Pls GGG fix minions PLS!!!(not srs)

I tried to play a minion build without srs. The problem is that melee minions do not deal enough damage. Minions die 1 second after the boss fight despite the meat shield. Please fix the minion dmg so that you can play a pure minion build. That was what I was most looking forward to in poe2 and unfortunately it is unplayable :( (and no, I don't mean ghazzy's version with srs)

I spec'd out of minions after they seemed to be seeking out damage puddles to stand in.

Yeah, persistent minions are in a rough spot, mostly because on the one hand, you would want to mix the minions into a versatile army, but on the other hand you both don't have enough spirit for that, and you can't repeat support gems, so you're limited to one tanky and one damage-dealing minion, and SRS just so happen to be really, really, really good damage-dealing minion.

They seem to start getting better around cruel difficulty. I am at the midpoint of act 3 and its starting to get quite a bit better. But hoooly they are still bad. A lot of downsides and no upside with permanent minions.

Low hp
Low dmg
Requires spirit
Slow aspd/cast speed
Downtime (both on death and for abilities)

No other regular gem seems to have this many downsides to fix. For what? The upside that sometimes the dmg itself is automated? Not worth it so far. At this point anything the minions can do, a regular spell seems to do better. And I am currently only pushing forward with them because a lot of the decent support gems are locked behind higher tiers which I am unlocking at the moment.

tl:dr
Minion early game is too spiky between ok vs trash, while mostly being trash.