Q:
A bad necromancer always blames the corpse.
Does Close To Death affect minion damage?
No & no, minions don’t have variable damage, and minions don’t receive a benefit from Close to Death. All minions have a fixed damage range based on player level (including level bolstering/down ranking). Minion damage can be augmented by the +30% minion damage trait, but player based stats/traits do not come into play.
You can read up on the minions and what impacts them here:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Minions
Just think if the minion damage changed on our gear in anyway. That would be fantastic, but still without working AI they are not that good to use in most cases.