Guild Wars 2

I tried my d/f minion master at Orr , my minions are attacking all the time.
I think that their bad AI has been fixed , am I right ?

Well the latest patch notes did mention toning down the aggressiveness of minions, but most of us assumed that only applied to the golems hatred for fauna in general.

Maybe i should test out our walking puss bombs a bit…

No, sry…
Yu know that all mobs in Orr are agresive ?? Most minions (85-95%) fight back when attacked- they atacking mob who hit them.
But as i know they stil atack target at 50-70% chance -specialy mobs who dont hit them.
And they still dont atack most of yellow targets (boss, dors etc. )
So sorry to disapoint Yu but… they still dont work, and Anet “work” on it from the beta relase…
So maybe in next patch… or not

Mine still like to stand around and watch the fight. Especially my Bone Minions. In other words, I still have minion cheerleaders most of the time

I’ve been using a new minion build I made recently and they do seem to be more responsive, and I think they did state somewhere they would be testing it out as they make adjustments. However, they do still glitch at times, so it’s not 100% fix, but they are definitely more responsive as of late, of that I’m sure.

I haven’t noticed any real increase in responsiveness either. It’s a shame, I loved playing MM in Guild Wars 1, perhaps they can bring back some mechanics from that.

Minions are fine; they are NOT perfect, I have a few times where they will stand around watching me die, but it is very rare, and I’ve never noticed it make a difference in the fights (they tend to only sit around for a second or two).

They are slightly more responsive, but the major ones still become unresponsive from time to time or stand still. Bone Minions and Flesh Golem will still have extended periods of inactivity. I will generally find a high health target and just do general attacks until they decided to attack this will usually fix the bugged out ai. The Shadow fiend I have not seen him bug out recently.

Most players who scream about it have very limited patience. It’s not perfect, but it has improved over pre-patch. Unfortunately they buggered DS when fixing it.

I have noticed no change. They are still totally borked. Farming with my flesh golem summoned he will attack during 1 in 7 – 10 encounters. I have not personally seen any minion begin combat at the start of an encounter since the patch, only part way through.
Minions remain an abysmal joke.

I want to know why they can’t use the jagged horror AI for the other melee minions. Those things are very responsive. Short-lived, but responsive.

Brew Pinch.5731:

I have noticed no change. They are still totally borked. Farming with my flesh golem summoned he will attack during 1 in 7 – 10 encounters. I have not personally seen any minion begin combat at the start of an encounter since the patch, only part way through.
Minions remain an abysmal joke.

I highly doubt that you play for several hours and seventy percent of the time none of the minions attack. Especially if you don’t actually use the minon ability. I have spent an absurd amount of time playing MM. I have never had a 70 percent of the time issue. My guess is you are an aoe condition guy or a staff mark player who carries just the flesh golem around and finds that means all minions are bad. He is the only one wiht a major issue, the rest attack regularly.

Granted I do a few things to help him attack. If I find he spends a few fights not attacking. I will port to a different location to reset him or simply send him inot a fight to die.

In PvP there are too many pathing issues to use minions well. You can preach patience all you want, but when it comes to split second timing minions will not be reliable (melee minions at least). It usually takes the full 4 sec duration of my dagger immobilize for the lil squirrels to get into explosion range. I can’t speak for PvE, but for PvP the combination of poor responsiveness (barely any functionality in team fights does overwrite the fact they behave pretty well 1v1), how squishy they are to any form of aoe even with health traited, and how gimped you become when they are dead and on cd leaves minions wanting compared to well/epi/terror builds. MM has a long way to go before it is viable.

Minion rates now:
Attack what you attack – 85% of the time
Follow you around instead of derpwallwalking – 99% of the time
Gang up on 1 target if you are healing/using something that isnt a auto attack on a group of mobs – 40% of the time
Dont aggro everything in a 1200 zone around them – 50% of the time (depends on the minion and if you are in combat or not)

Minion rates before
Attack what you attack – 25% of the time
Follow you around instead of derpwallwalking – 15% of the time
Gang up on 1 target if you are healing/using something that isnt a auto attack on a group of mobs – 60% of the time (one thing hit one of them all tried to hit back)
Dont aggro everything in a 1200 zone around them – 0% of the time

They overall got a lot smarter, less stuck and tend to not stick in combat all the while they are out, they learned to leave 1 of their own behind if you need to run away and in general tend to follow your 1 attacks (wurm and shade less so but still way better than before), golem seems to still love moowalking into walls for some reason and be 24/7 in combat if there are enemies close by despite not attacking them thus not being able to regen up, but at least he knows how to bullrush a enemy and not miss for 120°+

As every companion they are still to stupid to walk in a straight line over a hill or down a slide instead of running around like a idiot, but thats general AI flaw not just minions

Lich form (5 Jhorrors with 1 spam can stack up to 7 or even 10 bleeds on a target), Bone Fiend, Flesh Golem and Wurm are probably the best minions to stick to, shade is just a early level tank and bone minions die just as fast as jhorros (what they are just with a poof at command.

reedju.5786:

In PvP there are too many pathing issues to use minions well. You can preach patience all you want, but when it comes to split second timing minions will not be reliable (melee minions at least). It usually takes the full 4 sec duration of my dagger immobilize for the lil squirrels to get into explosion range. I can’t speak for PvE, but for PvP the combination of poor responsiveness (barely any functionality in team fights does overwrite the fact they behave pretty well 1v1), how squishy they are to any form of aoe even with health traited, and how gimped you become when they are dead and on cd leaves minions wanting compared to well/epi/terror builds. MM has a long way to go before it is viable.

They are actually better in pvp than in pve. They are brutal in wvwvw, but so is every pet/minion type build. In tpvp, the lack of heavy aoe fire from multiple sources and small scale fights make the MM a very good build.

When your minion is dead you are as strong as a condition build with his CD’s down except my CD’s are shorter. When your minion’s are dead your survival rate is as strong or stronger than a DS centric build. When your minions are down you are as strong as several of the specific builds (wells and DS builds). A ds build outside of DS is as weak as a Minion build without minions. A well build is notoriously bad when wells are out of CD, they are just extremely strong with wells up.

Proper understanding of a class is a requirement for minion builds. Try playing with an axe/focus.

Bas.7406:

reedju.5786:

In PvP there are too many pathing issues to use minions well. You can preach patience all you want, but when it comes to split second timing minions will not be reliable (melee minions at least). It usually takes the full 4 sec duration of my dagger immobilize for the lil squirrels to get into explosion range. I can’t speak for PvE, but for PvP the combination of poor responsiveness (barely any functionality in team fights does overwrite the fact they behave pretty well 1v1), how squishy they are to any form of aoe even with health traited, and how gimped you become when they are dead and on cd leaves minions wanting compared to well/epi/terror builds. MM has a long way to go before it is viable.

They are actually better in pvp than in pve. They are brutal in wvwvw, but so is every pet/minion type build. In tpvp, the lack of heavy aoe fire from multiple sources and small scale fights make the MM a very good build.

When your minion is dead you are as strong as a condition build with his CD’s down except my CD’s are shorter. When your minion’s are dead your survival rate is as strong or stronger than a DS centric build. When your minions are down you are as strong as several of the specific builds (wells and DS builds). A ds build outside of DS is as weak as a Minion build without minions. A well build is notoriously bad when wells are out of CD, they are just extremely strong with wells up.

Proper understanding of a class is a requirement for minion builds. Try playing with an axe/focus.

I understand necro perfectly fine in sPvP and synergies needed between weapons, traits, and utilities to make them effective. They may “work” for you, but that doesn’t make them viable. No comment on WvW, no interest there. The meta in tPvP currently revolves around team fights and aoe point spam which minions simply do not survive. Team fight necros can be very dangerous, and even if they can be home point defense there are several other more mobile prof most teams prefer there. With minions we are not survivable enough to be fully in the action nor do we have ranged capability. Axe simply does not work well enough. Low damage even with axe training and heavy power builds. Vulnerability stacking is “nice” but there are far too many cleanses in game to make the stacking potential worthwhile. By the time you reach 10-15 stacks any skilled player has cleansed and the rinse and repeat of a condi that does no damage and is attached to a weapon that does no damage is essentially a waste IMO. If say a player was stupid enough to let me reach 25 stacks and then switch to dagger I see damage potential. But most players have learned the importance of condi clearing by now.

Granted I am looking to do the maximum for my team, not play a build that I simply enjoy and has limited use. In hotjoin ill admit I’ve tried several variations of minion builds that would dominate. But there is a skill crossover to tPvP and I personally have never fought a minion build that compares to my other builds or beat a truly skilled player with a minion build.

Minion builds lack heavy aoe pressure that is attainable with many necro builds (epi-condi, well, terror) and still cannot match any other prof in single target damage. I respect your opinion and would love to try out your minion build to test it’s capability, but see very little potential in competitive tourney play based on all evidence I have seen up to this point

@reedju – Do you play tPvP? I have yet to run into a successful team that spams AOE on a specific point. tPvP is about roaming single target killers and focus fire. You pick off targets then drop the bunker. Aoe build get trainwrecked unless it’s a ranger, and they are easy to avoid their aoe and still kill them

tPvP is the strongest point for MM bunker and berzerker builds. My task as a MM in every single tourney game is kill the bunker or take out the ranged guy that’s dropping the hammer on us. Every single time it’s effective. with 4 different cc capabilities, and the flesh wurm (everyone ignores it and it does great damage). Only trap rangers, s/d cannon ele’s, and grenade engineers destroy your minions fast.

Only condi Necro’s have aoe pressure, and everyone carries condi removal in high level tPvP making power builds really strong for your bunker killer. Axe is the only viable option for MM builds in tPvP accressive play even the bunker guys run A/F and D/W. Vuln stacking is amazing since it’s the most ignored condition in the game outside of Chill. Everyone just thinks meh, I ain’t worried, than you hit them and they worry. If they cleanse the vuln than your condition teammate hits them fast and hard.

The problem I see is not MM, but rather your team is not built for you to play MM the way you need to. What is your normal tPvP team makeup?

My tPvP team runs – Guardian, Ele, Thief, Mesmer, Necro – The mesmer will swap out for a ranger or 2nd thief from time to time.

Ele is bunker/roamer, Guardian runs bunker so Thief and Mesmer are the roamers, and I roll as the bunker killer. My team is built for me to thrive, because we have aoe pressure we have two bunkers and we have high mobile classes. I am ignored most of the time at the start of every match :P. By the end of every match I am being focused by the opposing theif, ranger, or ele. When you train wreck their bunker it’s makes you a priority, but I am a pain to kill because of all the siphon life kills. A/F allows me to kite thanks to chill and cripple.

Being unable to play something effectively does not mean the class is broken. Please see every single elementalist post at the beginning of the game, and how good ele is now.

I never said the class was broken, nor have I said anything about MM being broken. You seen to assume my post is QQ as opposed to players sharing/seeking knowledge. Unreliable and not playing to the necro’s potential with other builds are my only complaints. I actually think it is the most complete class currently besides Guard/Mesmer. And yes I play tPvP, in fact it’s bout all I do. I don’t see a link to your build so I have no way of testing it or checking on its potential, and seeing as MM is about the least played necro in sPvP I would love to see it become more competitive. I do not have a solid team, I run with pick up groups of other solo players regularly though. Team composition may be a factor. But after seeing your latest post we seem to be at least facing teams of very different compositions. As for bunker killing I find my terror well builds to be more than sufficient with or without cd’s.

reedju.5786:

I never said the class was broken, nor have I said anything about MM being broken. Unreliable and not playing to the necro’s potential with other builds are my only complaints. I actually think it is the most complete class currently besides Guard/Mesmer. And yes I play tPvP, in fact it’s bout all I do. I don’t see a link to your build so I have no way of testing it or checking on its potential. I do not have a solid team, I run with pick up groups of other solo players regularly though. Team composition may be a factor. But after seeing your latest post we seem to be at least facing teams of very different compositions. As for bunker killing I find my terror well builds to be more than sufficient with or without cd’s.

random grouping with MM is tough. Because it’s heavily reliant on the ability to focus fire. When you get random grouped with a bad team it’s hard to focus fire especially if your team makeup keeps changing. When I random, I ignore everyone else, and work on killing their closest area. I play a lot of 1v1 in tPVP random.

I find the MM builds to be the most efficient build for Necros. Mainly because I find the DS centric builds to be too random in terms of damage output and intake for my liking. The condition specs are too easily neutered by a few builds and i don’t like targeting abilities which is a majority of condition specs. In this end it’s playstyle. I am really bad as a condition necro, and found Power builds to be too up and down especially wells (amazingly powerful) with extend cd’s.

I agree with you that Guardians, Mesmers, Necro’s and Ele’s are the most complete classes currently. Rangers are the most broken, Thieves are too one-sided, Engineers are too blah, and Warriors are 1 trick ponies.

I played sPvP yesterday trying several different builds. I tried a straight up minion master build: 20/0/30/20/0 with all of the minion related traits of course, and a staff. During most engagements (and I mean 9/10 times) my minions would stand around watching me fight. I had to activate their abilities to get them to inflict anything on an enemy player, and sometimes the flesh golem and shadow fiend would simply disengage as soon as they were finished with the skill. Bone minions were extremely unresponsive, taking up to 30 seconds to finally start chasing an enemy player. I pretty much had to lure enemies to THEM so I could blow them up.

The only reliable minion is the flesh worm. It works perfectly. It spawns, it instantly attacks targets, and doesn’t stop until it or the enemy is dead.

Xenon.4537:

I played sPvP yesterday trying several different builds. I tried a straight up minion master build: 20/0/30/20/0 with all of the minion related traits of course, and a staff. During most engagements (and I mean 9/10 times) my minions would stand around watching me fight. I had to activate their abilities to get them to inflict anything on an enemy player, and sometimes the flesh golem and shadow fiend would simply disengage as soon as they were finished with the skill. Bone minions were extremely unresponsive, taking up to 30 seconds to finally start chasing an enemy player. I pretty much had to lure enemies to THEM so I could blow them up.

The only reliable minion is the flesh worm. It works perfectly. It spawns, it instantly attacks targets, and doesn’t stop until it or the enemy is dead.

Your problem was you used the staff. For some reason even auto attack with staff is wonky with minion. Run Axe/Focus or Dagger/warhorn and you will see better results. Also did you use their abilities to force an attack. I have never seen Bone Fiend unresponsive. Flesh Golem, Shadow Fiend, and Bone minions are common to bug out. Shadow Fiend will typically work better once you activate his ability which should be used on CD anyways.

I think we covered the Staff issues in the MM guide I wrote earlier this year. Staff, and any targeting ability will cause the minions to not attack. I don’t know why auto attack bugs it out, but Axe 2, 3, Focus 4, 5, Warhorn 4, and Dagger 2 have really good forcing the target to attack abilities. Auto attack usually will cause a delay. I actually have auto attack turned off because it bugs them out so often.

Honestly I would just like for enemies to not attack the Bone Fiend so often first… The Flesh Golem has the most HP and still make it a bigger threat to the enemy AI.

Bas.7406:

Xenon.4537:

I played sPvP yesterday trying several different builds. I tried a straight up minion master build: 20/0/30/20/0 with all of the minion related traits of course, and a staff. During most engagements (and I mean 9/10 times) my minions would stand around watching me fight. I had to activate their abilities to get them to inflict anything on an enemy player, and sometimes the flesh golem and shadow fiend would simply disengage as soon as they were finished with the skill. Bone minions were extremely unresponsive, taking up to 30 seconds to finally start chasing an enemy player. I pretty much had to lure enemies to THEM so I could blow them up.

The only reliable minion is the flesh worm. It works perfectly. It spawns, it instantly attacks targets, and doesn’t stop until it or the enemy is dead.

Your problem was you used the staff. For some reason even auto attack with staff is wonky with minion. Run Axe/Focus or Dagger/warhorn and you will see better results. Also did you use their abilities to force an attack. I have never seen Bone Fiend unresponsive. Flesh Golem, Shadow Fiend, and Bone minions are common to bug out. Shadow Fiend will typically work better once you activate his ability which should be used on CD anyways.

I think we covered the Staff issues in the MM guide I wrote earlier this year. Staff, and any targeting ability will cause the minions to not attack. I don’t know why auto attack bugs it out, but Axe 2, 3, Focus 4, 5, Warhorn 4, and Dagger 2 have really good forcing the target to attack abilities. Auto attack usually will cause a delay. I actually have auto attack turned off because it bugs them out so often.

I said I used their activate abilities to get them to move, and many times they will just go back to standing around once finished. I chose staff for its aoe ability. I like to have it for any build because an aoe chill, fear, and cleanse are hard to live without. I didn’t know about the possibility of the auto attack bugging the minions. I don’t use staff for it’s auto attack, nor does it even seem logical for a player weapon auto attack to cause a problem with an NPC’s behavior. It seems like the players have done more testing than the devs…

antimatter.2579:

Honestly I would just like for enemies to not attack the Bone Fiend so often first… The Flesh Golem has the most HP and still make it a bigger threat to the enemy AI.

Yes, I watch my bone fiend get 1-shotted all the time even with the extra HP trait. I stopped bringing him in favor of the flesh worm as it is much more reliable, sturdy, and provides a stun breaker.

Xenon.4537:

I said I used their activate abilities to get them to move, and many times they will just go back to standing around once finished. I chose staff for its aoe ability. I like to have it for any build because an aoe chill, fear, and cleanse are hard to live without. I didn’t know about the possibility of the auto attack bugging the minions. I don’t use staff for it’s auto attack, nor does it even seem logical for a player weapon auto attack to cause a problem with an NPC’s behavior. It seems like the players have done more testing than the devs…

I apologize if I came across as saying you didn’t activate the abilities. I simply asked if you had. The problem still lies in using the staff as your main sorce of damage. Marks and Minions don’t work together well. You will get bugged out because they don’t trigger the minion AI which makes sense seeing as how they are essentially traps and not attacks.

Tip 1: Lay your marks before the fight begins. Than use another weapon to begin the attack, then swap back to staff, and continue to drop marks. When they player dies, swap weapons when targeting someone new.

Tip 2: Don’t use staff at all except for control. Use Axe/focus or D/W as your main weapons and only swap to staff for marks than back to your main weapon.

Essentially you have to choose between traited marks or minions. They just don’t mix well, and I am pretty sure that’s intentional.

Xenon.4537:

antimatter.2579:

Honestly I would just like for enemies to not attack the Bone Fiend so often first… The Flesh Golem has the most HP and still make it a bigger threat to the enemy AI.

Yes, I watch my bone fiend get 1-shotted all the time even with the extra HP trait. I stopped bringing him in favor of the flesh worm as it is much more reliable, sturdy, and provides a stun breaker.

FLESH WURM!!!!

In dungeons I bring, Bone Fiend, Shadow Fiend, and Flesh Wurm – same with tpvp. In questing I swap Flesh Wurm for Bone Minions.

Andele.1306:

Minion rates now:
Attack what you attack – 85% of the time

Seems like a dream level of success to me, I’ve personally not seen improvements at all besides them not attacking distant targets.
I’m extremely jealous of your minion’s attack rate if this is true.

My minions work alright in PvP, but in PvE they tend to stand around far too much. The fact that they don’t attack whatever they please willy nilly is great though.

I get the feeling that when you have more targets, the minions become more confused as to what you attack. Especially since we have a lot of AOEs as necromancers.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Andele.1306:

Minion rates now:
Attack what you attack – 85% of the time

Seems like a dream level of success to me, I’ve personally not seen improvements at all besides them not attacking distant targets.
I’m extremely jealous of your minion’s attack rate if this is true.

I wouldn’t say they are up to 85% rate, but they are definitely better as of late. 65-70% (being generous here) is more like what I’ve seen. They still get bugged plenty enough, but the frequency is much lower. They also seem to break out of the bug more reliably when you use their skills. They used to take a few tries before they would break out but it’s easier to break the bug now than it used to be. At first I thought it was just me being hopeful because I had made a fun new minion build to mess around with, but seeing this many responses on it in roughly the same timeframe leads me to believe they have indeed been adjusting AI (as they said they would but I think most of us assumed it would be in a big patch. I just think they are doing it in increments to test it before they release official word). So keep posting any issues you guys have in a constructive manner so they can continue to tweak it.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Andele.1306:

Minion rates now:
Attack what you attack – 85% of the time

Seems like a dream level of success to me, I’ve personally not seen improvements at all besides them not attacking distant targets.
I’m extremely jealous of your minion’s attack rate if this is true.

The biggest issue I find that people have with minion builds and unresponsive is the use of ground targeting attacks (marks or scepter/dagger) or Axe 3 and expecting the minions to figure out your main attack. If you begin each battle with a single target attack you will find a higher success rate.

I usually start with axe2 and then go from there.

I would say my success rate on a good day is 90 percent in pve and 65-70 percent (flesh golem mainly) on a bad day. In pvp I am rarely under 90 percent success.

Maybe I was unlucky or did something wrong as I rarely use minions… but tried it out yesterday and sometimes they just stared at me while mobs kicked my kitten #8230; so I cam back to my old condition build… I will try a pure power build soon.