Witch Minions, totally unplayable

Witch - Level 12
Passive: minion + spell dmg (a bit of cast speed)
skeleton warrior/sniper + unearth + contagion = decent for mobs.. I guess
Starting around Devern? Devren, derven w/e.. It started taking 3-5 minutes to kill a boss. Had to just kite in circles while minions auto spawn and auto die.
1) No adds from boss make it worse - auto summoned minions turn to ash immediately, boss always focused on player.
2) Downhill from there.
3) Firewall does more damage at lvl 3 than all of myself combined :'(
4) Unplayable like this - feels like poe1.

Infernalist isn't really dedicated minion tree at all, it's just the *only* remotely minion tree. None of the others do anything for minions at all

What level is everyone and what kind of health do your minions have? I am towards the middle or end of Act 2 and not really having a problem. Worried I might be screwed for the future.

"

AcidLies#4524 wrote:

There actually is a dedicated minion ascendancy build in the Infernalist tree. +spirit, and the dog.

To make this even sadder, Titan has a single ascendency point that offers MASSIVELY more power in that one single point (we are talking factors of difference not percentages, both offense and defense wise for minions) than the entirety of the Infernalist Ascendancy offers. I would also argue Gemling might offer more offensive power than Infernalist as well but honestly the difference is minor at best.

I should note I am not a minion doom-sayer, I played minions through the first 2 acts with 0 minion nodes and really did not find the game "that" hard. Just pointing this out for reference that GGG really did decide to offer next to no power in the Ascendancy options for minion builds.

Not an expert as I played up to level 12 for now but I equipped gloves that gives me lightning damage to attack. All my minions seem to have gotten the buff, it showed in their stats.

Before trashing the gameplay, maybe just remember that this isn't POE 1 and there might get other ways to buff them. I haven't finished act1 yet but they respawn fast and I have no difficulties yet.

Im sad too. I stuck in campaign act I. I could only get there with kiting and gasarrow.

Anyone else also disappointed in the class fantasy? I get more minions in Diablo 2 within 10 levels. And the fact that you don't cast the minions yourself, they are just there automatically really makes it feel like they aren't something I created. All this game made me want to do is go back to play diablo 2 necromancer, play Last Epoch Necro, or reroll a summoner in PoE.

I feel like every game like this ( Diablo and Last Epoch too ) anything that has pets is absolute dog crap to play. I feel the reason is they don't want a passive dps where you can afk and your pets do everything. But they ALWAYS miss the mark by lightyears.

"

Nephillus#3859 wrote:

I feel like every game like this ( Diablo and Last Epoch too ) anything that has pets is absolute dog crap to play. I feel the reason is they don't want a passive dps where you can afk and your pets do everything. But they ALWAYS miss the mark by lightyears.

Yes, you are right, this is the idea of GGG in PoE1, they are nerfing, for example, the totem playstyle because they said they wish more active gameplay, ok.
BUT:
I feel I can play with fireball focused build and can play, I can play with a
grenade focused build and can play, but when you go on minions, you focus on minions on tree and items and you can't play.
And, while you are focusing on minions, your skills don't do damage enough because you focused on a skill that don't scale damage at all. (Why the minion stats of damage are empty? How can I know the damage? How can be scaled?)

Maybe the GGG idea is to focus spamming the minion habilities? Well... What's the point? To stay hitting all keys I can is better to do a monk or a mercenary, you will do more damage and will have funnier playstyle.

The only minion that really works is the Raging spirit, but you can't get it until act2, making act1 a big wall to progess and a fustrating playstyle (and Act1 is sooo long when your minions takes 2-3 respawns to kill few white mobs)

I dont know guys .. feels like you are doing something wrong because I am smoothly running through and srs feels op af (spawning them with flame wall) then do flamability and using skeletal frost mages (insane cc specially for boss fights) then pain offering and unearth :) I am not doing any direct dmg only resummoning raging spirits and bone construct minions with unearth and everything dies pretty fast :) lvl 49 atm