I’d say they’re definitely fragile in early game, but they can still decimate everything throughout all Acts if you know which minions to use, and when to use them. For example, Animate Weap + Reaper + skeles on 3-4 links is laughably strong throughout lvl 30-60+, and gets twice as strong with charges, while not really investing anything. I league start with generic phys minions every league and always laugh at how easy it is to scale them offensively. Minions only really feel clunky at lvl 1-25 in my experience; carried by SRS. What you said about the base types in early game is probably true as well. Maybe they just want actual gear to be the main factor in early-mid game scaling, versus relying on charges, but at the end of the day it’ll feel the same? I might just be coping hard, we’ll see