Minions are allies of the player that are summoned by skills, items, passives, or other effects.
Minions automatically attack enemies and will run towards the player if they’ve strayed too far behind.
You can also manually tell your minions to target the enemy under your cursor using Minion Attack Command (bound to A by default). If there’s no enemy at the location you target, your minions will move there before picking a new target to attack. You can also use this command to have your minions break things like crates. Minions have two modes, Protect and Assassinate, which alter the distance they attack enemies or run back to the player. In Assassinate mode minions prioritize attacking targets close to them, especially bosses and rare enemies, and don't return to the player unless they're very far away. In Protect mode minions stay closer to the player and prioritize targets close to the player instead.
Minions summoned by a skill will typically gain additional stats from skill tree nodes. Modifiers your character has (such as from passives and items) will not apply unless minions are specified.
For example, a passive node that grants increased physical damage will not apply to your minions, but increased minion physical damage will apply.
A minion will prioritize using a skill that has just come off of cooldown if it has multiple to use, assuming there is a valid target in range.
Companions and Totems are two types of minions that have additional mechanics.
Starting from level 26, all minions gain 0.6% more damage and 0.8% damage reduction per level. At level 100, your minions deal 45% more damage and have 60% damage reduction from this level scaling.