Minion
Minions are Module Error: Too many skills found with q_where = skill.active_skill_name="Raise Zombie". Please choose only one of the following ids:
ExperimenterBossRaiseZombieInvasion - +(3-10) to Maximum Raised Zombies, Minions have 90% more Maximum Life, Minions deal 30% more Damage (page)
NecromancerRaiseZombie - +(3-6) to Maximum Raised Zombies (page), Module Error: Too many skills found with q_where = skill.active_skill_name="Summon Skeletons". Please choose only one of the following ids:
TempestDaemonSummonSkeletons - +(2-13) to Maximum Summoned Skeletons, Base duration is 20.00 seconds, Minions deal 50% less Elemental Damage, Summons (2-13) Skeleton Warriors (page)
SummonSkeletonsRoyale - +(3-6) to Maximum Summoned Skeletons, Base duration is 10.00 seconds, Minions have 30% more Maximum Life, Minions deal 30% less Damage, Summons (1-2) Skeleton Warriors (page), 
Spectres and Module Error: Too many skills found with q_where = skill.active_skill_name="Dominating Blow". Please choose only one of the following ids:
DominatingBlowRoyale - Base duration is 1.00 seconds, Base secondary duration is 10.00 seconds, +(0-0.1) metres to Melee Strike Range, Maximum 5 Summoned Normal Sentinels of Dominance, Maximum 3 Summoned Magic Sentinels of Dominance, Maximum 1 Summoned Rare Sentinel of Dominance (page)
DominatingBlow - Base duration is 1.00 seconds, Base secondary duration is 20.00 seconds, Maximum 9 Summoned Normal Sentinels of Dominance, Maximum 3 Summoned Magic Sentinels of Dominance, Maximum 1 Summoned Rare Sentinel of Dominance, 25% Chance to Summon a Normal Sentinel of Dominance on Hitting a Unique Monster (page). Monsters converted using 
Conversion Trap do not count as minions and are not effected by minion passives.
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. Minion damage is affected by Minion Damage passives, support gems linked to the minion skill gem, Auras and Necromantic Aegis. Of particular note, support gems will support the attacks and spells of the minion if the skill is relevant.
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.
Passives
Keystones
| Icon | Name | Bonuses |
|---|---|---|
| File:Passive-keystone-necromanticaegis.png | Necromantic Aegis | |
| File:Passive-keystone-minioninstability.png | Minion Instability |
|
Basic Passives
The following Basic Passives affect your Minions:
- 8 x Minion Damage (+15%)
- 8 x Minion Life (+10%)
- 4 x Additional Minions (+1 Max Skeletons and +1 max Zombies)
- 1 x Additional Spectre (+1 Max Spectres)
Notable Passive
The following Notable Passive affects Minions:
- Lord of the Dead (10% Increased Minion Life, 15% Increased Minion Damage, +1 Max Zombies, +2 Max Skeletons)
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. Act 3-specific ones have been renamed to reduce the spoiler-potential.
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 - Sewers "Mages"
- Lightning Arrow - many skeleton archers
- Fire-bomb - Crematorium "Mages"
- Fireballs - Rocky Climb Goatmen, Slums/Marketplace Queens
- LMP/Fork fireballs - Solaris fire mages
- 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 - Lunaris 2/3 mob
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 - Lunaris mob.
- Temporal Chains/Projectile Weakness/Detonate Dead - Lunaris Mages
- Long-melee Vulnerability-on-hit - Lunaris 2/3 mob
- Raise zombie - Lunaris 1 mage
- Detonate dead - Lunaris 1 and 2 mages
Curse specialists: Because it's cheaper to summon a single spectre . Comes with lvl 20 curses in Merciless.
- Module Error: No skills found with q_where = skill.active_skill_name="Projectile Weakness" - Waterfall 1 Skeleton Archers (high cast rate)
- Module Error: Too many skills found with q_where = skill.active_skill_name="Warlord's Mark". Please choose only one of the following ids:
MonsterWarlordsMark - Base duration is 4.00 seconds, Cursed enemies grant 2% Life Leech when Hit by Attacks, Cursed enemies grant 2% Mana Leech when Hit by Attacks, Cursed enemies have a 100% chance to grant an Endurance Charge when slain, Hits against Cursed Enemies have 40% chance to double Stun Duration (page)
ArchnemesisWarlordsMark - Base duration is 4.00 seconds, Cursed enemies grant 2% Life Leech when Hit by Attacks, Cursed enemies grant 2% Mana Leech when Hit by Attacks, Cursed enemies have a 100% chance to grant an Endurance Charge when slain, Hits against Cursed Enemies have 40% chance to double Stun Duration (page) - Oak’s Devoted (high cast rate, easy to obtain) - Module Error: Too many skills found with q_where = skill.active_skill_name="Elemental Weakness". Please choose only one of the following ids:
IzaroElementalWeakness - Base duration is (5.00-6.45) seconds, Cursed enemies have -(20-30)% to Elemental Resistances (page)
ElementalWeaknessRoyale - Base duration is (5.00-6.80) seconds, +(0-0.5) metres to radius, Cursed enemies have -(15-24)% to Elemental Resistances (page) - Church Necromancer 
Flammability - Crematorium Necromancer
Conductivity - Chamber of Sins Necromancer
Enfeeble - Lower Prison Necromancers, Lunaris 1 mages- Module Error: Too many skills found with q_where = skill.active_skill_name="Vulnerability". Please choose only one of the following ids:
IzaroVulnerabilityPylonOnDeath - 40% increased Physical Damage taken, 20% chance to be inflicted with Bleeding when Hit by an Attack, Base duration is 10.00 seconds (page)
IzaroVulnerability - Base duration is (5.00-6.45) seconds, Cursed enemies take (15-25)% increased Physical Damage, Attacks Hits against Cursed Enemies have 25% chance to inflict Bleeding (page) - (Upper Prison Necromancers) 
Temporal Chains - Shipyard Grave Cave Sirens (low cast rate, prefers Freezing Pulse), Lunaris 1 and 2 mages- Module Error: Too many skills found with q_where = skill.active_skill_name="Vulnerability". Please choose only one of the following ids:
IzaroVulnerabilityPylonOnDeath - 40% increased Physical Damage taken, 20% chance to be inflicted with Bleeding when Hit by an Attack, Base duration is 10.00 seconds (page)
IzaroVulnerability - Base duration is (5.00-6.45) seconds, Cursed enemies take (15-25)% increased Physical Damage, Attacks Hits against Cursed Enemies have 25% chance to inflict Bleeding (page) - many Sirens in Act 1 (low cast rate, prefers Freezing Pulse)