Guild Wars 2

The necro minion shadow fiend is notoriously horrible, at , everything really. He dies in a few hits even with the hp trait, is melee range, and the minion skill (a single blind on a 20 second cooldown) isn’t really noticeable. My proposal for a change to it would be to make it’s special skill a leap finisher. Necros currently have zero leap finisher abilities, even with minions, who currently hold most of our finishers. The animation is already sort of a leap/teleport so it’s not too far off. It would provide the minion with much more versatility and usefulness rather than a wasted utility slot. Keep the hp and defense low on it, that’s fine. Even if it only got off the single leap finisher that would be acceptable, because it means you can do 1 leap every 30 seconds (the cooldown of the minion summon) and if does manage by some miracle to survive, you still only have 1 leap every 20 seconds (dependent on the special skill cd). please consider this or use it in upcoming ideas for polishing up this particular minion. Even people who love running minions and defend their buggy AI will agree, shadow fiend needs something more than what it currently has.

One issue: Many of the leap finishers apply auras or boons to whatever does the leaping. Does it really give the necromancer a leap finisher if the fire aura / retaliation / chaos armor is on the highly vulnerable shadow fiend?

Well as far as auras go, I’d say the shadow fiend would still have to get it or else it would be too op. You could stand well out of danger and give yourself auras and people would cry about it endlessly. But the power from water, light, dark, ect would far outweigh the few wasted auras.

The main problem I see with it is that the blind is pretty useless, as being a minion skill makes it completely unreliable to use.

Make it so there is no delay between the activation and the blind ocurring (As long as range and stuff is met, of course). Or give it a set delay that we can learn to play with, probably something like a fast projectile’s traveling time worth of delay.

Also give it the passive ability to dodge like Karkas do, would fit the “ethereal” aspect very well and increase it’s uptime.

Ok so several people have alreay said to me a leap finisher would be a wasted idea on it, so what if it gave a combo field in the area it teleported to, perhaps an ethereal one? Our only other ethereal field comes from spectral wall which is a very tiny hitbox and doesn’t always work well when trying to combo off it. I still like the aoe blind off of the minion, so I don’t think it needs to be done away with, but we do need something more, or even a better version of the current blind, maybe a small area around the fiend that pulses blinds. That would make it a good minion for gaining defense against ranged attackers, which is what I think they intended it to be in the first place, but with a single blind it kinda fails at that. So tldr:

• A small ethereal combo field after minion teleport (field placement is static to teleport location so if minion moves, field does not move with it)
  or
• Minion teleports, pulses blinds for “x” amount of seconds in a radius around it, the pulsing area does move with the minion so kiting ranged attackers need to evade out of it’s reach entirely rather than just sidestep and keep skill spamming. (If the blind condition turns out to be non-beneficial at all, this same principal could still be applied using other conditions but necro’s should have access to good blinding skills)

I will say one thing though, a lot of people I have watched that use the shadow fiend expect him to be able to tank n spank, but that’s not it’s purpose. Like I said above I think it’s meant to get through front line and hit ranged attackers in the back, the problem is, it just won’t do that. For one, it doesn’t stick to the target you’re sending it to attack unless you now make that your primary target, and two, once you change targets, all of your minions go after it. if you’re trying to get through a heavy front line, they’ll never survive to reach the ranged attacker (hence shadow fiend having a teleport).

I think it should teleport behind the target and give a 1 second fear (scaring them toward the necro). The delay would ensure that it’s still not really any good for an interrupt, but it can help keep people from escaping the necromancer. I don’t believe minion conditions inherit any benefits from your traits or equipment, so even Terror-mancers wouldn’t make them super powerful.

Plus, it fits the name “Haunt” soooo much better.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I think it should teleport behind the target and give a 1 second fear (scaring them toward the necro). The delay would ensure that it’s still not really any good for an interrupt, but it can help keep people from escaping the necromancer. I don’t believe minion conditions inherit any benefits from your traits or equipment, so even Terror-mancers wouldn’t make them super powerful.

Plus, it fits the name “Haunt” soooo much better.

I like this, make it our catcher minion!…

Also giving minions combo fields is kindda op due to the insane amount of area finishers present on a minion master. And the AoE nature of comboed fields means that having a lot of minions is even better… It’s “too much synergy” I think?

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I think it should teleport behind the target and give a 1 second fear (scaring them toward the necro). The delay would ensure that it’s still not really any good for an interrupt, but it can help keep people from escaping the necromancer. I don’t believe minion conditions inherit any benefits from your traits or equipment, so even Terror-mancers wouldn’t make them super powerful.

Plus, it fits the name “Haunt” soooo much better.

Not a bad idea, I just don’t want to lose out on the small aoe damage it already does if they do put this in. Our only other aoe dmg minion (not counting flesh golem charge) is the bone minion explosions and that sacrifices the pet to do it. Idk if you’ve ever run the 30% dmg trait for the minions and used haunt before, but it actually does a respectable amount of aoe dmg. The fear idea is nice though, and you’re right, it makes much more sense as a catch minion and the name “haunt” would make much more sense with some fear.