Guild Wars 2

Ha! So I am an avid necromancer since launch, having been through almost all of the builds. Currently I run a nice hybrid build focusing on AOE damage. My build is great for fractals (something i happen to run almost every day), all dungeons, and the occasional bout in Wvw.

Thing is, I have been playing a MM build in pvp lately and it is incredibly fun! My minions really do feel OP. Well now, the reason for my post – is there a viable MM build for PVE content (fractals and dungeons) as well as wvw? The last time I tried high level fractals my minions were terrible. :/ I was so shocked that I never even tried them in dungeons.

Any advice and ideas would be highly appreciated!

TL&DR – Is there a viable MM build for fractals, dungeons and wvw?

I run high level fractals (40+) with MM Build,
Armor: Full exotic soldier stats / Runes : Traveler OR Speed
Trinkets: Ascended Soldier stats
Weapons: Ascended Soldier Staff / Exotic Dagger Warhorn/ Dagger Dagger Soldier stats
Rune: bloodlust on staff and MH dagger, force on warhorn
20/0/30/20/0 , I use Soldier because I prefer to tank / Survive the higher level mobs
Blood Fiend – Flesh Wurm (bosses standing still) / Shadow Fiend for moving around / Moving mobs – Bone Fiend – Bone minions – flesh golem (only remove him at endbosses of dredge because it cripples)

Used to use DIRE instead f SOLDIER , but I have changed because I wanted to test my full PVP build and it’s a little better with Soldier

^ Basically that except I prefer 10 in spite to be the focus trait and run focus. Focus 4 is tons of LF and good damage, and 5 is pretty beefy, always good to have some boon rip handy. Plus its a 1200 6 second chill.

ronpierce.2760:

^ Basically that except I prefer 10 in spite to be the focus trait and run focus. Focus 4 is tons of LF and good damage, and 5 is pretty beefy, always good to have some boon rip handy. Plus its a 1200 6 second chill.

True, but I only use focus/ offhand dagger when duelling n.n

By and large, a lot of people don’t realize how effective MMs can be. My necromancer does monstrous damage because of this, and oftentimes in PvP the enemy player ignores my minions long enough to get gangbanged by my swarm of minions because they don’t perceive them as a threat. It’s not that different in Dungeons and other PvE settings.

As a side note, the Flesh Golem charge attack? Beautiful. It’ll even toss most bosses, especially if you can get them against a wall

This is what i’m rocking atm, seems to work well. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Cheers.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQRBHbhG2IhWpermtG9eCQ6R0UP90DuBPcoC5C-jEyAorioRTgCNVIQZvioxWMLiGreBTXSEV7BKiWtUAXsMC-w

I’m waiting for the 12/10 patch to level w/ glory but I have enough laurels and guild comms to have full ascended soldier trinks missing only the backpiece cause I hate fractals.

I came up with a somewhat very nasty build idea last night as i felt inspired (i play 2 necro one is a soul reaping speced charr the other is a minion master asura). Minions give life force when they die and the ghosts gives a good 10% life force on its activation? Is it just me or i can spell ‘’Deeeeeeeeath shroud mode’’ there

it just happen both the soul reaping speciality AND the minion master speciality have 1 one line common the power line. so my subjestion is to forget the blood magic line and trait it this way

20 spite 0 malediction 20 death magic 0 blood magic 30 soul reaping.
gear complete valkiry (full crit damage vitality and power) You dont need precision because pets gains stats only from power and you personnaly will always go in death shroud to do your personnal dps.

trait: In spite trait yourself to have 30% increased minion damage and might on hit when using life blast

death magic: trait yourself in order to have +50% to minion total health then you may consider choosing the + 400 toughness on channel (making minions and casting lifeblast your somewhat constantly channeling) or choosing a defrent trait

Soul reaping: trait yourself for the slow down on life force loss by 50% and the + 50% critical strike when in death shroud (the third is up to you but i like the idea of the piercing life blast bolts). You now officialy have a killing machine phys damage necro which stacks might on hit score 4k+ on auto ranged attacks and has a good 2k+ average pet dps (this increase further as you stack might!) wich tanks give life force dies divert and control. Best of both world?

The weapon you use has little relevance but axe/focus / staff makes for wonderfull idea (mainly you dont do damage from your weapon but from death shroud/pet and those 3 weapon all stack life force like crazies)

kyubi.3620:

You dont need precision because pets gains stats only from power […]

As wiki states, “minions only inherit the necromancer’s Condition Damage, Condition Duration, and Boon Duration attributes” and sadly its true.

Dalanor.5387:

kyubi.3620:

You dont need precision because pets gains stats only from power […]

As wiki states, “minions only inherit the necromancer’s Condition Damage, Condition Duration, and Boon Duration attributes” and sadly its true.

They do get buffed via power though with Vamperic master trait. Its actually a decent dps boost.

Your wiki is likely outdated and someone will need to redo the page (minion indeed used not to gain anything from power but that changed later trought the year same goes for pets and turrets). Check your minion spell damage with and without a power equipment if you dont believe me because minions DO gain power altrought the amount is somewhat small. As for vampiric master its only life siphon there wich i recall is related to healing power.

Even if i was lying your flesh golem doing roughtly 1500s damage and your other minions stacking around 600 to 800 is actualy a serious threat when it comes from damage the necromancer maintain even in death shroud. (i used to run wells between DS time but wells dont moves on their own to the targets, even if they can do criticals they basicaly remain stationnary and takes time to channel while pets are maintained even in DS and keeps doing their hits)

kyubi.3620:

Your wiki is likely outdated and someone will need to redo the page (minion indeed used not to gain anything from power but that changed later trought the year same goes for pets and turrets). Check your minion spell damage with and without a power equipment if you dont believe me because minions DO gain power. As for vampiric master its only life siphon there wich i recall is related to healing power.

I believe it has ben confirmed they do not scale with stats, and the scaling you see is based on a tool tip error where the tool tip wants to factor in your stats, even if it doesn’t actually do so. (Pretty sure a dev had said that)

I went ahead and confirmed it. Soldiers ammy in pvp on light golem, they hit 238-255+105ish leeching. Took off the soldier’s amulet (lost 978 strength or more) still did the same damage, but leeching only did 80 something.

ronpierce.2760:

kyubi.3620:

Your wiki is likely outdated and someone will need to redo the page (minion indeed used not to gain anything from power but that changed later trought the year same goes for pets and turrets). Check your minion spell damage with and without a power equipment if you dont believe me because minions DO gain power. As for vampiric master its only life siphon there wich i recall is related to healing power.

I believe it has ben confirmed they do not scale with stats, and the scaling you see is based on a tool tip error where the tool tip wants to factor in your stats, even if it doesn’t actually do so. (Pretty sure a dev had said that)

Well thats sad… at this point however its of little consequance as the pet damage scaling wont affect the overall damage of the spec this much. altrought i guess having the equivalent of 25 stack of might in power transfered to my pet damage would be kind of insane. Is this true only for necromancer or does ranger and enginer also suffer from that tooltip mistake? I recall pet ability damage increasing with power and the tooltip of turret damage as well

I dont care about bugged tooltips. I tried it ingame before posting, because i remembered that it changed somehow, but minions still dont benefit from power.

ronpierce.2760:

I went ahead and confirmed it. Soldiers ammy in pvp on light golem, they hit 238-255+105ish leeching. Took off the soldier’s amulet (lost 978 strength or more) still did the same damage, but leeching only did 80 something.

So power DOES affect the leeching then? Or was that with Vampiric Mastery turned also off?

@Kyubi, Vamp Mastery increases the amount of life stolen, which = more damage, so yes it does affect the life you get restored but it’s also more damage dealt from the siphon.
Also, that’s not a new build. Bhawb already uses something similar to that. It sounds like it should be pretty effective.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

ronpierce.2760:

I went ahead and confirmed it. Soldiers ammy in pvp on light golem, they hit 238-255+105ish leeching. Took off the soldier’s amulet (lost 978 strength or more) still did the same damage, but leeching only did 80 something.

So power DOES affect the leeching then? Or was that with Vampiric Mastery turned also off?

@Kyubi, Vamp Mastery increases the amount of life stolen, which = more damage, so yes it does affect the life you get restored but it’s also more damage dealt from the siphon.
Also, that’s not a new build. Bhawb already uses something similar to that. It sounds like it should be pretty effective.

Leeching always scales with power/healing (separately), but minions’ basic attacks do not. This should be a big red flag for minion lovers because Ascended armor comes on the 10th, that power creep will surely leave minion damage behind.

Just a note, Vampiric Master is still bugged, and is not properly scaling with Healing Power. You can check it in game, but with 200 healing power and 1123 (Cleric amulet) it heals for 72 per hit.

I had told Rennoko in some other thread that I would check it, and then totally forgot. So hope he sees it here :P

Also, just so everyone knows, I did report it a while back, and it is supposed to be changed soon™, I got a dev response that it was known and being worked on.

while you’re at it have them do something about the abomination that is Blood fiend. The healing signet in every way except the downsides where it’s not. >_>:

So is the stat scaling expected to get fixed with this upcoming patch or future patches?

victornajduch.4859:

So is the stat scaling expected to get fixed with this upcoming patch or future patches?

Wasn’t confirmed. They were going to try getting it in this time but no promises, IIRC.

did they ever plan to make damage increase to pets depending on player stats someday?

kyubi.3620:

did they ever plan to make damage increase to pets depending on player stats someday?

We will never get true scaling with pets. The one thing that quite a few of us are hoping for is that they’ll either flat buff all minions in PvE to comply with the new Ascended tier, because as they are now they are “tuned” to Exotic.

Bhawb.7408:

kyubi.3620:

did they ever plan to make damage increase to pets depending on player stats someday?

We will never get true scaling with pets. The one thing that quite a few of us are hoping for is that they’ll either flat buff all minions in PvE to comply with the new Ascended tier, because as they are now they are “tuned” to Exotic.

Pure scaling would make minions ungodly powerful, so like Bawb said we’ll probably get a flat increase to bring them up to ascended. I wouldn’t mind seeing a wow style set up where weapon damage affected minion damage through scaling, this would people running ascended would have their minions doing ascended damage, instead of giving everyone a big quality of life bonus. I think that would make the other classes upset. =P

WereDragon.6083:

Bhawb.7408:

kyubi.3620:

did they ever plan to make damage increase to pets depending on player stats someday?

We will never get true scaling with pets. The one thing that quite a few of us are hoping for is that they’ll either flat buff all minions in PvE to comply with the new Ascended tier, because as they are now they are “tuned” to Exotic.

Pure scaling would make minions ungodly powerful, so like Bawb said we’ll probably get a flat increase to bring them up to ascended. I wouldn’t mind seeing a wow style set up where weapon damage affected minion damage through scaling, this would people running ascended would have their minions doing ascended damage, instead of giving everyone a big quality of life bonus. I think that would make the other classes upset. =P

Upset at what? the darn warrior does damage over the chart and the mesmer does the bait role twice as better as we do because their illusions and phantasm cooldown are near endless. Serious pet user deserve this buff

You know the funny thing however? next patch we get to have order of the vampire wich will make all minion hit 100 to 200 more damage pet hit. im not so sure anymore ill use blood fiend after this even as MM

hi,

im playing standard MM (20, 0, 30, 20, 0) Death nova MM, with soldiers exo armor, knight trinkets (ascended) berserker staff and A/F. I play the same build in WvW, fractals and PVE, its fun.
Rune of speed is a must !

Running MM in pve is a ton of fun! Building full soldiers your pets still do great damage giving you a unique playstyle. Out of the tanky classes you are by far the best DPS seriously a glass cannon (anything) may out dps you but you putt full soldiers on any other class/build and it gimps the crap out of there DPS… Not us my friend not us.

I have not tried Dire yet as the traits don’t really synch with MM and condi builds but there may be something to it especially for pvp/wvw. (Maybe give up blood and get terror?)

For the build 20/0/20/20/0 is required IMO the MM master traits are just too good (vampiric master is really good) the last 10 points are your choice I like to putt them in spite for axe training but I have also had success with Feted Consumption allowing me to further ignore conditions as I don’t run /d

Also Blood Fiend sucks IMO I use CC (for pve use whatever but in pvp/wvw CC is your only option)

Just my 2c