Talk:Banner of Command/@comment-24648781-20150728163521/@comment-27124958-20160811031411

The siege minion may still be better despite it's lower DPS as it could potentially survive much longer than a promoted melee.

The reason I say this 'may' be true (haven't done the math) is due to two facts:

1. Melee minions are much more likely to draw enemy minion aggro for two reasons

a) they are up front and thus are the closest targets for enemy minions without a target and

b) they attack much more often, which means there's a much higher chance that enemy minions will 'delegate them as          a threat' to other enemy minions. See the "Minions" page for more info on how minions prioritze targets.

2. Siege minions have far greater effective health than melee minions for three reasons

a) higher base health (800+ for siege first wave vs 455+ for melee)

b) receive the same 600 bonus HP as melee's do from Promote (1400+ total hp if you could promote first siege minion           vs ~1100+ if you could promote a melee in the same wave)

c) Siege minions receive 100 armor from promote vs 40 armor for melees.

When you combine this all together I think you can see how there is a possibility that a promoted siege minion, if left unchecked, could surive long enough to outdamage a promoted melee minion, despite the melee having higher DPS.

This may not be practical at higher MMR's where players will recognize the threat and deal with it accordingly, interrupting the Promoted minion before it can run into a tower, but at lower MMR's where people don't catch waves before they hit the tower like they should, the siege could be a better choice. If sent down the lane far side from where the top laner is and the two teams are jockeying over an objective like Dragon or Baron, that siege minion will last quite a while, especially if the enemy outer is down.

The reason I considered this is I set a siege minion top lane where both outers were down (I promoted the siege right after it spawned) and the waves were even in the middle, and watched as that siege minion lasted for three waves with following waves' melee's pushing past it and taking aggro before it could die.