangerous aka more prone to be attacked. Players are at 10, hirelings at 11.

Clay Golem can open doors

No leech of any kind works.

50% slowdown by cold in all difficulties.

Resistances I already posted.

1365.33 frames from empty to full health, which is 54.61 seconds.

Block Chance = 21%, although it needs to have a blocking animation, which I don't know if it has one.

5% chance for critical

Base HP: 100 in normal, 175 in NM, 275 in hell
100 defense in all difficulties (may also depend on the Clvl of caster, will test when I can do a full test on all golems)

Base dmg normal
attack 1: 2 - 5
attack 2: 4 - 7
base ar normal: 40

Base dmg NM
attack 1: 2 - 6
attack 2: 5 - 10
base ar NM: 66

Base dmg Hell
attack 1: 3 - 7
attack 2: 6 - 11
base ar Hell: 92

*Slow in Hell and Nightmare

While I'm not clear on the details, chill and slow effects do appear to get reduced in Hell. Fortunately, attacks from different types of slowing abilities continue to stack, so hitting enemies with every source you have is still very effective. Hitting bosses with decrepify, your clay golem, and chilling attacks (typically from a merc or a skeleton mage) will almost completely cripple bosses in normal and nightmare and significantly slow them down in Hell. Necros can take on any boss with ease using this combination.

Chill effect is reduced in NM and hell, not slow.

Information overkill?

 

[Pherdnut]

Info overkill appreciated.

Oops. I think I let a BG synergy creep into my nightmare and hell base damages.

So the CG slow effect: Monster hits CG and he pulses a slow effect with a radius we're not certain of? How is it that he seems to slow bosses right away? Do they just smack him once the second he gets close? It seems like he slows Baal right away but I haven't noticed Baal having to strike him first.

Shouldn't a maxed BG synergy be doubling whatever the base damage is in any given difficulty? 110 seems low in Hell.

What would you need an MLevel on a golem for? Doesn't that just dictate item rarity?

What did you guys think of the items I added in for IG?

Alright. I think we're getting close, especially if RTB pulls stats for the other three. Fix list so far:

Clean up all redundant crap in Clay Golem ability descriptions

Fix Base life stats for CG.

Add all damage rates for CG or just put in "Negligible."

Add run/walk rate.

Add healing rate to CG (are other golems the same?)

Add threat value and comparisons to character and Merc in Monster Magnet section (if all golems have the same TV I may move this section to general golem section). What's the TV of skeletons and Raised enemies I wonder?

Fix slow effect being reduced in Hell misinformation (Decrep must be reduced severely in Hell then). So maybe Arreat is right about that 75% curse effect reduction in Hell thing, because the decrep/gumby combo definitely doesn't cripple bosses nearly as bad in Hell as it does in nightmare or normal).

Add acceptable IG item types back in.

 

[RTB]

Info overkill appreciated.

Good. :evil:

Oops. I think I let a BG synergy creep into my nightmare and hell base damages.

If that was meant at my dmg values, then no. These are correct. Base dmg taken straight out of monstats.txt.

So the CG slow effect: Monster hits CG and he pulses a slow effect with a radius we're not certain of? How is it that he seems to slow bosses right away? Do they just smack him once the second he gets close? It seems like he slows Baal right away but I haven't noticed Baal having to strike him first.

I know... it doesn't seem to make sense. The most logical explanation is that he does both. Slowing when hit and on attack.

Shouldn't a maxed BG synergy be doubling whatever the base damage is in any given difficulty? 110 seems low in Hell.

5% life per Slvl, 100% for Slvl 20. Indeed, I was wrong, it's +275 life in hell.

What would you need an MLevel on a golem for? Doesn't that just dictate item rarity?

Chance to (be) hit.

Alright. I think we're getting close, especially if RTB pulls stats for the other three.

Right... expect a double/triple/quadruple/quintuple post then for other stats.

Add healing rate to CG (are other golems the same?)

Yes.

Add threat value and comparisons to character and Merc in Monster Magnet section (if all golems have the same TV I may move this section to general golem section). What's the TV of skeletons and Raised enemies I wonder?

You better provide a list of monsters, since getting them all is rather extreme with 705 entries in monstats.txt. Necroskellies and mages are at 10. All golems are at 11.

Fix slow effect being reduced in Hell misinformation (Decrep must be reduced severely in Hell then). So maybe Arreat is right about that 75% curse effect reduction in Hell thing, because the decrep/gumby combo definitely doesn't cripple bosses nearly as bad in Hell as it does in nightmare or normal).

Hell Meph has innate IAS/FCR so don't mind him. It should slow all the other bosses at the exact same percentage as their lower difficulty clones.

 

[RTB]

Bloody/Iron Golem stats

All golems:
can open doors
casting of any golem may be interrupted
slow down by 50% when chilled
have a 5% chance to critical hit

Blood Golem skills.txt
Three auraevents, for the take dmg/heal part...

Same skill FR/W for the Blood Golem from mastery.

+25 ar per SLvl Golem Mastery, +20 ar Clay Golem.

skill ed%:
par4 * (lvl - 1) + (skill('FireGolem'.blvl)*skill('FireGolem'.par8))
35(Slvl-1) + 6 * baseSlvl_FireGolem
Divide by 100 for easy multiplication... should've done this at Clay Golem too.

+35 defense per Slvl of base Iron Golem.

25 mana cost, 4 mana per Slvl

hp% adjustment:
20*Slvl_GolemMastery

Formula for life stolen:
0.75 * ((110*lvl) / (lvl+6)) + 75

30% of life stolen is sent to caster, so it heals only 70% of the dmg itself.

10% of damage taken by golem is sent to caster, it takes 90% dmg.

25% of caster health healing is sent to golem. You can heal a Blood Golem with a life potion.

Blood Golem monstats.txt
walk/run speed = 6 yards/sec
100% leech effeciency aka it can be leeched from.
31% chance to block if it has a block animation

Base life in normal: 201
Base life in NM: 388
Base life in hell: 637
defense: 120

Dmg in normal:
attack 1: 6 - 16
attack 2: 12 - 24
ar: 60

Dmg in NM:
attack 1: 9 - 23
attack 2: 17 - 35
ar: 104

Dmg in Hell:
attack 1: 10 - 27
attack 2: 20 - 41
ar: 148

Iron Golem skills.txt
uses Thorns state as aura with own percentages
fade 16? something with etherealness I guess.
+25 ar per Slvl Golem Mastery, +20 ar from Clay Golem
+35 defense per Slvl of itself
skill ed = 6 * baseSlvl_FireGolem
35 mana cost fixed.
hp% adjustment:
skill('Golem Mastery'.ln12) + (skill('BloodGolem'.blvl)*skill('BloodGolem'.par8))
20*Slvl_GolemMastery + 5*baseSlvl_BloodGolem

thorns%: 135+15*Slvl

Iron Golem monstats.txt
walk/run speed: 6 yards/sec
41% chance to block if it has a block animation, should be tested with shield as item to see interaction.
base life in normal: 306
base life in NM: 595
base life in Hell: 980
140 defense

base dmg in normal:
attack 1: 7 - 19
attack 2: 15 - 29
ar: 80

base dmg in NM:
attack 1: 11 - 30
attack 2: 23 - 45
ar: 138

base dmg in hell:
attack 1: 12 - 33
attack 2: 25 - 49
ar: 197

 

[Sszark]

I have some questions, but first I'd like to give a big "thanks for nothing" to the genius who decided IM shouldn't work with Blood Golems. No person on earth, cognizant of the facts, now thinks Blizzard plays their own games.


Is it Amplify Damage or Lower resist that helps Fire Golems now? In 1.09 and past it was AD. The Arreat Summit says it's now LR, but they are typically incorrect. I am talking about their attack, not summon/death explosion.

Is the FG fire aura stuck at one level, or does it get stronger as you put points in him? I found this in an old skills.txt
"Holy Fire Aura level 1 Plus Holy Fire Aura level"

Does the aura add to his attack damage in the same way the paladin aura does, or is it already included in his "on screen" damage (the damage listed when you put the cursor over the skill)?

So FGs are immune to fire, and do not absorb? Lame.

Is the Blood Golem synergy to other golems simply added to Golem Mastery bonus? In other words, L20 BG + L1 GM = 120% life for other golems?

Where are you getting this monstats.txt information? I did a search and didn't find anything that lets me extract this.

Thanks

 

[Mad Mantis]

Is it Amplify Damage or Lower resist that helps Fire Golems now? In 1.09 and past it was AD. The Arreat Summit says it's now LR, but they are typically incorrect. I am talking about their attack, not summon/death explosion.

Welcome Newcomer to The Darkness. Grab a brew and feel free to raise some corpses.

FG now does Fire damage, so you need LR.

Is the FG fire aura stuck at one level, or does it get stronger as you put points in him?

It does increase in skill level, but it won't do a lot of damage because it lacks synergies.

 

[Pherdnut]

Actually, I've been looking at the numbers. I think the Blood Golem will work okay against melee attackers. If the thorns multiplier multiplies its own damage you won't even need fire golem synergies. With FG synergies it should be fine since it averages around 200 before plus skills. It's just a lot of points to put into something that's that vulnerable to elemental and ranged attacks. They should have given him higher resists.

I was watching gumby in action last night and he definitely slows when he hits. You can tell because he slows magic ranged attackers and enemies that haven't hit him yet. Can't tell if there is a radius effect yet but watching him vs. a horde of fallen should help figure that one out.

I think I'm going to have make a skellimancer with some golemage going on to see some of this stuff in action.

 

[Sszark]

Thanks for the welcome. Sory for the question about the fire aura not upgrading; it seems you can find that out by simply point the mouse at the fire golem tab. Yes, it's been that long since I've made one. I'm making a new Golemancer to replace the one that got erased.

I'm almost certain the CG only slows the one enemy he is attacking in addition to those that attack him.

Because of the noises he makes when he walks, the proper Blood Golem name is Gushy or Gloopy.

It used to possible to townkill by summoning the Fire Golem. I don't know if it still works.

 

[Pherdnut]

I wouldn't dump all your points into golems if you're talking about making one in 1.10. IGs have some interesting utility and Clay Golems rock but you'll need something else to actually kill monsters with. They just don't lay on enough hurt. Keep in mind, even the Fallen in Hell have hitpoints in the thousands. meatier enemies have HP in the tens of thousands in later acts. Do you really want to put everything you've got into a fire golem that kills Fallen in 2-3 hits in Hell difficulty?

 

[RTB]

Fire Golem skills.txt

Additional fire resist = 100 - Fire Absorb
Without Summon Resist, you can get a Fire Golem to Absorb, but as you can see it's not easy at all. With summon resist, it's impossible.

Fire absorb:
0.75 * ((110*lvl) / (lvl+6)) + 25

Added fire dmg:
base: 10 - 27
Slvl 2 - 8: +9 min, +10 max per Slvl
Slvl 9 - 16: +10 min, +11 max per Slvl
Slvl 17 - 22: +11 min, +12 max per Slvl
Slvl 23 - 28: +12 min, +13 max per Slvl
Slvl 29+ : +13 min, +14 max per Slvl

Standard synergy stuff, nothing weird there.

Holy Fire Slvl = 7 + Slvl, capped at 30.

Mana cost: 50 +10Slvl

Hp% adjustment:
20*Slvl_GolemMastery + 5*baseSlvl_BloodGolem

Fire Golem monstats.txt
run/walk speed: 6.67 yards/sec
50% chance to block if it has a shield.
Base life in normal: 313
Base life in NM: 613
Base life in Hell: 1013
Base defense: 200

physical dmg in normal:
attack 1: 10 - 27
attack 2: 21 - 41
ar: 120

Physical dmg in NM:
attack 1: 15 - 39
attack 2: 30 - 60
ar: 209

Physical dmg in Hell:
attack 1: 18 - 47
attack 2: 35 - 71
ar: 298

When attacking the Fire Golem has a 80% chance of adding 5 - 10 fire dmg to attack1 in normal. In NM and Hell it has a 80% chance to add nothing.

The in-game listed fire dmg is really weird. It apparantly has the physical dmg added in, but it still shows more than it should. Really weird:

Normal:		NM:		Hell:
physical
10 - 27		15 - 39		18 - 47
21 - 41		30 - 60		35 - 71
fire
10 - 27		10 - 27		10 - 27
shown dmg:
44 - 90		49 - 102	52 - 110 (Slvl 1)

 

[Pherdnut]

Well if you have no plus skill items whatsoever enemies with maxed Conviction and a high LR curse might reduce an FG's summon resist level immunity enough for some absorb to happen. But then with 12,000 HP all healing back in less than a minute, I'm not sure absorb is really all that necessary even in Hell.

Question on conviction: When a player with conviction at -150 breaks an immunity of 120, what is that monster's remaining resistance? Do the points that get divided by 5 get "used up" leaving only -45% (21 points to get it down to 99%, 9 remaining *5 = 45) remaining or do you just subtract 150 from 120?

Is the monster's new resist at 55% or -30%?

 

[Sszark]

I wouldn't dump all your points into golems if you're talking about making one in 1.10.

I'm not concerned about running roughshod over the acts. As far as I know, the Golemancer's mantra has always been "my strength through others". I know the build will be underpowered.

The only Golem that's really useful is clay. I have made an explodecro and he suffered greatly in the 1.10 transition. Monsters are so powerful in later difficulties that one of any Golem alone won't cut it.

I plan to use revives and have a mercenary with either thorns or might.

Are you sure the FG regerates that fast? I thought only the CG did that.

So the fire golem absorb isn't a bug, just bad coding. What a waste.

 

[RTB]

Pherdnut: the 1/5th reduction is kept even if the immunity is broken, and would even limit Lower Resist if it was cast on a monster with a broken immunity.

Sszark: Same regeneration speed for all golems. The Fire Golem is weird.

 

[rickcarson]

Actually, I've been looking at the numbers. I think the Blood Golem will work okay against melee attackers. If the thorns multiplier multiplies its own damage you won't even need fire golem synergies. With FG synergies it should be fine since it averages around 200 before plus skills. It's just a lot of points to put into something that's that vulnerable to elemental and ranged attacks. They should have given him higher resists.

FG synergies add enhanced damage. Additional levels of Blood Golem *also* add enhanced damage - about 35% per level.

So the 20 * 6% = 120% extra damage is applied to the base damage, regardless of any additional levels of blood golem.

So thats +120% to 6-16. That'll add what 7-18 points.

So lets say you have a level 20 Blood Golem (45-122 damage). If you then add 20 levels of Fire Golem Synergy, it will increase to a whopping:

52-140

woohoo! don't spend it all at once!

So no, Blood Golem won't work in melee.

 

[rickcarson]

Just a quick note about the preferred golem for damage return builds:

the original post suggests Clay Golem is clearly superior.

In fact, it is the Fire Golem which is *obviously* clearly superior for damage return builds.

Arguably, if the damage return was based on Iron Maiden, not Thorns, then even an Iron Golem would be superior to the Clay Golem.

-----

More Golem weirdness:
The Iron Golem synergy bonus to defense is based on total level of skill (ie *including* +skills)

@RTB could you confirm that is actually the case, or is it just the character screen lying?

-----

@RTB
About the Fire Golem's attack damage - if it does have a genuine Holy Fire Aura, then won't that add additional fire damage to its attack? Is that included in the numbers or excluded?

I took your numbers, and here is what I came up with:

Level 20 Fire Golem Damage

phys hell
18-47
35-71

fire hell
10-27

Slvl 2 - 8: +9 min, +10 max per Slvl
+63-70

Slvl 9 - 16: +10 min, +11 max per Slvl
+80-88

Slvl 17 - 22: +11 min, +12 max per Slvl
+44-48

----

Total Golem Fire Damage
min max
10 27
63 70
80 88
44 48
-------
197 233

Level 27 Holy Fire Aura
204-216

Total Fire Damage
min max
197 233
204 216
-------
401 449

So the final figure of 401-449 added Fire Damage matches the number listed on Chippydip, whereas with the Arreat Summit's 411-476, if we subtract out 401-449, we see that we are left with 10-27, which looks like the base physical (in normal) just got lumped in with the rest of the damage.