Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone, what’s the current Meta for MM in PVP I really adore minions and the spec that comes with it, even if they’re not FULLY viable without a few buffs.

Currently i’m running 20/0/20/30/0 with full invader’s gear (Pwr tough Vit)
BF BM BF SF FG Basically all minions.

Axe Focus
Staff

If anyone has any tips i’d GREATLY apritiate input I really do love fighting with minions.

The “meta” for minions is always 20/0/20/20/0 base, Staff with A/F, full soldier gear, with the last 10 points in either Death or Blood magic. They aren’t (imo) the optimal MM setups, but they are easy and effective enough on their own.

I’m not an authority on anything, so take it with a grain of salt, but;

I personally don’t find Bone Minions worthwhile without the trait that makes them apply a poison field when they die/are exploded.

Flesh Wurm is pretty vital, though annoying to have to place every fight. The stunbreak is vital, and it does the most damage out of any minion bar Flesh Golem and Bone Minion explosions. Use it and get used to placing it/blowing it up after every fight.

I personally use Dagger MH for 2’s synergy with Bloodthirst which synergises with Vampiric Master, and the 3 helps a lot with landing Bone Fiend immobs, but Axe also has its appeal. Staff’s a no-brainer. I seem to be able to get away with using Knight’s rather than Soldier’s for the sake of a bit of extra personal damage.

Just a note, Shadow Fiend has 2nd highest DPS (Flesh Wurm is third).

Bhawb.7408:

Just a note, Shadow Fiend has 2nd highest DPS (Flesh Wurm is third).

This i did not know.

I have been falling in love with my wurm. (no pun intended) Being able to place him out of the way, toss him on a ledge, let him bombard. He’s almost constant siphoning since no one really notices him if you place him right. Then you have the disorient effect of warping while bringing out of their stun.

Atleast I know i’m on the right track with gear as invader’s is identical to Soldier’s.

I really do love the minion build I hope it gets lots of love, mainly some more minion HP.

I think that MM is a God XD
’m a MM ( in both gw1 and gw2 ).
I got 5 80es characters ( MM necro , trapper ranger , demolisher engineer , cleric guardian , signet/shout/banner warrior ).
I think that MM is the best one and I’m the last man standing in dungeons.
In PvP , I can kill any one ( I killed 4 players at once while camping ).
You just need to know how to control them and keep them alive.
My build >> http://tinyurl.com/opjsdrw
Soldier armor will grant you much Toughness and some Vitality so you won’t worry if they killed ur minions.
begin the fight with staff ( land all marks ) then switch to dagger/focus ( you will get might when switching ) , use 4th and 5th skills , 3rd to immobilize your foe , transform to DS and use 5th skills and 3rd ( to increase 5th skill damage by 200% ) , after that use 4th skill to heal your minions , 2nd to tele to your foe , return to your normal form and spam dagger chain attack , then switch to staff …… and so on.. ( This is how I play )
(Remember that Dagger chain attack is the strongest attack for necros even than axe )

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

I think that MM is a God XD
’m a MM ( in both gw1 and gw2 ).
I got 5 80es characters ( MM necro , trapper ranger , demolisher engineer , cleric guardian , signet/shout/banner warrior ).
I think that MM is the best one and I’m the last man standing in dungeons.
In PvP , I can kill any one ( I killed 4 players at once while camping ).
You just need to know how to control them and keep them alive.
My build >> http://tinyurl.com/opjsdrw
Soldier armor will grant you much Toughness and some Vitality so you won’t worry if they killed ur minions.
begin the fight with staff ( land all marks ) then switch to dagger/focus ( you will get might when switching ) , use 4th and 5th skills , 3rd to immobilize your foe , transform to DS and use 5th skills and 3rd ( to increase 5th skill damage by 200% ) , after that use 4th skill to heal your minions , 2nd to tele to your foe , return to your normal form and spam dagger chain attack , then switch to staff …… and so on.. ( This is how I play )
(Remember that Dagger chain attack is the strongest attack for necros even than axe )

Wow i never picked up on the 3 5 combo in deathshroud. I guess I still have alot to learn. =D These tips are gold though

Bhawb.7408:

Just a note, Shadow Fiend has 2nd highest DPS (Flesh Wurm is third).

Is it? I remember seeing something that indicated otherwise, but that was quite a while ago. I’m still inclined to say that Flesh Wurm’s important because of the stunbreaker/escape. You should still be able to fit both in.

According to my tests, Shadow Fiend has an attack speed of ~1.65 seconds, Flesh Wurm ~4 seconds, Shadow Fiend does 350 per attack, Flesh Wurm 833, Shadow is then 212 DPS, Flesh Wurm 208. So yeah, it is really close, and in combat I’m sure most would argue that Flesh Wurm would out DPS shadow because of melee vs ranged (one reason why I think shadow fiend is very subpar in general as a minion).

Anyway, that said, if you are playing as an MM and you don’t have Bone Minions I have major questions. They are your only meaningful source of real “burst”, dealing up to 4-5k total every 18s when traited. If it wasn’t for them, I’d lose a lot of my 1v1s simply because you very rarely can wear someone down with otherwise meh DPS, especially when you’re on the later half of a fight when it is difficult to have all minions up at once, giving you the chance to have full AA pressure plus your own DPS. Bone Minions forgo all that, you press a button twice and they’ve dropped people a significant chunk of HP.

The above is why Shadow Fiend rarely finds a place on my bar except in very specific hybrid builds that are super defensive and have Melandru runes (lolstuns?). They are matched in DPS by other minions, their “utility” is subpar in most situations (compared to the amazing burst/escape/lockdown of the other 3), and most of what he can do on paper is even harder in reality because he is melee and his active has a HOLYCRAPWHATWEREYOUTHINKING long animation.

I was called a hacker exactly three times in WvW today cause I would hang out outside towers, planting my fleshwurm ON the portal to the tower… I figured, even if he barely partakes in the fight, he can suck up a condition every 10 seconds and also supplies a meager 20 toughness just for being up… Well it turned out that was a godsend as I was attacked by multiple zergs that completely ignored my wurm at the gate, i’d let them get me low, then warp in… This it turns out kitten es ALOT of people off XD

He’s earned a permanent spot on my bar and in combat.

Alos bone minions are god mode, most ignore them and if they don’t get AoE’ed down they crush people. I had a glass cannon thief on me today. My marks got him to around 75% HP and my detonated bone minions downed him.. Most likely with a LITTLE help from bone fiend and blood fiend, but still it’s amazing burst don’t ignore them.

I used a lot MM build, but I didn’t like the flesh wurm.

Yes, it is indeed usefull. However, I had the feeling that I was forced to play a too static role, which is the main problem of MM build.
You don’t have switness (unless you replace focus with warhorn, which isn’t a good idea), you can’t jump cliff cause minion will do the walking path to reach you (if there is any, otherwise they will tp near you. But this happens only when you enter in the first place in the arena).
So, with this huge stiffness, using a minion that bounds me in a specifi place it makes me more stiff, and I don’t like it. Especially cause MM build is NOT a point holder. It’s not a guardian, it’s no ele….the moment you are 1vs2 you instantly explode.

But…in 1vs1 you faceroll people.

Bhawb.7408:

According to my tests, Shadow Fiend has an attack speed of ~1.65 seconds, Flesh Wurm ~4 seconds, Shadow Fiend does 350 per attack, Flesh Wurm 833, Shadow is then 212 DPS, Flesh Wurm 208. So yeah, it is really close, and in combat I’m sure most would argue that Flesh Wurm would out DPS shadow because of melee vs ranged (one reason why I think shadow fiend is very subpar in general as a minion).

Anyway, that said, if you are playing as an MM and you don’t have Bone Minions I have major questions. They are your only meaningful source of real “burst”, dealing up to 4-5k total every 18s when traited. If it wasn’t for them, I’d lose a lot of my 1v1s simply because you very rarely can wear someone down with otherwise meh DPS, especially when you’re on the later half of a fight when it is difficult to have all minions up at once, giving you the chance to have full AA pressure plus your own DPS. Bone Minions forgo all that, you press a button twice and they’ve dropped people a significant chunk of HP.

The above is why Shadow Fiend rarely finds a place on my bar except in very specific hybrid builds that are super defensive and have Melandru runes (lolstuns?). They are matched in DPS by other minions, their “utility” is subpar in most situations (compared to the amazing burst/escape/lockdown of the other 3), and most of what he can do on paper is even harder in reality because he is melee and his active has a HOLYCRAPWHATWEREYOUTHINKING long animation.

If I were to give Shadow Fiend any position, I’d probably put it into a Fetid Consumption build. Bone Minions aren’t really minions that can capitalise on Fetid Consumption as chances are they won’t live long enough to actually proc it, but the Shadow Fiend is one that you keep out permanently and I think has the tankiness to survive direct attacks as well as the conditions that it eats.

Haunt, though, is absolutely rubbish and really the animation should be either instant (like pretty much every utility you use primarily for blinding) or something tiny like .5 sec.

Again, though, I’m like rank 28 so don’t take what I say too seriously. I don’t even know how much HP Shadow Fiends and Bone Minions have.

Zaganna.6034:

I used a lot MM build, but I didn’t like the flesh wurm.

Yes, it is indeed usefull. However, I had the feeling that I was forced to play a too static role, which is the main problem of MM build.
You don’t have switness (unless you replace focus with warhorn, which isn’t a good idea), you can’t jump cliff cause minion will do the walking path to reach you (if there is any, otherwise they will tp near you. But this happens only when you enter in the first place in the arena).
So, with this huge stiffness, using a minion that bounds me in a specifi place it makes me more stiff, and I don’t like it. Especially cause MM build is NOT a point holder. It’s not a guardian, it’s no ele….the moment you are 1vs2 you instantly explode.

But…in 1vs1 you faceroll people.

I find it’s the other way around; the Flesh Wurm gives you much more ability to poke because you know you can always teleport yourself back to somewhere safe and hopefully away from the enemy.

I’ve also experimented a bit with Signet of the Locust for the sake of keeping that mobility. It has a nasty long CD, but if you can hit enough targets, like in group fights in WvW, Spirit Rangers and other MMs, you can get some great healing if you have Bloodthirst; something in the field of 6-7k heals in my PvE gear if you can nab the full five targets.

I was speaking about sPvP/tPvP (my bad).

I don’t think MM usefull in WvW. Too much aoe, too much players (MM suffers much high number of players).
It could be an option for roaming or Jp. But in open world and zergVszerg you can go even without traits, it would be quite the same.

I do not recommend putting 30 into blood line to get the minions to take your conditions. I’ve found that this causes them to die very fast. As for MM being a face roll build, I am beaten often by good players. I faced a ranger the other day in wvw who I couldn’t beat. He appeared to be a signet build who could tank and put out lots of conditions. He would lock me in place with chill/cripple/bind and throw conditions and aoe while his pet worked on me. He ignored my minions so I was getting as full dps on him as you can expect to get on a ranger. I reset my bar to have consume conditions and well of power to remove the ball and chains but, once they were on cd, I was once again eating his full dps and taking on a lot of conditions. I run a 20/0/30/20/0 build with 30% minion dmg. Can anyone tell me what I could’ve done to beat him?

Plexxing.2978:

I do not recommend putting 30 into blood line to get the minions to take your conditions. I’ve found that this causes them to die very fast. As for MM being a face roll build, I am beaten often by good players. I faced a ranger the other day in wvw who I couldn’t beat. He appeared to be a signet build who could tank and put out lots of conditions. He would lock me in place with chill/cripple/bind and throw conditions and aoe while his pet worked on me. He ignored my minions so I was getting as full dps on him as you can expect to get on a ranger. I reset my bar to have consume conditions and well of power to remove the ball and chains but, once they were on cd, I was once again eating his full dps and taking on a lot of conditions. I run a 20/0/30/20/0 build with 30% minion dmg. Can anyone tell me what I could’ve done to beat him?

If you’re facing a DPS player you always want to lock them down with your minions. And as a MM you have a good combination of skills you can use.

If you’re running axe+focus try to chill+cripple them right off the bat. This limits their mobility by quite a bit. You should also try to make them waste a dodge or two by casting a not-so-important long cast animation (axe 2 or 3).

Once they’ve wasted their dodges enter death shroud, fear them, exit immediately, and then have your flesh golem barrel over them with his charge. With the enemy knocked down you then have your bone minion immobilize him, and then have your shadow fiend blink onto them. Since the immobilize and haunt are instant cast, you should use focus 4+axe 2 on your target during this time for extra damage.

By this time, after holding them down for so long, your bone minions should be on top of the player to pop, which leads to free poison+weakness+6k damage total. The fight should now be in your favor due to the pounding you gave him, and it simply becomes a matter of maintaining cripple+chill to kill him. (thankfully the flesh golem and bone fiend apply cripple passively).

MM is very front loaded in PvP. You need to play very aggressively with it and use your survivability as a weapon. Please note that this combination is specifically talking about a signets ranger, and the skill order and activation priority depends entirely on what you’re fighting. (for example, you need to make an enemy waste a stun break or invulnerability before you should use your flesh golem’s charge due to the long cast animation.)

Plexxing.2978:

I do not recommend putting 30 into blood line to get the minions to take your conditions. I’ve found that this causes them to die very fast. As for MM being a face roll build, I am beaten often by good players. I faced a ranger the other day in wvw who I couldn’t beat. He appeared to be a signet build who could tank and put out lots of conditions. He would lock me in place with chill/cripple/bind and throw conditions and aoe while his pet worked on me. He ignored my minions so I was getting as full dps on him as you can expect to get on a ranger. I reset my bar to have consume conditions and well of power to remove the ball and chains but, once they were on cd, I was once again eating his full dps and taking on a lot of conditions. I run a 20/0/30/20/0 build with 30% minion dmg. Can anyone tell me what I could’ve done to beat him?

Dying is a natural part of minions. If the conditions are enough to kill a minion, then they’re also enough to kill you, so you dodged a bullet with that transfer. Fetid Consumption taking away a condition stack before staff 4 can be a bit of a pain, though.

Low variation of conditions is exactly where Fetid Consumption shines. It drops off when you’re facing an enemy that can frequently apply 5+ conditions, but with a full roll of minions, 4 or less conditions will have a rough time sticking to you. If you need a hard condition dump, staff 4 is the way to go, but minions can only soften frequent heavy condition dumps, not completely erase them.

You built with presumably MM traits and are surprised when your output dropped when you didn’t have minions equipped?

Sarrs.4831:

If I were to give Shadow Fiend any position, I’d probably put it into a Fetid Consumption build. Bone Minions aren’t really minions that can capitalise on Fetid Consumption as chances are they won’t live long enough to actually proc it, but the Shadow Fiend is one that you keep out permanently and I think has the tankiness to survive direct attacks as well as the conditions that it eats.

Haunt, though, is absolutely rubbish and really the animation should be either instant (like pretty much every utility you use primarily for blinding) or something tiny like .5 sec.

Again, though, I’m like rank 28 so don’t take what I say too seriously. I don’t even know how much HP Shadow Fiends and Bone Minions have.

All minions with the 50% higher HP trait sit higher than base HP for players on the lower HP classes (or very close), with some of them breaching 20k HP. I haven’t done all the testing though, I might do that today if I get time. But yeah, they are actually quite strong in that sense.

Haunt is great in the right build. I use it in my Fetid Consumption/Death Nova super tanky build. But even then, I never drop Bone Minions from my bar. The healing on siphon (triggers on Putrid Explosion for every person hit), the extra condition they take while alive (2 vs 1), and most importantly the big burst and downed pressure with their damage/poison field is awesome. I find it very, very hard to leave them out of any of my builds.

Back to Haunt though, it just needs its animation time reduced, and if necessary damage to compensate. But its just way too slow. Other than that I actually really like the ability, a blind plus massive LF gain every 20 seconds.

And Fetid Consumption is God mode against many sustained damage builds. 4 Rune of vampirism + 2 melandru, fetid consumption, dagger off-hand, full minion bar (including Blood Fiend), and you’re looking at massive condi removal, and massive HP regen.

Bhawb.7408:

Sarrs.4831:

If I were to give Shadow Fiend any position, I’d probably put it into a Fetid Consumption build. Bone Minions aren’t really minions that can capitalise on Fetid Consumption as chances are they won’t live long enough to actually proc it, but the Shadow Fiend is one that you keep out permanently and I think has the tankiness to survive direct attacks as well as the conditions that it eats.

Haunt, though, is absolutely rubbish and really the animation should be either instant (like pretty much every utility you use primarily for blinding) or something tiny like .5 sec.

Again, though, I’m like rank 28 so don’t take what I say too seriously. I don’t even know how much HP Shadow Fiends and Bone Minions have.

All minions with the 50% higher HP trait sit higher than base HP for players on the lower HP classes (or very close), with some of them breaching 20k HP. I haven’t done all the testing though, I might do that today if I get time. But yeah, they are actually quite strong in that sense.

Haunt is great in the right build. I use it in my Fetid Consumption/Death Nova super tanky build. But even then, I never drop Bone Minions from my bar. The healing on siphon (triggers on Putrid Explosion for every person hit), the extra condition they take while alive (2 vs 1), and most importantly the big burst and downed pressure with their damage/poison field is awesome. I find it very, very hard to leave them out of any of my builds.

Back to Haunt though, it just needs its animation time reduced, and if necessary damage to compensate. But its just way too slow. Other than that I actually really like the ability, a blind plus massive LF gain every 20 seconds.

And Fetid Consumption is God mode against many sustained damage builds. 4 Rune of vampirism + 2 melandru, fetid consumption, dagger off-hand, full minion bar (including Blood Fiend), and you’re looking at massive condi removal, and massive HP regen.

I don’t recommend Fetid Consumption at WvW as it will draw allies conditions instead of yours specially in zergs ( according to wiki ).

Bhawb.7408:

And Fetid Consumption is God mode against many sustained damage builds. 4 Rune of vampirism + 2 melandru, fetid consumption, dagger off-hand, full minion bar (including Blood Fiend), and you’re looking at massive condi removal, and massive HP regen.

sorry, I meant to say taste of death. However fetid consumption is Amazing in itself.

Taste of Death would be 100000000000000000000000000000000000000x better if we had minion HP bars on our UI.

Bhawb.7408:

Taste of Death would be 100000000000000000000000000000000000000x better if we had minion HP bars on our UI.

I agree

@ Sarrs
I am not surprised when my output decreases as I lose minions. Remember, he was ignoring my minions so I only lost the bone minions by exploding them. As for getting rid of the conditions, as I said, every time I did, he had cripple/chill/bind on me as soon as I removed them. He took all the dps I threw at him. He stood still many times taking the hits while attacking me with aoe attacks and had a rather impressive heal to boot.

@Bhawb
I find that you get good condition removal OR great hp regen (if they hit) but not both. Maybe I’m not getting it but, when I tried having my minions remove my conditions, they dropped much faster leaving me vulnerable and weaker. I hear you’re a great MM. Would you mind showing us some pvp videos?

Yes, you’re going to lose out on some healing because they will die faster, but while they are alive its still a lot of healing, plus having Fetid Consumption allows you to use blood fiend, who does some pretty impressive healing.

I liked it more when Putrid Mark pulled off allies, and you could cleanse them.

To PvP videos, there are some on my youtube channel from old profession tourneys (TheAdventuresOfBhawb) but they are pretty bad quality. I’m thinking of streaming/doing some videos soon though if I get time.

I would also like to add that shadow fiend is good against stealth thieves. When they pop out of stealth, you use its ability before they restealth to track their position when it hits. You can hit that area with aoes and they will most likely fail their first attack out of stealth. Its long activation is a boon in this instance.

Flesh Wurm beats him there, sadly. Wurmie ignores stealth atm, he will attack regardless. Its kind of funny.

Bhawb.7408:

And Fetid Consumption is God mode against many sustained damage builds. 4 Rune of vampirism + 2 melandru, fetid consumption, dagger off-hand, full minion bar (including Blood Fiend), and you’re looking at massive condi removal, and massive HP regen.

I’m personally quite partial to Lyssa runes. A full condi clear along with more boons for you, particularly Fury, can help a good bit on flipping situations, and Flesh Golem’s short Charge CD lets you use it pretty quickly- quicker than the rune’s CD, even. Only problem is that spawning the Golem in the first place will eat your Lyssa CD too. If you get super lucky you can get something nice on the Blood Fiend raise, too, but RNG is RNG.

Plexxing.2978:

I would also like to add that shadow fiend is good against stealth thieves. When they pop out of stealth, you use its ability before they restealth to track their position when it hits. You can hit that area with aoes and they will most likely fail their first attack out of stealth. Its long activation is a boon in this instance.

Bhawb’s suggested using Axe, and the Axe 2 will track them even while you’re in stealth for 2 1/4 seconds. I use Dagger MH and Dagger 2 will also track them for 3 seconds.

Axe 2 tracks when they stealth? I haven’t noticed that even though it’s my primary weapon. They seem to come off no worse for the wear when I try it.

Plexxing.2978:

Axe 2 tracks when they stealth? I haven’t noticed that even though it’s my primary weapon. They seem to come off no worse for the wear when I try it.

Depends on the thief.

If they’re moderately tanky, then you can for the most part shrug off their attacks and if you can get a good CC chain on them (bonefiend immob/charge/double fear) you can work them down.

If they’re full zerks, then it’ll be hard and fast, but if you can land one of those tracking abilities it’ll deal a very significant amount of damage and Death Shroud 4 and 5 can wipe them up.

Any channel like that will continue channeling and doing damage even after they have entered stealth. Also if you aren’t moving while channeling your character will turn to track them.

DS 4 (maybe 5 not sure) also go completely through stealth regardless.

My main USED to be a thief, i know full well any Chanel or tether skills stick to me in stealth.