Inconsistencies with what effect minions

PoE wordings and explanations are usually very logical and intuitive and its very important for this to be the case to help allow for the game's complexity and learn-ability.

I have a small issue when it comes to understanding the logic behind what effect minions and what doesn't.


The usual rule of thumb is, is that if it states the word "minion" then it will effect minions, and if it doesn't, then it won't.

The first exception to this rule is that anything also linked to the minion skill gem will also effect the minions, that's fair and reasonable enough to understand.

However this is not the only exception because "skill effect duration" does not mention minions and yet also effects them.

This than begs the question that perhaps anything that mentions "Skills" or "Minions" would then effect minion skills.

This would be a fair and logical assumption however not all effects that mention the word "skills", also effect minions.

The dead eye passive "Endless Munitions" states "Skills fire and additional Projectile" Note that the wording says specifically "Skills" and not "attacks".
This passive does NOT effect minions despite other passive's that state only the word "skills" that DO effect minion such as skill effect duration.


I believe that consistency around this needs to be made clear.

I also think that it should be the case all mentions of the word "Skills" should also effect minion skill gems.

This will open up more build variety when it comes to the dead eye summoner build that uses blink arrow and mirror arrow as they will have more ascendancy passives that they can use that will actually be usable for their build in some way. Currently dead eye summoners only have 2 ascendancies that help their build in any meaningful way.


Thanks for reading.

I thought about your post Slammu and here's how I saw it.

Let's use Blink Arrow as our example as you mentioned it in your post.

Skill duration from the tree affects a Blink Arrow minion's duration because it has the duration tag. The player used a skill to summon it (the minion didn't summon itself) so the players skill - blink arrow - is affected by the players skill duration modifiers.

Now if the blink arrow minion happened to have a skill which had a duration (let's suppose it had an ability to place a ranged attack totem) and the duration nodes on the players skill tree affected the minions ranged attack totem, then that would be puzzling to me.

I'm new to the game and recently created a sort of necromancer. I read in the Wiki that only effects that explicitly state that they apply to minions do. I learned that there are exceptions. This makes it incredibly hard to understand what does or doesn't apply to them. Especially because the "Offence" tabs for minion skills are extremely lacking! The only thing you can see is mana cost and time to cast. No word about damage or applied effects.

While the game explains and shows a lot of what's going on when you are melee, ranged or mage, being a necromancer is like walking in the dark. I would greatly appreciate any improvements.

@WARPAINTER

Ah I see what your saying.
For some reason I assumed the minions duration to be a property of themselves and not the player's skill.

I guess this is wrong and what you say does make sense to me.

However it still stands the case that the deadeye summoner build could use more options in terms of acendency passives.

Most of your doubts are already clear to you, I guess :P

In case of doubt, think who is the source of the effect. I'll explain on an example: Summon Skeleton
- The skill Summon Skeleton has a duration? Yes. Skill duration nodes will affect it.
- Does it have the "minion" tag? Yes. Minion nodes affect it.
- Is it a spell and has a cast speed? Yes. So cast speed nodes also affect it.
- Is it a spell and has damage? No! The skill doesn't have damage, the minions do have damage! So spell damage nodes won't affect the skill.

For support gems is pretty much the same, just consider the nature of the minion, too. Following the same example as above:
- Is Summon Skeleton a spell and has a cast speed? Yes. So cast speed gems affect it. Considering the nature of the minion, does it cast spells? No, except for skeleton mages. Then, Faster Casting will affect your speed when casting them, but not their speed when casting their stuff (they have no stuff to cast).
- Considering their nature, do they attack? Yes. So faster attacks will affect the speed of their attacks, even if the gem itself is not an attack and is not tagged as "attack".

In the case of Endless Munition:
- Who has the ascendancy? You. So your skills fire an aditional arrow.
- What is your skill? Blink/Mirror Arrow.
- Are you using a skill each time your minions fire an arrow? No! You used the skill only when used Blink/Mirror Arrow. So they don't fire an extra arrow.

You summoning the minion -> your skill
The minion attacking -> its attack, NOT your skill

Hope this helps :)

@lykkoith
Thanks you explain it very nicely.


Regarding deadeye summoner,
I was thinking what if some of their acendencies where changed to be worded as, "Your bow fires an additional arrow" instead of "your skills".
This way the blink arrow and mirrow arrow clone minions WILL obtain the additional arrow as they gain all properties of the bow & quiver.