Guild Wars 2

So I was having this debate with my friend about which is better for pve. He claims that his pet build not only lasts longer but does more damage and is overall better than a well spec.

What are your guys’ thoughts?

It largely depends on what you are trying to accomplish. For open world pve nothing beats minions. For dungeons, it’s largely dependent on group makeup and fight. To break it down to the simplest method.

Wells – Better Burst and AoE damage
Minions – Better single target and more consistent damage if you set your minions correctly.

Minions actually require more work to setup than any other necro build. There are a lot of people who hate minions because they misunderstand their AI table.

Bas.7406:

It largely depends on what you are trying to accomplish. For open world pve nothing beats minions. For dungeons, it’s largely dependent on group makeup and fight. To break it down to the simplest method.

Wells – Better Burst and AoE damage
Minions – Better single target and more consistent damage if you set your minions correctly.

Minions actually require more work to setup than any other necro build. There are a lot of people who hate minions because they misunderstand their AI table.

The argument was mainly about which is better at survival / tanking monsters & bosses in dungeons.

Well if you’re going to talk survival, then yeah, MM would be better because of the toughness from the Death Magic trait line. I still wouldn’t use MM in a dungeon, though, because pet AI is so meh, same with the damage.

Ah, bunker builds – Nothing beats the minion master – Axe/Focus plus staff > Dagger/WH plus wells. When I run MM bunker in a dungeon I never die even when the minions die (which all of them dieing is a rarity) I can still truck on. Minions siphon health is amazingly strong

Don’t need a bunker to survive in dungeons, certainly not as a Necro. Using dagger main hand 24/7 would be a bad idea for most if not all players of course…Just bring mid and long range options and swap depending on what you need for the fight ahead.

Well of Darkness, Well of Power, Well of Blood and Greater Marks
In a five-on-one PvE situation, a support build keeps the short range fighters in as much control over the boss as possible. The heavy armor player may very well count on you and other ranged players for healing and boon support.

In a five-on-more-than-one PvE situation, Epidemic rules.

It is okay to use minions in dungeons but remember you fight as a team with other players. No one wants a team mate who plays solo beside them. If you opt for minions, run them hard spamming their skills as much as you can. I will not say minions are the wrong choice but wanted to remind you that wells, marks, and other AoE are more important than just the mediocre damage they do. Just keeping up cripple on a boss can prevent a total party wipe. Adding well of darkness with the protection buff gives short range players time for their own skills, including heals, to cool down so, just because you do not see big numbers shooting off the mobs, does not mean your attacks are not helping. What is better, using Life Transfer to heal minions, or your team mates?

In the end, it is about the team completing the path quickly and safely. Whether you do that through increased dps via minions and using them as poisonous, explosive, meat shields for the group, or use other AoE is up to you. The problem is that the skills you plan to use require specific traiting and gear. Try out different builds to see which you prefer.

I’ve been playing my necro as power specced ever since I hit 80. Completed every dungeon in the game for DM (simin pre-nerf) with a 30/30/0/0/10 well/DS build that focused on debilitating conditions for group support (weakness, chilled, vulnerability). With the changes in the last patch I have switched to 20/0/20/30/0 minion spec to test the differences.

The minion spec obviously trades survivability for aoe potential, but single target damage and group support are both debatable. Wells suffer from long cooldowns and the ability for mobs to easily walk out of it (any boss that requires kiting makes them nearly worthless). Minions offer more sustained, dependable damage on shorter cooldowns but then face the problem of dying. From what I’ve seen so far if minions are allowed to dps with minimal deaths they will be at least equal if not better single target damage than the well dps spec. This can be maintained on most bosses with careful placement and cooldown management.

This leaves the issue of group support. While I’m probably out of the norm for running condition duration on a berserker necro, I feel that people pigeonhole the necro as a “condition damage” profession when we’re actually more of master of conditions profession. Our single target condition damage options in PvE are depressing, however our ability to manipulate conditions and apply every non-damaging condition in the game is rarely utilized in PvE. With that in mind my well spec offers boon removal (well+focus), chill, weakness, vulnerability, and poison to the group. The minion spec offers boon removal (focus), condition removal (via pets), the same conditions as above excluding weakness (but lower durations and less access to vulnerability), and general cannon fodder (I’m always happy to see a minion take a single target attack for the team). The minion spec has a wider range of effects to offer, while the other spec is more specialized on vulnerability and weakness.

I’m yet to test these against each other in higher level fractals where the pets might no longer be an option, but so far in the 20’s there hasn’t been an issue.

I would never take minions into most high level dungeons the aoe’s from bosses are gonna cause some serious problems. My guild currently farms cof on a regular basis. We go for proper speedruns with a mesmer and 4 dps classes. Preferably warriors, but I currently only have the necro available and geared for that dungeon. But its no issue for the group because weve found that having a single bezerker necro actually keeps the dps just as high as having that 1 extra warrior. I may not be able to give the group might or other boons but the speed at which i can apply vulnerability and other conditions while doing huge burst is amazing. We can complete runs in 6-7 mins consistantly running 2/3 warrior, 1/2 mesmer and 1 necro.

Ofc when i finish leveling my warrior i will probably be taking that instead. But the necro certainly makes up for lack of auto attack dps with vuln stacking and high damage wells. Most bosses get burst down in around 10-20 seconds so there is no need for cooldown reduction on wells.

spoj.9672:

I would never take minions into most high level dungeons the aoe’s from bosses are gonna cause some serious problems. My guild currently farms cof on a regular basis. We go for proper speedruns with a mesmer and 4 dps classes. Preferably warriors, but I currently only have the necro available and geared for that dungeon. But its no issue for the group because weve found that having a single bezerker necro actually keeps the dps just as high as having that 1 extra warrior. I may not be able to give the group might or other boons but the speed at which i can apply vulnerability and other conditions while doing huge burst is amazing. We can complete runs in 6-7 mins consistantly running 2/3 warrior, 1/2 mesmer and 1 necro.

Ofc when i finish leveling my warrior i will probably be taking that instead. But the necro certainly makes up for lack of auto attack dps with vuln stacking and high damage wells. Most bosses get burst down in around 10-20 seconds so there is no need for cooldown reduction on wells.

I don’t think CoF 1 should be the baseline for determining spec viability. That dungeon is purely about maximizing burst damage at the cost of everything else. As for taking minions into higher level dungeons, I have played every path of arah multiple times this entire week with the updated minions and have not had a problem with keeping them alive.

Fish:

I don’t think CoF 1 should be the baseline for determining spec viability. That dungeon is purely about maximizing burst damage at the cost of everything else. As for taking minions into higher level dungeons, I have played every path of arah multiple times this entire week with the updated minions and have not had a problem with keeping them alive.

You can do every dungeon with full burst dps groups. Cof is just the fastest. How did you keep your minions alive in the GL fight. Cause i would of thought the aoe would instantly nuke them all.

My guild farms CoE quite alot now and I would never take minions into that dungeon. They would cause problems with the aoe circles from alpha and most likely die instantly anyway. Only dungeons that i can see minions being worthwhile are dungeons which are slightly harder to speedrun and the bosses dont have any large scale aoe attacks. So that limits the viability of a MM build. Bezerker wells is viable in all aspects of the game, including PvP, WvW and general PvE roaming.

spoj.9672:

I take Minions into every dungeon. The alpha issue has been fixed where they are not targeted. They don’t die instantly, they die 1 at a time, and while they are alive I have a constant source of healing. I run berzerker build, and The problem with wells is on any boss that moves you lose a significant portion of damage. Minions have no issues on 90 percent of the fights as long as you understand that they will die, when they do my damage is the same as yours while waiting for CD’s to come up.

Tips to Minions in Dungeons: Always Bring Flesh Wurm – 1200 range, stun break, top damage, and never pulls aggro. Stick him away from the fight at about 600 to 900 and he won’t get hit by aoe issues.

Tip 2: Never bring shadow fiend – melee weak is great in pvp but pretty awful in dungeons though he can tank anything up to the Gold circle guys without dieing.

Tip 3: Bone Minions – Explosion = Amazing use it reguarly.

Tip 4: Bone Fiend is ranged begin your attack at max range and allow him to start attacking at his max range this will keep him far from the attack and keep him alive longer. Do not summon Flesh Wurm next to him – Bone Fiend has an odd aggro table and can pull threat off anyone at any time.

Tip 5: Realize they will die, just as you will miss with wells, get an evade on your big burst, your minions will die so expect it, and use them as minions. I use them as meat shields to soak up big hits that may kill me than resummon them later.

Bas.7406:

I take Minions into every dungeon. The alpha issue has been fixed where they are not targeted. They don’t die instantly, they die 1 at a time, and while they are alive I have a constant source of healing. I run berzerker build, and The problem with wells is on any boss that moves you lose a significant portion of damage. Minions have no issues on 90 percent of the fights as long as you understand that they will die, when they do my damage is the same as yours while waiting for CD’s to come up.

Tips to Minions in Dungeons: Always Bring Flesh Wurm – 1200 range, stun break, top damage, and never pulls aggro. Stick him away from the fight at about 600 to 900 and he won’t get hit by aoe issues.

Tip 2: Never bring shadow fiend – melee weak is great in pvp but pretty awful in dungeons though he can tank anything up to the Gold circle guys without dieing.

Tip 3: Bone Minions – Explosion = Amazing use it reguarly.

Tip 4: Bone Fiend is ranged begin your attack at max range and allow him to start attacking at his max range this will keep him far from the attack and keep him alive longer. Do not summon Flesh Wurm next to him – Bone Fiend has an odd aggro table and can pull threat off anyone at any time.

Tip 5: Realize they will die, just as you will miss with wells, get an evade on your big burst, your minions will die so expect it, and use them as minions. I use them as meat shields to soak up big hits that may kill me than resummon them later.

Very much doubt your damage is the same as mine. And most bosses wont move when your entire group or the majority of your group is in melee range. Theres also the use of imobalize or timing to make sure your wells arent wasted. Only fight i had an issue with wells is the champion abomination in CoE p2 and p3. But you generally all range him so he doesnt stack frenzy or you just skip him. And even then Ive worked out a way to get my wells to do atleast 4-5 ticks on him consistantly. You also shouldnt need to soak up damage if you manage your dodges and have DS for the odd time you dont have a dodge.

Lupi P1 all minions stay alive easily. Don’t summon flesh golem or else a grub might spawn on him during the transition
P2 minions die quickly here. Use bone minions explode and only summon the rest immediately after his aoe projectiles
P3 easy to keep them up, just make sure to explode them/use golem charge before he uses his aoe melee leech

I’ve used wells on that fight and often times he is too mobile to get the full duration of them. Either you sit around waiting for the perfect opportunity and waste potential cooldown times or he gets hit by only a few ticks. I will admit that I haven’t tried CoE with the minions yet…that one could be rough. However, there are several fights that wells are not optimal due to constant boss mobility. I’m not saying that I’m 100% sold on minions being the better spec. I’m just sharing what I’ve observed with testing it as a viable PvE dungeon option. On a side note…wells are incredibly boring.

Edit: And like I said in my original post. If the pets are up for the majority of the fight, they out dps my well spec for a single target boss.

Ok i was curious so I went and tested minion damage against well damage. Minions dont scale with stats and they do laughable damage compared to my wells even when im not speced for power at all. Yes their damage is better than i expected but the only way they could ever beat well damage is if you are in a fight for long enough for wells to come off cooldown several times. Which is not very often.

Minions are for survivability not damage. Plus i imagine you guys dont use dagger mainhand with a MM build so thats another reason my dps is gonna be leagues higher. Although this testing has made me think a little better of minions. For example in arah when we have pugs we tend to just range the whole time and i dont spec into focused rituals so i lose out on some damage on GL. So atleast now i know minions could be quite good in that fight. Thanks for the discussion, was enlightening.

spoj.9672:

Very much doubt your damage is the same as mine. And most bosses wont move when your entire group or the majority of your group is in melee range. Theres also the use of imobalize or timing to make sure your wells arent wasted. Only fight i had an issue with wells is the champion abomination in CoE p2 and p3. But you generally all range him so he doesnt stack frenzy or you just skip him. And even then Ive worked out a way to get my wells to do atleast 4-5 ticks on him consistantly. You also shouldnt need to soak up damage if you manage your dodges and have DS for the odd time you dont have a dodge.

I can guarantee, that our damage is really close outside of when you drop wells. My power is easily the same, the only difference (and I have done this with DS build players and well guys in the past). Is either 30 percent crit on full glass cannon (well builds are not) or 30 percent crit damage if you spec fully into the Soul reaping (the odds are in a well build you aren’t). So at what point does your damage differ from mine?

As for your other reasons they are symbolic of a player who has not used Minions in some time. Why would I waste DS as a damage soak, when I can use a minion for it, and use DS for damage? You see, I can counter your points easily. I was simply using a broad reason I use minions occassionaly to tank mobs (no damage to me or other players is awesome), sometimes to counter ranged spells I will move behind one of them and they hit it (wow it’s like a blind).

I like well builds, and think they our the hardest hitting abilities we have. The point you are missing is that Minions are completely viable in everything except Fractals over lvl 10 due to Agony wiping them out before they can do anything. Any dungeon outside of that I have used them on every single boss with little to no issue once you understand boss mechanics.

spoj.9672:

Ok i was curious so I went and tested minion damage against well damage. Minions dont scale with stats and they do laughable damage compared to my wells even when im not speced for power at all. Yes their damage is better than i expected but the only way they could ever beat well damage is if you are in a fight for long enough for wells to come off cooldown several times. Which is not very often.

Minions are for survivability not damage. Plus i imagine you guys dont use dagger mainhand with a MM build so thats another reason my dps is gonna be leagues higher. Although this testing has made me think a little better of minions. For example in arah when we have pugs we tend to just range the whole time and i dont spec into focused rituals so i lose out on some damage on GL. So atleast now i know minions could be quite good in that fight. Thanks for the discussion, was enlightening.

Sigh, NO ONE IS SAYING THEY DO MORE DAMAGE. We are saying in an extended run, they can equal or do more damage. It really depends on grouping and how good you are at using wells at the right times to maximize damage. In the amount of time your double wells are up you do more damage, in the time your wells are down we do more damage. I could use dagger Mainhand and have used it, but oddly enough, Axe/Focus is optimal for minion builds thanks to vuln stacking.

You are correct, Minions with siphon health are amazing for survival.

Just because im using wells doesnt mean im traiting into them at all. Its a complete waste to spec into blood magic when going bezerker. Im currently using 30/15/0/0/25. But i may change this when i finish getting ascended gear because the only thing i lack is precision. My crit damage is over 100% and my power is 2400 and i have 53% crit chance without fury and food. You really think you hit close to me outside of my wells? All my wells do is give me a nice extra burst of 24k damage over 5 seconds and apply vuln and corrupt boons. But most of my damage comes from DS spam along with contant rotation through dagger+warhorn and axe+focus. Plus lich form hits incredibly hard on this build.

spoj.9672:

Just because im using wells doesnt mean im traiting into them at all. Its a complete waste to spec into blood magic when going bezerker. Im currently using 30/15/0/0/25. But i may change this when i finish getting ascended gear because the only thing i lack is precision. My crit damage is over 100% and my power is 2400 and i have 53% crit chance without fury and food. You really think you hit close to me outside of my wells? All my wells do is give me a nice extra burst of 24k damage over 5 seconds and apply vuln and corrupt boons. But most of my damage comes from DS spam along with contant rotation through dagger+warhorn and axe+focus. Plus lich form hits incredibly hard on this build.

What’s your attack? I sit at or around 3500 with 50 percent crit and 84 percent crit damage. :p, and I still don’t have the best trinkets.

the same but i dont have a decent backpiece yet

Bas, do hold onto your dreams about minions, but nothing beats Well of Darkness and Plague Form when combined with the LF to DS that dead corpses from Corruption and Suffering are created in terms of tanking.

Andele.1306:

Bas, do hold onto your dreams about minions, but nothing beats Well of Darkness and Plague Form when combined with the LF to DS that dead corpses from Corruption and Suffering are created in terms of tanking.

I agree, that in the moment you launch all of those things, there is nothing close in terms of damage. But there is 50 seconds of time between those.

OP I am at this decision point atm as well. I like wells, they go where I “tell” them if specced accordingly and are reliable. Even though I despise the tedium of being a staff necro, marks and wells are reliable and proven to be effective as a focus for the class.

In my opinion, as long as minions aren’t scaled in any way with the Necromancer’s stats, they simply aren’t worth the micromanaging it takes.

Minions not scaling is the beauty of them. It means the necromancer can use any gear and still the minions have the same damage. It means my 27k HP, 3k armor necro can do similar sustained damage to builds with a lot more damage investment.

OP, when you trait, go all the way. Whether you run conditionmancer, minionmancer, hybrid, whatever, trait that way. It is a disservice to your group to trait half-way and try to do both, or trait for one and switch to another. You should also adjust your play style to match your weapon load and utility skills. Necromancer is a wonderful profession because it allows such diversity of builds and play styles but it does not allow optimal damage to those who think they can switch builds without retraiting.

Bas.7406:

It largely depends on what you are trying to accomplish. For open world pve nothing beats minions.

I just don’t find that to be true.

In my experience, minions are a drag on moving across a PvE map. They die incessantly and the cooldowns are prohibitive to any “gain” you receive from having them.

Healing them is ridiculously involved because of their selective out of combat regen abilities.

I find a well and marks Necromancer to have more advantages than a Minion Master with none of the headaches. Come on, micromanaging these stupid things?

Using minion specific skills assumes:

A.) They aren’t dead

B.) They are actually close enough to matter

C.) You aren’t too busy with the running the battle (Marks, Wells, etc)

Give me mindless Minions that only fight what I am targeting and that scale or benefit in some way to my Necromancer’s stats.

Guild Wars 1 had this accomplished perfectly. Minion Master, despite the recent patch, is a cruel joke.

Bhawb.7408:

Minions not scaling is the beauty of them. It means the necromancer can use any gear and still the minions have the same damage. It means my 27k HP, 3k armor necro can do similar sustained damage to builds with a lot more damage investment.

And give up Wells and other far more useful skills that actually do benefit from the Necromancer’s stats.

SallyStitches.4096:

Well if you’re going to talk survival, then yeah, MM would be better because of the toughness from the Death Magic trait line. I still wouldn’t use MM in a dungeon, though, because pet AI is so meh, same with the damage.

My current build is 20/20/30/0 but no Minions. I use Staff and Scepter/Dagger, mostly deal in ground target wells and large hard hitting marks with fear damage.

I find soloing with this build to be far easier and successful than trawling about with a train of minions which require micromanagement to truly be effective.

Kuldebar.1897:

Bhawb.7408:

Minions not scaling is the beauty of them. It means the necromancer can use any gear and still the minions have the same damage. It means my 27k HP, 3k armor necro can do similar sustained damage to builds with a lot more damage investment.

And give up Wells and other far more useful skills that actually do benefit from the Necromancer’s stats.

He wasn’t saying give up anything. He was offering an alternative and a reason why you can go MM. We are not arguing MM over Wells we are arguing that MM is a viable and effective way to play because of minions scaling.

Bas.7406:

He wasn’t saying give up anything. He was offering an alternative and a reason why you can go MM. We are not arguing MM over Wells we are arguing that MM is a viable and effective way to play because of minions scaling.

If you want to use minions, obviously you are giving up wells, I’m not following how that isn’t a valid observation on his statement.

Sure, from a design point, ANet has far less headaches by doing things the way they have and not having to worry about balance issues with minions scaled to gear and stats. Well whoopity-kitten-doo, that doesn’t make minions any more fun to play. /lol

The question of viable and effective, well let’s consider what you give up to have the minions and what you actually gain from having them.

The answer is not a whole helluva alot in the gains department, and as for giving up, well the ability to slap a ground targeted well down wherever I want is superior to me having to deal with minions from a playability stand point.

Except you can’t slap it whenever you want because you have at best a 45 minute cooldown where you are doing the same damage I am doing without my minions except my damage comes back up in 24 seconds and provides multiple forms of CC for single targets.

Simply because you cannot play something to the level you want too does not make them unviable. MM is a very effective playstyle once you learn how to do it. I think Wells are brutal because if I drop them in the wrong spot or someone dodges out of it or the boss gets pulled through it, I just wasted the CD. You never waste a CD with a minion if you know what you are doing.

The point about making minion scale with our damage is ridiculous. I couldn’t imagine how powerful that would be. With the flat damage, I can do as much damage as any other build can without my minions, but now I get added bonus damage for a majority of the fight while well and condition guys are waiting on CD’s to do their big damage.

There are a myriad of reasons not to run wells from playstyle to dislikeing the aoe factor to not wanting to be in melee.

Bas.7406:

Except you can’t slap it whenever you want because you have at best a 45 minute cooldown where you are doing the same damage I am doing without my minions except my damage comes back up in 24 seconds and provides multiple forms of CC for single targets.

Simply because you cannot play something to the level you want too does not make them unviable. MM is a very effective playstyle once you learn how to do it. I think Wells are brutal because if I drop them in the wrong spot or someone dodges out of it or the boss gets pulled through it, I just wasted the CD. You never waste a CD with a minion if you know what you are doing.

The point about making minion scale with our damage is ridiculous. I couldn’t imagine how powerful that would be. With the flat damage, I can do as much damage as any other build can without my minions, but now I get added bonus damage for a majority of the fight while well and condition guys are waiting on CD’s to do their big damage.

There are a myriad of reasons not to run wells from playstyle to dislikeing the aoe factor to not wanting to be in melee.

Viable? Sure they are viable, but since when has just being viable been a standard to strive for? We should be speaking about reliable, predictable, and flexible.

Sure, you can say a given WELL might have cool down and the minion not as much, but the well stays where I want it and fulfills its job while granting a tangible benefit by its very existence and a detriment to the enemy.

As for your rebuttal on minions and scaling, well you just further prove the point as to how superfluous they are to the Necromancer profession.

If minions did scale to some degree, they might be more attractive, but they don’t so their very existence is a less than stellar way to replace awesome skills with irregular and often unreliable constructs.

Kuldebar.1897:

Viable? Sure they are viable, but since when has just being viable been a standard to strive for? We should be speaking about reliable, predictable, and flexible.

Sure, you can say a given WELL might have cool down and the minion not as much, but the well stays where I want it and fulfills its job while granting a tangible benefit by its very existence and a detriment to the enemy.

This is a basis of perception over reality. Players who came from GW1 have a misperception of what a minion is based on their past experience with them. This is not the same thing. Minions are not a core design of the necro they are a special unique utility skill. They are supposed to die, they do their job.

They are reliable in attackign your target as long as you use a single target ability twice (preferrably auto attack). They do a solid amount of damage. I once did a rundown of the amount of damage a minion build projects too, and over a 5 minute period it is the highest damage build we can have if your minions never die (I know they die simply pointing out that if they didn’t they would outdps everything). They have responsive ai (not perfect), and have some very strong skills on short cooldowns.

What you perceive a minion to be (a core skill that the necro can build everything around) and what they are (a unique utility that is there to deal damage and die) are not the same thing. Until you change your perception you wil never see how strong they can be. There is a reason why they haven’t made any significant changes to Minions outside of the really nice buff to Blood Fiend’s heal. It’s because the guys who play them well already cause a lot of trouble. If they are buffed than something has to give.

Bas.7406:

This is a basis of perception over reality. Players who came from GW1 have a misperception of what a minion is based on their past experience with them. This is not the same thing. Minions are not a core design of the necro they are a special unique utility skill. They are supposed to die, they do their job.

They are reliable in attackign your target as long as you use a single target ability twice (preferrably auto attack). They do a solid amount of damage. I once did a rundown of the amount of damage a minion build projects too, and over a 5 minute period it is the highest damage build we can have if your minions never die (I know they die simply pointing out that if they didn’t they would outdps everything). They have responsive ai (not perfect), and have some very strong skills on short cooldowns.

What you perceive a minion to be (a core skill that the necro can build everything around) and what they are (a unique utility that is there to deal damage and die) are not the same thing. Until you change your perception you wil never see how strong they can be. There is a reason why they haven’t made any significant changes to Minions outside of the really nice buff to Blood Fiend’s heal. It’s because the guys who play them well already cause a lot of trouble. If they are buffed than something has to give.

I can buy that, that makes sense. yes, perception is important but expectations are expectations.

But saying it’s a perception issue begs some questions as to why Minions were designed in this way, and the answer I keep reaching is that if they are truly for utility they are less than useful in application.

My Engineer’s utilities are, well, utilitarian whereas my Necromancer has to be at the mercy of the vagaries of his Minions at all times.( Seriously, give the Necromancer some totems and call us shamans)

The OP raised a good question about Wells versus Minions. I have found that I have more control and therefore less chances of dying when I rely solely on my target and skill selection instead of a inserting an X number of Minions into the mix. (I like Flesh Wurm though, go figure)

Bas did you play MM in gw1? MM in gw1 was completely different and worked a hell of alot better even though your minions would die constantly.

Oh and people mentioning marks. I would never recommend using the staff in any build unless you really need that 1200 range. Marks do poor damage with power builds and you barely get any condition damage/stacks out of them either. Plus the auto attack is the worst auto attack of any weapon of any class in the game. It makes the axe auto attack seem amazing.

spoj.9672:

Bas did you play MM in gw1? MM in gw1 was completely different and worked a hell of alot better even though your minions would die constantly.

Oh and people mentioning marks. I would never recommend using the staff in any build unless you really need that 1200 range. Marks do poor damage with power builds and you barely get any condition damage/stacks out of them either. Plus the auto attack is the worst auto attack of any weapon of any class in the game. It makes the axe auto attack seem amazing.

Yeah with power builds, but otherwise Marks are pretty much what a Necro is about in GW2.

I like power builds but I drift back to the Necro’s AoE because it is solid and I can use it to apply to all situations without being boxed into a corner.

Kuldebar.1897:

spoj.9672:

Bas did you play MM in gw1? MM in gw1 was completely different and worked a hell of alot better even though your minions would die constantly.

Oh and people mentioning marks. I would never recommend using the staff in any build unless you really need that 1200 range. Marks do poor damage with power builds and you barely get any condition damage/stacks out of them either. Plus the auto attack is the worst auto attack of any weapon of any class in the game. It makes the axe auto attack seem amazing.

Yeah with power builds, but otherwise Marks are pretty much what a Necro is about in GW2.

I like power builds but I drift back to the Necro’s AoE because it is solid and I can use it to apply to all situations without being boxed into a corner.

Yeah they are only good for some aoe control and support but generally should be avoided.

OP, the most important point of this thread is that Necromancer has several perfectly acceptable builds. Many players get hung up on damage but that is not the only metric. I encourage you to take a long, hard look at the skills for each weapon and utility, then choose what is right for the situation rather than forcing one build to work for all.

In general, minion and power builds do pretty well for solo play with the exception of farming large numbers of trash mobs at once. Short-to-medium range weapon combinations provide higher dps and minions are great meat shields that can heal you but only you. Minions provide very little support for a group other than being explosive decoys but add greatly to your dps.

Conditionmancer AoE does well for group support by providing heals, boons, and inflicting/removing/transferring conditions. If you decide to run conditionmancer, make sure you are doing these things for your group. Half of the staff’s abilities seem made for group support so use it for that but do not expect it to provide high dps instead of applying combo fields, condition transfers, and regeneration for your group.

You cannot optimize for minions and conditions at the same time. The trait tree makes it difficult to do both on purpose. If you use most of your points on power and toughness, then precision comes up short and vice versa. You have to choose which build you want and trait for it all the way for maximum effectiveness. Otherwise, you could trait a little in each area for flexibility in weapons and utilities while acknowledging that every configuration will be sub-optimal in exchange for not having to pay the silver to retrait.

Until minions become reliable (i.e. “they work sometimes when you press x, x, square, circle, start” is not reliable) they shouldn’t be considered anything more than a novelty. When I occasionally blow off the dust of my minion utilities, I’m reminded why I don’t use them. Sure, on paper the damage disparity is fairly impressive — but our other utilities are much more reliable damage/defense because they aren’t at the mercy of the atrocious AI.

So I guess it boils down to this; minions are like a piano hanging by a string — if it happens to land on your target it could be devastating. Wells are like a high-powered rifle, they take a while to reload but are dead accurate and fairly damaging. Which would you take into a dungeon? I imagine the piano would be fairly burdensome…

Heh, I could do this all day.

Terok.7315:

Until minions become reliable (i.e. “they work sometimes when you press x, x, square, circle, start” is not reliable) they shouldn’t be considered anything more than a novelty. When I occasionally blow off the dust of my minion utilities, I’m reminded why I don’t use them. Sure, on paper the damage disparity is fairly impressive — but our other utilities are much more reliable damage/defense because they aren’t at the mercy of the atrocious AI.

So I guess it boils down to this; minions are like a piano hanging by a string — if it happens to land on your target it could be devastating. Wells are like a high-powered rifle, they take a while to reload but are dead accurate and fairly damaging. Which would you take into a dungeon? I imagine the piano would be fairly burdensome…

Heh, I could do this all day.

Now why the frack didn’t I say it that way!?

Well, good job, that’s what I was going on about earlier in this thread.

So it seems as though the general consensus is that minions are bad due to AI/reliability. Not trying to be rude but those are both excuses for bad play. It’s really not that hard to get them to attack your target especially when it’s a boss since all you need is to hit it twice. Beyond that, their reliability comes down to the player managing them. We have limited control over them, but it’s enough to keep them alive for them to more than make up for the well you could have had. The only ones you cannot control are the blood fiend and bone fiend, but these are both ranged thus are usually the ones I never see go down. Don’t be bad about placing the wurm, pay attention to where the bone minions are and explode asap, use your golem’s charge to get him out of melee aoe.

And I can confirm with Bas’ numbers in that I did some testing on minion dps vs wells (taking into account the additional personal dps a well spec would give the necro) and, given that the pets are alive, they out dps the well spec by a large margin. In my opinion, the added complexity of pet micromanagement is more fun than placing down a well, you get a LOT more defensive capabilities, they contribute more total damage (if you pay attention to them), and can absorb conditions for the team (my spec includes this).

spoj.9672:

… the staff…. the auto attack is the worst auto attack of any weapon of any class in the game.

Have you tried the scepter on a Guardian? THAT is the worse auto attack in the game. Even in PvE its dodged often by just the trash mobs moving slightly over.

About keeping minions alive, how does a MM necro manage to do that other than with managing placement? Transfusion trait in the Blood Magic line? Staff#2? I suppose those are the only abilities to heal our minions?

What about keeping agro off them? How is that managed?

You know you don’t need to use specific utilities all the time, plan accordingly people.

How about wells and Minions? just switch them out depending on the situation, if you’re fighting a lot of mobs wells will probably be better, single target minions will win. But if you fight mobs with strong AOE minions might not be the best choice.

You can keep minions healed mostly with staff #2 with reduction on staff skills and some healing accessories as long as they are not focused, if you have high toughness mobs will usually be going after you instead of the minions.

Fikitten513:

So it seems as though the general consensus is that minions are bad due to AI/reliability. Not trying to be rude but those are both excuses for bad play. It’s really not that hard to get them to attack your target especially when it’s a boss since all you need is to hit it twice. Beyond that, their reliability comes down to the player managing them.

You aren’t being rude but you completely miss the point being made.

It is a matter of choosing one method over the other, one method where you don’t have to fight the UI or the AI in order to get fairly repeatable results.

In almost every other MMO out there pet/minion classes are easy mode, cruise control for leveling. ANet has simply reversed that situation here.

As someone pointed out in this thread, minions aren’t a core profession mechanic, they are utilities. Yet, I can build my character around Wells and have very reliable results in 1v1, WvW, Dungeons, PvE, solo group situations. Not so with Minions. Minions aren’t even close to being as universally practical. So, one might ask, why can a well build be so globally useful, but a player who dedicates himself to minions be so sporadically reliable in the range of situations?

Fikitten513:

We have limited control over them, but it’s enough to keep them alive for them to more than make up for the well you could have had. The only ones you cannot control are the blood fiend and bone fiend, but these are both ranged thus are usually the ones I never see go down. Don’t be bad about placing the wurm, pay attention to where the bone minions are and explode asap, use your golem’s charge to get him out of melee aoe.

In GW2 in order to simulate challenge, ANet decided to make controls for the minions as sparse as possible, purposefully gimping them essentially in terms of the directing them on the battlefield. Bone fiend die constantly, they don’t actually stay at range or kite if an enemy closes in on them. Cool-downs blow any real chance for responsiveness, etc.

Look if you like micromanaging, just say so. That’s great, have a ball, but most players don’t consider that a fun and engaging style of game play. They actually consider it to be more like a smeared layer of frustration that has been lathered liberally over a less than rewarding game experience.

Fikitten513:

And I can confirm with Bas’ numbers in that I did some testing on minion dps vs wells (taking into account the additional personal dps a well spec would give the necro) and, given that the pets are alive, they out dps the well spec by a large margin. In my opinion, the added complexity of pet micromanagement is more fun than placing down a well, you get a LOT more defensive capabilities, they contribute more total damage (if you pay attention to them), and can absorb conditions for the team (my spec includes this).

I am glad to hear that you can get some pay off from minions, but we aren’t talking the about just the high end results you can get we are talking about the long haul, the situational, the general purpose, the average solution, not the exceptional and so forth.

@kulde – In our last podcast, Symbolic pointed out that the main issue with running anything other than conditions in a tournament is the unreliability of power builds setup. Wells are easily avoided, and is an all in build whch can lead to serious issues in high end tournaments. In pve where things are more static or in wvwvw where you have a mass zerg of 20 people wells are strong and prove to be more reliable. However in tournaments they are very unreliable because of how active classes play.

In fact, I would say a MM has a better chance in tournament play then a well melee mancer.

In pve, they both face the same push. Wells show up better in aoe situations with static movement, and Minons show up better in situations where we can focus something down and we aren’t standing still getting hammered with continual aoe (fractals).

@zog – If you do that you lose the effectiveness for both. Unfortunately, minions are really an all or nothing build.

Bas.7406:

@kulde – In our last podcast, Symbolic pointed out that the main issue with running anything other than conditions in a tournament is the unreliability of power builds setup. Wells are easily avoided, and is an all in build whch can lead to serious issues in high end tournaments. In pve where things are more static or in wvwvw where you have a mass zerg of 20 people wells are strong and prove to be more reliable. However in tournaments they are very unreliable because of how active classes play.

In fact, I would say a MM has a better chance in tournament play then a well melee mancer.

In pve, they both face the same push. Wells show up better in aoe situations with static movement, and Minons show up better in situations where we can focus something down and we aren’t standing still getting hammered with continual aoe (fractals).

I can’t argue with you on that point, but let’s point out that to most players of GW2, PvP tournaments are simply not part of their play time routine. There’s like a few hundred people that participate in those, the last I heard.

Bas.7406:

@kulde – In our last podcast, Symbolic pointed out that the main issue with running anything other than conditions in a tournament is the unreliability of power builds setup. Wells are easily avoided, and is an all in build whch can lead to serious issues in high end tournaments. In pve where things are more static or in wvwvw where you have a mass zerg of 20 people wells are strong and prove to be more reliable. However in tournaments they are very unreliable because of how active classes play.

In fact, I would say a MM has a better chance in tournament play then a well melee mancer.

Comparing the two in tpvp leads to the same argument as it does in any other facet of the game. While wells begin to lack efficiency in small organized pvp, they are more reliable than abilities of which are known to be unresponsive and fickle. It’s about what’s practical, you can use wells in combination with tactics and control to actually hit something (once again, we’re forgetting about conditions and focusing on the merits of wells vs minions in this setting), with minions its a coin toss.

Until the AI issue is resolved, that’s what its gonna come down to for me and many other necromancers. I don’t want to pull a slot machine lever and hope for the best. It’s a real shame, I joined this class for the minions, I spent all of the beta bug reporting in game and on this forum about the minion AI. I desire to use them, I want to be a minionmancer. But other builds provide me with more entertainment just because they work when I need them to.

I’d like to point out a few things about mm vs wells in dungeons that haven’t been brought up yet.

One of my biggest concerns with MM (that I forgot to test but I’ll do it sometime soon) is stepping on the toes of my teammates who are using buffs. AoEs are capped at 5 targets including buffs, so if a warrior/guardian tries to shout and you have 5-6 pets out, then they’re preventing another player from receiving the buff by getting it instead. I see this happen all the time in wvw and if pets are counted the same way was player allies and enemies, then this is a major problem.

Wells are dark fields which in my opinion have the best projectile/whirl finishers in the game: life steal. You almost always want to do more dmg and you probably want more life. Dark fields do both! They work if you or the mobs are standing in them (or if you shoot over them), so you do have a level of control there.

Unshakable the passive effect of defiant (not the stacks) has a number of effects like making blind 10% as effective which is a severe decrease; especially since anything that’s hard to kill has defiant. This hurts well of darkness a lot in dungeons and makes dark field blast/leap finishers less effective in them.

Minions lose some dps if they have to chase mobs around just like melee players do, but I won’t pretend it’s nearly as much as wells. They can get hindered by CC though which wells can’t.

Someone made a post earlier that calculated minion health was between 5k-13k (usually 7k but I don’t think they listed the golem’s hp). People post that MMs are really tanky in pvp, but that hasn’t been my experience maybe because I play a lot of AoE classes. For example I was doing world completion in WvW on my d/d ele recently and ran into a MM from another server who was doing a SP I needed so I waved at them, helped them out, and left them alone. I guess they thought I was running away from them because she kept attacking me for a minute straight so I got sick of it and killed 5 out of her 6 pets with just ring of fire+blazing speed. The golem pretty much died from transferring all the burnings I put on her to itself on top of all the burning it already had on it. It was too late for her to DS heal her pets except the golem, but she tried anyways and ended up aggroing and dying to like 5 things.

I would never ever let a necro run MM against the priestess a dwayna in Arah path 4 and it’s not about DPS. I’ve already seen enough dumb players accidentally get too close to the sparks and draw their aggro so they can’t be led to the spots in time. If a spark got caught on a minion causing the boss to heal back up to full hp I’d just flip out.

Wells’ ground targeting trait is worse than a similar trait for ranger traps in the same tier since the ranger trap version which also increases their radius by 50%. Wells are normally larger though so I guess we can let them have that.

I’ll admit that I haven’t really been a fan of mm in dungeons because by definition they’re giving up a lot of group utility to run all pets, but I don’t mind having some pets. For example well of power is extremely useful in dungeons no matter what spec you are because you can turn up to 5 conditions into boons on multiple people so I use it a lot. Ironically flesh golem helps solve the problem wells have where mobs tend to run out of them because if you use it with a well spec it helps cripple the mobs so they stay in the wells. Well of blood can also help your allies deal with conditions because it’s a light field (but I’m not sure why). Epidemic is great when you mark targets and play with a completely different class such as a mesmer or an engie because you can spread many different conditions that normally wouldn’t aoe. I know of plenty of grenade engies who can maintain 25 stacks of vuln by themselves almost indefinitely which decreases the need to use the axe allowing you to use dagger for raw dps and life force gen.

In the end though it all comes down to what you have fun with. If you like playing with pets cool. If you don’t that’s fine too. If you want to do nothing but brag about how much damage you’re doing go play a warrior. No seriously right when I hit lvl 80 on my warrior (who was wearing everything from white to green and no lvl 80 gear) I could still go, “lololol hundred blades 11-17k damage by pressing 1 button,” the only limiting factor was how many orrians I could pull into a big ball to crit and get might.

I’m just hoping that since City of Villains sadly shut down that some of the people who designed the masterminds in that game come over to GW2 because once you did those keybindings for the numpad mastermind pets had the nicest pet controls I’ve seen in an MMO.

Bas.7406:

This is a basis of perception over reality. Players who came from GW1 have a misperception of what a minion is based on their past experience with them. This is not the same thing. Minions are not a core design of the necro they are a special unique utility skill. They are supposed to die, they do their job.

I think that people that played a nice bit of GW1 (as myself) do know and actually used the minion bomber build (one of the kinda situational but in most cases op as hell builds for pve) it was summon kitten-death nova it, bile enemy, let anything die, watch kitten explode in chain reaction, repeat after resummoning via jbones and/or bone minions, optional blood bond cast (aoe heal for allies upon enemy dying) if you actually care.
The problem is the cast times and the limited count of minions that GW1 players hate.

The problem is that minions were different in every way in GW1.

You had one of two goals, do tons of damage via death nova and spamming trash minions(along with craptons of other micro managing, which is why most people just let an npc do it, because they were better), or you used heals like blood of the master to keep a permanent facerolling zerg of 10 minions at all times.

The problem is that in GW2 minions have very little in common with GW1 minions, outside of being the necromancer minions. In GW1, they were fairly crappy, easy to kill mobs that you could summon only if you had a corpse around, their AI was perma-set on genocide mode, and overall MMs were useless unless they had a steady stream of corpses and at least 5 minions to work with. However when we did get a steady stream of corpses, you turn into an unstoppable zerg that would faceroll anything short of a boss.

GW1 minions are why GW2 minions are so different. They are much more singularly impactful, meant to stay alive a relatively decent amount of time, yet not forever, and they are finally useful in most areas of the game, instead of a complete niche build. And most importantly, we don’t need to use our entire freaking skill bar just to MM; when our minions are down we are no worse off than a well build with wells down.

Also, I find it hilarious that people complain about minion AI in this game. In GW1 your minions’ AI was basically what Flesh Golem used to have; kill everything in sight, on sight, screw what anyone else says. They didn’t respond to your input, they didn’t focus targets, they just attempted to murder anything and everything that was nearby.