Feedback on the State of Minions in POE2 (Itemisation, Crafting, Performance and "feel")

i played minion in 0.1-0.3 in trade and ssf.
I started 0.3 as LA deadeye and dropped it after reaching t15 in ~10h. It just feels like arcade shooter comparing to minions i played before. So i switched back to minions to check if i'm mistaked or not. And i was not, minions are a slug gameplay very hard (to get) itemization.

And in 0.4 i skipped all minions because itemization and scaling sux - not only damage, but speed and survivability also. Trying plants druid on ssf - and i reach t15 with ilvl15 staff from act1(or start of a2?). Aoe is very good, boss damage is enough. No fighting with minions ai is also a big release. Still much weaker than 0.3 LA...

I hope there will be balance changes and itemization changes and many other changes to the game.

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Lollashy#1745 wrote:

Presently, for minion players, there is only a single viable scaling option for all minion skills: +Levels. While I don't think +Levels being the most powerful and valuable affix is necessarily bad, when compared to other possible affixes on our only Minion-specific gear piece (Sceptres) all other affixes provide almost no noticeable benefit. Crit mods, flat damage mods, aps mods all provide such low value comparatively that a good Sceptre has only 2 truly relevant mods: Levels and (in most cases) Spirit. Even something like 105% increased minion damage (a very low weighting mod) will typically provide ~15-20% more damage in high investment builds, while +4 Levels will provide around 60% more damage and ALSO significantly increase minion survivability (and in some cases lower spirit costs if breakpoints are reached).

Strong agree. I'm running a minion muster setup, and my gearing options feel locked to +x to minion level.

Also, Truditoru seems to have shown (and I agree) that Powered Zealots are still the best spectre in the game. I'm running a Twilight Order Officer with them, partly for the utility, but partly out of stubbornness that I don't want to power game. The project to review and update spectre variants of monsters is *great*, and I hope there will be more viable options in the future.

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Maria1994#7022 wrote:

We want max 6 but rock hard!

You want 6. I want an army. I want to see hordes clashing, not a failed D&D party where only the necromancer survived.

Coming from PoE1 which perfected the concept of summoning since D2, PoE2's minions are a far cry from what they used to be. We literally went from Diablo 2 to Diablo 3 here and it's frustrating.

The amount of investment I have to put into my Powered Zealot summoner to clear T3 Xesht breach gauntlet or any tier Simulacrum is insane compared to my Essence Drain lich which dunks on them easily.

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Pizzarugi#6258 wrote:

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Maria1994#7022 wrote:

We want max 6 but rock hard!

You want 6. I want an army. I want to see hordes clashing, not a failed D&D party where only the necromancer survived.

Coming from PoE1 which perfected the concept of summoning since D2, PoE2's minions are a far cry from what they used to be. We literally went from Diablo 2 to Diablo 3 here and it's frustrating.

The amount of investment I have to put into my Powered Zealot summoner to clear T3 Xesht breach gauntlet or any tier Simulacrum is insane compared to my Essence Drain lich which dunks on them easily.

Hordes??? Ok lets do it 150 minions per mage. 3x mages in a full party=450 mimions. Are you satisfied with this number or you need more. For Christ dhake this is not an anthill. You supposed to be a part of a teaming play not drinking coffee while your servants destroying everything. Minion builds ruined everything in this game.

Enough with these stupid minions. GGG should lower the max limit to 8-10 per char. First we had minions, now we have all those ground effects from mages. Party play is a joke.

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Maria1994#7022 wrote:

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Pizzarugi#6258 wrote:

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Maria1994#7022 wrote:

We want max 6 but rock hard!

You want 6. I want an army. I want to see hordes clashing, not a failed D&D party where only the necromancer survived.

Coming from PoE1 which perfected the concept of summoning since D2, PoE2's minions are a far cry from what they used to be. We literally went from Diablo 2 to Diablo 3 here and it's frustrating.

The amount of investment I have to put into my Powered Zealot summoner to clear T3 Xesht breach gauntlet or any tier Simulacrum is insane compared to my Essence Drain lich which dunks on them easily.

Hordes??? Ok lets do it 150 minions per mage. 3x mages in a full party=450 mimions. Are you satisfied with this number or you need more. For Christ dhake this is not an anthill. You supposed to be a part of a teaming play not drinking coffee while your servants destroying everything. Minion builds ruined everything in this game.

What are you talking about? Minions builds didn't ruin anything. PoE has been a singleplayer game first and foremost with trading involved. The game shouldn't be balanced with party play in mind.

If you want to argue about minions having terrible visual clarity, that's fair. Powered Zealots are the most awful minions you can ask for in that regard.

Minion builds should be about, you know, minions. The most you should be responsible for is applying buffs and debuffs, and summoning. If you have to do anything more than that, then why play a summoner at all? Just play with comet or whatever other spell at that point.

Played minions in 0.1, 0.3 and 0.4 but only for first 2-3 weeks to farm some currency and switch to the next viable meta build as fast as possible. Minions are (even with high investment) not even close to some meta builds with a fraction of the costs. Minions still lack "clever" attack/protection AI, missing the ability for "screen- and offscreen clearing".
The state minion builds are now... it will fail in 1.0. Frozn Mandbls was the first interesting minion since all time of PoE, but GGG had to disable it :/ The game lacks any good interaction and viable AI to have long term fun, especially after lvl 97 it seems impossible to reach 100 cause of how slow you progress through maps.
Another issue is lack of good gear which is for minions only and doesn't share with other builds e.g. any spirit and spirit reservation items - those get changed (mostly nerfed) its no fun any longer. Unresonable high spirit costs make it even worse to play - 0.4 felt like 1/3 of dmg overall, 50% less spirit compared to 0.3.
Why should anyone enjoy minions if they suck that much? Minions need a complete overhaul or GGG should just remove it from the game.

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Exxi#2323 wrote:

Minions need a complete overhaul or GGG should just remove it from the game.

Totally agree! Gargamel's cat have better AI. 😭

+ minion spells desecration is 1/4chance how is it hard

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ryszek#5266 wrote:

+ minion spells desecration is 1/4chance how is it hard

We also desperately need convocation. Right now the best strategy to teleport minions on top of you is spamming weapon swap which is annoying.