Minion issues in 0.2

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Lëgend#5925 wrote:

The problems of minions aren't issues of 0.2, are an entire problem of design.
The 0.2 problems I feel they said "well, we wish to force the community to play spears to test it a lot, let's nerf the other mechanics to invite them to play that". It's ok, it's an early access, this could be correct, but they need to say it clear when presenting the 0.2 to prevent this situations

Rest of the post is over minions problems, because I feel that if tomorrow they launch the 1.0, minions will be very disapointly if they don't correct a lot of mistakes.

There is no main necromancer class. This is the first problem.
All playstyles has their own focused ascendancy which has 8 points for a "global gameplay", and their own focus passives related.
Well, the passives related on witch are:
lich that is the occultist of PoE1, focused on... curses
infernalist thas is focused on... infernal form
But no necromancer class with something "special" for minion masters, like "10% less spirit reservation on minions", "you can't do damage by yourself but your minions do 30% more damage and have 30% more life" or something like this.
Oh, the blood mage, SHOULD BE a sorceress, I feel they fail on this ascendancy putting on witch

Second problem are the pure minion mechanics:
They don't taunt, they don't have minion speed (and don't have minion speed on tree)... You have 6 minions on PoE1 and you feel a lord of an army, you have 8 minions on PoE2 and you feel alone vs. the mobs.

The SRS, that are triggered with a fire spell is an entire joke. Most joke after 0.2, because we need to SPAM the firewall to cast all of them. This means you have all screen with firewalls (that don't let you see the area attacks) with a game with performances issues when there is a lot of skills on screen.
And 6 months after the 0.1, we still missing SRS stats on their description

The third problem is the PURE dependancy of level and spirit.
You find a +3 scepter and later a 150 spirit sceptre + damage of allies on your presence? Well, the +3 scepter is better. You must only focus on one stat, that maybe is a easy way for us to play, but when you have not items with +level of minions, you are stuck.

Stuck, literally, because on PoE1 you can say "ok, I will go previous zones, farm level, upgrade gems and come back", but in PoE2 if you have no luck finding uncutted gems, you are stuck.
You have spent a lot of passives on minion damage, you have more minion damage on the tree than never before, and you don't have damage... leveling and getting one passive point extra to get another 10% increased minion damage is not the solution
And if you are in a zone where you can't have a drop of upper uncut gemlevel than you have, you have a problem.

Spirit isn't our ally. You usually get more stuck on campaing than in endgame. This is becasue your spirit grows, the requeriment of spirit of minion lowers, that's fine. But during campaing you feel so lack of spirit. And seems a mechanic to say players "need more spirit? grow your character and will see how this could shine", but you are forcing us a tedious gameplay of a lot of hours.

Both, level and spirit, are a deadly combo that fustrates because are entire walls to improve your character.

And, don't forget, necromantic aegis, the amulet on your minions.
I've tested this passive and only found two uses for it: the unique amulet that gives 75% cold penetration and get an army of frost mages or an amulet with life regeneration on your allies on the bloodthirst queen to give their minion-wasps a bit regeneration.
This minion mechanic is a waste or in 6 months nobody found any way to use it better than reserving the item for yourself and improve the spirit/level +stats.

The other playstyles could say "oh, I will try to craft another weapon with damage, or crit", or finding gloves with flat damage, or rings... We can't.
The main affix we need is very rare, and means you will WASTE currency if you try to craft anything. Could spend a transmutation to try, but a regal? never! it's 99.999% chance to fail.
A simple solution could be a initial node on witch who says: "10% of your added attack damage of items are applied to your minions"

Finally, the problem is the feedback they have.
There is two kind of people, who loves the active gameplay and who loves a passive-relaxing gameplay.
First ones, will play archers, amazons, wizards, mercenaries... and also minions. They rotate what they play depending what they wish to play and what they have played before. And it's Ok, it's fine, are so good.
When they reach minions, they say "oh, minions are extremelly good, they works extremelly fine". Why? Because they used to play activelly, they are confortable pushing the skills on a sucession of time generating charges to empower next attacks... and the gameplay with minions they found are good because uses the active minion habilites and they have a little defensive shieldmeat to stay safe.
This people loves challenging himselfs to improve their own skills to beat the game.
And they are the people who is testing (in my opinion) the game on GGG, and is the people who has given them the feedback of the minion playstyle.

But the passive-relaxing players, who focus mainly on playing minions and totems, will not get confortable playing with another style, they feel that pushing more than one button to spam SRS and potions are demanding so much from them and loves to play easy getting overprotected with something that targets and kills.
This people don't likes the challenges, they wish to farm better gear to improve the skill, not himselves.
(yes, i'm this second ones)
And this group of players don't feel the game is great. Neither is fine. The game is good because is called "Path Of Exile", but if the game were another one, will get uninstalled.

I've eaten the gameplay of 0.1 with the minion watching me while they are stucked on a door or something.
You solved months later, but I were tired to replay again
I've eaten the ultranerf of 0.2 with the minion spending a lot of time to try to kill a single white enemy.
You solved this after community disappointments, but I'm tired to replay again
I hope on 0.3 you improve the minions playstyle or will play even less than this season.

In my opinion, gameplay with minions in PoE2 is absolute boring.
I feel lack of damage, I feel my minions are glasslike, I feel if I don't play activelly, minions will take 3-4 times more to kill any mob than other playstyles, I feel that 8-9 minions don't gives me any meatshield or any area of cleaning whites, I feel I must sacrifice a lot of defensive layers to priorice the minion level and the spirit and reductions (bones ull, body of 100 spirit, helmet with level, amulet with spirit and level, sceptre with leve...), and even with the sacrifices, they don't do anything

And the last idea I feel they don't have made a reflexion, is the idea of the 0.1 presentation, you can combine all skills as you wish. But with sceptre (playing minions without it is a suicide) you can't combine with any martial weapon (except spears), which means the combination is reduced to "use weapon swap and lose minions when attacking" or "just use the spell skills with a wand, and look, there are very few spells on poe2 becasuse a lot of spells of PoE1 has been converted on weapon-attacks in poe2"

This are all mainly problems of minions. Any problem on endgame (what ghazzly said on video) is consecuence of a bad minion-playstyle desing from base

PS: I add another suggestion... the sekemas are not good for someone that don't have good coordination evading mechanics. THey said: "you are not forced to do a specific ascension mechanic. Ok... but at act2, there is only ONE mechanic. Do it or will go voluntarelly underpowered to cry trying to beat the boss of act2.