Guild Wars 2

Minions are generally regarded as a weak build option. Any minion build that does work well typically uses only a few minions. Why? A big reason is that the minion active skills, which should provide compensation for the lack of utility skills on your bar, mostly fail to do that. They also don’t mesh well together, leaving a full minion Necromancer with a very questionable skill bar.

Skill # 1: Blood Fiend – Taste of Death

Overall this active isn’t bad, but it doesn’t really reward you for having additional minion skills. Comparing it to the other two Necro heals leaves you wondering why anyone would bring a Blood Fiend without having Death Nova or Fetid Consumption. In fact, those two traits are probably the only reason to have one of these things right now. Well of Blood, by contrast, provides a combo field. Consume Conditions not only removes conditions but it allows you to heal more for each condition removed. Taste of Death has no condition removal or scaling heal.

My suggestion:

Add an effect that provides an additional heal for each Jagged Horror you control, sacrificing those as well as your Blood Fiend. While the current cap for this would be 2-3 Jagged Horrors (if Runes of the Lich do what I think they do AND an extremely unlikely scenario occurs allowing you to have two alive from Reanimator at the same time) I think an additional trait should be added allowing more Jagged Horrors at once. At any rate, the additional heal should be small. Something like 400 per Jagged Horror. This would make Blood Fiend slightly more competitive with Well of Blood and Consume Conditions, which are currently more effective – often times even on minion focused builds.

Skill # 2: Bone Minions – Putrid Explosion

This is actually one of two minion actives that I think already works great. However, it is somewhat confusing that it’s a blast finisher. What would it be blasting on a full minions build? Either Chilblains or a Death Nova field. That’s it. Still, I wouldn’t want them changing this skill.

Skill #3: Bone Fiend – Rigor Mortis

This skill is not effective as is. Were there more than one Bone Fiend, or a targeting UI to control minions, it’d be better. On top of rarely being effective, Rigor Mortis has a long cooldown. More than one try during a single fight is unlikely.

My suggestion:

It seems fairly obvious that the point of this skill was to allow the melee minions to reach your target. I suggest changing it so that the Bone Fiend immediately immobilizes your target and itself for 2-3 seconds. To add synergy with other minion skills, I would suggest adding a vulnerability to the effect as well. 2 stacks + 1 per minion you control. Keep the long cooldown.

Skill #4: Shadow Fiend – Haunt

I’m not sure what the intended purpose is for this skill. As it stands, it’s mostly a makeshift “Minions attack this please” button. It certainly can’t be used as an interrupt.

My suggestion:

Increase the cooldown and remove the channel to make it an interrupt OR increase the cooldown and make it an AoE the size of an unupgraded mark. The second choice should also make it spawn a darkness combo field. I include two suggestions here because I’m unsure whether it’s a poorly designed interrupt or an uninteresting opener. Either option should go well with other minions. A quick blind could prevent minion wipes by blocking powerful AoEs. An opener/combo field would allow minions to reach/begin combat more safely than they do now. The combo field would also go nicely with Bone Minions and Bone Field.

Skill #5: Flesh Wurm – Necrotic Traversal

I like the general idea of this skill. A stun break and teleport at the expense of a minion. The problem is the current design either teleports you into danger or encourages you to leave your minion out of combat range.

My suggestion:

Make this skill the escape our class needs. All that needs to happen is the minion and the Necromancer need to swap places. Then the minion can explode as normal and the skill will be great. Making the poison into a combo field would be somewhat redundant if the Necro also had Death Nova, but would add some synergy.

Skill #6: Flesh Golem – Charge

This skill is the other active that I think is great as is. Solving the problems with getting stuck on geography would be enough for me. A visual indicator prior to activating the skill might help as well, to avoid accidentally hitting it before the minion can reach the target.

Thanks for reading everyone! Thoughts/comments on any or all of these ideas? What do you think needs changed for a full minion build to be more successful? Check my first post below for a new trait idea.

Bonus Item: New Trait

Spite 30 – Jagged Bones

When one of your minions dies, a Jagged Horror spawns from its corpse. Jagged Horrors no longer degenerate. You can control a maximum of five Jagged Horrors.

Explanation:

Why the spite trait line? Mainly because it was the only one with only a single minion related trait. The others have 2, 3, or 0. Why 30 points? Because if someone could have this with both Fetid Corruption and Death Nova that would probably be terrifying. Could it be buffed further to make it a better trait? Absolutely! I’d love to see some ideas for it.

Morvian.3270:

Bonus Item: New Trait

Spite 30 – Jagged Bones

When one of your minions dies, a Jagged Horror spawns from its corpse. Jagged Horrors no longer degenerate. You can control a maximum of five Jagged Horrors.

Explanation:

Why the spite trait line? Mainly because it was the only one with only a single minion related trait. The others have 2, 3, or 0. Why 30 points? Because if someone could have this with both Fetid Corruption and Death Nova that would probably be terrifying. Could it be buffed further to make it a better trait? Absolutely! I’d love to see some ideas for it.

Nnngh don’t do this as a Grandmaster.

I don’t mind the idea of getting jagged horrors in exchange for killed minions or anything, but that would make this the fouth minion-specific grandmaster trait for necromancers, and three is already somewhat annoying for me.

Okay, going back and reading the first post now.

Taste of Death – I love the idea behind this, but I don’t think it matches what jagged horrors currently are. But it does show what they could be: a sort of “minion resource” that could power up other minion skills, which could be really interesting if you balance skills that create jagged horrors and skills that consume them.

The only issue is that currently, blood fiend is sort of a ‘constant heal’ effect: while you do have the option of consuming it for a (minor?) spike heal, the attraction is more getting gradual healing constantly through a fight. This change to Taste of Death could put sort of conflict with blood fiend’s current role by putting too much focus on the sacrifice. Now that might be exactly what the skill needs, but it’s just a concern I have.

Putrid Explosion – I just want to note that as of right now, bone minions with Death Nova will actually combo with themselves, so putrid explosion also applies AoE weakness. But yeah good skill would use again.

Rigor Mortis – I’ve wondered, could this skill work as a sort of toggle? As long as the bone minion has it activated, it stays immobilized and immobilizes with all shots, if you deactivate it’ll stop immobilizing itself and switch to its current attacks.

Making it instant would be a good enough solution (and help justify the massive recharge) but I’m not so sure you need to add vulnerability. You especially shouldn’t make it apply more vulnerability the more minions you control: that just further rewards builds that are already doing well, in my opinion.

Haunt – A massive blinding AoE sounds excellent, even without the combo field. As it is I think the blind-as-interrupt is a bit too finicky, and I think minion users are pretty good in 1v1 situations already, so I’d rather see their group capabilities boosted a little, especially since shadow fiend is pretty vulnerable.

Necrotic Traversal – I think currently the idea of the damage & poison is to allow a necro (that’s paying close attention) to punish someone meleeing their wurm, since the cost of killing the wurm / losing that stunbreak is high enough that it’s only worth it if you’re about to lose the wurm anyways.

I do like the idea of basically damaging foes at your start position instead of your exit position. It would also make the blast finisher much easier to place & use. I think you could make this skill do the current damage / poison effect at your location, then sacrifice the wurm as usual, just so that Death Nova procs pop up in consistent places for everyone playing. As it is the last-minute switch doesn’t make a lot of sense visually, and seems like more of a mesmer thing?

Edit: Kittens get into everything.

I admit I stopped reading after you said blood fiend is useless without fetid consumption or death nova. Highest healing over sustained in combat time. You need to be full healing gear to get well of blood somewhere close.
It has about 5.2k or so base heal at 80 with ~150 healing each second for 10 second inside light field. With a hefty 40 second cooldown.
At 80… blood fiends base heal is 4k or so. And each hit from blood fiend heals for 900 with 20 sec cd.
Lets say you spent 300 seconds on a fight.
Well – 300sec/40sec=7.5 uses total but since half doesn’t get you half a skill use its still 7. 5200 base + 150×10 = 6700 heal each time assuming fight allows you to just stay in 1 spot like a house plant(good luck with that 1). 6700×7=46900 total healing in a perfect scenario.
Lets do fiend now… so lets say 900 heal with each hit… and it hits about every 3 seconds or so. So a little less then 100 hits. I’m honestly not sure about minion attack speeds blood fiend, flesh wurm, bone fiend seem to be at 3 seconds golem and shadow fiend are at a bit over 1 second or so. jagged and bone minions I don’t even know but that’s not important. So 100 hits for 900… thats 90k. Remember thats excluding all the MM traits. My blood heals for 1k each hit. And provides me with emergency heal. It’s ranged and doesn’t require me to stay in 1 place, have conditions on me or have healing power.
I’m sorry but please… do no just label something useless because for what ever reason you dislike the little bugger. You are wrong on numbers. Way off.

1) One of the most solid HP/s heals in the game, they just need to make it easier to use his active before he dies. The only reason to not use this guy is PvP where people are smart enough to spike him down and you won’t get off the active.

2) what would they be blowing up? Combo fields, of which we have multiple available. If you want to run full minions, then feel free, but if you are running full minions you can’t complain that you aren’t getting full use out of the finishers you would easily have by hybridization (or you know, playing with a team in a team game).

3) Lol? Its a 4 second immobilize every successful hit, if you chain this with dagger 3 you are forcing them to blow a cleanse or eat some serious damage (ever worry about someone staying in a well? not with rigor mortis).

4) Severely reduce the amount of time it takes for the skill to activate, and make Shadow Fiend less useless and this is a solid skill.

5) the only real change this needs is to change the blast/poison to where you are, not where he is.

Bhawb.7408:

3) Lol? Its a 4 second immobilize every successful hit, if you chain this with dagger 3 you are forcing them to blow a cleanse or eat some serious damage (ever worry about someone staying in a well? not with rigor mortis).

Generally I’m willing to defer to others for minions, since I don’t have a ton of experience, but I usually don’t have much success with Rigor Mortis. IIRC, there’s a significant delay (Much longer than say, the casting time of Dark Pact) between you using the skill and the immobilizing attack occuring, something that always turned me off about the active, even more than its 50 second recharge.

Am I just using it incorrectly?

How it works is when you press the skill, your bone fiend is immobilized. He then gets a “buff” of sorts, where his attacks from then on cause 2 seconds of immobilize (and also deal a bit more damage), for the duration of the “buff”.

So if you immobilize him in a position where he doesn’t have LoS or if he drops aggro, you’re SoL. Same with if the attack misses, if the duration ends without taking effect, etc. It is a very powerful ability, since it can last for at least 2 auto attacks (it looks like it lasts at least 6 seconds, so maybe even 3), meaning 8 seconds of immobilize, but its difficult to hit.

Edit: it looks like it lasts 5 seconds, so with decent timing you can get 2 hits out of it, not 3, but its also possible to only get 1, since it doesn’t reset auto attacks.

Bhawb.7408:

How it works is when you press the skill, your bone fiend is immobilized. He then gets a “buff” of sorts, where his attacks from then on cause 2 seconds of immobilize (and also deal a bit more damage), for the duration of the “buff”.

So if you immobilize him in a position where he doesn’t have LoS or if he drops aggro, you’re SoL. Same with if the attack misses, if the duration ends without taking effect, etc. It is a very powerful ability, since it can last for at least 2 auto attacks (it looks like it lasts at least 6 seconds, so maybe even 3), meaning 8 seconds of immobilize, but its difficult to hit.

Edit: it looks like it lasts 5 seconds, so with decent timing you can get 2 hits out of it, not 3, but its also possible to only get 1, since it doesn’t reset auto attacks.

That’s interesting, I honestly thought that the immobilize was only on the next attack, singular. It’s also good to know that the delay is basically player dependent: if I’m watching, I can probably get the immobilize fairly soon after hitting the button and get a bonus immobilize proc as well. Still a bit annoyed at the 50 second recharge, but it makes a bit more sense now.

Bhawb.7408:

How it works is when you press the skill, your bone fiend is immobilized. He then gets a “buff” of sorts, where his attacks from then on cause 2 seconds of immobilize (and also deal a bit more damage), for the duration of the “buff”.

So if you immobilize him in a position where he doesn’t have LoS or if he drops aggro, you’re SoL. Same with if the attack misses, if the duration ends without taking effect, etc. It is a very powerful ability, since it can last for at least 2 auto attacks (it looks like it lasts at least 6 seconds, so maybe even 3), meaning 8 seconds of immobilize, but its difficult to hit.

Edit: it looks like it lasts 5 seconds, so with decent timing you can get 2 hits out of it, not 3, but its also possible to only get 1, since it doesn’t reset auto attacks.

Naw its 2 hits everything except for golem and shadow fiend have 3 seconds or so attack speed. But on the other hand thats the problem with all actives on minions, well almost all. There is:
1. Cast time…. for kittens sake what the kitten is with anet and kittenedly long cast times for necro? I can’t even be nice about this anymore. Everything is double cast time of everyone else in game. If its channeled then it works in some kitten round about way. If its minions then theres cast time+animation+until it actually hits.
Why do eles channel skills hit multiple times in succession while yours is just a basically 4k hit that takes 3 seconds to execute?(dagger 2… axe 2… ds 4…) While thief does a single hit, with no cd for 8k. Yeah balanced.
2. Los… I don’t even think I need to elaborate here. Every time there is ranged combat involved you are hit with these los issues from every corner and from under every leaf.
3. They don’t “feel” meaningful. Most things people use have immediate useful effect that is there to be easily seen. Bone minions explosion… even if its 9 months later still bloody broken and gives finisher about 1.5-2 seconds AFTER the actual explosion at which point target isn’t even guaranteed to still be there. But thats anet… they won’t fix anything unless someone rubs it in their face hard enough. And golems charge which is pretty impressive and actually benefits from kittened los/pathing. Catch target in corner and he can chain the most massive amount of damage imaginable.

My only input are on shadow fiend active and wurm active.

• The shadow fiend we all know needs lots of work, I’ve done suggestions about it already. I don’t mind the idea about a larger area, I still like the idea of a blind pulse though. Don’t think we’re ever going to see it make a combo field in our lifetime. The actual execution time on it is yeah horribad. It’s not our own casting of the skill that’s the issue, it’s the fiend itself using the skill. I love the fact it’s an insta cast for ourselves regardless of what we happen to be doing at the time. Ok enough of the bag-o-smoke.

• Flesh wurm. I think the combo field should be at both spots honestly. Our original location, and his, but the blast only be at our initial location. He’s not a minion that we’d normally plop on the frontline and the transversal is an escape skill, so why would you want the field and finisher to be back where he’s screwing around?

My 2 cents on it all. Overall I’m satisfied with minions.

I definitely support Rigor Mortis getting a buff. Something like extending the immobilized duration of the Bone Fiend to 10 seconds and making all of its attacks cause Immobilize for 1 second during this same period would work great. Cooldown can stay as it is (30s, I believe.)

I’d also buff the Blood Fiend so that it’s attacks heal itself as well as you. Taste of Death also doesn’t kill the Blood Fiend outright, instead depleting about 1/3 to 1/2 of its health. The bulk heal it gives you is reduced, but this allows you to use the Blood Fiend as a sort of health battery, dipping into it on occasion for a bulk health, after which it can slowly replenish itself in combat by attacking enemies. If you need health desperately enough, you can also keep drinking from the Blood Fiend until it dies.

I would like to see those cast times being instant, escept for flesh golem as its active is too powerful to be an instant cast.

I would also like to see a slight change into the flesh wurm:

- as we all now thief sword nr 2 was not intented to be infinite range, I think somewhat the same bug is with the flesh wurm

I would change it so that you will teleport to your wurm only if you are in the 1200 range of it as the tooltip indicates BUT if you cast the wurm port skill at over 1200 range (an icon change could be a good indicator) you would consume it, halving its cooldown and gaining half the life force you normally would.

This would make the wurm port to function similarly as other teleports and allow you to replace it instead of jumping 1200 range into the direction of it and waiting for that 40/32 sec before you can replace it.

IMO shadow fiend should cause fear instead of blind, and the bone fiend should stop immobilising itself.

Granted I’m not too fussed by the second one, since I’ve never exactly thought ‘oh noes, my bone fiend can’t move for a bit’ but I just don’t see why it’s like that in the first place.

LameFox.6349:

IMO shadow fiend should cause fear instead of blind, and the bone fiend should stop immobilising itself.

Granted I’m not too fussed by the second one, since I’ve never exactly thought ‘oh noes, my bone fiend can’t move for a bit’ but I just don’t see why it’s like that in the first place.

Yeah that’s another idea I would like for shadow fiend, but I like the self immobilize of the bone fiend and I hope they never change it. It’s there so you can set him up where you want him and keep it from charging headlong into melee range. Set it up right before you engage, it roots back out of the fray, then it’s next hit immobilizes the target. I just wish the cooldown on it wasn’t so bad.

I’ve never had it ‘charge headlong into melee range’, though it doesn’t know to back up either, so it often ends up in melee range regardless.

My signature states what I would want to see in regards to bone minions.

Additionally for the others.. Would be cool to see bloodfiend have some condi removal, maybe similar to turret active on engi.

I approve of making ‘rigor mortis’ more immediate/ effective.

Something that occurred to me that would be —- humorous, when you mentioned the wurm and necro switching places on activating the skill would be if the wurm burrowed, then rose up engulfing the necro, and then shooting the necro out its poop chute to its original location (or 1200 or w/e the range is). Not practical but I think it’d look cool.