Feedback after playing Minions for the first time for 60 hours (SSF)

Hi,
I'm a long time PoE player (5000+ hours in PoE1), but never really played minion builds until now.

With the new Lich class I thought it’s about time.

First bad impression: Leveling with minions is way too complicated to make it feel fun. Not sure how often I had to change the minions I'm using, and re-spec slightly and completely change the game play from not using anything to use fire spells to use frost to use lightning to whatever...
And no I would not have been able to come up with any of those micro builds by myself, I think.

I had to use several guides to get me through the campaign.
Most suggested support gems are very bad suggestions btw.


Endgame Feedback:

I'm lvl 90, ended up with Storm Mage Lich, got enough spirit for 7 storm mages and all the support dudes (420 spirit).

Even though I'm playing SSF, I do have okish gear to progress, so yea I did have fun, otherwise I would have stopped playing way earlier.

That being said, crafting still feels horrible, the new socketable things did not change any of that. Crafting is just way too random, and currency drop dependent.

The additional mechanics for combining items etc are mostly garbage in my opinion. I have used it once so far.. The cost to combine 2 items is way too high and getting something good out of it has a way too small probability. And I cannot even control which base to keep? wtf, annoying AF and bad game design in my opinion. If I already invest that much and destroy 2 items in the process, let’s make that a 100% thing for at least 1 line of each item + let me choose the base I want to keep to at least have some way of deterministic crafting on basis...

Loot is not great either, for example, I found 3 blue sapphire jewels in 60 hours and farming T15 maps now (THREE!!)... why?

Haven't found a single orb to freeze a random stat... not sure if those exist. I found 1 anul and 2 div so far... This feels extremely sucky compared to the first PoE2 season.

Finding upgrades on the ground is not happening either. I only pick stuff up because I must salvage it for other mats, but I don't believe I ever actually found an upgrade on the ground. Ah yea I find 100s of Tier 4 quarter staffs, Bows and Speers. Haven't seen a single T4 Scepter...


Bugs and other things
* I sometimes randomly start with fewer storm mages when entering a boss arena or new zone. The game tells me that I all the sudden have less spirit and I cannot even spawn one? I then have to Alt+f4, and pray for a good relog, which then fixes the wrong calculating of my spirit?!? That's horrible

* I ended up in T15 maps before I had my first 4 atlas points, that new grind to get atlas points is stupid slow... horrible in my opinion.

* Minions do not fit through tight doors or corridors it seems, makes it impossible to play certain maps at all and is -> Annoying AF.

* Minions die to any boss AOE attack. Please fix that asap. I like fighting bosses, but this is insane how bad of a game design this is. In some boss fights like that jumping/flaying cat thing, my minion up time is < 30% of the fight. And yea, it is also because boss areas are way too small in most cases, especially on tower maps it seems. You cannot run far enough away to "save" your minions with that dumb respawn-mechanic either. -> Annoying AF


Please fix loot, crafting and minions :)

Thanks

Did also minions with lich SSF in 0.2

For me it was almost the same. Drop rates are garbage. Haven't found any upgrades
from drops. All upgrades from vendor and wasting all exalted to hope for luck. But of course there a not enough exalted for even the garbage slot machine crafting...

Minions are bad joke in any aoe. I don't understand the nerfs from 0.2 at all. Minions were fun. Fun in a game? Thats not possible ... nerf it to make it more frustration.

The result from nerfing together with no loot is: all player playing the 3 overpowered build. That's so stupid

yes...minions were good in 0.1. But they were kind of op. Combined with grim and huge es it was no fun, because it felt way to op tbh. And thats why i like the changes. Running 9 storm mages, 2 frost mages and a cleric. And yes minions die. So what? I like the challenge now. Lvl 84...in T15. Its harder but thats what i expect!!!

We are talking from SSF without any progression. The problem isn't the nerf, the problem is the nerf combined with no loot at all. No loot -> no progression

yes i appreciate your point! On the other hand i made it to 84 on xbox which is almost ssf due to the issues with trading on console. I am lacking loot too. I found one perfect and one greater jewel though. So i have storm mages on 6 L. I mean yes you want to be patient. And also: this is what i expect. I remember playing Dia 2 LOD. They had loot i never saw dropping.

"

Wilmots#7633 wrote:

yes...minions were good in 0.1. But they were kind of op. Combined with grim and huge es it was no fun, because it felt way to op tbh. And thats why i like the changes. Running 9 storm mages, 2 frost mages and a cleric. And yes minions die. So what? I like the challenge now. Lvl 84...in T15. Its harder but thats what i expect!!!

I was in T15s since lvl 82, too.
I get that, and I also kinda enjoy playing minions in 0.2.
It is still very strong for mapping, although, the clear speed is pretty slow, depending on the layout. But in general, its not bad.

But fighting bosses with your DPS down 50% of the time just isn't fun for me.
It is unfair and boring standing around doing nothing. There is no skill issue or anything the player can actually do to improve that. It is kinda rng and is also better or worse depending on the bosses

I find that super boring and lame.
Also, my DPS isn't enough to kill bosses with +6 in the boss tree. It is just taking forever at least...

"

Wilmots#7633 wrote:

I found one perfect and one greater jewel though

That's super lucky, even in 0.1 I did not find any perfect jewel in ~300 hours played...

Right now, I got 2x 5 link storm mage and 1x 5 link frost mage gems via vaaling, rest of my gems are still all 4 links only...

(btw, If you refer to me finding 3 jewels only. What I meant are blue sapphire jewels for the skill tree, not gem upgrades ;) )

Some update:

I'm still playing SSF, kinda a pain in the A to be honest, don't find many uprades, still just a +2 scepter and overall lvl23 minions, I'm missing a lot of good gear..
Still, I can kill all bosses at +4, just takes a bit and sometimes a ton of time because of all my minions instant getting deleted just when they respawn because they stand in the next AoE of the boss... its just so fing dumb...

But hey, lvl 1 Arbiter also down...

One thing overall.
The game play feels extremely clunky. Not very fun and fluit. I'm not sure how long I can stand running around in circles and trying to navigate to narrow corridors and my minions not doing anything or just standing around and not fighting if I'm not running into groups of mobs and try to kill myself.

Movement skills are horrible, I have shield charge, I have the support for knocking enemies back, I assumed I could charge through enemies with that but nope. I still get stuck on the smallest spider. The animation and everything feels so slow and bad that I rarely even use it...

And ofc, more bugs.
There are a bazillion bugs related to minions. Not sure how others stand to play like that for much much longer.
I played frost mages quite a long time, but the fact that any interruption seem to also cancel a minion command makes this unplayable for me.
Plus loosing command DPS due to bugs like canceled animation when you use evade... yikes.

And ofc there are more general bugs. I just ran a silent cave unique map, finally found one unique map which would give me another 2 atlas points. But nope, map cannot be completed, buggy...

"

MiConYey#4539 wrote:

* Minions die to any boss AOE attack. Please fix that asap.

Bone Offering.

"

Summoner#7705 wrote:

"

MiConYey#4539 wrote:

* Minions die to any boss AOE attack. Please fix that asap.

Bone Offering.

How does bone offering help here, I don't understand what you are trying to say.
I do use it, it does not prevent my minions from getting one shot from basically any boss attack.
And yes I'm heavily invested in minion passives. 5k+ health and 82 all res, still getting oneshot

"

MiConYey#4539 wrote:

How does bone offering help here, I don't understand what you are trying to say.
I do use it, it does not prevent my minions from getting one shot from basically any boss attack.

Bone Offering makes all of your minions immune to one hit. So when that big aoe is coming, you cast it and prevent the damage.