Guild Wars 2

Hey!

I am a new player and just got my human necromancer to lvl 20.
From the beginning I noticed that I only use minion summoning skills, and sometimes Signet of the Locust when I’m running, for the +25% speed.

Now when I unlocked the 3rd skill slot, I only use the following slot skills in combat:
Summon Blood Fiend
Summmon Shadow Fiend (yes, it’s with 3 m’s atm)
Summon Bone Fiend
Summon Bone Minions

Of the total 8 slot skills I totally possess, 5 remain unused in combat, because they suck compared to the summoning ones.

With all above mentioned skills active as I usually have, I have 5 minions in total following me. I don’t even need to attack myself necessarily. I find the combat to be kinda weird, it’s like I’m just a part of a group all the time and don’t play a major role, I just try to survive the hits when my minions do the job. I don’t like it.

Even if the skills and things are balanced at lvl80, this is not cool for new players like me.

What do I think needs to be done
- Allow only 1 summoning spell to be active at once
- Nerf the minions. I can take on 5-8 monsters my own level and aoe them, wtf?
- Minions obviously play a big role in the profession, why not give us a simple control bar over them? Passive, Disappear, Recall (summon at player, in case they get stuck behind)

What do you guys think?
Please note that I am talking about the situation at low levels

Forcing us not to use a lot of minions isn’t the answer. The option to use all, none, or somewhere in between is available. if you don’t like using all your minions, choose other skills and only use one or two. More options is better, not less.

I started leveling with a minion master build. I scrapped that character and when I came back to necro I leveled with no minions. It can already be done without it being the only option.

Minions, spirit weapons and ranger pets have their own damage source. This means they deal allways the same damage, no matter how bad your equipment is.

The only stat that is “shared” is condition damage. Every condition dealt by your minions is actually dealt by you. So I think skills shouldnet be disallowed, minions and pets should share their stats with the player.

If you want your minions have more health, than you have to equip vita. If you think they should deal more damage → power etc.

The game should not be balanced at level 20. It makes absolutely no sense when you can get to level 80 in a week, and the majority of content is designed around level 80s.

Also, no control bars. The only thing we need is an added (optional) UI for them.

Even at lower levels, you’ll do a lot more damage focusing on either conditions or damage than you will using minions. At least, this was my experience while leveling my Necromancer, and for later levels, they’re definitely outclassed. Limiting people to 1 minion would not only not make sense, but it would interfere with traits and builds. There are traits that give you more per minion you have out IIRC.

As for nerfing the minions themselves…I strongly disagree. If anything, they need to be buffed (barring the flesh golem). They’re also extremely frail. And I agree with Bhawb. A UI for them would be all that’s needed. They’re not as important a part of the class as you think, unless you’re expressly going for Minion Master, which is fine and dandy if that’s what you’re into, but very few people do that seriously.

The lvl 20 content is easy. The few champions that exist can all be focused.

Get to lvl 38 and try fighting centaurs in Harathi Hinterlands, unless you are a pro or are carried by your allies, you will get crushed with your minions.

Having said all of that, the main issues that the forum has with minions (irresponsiveness, inability to heal between fights, long cool downs, AI that sits in AoE), these have all been dealt with by anet by buffs to minion health, a band aid to be sure.

Tat said, While you are leveling, if your equipment isn’t up to date, your minions represent some of the best skills you can take.

I’ve just finished levelling my sexy little Asura to fill my last character slot. Went with a siphon/minion build solely for levelling and it’s been alot of fun compared to levelling my Ele, Mesmer, Thief and Guardian to 80.

Being able to solo about 75% of the Champ events and maybe 90% of Group events was totally awesome coming from the perspective of a primarily Elementalist player…

Minion Master was fun fun fun, but now it’s back to the serious business of WvW and Wellmancer.

Yes, 1v1 or vs trash minions are now OP. Rather than copy & paste code they added to nurf how much life force we can gen per sec with spectral. They simply just keep beefing up the base health of minions.
This means they boringly OP vs easy stuff. Yet still get destroyed when it get’s hard and you actually could do with them.

Sounds like you need L2P -_-

Minions OP? Ha!

Without traits, minions are beyond garbage. If your minions do more dmg than you, is not them being OP, you just sucks.

Wells, DS#4 and #5, Marks and Dagger #1 deal way more dmg.

You can take 5-8 monsters your own level and aoe them? Pfft, pathetic! I can take 5-8 monsters twice my level and AoE without minions.

First: Minions aren’t AoE, only Bone Minions can deal AoE dmg and it’s pretty lame so I don’t know how you can AoE foes with minions.

Second: Well of Suffering can take up to 5 foes with one single pulse. there is no way to gather 25 enemies in lower zones but if you could, you would be able to kill them all with only this skill.

Third: Marks and DS skills aren’t as strong as WoS but if you use all, you can take a lot of enemies at once without even sweat.

Fourth: Dagger #1 is single target but I can kill foes before any minions is able to hit them. One single chain deals like 2-3 time more damage than all minions together (even if you are lvl 30 with Flesh Golem). You need at least 2 Master Traits to change that and for that, you need to be lvl 50.

So, I know you are new and for that I ask you: “L2P” before coming here and ask for nerfs. Many of us have suffered long enough with useless minions.

I think the scaling has some issues at lower levels. The solution is to fix the scaling, not to nerf the skills.

But I suspect part of the scaling issue is intentional – that ANet doesn’t want new players to be turned off by difficult content at lower levels.

The game doesn’t force you to use minions. I for one only used two minions up until ~15, and then I stopped using minions as utilities altogether. Only one I use now at 80 is Flesh Golem, but that’s more because there aren’t any other good PvE elites rather than wanting to actually use a minion.

I will say that Necromancer by itself is pretty kitten tanky compared to some other classes, so you won’t find much more danger playing without minions. Between Death Shroud and the high base health, I rarely had a problem taking on large groups of mobs while leveling. That was without using anything other than Flesh Golem, and before its massive hp buff.

I think it’s a bit much to expect them to balance minions every level all the way from level 5-79. They should be focusing on their viability at level 80 (which still needs work). Leveling is incredibly fast in this game, so there’s no point in balancing skills at level 20, unless something’s borderline broken in how OP it is, and I don’t believe low level minions are.

I don’t see a reason to lock people out of using multiple minions; that’s a build some people love. Minions aren’t an essential part of playing a Necromancer, so I don’t see the problem. Just because you don’t enjoy the playstyle doesn’t mean no one else does either.