Yeah yetis should be useless in every way

Now fully upgraded shamblers should do 269 dps (don't really know how compost works) but that are 17 points only for shamblers/minions

Erebus Minions can get nearly the same dmg with 3 points in coven and 3 points in morale.

Oak has to spend 12 points for minions do 269 dps... but that provides max penitence and max surge of faith... both give Oak himself powerfull buffs or debuffs for the enemy^^ Still have enough points to max out shield and lvl 5 morale. with a +10 minion dmg item his minion dmg would rise up to ~400 dps....

So i come to this point

Oak minionbuild should be some kind of heavy overpowered. If you would add Idols the dmgoutput becomes insame because every minionbuff affects the idols by 100% except raise dead

Erebus doesn't need much points for his minions so it's viable...

QoT gimps herself to death only to have her shamblers doing double dmg of QoT auto attack and minion dmg isn't affected by groundspikes

Sedna Minions are completly useless

and now i go to bed... and tomorrow i will start to play Oak lol

A minion Oak should have max pent also you nub. It's his kill move, he can't just rely on minions.

Shamblers arn't as people are making out. Being ranged is a huge advantage, and so is having AOE.   4 Shamblers with 2 levels of Entourage (5 skill points) will open for 200 points of AOE damage, which isn't bad at all. That plus the QoTs natural AOE damage means the QOT can dispatch midgame grunt waves extremely quickly without using any mana.

The high mana cost for Yetis and Shamblers is highly annoying though, compared to Oak or Erebus minion builds.

i still think u should get some sort of bonus when u have all ur minions summoned.

I dont think Minions need a buff. I think they need a complete rethinking. I just cant think of a way right now to do that.

I find it a bit surprising that minion damage is not affected by armor. DGs always seem to take way more damage from minions after being bitten by Erebus. Perhaps only Priest and possibly Siege Archer damage is not mitigated because it is a spell.

Regardless, I don't think minions need to be changed. With max morale they do rediculous amounts of dps. It doesn't matter which general you pick, if you manage to get max morale with a full minion build your are going to hose your opponents unless they have AoE stuns or their own set of maxed minions.

If you get max morale you have sacrificed some serious versatility in your avatar, and you'll probably die and your minions along with you before you can kill anything.

Try playing yeti sedna: you'll be sacrificing either heal or pounce if you want to build up yetis and morale. Good luck with that...

Minion dmg is effected by armor. 

Try it. Have a friend in a game with you with Filthy Rich.

1. Buy a Minion
2. Attack said friend
3. Have friend buy AoV, GP, GP, PotC and whatever else
4. Hit said friend again. Dropped the highest siege archer from ~60 to ~35 

This is a good point. Also, minions are extremly easy to lure into towers and skilled players will not waste time taking damage from them when they can be easily dispatched by towers or AoE.

This is true, except when:
A: When you have the Horn of Battle, you can use the item and attack a DG whos chillin by towers.
B: When you attack another DG on that team, you CANNOT stand still or you'll get VERY hurt.

What I love about minions builds is you can force someone to not stand still. Which means no long cast times, no attacking other DGs or Towers. You can't hit people while they are moving, yes, but all that means is you wont get many kills but will push people back usually no problem. 

i tried it with special minions, not with Idols.

i will test it again when i stand up tomorrow but shamblers were not affected... and that would be really shitty because groundspikes wouldn't buff their dmg...

otherwise i would use them because i never needed uproot or max shield... most times i hit groundspikes 3/4 i move in open form the most times anyways...

Once again a smart player will just move in circles near a tower until all or most creeps are dead.

The point is you can't stand still. Gives you very little ability to do anything. The point is you force them to do something: Move.

It doesn't matter if the minions are keeping you from attacking other DG'd or towers because your moving near your towers waiting for your tower to take them out. Eithere way the minions will die in a relatively short amount of time and you will go back to killing creeps/DG's/ enemy towers and the enemy DG who summoned all those creeps will have to waste more time and mana on them again.

Also, a DG who specifies in creeps only (again talking about sedna and QoT) will be a really weak DG and once their minions are gone, they become useless and must retreat.

I think creeps just need to do what you tell them. If they worked in the same way units do in a regular RTS that would fix most of their problems.

I'm just saying, denying them the ability to stand still anywhere outside their towers really hurts them. I've been playing a minion Oak and it kind of feels unfair how easy it is to just overwhelm people. Get the Horn of Battle and your DG stays just in range for the exp from the creep waves. 

Towers crumble...very fast.

More then anything though, I think minions need to work completly differently. I just cant figure out how...

And you think it's ok if Oak minions do 3x dmg as QoT minions, without crippling himself to the max? Not to forget Spirits are much faster than any other Minions and they can fly over gaps.

Btw. i've never seen spirits not doing what they should...

I don't get it

I think the minions would need some balancing as they would become more effective, this would include speed.

Maybe Oaks spirits don't get attacked by the creeps so much because either they are flying or just lower on their priority list, there for they aren't distracted from following your desired target. It could also be that they are programed slightly differntly so the bug does not effect them.

If minions would buff the demigod in whatever way, AOE dmg will get overpowerd wich makes this idea into a new problem.

That fact that all minions die the second you kill the demigod is a huge "nerfing" in itself.  Letting minions stay alive and fight after your DG has been killed would be a useful "buff", and make at least some other type of strategy rather than ONLY attack the demigod.

Minions need some help.

Would love to see status effects added to them.

However, I lot of people are looking at minion builds the wrong way. They can be very powerful. Especially when the corresponding minion items are taken. Your minions can be way over 2000HP a piece.

If your opponent doesn't have a TB or Reg on their side focused on AOE, then they are going to be struggling.

Against buildings they tear through them like candy. They are not DG killers though.

Also, you can have a significant presence on the battlefield even when you are at the item shop.

Oak is most probably fairly well balanced. Minion builds can be a nightmare, spirits are fast, cheap and hard hitting. Also, don't knock them, when you can raise 9 of the buggers, send them round the back and have them destroying a citadel regardless of towers or creeps.

Erebus shouldn't go with a specific minion build, but his minions are free so who cares.

QoT, her minions are pretty powerful, with good passive upgrades, Mulch and the fact they that damage multiple targets. Minion is very viable with her.

Sedna - Is the only really weak Minion build, mainly because Yetis are slow and cannot be controlled, cannot go through creeps with you. They need to be sped up a little or have collision detection removed. Possibly even give them a snare, to make them useful for Sedna.

Minions should level with your DG, in addition to the picking of their skill.  A Sedna that goes full yeti has to give up so much else she gimps herself.  A level 10 Sedna with level 2 Yeti means the Yeti are crap.  If the Yeti would scale in relation to the DG, and the Yeti skills gave them smaller buffs but allowed more, and gave some abilities, the DG minions would be awesome.

I'd give each DG minion a buff that was applied after a certain level of their skill.  Yeti's would gain a heal equal to Priests.  Nightwalkers a healthsteal, and Queen a poison/DOT (similar to spit, but much weaker).

Personally I find Sedna minion builds easier to manage than QoT ones. I do agree that most people look at minions the wrong way. They are perfectly fine the way they are. If you enhance them anymore than they already are, my minion builds would be simply rediculous.

I like the status effects idea a lot.  Turns them into utility and support.

Minion builds, with some generals at least, work "ok".

It would be of great help if they were far more attentive to the orders actually given to them instead of just doing what they seem to want in the middle of a fight half the time.  An effective minion build does take a lot of minion babysitting to be halfway effective right now and even then they do no end of dumb stuff despite you telling them not to.

If the concensus is that minions need a bit of a buff in the late game (which might be true, I'm still on the fence), then I would suggest that changing the Morale skill would be the way to do it.  It already gives passive buffs to minions just not enough to keep pace in the late game.  Since there are multiple levels of the Morale skill, you can easily keep minion power in check until the later stages of the game as desired, as you'd just have to backload the larger bonuses towards the higher end of the skill tree.

As it stands, the Morale skill does help minions out but it's a very subtle effect.  I can't speak for Oak but I do find that Erebus minions really lose their punch once giants enter the field, which maybe isn't all that bad but it's definitely the case.  Sedna and QoT, with their lower minion count, probably need a little more work than Oak and Erebus and if they're only going to have 2-4 minions then they should be fairly dangerous and they generally aren't.

As for all minion builds being weaker, I just don't think that is the case across the board.  With a minion focused build of Erebus, it's pretty rare that I run into an enemy DG that (assuming roughly equal level and gold) I can't force to retreat consistently when 1on1 in open ground.

-dolynick