Guild Wars 2

The Build 06/25/2015

Notes:
Minionmancer is an easy to play necro build designed to hold points(bunker) in PvP. Minionmancer is even stronger post patch as damage, durability, and team support have all increased. Try to keep your minions up and stay in Death Shroud as much as possible.

Skills:
Swap Summon Flesh Wurm for Summon Shadow Fiend for more mobility and a blind but slightly less DPS and no teleport/stun-breaker.

Swap Summon Blood Fiend for any other healing skill based on personal preference. They’re all viable now.

Traits:
Swap Blood Bond for Quickening Thirst or Ritual of Life. (Personal Preference)

Swap Death Nova for Unholy Sanctuary for less DPS and lifeforce but more overall durability. (Not Recommended)

Swap Unholy Martyr for Transfusion for better minion durability. (Not Recommended)

Swap Speed Of Shadows for Soul Marks for more life force and unblockable marks, but a higher DS cooldown. (Personal Preference)

Swap Foot In The Grave for Death Perception for higher DPS but less personal durability. (Personal Preference)

Amulet:
Sentinel is the best.

Runes:
Melandru is recommended, but by no means required

Sigils:
Energy/Leeching are recommended, but Renewal is a strong substitute. Feel free to try other options here.

Counters:
You should win or “out-live” all 1v1’s, and even hold your own in most 1v2’s. However, if two full zerker classes focus you with chain CC, you can go from full to dead within seconds. This is mainly due to certain zerker builds doing a lot more damage post patch. Mesmers+1 seem to be the biggest counter to this build.

Final Notes:
I’ll keep updating this build over the next few days as Anet continues to patch the game. This build was created in a joint effort by 4 necros, one in the top 20, and I in no way take full credit for this build. The build has also been altered based on feedback from this forum. Please comment

Looks good.

I would get death nova instead of unholy sanctuary. Not only do you get more damage, you get a reduced healing debuff that can stack well.

You also get jagged horrors that life siphon and give you life force. I’ve found the extra life force is worth more than the healing you get from sanctuary by a good amount.

So more damage and life pool by going nova.

Zin.6170:

Looks good.

I would get death nova instead of unholy sanctuary. Not only do you get more damage, you get a reduced healing debuff that can stack well.

You also get jagged horrors that life siphon and give you life force. I’ve found the extra life force is worth more than the healing you get from sanctuary by a good amount.

So more damage and life pool by going nova.

This is originally what I used as well, but was talked into changing it based on feedback.
The reasons were:
1. Poison doesn’t do much DPS since we have no Condition Damage.
2. Poison no longer stacks duration, so we don’t benefit as much from the -33% healing.
3. Jagged Horror only spawns when you kill someone, so it’s less useful at the start of the match and after re-spawning.

I do however note that the difference between the two is minimal, and I would not criticize someone for using Death Nova. I prefer Unholy Sanctuary because I normally take a few hits after droppings DS to re-summon minions, and when I return to DS, it tops my HP off.

SoV > Blood Fiend, only thing Blood Fiend does better is one more condition every 10s, but has significantly worse healing over time

Death Nova > US, you are getting healed for a whopping 149 per second, especially in this build you have no problem with defenses already, but without DN you won’t ever kill someone as they’ll sustain through your damage just as well as you will. Also, DN adds a lot of damage, 1400 per minion death.

I’d also look at Soul Marks, its unlikely you’ll really need to be in DS that much considering your armor/HP, having unblockable marks should help significantly, plus staff’s LF generation is pretty awful without it

What’s Ritual of Life for? You have no healing power, and your build is even less suited for teamfighting than most, you shouldn’t ever have allies nearby to res, plus you don’t take the traits later on to support it like Transfusion. Blood Bond or Quickening Thirst would help a lot more.

I’d be really concerned about the ability to actually win a 1v1 with this build. You have Cleric MM levels of power with less damage and sustain. You’re going to end up heavily relying on allies to come help you at fights, and once they do come you’ll be less suited to supporting them.

Bhawb.7408:

SoV > Blood Fiend, only thing Blood Fiend does better is one more condition every 10s, but has significantly worse healing over time

Death Nova > US, you are getting healed for a whopping 149 per second, especially in this build you have no problem with defenses already, but without DN you won’t ever kill someone as they’ll sustain through your damage just as well as you will. Also, DN adds a lot of damage, 1400 per minion death.

I’d also look at Soul Marks, its unlikely you’ll really need to be in DS that much considering your armor/HP, having unblockable marks should help significantly, plus staff’s LF generation is pretty awful without it

What’s Ritual of Life for? You have no healing power, and your build is even less suited for teamfighting than most, you shouldn’t ever have allies nearby to res, plus you don’t take the traits later on to support it like Transfusion. Blood Bond or Quickening Thirst would help a lot more.

I’d be really concerned about the ability to actually win a 1v1 with this build. You have Cleric MM levels of power with less damage and sustain. You’re going to end up heavily relying on allies to come help you at fights, and once they do come you’ll be less suited to supporting them.

In response to Blood Fiend: Honestly, I forgot to mention alternate healing skills/slot skills for this build. I prefer Blood Fiend because it synergies well with this build. Signet of Vampirism does offer the best spike damage of all the heals, but requires an ally to truly get the full benefit. Blood Fiend seems to give higher overall DPS and the highest life force generation. Every heal skill is viable now though, due to the nerf of Consume Conditions and the buffing of the other heal skills.

In response to Death Nova: Death Nova adds 1094 damage per minion death if they stand in the poison cloud for both ticks. This does not take into account for toughness, -condi duration, or condition cleanses. You do gain the Jagged Horror, but like I stated above, it’s use is very limited. You spend over 50% of the fights in DS, so in my opinion the extra healing is worth it.

In response to Soul Marks: Yes, you really will be in DS that often. You should only be using staff before they come into range. The only time to drop DS is to re-summon minions. During that time, you’ll most likely be on Dagger/Warhorn. You don’t really need the lifeforce from staff since you’ll use Locust Swarm between every DS. Unblockable marks can be useful though, especially the fear, for interupting stomps/shelter. However, the Warhorn also has an unblock-able daze, so it’s often redundant.

In response to Ritual of Life: The only way to use Blood Bond is to quickly chain Dark Path(DS) and Mark of Blood(Staff) or dodging(trait). You could switch to bleeding sigils to make it easier, but that would involve changing too much of the build to fit 1 minor trait.
I stated above that you could use Quickening Thirst, but it’s a minimal change as well. The 25% MS boost is useless due to perma-swiftness from Warhorn. So in essence all you get is a -33% CD on Dagger skills #2,3 while above 75% HP. You’ll be tanking in DS so long that the CD’s will be recharged in almost every fight, but occasionally I can see the reduced cool-downs being useful.
Ritual of Life is taken just because the situation where it’s useful(reviving an ally) happens more frequently. The Well of Blood casts at the start of a revive, not the end. It greatly helps you tank damage while reviving an ally, and helps you revive them faster. It’s taken simply because it’s the least “bad” out of these “bad” minor traits. You can use any of them and be hard pressed to notice any change.

In response to the viability of the build: The sustain in this build is insane in a 1v1 setting. I’ve yet to be downed fighting 1v1, even against mediation guards/shatter mesmers. So there’s really only 5 cases to consider:(really these are true to all bunkers in general)
1. They die
2. They run away once they determine they can’t DPS through your sustain
3. Another guy shows up and they 2v1 you. You’ll eventually die if no support arrives, but you can often survive long enough for the PPT to out-weight your death. In addition, the other 2 nodes become a 4v3 in your team’s favor.
4. Your ally shows up and you 2v1 the other guy.
5. A 2v2 or larger battle begins to form, and this is the case where it’s often a “loss” for your team as this build scales badly in team fights.

I realize I may get shot in the face for saying this but…have you tried playing it with axe instead of dagger? I haven’t played post-patch yet, but I usually play with axe/focus and stack the vulnerability. That way your minions hit harder as well and you don’t have to be right up in the fray, only very close by. The biggest difference is that due to trying to keep vulnerability up, I don’t pop Shroud unless it fills up or I need to.
Definitely a different way to play that has worked with me, but unsure how it compares

I like using Rune of the Pack on this build.

Warhorn (untraited) + this = permaswiftness, not to mention the occasional swiftness, might and fury to your minions. For the amulet I use the power/toughness/vitality (I think it’s soldier, can’t remember).

I’m using SoV now, will try blood fiend later.

Has anyone tried taking Foot in the Grave and dropping Wurm for shadow fiend? I think it should work but the teleport sounds too good to pass

I run shadow fiend instead of wurm. More mobility esp of the fight moves, plus the blind is nice to have.

Curtis.1562:

In response to Blood Fiend:

Blood Fiend gives 129 DPS max, it isn’t bad, but not enough to really warrant the skill as the passive healing is strictly worse than SoV (308 to 340), and the passive healing is the only reason to use it. If you had Death Nova it’d be another deal, but all Blood Fiend will do is maybe take a condition from you every 30s or so, since any decent opponent will kill it. That isn’t to say you can’t use it, it is more down to preference, but having played MM a lot Blood Fiend just doesn’t perform.

Curtis.1562:

In response to Death Nova:

Death Nova immediately does 1300-1600 direct damage just upon the minion dying, plus up to 505 poison damage (15 ticks of poison, the field applies 3 stacks of poison for 5 seconds each), which also combos with up to 3 projectile finishers from the ranged minions for an additional 204 damage, not including the obvious benefits of poison, and that Bone Minions apply 100% weakness uptime with it. Unholy Sanctuary on the other hand struggles to out heal Mark of Evasion, and doesn’t out heal Blood Bond.

Curtis.1562:

In response to Ritual of Life:

It is super easy to proc Blood Bond, a single lucky minion transfer of 4 bleeds will do it, and there are a few ways to do it yourself, and unlike Ritual of Life it will actually help your build’s main goal. It is up to 2500 healing every 20 seconds, and 1500 damage, and that is without the increased healing power. Ritual of Life, if you are lucky, will heal you for 5382 every 40s, and the allied heal is a measely 1272. So unless you proc it on CD you’re better off with Blood Bond.

Side note: If you are procing BB on CD you are looking at needing to be in DS literally 80% of the fight for US to match an adept trait, which again is why that trait is so awful.

Curtis.1562:

In response to the viability of the build:

I don’t doubt it is tanky as hell, you have effectively 81k HP against direct damage if you have LF before the fight starts, the problem is if you are unable to kill someone, you can never debunk someone from a point. So if your team doesn’t already own the point, you are incapable of pushing their bunker off it, which is extremely important for an MM to be able to do. Without that, you can never choose your fights, they choose you; you simply have to sit on a point your team owns and hope the enemy comes to find you and waste their time.

Your build would honestly work better without the minions. You aren’t going to kill someone and are relying on team help (meaning, you are essentially using a 1v1 spec to not 1v1), so you might as well build better for it. You could turn this into a few types of bunker builds with almost no change, and it would perform in the role you are looking for much better.

SlitheSlivier.1908:

I run shadow fiend instead of wurm. More mobility esp of the fight moves, plus the blind is nice to have.

Lower DPS and active takes 3 seconds from when you click the button until he teleports. If the fight is moving your opponent will have left Shadow far behind by the time he finishes casting Haunt.

I am just using this build, and it can kill very easily.

Note: When comparing traits, try to only compare them to traits in their category unless they have direct synergy with another trait. I.E. Compare Death Nova to Unholy Sanctuary, not Unholy Sanctuary to Mark of Evasion(Blood) as their functionality is different and there’s no reason to choose between the two.

Bhawb.7408:

Death Nova immediately does 1300-1600 direct damage just upon the minion dying, plus up to 505 poison damage (15 ticks of poison, the field applies 3 stacks of poison for 5 seconds each), which also combos with up to 3 projectile finishers from the ranged minions for an additional 204 damage, not including the obvious benefits of poison, and that Bone Minions apply 100% weakness uptime with it. Unholy Sanctuary on the other hand struggles to out heal Mark of Evasion, and doesn’t out heal Blood Bond.

Due to the trait description not matching what you were saying, I tested it in PvP on NPC’s. Death Nova immediately does 1100-1450 direct damage, and the poison field applies one stack of poison for 5 seconds per tick for 3 ticks. Since only 2 tests out of the 100 I tried managed to reach 1400+, and most were on the low end, I’ll take 1250 to be the average(I think I’m actually overestimating the average here). The total damage from poison is 504, assuming they stand in the cloud for all 3 ticks, suffer the entire duration, and have no -condi duration. That brings the total damage from Death Nova up to about 1750 per minion.(The actual in-game DPS will typically be lower due to the above reasons) While the DPS isn’t as high as you estimated, it does seem to be better than Unholy Sanctuary on paper. You also gain poisons -33% healing, a poison field, and the Jagged Horror, slightly increasing DPS and sustainability as well. I’ll update the build.

Bhawb.7408:

It is super easy to proc Blood Bond, a single lucky minion transfer of 4 bleeds will do it, and there are a few ways to do it yourself, and unlike Ritual of Life it will actually help your build’s main goal. It is up to 2500 healing every 20 seconds, and 1500 damage, and that is without the increased healing power. Ritual of Life, if you are lucky, will heal you for 5382 every 40s, and the allied heal is a measely 1272. So unless you proc it on CD you’re better off with Blood Bond.

I don’t like to rely on luck to proc a trait. However, after thinking about it for a while, you can use staff 4 to proc it and also staff 2+dodge to proc it. I wish we had a couple more sources of bleed, but it does seem to be the least bad trait in that line after review. I’m going to update the build to use Blood Bone, and mention the other 2 as an option.

I tried alot of mm play yesterday…. I know plenty of people will continue to use MM and probably say I’m wrong or dumb or whatever but I can’t for the life of me ever call MM even remotely viable now. The minions die in 2 seconds now. They need a health pool buff or something even vamp presence can’t keep them alive even on a cleric build I couldn’t do it. Maybe if you had a healer ele with you the whole time it could work….. but as is the mm spec seems to be worse than it was prepatch.

SlitheSlivier.1908:

I realize I may get shot in the face for saying this but…have you tried playing it with axe instead of dagger? I haven’t played post-patch yet, but I usually play with axe/focus and stack the vulnerability. That way your minions hit harder as well and you don’t have to be right up in the fray, only very close by. The biggest difference is that due to trying to keep vulnerability up, I don’t pop Shroud unless it fills up or I need to.
Definitely a different way to play that has worked with me, but unsure how it compares

I could see using axe/focus instead of staff, but I wouldn’t give up dagger/warhorn. The life force generation from dagger/warhorn is just too good. The main benefit I see of using axe/focus over staff is for boon stripping. It could potentially out-perform staff against boon heavy classes.

NeXeD.3042:

I tried alot of mm play yesterday…. I know plenty of people will continue to use MM and probably say I’m wrong or dumb or whatever but I can’t for the life of me ever call MM even remotely viable now. The minions die in 2 seconds now. They need a health pool buff or something even vamp presence can’t keep them alive even on a cleric build I couldn’t do it. Maybe if you had a healer ele with you the whole time it could work….. but as is the mm spec seems to be worse than it was prepatch.

It’s still viable and a very strong 1v1 bunker. Minions do die, and maybe even die a little faster now due to most builds getting a DPS buff. However, they have very short recharge times, and, thanks to Death Nova, they explode and cause poison once they die. I can definitely say that MM is stronger than it was prepatch.

Curtis.1562:

NeXeD.3042:

I tried alot of mm play yesterday…. I know plenty of people will continue to use MM and probably say I’m wrong or dumb or whatever but I can’t for the life of me ever call MM even remotely viable now. The minions die in 2 seconds now. They need a health pool buff or something even vamp presence can’t keep them alive even on a cleric build I couldn’t do it. Maybe if you had a healer ele with you the whole time it could work….. but as is the mm spec seems to be worse than it was prepatch.

It’s still viable and a very strong 1v1 bunker. Minions do die, and maybe even die a little faster now due to most builds getting a DPS buff. However, they have very short recharge times, and, thanks to Death Nova, they explode and cause poison once they die. I can definitely say that MM is stronger than it was prepatch.

my experience is that mm is a good deal weaker than what it was. For mm it looks like now you either make a bunker that can’t really kill anyone (meanwhile other specs including some on necro do a better job bunkering while being able to kill someone). Or you can make a dps mm which I found to actually work better since the minions are dying so fast anyway.

I’m not sure how much pvp experience you actually have but I’ve got a decent amount and I can say based upon my experiences mm either got weaker or stayed exactly the same.

Also MM was never really “viable” sure you could play with it but there were probably quite a few more specs that could do the same thing while being stronger, more durable, and faster all while not having to rely on dumb minion ai.

I had originally thought with the new patch mm would become stronger. But I didn’t predict the damage output changes to be as crazy as this. They just don’t survive long enough to be worth it, the only minion that seems useful is the bm and its not like your actually leaving that thing alive.

NeXeD.3042:

Curtis.1562:

NeXeD.3042:

I tried alot of mm play yesterday…. I know plenty of people will continue to use MM and probably say I’m wrong or dumb or whatever but I can’t for the life of me ever call MM even remotely viable now. The minions die in 2 seconds now. They need a health pool buff or something even vamp presence can’t keep them alive even on a cleric build I couldn’t do it. Maybe if you had a healer ele with you the whole time it could work….. but as is the mm spec seems to be worse than it was prepatch.

It’s still viable and a very strong 1v1 bunker. Minions do die, and maybe even die a little faster now due to most builds getting a DPS buff. However, they have very short recharge times, and, thanks to Death Nova, they explode and cause poison once they die. I can definitely say that MM is stronger than it was prepatch.

my experience is that mm is a good deal weaker than what it was. For mm it looks like now you either make a bunker that can’t really kill anyone (meanwhile other specs including some on necro do a better job bunkering while being able to kill someone). Or you can make a dps mm which I found to actually work better since the minions are dying so fast anyway.

I’m not sure how much pvp experience you actually have but I’ve got a decent amount and I can say based upon my experiences mm either got weaker or stayed exactly the same.

Also MM was never really “viable” sure you could play with it but there were probably quite a few more specs that could do the same thing while being stronger, more durable, and faster all while not having to rely on dumb minion ai.

I won’t comment on pvp experience, because I don’t want to turn this thread into an argument about who has more. I agree MM has never been viable for tournament play, and there are better builds out there than MM for … just about everything. The main reason MM is popular is because it’s very easy to play for new players, it’s fairly strong in unranked and lower brackets, and many people find minions fun.

I just don’t want people to misunderstand what you called viable.

MM was good enough to get me into the top 100, and that was back before the fairly large buffs we just received. I wouldn’t expect to ever see it played in a tournament (not successfully at least), but it is absolutely viable in solo play.

Bhawb.7408:

MM was good enough to get me into the top 100, and that was back before the fairly large buffs we just received. I wouldn’t expect to ever see it played in a tournament (not successfully at least), but it is absolutely viable in solo play.

I know it received bufffs, but with the new damage it’s actually less viable. IN MY OPINION.

It’s pretty viable in unranked though. I’ve been using it for a while at high mmr. Here is my 2 cents. If you use melandru and soldier or sentinel, it’s very hard to kill someone (maybe harder at high mmr). I suggest using knight and rune of the pack, with this you will get relatively good AA on DS. I still can’t decide on the sigils though. I’m using purity and generosity.

I usually go to far and stall people there. The problem is when you 1v2 and your friend come to help you but they die instead.

Don’t understimate ritual of life, I personally love it since it has helped me many times. With your DS, it’s quite reliable to rez someone (except when an engi throws 100 grenades at you).

Death nova is also strong, I once brusted a mesmer down to 10% HP since he/she shattered my 4 minions.

I think Unyielding Blast is also a good substitute as an adept of soul reaping especially if you’re smart about managing your DS.

For the weapon I’m using axe/warhorn and staff, I feel it’s easier to generate life force from axe 2. Vulnerability is good for mm necro.

btw I have a question, do you guys explode bone minions or not? I wonder if it’s better to let them alive

gin.7158:

btw I have a question, do you guys explode bone minions or not? I wonder if it’s better to let them alive

Generally speaking there is no reason to not immediately blow them up. They lose DPS and Death Nova efficiency for every instant they are alive/not summoned, and due to how Necromantic Corruption works they won’t draw conditions realistically anyway. The only reason to keep them alive after summoning is because “max” efficiency is allowing them to auto once then blow up, and you might need to wait for them to get in range, or maybe wait for a bit better of a position for the poison field.

Bhawb.7408:

gin.7158:

btw I have a question, do you guys explode bone minions or not? I wonder if it’s better to let them alive

Generally speaking there is no reason to not immediately blow them up. They lose DPS and Death Nova efficiency for every instant they are alive/not summoned, and due to how Necromantic Corruption works they won’t draw conditions realistically anyway. The only reason to keep them alive after summoning is because “max” efficiency is allowing them to auto once then blow up, and you might need to wait for them to get in range, or maybe wait for a bit better of a position for the poison field.

What do you mean about necromantic corruption?

It seems to be working or am I missing something? They auto draw the condition off of me every ten seconds regardless if in combat or of them attacking anything.

Are they bugging out and I am not noticing it?

They only draw after ten seconds. Meaning if you summon Bone Minions they need to be alive for 10 seconds until they will pull anything off you, which isn’t worth it.

Just tested this build.
It’s really quite nice, and does very well against those annoying zerk instant gib classes XD.
The damage is quite acceptable if fighting on the node, and the sustain is excellent.

Finally there’s a build that really looks like “Necroish”