The minion struggle

Even after the buffs, minions still need some love.

- Minions die too often, particularly boss AoE.
- Minion AI is still buggy in many situations.
- There are not many (if any) uniques that feel powerful/impactful
- Boss damage is too low at endgame, not entirely addressed by better minion survivability. I've tried multiple types/combinations.
- Spectres are so far a complete letdown. Vaal guard is eye cancer. So far no good buff/support ones found. (granted, they may still be out there, not looking good though). They mostly have the same problem as base minions, damage/survivability is too low, and most simply move too slow.


Even though I suffered things like a 20m A2 boss before the "buffs", I still had hope. Now that I'm 92, sure I can clear maps and so far kill bosses with some effort, I just don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Even if I got all the available chase upgrades there isn't enough power available in those to feel OP at any point, which defeats the purpose.


Minions aren't dead, but there were not "meta" in 0.1, and the current 0.2 state is significantly worse than before. I think minimally...


- Better damage scaling at end game.
- Address minion AoE 1-shots on bosses, especially if you invest heavily into defenses.
- Don't be too scared to make actually powerful uniques.
- Figure out what you want to do with spectres. I would rather have a few well thought out ones vs. 200 generically useless ones.

true and true,
lower all spirit cost as well while ur at it.

Ghazzy made a video as well on issues during mapping (aoe) bosses 1shotting all minions even with heavily invested stuff!

I do not like the idea of minions dying during their respawn while I can do nothing about it. So I wrote a post that tries to fix this behavior check it out if you like give it a bump:

Minion invulnerability when re/spawning

Please fix minions GGG...

I was going to make my own post but might aswell gather it in one post. I just leveled a minion character as my second character (after the buffs) and i must say i think theres a fundamental error in minion design. It feels like by adding the self resurrection mechanic its like the game is centered around that this feature has to be used. Jonathan said himself that combat has to be meaningfull, but i really think most people do not find it engaging having your minions be dead, it stats as soon as the cemetary bosses, they all have aoe, it all one shots minions, and theres not really any counter play, except for running in circles for 8 seconds waiting for them to come back, and theres not really any tools to help you avoid this, you dont have skill tree points or gems enough to build tanky or adapt in any way. Its just not fun nor engaging combat. if minions didnt die as easily i think it would make it more fun to play, and having convocation an ability to move your minions out of slams or such.

Things i also have a note on
- spectres need a general balance, either increase their damage, or reduce spirit cost, but i do also see that having support spectres become mandatory if spirit cost is too low a thing, so i personally think increasing damage is the safest option.
- spectres are bugged, the catch up mechanic doesnt always work, i have spectres (pyromushroom cultivators) they often either just stand still doing nothing or is stuck in the catch up form, where they dont move, and is not present to attack either.
- minion AI seems abit wonky, especially on spectres, shooting into hills to try and hit a monster on top, but just keeps shooting into the hill (doryanis elite) very much suffered from this Issue.
- theres a massive lack of options to enhance minions, an option to add projectiles that didnt include scattershot would be cool, because frankly the spectre dmg cannot support a 35% less damage modifier, and on top of that 20% less attack speed. Also options to convert damage would be nice, since alot of minions might have 40% of physical converted to fire, an option to convert the rest so you could scale the fire dmg would help alot.
- also consider giving spectres a base minimum movement speed, some of the minions walk incredibly slow compared to others (like the pyromushroom cultivators) and theres only 1 note on the tree to give 20% movement speed, if there was a base minimum on spectres, it would also make alot of them feel better.

I couldnt agreed more. I love the minions but man are they frustrating at times. They dont follow properly, attack the right things(even when directed) and I don't how many times I am left not a single one alive and just me running around waiting for a respawn that shoul,d be a LOT faster then what it is.

I also think it is a problem that the best feeling "minion" for map clearing currently is frost mages, because their command ability is just multitudes stronger than their single target, not to mention being AoE.

The problem isn't the damage per say, but the fact that it plays like a caster class and defeats the purpose of playing a minion class in the first place. I understand you would like minion players to push more buttons, but I would rather those buttons be buffs/supports/debuffs and not a spammed attack ability.

Options like this aren't even a bad idea, but the BEST option for minions shouldn't be to play like a non-minion class.

"I've picked shitty skeletal mages with 4k hp at 30lv gem as my only minions, they get one shotted because its glass cannon minions, pls fix ggg" - the post. Playing minion build, 15k hp each, huge damage, big dix. Skill issue post.

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SteamSkullerR#7239 wrote:

I do not like the idea of minions dying during their respawn while I can do nothing about it. So I wrote a post that tries to fix this behavior check it out if you like give it a bump:

Minion invulnerability when re/spawning

tbh this sooner or later will still be an issue a 3/4 seconds immortal time as u mentioned won't fix it really, as on the next aoe swipe they will still all get 1shotted

as their movement is absolutely dogshit :(

the boss will slash them sooner then my minions walk across half the boss arena

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TechnicallBrains#4648 wrote:

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SteamSkullerR#7239 wrote:

I do not like the idea of minions dying during their respawn while I can do nothing about it. So I wrote a post that tries to fix this behavior check it out if you like give it a bump:

Minion invulnerability when re/spawning

tbh this sooner or later will still be an issue a 3/4 seconds immortal time as u mentioned won't fix it really, as on the next aoe swipe they will still all get 1shotted

as their movement is absolutely dogshit :(

the boss will slash them sooner then my minions walk across half the boss arena

I actually do not mind minions being weak. That post is not for that the reason you mentioned, it is to prevent them from dying wo being useful or dying and not being able to die again even though player attention could prevent it from happening.

Being able to control them after respawn mitigates the lack of player action against that game behavior.

I do believe their movement could be improved through some physics/collision changes and/or new minion movement features. Didn't someone said something about making minion movement speed faster?