Guild Wars 2

I thought they had fallen out of fashion a while ago. Now I see lots of them running in PvP. What changed?

People mainly playing with the new build system, but yes they were buffed. With the traits in the death magic line, minions can now gain 50% health, take conditons from you and apply them to enemies on their next attack, and will explode on death with deathnova. If they take blood magic, they will heal you through shroud, and you can heal them as well with the right traits pretty nicely.

Now does that make MM viable….probably not because they are still dumber than a bag of rocks and won’t attack your target.

They’re ‘better’ but pets still die too easy for being viable beyond lowly PvP. Still great fun though and can be made to be very tanky.

And yet, minion cast time is still 1.5 seconds on land. The 1 time I prefer underwater combat is that instance (It’s only .5sec cast)

I am finding that the Minion Master is very effective in WvW. For the first time, I can jump into a 3v1 battle and, even if I lose, I can hammer down at least one. With my spec, I appear to be able to sustain Death Shroud almost constantly. My fears do damage. My marks are unblockable. All in all, very sustainable. Plus with the right food and the Applied Fortitude (so sad it is not going to be in HoT), I am over 32K HPs.

Hmm…so not a bad choice for solo’ing PvP to hold a point. Guess I might have to dust off my old build after all!

misterman.1530:

I am finding that the Minion Master is very effective in WvW. For the first time, I can jump into a 3v1 battle and, even if I lose, I can hammer down at least one. With my spec, I appear to be able to sustain Death Shroud almost constantly. My fears do damage. My marks are unblockable. All in all, very sustainable. Plus with the right food and the Applied Fortitude (so sad it is not going to be in HoT), I am over 32K HPs.

Food isn’t going to be in HoT?? I hope thats what you mean. I’ve always thought having to buy food for extra bonus is stupid and should just be incorporated into stats.

No, not food, Applied Fortitude – part of the Defense Against Guards mastery you can take with WvW experience points. At 115 pts you can get stacks of AF to a max of 5 stacks.

The biggest problem with MM is still AI, and wonky interactions. Things like their abilities being a bit off, Necromantic Corruption taking too long to start procing (and being worse condi removal than it should be), and base issues with the profession.

Bhawb.7408:

The biggest problem with MM is still AI, and wonky interactions. Things like their abilities being a bit off, Necromantic Corruption taking too long to start procing (and being worse condi removal than it should be), and base issues with the profession.

This… 1 out of 10 battles 4/5 pets would not attack, they just watched…

I really want to play a minion build after all these years of them never being that good. I’d love to run one. But without the proper AI fixes they just aren’t worth it. Technically they should get into hyber aggressive mode, kill everything that moves when you enter combat but they don’t. They should attack anything and everything thats around you if you’re in combat. I don’t think we should have nearly as much control over them as a ranger does their pet because personally I don’t feel that’s in their flavor. But they need to actually defend us.

Lily.1935:

I really want to play a minion build after all these years of them never being that good. I’d love to run one. But without the proper AI fixes they just aren’t worth it. Technically they should get into hyber aggressive mode, kill everything that moves when you enter combat but they don’t. They should attack anything and everything thats around you if you’re in combat. I don’t think we should have nearly as much control over them as a ranger does their pet because personally I don’t feel that’s in their flavor. But they need to actually defend us.

I agreed. We don’t need as fine of control as ranger, after all our minions are just really sacs of flesh and shadow matter. They can’t make decisions on their own they rely on their master. MM needs to be like you’re controlling an army, the enemy needs to cut through them to get to you.

Bhawb.7408:

The biggest problem with MM is still AI, and wonky interactions.

This is the biggest issue right here. If minions consistently and competently attacked the proper target, minion masters would be a LOT stronger.

Out of curiosity, do minions attack your target if you summon them mid-battle? Or do they still randomly run off and check their instagram?

#Fleshgolemtrending

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Out of curiosity, do minions attack your target if you summon them mid-battle? Or do they still randomly run off and check their instagram?

#Fleshgolemtrending

Yes and Yes, it depends on the time of day, the number of warts on their back, and what their mood is.

I never have any problems with the shadow fiend, bone fiend, blood fiend, or flesh wurm being summoned mid battle, just bone minions and flesh golem.