Why does everyone think all golems have 20k health. Only all Crystalline golem parts equals 20k health. Most will make Iron Golems. 14k health is Iron Golems.
In relation to the other temporary sorcery thralls I think golems stack up pretty well.
Given that they cannot be healed and they can deflect your blows when fighting around them, they are not the best candidate for the traditional thrall role IMO. However I have found them to be useful in other capacities:
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Gas golems can be devastating to bases where thralls aren’t wearing gas masks. Especially when they teleport into rat nests. They also work pretty well in open field fights if you/your group are prepared for the gas and your opponent are not.
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Lightning head golems can be nasty with the spell for PvE, after many attempts I have not found the spell or this combo very compelling for PvP. Takes a lot of prep to make work.
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Tar golems can really slow down raids, especially when in the company of properly geared fighting thralls. Thank crom you can knock them down and abuse star metal weakness or these would be absurd. When used as followers, dagger users can deal with the slow better than other weapons and exploit this for matchup advantage.
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The Lotus burner provides big buffs. If left on attack nothing you basically get an aura for as long as the golem and the powder can last.
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They can be stored to be deployed at maximum effectiveness during an active raid defense. The only other option for this being zombies.
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They are disposable power, perfect for minimizing risk of loss during various activities.
At minimum I think golems have a more useful implementation than demons. If you are trying to plug and play them like a t4 fighter you are going to be disappointed, but that is the case for all of the sorcery followers. They have their niches, if those aren’t useful to you I would stick with the RHTS.
That’s what I mean. It’s not any weapon in the star metal tier or any weapon that uses star metal to craft it. It’s a short list of specific weapons in the star metal tier. (and apparently a few miscellaneous ones as well) I noticed it because I like using katanas and you might note that the star metal katana is not on that list either.
Plus, as you mentioned, there’s a lingering question about the DLC versions.
You can’t mean the BRIAN that we don’t realize is floating amongst us. BRIAN no animosity it’s been such a long lasting adventure
Thralls > Zombies > Golems > Demons in PVE.
Thralls effectively have infinite HP due to active and passive heals. It is burst damage they are weak against, which can be mitigated by armor and active management by the player.
Without special perks three zombies represent a cheap heavy meatshield with the capacity to have modest buffs via consumables. Zombies can also heal with food - meaning infinite HP - only burst damage is relevant. Three zombies do better against the AI mobs than a singular Golem or Demon.
Iron golems are the staple since farming crystalline is RNG. Some parts are still RNG. Farming is not authentically passive. DPS is very soft. incense perks and head perks are nice, but PVE content is more easily defeated with other options. HP degrades. One world boss fight can take a huge chunk out of a Golem. This makes them set pieces first, companions second.
Demons are in need of a significant buff. Give the different varieties AOEs like Golems, they might be more viable.
Sorcery followers still take up a slot in thralls limit. Do you know how much resources it takes to build and improve golems? Thralls are easier. Every thing but golems had a way to repair their hp.
I am very familiar with how sorcery followers work.
Edit:
I don’t agree that capturing, gearing and leveling an equivalent thrall is easier than building a golem.
Good morning .
It is easier to make a Gollem (you would find parts almost all the time) than to capture an NPC, to bring it on a wheel of the suffering , to equip it and then the meter at levels.
For NPCs in addition to having to knock out this one for captured you should also fight his acolytes present (go get a T4 in the volcano or in the cave of Skelos followers and you would understand what I am talking about).
The Gollen cannot be repaired, of course, but the cost to deploy a Gollen and lower (and many) to the required investment to have a good enslaved NPC.
So I consider normal the fact that he is a handicap in the use of Gollems.
Finding good T4 thralls (except for the guaranteed spawns), knocking them out, pulling them to base and breaking them, as well as leveling them up and crafting a weapon and armor for them is a drain of time and resources.
I probably end up looting parts for a whole golem or two from dead NPCs at the camp where I find the T4 thrall. The only parts I seem to have trouble finding are legs, especially anything above stone.
Easier to farm thralls. Just gear,enchments, proper food. Golems let’s use Iron golems.
Iron Guardian head:
200 Iron Bars
5 Steel Reinforcements
25 Alchemy Base
20 Blood Crystals
Iron Guardian Torso:
500 Iron Bars
10 Steel Reinforcements
50 Alchemy Base
20 Blood Crystals
Iron Guardian Leg:
200 Iron Bars (400 for both legs)
10 Steel Reinforcements (20 for both legs)
25 Alchemy Base (50 for both legs)
20 Blood Crystals (40 for both legs)
Iron Guardian Empty Arm:
200 Iron Bars (400 for both arms)
10 Steel Reinforcements (20 for both arms)
25 Alchemy Base (50 for both arms)
20 Blood Crystals (40 for both arms)
So total without weapons/tools is:
1500 Iron Bars
55 Steel Reinforcements
175 Alchemy Base
120 Blood Crystals
Now onto weapons/tools
Two-handed Steel Great Axe:
5 Branches
30 Steel Bars
Two-handed Steel Sword:
5 Branches
45 Steel
Steel Warhammer:
8 Branches
45 Steel
Steel Sickle:
4 Shape Wood
30 Steel
Crystalline golems use harden Steel as their weapons/tools.
Sure golems can heal. Just make crystalline golem have 5k hp and the lower tier ones have 3k and 1k hp.
sure have ur repairable golem
If we are comparing grocery lists:
Heavy Helmet:
1 Heavy Padding (40 Thick hide)
23 Iron Bar
8 Leather
2 Horn
Heavy Pauldron:
1 Heavy Padding
45 Iron Bar
15 Leather
Heavy Gauntlets:
1 Heavy Padding
23 Iron Bar
8 Leather
Heavy Tasset:
1 Heavy Padding
23 Iron Bar
8 Leather
Steel Greatsword:
5 Branches
45 Steel
Gruel:
5 Plant Fiber * x
1 Seed * x
Total:
150 Iron Bar
51 Leather
200 Thick Leather
2 Horns
5 Branches
45 Steel
5 Plant Fiber * x
1 Seed * x
Now for the actually relevant part.
Time to break a t4 thrall(no Taskmaster):
25h48m40s
Exp to fully level a Hard Exp difficulty thrall:
7,986,075 XP
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It’s fine if you think farming mats and collecting sorcerer/chest drops is harder than finding, breaking, gearing and leveling an actual thrall. I and others don’t agree.
Please give your thralls better gear than that represented above
The blood crystals are the only thing that is harder to collect but if you know where the golems spawn, its real easy to collect 100 BC within a 15 minute window. I figure about 30 minutes in a very conservative mind to collect the 120 needed for iron golems (assuming you do that because stone or iron slag golems only need 5 for each part so one golem would cover this cost completely)
My only issue with golems is the load it puts on the game. While everyone is complaining about getting booted during mob combat, I also experience this when moving into my golem harvesting force where 5 golems are collecting goods under my base. I get booted more regularly when I am next to them vs mob combat at mounds.
To start, make sure my English, I use a translator.
The list giving by Ulyssi only keeps a basic armme, the costs go up quickly for epic armor. You just have to kill or bring sorcerers to Kithan sellers to receive from the alchemical base and steel fires in industrial quantities.
In each NPC camp where there is a sorcerer or a NPC named you will find gollem pieces, sometimes there is up to 2 pieces in the same camp.
I have a big box filled with pieces, with I can without problem build at least 3 gollems and that for free.
Make the Kurrath Dojnon on the earth of exile, for the modhic price of 3 blood cristeaux and you will have a crystal gollen piece (head and plastron) the maximum dungeon 9 minutes.
Have everything in multiples except legs 
. Call him stumpy and let him bounce on his butt.
Additionally: Golems cant benefit from well-trained perk because they cannot heal the difference in the normal and health-bar increased by the well-trained perk.
That’s not entirely true. While they might not be able to get the extra health, Well-Trained does increase the chance of them glancing damage.
See the wiki article for how that works.
The only caveat I’d like to throw in here is that these types of materials are already stuff that established players have so much that they could literally throw it out as garbage by the stack… and that includes the more expensive versions for epic armor.
As such I do consider golems to be more expensive atm because of the blood crystal requirement and not really getting the “bang for your buck”, meaning that even crystalline ones pretty much suck compared to a thrall and a decent one wearing the very basic gear you listed above will still outperform any golem 
If we are approaching this from a case where the basic materials are already covered, I still think a trip to get blood crystals is far less of an investment than time cost of breaking and training a thrall.
My perspective could just be a result of playing the game in PvP mode. ALL thralls are temporary in PvP. Golems are good to go out of the box and if I needed to shit out an army over night, they are a better option than zombies.
I agree a t4 thrall in proper gear will generally out perform any golem, but I don’t think that is their purpose. In terms of expedited temporary power, I think they out perform a lot of options and as listed earlier have a few specific niches.
Edit:
Also FWIW to those on the “golems suck” side, I’d be perfectly happy to see golems buffed. Despite its weakness I’ve run only corrupted and sorcery oriented builds since 3.0 on official PvP because it’s what I enjoy. I just do not think the math is as simple as crystal golem is weaker than RHTS, I’m fighting for the nuance lol.
Yea, I think that has a lot to do with it, since because of their expendable nature you view the leveling process as more of a chore than your average PvE player, that’s for sure 
So in that context “time” definitely becomes more valuable.