Guild Wars 2

So while testing the bone minions explosion last night in HoTM, I noticed that there seemed to be a delay on applying a beneficial blast finisher for the bone minion, but none for the offensive ones ( area blindness from triggering minions in my wells seemed immediate, but heal/ might stacks/ chaos armor all seemed to have 1.5+ seconds delay ). Was wondering if the necro community knew if this was intended?

Also, I’m thinking the explosions really ought to be able to be ground targeted, so that you could tell a minion to run to an area to explode, as it would be much more reliable. Or at least explode on your target, rather than just randomly blowing up ( out of field, and enemy hit radius.. ). Sure, you CAN play melee only, summon them at melee range etc. but the player shouldn’t be forced to work around bad ai… ( minions repositioning, trying to reach target to melee ) This was only during HoTM, I imagine this would be ridiculously annoying playing against actual players…

sigh…. probably shoulda looked at our bug list first:

“Bone Minions: When using Putrid Explosion, the combo finisher heart pops up immediately, but the actual effect is delayed for around three seconds. At this point the ‘stored’ finisher will activate, even if the combo field has faded. (28 Mar, 2013)”

Well… I guess, what would the community think of making the explosion ability ground targeted? ( nearest minon would run to targetted area and boom ). Over powered? overly complicated? awesome?

I think making the minions explode on ground target would be the way to go. It would add more control over the minions that many necros have wanted from the start as well as taking away the big fire and forget nature minions tend to bring as a playstyle when using them. A big bonus would also be giving MM’s more team support by being able to reliably use the blast finish to combo with other classes combo fields (Staff #4+ 2bone minions in a water field for some healing+potential condi clear for example.)

Ground target would be nice, but it is fairly easy to work around (coming from someone who mainly PvPs as an MM). The key is to first aggro them to the target, so they start closing the distance, and then using some CC to be sure they aren’t just going to walk away from them (CC should be abundant in MM builds anyway).

I think Ground target could present issues as well, if they didn’t incorporate some quick gap closer right before it, because it means you’d have to lead your opponents really well to be sure the minions actually got the finishers going properly. It would help people apply blast finishers more reliably, at the cost of likely being even more difficult to actually damage people with it.

They could keep the regular attack ai the same so the bone minions would still run up to attack. Just need to see if it possible to change the explosion from instant at current location to a targeted area. It might make it harder to land offensively due to having to lead the explosion but the superior control and utility would make up for that. Edit: gtaoe would help MM in teamfights by being able to send in the minion immediatly. I would rather completly whiff and be able to use the ability than constantly wait for themto respond to a target change with my autos and most likely die from AoE before i even blow them up. Also sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes im posting frpm my phone.

If they kept the current AI, you still need to target the explosion, meaning it is going to involve a delay unless you target exactly where they are (or they will walk to the area and then explode, meaning the person might have already left the area). The utility might be nice for non-minion builds, but the decreased reliability would severely hurt MM builds, which require that explosion to be on target to be able to burst targets.

That is why I’d suggest even a small jump, for example a faster (far less obvious) version of what Hounds of Balthazar do, have the bone minions do a little jump so they can retain reliable burst explosions, but give that added control and utility.

As for ground target, any competent MM can control their minions aggro, if I am missing explosions I have lost a significant damage threat, a threat that can’t be replaced simply by being able to get a blast finisher or two off that wouldn’t have happened before.

Hmm, regarding adding in a (short?) leap to the ground targeted location for the minion, (aside from additional coding that would need to be done for that behavior), would you not be worried about this providing an extra tell to your enemy, giving them the chance to dodge?

Edit: I guess i missed your “far less obvious” part somehow ( i guess it wasn’t obvious enough, haha..) Regarding potential misses, all you’d need to do is make sure your mouse is over where the minion is currently standing to essentially MAKE it instant, no?

Basically yes. I don’t know if it would be possible to code it, but they could have something like If range clicked < X distance (something relatively small, maybe 0-100, so the explosion still hits), then just explode right away, if range clicked > X distance, have a fast jump.

I’m not incredibly worried about tells, because like I said, it already is common for MMs to use one of our hard CCs to guarantee the explosions hit, and as long as they don’t make it stupid obvious (like the hounds’ jump is :P) then I think it would be fine.

What i find sad is that mesmer illusions will rush the target before going pop while bone minions just pop where they are. And this is with something we have to spend a utility slot on while mesmers fart clones with every weapon swing…

If your minions were close enough before to instant explode and hit this change wouldnt make it any harder. Just put the aoe right on his head and boom instant explosion just like before. Its just now you have more control. Like if you were in a 1v2. You down one player with the first explosion off a point, you can now tell the other to come back and explode at yourfeet on-point giving you a chance to bait the other enemy into it. Or just make it switch targets as you usually would if you still want it alive for a little dps. In any situation where you could land the explosion with the ai now you could with the gtaoe its just now you have more control and more options.

I agree I’d like the more control, I’m just thinking of how they could do it so we retain reliable pops. Now, if they made it like Mesmer where if I used the explosion while targetting someone, the minion runs up then explodes, with gtAoE when no one is selected that would be cool (they can do this in other games, I believe in you ANet).

The problem I’m finding with gt is that in a fight a hell of a lot is going on. Right now, I just need to know where my minions are, and blow them up when they are in range, which I can do. If I have to start ground targeting things, that makes things quite a bit harder; fighting as a full MM is generally pretty chaotic already, I don’t think I’d want to have to actually aim things as well.

I think you might be overestimating how much harder it would make it. As an experienced mm you keep very good track or your minions and the position they are in. With the gtaoe assist off you would just hover your mouse over either the minion or the minions target and in the same amount of button presses you will get the same result. Except now your not responding to your minions they will actually respond to you 100% of the time. For me the biggest problem with the minions was the fact that 90% of the time they did what i wanted. That other 10% when they just didnt do what i wanted them to really frustrated me since i couldnt control it and that is worse than missing due to lack of my own skill at timing and placing abilities.

I think the first improvement I would like is for the bone minion with the lowest health to be the first one that pops, not the one closest to you.

Bryker.5719:

I think you might be overestimating how much harder it would make it.

Probably, I’m sure it would make more sense to me once it was in game and I could play around with it.

The best way i could explain it would be instead of targeting someone,auto attacking once or twice to switch minion aggro THEN finally using the ability you now have the option to send a direct command. To be honest i thinkthey could do this with all the minions. It might make things harder to land in a 1v1 but it would make 1vX, skirmishes and teamfights muh easier and more responsive then it is now.

They should just make the explosion skill use an area of effect indicator so we can choose where the closest minion to that area will blow up. Then they could apply the blast finisher to the explosion that happens as soon as the minion runs there and blows up. I’d actually use the skill if they made these changes.

@Rising Dusk

Basically, you are saying that they should make the skill a Ground Targetted AoE (gtaoe)? From your first sentence, if you didn’t elaborate, it sounds like you are just saying that they need to draw a white/red circle around the area the minion will explode.