Guild Wars 2

So having played an E/N Minion/Cold damage build in PVE Guild Wars 1 I was pretty interested in running a dagger/focus melee minion master in this game (especially with the condition transfer/+Toughness per minion traits).
I see that in anything other than world zergs (not even great there) or solo play this is not viable due to minions being;

1. Stupid – They stand in damage they sometimes don’t attack at all.
2. Fragile – They drop easily to incidental AoE even with flesh of the master.

So how can they be fixed? One idea I had (and this also goes for Guardian’s Spirit Weapons as they used to be) is to make them take either no or vastly reduced damage from mobs (but not players) i.e. either make them immune to mob damage (a la the old Spirit Weapons) or give them very high mitigation vs. mobs (80-90% and reduce their damage to compensate) but not players (so they aren’t invincible in pvp).
Also perhaps make it that if they die to mob damage or when you get killed their cooldown is halved (so they only go on max cooldown on skill swap or when you use their activated ability).

Anyone else got any thoughts on how to make them work better in Dungeons/Fractals?

fragile how are minions fragile? Dumb yes but not fragile.

I have found in some instances that minions do seem rather fragile, which having been able to keep up a full troop and roll through most maps with my GW1 minion mancer, is sort of disheartening. My mesmer phants are much more hearty than my minions in a lot of instances.

Perhaps we need a dedicated minion heal (like blood of the master), or the return of some or verata’s skills to increase heartiness.

Maybe if the master is using a potion, apply the affects to the minions as well?

Beyond that, oh dear gods yes they need an AI fix. They are more bugged/stupid than spirit ai in gw1. sobs

I just hate the stand around problems they have. I tried using the black cloud yesterday for a few minutes, and not one fight in, he was standing over at the edge of the supply camp inspecting rocks. Im attacking, spamming things, getting attacked…. nope he is busy cataloging rock sizes.

As much as there are ways to make them work properly, using specific rules and attack chains or whatever, they are just not a viable pet for WvW at all. Were it not for the close points, the fact that incidental AOE sets them off, they wouldn’t work in PvP at all.

I would prefer pets that clip through the ground but are responsive, to pets that get confused by a gentle slope. My hope is the ranger pet fix will apply to minions as well tomorrow.

By GW2 standards, minions are not fragile, anymore, when traited.

I, too, hope the patch improves aggro consistancy.

Minions have more HP/toughness than almost anything except bunkers. In your standard all zerker PvE group your minions are going to be your tankiest party members, not to mention you can summon 6 of them on relatively short CDs. They aren’t optimal to use in some situations, but that has nothing to do with them being too squishy.

And AI has been a cycle. If you’ve been around for more than a few months, you’ll know that AI has been good, bad, great, awful, etc. it just goes in a circle as they fix then eventually break and fix again.

They need more smarts, to evade when the master does to avoid 1 shot mechanics, and Flesh Golem and Shadow fiend could use cleave-factor. Other than that minions are pretty okay.

One other thing I hope they fix in the patch is the fact that the minions dissolve in water. What is with that. Like water is lava for them. I can imaging rangers cry out if their pet would die in water? FIX PLEASE!

Flesh Golem is the one who has issues with water, and that’s just because he has no swimming animations, so water is basically an instant death zone for him (water deep enough to trigger swimming). Other than that you just need to make sure you have minions on both skill bars, otherwise its like changing skills with the minions out.

I do wish the timer for FG swimming-suicide were a few seconds longer to allow short forges across a stream. Otherwise, I am fine with only one elite underwater skill, for now.

I still want a largely-underwater coral adventure map with most of the PvE events requiring swimming. That fractal is one of my favorites even if it is darker.

I just whone report that update on 15.4.2014 DONT fix minions- they still work like before.
Meaby its to hard for them to fix this crap?
Good luck, bb

Minions are great, like Bhawb said, their AI was as good as perfect 1-2 months ago, but after a certain update they kindoff started slacking again, ignoring me fighting and just watching from sideline instead of helping

Reviewing the rune changes, some should give a nice boost to MM builds.

New offensive runes didn’t really change much, although there were some very slight potential buffs because of the proc go-over. Defensive runes however saw a number of good buffs. Water, Monk, maybe Dolyak (haven’t checked how it scales now), Melandru is still good, might be a few others I didn’t look at.

Without “Flesh of the Master” Minions are incredibly Fragile – even with it, Bone Minions are still pretty fragile. And all minions are very susceptible to AOE & Condition Damage – “Putrid Mark” used to be very helpful in ridding minions of conditions, until Putrid Mark was nerfed into USELESSNESS recently. So now afflicted minions just die quickly. Minions die so easily that I thought of suggesting that Death Nova be an automatic trait – at least make people pay for destroying the beasts. But, could you imagine the outcry if that happened?

Minions are ridiculously Weak – and they keep getting nerfed. Did you know “Training of the Master” used to give minions a 50% bonus to Minion Damage – but that has been Reduced by 50%!! “Protection of the Horde” used to give +50 Toughness – that has been reduced to +20 Toughness = a 40% reduction! “Haunt” is shown to be an instantaneous attack – but it isn’t; the Shadow Fiend seems to strain as if taking a dump for a second before it attacks. The Flesh Golem “Charge” is unbelievably unreliable – as it can get blocked by a pebble, uneven cobblestone, or a tree or the sheer corner or a building.

And their AI has never been great (esp. in PvP & WvW) – good would even be a stretch – but it was tolerable, until about a year ago. It is nearly intolerable now. Minions are UNBELIEVABLY Stupid – and they seem to have gotten stupider over time. They have serious issues in WvW, as they are easily lost & confused. Because of the layout in The Edge of the Mist, minions have great difficulty navigating. But they have the worst problems on some PvP maps, where they can be all but useless. The layouts with narrow bridges, doorways, ramps, stairs all bedevil the poor beasts, so that half of the pvp maps can be nightmares; countless times I have moved around a map & encountered a foe while my minions are lost & useless – leading to unbalanced, painful skirmish. The fact that minions are slow & lollygag makes navigating all the more impossible. Unbelievably, only One Weapon seems to get them to attack with any reliability – that being the dagger (no other weapon is an effective trigger) – having just one weapon to trigger them to attack is a serious & grievous flaw in design. Almost as bad as them not attacking who you want them to attack is the fact that they too frequently pick their own targets & attack them (thus putting them and YOU into combat, weakening them & weaken you because you do not have them).

One of the craziest things about minions is if you Reduce the Cooldown on your Minions, Minion Master still does not reduce the cooldowns on their secondary attacks. I think Necromancers are the only profession that is not given a reduced recharge on something that should have a reduced recharge time.

I still contend that we NEED an F–Button assigned to FORCE minions to attack/call target FOR THE MINIONS. They will probably never be smart enough to navigate some maps, but AT LEAST have them ATTACK who/what & when we want. The frustration felt at, after forcing a minion to attack [with Charge, Haunt, etc.] & having that attack succeed, then having that minion afterwards IGNORE the target that it just attacked is inexpressible & exhausting. Yet this has happened over and over and over and over again for over a year. If that is not a sign of broken AI, I don’t know what it.

Noble.3647:

Without “Flesh of the Master” Minions are incredibly Fragile – even with it, Bone Minions are still pretty fragile. And all minions are very susceptible to AOE & Condition Damage – “Putrid Mark” used to be very helpful in ridding minions of conditions, until Putrid Mark was nerfed into USELESSNESS recently. So now afflicted minions just die quickly. Minions die so easily that I thought of suggesting that Death Nova be an automatic trait – at least make people pay for destroying the beasts. But, could you imagine the outcry if that happened?

Minions have base 10k or 13k HP in sPvP untraited (roughly), and about 2100-2600 armor, again fairly standard. The average minion is about as durable as the average player, although obviously a player doesn’t just stand around eating damage.

In PvE, minions have base 17k or base 22k (again roughly), same armor. This makes them on average more durable than any player except those heavily invested in defensive stats (they have more HP and armor than the base a warrior gets). With added HP, they are significantly more durable than nearly any player build (again, assuming that player has no active defense).

Now obviously in practice players are far more durable, because they will actively avoid damage and have ways to actively or even passively block it, while minions do not on their own. However, players cannot just be summoned 6 at a time on a 30s CD either. So no, frankly minions are quite durable, even untraited, as long as you aren’t trying to fight a boss that has an AoE one shot mechanic or something similar.

Noble.3647:

Minions are ridiculously Weak – and they keep getting nerfed. Did you know “Training of the Master” used to give minions a 50% bonus to Minion Damage – but that has been Reduced by 50%!! “Protection of the Horde” used to give +50 Toughness – that has been reduced to +20 Toughness = a 40% reduction! “Haunt” is shown to be an instantaneous attack – but it isn’t; the Shadow Fiend seems to strain as if taking a dump for a second before it attacks. The Flesh Golem “Charge” is unbelievably unreliable – as it can get blocked by a pebble, uneven cobblestone, or a tree or the sheer corner or a building.

I’m sorry, are you quoting beta here? Because since launch all of your actual numbers are inaccurate, unless I totally missed a patch somewhere (I’ve been playing minions since BWE 2 I believe), and I find that highly unlikely that I missed something major about minions.

Noble.3647:

And their AI has never been great…

Again the basis is not entirely true. They have had amazing AI at points, and bad at others. Its a cycle. You get used to it, it sucks, but it happens.

Noble.3647:

One of the craziest things about minions is if you Reduce the Cooldown on your Minions, Minion Master still does not reduce the cooldowns on their secondary attacks. I think Necromancers are the only profession that is not given a reduced recharge on something that should have a reduced recharge time.

This is not how the trait is intended to work. You get 20% reduction on the summon skill, otherwise it’d be pretty insanely strong.

Noble.3647:

I still contend that we NEED an F–Button assigned to FORCE minions to attack/call target FOR THE MINIONS. They will probably never be smart enough to navigate some maps, but AT LEAST have them ATTACK who/what & when we want. The frustration felt at, after forcing a minion to attack [with Charge, Haunt, etc.] & having that attack succeed, then having that minion afterwards IGNORE the target that it just attacked is inexpressible & exhausting. Yet this has happened over and over and over and over again for over a year. If that is not a sign of broken AI, I don’t know what it.

Its called using a skill. When their AI is functional, they begin to attack at the beginning of the channel of any targeted skill (with maybe the slightest delay as they get moving), when untargeted AoE damages something, or when either they or you take damage. There is no need for a force attack button once they eventually fix the AI again.

With the exception of withstanding AI bugs, and a very slight nerf to TotM/Vampiric Master (although vampiric master has been bugged for so long I don’t remember if it has actually been nerfed much in comparison to the Vampiric buffs), minions have been consistently improved and buffed since launch.

It’s not fair to say minions are as durable as players. They stand in any and every Aoe, never evade and don’t have a big self heal. Nor do they have constant boons/class mechanics supporting them. They die WAY faster than players. I mean they should, but they’re still pretty squishy in terms of being stupid. A single GS2 from a guardian can take out both bone minions and bone fiend and the. Gs4 and they’re basically all dead.

I wish we had a more active way to protect them from predictable aoes, including boss mechanics.

(In pve they have much higher hp, mobs are just as dumb as minions, so no comments there.)

The AI is never going to be good enough, lets make them 90% reduce AOE damage so they don’t die in 1 second

Flesh Golem still seems lost, in fact I felt even more so. At least rangers has an attack command for their pet – same thing you could argue with the charge command but u have blow it just for the golem to attack properly.

Weren’t we supposed to get an underwater shark golem?

Rennoko.5731:

I tried using the black cloud yesterday for a few minutes, and not one fight in, he was standing over at the edge of the supply camp inspecting rocks. Im attacking, spamming things, getting attacked…. nope he is busy cataloging rock sizes.

You summoned the ghost of an Asura!

Bhawb.7408:

Minions have base 10k or 13k HP in sPvP untraited (roughly), and about 2100-2600 armor, again fairly standard. The average minion is about as durable as the average player, although obviously a player doesn’t just stand around eating damage.
In PvE, minions have base 17k or base 22k (again roughly), same armor. This makes them on average more durable than any player except those heavily invested in defensive stats (they have more HP and armor than the base a warrior gets). With added HP, they are significantly more durable than nearly any player build (again, assuming that player has no active defense).

Where are you getting your minion stats? Just curious.

Bhawb.7408:

Now obviously in practice players are far more durable, because they will actively avoid damage and have ways to actively or even passively block it, while minions do not on their own. However, players cannot just be summoned 6 at a time on a 30s CD either. So no, frankly minions are quite durable, even untraited, as long as you aren’t trying to fight a boss that has an AoE one shot mechanic or something similar.”

I think the main difference here is that you seem to do more PvE than PvP & WvW. I do more WvW & PvP than PvE. Playing against real players (not AI) makes minions more fragile than you are acknowledging [some pro players are like mini-bosses] – notably when minions go against players who do massive AOE damage &/or Condition Damage. For instance, an Elementalist or Warrior or Engineer can obliterate all minions near them (or in a close area) in just a few seconds, and then, as you say, you are minionless for some 30s – having essentially wasted all of your skills.

Bhawb.7408:

Again the basis is not entirely true. They have had amazing AI at points, and bad at others. Its a cycle. You get used to it, it sucks, but it happens.

No, it IS Entirely True, largely because “great” is subjective. But since you insist on saying minion AI has been great, I would like more information to help me understand your point.
- When was the last time minions had “great” or had “amazing AI?”
- Will you say that minions have been “great” or had “amazing AI” regardless of the main weapon you used?
- Will you say that minions are as Equally effective in PvP or WvW as they are in PvE?
- Have you ever FORCED a minion to attack a target & then had that minion ignore the target thereafter?

You also conveniently ignored their issues with terrain & the fact that they pick their own targets – have you tried running with minions on any of the newest PVP maps?

Bhawb.7408:

You get 20% reduction on the summon skill, otherwise it’d be pretty insanely strong.

Um, no.

The recharge rates on some minions are about as long as the recharge on their secondary attack, so, if you use the secondary asap, and then the minion dies just before the secondary recharges, you now have to also wait for the minion to recharge again. Thus, in essence, you have just doubled (or more) the time it takes for you to use that secondary; e.g., minion secondaries can easily have a 40s cd for SF, 70s cd for BF, 80s for FG.

By far the stupidest recharge is on the Bone Fiend which itself has a 30s recharge (24s traited), but its secondary (Rigor Mortis) has a whopping 50s recharge, longer even than the Flesh Golem’s (which is an elite). So, IMAGINE you use Rigor Mortis as soon as you summon BF, and it is about to recharge when BF dies – that means you could have to wait 78s to 72s in between uses of Rigor Mortis. Would that make Rigor the longest non–elite recharge in the entire game?

The recharge rate is not even the worst thing about the minion secondary attack – the worst thing is how it frequently it misses players. I mentioned the problem with Golem’s Charge above, but it & the other attacks FREQUENTLY fall short, because we have No Way of knowing if the MINION is in range. If I am within attack range, shouldn’t the Golem Charge & SF Haunt be as well? They both have ranges of 1,200. But, no. Minions tend to lollygag, so they are not as close as you are – this is especially true if you are giving chase. I don’t even want to think about the times that I have been in range & yet seen my Golem’s Charge pull up just short of the target (not to mention the fact that it frequently fails because of terrain). But Bone Fiend is the worst culprit because it is Immobilized just before making the attack – making it totally useless when giving chase, which is ironically the time when you need it most.

Bhawb.7408:

Its called using a skill.

What?

Bhawb.7408:

When their AI is functional, … once they eventually fix the AI again.

Again? How long have we been complaining about minion AI? When was the last time that you thought they had “great” AI (with any/all weapons)?

Noble, Bhawb has been around for a VERY long time and is still the LEADING minion expert on the forums, take a look back =P

Also, minion AI was great BEFORE the marionette, I had been full minion master before said patch and my minions worked just fine. After that patch they lost complete pathing intelligence, forcing them to stand in one place and jerk around. this was also the patch where bone minions upon summon would attack the nearest neutral mob, look through my topic history, I actually made posts about it explaining and reproducing the bugs. =P

Bhawb also did Minion HP tests both in the mists and out when they took their 75% HP buff in PVE I actually responded to the topic explaining it. =P

I’ve been around since BWE 2 or around there, and I have played minions since then in PvE, WvW, and sPvP. I’m basically only known for my minion knowledge, which I’d consider second to none (with the one exception being ronpierce, who might have better in game experience at least in PvP, and is a better player than I).

I have tested minion stats multiple times myself. I used to have a notebook with every meaningful stat (DPS, DPS with any traiting, VM HP/s, armor, HP, aggro distance, attack speed, and back when their AI was a bit weird I had a list of all their aggro behaviors). All utility minions have approximately 10k HP in sPvP, with bone minions sharing that pool (5k each). Blood/Golem have 13k. In PvE that value was increased by 71% a while ago, plus obviously the 50% increase trait. Minion armor also ranges from 2100ish to 2800ish. So from simply a statistical basis, they are base as tanky as light/medium classes who haven’t heavily invested in defensive stats, and are a bit below a, say, Soldier stat Warrior.

I literally said that minions weren’t as durable… and you countered with they aren’t as durable? Okay? I admitted in practice they aren’t as durable since they don’t avoid damage. However you can’t just summon 6 light-medium classes every 30 seconds either. Grenade engineers, trap rangers, and hambow warriors are really the only builds that are commonly used that basically hard counter minions due to the brainless AoE spam they can put out. I’ve stood toe to toe with the old D/D ele bunkers that used to crap AoE all over, I’ve wrecked plenty of builds that have AoE, and I’m not even that good of a player. Its a matter of knowing what you’re doing as an MM (in a standard minion setup, unless you’ve screwed up your positioning only shadow fiend and flesh golem are in meaningful danger from PBAoE, bone minions deal their highest DPS with dying anyway).

I don’t recall the specific patch that messed it up, I had basically quit playing much for quite a while. At launch minion AI was fine, super insanely murder-everything-that-moves aggressive, but it worked. A while after when they killed the aggression they had very weird aggro rules that included stuff like needing to use two targeted skills in a row. After that minions became pretty unresponsive for a while, then it was amazing for a while where they would start attacking at the beginning of the casting of any targeted ability. If you used untargeted AoE they’d simply attack once you hit something. Minions are better in sPvP than they are in PvE. In PvE they are subpar utilities you really only ever want to use to compliment a full berzerker glass DPS build, since they give you and your group crutches. In WvW they are good for dueling and roaming, and very small fights. Also good in full MM zergs, but otherwise I wouldn’t take them against many people.

Yes I’ve had them deal with terrain issues. You’re supposed to be a minion MASTER, not a minion “kitten why aren’t they doing what they are supposed to”. Part of that includes learning the specific terrain issues. If flesh golem’s charge would have sent him off a cliff, he often bugs, same thing can happen if you are summoning minions during a fight but not making them aggro. And yes aggro works equally with all weapons, however newer players struggle with some like staff or dagger, because for a while dealing damage and using a targeted ability was necessary, both of which can cause issues in those weapons.

Again, minion MASTER. If you don’t know where your minions are why do you expect them to just magically fly to their target without fail? Bone Fiend has a guaranteed 4s immobilize that can easily lead into nearly 15s of hard CC just from you. I’ve secured kills with it all the time because it has such awful telegraphs (barely existant) that no one sees it, even other MMs. Charge is also super easy to land if you’re paying attention. If the minion’s active misses you have no one to blame but yourself. You can even complain about terrain issues, but when you pick that skill you also take responsibility for how it works as is in game right now. If you can’t play MM right now because its too buggy or hard, then don’t. Feel free to try to get it fixed, I’d love to see it done, but the reality is that MM gameplay, and general AI gameplay, is 90% knowledge, positioning, awareness, and use of the minions.

They had great AI a few times, the most recent a few months ago. I didn’t write the day in my diary, but it wasn’t that long ago.

Edit: I can literally go on forever. I have made hundreds and hundreds of minion posts and I’ve done specific testing in game where I did nothing but sat down with a notebook, the wiki, and sometimes a stopwatch to test minion stats and behavior. In this one single area of the game I am confident in my knowledge completely and totally.

I don’t know if this has been said or not.

But it would be nice if they gave Necros the ability to control their minions much like a ranger can control his pet. (Too make it simple the commands would work on all minions as one – much like a hive mind) Pretty Much – Attack and Return to Me

Dreaminspace.2638:

I don’t know if this has been said or not.

But it would be nice if they gave Necros the ability to control their minions much like a ranger can control his pet. (Too make it simple the commands would work on all minions as one – much like a hive mind) Pretty Much – Attack and Return to Me

Its unlikely. They’ve said they don’t want to blur the lines between Ranger/other minions.

A bit offtopic but I think I heard that Blood Fiend’s passive heal was fixed so that it is now affected by healing power. Can anyone confirm it? Thank you.

Pregnantman.8259:

A bit offtopic but I think I heard that Blood Fiend’s passive heal was fixed so that it is now affected by healing power. Can anyone confirm it? Thank you.

It doesn’t scale. If it did scale then it’d be significantly stronger, since according to the tooltip it should heal for 1.4k per hit (just a bit shy of 500 HP/s).

Dreaminspace.2638:

I don’t know if this has been said or not.

But it would be nice if they gave Necros the ability to control their minions much like a ranger can control his pet. (Too make it simple the commands would work on all minions as one – much like a hive mind) Pretty Much – Attack and Return to Me

Might sound a bit bizarre, but I wouldn’t mind seeing minion skills which don’t actually summon minions, but buff them or change how they act- A bit like a ranger’s shouts.

/sarcasm on/
Nah, the minions don’t need fixing! They’re doing everything for the player so I honestly don’t know what you guys are talking about… (Credits go to this guy who figured it out… see attachment)
/sarcasm off/

On a more serious note:
The minion master is quite strong IMO but I do agree that the minions need to be fixed.
To clarify: I don’t want them to be OP or leeching health like millions of mosquitoes, I rather have some minions that I can use more strategically but wouldn’t run blind into various sources of pain and agony.
Edit:
I agree with Bhawb absolutely considering the use of the minions. I have seen so many MM Necros spam their abilities while their minions were miles away from them. As a MM Necro you need to be fully aware of your surroundings else you’re gonna fail almost always…

Aside from bug fixes and obvious stuff to just make minions act as they are supposed to, they just need to make sure the playstyle is always about the active part of the minions (like how Bone Minions are absolutely awful if you can’t land Putrid Explosion), and away from just stuff that happens by keeping them out.

I’d also love to see increases in types of playstyles, since right now there is only really one valid playstyle and just a few variations of it.

^- InExcusable -^
- Elite minion die’s if wet, not even just despawns but full CD!
- Minions upscale champions/events as if they were a player each.
- Minions AI is totally broke again. (4 minions 5 fights, 1 attacked once)

^- Gripes -^
- Even when minions were at there ‘best’ AI.
> You could still shoot a pice projectile (Staff/Tallented Blast etc) and they would all pick a different target to attack.
> Invisi walls bug’s with not fighting if there was a rock/some invisi wall. Can and do get abused by players in PvP, making them kite around not actually attacking.

-Not even a ‘come back’ button. Meaning they WILL lava bath/stand in ick. Even using ‘Transfusion’ to heal them, you can’t get them to come in range of heal. (Follow players kiting them in pvp/keep you locked in combat-moving slow when walking around world.)

-Full CD when res in PvP. Elite being a full 1min. (I can’t even think of a MMO since Ultima Online that dose this)

-Fragile fix’s in the past, have just been to give them more life. This doesn’t help with all the 1 shot mechanics in the game. Most modern games have a max life taken per hit, as well as reduced AoE dam. This allows for more ‘balance’ in combat. As it stands minions are either immortal – boring when it’s easy, then 1 shot every time the going get’s tough and you actually could do with minions.

-Combo Finisher. Minions or a chance to proc on staff Auto-Attack. (Or 1 long CD staff)

-Ferocity HUGE double dip nerf on minions. First a BASE dam drop to all minions, not by crit dam, but just flat full nerf. But then, a nerf to the trait to give them more dam that is again, flat all kitten erf nothing to do with crit.

- Vamp Master. Using Siphon heals has always been a joke with necro, and this was the only one that was sort of viable. Anyway, what makes me feel ‘dirty/cheap/unfair’ about this is, minions don’t scale with gear. But the MAIN use (As heals nerfed to a joke) is to get more damage out of your minions, by stacking power on your gear. What’s dirty about this, is it works like a condition avoiding mitigation but still being direct damage.

I think one of the worst thing about minions is that when the mesmer uses his transformation skill to turn you into a Moa, they all just die. I mean that is like a 1 skill class destruction. Shouldnt work like that IMO. If they turned into Moas as well that would be kinda funny.

Pride.1734:

I think one of the worst thing about minions is that when the mesmer uses his transformation skill to turn you into a Moa, they all just die. I mean that is like a 1 skill class destruction. Shouldnt work like that IMO. If they turned into Moas as well that would be kinda funny.

Its technically a bug, same with all pure transformations. The issue is that when you turn into something else, it literally replaces your entire skill bar. In the case of minions, when you replace a minion skill with something else, it dies and goes on full CD. Similar to why signet passives don’t work as well.

An issue, certainly dumb and annoying, but not necessarily intended.

Has this issue allways existed? Any statement from Anet? Will this ever get fixed?

Minions are pretty strong if not for the AI and Pathing issues. I have tested many time and with spamming attack buttons while being attacked the minions stand around and do nothing. Sometime even doing nothing when commanded to use their skills.

I think they need to have the AI fixed, gain some more stats of the necromancer and shadowfiend needs a complete reworking.

Bone minions should also heal out of combat like others finaly do.

Pride.1734:

Has this issue allways existed? Any statement from Anet? Will this ever get fixed?

Yes. Yes. Probably. I don’t expect its a very high priority though.

Anyone got a link to that statement?

Pride.1734:

Anyone got a link to that statement?

It happened within the first 3 months or so after launch. The tooltips were changed to reflect them acknowledging the fact that it exists. No idea if I could find a statement with this amazing (cough) search function we have.

I’ve been playing since BWE 1, but [like you, I guess] I have been playing a Necromancer since BWE2 – specifically, I have played a Minion MASTER since then. I have logged >2,842 hours as a Necromancer [though I only have 2 of them], with c. 2,371h of that being a Minion MASTER. So it is not a stretch to say few, if any, have played a Minion MASTER more than I have [in GW2].

In addition to the 2 professions that we agreed upon which present problems for minions, and your trap rangers, I’ll add staff Elementalists (who can also obliterate minions in just a few seconds). Thieves & Mesmers don’t mess with the minions, usually, because they can go into stealth, & so, losing the minions, get to the Necro directly. My problem with D/D Eles is they run – and I usually cannot keep up (especially if they are good about cleansing). Generally, I do not set up like a bunker on a point (when you seem to be implying about your placement comment); instead I roam & that is where I lose the minions (they do not stay as close as they should or even as close as they used to); some maps being much worse than others.

I agree minions were much better at launch, though a bit too aggressive; sadly I could not really test them in WvW (as my server had queues of several hours), but they worked well enough in PvP – and they broke combat more quickly.

Bhawb.7408:

Minions are better in sPvP than they are in PvE.

Here I strongly disagree. In PvE Minions any weapon can trigger minions to attack, even at a range of 1,680, far beyond the reach of any necro weapon – and this trigger will cause the minions to attack about 80% of the time. This triggering mechanism does work nearly as well in PvP, and certainly not at such a great distance. Also, in PvP minions are more likely to not attack at all.

Based on the tests that I ran recently in WvW & PVP [against other players] (which would seem to corroborate my previous experiences), minions fail to attack [within the first 3s–5s of a fight] about 30%–40% of the time. Terrain can cause them to attack far less frequently (if they refuse to round a corner, for instance), and using only the #1 attack to trigger them to attack seems to decrease the percentage as well. Additionally, they do not attack at all somewhere between 5% & 10% of the time. Oddly, minions seem to have a more difficult time making the initial attack against NPCs (such as enemy sentries) than they do against beasts.

For you to say that “Minions are better in sPvP than they are in PvE,” makes me wonder if you are being a bunker, because the less you move around, the fewer problems you have. But, being a roamer, I can say with certainty that minions get lost far too easily, especially on some PvP maps.

You don’t understand the issues with terrain very well. The main problems are 1) they do not keep up, and 2) they pick their own target/do not always fight who/what you want them to (which often contributes to point #1). And being a “MASTER” should INCLUDE COMMANDING them to ATTACK when you want them to Attack, & to STOP Attacking/Come to me when you do not want them to attack – that is simple logic: the ability to “control” is in the definition of “master.” Thus, you literally cannot really be the master of something brainless that has crap for AI. That has been my point all along – AI needs to be better/we need to have more “control” over what they do.

Bhawb.7408:

If the minion’s active misses you have no one to blame but yourself. You can even complain about terrain issues, but when you pick that skill you also take responsibility for how it works as is in game right now.

Those an asinine statements and totally ignore the issues with terrain. Perhaps you do not understand the point that I was making. If you want to accept the blame for every glitch in the terrain, go right ahead. But I have LITERALLY seen the golem miss because it got stuck on an uneven cobblestone, yes uneven cobblestone, and on the tiniest of rocks; I have seen it miss because it was in a small, nearly imperceptible divot in the terrain. It has also missed because it could not “charge” straight up a path or stairs that it was just walking up – which is completely illogical. Moreover, your implication that before making a minion attack you should do a full 360° degree view to determine the minion’s perspective, to see if it can make the attack cleanly, makes absolutely no sense & is a waste of valuable time. Even Phantasms walk around to get a better attacking position, even going around corners to do so. Minions, however, are not even that smart.

Bhawb.7408:

They had great AI a few times, the most recent a few months ago.

Again, opinion. Your great is my tolerable. I would bet many more players would side with me in saying they have never been great, but rather tolerable to good at best.

There was a month or two where minions instantly attacked and stayed on target… This was also before the vampiric master nerf the minions went back to the only way and I still think it was a stealth nerf to mm vamp soldier builds that in the hands of any player was good, in the hands of a good player you were godlike.