Basic minion control just became "imperative"
Regardless of my personal opinion (which is that we don’t need this kind of control, the fact they even follow our orders is a huge AI step up from GW1), ANet is extremely unlikely to ever give it to us, because they’ve specifically stated that pet controls are Ranger-exclusive. Yes it will cause minions to have issues in some situations, but I don’t think this is a particularly big issue.
Edit : Doesn’t need to be a leeching field, it could be a mechanic like “stop attacking him or he fires a giant laser and may God help us all”, and similar things.
Subject 6 is a pretty good example of this – when he’s in shield phase, attacking him builds up stacks of Overload, and if he hits 20 stacks then every time he gets hit after that it does a nasty AoE to everyone in the room. Can easily wipe a party.
Ideally a solution would be applicable to all player-summoned NPCs. A “Stop attacking and retreat to me until I push this button again” command might work (available in key bindings, can be bound to whatever you like). Ranger pets already have this in the Return to Me command and the “Avoid Combat” mode. However, it would leave out Engineer turrets, which are immobile. However, turrets can be removed by being picked up, or simply not deployed against such enemies, so that might not be an issue.
Edit : Doesn’t need to be a leeching field, it could be a mechanic like “stop attacking him or he fires a giant laser and may God help us all”, and similar things.
Subject 6 is a pretty good example of this – when he’s in shield phase, attacking him builds up stacks of Overload, and if he hits 20 stacks then every time he gets hit after that it does a nasty AoE to everyone in the room. Can easily wipe a party.
Ideally a solution would be applicable to all player-summoned NPCs. A “Stop attacking and retreat to me until I push this button again” command might work (available in key bindings, can be bound to whatever you like). Ranger pets already have this in the Return to Me command and the “Avoid Combat” mode. However, it would leave out Engineer turrets, which are immobile. However, turrets can be removed by being picked up, or simply not deployed against such enemies, so that might not be an issue.
Minions don’t build stacks on Subject 6 afaik, been some time since I last tried it out though.
Imo, minions should simply be excluded from life-leech and instead take more damage (or another effect to make up for it), or you could simply respec for such encounters as it’s not a viable approach as of now.
Are turrets for engineers designed to at least have the turrets shoot the target you’re selecting? Would this minimal amount of control be out of line?
Regardless of my personal opinion (which is that we don’t need this kind of control, the fact they even follow our orders is a huge AI step up from GW1), ANet is extremely unlikely to ever give it to us, because they’ve specifically stated that pet controls are Ranger-exclusive. Yes it will cause minions to have issues in some situations, but I don’t think this is a particularly big issue.
I know they said that. However that was before the changes, and before they though a almost instantly to full regenrating champion was a good idea. And i don’t want the rangers control, if you read my post. All I want is the “kill all my summoned creatures” button pretty much every single summoner class in the history of MMOs has had.
Unless something changed with HoT’s release, Thrashers do not heal from minions (or NPCs for that matter). I run a LOT of minion builds with various classes and spend a ton of time in the Silverwastes and have never once had a problem killing Thrashers, at least not solo. Even on my Ranger who DOES have pet control, I happily let my pet eat the damage from the leech field because it doesn’t do enough damage to be a threat to my pet (even less so now) and does nothing to help the Thrasher either. Its basically a free damage period.
The problem is more likely players who don’t know the mechanics. I’ve seen so many players try to facetank that field and heal the thrasher to full health.
Future mechanics are easily avoided the same way. Simply exclude pets and minions from whatever “you need to stop attacking right now” or “get out of range or the boss heals” type attacks.
Not to say that more pet control wouldn’t be nice. But it’d be more of a QoL / PvP / WvW issue.
A few times in fractals today my golem caused problems by being practically immortal and keeping aggro in awkward positions. So yeah it is a little annoying. Not an issue for flesh wurm, bone minions and blood fiend because you can sacrifice them.
my golem caused problems by being practically immortal
#FirstWorldProblems
A few times in fractals today my golem caused problems by being practically immortal and keeping aggro in awkward positions. So yeah it is a little annoying. Not an issue for flesh wurm, bone minions and blood fiend because you can sacrifice them.
Heh yeah you need to be careful about where to summon him now.
Having your flesh golem tank the projectiles at Tom while the Earth Elemental goes down is amazing though. lol
Hey, i’m still swooning over the fact my beloved minions are actually fighting properly and not getting instagibbed in PVE they’re semi-viable now. Ill live with a bit of cumbersome here or there.
Eleshod|80 Thief|Tarnished Coast
Malsavias|80 Necromancer| Tarnished Coast
Unless something changed with HoT’s release, Thrashers do not heal from minions (or NPCs for that matter). I run a LOT of minion builds with various classes and spend a ton of time in the Silverwastes and have never once had a problem killing Thrashers, at least not solo. Even on my Ranger who DOES have pet control, I happily let my pet eat the damage from the leech field because it doesn’t do enough damage to be a threat to my pet (even less so now) and does nothing to help the Thrasher either. Its basically a free damage period.
The problem is more likely players who don’t know the mechanics. I’ve seen so many players try to facetank that field and heal the thrasher to full health.
Future mechanics are easily avoided the same way. Simply exclude pets and minions from whatever “you need to stop attacking right now” or “get out of range or the boss heals” type attacks.
Not to say that more pet control wouldn’t be nice. But it’d be more of a QoL / PvP / WvW issue.
If so, it is currently bugged, cause the champion thrasher i fought definitly regenerated to full with only my Golem being in his AE.
I haven’t been to SW since the expac dropped but do these things have breakbars now? If so you could just interrupt their leech attack.
Minions not dieing can be inconvenient sometimes but they are pretty strong in Verdant Brink. As long as I keep updating the correct target for the minions, they work well enough. It is targeting that goofs things up the most for me.