Minion Overhaul

I have seen some of the other threads in regards to minions being cornered in to one playstyle early and have also seen how minions lack dmg, bad bathing,become a nuisance in small stages, have issues with high mobility, lack any function to protect the player etc


As a new player fresh into poe2 and someone who has very little experience as a whole in this genre I gravitated towards the idea of building a army to do battle while I figure things out.
I wanted a relaxed playstyle where I could just spam minions and mob the enemy into submission.

What I got however was the poplar opposite and learned really quickly how spamming spells or shooting a bow just made life easier than a disposable army.

First of minion being gated by spirit wouldnt be half as bad if you could at least summon a larger amount of the basic minions like warriors and snipers..

Understand the mages costing more but the bread and butter 🧈 should be a reliable source of dmg no matter what level your at.

The following mechanic could easily be adjusted by having formation slots and maybe even have formations as something you learn and aquire in the game..

As if your learning how to be a better necromancer as the story progresses shouldnt be too difficult.

What I mean by this is allocating front slots to lock the melee characters a small distance infront of u as u move so that they take ago first.

The ranged characters can be locked in positions behind you so they dont get unessasarily mobbed by monsters and die before achieving anything.

These formations could have buffs for certain types of minions and/or be further augmented by passives or jewels in the formations themselves.

This would add some variety to the minion mechanic and maybe spice things up with their playstyle.

Especially considering some specters can have multiple attack patterns and this might help give better control over what u want your minions doing at each point.

Adding a gambit system (final fantasy 12 comes to mind here) where u can add commands to follow would also bring a more detailed and commanding style to the army.

Example: when being attacked by 5> use aoe skill
Focus highest health target or focus weakest target

Even if you didnt grant us 1000 minions at least affording us more control over them would be a boom.

The dps of minions is really lacking and part of that is the readability of how to add dmg to them, where the dmg comes from and how to see whats working and what isn't.

Sometimes the tooltip doesnt give the most accurate information regarding all the presence stuff or how items are working/interacting with things.

Example Necrotic Talisman ive played around with alot but its a chore to figure how its working and what parts are doing anything.
It doesn't state any limitations so Id expect adding a presence aura buff to all my minions should mean a multiplicative buff..

Example I give all minions presence of 5% attack speed and they all buff each other. 5 minions all buffing each other should be a solid 25% increase but that doesnt happen or at least its hard to understand the value of things when there so tiny.

50% of 1 wouldnt be as noticeable as 50% of 2 etc


My point here is make things more transparent..
If we add buffs to the minions have a clear line in the tab.
Necrotic talisman necklace bonuses that are applying to;
Warrior 0.5 attck speed
Ranger 2 attck speed
Storm mage 0.1 attack speed.

This way we can see the numerical increase clearly like we would when we augment dmg of our skills.


Dont hey me wrong maybe many in the forum will read this and call me lazy for not working it out but I just want to remind you that its a game and working out poe2 is already a mission for most so streamline information like this should just be a basic thing.


Taunting for minions would be epic.. your a necromancer and yet I still spend my time running around dodging spells and doing my best to reset fights just because there is no ago control mechanism.

Is it that difficult? Now of course I dont need it to be a 100% taunt that I can spam so mobs never get on me but it really ruins the thematic of a minionmancer or necromancer etc if u cant rely on them for some safety or control.

Maybe a "ill protect you" command for the warriors (who are incredibly uslesss) would be useful.

They use their life to protect you from one instance of dmg and their cool down time is fixed duration? That way we cant spam it, are punished with less minions for a time but also have a built in recover the situation skill when u do mess up your positioning.

This wont mean u protect against all dmg but maybe a fixed amount? Or scaling with warriors life?

Spirit is also incredibly taxing.. the highest amount is locked onto a scepter in which case u get skeletons or some spells nether is that useful and neither make the specter feel powerful.

I use it because I need to not because I want to.
You cant duel wield them but you can use them as a main or off hand..
Makes no sense that we cant have two if we're sacrificing the attack part of our weapon set up in favour of more spirit we should be allowed to test it out.

Or have the scepter gain a attack skill when in main hand? And give it reduced spirit? This way it can be a more versatile option.

I may have missed a little of details with summing in general and yes I knkw the ai for some specters are more complex but the gem skills themselves are undwrwealming and having to rely on raging skills or ants later doesnt really add the variety minion cravers want to see.

Another approach would be to make your own minions and harvest body parts across the acts I which u can upgrade and add in more layers to a specific minion.. like a champion of sorts.

Wether u limit that approach to a acendency exclusive skill would be your choice but allowing us to craft our own minion for battle including how it looks, attack type, abilities etc would be a major benefit to the class type.

Another note would be the cosmetic side of things.. DCUO did aomething I have always been fond off and tht is saving styles and being to customise everything by swapping out styles from what you have saved freely.

Example once I collect a wasp monster I can change all of my minions or companions into wasps from this catalogue or bestiary at will.

You can do the same with items too..
Instead of the transfer skin consumable just give us a one time fee to buy the bestiary or costume collection tab?

These are just thoughts and always up for some discussion of anyone has some words to say, but ill ignore the people being combative because they dont agree.