Guild Wars 2

Hey fellow Necromancers

I still love the idea of being an Summoning Necromancer which
fight with his Minions (or atleast let them fight^^)
Actually they maybe not in the best shape at all, but i saw some videos where they looked not bad, even in Dungeons.

My Problem is that everytime i try to get some feedback by other People Complaining about obv. they are PvP players… feels like 90% of any Posts about Builds and co. (no matter if Positiv or negativ) are circled around PvP.
But i have nearly no interest in PvP and still Focus on PvE.
I also don´t care about the highest DPS and such simplistic cr*p.

I just want to hear some Opinions about the Viability of Minion Master builds in normal Environment and also Dungeons.

They simply are not viable, be it PvE or PvP. Yes you can use them in solo PvE, but other builds are better. And in Dungeons they die to every AoE leaving a Necromancer traited for Minions completely useles.
Another problem is that Minions often go “AFK” and just stand aroudn without doing anything and therefore can not be used as a reliable source for dmg or even as tanks.

Hmm, I’ve done dungeons with some of my friends and I haven’t had any issues save some specific scenarios. I haven’t had any problems using them as damage or as tanks. There are simple ways to get them to do what you want them to do. With various traits they’re useful for doing damage, conditions, and taking damage. And you can get extra toughness and siphoning from them.

Even if minions aren’t the most effective necromancer build, I’m just a fan of pets. I feel naked playing a necro that doesn’t have them. I’ve always been the type of player that plays what I want and makes that work, rather than just playing what works best.

its funny to see how after just 15 Minutes are 2 totally opposite Opinions posted in my Thread X)

@ Dispari can you give me some little advices for some in-depth Minionmancer stuff?
Just a bit of things to know, like pro´s and con´s if you like

Well I’m no expert, but I have taken my necro to 80 using minions the whole way. And as you said, I’ve done very little PvP and am not that interested in it and really have no advice for it.

I found myself waffling a lot on whether I care about my pets dying or not. Early on they will die quite often. But you can eventually get a trait for +50% HP on them. The other thing that helped a lot is that I started using staff as my main weapon, and I have Mark of Evasion, so I end up doing a lot of regeneration which lands on my pets. But even so, I don’t mind the pets dying. You can have 5-6 of them at a time and the skills recharge fairly often

As far as forcing pets to tank, both the Shadow Fiend and the Flesh Golem have activated powers that force them to attack a target. In dungeons I always alpha with the golem, so he gets everyone’s attention first. This allows the actual players to more safely get positioned and start attacking.

For traits I have 20 spite, 30 death, 20 blood. I have +30% damage from Training of Master, as well as blood’s Vampiric Master. I also have Death Nova, which is useful with Jagged Horrors (I have no idea if it’s a bug that they die so fast, but at least Death Nova helps them not suck).

With staff it’s pretty easy to kite since you can cast behind yourself while running forward, and you have a fear, and two of your pets cripple (and immobilize sometimes). With that, spamming regen, and the bonus toughness and health siphoning, I find my character to be pretty durable.

Minions are definitely for blowing up. Their damage is pretty awful without exploding, but I generally keep them alive unless I’m fighting more than one target, or a veteran or stronger.

I’m watching a mesmer guide with my girlfriend so I’ll try to answer more questions if you have any in a bit. =p

Thx for you fast and good explaining answer

It sounds like you found a way to use the Minion Master in an effectiv way, but it also sounds like you say they only viable if you let them Explode if they Die and dont make viable Damage without this :/

Daniel.1389:

its funny to see how after just 15 Minutes are 2 totally opposite Opinions posted in my Thread X)

@ Dispari can you give me some little advices for some in-depth Minionmancer stuff?
Just a bit of things to know, like pro´s and con´s if you like

they aren’t really conflicting.

minion masters are only OK if you are willing to look past the many shortcomings that they have.

dungeon AOEs wipe out your minions very fast.

they are only ok if there isnt alot of AOEs. but that really require you to have knowledge of the fights before hand.

for the rest of the players who are plainly looking for the best/most efficient playstyles , minion masters is nowhere close. more oftenly a liability than not.

pros : good single target DPS , pets help to tank some.

cons : heavy AOE fights kill pets fast , making your traits useless.

Daniel.1389:

Thx for you fast and good explaining answer

It sounds like you found a way to use the Minion Master in an effectiv way, but it also sounds like you say they only viable if you let them Explode if they Die and dont make viable Damage without this :/

To clarify on that, I ONLY mean the Bone Minions. The one that summons two little pets. Their active skill is “blow up.” Their damage by itself is awful. But their burst damage when exploding is very high.

The rest of the pets are good. I use Flesh Golem and Shadow Fiend for tanking and alpha. I use Shadow Fiend and Bone Fiend for their conditions. And the Blood Fiend is a neat and useful combination of healing and damage. I do sacrifice him sometimes when I have to. I have a reasonable amount of +healing bonuses in armor so it’s a pretty potent heal. Although I will admit I swap out that one pet for Well of Blood in dungeons only.

I’d definitely keep the pets alive if you can, except the Bone Minions which are best utilized by making them go boom.

So as far as i see… AOE ist the main Problem here!?

Daniel.1389:

So as far as i see… AOE ist the main Problem here!?

yes.

you can dodge out of them.

while your pets stay in them.

and dungeon aoes kill really fast.

I haven’t found AoEs to be that big a deal. Two of the pets I can make move when I want to, two I want to die anyway, and anything that does die drops poison fields. Once I start resummoning more things, and immobilizing the Bone Fiend, my pets are very spread out. And even if they do die, the recharges are short.

Let me link you to my post on guru:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/70874-chunxs-minion-mastery-guide/#entry2017581
Dungeon/PvE/WvW
You can delete 10 points in Curses and put them somewhere else if you don’t go WvW.

To everyone who says MM is bad: you’re doing it wrong.

Mathog.3157:

Let me link you to my post on guru:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/70874-chunxs-minion-mastery-guide/#entry2017581
Dungeon/PvE/WvW
You can delete 10 points in Curses and put them somewhere else if you don’t go WvW.

To everyone who says MM is bad: you’re doing it wrong.

Agreed. When I first came to the forums I got discouraged and started playing a condition build. When I got bored with that I tried a power build. I’m back to minions now and besides the occasional glitch with the ai I’m not having any problems in solo PvE or dungeons.

I thought for sure that the complaints must therefore be PvP focused and went to try SPvP with a minion build. I haven’t died since I switched to it. I got downed a couple times by a glass cannon thief, but rallied and killed him each time. The only time minions are bad in PvP is against a mesmer with the moa skill because it unsummons them. And that’s not worse than any other build because most of them can be resummoned as soon as you get back to normal.

I’ve become convinced that people are just expecting minions to function perfectly fine without using their active skills intelligently or without using death shroud and weapon abilities to support them. That’s just silly. Your minions aren’t going to play the game for you.

In dungeons minions tend to fall flat due to obscene AOE. Not to mention terrible AI. In solo “over world PvE” I find minions to be acceptable, though the flesh golem’s decision to pull everything you aren’t fighting incredibly annoying.

striker.3704:

In dungeons minions tend to fall flat due to obscene AOE. Not to mention terrible AI. In solo “over world PvE” I find minions to be acceptable, though the flesh golem’s decision to pull everything you aren’t fighting incredibly annoying.

I’ve done several dungeons and I haven’t found this to be true. Some pets die occasionally but not much more than doing anything else.