Animate Guardian - Path of Exile

Animate Guardian is an active skill gem.

Animates a melee weapon or armour, attaching it to an invisible Guardian that fights by your side. Animating multiple items attaches them to the same Guardian. You cannot animate unidentified items. Cannot be used by Traps or Mines.

Spell, Minion, Physical. Level: 1–20. Cost: 11–20 Mana. Cast Time: 0.60 sec. Requires Level 28.

(0–76)% increased Minion Maximum Life
Can use Items requiring up to Level (33–100)
Minions" Attacks deal (32–126) to (47–184) additional Physical Damage
Minions deal (0–76)% increased Physical Damage with Melee Attacks

Place into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket.

Name	Additional Effects From Quality	Weight
Animate Guardian	Minions have (0–40)% increased Movement Speed	50

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Related Gems

Name	Additional Effects From Quality	Weight
Animate Guardian	Minions have (0–40)% increased Movement Speed	50
Anomalous Animate Guardian	Minions have (0–60)% increased Area of Effect	100
Divergent Animate Guardian	(0–40)% increased Minion Maximum Life	100

Level Effect

Level	Requires Level	Strength	Intelligence	Cost	Can use Items requiring up to Level 33	#% increased Minion Maximum Life	Minions deal #% increased Physical Damage with Melee Attacks	Minions' Attacks deal 32 to 47 additional Physical Damage	Experience
1	28	42	29	11	33			32, 47	199,345
2	31	46	32	11	36	4	4	37, 54	285,815
3	34	50	35	12	39	8	8	42, 61	401,344
4	37	54	37	13	43	12	12	47, 69	554,379
5	40	58	40	13	46	16	16	52, 76	477,437
6	42	60	42	14	48	20	20	57, 83	583,786
7	44	63	44	14	51	24	24	62, 90	710,359
8	46	66	46	15	53	28	28	67, 97	1,355,511
9	48	68	48	15	56	32	32	72, 105	1,138,877
10	50	71	49	15	58	36	36	77, 112	1,368,233
11	52	74	51	16	61	40	40	81, 119	1,638,338
12	54	76	53	16	63	44	44	86, 126	1,956,648
13	56	79	55	17	66	48	48	91, 134	3,655,184
14	58	82	57	17	68	52	52	96, 141	3,017,327
15	60	84	59	18	71	56	56	101, 148	7,759,995
16	62	87	60	18	73	60	60	106, 155	15,138,193
17	64	90	62	18	76	64	64	111, 162	26,083,825
18	66	92	64	19	79	68	68	116, 170	62,620,247
19	68	95	66	19	82	72	72	121, 177	211,708,088
20	70	98	68	20	100	76	76	126, 184
21	72			20	100	80	80	131, 191
22	74			21	100	84	84	136, 198
23	76			21	100	88	88	141, 206
24	78			21	100	92	92	146, 213
25	80			22	100	96	96	151, 220
26	82			22	100	100	100	156, 227
27	84			23	100	104	104	161, 234
28	86			23	100	108	108	166, 242
29	88			24	100	112	112	171, 249
30	90			24	100	116	116	175, 256
31	91			24	100	118	118	178, 260
32	92			25	100	120	120	180, 263
33	93			25	100	122	122	183, 267
34	94			25	100	124	124	185, 271
35	95			25	100	126	126	188, 274
36	96			25	100	128	128	190, 278
37	97			26	100	130	130	193, 281
38	98			26	100	132	132	195, 285
39	99			26	100	134	134	198, 289
40	100			26	100	136	136	200, 292

Animate Guardian is a spell, animating weapons and armour on the ground to form an allied minion.

Skill functions and interactions

Using this skill on an identified item on the ground creates an Animated Guardian that moves and attacks similar to a zombie. Similar to Spectres and unlike other minions, a Guardian stays with you even after logging off and on. If you unequip the skill gem, the Guardian disappears until you equip the gem again, at which point the same Guardian (retaining all its equipment) reappears after casting the spell again. This also holds true when swapping a different AG gem in. Socketing the gem in a weapon or shield slot allows you to recall the Guardian at will by switching weapon sets (default hotkey: X).

You can only have one Guardian at a time. It can be equipped with a helmet, body armour, pair of gloves, pair of boots, a shield, and melee weapons. Ranged weapons cannot be animated, similar to Animate Weapon. Items can be of any rarity, but must be identified and on the ground to be used. Animated items are consumed by the spell and cannot be recovered. Items containing skill gems cannot be animated, so the Guardian cannot use trigger gems.

Items that have modifiers like +x to Maximum life or +x% increased Attack Speed, and even corrupted implicits, apply to the Guardian the same way they apply to player characters; so animating magic or rare equipment can potentially give you a very powerful minion. Unique items can also be used, giving guardians powerful abilities not found elsewhere in the game. Be careful when using valuable items—anything you give to your guardian is gone forever.

The Guardian uses weapons and shields in the same way as player characters, and can dual wield if two one-handed weapons are animated. If you animate an item type that the Guardian is already using (such as a helmet), the new item will overwrite the old one. Equipping an armour piece restores 25% of its life; equipping one-handed weapons or shields will alternate between left and right hand. You cannot equip two shields.

The Guardian does not share your max amount of curses you can apply to enemies, and therefore functions as a player with the default curse limit when applying curses (through corrupted gloves, for example).

Items: The Guardian's items are tied to the character that summoned it, rather than the gem itself. Equipping a level 1 version of the gem will disable any items the Guardian cannot equip, which will be present again once a high enough level gem is equipped.

Items deleted on Death: When a Guardian dies, all its equipment is deleted and cannot be recovered. This makes it very risky to use powerful or valuable items on an Animated Guardian. It is possible to prevent a body armour worn by a Guardian from being deleted upon Guardian death by crafting the Equipped Animated Guardian drops item on death mod onto it. Note once more that equipment will not be lost upon de-spawning, only death.

Necromantic Aegis: While using Necromantic Aegis your Guardian benefits from its own shield as well as the one you have equipped, allowing it to gain the benefit of two shields at once. Some unique shields can be quite powerful when doubled up this way.If your Guardian is equipped with a two-handed weapon, it will not benefit from your shield.

Player versus Player: Animated Guardians killed in PvP areas will not lose their items. This does not apply to Hall of Grandmasters, even though the map says "PvP damage scaling in effect". In fact, not only is it possible to lose the Guardian's items here, but death is very likely because of the way PvP damage scaling works. Minor enemies can instantly kill a Guardian with 50000+ life in this map, so it is highly recommended to despawn your Guardian before attempting.

Item-Granted Skills: Animated guardians cannot use skills granted by items. Equipping items like Death's Oath, The Rippling Thoughts, or Bubonic Trail will not allow the Guardian to use their associated triggered skills. Fire Burst granted by Essence of Hysteria, even though having no "trigger" or "granted" in its modifier discription, won't work either. The Guardian is not your party member, and will not be able to use abilities like the one found on Ambu's Charge. Effects that apply to nearby allies or enemies, like Leer Cast, Victario's Flight, or Dying Breath, will apply as normal.

Abyssal Sockets: Animate guardians cannot benefit from abyss jewel modifiers. Equipping items like Tombfist or Bubonic Trail with abyss jewel(s) socketed will not grant their modifiers to animate guardian.

Notable items

Life regeneration and percentage increases to life are especially potent on an Animate Guardian because of its huge innate life pool.

The stats displayed in the skills tooltip only accounts for modifiers the skill has, like from the passive tree, jewels, player-equipped items and support gems. It cannot account for further modifiers from things like being affected by an aura, shields through Necromantic Aegis or modifiers from items the AG has equipped. These will not factor into the skills tooltip but are active nonetheless.

Helmet:

Ylfeban's Trickery - Chance to curse enemies on hit. The triggered skill to create shocked ground won't trigger.

Leer Cast - Aura that grants increased damage.

Mask of the Stitched Demon - Massive life regeneration if the AG gets lots of energy shield from other sources like Grave Intentions and Gravicius's signature craft for body armour.

Mask of the Tribunal - Various bonuses depending on the attributes provided to the Animate Guardian from other equipped items or The Baron.

Crown of the Tyrant - Reduces all resistances of nearby enemies and adds global Fire/Cold/Lightning/Chaos damage to nearby allies.

Eye of Malice - Applies Fire and Cold Exposure on hit and magnifies negative enemy resistances.

An influenced helmet with Nearby Enemies take 9% increased <Physical/Elemental> Damage or Nearby Enemies have -9% to <Fire/Cold/Lightning> Resistance. Note that these mods also reduce the defenses of the AG.

Body Armour:

Gruthkul's Pelt - Life, life regeneration and cold resistance.

Blunderbore - Two Shrines effects on animate Guardian. Free knockback aoe & dmg.

Belly of the Beast - Massive percentage increase to life and resistances.

Zahndethus' Cassock - Creates Consecrated Ground when the AG blocks and chaos resistance.

Ambu's Charge - Endurance charges when the AG takes a crit, life and resistances. The AG has no party members, so it will not affect the maximum Endurance Charges of others.

Garb of the Ephemeral - Cannot be slowed and nearby enemies cannot crit.

Bloodbond - Provides life regen and max life. Minions have (20-30)% increased maximum Life and Minions have +(12-15)% chance to Suppress Spell Damage does not affect animate guardian when equipped by him.

Doppelgänger Guise - Life regeneration, and a significant amount of physical damage reduction. Note that Animate Guardian is always treated as sane.

A hunter-influenced body armour with Nearby Enemies are Blinded

Note that Kaom's Heart and other items with +# to maximum Life are of little benefit due to the AG's very high inherent Life. #% increased maximum Life is much more effective.

Gloves:

Southbound - Percentage increase to life and cold resistance. Note that the AG can no longer kill non-frozen enemies with hits.

Meginord's Vise - Life regeneration if the strength requirement is met through other equipped items or the player using The Baron.

Hunter-influenced gloves with % chance to Intimidate Enemies for 4 seconds on Hit or % chance to Unnerve Enemies for 4 seconds on Hit

Redeemer-influenced gloves with % Global chance to Blind Enemies on Hit

Warlord-influenced gloves with Culling strike (alternatively, support Animate Guardian with Culling Strike Support)

Gloves with an Eldritch implicit modifier to maim, extinguish, or apply Exposure on hit

Boots:

Victario's Flight - Aura that grants increased Movement Speed.

Atziri's Step - Life and Chance to Suppress Spell Damage.

Bubonic Trail - Generally more life than Kaom's Roots, 1-2 abyssal socket version does not matter as mentioned above. Animated Guardian does not trigger Death Walk.

Legacy of Fury - applies Scorch on nearby enemies.

Boots with Searing Exarch's implicit mod Drops Brittle Ground while moving, lasting X seconds - applies Brittle near AG.

Weapons and/or Shields:

Singularity - Hinders nearby enemies.

Dying Breath - Aura that grants increased damage and makes curses more effective against affected enemies.

Victario's Charity - Chance to grant Frenzy Charges on hit and Power Charges on kill. (The replica version of this shield give Frenzy charge on kill, and Endurance charge on hit)

The Anticipation - Intimidate enemies on block.

Kingmaker - Hugely beneficial aura that grants increased item rarity, Culling Strike, Critical Strike Multiplier and 10 fortification, with a range of 30 units).

Sign of the Sin Eater - Takes Elemental Ailments instead of you and other Minions. In order to survive being shocked or ignited, the Animate Guardian should be sufficiently tanky. The AG will not use Smite.

Oro's Sacrifice - In combination with Chains of Command

An Influenced weapon with a chance to Intimidate, Unnerve, or inflict Exposure on hit.

Also remember that your Animate Guardian can benefit from Enchantments on Boots and Corruptions.

Item acquisition

Animate Guardian can drop anywhere. Drop level: 28.

Recipes

Animate Guardian can be created from the following recipes:

Amount	Part	Description
6	The Summoner	Random Minion gem with 20% quality
13	The Cataclysm	Random corrupted level 21 Spell gem
6	The Fox	Random level 20 gem
8	Dying Anguish	Random level 19 gem with 19% alternative quality
8	The Hook	Random corrupted level 21 gem with 23% alternative quality
3	Gemcutter's Promise	Random gem with 20% quality
1	Gemcutter's Incubator	Random gem with 1–20% quality
1	The Void	Random divination card set exchange

Vendor reward

This item can be bought at the listed NPC vendors, after completing the following quests:

Class →	Witch	Shadow	Ranger	Duelist	Marauder	Templar	Scion
Quest ↓	Witch	Shadow	Ranger	Duelist	Marauder	Templar	Scion
A Fixture of Fate Act 3 Siosa	✓
Sever the Right Hand Act 3 Clarissa	✓
Fallen from Grace Act 6 Lilly Roth	✓

Monster stats

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Unique items

Item	Level	Stats
Chains of Command	70	Trigger Level 20 Animate Guardian's Weapon when Animated Guardian Kills an Enemy 10% chance to Trigger Level 18 Animate Guardian's Weapon when Animated Weapon Kills an Enemy (150-190)% increased Armour and Energy Shield +(60-90) to maximum Life Animated Guardian deals 5% increased Damage per Animated Weapon Animated Minions' Melee Attacks deal Splash Damage to surrounding targets Animated Minions' Melee Attacks deal 50% less Damage to surrounding targets You cannot have non-Animated Minions

Related helmet enchantments

The following helmet enchantments affect Animate Guardian.

Name	Level	Labyrinth	Stats	Spawn Weighting
Enchantment Animate Guardian Damage 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	Animated Guardians deal 25% increased Damage	helmet 100 default 0
Enchantment Animate Guardian Damage 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	Animated Guardians deal 40% increased Damage	helmet 100 default 0
Enchantment Animate Guardian Elemental Resistances 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	+24% to Animated Guardian Elemental Resistances	helmet 100 default 0
Enchantment Animate Guardian Elemental Resistances 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	+36% to Animated Guardian Elemental Resistances	helmet 100 default 0