So SD/GPG are you happy how Generals play...as generals?

I agree . I think generals play as assasins and are even better then the current assasins.

 The problem with Minion Builds is that they are not ment to be a DPS class. You are ment to be support and harrasment. Stay with armies and hold flags. You are not going to get the kills or be the one to push into the base. Look at it more as a Support type character.

 I do agree the Minions need some buffing though. They need to be able to tear apart Creeps and pose a threat to Assassin Demigods who come at you alone. You have to spend so many skills and items for a good Minion build that your Demigod is open to Assassins just ignoring them and hitting you forcing a retreat if you want to live.

I think most people who are disappointed in generals as generals aren't going hard enough in that direction.  If you max out Morale and get EVERY minion related skill it becomes a pretty absurd amount of DPS. And with only a couple items (Hauberk of Life, and Forest Ring) they tend to be pretty durable... especially since you can use your near-infinite mana to replace dead ones at any time.

I've always been impressed with hardcore minion builds.  The trouble is these builds are very difficult to manage early on.  It's critical that you keep your DG out of the fight and use your minion army (no matter how small) to do the dirty work.

You're not likely to get a ton of kills because there's not a lot of Nuke potential.  But you'll get a TON of assists... as any enemy that travels moderately close to you will drop to half health relatively quickly, making them a prime target for your ganking allies.    Not to mention the extra mobility and map control that comes with being able to spread out across the map.

You can send your minions to intercept and kill escaping enemy while still holding your own lane yourself.

But again, it does take a fair amount of micro (especially early on) to make sure your minions are taking the beating not your DG.

I'd like to agree with you and I have went "ALL OUT" on minion builds and minion gear. However, I almost find it easier and more effective to go the more "Assassin Style" route. The only place this is questionable is with Oak and that is only if I plan on using Spirits for other tactical objectives.

The other place I see where purchaseable minions are helpful is very early game when Priest Idols provide extra healing or the "gunner" Idols assist in taking down towers early.

Again, if you are correct,  General based builds are the game's best kept secret because I don't see anyone going full on Yeti's, Nightwalkers, or Shamblers.

The generals were designed like assasins. Look at Sedna. Best tank in the game easily, has a strong nuke, and extremely high move speed. Fuck Yetis, just absorb damage while the rest of your team dishes it out.

Now I might have just been playing pretty poorly. Or not had good armor something like that. But I remember a game where a player did Myst Erub and used the minion skill paths. He was devastating. If I even got close he would myst and do AoE and while he was Myst just control his army. Those little Nightwarlkers hurt, and they have pretty decent health to boot. Your correct in the fact that you do lose burst damage and therfore cant really surprise anyone or even get the drop on people running away. But no one on my team could fight him. We won though... so its not like we were bad. Anyway my 2 cents.

Just because nobodies doing it doesn't mean it doesn't work.  I've spent a lot of time pushing hard minions with Erebus and QoT to great effect.  It is a completely different playstyle... if people can't get it to work, I'm more likely to point to user error than designer error.

Try it out sometime.  Push hard minions with QoT.

Summon Shambler - 4 ponts

Entourage->Tribute - 4 points

Compost - 3points

Morale - 6 points

You've got 3 points left.  Go Mulch if your feeling defensive, Spike Wave if you're feeling offensive.

I usually prioritze Shamblers then Morale then Entourage then Compost.

Get all your idol minions up to level 4.  I usually begin with Lvl 1 priests, then lvl 4 priests, then lvl 4 Archers, then lvl 4 Minotuars.  (The archers and minotuars usually come pretty late, I buy some items first.)

You'll need mana to summon early and often so Vlemish Faceguard is a must ASAP.

With the idols you may only have money for one or two other items (if you're paying the citadel appropriately).  The choice of what to to get is highly situational.

Plenor Battlecrown is a good one for a lot more mana, but is probably overkill.  Theurgist's cap is a better choice but is more expensive. 

Your minions WILL die, just resummon them liberally. If you feel like they are dying too often Hauberk of Life and/or Forest Band are very useful.

If you're playing well and feel super agressive, Gladiator Gloves and/or Gloves of Fell-Darkur are fun.  I usually try to at least pick up gladiator gloves.

For favor I usually go Tome of Endurance.

The KEY, especially early on is to keep QoT out of direct combat. You have no defensive abilities.  So you have to dance and keep yourself out of trouble.  This means staying VERY far away from people like Regulus, UB, and Torchbearer.  Don't even go near them.  Throw your minions at them, but don't let QoT herself get within 30 meters.  There's an invisible line which if you cross, you WILL die.  Usually that line is much further away from the enemy Demigod than you thought.

Hang back and force the enemy to wade through the sea of DPS that is your army if they want to touch you. Let the army do the heavy lifting, and just add in QoT autoattack when it's absolutely safe to get that close.

I love this build... soo much damage.  It's probably not great for smaller games or smaller maps where you can be ambushed easily or where her other spells are needed to support the team.

Give it a try.  I love it, hopefully you won't be disappionted.

I play my Erebus with all 3 idols(although I occasionally skip minotaurs), and my DPS ends up fairly insane. With minimal equipment(read: Nothing but Vlemish Helm), I overpower most enemies easily.

I don't use shamblers that much, but I've begun to show a little more appreciation for them.

"Overpower" is a dirty word around here, might want to re-word that.

I think the point is that most "Generals" (ie not QoT) are AT LEAST as good of assassins as the Assassins (and better in many cases) AND they can also be effective generals if they want.  I'd like to see the Assassins buffed a little bit overall (with the exception of UB, which is already good enough and plays exactly like an assassin should), the assassin abilities on Generals nerfed substantially, and the minion stuff on Generals buffed a little bit.

Its just frustrating that the top tier of best assassin style DGs is probably UB/Erebus/Oak.

No.

I have a really good Sedna build that is weak in the beggining, but late game its a rolling army that does way more damage than any assassin, and I can use it independantly without risk to Sedna herself.

I put points into Yetis, Heal, Magnificent Presence, and Moral. Add Gloves of Fell-Dur and items for Mana and minion toughness. They do a sustained rate of aggregating damage, its awesome. The downside is its easy to run away from them, as they are slow, and they're a pain to get to do what I want, because they are stupid.

I don't think it takes too many skill points, but my problem is money. I have to get my army rolling quick, and that leaves Sedna herself without any gear, or I risk some gear and leave my army too weak to do anything until its too late.

So it's possible, but I agree with the general thrust of your post.

Thats a problem I talked often about. the game is not meant to played "as i deal much damage over time" It is meant to be played as "Deal as much damage in one sec" and stun the enemey so he cant run away.

For example: You deal 2000 damage in one sec, is MUCH better than, dealing 2500 or 3000 in 5 secs. Cause the enemy run away before you could deal the damage.... or heald him self teleported or whatever... So generals are "quit" useless. Except as a "quick and dirty healer" or to kill a damaged towers.... And this means: Less kills, less exp, less gold.... and later in game: Less usefull oO

But while you're doing this, a classic Assassin Sedna (Asassedna?) is levelling Pounce, Heal, Mag Pres and Inner grace and becoming a bursting, stunning, damage cannon. Pounce is pound for pound worth so much more than Yetis it's not even funny, IMO, and all your gear can focus on making you even better,and going in your citadel. You can buy Bishops and go rollin' rollin' rollin'. Why spend all those points in Yetis and Morale?

at the beginning, generals were planned to be way more generalish. For unknow reasons the devs decided that it was not working so well, so they made them more like assassins with pets.

The fact that generals can be as good at dpsing than assassins doesn't bother me. Who said they had to be support characters that always stay behind?? it is just a prejudice that most players have.

BUT they should be able to do something else on the battlefield as generals. If i want to increase my dps, i invest in dps centered skils, not minions that will need a lot of micro.

QoT can be very good with pets if played right.

They should take out the minions for the "generals", since I've seen them completely outclass assassiin characters in terms of damage.

thats what i quite often think as well. i see so many general players not even makin minion. they just beat the shit out of the other team and i see no disadvantages compared to some generals.

Why should generals have any disadvantage to any other class? Toe to toe it is pretty equal. And I believe your logic is flawed on the most powerful characters, OP. Support this facts please and this topic of discussion will have merit but until you can you're just assuming you are right based off of your experiences.

I am surprised if lag makes a difference in the relative positions of you and your minions. Doesn't lag "slow" everything in the game down equally?

yeah, i don't see how the lag could influence differently demigods and minions.

Apparently not.

I remember one game distinctly where I went hard Yetis in a 4v4 and the whole game they were always trailing me. After one of those massive disconnects where everybody left it was just me vs. the comp. Magically, my Yetis no longer had trouble keeping up. Prior to the other people leaving, it was a very laggy, slow game. With the comp only the game was full speed and smooth.

As for other replies above basically stating minion and summon builds are better than I give them credit for, I have to say "I'm sure that's possible". However, I've tried the same classes over and over in minion vs. assassin builds and I have found it's a matter of opportunity cost and effectiveness and so I stick w/ the thrust of my OP.

I have never seen a minion based hero dominate a game like I've seen pounce/heal Sednas dominate, Bite/Bats/Stun Erebus dominate,  or a late game SoF/Pen/Shield Oak dominate. I've also never seen a good QoT who didn't have shield early on and both ground spike spells later on.

I'm sure people can do some wonderful things as generals, I just don't see it in game after game. I suspect there's a reason for it.

Like someone pointed out above, they tried a more general based playstyle in the beta and apparently it didn't work out. I suspect part of it was the trouble involved in pathing and AI as well as I bet it's really hard to balance a general with all his units. There's probably a fine line between over and under powered. As it is, I think they opted for general builds to be a slight bit weak.

It doesn't hurt me in he least, I play all the heroes now and as such I can go either way or do anything and it doesn't bother me.

Minions were at one time a huge threat in Beta, but they were reduced power in greatly because they shared many of the buffs a Demigod did, and when tweaked properly became a giant massive horde of Demigods. They were strong as hell, and you could send a massive army forth without leaving the base, and a very FAST army too, as Wand of Speed use to effect them with 50% speed buffs. But that was back in the day, now no one reallys cares for minions anymore.

All I know is that if they want generals to play less like assassins then they need to impliment HUDs for generals. This will let them focus on supporting teammates and microing their minions. You don't know how lame trying to play a support Sedna is until 1 Rook towers above all your teammates stopping you for being able to heal who you need to heal. And good luck knowing who needs a heal, all you see is a giant castle swinging a hammer at your face and blobs of green bars with no lable. Sure you can move the camera around but any decent player will agree that split second timing in this game is critical.

1. The bad pathing's annoying, but only an issue in a few spots on the map

2. AOE does precisely dick. Show me an AOE ability that can kill my 2K hp yetis (And it -better- instantly kill them, otherwise they'll be back to full health in seconds)

3. I've played against players who just run up to my army and drop an AOE. They don't kill anything. They end up running from my army the entire game. There's a reason the +minion skills and gear exists. You don't need any more skillpoints for a minion build than you do anything else

4. You're probably not selecting your yetis. I've never seen this.

5. There's no burst damage, but there is a VERY HIGH steady DPS...which can almost look like burst damage. You've never seen how fast something falls in the middle of 4x yetis, 2x minotaurs and 2x  siege gunners, have you?

That said, minion builds are more difficult to play than assassin builds. You almost want to put all your money into early minions, and neglect gear....but you can't do that.

the reason why i dont play as a minion build is because  there too slow to harass  there weak ass hell  and they arn't very useful