Minion

Minions are allied monsters summoned by the player. Minions have their own damage and their actions are treated completely separate from the summoner's. Zombies and Skeletons do physical damage, Spectres and Dominated do whatever damage they did before they died, and Raging Spirits do physical damage of which 50% is converted to fire (much like Infernal Blow). Minion damage is affected by Minion Damage passives, support gems linked to the minion skill gem, Auras and Necromantic Aegis. will temporary increase their move, attack and cast speed while grants attack and spell block chance to your minions. Of particular note, support gems will support the attacks and spells of the minion if the skill is relevant. Minions can critically strike but cannot proc . Unlike totems, minions can gain charges.

Neither passive skills nor stats from your other equipment affect minions unless they specifically say "Minions _____".

Life Flasks with the "of Animation" suffix will heal minions life by 40-60% of the flasks recovery. This effect works even when you have full life or Chaos Inoculation.

When a minion kills an enemy you are partially rewarded with the kill. This means:

• You gain Flask Charges
• Your IIQ and IIR is added to the minion's support gems values to calculate drops.

Totems, Traps and Remote Mines are not counted as minions, they are remote skills.

Minion Skills

These skills summon minions. Monsters converted using Conversion Trap do not count as minions and are not affected by minion passives.

Skill	Icon	Description	Duration	Level
Animate Guardian		Animates a melee weapon or armour, attaching it to an invisible Guardian that fights by your side. Animating multiple items attaches them to the same Guardian. Guardians killed in PvP areas will not lose their items.	N/A	10
		Animates a melee weapon to fight by your side. There's no limit on the number of weapons you can animate.	37.50	4
Dominating Blow		Attacks the enemy with a melee strike. If a non-unique enemy is killed shortly after being hit by Dominating Blow, that enemy is revived as a minion until the skill duration ends.	14.00 - 33.00	24
Raise Spectre		Raises a spectral version of a defeated foe as a minion to fight for you in battle.	N/A	19
Raise Zombie		Raises a zombie minion from a corpse, which will follow you and attack enemies.	N/A	1
Raise Zombie		Casts an Aura that increases Attack Speed, Cast Speed and Movement Speed.	N/A	1
		Summons a short-lived flaming skull that rushes at nearby enemies and attacks them rapidly. Enemies cannot directly engage these spirits and can pass through them.	3.50	4
Summon Skeletons		Summons slow moving skeletal minions that decay over time. Does not require a corpse to be consumed.	20.00	10
Vaal Summon Skeletons		Summons an army of Skeletal Warriors, Archers and Mages, led by a powerful General.	20.00	10

Support Gems

There are a number of support gems related to minions, that increase their damage output, defense or movement speed.

Passives

Keystones

Template:Passive table

Notable Passive

The following notable passives affect Minions:

Template:Passive table

Basic Passives

The following Basic Passives affect your Minions:

Template:Passive table

Unique items

The following unique items affect your Minions: Furthermore there exist the mod +(1 to 2) to Level of Minion Gems in this item which can roll on helmets.

Spectre choices

As players progress through the game, there are several mobs that present interesting choices to supplement summoner and hybrid-summon builds alike. Even for a non-summoner build, a single curse-casting spectre whose AI helps them stay away can be quite useful. In practice, it's not that easy to keep a sole spectre alive without having other bodies around to shield it - this means parties and hybrid/full-summon builds. NB: Spectres keep their original monster-level, so you can't take a normal mob into Merciless and expect it to survive 1-hit.

The following short-list are spectres that are compatible with parties in general since they are both useful and have a relatively low graphics load for others' sakes:

• Enduring Cry Bears, various (Act 2)
• Chaos DoT Bears, Waterfall Caves 1 (Act 2)
• Frenzy-inducing Gorillas, Old Fields.
• Curse-specialists

Here is the full-list of potentially useful ones sorted by their abilities + location.

Ranged multi-shot/AoE: High DPS, and generally compatible with traditional ranged/spell supports such LMP, Chain, Faster Projectiles, etc.

• Arc - Barracks mages
• single-target Arc - Solaris lightning mages (slow to cast)
• Spark - Sins-3 skeleton mages
• Spark/Thorns - Crematorium & battlefield lightning mages
• Spark/Shock nova - Prisoner’s Gate goatmen
• Poison Arrow - Upper Prison Archers Sins 1 skeleton Archers, Western Forest archers, etc.
• Poison-Bomb - Chaos Alchemists in Sewers
• Lightning Arrow - many skeleton archers
• Fire-bomb - Flame Alchemist in Crematorium
• Fireballs - Rocky Climb Goatmen, Slums/Marketplace Queens
• LMP/Fork fireballs - Solaris Flame Sentinels
• LMP ele projectiles - Pyramid cold mages (NOT Waterfall 2), Crematorium fire mages.
• LMP chaos/phys projectiles - Warehouse Serpents
• LMP chaos bolts - Pyramid constructs
• Flame totem attack - Docks monkeys
• Machinegun fire-bolts - Tentacle Miscreation (Lunaris 2/3)
• LMP AoE attacks - Birdman
• Delayed Blast,AoE Physical spell and ranged invulnerability aura - Undying Evangelist (Sceptre of God)

Combat Support/Distraction: Those that make better tanks and are melee.

• Flicker strike - SGcave pirates, Weaver spiders, Sewer leaders
• Frenzy-inducing cry - Gorillas in the Old Fields
• Leap slam - Melee Goatmen, Sewer Maws
• Whirling blades - various undying crawlers (use Marketplace versions, they come with Puncture too)
• Roll-attacks - golems (doesn’t seem to hit many, use Crematorium versions)
• Fire-rolls - Crematorium Golems.
• Enduring Cry - many Bears in Act 2 (attacking decoy totem).
• Chaos DoT Aura - Waterfall 1 Bears (the DoT itself is not as impressive since monsters have more life).
• Unrighteous Fire - Burning Miscreation (Lunaris mob).
• Temporal Chains/Projectile Weakness/Detonate Dead - Lunaris Mages
• Long-melee Vulnerability-on-hit - Lunaris 2/3 mob
• Raise zombie - Lunaris 1 mage (maximum of 3 zombies per mage, they don't count to the total shown)
• Detonate dead - Lunaris 2 and 3 mages

Curse specialists: Because it's cheaper to summon a single spectre . Comes with lvl 20 curses in Merciless.

• - Waterfall 1 Skeleton Archers (high cast rate)
• - Oak’s Devoted (high cast rate, easy to obtain)
• Elemental Weakness - Church Necromancer
• Flammability - Crematorium Necromancer
• Conductivity - Chamber of Sins Necromancer
• Enfeeble - Lower Prison Necromancers, Lunaris 1 mages
• Vulnerability - (Upper Prison Necromancers)
• Temporal Chains - Shipyard Grave Cave Sirens (low cast rate, prefers Freezing Pulse), Lunaris 1 and 2 mages
• Vulnerability - many Sirens in Act 1 (low cast rate, prefers Freezing Pulse)

Achievements

If you manage appropriate number of minions, you will be rewarded the following achievement:

Name	Description
Behold My Army	Have 60 minions at the same time.