So I’m pretty hyped by the changes they have just announced in the campfire chat!
And more changes to minions in season 4 
Thanks for the buffs dev’s! This is looking very good! However… I will be ruthlessly giving feedback if minions still suck 
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Wonder how many minion players they lost.
Amazing how we go from “MiNiOnS R tOo hARd” not long ago, to these supposed changes, after LE drops.
I’m guessing their metrics they go on & on about incessantly were looking pretty damn bad for D4 minion players.
Competition is always a good thing.
Considering the reaper corpse bug was still a thing at the start of season i left before even level 40.
But yeah i might jump in and play some now
I was playing LE while watching the stream, I just logged back into D4 to respec for next week lol.
Im going to do a dungeon with my new build before and after the changes, so I can see how much better it is. Ill try and use two similar maps. I just want to see if its night and day, or if its hardly noticable.
I think that 20% base line might be massive… time will tell.
Sad no changes to Kalan’s edict… its just so bad.
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Thank you blizzard for finally doing something other than tiny incremental changes here and there. Excited for next week and even more so for season 4. I had just decided the last few days to sit and wait til season 4 and just been sitting around doing testing of stuff. Now I’m excited to continue playing the build again after patch next week.
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I wonder what further improvements they got for minions in S4. In regards of itemisation, I hope they get rid of +2 summons on Blood Getter and Occult Dominion and bake it into either Kalan’s Edict or the Skeletal warrior and mage mastery, adding new minion powers to those aspects.
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Yes, dude! I finally see necros heading in the right direction. We still have a long way to go, but this is a start.
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Looking forward to this. I’m currently leveling up a BS necro in anticipation of switching over next week
After that last question about walking back their promises about nerfs and trying to justify a damage loss because movement speed is better… They haven’t learned anything. The guy in the middle even says “we gave barbs a movement speed buff too” Did the strongest class in the game lose damage? Absolute joke. And no, a 20% increase to damage means nothing on a system that only gains 30% of your stats. Stop trying to pretend it’s this huge buff Blizz, at best it’s a 6% increase, but that wouldn’t get anyone excited would it?
I’m not shure what you are refering to here. The minion damage buff is directly to minion base damage. Meaning they get 100% of that value. Though it’s not much, it’s going in the right direction and more is comeing in S4.
Could be like a 50% total damage buff with full ranks of hellbent commander + decent minion attack speed, which is quite large. But you’re right that lots things like aspects don’t scale particularly well for minions, like Edgemaster’s etc
Possibilities to make the Summoner great again are endless.
I would love to see
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Aspect of Occult Blood (+ 2 each and +3 at the necklace)
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At least one direct Minion Attack Skill to replace Corpse Explosion or Bone Spear etc. if you like it to play this way - incl. a new Paragon Board or Minimum a Glyphe.
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Inherit Let’s say at least 45-50% of Player’s stats and maybe even like 75-100% for the Golem and a big buff for active usage of the Mastery like Iron Golem’s Slam. Would be cool if they had a Chance to add curse/bone/darkness/blood dmg of their own - if you skilled like increased bone Skill DMG.
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Increase at least the DMG numbers for all the Minion DMG buffs. Furthermore take care of other ones too. Maybe buff Death’s Defense to like
You’re Minions gain 18% increased Armor and 36% increased Restiance to All Elements.
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Enhance Army of the Dead maybe with Summon Double the Amount of you’re Skelettons temporary and reducing the cooldown at least to 60s default. Another possibility would be if a kind of special and powerful Minion type would spawn - like LE’s Dead Knights or Wraiths. They really rock. Maybe even the Tomb Lord!
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Redesign Kalan’s Edict, because 2s of not taking DMG sucks if enemies mostly intend to ignore Minions and going right for the Necro - especially or friend the Butcher. Maybe add another buff as well - a chance for Minions to overpower for example.
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Add 1-2 really cool uniques. Maybe even a 2H Uber Scythe that boosts Minion Attacks significant - and necklace or chest. For example a necklace with +5-6 Warriors and Mages and another buff or a chest with extra Minion related Armor/Resis/Thorns.
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Add to Shako that all three Minion related buffs are ranked +4 as well, if used. That would right now look with 7/3 Points each like
Skeletal Warrior Mastery - 105% damage and life
Skeletal Mage Mastery - 140% damage and life
Golem Mastery - 175% damage and life
- Maybe add a second buff to each Point at the Book of the Dead.
With all those changes I am sure the Summoner will be a vaible build again like Mendeln + Bone Storm in S1 - making them hit frequently for six digit and sometimes seven digit DMG numbers.
Let’s see what they are doing in S4. They mentioned the Golem.
At least they start slowly to improve things for us because I also think that Summoner is the essence of all Necro Builds, although a Sacrificial Build can be very fun as well, but yeah… then it is a Warlock not a real Necro by definition.
They can learn a lot from Eleventh Hour - where Minion Builds are so strong you can beat LVL 58 monoliths with only around LVL 20 when not rushing too fast, meaning revive all you’re Minions after every Mob Group before attacking the next one and using some potions. With being LVL 38 now I only need potions against the strongest foes there - for the rest the Army is just crushing the enemies.
Like Ralph mentioned…was very funny when reaching LVL 10. You immediately thought - what a brute when seeing bodies flying around after you summoned the Golem. Reminds me a bit of Bud Spencer movies with the difference no one is standing up again. ^^
And by the way - a Corpse Skill Ultimate and Key Passive would be also great - because P4wnyhof is right - it is weird those are missing.
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The 20% is only as good as the 30% our stats give them.
This is before modifiers so its considerably more then just a 20% damage increase, or at least it should be. Their 30% of our stats has no bearing on this buff, the real question will be is it enough.
Lets also not forget, hellbent commander goes from 30-45%, 60 to 90%x if you have the correct summoner amulet.
Also Cult leader received a 50% buff turning attack speed and AotD into a larger amount of damage.
Changes to spiked armour also reduce the requirement to stack armour leaving the necro with more options both offensively and defensively, this was a big problem when gearing as a summoner.
Every buff imho is a big deal, but all of them come down to how good that base 20% buff is. Multiplying zero is still zero, and I am hoping this 20% brings that zdps up just enough to really empower all of our additive and multiplicative bonuses we have as summoner.
But all of these buffs really come down to how that 20% base damage buff fuctions, I am no expert
As far as deaths reach passive change, this was garbage for summoner as its 30% of that amount anyway and only 5 minions stand at range, which you actually want to drag into melee to give them hellbent commander anyways.
I get the loss of damage to deaths reach sucks if you use it in your build, but move speed will give you more effective damage as long as you can clear fast. Over the cause of an entire NMV100 that movement speed will reduce your time more then then the damage boost i am absolutely sure of that!
There are not only summoner builds for necro.
But yes, dmg to distant is not that good, necro need more movement speed buffs.
Hellbent Commander can’t be up all the time, for all minions without putting yourself and minions in danger. I hope they do something with this passive also. It has an unrealistic requirement just like Kalan’s Edict. Hope S4 brings solutions for these problems too.
you can, you just need to stack defenses on a lot of slots. I love hellbent commander as I can have it up pretty much all the time, my main issue with it is it does not synergise with kalan’s edict. if you stack in melee you will take damage, therefore rendering kalan’s edict useless. However what I am trying is stacking freeze/stuns and 100% taunt uptime, this actually allows kalan’s edict to flash on and off.
however realistically the best option is shadowblight, im just not using it out of principle. But my advice would be to use it if you go summoner 
Kalan’s edict is nice on bosses, as you can dodge attacks mostly and also stay in melee. also if you have a very tough pack and you choose to stay in another room while your minions fight them, then you get its bonus, but obviously lose out on hellbent commander. But this is just me trying to put a silver lining on a very dark rainy cloud, reality is kalan’s edict is bad.
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It wasn’t enough the last three times they did it, I don’t have any hopes they can do it right this time. But I guess with the new PTR coming out, people can say minions are op at level 12 so we can all start at square one again.
they have never buffed minion base damage since the release of D4 that I can recall, so I wouldnt judge this on previous buffs.
I have played pure summoner since season 0, and I have been calling for a base damage increase since season 1 as I knew it needs changing not existing multipliers otherwise we would end with needing 500% multipliers.
Maybe this 20% is not enough, but it should be a huge buff regardless of the other buffs.
Anyway, next week we will all know, ill make a video after the changes as my necro is fully decked out as a pure summoner to let you know 
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You can’t keep HbC buff on all your minions constantly realisticly. You are either close to the warriors or the mages. Maybe they could increase the area of the buff. And if you look all other damage type passives (blood, bone, shadow), those passives give a much more natural activation and upkeep. Keeping up Hellbent on all minions, and Kalan’s is a struggle compared to any other passive. I got to a point where putting points into Hellbent is a waste for me, because as I play, I rarely have it active on any minions. And Kalan’s is just pure trash due to the even more unrealistic requirement of not getting hit.
So imo, those two minion passives needs work, not just increasing numbers, but makeing them function more organicly, and less where we need to achive unrealistic scenarios. Because out of boss fights they don’t help much. Both those passives feel like I need to scrath my right elbow, with my left arm behind my back, while jumping in circles on one leg. I can do it, but why can’t I just simply scratch my elbow?
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Seriously? You get hyped for 10% here and 20% there while Kaplan’s Edict remains untouched?
I thought it was rather underwhelming.