Minion Master Revision (by Sikari & Bhawb)

Minion Master Revision (by Sikari & Bhawb)

in Necromancer

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

- Warning, I am attempting to reduce clutter, so I will spoiler sections. I apologize for mobile phones.-

Intro:
(Expect a long read. Minion Master is a personal passion for me, as far as GW2 goes and I do my best to see it gets the recognition it deserves, and also to provide constructive discussion around the build. This write up is primarily for developers, but also avid Minion Master Players. Thanks for taking part!)

Hello everyone. My name is High Warlord Sikari, and I’m writing my third Minion Master centric write up in 2 years. I’ve worked with and discussed with various Devs within ANet over the years to try to find that sweet spot for my favorite, and the most interesting build in the game (imo!). This time I’ve had collaboration with another well-known Minion Master, Bhawb. I’m here to discuss my current feelings about the Minion Master, where it is, where it could and should go in the future, and cover as many grounds as possible for aspiring Minion masters as well as motivating Developers to not forget us!

(Credibility: Some personal information, as High Warlord Sikari, I have won various 1v1/2v2 tournaments. Have peaked at #5 for a time in the leaderboards a while ago, but generally I’d find myself to be between 50 and 200, even during MMs weak points, before losing interest in tPvP for a while. I have played Minion Master since the beginning and stuck with it through thick and thin.)
__________________________________________________________________

Minion Master Overview:


Minion Masters are an interesting sector in Guild Wars 2, and more specifically, I feel it is a vastly misunderstood build. Where many combatants tend to focus on maximizing their personal damage output and leaning on more “passive” or secondary defenses (such as boons and evades), the Minion master has more passive damage flow but requires heightened abilities to hold an enemy in place and avoid critical abilities to ensure the minions are able to function at their maximum potential. Because of this passive damage aspect, Masters have received a lot of lash-back from the community as an easy or “brainless” build. That just simply isn’t true. To understand the MM you have to first acknowledge that we have the lowest access to critical defensive boons such as protection, vigor, aegis, and typically have no CC breaks. Instead our focus is simply shifted from aggressive play to attention to controlling the field for victory and survival. Indeed, it takes a new point of view to see the uniqueness behind playing a Minion Master.

That said, the overall objectives for a minion master is just that, focusing on controlling the battlefield, working with our minions to allow them to do their jobs, and above all, be aware of the direct dangers to the master. These elements are what give minion masters such a fun and unique play style, but this can always be improved. From here, I’ll discuss the current issues that we’re facing as a build, and some changes suggested to remedy these issues.


High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

(edited by ronpierce.2760)

Minion Master Revision (by Sikari & Bhawb)

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Current Issues Overview :


AoE Gating Viability:
As it stands, AOE is by far the largest issue with Necromancer’s minions. They simply don’t have the ability to last in any ‘decent’ AOE and have no real defenses against it. Unlike Turrets, which can be placed outside of battle range and are immune to critical hits and conditions, our pets run directly through any hazard and has no protection against them~ at all. In fact, many times even with the 50% increased health trait, a bone minion will die before it ever reaches a longbow warrior once, it’s that bad. And that is just a single person and skill! AoE is very heavy in the current Meta and they simply have no protection against it, to the point that even 1v1 is becoming a downhill battle (our king utility to a team), and team battles are a lost cause entirely.

Low Risk, Moderate-High Reward:
Minion Masters get a lot of hate for their ease of play (granted, some is ignorance), but this doesn’t have to be the case over all. There are changes that could be made to reduce the stream of decent damage from minions and increase Master/Minion collaboration to maximize usage. This way, lower skilled minion masters aren’t wiping the floor with other low skilled players, and if handled well, great MMs can potentially rise higher in the ranks for their efforts. This would be the ideal outcome.

Clunkiness:
There are a lot of clunkiness issues with minion Masters center around poor and outdated mechanics. I don’t doubt MM tends to get forgotten about when it comes to updating outdated issues, especially since they can be subtly tucked away(though powerful) issues, such as Putrid Explosion’s blast going off 3 seconds late and long activations on Minion abilities. Others, on the other hand are not so subtle. Minion movement, especially on terrain needs serious help. Scenarios such as someone running up a ramp and jumping off the side leave them backtracking and spending a lot of idle time out of our control.

Major Bugs:
While I’m not entirely sure how to separate bugs from general clunkiness, there are a few notable bugs that are undeniably bugs and need to be fixed sooner rather than later. For instance a mandatory trait (Flesh of the Master) currently kills all pets when you go down. Similarly, due to poor coding, when being transformed via the Moa ability you also lose all of your pet skills. I can assume this is a bug because this does not happen to Guardian Spirit weapons, Ranger Spirits, Mesmer Clones and Phantasms, nor Engineer turrets, and is likely a function having to do with Elite transformations killing pets, and someone took a shortcut and in the process we took the hit for their shortcut.

Suggested Changes and Reasoning: (Warning, Length.)


We’ve taken the time to discuss in depth solid ways to handle the issues stated above. We consider ourselves “experts” as far as playing Minion Masters goes, and have a high interest in balance and gameplay. That said, while biases are inevitable, we tried to be as fair as possible in our suggestions. As such, I will also try to explain our reasoning behind our proposed changes to the best of my ability.

General:
Cast times: I believe all pet cast times in the game should be brought down from 1.5 seconds to 1 second. All summons in the game share this number except turrets that sit at a comfortable .5 second cast and phantasms that have a comfortable ¾ cast. It can take 6 seconds to summon 4 utilities, 7.5 if you run your healing pet, which is enough time to lose if you didn’t already have them (post fight), and mid-fight it just isn’t a reasonable activation, especially in comparison.

Pet Health: I suggest a small 15-20% increased health in sPvP and WvW to lessen the gap from PVE, and in conjunction with a proposed Trait change (effectively lowering max minion health).

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

(edited by ronpierce.2760)

Minion Master Revision (by Sikari & Bhawb)

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760


Traits:
Flesh of the Master. Reworked. Remove the 50% health bonus. Instead, Pets are now immune to damaging conditions and critical strikes. Reasoning: Our primary issue in PVP is our unrivaled weakness to AoE effects to the point of effectively pushing MM out of high end PVP. As a baseline benefit, Turrets can be used in team pvp because they have a natural protection from all Conditions, CCs and Critical Hits. We just want some of that AoE protection ( while still being able to still single target down the pet if needed) without them being obliterated in high spam situations. Additionally, unlike turrets, we don’t think full condition immunity is the way to go. Cripple and chill are valid defenses against Minion Masters and should remain as such, but this way, condition builds and berserker builds will not be able to clear our board within a single sweep in 5 seconds (literally). In addition to making them survive better in team play, players in a cluster are also less susceptible to mass minion death Death Nova, equally toxic.

Training Of the Master. Reworked. Remove the passive 25% bonus damage to minions. Replace with an increased functionality and damage to minion activations. A basic set of examples:

[Putrid Explosion: Increases damage by 50% (consider the 25% we’re losing, which is why these numbers may seem high) and is now unblockable.
Haunt: Greatly increased damage on haunt. Haunt now spawns a 4 second dark field on the enemy when activated in addition to the initial blind.
Rigor Mortis: Increased damage, and Rigor mortis now also dazes the target for 1 second in addition to the Immobilize.

Necrotic Traversal: Now grants 2 seconds of stability and removes cripple, chill and immobilze on sacrifice.

Charge: Increased damage by 50% (Again, from base) Flesh Golem gains 10 seconds of swiftness and 100% crit chance for 10 seconds on activation. (Probably about 6 seconds or 4 hits after the animation ends)

Taste of Death: No longer sacrifices the Blood fiend. Now heals all minions for the healing amount when used. 35 second cooldown added to the on use. (About 4k healing to pets every 35 seconds)]

Reason: I know that’s a lot, and the numbers might sound scary, but these are 50% increases from the trait in conjunction to the 25% they’re losing on ALL auto damage and triggered attacks. In net, this would be a loss in damage but put more damage into the commander’s control. Additionally, this adds a key point for increasing build diversity, as non-Minion Master necromancers may wish to take this to make specific use of single pets instead of taking other traits.

Minion Master: Now also reduces the cooldown of pet active abilities. Reasoning: This is to help counteract the large dps loss from sacrificing 25% bonus damage and to increase the active portion of playing Minion Master.

Vampiric Master: Revert the 10% nerf to leeching. Reasoning: Our survival in high end absolutely needed no nerfing, and lower skill play will be benefited by other changes.

Abilities
Putrid Explosion: Currently, the blast finisher portion of the attack doesn’t trigger until 3 seconds too late. This makes it so that most times, the weakness isn’t applied when using Explosion with the Death Nova Trait. This delay in the blast needs to be reduced to .1 second (enough to recognize the field).

Necrotic Traversal. Currently, the poison field is spawned at the base of the minion. Instead, (baseline) spawn the field from the point of the necromancer prior to teleportation.

Haunt: Haunt currently has a 3 second “cast time” by the pet before activating. This makes its already questionable ability a huge lack in DPS and healing for a single blind. It isn’t even viable for a stomp cover as it takes longer than a stomp to activate even if you use it prior to stomping. As it stands, trying to have your pet place a blind on one enemy requires the same set up as churning earth… Think about that. 1 second ready insead.

Rigor Mortis: Currently, it takes two full attack rotations (quite a while) to fire the immobilizing shot. Instead, make it interrupt its current auto attack and instantly cast for the rigor. This is purely a QOL and clunkiness change, as the tell for the attack itself has always been its unique projectile. Even making it more noticeable would be acceptable.

Charge: Charge has a very unusual 1.5 second cast time. Post changes and nerfs to Charge, the cast time should be removed considering its weaker state (as far as connecting potential goes) and to match other minion skills.

Bone Minion, Shadow Fiend, Flesh Golem: Currently, when spawned, all melee pets are summoned at the base of the necromancer. Instead, these melee specific pets should spawn at the foot of your target when spawned with a target, or at the necromancer without a target. This would be similar to Mesmer phantasms.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

(edited by ronpierce.2760)

Minion Master Revision (by Sikari & Bhawb)

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Critical Bugs:


Necros are no strangers to bugs. We have bugs flying out of our warhorns, but Minion Masters specifically suffer unlike no other from its list of crippling bugs.

Moa: Currently, Moa, unlike for any other class with pets, despawns or kills all of our pets. This is due to our utilities’ unique functioning with Transformations. (Critical**)

Pet Pathing issues: More specifically, hitting an enemy directly when pets are 600-900+ distance behind you, they lose the ability to track their target and will freeze in place for the duration of the fight, this includes instances of jumping terrain and starting a fight and them having to take a long route, in many cases they won’t come at all until the fight is over. (Critical**)

Flesh of the Master: Currently, when this trait is in use, going “down” causes all pets to die. (Moderately Critical*)

Misc.: I’m not sure whether to consider the blast finisher on putrid explosion, and activation times “bugs”, but they certainly need looked at, as they are unreasonable in their functionalities.

Conclusions and Expectations:


Hopefully at least someone is still with me at this point. What do I expect from this massive list of proposed changes? I want to remove some of the sustained and passive damage from the pets and move it into activation, and increase the impact of timely activation. Additionally, I want to retain the ability to counter minions by CC and snares, as well as single target damage, while also reducing their excessively potent weakness to AOE to more match that of turrets, but still with more downfalls (kitable, and in the thicket). Additionally, I’d like the general and inexcusable “clunkiness” to be reduced on minion activation abilities so that they can be used as clutch and with more precision when watching the flow of battle, rather than feeling random at times. Essentially, this is the goal and these are a strong step toward that goal. While they are rather bold, we feel this will take Minion masters further out of the purely passive damage spectrum, and add more benefit to time attacks and ensure they land.

Lastly, I think 2+ years is long enough to want some of our major bugs fixed, especially with pathing and Moa.

Past Threads:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Sikari-s-Push-to-Revive-the-MM-Necro/first

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

(edited by ronpierce.2760)

Minion Master Revision (by Sikari & Bhawb)

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Posted by: Shadelang.3012

Shadelang.3012

As someone who has been a dedicated Minion Mancer for as long as he can remember. It is VERY nice to see this. I hope it gets more attention. And im also glad to see someone else realises the facts behind the minion mancer playstyle. And not just the public opinion.

I agree with many of your changes. And any I personally dont 100% agree with are more than made up for in the whole. I hope soon the build will get the attention it needs.

Ghost Yak

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Posted by: Tim.6450

Tim.6450

First I think the sentiment is in the right place, more active less passive. That being said, there is one thing that I clearly dislike in the entire wall of text. Flesh of the master , we don’t need more passive immunities in this game especially on stats. Removing critting and conditon damage on pets is like making the minions immune to 3 stats in one go (I’m also against turrets uncrittable & condition damage immune). Another thing you do is making the fight against a pure condition user completely unfair, he cannot damage the minions and since each minion does over time healing he simply cannot stop the healing nor damage. Also did you forget about fetid consumption?

Now on a side if the problem is AOE vulnerability,could you not solve the problem by increasing the amount of minions summoned (more but weaker minions)?

EverythingOP

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

First I think the sentiment is in the right place, more active less passive. That being said, there is one thing that I clearly dislike in the entire wall of text. Flesh of the master , we don’t need more passive immunities in this game especially on stats. Removing critting and conditon damage on pets is like making the minions immune to 3 stats in one go (I’m also against turrets uncrittable & condition damage immune). Another thing you do is making the fight against a pure condition user completely unfair, he cannot damage the minions and since each minion does over time healing he simply cannot stop the healing nor damage. Also did you forget about fetid consumption?

Now on a side if the problem is AOE vulnerability,could you not solve the problem by increasing the amount of minions summoned (more but weaker minions)?

I wish I could say condition and critical immunity wasnt neccessary. But
Like I said. Pets are dying in single fields or 2 other condition heavy attacks (bonfire, f1 bow, a necromancer opener, etc). This is the only reason turrets can see any play in pvp. Take this away from them, they wouldn’t last a moment, it’s just a necessary evil. Aoe is too potent. A condition user is only at the disadvantage that they can’t clear a MMs board in a few seconds and basically just kill the master as a “traitless” and “utilityless” build. (Because MM require such heavy allocation into pets). Again, it’s sort of a necessary evil. No one wants MORE pets in the field at once, that’s certainly not the answer. And faster does us no good when pets, in team fights, or against any heavy Aoe user (ESPECIALLY conditions) are dying before they can even make contact a good majority of the time.

I wouldn’t ask for it if I haven’t seen it work on turrets, and conditions can still be made to kill the engineer, it’s just makes “wreck everything he has in a few seconds” not a viable tactic. I still wanted the ability to CC them, however, so their travel times and ability to be CCed and counter played still exists and is still beyond that of turrets. Especially if minions lose a chunk of passive damage in the process.

So instead of a fight going from cover the game in AOEs and kill an empty handed necromancer, it’d follow more suit to Aoe cripple/fear/cc/knockback pets and kite them while focusing your damage on the necromancer which would make condition users in a 1v1 fight basically have to handle minions just like any other class that can still do it, without having a gross advantage leaving the necromancer essentially empty handed not only in 1v1 but exiling them from team fights.

Like I said, again. I wouldn’t suggest it if I hadn’t seen how it could play out and seen that it can do exactly what is needed to allow pets to fight in a team. Except with this, let’s could still be countered where as turrets are strictly ranged and immune to all conditions and CCs as well.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

(edited by ronpierce.2760)

Minion Master Revision (by Sikari & Bhawb)

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Posted by: Rym.1469

Rym.1469

10/10, reading the title.

[rude]Antagonistka – Revenant, EU.
[SALT]Natchniony – Necromancer, EU.
Streams: http://www.twitch.tv/rym144

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

First off, obviously +1. I am in no way biased when I say this is a really well written and great set of suggestions.

Also, the reason we suggest AoE reduction and condi reduction is this: as long as minions do not have any form of AoE or damaging condi resistance there are only two ways to make sure that they don’t instantly die to spammed AoE: lots of HP or lots of healing. The problem is that either one of those simply adds a binary situation where you either have enough AoE to instantly kill them all, which has absolutely no play/counterplay along with it, or don’t, in which case they have so much HP/healing that you can’t even begin to harm them.

Basically, by giving AoE reduction to the minions only, you open up the ability to lower their overall HP. This means if you want to kill the minions you have the ability to actually focus them down (lower HP), but you can no longer have an easy matchup against MM simply by having so much AoE there is no counterplay to it.

But of Corpse – Watch us on YouTube
My PvP Minion Build

Minion Master Revision (by Sikari & Bhawb)

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Posted by: Tim.6450

Tim.6450

I wish I could say condition and critical immunity wasnt neccessary. But
Like I said. Pets are dying in single fields or 2 other condition heavy attacks (bonfire, f1 bow, a necromancer opener, etc). This is the only reason turrets can see any play in pvp. Take this away from them, they wouldn’t last a moment, it’s just a necessary evil. Aoe is too potent. A condition user is only at the disadvantage that they can’t clear a MMs board in a few seconds and basically just kill the master as a “traitless” and “utilityless” build. (Because MM require such heavy allocation into pets). Again, it’s sort of a necessary evil. No one wants MORE pets in the field at once, that’s certainly not the answer. And faster does us no good when pets, in team fights, or against any heavy Aoe user (ESPECIALLY conditions) are dying before they can even make contact a good majority of the time.

Aoe is something different then bleeding and crits. Crossfire is not aoe, backstab is not aoe, greatsword swing is not aoe. Yet you’re hurting their performance even if they are not aoe.

I wouldn’t ask for it if I haven’t seen it work on turrets, and conditions can still be made to kill the engineer, it’s just makes “wreck everything he has in a few seconds” not a viable tactic. I still wanted the ability to CC them, however, so their travel times and ability to be CCed and counter played still exists and is still beyond that of turrets. Especially if minions lose a chunk of passive damage in the process.

Engineers are not necromancers. Engineers have always been condtion weak turret or not. Necromancers? Not really and the most of their condition removal comes from a healing skill and weapons, which is not really vital for the minionmancer (the weapons are debatable but the healing skill is certainly not necessairy).

So instead of a fight going from cover the game in AOEs and kill an empty handed necromancer, it’d follow more suit to Aoe cripple/fear/cc/knockback pets and kite them while focusing your damage on the necromancer which would make condition users in a 1v1 fight basically have to handle minions just like any other class that can still do it, without having a gross advantage leaving the necromancer essentially empty handed not only in 1v1 but exiling them from team fights.

That’s not true because due to their immunity to condition damage the minions will not be able to die no matter what the condition user does. The power user still can kill a minion(s).

Also what about fetid consumption????

First off, obviously +1. I am in no way biased when I say this is a really well written and great set of suggestions.

Also, the reason we suggest AoE reduction and condi reduction is this: as long as minions do not have any form of AoE or damaging condi resistance there are only two ways to make sure that they don’t instantly die to spammed AoE: lots of HP or lots of healing. The problem is that either one of those simply adds a binary situation where you either have enough AoE to instantly kill them all, which has absolutely no play/counterplay along with it, or don’t, in which case they have so much HP/healing that you can’t even begin to harm them.

Basically, by giving AoE reduction to the minions only, you open up the ability to lower their overall HP. This means if you want to kill the minions you have the ability to actually focus them down (lower HP), but you can no longer have an easy matchup against MM simply by having so much AoE there is no counterplay to it.

I aggree with what you say but the text doesn’t stand anything about aoe reduction. The thing that stands in the text is condition immunity and crit immunity which is something completely different. A condi ranger crossfire aimed at a flesh worm will not do any bleeding even if it is a single target move.

EverythingOP

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Snip

I’m not sure how to allow you to understand the situation except by referencing you to a few important notes. I’ve played in those high ranks. Conditions, specifically applied dis AoE are completely hard-stomping. The reason is, we are required to have pets to be effectve, literally every talent in a 4/0/6/4/0 build is a “minion” talent. Without them, we’re done. As said, you could basically say a “traitless” necromancer.

Next, engineer. It’s the only way to allow these units to fight in teams by giving them substantial (and I mean very high measures) condition protection and power protection. There is a reason though that many condition users actually use hybrids though, (carrion, celestial, etc) where minion masters are probably the least of your worries, they have no affect against any “objects” including doors, trebs, etc. As long as the pets are susceptible to Aoe in the way that they are, pets will never last in team fights, but also be muted by any class with high frontal Aoe. Our current list of builds that can shut us down in LITERALLY seconds due to natural aoe are: Med Guardian, Condi guardian, Celest de or staff Ele, Zerker ele, Any condition or celestial warrior with either sword or bow, any Power build with GS or hammer, condition Necro, DS Necro, condi or celest engineer, and thieves can trick pets enough not ignore them. Hopefully you get the idea. 1v1 all of these builds can completely clear a minion masters kitten nal in mere seconds.

Do you know the only reason we beat those builds in cases that they do that? Death nova overload. Both sides of these fights are incredibly toxic. As for rangers, Rangers essentially never ping down any pets (ever). That isnt how they win. Any Ranger I’ve fought and most to spent 100% uptime on me, and for the most part pets were untouched EXCEPT being cced, by usually roots or a spirit immob or trap. Same with thieves.

Point is. Minions need to live to be able to play MM. You don’t HAVE to kill minions in order to kill a minion Master. And in fact, in practice, if you’re good (and that “goodness” requirement is probably lower with less pet auto damage) this change would make fighting them less risky because insead you can focus on kiting them without the risk of 5 explosions going off in your face because of your AoE. And in team fights, the main focus of the game, pets would still die, just not nearly as quick and by single attacks.

I’m willing to hear other suggestions. The only other way pets would last long enough in tpvp is to have insane amounts of hp that would essentially have to be high enough to invalidate the need of defense. But then NO ONE would be single targeting them down, and overall, is a much worse way to handle it.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

(edited by ronpierce.2760)

Minion Master Revision (by Sikari & Bhawb)

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

Ah, I hadn’t seen that it wasn’t there, its hard to remember where I’m at when we’ve shot so many ideas back and forth.

But of Corpse – Watch us on YouTube
My PvP Minion Build

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Another way to handle Flesh of the master in a similar manner would be:

Immunity to critical hits and reduces the duration of ALL conditions on pets by 50%.

The problem with this is Burning would still be able to kill them even with that. And frankly saying “Immune to critical hits, reduced condition duration AND immune to burning” just sounds weird… But that’s essentially what would have to happen to achieve a similar effect.

And with the above, since (usually) single target condition application is stronger and/or longer, single target condition dps would still be manageable (constant crossfires would still have 100% bleed uptime). Again though, burning is just too potent for their HP pools at just about any level.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

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Posted by: Tim.6450

Tim.6450

Snip

I’m not sure how to allow you to understand the situation except by referencing you to a few important notes. I’ve played in those high ranks. Conditions, specifically applied dis AoE are completely hard-stomping. The reason is, we are required to have pets to be effectve, literally every talent in a 4/0/6/4/0 build is a “minion” talent. Without them, we’re done. As said, you could basically say a “traitless” necromancer.

Next, engineer. It’s the only way to allow these units to fight in teams by giving them substantial (and I mean very high measures) condition protection and power protection. There is a reason though that many condition users actually use hybrids though, (carrion, celestial, etc) where minion masters are probably the least of your worries, they have no affect against any “objects” including doors, trebs, etc. As long as the pets are susceptible to Aoe in the way that they are, pets will never last in team fights, but also be muted by any class with high frontal Aoe. Our current list of builds that can shut us down in LITERALLY seconds due to natural aoe are: Med Guardian, Condi guardian, Celest de or staff Ele, Zerker ele, Any condition or celestial warrior with either sword or bow, any Power build with GS or hammer, condition Necro, DS Necro, condi or celest engineer, and thieves can trick pets enough not ignore them. Hopefully you get the idea. 1v1 all of these builds can completely clear a minion masters kitten nal in mere seconds.

Do you know the only reason we beat those builds in cases that they do that? Death nova overload. Both sides of these fights are incredibly toxic. As for rangers, Rangers essentially never ping down any pets (ever). That isnt how they win. Any Ranger I’ve fought and most to spent 100% uptime on me, and for the most part pets were untouched EXCEPT being cced, by usually roots or a spirit immob or trap. Same with thieves.

Point is. Minions need to live to be able to play MM. You don’t HAVE to kill minions in order to kill a minion Master. And in fact, in practice, if you’re good (and that “goodness” requirement is probably lower with less pet auto damage) this change would make fighting them less risky because insead you can focus on kiting them without the risk of 5 explosions going off in your face because of your AoE. And in team fights, the main focus of the game, pets would still die, just not nearly as quick and by single attacks.

When do I finally get an answer for fetid consumption, you know the trait that allows pets to draw conditions passively?

Also I know you don’t have to kill the minions and I know aoe kills pets quickly but the solution you offer does more then that and that’s where my problem lies. Let’s say I want to focus on one pet (like the worm) . The problem is that even though I am focussing on one minion. I’m still getting the drawback of the new flesh of the master even though this is a situation you want to encourage (or at least don’t want to discourage). Another thing it does is negating some traits/sigils that require crits to happen even though the effects are not horrible to minionmaster (like sigil of strength/range/incapitation/….).

Another way to handle Flesh of the master in a similar manner would be:

Immunity to critical hits and reduces the duration of ALL conditions on pets by 50%.

The problem with this is Burning would still be able to kill them even with that. And frankly saying “Immune to critical hits, reduced condition duration AND immune to burning” just sounds weird… But that’s essentially what would have to happen to achieve a similar effect.

And with the above, since (usually) single target condition application is stronger and/or longer, single target condition dps would still be manageable (constant crossfires would still have 100% bleed uptime). Again though, burning is just too potent for their HP pools at just about any level.

Why not reduce damage (50%) and condition duration of bleeding(50%),torment(50%),confusion(25%),burning(75%),poison(25%)…. from moves with area off effect (or moves that can hit more then 3 targets)?

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

snip

Sorry, I forgot to answer the Fetid Consumption question, and in fact forgot to even add it to the discussion and ran out of room in the Original Post. I can safely say I don’t know what to do with it OR it depends. It would need changed or removed with pet immunities.

With simply reduced damage and duration… that’s different, might not need changed, so that really depends.

The two reasons your last suggestion won’t work is A.) It’s not worth it to ANet. I don’t think they have such a hard distinction on Single Target versus AOE abilities and the functions the conditions they apply can have. Everything else in the game has been rather straight forward, reduced duration of condies or reduced crits taken and so on. I simply don’t think the game has the tech built into it to do what you’re asking for.

Secondly, the tooltips would be outrageous and not intuitive.

Lastly, crit immunity and 50% reduced duration of all conditions regardless of application source with immunity to burn would be ideal considering that would allow some conditions to go through but they would still be slower at killing equal to power builds. Currently pet HP pools ESPECIALLY since I’m suggesting the loss of the 50% added HP, these pets would be way too easily killed, just by single target instead. Don’t forget the HP suggestion I’m making with this. They’d be getting substantially more protected from AOE, but their HP overall would be going down, so in a sense, they’re already getting easier to single target down to compensate.

That’s why technically speaking, Burning and Crit Immunity and otherwise 50% condition reduction would probably be the “best” fit overall to removing spike pet loss and still allowing them to be killed by direct attacks with lower health totals.

There is no “perfect” answer, simply because ANet doesn’t have all the tech (or motivation) to do EXACTLY what needs to be done. Ideally, yeah, we could just have pets take reduced damage from “aoe” attacks and “aoe applied conditions”, but I don’t think that is an answer for arena net.

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Posted by: Tim.6450

Tim.6450

snip

I will admit that the solution I suggested are quite complex, but I have a question?

Why are you so for crit immunity? X damage reduction is way fairer since it doesn’t descriminate soldier or zerker even though they invested different amounts in offense.

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

snip

I will admit that the solution I suggested are quite complex, but I have a question?

Why are you so for crit immunity? X damage reduction is way fairer since it doesn’t descriminate soldier or zerker even though they invested different amounts in offense.

Because it streamlines death rates. 50% DR would make it so only zerkers benefit from attacking pets directly. Crit immunity both can if they want decently effectively. HP without the trait is low Enough that critical hits wouldn’t be necessary to kill a pet if you really wanted to. Basically, it’s to give them the protection they desperately need and still allow the most amount of builds to counter them by damage still. Say, 50% damage reduction may bring zerker damage against pets down to just below no-crit damage, but soldiers deals insignificant damage to pets. There’s no real reason to counter soldiers in that way, when anti-crit can just make both able to kill pets, just much slower.

As for conditions, most run carrion or celestial, they’d still do damage but it’d be smaller, much like against turrets and doors. But I am willing to go with reduced duration versus immunity, but it’d have to be substantial enough (and I still feel anti-burning is necessary) to prevent pets from being wiped out by Aoe conditions, as they are now.

And as said previously, this comes with the added benefit of reducting the occurrences of Death Nova overload and people killing themselves in a skill-less retaliation from their deaths. I’d prefer lets last and condition users have to fight the master than flip a coin with their deaths then have a guaranteed kill.

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Posted by: Shadelang.3012

Shadelang.3012

Tim have you ever seen the effect a dragons tooth crit has on a minion group? It instantly kills the group.

The reason for that is not just that hte attack has a very high base damage. When combined with ferocity effects that attack becomes instant death.

Giving a flat damage reduction has two problems from what I can see and ron can correct me if im wrong here.

One. Unless that % was VERY high it wouldnt be enough to protect the revised pet health pools from even a low level crit from the previously mentioned ability. In essence you screw over non crit builds for the sake of changing absolutely nothing for crit heavy builds.

Which leads me to issue two. Any damage reduction % on a scale high enough for even the tanky pets to survive the afore mentioned ability would absolutely shaft non crit builds. It would need to be in the range of 50%+. Thats basically a giant ..l.. -.- ..l.. to anyone running less than glass or celestial.

With immunity to crits they will still be easy to kill individually for both crit and non crit builds as well as being quite easy to kill for most condi builds. However they will NOT be INSTANTLY killed as they often are now.

Edit: Bah he wrote his reply before I finished haha

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Tim have you ever seen the effect a dragons tooth crit has on a minion group? It instantly kills the group.

The reason for that is not just that hte attack has a very high base damage. When combined with ferocity effects that attack becomes instant death.

Giving a flat damage reduction has two problems from what I can see and ron can correct me if im wrong here.

One. Unless that % was VERY high it wouldnt be enough to protect the revised pet health pools from even a low level crit from the previously mentioned ability. In essence you screw over non crit builds for the sake of changing absolutely nothing for crit heavy builds.

Which leads me to issue two. Any damage reduction % on a scale high enough for even the tanky pets to survive the afore mentioned ability would absolutely shaft non crit builds. It would need to be in the range of 50%+. Thats basically a giant ..l.. -.- ..l.. to anyone running less than glass or celestial.

With immunity to crits they will still be easy to kill individually for both crit and non crit builds as well as being quite easy to kill for most condi builds. However they will NOT be INSTANTLY killed as they often are now.

Edit: Bah he wrote his reply before I finished haha

This is exactly it. I want as many people to be able to fight MM and their pets without them being as susceptible to AOE and by extension, they would be tougher against single target damage too, hence the lower net HP. It’s a hard balance to strike, but I’m basing my estimates on solid data/experience of turrets and the effects similar defenses have had to keep them in play. Minions would remain easier to kill than turrets simply because they are controllable and have to be in the thick to fight. These changes would protect them from Aoe bombing which isn’t just a counter currently, but a Hard Counter, and allow pets to fight in teams. At the same time, enemies would be less likely to hit Death Nova bombs. Overall, I still feel this is the right change based on its deep 4 point trait to just take partial advantage of something turrets get baseline and has proven to not be an issue. (That’s not what makes turrets potent by a long shot, but allows them to even function in pvp with so much spam)

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Posted by: Shadelang.3012

Shadelang.3012

I have to say. Id actually love a rework on necromantic corruption as well. Namely the fact that even when minions WEREN’T stopping randomly at injustifiably inopportune times the trait was lackluster. Would it be possible to combine the functionality of necromantic corruption with training of the master?

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

So, Sikari and I were talking about that, and its not a simple fix, really. The problem I see is that the trait is a GM competing directly with Death Nova, an amazing MM trait. So to properly fix the trait we’re looking at having to give it functionality as strong as Death Nova, but different. I just don’t see an easy way to do that without giving it TotM treatment (put boon removal on the actives), which would result in some massive tooltips.

Unless you were asking something else entirely, and asking about rolling Necromanctic Corruption into Training of the Master. Its possible, but I’d prefer to keep it more about simply improving the utility of their current uses/increased damage than also putting boon removal in.

I think the best way to address Necromantic Corruption would be to more or less axe the trait, and in its place have a trait that provided an “opposite” to DN. Like a trait that gave minions some kind of self-sustain or way to stay alive. I can’t say I have any ideas at the moment, since Training of the Master’s proposed changes would pretty much rule out having another change like that (such tooltips, many words, wow). But no more super RNG boon removal, it’d have to be something with a much clearer activation.

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

I have to say. Id actually love a rework on necromantic corruption as well. Namely the fact that even when minions WEREN’T stopping randomly at injustifiably inopportune times the trait was lackluster. Would it be possible to combine the functionality of necromantic corruption with training of the master?

Well with the proposed changes to TotM, it’d probably be too strong. Ideally, though, NC could become a non-pet related boon removal to increase build diversity and not have 2 minion-only talents, and the only one not minion related being walled. Interestingly, I think it’d be fun if it allowed Life Blast to remove boons or something, but that doesn’t sound likely. I just tend to enjoy less RNG in general, I like to know what my traits will be doing and when.

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Posted by: Shadelang.3012

Shadelang.3012

Fair enough. I only mentioned it becuase its one of the only defenses we have against builds such as D/D elly and boongineers (both turret and otherwise). Although it its current incarnation its….impossible to trust in any way shape or form.

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Fair enough. I only mentioned it becuase its one of the only defenses we have against builds such as D/D elly and boongineers (both turret and otherwise). Although it its current incarnation its….impossible to trust in any way shape or form.

Yeah. I just want to avoid being pushed into the “op” realm.

They could make each hit have a 50% chance per minion with a 15 second ICD on each. The problem is its very front loaded (which might not be that bad realistically), and still hard to predict. I really wish there was a way for us to control it and it still be substantial.

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

I really wish there was a way for us to control it and it still be substantial.

That’s the hard part for me. We could make a list of changes that’d put it in the same realm as TotM, where it added a unique anti-boon effect to each active skill so that you’d know when it procs… but then you have tooltips the size of small books and potentially OP. I’d also argue that MM has the potential for fine boon removal already, if only focus wasn’t a 1.5 year cast time.

It would be more interesting to me if it was a non-minion specific skill that instead of just removing boons would steal boons from an enemy and share them with your allies. Maybe like change Life Blast to do that on an X ICD.

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Posted by: Shadelang.3012

Shadelang.3012

Hmm so maybe something in soul reaping? I could see it being tied to a soul reaping trait which would force minion mancers to give up atleast one core trait to obtain it. Making it a niche choice you take specifically for a certain enemy type without making it something you can just “tag along”

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

I’d just prefer leaving it where it is but making it non-pet specific, but better/predictable. But I don’t know what would be too good for boonrip… its hard to say?
Something like…
Lifeblast steals 2 boons, 10 second CD. Would be fun, but even still i have no idea if it’d even get used. 3 sounds OP, but very niche regardless.

I just think unless it was super easy to obtain and in a spot that it wouldnt interfere with other mandatory traits it’d never get used by anyone. Like a tier1 in spite, it might actually get a lot of use, but that’d be an OP adept trait… and it’d leave us lacking a master in Death. Honestly, I don’t know what to do with it, but above all, i do wish it wasn’t minion specific so other people could/would run it too.

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Posted by: Drarnor Kunoram.5180

Drarnor Kunoram.5180

What about “Tainted Shackles steals 2 boons from each foe immobilized?”

In actuality, it would be from any foes hit by the direct damage pulse that also applies Immobilized. Plenty of counterplay, but also much more active.

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

What about “Tainted Shackles steals 2 boons from each foe immobilized?”

In actuality, it would be from any foes hit by the direct damage pulse that also applies Immobilized. Plenty of counterplay, but also much more active.

Worried it just wouldn’t be enough to go that deep into Death Magic to take. Death magic is typically only MMs and terrormancers who only go far enough for the staff traits. It sounds good, but as a Grandmaster trait, I just don’t see it getting much play for a boonrip on a 40 second cooldown. Thats sort of the issue. How do you make it worth going for, for people who already rarely go deep into Death Magic without it being OP as hell too. x.X

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Posted by: Drarnor Kunoram.5180

Drarnor Kunoram.5180

Copying the boons, then corrupting them on the opponents? Gives a use for Boon Duration, at least.

Still, spitballing ideas and such, tends to not give the best ideas the first time around.

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Its not so much ideas (personally) that I’m struggling with. Shackle stealing, Lifeblast stealing and/or ripping (with lower CD) all sounds fun. The problem I’m having is making it worth going further into death for without making it OP. Of course any shift in the meta always seems kinda OP at first.

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Posted by: Cogbyrn.7283

Cogbyrn.7283

This discussion is so delightful that it makes me wish I had more than 0 minutes of experience with a Minion Mancer build out of the 874 hours I’ve spent on my Necro. However, I have absolutely no experience, so I can’t even really weigh in.

The good, healthy discussion is more than welcome, though. I know I’ll be keeping up with it, even if I can’t actually weigh in.

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

After playing some games on turret engi I am 100% convinced that condi (damage)/crit immunity wouldn’t be remotely OP for a Master tier investment. It is such a nice change for your summons to actually live through a single LB F1 from warrior.

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Posted by: Shadelang.3012

Shadelang.3012

Longbow f1… Dragons tooth… Nearly any engi grenade or bomb skill… Im really…REALLY. sick of there being actual hard counters to an entire playstyle.

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Posted by: Cogbyrn.7283

Cogbyrn.7283

If they fix it, then you better be prepared to deal with the ridiculous influx of “omg I can’t kill the pets anymore, this is so dumb, broken easy spec” that’s going to be everywhere. Community reaction isn’t a reason to not apply fixes, but considering the amount of complaining about silly things I’ve seen in even just a day or two of sPvP, it’s going to be off the c-h-a-i-n when minions don’t just fall over.

I heard the other day that Necros have 3 life bars, and they could do condi-build amounts of condi-damage while doing 4k LBs. I’m quivering in anticipation at the backlash from actually fixing this build up.

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

I’ve learned to ignore ignorance. I try to set them straight, and teach counters to my own build. If they don’t buy it, oh well… Doesn’t mean I need to suffer.

That said, I decided to ask for legitimate protection in conjunction with reducing passive dps for more active dps on purpose. I think it’s fair to increase the skill cap of the build in place of actually being useful outside of a niche “Only good 1v1 versus builds with no AOE and high mobility” situation. (aka risky home bunk only)

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Posted by: Cogbyrn.7283

Cogbyrn.7283

Oh definitely. I just remember what happened when the Ferocity change went in. That was cold, hard math, and people still were in all kinds of a tizzy touting all the wrong numbers for days.

I really hope some of your changes make it in at some point down the line, as it’s nice seeing a Necro surrounded by minions at least every once in a while. And who knows, depending on how they change the on uses based on your suggestions, I might have to give it a try sometime.

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Posted by: Rising Dusk.2408

Rising Dusk.2408

I don’t think a trait that gives Minions immunity to conditions and/or immunity to critical hits is good either for the builds or for the game. Minions do not need passive durability, nor is passive durability going to increase the skill cap of the builds that use them.

If we want minion builds to be taken seriously and to be serious contenders for meta builds in an assortment of formats, the core fix that’s necessary is AI improvements, potentially including additional skills and dodges that they employ intelligently.

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

The problem is that no amount of active offense will matter when they die to single abilities. This has shown to work for turrets, which are the only summons that are currently competitively viable.

The skill cap is using their active abilities, but to get that skill cap to a point of being relevant they can’t die instantly. Even if they dodged abilities you’re simply delaying their instant death by a few seconds, and it wouldn’t matter to persistent AoE effects like LB F1.

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Posted by: nekretaal.6485

nekretaal.6485

So disappointed that we never got a CDI

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

I don’t think a trait that gives Minions immunity to conditions and/or immunity to critical hits is good either for the builds or for the game. Minions do not need passive durability, nor is passive durability going to increase the skill cap of the builds that use them.

If we want minion builds to be taken seriously and to be serious contenders for meta builds in an assortment of formats, the core fix that’s necessary is AI improvements, potentially including additional skills and dodges that they employ intelligently.

Its necessary because I’ve played in high end PVP and know exactly what allows Turrets to function in teams versus minions. Bone minions are dying in single fire fields before reaching enemies. Other pets aren’t far behind. These needs to happen because no one can take a spec seriously when its entire set of traits and utilities are dumped into a single thing and 2 AOEs later you’re essentially a traitless spec of a class with some of the lowest defenses. We have a dire need for pets to last in team fights, let alone AOE from a single source more than 5 seconds. Its the one thing that keeps turrets playable (and they even heal 5% hp every 3 seconds on top of Crit and FULL condition immunity).

As it stands against any meta team, either you’re spiked in a few seconds, or you’re aoed down (especially with all of the eles, engineers, and warriors running around) and completely ineffective moments later. The only retaliation we have to that is yet another passive, Death Nova which can kill an unsuspecting person when they all die at about the same time. But that’s equally as toxic. If they died slower, people would also be getting spiked down slower from pure passive explosions, and minion masters could actually “play” their build, rather than walking onto a point and ending up completely vulnerable.

We’re talking about the pets here, not the player. They absolutely need hard defenses because with these changes, they’d still die, but last long enough for the necromancer to counter play (where as a single combustion shot will kill 3-4 of your pets ALONE). Notice how Minions are almost entirely pushed out of the meta, spirits have been mostly pushed out, spirit weapons have never been a thing, and the only “pet” build that has survived is Turret engies with this exact thing that I’m asking as a master trait- baseline.

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Posted by: Cogbyrn.7283

Cogbyrn.7283

I don’t think a trait that gives Minions immunity to conditions and/or immunity to critical hits is good either for the builds or for the game. Minions do not need passive durability, nor is passive durability going to increase the skill cap of the builds that use them.

If we want minion builds to be taken seriously and to be serious contenders for meta builds in an assortment of formats, the core fix that’s necessary is AI improvements, potentially including additional skills and dodges that they employ intelligently.

By the sounds of those who are talking about the spec above, passive durability is exactly what pets need. Increase the skill cap? No, but the other recommendations attempt to help that particular issue.

There’s precedent for summoned utilities to have immunity to conditions as well as crits. Also, what is the difference between a pet who has passive durability, and a pet that automatically uses dodges that they employ intelligently? In both instances, the player is doing nothing, the pet is just living longer of their own accord. In many games, AoE does meager damage (as it’s meant to hit several things at once, not hit one thing across a large area), or it’s a one-time attack that more intelligent AI could dodge. Would you want the pets to be constantly running to the edges of AoE and standing there while their target is within a dangerous AoE? Maybe some more detail on what kind of AI you want pets to employ would be useful.

Also, I’m not sure what additional skills you would be able to use from a single pet on a single utility slot. If it’s using skills automatically to evade damage, then again, it’s just another form of passive durability, so if it’s down to TTK on pets, I’m not sure it matters how they do it really. Maybe an active dodge on a pet is easier to play against, but that won’t bring skill to the Minion Mancer itself.

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Posted by: Rising Dusk.2408

Rising Dusk.2408

Turrets are viable because Supply Crate is insanely great. Turret Engineers still get cleaved out very easily by high-end coordinated bursts, and are even more vulnerable to conditions than Necromancers are. Minionmancers are decent enough in their current incarnation because minions can move, which is exactly what puts them one-up over turrets. The only reason turrets see a little more active play is because sitting on a point is pretty much the name of the game in PvP. Either way, all AI builds are pretty much bunk in this current meta against anyone running proper builds with appropriate players skills to back them up.

The problem is that if you add immunity to critical hits and immunity to conditions, you’re addressing a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. AI builds get such a bad rap for a reason, and it is a combination of how easy they are to pick up and how terrible they are in coordinated play due to their intrinsic vulnerabilities to AOE which is everywhere. There’s no play/counterplay, although there’s of course the obvious stuff like dodging and such, the minions themselves just run around smacking things unintelligently and without much interaction from the player.

Also, I’m not sure what additional skills you would be able to use from a single pet on a single utility slot. If it’s using skills automatically to evade damage, then again, it’s just another form of passive durability, so if it’s down to TTK on pets, I’m not sure it matters how they do it really. Maybe an active dodge on a pet is easier to play against, but that won’t bring skill to the Minion Mancer itself.

When I talk about additional abilities, I mean make them smart enough to do some things on their own. The difference between a dodging minion and a passive immunity to conditions/critical hits is that they aren’t dodging all of the time. The play/counterplay is to lure out a dodge to burst it—but is that burst worth it or would it rather be used against the Necromancer? That’s play, that’s risk/reward, that’s what people want to see, and what makes games more enjoyable both to watch and to take part in.

I understand what you guys are getting at; it’d be swell to have the meta build be a minionmancer because minions are cool, but not like this. If things like condition immunity and critical hit immunity actually happened, you’d have at most one patch to play with it before every PvP player came down on it and ANet nerfed it back into oblivion, all because it addresses a symptom, not the cause itself. We need to get a lot more active play into AI builds before they can really start having the high power they need to actually beat massive AOE builds.

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

Your dodge example means nothing. You don’t need to bait out a dodge and then choose between focusing them or the necromancer, you simply use a weak AoE that forces them to dodge, and then follow up with your normal AoE spam which kills them in 1-2 hits while still hitting the Necro because it covers the entire point. There is no active play, the MM isn’t any more skillful, the enemy hasn’t really changed anything, all that happens is the minions can avoid 1-2 more hits before dying. There is no amount of power that will alleviate this, even if bone minions did 50k damage per Putrid Explosion it doesn’t matter if they can’t reach their target due to passive AoE spam, and that is exactly what is happening right now.

I can tell you after playing turret that they live through AoE vastly better than MM. I was able to easily keep them alive through 2v1s against warriors with LB and shatter mesmers. Minions wouldn’t be quite as strong either, because they’d still have to get in range (whereas turrets can’t be kited), and don’t have passive 350 HP/s healing while also spamming out 4 boons constantly.

The problem we are trying to address with that single change is that minions die too quickly to allow any kind of meaningful play to the build. What has been proposed is something that currently works in game, it has already proven itself. The problem of MM being easy to pick up and low skill is unrelated to their defense, it is their offensive capability. That separate issue is being addressed with changes to Training of the Master, which forces you to smartly use their actives or be extremely weak.

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Perhaps in a few days I can create a couple videos to show exactly what the issues are and why turrets are effective over minions and the specific issues of aoe/conditions on pets.

I don’t think he’s understanding the issue, as if making them better fixes their “weakness”. I don’t want them to be stronger, they need to last long enough to even exist in a fight. More times than not, killing the pets is not necessary to killing the minion master. (Thieves, rangers etc do it all the time), and we want to keep the ability to cc them and kill them via power and ENOUGH aoe to justify their deaths. But with how things are CURRENTLY, a combustive shot is killing 3 pets. One skill. There is no counter play to that and them being a “little smarter” won’t fix that issue either. I don’t have time tonight to make relevant videos, but I will sooner or later and show exactly what the difference is between turrets and minions.

It seems to be that people think immobile turrets is a downside to them. As it stands, you can place them on the outsides of a fight and they can hit 1200-1500 range, they can be placed to take almost no damage baseline, and the thumper has enough passive defenses to support itself. And when you want to move, you pick them up to reduce the cooldown and go elsewhere, and once they’re ready again you can put them directly down, rather than having pets trailing behind (who currently break entirely if you hit an enemy with them too far behind) and have no real means of working around their terrain issues, where as turrets can be placed to not only avoid their own terrain issues, but use the terrain as a competitive advantage when placed in hard to hit places.

I’ve recently been playing both to a quite large extent and its actually baffling how easy it would be to fix MMs issues while making them a bit more skill dependent and not as hard-countered in aoe/team fights.

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Posted by: Rising Dusk.2408

Rising Dusk.2408

Your dodge example means nothing. You don’t need to bait out a dodge and then choose between focusing them or the necromancer, you simply use a weak AoE that forces them to dodge, and then follow up with your normal AoE spam which kills them in 1-2 hits while still hitting the Necro because it covers the entire point. There is no active play, the MM isn’t any more skillful, the enemy hasn’t really changed anything, all that happens is the minions can avoid 1-2 more hits before dying. There is no amount of power that will alleviate this, even if bone minions did 50k damage per Putrid Explosion it doesn’t matter if they can’t reach their target due to passive AoE spam, and that is exactly what is happening right now.

There are more intelligent ways to do a dodge mechanic for minions if that route is the way to go. It shouldn’t dodge roll at the first sign of an AOE attack, it should understand what kind of AOE it is in and determine how threatening it is. Maybe it should tank the weaker AOE, but as soon as a meteor shower goes down it will attempt to dodge out of it if possible. AI doesn’t have to be one-dimensional. ANet brought on an AI guy who’s working on HoT, and maybe some of that will be imparted on minions across all builds.

Bone Minions are terrible no matter what in their current incarnation. Balancing the passive defense of every minion in order to get Bone Minions to survive AOEs and reach their targets reliably will undoubtedly push them over the top. Imagine if Bone Minions instead had some sort of Mist Form that they would use when you activated their skill, along with a movement speed bonus to reach their target. Then, when that mist form ended they would blow up regardless of how far they’d gotten. That would invoke play/counterplay because a player could kite the minions, but the minions themselves become invulnerable during that phase to help them reach their target.

That’s just one example; there are multiple other solutions to the problems other than what you’re proposing.

I can tell you after playing turret that they live through AoE vastly better than MM. I was able to easily keep them alive through 2v1s against warriors with LB and shatter mesmers. Minions wouldn’t be quite as strong either, because they’d still have to get in range (whereas turrets can’t be kited), and don’t have passive 350 HP/s healing while also spamming out 4 boons constantly.

Yeah, turrets are much more durable, but that’s the point. Engineers can’t move their turrets, while we can move our minions. If you out-rotate a team with a turret engineer then you will always win the two-cap and win the game anyway.

The problem we are trying to address with that single change is that minions die too quickly to allow any kind of meaningful play to the build. What has been proposed is something that currently works in game, it has already proven itself. The problem of MM being easy to pick up and low skill is unrelated to their defense, it is their offensive capability. That separate issue is being addressed with changes to Training of the Master, which forces you to smartly use their actives or be extremely weak.

I recognize what you’re trying to address, but I strongly believe that addressing it as you have solves one problem to introduce another, all while not addressing the base issue in the first place. Some passive traits are okay, like the bonus HP or bonus damage traits, but nothing as massive as immunity to condi/crits, especially not as a master trait.

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Posted by: Shadelang.3012

Shadelang.3012

In all honesty I can’t see how an active defensive option for minions is even POSSIBLE. I dont believe it can work in any form of play.

The changes above will make the MM playstyle more active. Thats undeniable just from looking at it. But all of that active play won’t mean anything if the mechanic itself dies within 4 seconds of the start of combat. Which is why honestly I agree with the proposed damaging condi and crit immunity.

A nerf to passive damage. A buff to active damage (overall nerf for minion damage except in rare situations…making those situations will be a big decider of the skill of a MM.) and a resistance to the things that currently act as a 100% hard counter. Hard counters being something that should never exist unless there extremely rare.

So overall the build becomes more active (yay all the minion haters that whine when they have no idea what there talking might actually shut up for 20 seconds…no probably not).

Overall this will let the MM necro actually fulfill his role in the fight without being hard countered by the first kitten near anything in the game.

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Rising Dusk, before we have more of an empty debate, have you palyed MM in higher end (at least top… 20% – being 80%) tpvp on ranked? If not I don’t think you can possibly fathom the issues we’re even having. Like I said, in a day or two I can make some videos so you know exactly what I’m referring to and why its an issue. Pets don’t need to be killable by everything just to make MMs fair. If anything for the fight to be fair MM pets need to be able to last long enough to be useful. If a single person AOEing all the pets down in seconds and then kill the master as he’s completely defenseless is the “way to kill MM” there will always be an issue.

Not to mention your “turrets are immobile, that’s their weakness” argument is entirely false. That’s a benefit to them… Our pets can bug out and trail behind when roaming. A turret engineer can pick them up for a reduced CD and keep going. OR leave a thumper and trigger its aoe knock back from anywhere else in the map, able to leave support behind. Thats incredibly valuable! Additionally, them being place-able removes most of the terrain issues minions suffer, and they don’t walk blindly into massive hazards (and that includes just raw power damage). These things you’re playing off as disadvantages are absolutely not disadvantages, and I know because I play both.

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Posted by: DarkMezmer.5198

DarkMezmer.5198

Rising Dusk, before we have more of an empty debate, have you palyed MM in higher end (at least top… 20% – being 80%) tpvp on ranked? If not I don’t think you can possibly fathom the issues we’re even having. Like I said, in a day or two I can make some videos so you know exactly what I’m referring to and why its an issue. Pets don’t need to be killable by everything just to make MMs fair. If anything for the fight to be fair MM pets need to be able to last long enough to be useful. If a single person AOEing all the pets down in seconds and then kill the master as he’s completely defenseless is the “way to kill MM” there will always be an issue.

Not to mention your “turrets are immobile, that’s their weakness” argument is entirely false. That’s a benefit to them… Our pets can bug out and trail behind when roaming. A turret engineer can pick them up for a reduced CD and keep going. OR leave a thumper and trigger its aoe knock back from anywhere else in the map, able to leave support behind. Thats incredibly valuable! Additionally, them being place-able removes most of the terrain issues minions suffer, and they don’t walk blindly into massive hazards (and that includes just raw power damage). These things you’re playing off as disadvantages are absolutely not disadvantages, and I know because I play both.

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Posted by: Rising Dusk.2408

Rising Dusk.2408

Rising Dusk, before we have more of an empty debate, have you palyed MM in higher end (at least top… 20% – being 80%) tpvp on ranked?

I’ve played both with and against players of the caliber of Ostrich Eggs in solo queue and now ranked arena with every brand of PvP build you can field with a Necromancer. Some I use more than others, obviously, because I find them more fun.

Just because someone disagrees with your solution doesn’t mark them inept. You’d be wise to remember that.

Not to mention your “turrets are immobile, that’s their weakness” argument is entirely false.

Mobility is always a benefit. There are bugs with minion AI and other pathing issues that hold back minionmancers, and those things should be fixed. I do not disagree with that.

Additionally, them being place-able removes most of the terrain issues minions suffer, and they don’t walk blindly into massive hazards (and that includes just raw power damage). These things you’re playing off as disadvantages are absolutely not disadvantages, and I know because I play both.

You’re right, turrets are valuable in the right scenario and minions aren’t in the best of places right now. Neither of these things being true negates that mobility is always a benefit. Spirit Rangers trait specifically so that their spirits follow them because it is very valuable that they do. That good turret Engineers can help out across a map with their turrets is them taking advantage as best they can of their situation. I think the passive sustain on turrets is too high currently and should be dialed back. I do not think we should be pushing to get every other AI npc up to the level of passive sustain of a turret.

Lastly, it’s only an empty debate if people walk into the debate without the ability to be convinced of something other than what they currently believe. The only reason I’ve even posted in this thread is because I disagree with you and I felt that you guys were respectable enough to listen to alternate solutions. I’m not interested in a fight, so by all means, as you were; I’ll leave you be.

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