Necromancer in progress - questions regarding minons.

It will take a bit for Minions to really get going. As you noticed, especially elemental AoE will wreck their shit for a while.


Helms can roll +1 to Minion Gems as a Prefix (Reanimator's). It's one of the most potent and cheap boosts to a Minion's effectiveness. It starts appearing at item level 14, so Cavern of Wrath is the first area it can naturally drop.
I used this until late Merciless just because it had +1 Minion Gems:

Zombie + Melee Splash + Multistrike. Good stuff. I got lucky with drops :P


Three Gems to look out for:
Desecrate allows you to spawn corpses to raise Zombies (or Spectres) from.
Raise Spectre is another type of Minion that can either really blow, or tear stuff up. I used a bunch of big melee fellows such as bears and Auric Collosi when leveling, but then I found Undying Evangelists in late Act 3 and stuck to those forever more.
Flesh Offering makes your Minions fast. It's absolutely fantastic.

If you want all three Gems, make sure to pick up Desecrate in A2 Normal, Raise Spectre in A3 Normal, and Flesh Offering in A1 Cruel. Otherwise you'll have to rely on either trading, a second character, or sheer luck to get them. :)

Bone Offering is really not required until late into the game, and even then it's situational. Still, if you come across one, not a bad idea to keep it around.
Rejuvenation Totem emits a surprisingly powerful Regen aura. Keeps your minions in the fight longer.

Curses!
Enfeeble makes everything really weak.
Temporal Chains makes monsters slower.
Combine the two and you're pretty much Safe (TM).
Vulnerability is nice if you want your Minions to wreck stuff I guess? Haven't used it on my Summoner, but I can see why people would want it around.


Auras are superb. They grant a huge amount of flexibility. I strongly suggest picking up Reduced Reservation and Increased Effect of Auras from the tree.
Hatred is my bread-and-butter Aura. With all that Increased Effect, it ends up adding around 70% of their Physical Damage as Cold, which is one of the largest boosts you can get for Zombies.
Haste is really good for grinding out easy content. Makes everything faster, simple as that.
Purity of Fire/Cold/Lightning. I almost always have one of these active, sometimes two. It changes depending on the area I'm in. Purity of Elements grants Resistances to all Elements, but doesn't have the Max Resists bonus; I eventually dropped it.
Vitality grants percent-based Regeneration. It's somewhere around 2.5% per second. Useful to combat Damage over Time effects.
Discipline is an interesting option. I used it early on, and it really helps keep Zombies standing upright in Cruel. Ditched it in Merciless though, due to lack of sockets.
Grace should work well with Enfeeble, but I haven't gone and tried it yet because Grace requires a ton of Dex; didn't have enough until recently, and now I'd have to level a Grace gem.


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Mortesh wrote:

you don't have minion instability...

Having your Minions kill themselves when they still have 30% Life isn't always a good thing. I don't really like it either.
(I'm still debating on picking up Hex Master + Whispers, or maybe Life, or maybe Necromantic Aegis, or... I dunno)

"Low Life" means 35% or below. For high-level Minions, that's still a pretty considerable amount of Life.

Additionally, if they are reduced to 0 Life before they can explode, they'll just die as usual. My Zombies really only die to crazy bosses, so odds are they'd be too slow anyways (and if they're not, I'd rather keep them alive just a little longer because there's a crazy boss).

Yes, you can just get more Zombies, but that shit costs Mana.


It's a fine Keystone, and you're free to take it if you like. I'm just saying, I don't like it personally.