Is there a minion limit?

Hello community, I want to ask something about minions.


I know that you can only summon X zombies, summon X skeletons etc which can be increased by passives, but is there a limit to the total amount?

Well to be more detailed, I am thinking about building a templar that uses:

Dominating Blow + Melee Splash (Main Skill)
Spell Totem+ Summon Raging Spirit
Summon Skeletons
Raise Zombie

Will this be viable? Sorry if my questions are stupid I have never ever built a character about minion armies.

Thank you.

There is no limit to the total number, only per each minion type and even some of those are unlimited. You could say your GPU is the limit :)

About viability... I do have a melee-summon hybrid like that, and this is how you can go about it:

- full melee + dominating blow : this one uses dominated monsters to clear areas faster and deals with bosses as a standard melee, your minions won't be awfully strong but you will be able to raise a lot of them because you can stand being in close quarters all the time. This variant is the tankiest of the tree but isn't much of a summoner, anything other than dominated monsters and perhaps animated weapons is out of the question as they will be killed by stronger farts. This one also has most skill cost problems.

- melee/summon hybrid all the way (this one is like mine) : you typically use some long range attack like ground slam, spectral throw or lightning strike to harass enemies, and you can afford using a 2H weapon because your minions are much tougher. you use dominating blow to finish off clusters of enemies without taking big risks. This one holds the truest to the general idea and his summons are tanky enough not to need too much babysitting, the bad thing is you have to rush summon passives and still invest in your stats so you will spread yourself pretty thin, you need decent damage and a good amount of survivability so it needs really good gear to work.

- full summon + coup de domino : this one is a standard summoner that uses culling strike on dominating blow to claim kills, doesn't need much damage but is the most fragile of the bunch so prolonged stays in melee aren't recommended. Has the toughest summons of all three, though.

...
Now, there are a couple of things to keep in mind when playing with dominating blow:
- mana cost is huge with the required supports, it's expensive to an amount where using it on blood magic is considered dangerous. I had a choice of levelling the gem all the way and using reduced mana or levelling it a few levels and using inc duration, I went with the former which stabilizes the cost under 100 mana, which I'm comfortable with as hybrid variant doesn't really spam DB but uses it strategically.
- two, it desyncs like mad for some reason, get used to hitting a lot of air.
- finally, it's awkward to use due to desync and your minions milling around so you pretty much need multistrike too

...
Anyway, it's very worth a try, it can be tricky to pull off but it's a very fun build with a proactive summoner approach.

random tips:
- Animated weapons kick ass even with no summoner passive investment while not hindering your other minions, awesome support skill.
- You'll probably be somewhat disappointed with raging spirits on spell totem, damage is pretty lackluster and one totem can't really spam them fast enough to make a difference.
- Carefully picked spectres (statues, bonestalkers) start outtanking zombies around a3 cruel, spectres are very versatile, most use them for damage but they can also tank like champs.

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derekai123 wrote:

Hello community, I want to ask something about minions.


I know that you can only summon X zombies, summon X skeletons etc which can be increased by passives, but is there a limit to the total amount?

Well to be more detailed, I am thinking about building a templar that uses:

Dominating Blow + Melee Splash (Main Skill)
Spell Totem+ Summon Raging Spirit
Summon Skeletons
Raise Zombie

Will this be viable? Sorry if my questions are stupid I have never ever built a character about minion armies.

Thank you.

I don't think there is a limit. Yesterday i got the 60 minion achievement (Behold my army) when i had 103 or something minions under my control.

I think your build idea is viable also.

Summon Raging Spirit has a limit, fortunately.