Minion gameplay is too passive and too good for what it is after around lvl 30.

I'll try to keep it structured and easy to follow.

My experience between lvls 1-10:

Pros:
- everything felt challenging and that's amazing, exactly what I was hoping for.
- minion passive damage felt weak and command skills felt more powerful, incentivizing me to use them, moreover combining effects from different skills (firewall and gas arrow) felt rewarding and fun and it was promoting active gameplay. Admittedly, I was hoping for a bit more then that, perhaps more then one command skill on a type of minion.

Cons:
- minions would soak quite a bit of damage and divert enemies too much, giving me an unfair advantage compared to other non-minion playstyles.
- minions revive time was a bit too slow, leaving me a sitting duck for too long when they would inevitably die, imo that shouldn't have been a passive talent pick.



My experience between lvls 10-30:

Pros:
- things still felt challenging but a bit less so, somewhere around lvl 20 was probably a good balance for it as I got a bit more revive time for my minions.

Cons:
- minions would soak more and more damage, making me less likely to even need to dodge a lot of things.



My experience between lvls 30-43:

Pros:
- sadly there's nothing I can say at this point here as things took a sharp downturn.

Cons:
- minions got very powerful passively as I progressed more, not even needing my input to do very good damage and kill on their own. (was using skeletal arsonists at this point)
- gameplay gradually turned extremely passive to the point where I barely needed to look out for boss mechanics, and almost ignoring all trash mobs. Some bosses would die before they even got to do some of their moves, making me feel like I'm trivializing the content and feeling sad about all the work that went into all those enemies just for me to trample over them without even seeing properly what they do.
- visually, it all got extremely cluttered and I can barely tell what's going on, but minions are killing everything, so who cares, right?...

Sadly, these are POE1 symptoms and while at the start I was feeling hopeful that the game was going in a completely different direction, getting to lvl 40 and onward proved me wrong.

I am very disappointed. Although I had my fears from what I've seen from the previously presented materials on interviews and such... I still had hope. In my opinion.. minions should have been handled differently completely in order to not fall in these same pitfalls. In that respect, I do have suggestions that I believe would be at the very least helpful... but almost everything I would suggest would require a significant overhaul of the whole minion system.

If a dev is actually curious on what my suggestions are, please let me know and I will edit my post to add those suggestions!

Update:

My experience on lvl 55:

Minions demolish everything completely passively with 0 input from me. All I have to do is curse on bosses but even that doesn't feel necessary.

It has gotten to the exact same degen gameplay style like PoE1 now. I hate it.

I'm not even doing anything unforseen or elaborate with my build, most of it is even similar to the recommended options they have on the skill page. So this is not some big brain "breaking the game" situation.

I really had high hopes for this... especially because the early stages seemed to somewhat have the right idea with command skills, instead it feels like it was all a big bait and switch.

Minions are too op, i just watched a guy who soloed pinnacle boss at level 80 WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING. He just stand there like a statue. Minions did everything and under 50 seconds, boss was dead. The boss also never aggroed the player, only minions. How is this balanced yet they nerf way more normal looking builds day 1...

"

Kage#1250 wrote:

Minions are too op, i just watched a guy who soloed pinnacle boss at level 80 WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING. He just stand there like a statue. Minions did everything and under 50 seconds, boss was dead. The boss also never aggroed the player, only minions. How is this balanced yet they nerf way more normal looking builds day 1...

Minions just need to do no damage passively but instead debuff enemies or buff other minions or yourself in some way to benefit your command skills (which should be more then one per minion type) or other active skills that you SHOULD be able to scale with minion damage increase bonuses (through a support gem or a talent) so that you can be able to play a hybrid active style PROPERLY if you want to.

It's not really that hard to get this right honestly... and there's so much you can do with these ideas.

You should have the role similar of a Conductor directing an orchestra...

But if the Conductor just sits idly and the orchestra does everything without him... what's even the point of a Conductor...?

I actually like minions play style. Sure there can be and probably will be fine tuning as its EA. But when i compare my experience with some other class best builds so far, then its not that bad. Sorc cold build, Ranger first skill lightning arrow demolish same way at level 50+ easily spamming only one skill mostly.

As long minions play style remains same where minions do damage themself then this class makes sense to play. If they change how minions do damage and you are required to use skill actively to get minions do damage, then they will basically kill the class and advanced tree. I think GGG should actually look witch other ascend tree bloodmage. That looks like has some issues and not working well right now.

What they could do with minion build tree, is that make other witch skills more usable to boost minion damage while minions do damage themself as now.

So argument that minions demolish all is not valid as other classes can do also similar with one or 2 skills clicked mostly.

"

Void_Mastah#3161 wrote:

I actually like minions play style. Sure there can be and probably will be fine tuning as its EA. But when i compare my experience with some other class best builds so far, then its not that bad. Sorc cold build, Ranger first skill lightning arrow demolish same way at level 50+ easily spamming only one skill mostly.

As long minions play style remains same where minions do damage themself then this class makes sense to play. If they change how minions do damage and you are required to use skill actively to get minions do damage, then they will basically kill the class and advanced tree. I think GGG should actually look witch other ascend tree bloodmage. That looks like has some issues and not working well right now.

What they could do with minion build tree, is that make other witch skills more usable to boost minion damage while minions do damage themself as now.

So argument that minions demolish all is not valid as other classes can do also similar with one or 2 skills clicked mostly.

Just because other builds and classes do the same that doesn't make the argument invalid... it just means there is a lot wrong with the game on every aspect of it.

I obviously spoke from my own experiences with the skills I am currently playing with. If other classes/skills demolish content just as much, that is also terrible for the game and what it was supposedly aiming for.

However Minions still do it with 0 input so it's even worse.

If you like demolishing content without doing anything, what was even the point of making PoE 2 if PoE 1 does the same, and arguably better too as it has plenty more content and minion content at that?

If you count 0 input then yes thats how minion class works and actually should be. If you dont use any other skill then you also are not doing highest damage or debuff enemies. So its not 0 input. What i wanted to say is fine tune damage for minions and lower their damage passively but they should do damage themself still. What player should do is debuff enemies and buff minions actively to make them stronger.

I plan to continue playing soon again ranger with 1 skill hit. Thats also demolishing content easily. So what GGG needs to do is map out classes and skills that needs fine tuning. I'm sure they will do that as its EA. What i disagree is making minions do damage only when you press skill. That basically destroys class as it is ground up built that way you activate minions skills and choose what type of minions you want. Having to constantly direct them to attack would make this class/build imo pointless. You would rather play other class clicking 2-4 skills and do more damage.

I would never want something like in D4 where you have to pet your minions constantly to revive them and refresh their active status by summoning over and over.

Strongly disagree. Some people play minions to have minions do most of the work (part of the fantasy).

I don't know what build you are using but my gameplay isn't passive at all (I'm at lv 70-ish). I have to constantly cast fire wall, curse, and offering. They are skills that either summon more minions or help them do more damage, which I'm okay with.

Command skills are fun to play with at the beginning, but after you get 3 or 4 types of minions, they get old really fast and become somewhat hard to manage. And since I already have 4 skills that I actively use, I'm okay with leaving them behind.

What are you people smoking? Minions absolutely suck......they barely do any damage.

I really want the gear you guys got, 'cause apparently what I have is useless.

"

Devwind#3215 wrote:

Strongly disagree. Some people play minions to have minions do most of the work (part of the fantasy).

I don't know what build you are using but my gameplay isn't passive at all (I'm at lv 70-ish). I have to constantly cast fire wall, curse, and offering. They are skills that either summon more minions or help them do more damage, which I'm okay with.

Command skills are fun to play with at the beginning, but after you get 3 or 4 types of minions, they get old really fast and become somewhat hard to manage. And since I already have 4 skills that I actively use, I'm okay with leaving them behind.

Agree. Thats also my experience with minions so far. Its not passive gameplay. Firewall constantly to buff damage + fire resist debuff that does cost a lot unless you use gem to cost life instead. The way GGG created minion build so far i absolutely love this way. Much better than how D4 or LE did with minion class.
I only have to focus on how to make minions more effective and debuff enemies while minions do the rest like they should.

Regarding gear, it is quite demanding as you need +spirit and + minion skills on gear to actually make it strong.