Guild Wars 2

I have been discussing this with friends and guildies, and we all agree minions should be race specific, much like mesmer clones and thieves summons are.

For example, sylvari ones should reflect the wildlife at caledon forest. Asura ones from metrica. and this list goes on.

The same should be said for turret design, honestly.

what do we think?

Well, dead flesh is dead flesh no matter where it’s from.
I can understand turrets because they are put together by the player(kinda?)
I’m not too certain of minion making lore wise, but I do not believe that they were actually living things at one point.
That’s my opinion on it, someone better lore wise might give a better explanation to why Lore wise it doesn’t make sence, or they may say I’m wrong and completely agree with you, best of luck

What would be cool if the appearence of the minions was to change accordingly with the traits slotted for them. Training of the Master could give them a barbed look, Flesh of the Master could give them a pink or reddish hue, Death Nova could give them a small poison aura, Vampiric Master could make them drip blood, Necromantic Corruption could give them a dark step aura and Fetid Consumption could make them more gorged. These cosmetic changes can be adjusted so that the minions are not neon lights and their effects can be known by enemies and counterplayed.

redrex.9634:

I have been discussing this with friends and guildies, and we all agree minions should be race specific, much like mesmer clones and thieves summons are.

For example, sylvari ones should reflect the wildlife at caledon forest. Asura ones from metrica. and this list goes on.

The same should be said for turret design, honestly.

what do we think?

Doesn’t make any specific sense, not to mention involves a lot of work for them for no reason. Minions are made from the materials at your feet, not from your home land. A Sylvari in Ascalon would have access to the exact same material as everyone else.

Turret design makes far more sense since they are things you make before hand and bring with you; banners, summoned thieves, and warband allies would make sense with this too. But the rest are either summoning specific entities (like Shadow Fiend), or putting them together via a “standard” set of materials that everyone would have the same of.

But mainly ANet does it because of work load. You’re talking about introducing up to 4x as many skins as they have now just for a cool little aesthetic thing.

Jake.1430:

Well, dead flesh is dead flesh no matter where it’s from.
I can understand turrets because they are put together by the player(kinda?)
I’m not too certain of minion making lore wise, but I do not believe that they were actually living things at one point.
That’s my opinion on it, someone better lore wise might give a better explanation to why Lore wise it doesn’t make sence, or they may say I’m wrong and completely agree with you, best of luck

Minions are put together at the time of summoning by using the available dead materials and piecing them together into golems. Just like the asura golems are put together via mechanical parts, or a rock golem is a collection of rocks put together and given “life”, minions simply use dead flesh as their component pieces.

Technically speaking, you’d have two arguments you could make.
1) Minions are made up of such basic components (bones, very common organ systems like intestines, random flesh) that any collection of organisms in the area would be able to fulfill the requirements for making them.

2) Minions would change, at least slightly, depending on where they are summoned because of the different dead organisms in the area.

Pregnantman.8259:

What would be cool if the appearence of the minions was to change accordingly with the traits slotted for them. Training of the Master could give them a barbed look, Flesh of the Master could give them a pink or reddish hue, Death Nova could give them a small poison aura, Vampiric Master could make them drip blood, Necromantic Corruption could give them a dark step aura and Fetid Consumption could make them more gorged. These cosmetic changes can be adjusted so that the minions are not neon lights and their effects can be known by enemies and counterplayed.

This would make more sense if it was standard all around. But basically no traits give noticeable effects until they are proc’d.

Flesh of the Master and Training of the Master are both flat bonuses. Apart from them the minion traits are on proc as you say, but an inclination of what they can do could be helpful. For example, if the minions have a poison aura around them you know you have to range them because they explode when they die, if the minions are gorged you know your conditions will be transferred to minions and act accordingly (for example, you can cast Epidemic on the minion to reapply the condition to the master), if the minions have dark aura you know they have boon rip and act accordingly (have additional boons on you when you have stability on you to prevent the minions from removing stability). Just some basic counterplay to basic inclinations. The procs can be inclined by having the minions pulse as well.

Jake.1430:

Well, dead flesh is dead flesh no matter where it’s from.
I can understand turrets because they are put together by the player(kinda?)
I’m not too certain of minion making lore wise, but I do not believe that they were actually living things at one point.
That’s my opinion on it, someone better lore wise might give a better explanation to why Lore wise it doesn’t make sence, or they may say I’m wrong and completely agree with you, best of luck

That’s like saying a Whale carcass looks like a Mouse Carcass
Would be nice to have them race specific, but if I’m being honest.. I can’t see it happening.

I think I can remember suggesting a long time ago that maybe we could buy minion skins from gem store, can’t remember if I got round to suggesting it or just thought of it >_>

Pregnantman.8259:

Flesh of the Master and Training of the Master are both flat bonuses. Apart from them the minion traits are on proc as you say, but an inclination of what they can do could be helpful. For example, if the minions have a poison aura around them you know you have to range them because they explode when they die, if the minions are gorged you know your conditions will be transferred to minions and act accordingly (for example, you can cast Epidemic on the minion to reapply the condition to the master), if the minions have dark aura you know they have boon rip and act accordingly (have additional boons on you when you have stability on you to prevent the minions from removing stability). Just some basic counterplay to basic inclinations. The procs can be inclined by having the minions pulse as well.

That isn’t the case with ANY trait though. There is absolutely no precedence for having that kind of visual representation of traits.

I get where you are coming from, but there are dozens of traits on Necromancer alone that have similar effects but no visual showing of it.

Yeah you are right, if we were to have inclinations for every trait we have on the screen would be flooded. I was only trying to make base for a visual improvement, that the visuality might actually be useful like Engineer’s “hobo packs” and an Elementalist’s attunement bracelets.

I’m disappointed. I thought this was a thread about people making their minions race each other!

If we’re talking about changing minion appearances though, I would like it if Jagged Horrors looked different to Bone Minions.