Guild Wars 2

Foreword: Not entirely sure whether this belongs here or in General Discussion, but I figured since this was about professions I might just post it here. Please move or advise if it isn’t in the right place.

So a mate of mine brought this to my attention, and it was a rather interesting question.

Why are Necromancers the only ones to have infinite duration summons?

More precisely, he was wondering why his Summon Glyphs as an Elementalist conjure up Elementals of finite duration. I then immediately thought of the various elites and utilities (Thieves’ Guild, Warband, Mistfire Wolf, Conjured/Spirit Weapons, Balthazar Hounds, turrets, Golems, Clones/Illusions, Spirits, what-have-you) that all have finite durations.

Then I think of the MinionMaster Necromancer walking around with up to five permanent minions that only dissipate if killed and which get their own skills to boot. They aren’t exactly weak either.

It’s always been something I’ve taken for granted, but now that he’s raised the question, why is it so? Is there a reasoning for why Necro’s can summon map-long/(minion) life-long allies while no one else can? Lore-wise or gameplay-wise?

Also, out of interest, would people prefer non-Necros to have unlimited durations on their summons (with appropriate balancing such as reduced damage)? Would be fairly interesting to finally see Spirit Rangers as walking boon factories, or Summoner Elementalists, actually making them viable.

Edit: Amending the original question.

Why shouldn’t non-Necro/Engy professions have permanent-till-death/zone-change summons?

Necromancers are the ones who from GW1 had full minion centric gameplay. MM was one of the core Necro builds, and could upkeep a full set of 10 minions (post-nerf) in a decent situation. The natural translation from GW1 to GW2 was to drop the corpse based gameplay and transition it to generally what you see now, and I imagine the actives just came as an extra. Note that Engineers also have infinite duration summons.

Spirits were in a similar spot, the natural translation had them be duration-based things. Note that spirits were at one point essentially infinite duration (they had the same duration as their CD, and CD started on summon), and it was nerfed. Clones/illusions also have a point to their durations.

The rest of the summons are basically just there for funsies. So, to answer your questions:
1) Why do Necromancers and Engineers get the only permanent summons? Because it makes sense for them to, both from a lore and gameplay point of view. Both also have the ability to blow up, so while they aren’t “technically” limited by durations, minions like Bone Minions should never be left out for long anyway.

2) Why do other classes not? Same as above. Duration gated things are far stronger. Also, those other professions in many cases don’t really have summon builds, there is not the traiting to support it (nor should there be), the summons were just added as an aside.

3) No, it would not be balanced. Everyone that gets actual summon builds (everyone except Warriors, who have banners, and thieves/ele who have just one or two temp summons) have their summons balanced all around how they act now.

And as the person above said, you’re comparing different things. Its much better for the game is all summon builds function completely differently, homogenization is bad, m’kay.

Yeah the only real outlier here is Guardians. You can spend an absurd amount of traits on the extremely weak and rather buggy Spirit Weapons.

That’s a nice reply Bhawb, and answers some parts but not others. Let’s run through this, shall we?

As a note: I’m speaking purely from a PvE aspect point of view.

Bhawb.7408:

Necromancers are the ones who from GW1 had full minion centric gameplay. MM was one of the core Necro builds, and could upkeep a full set of 10 minions (post-nerf) in a decent situation. The natural translation from GW1 to GW2 was to drop the corpse based gameplay and transition it to generally what you see now, and I imagine the actives just came as an extra.

Not having played Guild Wars 1, I’m in no position to comment on ’carry overs’, as it were. I’m seeing things from a newcomer to the game (relatively, having played since launch. ’Series’ might be a better word here)’s point of view.

Bhawb.7408:

Note that Engineers also have infinite duration summons.

I’ll be honest, I totally forgot as to whether Engineer turrets were of infinite duration or not. It has been a long while since I played my Engineer. If they were, apologies for including them in the opening post.

Bhawb.7408:

Spirits were in a similar spot, the natural translation had them be duration-based things. Note that spirits were at one point essentially infinite duration (they had the same duration as their CD, and CD started on summon), and it was nerfed.

I’m not sure if the pre-nerf spirit cooldown you mentioend was for GW1 or GW2, since I started my Ranger sometime last year or so and never did run spirits, like, ever, until recently. I’m also unable to comment as to how ’natural’ the translation was, again as I have not played GW1.

However, spirits are immobile (unless specifically traited to) and are unable to attack, being essentially immobile/mobile boon givers and potential meat shields. Compare with the permanent mobile attacking/draining/tanking necro minions. Although granted, Rangers do have a pet.

Bhawb.7408:

Clones/illusions also have a point to their durations.

Acknowledged. They are technically permanent until death as long as the target they were summoned on still lives, although I personally think that it’d be fine to have them stick around if the mesmer is still in combat and change targets, only disappearing if the mesmer goes out of combat. Especially since the mesmer is still limited to only having three out at once, and only phantasms can do damage.

Bhawb.7408:

1) Why do Necromancers and Engineers get the only permanent summons? Because it makes sense for them to, both from a lore and gameplay point of view. Both also have the ability to blow up, so while they aren’t "technically" limited by durations, minions like Bone Minions should never be left out for long anyway.

From a lore point of view, it makes perfect sense for engineers because something you build doesn’t just disappear after a certain amount of time, but I’ll need a loremaster to come in here to explain why Necros can draw on Grenth’s power to summon so many for so long.

From a gameplay point of view, the only real reason I’m seeing for a necro being able to have permanent summons is ’because they could in GW1’. Which, in my opinion, isn’t really a valid reason. From what little I know of GW1, GW2 doesn’t have Assassins or Dervishes or Monks, nor does it have chakrams or support/protection based builds. GW1 doesn’t have Guardians, and takes place mostly in instances rather than open persistent worlds like GW2. They’re different games, so ’because they could in GW1’ doesn’t really register itself as a valid reason.

Engineers though, have quite a few limits. Their turrets are stuck in place and cannot move, with a fixed range that they can operate in (A rifle turret cannot shoot enemies outside its range, nor can the healing turret heal those away from it). You could take them down and set them up somewhere else, but the cooldown restricts that even if you manually pick it up, while necro summons just follow you wherever until killed or a change of zones. That said, the turrets also offer a bit of utility in the toolbelt, which gives them a few more options while the necro just sorta summons and let the minions do their own thing, lacking even the ability to command them to attack specific targets.

To give an example of what I mean and could be argued, from both a lore and gameplay point of view, elementalists should be able to conjure powerful creatures from their respective elemental planes (or however it works, not caught up on GW lore) for indefinite durations. There really is no real reason to limit them. Why should they be? Because the summons are strong? Then why not weaken them a bit and have them stick around?

<<Continued in the next post due to length>>

As another example, Guardians have no real backstory that I know of considering they didn’t exist in GW1. Thus, one can theoretically do anything with the class. Spirit Weapons exist, they have traits (as I will mention below) in a Guardian’s trait line, so it should make sense both lore-wise (given there is none) and gameplay-wise (given that it’s balanced properly, I see no reason why not). Logan is the only Guardian I know of that features in the backstory, and he uses a sword and shield, not a greatsword like most guardians you see running around do, but that doesn’t make running a GS Guard any more or less lore-breaking.

Bhawb.7408:

2) Why do other classes not? Same as above. Duration gated things are far stronger.

Yes, they’re stronger because they’re duration gated. Or are they duration gated because they’re stronger? Chicken, egg. But in either case, it would mean that it would be theoretically possible to make it ’balanced’ for a permanent duration if one makes it weaker, no?

Bhawb.7408:

Also, those other professions in many cases don’t really have summon builds, there is not the traiting to support it (nor should there be), the summons were just added as an aside.

Actually, if I recall correctly, Guardians and Rangers have entire traitlines (Zeal and Nature Magic respectively, although Guardians also have a single trait each in Radiance and Virtues that directly buffed Spirit Weapons) with buffs to Spirit Weapons and Spirits respectively. As you say, they might not be fully fleshed out, but hey. There’s a basic foundation already.

Bhawb.7408:

(nor should there be)

Kindly explain your reason as to why? This is a fairly strong phrase; it implies that even if everything could be balanced properly and fit both lore and gameplay wise, you would still not want it in for unspecified reasons of your own. I don’t feel that’s terribly fair (not that what I feel matters on the internet, but just putting it out there).

Bhawb.7408:

3) No, it would not be balanced. Everyone that gets actual summon builds (everyone except Warriors, who have banners, and thieves/ele who have just one or two temp summons) have their summons balanced all around how they act now.

I’m not sure where this response came from. It would not be balanced if we just made the summons/allies infinite duration right off the bat, certainly. That much is pretty obvious. There would need to be retunings and nerfings to strength before one would consider buffing duration.

My question was whether people would LIKE to see non-Necros have permanent summons, not whether or not it would be balanced (given that if they were implemented, they had better be BALANCED or else the amount of QQ’ing would reach critical mass. Not that it isn’t always hovering on the brink of it anyways, but).

There’s also this bit you said:

Bhawb.7408:

balanced all around how they act now.

As in, not how they will act in the future or how they have acted in the past. Just a little nitpick by me, but things can and have changed.

Bhawb.7408:

Its much better for the game is all summon builds function completely differently, homogenization is bad, m’kay.

Homogenization is bad, sure. So that means that having every (non-necro/engineer) summon have a finite duration is bad, right? Sorry, I like playing with words. xD

The point here isn’t to encourage homogenization. The point is to encourage versatility, something that GW2’s meta (and really, most metagames in general) is bad at. ALL ZERKER SPEED RUN. Find a successful build? Everyone will be running that build. Branches are relatively few and rare. No one ever runs Spirit Ranger (Except for rare situations, I do in some dungeon runs despite how spirits are... well, not that good) that I’ve seen. I haven’t seen a Spirit Weapon specc’d Guard ever: Those who run around with Spirit Weapons treat them as you do: A fun little addition. Why not make Spirit Weapon Guard an actual, viable build? It won’t break any lore. It’ll be a fun gameplay variation. Lots of pros, no cons that I can see.

tl;dr: I don’t think your response justifies why non-Necros/Engies can’t have infinite duration summons. It does (sort of) justify why they should though, which I suppose is the original question, but I think I will amend that original question to:

Why shouldn’t non-Necro/Engy professions have permanent-till-death/zone-change summons?

Carighan.6758:

Yeah the only real outlier here is Guardians. You can spend an absurd amount of traits on the extremely weak and rather buggy Spirit Weapons.

And that, Carighan, is precisely why I brought this topic up. If one could make Spirit Weapons a viable and entertaining choice of build, well. Why not?

Yeah but with spirit weapons I’m not sure how I’d want them to work. Actually…

• Passively, a spirit weapon follows you around. Unlike a Necromancer pet, these don’t do anything, they just hover near you. They look cool and give a warning to enemies.
• On a fairly low CD, you can trigger an attack from this weapon. CDs should be 10-20 seconds, but the attacks are individually weak with only minor secondary effects (sword would just damage).
• However, these are chain effects. If you re-use the skill within ~3s of coming off-CD, the skill advanced. Second skill deals slightly more damage, third skill functions a bit like the current active on-use effects. Chain does not have to be against the same target, btw. Just be re-used within 3s of the skill coming off-CD.

kirinelf.9216

Necros are able to summon a few permanent minions as a trade off for not using more powerful sentient beings and fresh corpses as the basis of it, thus not needing to sustain the minions with their blood nor using energy to keep their control; its pretty much removing both quality and quantity for reliability.

A reverse of it for example is Venom in Kessex who summons 3 flesh golems from dead merchants, thus having very powerful allies for a time but doesnt sustain them with her blood nor directly control them (just promises them revenge) to save energy to fight the centaur, thus they actually degenerate trough the fight before falling apart.

Also necro magic doesnt require a connection to grenth himself, just a trade (FMA equivalent exchange style) of energy.

Guardians are technically a fusion of Monk training, Paragon teachings and Ritualist charms/holy knowledge. Thus because of paragon weapon enchanting powers and ritualist abilities to use beings from the mists to help them in their fights for a while, they can use spirit weapons. IF you do however manage to keep a spirit out in the physical realm for a longer amount of time tho, they take their toll, just like necro skills.
Sadly guardians aint a quarter undead and a quarter living in the underworld, thus over time they would go blind, then their extremities would stop working, then all of their musculature would collapse before finally dying (ritualists lost their vision for being able to use most of their skills for extended periods of time, while some masters were so physically crippled that they couldnt fight).

Also it doesnt matter which decision came first (tho probably the duration gating because it made sense taking the context of GW1), minions do on average half like half the stats of ele summons and guard spirits.
Ranger spirits on the other hand are just effect based banners, which you can trait to follow you around and do fancy stuff with stronger effects at the cost of being counterable (in GW1 spirits affected everyone in the aoe, even enemies, thus current versions are kinda a very kind).

P.S. Spirit hammer is 2 hard cc with a 2.7k active hit, thus imo useful no matter if traited or not, same for shield (tho you have WoR which is more reliable).

Actually engineer turrets explode with no damage nor blast after 2 or 5 minutes, im not sure. Its just that you rarely see them survive that long, either because destroyed by mobs or picked up/blown up by the engi who moves forward.

Guardian Spirit Weapons are in a good place i think, though it could use a bit of trait-merging. Right now you can make an entire build for them, but they are still kinda lacking even with the traits that massively improve them already.

Thief and charr summons are sensible to have durations. They are more like passing allies who are called for hard situations and should depart after the battle at least.

Elementals are fine too. Maybe give them an on-death effect as well, something that we cant trigger but its there when the elemental goes down no matter if killed or expired. Like a build-up of elemental energy that eventually destroys the form, granting an effect.

Necromancer minions, i will be honest, i find boring. Maybe its their faulty AI, or the fact that i dont feel like me pressing their buttons matter. When i conjure up spirit weapons, its a strategical choice because it wont last forever. Using necro minions its just moving my swarm from point A to point B and counting the long seconds between my attack and the minions initial move of engaging what im hitting for 3 seconds…

(Note: had to exclude quotes for length, each number should be towards a section of quotes)
1. Andele explained this well. Guardians do technically have backstory, just not as direct as the other professions.

2. Putting aside lore reasons for what Andele said, you’d have to really gut their passive strength to make them permanent. Compare guardian hammer to Bone Fiend, it is literally better in every way, dealing more damage, having better CC more often, only it doesn’t last forever.

3. This was directed towards Ele/Thief/Warrior, who don’t have a full summoner basic playstyle.

4. I don’t think it makes sense from a lore point of view, though (ex: Andele’s post).

I think the big issue is that they can only have so many summon-based archetypes. As it is now, they have minions (weak passively, but with strong actives and “permanent” uptime), spirits (walking buff factories), spirit weapons (very strong minions with short durations), engineers (immobile minions), clones/phantasms (profession mechanic). They don’t really have much else to add on to that in an interesting way, except that they can take each of those setups and make them slightly more varied. Elementals, to stay unique as they are now, would be very unhealthy for PvP gameplay if they were made strong because its literally just summon and forget, there is no active play.

5. Somewhat like I said above, permanent duration minions are balanced around their active skills. Ranger Spirits were annoying because if they were ever viable, you have a build which literally only uses 5 buttons to be as effective as you, and the rest of what they do is just press 6-0 every single time they see the button. You’re having to keep track of a bunch of CDs, properly time your skills and actives, and this other guy is literally just managing 5 skills, and is as effective as you. There is no possible way to balance purely infinite duration summons without making them like minions, which I have a problem with, because then why not just play Necro if you want that summon playstyle?

Now, if they found a way to have a different playstyle still based on permanent summons for other professions I wouldn’t arbitrarily hate it, but it won’t happen. It would require them to completely rework all non-minion summon skills. As I’ll say below, finite durations do not make these other setups less powerful, it literally has nothing to do with it.

6. They don’t need them to be viable. Spirit Weapon Guardian isn’t not viable because of the utility skills themselves, it isn’t viable because of how the traits are spread out.

Why do they have to be infinite durations? Infinite durations is not what makes minions viable, minions don’t actually tend to live all that much longer than a duration skill would. Minions are viable because they have the best traiting and overall setup. This can be done with durations as well, and still preserves each group’s unique identity, without turning everything into basically reskins of minions.

Looking through all of your points, the main thing I’m seeing is that you all simply do not consider weakening the summons in exchange for duration. You all keep mentioning how powerful they are and why they should not be of infinite duration, completely overlooking the fact that 2.7k damage, for example, can be nerfed to like 500 damage, or CC durations could be shortened.

Carighan has a good idea there about a chain that forces you to use two weak attacks before being able to unleash the current level of power (similar to, for LoL players, Riven’s Q), likely with an internal cooldown of maybe 1 second, with the counter expiring in 5 seconds so you can’t just charge it out of combat. Those are the kinds of answers I was hoping for, not just ’No, it won’t be balanced if you make them infinite duration, no way’.

As I’ve mentioned time and time again and been ignored every single time, having them be nerfed or rebalanced is essential if you want to have permanent summons.

Lakdav, you mentioned that it makes sense for thief and charr elites to have durations. Thief I won’t mention because there’s no real lore or background as to why you’re suddenly part of a guild in game (There might be one in the actual lore, but it’s not elaborated on in the game). However, with the charr stories...

Unfortunately I don’t have the lore experience to comment on the other things you mentioned, but a friend of mine who’s played GW1 says that it’s not that they’re blind, it’s just that it enables them to ’see’ into the spirit world better by blocking out distractions from the current world, just like... well, pretty much any seer ever (For example the Dalasian seers in the Mallorean by David Eddings). Again, I can’t confirm it, but it’s an interesting counterpoint.

Bhawb, you mention "Why do they have to be infinite durations?" I simply ask "Why do they not have to be infinite durations?".

As a thief, I really wish my thieves could stick around with me longer. They disappear so quickly, which is disappointing for an elite. My guild mate runs an ele and he has, on many occasions, wished that his eles lasted longer in exchange for doing less damage. What is wrong with that? There is, from looking at your posts, no real reason why NOT, just as there is no reason WHY. Just because something isn’t there doesn’t mean it can’t be.

Bhawb, you have also mentioned that a lot of things just aren’t possible because of a lack of traits and whatnot. As the April Feature Pack has shown us and as some interviews have said, it is relatively easy (compared to adding new skills, for example) to add traits. It integrates easily into the game, with acquisition methods and so on. There’s no real reason why they SHOULDN’T add it, again, just as there’s no real reason why they SHOULD add it. Hell, all they would need in most cases is to add a Grandmaster Trait that made summons last indefinitely until death or map change along with a slight nerf to their damage.

<<Continued in next post>>

I don’t see how a Spirit Ranger is anymore effective than a Longbow Ranger, for example. You say stuff like:

Ranger Spirits were annoying because if they were ever viable, you have a build which literally only uses 5 buttons to be as effective as you, and the rest of what they do is just press 6-0 every single time they see the button. You’re having to keep track of a bunch of CDs, properly time your skills and actives, and this other guy is literally just managing 5 skills, and is as effective as you.

How is this true? If they trait for damage, the spirits are flat out not as effective. It’s not as simple as just pressing buttons, it’s where you put the spirits down, when to activate them, etc. If they trait for spirits so they can move around, active procs on death and so on, then they lose out on a whole heap of damage, and Rangers really have some of the lowest DPS in the game as it is. And on either side there’s still cooldown management. Not all spirits have the same cooldown, just like not all minions have the same cooldown. I’m honestly not seeing where your problem is, just as I’m honestly not seeing how a Spirit Ranger is anymore ’effective’ than a LB Ranger.

It’s also highly contradictory how you mention that ’Not everything needs to be the same’, when aside from necros and engineers, EVERY OTHER SUMMON has the same duration gating. Looking at it from a certain point of view, it’s quite hypocritical.

---

To be quite honest, I’m wondering at the resistance to the addition of variability and versatility to the game. These are things that should, in my opinion, be eagerly welcomed in any game instead of sticking with the same formula.

Bhawb, you in particular keep mentioning how "If I wanted infinite summons, I’ll go play Necro", but that isn’t the Necro’s ’profession mechanic’, it’s the Death Shroud. Just like how the Engy’s mechanic is the Toolbelt/Kit combo. Also, as I’m sure should be obvious, the playstyle of a Spirit Ranger (mainly support) is VERY different to that of a Minion Necro (mainly ranged damage, minions as shields) and a Spirit Weapon Guard (CC, defense).

tl;dr: Why is it a bad idea to have more varied builds like Spirit Rangers, Spirit Weapon Guardians and Summon Elementalists walking around, so long as they were balanced properly? Why do you want people to stick to the same builds as always?

Because apples aren’t oranges and if every orange then tastes like an apple, there is little point to tasting the apple isn’t there?

It’s the necromancer’s flavor, plain and simple.

Half of your argument is essentially based on “why can’t we change this thing just for the sake of changing it”. That isn’t an argument for change, especially when any changes take dev time away from other things, so making arbitrary changes just for funsies isn’t worth it. What reason is there to not do this? It involves the development team making significant changes to multiple professions just because you want your summons out longer for a completely arbitrary reason.

Is it possible to balance? Technically yes. But you have to consider impact, how things feel, etc. You could, say, change spirits to be untargetable permanent buffs. But then they’d have to be far worse than signets, and you run into an issue of impact; something can be balanced, but still completely feel bad because you aren’t doing anything. If you want an example look at League, when they were balancing things like global passives (Janna/TF) and are now working on Sona. Those champs were fine, but they had to be changed because there was so much power in their passives that they would have to nerf those passives to the point of them basically not even feeling like they exist.

Re spirits: no, you literally pressed the buttons on CD every time they were up. Spirits unbound removed any need for placement. Summon spirits on CD, press actives on CD, spam weapon abilities, and you were viable for literally the highest level of play as far as your build mechanics went. You can go back and watch footage.

You’re wondering about me not wanting variability, by making every single summon the same? As it is now, Thieves/Guardians/Elementalists/Mesmers have duration gated summons, of those, only two of them even remotely have the support for a full summon build (having 2 summon skills that just show up and deal damage is not full support), Necromancer/Engineer/Warrior all have permanent summons (banners are warrior summons), and Rangers have a mix with pets/spirits. This is a perfectly acceptable split. If you want to make those other summon builds viable, then fine. But infinite duration is NOT what it will do. You could make them (the weak builds) infinite duration and excepting guardian (who would become extremely strong and essentially a white colored MM) they’d be every bit as absolutely worthless as a full summon build as they are now.

TL;DR, you have an incredibly narrow minded view of what is wrong with summon builds, and how to fix them. Your arguments are based on completely arbitrary changes that will not improve gameplay diversity, but squash it more by reducing what is currently varied mechanics into very bland ones. You cannot have a meaningful balance change based on the idea of changing something for the sake of changing it.

kirinelf.9216:

Looking through all of your points, the main thing I’m seeing is that you all simply do not consider weakening the summons in exchange for duration. You all keep mentioning how powerful they are and why they should not be of infinite duration, completely overlooking the fact that 2.7k damage, for example, can be nerfed to like 500 damage, or CC durations could be shortened.

Lakdav, you mentioned that it makes sense for thief and charr elites to have durations. Thief I won’t mention because there’s no real lore or background as to why you’re suddenly part of a guild in game (There might be one in the actual lore, but it’s not elaborated on in the game). However, with the charr stories…

Charr Personal Story

hide spoiler

You end up as the leader of your personal Warband, with the sole survivor of your original warband as your second in command. Granted, as the personal story unfolds you end up leaving to be second in command of the Pact, with the sole survivor taking over as the Legionaire, but the point stands: The warband is/was under your control, with someone who has complete faith and trust in you in charge after you leave. There really isn’t any real reason for them NOT to stick around with you, especially as the Personal Story shows that there really aren’t that many missions for them to go on (Considering how quickly you go from recruit to Legionaire and then just kinda muck around before the Pact storyline kicks in)

Unfortunately I don’t have the lore experience to comment on the other things you mentioned, but a friend of mine who’s played GW1 says that it’s not that they’re blind, it’s just that it enables them to ‘see’ into the spirit world better by blocking out distractions from the current world, just like… well, pretty much any seer ever (For example the Dalasian seers in the Mallorean by David Eddings). Again, I can’t confirm it, but it’s an interesting counterpoint.

It’s also highly contradictory how you mention that ‘Not everything needs to be the same’, when aside from necros and engineers, EVERY OTHER SUMMON has the same duration gating. Looking at it from a certain point of view, it’s quite hypocritical.

Actually those are just the player ritualists, in the same way as the player necros arent really hated by most people in GW1 and how assassins didnt grow up in under a royal master nor as a mo zing (street assassint/guildless); a identical example is Zei Ri from the ministriy of purity, being a ritualist only for the time since shiros abominations killed his family and there are examples of specialized ritualists which dont bother with spirits. Tho almost every ritualist master does have heavy handicaps (blind, weakness, low hp pool, etc).

As for the warband, you dont actually summon the NPCs you picked for your warband, which is a dumb thing i complained about, but it does make sense that you can summon them only for a limited duration strike, since you are of great importance in the Black Citadel, thus your warband is doing the duties youd have to do if you were there.

Also no, spirit guards and minion necros play pretty much the same… only with less cast times but with minion downtime not based on the enemy (you got 1 heavy cc knockdown minion, you got a high dps minion, you got a healer), tho what they dont have by comparison is a spirit weapon heal skill nor a sweapon elite, thus limited to just 3 slots.

P.S. Nor are kits a engie profession mechanic, nor is confusion a mesmer profession mechanic, nor is stealth a thief profession mechanic, nor is blocking a guard profession mechanic, but its either unique to them (mostly) or they do it best.

I like my ele’s elementals just the way they are.

The elite earth elemental is hilariously tanky and is a big help in tanking champs when mapping things, for either soloing them when no one else is around, or for keeping aggro off of you so you can grab a skillpoint. Flesh Golem pales in comparison to the tankiness of the elite earth ele since it is permanent. Nerfing it just for the sake of a longer duration? No, thanks. I see nothing positive about this.

For conjures, perma fiery great sword? It’s totally not powerful enough, let’s make it unlimited!

Oh, and since you mentioned illusions in your list, by all means, give us mesmers permanent 3x iSwordsman/iDuelists. That wouldn’t be at all OP if one of us came across a roamer and hit them with 3 powerful phantasms in a single second. It might almost make up for iWarden’s uselessness!

tl;dr: Sarcasm aside, necromancers are the summoner-type class. Permanent minions should be specific to them.

Welp, I think I’ve sampled about all I can from the vocal bits of the community who happened to look at this thread. xD Fairly inflexible, but that’s about to be expected. No one tried to come up with alternatives or compromises (with the exception of Carighan), preferring instead to just flatout rule out the option in the name of ’change is bad’ (wasn’t the April Feature Pack a pretty big change?). And naturally, all your arguments have merit and all of mine are narrow-minded and arbitrary, and as a bonus, let’s twist what I say to things I don’t mean.

I’ve never mentioned infinite FGS usage, just duration so it won’t expire before I’ve used up its charges, for instance, and I’ve also pointed out in my second post how I’ve acknowledged Bhawb’s point about mesmers and further elaborated on how I would have liked them to be: rather than dissipating right after I kill one foe when I’m fighting a mob, I would like to see them stick around until I leave combat - that way, if I’m fighting four foes at once, I can actually kill a target without worrying about losing half or all my clones. Oh, and name another class that has kits that aren’t engineers. Rangers, thieves and mesmers can stealth; mesmers, ranger pets and engineers can confuse; mesmers, guardians, engineers and warriors can block; but only engineers can use kits, right? Nope, I’m wrong.

But anyway, with the idea well and truly squashed after barely glimpsing the light, I might as well call for this topic to be closed, since no one wants to even think of such a possibility. There’s no real point leaving a thread open if no one wants to contribute to the idea in a meaningful manner.

Hi everyone,

We’ll close this thread as requested by its creator.

Thank you for your understanding.