Guild Wars 2

I really enjoy the idea of a true minion necromancer, however I feel it’s very lacking in this game. You can give up one of your utility slots in exchange for ONE minion. As a necromancer you should have the option to have a (slightly) greater army of undead – even if they were to be all rather disposable.

So I was just giving some random thought about what would be a nice minion centred weapon for this class – as there are none. You could argue that the staff fills this need relatively decently, however just barely.

Thus I’ve come up with a rather loose and fun idea for a MM weapon, but before I write down what it’d be like first I need to address the Jagged Horrors;
What I think the Jagged Horrors should be like, is a very disposable creature (however one that is at least slightly useful). I think it should die with 1-3 hits however it’s health should not degenerate. It should deal minimal damage such as 100 or possibly even less but its attacks inflict one stack of bleed that lasts maybe 1-2 seconds, and attacking it also gives the attacker one stack of bleed (after all it is jagged and such).

My idea for the weapon would be something two handed.

#1: Autoattack that throws a bouncing scythe between foes that bounces up to 3 times, dealing about 400 damage on each hit and regenerating 2% life force per bounce.
#2: Summon 4 Jagged Horrors. (16sec CD)
#3: Explodes all Jagged Horrors dealing 500 damage in a 240 radius causing a 3sec poison. (60sec CD)
#4: Deals an area of effect damage in a radius of 600 around you, hitting up to 6 targets. Deals 600 damage to each target, for each target hit you and your minions gain 1 second of retaliation and regen. (24sec CD)
#5: Channel for 5 seconds unmoving while you syphon health from your target dealing 280 damage per second and healing you and your pets for 100HP per second. Gives one stack of might to you and your minions for each second channelled. (38sec CD)

Of course the numbers aren’t set in stone, that’s just some ideas I had and tried making sure it wouldn’t be too overpowered. Also on the #2 which summons 4 Horrors with a 14sec cooldown, I wouldn’t feel that’s really overpowered as the Scepter’s #2 causes an AoE which deals nice damage, deals great bleed and on top of that cripples foes with only a 10sec cooldown – so having a few minions which die quickly but make sure to add a small bleed with a 16sec cooldown does not feel overpowered at all.

Also I thought it would only make perfect sense to make sure the weapon adds some boons since the minion tree adds boon duration and we barely have any boons at all to go around.

TL;DR – Idea for a MM weapon which summons minions and adds boons to minions as the minion tree gives boon duration.

I’d rather have the staff have minion skills and kitten than how it currently is, I mean you do put marks on the ground I would think minions would come out of them, that would be way cooler than what is currently is, the more I play the necro the less I like the staff, just doesn’t feel that useful unless a cond build and even then it’s debatable we all mostly use scepter/dagger and just have the staff because the few added conditions but they arent that awesome or last long enough.

Don’t touch the staff.
The MM already has a minion weapon combo. It’s axe + focus and staff. It is a ranged combination that gives him a source of vulnerability, cripple, regeneration, chill, and transfers conditions from minions to enemies. If the trait decides to work, the minions pull condiitons from you to themselves, so that’s nice.
All the minions need is:
1. Functional AI.
2. Being affected by stats.
3. Buffed damage output and health.

I think the staff is nice and creative. I only have a few issues with it;

-The autoattack is completely useless outside of PvE since if you see a huge dark hand making it’s merry casual slow way towards you – you most certainly will not stand around. It’s pathetically easily dodge able.
-Either the marks should already naturally be slightly larger or should be instant cast. Because they’re so tiny no one would be dumb enough to walk into it, and they take so long to cast the target will almost certainly not be where I cast it originally. The marks even often times suck in PvE as the enemies might move unpredictably.
-The marks really need to either cripple or immobilize or have a longer duration freeze if they wanna be so small. But more than anything they need to have shorter cooldowns, I can’t count how many times I’ve gotten stuck there after using all my marks and now all I can do is use the COMPLETELY useless autoattack and wait to cast the #2 every now and again since it has shorter cooldown.

The staff feels like in no way should it ever be used as a main weapon. I use it as a secondary weapon to switch into really briefly, place my marks around and switch it out as soon as I can because actually relying on it in battle whether it be PvE or PvP with its current state is simply not an option.

Delryn.7235:

I think the staff is nice and creative. I only have a few issues with it;

-The autoattack is completely useless outside of PvE since if you see a huge dark hand making it’s merry casual slow way towards you – you most certainly will not stand around. It’s pathetically easily dodge able.
-Either the marks should already naturally be slightly larger or should be instant cast. Because they’re so tiny no one would be dumb enough to walk into it, and they take so long to cast the target will almost certainly not be where I cast it originally. The marks even often times suck in PvE as the enemies might move unpredictably.
-The marks really need to either cripple or immobilize or have a longer duration freeze if they wanna be so small. But more than anything they need to have shorter cooldowns, I can’t count how many times I’ve gotten stuck there after using all my marks and now all I can do is use the COMPLETELY useless autoattack and wait to cast the #2 every now and again since it has shorter cooldown.

The staff feels like in no way should it ever be used as a main weapon. I use it as a secondary weapon to switch into really briefly, place my marks around and switch it out as soon as I can because actually relying on it in battle whether it be PvE or PvP with its current state is simply not an option.

In agreement

It feels like we should have a second 1200 range 2h weapon, like how mesmers have staff and greatsword.

I like the idea of a minion master focused weapon. I don’t think it will happen, and is probably my own personal bias, but i would love it.

I really doubt it’ll happen any time soon. I wouldn’t be too surprised if they added more weapons with more skills which were more focused for minions in the far future, such as with expansions.

It would be a dream of mine to be able to have some 10 minions summoned at once.

I would add a real scythe as a necro weapon skin that uses the staff skills. And the staff should get a new set of skills which are all defensive support skills that grant boons or heal your minions and allies.

nachtnebel.9168:

I would add a real scythe as a necro weapon skin that uses the staff skills. And the staff should get a new set of skills which are all defensive support skills that grant boons or heal your minions and allies.

This makes sense how?

Just cause defensive boons and support skills feel more like they should be on a staff instead of a scythe, while all those reaper-like skills perfectly fit a scythe.

add to all the above a nice PET UI so you can actually control your pets.. and ofc The AI so they can do that rather than just stay and watch the fight… ;-)

can we haz a shotgun that shot risen chickens?

Defensive boons and support skills? You mean like regeneration, chilled, fear, condition removal, etc?

Vangy.7403:

add to all the above a nice PET UI so you can actually control your pets.. and ofc The AI so they can do that rather than just stay and watch the fight… ;-)

I’d honestly rather not get minion control UI. It takes away from the whole “mindless undead” thing.

I also would prefer they just fix the AI, maybe at best being able to decide whether you want your pets to back off and not attack anything – for when you’re just travelling around the world for example.

striker.3704:

Vangy.7403:

add to all the above a nice PET UI so you can actually control your pets.. and ofc The AI so they can do that rather than just stay and watch the fight… ;-)

I’d honestly rather not get minion control UI. It takes away from the whole “mindless undead” thing.

I would rather have non-idiotic pets, as it takes away from actually being effective with them.
if ai is not on par, lets give us tools to directly control them, you can just ignore the tools if you dont want to use those.
when they’ll make real ai that can actually take good decisions they can revert, but then we’ll be already under control of our new digital overlords.

Yes, I’d much prefer they fix the AI than give us direct control.

And no “just ignore the tool you’re given” isn’t an option as that is purposefully playing badly.

It does feel like we’re missing another 2 hander. I wouldn’t mind another 2 hander focused on MM, where the skills are similar to that of Mesmer Phantasms/Clones in how they act (temporary pets tied to targets). Could throw a spectre along with all the corporeal minions as well.

As for changing Staff the only thing I would want is support traits focused on making Marks… well more supportive, not changing the weapon itself.

striker.3704:

Yes, I’d much prefer they fix the AI than give us direct control.

And no “just ignore the tool you’re given” isn’t an option as that is purposefully playing badly.

and while you wait for your magical ai fix, you will still be having kitten pets…
there’s a reason if in all other games you get to command your npc followers in some ways and they -always- suck when you dont.