im level 95 currently, still missing 2 glyphs that will be huge for my damage but so far I have found summoner far better then season 1. My build is pure summoner, all my damage is from my minions. I am using Temerity as my only unique.
I think most damage changes are not down to buffs exactly (golem is clearly massively buffed however), but more down to massive nerfs to monsters.
Minion survivability is still an open question as I have note gone higher then NM75, and if I cant clear 100 when im fully geared/glyphed etc I will consider minions builds a failure.
As for the OP’s issue with survivability, you need to build around life regen for your minions. I use: lots of life on kill/perma uptime on skeletal priest/ and barrier generation (they receive that too). I also have invested in both the summoner paragon boards nearly fully.
Bosses are a joke in my opinion (other then uber lilith who currently can do a lot of damage to my minions), Uber duriel I 1 shot at 82 the first time, zero deaths from me or my minions. Lilith I haven’t killed yet as I never tried her before and I need to learn the dance.
I noticed that minion became a lot more fragile than they use to be in Season 1. You literally have to constantly re-summon them. I am playing again with proxy blood surge via minions. I wonder if anyone tested in Season 2 if shield notably improve survival of minions? “Subjectively” I noticed that piling HP for necro have proxy effect on minions (they last a lot longer)
have you put any investment into the cult leader or hulking monstrosity boards? I think a lot of their survival comes from actually investing in them rather then doing the usual thing where ppl say im playing minion, while not putting any points, glyphs, aspects into minion damage and just spamming some unrelated spell.
With that said, it feels like playing unyielding commander aspect with army of the dead is massive for their survivability. The 90% damage reduction really lets the living minions heal up fully while any that have died get resurrected.
I ran to level 90 using AOTD eith massive investment into the paragon boards. Havent slowed down yet. Running defile/tendrils/curse + blood golem/shadow mages and reapers. I can aotd pretty much every major pack with spreading curse + the 30% ultimate cd vamp power. The only thing that still irks me is the capstone still being trash.
I havent had a single issue with minion survivability, and they make ubers and torment bosses a joke
Thus far I’ve been running a BCE/Blight build with skels (no golem) up to lvl 94.
The typical minion skill pick-ups in skel/mage mastery/inspiring leader/bonded in essence/death’s defense and cult leader board for the glyph area with deadraiser glyph. AoTD for the corpse spam/minion revives. It’s not optimal but tossing minions in for companionship is fun.
I swapped to defenders just because reapers don’t seem to make the corpses rain. I don’t know if they’re bugged or not. In my case this works since minions aren’t there for damage.
Anyways, they manage ok up to about NM 70 or so post lvl 90. CCing the screen with CT/shadow stuff and dunking blood orbs everywhere off CT to spam heal them helps (vamp curse gives vuln on seasonal). If I pull 6+ elites and the screen gets filled with magical explosive energy some of the minions end up having a short trip. AoTD solves this, as I just let them die then burn it and proceed to fill the screen with blight via exploding corpses in retaliation.
Then I did a NM 88 with poison damage and poison mobs at lvl 93 or so and… oof. That poison is straight up disgusting. Granted, I took a couple hits from it here or there. Based on how fast it was depleting my massive HP bar (with capped poison resist, no less…) it makes sense minions would get curbstomped by it. This experience reminded me why I stopped using them at high sigils prior to S2.
so my necro is level 99 and i have all my glyphs just only rank 15 and still missing some skill points to fully capitalize on them. I managed a 94 NM dungeon, minions died a fair amount, but I see myself doing a 100 once im fully geared and with 21 glyphs and char level 100. It was painful and slow however, and i think there is no chance ill be turbo clearing 100’s.
I have done duriel now, and that’s an absolute joke, NM50 dungeons are harder, and they are extremely easy.
I dont even mind an active minions playstyle. I enjoy popping priests every 8 seconds. I still think that number should be larger, and the heal should be a HOT rather than a delayed burst heal.
But my point is, im down to be spamming buffs and debuffs to make my minions perform. I even enjoy CE with the howl gloves.
But the minions need to be dealing good damage after putting tons of points into them. And all that work spamming buffs and debuffs needs to do something.
Theyre definitely better this season (i suspect largely because of the vampire power), but they still need to be better.
I feel like they are tankier, but I rushed all the resistance, armor, and health runes before even finishing my golem tree. I also prioritized armor and resistance on my own gear since most of their damage comes from weapon and paragon now.
Well I have completed a Teir 100 Nightmare Dungeon, very slowly and painfully. I also didn’t get any horrible elites which could have rendered the run impossible.
I am playing pure minion:
Reapers with 15% chance of a corpse
Frost mages with vuln (simply because I don’t need the essence and I do need the CC)
Bone golem with shedding corpses.
My skill bars:
-Raise skeleton
-Golem
-Decrepify curse
-Blood mist
-Blighted Corpse explosion - this was just an easy spender that can apply shadowblight for blighted aspect as minions receive this multiplier bonus. I also needed a spender for Lucky hit procs, flesh eater and vampiric power undying. CE did no real damage
-Army of the dead - huge attack speed bonus and survivability bonus through unyielding commander, lots of corpses and resummoning army on big packs where my entire army gets deleted.
Paragon investment:
More or less full cult leader + hulking monstrosity boards used plus 2 other boards partially used
Glyphs: golem, warrior, mage, control, deadreiser (all currently level 15)
Gear:
All aspects are well rolled or perfect, rings are not great, amulet is bad and the rest is good to excellent.
My final thoughts:
Minions get deleted in 100 NM and minion damage is absolutely horrible. Don’t play pure summoner unless you are like me summoner or nothing. Oh and don’t watch streamers or meta builds or you will want to delete your char and uninstall.
Minion survivability doesn’t seem to be an issue so far. Like you, I have done mid 70s NM dungeons and my minions don’t die at all on bosses. I dont think minions are dying for me at all… yet.
Frankly, my biggest issue is knowing that
I will soon hit a damage wall I cannot break through without Mendeln or X’Fals
my own survivability is absolute trash due to needing so many defensive aspects for minions and missing out on all the excellent sacrifice related damage reduction and resistances.
Minion survivability should be a non issue if you invest into their tankiness and keep priest healing up - at least through NM75 as thats as far as I’ve gone.
Yeah minions do not work at all anymore. I have skilled into everything to make them strong all paragon tree and even on skill book. I also have “Ring of mendeln”. I use tons of torn’s from skill book and on items.
Yet minions dies as fast as they used to do first time they nerf them. Insta death. So now I quit diablo 4 again, because it seems I will NEVER be able to play minion build.
99% of videos on youtube is builds without minions.
It baffles my mind that blizzard do not want people to play minion builds. I played minions build for years in diablo 2 without problems, and in diablo 3. Yet in diablo 4 you simply cannot.
I am so angry, I doubt I will ever come back to this game. They make these devs talks and says everything will be fixed and stuff, yet things always remains bad for some. Worst part is in season 1 minions were stronger then they are in season 2. What an L.
d2 minions were awful, i played them too back then but lets not pretend d2 had a good summoner.
Now with that said i cleared everything including uber trist, but that was with enigma, beast, anni,torch, full skillers, crazy gear on merc, sacrifing an eth insight for my metal golem etc.
Clearing content was also 99% down to Corpse explosion, hence the name summoners got as “fishingmancers”.
D3 was just a bad game, but witchdoc at least had some pure summoner builds.
D4 yes minions are bad, but you can clear all content with them (duriel + all new bosses and NM100 dungeons), its just harder. I know as I have done it all bar uber lilith. But i never tried Lilith before and I will have to kill it legit as my damage is not high enough to cheese it. Currently spending a tiny amount of time learning the dance.
Minions pre-paragon boards are a bit weak UNLESS you get lucky and get a hardened bones legendary affix early game. The only way to really make them shine early game is to get max hp (for you) and max minion HP affixes…this makes them damn near indestructible until you can get the Damage Reduction from Cult Leader / Hardened Bones.
They are hitting WAYYYY harder this season compared to last though, my lvl 87 necro minion mages were barely doing 5k dmg…this season so far I’ve seen up to 17k dmg per hit and I’m not even close to maxing out their damage and I’m only level 71.
I also use Hemo Basic + Transfusion Passive to pop blood orbs like crazy to help with healing minions on top of the skeletal priest healing.
