Guild Wars 2

My name is Bas, I have always been a fan of finding the unwanted builds and helping to resurrect or identify why they are bad. In SWTOR, I was known as theOPF, and helped revamp and dispute many of the bounty hunter hatred at the beginning of the game, and brought about the resurrection of the AP Bounty hunter. I have written guides for several games, and still find that I spend more time in games testing and trying multiple different builds and classes more than playing. I could say more, but there is no need I simply wanted to give an idea as to my approach to the game.

This is my attempt to help the Minion Necros.

As my guild’s resident tPVP Bunker Killer and fun-loving Minion Master, I have a bit of insight into the Necro. I will be honest with you. I don’t know everything, and I am really bad with condition Necro so I tried and fell in love with the Minionmancer build. I have started a thread containing common Questions and some answers from other Minionmancers. The goal with this thread is not to fight the Minionmancer stigma or even to fight for the minionmancer. That can be handled in the Builds thread. This is for all the questions and answers that we routinely run into as a minionmancer. I have added a few, and in the other thread some questions have been answered as well. We ran out of space on the builds thread, and so I decided to start a Q and A thread solely for the minion macer.

If you have a question please ask away, and we will do our best to answer or help guide you along the way of the minionmancer.

Questions and Answers

Q. How do Minions function in high level questing?

A. Minions are both a benefit and a negative when it comes to questing. They routinely pull off you, and with their side benefits, and Vampiric Master Traits they can keep you alive for a long time. The downside is they routinely pull agro when you simply are running from one location to another.

Q. What Minions do you carry with you then?

A. Blood Fiend, Bone Fiend, Shadow Fiend, Flesh Golem, and my personal favorite for tournaments, and in general the Flesh Wurm. The Flesh Wurm is amazingly productive and completely underrated. The Chain skill is a stun breaker, and you can also use it as a poison field if someone is dumb enough to get near it. In tpvp and spvp, I have used it to escape from crowded battlefields or simply to transport away from a thief and/or get to a base that I left him out. In PVE, he is a stun breaker saver of Kohler missed dodges, and is the hardest hitting minion not named flesh golem. To top it off he is almost never killed in a fight.

Bone Minions are my least favorite of all time. They die quickly, and the only reason to take them is as blast fodder. The worst possible scenario is when I summon them go to Death Nova, and then watch them die before blowing them up and waiting for them to come off cooldown!

Here is the order of damage for each pet.

1. Flesh Wurm – 833
2. Flesh Golem – 770
3. Bone Fiend – 572
4. Shadow Fiend – 330
5. Blood Fiend – 239
6. Bone Minions – 159

If you bring Flesh Wurm, Bone Fiend, Flesh Golem and Shadow Fiend you have the most total damage.

More Questions and More Answers

Q. What about Death Shroud with Minions?

A. A tricky thing since death shroud is a pretty strong ability. The biggest issue with Death Shroud and minions is when you run axe and staff, you will have a hard time building life force if your Axe chain is cutoff for any reason. The biggest issue with Death Shroud and minions is that you lose the ability to use their utility skills while in death shroud. I have actually gone whole matches in tpvp without once going into death shroud, or even passing the halfway point on life force (NOTE: This rarely happens in pve).

Note (Courtesy of Hayley): Axe/Focus and Staff in your setup has 3 ways to build Life Force. You forgot about Focus #4. If there is a party member within 600 range of your Focus #4 target, you’ll gain 15% Life Force once all the bounces are done. If there isn’t, then you run up to be within 600 range of your target and you’ll get 15% Life Force. That’s a lot of Life Force to not be mentioned.

Note: the actual max distance bounce of the Focus #4 is a tiny bit less than 600 range. And it does not bounce to minions or clones, that’s why you need to run up if there are no other players nearby.

Q. Why would you take Axes when everyone tells me they are bad?

A. Axes and Minions have as good a synergy as dagger or staff and minions. In a minion build, none of your weapons actually gain anything except focus if you spec into it. Possibly a reduced cooldown on daggers, but other than that, no weapons see a gain. Axes provide the best middle ground between melee with daggers (better at building force) and the aoe and weak single target damage of staff. Axe is severely underratted as a weapon. Besides staff is our only aoe weapon. Axe 3, Focus 4, Dagger 5, and Warhorn are the only aoe abilities in our weapon arsenal outside of staff 2-5. If you run staff offhand, you can drop 2-5 than switch and hit Focus 4 followed by Axe 3 for some nice aoe, but than you have built zero Life force, and are runnign single target. Plus when you stack the Vulnerability on an enemy with the minions train wrecking him. mmmmmmm

Q: At what point should I look at running with minions?

A: From lvl 2 to lvl 35 I would say no problem. However once you start running Explorable and Story Mode Dungeons, you will face serious issues until you pick up Flesh of the Master. Other Power builds will feature more damage until you get at least 40 talent points to pick up Training of the Master as well. This is where Minionmancers generally call it quits, and switch to other specs. Essentially until lvl 50 we don’t see the full damage and survival skills the Minionmancer features. Once you pick up both of these you will find yourself at a disappointing disadvantage in dungeons to DS Power and condition Necros. In questing, Minions are always awesome!

Q: At what point should I look at running with minions?

A: From lvl 2 to lvl 35 I would say no problem. However once you start running Explorable and Story Mode Dungeons, you will face serious issues until you pick up Flesh of the Master. Other Power builds will feature more damage until you get at least 40 talent points to pick up Training of the Master as well. This is where Minionmancers generally call it quits, and switch to other specs. Essentially until lvl 50 we don’t see the full damage and survival skills the Minionmancer features. Once you pick up both of these you will find yourself at a disappointing disadvantage in dungeons to DS Power and condition Necros. In questing, Minions are always awesome!

Even More Questions and Answers

Q. My Minions go brain dead and forget to attack sometimes. How do I make them more responsive?

A (Courtesty of Riot Inducer.8964): For general PvE play how you initiate combat is vital to how your minions perform. Often times if you simply start casting weapon attacks at your enemy your minions (melee ones specifically) will get very confused and not attack but simply stand at your side, I don’t know why this is but the flesh golem is particularly susceptible to this.

The solution I have found is to use alternate methods of initiating combat as minions will get hung up a lot less if you start combat by using a minion’s active skill on an enemy, the Shadow Fiend’s Haunt is great for this but the Flesh Golem’s Charge works as well. These skills can also be used to break those specific minions out of their trance, but it isn’t guaranteed. Alternatively you can start combat defensively by waiting until an enemy is aggroed and has drawn first blood, retaliating then will almost always ensure no minions get stuck. Additionally since the Flesh Golem is the only minion that will attack enemies without first being commanded to it can be used to initiate first blood on the enemy by simply moving it into aggro range.

Additionally if you’re in combat and notice some of your minions have gone brain-dead on you I have found switching between targets can sometimes break them out of it.

This spot is reserved for future Questions and Answers

We’re bringin the Minionmancer back.

Updated notes about Deathshroud and Minions

Figured I should bump this up since there are so many negative minion threads at the moment.