Guild Wars 2

Look, I’m sorry that minion AI is “bad”, but if you’re filling your bar up with minion abilities, you’re asking to make your Necromancer be terrible, regardless to how responsive they get in combat.

All of the Fiend minions are bad, none of them bring anything to the table you can’t do better with weapon skills or other utilities.

My only hope is Protection of the Horde gets removed from the game and we never again see any mechanic that incentivizes wasting every single precious utility slot on such dismal skills.

Actually if they improve the ai and change the current way the health/damage is implemented so that it scales based on player stats it would function ok… The active abilities are good for some of the minions it’s just in most pve situations they are to squishy…. In spvp they are just obnoxious due to being all over the place you usually die to condition damage from the necro who is in the middle of them… Only time they are obnoxious is on any melee built class because of the bone fiends active while out. Flesh worm gives a decent turret type attack and stunbreak/teleport to safty active…

Honestly the way you worded your post makes this sound like a QQ thread so you may wanna think your post through a bit more in the future… Give what you don’t like about it and what you think needs changed and whatnot.

In my eyes, Flesh Wurm is the perfect minion. More of them should take after Flesh Wurm.

Every minion has their advantages, bone minions have pretty good damage from explodes, wyrm has good damage output + retreat option, golem has good hp + cripple + knockdown, as for others I agree that some of them need some tweaks like bone minion should immobilize faster of instantly, not wait for next shot when enemy is already out of reach and well shadow minion is fine with it`s blindness option and basically is all rounder…but could be better=)

The fiends in particular stand out as bad to me. I like the minions that reward you in different ways and can be fit into non-minion builds. Flesh Wurm, Bone Minions, and Golem all present that.

My real problem is taking the rest of your slots and throwing them away for an inconsistent blind and immo, and then taking a heal that’s totally dwarfed by the monster that is Consume Conditions.

I think once the AI will be debugged, MM build will be a beast.

I did run one for 2 weeks in WvW, and it wwas efficient. I could burst some people down with bone minions. But it was unreliable. kitten AI!

I agree tho that fiend are really weak. Bone fiend is just too slow firing, and you have a long cast time to activate it. You have to be use a spell that will only immobilize 5 sec later, if it ever land. Not sure landed 10% of them in WvW. 5 sec later, most people are out of reach for our slow kitten scorpion.

Shadow fiend is a tank, so right away it’s bad for WvW. You need damage, not tank. With the 50% hp traits , they rarely ever die anyway, except in AoE fest. At least his ability cast time is instant, but it still has a 2 sec wind up for using it.

Edit : Ho and I forgot about blood fiend, it got buffed but it stills not on par with other heal.

CC is our best heal, as it cover both our Cond removal and big instant heal. If traited for it, the well of blood AoE heal for a bunch, can be targeted and can siphon heal.

Our blood friend only pro is short cooldown with traits (16 sec). But you have to cast it, hope it doesn’t die in 2 hit, maybe get 600 hp from auto attack. You consume it, and it heals for a pretty low amount if you compare to others. Ex : it will heal for around 4k on activate, while CC can heal for like 7k and remove cond.

But hey, during the fight, you might need to use it again for an emergency heal! So you have to summon it again with a long casting time, and consume it right awway. Double casting time, for a weak heal.

Necro got really good heals, so even if blood fiend isn’t that bad, it still not used by most necro.

Except maybe pve.

Kardiamond.6952:

I think once the AI will be debugged, MM build will be a beast.

I did run one for 2 weeks in WvW, and it wwas efficient. I could burst some people down with bone minions. But it was unreliable. kitten AI!

Agreed, as I’ve mentioned a lot of times before, MM has a great potential, even with all bugs and stuff I handled really well in pvp(when minions were actually doing something)

Kardiamond.6952:

Bone fiend is just too slow firing, and you have a long cast time to activate it. You have to be use a spell that will only immobilize 5 sec later, if it ever land. Not sure landed 10% of them in WvW. 5 sec later, most people are out of reach for our slow kitten scorpion.

Though I would say that bone minion have good damage by itself.

Shadow fiend is a tank, so right away it’s bad for WvW. You need damage, not tank. With the 50% hp traits , they rarely ever die anyway, except in AoE fest. At least his ability cast time is instant, but it still has a 2 sec wind up for using it.

Good point, doesn’t really help being able to instant cast, when usually you need to blind immediately to avoid heavy punch.

Our blood friend only pro is short cooldown with traits (16 sec). But you have to cast it, hope it doesn’t die in 2 hit, maybe get 600 hp from auto attack. You consume it, and it heals for a pretty low amount if you compare to others. Ex : it will heal for around 4k on activate, while CC can heal for like 7k and remove cond.

I’d say that blood fiend is addition for MM for such traits like +toughness and take away conditions.

@Abigor

“Though I would say that bone minion have good damage by itself.”

Talking about bones fiend or bones minions? :P Bones fiend damage isn’t bad yeah, sadly it hard to say right now as it doesn’t attack half of the time.

But yeah, it’s more about the activate that is really bad.

About blood fiend, sure it gives you 20 thoughtness, and can work with some traits. I tried it many time in pvp/wvw, I wanted to use it. But no, If I want to remove condition, I will ether use the staff #4 or CC heal.

sorry for interrupt

I have never tried mm necromancer at all, and I just pick up some minion and wander around as I am bored. I don’t know if it is called “fixed”, but, other then the golem, most of the minion (didn’t try shadow) will stand still until I start attacking some mob, or if it is being attacked (no response when other minion or I am under attack). Golem will seek nearby aggressive mob (red name one) and beat it, but will also stand still when there are only neutral mob (yellow name one) around. While my friend told me that mm always bring him some new friend in GW1, I think is acceptable.

I cannot say it is perfect now as I also noticed some situation that even bone minion would not response to, namely when a newly summoned wolf is under my attack, but it only happened once. Still, grateful if some mm necro can try and see if there is a (partly) ninja fix on the mm AI issue.

Kardiamond.6952:

@Abigor

“Though I would say that bone minion have good damage by itself.”

Talking about bones fiend or bones minions? :P Bones fiend damage isn’t bad yeah, sadly it hard to say right now as it doesn’t attack half of the time.

Sorry, my bad=) yes you got it right I was meaning bone fiend.

About blood fiend, sure it gives you 20 thoughtness, and can work with some traits. I tried it many time in pvp/wvw, I wanted to use it. But no, If I want to remove condition, I will ether use the staff #4 or CC heal.

Not to mention you have to spend 30 points in blood magic to be able to remove conditions and that still didn’t work as good as I thought it would be. Maybe if our minions damage or survivability would rise the more minions we had under control, then it would be nice to have it as an addition to the horde=)

I fully agree that since they do not follow our commands like a ranger pet does the cooldown should be based on last cast instead of on death. having the cooldown tied to the pet would imply we had some soul tether to it. Although i would much prefer to just have basic pet commands. One thing i was thinking about and was tempted to post on the suggestion forum was the possibility of ArenaNet making specific utility restriction changes for minions, turrets and summon lesser elemental. While some minions/turrets have their uses, not all of them are needed or preferred all the time. I personally don’t like shadow fiend. It would be nice to have the option to run 3 bone fiends, 3 bone worms or (traited) 9 bone minions to give that feeling of gw1 and a small disposable army. A true necromancer wouldnt have creation restrictions.

@Khailyn

6 bones minioins (not sure where you take 9? from reanimator?) would be so crazy, aka OP. :P

By making them explod, you can hit for around 2-3k each if it crits. that’s between 12-18k burst only from those.

Without putrib explosion, and without any other damage from staff (since activate from bone minion is instant cast) and the combo field.

Khailyn.6248:

Although i would much prefer to just have basic pet commands.

Even logically – Hunter pet listens to command since it’s trained, Engy and use device to switch how turret works, Necro minions literally obey the master and have no will whatsoever.

I personally don’t like shadow fiend. It would be nice to have the option to run 3 bone fiends, 3 bone worms or (traited) 9 bone minions to give that feeling of gw1 and a small disposable army. A true necromancer wouldnt have creation restrictions.

5 golems! jk that would be nice too, don’t even think that would we OP for any class, but then again you can make some penalties the more skills of the same type you have. And then again it’s not gw2 style, so I think this will never happen)

Dakiaris.2798:

Actually if they improve the ai and change the current way the health/damage is implemented so that it scales based on player stats it would function ok… The active abilities are good for some of the minions it’s just in most pve situations they are to squishy…. In spvp they are just obnoxious due to being all over the place you usually die to condition damage from the necro who is in the middle of them… Only time they are obnoxious is on any melee built class because of the bone fiends active while out. Flesh worm gives a decent turret type attack and stunbreak/teleport to safty active…

Honestly the way you worded your post makes this sound like a QQ thread so you may wanna think your post through a bit more in the future… Give what you don’t like about it and what you think needs changed and whatnot.

Anet has already tried the “scale off of stats” thing and found minions to be ridiculous without being traited into, so they decided to give them flat stats and the current trait system.

Once the AI is fixed they’ll be fine in PvP, however in PvE some bosses need mechanic changes for them to be viable. Mostly bosses who scale the number of AOEs based on allies rather than players.

@ Kardiamond
i’ll call my bad on that one. during the BWE there was a trait that allowed for 3 summons instead of 2. but anyways.. perhaps it would seem a little overpowered to have 6 bone minions but i dont believe any more than engineers spamming grenades in volleys. I don’t want any 1 profession to be op. I really dont. I brought up this suggestion for the sole purpose of having a little more variety in playstyles.
As striker said the AI needs a rework before they can be trusted in boss battles, which really sucks to put it bluntly since I came from gw1 into gw2 as a minion master. At least in another game which I shall not mention the title, my demons at least were direct able and did what i told them too. making them quite an asset in the hands of a skilled player. When I see other necromancers running around with all 5 minions out to me it just looks.. tacky.

@Khailyn

Yeah I think I remember that traits. It should have stayed Bones minions bombing!

I would be so happy to have my Minions working!

I tend to agree. I’d much prefer having more minions versus +% damage/health traits. The increased minion number just seems like it would be so much more fun.

However, I’m willing to bet that if we had more minions out at ocne the AI would become even worse. Once the AI is fixed I’ll then feel the desire to beg for more minion traits.

Ikr, Shadow Fiend cant do one single blind ohhh wow !

I actuly like shadow feind and worm

i think shadow feind should have a 2 second fear (op you say ) hell no rangers have 3 second fears with shorter cooldowns

the best way to use minionmancers is to gather up 20 of them, make them go full minions (6 per toon) and do a necro-zerg through a BL and win out of sheer client render lag. since it would be about 120+ things in a group, most of them wouldn’t even render to the screen. think about it… a cloud of invisible necros…

now with stealth!

and 20 charging golems. everyone just lie down.

Shadow Fiend is terrible, the others are ok. In pvp you can make it easier to spike players who interupt your minions instead.

They work better on condition builds, vampire builds and certain axe builds. (Vulnerability + Minion damage +30% can add up, plus they I think can benefit from the spite trait that increases all damage by 20% on a player with 50% or less hp)

You have to think of them as attacks and not pets really, like long duration dots.

I do say though Shadow Fiend needs buffing, as is its a waste of space I use well of darkness instead.