A Minion is a helpful secondary character that follows the player, aiding during battle by automatically attacking enemies within range. Minions cannot be damaged or killed, and follow the player indefinitely until the player dies, summons a replacement Minion, or cancels their buff. There are several different Minions, some of which can walk or fly, and attack via melee or ranged means. A Minion costs 10 mana to summon initially, but follows the player indefinitely thereafter at no further cost. Although they cost mana initially, Minions deal summon damage, rather than magic damage.
By default, a player can only have a single Minion summoned at once. Various boosts can raise the player's Minion capacity, allowing multiple simultaneous Minions. With Minion cap boosts in effect, the same Minion can be summoned multiple times, or several different Minions can be summoned. Minion cap boosts do not affect light source buffs or pets.
Minions follow players in a manner similar to Pets, flying and passing through blocks as necessary to keep pace with the player's movements, though most cannot move through blocks for the purposes of attacking.
Frost Hydra and Queen Spider are exceptions to the above: While they similarly deal summon damage, they are temporary, cannot move at all, and do not count toward the Minion cap.
Sentries are unlike other minions. They are temporary and don't follow the player, rather remaining stationary until their time is exhausted. They also don't count toward the player's minion cap, so other traditional summoned minions will not be affected by summoning a sentry in addition. Multiple sentries can be summoned at once, but two of the same sentry cannot.
You can use the following tables to estimate the net damage boosts of minions when wearing a full set of summoner or regular armor, and equipped with accessories which specifically increase the damage or capacity of minions:
Note: Going down the leftmost column are a range of damage bonuses, which represent general marks for the combined damage bonus of non-armor bonuses that affect Minion damage. Across the top of the table are the possible number of minions which can be summoned at once, with the total number of increased minions in parenthesis. The values in the table itself are represented as percentages which indicate the net minion damage with that particular combination of bonuses. (i.e. 100% is normal, 200% is double, etc.)
Non-Minion Armor
1 Minion (Base)
2 Minions (+1)
3 Minions (+2)
4 Minions (+3)
5 Minions (+4)
No Bonuses
100%
200%
300%
400%
500%
+25% Damage
125%
250%
375%
500%
625%
+50% Damage
150%
300%
450%
600%
750%
Bee Armor Template:Pc icon
3 Minions (Base)
4 Minions (+1)
5 Minions (+2)
6 Minions (+3)
7 Minions (+4)
No Bonuses
369%
492%
615%
738%
861%
+25% Damage
444%
592%
740%
888%
1036%
+50% Damage
519%
692%
865%
1038%
1211%
Spider Armor Template:Pc icon
4 Minions (Base)
5 Minions (+1)
6 Minions (+2)
7 Minions (+3)
8 Minions (+4)
No Bonuses
520%
650%
780%
910%
1024%
+25% Damage
620%
775%
930%
1085%
1224%
+50% Damage
720%
900%
1080%
1260%
1424%
Tiki Armor
5 Minions (Base)
6 Minions (+1)
7 Minions (+2)
8 Minions (+3)
9 Minions (+4)
No Bonuses
650%
780%
910%
1040%
1170%
+25% Damage
775%
930%
1085%
1240%
1395%
+50% Damage
900%
1080%
1260%
1440%
1620%
Spooky Armor
4 Minions (Base)
5 Minions (+1)
6 Minions (+2)
7 Minions (+3)
8 Minions (+4)
No Bonuses
632%
790%
948%
1106%
1264%
+25% Minion Damage
732%
915%
1098%
1281%
1464%
+50% Minion Damage
832%
1040%
1248%
1456%
1664%
Note: The more minions a player has, the more the net DPS of minions is reduced by enemy defense.
