PASSIVE TREE AND MINIONS

I made a witch (Ice Summoner) and I have some questions regarding the passive skill tree and minions:


1) In the skill tree there are some perks that mention "skill" and others "spell", what's the difference between skill and spell?

2) Minions are considered spells or skills? And if a perk increases the damage of spell/skill, do the minions get affected in any way?

3) "Doom Cast" mentions Critical Strike Chance for SPELLS, but others just 'Critical Strike Chance'. Does Critical applies to all: spells, skills and wand (melee) attacks? I'm focusing on Minions, Ice Nova and Frost Wall, does Critical Strike affect any of those in any way?

4) "Minion Instability" makes a fire explosion, so if I increase fire damage in the skill tree, does this explosion do more damage?

5) "Necromantic Aegis" gives minions all your shield's stats? Even Energy Shield? Is that Energy Shield shown in their health bar? (if not, it should be)

6) Auras that provide elemental damage to you and your allies (like "Wrath"... well, just that one sadly), does that added damage improves if I and/or any of my allies have passive skills that increases the damage of that particular element? And if I have, then my minions too would increase that element's damage?

7) In the skill tree I only see 3 "super" skills for minions ("Lord of the Dead", "Minion Instability", and "Necromantic Aegis"), is that all there is? Just 3? Please tell me that I'm missing a few more...

8) What's a "Power Charge" and an "Endurance Charge"? (and other charges I'm missing). I've never achived one it seems...

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Magnamuz wrote:

1) In the skill tree there are some perks that mention "skill" and others "spell", what's the difference between skill and spell?

"Skill" refers to any skill, be it a weapon attack or a spell. Attacks use weapons, spells don't.

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Magnamuz wrote:

2) Minions are considered spells or skills? And if a perk increases the damage of spell/skill, do the minions get affected in any way?

Minions aren't spells. The only passives that give bonuses to minions are those that explicitly state that they do so. Minions don't benefit from any other type of passive.

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Magnamuz wrote:

3) "Doom Cast" mentions Critical Strike Chance for SPELLS, but others just 'Critical Strike Chance'. Does Critical applies to all: spells, skills and wand (melee) attacks? I'm focusing on Minions, Ice Nova and Frost Wall, does Critical Strike affect any of those in any way?

If it doesn't specify what it applies to, it applies to everything (weapon attack skills and spells). As previously stated, these passives won't affect minions.

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Magnamuz wrote:

4) "Minion Instability" makes a fire explosion, so if I increase fire damage in the skill tree, does this explosion do more damage?

It doesn't currently, but I think this is supposed to change in the future.

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Magnamuz wrote:

5) "Necromantic Aegis" gives minions all your shield's stats? Even Energy Shield? Is that Energy Shield shown in their health bar? (if not, it should be)

Yes to everything.

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Magnamuz wrote:

6) Auras that provide elemental damage to you and your allies (like "Wrath"... well, just that one sadly), does that added damage improves if I and/or any of my allies have passive skills that increases the damage of that particular element? And if I have, then my minions too would increase that element's damage?

Damage passives do apply to damage bonuses gained from auras. Again, your passives won't affect your minions in this way.

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Magnamuz wrote:

7) In the skill tree I only see 3 "super" skills for minions ("Lord of the Dead", "Minion Instability", and "Necromantic Aegis"), is that all there is? Just 3? Please tell me that I'm missing a few more...

Nope, that's all of them. More may be added in the future, but I don't know of any plans.

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Magnamuz wrote:

8) What's a "Power Charge" and an "Endurance Charge"? (and other charges I'm missing). I've never achived one it seems...

Power, endurance, and frenzy charges (one for each attribute). They are a sort of timed buff that you can gain and use in various ways. They are mainly gained through skills, and some skills consume them. To quote the Mechanics Thread:

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malice wrote:

Some skills grant Endurance (strength), Frenzy (dexterity), or Power (intelligence) charges.
Each charge lasts a short duration before it disappears. Gaining a charge resets the duration of all accumulated charges.

Endurance charges are related to the strength attribute and grant +5% physical damage reduction, and +5% to elemental resistances (fire, cold, and lightning) per charge.
The physical damage reduction stacks with the damage reduction from armour, so that they are both applied at the same time. For example, if a monster deals 100 damage, and you have 10% DR from two endurance charges, and enough armour to prevent 30 of the 100 damage, the incoming damage would be reduced by 40.

Frenzy charges are related to the dexterity attribute and grant +5% attack speed and +5% cast speed per charge.

Power charges are related to the intelligence attribute and grant +50% critical strike chance per charge.

By default characters can have a maximum number of 3 active charges of each type at one time. This maximum can be increased by certain passive skills.

Many many thanks for the thorough explanation ^_^

I still got some doubts if you don't mind (or anyone that wants to answer).

6.i) In question (6) about the auras, You didn't covered if the increment in damage is produced by me, by my ally, or by both. For ex:

If I use Wrath to give and extra 10 of electric damage, and I have a +100% bonus of elemental damage:
a) Only I end doing 20 total damage and my allies just 10?
b) Me and my allies end doing 20 total damage?

In the same case, but an ally also has a +100% elemental damage boost:
a) Does that ally increases to 30 from my and his boost?
b) Does he just increases to 20 from his own boost and not mine?


6.ii) I'm sorry I forgot another detail in my question, I DO remember having Wrath activated and seeing the aura animation around my closest minions, but I couldn't determine if the extra damage was taking place because no damage numbers pop up anywhere. Were those animations a bug? If not, and if I have electrical element bonus, the minions would do MORE damage too because of my Wrath+bonus?


3.i) Last one, in question (3), do you know in what way is Frost Wall enhanced by Critical Chance passive boost?


I think that's all, I'm really sorry for the long questions, I tried to be as clear as possible, and if something's not clear enough please say so and don't waste your time trying to understand it, I will reexplain it as clear as I can.

Thanks again for the attention :)

When you are under the affect of an aura, only your own passive skills apply to the buff. There's no way to improve the damage someone else gets from your aura. You only use your own passives, and support gems don't add damage to them because the auras themselves don't deal damage.

Auras affect "nearby allies," including minions. "Allies" refers to anything on your side. Something that includes other friendly players but excludes minions, like the Conduit keystone passive, would say "party members." So, yes, auras work on your minions when they're within the radius. You can't increase the damage the minions will get from an aura because minions don't use your passives.

Frost Wall has a base crit chance like all other spells, shown on the skill gem. Your crit passives are added up and then applied to a spell as a multiplier, meaning 75% increased critical strike chance applied to Frost Wall's 5% base would result in a 8.75% crit chance.

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This is not going to change - you minions deal that damage, not you.

Hmmm... but since it is my passive?

Actually if I use detonate dead, the dead corpse deals the damage not I. So I guess increased damage does not work there too?

Normally I would guess that if I let something explode my passivs apply to this explosion, regardless if it is detonated by active choice or by using a passiv. It's like creating the minions with a charge.

The better reason to not scale it is, that it actually scales with your passivs. Minion Instability is based on MaxHP of your Minions, which you could increase with passivs. Adding additional scaling via Fire-Damage-Passives would turn your zombies into wandering nukes...

Your minions are not you, so they don't get your passives. You can increase the power of a spell you cast, which in turn increases the max health, stats, etc. of a zombie, but your zombie will not get any passives you do, unless you have a shield that has those passives and you have aegis.

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Emphasy wrote:

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This is not going to change - you minions deal that damage, not you.

Actually if I use detonate dead, the dead corpse deals the damage not I. So I guess increased damage does not work there too?

Increased damage works there, but not spell damage because of balancing reasons. The difference between instability and detonate dead is that you detonate the corpse, the minions detonate themselves.

An easy way to understand why your passives don't affect your allies when they receive your aura is this: What you are casting on yourself is the aura caster itself. It is this caster that casts the buffs on you and your nearby allies. Kinda like a totem but one that you carry with you. Because the aura itself has no inherent passives the damage buff you receive from it is exactly what is stated in the skill tooltip. Your passives then increase the buff.

So, to sum up: You cast the aura on yourself. The aura then casts the buffs on you and your nearby allies, and the aura has no passive damage increase, and since it doesn't do damage itself, it isn't affected by your passives.

If you want to increase the minion explode damage just boost their hp because that is what its based off, or use vulnerability curse etc

Cant wait for the minion stats though!