Guild Wars 2

When it comes to minions they may not have great intelligence lore wise but when I need them the most in a PvP situation I find myself wondering, "where are my minions?’

My flesh golem is stuck somewhere, my bone minion doesn’t seem to be any where. My other minions are not attacking when they should be. The only minions that seem to work or my vampiric and shadow minion. Granted this doesn’t happen all the time but happens more times then I would like. The main issue seems to be when I go into death shroud. While in death shroud the minions don’t seem to pick up on what I am attacking. If minions act like ranger pets then they should attack my target. Or at least be in the right position for me to use the minions properly. When I use explode minion they always seem to blow up right next to me rather then where I want them to explode. And the recharge on Charge for the flesh golem is a bit long so half the time my flesh golem stands there while a warrior is hammering away at me. And only will attack when I use the Charge move.

Dose anyone else experience this? Is this on purpose or is there tweaking needed for the minion AI? Do I need a new necro build? Help would be appreciated.

This bug was added some time in February maybe and it hasn’t been fixed. I was hoping for the big heap of Necro fixes in the feature patch to fix it but they haven’t even acknowledged it yet.

I would strongly advise you to stay away from minions. They are unreliable and only good to protect from AoE in group fights or as physical blockers against projectiles, and mostly against bad players…

However, I speak from a very small experience with them, as after 2 days I couldnt bear watching them pick flowers while I take a beating anymore… And I’m rank 75.

I would recommend you to move to one of those builds:
- dhuumfire v2 with balthazar runes 6/4/0/0/4
- standard terror 0/6/4/0/4
- a mix of both at the price of reduced survivability 6/6/0/0/2
- power build 6/2/0/0/6

They all worked fine for me, especially the first 2.

Minions are pretty bugged right now. At the moment Minion Master is an easy build to pick up and play in Hotjoins, even with the bugs. With some practice it is actually a half decent build with all of the contol available, but it desperately needs bug fixes.

I just started playing a clerics build mm with the two healing sigil on each weapon and it still seems to be pretty effective as a point holder usually home or mid.

Don’t move with melee minions out. They get bugged when you move around, especially when you move over ground they can’t.

It is a bug, but it can be worked around quite easily.

I am not sure if I am doing the dhuumfire build correctly. I understand the concept just not the execution. The main problem with the build would be the various thieves that inhabit sPvP. You have to catch them with a good fear before you can get a shot in before they go stealth. I guess using a staff is important in that sense. Anyone can go into detail of the pro’s and cons to the new dhuumfire I would appreciate it.

They really need a much shorter/responsive “too far from master – drop combat and teleport to master” leash.

If an enemy runs over 1200 units away from me; they cease to be a concern to me in favor of whomever is still within that range.

I’m a bunker MM at home..
I’ve seen 100’s of posts about the bad AI of minions, and it’s true it has been better, but there’s a way to negate the AI problems.
Situation 1: I’m standing still @ close, enemy comes to me and I attack him: Minions respond and also attack
Situation 2a: I’m running to enemy point with my minions, I have swiftness and I outrun them → MINIONS WON’T ATTACK UNTIL THEY GET AGGRO
Situation 2b: I’m runnig with my RANGED attack minions to enemy point and summon my melee ones during the fight, Result: All Minions attack properly
Situation 2c: If you got all minions spawned and you run to enemy point: Don’t run to fast, don’t use swiftness and don’t run fully ahead of them, result: you and minions arrive at same time: they attack // if you run to fast and they don’t walk with you when you burst the enemy: they won’t attack
Situation 3: You’re fighting an enemy and minions won’t attack.. What to do ?
→ Channel attack (Dagger 2 and DS 4 work the best for me) and most of the time they’ll join the fight
Situation 4: @ the map battle of the kylo (treb map), as a MM you try to destroy the trebuchet, minions are with you but don’t attack: Same tactic as Situation 2c
Situation 5: You’re running and you notice that your minions are missing ? Run further away and they will turn up again (invisible leash, I don’t know what the max range was but I tought it was around 1800-2000)

Overkillengine.6084:

They really need a much shorter/responsive “too far from master – drop combat and teleport to master” leash.

If an enemy runs over 1200 units away from me; they cease to be a concern to me in favor of whomever is still within that range.

Its currently 1920, and that is perfectly fine to me. Waiting till an enemy is already at in my range for the minions to start getting ready to attack means by the time they reach the enemy he’s at 600 range. 1920 allows me to also contribute to fights within 1950 of home point without having to leave, which gives us a unique strength.

Falcon.8713:

Situation 5: You’re running and you notice that your minions are missing ? Run further away and they will turn up again (invisible leash, I don’t know what the max range was but I tought it was around 1800-2000)

The max aggro range is 1920 I believe, it was a while ago I found it out, but its in the 1920-1980 range. Them instantly teleporting is a bit farther, I’m not sure exactly how far (a bit harder to test), but not much further than that.

Bhawb.7408:

Overkillengine.6084:

They really need a much shorter/responsive “too far from master – drop combat and teleport to master” leash.

If an enemy runs over 1200 units away from me; they cease to be a concern to me in favor of whomever is still within that range.

Its currently 1920, and that is perfectly fine to me. Waiting till an enemy is already at in my range for the minions to start getting ready to attack means by the time they reach the enemy he’s at 600 range. 1920 allows me to also contribute to fights within 1950 of home point without having to leave, which gives us a unique strength.

Falcon.8713:

Situation 5: You’re running and you notice that your minions are missing ? Run further away and they will turn up again (invisible leash, I don’t know what the max range was but I tought it was around 1800-2000)

The max aggro range is 1920 I believe, it was a while ago I found it out, but its in the 1920-1980 range. Them instantly teleporting is a bit farther, I’m not sure exactly how far (a bit harder to test), but not much further than that.

Ok thank you for telling

Having that long tether range to chase/engage someone is great and all, but having them nearby and ready to rumble in the first place is arguably of greater utility. Someone that has fled from me outside of weapon range is lower priority than the person still trying to fight me point blank, and having Drooly the wonder golem faffing about at 1900+ range picking daisies is not defined as “helping”. (Someone that ran that far can outrun the golem and reset combat usually, so I need all hands on deck to end the in my face fight I am in asap before they come back.)

I am annoyed that my flesh gollum fails to charge due to a blade of grass. How many times have I actually needed it and it stalls…?
It is also annoying that they stand there and you have to kite the mob to your minions so they take damage and therefore will engage.
I am annoyed that they run off to fight mobs that you are not fighting and did not agro.
Flesh gollum dies in water instead of being a useful elite. I am not sure why they simply do not swim. I have never used plague form under water because it is hard to visualise where your epicentre is.

I stopped using minions when I reached level 65 or so. (being mostly a pve’r). I do hate going against MM’s in pvp for the annoyance more than being an actual threat.

anyway.
I use golem in pve. I’ve just never bothered with the other elites. And the amount of times I’m there fighting away and the golem is just standing at my side trying to look pretty or something…. more times than I can count. Certain skills seem to “wake him up”. And if it gets hit, it’ll respond.

I’ve never had much trouble with charge, or the minion running away(in saying that, it’s not something I’d notice/care about. I often use the minion to take agro of mobs in pve while I run off/gather etc.)

The flesh golem is bugged in WvW as well. Hubby noticed in PvP a couple of patches ago that the flesh golem runs around like an ADD 3 yr old, doesn’t attack anything, just does one of two things. Stands there and drools or follows you around, “lalala wheeee this is fun mom!” Not recommended for PvP or WvW, and makes me very disinclined to use any other minions. They should fix it or remove it, it wastes space in my skill selection

As pointed out, they are fine. Just don’t move!
Don’t worry that they got a ‘double dip’ nerf with the Zerker gear change. (Base and talent for more dam)
Don’t worry they are best paired with power and short range weaps that others can sit at twice our range and dps. Just stand there… I’m sure when that 1 guy runs into range they totally worth it!

Oh, so you mean fight ala GW1! Stand there and lob stuff in someone’s general direction and hope it sticks to them? Wow, wonder if I should stayed there…… ;P

The issue isn’t moving in a small area, the issue is that pathing is what bugs their AI. If you stay in a fairly limited area (like a capture point) you limit the chances of their pathing getting messed up. You can also generally work around this by leaving melee minions dead if they are not needed (this is a good practice anyway), and so if you leave one point while the minions are dead and summon them at the next fight they do quite well.

Playing an AI build is at least 50% learning how to use and abuse their special mechanics (including bugs) to your advantage.