Guild Wars 2

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

Figured it might be worth bringing over here for our MM lovers. He specifically noted ‘minions’, so I’m assuming he’s generalizing non-ranger pets, but that should include us. Hype?

Oh thank god I hope something good comes out of this.

I’m running around the beta with 25+ minions at the moment. The wyvern wiped out my entire army in one firebreath. The plus side he took 40 stacks of poison from my minions alone!

yeah some AoE protection would be amazing.

A class having a counter to minion spam isn’t really a bad thing

bluesnacks.2301:

A class having a counter to minion spam isn’t really a bad thing

It’s not really ‘a class’ or ‘a counter’. Almost no pet build in the game is usable because pets are essentially useless in team fights due to the excessive (by design) cleave. 1v1 that might have merit, but this isn’t a 1v1 game and you can’t take any pet build into a team fight.

Except maybe if your whole intention is to death nova to victory.

That isn’t to say there aren’t other measures they could take to make minions less potent in 1v1 but more useful to utilize in team fights too, I’d be okay with that. But as it stands, AOE isn’t just a count, just about everyone does it, it’s just another hole in the design of companions.

Even in WoW where AOE was less prominent, pets had huge AOE defenses, because it was just about the only way they could justify a spec based around having a pet. Same thing here.

bluesnacks.2301:

A class having a counter to minion spam isn’t really a bad thing

That’s fine, the real issue is PvE content where minions get obliterated in seconds from champion AoE attacks. I’m really liking playing a MM so far in the beta, but as soon as you run into a high tier enemy, you can be sure you’re gonna see a lot of recharge timers and poison pools really quick.

I want a Zomby smokescale pet…

I think a cheap solution would be to make pets and minions evade whenever their master executes a dodge roll.

akaCryptic.2389:

I think a cheap solution would be to make pets and minions evade whenever their master executes a dodge roll.

Maybe, but that would mean necro has to dodge both melee AoE and ranged stuff while already having the least amount of dodge in the game.

I’d prefer minions just having 90% damage reduction from AoE in PvE only. That way at least you have to make smart use of your healing abilities as a MM (Mark of Blood / Transfusion / etc).

akaCryptic.2389:

I think a cheap solution would be to make pets and minions evade whenever their master executes a dodge roll.

Problem with this is the MM doesn’t really evade in a way they want their minions to. My minions don’t die to a single large AoE hit, they die to things like Ele fire field, Warrior LB fire field, meteor storm, wells, and similar effects that put out extremely high damage over-time AoE. And these aren’t effects I’m like to just dodge, nor would a dodge really affect anything here.