Guild Wars 2

I would like to see Minions have their damage scaled along with their master. I would also enjoy seeing Minions perform condition roles as well (Other than the deathsplode)

At the moment, Minions are rather nothing more than sponges to soak up damage.

Minions do 1.6k DPS (I had done all the math to show, but then ANet’s wonderful forum design kicked me off my account and scrapped the post, much love, so I’m not writing it out again, you can do it yourself using the wiki numbers, +30% from traits, and using the attack speed someone posted recently), not including any actives, or any finishers (which will be abundant with death nova).

While I agree having condition minions would be very cool, and they do need some more longevity, minions don’t need more than at most a minor damage buff (for damage).

Lol! Fight’s on!

Seriously, though, I would like to see Arenanet work on sigils, first, followed by spectral skills.

edit —-
And downed state health
And the overloaded death magic line
And our heal/blood magic

By saying minions do 1.6k DPS, you mean a full minion utility bar? Because most people don’t have the luxury of running one considering you want group condi removal or utility wells in addition to a stunbreaker.

I actually think the opposite. Their damage doesn’t need a buff (flesh golem does decent damage+ exploding bone minions+ 25 stacks of vulnerability served with axe/focus) , and they don’t need conditions because some minions already have secondary skills that cause conditions such as blind and cripple, but their survivability sure does lead to trouble. They’re not reliable damage sponges because they don’t heal outside of battle save for flesh golem. Sure, you can heal themselves yourself but that’s tedious. It doesn’t matter how strong they are if they just fall apart or just die to a boss’s AOE.

Therefore, they could use something like
- Regeneration scaling with 10% of your healing power
- Flesh of the master also grants them 10% of your vitality
- Protection of the Horde also grants them 10% of your toughness
- Reduced Condition Duration decided by your own condition duration

However, if they do institute additional gear tiers such as ascended weapons, then it may be time.

Zenith.7301:

By saying minions do 1.6k DPS, you mean a full minion utility bar? Because most people don’t have the luxury of running one considering you want group condi removal or utility wells in addition to a stunbreaker.

That is the most common 4 minion skills (bone minion, bone fiend, flesh wurm, flesh golem) with the 30% damage trait. If you aren’t going heavy into minions, their DPS is irrelevant, you are taking them for their actives.

I agree they need to have some extra survivability though, in some form, and need out of combat regen (its just a QoL thing to me). The supposed AoE nerfs that are always promised would help in s/tPvP a lot, I think they could use some WvW specific AoE reduction and also something to keep them alive a bit better in PvE.

While I do agree that their damage output is not bad by any means, there is an issue; Ascended gear.
The current implementation was entirely fine, based off of the assumption that Minions were statically set to the Exotic gear level. However, I find it extremely hard to believe that they were initially set to a gear level of what the Ascended gear is/will be at. Which means that a player fully decked out in Ascended in the future is going to have Minions that perform approximately 15% worse than they should otherwise be performing.

That is an issue.

So.. what if the minions scale based on your net stats?
So instead of you stacking power and vit to increase your pets damage and survivability. each minion would have there own stat growth based on the characters total amount of stats.
For example the Bone Fiend would gain power faster than it gains toughness. So a level 80 with exotic gear would have stronger and tougher minions than a lvl80 with fine gear. But they could still build their necro for power, con or defense and not have to worry about how that affects the minions.
Tho there would need to be some kind of curve or something to keep from the +all stat gear from being the best minion gear seeing as it offers the over all most stats.

Well, assuming they are based off exotic gear, give them an additional (slight) stat increase to whatever their stats are for each piece of ascended you have. So each piece gives a 1% or w/e increase to their base damage/defense.

Minons are ok in Tpvp, in WvW even small 1 v 1 fights a geared AoE class kills them in a few seconds even with +50% health trait.

Yes they need to scale with gear.

You are kind of missing the point. The amazing thing about minions (and engi turrets/ranger pets) is that they don’t scale with gear.

This means that you can run a defensive or conditions build while using minions to do your direct damage (when traited for 30% more damage). If minions scaled with gear, their base stats would probably get nerfed to compensate and they’d be 100% useless for condition/defensive builds.

Damage scale up? Not hardly, if you want more minion damage trait for it. They hit like trucks. Now more survivability? Definitely. While their survivability isn’t horrible, in places like wvw or other massively aoe heavy areas their survivability makes them less than viable. I would most definitely not like to see them scale off of the master because that would mean you’re restricted to sets of gear, whereas right now you are completely flexible with your own stats, making MM one of the most versatile and fun builds we can do. If you want to add conditions to minion damage, stat yourself for conditions and run weapons accordingly. It actually works pretty well.

You know there are little boots and sweaters for dogs? I want to buy clothes and accessories for my minions as well as skins to dress them up. Think about it. My bone fiend could have six little booties, a floral table cloth tied with a belt/collar that says “Fluffie” and a party hat. All of it could include minor stat bonuses.

Anchoku.8142:

You know there are little boots and sweaters for dogs? I want to buy clothes and accessories for my minions as well as skins to dress them up. Think about it. My bone fiend could have six little booties, a floral table cloth tied with a belt/collar that says “Fluffie” and a party hat. All of it could include minor stat bonuses.

I approve of this message.

Kharr.5746:

You are kind of missing the point. The amazing thing about minions (and engi turrets/ranger pets) is that they don’t scale with gear.

This means that you can run a defensive or conditions build while using minions to do your direct damage (when traited for 30% more damage). If minions scaled with gear, their base stats would probably get nerfed to compensate and they’d be 100% useless for condition/defensive builds.

This. So much this.

One cool thing about minions is that you can combine them with every stat-setup and weapon you want, be it conditionmancer, powermancer, healer, whatever; all you need to sacrifice are utility-slots and traits. I would hate to see minion-users being pigeon-holed into a specific item-build for the minions to be viable.

Bhawb.7408:

Well, assuming they are based off exotic gear, give them an additional (slight) stat increase to whatever their stats are for each piece of ascended you have. So each piece gives a 1% or w/e increase to their base damage/defense.

That would be an extremely viable way to handle the issue. Problem being that it isn’t implemented, and with Arenanet’s track record, won’t be implemented until a big enough uproar is raised after players are decked out in Ascended gear.
It is the same issue with Engi Turrets, Elementalist Elementals, Ranger Pets, Thief’s Elite and Mesmer Phantasms. They are all based off of the currently released itemized gear, and with no scaling to speak of at all based upon gear rarity, they will be approximately 15% sub-par in comparison to the newest Ascended stat cap.

Is that 15% going to be enormously noticeable? It’ll be as noticeable as the difference between Exotic and Ascended gear; In some situations there will be absolutely no difference. Assuming equally skilled and geared players, with one being fully decked in skills that scale in proportion to their own combat strength, it will very much make a difference.

I dont see why a utility (your minions) should be stronger because you have better gear? they are additional damage on your utility bar not a weapon skill?

Ascended gear is approximately 15% better than exotic. That means more condition damage, power/prec/crit damage, more defense, or whatever you want. So if you have Ascended berzerker gear, your WoS hits a good bit harder than with Exotic. Same with your Epidemics and Corrupt boons; your conditions are hitting harder because you have more condition damage.

However, minions (turrets, elementals, pets, etc) will not gain any increase. They were balanced around Exotic gear, which means they are going to be weaker, comparatively, with Ascended gear. That is why they need some stat increase when you are wearing Ascended gear, or they (and their counterparts in other professions) will get weaker and weaker with each new tier of armor they release.

I see. thanks for the explanation bhawb. maybe after seeing the state of game yesterday minions will be more viable for builds that arnt specced for their specific use. more hp and aggro difference could be a nice buff

Bhawb.7408:

Zenith.7301:

By saying minions do 1.6k DPS, you mean a full minion utility bar? Because most people don’t have the luxury of running one considering you want group condi removal or utility wells in addition to a stunbreaker.

That is the most common 4 minion skills (bone minion, bone fiend, flesh wurm, flesh golem) with the 30% damage trait. If you aren’t going heavy into minions, their DPS is irrelevant, you are taking them for their actives.

I agree they need to have some extra survivability though, in some form, and need out of combat regen (its just a QoL thing to me). The supposed AoE nerfs that are always promised would help in s/tPvP a lot, I think they could use some WvW specific AoE reduction and also something to keep them alive a bit better in PvE.

Running in WvW, I almost always need the 25% runspeed. So I’m running with one slot short on a minion because of this. I couldn’t keep up with anyone, and would always get caught by enemy zergs if I didn’t. <cry>

If you pug in WvW then I totally understand needing the signet for running around. But if you are in an organized group of any size, then it is their job to either stay with you (by not using tons of speed moves) or make sure you can keep up by AoE swiftness. If they aren’t doing that, they are bad and they should feel bad.