Grinding Gear Games isn't just making a sequel. They’re basically rewriting the DNA of how we summon things. If you’re coming from the original Path of Exile, you probably expect to hold down one button, let a permanent horde of zombies do the legwork, and occasionally check your loot filter. Honestly? Forget all of that. A poe 2 minion build is a completely different beast, and if you try to play it like the old "walking simulator" Necromancer, you are going to hit a wall fast.
The biggest shift is about control. In the first game, minions had the AI of a roomba—sometimes efficient, often stuck in corners. In PoE 2, the developers have introduced the "Spirit" resource. This isn't mana. It’s a dedicated pool that limits how many permanent summons you can have active. You want five skeletal warriors? That’s going to cost you a chunk of your Spirit. It’s a trade-off that forces you to actually think about your army composition instead of just spamming every gem link you find.
The Spirit Problem and Why It Changes Everything
In the current state of the game, managing your resources is the core of the experience. Spirit is a static cap. You gain it from gear or specific passive nodes, and your minions "reserve" it. It feels a lot more like an RTS game than a traditional ARPG.
You’ve got choices.
You could go all-in on a massive frontline of armored skeletons, but then you won’t have enough Spirit left to summon those high-impact spectres or a heavy-hitting Golem. Jonathan Rogers, the game director, has mentioned in several interviews that they want players to feel like commanders. This means you aren't just a passive observer. You're using the "Command" skill to tell your minions exactly who to kill. It’s snappy. It’s responsive. It actually works.
Breaking Down the Witch and the New Summoning Skills
The Witch remains the queen of the poe 2 minion build, but her toolkit is way more active now. Take the new Skeletal Arsonist, for example. It doesn't just wander around hitting things with a stick. It has specific interactions with the environment and your other spells.
The synergy is wild.
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If you're running a fire-based setup, your minions can actually benefit from the ground effects you create. There’s a level of "cross-pollination" between your active spells and your summons that just didn't exist before. You might cast a physical spell that creates corpses, then immediately use those corpses to fuel a temporary surge of fast-moving ghoul-like creatures.
Why permanent minions aren't always the answer
A lot of players are going to gravitate toward permanent summons because that's what we know. But the temporary minions in PoE 2 are looking incredibly strong. Since they don't always reserve Spirit, you can treat them like a cooldown-based nuke. Imagine walking into a boss room, dropping a massive desecrate-style effect, and rising a dozen temporary shades that vanish after ten seconds but deal triple the damage of your regular skeletons. That’s the rhythm of the game now. It’s a cycle of summoning, commanding, and repositioning.
Gear and the Importance of the Scepter
Don’t sleep on your weapon choice. In the original game, a minion player might just grab a generic wand with "minion damage" and call it a day. In the sequel, Scepters play a massive role. Many of them come with innate Spirit bonuses or specific buffs to minion types.
You’ll find yourself hunting for very specific "Command" modifiers.
Wait, I should clarify. Your gear doesn't just make your minions hit harder; it changes how they behave. You might find a unique item that allows your skeletons to leap-slam into enemies, providing the mobility that minion builds usually lack. This removes the need for certain support gems, freeing up slots for more interesting utility.
The Skill Gem System Overhaul
Let’s talk about the sockets. This is the biggest mechanical change in the history of the genre. Since sockets are now on the gems themselves and not the armor, your poe 2 minion build can be incredibly flexible. You aren't hunting for a six-link chest piece for six months. You're looking for a high-quality gem that you can then socket with supports.
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This allows for "specialist" groups.
- One 4-link for your defensive meat shields.
- One 6-link for your primary damage dealers.
- A 2-link for a utility minion that just applies curses.
It’s modular. You can swap parts of your army out depending on whether you're clearing a map or fighting a pinnacle boss without having to redo your entire gear set.
Common Pitfalls for New Summoners
People are going to die. A lot.
In PoE 1, your minions were your shield. In PoE 2, the combat is more "souls-like"—monsters have telegraphed attacks and a lot of them have massive Area of Effect (AoE) slams. If you just stand behind your minions, an elite mob will jump over them and one-shot you. You have to use the new dodge roll.
It’s a shock to the system for veteran Necromancers.
You are a part of the fight. If you aren't rolling out of the way of boss projectiles while commanding your skeletons to move to the boss's flank, you're going to see the "You have died" screen more often than not. The gameplay loop is: Roll, Command, Cast, Summon. Repeat. It’s exhausting compared to the old way, but it’s infinitely more rewarding when a plan comes together.
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Navigating the Passive Tree
The tree is still a giant mess of nodes that looks like a galaxy map, but it's been streamlined in specific ways. For a poe 2 minion build, you’re looking for a mix of Spirit, Minion Life, and a new stat: Minion Aggression.
Aggression is key.
Without it, your minions stay on a short leash. With it, they hunt. But there’s a catch—if they hunt too far away, you lose your defensive layer. Balancing the distance at which your minions operate is a sub-game in itself. I’ve found that focusing on "Minion Recovery" is also huge now. Since you can't just spam-summon to replace dead minions due to the Spirit cost and corpse requirements, keeping your existing army alive with heal-over-time effects or leech is mandatory for endgame content.
Real-World Example: The Frost-Summoner Synergy
I saw a playtest build recently that used frost spells to freeze enemies in place, followed by a pack of minions that dealt double damage to frozen targets. This is the kind of stuff that makes PoE 2 stand out. You aren't just a summoner; you're a cryomancer-commander. By using a chilling aura, you slow the fight down enough to manage your Spirit and keep your minions from being overwhelmed.
It's subtle. It's smart. It's way better than just stacking "Added Fire Damage" gems.
Don't Ignore the "Offering" Skills
Offerings are back, but they work differently. Instead of just being a buff you keep up 100% of the time, they often have more impactful, shorter-duration effects. Timing your Offering of Flesh when a boss enters its "vulnerable" phase is the difference between a five-minute fight and a thirty-second one. It requires watching the boss's posture bar—another new mechanic—and unleashing your minions' full fury when the boss is staggered.
Actionable Steps for Your PoE 2 Journey
To actually succeed with a minion-focused character when the game launches or in the next beta wave, you need a plan that accounts for the new friction in the systems.
- Prioritize Spirit Early: Do not try to run a full army on base Spirit. Look for flat Spirit bonuses on rings and amulets immediately. If you run out of Spirit, your minions simply won't summon, leaving you defenseless.
- Master the Command Key: Rebind your "Command Minion" skill to a button you can reach comfortably. You will be pressing this as often as your main attack. It resets their AI and forces them to focus-fire high-threat targets like necromancers or healers.
- Hybridize Your Damage: Don't just pick minion nodes. Pick up at least one active crowd-control spell. A simple stun or freeze gives your minions the window they need to surround a target without getting cleaved down.
- Watch the Corpses: Since corpses are a limited resource in boss fights (unless you have a way to generate them), bring a skill like "Unearth" or its PoE 2 equivalent. Running out of corpses in a long fight means you can't replace your fallen soldiers, which is a death sentence.
- Experiment with Minion Variety: Don't just stick to skeletons. Test out the different spectres and elemental summons. Some have hidden buffs that affect your other minions, like a fire elemental that adds flat fire damage to all nearby allies.
The era of the "lazy" summoner is over. The era of the tactical commander has started. If you can embrace the micro-management and the resource constraints of the Spirit system, you’ll find that a poe 2 minion build is perhaps the most versatile and powerful way to tackle the game’s brutal new bosses. It's a high-skill floor, but the ceiling is astronomical.