Guild Wars 2

I suspect most would simply ignore the skinned rat if it didn’t trigger the customary summoning sounds each time it spawned and died.

Looking through the list of the Traits revamped/removed during the course of the games development, shows there’s atleast a couple of traits which could replace Reanimator.

GW2 wiki List of Historial Traits

@Aexrael, that’s a great idea, since that list shows us what they’ve already coded for at one time or another.

One Minor that might be a good replacement for Reanimator:
Venomous Inscriptions…..Staff….. Minor…..Foes hit by Reaper’s Mark will be poisoned.

I wouldn’t mind this trait if it didn’t have the bleed at all. Because you would have your minions, and a bunch of these guys running around and it would add to the MM feel, not to mention without the bleed, being able to have more than 1 of these guys would be great synergy with the toughness per minion out trait (forget what its called).

I guess the bleed is an inheritance from the Lich transform, as there you summon 5 of them with a single mark.

I would much rather see a soul of the enemy you killed (like a skull hanging over your shoulder) thrown at the next thing you attack for a small bonus in damage. The little jagged horror causes nothing but problems in dungeons.

I understand the bleed and why it’s there, I think they should keep the bleed but only keep 15% of it’s effectiveness, that way the Jagged Horror would still die eventually but could get a few hits in – it’s not as if they would make much of a difference to the battle anyway if they didn’t bleed at all, they deal miserable damage.

I think it’d solve a lot of issues if the bleed went down to 15% its original value and for every extra Jagged Horror you have out the bleed on them all goes up by 15%. So if you have two they both bleed for 30% the original value, if you have three they all bleed for 45% and so forth. That way if you only had one it’d make more of a difference but if you had too many they wouldn’t outnumber your enemy too badly as they’d die faster – it would also solve the Lich Form summoning 5 at once, making them bleed for a lot.

I would love to have the feel from GW1 where you could run around with a bunch of minions but they wouldn’t last for ever as they all degenerated.

And for kitty’s sake please PLEASE change their appearance, it’s ridiculous how they’re just a copy paste shrunken version of the Bone Minions. I thought that was quite sad and lazy – especially compared to how amazing each minion loooked in GW1.

I did some testing with the Reanimator trait and here’s what I found out:

• The Jagged Horrors in all my tests died approximately 7 seconds after appearing on-screen, losing health over 7 ticks before dying. Never close to 11 seconds, even when you take my poor math skills into account.
• When summoned, there was a period of time where the Jagged Horrors were digging themselves out of the ground and not attacking anything, but still lost health. The Jagged Horrors in my tests had around 50% health left—3-4 ticks of health bleeding—once they had finished this animation and were ready to attack.
• Due to the minion AI being sluggish, the Jagged Horrors would sit for one additional tick of health before attacking anything, leaving 2-3 ticks of health left.
• If summoned on top of an enemy target (melee range), the Jagged Horrors managed to land 1-2 hits on the enemy. If summoned further away from the enemy target, the Jagged Horrors would die while en route, doing zero damage.
• Due to the Jagged Horrors pulling aggro and getting one-shot by anything short of a rabbit, the Jagged Horrors in all my tests—when summoned on top of the enemy target—only managed to hit the enemy once.

Summary (TL;DR version): The Jagged Horror will last for about 7 seconds, summoning time included, and will hit the target 0-1 times, depending on the distance to the target when summoned.

Fairly disappointing trait.

Suggestion (wishing out loud here): Fix the effective duration (after they have been summoned and are ready) to 10 seconds or more and make Jagged Horrors explode on death (Putrid Explosion).

Most Necromancers (Minion Masters are the exception, I think) use the Bone Minions for Putrid Explosion, not their sustained damage. I compare the Jagged Horrors to the Bone Minions because they’re miniature version of those.

Jagged Horrors, as they currently work, are just short of being utterly useless except as cannon fodder that maybe soaks one hit. If they would explode when dying, whether from health bleed ticks or from incoming damage, they would at least be mildly useful as a surprise combo boost. Perhaps shorten the internal cooldown to 20 seconds, or allow two to be summoned before the cooldown activates (increase the cooldown to 40-60 seconds to compensate).

Addendum: Change Bone Minions to also explode on death. In my experience, Putrid Explosion tends to kill the Bone Minion that isn’t about to die.

It’d be fine that it could only attack once, maybe sometimes, rarely twice – if it dealt maybe 8k damage with one attack. But not only will it rarely get to attack even once but also it deals pathetic damage.

I have 27k health, my horrors last for 8 seconds (8 bleed pulses) and then it continues to bleed pulse for another 10 or so seconds after death keeping me in combat for longer than it was alive.
It has never once done anything to an enemy.

If it was a moving poison cloud aoe(5 seconds per pulse) minion or had ranged armor avoiding insta-crit every pulse I would be more than happy to keep him around (singular because I’ve never had more than one at a time).

“They’re supposed to last 11 seconds” – yeah that’s useful in any fight. 11 seconds of something that can only attack every 3 seconds with unbelievably small damage and no other affect.

As a trait it is underwhelming at best. Traits are something that I’ve trained my entire lifetime to be good at and 11 seconds of something that can’t do anything is something worth my time to train for right? RIGHT?!

Why does it degen in the first place, it’s not like it’s hard to kill or anything. Why is degen still something that is a required game effect for something that is pathetic in the first place? You’ve already got a hard limit on the number of them I can have at any given time, isn’t that enough?

It’s like sending a chihuahua after a bear – sounds ridiculous right? except that chihuahua’s were bread for hunting bears in the real world and were used to INDUCE FEAR in the bear to trap it in a corner or up a tree.
Our chihuahua horrors are worthless though, they never hit, die too fast, keep us in combat after death, and will probably go after the next piece of meat they find in their travels. They don’t inflict fear on the enemy, don’t bleed or poison it, they just waste 5 trait points.

The designers clearly want this to stay in the game even though it is more detrimental to the class than any other aspect of their design. Make it worth my while to waste those 5 points on it then.
Stop the degen, it already has a hard limit on the total number I can have, give it a condition – NOT BLEED, everyone has bleed – chill, poison, vulnerability, fear, life-transfer, something worth my while with a cool-down or have it hit every 5 or 10 seconds.

I’m running through a zone, my Flesh Golem is out ( ), he aggros and kills something and then catches up to me and now I’m running again at full speed – oh wait, I’m not cause it killed something and a horror was spawned which now has aggro on another mob for the next 18 seconds…

Remove it, they keep you in combat even after they die. They do zero damage its just another source of lag.

good testing mazra too bad the devs dont test and just post plain wrong info. this is imo worst 5 pointer in the game by far.

And on top of all the above they are on a cooldown….WHY? Cooldowns do not belong on passives….they are meant to impose a choice on scarce resources…not as a direct nerf.

It’s late. I’m tired. So I’m going to be unreasonable about this.

Reanimator is probably the worst trait, minor or major, in the entire game.

1) Reanimator benefits none, nada, zilch, of the builds available to the Necromancer. The minion’s either weak as a kitten due to lack of trait support for condition/power/support builds, or doesn’t last long enough to help out in combat for a Minion Master.

2) Reanimator, while fitting the theme of Death Magic being centered around minions, does absolutely nothing for anyone who wants to dip into Death Magic for a little extra toughness/boon duration, staff efficiency, or protective wells. As such it has abolsutely no place being the first minor trait in the Necromancer toughness tree when compared to other professions, as I shall do so now:

Warrior: Extra armour when health is above 90%
Guardian: Gain Aegis when you reach 50% health
Ranger: Increases Endurance regeneration by 50%
Thief: Use Blinding Powder when your health reaches 25% (90 second cooldown)
Engineer: Gain Regeneration for 10 seconds when you are attacked while under 25% health
Elementalist: Gain 1 toughness per level while attuned to Earth
Mesmer: Gain 10 seconds of regeneration when you are uner 75% health (30 second cooldown)

If you have the 5 points to spare in any other professions’ toughness tree, they are universally useful towards the professions’ survivability. Reanimator is not.

EDIT: It’s actually really interesting to see this play out. Initially I was perplexed as to why the Mesmer regeneration kicked in sooner than the Engineer regeneration. The only conclusion I can draw from this is because Engineers have better defense stat because they wear a higher grade of armour. This also accounts for just how good that Elementalist minor is, and is even more condemning that the Necromancer got lumped with something functionally useless to the profession. Could we chalk this up to another “lolDeathshroud”? Possibly.

3) Reanimator has synergy with Protection of the Horde. Unfortunately it’s a paltry extra 20 Toughness for 8 seconds, right where the toughness is least useful – at the end of a fight when you’ve killed your enemy, severely hampering the pathetic window the summoned Jagged Horror has to do anything, even passively boosting your toughness.

4) Reanimator keeps you in combat after the Jagged Horror has bled to death, delaying the regeneration of health, and waypointing.

So, here I am with a couple of suggestions, which I’ll arbitrarily switch to lettering instead of numbering because it’s late:

A) Provide a cap on Reanimator at say, 3-4 Jagged Horrors. Give it a 30-second cooldown and remove the self-bleed-to-death so you can at least get a pack of the little critters going.

B) Make Reanimator summon a Blood Fiend instead that you can’t sacrifice to put it roughly on par with Engineer/Mesmer getting Regeneration.

C) (The idea I’m most biased towards) switch Reanimator with Deadly Strength and make Reanimator summon something more noticeably useful. Which at this point barring just a 4-5 strong squad of suicide horrors or a temp flesh golem, is going to require more forethought.

D) Swap Reanimator with Shrouded Removal. It’s probably the most noteworthy Major Trait in the Adept stage of the tree that could be made into a good Minor. The only other real option option that fits the criteria of “universally useful” is Dark Armour, but Dark Armour is reviled for being terrible due to its’ lack of ability coverage (Two channels exist on our weapons, both of them on main-hand weapons, and one for Life Transfer. Whoppee), so let’s go with something that’s actually passable as a trait.

Can’t edit my post for some reason, but people mentioned a bug/feature where the Jagged Horror would die, continue to bleed and thus keep the Necromancer in combat for a period of time.

I have NOT been able to recreate this scenario. My Necromancer’s health appears to begin regenerating after the same delay, both when the Jagged Horror is still alive and bleeding and dead and bleeding or not present at all, as long as I’m out of combat.

In short: The JH self-bleed does NOT appear to affect the Necromancer’s combat status on/off toggle.

That being said, it’s late and I could be imagining things, because I’m pretty drunk right now, so feel free to enlighten me if you are able to recreate it.

Kaarnak.2865:

It’s late. I’m tired. So I’m going to be unreasonable about this.

Reanimator is probably the worst trait, minor or major, in the entire game.

1) Reanimator benefits none, nada, zilch, of the builds available to the Necromancer. The minion’s either weak as a kitten due to lack of trait support for condition/power/support builds, or doesn’t last long enough to help out in combat for a Minion Master.

2) Reanimator, while fitting the theme of Death Magic being centered around minions, does absolutely nothing for anyone who wants to dip into Death Magic for a little extra toughness/boon duration, staff efficiency, or protective wells. As such it has abolsutely no place being the first minor trait in the Necromancer toughness tree when compared to other professions, as I shall do so now:

Warrior: Extra armour when health is above 90%
Guardian: Gain Aegis when you reach 50% health
Ranger: Increases Endurance regeneration by 50%
Thief: Use Blinding Powder when your health reaches 25% (90 second cooldown)
Engineer: Gain Regeneration for 10 seconds when you are attacked while under 25% health
Elementalist: Gain 1 toughness per level while attuned to Earth
Mesmer: Gain 10 seconds of regeneration when you are uner 75% health (30 second cooldown)

If you have the 5 points to spare in any other professions’ toughness tree, they are universally useful towards the professions’ survivability. Reanimator is not.

EDIT: It’s actually really interesting to see this play out. Initially I was perplexed as to why the Mesmer regeneration kicked in sooner than the Engineer regeneration. The only conclusion I can draw from this is because Engineers have better defense stat because they wear a higher grade of armour. This also accounts for just how good that Elementalist minor is, and is even more condemning that the Necromancer got lumped with something functionally useless to the profession. Could we chalk this up to another “lolDeathshroud”? Possibly.

3) Reanimator has synergy with Protection of the Horde. Unfortunately it’s a paltry extra 20 Toughness for 8 seconds, right where the toughness is least useful – at the end of a fight when you’ve killed your enemy, severely hampering the pathetic window the summoned Jagged Horror has to do anything, even passively boosting your toughness.

4) Reanimator keeps you in combat after the Jagged Horror has bled to death, delaying the regeneration of health, and waypointing.

So, here I am with a couple of suggestions, which I’ll arbitrarily switch to lettering instead of numbering because it’s late:

A) Provide a cap on Reanimator at say, 3-4 Jagged Horrors. Give it a 30-second cooldown and remove the self-bleed-to-death so you can at least get a pack of the little critters going.

B) Make Reanimator summon a Blood Fiend instead that you can’t sacrifice to put it roughly on par with Engineer/Mesmer getting Regeneration.

C) (The idea I’m most biased towards) switch Reanimator with Deadly Strength and make Reanimator summon something more noticeably useful. Which at this point barring just a 4-5 strong squad of suicide horrors or a temp flesh golem, is going to require more forethought.

D) Swap Reanimator with Shrouded Removal. It’s probably the most noteworthy Major Trait in the Adept stage of the tree that could be made into a good Minor. The only other real option option that fits the criteria of “universally useful” is Dark Armour, but Dark Armour is reviled for being terrible due to its’ lack of ability coverage (Two channels exist on our weapons, both of them on main-hand weapons, and one for Life Transfer. Whoppee), so let’s go with something that’s actually passable as a trait.

Excellent post (:

Its random Mazra, when it happens you really kittening notice it because it takes a solid 10 seconds after the little kitten are dead to get out of combat.

I notice it everytime because I run off hand warhorn and spectral walk for near 100% swiftness and move alot solo in WvW. They lock you into combat, the movement speed is a huge thing for me running solo in WvW.

I also clearly remember the first time it happened when I was leveling up at like level 15 I thought it was lag…. nope happened many times after that.

I dont know if you level to 80 with the trait but i did so I seen it happen alot.

For the record I was not one of the people saying it rallied people in pvp… never seen that happen once.

This trait should be removed from the game in my opinion. Almost every necro needs to put 10 into death magic and the jagged horror is horrible.

I was running a dungeon the other day and was in a sniping situation. I was using my marks to hit an enemy just out of reach and managed to kill him. Next I went just in range of the other and started working on him. What happened next was horrible. Before I could realized what happed my newly spawned Jagged horror ran all the way passed the mobs we were trying to avoid and pulled them to us once it died. One of those moments when I truly hated minions..

The fact is that it does alot more harm to a player then good. Not to mention the constant.. “I hand raised that minion.” Please replace it with something useful.

+1 on the please replace/remove.

It has so many drawbacks right now that it is a net negative trait to have.

Just to belabor it for any Developers reading this thread:

1) Not everyone wanting to spec for more defense wants to run a minion build.
2) The minion on its own merits is sub par (and that is being nice) thanks to summon time, damage output, and life expectancy.
3) Minion AI in general can be interpreted as Artificial Idiocy right now.
4) Not being able to control when you have a minion out ranges from annoying to basically griefing your team in certain dungeons.

Another +1

I’d rather just have nothing for this passive trait than that little rat.

This trait does nothing for me but keep me standing around for an absurd amount of time waiting to get out of combat so i can waypoint in WvW.

This would be great -

“Gain toughness based on how much life force you have, 1 point of toughness per percent of life force.”

call this Undead Fortitude

++ for this idea, please remove Reanimator, nice name but horrible idea

not intrested in being a Rat-romancer

No class should Have to take a trait that hurts their character in pvp and pve

Just to remind you all…….

gain 1 stack of might for every minute your minions dont do anything, caps at 100.

Now, now shizo. We dont want to be walking with 100 might all the time, that would be OP

What do u guys think of my Toughness increase based on your life force % amount

it would be similar to alot of warrior adren abilitys and warriors have way easier ways to get adren

This trait needs to be turned off or replaced, as it is much more detrimental than helpful. Why it still exists in its current state is beyond me…

I would like to see this trait changed so it gave minions a minor regen when they kill or you could have this trait make the minions that are summoned be stealth to avoid aggro and make them like mini plague carriers that charge your target and explode.

If they want to keep the trait and be lazy about it.

They could just make the JH stay by the Necro and explode upon death.

Then they wont pull everything and you can use them to necro bomb.

Or they could do the decent thing and just make the 5 point trait ‘Makes your boots shinier’ , everyone would atleast appreciate that more.

Meh, drop the bleed and make them instead have some kind of reverse retaliation so that they loose health each time they attack someone. That way they do not last forever, but are more reliable than they are right now. Should be simple enough to code i think.

I really wish they would just turn it off for now. I love the line but really makes it annoying on certain boss fights in instances. Just please turn it off to you decide what you are going todo with it. I hate the fact he will make more aoes happen with alpha, and lupi has a good chance to absorb a grub to give you two very good examples.

+1

This just falls into the “please fix the necro pet ui.” At least let us put the bugger on passive so it doesn’t attack anything (along with the FG), but I’d prefer to see something completely different as well.

JonPeters.5630:

It does not give a free res. These guys can’t rally you. Also they die in about 11 seconds, not 2 seconds. I would like them to have a bit more survivable, but the real problem is obviously them aggroing. Necro minions are supposed to aggro based on what you attack only, so if this particular minion is not following that rule that is the real problem. We are currently investigating it and will make any changes we think are necessary.

They not the only pet that stands around and watch’s you fight, then randomly runs off and pulls mobs your not attacking when it feels like it.
Most annoying was the ‘elite’ guy, def likes to watch you fight till on 15% life then go and pull that group of over the hill to make sure your going to die.

digiowl.9620:

Meh, drop the bleed and make them instead have some kind of reverse retaliation so that they loose health each time they attack someone. That way they do not last forever, but are more reliable than they are right now. Should be simple enough to code i think.

That is actually a brilliant idea and solution!

Was frustrating trying to use my necro in Orr. The pets aggro things. Good to know they are looking at it.

JonPeters.5630:

It does not give a free res. These guys can’t rally you. Also they die in about 11 seconds, not 2 seconds. I would like them to have a bit more survivable, but the real problem is obviously them aggroing. Necro minions are supposed to aggro based on what you attack only, so if this particular minion is not following that rule that is the real problem. We are currently investigating it and will make any changes we think are necessary.

Warriors in vegeance can rally with them >_> also with shark, pls fix this, is really annoying.

lets make it a skill which deserves the name “reanimator”:

every time a minion dies, there is a 33% chance another one will reappear to take his place to his masters bidding.

shizo.5698:

lets make it a skill which deserves the name “reanimator”:

every time a minion dies, there is a 33% chance another one will reappear to take his place to his masters bidding.

I really like the concept, but I don’t think ArenaNet would run with this as it’s only beneficial if you’re running at least 1 minion. Maybe add a chance that if an ally is defeated near the Necromancer, they come back as a zombie for a fixed time with a pair of attacks, a shout (“Brains!”) and a skill that suicides them back to defeated state early. They can use this zombie form either to deal a little extra damage or shuffle their corpses over to a safer location for the res.

Or how about just modifying jagged horrors to have suicide attacks? If the bleeding is to make sure they only hit 0-2 times depending on the target’s distance, then take out the bleeding and make it a flat 1 time.

I think Reanimator should be more useful & a major trait. Instead, I’d like to have a different Minor trait in that slot…

I really like the idea of a dead ally being reanimated as a suicide bomber, too
And, of course, the reverse retaliation effect (you want confusion here I think) would be rather sensible, too.

Currently, this skill is basically non-functional. All it does is aggro mobs, not even making it to the target 90% of the time (and when it does it usually only gets 1 hit in), and keeping the necro in combat.

Why does it even have to have health degen? Gods sake it basically has no HP to begin with. At least if it didn’t have degen it might get a couple hits in on the target. It does terrible damage anyways and the +20 toughness (which you get only if further traited in Death Magic) is not OP. If A.Net only wants on of these to exist at a time then just put a hardcap of ONE on it instead of degen with a 30s CD. Lulz.

shizo.5698:

lets make it a skill which deserves the name “reanimator”:

every time a minion dies, there is a 33% chance another one will reappear to take his place to his masters bidding.

+ 1 for this, makes sense and is practical. I can see the cool down being somewhere around 30+ seconds though but honestly I wouldn’t mind. Also another thing is “sacrifices”(?) like the bone minions and wurm shouldn’t work with it unless they are killed, not sacrificed(?).

First time ive looked at that list of old traits and omg there is some awesome stuff there and it just reminds me of how much stuff they had to remove to balance around DS which makes me a sad puppy :<. Couldnt they have made a poll about this in beta? Change DS mechanic or remove a ton of fun uniqe awesome traits.

And “sacrifice skills” what are those? :o

wiazabi.2549:

And “sacrifice skills” what are those? :o

I didn’t know what to call them but that made sense. You can make the bone minion blow up for more damage and you can teleport to the wurm but you kill it in the process so you are essentially sacrificing them for different purposes.

@Palinois was afraid it was that simple :<, kinda hoped earlier beta we had something similar to engineer, put a pet on slot 7 and get a F2 sacrifice ability etc.

In my opinion jagged horrors have great potential, and I`m sorry if I repeat somebody`s words already. But I see those kittens as an additional zerg minions which while not being able to attach or hold directly can boost necromancers performance.

In ideal way it would be better to summon more than one kitten (up to 3-5?), or let the jagged live as long as a normal minion until somebody kills him. That way each horror could add +toughness to necromancer on next trait, + add the ability to create toxic area on death/ draw conditions / remove boons when having corresponding traits (as far as I understood now toxic cloud doesn`t , not sure about others). It`s fine that jagged horror doesn`t have that much hp or dmg, I don`t think it`s it purpose.

Now, I agree basically what jagged horror does – resurrects, if your lucky it will distract enemy for 1 sec and die. Didn`t have problems with horror being agro and rushing on enemies , so far I`m only annoyed by my character yelling “you`ve” killed my minion and stuff.

Abigor.4952:

In my opinion jagged horrors have great potential, and I`m sorry if I repeat somebody`s words already. But I see those kittens as an additional zerg minions which while not being able to attach or hold directly can boost necromancers performance.

In ideal way it would be better to summon more than one kitten (up to 3-5?), or let the jagged live as long as a normal minion until somebody kills him. That way each horror could add +toughness to necromancer on next trait, + add the ability to create toxic area on death/ draw conditions / remove boons when having corresponding traits (as far as I understood now toxic cloud doesn`t , not sure about others). It`s fine that jagged horror doesn`t have that much hp or dmg, I don`t think it`s it purpose.

Now, I agree basically what jagged horror does – resurrects, if your lucky it will distract enemy for 1 sec and die. Didn`t have problems with horror being agro and rushing on enemies , so far I`m only annoyed by my character yelling “you`ve” killed my minion and stuff.

Are you saying it would be ideal if they didn’t degen? If so I completely agree.

ANet: Your statement about the JH survival time may apply at level 80 and with certain traits/equipment. Unfortunately, many of us are exposed to them by about level 25, and at that level they last about 3-4 seconds and rarely damage anything. (The only time they would damage anything would be if you were swarmed, and it’d be hard to notice a tiny bit of extra damage in all of the text. I’ve never seen any damage in the combat log.)

And as Mazra noted above, there are a lot of inefficiencies in the life of a JH that means that they really can’t accomplish much even at level 80.

So I would also ask for a different minor trait to replace them. At best, you’re thinking of level 80, where the Adept minor trait is a speedbump rather than the accomplishment it should be to a level 25 Necro.

striker.3704:

Are you saying it would be ideal if they didn’t degen? If so I completely agree.

That or let them live for at least 20-30 sec and let us have more than 1 at this rate

I’ve found the trait pretty darn useful. It buys a lot more time drawing aggro than you might think, given how fragile the jagged horror is. But on countless occasions, it’s bought me time to revive a friend, or buy precious seconds to have a cooldown run out.

That being said, there’s no excuse for when the jagged horror pulls everything like it does have an occasional tendency to do.

They’re not useful for damage at all, no. They’re not really meant to be…

How are these still in the game? At least give us a toggle to turn off the passive trait if we want to while you try to fix them.

They are an active nuisance and I and most other necros would probably happily turn them off if we could. Awful choice to put on a passive 5 point trait.

Every class has broken skills (which im flabbergasted were not fixed in the first update let alone the first MAJOR CONTENT update )

But when a skill is so broken that people wish it wouldn’t work or would actually be more happy with a black slot and nothing in return there is something really wrong.

Anet need to get a clue … this may be a F2P game but when people start to leave and there is no longer any revenue coming in from the in game store then it will be to late like every other mmo in recent times