Summoner builds need to be rethought

They're kind of dominating the ladder right? I think the way summon clusters are set up are part of the problem

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQMABCMwZAcmypYL6q9zDTEnnA9mTEwRxEu8E2sjvhYJv9IX7xjeGknwSRqdWbQhedp6Ia479ievXwMqQ7nXLBPyVjLquew9t5s3P55fTUJM1rxEDfVESUc4nEomSxlKxdMKTTO-q05ijCdiFvLjYzq_yGYSqO5nYnq6Z-ky1G7B1fF3ABYJd6xxK3nSvml6ccf8lhxlauL2Bz31ObqP_Zht070hu1bNymZjqb8HYsg5MAGcxUTN2Qkd2a129y6hCJm_woU5-u0lMku0DvIuv3_34q5zcQO0Cg9by0EdEaNZqk29-6lxpy5ZzrNkZUr_Nxmf84E4IqsqBTnU0ZyDg4Yb2qGqfATSkScKkGlTJcC_y8jiMvt1

Every summoner build probably goes like this, right? I mean, why wouldn't you go this route?

1. Summons aren't integrated into other keystones well (why would you use life as a summon build? not like pain attunement helps your build? why care about your defensive specilization at all? summons are hulking meatwalls, you can go iron man and do relatively okay with these things - 1 freaking hp)
2. Summons aren't offering enough build diversity (everyone abuses minion life and minion instability, even after its latest change); trying to use lots of interesting support gems on minions is just making them more expensive to make, not more effective (compared to instability)
3. Witch has too easy access to the "minion highway"; there aren't any shadow minion nodes - you have to move into witch territory to get them, templar only has one notably close one to his start, why are the intelligence hybrids not favoring minions too? Summon improvements are way too centralized in the witch
4. Minion hordes are zergfest, low strategy - just kill things, summon horde, zzz afk win

Suggestions:

-Make players SPECIALIZE into minion hordes. Make them choose huge number of minions vs smaller number of more effective minions. This now makes zergfest a strategy and not a "oh you're a summoner" thing. This can be extreme as a keystone which only allows you to have 1 skeleton/zombie out at once, making it 10 times more powerful. Or one which allows you to double your minion count practically, but makes them very vulnerable to something. You could even do this without keystones too, just by placing the +max summon count nodes in more diverse areas of the tree.
-Diverisfy minion nodes; more nodes that effect minion resistances, attack speed, movement speed, stun duration, block and stun recovery, armor rating, et cetera
-Decentralize minion nodes - put more defensive (life/resist/armor) minion nodes with templar, put more offensive ones with Shadow. Put "hybrid" ones in Witch territory.
-More minion keystones! Or more keystones that can interact with minions!

I would like the option to turn summons into literal meat shield (shields made of meat). They follow you around acting like very sturdy obstacles but lose the ability to attack.

I would also like the option to gain charges via minion death. Make it scale with gem lv to prevent spamming lv1 minion gems.

I would like the option to combine my summons into some abomination with the strength proportional to how many minions consumed. Make it scale with gem lv to prevent spamming lv1 minion gems.

I would like the option to sacrifice a minion to gain a particular buff. Make it scale with gem lv to prevent spamming lv1 minion gems.

Minions granting charges on death is a bit problematic and has been discussed before - it would just be something people pick up on the passive tree, then spam level 1 zombies/skeletons to get free charges. Too easy. The best way to do it would be "When your minion gets a critical strike" or some other mechanic.

Everything else would probably be an okay idea for adding minion build variety.

My suggestion is to make certain monsters unraisable. You can't raise water elementals, but you can for some reason raise ghosts, rock elementals and constructs. Also, if you raise a spider, you get a human zombie from it. That's more like raising a flesh golem. I started raising impossible things, just because it was so laughable: "So you're a lamp post, huh? Well, you're a zombie now!"

The minion sacrifice idea could work just fine so long as the benefit conferred is proportional to the amount of damage done/taken by the minion. I don't know if there's currently a structure in place for tracking that, though.

Given Mark's side-step of my main point, I would assume GGG (or at least Qarl) is still evaluating how to balance minions in the wake of their other recent balance changes. Darn. I was hoping they might change again before Open Beta starts.

One idea i had (or a though i had, why you cant do it):

Remove standard attacks of minions, instead make minions uses a linked skill. With that, one could make ones minions use special attacks.

To balance it out, remove increased damage that is given by passive skills and make the minion skill scale with all the passive skill nodes (full or a percentage that might be increased). That would bring diversity because one would need to choose, what skills to use and increase damage done by these skills.

It would be interesting to maybe align the minions then with different skills, f.e. zombies can only use melee skills (or red ones), or will get a damage bonus on mellee (or red) skills.

F.E: you link a zombie with a fireball. The zombie now will throw fireballs. To increase the damage the zombie does, you need to skill either fire damage increasing nodes or spell damage nodes.

I agree with you that pure summoners don't offer a lot of build diversity. But there are a lot of summoner hybrid builds you can play which offer a lot of diversity.

At the moment pure summoner is a really save way to play but doesn't scale well with items/skill points and the damage isn't that good.

The main problem here is that minions don't scale well with items. Because of that the damage will be less than a bow / spell build (otherwise it would be OP if you deal the same damage without needing good items). And because of that a hybrid summoner build will always deal more damage than a full damage minion build. Why would you want to play a damage summoner then?

Conclusion :
Why do you want a diversity in minions if you get diversity with hybrid builds? In my opinion the "tank/defensive" abilities of minions is ok atm and hybrid summoners always have to beat offensive minion abilities.

edit : I really like the idea mentioned above of a minion spell/attack support gem which lets you create minions that use the linked spell/attack. It would scale with items really well and would fit to the support gem idea. The problem is that its almost the same as the totem supports.

Because there isn't much synergy. Dominating Blow is probably best as a Witch-summoner melee skill. Why would the Templar get it? So he can do slightly more damage with it...? But his minions will be doing way more potential damage if he just had more of them, anyway.

I mean, I get what you're saying, but what you're suggesting is that hybrid summon builds (or rather, builds that take some summoner nodes and some non-summoner nodes) are different, maybe "effective" in their own way... but I want there to be more diversity in summoner builds so that some strategy is required to playing a summoner class. As it stands, the most effective way to build a summoner is to take that highway like I showed you. Hybrid summoner builds exist, but... I highly doubt they are as safe or as effective as pure summoner builds (as partially demonstrated by their ladder dominance).

I mean, why does anyone want diversity at all? That's what spawned the passive tree. I don't think I necessarily need a singular reason for it, but I think it would greatly improve the balance of minion specialization (and I suppose I'm also hoping we'll get some dex summon gems in the future, like hunter pets, which would be great if we had more summoner nodes near the shadow).

Items do scale with minions alright, there are lots of minion uniques, though I agree there isn't much minion itemization. That should probably be changed...? Rares should get a little more options for minion improvements. But...

My main suggestion here, ignoring all of what I just typed above is: DISTRIBUTE MINION NODES MORE IN THE HYBRID CLASS AREAS. I think it's way too cheap to be a minion specialist. LOOK HOW FEW NODES I SPENT IN MY PASSIVE MOCK-UP IN THE FIRST PAGE. Can you show me ANY other build that lets you MAXIMIZE your specialization in under 70 points? Can I get ALL the mace +physical damage nodes in under 70 points and still be a viable build? HELL NO. Minion builds are too cheap, way too cheap, and I think it's imbalanced the game as a result. If we spread minion nodes out, make minion clusters more diverse, and give other classes access to minion specializtion, it is no longer a centralized build and is more expensive to build, but potentially way more interesting and deep, so summoners retain most of their power, but need to plan their build more carefully and they need to exploit some specific mechanic of their minions to do well.