Question on totems and minions

I have searched old posts and gotten conflicting answers to this question:
If I have a totem summon minions such as SRS or Skeletons, will putting passive tree points into totem damage nodes improve the damage of the minions?

Posts that say yes argue that the -50% damage modifier on totems works on minions, so bonus to totem damage would work on minions.
Posts that say no argue that only +minion damage nodes improve minion damage.

What is right?

Thank you for your time.

in terms of passive investment only minion nodes work for minions regardless of what you do to summon them.


the 50% less mod on spell totem might affect the minions in the same manner a melee physical gem effects zombies, supports apply their changes directly to your actives gems

passives direct their changes to you.

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

The 50% less mod on spell totem might affect the minions in the same manner a melee physical gem effects zombies, supports apply their changes directly to your actives gems

Sadly, it does affect them. I don't agree with that particular decision personally because summoning a minion does no damage and therefore damage penalty on totem shouldn't apply just like damage multiplier on trap gem doesn't. However, devs feel that interaction was in the best interest of the game because totems are used in different manner than traps, so rules were bent slightly in that context.

which is sad because spell totem is shit

Yeah, that's why I said 'bent' instead of 'broken', probably still didn't come across properly.

Of course, strictly speaking, no rule is really broken or bent and wording is perfectly clear, the general idea is just a bit off. We got a temporary entity that affects only damage of the effect itself and another one that gives a general penalty.

I know devs did it because totem and traps have different roles in the game, with totem offering multiple uses of the skill per cast which justifies them behaving differently. That's a valid way to go about it, I just personally think it was unnecessary and there were better ways to pull it off.