Guild Wars 2

Very difficult to recommend a game when it has major features like minions broken since launch and that was years ago.

It seems somewhat doubtful, does it not?

Old systems don’t get fixed, but occasionally they do get replaced (it’s “cheaper” that way, apparently).

I know so many people that dont play ranger because of the pet AI, or quit the game due to it because they always main rangers. So many people dropped necro years ago and never picked it up again due to the awful AI.

Minion Master necro is a Joke, half your support skills dont work most of the time.

If its too hard to fix them, then at least re skin them and make them ranged, ranged ones seem to work okish.

Anet hasn’t figured out how to fix their broken pet/minion mechanics in 3 years, and I doubt they care any longer. Ele, War, and Engie are their “pet” classes which they continue to buff (used to be Guardians). Rangers (required to use idiot pets) and necros who have a choice will always be at the bottom of the barrel, so re-roll or accept it.

Apolo.5942:

Very difficult to recommend a game when it has major features like minions broken since lunch and that was years ago.

Well that’s not so bad.

Well that sucks. :/

My main is a Ranger and I love having a Pet besides me. If the Ranger class didn’t have the Pet system, I wouldn’t play it anymore. That said, it sucks if Pets aren’t working properly though and that’s why no one is playing the class. People say the best fix is to remove pets altogether and that infuriates me. But if it won’t be fixed normally, someone is going to lose out altogether.

I feel bad for necromancers as well as my alt necro who is a minion master. But I’m not hurt by it too much as the minions for necromancers aren’t what I was expecting. Tyrian Necromancers aren’t the standard bunch and that is fine, just not what I was looking for.

I get burnt down enough from Rangers siding on a ledge spamming RF enough. You’re population is just fine.

Necro minions are far worse in my opinion, Anet should just make sure when you attack that they attack too.

An official answer would be appropriate.

This has been an issue for a long time (since launch, with some of these bugs). If we haven’t gotten a response, or a fix by now, we’re likely not going to get one anytime soon. Even if they were working on it, we wouldn’t know because they don’t tell us what they have planned haha.

That being said, posting here in the HoT forum increases your odds of getting a response from them (that chance being 0 on all the other subforums).

Isn’t it cute when people ask for an official answer ?

Let me help you out, if they give you and official answer it will be to let you know they are aware of the issues and are working on fixing them, continue to give positive feed back !

Reality is, they have been fixing numerous things for the past three years according to them, and yet they’re all still broken.

They are broken since betas in early 2012 and will still be broken in 2022.

Minions? What minions? The closest thing I have are those swarms of angry birds I summon with the Runes of the Mad King when I trigger my low CD elite skill.

Wait, come to think of it there’s a flesh golem or something that stands around when I summon my birds, hm.

I wonder how hard that might be to give Necro ‘’Attack/Guard’’ command on F2/F3 slots

Blood Fiend and Bone Fiend seem to work just fine…
but when it comes to Flesh Golem/Shadow Fiend

Flesh Golem: ‘’Enemy is one step away from … oooh look, someone dropped a meatball’’

IMO Subordinates in general are not broken:-

• Ranger pets work fine (sometimes a greater degree of control would be nice)
• Mesmer illusions seem to work fine
• Elemental elementals work ok but perhaps could do with some buffing perhaps
• Necromancer minions seem to work ok (or at least as well as they did in the original GW)
• Other non-profession specific summons seem to do what they say on the tin but perhaps could do with a bit of buffing

All summons, minions, illusions are notionally primarily time limited attack multipliers and that is their intended purpose AFAIK. Given this, the current level of control of them is probably fine (assuming they only attack what the summoner targets or in self defence – c/f the original GW IIRC).

If specific support skills do not appear to be working as expected then there could be bugs for those specific skills but I have not noted any such problems myself yet.

WSG Delen.9203:

IMO Subordinates in general are not broken:-

• Ranger pets work fine (sometimes a greater degree of control would be nice)
• Mesmer illusions seem to work fine
• Elemental elementals work ok but perhaps could do with some buffing perhaps
• Necromancer minions seem to work ok (or at least as well as they did in the original GW)
• Other non-profession specific summons seem to do what they say on the tin but perhaps could do with a bit of buffing

All summons, minions, illusions are notionally primarily time limited attack multipliers and that is their intended purpose AFAIK. Given this, the current level of control of them is probably fine (assuming they only attack what the summoner targets or in self defence – c/f the original GW IIRC).

If specific support skills do not appear to be working as expected then there could be bugs for those specific skills but I have not noted any such problems myself yet.

You only think that because you see them as additive. For Rangers their integral….. and if you ask any class in the game, having something integral to your class being largely unreliable is the fastest way to having it side lined.

The reason Mesmer don’t care is because illusions are disposable, as well as ammo. They only need to survive the few seconds required to proc damage, then activate a shatter.

Eles don’t care because they only add to the already insane damage potential the class has. Their Elite skills are also the least crucial to their builds, giving them free slot for whatever seems useful.

But then you have the Necro, Guardian, and again Rangers. With a set of disposable minions which are designed as anything but, each has a build thats heavily marginalized because they require uptime to be effective, yet the core element of it has no inherent durability, and almost no option to significantly improve it.

Well they way they are working on enemy AI, my hope is that they extend that to the current AI (Ranger pets, Minions) and not wait waaaay after HOT to address long standing issues like this.

starlinvf.1358:

WSG Delen.9203:

IMO Subordinates in general are not broken:-

• Ranger pets work fine (sometimes a greater degree of control would be nice)
• Mesmer illusions seem to work fine
• Elemental elementals work ok but perhaps could do with some buffing perhaps
• Necromancer minions seem to work ok (or at least as well as they did in the original GW)
• Other non-profession specific summons seem to do what they say on the tin but perhaps could do with a bit of buffing

All summons, minions, illusions are notionally primarily time limited attack multipliers and that is their intended purpose AFAIK. Given this, the current level of control of them is probably fine (assuming they only attack what the summoner targets or in self defence – c/f the original GW IIRC).

If specific support skills do not appear to be working as expected then there could be bugs for those specific skills but I have not noted any such problems myself yet.

You only think that because you see them as additive. For Rangers their integral….. and if you ask any class in the game, having something integral to your class being largely unreliable is the fastest way to having it side lined.

The reason Mesmer don’t care is because illusions are disposable, as well as ammo. They only need to survive the few seconds required to proc damage, then activate a shatter.

Eles don’t care because they only add to the already insane damage potential the class has. Their Elite skills are also the least crucial to their builds, giving them free slot for whatever seems useful.

But then you have the Necro, Guardian, and again Rangers. With a set of disposable minions which are designed as anything but, each has a build thats heavily marginalized because they require uptime to be effective, yet the core element of it has no inherent durability, and almost no option to significantly improve it.

I find my Ranger’s pet durability perfectly fine (they are not immortal and I do not expect them to be but they survive well enough for the purposes I use them for in the main)… as for Necros/Guardians there are more ways to play them that do not rely on minions if you find the way that minions are implemented not fit for your particular play style.

If you have a square peg and it won’t fit in the round hole you do not change the hole to fit the peg you either find the right shaped peg or the right shaped hole.

I do not deny that there are at least some cases where minion behaviour/control could perhaps be improved but it is far from broken.

WSG Delen.9203:

starlinvf.1358:

WSG Delen.9203:

IMO Subordinates in general are not broken:-

• Ranger pets work fine (sometimes a greater degree of control would be nice)
• Mesmer illusions seem to work fine
• Elemental elementals work ok but perhaps could do with some buffing perhaps
• Necromancer minions seem to work ok (or at least as well as they did in the original GW)
• Other non-profession specific summons seem to do what they say on the tin but perhaps could do with a bit of buffing

All summons, minions, illusions are notionally primarily time limited attack multipliers and that is their intended purpose AFAIK. Given this, the current level of control of them is probably fine (assuming they only attack what the summoner targets or in self defence – c/f the original GW IIRC).

If specific support skills do not appear to be working as expected then there could be bugs for those specific skills but I have not noted any such problems myself yet.

You only think that because you see them as additive. For Rangers their integral….. and if you ask any class in the game, having something integral to your class being largely unreliable is the fastest way to having it side lined.

The reason Mesmer don’t care is because illusions are disposable, as well as ammo. They only need to survive the few seconds required to proc damage, then activate a shatter.

Eles don’t care because they only add to the already insane damage potential the class has. Their Elite skills are also the least crucial to their builds, giving them free slot for whatever seems useful.

But then you have the Necro, Guardian, and again Rangers. With a set of disposable minions which are designed as anything but, each has a build thats heavily marginalized because they require uptime to be effective, yet the core element of it has no inherent durability, and almost no option to significantly improve it.

I find my Ranger’s pet durability perfectly fine (they are not immortal and I do not expect them to be but they survive well enough for the purposes I use them for in the main)… as for Necros/Guardians there are more ways to play them that do not rely on minions if you find the way that minions are implemented not fit for your particular play style.

If you have a square peg and it won’t fit in the round hole you do not change the hole to fit the peg you either find the right shaped peg or the right shaped hole.

I do not deny that there are at least some cases where minion behaviour/control could perhaps be improved but it is far from broken.

I take it you dont actually play necro.

WSG Delen.9203:

starlinvf.1358:

WSG Delen.9203:

IMO Subordinates in general are not broken:-

• Ranger pets work fine (sometimes a greater degree of control would be nice)
• Mesmer illusions seem to work fine
• Elemental elementals work ok but perhaps could do with some buffing perhaps
• Necromancer minions seem to work ok (or at least as well as they did in the original GW)
• Other non-profession specific summons seem to do what they say on the tin but perhaps could do with a bit of buffing

All summons, minions, illusions are notionally primarily time limited attack multipliers and that is their intended purpose AFAIK. Given this, the current level of control of them is probably fine (assuming they only attack what the summoner targets or in self defence – c/f the original GW IIRC).

If specific support skills do not appear to be working as expected then there could be bugs for those specific skills but I have not noted any such problems myself yet.

You only think that because you see them as additive. For Rangers their integral….. and if you ask any class in the game, having something integral to your class being largely unreliable is the fastest way to having it side lined.

The reason Mesmer don’t care is because illusions are disposable, as well as ammo. They only need to survive the few seconds required to proc damage, then activate a shatter.

Eles don’t care because they only add to the already insane damage potential the class has. Their Elite skills are also the least crucial to their builds, giving them free slot for whatever seems useful.

But then you have the Necro, Guardian, and again Rangers. With a set of disposable minions which are designed as anything but, each has a build thats heavily marginalized because they require uptime to be effective, yet the core element of it has no inherent durability, and almost no option to significantly improve it.

I find my Ranger’s pet durability perfectly fine (they are not immortal and I do not expect them to be but they survive well enough for the purposes I use them for in the main)… as for Necros/Guardians there are more ways to play them that do not rely on minions if you find the way that minions are implemented not fit for your particular play style.

If you have a square peg and it won’t fit in the round hole you do not change the hole to fit the peg you either find the right shaped peg or the right shaped hole.

I do not deny that there are at least some cases where minion behaviour/control could perhaps be improved but it is far from broken.

This has gone far beyond “not your style”. There is a fundamental issue with summons in how they are made, and how they are expected to work, that don’t work with how the game actually runs.

Combat in this game is extremely mobile and snappy. We avoid skills with long cast times, or disproportionate uptime, because most PvP engagements last a few seconds, and most PvE combat relies on staggering active defenses and dodging, interfering with sustained damage strategies. PvE Mobs rely on abnormally high power and HP oceans to sustain themselves…. Without it they are even bigger pushovers then they are now.

Now imagine a lowly grawl warrior (not even Vet status) running up and whacking something with a respectable amount of HP…… now add the ability to explode it for a few hundred damage. Thats the Necro bone minion in a nutshell.

It has been a while since I have played a necro, but I do have a necro… however, that is generally irrelevant to the point I have been making.

The problem in general is player expectations IMO, I know players who do play a Necro and find it in general good enough for them.

Players may have dreams of leading an unstoppable hoard of undead minions but then that would be OP and unbalanced. The player is not GW2 Zaitan or even the GW1 Liche however they may want to be.

As I have stated in another thread, A-Net really need to use a rebalance scalpel across the board rather than keep using the rebalance chainsaw they seem to be fond of. And the impact on current Meta-builds should be thrown out of the window as a consideration, if it stops any given build from being OP then they are finally doing something right.

WSG Delen.9203:

Players may have dreams of leading an unstoppable hoard of undead minions but then that would be OP and unbalanced. The player is not GW2 Zaitan or even the GW1 Liche however they may want to be.

Dude, what What World Do You Live In? unstoppable horde of undead? i would settle for my melee minions (which mind you is half of them plus the elite) actually try to hit something that is 2 feet away instead of just standing there.

You talk balance, how could you possibly balance something that mechanically does not work half the time. It would be like trying to balance rampage if half the time you pressed your elite skill it did nothing and burned the CD.

I have seen minions behave appropriately in PvE thus the current situation is not as broken as some people try to make out… ever consider the problem might actually be network/server bandwidth related rather than specifically behaviour related? With heavily populated maps it may be the case that minions would stand around doing nothing (or perhaps doing no apparent damage) purely because the server can not respond fast enough.

It was occasionally a problem in GW1 and the situation is most likely alot worse in GW2.

WSG Delen.9203:

I have seen minions behave appropriately in PvE thus the current situation is not as broken as some people try to make out… ever consider the problem might actually be network/server bandwidth related rather than specifically behaviour related? With heavily populated maps it may be the case that minions would stand around doing nothing (or perhaps doing no apparent damage) purely because the server can not respond fast enough.

It was occasionally a problem in GW1 and the situation is most likely alot worse in GW2.

A- Never seen this problem in GW1
B- This is most apparent in pvp which is 5v5 so it is not population related.

Dude again, what game are you playing?.

PvP balance and PvE/WvW balance are completely different animals.

The vast majority of my play has been PvE with some WvW, in both cases minions seem to be behaving themselves appropriately.

Server load could still be an issue in PvP since I doubt every 5v5 session is running on independent hardware on the server side.

WSG Delen.9203:

PvP balance and PvE/WvW balance are completely different animals.

When they mechanically work, we can talk balance, this is not a balance discussion, this is a “i press the button and nothing happens” discussion.

Your entire contribution can be summed up as:
“I dont play Necro, let alone MM, but i have seen them work, thus despite of the generalized opinion that they are mechanically crippled im going to choose to believe that it is not that bad”.

WSG Delen.9203:

IMO Subordinates in general are not broken:-

• Ranger pets work fine (sometimes a greater degree of control would be nice)
• Mesmer illusions seem to work fine
• Elemental elementals work ok but perhaps could do with some buffing perhaps
• Necromancer minions seem to work ok (or at least as well as they did in the original GW)
• Other non-profession specific summons seem to do what they say on the tin but perhaps could do with a bit of buffing

All summons, minions, illusions are notionally primarily time limited attack multipliers and that is their intended purpose AFAIK. Given this, the current level of control of them is probably fine (assuming they only attack what the summoner targets or in self defence – c/f the original GW IIRC).

If specific support skills do not appear to be working as expected then there could be bugs for those specific skills but I have not noted any such problems myself yet.

minions in GW1 work allot better, they attack any and all hostile enemy close enough to attack, GW2 minions attack when they have the time in between searching for the player and standing still.
sure, Anet changed minions so they don’t attack any and all and don’t have an aggro range unless they attack but apparently they never thought of a player attacking the enemy, so while they were fixing the aggression of minions they also broke their willingness to attack.

I do actually play a Necro, and a MM one, just not played it in a while. Stop the “You don’t know what you are talking about” BS please.

Subordinates in general tend to attack what the player targets and sometimes attack things that attack the player. They may be ineffective in PvP for some reason but at least recently I have seen enough PvE minion behaviour to say with a decent degree of certainty that they do behave well enough in GW2 (at least for PvE).

After speaking with a friend who plays Necro alot more than me, they have confirmed my observations. The only thing of note wrt PvP is that Minions generally do not attack beyond a certain range and work better against larger groups. They also have a pal who plays PvP MM Necro and they do not have any issues.

I play a Necro MM, in PvE. The majority of the time, the flesh golem will not fight. It just stands there. Occasionally, the bone minions won’t fight and just stand around.

Yes, I generally win the fights, anyway, but it still isn’t right. For real hard fights, I can’t afford to have the flesh golem just stand there and pick his nose (or beak or whatever the heck it is). Yes, he does fight sometimes, but most of the time he won’t. This is not acceptable.

WSG Delen.9203:

I have seen minions behave appropriately in PvE thus the current situation is not as broken as some people try to make out… ever consider the problem might actually be network/server bandwidth related rather than specifically behaviour related? With heavily populated maps it may be the case that minions would stand around doing nothing (or perhaps doing no apparent damage) purely because the server can not respond fast enough.

And we see minions not behave properly, one anecdotal evidence does not invalidate another, it only attests to the inconsistency of the bug (which is why it has endured for so long, since it has an inconsistent trigger it’s difficult for devs to identify the problem). For some players (like myself), it’s really as bad as it’s made out to be – so much so that I even don’t bother with necromancer minions anymore.

To make things clear, I’m not observing this (lack of) behavior in situations where the server might be struggling (honestly, what kind of potato server would be unable to handle a few more mobs being spawned?) or the network might be congested, I’m watching my minions do absolutely nothing when they’re literally three feet away from the enemies that I’m actively fighting (and are downing me because I get no support and effectively have no utility skills) by myself. No big event, no hordes of players.

That being said, the flaw in your suggestion is that if it really was an issue with latency or the server, we would observe this behavior in the mob AIs as well, but we don’t: the only thing that breaks is the pet AI, the mob AI stays just fine and continues to beat us to death while the pets watch passively, there is never a situation where the reverse is true.

The rangers pet after the patch if you take BM and focus exclusively in pet durability, the pets get the needed survivability. However that doesn’t mean they are still good, thou better than necros minions.
The ones that talk here saying the rangers pet is “ok” is because they use the ranger only for PvE while if the play other modes the change to warrior.
The ranger’s pet is still very unresponsive. Most of the time does not follow the command (F2,F3) ot takes up to 5 seconds to operate. That to me seems like a bug.

Necro minions are simply broken. When a minion does not attack when is supposed to that’s the definition of bug. And necro does not have any other source of actually do damage its weapons are a joke.
I pointed out in other comment: bone minions seems to be working fine most of the time. I would get rid of the rest of the minions and change the minions utility skills to skills that buff the minions in some way (extra damage, transfer condis, sifon life…).
And make the bone minion skill to F2 and use life force for upkeep. F3 to explode.
That way the problem of having too many objects in game is solved because you will only keep them as long as needed and we have our small army when the situation requires it.

Like someone else said already: warrior, engie and ele are the Anet’s pets. Necro and ranger are the pariah of this game.
Would you like to play WvW, PvP, dungeons or fractals? Forget your necro or ranger, reroll or stay in general Pve content doing the same everyday. Otherwise you will be cast out (dungeons or fractals) because the class is to broken or killed without a fighting chance (wvw, pvp).

I don’t like when I’m told which play style or how i must play because i can’t use the character of my choice.. This game do that for us.

I think Necro pets work worse now In PvE some time they just stand and wath mobs
Same in PVP…
a year ago I used to have fun with Mmancer and it was ok wtf happened recently tried pets didn’t hit once…

Tristan.5678:

I think Necro pets work worse now In PvE some time they just stand and wath mobs
Same in PVP…
a year ago I used to have fun with Mmancer and it was ok wtf happened recently tried pets didn’t hit once…

Going back a while to when I first played MM necro, Minions would basically waltz in and attack everything and in at least some cases agro too much (not something I ever complained about personally). As I understand it, the agro issue resulted in the agro circles of pets/minions/summons being drastically reduced in order to avoid excessive agro which means that they need more direction wrt what they attack. As I understand it, this generally means only direct alpha/hit-based damage skills will typically trigger the command for minions to attack and if you do not use any alpha/hit-based damage skills then I suspect minions will just sit around and do nothing.

There are cases when I have observed momentary stationary behaviour from my own subordinates but in general this has been only during times of high server/network load – the root cause of such incidents may be moot where this discussion is concerned though.

My point is that if you expect subordinates in general to be a fully automated attack force then I doubt you will ever get this given the agro issues that some may have complained about.

Tristan.5678:

I think Necro pets work worse now In PvE some time they just stand and wath mobs
Same in PVP…
a year ago I used to have fun with Mmancer and it was ok wtf happened recently tried pets didn’t hit once…

Going back to original release, MM necro Minions would basically waltz in and attack everything and in at least some cases agro too much. As I understand it, the agro issue resulted in the agro circles of pets/minions/summons being drastically reduced in order to avoid excessive agro which means that they need more direction wrt what they attack. As I understand it, this generally means only direct alpha/hit-based damage skills will typically trigger the command for minions to attack and if you do not use any alpha/hit damage skills then I suspect minions will just sit around and do nothing.

There are cases when I have observed momentary stationary behaviour from my own subordinates but in general this has been only during times of high server/network load – the root cause of such incidents may be moot where this discussion is concerned though.

My point is that if you expect subordinates in general to be a fully automated attack force then I doubt you will ever get this given the agro issues that some may have complained about. In addition, you may need to reconsider how your build works if you barely use any alpha/hit-damage skills in conjunction with minions.

The “direct alpha/hit-based damage skill” that you talk about still usually doesn’t work. I have heard that before so I started to start all my fights with an auto attack. It didn’t improve the situation.

redcomyn.4651:

The “direct alpha/hit-based damage skill” that you talk about still usually doesn’t work. I have heard that before so I started to start all my fights with an auto attack. It didn’t improve the situation.

There is more to it than just start the fight with an alpha damage skill, you need to be continually attacking the target in question (that means user interaction not just hit 1 and leave it to work). There is a similar issue with Pets, and can be complications with the Ranger when using skills such as barrage which hit more than one target (the last target to take alpha damage is typically treated as the primary target).

Subordinate target control tend to work best with single hit target skills. That is not to say they do not work with multi-hit/multi-target-alpha skills nor that they will never attack other targets on their own volition (c/f target one member of a mob and they may start attacking the rest of the mob if agro’d to do so). Control of sub-ordinates is not always an easy thing but I reinforce the point that the situation is far from broken, it just has limitations.

WSG Delen.9203:

redcomyn.4651:

The “direct alpha/hit-based damage skill” that you talk about still usually doesn’t work. I have heard that before so I started to start all my fights with an auto attack. It didn’t improve the situation.

There is more to it than just start the fight with an alpha damage skill, you need to be continually attacking the target in question (that means user interaction not just hit 1 and leave it to work). There is a similar issue with Pets, and can be complications with the Ranger when using skills such as barrage which hit more than one target (the last target to take alpha damage is typically treated as the primary target).

Subordinate target control tend to work best with single hit target skills. That is not to say they do not work with multi-hit/multi-target-alpha skills nor that they will never attack other targets on their own volition (c/f target one member of a mob and they may start attacking the rest of the mob if agro’d to do so). Control of sub-ordinates is not always an easy thing but I reinforce the point that the situation is far from broken, it just has limitations.

Dude this does not work, you have stated already you dont play necro, and you are not suggesting anything necros have not tried for ages.
You can single target a dude/auto attack him, command the golem to charge, he will knock the dude down, move past him and stand there looking at the ground. All while you continuously single target damage him.

Why do you keep posting here, by your own admission you dont know what you are talking about.

@Apolo: I know ppl who play MM necro so it does work and as for me not playing necro, I suggest you read again… I have a necro char just do not play it often (and it is MM) – that is hardly not playing necro.

Yes, I do prefer my ranger and ele and with both I use subordinates (pets and elementals). The latter is closer to a MM necro than the former.

As for not knowing what I am talking about, that is BS. Both my own experience and the experience of friends and friends of friends shows that Minion behaviour does and can work – it is NOT totally broken as your OP states, it just does not work as some seem to expect.

If those complaining actually learned how MM Necro does work rather than complain how MM Necro does not behave as they THINK it should perhaps they would become better at it. If anyone does not know what they are talking about it is those that are complaining it is completely broken.

There may be certain bugs in the behaviours of subordinates but they are not totally unavoidable as some would seem to imply.

WSG Delen.9203:

@Apolo: I know ppl who play MM necro so it does work and as for me not playing necro, I suggest you read again… I have a necro char just do not play it often (and it is MM) – that is hardly not playing necro.

Will you please stop acknowledging you dont know what you are talking about and just stop posting here?.

Apolo.5942:

WSG Delen.9203:

@Apolo: I know ppl who play MM necro so it does work and as for me not playing necro, I suggest you read again… I have a necro char just do not play it often (and it is MM) – that is hardly not playing necro.

Will you please stop acknowledging you dont know what you are talking about and just stop posting here?.

The day I stop posting how much rubbish is being said will be the day that the rubbish is not posted.

I do know what I am talking about so stop saying I don’t… There is a difference between broken mechanics and broken expectations, the latter applies in this case.

This is not WoW and perhaps some should stop expect it to play like it.

WSG Delen.9203:

Apolo.5942:

WSG Delen.9203:

@Apolo: I know ppl who play MM necro so it does work and as for me not playing necro, I suggest you read again… I have a necro char just do not play it often (and it is MM) – that is hardly not playing necro.

Will you please stop acknowledging you dont know what you are talking about and just stop posting here?.

The day I stop posting how much rubbish is being said will be the day that the rubbish is not posted.

I do know what I am talking about so stop saying I don’t… There is a difference between broken mechanics and broken expectations, the latter applies in this case.

Wow, when the expectations are that they mechanically work, you must really set low expectations on everything.

Then again, you have admitted multiple times you dont know what you are talking about, so there is that as well.

Here is an idea, ill sell you a car, with a brake that works… sometimes.

@Apolo: I am sorry, I have admitted no such thing you don’t need to play necro 24/7/52 to know how something does or does not work. I would argue it is you who do not understand how the mechanics current does work and are claiming it does not work as a consequence.

There are lots of issues with this game, but Minion behaviour is far from the most serious of them.

Your opening post claims that minion behaviour has not worked since day 1 which is blatantly wrong. It does work just not as you might want it to… there is a canyon of a difference between what you are claiming as a sweeping generalisation (c/f your OP) and reality.

WSG Delen.9203:

If anyone does not know what they are talking about it is those that are complaining it is completely broken.

Except it is completely broken for some of us, you’re just plugging your ears and insisting we’re the ones doing something wrong while completely disregarding our experiences.

The simple fact is there is a bug in the AI that makes pets unresponsive, it’s likely the same bug that makes mesmer illusions not die when their target dies, but will remain idle until the target respawns and comes back within aggro range (you can find this happening in PvP dueling maps). Another example of the bug is the ranger pet bug from a year ago, where we had to constantly toggle Passive/Hostile in order to get them to attack new targets.

ANet has patched the AI several times and it’s much better than before, but the problem with necromancer minions is that – unlike rangers and mesmers – we don’t have the ability to command minions and force them to switch targets if this bug triggers; and unlike guardians and elementalists, our summons last long enough for us to notice the bug triggering.

To be fair, it’s not very constructive to say “pet AI is broken, fix it” without providing any feedback on what build we were using and the situations we were in when the AI broke, but neither is your insistence it’s not the AI’s fault that it breaks because we aren’t playing exactly as you assume we’re not playing.

Pandaman.4758:

WSG Delen.9203:

If anyone does not know what they are talking about it is those that are complaining it is completely broken.

Except it is completely broken for some of us, you’re just plugging your ears and insisting we’re the ones doing something wrong while completely disregarding our experiences.

The simple fact is there is a bug in the AI that makes pets unresponsive, it’s likely the same bug that makes mesmer illusions not die when their target dies, but will remain idle until the target respawns and comes back within aggro range (you can find this happening in PvP dueling maps). Another example of the bug is the ranger pet bug from a year ago, where we had to constantly toggle Passive/Hostile in order to get them to attack new targets.

ANet has patched the AI several times and it’s much better than before, but the problem with necromancer minions is that – unlike rangers and mesmers – we don’t have the ability to command minions and force them to switch targets if this bug triggers; and unlike guardians and elementalists, our summons last long enough for us to notice the bug triggering.

To be fair, it’s not very constructive to say “pet AI is broken, fix it” without providing any feedback on what build we were using and the situations we were in when the AI broke, but neither is your insistence it’s not the AI’s fault that it breaks because we aren’t playing exactly as you assume we’re not playing.

Eles do not have the ability to directly instruct their summons (outside of inflicting direct skill based alpha damage – auto-attack does not count unless the user presses 1 for each attack) either, that is not a bug and nor is it an AI issue technically.

Going back to GW1, the current situation in GW2 is pretty much mirrored from a subordinate direct control perspective (at least for Eles/Necros/Rangers).

I can’t comment on Rangers in PvP/WvW, but in PvE they have generally worked fine IME. I may have missed some of the issues that were introduced then fixed due primarily to having an enforced hiatus from the game for a certain period of time (details are unimportant now) but based on what I saw before the hiatus and after it the Ranger Pet control has always worked really (at least from an attack rather than do nothing perspective – when set to peace mode they are expected to do nothing).

Ok, so there is no F1 (subordinate target) skill like with the Ranger for the Necro, but I have rarely had a need to use it in combat (my alpha damage skills have been enough in the main). I have not missed the ability either for my Ele.

From what my friend who has played more experimental Necro than myself told me, there are certain equipment load outs that will not work well with a MM Necro build. They play a non-Meta-Build Necro and I discovered for myself a MM Necro setup that worked the way I expected and stuck with it in the main.

If a large portion of this fuss is over just not having a non-skill based way to order subordinates around for ALL professions then why not just say so? But the skill-based way does work in the main, assuming the alpha damage is low enough to not kill the target out right before the subordinate(s) get there. If the latter applies then perhaps the build is at fault and the usage of Minions/Subordinates should perhaps be re-assessed.

As for intermittent attack bugs with pet/subordinate AI, I have yet to encounter such an issue in PvE where I heavily rely on my pet in Combat when playing my Ranger. I am not saying there is not a bug, but it is far from as prolific and unilateral as some would seem to make out.

In addition, if the main of the gaming time for the players in question cover peak load times on the servers at A-Net (or peak local network load times) there could be other more complex issues in play that may or may not be directly related to subordinate control. Personally, most of my gaming time is probably non-peak load times which could be a significant factor (it could also be a red herring but only A-Net could really comment on that score).

WSG Delen.9203:

Eles do not have the ability to directly instruct their summons (outside of inflicting direct skill based alpha damage – auto-attack does not count unless the user presses 1 for each attack) either, that is not a bug and nor is it an AI issue technically.

Going back to GW1, the current situation in GW2 is pretty much mirrored from a subordinate direct control perspective (at least for Eles/Necros/Rangers).

[…]

Ok, so there is no F1 (subordinate target) skill like with the Ranger for the Necro, but I have rarely had a need to use it in combat (my alpha damage skills have been enough in the main). I have not missed the ability either for my Ele.

[…]

If a large portion of this fuss is over just not having a non-skill based way to order subordinates around for ALL professions then why not just say so? But the skill-based way does work in the main, assuming the alpha damage is low enough to not kill the target out right before the subordinate(s) get there. If the latter applies then perhaps the build is at fault and the usage of Minions/Subordinates should perhaps be re-assessed.

Elementalists don’t have five traits that deal specifically with their summons (only indirectly with a glyph trait), nor are their summons semi-permanent or (potentially) take up all the utility slots; if the pet AI breaks, it doesn’t affect them as badly as it does necromancers.

Speaking of which, this “fuss” isn’t asking for a command scheme for all classes. I only mentioned it to illustrate that mesmers and rangers have a workaround, don’t read so much into it.

I understand you’re trying to offer non-mechanical faults as an alternative to what you think the problem may be, but the problem is quite simply “we attack monster, pet watches us attack monster, pet literally (non-hyperbole literal) does nothing”. Unless one of our traits secretly and randomly makes out pets fall into a stupor, this behavior can’t possibly be related to builds.

As for intermittent attack bugs with pet/subordinate AI, I have yet to encounter such an issue in PvE where I heavily rely on my pet in Combat when playing my Ranger. I am not saying there is not a bug, but it is far from as prolific and unilateral as some would seem to make out.

Which is fair, I wouldn’t argue that this bug is so pervasive that I wouldn’t play any class with pet mechanics, but what you have to realize is that the pets for each class have different behaviors and thus interact with the bug differently. For guardians, elementalists, engineers, thieves, mesmers, asura, and charr their summons are short-lived enough that the bug either doesn’t trigger or we don’t notice it triggering; for rangers the pet AI resets states whenever you swap pets and have a way to manually force pets to act; necromancers have semi-permanent pet that can only reset states when re-summoned.

In my experience, necromancer minions stop attacking two or three fights after being summoned (tested with a condi staff/scepter-focus build and a power dagger-warhorn/axe-dagger build, so it’s not a question of using the “right” attacks), the only workaround for this would be to kill them after every fight and ensure they have a fresh state before every battle. I shouldn’t have to do that and that’s what makes the necro minion master a broken build for me.

In addition, if the main of the gaming time for the players in question cover peak load times on the servers at A-Net (or peak local network load times) there could be other more complex issues in play that may or may not be directly related to subordinate control. Personally, most of my gaming time is probably non-peak load times which could be a significant factor (it could also be a red herring but only A-Net could really comment on that score).

Like I said before, if this was a server load or network latency issue, we should be observing this behavior in mob AI as well, not just pet AI, but we don’t.

He either has magical necro that works or he is convinced that the behavior of the ai is as intended
But I’ve seen Those that think the unresponsive is as It should be
I’ve even seen these individual’s try to explain away the ai glichy minion behaviors as being coded that way on deliberate fixed delays before attacking. To that I cry bs
Anet has posted before that they know it’s an issue
That they are working on it and that it would require complete rewrite of the entire games ai system to fix as the bug was heavily intertwined into the system.
Do note how long it took to recode culling to fix that issue.

Also minion didn’t work like that on launch and only got worse with patches from time to time getting fix only to break next patch. They have been never reliable since “pets” got a fixed max range from player patched in. We all miss the days when even just taping a targeted skill instantly sent your minions after your foe

And currrently No skill functions any better than others to incite minions to ask, and yea even the minions active skills dont help
At times it may motivate some but half my minions will still sit there doing nothing for ages, most of the time. And then i will be Waiting for up to a minute at taking a target using any skill or combo of skills to try to get my minions to engage my foe. Frankly it is bs I’ve tried them all
I’m glad if even half engage my target and I am watching them and the combat log as I play.

best results ive even seen is with all combat assist option like target lock auto atk and prmote skill target and the others all unticked in the options then I get some improvement with marks. And yes this is during quite sever times. It’s Not a lag issue. The pet on ranger is way more responsive.

WSG Delen.9203:

redcomyn.4651:

The “direct alpha/hit-based damage skill” that you talk about still usually doesn’t work. I have heard that before so I started to start all my fights with an auto attack. It didn’t improve the situation.

There is more to it than just start the fight with an alpha damage skill, you need to be continually attacking the target in question (that means user interaction not just hit 1 and leave it to work). There is a similar issue with Pets, and can be complications with the Ranger when using skills such as barrage which hit more than one target (the last target to take alpha damage is typically treated as the primary target).

Subordinate target control tend to work best with single hit target skills. That is not to say they do not work with multi-hit/multi-target-alpha skills nor that they will never attack other targets on their own volition (c/f target one member of a mob and they may start attacking the rest of the mob if agro’d to do so). Control of sub-ordinates is not always an easy thing but I reinforce the point that the situation is far from broken, it just has limitations.

I said that I started with an auto-attack, I didn’t say that I stopped at that. I’m not going to attack just once, then sit back on my tush waiting for the minions to do everything.

Yes, it sometimes works, just not most of the time.

Dont bother, his point of view is essentially that he does not play necro, refuses everybody elses reality and substitutes it for his own.

They are asking us to buy an expansion with a core feature broken since launch, i think this merits an expressed commitment to fixing it by the expansion launch.

If you believe anyone on the team cares your sadly mistaken, any idea that may be interesting they throw out for their strive to make a better mmo. They chucked out underwater combat which was a big thing they pushed in this game? The threw out the idea of a progressive living world ? Which was promised at launch? So what will they do with minions and pets ? either take them out entirely, or ignore them because it doesn’t matter to them .