Guild Wars 2

Ok, first I must tell that I’m complete noob when it comes to minion builds. I played it once and disliked it.. Tried it now again and starting to get a better grip of it. Tbh, I got no idea what I’m doing but the targets just… melts.. lol? Bone Fiend, Shadow Fiend and Flesh Golem is a no brainer with the secondary skills. But Bone Minions are kinda hard to keep track of, since the explode on spot when activating the skill.. So is there some kind of burst combo rotation or something? And oh, how do minion master do in solo arenas/tpvp?

I use zerker amulet, traits are 4/0/6/4/0. As for runes I’m pending between ogre and wurm (kinda like the new changes to those). Any advice much appreciated.

Rotation depends on what weapons you use, but if you want to nuke someone down, use Charge or Rigor Mortis on him so he’s locked in place and let the Bone Minions explode at his feet, they do a really good amount of damage.

A good MM Necromancer, can be a good close point defender, we’re one of the better 1v1 specs, but you’ll have to change your amulet & runes so you’re not too squishy and perhaps use flesh wurm instead of shadow fiend

You’re saying that the secondary skills of minions are ‘no brainers’ but they are actually usefull:
Necrotic Traversal (Flesh wurm): Stun breaker, teleport, poison field creator
Haunt: Blinds an opponent (small aoe) : try to use this at the perfect moment when you down someone, ex. You’re fighting a guardian, he gets downed and you know he’s going to do the AoE knockback, it will now MISS
Rigor Mortis: as told before, lock down your target, make them stop running around and get ready for your burst
Putrid Explosion: BOOM BOOM DAMAGE BABY
Chaaaaarge: Flesh golem rushes to target and knocks him down, during this skill the golem gets the stability buff → if a guardian/ele/necro places their wall on the floor and you got no stability, the golem can rush through it and harm them.
If you manage to push someone against a wall and let the golem charge against it, it will be like a FGS 4 ‘No target’ attack → almost instant death for the opponent.
At the same time, being a knockback it will also be an usefull interrupt against healing skill, ….

What I meant by “no brainier” is that I do understand how to use those skills, while Putrid Explosion is much harder duo too “on spot explosion” instead of moving towards target and explode there instead (like mesmer shatter skills basically) :P

Ooooh Flesh Wurm is a minion, I didn’t know that xD I’ll definitely put that on my utility bar then. Just a question. Wouldn’t it be better to replace bone minions instead of shadow fiend (cus of the reasons mentioned above)?

Oh that way :o , well , if you’re used to mesmer shattering, it would be to easy for us to kill, just imagine 2 brainless 2-3k bombs are running into you..

In my opinion NEVER EVER switch bone minions, they are our acces do some reliable heavy damage, during a fight just watch at them and press the button if they’re near target

I only use Flesh Wurm in Tourneys @ point defending (as a MM) , if i’m going to hotjoin I take shadow fiend for roaming aswell, but as point defender, you get into 1v1 fights a lot, there it’s all about getting enemy down and keeping point before someone extra of their team arrives and it becomes 2v1, so the ranged hits go over melee because the shadow fiend can be kited around without dealing much damage the bone minions nuke their HP to zero if used at right time n.n

I’m using the same spec (4/0/6/4/0) and I pretty much never have a problem with a 1v1. They either blow up and die easily if they’re not using a bunker spec, or they use a bunker spec and it comes to if I can wear them down before one of their teammates shows up. If there are 2, then you call for help and try to survive until your own team comes to help (you usually can if you’re not made of glass).

Personally, I’m using a soldier’s amulet, runes of speed (this is personal preference as I have all my skills set as minions and I despise being slow so this is how I gain the speed to move around), and sigils of force and bloodlust. Staff and dagger/dagger.

I don’t hotjoin. I pretty much only solo queue arenas, and the spec is amazing for it. I’m not saying that if you’re fresh to PvP that you’ll do great against a dragon rank, but everything is all mixed up right now and there are lots of other new players in PvP as well.

Staff is excellent for keeping melee off of you, you drop the mark at their feet and they generally can’t avoid it, trigger it and get crippled/chilled/etc. and you can kite them as you kill them. Especially good for keeping hammer warriors away, given our biggest weaknesses as a class are the lack of stability and mobility.

Use explode as a last resort, if you are sure you can kill the enemy with it, sort of like a spike damage. I usually use it around 10-15% of the enemy’s health. What I usually do is when the enemy is near death, I enter death shroud and fear it while the minions continuously whittle away his/her health. Double the fear if you are using staff (5th skill). Or use the flesh golem’s knockdown, just prevent the enemy from healing. I’m not sure about zerker gear on MM though, I haven’t tried it.

the minions wont walk to target and explode like shatter clones. instead atack yourtarget, minions wil walk to it and start atacking, and when theyre low or u feel/need a burst of dmg, blow them up.

You either want to go Soldier or Cleric amulet till you learn how to really MM well, is my suggestion. Soldier for the deeps, clerics to never die.

For offensive MMs, Ogre, Vampirism, Pack, Lyssa, Ranger, Rage

For defensive MMs, Melandru, Svanir, Ice, Flock, Altruism
For defensive w/ Clerics, Monk, Water

Sigil wise pretty much any duration increases (on conditions like chill/cripple), damage increases (force/accuracy), and on-swaps.

You should always be using Bone Minions/Shadow Fiend OR Bone Fiend/Flesh Wurm/Flesh Golem as your utilities, and I would highly suggest not using blood fiend.

Generally speaking your “rotation” is just to open with whatever CC you can plan on hitting (flesh golem/bone fiend are pretty guaranteed), and then just chain a bunch of CC together while using any attacks you can in between. After that you just wait out CDs and use abilities like you normally would in any build.

Note that you can get away from the general builds I said, however I would highly suggest you not until you are really solid on MM. The listed runes are basically the only runes I’d ever use in an MM build, unless I was doing a hybrid build where the minions were not the sole focus (like condi MM), which again requires pretty good minion understanding.

Minions do great in arenas. You will run into issues at the very highest levels of play, but even then you can do okay. My suggestion is to always be the home point bunker at the beginning of the game, and then depending on map you can rotate to invade their home point (I do this all the time on Spirit Watch because people always leave home), rotate to nearby objectives (Forest bosses, Temple buffs), or rotate mid while keeping an eye on home. Generally you want to avoid anything larger than a 3v3, as long as you do that you’ll be fine.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask, I know a lot about minions.

In tpvp try this build, You will be surprised how effective it is
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vQAQRBIbdG2IDNN12VjbNs3mAkeEN1TP9gbwDnqg7A-T0AA1EOpcy5kxJpTWnGQsgYHyJkZIvQA

Don’t use dagger with mm.

Bhawb.7408:

Sigil wise pretty much any duration increases (on conditions like chill/cripple), damage increases (force/accuracy), and on-swaps.

Not sure if this sigil is new or not but might be an alternative: Sigil of Ice

It is on hit, so no crit chance required.

Dagger is great with MM, especially since staff isn’t worth it anymore. I always go D/WH A/F now, and have for over a year. You can still run staff, but it is far from required.

I wouldn’t use the Ice sigil. Its a single target chill that is the exact same duration and CD as hydromancy, whereas hydromancy is both AoE and deals some (although not huge anymore) direct damage. Frailty is the only on-hit I’d use, there are two that have better versions as on-swap (and swapping is much preferred as an MM anyway), and one that just isn’t great (condi removal is meh).

I dunno I really can’t play any necro build without staff…

Staff doesn’t bring much to MM, except range. Everything else you can get by subbing either D/WH or D/D, and then supplement with runes/traits/sigils, but by trading the 1200 range for low range.

The only time I’d do it is if I was on a coordinated 5s team on foefire, because with staff you can pretty easily walk your way from home to mid (leaving flesh wurm for a fast back to home) and sit on the ledge with staff to help out your team without getting down on point where you can’t keep an eye on home/quick TP out with wurm.

NeXeD.3042:

Don’t use dagger with mm.

Always use a dagger as mm… Dagger/WH + Staff 20/0/30/20/0 is the way to be.

On another note, I can help you out learning how to wreck people in PVP. Just message me.

There’ve been times when a engineer for example would first burst down all my minions and then go for me. Sure it takes a while but they can and will kill you.

Only problem I’ve run into with people killing my minions, honestly, has been mesmers abusing the moa bug.

Certain engi builds can murder the melee minions pretty fast, at which point you really just hope that your ranged minions can carry you (its why I always bring bone fiend/flesh wurm, even though shadow has uses).

I use shadow for stomps (this is tricky) and for Life force back up. Sometimes as MM things don’t go as planned and you got longer than you’d like without a good reserve of LF. Shadow fiend reduces that issue almost entirely. Unless it misses, cause he’s kind of a kitten .

Not an issue for me when I heal for 2k every time I swap weapons :P different builds though.

Yeah. You’re kind of a cleric MM and I’m more Soldier MM. I don’t really enjoy playing the healer MM tbh, but I’ve become “rather” proficient as a Power/Soldier MM.

For cleric, wurm also provides streamlined heals and a got out of jail card, so yeah, totally different. Soldier is much more about rushing and overwhelming the enemy before they can even really do much damage, supported by high armor/hp in case it doesn’t work the first time. :P

I use Cleric + Dwayna runes → Staff 2 skill is the AoE regen thing, staff 4 is the counter condition thing and staff 5 is the interrupt thing nowadays…
My secondary is Axe/Warhorn, just because I like an axe.. Warhorn is genius because of the ‘anti-block’ daze + lf gain through Locust Swarm

I’ve come to accept that certain builds are strong against MM necros, so my best resort against them is to avoid them 1v1 and change plans/objectives. Or fight in a duo/group instead.

ronpierce.2760:

NeXeD.3042:

Don’t use dagger with mm.

Always use a dagger as mm… Dagger/WH + Staff 20/0/30/20/0 is the way to be.

On another note, I can help you out learning how to wreck people in PVP. Just message me.

Would you mind posting out your full spec? Maybe a link to a build calculator?

I love MM for sPvP and it seems the build you’re using is more my style, but I’d always love a few tips. I can’t live without my staff.

Steel Fenrir.2791:

I’ve come to accept that certain builds are strong against MM necros, so my best resort against them is to avoid them 1v1 and change plans/objectives. Or fight in a duo/group instead.

What builds do you mean ?

I feel that power and condi necros are good against mm necros… or is it that i never encounter a decent mm necro?

Muchacho.2390:

I feel that power and condi necros are good against mm necros… or is it that i never encounter a decent mm necro?

I’ve never had a problem with another necro. Another MM can take awhile to kill but I do eventually.

I could see how a condi COULD be painful, if they don’t blow all their condis on you at once before you CC them off, and reapply them after…but IDK.

Muchacho.2390:

I feel that power and condi necros are good against mm necros… or is it that i never encounter a decent mm necro?

Power Necros shouldn’t stand a chance against MMs. You just don’t have the damage to drop the MM quickly enough, and MMs have so much CC you’ll have major issues staying on target. The best you can do is try to cleave down the minions, and even that won’t be possible all the time depending on the MM’s spec.

Condi Necros definitely have the ability to kill MMs, although it is (I would consider) an even matchup. It depends heavily on who gets the first hits in, and if you have epidemic or not. I haven’t personally lost this 1v1 any time recently, but also most condi necros shouldn’t really be 1v1ing anyway.

Bhawb.7408:

Muchacho.2390:

I feel that power and condi necros are good against mm necros… or is it that i never encounter a decent mm necro?

Power Necros shouldn’t stand a chance against MMs. You just don’t have the damage to drop the MM quickly enough, and MMs have so much CC you’ll have major issues staying on target. The best you can do is try to cleave down the minions, and even that won’t be possible all the time depending on the MM’s spec.

Condi Necros definitely have the ability to kill MMs, although it is (I would consider) an even matchup. It depends heavily on who gets the first hits in, and if you have epidemic or not. I haven’t personally lost this 1v1 any time recently, but also most condi necros shouldn’t really be 1v1ing anyway.

Mhh it seems i never encountered a decent one then…
I always thought i stand a good chance on a power necro ( i am running 10/30/0/0/30 (2/6/0/0/6) with valkure amulet even if the healing power is a bit useless).
Avoiding most cc and kiting the minons (or killing in some cases) seemed to work most of the time.

Though if i think of it. I had more trouble with mms if i used a 30/10/0/0/30 (6/2/0/0/6) build with zerker amulet. I also hadnt fleshworm to get out of a bad situation…

Bhawb.7408:

Muchacho.2390:

I feel that power and condi necros are good against mm necros… or is it that i never encounter a decent mm necro?

Power Necros shouldn’t stand a chance against MMs. You just don’t have the damage to drop the MM quickly enough, and MMs have so much CC you’ll have major issues staying on target. The best you can do is try to cleave down the minions, and even that won’t be possible all the time depending on the MM’s spec.

Condi Necros definitely have the ability to kill MMs, although it is (I would consider) an even matchup. It depends heavily on who gets the first hits in, and if you have epidemic or not. I haven’t personally lost this 1v1 any time recently, but also most condi necros shouldn’t really be 1v1ing anyway.

As proven by Mhuljora, power can be at least DECENTLY effective against MM. The primary reason being, you will pretty much always get max effect LF gain from specrals, wells can wipe out many pets at once, and Warhorn 5 allows for insane amounts of frontal LF, if they have piercing LBs critting for 4-5k you can wipe out an entire mm set up then just focus them down. Of course you have to be very timely and it isn’t “easy” still, but it certainly can be done. If anything I’ve had more issues with Mhuljora because of insane LF regen from my pets dying (giving them LF) and them having LF per-target effects, than Condi, which I can usually just train down before they become too problematic. Plus I run staff and CC so I can send stuff back or heal from the conditions.

Makes sense, I have a lot of AoE healing (transfusion, water runes, renewal sigils, regen) and less melee minions, so the cleave isn’t as scary to me (he might be able to cleave out flesh golem), but I lack the removal and range you do so a condi necro can possibly kite and out damage me. So its basically the opposte for me, I just train down the power Necro and Condi ones tend to have more fight.

Falcon.8713:

Steel Fenrir.2791:

I’ve come to accept that certain builds are strong against MM necros, so my best resort against them is to avoid them 1v1 and change plans/objectives. Or fight in a duo/group instead.

What builds do you mean ?

From experience, it’s AOE eles, bomb engineers, and stealth thieves.

• AOE eles – some have caught up with the act so they start to attack minions first before the necro himself. With minions having simplistic AI, they chase eles even in damage over time area fields.
• bomb engis – like the AOE eles, minions chase the engi all day long. Thus dying in the engis bomb trails.
• stealth thieves – remember, minions stop attacking and moving whenever they don’t see an enemy, so the stealth thief attacks, minions move towards thief, but thief disappears, so minions don’t do damage, then thief reappears in another place and attacks you, minions move towards the thief, but yet again fail to damage the thief (or do enough damage) because he disappeared again.

As for conditions, I use the staff’s 4th skill to transfer stacked conditions to the enemy. Sort of like a backfire move. Reserve the staff’s 4th skill only for condition stacking, don’t spam skills. As always in pvp, 50% of the time keep an eye on the battlefield, 25% on the map, and 25% on the boon and condition bar. I actually like people to put conditions on me so I could chuck it back at them. However, if they stack conditions, then stun lock you, then that would be a problem.

Personally, I think it’s really worthwhile to try to learn the Flesh Wurm over the Shadow Fiend. Shadow Fiend is really bizarre in how it works, or rather, doesn’t work- The active ability isn’t that useful, and its damage doesn’t seem to be all that hot. On the other hand, Flesh Wurm gives you survival options that are otherwise completely absent, and lets you put a turret in an inaccessible location. A cleverly placed teleport can save your life.

Shadow Fiend is just fine because if you are good on the timing he can secure stomps pretty well, but I’d only ever replace Bone fiend with him. I would never drop Flesh Wurm from my build because it is insanely important to have a stunbreak in PvP, plus that instant movement is one of the only ways to allow you to do something other than sit your collective butts on home point all game. With Wurm in the right area you can roam mid or nearby objectives and just keep a general eye on home, and get a 1200 distance quick jump to home, and if someone is there DS 2/WH 5 gets you there easily.

paleeshi.1924:

Ok, first I must tell that I’m complete noob when it comes to minion builds. I played it once and disliked it.. Tried it now again and starting to get a better grip of it. Tbh, I got no idea what I’m doing but the targets just… melts.. lol? Bone Fiend, Shadow Fiend and Flesh Golem is a no brainer with the secondary skills. But Bone Minions are kinda hard to keep track of, since the explode on spot when activating the skill.. So is there some kind of burst combo rotation or something? And oh, how do minion master do in solo arenas/tpvp?

I use zerker amulet, traits are 4/0/6/4/0. As for runes I’m pending between ogre and wurm (kinda like the new changes to those). Any advice much appreciated.

Personally I use the same traits as you, however I like to run:
soldier’s amulet
rune of the lich (for jagged horror summons which have excellent synergy with all of your traits)
Axe+focus (sigil that applies vulnerability 50% on hit+sigil that increases vunlerability duration by 20%)
staff (sigil that increases poison duration and sigil that increases chill duration)
blood fiend/bone minions/bone fiend/shadow fiend/flesh golem

In PvP you can basically use any weapon combination you want with minion master. I like the Axe+focus because of the synergy vulnerability has with minions, and staff has a lot of built in utility. However the weapons you use are up to you since none of your traits really benefit any other weapon more than another.

If you don’t run either staff or dagger off hand, you should really consider bringing the trait fetid consumption. You shouldn’t go into PvP unless you have at least 1 form of condition removal.

Your burst comes mostly from the minions. Lock down your enemy with rigor mortis+charge, then hit them with whatever combo your weapons provide. (focus 4+axe 2, dagger auto attack chain, staff 3+4, ect).

Minion Master is more of a 1 v 1 bunker. You don’t have access to blocks or vigor but you can deal a lot more damage than other bunkers (except for maybe dagger/dagger ele). You focus on outlasting the enemy and letting your minions whittle them down.

This is also why I don’t recommend running zerker. If you do, you make yourself all the easier to be picked off. If you die, all your minions go down with you.

Since the changes to how DS functions with the death magic tree, you’re also tankier than ever. +200 toughness in death shroud is more toughness than a nearly full set of soldiers (excluding jewelry). You need to take advantage of this and use death shroud to mitigate damage when you can, especially when your life force is full.

Speaking of death shroud, you should ALWAYS use it when chasing someone down. Either fear them to make sure your dark path lands, or wait for them to waste a dodge and dark path them. If you successfully land dark path the enemy is effectively screwed as this can lead to an easy root from death shroud 5.

Regardless of what you run, certain builds will always give you a lot of trouble. In particular:
Dagger/dagger ele, staff ele, greatsword warriors who cleave down your minions first, shatter mesmers (they get a lot of evade and aoe damage), and anyone who can invis repeatedly (messes with minion AI).

Also, some quick tips for working around the current minion AI problems:
1. If your bone minions go stationary, just stand next to them and wait for the enemy to get too close. If the enemy goes invis, it’s pretty easy to guess when they will come at you. The damage from putrid explosion is amazing and the weakness from death nova will protect you from whatever spike they were hoping to achieve.
2. Minion actives force the minion to target that player/enemy. If the flesh golem/shadow fiend aren’t responding, haunt/charge tend to fix it (not guaranteed).

Misc tips:
If your blood fiend looks like it’s going to die from haphazard AOE, make sure you consume it. Though you get more healing passively out of it being alive, 9 times out of 10 if it’s getting low on HP you are probably missing enough HP to warrant eating it, and it’s going to die either way.

Rigor mortis, haunt, putrid explosion, death shroud, and doom (death shroud fear) are all instant cast. This is extremely important as it means you can use them while CC’d. This makes all of these skills extremely useful for defensive play. You should make a habit of entering deathshroud and using doom defensively any time a warrior or thief stun you.

Shadow fiend is good for its fast attacks profiting more from vampiric master than flesh wurm. It also has decent dmg and hp.

Wurm is a must for me on any necro build. The teleport is kinda unreliable and has lots of issues with terrain, shortening the port distance, but it is a stunbreaker on 40(32) sec cd with 10% lf buildup. Since it teleports it also is our strongest stunbreaker in most situations, creating a melee gap / breaking line of sight. Also more map manuverability. Cast is a bit long though.

Does anyone experiment with offensive MM (zerker/knight)? Less survivability, more potential to “burst”.
Edit: What i enjoy about knights is, that coupled with a/f and d/w it has a reliable “mini-burst” with putrid explo and axe2&focus4 on a decent ~16 sec cd. It is the kind of bruserish gameplay that i kind of miss with other necro builds and especially soldier MM just feels sluggish in comparison.

The issue with any kind of more damage focused MMs is that you become a bit too reliant on your first all in, which isn’t necessarily reliable. That said, I am going to try Valk MM and see if I can’t make a more damage focused necro work for fun (although I wouldn’t expect it to do as well).

Bhawb.7408:

The issue with any kind of more damage focused MMs is that you become a bit too reliant on your first all in, which isn’t necessarily reliable. That said, I am going to try Valk MM and see if I can’t make a more damage focused necro work for fun (although I wouldn’t expect it to do as well).

Back in the days there was only zerker (or barb) but since they added knights in pvp i think it is a decent option. Not that good of a point holder as pure soldiers but definately more fun.

Dunno why you would go valks though. Crit chance is probably really low or is it simply for the healing power?

Its actually really easy to get crit chance if you want it. The new sigils of intelligence give you three guaranteed crits to work with per weapon swap, and you could potentially go into SR for DS crits, also rune of the pack would work really well with an offensive minion setup. However, yes the healing power is important because it gives you the ability to have staying power, that is the large difference between soldiers (relies on the higher damage of your first few rotations) and clerics (you just kind of not die until the enemy dies).

Also I wouldn’t use this for point holding. If you are going offensive you want to go with your team to the mid fight and murder the bunker, or invade the enemy home point.

Bellamy.9860:

Bhawb.7408:

The issue with any kind of more damage focused MMs is that you become a bit too reliant on your first all in, which isn’t necessarily reliable. That said, I am going to try Valk MM and see if I can’t make a more damage focused necro work for fun (although I wouldn’t expect it to do as well).

Back in the days there was only zerker (or barb) but since they added knights in pvp i think it is a decent option. Not that good of a point holder as pure soldiers but definately more fun.

Dunno why you would go valks though. Crit chance is probably really low or is it simply for the healing power?

Actually if you use something like a 2/6/0/0/6 build valks is decent, though for only reg boon, heal and dagger 2 healing power may be a bit useless…

im a noob…. only played it near the start for a short while but circumstances prevented me from playing it.

anyway… ive rolled a necro MM…. and im killing everyone easy. Someone said that the staff is useless? Im suprised by that as its my main wepon. Get flesh golem to charge drop all your marks on the persons location… loads of damage and loads of life force.

4 / 0 / 6 / 4 / 0

Beating other noobs doesn’t show anything.
And staff dealing loads of damage and life force?
Please….
Ignorance is ignorance.

Some people like staff I guess. I hate it.

It deals less damage than any other weapon, the utility can be fully covered by death nova bone minions and off hands. The only bonus it has is its 1200 auto attack range, and that matters on exactly one map, Foefire. I haven’t used staff in an MM build (except on foefire) in months.