Build: maxroll. gg/d4/planner/kp1nu056
Sheet: docs.google. com/spreadsheets/d/1nWrRJI9KsS9PAJXol_1o1RbBit2wrJUQ_cU7G68bdMc/edit?usp=sharing
Flat Damage Formula: =B2 * D2 * D3 * D4 * H30 * J30
Critical Strike Damage Formula: =B2 * D2 * D3 * D4 * H30 * J30 * F30
Formula Source: www.reddit. com/r/diablo4/comments/12ufyq1/basic_damage_calculation/
TLDR; Numbers
Skirmishers Upgrade 2
- Flat: 87,253
- Critical: 202,236
Reaper Upgrade 1
- Flat: 67,118
- Critical: 140,800
Cold Mage Upgrade 2
- Flat: 70,844
- Critical: 148,616
Bone Mage Upgrade 1
- Flat: 99,181
- Critical: 208,063
Blood Golem Upgrade 2
- Flat: 118,469
- Critical: 248,525
Thought Process
- Assuming Minion’s inherit 30% of weapon damage which seems to be accurate while testing. I used 0.30 * 0.75 to end up at 0.525 weapon damage. The 75% increase is from the respective skeleton, mage, and golem masteries.
- Critical Strike Damage is calculated at 100% effectiveness.
- Blighted Aspect was not used during testing or as a multiplier in the formula. I have not established whether or not it does in fact work on minions. It is incredibly hard to test as seeing your minion damage apart from blighted corpse explosion and shadowblight numbers on screen is a nightmare. The best I can hope for atm is gross speculation until there is a way to isolate values.
- I am assuming all of the additive damage pots are working as intended. I do not have the time to personally try each piece by piece in every and all scenarios of activation to confirm or deny it.
- All nodes are represented in Maxroll’s character planner as additive bonuses such as damage from minion, warrior, mage, golem, etc.
Opinions
- Minions seem to be a damage over time focused build rather than a burst build like we see with blood or bone.
- Attack speed directly to minions in testing and theorycrafting appears to be the single largest damage increase available to us. Some of the values are insane.
- Hulking aspect maybe one of the single largest damage increases available to us for golem. Corpse generation while not needed is helpful with corpse explosion, tendril, and summon skeleton. The reduced cooldown is fantastic for blood golem which deals 3x normal damage single target and its activation is capable of really large Area of Effect damage that we sorely need.
- A pure minion build is viable although lacking in comparison to other specs even if the optimal outcome of working nodes and damage pots are relevant.
- Thorns is Blizzard’s response to a lack of Area of Effect damage.
- Skirmishers with 30% increased damage, guaranteed critical chance every 3 seconds, and 50% increased critical strike damage, is by far the best dps option.
- Cold Mages give vulnerable a near 100% uptime which is superior to bone mages 40% damage increase as it also enables damage versus crowd controlled, chilled, slowed, and frozen.
- Corpse tendril is our single largest damage amplifier from a skill.
Testing
- Reapers deal area of effect damage to all monsters within range on basic auto attacks. Their heavy scythe attack deals slightly larger single target damage.
- Needleflare Aspect works on Thorns damage proc’d by the player but not by minions.
- Minion skill damage starts at 30% and mastery multiplies this value up to 52.5%. This is my conclusion after putting on a flat value low level weapon and watching them hit a monster forever.
- Minions appear to receive 30% of weapon damage, player attack speed, and critical strike chance.
- Critical Strike Damage appears to be using 100% of your characters value.
- Minions receive 100% of weapon speed. Weapon speed is the number listed on your weapon. For example I tested with a very fast and slow weapon. The minions do in fact auto attack at 0.9 or the same weapon speed as listed.
- Skirmisher, Bone Mage upgrade 1, and Blood Golem upgrade 2, all seem to be working as intended and multiply damage by 30% for skirmisher, 40% for bone mage, and 50% for blood golem.
- Shadow Damage from minions does not seem to be able to activate Shadowblight or Gloom. I believe these two skills are flagged as player only.
- Critical strikes from corpse tendril activates Skirmishers guaranteed Critical Strike Chance!
- Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Damage from corpse tendril seem to be applying at 100% value for players and minions. Further testing required.
- Damage from the following skills appear to be additive. Acolyte’s Decompose, Supernatural Blight, Fueled by Death, Amplify Damage, Death’s Embrace, Death’s Reach, Gloom, Terror, and Hellbent Commander.
- Attack Speed to minions, Inspiring Leader, and Kalan’s Edict, appear to be working as intended at 100% effectiveness.
- Attack speed from Aspect of Frenzied Dead and Unyielding Commander’s Aspect appear to be working as intended at 100% effectiveness.
- Minion Damage from Cult Leader does not appear to be working.
- Minion Damage from nodes does not appear to be working.
- Minion damage from glyphs does not appear to be working.
- Life, Armor, and Resistance from nodes is still being tested, I will report back later.
- Defenders apply lucky hit at an astronomical rate. Further testing is required on other minion types.
- None of the Damage vs CC, Slow, Chilled, Frozen, appear to add damage to minions.
Gear
- Helm: Coldbringer’s aspect can probably be dropped for something else here. Early on it is amazing aoe damage, chill, and freeze, application. It really drives the uptime of vulnerable and stagger on a target. As you get closer to power level 725 on items the damage becomes an afterthought but the crowd control stays a solid source.
- Chest: Blood Getter’s Aspect is one of the largest damage and dps increases we can take outside of multipliers. It is 2 additional skirmishers which means 2 additional sources of damage.
- Gloves: Aspect of Frenzied Dead is a dps pump for our army. It gives every minion a flat 42% attack speed increase which is a 42% dps increase.
- Pants: Aspect of Hardened Bones gives us one of the best sources of damage reduction for our minions. Until I finish testing reduction from armor and resistance on nodes, I am slotting this.
- Boots: Viscous Aspect is a lower but valuable dps and crowd control increase for our build. It increases the number of targets we can CC in a fight and drastically increases the rate we are able to apply vulnerable and stagger to a target.
- Weapon: Aspect of Reanimation is our single highest and one of our only available damage multipliers as a minion build. Getting the full value from this aspect on a two handed weapon is mandatory. Greatsword is the only option for us here. As much as I want to look cool with a scythe it is imperative you stack as much critical strike damage and vulnerable as possible.
- Amulet: Unyielding Commander’s Aspect is our oh poop button. It makes our army invincible during Army of the Dead. It also allows us to delete a boss after we stagger it. I pop army during a stagger and anything within 10 levels of me doesn’t get back up. By far the best single target dps option and a means to retain and revive our army after they try to rest eternally.
- Ring 1: Aspect of Grasping Veins is perhaps one of the single largest damage buffs we can give our army. Stagger from stun, Vulnerable from Corpse Tendril, Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Damage from Grasping Veins, just does so much for us here.
- Ring 2: Hulking Aspect makes your Golem a force to be reckoned with. It gives us access to a very low cooldown aoe and high single target damage source that increases clear speeds on large packs astronomically.
- Offhand: We aren’t running one because Thorns feels like a noob trap atm.
Skills
- Decompose and Acolyte’s Decompose: Damage pot and Activates Gloom, though you have to click 3 times instead of holding it.
- Hewed Flesh: Uptime on Skeletal Priest, resummons, grim harvest, and fueled by death.
- Death’s Embrace: We are required to be close for hellbent commander so we might as well double down.
- Amplify Damage: Another damage pot.
- Decrepify and Abhorrent Decrepify: Damage reduction, slow, chance to stun, and cooldown reduction. This skill enables this whole build really. It is giving us permanent uptime on our Golems activation, Corpse Tendril, and Army of the Dead.
- Corpse Tendrils: Slow, Damage, Pull, Vulnerable, and our source of Critical Strike to activate Skirmisher upgrade 2. We are also running aspect of Grasping Veins to buff minions Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Damage.
- Necrotic Carapace: Its free real estate… No but really, it is a free source of fortify that makes a huge difference in survivability for free.
- Spiked Armor, Reaper’s Pursuit, and Gloom: Honestly I want to drop them but its a small damage increase which probably nets us more than throwing points into corpse tendril and decompose. This could easily be dropped.
- Army of the Dead: This is the single largest source of lucky hit, attack speed for our army, damage reduction for our army, corpse generation, and QoL when they die. It also can critically strike activating skirmishers 3 times in a perfect situation but generally 2 times. It is the best option besides Bone Storm but Army of the Dead can refund a lot of its own cooldown while procing Abhorrent Decrepify.
- Kalan’s Edict: Admittedly this one is trash but our best consistent damage and dps increase. It needs to say while 7 or more minions are active you receive attack speed instead of not taking damage. I would very much like this to give damage and more attack speed with a means to actually have a decent up time on it. That all being said it is impossible to have 100% uptime on shadowblight but it is another 10% additive damage pot for simply using decompose on a target. The only reason I run Kalan’s Edict over Shadowblight is the fact that I do not use Area of Effect shadow damage to apply Shadowblight to more than one target at a time.
- Everything Else: If I didn’t mention it, it is because you need to take it regardless.
EDIT: This information is old. If I start beta testing minions again just for blizzard to ignore all my findings I will make a new post to update my findings.