How is the state of minion builds in LE?

[Kapy]

I know no one can predict the future for season 2,
but how are minions right now? I really hope to make and play a laid-back minionmancer build with maybe little twists here and there. Ty!

[Jinx]

Haven`t played for a half a year, but not much changed, as far as i know.
As a usual, if you want to push game as far as possible - you have to play a few meta builds, summoners are usually are not there and if it`s there - build requires you to actively participate in battles, striking enemies to empower your minions or summoning temporary extra summons or something else.
If you want to just play for your own pleasure and still finish all endgame encounters - variety of builds is really good, very few minions are underperforming and not used and you can play passively, although active gameplay is more rewarding. I think it`s mostly the case for necromancer, as primalist relies on active (and more than that - active melee) playstyle more.
Comparing with other games (i really love summoning and mostly play as a summoner or totem-guy) - Grim Dawn feels much more satisfying as a summoner, PoE- moderately more satisfying than LE, but this game is still more than OK.

[wulfster42]

Necro's run through the campaign easily and can deal with 200 corruption or so without too much hassle. Other summon builds are generally not as good in my experience excluding one that is quite strong throughout the game.

Crows are very strong all by themselves. Run with wolf for +1 crow (don't have it on your bar), and Gathering storm (you don't actually have to use it except one every so often to get 1 charge, the ravens then keep you maxed out at 15 as long as you are fighting, or get into another fight within 15 seconds or so).

Crows are spellcasting minions, and with 6, they obliterate everything without you having to do anything. When fighting a boss (pretty much the only time it's worth it), you can use Tempest strike to boost your ravens base damage before all the multipliers by almost 200 (basically killing bosses REALLY fast, you rarely even get up to the full 10 seconds to max out the bonus).

Ravens deal with groups naturally, without any work from you. In my build I ran with maelstrom as well to keep up haste/frenzy, chill everything etc. Was extremely easy to keep up with duration bonuses and cast 4 at a time after 4 seconds. You just needed 6 or more (also made you cast more storm bolts).

Net result is a build that lets you just obliterate everything while running around (quickly), with your ravens doing insanely high damage. Decently high defense as well due to primalist DR abilities. I ran with the cleaver that makes int=str as your melee damage gets converted to spell damage for your bolts anyway (and that gives you really high ward retention).

Very hard to die, kills extremely fast, demolishes bosses and is alot of fun. Best minion build in my opinion. A necro with 20+ minions doesn't come close to the clear speed or boss kill speed of 6 ravens (not to mention you pounding out storm bolts as well that the ravens generate).

Hard to play other summons after playing a crow build tbh. Beastmaster >>> Shaman as well, 2 more ravens is a huge boost to both the ravens base damage, the special attack damage and of course just the 50% more attacks/ravens. Def worth using the wolf helm that adds +1 to max companiosn for that build, every additional raven is another damage multiplier for ravens damage and special attack damage.

Running through the game with a good +melee/+ranged minion weapon as a necro is a blast and easy as well, but it does slack off late game. Ravens just dominate from the start, so much that you don't even NEED tempest at all, even though tempest is a HUGE boost to both you and the ravens damage. I honestly considered switching it out for something that I didn't actively have to use since the ravens kill everything so fast you never get to use tempest for normal combat and even without tempest you STILL kill bosses fast. I never did bother though, tempest just makes longer fights almost instant, and nothing else really stood out to replace it (and not also require using a skill etc).

[Terra]

2/3 unique items are minion related

[§µÇk ïT]

I had a poison thorn totem build a year+ ago that got nerfed into the ground. Are thorn totems viable again or still gimp?

[wulfster42]

Wasn't impressed by thorn totems, only used them to boost my storm totems in the 1 build I used them in at all tbh. Might be able to do something with them if you really spec but didn't seem worth it to me. If your going with a totem build, you might as well go shaman, if your going shaman, you might as well use storm totem and if you are doing that, use the cast 5 thorn totem passive to instantly double your storm totems stats and leave it at that. Honestly wasn't even that impressed with storm totem with that setup, or totems at all currently.