Guild Wars 2

Crazy thing is that is makes a fair bit of sense. Get mobs and such to focus on you, while your minions nibble them to death. Then you use traits like minion health stealing and condition consumption to keep yourself alive. Still, the games current opaque aggro system makes for a less than simple play style.

I don’t think that is anything new, as this was discussed a while back (and how I played MM before I dropped it). The problem is that regardless how one plays, minions are wonky.

And can draw aggro from you fairly quickly.

Oh, and its -not- OP.

It works! Besides that I sacrifice my Blood Fiend and Bone Masters on every occasion, not because I would need the heal or damage, I just want to serve new masters from time to time.

yeah when your minions draw damage and you stay behind they die extremelly fast but when you take most damage and go back only when your health is low minions are very good and useful
I’m glad that soembody finally show it, most necros think " my minions will take damage and I will kil everything muahahah" and then they think “OMG why they die so fast, minions are weak and their AI sucks”. Minion’s AI don’t sucks, their masters who plays that way sucks

Shafi.8952:

Wrong: Ranged – mobs will attack your minions before you.
Right: Melee – make sure monsters attack you

Can pulling aggro off of minions be done reliably?

I like the overall concept. Although I kinda like the name “Minion Support Master”.

Ill say it again like I did the other thread.

And then the OP got moa morphed. And woke up.
There was a river and he went to swim and his minions couldn’t, and then he woke up
The Op went into lich or plague, and woke up.
The flesh golem didn’t care if your range or melee he just stood around and clapped at you for trying to make this work. And then the OP woke up.

This is my exact mentality when I utilize axe/staff with power toughness build. You can do some obnoxious stuff with flesh wurm spectral walk bone minions and elite golem. Its literally the only build I’ve ever been reliably able to kill a bunker ele or guardian with.

Yes Moas can destroy minions, as can water. But has a long as kitten cool down. A power toughness necromancer takes a long time for a mesmer to deal with, particularly because you can spec power and still have great condition removal. The trick is to utilize all of your minions special abilities before they get in range to moa you. You can do some pretty significant damage, and can easily break LOS by utilizing flesh wurm.

So while its not IDEAL, you can still pull off fighting a mesmer. Since if you sacrifice plague signet or bone minions before starting combat you can utilize both spectral walk and flesh wurm to be all over the kittening place.

Shafi.8952:

(This is not a joke) : Ignore this thread if you think your playing the necrominion master as design intended.

I finally understand what I have been doing wrong for the past 2 months.
Now I know how to keeps minions alive for 2 times, maybe 3 or 4 times, longer (except for jagged horror).

Wrong: Minions siphon health for you.
Right: You heal minions with Mark of Blood, Reaper’s Touch, Well of Blood and others

Wrong: Minions draw your conditions.
Right: You get rid of conditions on minions with Putrid Mark and others.

Wrong: Ranged – mobs will attack your minions before you.
Right: Melee – make sure monsters attack you

Wrong: Necromancers – DPS (with little heal) | Minions – Tank
Right: Necromancers – Tanky Healer (with little DPS) | Minions – Not Tank, Not Healer, Not DPS (Remember GW2 gets rid of holy trinity: At least for minions)

Wrong: Minions are minions of Necromancers | Necromancers are master of minions.
Right: Minions are master of Necromancers | Necromancers are minions of Minions.

Now with all this in mind, Go out there minions and make a build built around Toughness, Vitality and Healing Power.

I hereby name this new type of build: Master Minion <- nice and simple, easy to remember.

Just remember, you keep your master alive and your master don’t keep you alive; If you remember this, your master will die after you die and not before.

Hint To other Necromancers: make a hybrid of Minion Master and Master Minion for an almost enjoyable Necro play-style.

To ArenaNet: Please don’t nerf this build, I finally found it after 2 months of experimenting with different ideas for Minions, I mean Masters.

(Feel free to take this thread as a joke)

I am sorry to say this, but using just the flesh golem, and using wells for slot 6 7 8 9, staff aoe is 2 3 4 5, and speccing for full power, precision, and condition damage greatly out performs wasting minions for pve. Wells hit aoe and it says they only pulse each second for 5 seconds. they actually pulse 6 times while one of them pulses 7. you can see it happen by checking your combat log and fighting one enemy and counting.

just using a dagger specced like the above deals between 4k-6k dps on an enemy, especially if using blood is power which gives 10 stacks of might, 350 to power and 350 to condition damage. im sorry but in pve even specced as a full glass cannon with no toughness, and ur fighting 5 + enemies, its really hard to die as a necro.

speccing for toughness and having minions which only hit one target fight for you, is legit dividing your total DPS by at least 3 or 4. as the build i described i could easily kill 5 enemies in under 10-13 seconds. your build would take so much longer. no point.

dont discard the healing necro as a joke.
I am pretty sure at some point when they see the numbers they will nerf well of blood

Nah, I don’t think so. First off, this will get better with time, but your teamates have to stay in your well to get healed. I’ve watched them run out of it all the time, you need a blast finisher on top of the light field to get the full effect. And with a 45second cooldown its fine where it is imo. With WOB and MOB you can do some decent support with plague blinds

As long as minion AI in this game remains commondore64 level, there is no viable or good minion master nor master minion builds.

Pfft, I kinda HOPE they nerf Well of Blood.

Pretty much how entire bulk of healing and survivability is baked into a healing power boosted Well of Blood. We’re so cooldown based as it is

This is new to people? I leveled up 1-80 pure minionmancer and had no issues what so ever. Melee isn’t necessary though, just melee range. Simply running up with your staff is enough to tank. Area Weakness (Chillblains+Putrid Mark)/Well of Blood/Transfusion trait/Mark of Blood. Minions will survive most stuff. Transfusion is the best minion heal. Use Life Transfer often.

Minions are still stupid, but their stupidity is manageable. I’m however not sure if this is viable in dungeons and such, as I’ve never tried it… It’s definitely not viable in PvP. Don’t even try.

This is how I played before I realised the AoE is pitiful and the minion AI is godawful.

Ya, you rarely see “tanky pet” be the focus of a pet class. This exists in a few games as a crutch for certain levels and certain solo content. As a general rule the master is trying to hold threat on himself, then slow and kite while the pet does dps.

It was clear from the start that GW2 minions weren’t going to be incredibly strong. You you were using them just mess with people’s ability to tab target or to otherwise overwhelm the AoE cap.

Just wish that the cooldown as on spawn, not on death if so. Mesmer phantasms are cooldown on spawn, right?

Honestly, its the combo of random AI, no out of fight healing (except for the flesh golem, go fig), and the cooldown on death that makes minions a mess to deal with.

they should copy/paste the mesmer clone AI to necro minions. it is actually really believeable

Rhyis.7058:

This is new to people? I leveled up 1-80 pure minionmancer and had no issues what so ever. Melee isn’t necessary though, just melee range. Simply running up with your staff is enough to tank. Area Weakness (Chillblains+Putrid Mark)/Well of Blood/Transfusion trait/Mark of Blood. Minions will survive most stuff. Transfusion is the best minion heal. Use Life Transfer often.

Minions are still stupid, but their stupidity is manageable. I’m however not sure if this is viable in dungeons and such, as I’ve never tried it… It’s definitely not viable in PvP. Don’t even try.

Yea that’s the problem. I lvled to 80 aswell with minions because they are tanky enough. Take one step into a dungeon or any pvp mode and they are useless.

OP did not explain what happens in aforementioned places. Which is really the only thing you will play once you`ve hit 80

I’m a MM and specialized in Vitality , toughness and healing power.
My main weapon is staff ( got DD too > using it for siphoning in serious situations ).
now I’m level 64 and my hp is 19k , it’s rarely to drop to 10k(thanks to my minions which I rely on the to damage my foe ).
I’m the last man standing in all dungeons and events so I think that MM is the best build for the necromancer.

in a topsy turvy kind of way i like this thread. i’ll have to experiment with more minion support beyond well of blood which i use anyway because it is annoying to resummon minions or enter combat with minions at half hp.

I use a build fairly close to the OPs but I have slotted siphon health and dropped staff for axe/horn. While being the primary “tank” of the pet swarm, axes retaliation increases dps a fair amount and horns daze adds another control and ae. with siphon health and pet siphon I regain approx 500-750 health per second and being heavy toughness built I can usually stay max hps through most pve encounters.

The pets AI is horrible in small scale battles but as they start taking damage they usually respond. The worst part is when pets start dropping off, resummoning can become a problem and at first I did not have Death nova trait slotted. Once slotted I realized how effective it is. ( poison cloud lasts 3 seconds which poisons for 8s which approx 800 free damage with no cond.)

Over all it is a viable build even with the AI being as bad as it is.

healing power only really scales with mark of blood and. . .that’s it for minion masters. speccing into healing power is a waste tbh.

you would be better off toughness/power/vitality.

I actually came to this same realisation myself a while ago. After being frustrated with my minions for being rather fragile and not being able to regen while out of battle, it dawned on me. “Why not let enemies attack ME instead?” You’re a lot sturdier than your minions, and between Death Shroud, Wells, Life Siphon and life-stealing minions, you can actually tank remarkably well while your minions sit on the sidelines and attack.

I would still prefer it if minions were made slightly tougher and regenerated health in between battles, but my new strategy works too.

Been doing this for a while actually. I have all 5 slots as pet skills. Notably I have:

Training of the Master – Minion damage +30%
Staff Mastery – Staff skills recharge 20% faster
Protection of the Horde – +20 toughness per minion
Greater Marks – Marks are bigger and unblockable
Bloodthirst – Siphoning health is 50% more effective
Vampiric Master – Minions siphon health and transfer it to you
Death Nova – Minions leave a poison cloud when they die

Notably I DO NOT have:
Minion Master – Minion skills recharge 20% faster
Flesh of the Master – Minions have +50% HP

After lots of playing and tweaking I found that neither is necessary.

I start combat by attacking whatever, making it focus on me. Minions don’t die much when I have everything’s attention. The high vitality, toughness, bonus toughness from pets, and constant siphoning from their attacks makes me pretty durable. With the greater marks it’s easy to do regen on myself and pets. I found with the poison staff 3 generates, and the ones that jagged horrors spawn frequently, I can use staff 4 or Bone Minions to set off lots of AoE weakness. I also have an alt weapon setup just to stack a bunch of debilitating (not necessarily damaging) conditions.

It works quite well, and I run around Orr dealing with whatever. I started tweaking and experimenting until I got to the point that dealing with giants or veteran abominations or two veterans at once wasn’t as painful.