GGG Says- Don't play Minion builds!

[No' Name]

So, in this new league, which everyone pretty much considers to be the "Rippiest" I believe is what people are using, referring to you die the most due to the ridiculous power of Bosses in general, or at least some of the streamers I've watched. I decided to pick up this game again, and give it a try.

I'm currently level 67, almost have pretty much ALL skillpoints set into a build Minion skills, only missing maybe 6 now, and I guess I don't play this game too often, because I just NOW realised, minions have a stupid targeting factor. I noticed most of the minions if not ALL, except "Summon Skeletons" of course, follow my cursor when using any skill, hell, even attacking, so I chose to use "Raging Skulls" as my main source of targeting, which for the most part works.

The problem here lies within boss battles which in general, you'll have the tendency to move around quit a bit, trying to avoid certain attacks, and or floating balls of Death that home onto you, draining your Energy Shield, and HP down within seconds.

Granted, I don't have the best gear yet, however, this targeting system is frustrating, and majority of the time I'm relying on "Summon Skeletons", and "Vaal Summon Skeletons" just win boss fights. This is due to the fact my minions won't allow me to run away, or avoid attacks of bosses, because in doing so, they stop attacking, and move with the player.

This is sad, because in quite few games I tend to lean towards Summoner builds, mainly due to the fact I've grown out of being a normal up close beat-em-up fighter.

After I finish the acts in this "League", I don't think I'm going to stay around much longer now knowing what I do about "Minions". Kind of a really Sh_tty design mechanic, especially almost being forced to be "Squishy", and not being able to freely dodge attacks.

Hopefully that changes later. Anyways, I'm done venting for now.

[simon]

Different minions work in different ways. Some are aggressive and some are not. You should be using Zombies, for example, as your guards to protect you (meat shield) and other types like skeletons to attack.

[Talec]

Thanks for the info

[Quqi]

Death Mark skill will help you. You just dont know how to manipulate your sumnons. And yea, not the best idea get every minion passive node cause main factor in this league survivability.

[dOBER]

you can try a build like steemage

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/524788610
https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Steelmage/characters

extrem tanky and can do every content with close to no investment

[Astasia]

Minions are literally the most popular build this league, by far, because they work the best for dealing with the mechanics.

Minion AI is in your hands, you have feeding frenzy and meat shield to control general behavior, and deathmark as mentioned to force a target.

[Tirix]

link minion you use to Feeding Frenzy Support gem to changes the supported minion behaviour to be aggressive.

[davidb11]

There are no attacks in this game that home in on you. So, don't worry about that.
The AI might have uncanny accuracy, but literally nothing is like homing Arrow in Diablo 2. :P

[Kotli]

Get deathmark support gem at level 20 it gives 24% more damage to minions.
But the real reason to use it is this it gives you the skill deathmark that marks a target and forces all linked minions to attack this mob as well as giving your minions another 25% more damage to the deathmark target.

[Xilo The Odd]

Originally posted by Kotli:

Get deathmark support gem at level 20 it gives 24% more damage to minions.
But the real reason to use it is this it gives you the skill deathmark that marks a target and forces all linked minions to attack this mob as well as giving your minions another 25% more damage to the deathmark target.

sadly if you use this gem you want to keep your minion variety supported by it to a minimum. otherwise you wind up like my golem commander trying to make everything deathmark supported. xD

things NOT to support with deathmark:

specters, raging spirits, some golems (carrion is a lot of fun to use DMS with.)

[MagnusGrey]

Try unleash support with SRS, then you can run around and still have 20 skulls.

[solaris32]

It's worse than that. If you get too far away minions with lifetime will actually despawn. You can test it by spawn some skeletons or skulls where there are no enemies, then walk away. They won't follow you and will despawn instead. Despite this, I'm enjoying my minion build. Be sure to get that large passive skill that takes 30% of damage from your mana instead of your health.

[No' Name]

Originally posted by solaris32:

It's worse than that. If you get too far away minions with lifetime will actually despawn. You can test it by spawn some skeletons or skulls where there are no enemies, then walk away. They won't follow you and will despawn instead. Despite this, I'm enjoying my minion build. Be sure to get that large passive skill that takes 30% of damage from your mana instead of your health.

My Minion build heavily uses my Mana, as I use buffs, to the entire party/minions, to have an incredibly high critical rate, accuracy, and high magical damage.

The problem is not the damage, I can achieve, as if bosses don't get a hit off on me, or an attack period, they die within seconds. The problem is again, mobility. If I am to move around endlessly, my majority of my minions/Specters/Animate weapon etc, etc. Does not generally get to do damage unless I'm running literally within 3ft of them.

I might have to try that hunters mark thingy, however, I'm not fully geared out yet, and do not have max number slotted items to build around anything more than the damage output I'm running. Not to mention anything I want to max number slots, is pretty garbage.

I also don't have an issue with mana either. Again, the way my build is currently run, I'm using 90% of my mana reserved, using Aura's and such.

[O Lobo Miau]

Support skills like Minion Frenzy should be used to make them aggressive by default. And also depends on what minion you use.

[Maximy]

I'm playing minion build this league and it's awesome. Clear speed is amazing, boss battles are amazing, but currently extremely weak against the last boss on atlas due to extreme AOE attacks. Basically he screws up your minions as soon as you start walking towards him. They will most likely nerf him, since extremely low percentage of players actually managed to kill him.

Minion Frenzy (Support gem) is good for zombies, it will make zombies more aggresive instead of being passive walking near you. However the thing what you want the most is called "Araakali's Fang" - It has ability to summon up to 20 spiders. These spiders are aggresive and wont leave enemy unless you go too far away, the best part they are unkillable (They expire 30 seconds by default, but with skil web, you can make it up to ~80 seconds). If you're interested I can share my current build,currently running and T16 (highest tier maps) like it's nothing.

[Maelstrom]

I'm still using my minion build from last league. Flame Dash + move speed on your boots is all the mobility you should need