Guild Wars 2

I really liked how MM builds worked in GW1, and I was happy to see the same sort of thing come back through the skill “Rise!” I main a Necro but never play MM in GW2 and decided to try it out with the new minion skill.

Basic build
Weapon: Staff w/ Sigil of Demon Summoning and Water (1 minion)
Armour: Cleric gear w/ Runes of the Lich (1 minion)
Utility: Well of Blood, “Rise!” (1-5 minions), Bone Minion (2 minions), Bone Fiend (1 minion), Flesh Golem (1 minion)
Traits: Death 1,1,1 (+1 minion); Blood 1,3,1; Reaper 1,2,1

Options:
Well of Blood for Blood Fiend, but I prefer max heals available for minions over the bad heal minion.
Bone Fiend for any other minion you prefer.
Lich Form instead of Flesh Golem, but all living minions when you enter Lich Form will die, so it is only viable to lead with lich form, raise the 5 minions, then leave and cast other summons. This seems a little too much for easy of use imo.

How to:
Make sure you are in the middle of as many enemies when casting “Rise!”
Spam staff 2, dodge roll, and Well of Blood on minions to maintain heals.
Easy to maintain 10-12 minions in large fights, and if you can keep them alive, “Rise!” can summon MORE than the original 5 minions the second time you cast it. This results in an utterly huge swarm reminiscent of GW1 MM.

My Experience:
PvE roaming is easy enough, but large groups of foes are hard to come across for the full benefit of “Rise!” unless in Orr or other higher zones
PvP. I did not think it was going to be great in PvP since there are not many players in one area at a time usually. However, the new PvP game mode surprised me. enemy NPCs are your new friends. When storming the opposing team’s keep there are plenty of NPCs around for “Rise!” to have its full effect. With your over a dozen minions, call target on the lord and it will melt before your eyes.
I have not tried it in WvW or dungeons as I didn’t predict it being hugely useful in those areas, but I welcome input.

Overall:
I was very happy with how things turned out for the MM. and would love to see it come back to full glory.

That sounds amazing and reminds me of the necromancers in Diablo 2 (I never played GW1). I do enjoy spamming heals on the little minions to keep them alive, even between battles. If there was a skin to make the little ones like baby Karkas….

This would be really nice if there were more options to support the minions, all the supports are max 5 targets, and its a bit of a waste on minions when theres other players around.
would be cool if anet added a trait where your boons are copied to minions or somthing like that.
I really loved minions in guild wars 1….

I made a similar build and loved it, but I got tired of the bouncing mushrooms killing off all my pets when I try to take a shortcut.