MMGA - Make Minions Great Again

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Legioona#1076 wrote:

Unfolding dawn and + minion levels on all items you can play until maps with one hand (zero click build).

The only risky fights are monkey and viper.

Minions are fine.

Hald hand. You can play with half hand...

One finger actually.

You do not have to read this thread if you do not like the topic. Forum is not a hostage situation. But please do not act like you get to slam the door with "End of story" and that somehow makes it true. You do not have that superpower.

And yes, minions are solid. I agree. I have said that multiple times already. That is not what this thread is about.

The point is this: minion GEM LEVELS give almost no benefit compared to most other skills.
I can get almost the same DPS with level 20 minions as with level 39 minions.
The difference between 21 and 39 is:
- Tiny spirit reservation change.
- Several completely insane, super expensive +level items.

Most non minion builds NEED high level gems to reach good min-max. Their damage skyrockets from 21 to 40. For minions, that same level range is basically a spirit coupon and some pocket change.

So if you want to discuss that topic, great. If you just want to repeat "minions are fine", you are answering a question nobody asked in this thread.

To spell it out one more time:
- This is NOT about minions being viable. They are.
- This IS about higher minion levels barely affecting health, speed, damage, crit, anything.
- Other skills get a truckload of power from 21 to 40. Minions mostly get a small reservation discount.

I want minions to actually feel stronger when you level their gems and invest into +levels. That is what "Make Minions Great Again" means here: not "buff minions from level 1", but "make it worth pushing them past 30 instead of feeling like level 20 forever with extra cosmetics."

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Skellymancer#5263 wrote:

Stop complaining.

Minions are solid from act 1 to the very end game.

If anything early game nerfs should be introduced.

End of story.

Minions performance grows significantly with level.

This is a fact.

Saying that minions levels are not important is a lie.

End of story.

Would you be so kind and actually explain how minion performance "grows significantly" with levels?

Because like I wrote before, I did the boring part and tested it:
- Removed a single +3 minion levels jewel from the tree.
- Skeletal Storm Mages went from level 39 down to 36.
- Result: DPS barely moved (about 125k -> 124k per mage on Arc), clear speed felt identical, movement identical, behavior identical.

So for 3 levels at the very top end (36 -> 39), where each extra level costs insane amounts of currency in +level gear, the real gain is basically "maybe you can spot a 1k DPS change on the tooltip if you squint". That is not exactly what most people would call "significant growth".

If you have actual numbers that show otherwise, great: PoE2DB tables, your own before/after tests, anything concrete. That would be genuinely interesting and would actually move the discussion forward.

Just saying:
"Minions performance grows significantly with level.
This is a fact.
End of story."
does not magically turn it into truth. You do not get a built in "/thread" command on the forums. It just sounds like you are trying to win by catchphrase instead of data.

So if you want to talk about how minion level scaling works and show some proof, I am all ears. If it is just going to be more "they scale, trust me bro, end of story", then you are not really engaging with what this thread is about.

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Skellymancer#5263 wrote:

Minions performance grows significantly with level.

This is a fact.

Saying that minions levels are not important is a lie.

End of story.

Do not watch tooltips, it is only confusing you.
Use POB.

Alright, I actually did the homework and loaded the build into PoB like you said. You were right about one thing: it definitely shows more than the in-game tooltip.

With Pain Offering up, PoB gives me this for Skeletal Storm Mage Arc:

Level 36:

DPS: about 135,500

Level 39:

DPS: about 183,000

Level 40 (hypothetical +5 sceptre):

DPS: about 202,000

So according to PoB:
- Dropping from 39 -> 36 is a huge hit (183k -> 135.5k)
- Going from 39 -> 40 is a noticeable bump (183k -> 202k)

Which is honestly way more scaling than PoE2DB or the in-game gem info suggest.

And that is where I am now confused. PoE2DB "Level Effect /40" for Skeletal Storm Mage shows:
- Spirit going 38 -> 35 over high levels
- Base damage stuck at 100%, 100%, 100% the whole way

In-game tooltips also barely move when I change levels. Unfortunately there is no proper dummy in the hideout to test real DPS, so I am stuck between:
- PoB saying "big jumps"
- PoE2DB + in-game tooltips saying "flat line"

Since you brought up PoB: can you (or someone else who knows) confirm how accurate these minion numbers are? Is PoB pulling official values from the game files, or doing its own guesses for minion level scaling?

If PoB is correct, then my feedback shifts from "minion levels do nothing" to "minion levels are good but the game does a terrible job showing it". If PoE2DB + tooltips are correct, then we are back to the original problem.

Right now I have two different sources disagreeing, and no training dummy to shoot at to break the tie.

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Skellymancer#5263 wrote:

Do not watch tooltips, it is only confusing you.
Use POB.

Poe2db shows the same.

When you click on the monster tab, you need to select the monster level.

Not the gem level.

And each gem level you jump skip some monster levels.

You can see what monster level each gem level is.

36 is 72 and does 123 to 2346

39 is 78 and does 166 to 3196

I can give you this as a rule:

Each minion gem level is about 10% more damage from the last.