Witch Minions, totally unplayable

Second this, I’ve played mainly witch on PoE and poe2 trailers hyped me so much for minion build. But I am lvl 20 and changing to other classes, coz it’s bs. Dont wanna see this char any more..

Just hit cruel diff playing as minions and loving it.

Infernalist Witch focusing on warriors/reavers as bread and butter, using bonestorm with pierce on engage transitioning to unearth as stuff starts dying to roll into the next pack.

Pain offering for bosses/annoying rares, same with Vulnerability. Chuck some armour shred on your meat wall warriors, plus the phys damage buff from bonestorm and you can pump some serious physical hits with minions.

Still pathing towards extra spirit node, and picking up ES survivability on the way.

Future is looking bright.

I don't think you are supposed to let your pets play the game for you in poe2. You have to see them as addition and launching pad for your further skills, which is why they automatically resummon.

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Darqion#3624 wrote:

in poe 1 minions absolutely clap from start to finish (campaign) without issue.
And have a whole build archtype not be useful until lvl 50 is just ass. Makes little sense why they couldve buff them a little to make it viable.

Oh, I wasn't referring to minion builds in POE1 when I said that. I meant some builds kicked off later on.

"GGG wants mor active gameplay". So why put minions in the game? I came from a exhaustive day and want to farm while chill.

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anylius#6626 wrote:

"GGG wants mor active gameplay". So why put minions in the game? I came from a exhaustive day and want to farm while chill.

If you want to play to chill, I think this is the wrong game for you I'm afraid. This was known for quite some time now.

IDK what was the final boss in act 1. now im in act 2. the last boss i remember was the wofl. it was very easy. took some rolls. maybe under 5 minutes.
raging spirit/flame wall/spark/skeleton warrior/bone cage. thats all.
hope this helps.

feel the same level 21 witch here trying to switch to elemental witch now

Yeah, I struggled for about 20 hours, got half way into act 2.
Turned to my poe1 guild to see what other minion players were doing. Several of us got to about the same point and started really struggling.
The exception is srs.

Like we pooled resources, started trading gems and supports. There is 0 ways to play a minion build without srs. You can "have minions" while you do a spell build, or you can do srs... that's it.
2 ascendency points in any class didn't change this. It was still either srs or a spell build.

Also, a lot of us were surprised by srs and actually are currently thinking it's bugged. When we were all talking about potential minion builds we all thought it was 30 spirit per srs. So 10 srs would need 300 spirit. The fact that 10 srs from 2 flamewalls is only 30 spirit means srs damage should be around what 1 skeleton warrior is... but in some testing 8 skeleton warriors with 2 increased damage supports do less damage than 1 flame wall and 6 srs...with 0 supports except fortress on flame wall.

Persistent minions need a serious buff... like triple life and triple damage buff to be close to a viable archtype. Otherwise you are not playing a minion build... your a caster with minions.

FEEDBACK (for anyone who can use it)

(POE 2) Level 20 Infernalist Witch - SOLO player.

I slowly went through every inch of every area to explore POE 2. I have beaten every boss so far with difficulty.

Current Location: Act 2, Mawdun Mine
/deaths : 61 times
/played : 11 hours, 1 minute, 52 seconds
/killed : 6,253 monsters
Currency: 3 EXA, 2 REG, 16K gold, from drops and selling to vendor
Passive Skill Tree: I selected the nearest minion damage and minion life-related nodes I could reach in the passive skill tree. I probably chose +10 strength so far, the rest went to intelligence.
Gear: magic (blue), a few rares (yellow). All gear are drops from Acts 1, 2.

POE 2 playstyle:

Very early (and difficult): Cast Flamewall, Unearth only. Had only 2 skeleton warriors (from a sceptre). Have to kite the bosses, and spacebar to dodge/roll. Eventually, I had 2 additional skeletal arsonists. The additional minions didn't make much of a difference, I still died a lot (died at least 40 times as of Level 8).

Near the end of Act 1: Cast Flamewall 2x (triggers 10 SRS total), Cast Contagion (or Enfeeble), Unearth, Pain Offering. I still have 2 skeleton warriors plus 2 skeletal arsonists. I still have to kite the bosses, and spacebar to dodge/roll. I also need more support gems (I need uncut support gems) to support the skill gems.

You can obtain SRS by defeating Act 1 King of the Mists. SRS is a game changer - it's a bit easier now, but still requires a lot of support casting on my part.

FEEDBACK as of Level 20: Compared to POE 1, in a previous league, I reached level 40 without dying once. So dying 61 times by Level 20 is very unusual for me. I only play Necromancer (I have 22 characters - all Necromancers). I usually let my zombies/SRS/Skeletons do all the work while I just run around (my preferred playing style, since I am lazy). I can AFK in the PVP Arena with just one zombie (instead of using all 9 zombies, 3 spectres, 5 SRS, skeletons at level 40), which will beat many PVP players. I don't like to click much, because it will hurt my finger(s). So POE 2 is way way way more difficult than POE 1 as a minion-only user. I have to cast a lot of support stuff just to stay alive, move around and avoid attacks to go thru the more difficult content. From the looks of it, at Level 20, SRS is the way to go. You must use a fire spell (like Flamewall) to trigger SRS.

Hope this helps someone. POE 2 is looking pretty good so far.