Guild Wars 2

I have a minion necromancer that uses axe/warhorn and dual daggers with sort of a custom build (I didn’t really research this class). So far, he’s extremely tanky and I can take down warriors, guardians, thieves, rangers, etc.

The only two I seem to struggle with sometimes is mesmers and engis. Engis can vary a lot for me, but mesmers are fairly consistent as they seem to kill my minions relitively fast. If I was fighting let’s say,a shatter mesmer or a custom mesmer using staff and pistol/sceptor, what would be the ideal strategy?

Not every build can beat every other class/build. Try using a scepter+dagger and staff, and swapping to a condi-damage amulet. Mesmers have some trouble dealing with classes that rapidly apply conditions. This should also work against condition engis since you can transfer conditions applied to you back onto them with staff 4 and dagger 4.

safe the game and dont play minionmancer

If they cast moa on you, all your minions will be destroyed instantly.

Romek.4201:

safe the game and dont play minionmancer

Why don’t you like minion necros? They seem alright

DrDivine.5378:

Romek.4201:

safe the game and dont play minionmancer

Why don’t you like minion necros? They seem alright

In a solo perspective they are neigh perfect since you can just be lazy and let the (idiotic) AI do the work for you, while you just try to maintain your health… However, the problem comes for a MM when trying it to getting it work for a team…

Though a necromancer as a whole suffers from a lot when looking at the current “meta” (Lord knows how much I hate that word), but there are still a lot of strong points for a Condition/Corruption or Power Necro… AoE being one of them, together with countering many condition classes (think of engineer mostly) and last but not least, making short work of the support bunker by constantly pressuring them via Boon Corruption… This makes the two I named a perfect example of why they could peform really well when supported by their team, since they can flip around a situation to their will…

MM cannot, it is a 1v1 spec and will never excel in anything another necromancer can… Sure, you can let your minions body block projectiles for your teammates, but at the end it is just that… Your fears do minimal to nothing, and are just generally annoying to the random hambow on the enemy team, who will likely react, use stability and make sure you will not live to tell the tale… Have a decent support bunker on the enemy team and they will focus you down without even being able offer anything to your team, because aside from Fleshworm, none of the minions offer somewhat close to a stunbreak…

Aside from that, people who have done a decent amount of matches (not me, I only played like 1500 TPvP matches) say that MM necro is the least skillfull to play out of all the Necromancer builds, and teaches you nothing but laziness… You are not incentified to watch the enemy bars for regen or weakness to corrupt, and small things like this add up when you climb higher and higher in PvP….

In short, yes MM Necromancers work, but will at this state not be considered as either skillfull or usefull…

To answer your question, Mesmers will likely try and range you, and with the setup you got, you are gonna have way too many issues even trying to land a hit… As said before, get a staff or scepter and some conditions in your build – mesmers in particular do not have many cleanses – it will likely cost them their survivability if they do…

Besides the usual QQ about MMs, frankly don’t expect to beat a Mesmer as an MM.

It is certainly doable, I have done it plenty, but I think a good Mesmer would at least make it a 50/50, if not make it more like a 60/40 (in their favor). The issue for you is that they can pretty constantly reset your minions, and if you aren’t on top of your targeting the AI will hamper you very quickly. You also need very solid CC chaining to get minion autos to land, and you need to be using the right build (with as many ranged minions and minion healing as possible) for your minions to withstand the bursts and not die instantly.

Note that most of the QQ against MM comes from a place of ignorance. I’m not at all a good player, but I know more about MM than any of the top Necromancer players, because its a bad build for high level play (so why would you learn a bad build that you think is skilless and won’t work at your level of play). Not saying that MM is super skillful, because it isn’t atm (mainly due to passive traits and AI); it is a knowledge based build, instead of execution based. You need to know your build perfectly to be able to play around all the bugs and stupid mechanics ANet hasn’t fixed after 2 years.

The fact that an MM necro lost to a mesmer… That is something that I find kind of shocking.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

DrDivine.5378:

Romek.4201:

safe the game and dont play minionmancer

Why don’t you like minion necros? They seem alright

In a solo perspective they are neigh perfect since you can just be lazy and let the (idiotic) AI do the work for you, while you just try to maintain your health… However, the problem comes for a MM when trying it to getting it work for a team…

Though a necromancer as a whole suffers from a lot when looking at the current “meta” (Lord knows how much I hate that word), but there are still a lot of strong points for a Condition/Corruption or Power Necro… AoE being one of them, together with countering many condition classes (think of engineer mostly) and last but not least, making short work of the support bunker by constantly pressuring them via Boon Corruption… This makes the two I named a perfect example of why they could peform really well when supported by their team, since they can flip around a situation to their will…

MM cannot, it is a 1v1 spec and will never excel in anything another necromancer can… Sure, you can let your minions body block projectiles for your teammates, but at the end it is just that… Your fears do minimal to nothing, and are just generally annoying to the random hambow on the enemy team, who will likely react, use stability and make sure you will not live to tell the tale… Have a decent support bunker on the enemy team and they will focus you down without even being able offer anything to your team, because aside from Fleshworm, none of the minions offer somewhat close to a stunbreak…

Aside from that, people who have done a decent amount of matches (not me, I only played like 1500 TPvP matches) say that MM necro is the least skillfull to play out of all the Necromancer builds, and teaches you nothing but laziness… You are not incentified to watch the enemy bars for regen or weakness to corrupt, and small things like this add up when you climb higher and higher in PvP….

In short, yes MM Necromancers work, but will at this state not be considered as either skillfull or usefull…

To answer your question, Mesmers will likely try and range you, and with the setup you got, you are gonna have way too many issues even trying to land a hit… As said before, get a staff or scepter and some conditions in your build – mesmers in particular do not have many cleanses – it will likely cost them their survivability if they do…

I appreciate the detailed insight of necro builds. I’m going to be honest with you, when I decided to make a necro as my next character I didn’t really research the meta, I remembered myself liking the minions in GW1 and wanted to see if the play style was still similar. Maybe I’ll play witha power or condition build and see how that works as well!

I’ve been enjoying the minion build as it actually did help me with the abundance of hambows I go up against. I used a custom warrior and would get stomped by hambows all the time. My necromancer, on the other hand, unusually tanks everything and gets rid of them no problem.

DrDivine.5378:

I appreciate the detailed insight of necro builds. I’m going to be honest with you, when I decided to make a necro as my next character I didn’t really research the meta, I remembered myself liking the minions in GW1 and wanted to see if the play style was still similar. Maybe I’ll play witha power or condition build and see how that works as well!

I’ve been enjoying the minion build as it actually did help me with the abundance of hambows I go up against. I used a custom warrior and would get stomped by hambows all the time. My necromancer, on the other hand, unusually tanks everything and gets rid of them no problem.

GW1 MM and GW2 were completely different though, as you were “managing” your minions there rather than commanding their only skill…
GW2 minions are only bound to a cooldown on death, so there is not much in depth managing aside from the blind from Shadow Fiend and the immobilize from Bone Fiend… The real art is gone, and that is imho a shame… They really made the most complex Necromancer Build completely braindead in GW2, and as you might’ve realized, people are kind of through with braindead builds

By the way, even though I am generally outspoken about MM necromancers, if it works for you then don’t force yourself to play something different… Know however that there are situational better builds, but those are only existent when playing as a team – safe to say MM necromancers peform (too) well in SoloQ due to the lack of teamwork, so a 1v1 build like that is bound to assure you victories…

GoogleBrandon.5073:

DrDivine.5378:

I appreciate the detailed insight of necro builds. I’m going to be honest with you, when I decided to make a necro as my next character I didn’t really research the meta, I remembered myself liking the minions in GW1 and wanted to see if the play style was still similar. Maybe I’ll play witha power or condition build and see how that works as well!

I’ve been enjoying the minion build as it actually did help me with the abundance of hambows I go up against. I used a custom warrior and would get stomped by hambows all the time. My necromancer, on the other hand, unusually tanks everything and gets rid of them no problem.

GW1 MM and GW2 were completely different though, as you were “managing” your minions there rather than commanding their only skill…
GW2 minions are only bound to a cooldown on death, so there is not much in depth managing aside from the blind from Shadow Fiend and the immobilize from Bone Fiend… The real art is gone, and that is imho a shame… They really made the most complex Necromancer Build completely braindead in GW2, and as you might’ve realized, people are kind of through with braindead builds

By the way, even though I am generally outspoken about MM necromancers, if it works for you then don’t force yourself to play something different… Know however that there are situational better builds, but those are only existent when playing as a team – safe to say MM necromancers peform (too) well in SoloQ due to the lack of teamwork, so a 1v1 build like that is bound to assure you victories…

This is kind of a shock for me but I do appreciate the input as I am in no way a professional when it comes to pvp. I can do pretty well, but all of my characters are custom built so it’s give and take.

I am kinda disappointing about the MM necro I guess being the “hambow” of necromancers. It was my favorite class in GW1 because I loved the idea of summoning the undead and wanted to see if that similar feel made a return here. I tried to make my own minion build, which has been doing extremely well against almost all threats except for some really good mesmers and engis, but thats about where it ends. Even guardians, a class I’ve always struggled to go up against, my minion necro destroys them with ease, which I guess supports your point haha

There are always people complaining about 1 build or another.
TBH, all the “braindead” labelling can be just as easily applied to any player who doesn’t want to change tactics in order to counter a mm necro.
That being said, it is easier to beat a mm on proff’s with invis/teleports or spammy aoe’s which both mesmers and eng have in abundance.
Its a good, not great, 1v1 build that will lose to any proff that takes the time to kite and kill you’re minions (hence their use as side node bunker usually), so using cc’s and timing minion death is extremely important,
as Bhawb mentioned.