horn of battle effect needs to be the same as it would be on a demigod in that if the minion takes dmg, it loses the 200 hp effect

So what you're saying is they might as well delete it?

Because turning it into wings of the seraphim for minions would make it even more useless than some of the other already bad general items, and we really don't need more items nerfed to uselessness.

But yes it does need a tweak, probably the range.

Not really. First 3 are garbage.

Horn - any minion master.

Ring - Oak (Spirits have better mobility and can avoid mines and get out of AoE easier, making this better for him than others)

Blood Soaked Wand - Queen (more useful for her due to her ranged nature)

Cloak of Night - Any

Totem of war are very useful for EB and Oak since this gives massive dps improvements for their minions (since minion numbers are 10+ for them)

Totem of Endurance is good for any generals, with nice hp for minions and general him/herself.

Only item I think it is a bit useless is Pednant of Grace... Other than that, all others items are good except horn which needs massive nerf.

Tome of endurance gives 30 more hp to minions than a sigil of vitality which is 500g and doesn't even take up an item slot

And Ring of Divine Might has 5 more minion damage than the Totem, gives the same weapon damage, and allows you to clear an entire wave of creeps up to priests with just a few minions. Whereas totem has 5% attack speed.

God dammit Rapier, stop posting while I'm typing.

QoT and UB both work pretty well against minions in general, although UB is admittedly less effective in stopping them from killing anything but himself; Ground Spikes is great AoE damage and massive armor penalty (remember kiddies, armor can go negative...) which will cut down minions in no time, and Ooze's attack speed debuff makes it far too difficult for almost any number of enemies to melee you down.

Rook is the most effective counter to horn by a long-shot.

I was the beast in the previously mentioned game by soffacet, and i agree with him. Besides fun, fair, lame, etc, it was impossible for me to level, or get gold. I was stuck at level 4. Horn made it impossible to kill the minion waves for another 10 secs also.

There was no way to succesfully counter this i believe. With me stuck at level 4, sedna holding the field against 2 demigods, and the erebus minions still doing too much damage for building regen to handle, it was only a matter of time.

Minions need to give experience and gold. Simple as that.

Towers aren't good against minions (though "most" is a relative term so you could say that nothing else is either) and hammer slam is awful against spirits if Oak is paying attention.  Rook needs rank 3 or 4 hammer to take out nightwalkers with a horn of battle.  If rook goes hammers early it means towers are going to be and ineffective againste the minions (whereas pure towers can kind of break even).

In my experience rook's best shot at stopping minion swarms is early towers and late hammers (aka final rank of hammer at level 12) and it's extremely tedious on all maps and particularly impractical on prison unless you've got some healer or AoE support.

All that being said if you're talking only about killing stacked minions on top of your citadel then I suppose you're correct, but Rook becomes poor speed causes him to be tethered to the base at that point and completely dependent on his allies to hold flags and push or kill the offending DG who's sending all the minions in the first place, much the same the UB was in that game.

Honestly what I would rather see happen instead of granting exp for minions is for all the +minion stats items and talents to be converted into aura type effects with a limited range, something like 30 yards.  

That way a minion DG wouldn't be at a disadvantage in a real fight but their minions also wouldn't be dropping citadels across the map.

Fair points. I would say I look forward to getting the chance to see the strategy, but I honestly don't . It seems like at least an erebus that wants to make a wave will need to be in the creeps until they are all dead. If he uses bats or mist to kill them he will have a hard time escaping, and if he doesn't he should have a hard time killing creeps fast enough.

Obviously because I still haven't been in a game against it I can't really know if this is realistic at all. Strategies I work out in my mind are never quite the same in game >.<

You're missing a major balancing mechanic here. If you choose to build up your minions then you are ignoring your Demigod's up-front damage. That happens because you are spending level-up points on Minion powers and abilities, slotting your favor item for your minion, and spending gold on items with minion bonuses.

For example: I play Erebus with mass minions, as well as The Rook and Unclean Beast. As Erebus I have to choose between building great powers like Bite, Mist, Mass Charm, and Bat Swarm that let me use Erebus to personally kick ass. I can take all of those on my own, OR I can choose to build up my minions. If I want powerfule minions then I can only build up one of the above powers. Usually I ONLY take Bite to go along with my minions. That means I am extremely vulnerable to getting killed by enemy demigods (no mist or bat swarm escape) and I have a much harder time killing DGs by myself.

On top of that, I spent all my money on my minions. That means instead of Unbreakable Boots I'm buying Hauberk of Life. Instead of Narmoth's Ring I'm buying Gloves of Fell Darkur. This makes a huge difference in how easy I am to kill, which in turn means I have a much harder time on the front line. This makes capturing flags and killing other DGs much harder.

The bottom line is this: You cannot have powerful minions AND have a powerful demigod as well. You will have to choose a path and deal with it. Minions are ok, but if the game goes to level 15-20 they will be underpowered, ALWAYS. If your opponent is targetting his minions then you should be winning the war score anyhow, because he won't be able to hold flags as well as you. Just outlast him.

The fact that you put up a chart with DPS suggest that you really don't understand the tradeoffs made to develop a good minion army. For DPS and survivability, ANY minion-heavy build is going to be inferior to ANY non-minion build due to power selection and items. The chart doesnt matter at that point. You can't take 10,000 gold and all the surrounding powers off the table as if they aren't a factor. They are HUGE.

In reality a minion build has such a huge limitation I don't see how anyone can have a problem with them. If I'm going for minions I better win my game before we get to level 15, or else I have no chance at all. At that point no demigod is threatened by them no matter how tough they are. And buildings are so powerful they aren't effective.