A suggestion for Puppeteer to maintain functionality and be more friendly to Perma Zombies

I think the functionality of zombies being corpses is fun for Detonate dead archetypes or to summon spectres of zombies and I am ok with downsides before large power nodes like "Flesh Puppets" but the downside for a conventional Summon zombie build is so severe as to make it a non-option walling away one of the more powerful options for a fairly mediocre build (Zombies). I think just removing the line of text would be a fine stop gap, but I have suggestions to keep the flavor while making it less of a brick wall for the summoner playstyle: Either moving the line of text to "Putrid Conscription" to double up on the theme of minions as detonation targets, or to swap the positions of "Graveyard Shift" and "Flesh puppets" so you can opt into the increased count, move speed and detonate dead targets if you want.

(I made the image last league so it doesn't include the newly buffed nodes which while strong can't fix how bricked Zombies count as corpses can be)

so the idea is to get +5 levels for zombies (roughly double damage and life) without any downside? and double Monty them? and Monarch for double the double?


thats not friendly, it is bonkers

My experience with zombies is that they aren't exactly power houses even min maxed they are topping out at 5mil dps so less than spectres and a lot less than temporary minions.

The current downside is non-viable for any minion build using zombies, it's only usable in Zombie Detonate dead or falling zombie which is fine but super narrow and pigeon holds puppeteer builds a lot.

Even taking the strongest zombie builds I could find from trade league phrecia and giving them +5 to zombies, 15% more strength, and an additional 4 zombies from 30% bonus takes their total damage from 5mil to 10mil and you lose defense doing that, because your ascendancy is literally just minion bonuses and you cant fit the life as bonus es anymore. For comparison before the* changes a comparable animate weapons build are doing about 22-25mil dps and is ranged I think permanent minions should be weaker than temporary ones, but I think the disparity is pretty vast at the moment.

I think tacking on a downside or two is acceptable, less so given that compared to slams/temporary minions/mines/self-cast/brands/wands/manaforged arrow/or some strike skills it is significantly weaker, but something like you can only have zombies, your zombies cannot benefit from your auras so only pride, you cannot use offerings all down power the build if need be.