Minion Feedback

Pure minion builds are a PITA to play if you deviate from meta. Understandably, minions from Spirit are very weak early and take levels + gear investment to get going.

What doesn't feel good about pure minion builds:
1. They are completely gimped and have zdps if you don't pick up Raging Spirits right away.
- I should not feel like I'm being shoe-horned into a choice here; Raging Spirits are mandatory for levelling and doesn't allow for any build diversity.
- As a pure minion build, you get unbelievably reliable DPS for little investment; the same cannot be said for Permanent minions not named Skeletal Arsonist.

2. Temporary minions (Unearth, Raise Zombie) make up a majority of a minion build's DPS but are locked behind corpses that you can't use in many boss fights.
- I realize that this can be later solved with the Sacrifice meta gem, but it's currently bugged to not work with Unearth or Profane Ritual to generate Power Charges for Zombies.

3. Investing in Persistent minions feels very backwards early on and during levelling. It's much better to attack and cast spells yourself.
- At this point as a Witch, why not be a pure spellcaster and ignore minions entirely? Early skill tree nodes shoehorn both Spell and Minion damage in one node so the optimal choice is to use both early.
- As a pure minion build, I should be allowed to wield Sceptre + Shield to have my minions be a reliable DPS source while having the option to block since many bosses have block checks. But based on #1 and #2, you WILL have zdps where it matters most.
- I wish there was an option to convert Mana into Spirit. By doing so, you limit your own ability to attack and cast spells, as well as potential EHP in MoM + Mana Regen, in exchange for more minions = reliable DPS and body blockers.
- It would be cool to have a Meta Skill Gem that makes temporary minions from skills become permanent at the cost of Spirit, and some other balance levers like minion count, health, damage, etc.
- Bring back the ability to dual wield Sceptres, but in exchange, nerf Spirit gain and the insane survivability, damage, and gem level scaling you can achieve at high investment.

1. make minion move while attacking. minion attacking still follow the master in this case. this could be implemented to with the other boss monster. so the game will be harder. I like this game to be as hard as it can be.

2. increase minion sight but reduce/stay the same minion attack range. increasing sight will help the minion to know where is the enemy. its just basic MMORPG. all monster have different sight and attack range. this is how you will know when to engage the monster. if you are range build.

3. minion should follow the master whenever it moves if it not attacking. AI should be like the monster when attacking the master. so it can find the best path or increase its reliability in finding path.

4. give skill convocation so we can recall our minion or just basically teleport the minion near us. if teleported, user can take damage or minion reduce damage/life.
another option is blink skill. if active. also teleport minion to blink area.

5. make minion push/phase each other if other minion is attacking already. so that minion at the back can attack too. rather than minion find a path circle around the monsters they attacking. in phasing or pushing, movement of minion is reduce to half or the minion, who is attacking stop attacking or move while attacking.

6. make persistent minion have different respawn time when dead. if current respawn time is intended, please dont make offering skill restart the timer. also if the minion is out of range respawn.

7. minion skills update.
a. skel warrior - dash skill 1m range, cd 5-10 sec, no damage just dash near the enemy.
b. sniper - auto gas arrow but gas arrow require spirit. < not necessary to add this auto think. sniper is already good.
c. Arsonist - OP minion. almost all passive node in tree affect this. to nerf. reduce or somewhat change some node to improve other minion.
d. frost mage - lack in damage. to improve. auto attack winter orb maybe. or increase number of projectile like in barrage in POE1. but lessen the frost build up.
e. Reaver - if enrage is on, below 25% hp-stop the enrage and stun for 1 sec. add leap ability. unlike skel warrior dash. leap ability can traverse terrain. still no damage for leap.
f. storm mage - arc attack is basically should be like arc skill. can jump back to same monster if no more target. also u can add skel mage life to user mana cap. meaning if the user cast a skill the skell mage life can be consume. like 10% or 20% of mana cost.
g. brute. shield charge skill = 1.2x -2x basic attack damage. all monster in path are push+gather in front of the shield. like magnus skewer skill in dota2. add auto skill/command take monster aggro. 10 cd and 3sec duration.
h.cleric - improve revive fallen persist minion with half the time u revive it. reviving minion is empowered.

8. Offering skill and command skill. screen wide search for skeleton/requirement. rather than in mouse area. if no skel/requirements is sacrifice. mana and life cost should not be use or just stop the cast if it cant use. its hard for use to track all the requirement of all skill. like explosives demise required low life minion in front of battle then moving the mouse near my arsonist so i can use offering+ablation thus, incorrectly done result to my life reduce to nothing.


I think this is the best option for minion.

I agree. I don't want Raging Spirits to triple or quadruple my damage as soon as I equip it!

My beef:
1) It's a misdirect to new players (me) interested in Minions that aren't reading every skill. The menus are formatted to make you feel comfortable staying within tabs and accepting suggestions. I want Minions to feel pretty good from within the Occult skill tab.
2) It's apparently an obvious decision for PoE1 players—I was asked by a few friends playing, "When are you gonna get Raging Spirits?" or some variation, even when I was too low-level to even encounter the skill gem.
3) It doesn't mesh with the initial fantasy: I can't focus on skellies and bone magic and must become a fire mage.

I hope they add something to Witch to justify not taking Raging Spirits. Maybe a Spirit Gem that drastically buffs Minion Commands, or specifically mentions Reviving Minions? I dunno. Just increasing Raging Spirit's spirit cost wouldn't be enough, cuz even if it was tripled, you'd just take fewer Reviving Minions.

And please add a way for us to spawn corpses passively for bosses. I love spawning bone scorpions and zombies, and it's sad I can't have em around for some of the coolest fights.

SRS is a Minion, so they're going to scale with your Minion nodes. You can summon up to 10 of them in about a second, so why would anyone be surprised when they do good damage? However, they are not required for a Summoner to progress at a steady pace.

I will say that very early game, Minions feel fairly weak, but by the time SRS becomes available, Minions are mostly fine. Skeleton Warriors are decent tanks (esp with Meat Shield and Last Gasp), and Sniper's Poison Shot couples well with the Arsonist's bombs and special ability.

The biggest issue that I've run into is that Minions (and the player) have no weight and are constantly shoved aside as if they weren't even there. Enemies will shove past Minions to get to the player, and Minions can't really hold aggro very well. The irony is that Minions block themselves but can't block an enemy. Minions should have weight and should be able to block enemy movement; I get that some of the huge enemies should be able to push minions aside, but regular size and small size enemies should be blocked. They also need to grab and hold aggro better; personally, I'd add an aggro aspect to Meat Shield. It also doesn't help that most enemies are faster than your Minions.

The second issue I've run into is that Minion Abilities don't always go off when you tell them to, have an actual cast time, and can be interrupted. It also doesn't help that the Minion has to have LoS to the location, which means if they're slightly off to the side and can't see through a doorway, nothing happens. If there's a small piece of terrain that blocks LoS to your target, nothing happens. I can't tell you how many times I've told a Minion to use their special ability and they don't do anything. If they do not have LoS, then they should either move to where they can see it, or it needs to use the player's LoS.

Also, don't forget Unearth with extra duration. While their damage isn't great, they create a target rich environment for the enemy AI so that they aren't all just gunning for you. More targets for the enemy = less enemies attacking you. Granted, these aren't useful in many boss fights, but they aren't really needed in boss fights. I do however, dislike boss fights with adds that leave no corpses. Like...really?

I do agree that it would be nice to be able to create corpses for use during boss fights.


EDIT: I do want to add that improving Spirit is a very slow process, which makes it to where you get no significant changes outside of leveling up your Minions. This can make it feel like you're not really improving. You basically have 130 Spirit from mid-Act 1 until mid-Act 3, when you get +30 Spirit (ie: +1 Minion). Additionally, the -12% Reserve on the Tree doesn't really have an impact until you start getting more Spirit. Finding Spirit gear is exceptionally rare (I haven't found any yet, and this includes grabbing every white chest piece drop from Act 2 forward and double blueing them).

just wait until you "try" breaches.

aside some of the required, and mentioned suggestions:
- minion builds are absolutely awful at clearing or even remotely leveraging breaches
- it's because the issues cause extreme lack of traction or means to get your theoretical dps onto "the floor", which becomes most noticeable with breaches. While with other, more static trials or bosses it's at least less of an issue
- I tried most minions in different setups and variations. it simply doesn't work
- I don't want to be shoe-horned into endgame corpse explo for breaches alone either. I haven't even tried that last (and probably) sub-par option.
- There goes all potential for my MF and available content basically being summed up to "breaches", for co-op or my minion witch

- co-op farm of zarokh with 100% unique. Completely broken party and damage/honor scaling. Rendering it absolutely worthless considering the investment of 80ex keys.

- co-op/mf leverage opportunity for chaos trials? Completely impractical. Inexistant. As unlike chaos trials is way more restrictive in terms of run vs. partying and co-op on the actual boss.

Some of those "decisions" in terms of game-design, implementation and basically punishing and preventing any of the extensive/desperate attempts of even remotely acceptable or sensible co-op play are absolutely baffling.

How did they even playtest? Just a bunch of 5 identical and super-op stormweavers running a couple breaches?

So there's that. Time to roll something Else. Maybe go for an op-ish monk? Hey! Maybe with a dagger and shield on darkness tree... that could somehow make mf and the op mf-shield an option for anyone who wants to give that or coop some sort of try?

No wait. Daggers not even out yet. Since classes are hard-locked to basically single weapon-type that's basically it. So anyone striving for mf or co-op is basically done.

Nice. I understand it's EA. But I really hope GGG puts a LOT more effort into seriously fixing these core mechanical problems. Zero means of co-op in a way that basically seems very intended, at least in it's outcome for the player. Rigidity in extremely limited Weapon-Choice and build-diversity. Serious minion witch dps, AI and breach-accessibility problems.

Therefore leading to severe lack in content or options for even the most resilient players: Unless you fancy solo-carrying 4th trials, soloing Chaos trials... until absolute boredom.

You have entirely gimped feasibility of one of the more viable and only left MF and co-op classes' opportunity: Breaches. An otherwise very interesting mechanic in map, towers, map-crafting etc. Aside from the frustrating limitation to force players in vaaling already scarce T15's, in hope of getting the occasional T16.

That sort of problem really needs to be fixed and fundamentally changed during EA. Else it's imho "GG", for any sort of elaborate, large-scale and long-term enjoyment.