Guild Wars 2

When you think of a Necromancer what is the very first thing that comes to mind?

…

…

That’s Right! Undead Minions.

Ok, I know that right now Minion AI is broke. But that is a fixable thing. What isn’t so easily fixed is how our DS mechanic gives Dev’s fits trying to balance it. They are quoted as saying they need to be ‘careful’ with DS to keep it from becoming OP.

And it doesn’t make sense anyway! Are we Necromancers or are we Warlocks?? It says on the tin we are necromancers and that is what I expect to see!

So my Idea is this, change the F1 mechanic so that instead of being this warlockish…thing, it should give us Minions!

How should it work? Well here is one idea.

It could work like a Guardians enchantment kinda. It causes you to summon a minor minion as you kill things up to say…5 of them, then, when you have 5, you can activate that…Rune. You sacrifice your small minions to create a big mean one. When created, you get a skill button for that minion, like your utility ones, you can use it till the minion dies.

Potientially give us a F2 mechanic, that lets us consume existing minions for HP.

Finally replace all DS traits with traits that make minions ‘better’. That is, causes them to function in a way that benefits that trait line. Like curses would get the Death Nova trait. Blood would get a trait that increases HP received from consuming. Death magic could have something toughness/buff oritented. Power could grant your minions might if a conditon is met. Etcetera. This way having a minion or 2 in your utility/elite is viable no matter what build you run.

This way Necromancers can finally be Necromancers.

Anyway, it’s just a idea. Flames, criticisms, and ideas are welcome =)

this really sounds boring compared to DS

and why get rid of DS to have “kill 5 things for big pet”, you can do that through a utility or elite or even adding it through F2 – F4.

are you having a hard time mastering DS?

Dredlord.8076:

are you having a hard time mastering DS?

lol you could’ve just left it at that

I love DS but it does seem to be lacking a bit of dynamism. Losing the entire UI for a green version of downed state is pretty minimal, and undesirable to say the least, specially in combat situations where your awareness means the difference between winning and losing. The more I play the game though the more I really feel like we should be able to perform with full functionality (all skills and utilities) while in DS. I think LF costs are perfect the way they are for that kind of design but the LF accrual needs to be accelerated a good deal – LF should be a fluid mechanic both accruing and expending at a pace consistent with combat. As it is right now, and as useful as I find it to be, DS seems more of a ‘class gimmick’ than a ‘class mechanic’ and clearly seems to be burden to the overall class design.

last thing I want is another minion though.

There are many problems with your idea…

For one, not everyone views a necromancer as just a dude who summons minions. This has been discussed multiple times on the forums, but i’ll shorten it for you. A necromancer is someone who practices arts of death (corruption, ghosts, zombies, etc.) so Anet got the “definition” correct.

Now for the actual mechanic itself…It’s not a good idea. The problem with it is this: What if i don’t want to summon a minion? What if i never even want to touch minions as a necro? Guess what? I’m now stuck with a useless ability, and there goes 1/5th of my trait line. The other reason is that this would kitten us hard in PvP. 5 kills to summon 5 tiny minions, that will probably be 2-3 shotted by any melee in a few seconds? And, by some occasion they live, i get a second Flesh golem-esque minion? No thanks, i’ll stick with death shroud.

It’s too bland and doesn’t appeal to the entire class but a specific portion of the class. Look at the other profession’s unique abilities, it appeals to all of them regardless how they play their character.

Lich form>DS>minions.
Also no first thing that comes to mind with necromancers is Scythe, Phylactery, Detect type skills, Curse type skills, Energy drain, Life drain and ofc the skill someone cast on most of the forums and devs Touch of Idiocy

How about making LF ability into a multi-function mechanism? F1 for death shroud, F2 for minion, F3 for well, etc. The feature of LF is still there, just the difference of how each player uses it.

how bout just putting a pet attack command on an F key so we can all stop kittenin and whining about pets for a while (a short while)

I would rather see a change to the way minions work. First, jagged horrors need to NOT die in two seconds – in fact, they need to lose their bleed completely. This gives us the possibility of actually getting 5 of them.

We should then have either a major trait or utility that sacrifices/converts 5 jagged horrors into a bigger minion – flesh golem or something entirely new and not quite as powerful as Mr Fleshy.

There should be a limit of one of these new minons created from 5 jagged horrors, but still able to have 5 jagged horrors. I would like to see a new heal ability that sacrificed minions for HP – not just the Blood Fiend, but it possibly sacrifices the jagged horrors/large horrors/all minions. It could have a larger heal based on the amount of minions sacrificed, and possibly give 3 stacks of protection and retaliation or something when sacrificing the maximum or 5 jaggeds.

I don’t know, it’s not perfect by any means but it would make minion master a more dynamic build than it currently is, having a virtual army of fleshy creatures at your disposal and sacrificing them at need to get some kind of benefit.

Or, something that is probably simpler than combining 5 jaggeds is to make all summon minion abilities like the bone minions – it summons two of them. Damage would probably have to be lowered a bit to compensate but I really like the idea of rolling through with a bunch of creatures.

how about we just delete minions all together?

sorry but I just can’t stand them. I’m something of a PvP purist and don’t like AI cluttering up my combat.

That would be the beauty of it – you don’t have to have them. Jagged horrors become a major trait so you would never accidentally summon a minion.

Every class has utilities they don’t use because it doesn’t fit their spec. Minions would be those utilities for most non minion specs.

Also, once minion AI gets good a MM build MIGHT be viable. They actually do pretty good damage, and have some decent utilities on their active ability. It wouldn’t be any more cluttered than a mesmer with its clones and phantasms. (Well ok just a little more cluttered with up to 11 minions possible in my suggestion. But at least they don’t all look like you. I’ve confused myself on my mesmer before)

I actually loathe the fact that I find my Flesh Golem to be so useful – even being as broken as it is. It does pretty good dmg in addition to the KD+Blowout and has an incredibly short CD for an elite skill. It’s pretty much my go-to Elite now.

Me too, it is really our only useful elite. Lich Form is awe inspiring when you see it but it really isn’t terribly useful and doesn’t fit into any builds. and has no traits to support it. Plague Form isn’t use for anything other than perma blind, and increased toughness and health while you try to blind people and survive a bit longer.

This leaves us with Flesh Golem. Which is why I propose a new elite – a Well! Wells are so gosh darned useful that any build can use them without traits – why not have one as an elite too?

I really do like Lich form, but I hate transformations because I lose the bulk of my abilities. Lich form hits incredibly hard, has good marks, but you can’t stomp/revive, and basically hangs a billboard over your head that says “Kill me now” since your mobility is gone and if they don’t, well you’ll just nuke them kitten in a matter of seconds with #1 spam. Cast times are insanely long IMO for most Lich skills as well but that’s sort of par for the course when it comes to Necros…

Plauge form on the other hand is even more of an “I’m a punching bag” skill than DS is. Fine for bunkering and buying time but really not much use after that. Hits for nothing even in a power build and blind is an underwhelming condition as well IMO.

My least favorite aspect of both: the dreaded “double tap”. When you’re in the heat of combat and need to jump to it fast and accidentally hit the button twice, boom there goes the elite for another 3 min. That never happens with ’ol Fleshy though

The best solution will be to give us F2 button that summon minions or at least F2 , F3 and F4 to command our minions ( from utilities ) which will fix Al issue.

To complie a few smart posts from before both about class mechanic and minion:
1) Ds having 5 or 10 skills so that it isnt a on demand downed state

2) Minion utilites being re castable by shift+numbercasting to summon more minions at the cost of cutting away a part of life force and removing the +hp to minions trait (Flesh golem -60% form max LF, Blood Fiend/re casting heal -55% from max LF,Flesh Wurm -40% from max LF, Bone and Shadow Fiend -35% from max LF, 1 Bone Minion -15% from Max LF)

3) Necro Fear (not Thief, Warrior and Ranger fears) gaining on duration and effects depending on the amount of conditions and stacks of a condition you own on the enemy

4) Transformations having effect stability and not locking out heal.

“The problem with it is this: What if i don’t want to summon a minion? What if i never even want to touch minions as a necro? Guess what? I’m now stuck with a useless ability, and there goes 1/5th of my trait line. "

The problem with it is this: What if I don’t want to be a shadowy blob? What if I never even want to touch warlock skills as a Necro? Guess what? I’m now stuck with a useless ability, and there goes 1/5th of my traitline.

Did you see what I just did there?

Death Shroud doesn’t scale with power right, and doesn’t jive with condition builds at all. That’s why people don’t like it. I personally dislike it all together.

The crux of the issue is that Devs aren’t going to ‘fix’ DS because its ‘scary’. If they can’t handle the whole “second lifebar” aspect, then they should at least let our lifeforce do something. Preferably something that can occur concurrent with our normal attacks so it doesn’t work against our dps. Like a Rangers pet or a Guardians burning or a thief’s steal. Something easier for them to balance and more useful to us. Ideally it’s something that everyone can agree on from a stylistic view as well.

I’m for any change to DS, even the removal of DS.
It was a really stupid idea to give any character a second health bar, Any one that knows any thing about balance knows that will force the entire class to be subpar just to try to balance the clear OPness of having a second health bar.

Saying a necromancer isnt a guy with undead minions is like saying an archer isnt a class that specialises in ranged combat, or cleric isnt a class all about healings, or that an engineer isnt a class about gadgets…
Well this is GW2, we have warriors with rifles, rangers with great swords, and engineers with grenades. So a guess a necro with out minions fits right into this backwards game.

XelNigma.6315:

I’m for any change to DS, even the removal of DS.
It was a really stupid idea to give any character a second health bar, Any one that knows any thing about balance knows that will force the entire class to be subpar just to try to balance the clear OPness of having a second health bar.

Saying a necromancer isnt a guy with undead minions is like saying an archer isnt a class that specialises in ranged combat, or cleric isnt a class all about healings, or that an engineer isnt a class about gadgets…
Well this is GW2, we have warriors with rifles, rangers with great swords, and engineers with grenades. So a guess a necro with out minions fits right into this backwards game.

You are right somehow , I believe that warrior’s long-bow is more powerful than the ranger’s one , it’s same with warrior’s rifle and engineer’s one.
The funnies thing that Dual daggers is the best choice for the elementalist.
To be honest these stuffs are the main things that make GW2 the best game ever as it gives you choices without forcing the profession to equip a specific weapon.

DS is just fine as it is now.Only thing that needs fixing about it is the interface,for example i want to be able to see my endurance bar while in ds,conditions,boons and cd’s of my skills.Nothin more nothin less.

When you think of a Necromancer what is the very first thing that comes to mind?

Diablo II necromancer – pale tall man with curses and control over death

Ontopic: stop fantasying about any changes to necromancer, they barely touched upon bugs, so no new features will be coming for months, even years…

Lukin.4061:

Ontopic: stop fantasying about any changes to necromancer, they barely touched upon bugs, so no new features will be coming for months, even years…

This is true.
The thing that makes me so angry is that good MM classes are so rare in MMOs, and of any MMO. a squeal to an MMO that does have a good MM class (and had confirmed to be bringing that class back) had the best chances of being both a good MMO AND having a good MM class.
It feels like thanks to the class mechanic of DS I got cheated out of my MM class that I was eagerly looking forward to.

I like DS the way it is mechanically, i simply want the ui changed.

It’s good to absorb some big hit if you are out of endurance or buy you some seconds
until other regenerative abilities aren’t on cooldown anymore. Skill 1 is alright under
those circumstances even untraited.

Skill 2, 3 and 4 all have their uses too.

The abilities only fall flat if you are conditionmancer and those have limited life force
generation as well.

With a power build, life siphon build and minion build i always found a reason to use
DS personally.

As much as I love minions, this would favor minion masters far too heavily and shoehorn everyone into a minion build.

Lorelei.3918:

“The problem with it is this: What if i don’t want to summon a minion? What if i never even want to touch minions as a necro? Guess what? I’m now stuck with a useless ability, and there goes 1/5th of my trait line. "

The problem with it is this: What if I don’t want to be a shadowy blob? What if I never even want to touch warlock skills as a Necro? Guess what? I’m now stuck with a useless ability, and there goes 1/5th of my traitline.

Did you see what I just did there?

Death Shroud doesn’t scale with power right, and doesn’t jive with condition builds at all. That’s why people don’t like it. I personally dislike it all together.

The crux of the issue is that Devs aren’t going to ‘fix’ DS because its ‘scary’. If they can’t handle the whole “second lifebar” aspect, then they should at least let our lifeforce do something. Preferably something that can occur concurrent with our normal attacks so it doesn’t work against our dps. Like a Rangers pet or a Guardians burning or a thief’s steal. Something easier for them to balance and more useful to us. Ideally it’s something that everyone can agree on from a stylistic view as well.

I can understand why someone wouldn’t want to be a shadowy blob, but there are still certain specs that use it, even if it is only for a damage soaker (conditionmancer). The main problem with the idea of minions is that knowing Anet, they won’t make them super strong and will probably be killed really easily.

DS is fine in terms of appealing to the class. What they need to do is make it appeal to most builds.