Sedna is the worst Demigod in the game to fight minions.

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

It would be useless if you did that. More valid would be to reduce the effective range to 30 yards. A range limit would prevent the stupid shit I'm doing with it now.

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.

No, they are not useless. Actually it is good idea, IMO. And quite many of general items are already very useful as well.

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

Tome of Endurance, Pendant of Grace or Totem of War are very useful? Because that's 3/7 of the Generals Favor items.

also goddam I can't count

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.

Totem is completely outclassed by Ring. Tome is a weak-ass middleground item 130 minion hp is crap compared to horn, and horn also gives +10 regen to demigod. Sure you lose out on 400hp but this is way in favor of horn imo.

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.

Yea I agree the horn needs a nerf.  With the amount of damage that minoins can dish out in great numbers, making them invulnarable for 10 seconds is just rediculous. 

I think i would be good if it were balanced to be like blood of the fallen for minoins.  It should give the minoins a good health increase and modest health per second increase.

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.

armore can go negative? thus increasing received dmg above 0 armor status?

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

Met the minions --> citadel strategy in a 2v2 Prison game last night. Hadn't really faced it before but had read about it and knew exactly what was up within about a minute. We did exactly what we were supposed to, dropped everything we usually do and maximized our counterplay. We bought our tower regen upgrades ASAP, and my partner had Ooze 2 and Natures Reckoning by level 4, and we still couldn't prevent the minions from killing our base. 

The main problem as I saw it was that UB didn't gain any experience or gold despite massacring wave after wave of minions. We had to respect the threat to our citadel, but in doing so it was impossible for him to gain levels, and very difficult for me to hold any neutral flags 1v2. 

I don't care about lame or fun, and I don't care that I lost that game, but I do care that something be counterable, and right now it isn't. WTB Horn nerf. And a reward for killing minions. 

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.

You need both tower damage and regen lvl 2 to stand a chance. Hell i'd even get damage lvl 3 but it's pretty costly, and a pretty big waste on a map like prison where towers do not protect you much.

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.

A minion erebus or oak is going to have to come out of their towers to get a new wave. I imagine if they are completely minion spec (morale) they are extremely killable, and at worst they won't be able to defend theirselves without their minions. I haven't been in a game against this tactic, but if I see it I will do my best to kill the enemy DG as soon as they try to get to the creeps.

In a 3v3 one aoe character could try to hold off the minions, and the other two could camp creeps and make sure the enemy either never gets close, or dies if they do.

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.

Trust me if you encounter this tactic you're going to have to pull out all the stops and it'll change your mind dramatically, unless you fight bad players who actually are just that easy to kill.

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 >.<

Yesterday I played as Rock against minion Vampire. So what I did ? I decided to take Hammer Slam, to kill his minions in 1 shoot (at least that was my idea ;)). First lvl of Hammer Slam of course didn't do much to Vampire's minions. But I was very suprised, when I finally reach 1300 dmg Hammer Slam, Vampire's minions got... ~1800 hp !! Beside this guy can control them, so when he sees Hammer Slam going down, he just run his minnions throught me and activate HoB. Well that wasnt bad, I could kill them (when HoB finished), but when HoB was active, minion swarm could dmg me for around 2000 hp before I killed them !! And still, those are MINIONS, so Vampire can easly "make" another ones when they dies !!

Some time ago people cried here how Regulus annoying is, because you don't even see him when he snipes. Well, believe me, this vampire almost whole game was sitting right at his towers, near the creep line (so he got his backups almost instantly !!). That was fortress game, so before I killed all his minions, every wave destroyed like 3-4k fortress hp. And when I was happy I finally killed those bloody minions, I saw another wave comming. So if Regulus is not interactive char, what do you think about fighting vs minions, which Generals can summon basically FOR FREE every 30 sec, and you get nothing for killing them ? Isn't that pointless fight ?

Well, the truth is I don't really get this Generals idea. Generals can summon minions, and still they have attack like Assassins. Well maybe QoT is really bad in attack power, but beside all other Generals have very nice attack, and still can use minions (minion priests at the beggining of game are VERY helpfull - you don't have to return to base every time you are low hp; minion archers can easly outrange towers, so are very good either, especially early game, before opponent gets towers hp regen). So where are Generals (except QoT) weak points ?

Yes, I know one of the Assassins (beast) has highest AP (especially early game), but beast can't heal himself, so you really can't compare basic DPS between beast and eg vampire (and any other classes, because eg TB offensive skills do the difference - table above only shows basic attack DPS, don't show skills). Anyway, Generals have very nice AP, they have defensive abilities (Oak shield, QoT shield, Sedna heal, Vampire heal), and still can use minions...

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.

I'd kill to see a replay of this game...