Minions just die?

[MassiveAttack]

How do you keep skeletal warriors alive? I got the hp boost node thing for them and have level 3 staff and level 4 skel wars, took minion health paasive tree and they feel like they are only getting weaker? Level 13 now and bosses just insta kill the pack before they do much then need to run around for them do die again? What am I doing wrong?

[onedudesmind]

I use exploding zombies to help. I've been running a minion build the pets will always be fragile, no real tanky pets i have run into yet. Keep fast an mobile to avoid mobs when your skellies get massacred, fire is nice for damage you can get really useful temporary pets from it that use your minion damage and fire damage increases. Then its just getting enough bodies to summon your zombies at the beginning of a fight, they then explode when they die and make more bodies...

[kevinbyr]

Bosses will always 1 shot minions, some of my minions have 2k+Hp and they die right away when getting attacked by a main boss. Blue/Yellow boss rares while exploring the map there is no issue.

They can still dish out damage to bosses before they get one shot. If minions held up to bosses Witches would be completely broken.

As it is I can steamroll any map (any non boss encounter) and I'm in Act 1 cruel right now level 42

For boss encounters use your 2 Dot's and Raging Spirits and boss encounters are fairly trivial assuming you can dodge and avoid getting hit.

For map exploration my passive skills are invested completely in minions and chaos damage.

Typical fight is I open with Chaos, Spam Raging spirits as soon as a mob dies I use Unearth and then 2 seconds later I have 20-+ minions acting as tanks, doing damage and my dot's have spread to the entire mob and everything melts. On bosses I use the pain offering skill so my minions do extra 40% damage. All my support gems have extra attack damage or inflict things like bleed/poision

I am using 1- hell hound, 2 - Snipers, 3 reavers 2 warriors and my unearth adds up to another 12 minions to fight for me.

Anyone saying witches are no good are simply using them wrong. They steamroll everything except bosses and for those you have dot's and raging spirits.

Minions and dot's melt everything and it's not even close

[Leto]

lol everything is built on dots srs and yes minions are great, but they only run a bit on the side in the build
the same people give answers in a thread from a melee who has problems like use ranged combat because it works great, it fits :)

[Akarin]

Bum rush the minion clusters in the tree, ignore everything else.

[Dester]

Originally posted by MassiveAttack:

Level 13 now and bosses just insta kill the pack before they do much then need to run around for them do die again? What am I doing wrong?

Bosses need to be a real threat for the player... which means minions are expected to die quickly. If minions were not dying quickly from bosses than players could win boss fights AFK.

[onedudesmind]

Originally posted by Dester:

Originally posted by MassiveAttack:

Level 13 now and bosses just insta kill the pack before they do much then need to run around for them do die again? What am I doing wrong?

Bosses need to be a real threat for the player... which means minions are expected to die quickly. If minions were not dying quickly from bosses than players could win boss fights AFK.

If that statement is true it makes pet builds useless and needs to be changed, or just remove them from the game.

[Vega]

I'm level 28 and I have level 8 minions of the three/four types (I actually only use Warriors and Archers). I use a mix of chaos and fire, and I haven't gotten the higher leveled ones yet. Having a good time.

As I understand and perhaps should say other people should understand.. in PoE, minions do not fight for you, they fight with you.. and you're meant to use spells alongside them.

I think there is some balance and tuning to be had with minions and enemies, but minions shouldn't be powerhouses.

[BigRockWall]

Originally posted by наслаждаться:

Minion builds are somewhat weak without Summon Raging Spirit, and they don't require survivability so taking minion survivability nodes just to buff your skeletons which die in a few hits regardless feels really bad, I hope they can find the sweetspot between tanky and fragile minions

This ceased being the case at the end of act 2. I was all in on minions + raging spirits and the Act 2 boss kept 1 shotting me. Ended up having to respec into some energy shield nodes to beat it. Minions + firewalls covering the floor to summon the spirits made avoiding all the mechanics impossible, the energy shield padding made the difference.

[CyberDown]

meat shield works well with skeletons. passive tree to reduce respawn timer.

[Bad_Lieutenant]

My biggest complaint is the number of mobs that make a beeline for you instead of fighting your minions.

At first I thought this game had it right - mobs attacking your minions first instead of you (most of the time) but at end of Act 1 all the mobs just run straight at you relentlessly.

Makes the gameplay unfun for Necro's. Sure you can spam bone prison/ice nova but it takes so much time when you're trying to push forward.

[BigRockWall]

Originally posted by Bad_Lieutenant:

My biggest complaint is the number of mobs that make a beeline for you instead of fighting your minions.

At first I thought this game had it right - mobs attacking your minions first instead of you (most of the time) but at end of Act 1 all the mobs just run straight at you relentlessly.

Makes the gameplay unfun for Necro's. Sure you can spam bone prison/ice nova but it takes so much time when you're trying to push forward.

My solution for map clear is firewall+SRS, then as soon as corpses become available start the wall of zombie march across the rest of the map. 2 free warriors from scepter + 10 zombies actually blocks stuff from getting to you.

[BigRockWall]

Originally posted by наслаждаться:

Originally posted by BigRockWall:

This ceased being the case at the end of act 2. I was all in on minions + raging spirits and the Act 2 boss kept 1 shotting me. Ended up having to respec into some energy shield nodes to beat it. Minions + firewalls covering the floor to summon the spirits made avoiding all the mechanics impossible, the energy shield padding made the difference.

Most people I've seen that do minion infernalist they stack HP with strength bonuses from the tree and from the gear for the bonus Spirit that infernalist gives you per HP. I'd imagine it's better than energy shield because you can regenerate it even when hit and it doesn't take double damage from poison

Yep I had done all those things. Hadn't unlocked the points for the extra spirit yet but was on the way. Still was insufficient to survive the almost screen wide dual pillar blasts from Act2 boss. You can hide behind the NPC, but like I said minions + firewalls for raging spirits made her hard to find in time. Energy shield padding with a quick delay/recovery saved the day.

[MassiveAttack]

Originally posted by Dester:

Originally posted by MassiveAttack:

Level 13 now and bosses just insta kill the pack before they do much then need to run around for them do die again? What am I doing wrong?

Bosses need to be a real threat for the player... which means minions are expected to die quickly. If minions were not dying quickly from bosses than players could win boss fights AFK.

So how are you expected to play or kill bosses as a minion necro then? I get it should be hard but its starting to feel like the whole class is invalid. Its like if I was playing D2 and asked how to build minions and everyone just says "go curses" "go bonespear" thats not a satisfactory answer lol

[EyeXombie]

Contagion and unearth are your best friends when starting with the witch. Also type in Revive in the passive skills search box and go for those to help your minions revive faster.