Minion life leech nodes worth it?

I am a zombie mancer btw.

So there is one node that is 0.6% minion damage life leech and another that is 0.2%. So a total of 0.8% of minion damage leeched back to them as life is possible from the passive tree. My question is are these worth it? I obviously would mix them with 4%+ life regen from other passives. But I just don't have a good way of seeing if it's worth it to keep the leech or drop them and invest in more life regen for my minions instead. The only viable place for the leech would be against bosses obviously, so has anyone tested this by chance?

Well I decided to try and test this myself. I ran a Tier 13 Colosseum map twice, since zombies have trouble with the boss on this one because of the red damage over time stuff he spawns.

With only 4% regen, 2% from ascend and 2% from passives: My zombies health dropped down into the 25% and lower range while whacking the boss and sitting in the red zones.

With the same 4% regen and the 0.8% life steal: My zombies stayed at around 50% health and thus survived the red zones a bit better.


In the end it may just be better to avoid the two life steal nodes altogether and take more zombie life + the extra regen nodes to reach 7% life regen for zombies, but the life steal definitely made a small impact regardless.

NOTE: This was tested in a six link that used a 20% / lvl 20 minion life skill gem. So if you're planning on running zombies without the minion life gem you will get instantly shredded and killed in most higher tier maps. GGG either nerfed the zombies, or raised mob damage significantly in 3.6. Maybe both. But minion life seems to be necessary at this point, even though it never was before.

Third Test

Colosseum map again

I couldn't get the last 0.5% cause I'm out of skill points, but it would be 2,896 life regen per second if you have my zombie life.

With only 6.5% life regen & zombie life at 41,369, for a total of 2,689 life regen per second: The zombies performed almost exactly the same as 4% life regen + 0.8% life leech.

So in conclusion you do have options of what nodes you would like to take. I think obviously the max 7% life regen + 0.8% life leech would be optimal if you can somehow work it into your build.