worth investing skills into iron golem?

been using clay for ages, works well, almost never dies, but want to try out Iron Golem on Insight or some crushing blow gears, been hearing they just disappear from time to time, wondering has this been fixed in D2R? I had several brief tries out of some Windhammer, they do die rather quickly, for now its just one point into Iron Golem (current skill level for Iron Golem is 18), if I want to make Iron Golem viable, how many points I need to invest into Golem Mastery and Iron Golem, my total bonus points are 17, for my current skill distribution, Clay Golem is 27 (10+17), Golem Mastery is 20 (3+17).

One point is all you need for Iron Golem, so place your spare points into mastery. + skills will give him some defense, but the life gain from mastery is more important.

As for any bugs with golems vanishing: the only thing I can suggest is to make sure you don't let him wander too far away off screen.

Even if Golem wanders they don't disappear anymore Last patch fixed that ( and the merc melee bug ). Personally with both my necros ( Poison and Summoner 92 & 90 ) I put my left over points into Iron Golem. My act 2 merc uses all kinds of polearms Pride ( Terrible for summoner BTW) Ebotd, Infinity etc. And my Iron Golem use to be left over uniques from Diablo n Baal but I make cheap Insights and turn him into that. Only time he's died was to Hell cows getting circled and split off from me besides when I get clapped by the souls in Worldstone. Haven't noticed any significant damage between Elite bases and Basic ones for damage on him but like I said I have had him die once of natural consequences every other time has been from me dying. And at the price of a 4os Scythe no one's gonna pick up and Ral Tir Tal Sol runes why not ? Merc does 3-8000dmg with better polearm and the 7 skeletons I can make with my 1 hard point make good meat Shields. I totally would recommend after maxing your major skills a few extra points into I.G. But trying to level with Iron Golem, would not recommend. And make sure to B.O. him cause he always ( ALWAYS ) is the first one into a fight, but like I said even out of a plain Scythe he tanks Hell Diablo and Baal no problem for me.

I'm not a fan of Iron Golem. To me, Clay Golem is where its at. There are a few big reasons.

#1 Golem positioning can be very important. The only real way to position your Golem is to recast it. You can't re-cast an Iron Golem (well you can but..).

#2 I've never relied on Golems for damage. Maybe that will change in 2.4? The point of Iron Golem is to try and get it to do damage, but to me this has always been a fool's game. I'd rather just let the Clay Golem slow things down and use other sources of damage. Again, maybe the changes to Golems and Thorns will change this equation?

And the Clay Golem is worth investing in, at least 5 or so points, depending on the build, because it increases the slowing effect. But overall I like a Golem I can just re-cast at will, and the Iron Golem doesn't fit that Bill.

just a little update, I end up going with an Insight Iron Golem, I specifically respeced just for that, so far, I've been very happy with that, the golem is being quiet tanky, I've been going around all over the places in hell, facing packs of dolls and deadly souls, the golem's been going all good, the thing is, ever since I brought IG with me, I hardly ever drink a bottle of mana portion, now I can just spam Teleport and CE without worrying the mana, so overall been very happy with the move, I have multiple colossus voulges just in case.

weegee wrote: 4 years ago

just a little update, I end up going with an Insight Iron Golem, I specifically respeced just for that, so far, I've been very happy with that, the golem is being quiet tanky, I've been going around all over the places in hell, facing packs of dolls and deadly souls, the golem's been going all good, the thing is, ever since I brought IG with me, I hardly ever drink a bottle of mana portion, now I can just spam Teleport and CE without worrying the mana, so overall been very happy with the move, I have multiple colossus voulges just in case.

Like I said I only had 1 time he actually got killed from going "Leroy Jenkins" in cows. Usually it's me that'll die and have to make new one but those are very few and far between. Just keep couple 4os polearms in stash. Sucks when you use last one and have to use mana pots again. Lol. And I only have 5 hard points into golem. I spread what I get now between Summon res and Golem Mastery for him and my 7 Skeleton meat Shields for my poisonmancer.