Minions desperately need buffed damage early game.

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Kozmas#0835 wrote:

In act 2 right now and it's a real slog trying to play a Necromancer. SRS, Zombies, Skeleton Warriors with Pain Offering going feels like a bunch of wet noodles flopping everywhere. I almost exclusively have nothing but minion damage passives to boot. Meh. I was hoping I wouldn't have to, but I'm going to have to wait until they buff minions before coming back. :/

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NumNumer#3935 wrote:

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Kozmas#0835 wrote:

In act 2 right now and it's a real slog trying to play a Necromancer. SRS, Zombies, Skeleton Warriors with Pain Offering going feels like a bunch of wet noodles flopping everywhere. I almost exclusively have nothing but minion damage passives to boot. Meh. I was hoping I wouldn't have to, but I'm going to have to wait until they buff minions before coming back. :/

Well which ones? Like I can see skeleton sniper having low HP, but the skeleton warrior needing more HP that's for sure.

The developers made them revive by themselfs, and as a balancing act they nerfed the HP. at least I assume so.

the problem is that PoE 2 is a WAAYYYY slower game then PoE 1, meaning that fast moving mobs are a huge advantage over a summoner without minions.

this leads to a frustrating loop that nullifies the summoner fantasy.

my suggestion would be to simply add a "summon now" skill to the self reviving minions, and make that either have a big cooldown, or a huge mana cost.

or just buff the HP of all melee minions.

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Xebov#4972 wrote:

I think minions are overall very weak. They die easily which leads to inconsitent damage, especially at bosses and in areas with more AoEs. The respawn timer also seems to be higher than originally said (i have 4s in mind but seems to be more like 8?). On boss fights they are dead the majority of the time due to the heavy AoEs.

Whats even worse is the temporary minions as they die just as easy but their short duration also causes maintenance breaks for resummoning, plus they are unusable at bosses since most bosses dont spawn adds or the adds leave no corpses and there is no skill to create corpses.

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Kozmas#0835 wrote:

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Xebov#4972 wrote:

I think minions are overall very weak. They die easily which leads to inconsitent damage, especially at bosses and in areas with more AoEs. The respawn timer also seems to be higher than originally said (i have 4s in mind but seems to be more like 8?). On boss fights they are dead the majority of the time due to the heavy AoEs.

Whats even worse is the temporary minions as they die just as easy but their short duration also causes maintenance breaks for resummoning, plus they are unusable at bosses since most bosses dont spawn adds or the adds leave no corpses and there is no skill to create corpses.

I was having a blast until the final boss of act 1. It QUICKLY went down hill from there. I agree with those points. They are too weak against bosses, but I expected that against the final act boss with any Necromancer. What makes it suck, is every time a minion dies, it seems to reset the respawn timer for the whole group. That 4 seconds can stack over and over if staggered the right way. It usually is smooth sailing from then on out though, at least with my experience of Necromancy in gaming. Not so much the case this time. I've hit an unfun wall of Jell-O to wade through and it's left quite a bad taste in my mouth after so much anticipation. Don't let D4 have the superior Necro... D4 is so boring.

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Xebov#4972 wrote:

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Kozmas#0835 wrote:

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Xebov#4972 wrote:

I think minions are overall very weak. They die easily which leads to inconsitent damage, especially at bosses and in areas with more AoEs. The respawn timer also seems to be higher than originally said (i have 4s in mind but seems to be more like 8?). On boss fights they are dead the majority of the time due to the heavy AoEs.

Whats even worse is the temporary minions as they die just as easy but their short duration also causes maintenance breaks for resummoning, plus they are unusable at bosses since most bosses dont spawn adds or the adds leave no corpses and there is no skill to create corpses.

I was having a blast until the final boss of act 1. It QUICKLY went down hill from there. I agree with those points. They are too weak against bosses, but I expected that against the final act boss with any Necromancer. What makes it suck, is every time a minion dies, it seems to reset the respawn timer for the whole group. That 4 seconds can stack over and over if staggered the right way. It usually is smooth sailing from then on out though, at least with my experience of Necromancy in gaming. Not so much the case this time. I've hit an unfun wall of Jell-O to wade through and it's left quite a bad taste in my mouth after so much anticipation. Don't let D4 have the superior Necro... D4 is so boring.

I noticed issues earlier but they where still within expected parameters. However i got the feeling noone realy bothered testing this at all. I cant imagine noone noticing the missing corpses.

What i would expect to happen is:
* give minions inate AoE resistance so they are not constantly swiped from the map
* resolve the cooldown timer situation
* give desecrate so corpses can be summoned
* change the timer on temporary minions so it fits with the slower game and add less maintenance

I see a damage problem but i would realy wait for survivability to happen first so we see whats going on with damage if the uptime is better.