Does anyone take the minion buffing morale skills as a General?

I play as erebus and don't usually have the spare skill points to put into minion buffs after I've maxed out bite, coven size, got my level or two of mist, my bat swarm, my regen and then considered night crawler conversion % + health.

I've wanted to try it though.

I do.

I used to take a lot of morale with my Oak builds but I've held back on them recently and gotten better results going with other skills early. The problem with minions, especially Oak's spirits, is that they can't hit targets on the move so they will rarely help you take down a fleeing demigod.

However morale is awesome for crowd control especially with generals that are bad a creep killing (Sedna). Strong minions can help you level faster and will mostly make Demigod flee from battle quicker, but can't really seal the kill.

very common to take points in Morale at higher levels once you've already got most of the skills you really needed for your build. so you'll often stuff like Oak taking morale at levels 16-20 just to make the Spirits start hitting hard. kinda rare to get Morale or Stat packages (for Assassins) before level 16 though, most people will find good uses for all of their skill points through the end of the skill tree at level 15. 

As sedna I do get healing, healing aura, and HP, then possibly minion 1.  With other generals, the combat oriented ones, I'm not sure I would. The way I play sedna, I need the minions to help me keep the lane clear.

With other generals who have a higher base dmg/better/more dmg skills, I would definitely take minion abilities last.

I take it sometimes in the later half of the game, as Oak. Honestly I think Oak is the only one who would, it gives drastically more effect to the 10-minion demis than the 4-minion demis, and Erebus has a lot of assasinish abilities he'd probably rather use. However, Morale also buffs idol minons, which is pretty cool. What's sixteen times four times five? A lot of dead enemies.

The only minions I'll ever use are the priest ones, and even then hardly.

That said there are a lot better skills to take as sedna than morale. 

The only general that would ever consider taking these skills is QoT.  Anyone that does as Oak, Sedna, or Erebus either don't know how to play them or isn't actually playing to win, rather to mess around.

Pros know minion skill is worthless and only for fun.

Do not listen to this person Morale is a must as Oak his minions will be feared late game

Depends.

I play a minion-focused Sedna build. Buffing the Yeti skill directly will give me more of a boost for the yetis themselves, but if I have the cash for good minotaurs/siege archers, I'll put extra points into the Minion skill.

I tried a minion build Erebus earlier, man it sucked so bad. Just as I was complaining about it too, my connection broke, I guess everyone else thought I was ragequitting!!!

The problem I found is that the minions are too slow for one thing, then they get completely smashed by AOE. Minions need to be ranged to be any good, melee minions are useless due to the speed and pathing issues. The only viable strategy I see for minions is to use them at a secondary location. The trouble is then that you have a gimped general and a slightly buff creep wave.

That said one of the guys I played with had a great QoT minion build, it was pretty effective. I think she is the only general that can really do it as she seems a little underpowered in the main skills in the first place. Plus her shamblers are ranged making them a lot more effective.

Oak is also pretty good in this respect, as his minions are not constrained by pathing.

Erebus and Sedna, you can pretty much forget it, Yetis will shamble around hitting minotaurs or getting stuck on corners. Nightcrawlers just bobble around generally getting in the way.

Also minion control is just too annoying, you set them somewhere and they wander around when something is even in a sniff of range. Trying to control priests to keep them out the way is a real pain, there needs to be a guard mode or hold ground (perhaps there is one, I haven't seen it).

/minion rant off

Minions need :

Better pathing.

Range attacks as pathing will likely not be sorted out or no collision detection.

More options like hold ground.

More upgrades like movement speed or secondary abilities, rather than health and damage.

oak: my ability points are spread thin enough as it is

erebus: always leveling up the offensive skills

qot: never done it, but i can see it helping.

sedna: same with oak and i never get yetis.

?!

You have to tell them what to attack, of course.

Never.  There is always a better use for your skill points.

For assassins however stats is really good.  For generals it's awful.

The stat increases aren't good enough to be of any worth. Your minions won't be any harder to kill. Generals have much better skills, take them instead.

its def worth it for oak as a pure minion guy.  those little spirits start putting out heinous dmg. 

Well the positive with Oak is that his Surge of Faith affects all nearby allied units... himself, his sixteen creeps, the creep wave near him, an allied Demi... add in Morale mainly for the attack buff (although the hp buff for your idol minions is cool), and Fell-Drakur, and your minions are a force to be reconed with. In the mid-late game I've chucked my minions at someone's face while I ran back to the crystal, and have been fairly pleased to find out they've done over 50% damage to him while I'm gone... and I can just recast idols the crystal, and be auto-fed by my flags on the way back.

Minion buffs don't look like much, but spread out, they're almost as strong as an artifact. Ring of Divine Might, 10*16=160. Gloves of Fell-Darkur, 8*16=128, 5% attack speed. 5 levels of Morale, 20*16=320, 15% attack speed. Surge of Faith, 20% attack speed. Totals 608 damage, 35% attack speed, no artifacts, without risking your own neck.

Any Oak minion build witout Morale maxed is not a real Minion build.

Not getting morale may not be a "real" minion build but it would probably be better....

Depends on the general, male general, no, female, yes, as either of sedna or QoT they're too much of an investment not to buff them. They die as easily as the male general's do, but cost many times as much. For the male generals they are cheap and plentiful, and are cannonfodder (just like the female generals...though not nearly as expensive) and as all followers do, they die...in droves. I don't actually get yeti when I play sedna anymore, as qot I will, if I'm emphasizing the shield, it gives me a way to get some damage in without coming out of the flower. So really, only as qot.

All the time with Oak but not until later on.  Play a proper minion build with 4-5 Morale levles and they do some devastating damage.  You don't need to do all the damage yourself, which is the point of a General/minion build.  If you're trying to play more as an assasain then no, Morale is a waste.

Depends who your against and what character you are....

I personally enjoyed a minion build on erebrus against rook and other slow guys since you can harass so easily and 12 of those little minions can pack a punch. Get some +minion items and you can get like little 3k HP creeps just raping lanes.