I think its because they dont do anything, just whack mobs. And they have no real synergy with other Sedna abilities, i.e some sort of cooldown attack thats affected by her aura ability? etc.

Not worth the skill point.

Silence = imporant, one of the if not THE best interrupt

Pounce = important, you need it to score a kill, and add on to DPS/threat

heal = the whole reason you are sedna

movement speed + health regen = offensive and defensive in 1 skill, awesome

cool down decrease + minion buff = make the already very good healing and pounce better? perfect

AoE regen aura = very nice to go with ally/creeps, and for self

yeti = summon some useless morons that get stuck on edges and can't walk pass minotaur to attack demigod with pathetic damage along with high mana cost (which get you killed not having enough mana to heal) while worst of all being a melee that is as useless if not more useless than minotaur idols. No, thanks. It can get good at last level, but it takes too many skills points and too high level to matter; you will be losing before you get there.

the yetis work well enough for a lane pushing build but its a big trade-off to get them. it almost always means you're giving up developing another important skill such as Inner Grace or Pounce, and most people aren't willing to make that trade.

my feeling is that it depends on what you're trying to do. the easiest skill to give up is Inner Grace, which is an above average passive ability but it doesn't do anything absolutely essential, its basically just like using skill points to gain extra stats. the movement speed is incredibly important if you're trying to play an Assassin type build but its skippable if you're playing a support type build.

i think the Yetis are useful for support builds. they're not extremely impressive, particularly poor at attacking DGs, but they are good at whacking towers and beating down creeps. considering how generally horrible Sedna is at beating down creeps the Yetis fill an important role for her. Yeti Sedna will kill fewer DGs but kill more creeps so that exp/gold tends to balance out.

i've had some success with this skill build:

Sedna Minion Support and Healer

1 - heal rank 1

2 - yeti rank 1

3 - healing wind rank 1

4 - heal rank 2

5 - magnificent presence rank 1

6 - yeti rank 2

7 - healing wind rank 2

8 - heal rank 3

9 - yeti rank 3

10 - heal rank 4

11 - silence rank 1

12 - silence rank 2

13 - magnificent presence rank 2

14 - counter-healing

15 - magnificent presence rank 3

16 - silence rank 3

17 - yeti rank 4

18 - wild swings

19 + 20 - doesn't matter, maybe morale or Inner Grace

They would be reasonably useful if they had the same collision detection as DGs (none).

Miya, i very much respect your opinion and i basically agree with you.

i was not trying to present the build in my post as the most effective way to use Sedna, i just thought i'd throw it out there to demonstrate a way that Yeti's can be effective. i have played the build i described and it does work fairly well. i'll stand by that statement. however, there are certainly alot of ways to play Sedna and many of them are even better. 

I do play Queen of Thorns in the dedicated support role, as you've suggested. She really is better at it. Bramble Shield is superior to Heal for pure survivability purposes. 

When I do play Sedna (she's not my main character, but i dabble) i tend to play her as a fast assassin type. when i play this way I take points in Pounce, Heal, Inner Grace, and Healing Wind. Pick up Silence a little later in the game. The biggest issue I ever run into with that strategy is difficulty in farming creeps efficiently. otherwise i find Sedna makes a superb Demigod Hunter. 

It's too expensive in mana, and their damage is not high based on what I've seen. Skill points are very valuable to Sedna, as is mana, and her other skills are too good to be ignored.

Yetis should be buffed, and her passive healing and pounce nerfed a bit to compensate.

They're terrible.  No Sedna I've seen has them, and if they did, I'd laugh while I slaughtered her.

Sedna's Yeti are too weak and need a slight buff so we might see more minion builds and not always pure defensive or pounce/heal.

Yeah, they're that bad. They do soak up a tiny bit of damage, and deal out a tiny bit, but I'll say the same thing I said in another thread about them, I'd rather have my ineffective followers be cheap than expensive. (e.g. Erebus/Oak)

The yetis are actually the best minions statwise, on a 1 for 1 basis. Shamblers can be considered better depending on how much you value range. You can have many more nightwalkers though as erebus, but his whole minion line costs 7 or 9 skillpoints (i forget). Oak gets 10 out of his 4 skillpoints, but they are the weakest of all the minions, and stray into the range of towers all the time.

I think many of you underestimate the effect of pressing N and focus firing on an enemy demigod. I see this all the time with Erebus in particular. They are also easy to see, so you can quickly see if you're missing any, and the easiest to summon of all the minions. Oak and Erebus has to work for their minions, and it hurts to lose them. QoT has to switch forms, but its generally pretty easy. Sedna can make 4 new ones in 1 sec, press N or M and go to town again right away.

Yetis are far better than many of you seem to think.

Yeti rank 4          1710hp  30.6dps (max 4 for 4 skillpoints, cleave ability for 1 additional skillpoint).

Shambler rank 4  1425hp 30.0dps 2.5 aoe radius, ranged (max 4 for 4 skillpoints, can be buffed further by Compost, 1-3 additional skillpoints) .

Yeah i actually agree that the Shamblers are better, now that I have the stats in front of me

For reference: (though these are quite a lot more difficult to accumulate than shamblers and yetis)

Oak Spirit rank 4       880hp 20.8dps (max 10 for 4 skillpoints).

Vamp Minion rank 3   1120hp 24.7dps (max 12 for 6 skillpoints).

I think the problem with Yetis may not so much be that they're objectively bad compared to the rest of the minions, but simply that Sedna has so much other stuff better that you neeed to prioritize. Add in mana costs to maintain minions on Sedna who is already chugging mana left and right for Silence/Pounce/Heal spam, and it's not looking good for the poor minion line.

I might try a Heal/Pounce/Yeti/Morale Sedna sometime just for fun though, but the idea of losing the passives bothers me.

I've always wanted to try a yeti build but it's not that they are horrible but every one of Sedna's other skills absolutely rock.  You can't really go without heal and pounce, and once you get those done there's inner grace which gives you some amazing move and healing speed, and then you have the healing aura, and magnificent prescence and silence... it's just all so good compared to yetis. 

Once you really step back though yetis stink compared to all other minions.  Think about all other general minions.  QoT can digest hers for health, Erebus has two skills for them and lategame nightwalkers are really hard to deal with, Oak's spirits provide him with weapon damage and are great damage dealers themselves, but yetis only have one skill along the tree and it only gives them a little health and damage.  Yetis just don't seem to be worth it but I will try my yeti build a few more times.