Q u o t e: Aren't Followers still useless beyond Normal mode? Or did they change that?
Followers are supposed to be useful in all difficulties.
However, during one of the later patches they nerfed the bejeezus out of follower damage. One of my characters found a 12.7 dps weapon for Kormac, at level 11 he did just over 2 DPS with it... However with an 88 def Apprentice Heater shield he was almost invulnerable; he just couldn't kill anything except critters in the lowest levels.
Bashiok said followers were intended to be meat shields, not damage dealers. I am curious how that will pan out with the two ranged type followers though...