Is Minion Instability working as intended?

Part of the problem is that there is no middle ground with minion instability. either your minions have loads of hp and are really powerful or they have next to none and get 1-2 shoted by mobs.

Why not have it so it makes them explode on death? It will make the weak early game better and will have no effect on the late game when you have buffed their HP. Or if minion instability is too powerful in the late game change the skill to something like "Minions are summoned with 20% less health. In exchange they explode on death dealing 100% of their HP in fire damage." You can change the 20% to what ever fits for game balance.

I just want a skill I can rely on not something that happens 50% of the time.

Explode on death isn't a tradeoff, it's just free damage.
That being said, most of the newer keystones are leaning toward free damage instead of tradeoffs, so take from that what you will.

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pneuma wrote:

Explode on death isn't a tradeoff, it's just free damage.
That being said, most of the newer keystones are leaning toward free damage instead of tradeoffs, so take from that what you will.

I agrre with this that they should NOT explode on death for exactly this reason - a keystone should be a tradeoff (in this case: to get them to explode you have to spec somewhat into minions so that they don't get 1-shotted and you greatly reduce the lifetime of them (since they explode with possibly still 34% life left))

Though i would like to ask you pneuma which keystones do you mean with this 'free' damage? IMHO only Iron grip would be such a keystone (and it is not neccessary close to your path so you need to think if it is worth using all those passive skill points - depending on how much strenght you have) and maybe Pain attunement, but it gives spell damage, so you need to have a caster and to get benefits from it you can't take CI (so it has kind of a tradeoff IMHO)

Iron Grip, Pain Attunement, Hex Master, Whispers of Doom, Arrow Dodging, and Conduit are the "no downside" keystones.

Use this test: "If this keystone were forced on me, would I have to do anything different?"

For Pain Attunement, imagine a map that has "players have Pain Attunement". All that means is that you get more spell damage when you're low, and no downside otherwise.

For Iron Grip, given that it's extremely easy to reach 100 strength from gear alone, just consider it a 20%+ bow physical damage node.

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pneuma wrote:

Iron Grip, Pain Attunement, Hex Master, Whispers of Doom, Arrow Dodging, and Conduit are the "no downside" keystones.

Use this test: "If this keystone were forced on me, would I have to do anything different?"

For Pain Attunement, imagine a map that has "players have Pain Attunement". All that means is that you get more spell damage when you're low, and no downside otherwise.

For Iron Grip, given that it's extremely easy to reach 100 strength from gear alone, just consider it a 20%+ bow physical damage node.

Maps AFAIK can give you only stuff like blood magic, where you think twice if you don't have the right build...

So i would rather think along the lines: would i take this keystone if i get close to it with my build (eventhough it has nothing to do with it)

-About Pain Attunement - sa i said if you use no or nearly no spells you won't take it, if you are a spell user and NOT going CI than yes use it, but CI makes it useless (and i would say most pure spell casters go CI).
-I agree with Iron Grip.
-I kinda agree about Conduit - though if you play solo, you'll never take it (also you need to get some charges to share them, but i guess most people use them)
-Arrow dodging has no downside because even with it you'll alsmot never evade archers, because they have quite insane accuracy, and any pure eva build needs it (to get at least a minimal chance)
-the curse keystones: again i partly agree, but they are a bit out of the way and Hex master is no big bonus (most stuff die before the end of the curse and recasting it isn't that expensive either) and Whisperer needs those 3 more passive, which might be nearly useless for you (and you have to have curses in 2 hotkeys...)

EDIT: sorry for the OT post... maybe this would deserve its own topic?

To get back on topic - i think that MI is 'perfect' as it is with its downsides and tradeoffs

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pneuma wrote:

Explode on death isn't a tradeoff, it's just free damage.
That being said, most of the newer keystones are leaning toward free damage instead of tradeoffs, so take from that what you will.

You didn't read my post did you?

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andythebomb wrote:

change the skill to something like "Minions are summoned with 20% less health. In exchange they explode on death dealing 100% of their HP in fire damage." You can change the 20% to what ever fits for game balance.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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DSWBeef wrote:

SOmething ive noticed is that if my skeles get one shotted right after summon they dont explode. Is this intended or being addressed in the 9.12 minion patch?

That's intended. Minion instability makes them explode if they're reduced to low life (<35%), not if they're killed. If they die in one hit without first going to low life, they're already dead before they'd have a chance to explode.

Does it still work like this? I've read some stuff on Reddit that it apparently got changed, but cant find any confirmation.