Which Minion To Use?

[Sparky862]

Sniper
Arsonist
Ice Mages

Which ones do you run? Is arsonists still viable or did the meta shift?

[C]

I use them all + soldiers + zombies.
Just because it's more fun.

[Nox Arcana]

Arsonists are probably the strongest in terms of dps, but I switched to ice minions, because you can't see anything on the screen as soon as you get more than 10+ minions. The downside is the cheapest jewels for cast speed and crit start at 3+ divines

[Acronen]

I run a mixed army.

7 frost mages
2 storm mages
2 reavers
1 brute (with armor break)
3 clerics
Hellhound (making its ignite stronger, and added poisoning, and poison armor break to it)

I also run profane ritual (with support gems to lower its duration to almost instant to get power charges) and raise zombie. Use those charges to summon zombies past the doors, which for whatever reason gets the other low IQ minions moving through them.

[Wild]

Arsonist the best all around at low-medium level gear, pair with 1 cleric and 1 storm mage.

Sniper about the same as arsonist in my experience.

Reavers good for bosses at medium+ level of gear.

You can also try brute + corpse explosion (I think kripparian has a build guide on it).

At nearly perfect gear, 5 minion scepter, 3 minion necklace, 2 minion helmet, minion crit on the passive tree, and other optimizations, frost mage is probably the best minion.

[Detergent]

Just make a Warrior and play Shockwave Totem. Pretend that pile of totems are your minions.
The minion gems they currently have kinda suck.

[robruckus65]

My witch I use 13snipers, 1 lightning mage, 1 cleric, srs, and the dog. Snipers can shoot through the doors they get stuck on. Snipers have really high single target dps. Their gas arrows explode when ignited and do really good for ad clear. Lightning mage shocks. Cleric heals minions. I have srs setup to maim discombobulate and culling strike. Dog ignites fire exposure and tanks. I run t18's pretty comfotably with her only issue I have is visibility and getting killed by something I can't see because of it.

[Fluffy Bunny of Despair]

Originally posted by Sparky862:

Sniper
Arsonist
Ice Mages

Which ones do you run? Is arsonists still viable or did the meta shift?

I mean, storm mages with the right setup are by far the strongest. Like by far ... but that needs a doryanis prototype ... and then ventors gamble and other means to get as much - lightning res as possible.

Insane damage but plops on the slightes form of lightning aoe so ... tricky to play xD

With decent investment icemages i think are a bit stronger then arsonists and snipers.
But also quite expensive since you need to get crit up decently to make it enjoyable.

Snipers are fun but ... man i hope we get new minion ai or convocation soon ... xD
I feel like snipers suffer the most fram bad ai due to their range.

arsonists are the easiest to get going decently.

But lets wait for the 12th and see how they gonna nuke everything xD i mean they even do a livestream regarding the new patch so its probably gonna be nutty.

[EvilHare]

In all honesty, you can find a minion for each encounter use. You basically have a swiss army knife of minions. Just hit G in the field and adjust it to fit what you need coming up. It's the fun part of playing a minion master.

[Fluffy Bunny of Despair]

Originally posted by EvilHare:

In all honesty, you can find a minion for each encounter use. You basically have a swiss army knife of minions. Just hit G in the field and adjust it to fit what you need coming up. It's the fun part of playing a minion master.

I mean ... sure?! but most minions, except for arsonists require very specific build types to shine.

So mixing them will hurt your damage in some shape or form.

Since they all deal different damage types. To maximize that you "usualy" try to focus on one type.

[51-TO]

Originally posted by Nox Arcana:

Arsonists are probably the strongest in terms of dps, but I switched to ice minions, because you can't see anything on the screen as soon as you get more than 10+ minions. The downside is the cheapest jewels for cast speed and crit start at 3+ divines

False. +18% max energy shield, +3% attack speed/cast and +19% more crit. dmg. jewels cost 1 div.

[Fluffy Bunny of Despair]

Originally posted by 51-TO:

Originally posted by Nox Arcana:

Arsonists are probably the strongest in terms of dps, but I switched to ice minions, because you can't see anything on the screen as soon as you get more than 10+ minions. The downside is the cheapest jewels for cast speed and crit start at 3+ divines

False. +18% max energy shield, +3% attack speed/cast and +19% more crit. dmg. jewels cost 1 div.

Currently there is only 1 jewel on the market with minion cast speed, minion crit chance and minion crit damage

https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/eOL3JgWuL

Agreed for the atk speed crit max es ones. but i also argue that a lot of them might not sell so .. if you buy a few you might end up paying 2 divs.

[Wesir]

Is there a build that doesn't require you use flame wall/srs yet? Honestly wondering if they play tested going through the game as a witch with only the skills they gave her.

Half the non-spirit skills require corpses on top of having expiration AND health pools so they're unusable in the boss fights and the dot damage even after the buff is laughable since prior to lvl 31 with dark effigy you don't have many rapid fire options for applying wither* (which expires if you stop applying it for more than a few seconds).

I'm hoping they rework some of the skills like making essence drain last longer and making the spirit minions only scale in damage/health with higher levels so you can have more than like 2 of them right away.

[robruckus65]

Originally posted by Wesir:

Is there a build that doesn't require you use flame wall/srs yet? Honestly wondering if they play tested going through the game as a witch with only the skills they gave her.

Half the non-spirit skills require corpses on top of having expiration AND health pools so they're unusable in the boss fights and the dot damage even after the buff is laughable since prior to lvl 31 with dark effigy you don't have many rapid fire options for applying wither* (which expires if you stop applying it for more than a few seconds).

I'm hoping they rework some of the skills like making essence drain last longer and making the spirit minions only scale in damage/health with higher levels so you can have more than like 2 of them right away.

Well you can run minion witch without it but for the spirit cost it adds too much not too. If you are using a ranged minion type you want fire wall anyways for added damage so having 10 skulls that can debuff and do extra damage for the cost of like 1 more minion is huge. Early game minions do need a lot of work though they are almost worthless it takes so much investment in passive skills to make it so they don't instantly die which while keeping damage up you cant really do very well until part of the way into cruel.

[Sparky862]

So what Supports do you use on Snipers then? Currently running

4 Arsonist
1 Frost Mage
2 Warriors from Sceptre

Just started a new Character in Act 2 still on my way to Cruel. Should I just replace my Arsonist with Snipers then?

[Fluffy Bunny of Despair]

For snipers?
I went with

Martial Tempo
Heft
Feeding Frenzy
Brutality
Fork