Sorceress' tree nodes do not effect Varashta minions.

Long story short, I tried the new ascendancy but quickly found out that "deals spell damage" does not in fact mean my increased spell damage would increases the damage of the summon/spells.

They appear to only be affected by "minion damage", which might seem reasonable, until you realize that you gave this ascendancy to the wrong class then - sorceress has no early minion damage nodes. (facepalm)

Well... I'll be respeccing next opportunity then. Hope another Barya drops sooon...

Oh and then I tried to use the summon abilities with a talisman equipped - literally the only source of minion damage on my entire character - but you cannot use non-shapeshifting abilities while having a talisman equipped it seems. (facepalm number two)

How utterly unintuitive and ineffective.

I'm looking at my tree right now and I can spend like 20 points to travel to a grand total of +30% minion damage. And it's really hard to avoid any spell damage or minion life/minion attack speed nodes that will do literally nothing for my summons.

To be fair after doing a literal full respec and avoiding any and all early sorc nodes, the abilities the ascendancy gives me are fine damage wise.

I don't think doing your first ascendancy should necessitate an immediate full respec though, and also the early nodes need a spell damage/minion damage hybrid stat.