Guild Wars 2

Do Miniatures still count as companions, or has that been fixed?

Still works. Most likely won’t ever be fixed b/c the game recognizes the mini as a non-PC/NPC party member. ‘Companion’ is the only other option as far as the coding is concerned at the moment.

Halure.2571:

Do Miniatures still count as companions, or has that been fixed?

Under what context? The last I read, people testing them stated they no longer trigger the (6) bonus for Superior Runes of the Ranger.

My notes with results for warrior and guardian. Scroll to end for Tl;dr.

TEST SETUP:
Two identical sets of Lv80 blue armor, one with runes, one without.
Traits zeroed out.
All trinkets and gear (2nd weapon set, underwater) unequipped.
No consumables, boons, banners, boosts, etc.
Equipped a Lv80 white greatsword. No sigil.
Ignored criticals; only counted normal damage attacks using auto-attack ‘1’.

TEST SETTING:
Kessex ettin heart north of Overlake Haven WP, to east of Viathan’s Arm lake

TEST SUBJECTS:
Lv19 and 20 ettins up the hill north from WP, above the rockslide event. (I should have stuck to Lv20 ettins but didn’t realize both were spawning in the same area until some time into the testing.)

WARRIOR:
I. No runes, no mini.
Average of two ettins: 81.1 dmg per hit.

II. Runed armor equipped, mini unequipped.
Average of two ettins: 79.6 dmg. per hit.

III. Runed armor equipped, account-bound mini equipped.
Average of 5 ettins: 81.3 dmg per hit.

No difference found.

GUARDIAN:

I. No runes, no mini.
Average of two ettins: 94.8 dmg per hit.

II. Runed armor equipped, mini unequipped.
Average of four(!) ettins: 94.2 damage per hit.

III. Runed armor equipped, account-bound mini equipped.
Average of five ettins: 106.2 damage per hit.

It appears Ranger runes work with minis on guardian.

OTHER THOUGHTS & SPECULATION:

The above results apply to PvE ONLY.

I tried warrior and guardian in PvP Mists against Heavy Golems and couldn’t get the #6 bonus to trigger with an account-bound mini equipped but perma-hidden by the game. A mini in the character’s inventory and activated the old way will be visible but does not appear to trigger the #6 bonus either. Guardian’s Shield of the Avenger also did not appear to trigger the #6 bonus against Mists Heavy Golems but I didn’t test extensively. (By the way, I didn’t test guardian SoA sans mini with Ranger runes in PvE yet.)

I also spent some time in Kessex with two identical sets of armor, one runed and one without, to confirm that the #6 bonus activates at all in PvE for rangers with their pets. As far as I can tell, it does. (There are always so many bugs, IMHO it’s worthwhile to make sure things work the way they’re said to work if one can spare the effort.) I have not yet confirmed that the #6 bonus is active for ranger pets in PvP Mists or when the pet is dead, however.

Given these results, I’m wondering if only professions with “living” summons (pets, minions, elementals, illusions, spirit weapons, Thieves’ Guild) in their native skill set will trigger Ranger runes’ #6 bonus with a mini in PvE. Is it that professions with only “object” type summons (warrior, engineer?) will NOT trigger the #6 bonus with a mini in PvE? I don’t play necro, mesmer or engineer so I can’t personally say with any surety that this is the case, but it strikes me as odd that these results show that #6 triggers in PvE with guardian and not warrior.

Tl;dr -

My initial results show that ranger rune bonus #6 cannot be triggered by account-bound minipets for guardians nor warriors against PvP Mists Heavy Golems, but minipets do work for guardians and not warriors in PvE. (See post below.) No comment on the relative efficacy of these runes versus alternatives. :P

I’m guessing that professions that have “living” summons in their native skill set will be able to trigger the “companion” bonus with a minipet, but professions that don’t, won’t. Also, it may be possible that the runes are broken in PvP, but any definitive answer on either will require more testing.

Edited because edited.

Posted correction to warrior results and a new set of ranger results here.