Guild Wars 2

I know this is the opposite of what most everyone else here is thinking but I have to say it. I support Moa destroying minions.

Here’s why…

*It discourages using 5 minion skills at once
– Most (all?) people just sit with all their minions out. This is hard for me to put down into words, so bear with me, please. Most every other build in the game requires timing for skills to be effective, MM with all minions does not.
- A skillbar completely filled with the same type should not be as effective as diversifying at least a little.

• Hardcounters aren’t necessarily bad
  – Sure, it sucks to be at the bad end of a hardcounter, but they help keep certain builds from being too powerful or common.
  – Mesmer has few other alternatives for killing MM’s. I remember people here telling others that MM was a hardcounter against the OP Mes builds post June 24, it might not be that lopsided but MM holds its own very well.

Feel free to flame.

While o think your argument is valid, I don’t think that Moa should counter necromancer as harshly as it does compared to every other class. Moa lets you finish off a low health target in DS, by removing DS entirely for its duration, in addition to ending transforms and killing minions.

That’s simple too much necromancer specific countering in one skill. Ending transforms is fair, and the DS issue is complicated, since we don’t want a moas infused with death and hatred scourging Tyria in Moa shroud. Other classes aren’t shut down as much by Moa. The only other thing I can think of that comes close to the level of overall hardcounter is forcing removal of stone heart on a staff bunker ele, or rending war/engi rampages, which is more justified considering how strong rampage is and how strong stone heart can be in some scenarios.

I just feel that Moa counters necrosis more than other classes, which is a bit much in my opinion.

Also you’re worried about MM necro becoming too strong in 1v1s without the Moa hardcounter. I wouldn’t be concerned with this since the whole point of the build is to be extremely strong 1v1 but laughably bad in teamfights due to being countered by the cleave present on most decent team compositions, that even cleric heals can’t help with.

MM does indeed require skill. You need to manage your livelyhood ((Your minions)) because if those little buggers go down you better hope to god the enemy team doesn’t notice. And any good Minion Master worth their salt uses those minions AND their abilities. An afk MM is easy noob bait for soemone running up to a point but if that MM doesn’t use his skills effectively against a skilled opponent that’s a dead MM.

Contrary to popular belief a MM is using quite a few minion abilities, they are not simply sitting on his hotbar. But in that same sense we could look at anyone using a full signetbuild as piggybacking off the passives, sure they don’t go into a fight with disposable pets and you may at times burn these signets. But they are still letting an ability sit passively on their bars and reaping the benefits.

Now it may be late, but I can’t off the top of my head think of an instant and automatic hardcounter/shutdown for any other class combo. Though I am sure if there is I will be corrected. MM to my knowledge was the only one that had two separate classes instantly shut him/her down and take them out of the fight for an extended period of time.

Lastly, do remember this was a bug that has been ingame since launch it was not a proper gameplay mechanic. Anything that transformed you would break your minions period, even tonics, hell the jumping pads at Tequatle break your minions. To a varying degree the mesmers clones rezzing hostile downstates would have been amazing to keep and completely broken against the mesmer, much like instantly popping an entire spec with a single ability was completely broken and is now being fixed.

Thats complete BS. Minions are very weak when used alone, furthermore we have to invest 3 entire traits to make our minions remotely good, we need another traitline to make them somewhat durable. You cant invest all of that for just one or two minions on your bar.

Apart from that minion actives are just outright bad on their own. They combo well together but are not nearly as effective as other utlility skills in a vaccum.

We could also use a skill that removes all stealth, putting the stealth skills on full cooldown, or canceling all shout effects on full cooldown, or the same for all mantras, signets glyphs or traps in that regard.

Minions as concept, only works as a whole. With all traits, and most of the skills as minions. I wish it would be different, i would LOVE to only have one single potent Minion trait, and minions with a decent use apart from minion builds like Fleshworm is, to make us able to use single minions when the situations needs them, or when a build can benefit from them, with the option of still going full MM without being overpowered, but as it is you need to invest traits, utlility and elite skill, as well as gear to make this build work, all of this should never be countered by a single click.

One way to diminish the negative side is to reset all minion skills, so they can be usable right after Moa end.

As the expert MM Bhawb said & I agree with him , afk MM is a bad one . MM build ( specially reaper MM ) require more skills than any other one because you need to pay attention to 10 minions + yourself instead of just yourself ! . You should use your skills according to each minion situation. Using blood/death/reaper traits will make MM the tankiest class in GW2 , specially with cleric/soldier gear. I really hope that Anet change all transformations in the game so they don’t destroy our minions.

meow one twenty.4376:

I know this is the opposite of what most everyone else here is thinking but I have to say it. I support Moa destroying minions.

Here’s why…

*It discourages using 5 minion skills at once
– Most (all?) people just sit with all their minions out. This is hard for me to put down into words, so bear with me, please. Most every other build in the game requires timing for skills to be effective, MM with all minions does not.
- A skillbar completely filled with the same type should not be as effective as diversifying at least a little.

• Hardcounters aren’t necessarily bad
  – Sure, it sucks to be at the bad end of a hardcounter, but they help keep certain builds from being too powerful or common.
  – Mesmer has few other alternatives for killing MM’s. I remember people here telling others that MM was a hardcounter against the OP Mes builds post June 24, it might not be that lopsided but MM holds its own very well.

Feel free to flame.

I think most people dislike it, because it doesn’t just counter it. It kicks you when you’re already down.

When you get moa’ed you:
a) Lose your minions, which is a prime source of your damage.
b) Lose all benefits they give you (toughness, condi clear, death nova.etc)
c) Lose your utility skills / minions for a long while, even after you come out of moa.

Now I’m fine with moa countering point A. But a necro just gets punished too hard.
You lose all your utility skills for several seconds even after moa ended. Assume you got moa’ed on a point and you decide to disengage. Now you’re out of combat and you can do jack for the next 15-60 seconds.

As for your points:

- Most (all?) people just sit with all their minions out. This is hard for me to put down into words, so bear with me, please. Most every other build in the game requires timing for skills to be effective, MM with all minions does not.

That’s not how it works. Minions might to a lesser degree miss some timing based aspects (Although you still have minion abilities you need to time). But they make up for that in Minion Management.
You can’t just summon 5 minions and send them off to attack something and it’ll get destroyed. That’s maybe how MM works in solo PvE or in low MMR PvP, but not when things get a bit harder.
You need to be aware of their position; standing on top of your bone fiend will make sure your dps minion gets cleaved down in no time.
You need to be aware of their health. You are their master and their caretaker. A well timed transfusion can be the difference between losing 3 minions or not.

You see, where MM loses out on some “timing based skill” that other utilities bring, they have to make up for that in “pet management skills”.

You can’t NOT have your minions out when all the traits force you to have most of them out. You get your sustain through them being there (condi transfer / toughness / CC / etc).

- A skillbar completely filled with the same type should not be as effective as diversifying at least a little.

Normally I would agree with you. A build, especially in PvP, needs to think about hitting certain checkboxes to work well. You can’t just load up with 3 offensive utility skills and be done with it.

Minions are slightly different again.
First of all there is the trait synergy to think about. Every minion extra, is extra toughness for you, is extra condition transfer for you, is an extra death nova.
On top of that minions are soft of designed around having them out as they fulfill different roles by themselves.
You have an elite that can CC, you have minions that blow up for burst and debuffing, you have a fiend that snares people and deals good dps. A wurm that lets us teleport for increased mobility and disengage. Soon we will have a shout that doubles as a defensive cooldown.
Minions are designed to go all in on, more or less; although there are plenty of MM builds that sacrifice a minion slot for something more useful at that point in time.

Between this and Lich-Moa transform, I’m starting to believe this birds are supposed to be necro arch-nemesis. Are they gods of life in disguise?

meow one twenty.4376:

- Most (all?) people just sit with all their minions out. This is hard for me to put down into words, so bear with me, please. Most every other build in the game requires timing for skills to be effective, MM with all minions does not.
- A skillbar completely filled with the same type should not be as effective as diversifying at least a little.

This is flat out ignorance. Just because you don’t understand how to play MM or how its played doesn’t mean the build should have this kind of interaction. Let’s say you are right for a second (you aren’t), then MM should be nerfed, not have two very specific skills that hard counter the build, with nothing else that can deal with it.

Also the idea that you should be actively punished for stacking skill types is stupid.

meow one twenty.4376:

• Hardcounters aren’t necessarily bad
  – Sure, it sucks to be at the bad end of a hardcounter, but they help keep certain builds from being too powerful or common.

This also makes no sense. Hard counters don’t make sure that builds aren’t too common, they make sure builds are unplayable in some matchups. Soft counters are great, things like Signet Necro being a really strong soft-counter to boon heavy builds because of its heavy corruption is great because it not only provides some cyclical balance, but soft counters can be outplayed through skill. Things like Diamond Skin guaranteeing a win against any condition reliant build is stupid and bad game design.

meow one twenty.4376:

- Mesmer has few other alternatives for killing MM’s. I remember people here telling others that MM was a hardcounter against the OP Mes builds post June 24, it might not be that lopsided but MM holds its own very well.

The overall matchup doesn’t matter. No skill in the game should completely disable your build. If Moa Morph put every single skill you had in every single build on full CD you wouldn’t even try to argue this point. If you were going around on your well Necro, got moa’d, and all of a sudden every well you placed down was erased and all your skills were put on full CD you wouldn’t be here arguing this. It is literally just out of ignorance over MM “taking no skill” that people think this is okay.

I’m just hoping that ANet understands game design better than that.

Little flaw with your theory OP. The reason people keep all the minions out, is the traits affecting them reward us more with more minions actively fighting (vampiric traits, whorde toughness, and any death novas they may proc). Minion cast time is far too long to rely on pulling them out “at the right time”. Your argument would hold water if minions had instant cast times- or at the least, drastically lowered ones, and more creative on command minion skills. And having a single skill in the game destroy that whole build in one low-skill click of a button is imbalanced. What makes it even more imbalanced is that the minion skills do not begin cooldowns until after the moa is over which means not only did that one skill remove our whole build, it also put it on an extra global cooldown after the effect is over. My argument is not remove moa-minion slaughter, it’s a decent counter, but remove the after-transform cooldown side effect and reduce minion cast times to either be closer to underwater versions or instant. THEN and only then will moa be balanced against MM’s. I said this years ago, and not at all surprised the same problem still exists….

Okay, I’m not so impaired right now. Hopefully that means I can communicate better this go around! Here we go.

Bhawb.7408:

meow one twenty.4376:

- Most (all?) people just sit with all their minions out. This is hard for me to put down into words, so bear with me, please. Most every other build in the game requires timing for skills to be effective, MM with all minions does not.
- A skillbar completely filled with the same type should not be as effective as diversifying at least a little.

This is flat out ignorance. Just because you don’t understand how to play MM or how its played doesn’t mean the build should have this kind of interaction. Let’s say you are right for a second (you aren’t), then MM should be nerfed, not have two very specific skills that hard counter the build, with nothing else that can deal with it.

Also the idea that you should be actively punished for stacking skill types is stupid.

I already mentioned that it was hard for me to describe what I meant at the time, but first, wow the bitterness is real! MM is like Turret Engie and the old Spirit Ranger. They all have all their skills active at all times (healing notwithstanding), before a fight, during a fight, and after a fight they are there. Basically what I’m saying is that, Minions are always there and always attacking (with improved AI, pre-fix this would be no argument…afk minionfest). Turrets and Spirits should have the same fate as Minions to Moa, but neither have any presence in PvP right now. Had Moa countered Turret Engie we would have had a great Engie>Thief, Thief>Mesmer, Mesmer>Engie triangle.

Name another build that (hasn’t been nerfed that) stacks 5 skills of the same type and remains effective. The reason for all these different skills is so that you have tools for different jobs. You put all your eggs in one basket and then cry when all your eggs break.

meow one twenty.4376:

• Hardcounters aren’t necessarily bad
  – Sure, it sucks to be at the bad end of a hardcounter, but they help keep certain builds from being too powerful or common.

This also makes no sense. Hard counters don’t make sure that builds aren’t too common, they make sure builds are unplayable in some matchups. Soft counters are great, things like Signet Necro being a really strong soft-counter to boon heavy builds because of its heavy corruption is great because it not only provides some cyclical balance, but soft counters can be outplayed through skill. Things like Diamond Skin guaranteeing a win against any condition reliant build is stupid and bad game design.

“Hard counters don’t make sure that builds aren’t too common, they make sure builds are unplayable in some matchups.” They do both. There were few high level Mesmers Pre-June 24 because Thief obliterated Mesmer, that much is irrefutable. That ends this little argument.

meow one twenty.4376:

- Mesmer has few other alternatives for killing MM’s. I remember people here telling others that MM was a hardcounter against the OP Mes builds post June 24, it might not be that lopsided but MM holds its own very well.

The overall matchup doesn’t matter. No skill in the game should completely disable your build. If Moa Morph put every single skill you had in every single build on full CD you wouldn’t even try to argue this point. If you were going around on your well Necro, got moa’d, and all of a sudden every well you placed down was erased and all your skills were put on full CD you wouldn’t be here arguing this. It is literally just out of ignorance over MM “taking no skill” that people think this is okay.

I’m just hoping that ANet understands game design better than that.

If I throw all my Wells down on someone and they teleport away while invuln, isn’t that the same effect as having no skills? If I use all my skills at once who am I to complain that they all go away at once? And yes, summoning your Minions is using your skills, they just have a subset of skills as well.
_________________________________________

Minions SHOULD be recharging as soon as they are destroyed, I believe that 100%.

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

As the expert MM Bhawb said & I agree with him , afk MM is a bad one . MM build ( specially reaper MM ) require more skills than any other one because you need to pay attention to 10 minions + yourself instead of just yourself ! . You should use your skills according to each minion situation. Using blood/death/reaper traits will make MM the tankiest class in GW2 , specially with cleric/soldier gear. I really hope that Anet change all transformations in the game so they don’t destroy our minions.

Lol I sure hope an AFK player is a bad one.

And as a note to everyone else who keeps telling me that “MM takes skill.” Uh, yeah. Look through my history and I have never said the words “X takes no skill,” because it is true that for everything performed by any number of people at any time in history there are varying degrees of skill. That in itself would prove contradictory to say “there is no skill involved.”

I don’t play MM, but I main Necromancer and know how it works. Unless the MM is very very good it is not hard to counter – especially with the kind of AOE Mesmer has, and if they are just sitting behind their minions they are as good as dead. It is ironic though that of all the classes that could use some help against the rare good MM… Mesmer is at the bottom of the list due to its abundance of AOE.

Group fights can be a bit hectic though and I can understand the anger there… but Mesmers are just as cluttered and distracting as MM if not more in group fights. Moa shouldn’t be in the game to begin with… and MM is hardly an excuse for it being so powerful.

It is in the game however, so I would make MOA break on all damage except for conditions, shatters, phantasms, and ground targeted AOE. Still pretty powerful especially in 1v1 but not as game changing. It allows the Mesmer to temporarily remove a player from the fight in a 1vX and allows them to focus on other players. The only reason I would have conditions, shatters, phantasms, and ground targeted AOEs still do damage is because it would otherwise be useless.

Alternatively it could just cancel all forms and put all utilities on cool down.

A compromise? Moa still destroys all minions but resets the summoning cooldowns. That way if necro survives being moa’ed they can at least re-summon and re-engage without waiting up to a minute.

Zania.8461:

A compromise? Moa still destroys all minions but resets the summoning cooldowns. That way if necro survives being moa’ed they can at least re-summon and re-engage without waiting up to a minute.

The best thing would be consistent behavior. As it is now only Necromancer summons are affected by transforms. Turret Engineer can drop turrets and not only Transform without any of the turrets being desummoned, they can also interact with and pick up turrets while transformed. Necromancer is the only profession in the game whose summons are despawned like this. So whatever happens needs to happen across the board.

Realistically, I don’t think there is any reason minions need to be desummoned. 10s without any protection from the MM is more than enough time for the minions to be “singled out” and killed, if that is what the Mesmer wants to do. However, if we have to “accept” some kind of desummoning, then all summons should be desummoned by Moa, on any profession, and then reappear next to their summoner (or in the case of ground targeted ones where they were placed) afterwards.

@OP

Do you play an Elementalist? Ok… do you use cantrips? Ok.. how many? 4. ok.
Now…. how would you feel if another class used an elite skill, and put every. single. one. of your cantrips on cooldown? Yes, this includes Armor of Earth, Lightning Flash, Mist Form, Ether Renewal and Cleansing Fire, and I guess Tornado. All of those would be put on a max cooldown – yes, your stunbreak and heal skill too. Feels good, right?

Do you play warrior? Oh, ok. Do you use shouts? Maybe stances? How would you feel if another class used an elite skill which puts every single shout you use on cooldown? Every single stance on cooldown? Your stun breaks? All of your cleanse?

Same with shout guardian – all shouts on a cooldown. No more stability, no more cleanse, say bye bye to every trait associated with your utilities.

Same with meditation guardian.

Well… that’s literally what Moa does to a MM Necro. There’s literally no argument that what it does is legitimate…. 3 years after the game came out.

Minions both in GW1 and GW2 are intended to be used as horde of mindless creatures attacking everything and giving different buffs and debuffs.

Zania.8461:

A compromise? Moa still destroys all minions but resets the summoning cooldowns. That way if necro survives being moa’ed they can at least re-summon and re-engage without waiting up to a minute.

I suggested the same thing 5 post earlier, read before post

Problem isn’t mesmer moa , it’s engineers moa.

Played a match against 3 MM necros yesterday….nuff said. Seriously though was really annoying. I agree to leaving moas killing minions. Mes is ok since it’s high cd also maybe they could slightly increase engi moa skill cd and slightly decrease cds for minions.

Lyger.5429:

Played a match against 3 MM necros yesterday….nuff said. Seriously though was really annoying. I agree to leaving moas killing minions. Mes is ok since it’s high cd also maybe they could slightly increase engi moa skill cd and slightly decrease cds for minions.

If MM is annoying, it needs to be addressed on its own. You shouldn’t have to rely on getting a Mesmer/Engi on your team with the moa skill in order to deal with them if they are actually overbearing.

If minions in their current capacity are too strong, they should be adjusted through actual game mechanics, not gimmicky things like bad AI or unintended skill functionality. With that being said, I’m not sure that I understand the OP’s point about them always being there – isn’t that what distinguishes them from relatively useless summons like spirit weapons or elementals? The fact that they’re always present (unless killed) makes it possible to integrate them into an actual build that plays around them, instead of constantly waiting for the summon skills to come off cooldown.

Also, I’m pretty certain that most minion masters take Consume Conditions over Blood Fiend and thus have only four same-category skills. Some other effective builds that run four of the same skill type include cantrip staff elementalists (not affected by the upcoming nerfs to fire magic), meditation guardians, and survival rangers.

Edit: Are you saying that minions differ from other heal/utility/elite skills in that they’re permanently available and providing passive support, as opposed to more conventional skills that need to be activated for immediate short-term benefits? If so, I think that’s a valid distinction, but you also have to take into account the drawback that minion masters can be locked out of their utility/elite skills by randomly cleaving them down (I’m not actually sure if it’s optimal to run with full minions – some of the more bunker-y builds I’ve fought took Well of Darkness to help sustain their minions on point). It’s also more difficult for minion masters to turn around losing fights or escape disadvantageous situations – whereas more active builds might be able to pull off those clutch invulnerabilities or blinks, minion masters are stuck with out-sustaining enemies. If they lose too many minions, they’re essentially kittened.

I don’t play MM much and I don’t have an opinion on whether Moa should destroy minions or not. However, I find your arguments very unpersuasive.

meow one twenty.4376:

*It discourages using 5 minion skills at once
– Most (all?) people just sit with all their minions out. This is hard for me to put down into words, so bear with me, please. Most every other build in the game requires timing for skills to be effective, MM with all minions does not.
- A skillbar completely filled with the same type should not be as effective as diversifying at least a little.

I don’t see any reason which this should be the case uniformly across the game. Putting aside that good MMs don’t take Blood Fiend (or so I’ve heard), build diversity is a good thing. MMs play the game a bit different from everyone else and that’s a good thing. There’s nothing inherently problematic with a profession filling their bar with one skill type, particularly when it’s a skill type with abundant counterplay.

As for whether MMs don’t need to time their skills or not, well that’s just flat-out wrong. Each minion has an active skill, after all, and few of them are particularly good when spammed.

meow one twenty.4376:

• Hardcounters aren’t necessarily bad
  – Sure, it sucks to be at the bad end of a hardcounter, but they help keep certain builds from being too powerful or common.
  – Mesmer has few other alternatives for killing MM’s. I remember people here telling others that MM was a hardcounter against the OP Mes builds post June 24, it might not be that lopsided but MM holds its own very well.

Hardcounters are terrible and the fewer of them there are in the game, the better. Soft counters are very healthy for the game and they allow a meta to evolve, but hard counters result in two situations: either the countered profession is too powerful overall and needs the hard counter to keep it in check (in which case teams lacking that hard counter are at an unfair disadvantage), or the countered profession is balanced without the presence of its hard counter, in which case opposing teams that can hard-counter it have an unfair advantage.

Neither situation makes for good games or a healthy meta. Soft counters still give you room to play around advantages in a game-by-game manner, which means even though you’re presented by a challenge, it may be possible for you to overcome that challenge. That optimism, that ability to hope for victory in any circumstance, is crucial to avoiding frustration, and there is no surer way to drag down a game mode than to wrack it with frustration.

If Moa put EVERYONE’s Signets all on cooldown, then I think there’d be a case for Necro minions popping. But as it stands its entirely too situational of an interaction and it punishes one family of builds excessively.

Nike.2631:

If Moa put EVERYONE’s Signets all on cooldown, then I think there’d be a case for Necro minions popping. But as it stands its entirely too situational of an interaction and it punishes one family of builds excessively.

It doesn’t even put other profession’s summons on CD, it is only Necromancer minions that have this transform interaction.

When you swap utilities, the minion dies, and when you are Moad, technically you “swap utilities” because you got no utilities as a Moa… so I guess it counts as if you swapped your utilities to something else and the minions die… but come on -_-

They mentioned that they did this because of some PvE transform issues (probably your guy transforms into something and they didn’t want you to be able to summon minions and then transform, and keep the minions). I’m not sure what’s causing so many issues to make minion-deaths not happen with just Moa tho (and I guess Plague and Lich, but those were fixed).

MethaneGas.8357:

@OP

Do you play an Elementalist? Ok… do you use cantrips? Ok.. how many? 4. ok.
Now…. how would you feel if another class used an elite skill, and put every. single. one. of your cantrips on cooldown? Yes, this includes Armor of Earth, Lightning Flash, Mist Form, Ether Renewal and Cleansing Fire, and I guess Tornado. All of those would be put on a max cooldown – yes, your stunbreak and heal skill too. Feels good, right?

Do you play warrior? Oh, ok. Do you use shouts? Maybe stances? How would you feel if another class used an elite skill which puts every single shout you use on cooldown? Every single stance on cooldown? Your stun breaks? All of your cleanse?

Same with shout guardian – all shouts on a cooldown. No more stability, no more cleanse, say bye bye to every trait associated with your utilities.

Same with meditation guardian.

Well… that’s literally what Moa does to a MM Necro. There’s literally no argument that what it does is legitimate…. 3 years after the game came out.

I don’t play any of those classes. I also explained why Minions are different than all those things (they are currently active) and said I believe currently active skills from other classes should have the same fate as Minions. Turrets, Spirits, possibly Mantras, should all go on cooldown as soon as you are moa’d.

mazut.4296:

Zania.8461:

A compromise? Moa still destroys all minions but resets the summoning cooldowns. That way if necro survives being moa’ed they can at least re-summon and re-engage without waiting up to a minute.

I suggested the same thing 5 post earlier, read before post

I would actually like to propose a trait that competes with a current MM trait that would reduce cooldowns on Minions by, let’s just say… 10% for every minion on cooldown. So, with one of my other acknowledgements (Minions should begin going on cooldown as soon as you are Moa’d) + you get up to a 50% recharge bonus to constantly help you sustain keeping Minions up, but you have to give up something like the extra damage or the Condi transfers. It would help MM’s get back in the fight without making Moa pretty much useless, and force compromises.

Torqiseknite.1380:

Edit: Are you saying that minions differ from other heal/utility/elite skills in that they’re permanently available and providing passive support, as opposed to more conventional skills that need to be activated for immediate short-term benefits? If so, I think that’s a valid distinction, but you also have to take into account the drawback that minion masters can be locked out of their utility/elite skills by randomly cleaving them down (I’m not actually sure if it’s optimal to run with full minions – some of the more bunker-y builds I’ve fought took Well of Darkness to help sustain their minions on point). It’s also more difficult for minion masters to turn around losing fights or escape disadvantageous situations – whereas more active builds might be able to pull off those clutch invulnerabilities or blinks, minion masters are stuck with out-sustaining enemies. If they lose too many minions, they’re essentially kittened.

You get it! +1 to your post and +10 to your respect points.
The MM taking Well of Darkness is the exact type of adaptation that I would LOVE to see more people do.

Mesmer counters Necromancer in enough ways as it is. I think they can suffer a “nerf” by having Signet Of Humiliation changed so that it doesn’t destroy minions. And it’s hardly a nerf.

WereDragon.6083:

MM does indeed require skill..

haha. Just like turret engis and before that spirit rangers.

style.6173:

haha. Just like turret engis and before that spirit rangers.

Do you really think that MM is on the level of Turret Engis and Spirit Rangers? Just MM’s targeting issues is IMO enough to put it a tier below them.

There are two massive differences between MM and Spirit Ranger/Tourrettes Engi

1. MM relies really heavily on proper use of the abilities, which means not only using them at the right time for strong effect, but also knowing the rough positioning of your minions so Flesh Golem doesn’t charge into a wall, Bone Minions don’t explode 10ft away from the enemy, Bone Fiend doesn’t immobilize itself behind a wall, and Flesh Wurm actually works. Spirit/Turrets didn’t have that, you activated skills off CD and they basically hit (or it didn’t matter in case of Spirit).
2. MM has interplay. Spirits were used because the passive benefits were strong, but there was no need for the Ranger to use CC or heals to keep the Spirits alive. Turret engi didn’t have to do anything with the Turrets, except at the highest levels track HP and pick them up just before they died for some extremely minimal min/maxing of CDs. MM however has to time and chain CC, debuff enemies, heal minions, summon them (and plan when to do this), and use their own abilities to keep themselves alive. There is a lot of play that goes on between the MM and their minions, you don’t just end up summoning the minions and forgetting, you summon them and then have to track 4-5 extra moving entities on the field, both their positioning and health, while also playing your own build. It is like playing DPS, support, and control all at once. Contrasted to Spirit/Turrets which was like running 5 signets that you never activate, so you only have to screw with weapon skills.

Bhawb.7408:

There are two massive differences between MM and Spirit Ranger/Tourrettes Engi

1. MM relies really heavily on proper use of the abilities, which means not only using them at the right time for strong effect, but also knowing the rough positioning of your minions so Flesh Golem doesn’t charge into a wall, Bone Minions don’t explode 10ft away from the enemy, Bone Fiend doesn’t immobilize itself behind a wall, and Flesh Wurm actually works. Spirit/Turrets didn’t have that, you activated skills off CD and they basically hit (or it didn’t matter in case of Spirit).
2. MM has interplay. Spirits were used because the passive benefits were strong, but there was no need for the Ranger to use CC or heals to keep the Spirits alive. Turret engi didn’t have to do anything with the Turrets, except at the highest levels track HP and pick them up just before they died for some extremely minimal min/maxing of CDs. MM however has to time and chain CC, debuff enemies, heal minions, summon them (and plan when to do this), and use their own abilities to keep themselves alive. There is a lot of play that goes on between the MM and their minions, you don’t just end up summoning the minions and forgetting, you summon them and then have to track 4-5 extra moving entities on the field, both their positioning and health, while also playing your own build. It is like playing DPS, support, and control all at once. Contrasted to Spirit/Turrets which was like running 5 signets that you never activate, so you only have to screw with weapon skills.

See, so many people are saying that you shouldn’t keep down mechanics based on performance. Here I am saying that mechanics should stay consistent and the performance should come from that. All Primary + Secondary activation skills (NOT passive + active) should be ended and begin cooldown upon transformations forced from enemies. Seemingly you are saying that it would be okay for the skills, which have the same mechanics as Minions, from Rangers and Engies could reasonably be inconsistent from Necros because of performance.

To address your points…
Spirits are just plain stupid. There’s nothing anyone could do to convince me they took any preparation or contemplation. Turrets on the other hand took just as much know-how for positioning compared to Minions and also had the overload abilities. It’s like they were two different ways of doing the same thing,

" Spirits were used because the passive benefits were strong, but there was no need for the Ranger to use CC or heals to keep the Spirits alive." Do you say this because you get the bonuses of Condi cleanse/transfer, and toughness bonuses from keeping your Minions alive? What’s great is everything after that sentence has nothing to do with what I’m saying, because at no point do I bring up “skill.”

FYI this has absolutely nothing to do with how I perceive MM’ers efficacy as players. I haven’t met a single one that I haven’t been able to kill given enough time. I don’t want you nerfed, and I even offered a really strong trait idea that would mitigate the effects of your hardest counter without rendering Moa useless against you.

Anet wont change this because anet wants so badly to be an esport

MM are just walking clutter you cant see anything and would just be a mess to spectate.

Anet wants there to be a clear cut complete counter to mm’s so they are not seen in competitive play.

Thats my theory anyways… and you know how i love theories lol I’ll never take this tin foil off my head.. nevaaa

Anyways. It’s not fair, obviously, that engineers are allowed to keep their turrents while we lost our minions. The fact that they use “lore” or something to justify this is really goofy lol.

Like, lore…. really? Thats how you’re balancing the game?

Unless im mistaken which is very possible

meow one twenty.4376:

I even offered a really strong trait idea that would mitigate the effects of your hardest counter without rendering Moa useless against you.

Except you’ve said two things here that don’t make any sense.

Firstly, it isn’t that strong for two reasons;
1. It’s not actually strong. A minion clear forces you out of the fight because you’ve just lost all your pressure. It doesn’t matter if the CDs are pushed down by 50%; you need to spend so much time ramping back up that you’re out of the fight for that long. Even being out of the fight for 9 seconds, the theoretical peak at which you can have minions back out, is so much time that you’re effectively useless that it doesn’t really do anything.
2. It doesn’t match its competition. Without those traits you just lose all of your pressure. No poison fields, no pressure. Huge chunk less damage, huge chunk less pressure. Those are traits that help you win fights; reduced minion CDs don’t.
The trait you suggest is junk. You’ll take the “automatically lose against Moa” hit and keep on trucking because the insurance isn’t worth the price.

Secondly you’re asserting without any rationale whatsoever that Moaing an MM necro will be useless… Which is just plain nonsense. It’s like saying that Moaing a Thief is useless, or a Ranger, or any other class which doesn’t have its summons destroyed when its moa’ed. And if transforms stop blowing up your minions, Lich becomes an option- and those are good things to Moa.

WereDragon.6083:

MM does indeed require skill. You need to manage your livelyhood ((Your minions)) because if those little buggers go down you better hope to god the enemy team doesn’t notice. And any good Minion Master worth their salt uses those minions AND their abilities. An afk MM is easy noob bait for soemone running up to a point but if that MM doesn’t use his skills effectively against a skilled opponent that’s a dead MM.

Contrary to popular belief a MM is using quite a few minion abilities, they are not simply sitting on his hotbar. But in that same sense we could look at anyone using a full signetbuild as piggybacking off the passives, sure they don’t go into a fight with disposable pets and you may at times burn these signets. But they are still letting an ability sit passively on their bars and reaping the benefits.

Now it may be late, but I can’t off the top of my head think of an instant and automatic hardcounter/shutdown for any other class combo. Though I am sure if there is I will be corrected. MM to my knowledge was the only one that had two separate classes instantly shut him/her down and take them out of the fight for an extended period of time.

Lastly, do remember this was a bug that has been ingame since launch it was not a proper gameplay mechanic. Anything that transformed you would break your minions period, even tonics, hell the jumping pads at Tequatle break your minions. To a varying degree the mesmers clones rezzing hostile downstates would have been amazing to keep and completely broken against the mesmer, much like instantly popping an entire spec with a single ability was completely broken and is now being fixed.

Another hard counter is Diamond Skin vs. pure condition anything…but DS is ridiculous for that reason.

As a basic concept true hard counters should never exist within a video game like GW2 as far as PvP is concerned. The only thing it accomplishes is locking a build entirely out of higher end PvP as no amount of skill will make the build competitive.

The only kinds of counters that should exist, are soft counters. Boon hate cele necro vs d/d ele, high AOE/cleave vs MM necro, ect. This laves room for counter play and for player interaction to be fun and engaging. There’s nothing fun or engaging about hitting a button and auto winning a fight, or being moa’d and auto losing the fight.

Maybe instead of flat out destroying minions, it will deal some damage instead? Then afterwards, we spam the kitten out of staff 2 to try to heal our minions lol. ^^;;

HaxTester.9816:

Maybe instead of flat out destroying minions, it will deal some damage instead? Then afterwards, we spam the kitten out of staff 2 to try to heal our minions lol. ^^;;

I’d rather them all turn into tiny baby moas for the duration and just not attack.

But then, that’s have to go for all pet classes, right now, MM are the only pet class that gets screwed over by this transformation decision. Most likely because they last until killed, so it affects their PvE stuff more.

It wouldn’t make me so angry though if we weren’t the only ones that get hit by this, in terms of PvP, where it really makes a difference.

ronpierce.2760:

HaxTester.9816:

Maybe instead of flat out destroying minions, it will deal some damage instead? Then afterwards, we spam the kitten out of staff 2 to try to heal our minions lol. ^^;;

I’d rather them all turn into tiny baby moas for the duration and just not attack.

But then, that’s have to go for all pet classes, right now, MM are the only pet class that gets screwed over by this transformation decision. Most likely because they last until killed, so it affects their PvE stuff more.

It wouldn’t make me so angry though if we weren’t the only ones that get hit by this, in terms of PvP, where it really makes a difference.

I can’tell really think of any point in PvE where Moa morph is used at all on players. We also don’the see any minion master enemies.

ronpierce.2760:

I’d rather them all turn into tiny baby moas for the duration and just not attack.

That’s… actually a really good idea. This preserves the power and intent of Moa (rather than letting Minion Masters largely skirt it) without arbitrarily ruining the MM’s day.

striker.3704:

I can’tell really think of any point in PvE where Moa morph is used at all on players. We also don’the see any minion master enemies.

All transforms kill minions. This not only means Lich/Plague (pre change), and Moa, but also any of the transforms that are used in PvE to do various things to the player. The problem there is Necromancer minions are uniquely mobile with no duration, meaning a transformed Necromancer that is meant to not be able to attack at all can have a swarm of minions that deal with mobs for them.

However, now that they can make exceptions Moa should just be included alongside Plague/Lich, and leave the PvE issues to PvE.

This is probably the dumbest thing I’ve heard of on a conceptual level. Part of the point of going with pets in video games is to be less vulnerable to single target crowd control, because part of your action economy is outsourced to other entities. It’d be ridiculous for Moa to turn all the other minions into moa, actually murdering them is dumb on a level I can’t understand. If it’s a technology issue, that’s one thing, but if it’s intentional ‘balance’…

Seirously, your complaint is “I WANT BUILDS TO BE MORE DIVERSE”? Maybe make some utilities benefit pets, or pets be better without going all-in. A hard counter just punishes people who like pets and comes off as sour grapes that people doa thing you perceive as not requiring skill.

Bhawb.7408:

striker.3704:

I can’tell really think of any point in PvE where Moa morph is used at all on players. We also don’the see any minion master enemies.

All transforms kill minions. This not only means Lich/Plague (pre change), and Moa, but also any of the transforms that are used in PvE to do various things to the player. The problem there is Necromancer minions are uniquely mobile with no duration, meaning a transformed Necromancer that is meant to not be able to attack at all can have a swarm of minions that deal with mobs for them.

However, now that they can make exceptions Moa should just be included alongside Plague/Lich, and leave the PvE issues to PvE.

yeah I understand all that, I thought the person I was quoting was saying moa had presence in PvE, which it doesn’t as far as I’m aware.

Robert said they wanted to discuss changing moa to not kill minions because it affected other classes. However this interaction only impacts engineers/mesmers fighting minion master necromancers in a PvP environment. In it’s current state, it simply has too strong an impact on the minion master necromancer.

striker.3704:

Bhawb.7408:

striker.3704:

I can’tell really think of any point in PvE where Moa morph is used at all on players. We also don’the see any minion master enemies.

All transforms kill minions. This not only means Lich/Plague (pre change), and Moa, but also any of the transforms that are used in PvE to do various things to the player. The problem there is Necromancer minions are uniquely mobile with no duration, meaning a transformed Necromancer that is meant to not be able to attack at all can have a swarm of minions that deal with mobs for them.

However, now that they can make exceptions Moa should just be included alongside Plague/Lich, and leave the PvE issues to PvE.

yeah I understand all that, I thought the person I was quoting was saying moa had presence in PvE, which it doesn’t as far as I’m aware.

Robert said they wanted to discuss changing moa to not kill minions because it affected other classes. However this interaction only impacts engineers/mesmers fighting minion master necromancers in a PvP environment. In it’s current state, it simply has too strong an impact on the minion master necromancer.

Where was this discussed. Not that I don’t believe you, I just want to see it with my own two eyes since the devs clearly had MM in mind with the lich/plague change but completely ignored the zero counterplay Moa gives against a MM.

striker.3704:

Bhawb.7408:

striker.3704:

I can’tell really think of any point in PvE where Moa morph is used at all on players. We also don’the see any minion master enemies.

All transforms kill minions. This not only means Lich/Plague (pre change), and Moa, but also any of the transforms that are used in PvE to do various things to the player. The problem there is Necromancer minions are uniquely mobile with no duration, meaning a transformed Necromancer that is meant to not be able to attack at all can have a swarm of minions that deal with mobs for them.

However, now that they can make exceptions Moa should just be included alongside Plague/Lich, and leave the PvE issues to PvE.

yeah I understand all that, I thought the person I was quoting was saying moa had presence in PvE, which it doesn’t as far as I’m aware.

Every so often you see it dropped on bosses. Not a lot of them it’s worth using it on, as most of the really dangerous ones (Lupicus) are immune. Even then, Time Warp is just always better.

WereDragon.6083:

since the devs clearly had MM in mind with the lich/plague change but completely ignored the zero counterplay Moa gives against a MM.

Well, the person in charge for the Necro at Anet unfortunately is also in charge for the Mesmer. And regarding the last big “balance” patch there should be no doubt who his baby is. So it´s no wonder that he says they will “discuss” the matter later, which means basically that he will wait until everybody forgets about the issue. This stupid mechanic is in the game since release and i doubt that it will be ever changed.

If we’re judging only by the most recent balance patch, I would say Necro is his baby. Mesmers got a trait nerf and a QoL change on a skill to allow it to actually work all the time. We got very significant changes to two weapons and new functionality on an underused skill to make it a competitive pick.