Guild Wars 2

Which stats affect minions? Which weapon is best for minion builds?

Minions inherit your Boon duration, Condition Duration, and Condition Damage stats, but nothing else.

Which weapon is “best” is either going to be Axe for Vulnerability stacking or Greatsword for preventing the kiting. Staff gets at least some honorable mention for giving a decently easy way to extend the lifespan of the melee minions, albeit by how much varies greatly on build and situation.

Best weapons depend on situation. PvE just go highest DPS build you can manage, PvP Dagger/WH is undeniably the best set, imo followed by Axe/Dagger (debuffs enemy). Staff works but it really doesn’t do much of anything for the minions except regen, which you can get through well aimed dodges anyway.

In pvp the ideal conduction for minions is immobile. The second best condition is chill, the third is cripple. The Idea is to slow down your opponent enough so that minions can run up and melee attack away. On a vanilla MM, you have 3 access to immobilize: dagger 3, Death Shroud 5, Bone minion active. You have access to one chill, Staff 3, and 2 cripples: Warhorn 5 and Flesh Golem Auto attack. On reaper you have substantially more access to chill and slightly less immobilize. Axe gives cripple which is worse than chill from a movement standpoint (thus taking staff over axe) For PVE Condi is probably a better stat since you can cheese infinite bone minions (they do bleeding) with lich form and enough healing power. For PVP you’d want both condition damage to capitalize on rune of thorns and the fact that your minions fart poison fields on death, and healing power to desperately keep the minions alive. This forces you into settler’s amy with an extra 150 Healing Power from blood trait and an extra 200 condition damage from any significant fight ( 30 seconds +). This leaves you with massive (1200) toughness, condition damage, and healing power, all because you wanted minions that don’t die so easily.

Dreaming serpent.5197:

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There is a ton in here I wouldn’t follow. Yes CC conditions are important, but taking a set of 5 skills over another because of ONE skill having ONE component that is better than its competition is a terrible thought process.
Speaking for MMs:
Axe AA is incomparably better than Staff’s
Axe 2 is better than Staff 2 (Staff 2 is just regen, which you get from a trait anyway)
Axe 3 OVERALL is way better than Staff 3, while chill > cripp, the boon corruption, retal, and damage are way better than another poison field and chill
Dagger 4 is just a slightly less reliable Staff 4
Dagger 5 is just really different to Staff 5, better in general use but weaker niche

Axe/Dagger is just a far more useful overall than Staff is. Staff was really only good because of Soul Reaping in Core MM.

Also, Settler’s is really subpar on MM. You want Clerics, everything you have is just way better with power than condition damage. Condi MM has always been a niche/cheese build.