Guild Wars 2

So what about making Necromancer minions into part of their class mechanic? Death Shroud is pretty cool (I’ll honestly argue that it’s one of the better-designed profession-specific mechanics in the game), but it flirts with narrow-minded tendencies. That is to say that, even though it gives you four new skills upon activation, it’s still just one button—one option. In that regard it’s rather one-dimensional and predictable; just slightly better than what the Warrior has: adrenaline (aka the most boring mechanic in the game).

Open up the F2-F4 buttons for the current Minion utility skills and make them cost Life Force to summon. This would not only give Necromancer minions a staple place in combat as slottable utilities, but it would also dramatically raise the skill cap by forcing Necromancer players to constantly manage their Life Force spending on their fleshy friends weighed against what they would want to keep for themselves in order to utilize Death Shroud’s invulnerability and extra skills. Furthermore, ANet could continue to add Minion skills in later expansions, thus only broadening the Necromancer mechanic at that point.

Obviously, Flesh Golem would remain an Elite Skill.

That’s actually kind of a neat idea! There’s a lot that they could do with minions and I do love the concept of minions. I sometimes wish I could just run around with a ridiculous number of skeletons or some-such shambling after me.

They can give us a torch instead , which summons 2 flame minions.

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

They can give us a torch instead , which summons 2 flame minions.

Or you could get a torch off-hand with more interesting utilities than two minions, and have those two minions added to the option pool for your F2-F4 skills. IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES.

Swagg.9236:

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

They can give us a torch instead , which summons 2 flame minions.

Or you could get a torch off-hand with more interesting utilities than two minions, and have those two minions added to the option pool for your F2-F4 skills. IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES.

Yeah , your idea is better >> getting F2-F4 and a torch will be cooler .
But first we should be heard !!!!! as Anet team is not doing any thing about our minions.

Oh yeah, this was definitely an idea I was hoping they’d implement eventually! Having minions cost life force just makes a lot of sense. Giving you a different way to spend your Life Force would be great, because at times Death Shroud feels a little limiting. I would love it if Death Shroud could also heal minions over time (perhaps a trait?), meaning you’d have to balance healing your minions in Death Shroud, and resummoning ones that died, to be a successful minion master.

Bone Minions would be a staple for F2. That blast finisher is way too useful. If I’m not running my condition build, I fill my life force more rapidly than it’s prudent to use it, so I like this idea. Gives me something to do with my excess.

As for Torch, I think it even fits necromancers well. Think cremations and such.

For skills, perhaps the #5 could have a side effect of locating stealthed units, like a “life sense” effect. Shouldn’t be the main function, as that would make it too limited, but it would be nice. Give it a short duration on that and I would be pleased.

I support this thread.
For the OP’s idea to work, however, Life Force generating abilities would have to be revised and adjusted so we don’t get LF starved all the time.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Bone Minions would be a staple for F2. That blast finisher is way too useful.

It could be given a longer cooldown to balance the usefulness.

I like this idea, I would just tweak it a little bit. Instead of F2 – F4 summoning minions, they should be minion controls similar to the ranger.

F2 – attack my target
F3 – return to me/do not attack
F4 – die

Pixels.6532:

I like this idea, I would just tweak it a little bit. Instead of F2 – F4 summoning minions, they should be minion controls similar to the ranger.

F2 – attack my target
F3 – return to me/do not attack
F4 – die

I never understood why one had to re-target, then press a button to get one’s pet to attack his or her new target in GW2. That just seems ridiculous and a waste of a perfectly good F-key. Just have them re-target upon attacking something. I’m shocked that that hasn’t been a feature since day one.

Also, minions are meant to be disposable (hence the “Kill it to do something cool” chain skill effects). It probably wouldn’t be worth using an F-key on a command that would keep them alive by reducing their damage output (since they would be fleeing from a target) especially if you had enough Life Force in reserve to just summon out another one.

Bellocchi.4593:

I support this thread.
For the OP’s idea to work, however, Life Force generating abilities would have to be revised and adjusted so we don’t get LF starved all the time.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Bone Minions would be a staple for F2. That blast finisher is way too useful.

It could be given a longer cooldown to balance the usefulness.

I wasn’t thinking cooldowns with this idea since everything could be done by spending Life Force. I was thinking just across-the-board damage balances to an extent. Then again, I guess it would make sense for there to be Life Force cost and a cooldown. That’s a little more like GW1 skills and that was a pretty well-balanced system. The good news, though, is that this is an idea that would require only some number tweaking rather than a complete class overhaul.

You know there’s a class that already has minions (sorta) as a class mechanic: rangers. You guys get minions as a class mechanic and expect the devs to nerf your damage across the board to compensate, hoping you’ll always keep the drooling-moronic pets out in the field, attacking everything you come across and a Group Event’s Champion (or dungeon boss) AOE attack wiping them all out so fast and there goes a chunk of your damage.

Rhinzual.7861:

You know there’s a class that already has minions (sorta) as a class mechanic: rangers. You guys get minions as a class mechanic and expect the devs to nerf your damage across the board to compensate, hoping you’ll always keep the drooling-moronic pets out in the field, attacking everything you come across and a Group Event’s Champion (or dungeon boss) AOE attack wiping them all out so fast and there goes a chunk of your damage.

Necromancer minions aren’t meant for straight damage, but rather utility (except for the Bone Minions, I suppose, but they also have Blast Finishers which are very useful). The point of this suggestion is not to give Necromancers a damage boost, but rather more utility and to raise their skill ceiling by expanding their unique profession mechanic.

The Ranger mechanic is awful. Truly awful. I’m not saying that because I dislike Rangers, it’s just that their pet mechanic is horrifically designed and executed. Rangers should be more like Elementalists in how they relate to their pet (full skill sets for when a pet is not in combat and full skill sets for when one is) in order to promote better combat synergy and management. Furthermore, there should also only be one pet. Rangers as they are now are little more than novice Pokemon trainers that burn through their rosters like oafs because things keep killing their pets with stray damage.

Do I get F keys for my wells, too? o.o
Not everyone uses minions…

Kyskythyn.6471:

Do I get F keys for my wells, too? o.o
Not everyone uses minions…

I guess it doesn’t really matter what the F2-F4 skills became, but it would have to be one unique type of utility skills (bringing two into the mix would just drain the utility skill bar of options). I chose minions because of their chain ability (pop one to summon it and do damage, and then trigger its abilities later on), the fact that they move about and also how they can add more chaos in general to a battle with their presence. Wells sit there and have a passive effect on a small area for 5 seconds.

I really like the premise of this thread. It would be awesome to have just that small boost in combat. The minions are entirely harmful to your success when used as utility skills. This would actually prevent them from being such a bane, while at the same time making for some additional fun.

not everyone sees necromancer as minionmaster….

To be honest. This is how I thought it would be at release. Glad someone brought this idea up.

If not now ArenaNet, think about it for the first expantion. Honestly I would love to see any type of love for the necromancer at this moment.

This is actually a Brilliant idea. Minions using Life Force is absolutely beautiful. However, the game already has a profession with a pet-focused mechanic: The ranger.

I would suggest having f2 be a particular minion summon of your choice selected and purchased just like they are now, except not eating a utility slot. Instead of having long cooldowns, make the minions consume X% life force upon summon. The minion will still have a cooldown, but it should be smaller than the ones currently implemented. You can recast your minion (f2) to sacrifice it, the same way you do now.

I would recommend having the selectable minions for the f2 be any minion other than the healing one and the flesh golem. In favor of builds that are not “minion masters” (which includes myself, I love my wells) you are not forced into using minions, only the one you deem useful (blast finish with wells, anyone?). Any minion that is not selected for the f2 can still be used as a utility skill. With some balancing done, having a minion in the f2 slot AND as a utility could be very, VERY cool.

In favor of keeping Rangers unique, the Necromancer should only have two f key abilities. f1 is death shroud, f2 is a minion. Or, if need be, ANet could make the f1 key toggle-able, where you can switch with minion(s) or death shroud.

I wish every class had f1-4. Currently thieves, wars, and necros don’t (ok so thieves and wars have more f skills than we do since they can change). I would really like to see all our minion skills becoming f skills that use lifeforce to summon. Fleshy the flesh golem can stay elite.

Unfortunately anyone who visit these forums already bought the game (MOST) so I doubt Anet would give a kitten about us.

Amityel.5324:

not everyone sees necromancer as minionmaster….

The idea I’m getting from this thread is that those of us who don’t want to be a Minion Master are doing it wrong.

Most obvious problem I see with this idea is that Rangers are supposed to be the pet class. Giving Necromancers equal control but more pets would make them the pet class so more control and better AI may make Necro OP.

Anchoku.8142:

Most obvious problem I see with this idea is that Rangers are supposed to be the pet class. Giving Necromancers equal control but more pets would make them the pet class so more control and better AI may make Necro OP.

The simple suggestion that making Minions (nothing more than mediocre damage and 1 utility that, upon use, either destroys the minion or initiates a long cool-down) more easily accessible to Necromancers would suddenly defraud Rangers speaks volumes about the poor design of the Ranger Pet mechanic.

That said, BlindedPeace has given me another idea. What if a Necromancer’s F2-F4 (or maybe just the F2 and F3; no F4 because three might be broken) skills were just left open to some of their unique utility skills (minions, wells and corruptions; specter’s are out because they generate Life Force too rapidly)? Out of that pool of skills, the Necromancer could slot in whichever two they wanted into the F2 and F3 skill slots and then pay for them using Life Force in addition to them having a cool-down.

Again, that might be broken, but it opens up even more options and paths for the Necromancer than it just being Minions. It would also get these “RANGERS HAVE PETS RAAAH” people off my back.

Swagg.9236:

Anchoku.8142:

Most obvious problem I see with this idea is that Rangers are supposed to be the pet class. Giving Necromancers equal control but more pets would make them the pet class so more control and better AI may make Necro OP.

The simple suggestion that making Minions (nothing more than mediocre damage and 1 utility that, upon use, either destroys the minion or initiates a long cool-down) more easily accessible to Necromancers would suddenly defraud Rangers speaks volumes about the poor design of the Ranger Pet mechanic.

That said, BlindedPeace has given me another idea. What if a Necromancer’s F2-F4 (or maybe just the F2 and F3; no F4 because three might be broken) skills were just left open to some of their unique utility skills (minions, wells and corruptions; specter’s are out because they generate Life Force too rapidly)? Out of that pool of skills, the Necromancer could slot in whichever two they wanted into the F2 and F3 skill slots and then pay for them using Life Force in addition to them having a cool-down.

I can agree to this, although the “selecting function skills with utilities” thing is Engineer territory. At this point, I think it would just be cool to give our standard utilites more “oomph”, while using life force instead of large cooldowns (all utilities, not just minions). The exception, in my opinion, should be corruptions. They already impose a penalty on the caster, it would be silly to make them eat life force. Maybe they should generate it? Also, if life force is to be used with utilities, these utilities should be available in death shroud.

Don’t get me wrong; Minions could use some (read: lots) of love. I just think it’d be treading on another class’ turf to change our mechanic.

TL;DR: maybe we shouldn’t have new f2-f4 keys. Instead, just make our utilities on lighter cooldowns, and make them consume Life Force (Except for corruption skills). This makes the life force mechanic feel relevant to the class for more than just shroud-2-live.

Edit: Cool idea tiemz.

Maybe make our wells/minion skills have a “hold-down” cast (forgot the real term). The longer you hold the minion/well cast, the more life force it eats and the better the result. Minions would have better damage/health and more powerful sacrifice moves (wurm tele will also immobilize/cc nearby enemies, for example). Wells could have a wider radius, longer duration, or might inflict other horrors upon the enemy (Suffering might also cripple or bleed anyone inside, as well as damage and cause vulnerability). These added effects should be traited to obtain.

A few months ago I suggested adding a short-leash / long-leash setting; perhaps over the minion’s utility slot. We need something to allow/forbid pets to respond to mob aggro or the minions will just go looking for anything that aggro’s me or them. The “attack my target” mechanic also needs fixing so pets do not just stand there but the minion’s skill can help kick their butts into gear.

If those two things are fixed, an on/off switch for auto-aggro and a more reliable target attack, then I would consider Necomancer’s minions fixed. They may even need nerfing versus Ranger. Right now, minions only really benefit farming in areas with medium or lower mob population density because they are about as trainable as a cat. The two fixes mentioned would probably result in a lot more players using minions.

I could see this idea working, if the three minions used were bone fiend, shadow fiend and flesh wurm and instead of summoning long standing minions they just did their current activated ability.
Idea and theme being, you quickly animate the dead exclusively for a singular purpose, and once that purpose is over you discard them as quickly as they were summoned.
So you’d summon a bone fiend to root someone in place, then once the root lands the bone fiend dies. You summon a shadow fiend on top of someone, it explodes and they get blinded. Then you summon a flesh wurm and then travel to its location and it explodes.
The life force bar then doubles as not only a meat shield, but also like a psuedo initiative bar. You can trade damage/damage reduction in exchange for utility, but you can only get life force so quickly. So while a novice necro may use life force too haphazardly or not at all, an experienced necro will know what to use and when, depending who they’re fighting.

As for the lost minion utilities for the actual utility skills, meh.

Think i said this multiple times, how about instead of having a limited amount of smart/under control minions, just do a LF limit and let the minion summon skills be channeled and upon end swap to the active, each 1 second of channel time summons 1 more minion and cuts a part of the life force pool/makes it locked, if more than 50% is cut the necro cannot use DS at all, but for that has a real army of minions (first of each ofc being free of charge).