Dianna Menefe
Aug 31, 2018 · 5 min read

Path of Exile: Minion Tips

I have been paying attention to the new league that poe is about to launch recently — Delve, this is a brand new league, I can’t wait to play it. I noticed that Minion builds are going to be trendy in Delve, but for many players who have never been exposed, it may need some help.

Skill gem level provides by far the biggest overall stat boost to Minions. And the stat boost becomes greater the higher you go in levels, meaning for example that going from lvl 20 to 21 will provide a far bigger boost than going from lvl 10 to 11. Animate Weapon in particular is notable for scaling massively with skill gem levels. Skill gems like Raise Zombie and Animate Guardian absolutely need to be at least lvl 21 if you want them to survive Red map bosses. On the other hand, the exception to this rule is Raise Spectre, since minions that you raise as Spectres scale with monster level and not much with skill gem level.

With the exception of Support skill gems, Minion Damage is the only stat that actually increases the damage of your Minions. So, for example, Melee Physical Damage Support will increase the melee physical damage of your Minions, but increases in melee physical damage on items will not. It is also the biggest damage multiplier for Minions (skill gem levels will give the biggest overall boost but not the biggest damage boost). All other damage stat will have no effect, including “Damage” and “global damage”.

Other stats that affect Minion include “x to y Minion damage to attacks”, “% Minion damage”, “%Minion movement speed”, etc., generally any stat that has “Minion” in it somewhere will affect Minions.

Minions count as allies but not as party members. However, the Minions of your party members do count as allies as well. Effects that provide buffs to allies, such as war cries, will therefore work with Minions. On the other hand, the keystone Conduit, which shares charges with nearby party members, will not share charges with Minions.

On melee Minions, accuracy is the second biggest damage multiplier after Minion Damage Support. The easiest way to get Minion accuracy is either through the new Minion accuracy nodes that will be in the skill tree in 3.4, or with Additional Accuracy Support. Summon Skeleton doesn’t need extra accuracy thanks to the “Bone Sculptor” Ascendency. If you run the keystone Necromantic Aegis with Lycosidae, you also do not need to care about accuracy either.

Summon Minions to help you quickly clean up the battlefield, get more resources and poe orbs

Starting with red maps, you need to run Bone Offering if you want your Minions to survive in most cases. Otherwise they may die to bosses, Abyss monsters or certain Unique and Rare mobs. This may not be true if you have stacked a lot of % Minion life. Also, I would like to point out that this is based on my personal experience only, and some people are saying in the comments that Bone Offering is not necessary at all, and rather, that it’s better to run Flesh Offering to kill monsters faster and get more % damage leeched as life from doing more damage. This is a good argument and I would agree with it.

With the “Soul Weaver” Ascendency and enough % Minion life, your high level Spectres can run maps with damage reflection mods without dying. Using Convocation for the health regen and to get your Minions out of harm’s way will also help greatly.

When it comes to Minion defensive stats, after a certain point % life regen and % damage leeched as life will help your Minions survive more than % Minion life. This is because Minions have really base HP, especially at higher levels. A great way to boost your Minion’s survivability, as mentioned by u/Tsevion, is to run a Sulphur flask. The consecrated ground will heal a percentage of your Minions’ life every second, which, for the reason mentioned above, will boost their survivability a lot.

Faster Attacks Support on melee Minions is a noob trap. If you want to clear faster, use Minion Speed Support and for boss killing, even this is not needed at all. An exception to this rule is when you are using melee Summon Skeleton in a Femurs of the Saints, in that case Minion Speed Supports get +2 levels which makes it worth using.

When it comes to Ghastly Eye jewels, flat minion damage is also generally a noob trap. You need to invest heavily in elemental damage in order to make it good, otherwise % minion damage is always going to be better. For these jewels, what you are actually looking for the most is “Minions have % chance to blind on hit” and “Minions have % chance to taunt on hit”. These two jewel modifiers will greatly improve your own survival.

Due to a bug that GGG currently can’t be bothered fixing, your Animate Guardian can benefit from both The Bringer of Rain and a chest armour. This is a small thing, but it’s pretty nice if you’re playing a Chains of Command build.

If you run a Baron build with Summon Skeleton and the Dead Reckoning Unique jewel, your Skeletons will actually benefit from Iron Will support. This wasn’t the case before but GGG changed this in 3.1. Based on my recent calculations through PoB, you need about 700 Strength to get the same DPS as a regular non-Baron setup. Iron Will Support also seems to work with golems but it’s unclear whether it works with all Spectre Minions or not. More testing needed.

Since 3.1, Dark Pact counts as a Minion skill gem. This means that if you put Dark Pact in Cloak of Tawm’r Isley, which has the Unique modifier “Socketed Minion Gems are Supported by Level 16 Life Leech”, it will be affected by the life leech and you will get healed from using Dark Pact. As a side note, Cloak of Tawm’r Isley is also a damage boost for Animate Weapon, as it allows you to use Magic weapons which have a higher base damage than Normal ones.

Monsters killed by your Minions will not count as your kills, meaning that on-kill effects, such as getting a charge on kill, will not work on you. However, Minion kills will give you flask charges and also be affected by your %IQ and %IR stats. Effects from Unique items such as Headhunter and The Gull will also benefit you from your Minion kills.

These are the things I want to share with the novices, and I hope that those who are new to poe (now a delve league!) can help.

Dianna Menefe

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