0.2 Minion feedback from long-time minion enjoyer

For the sake of brevity I'll try to stay as on point as possible.

Because I'm tired and disappointed by this past weekend. Here goes.

In 0.1 I've spent a couple hundred hours tinkering with minions. The campaign was a breeze, I've done A2 boss with buck-naked full rare gear Infernalist, with 3 arsonists and SRS and it took me like 30 seconds tops. Got it to the endgame, had fun etc.

Come 0.2 - I'm cruising through, there's definitely more resistance, but idgaf really. I've rolled Infernalist again (due to dog being +1 minion for Muster support, can still slap Loyalty on it too). I have Ullrs, Enfolding Dawn, +2 scept, level 8 gems (+10 with scepter, also had +2 helmet ready for level35, the affix requires ilvl41 btw, tsk tsk GGG how did you miss that?), 6x arsonists, 2x skellies from scepter, SRS and a random 40 spirit specter and... the A2 final boss fight is just unbearable because whole gang is 24/7 dead. They are up for literally one second before they are dead for 6 seconds. Oh but what about nodes that decrease the res timer? I had them all picked up - 50% were all taken. Whats even better - if one of the poor surviving bastards dies while the timer was ticking, it all resets back to 06:00!

I had to skill in ED to kill it in the end, it took like 10 minutes of running around, hoping I have enough flask charges by the third phase, because otherwise double tornadoes just gonna catch up to me when I'm trying to dodge his 180 spin while simultaneously expertly rolling in such a way I don't end up in crossfire from two portals.

The game before second (or third in rare cases) ascendancy, so like level 50-ish, is unplayable, at least for me. And I'm not even the worst player around the block, I've got 14k hours in PoE1 and 500hrs in PoE2 under my belt, played all game modes at decent level. I've concluded to myself the best way to level your summoner is committing to ED/C until like... Cruel at the earliest, maps latest? All the supposedly best in slot gear that allows you to build around minions is useless because each and every rare/unique/boss deletes them with a single AoE, completely disregarding 40+ passives you've put into minion health and damage on the tree. I could help by commanding them to move to X spot, but that click it takes to do so is a cast I'm missing in a narrow opportunity window to deal damage to the boss. And why even bother? They'll be dead the next second anyway. All the while 9 of them will deal only 2k damage before dying anyway. In the meantime ONE ED cast deals 2k dmg (with no support gems or passives dedicated to it on the tree!). Where's all this fabled variety? Specters being gem-bound is ridiculous aswell. Oh you've wanted to test what this little guy does? Sure! Just use another gem! And don't forget to prepare a Perfect Jewelers orb for each and every one of them you'll want to try.

I really get a feeling that you can't play skills GGG don't want you to because someone gotta play test the EA (also known as alpha test, also known as first 1-2 weeks of every league known to man in PoE1 since its inception). Which would've been alright if it wasn't such a colossal pain in the rear to clear normal campaign while being in gear that you will continue to wear all the way until red maps because there's hardly any alternative (yes even after all these new added uniques).

The items that I missed in this playthrough were: Prism Guardian (which would've added 14 spirit total at my current level), a +2/3 amulet (pref with spirit, that wasn't available to me at that moment of time), a better and more high level scepter and 2% spirit (haha) Grand Spectrums alongside "aspirational" +3 and Sanctum jewels. Would they have made a difference? I don't think so. Why? Because all minions I've tried in 0.2 can't handle a single rare monster let alone a scary Act 2 final unique boss.

Just my two cents and some humble feedback on a build archetype I've spent 10k hours in PoE1 thoroughly enjoying starting around Harbingers. Until it becomes not just playable, but enjoyable, I'll play test something different. Thank you and good luck!

To OP: see latest EA Patch Notes.

Do you use weapon switching to despawn minions to avoid the big aoes? I went through Jamara yesterday with frost mages and i just can't relate at all to what you said. Yes he was tankier than Count and took a bit longer than him but that was the same case during 0.1 too so i wasn't surprised. But due to weapon switching my minion definitely were alive more than being dead.

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chobo999#2010 wrote:

To OP: see latest EA Patch Notes.

Unfortunately two digits worth added to their HP and a hundred or so (at gem level 10 with my current tree) to dmg change nothing to any given Skeletal gem in the game at any stage in campaign between levels 4 to like 70. All your summons still die to a stiff breeze.

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AIDA_TriEdge#4390 wrote:

Do you use weapon switching to despawn minions to avoid the big aoes? I went through Jamara yesterday with frost mages and i just can't relate at all to what you said. Yes he was tankier than Count and took a bit longer than him but that was the same case during 0.1 too so i wasn't surprised. But due to weapon switching my minion definitely were alive more than being dead.

How long did the fight take you again? And with what minions? You can't keep them alive even if you'd want to in Jamanra arena regardless of methods you use due to sole reason of his pillar slam hitting like 40% of the arena+other stuff overlapping. Especially so in P2&3, there's like two safespots and you can't command your minions to stand exactly in that 1x1. Hell, my doggo had twice as much HP as skellies and it died there too. That actually leads to another gripe of mine - instead of pressing one button to use Convocate like we do in PoE1 we have to resort to clicking two times to weapon swap to attempt to do something similar but not really. You either lose your character defenses doing it or a solid chunk of damage, or both. Because additional annoyance is what vidya games are about these days apparently.

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Fourkinghell#0881 wrote:

How long did the fight take you again? And with what minions? You can't keep them alive even if you'd want to in Jamanra arena regardless of methods you use due to sole reason of his pillar slam hitting like 40% of the arena+other stuff overlapping. Especially so in P2&3, there's like two safespots and you can't command your minions to stand exactly in that 1x1. Hell, my doggo had twice as much HP as skellies and it died there too. That actually leads to another gripe of mine - instead of pressing one button to use Convocate like we do in PoE1 we have to resort to clicking two times to weapon swap to attempt to do something similar but not really. You either lose your character defenses doing it or a solid chunk of damage, or both. Because additional annoyance is what vidya games are about these days apparently.

It felt like 4-5 minutes. Yeah, i missed convocate from the moment i started playing PEO 2. But that's where weapon set switching comes into play. You equip a weapon in 2nd slot and switch to it to despawn your minions thus evading the AOES and when you switch back to you main weapon your minions spawn on top of you. And if you're next to the boss, it will give a good ammount of burst damage since they spawn on him (especially noticeable at higher count of minions). Minions will die throughout the fight of course but by using this method, they will be alive much more than they will be dead.

And anyways, minions got buffed in today's patch so i guess GGG is trying to fix things where they went overboard.

Wow, 15% increase to minion life, almost as good as the armor buff that they introduced last season to help warriors with defense.