Guild Wars 2

Ok, we got 8 confirmed bug fixes, 5 on minion traits now working on minions ¬.¬ , now to find out about the ones they didn’t put on the notes…

Relair.1843:

Tenebrous.2451:

Bas.7406:

The only major issue that we currently have is the DS UI issue. That’s the only major problem Necro’s have.

Cough Cough Minion AI Cough Cough

And minion survivability. They could have the best AI in the world and it doesnt help if they’re all dead 90% of the time every boss fight and any wvw skirmish of more than 2 or 3 people.

This is just blatant exaggeration. That’s like me claiming wells are complete crap because if you drop them and the boss doesn’t step on it youa re completely useless 90 percent of the time.

Come on! Minons die, wells, miss, corruption skills have limites, spectral skills are specialized, and signets are pretty weak. Look at it context and quit with the blatant exaggeration. If your minions are dead 90 percent of the time in a boss fight learn to use minions better. You have 3 ranged. If you aren’t an idiot you can place them so they don’t all die at the same time. Bone Minions are supposed to die. Bone fiends are not meant to tank bosses. Stop acting like it’s a game breaking issue.

They are freaking minions. They die, it doesn’t prevent you from playing, you can still do as much damage as a conditino mancer who brought epidemic to a boss fight. You can still wipe out players in pvp.

Yes, MM has issues in WVWVW where large aoe zergs just mow things down. Every pet class has the same issues. That doesn’t mean they aren’t viable.

I guess my axe/focus hipster days are over… been running that since the early weeks and enjoying it :P

Nice changes overall really.. keep it up Anet.

Here’s a thought. Why not make the Scepter autoattack hit like the Engineer’s Pistol autoattack, applying bleeds and then poison in a “nearby” AoE? And then do the same thing with the Axe’s #1 and #2 skills? I can see Dagger staying single target as its supposedly more of a “dueling” weapon, and the Staff is already AoE (despite Necrotic Grasp only being useful against enemies who helpfully line up), so no worries there.

On a side note, anyone else shocked they buffed the one part of axe that was already the strongest selling point by far, while leaving the damage alone on the #1 skill?

Relair.1843

“Not that bad” isn’t good enough. Rangers dont have that problem, if you can’t design an AI that functions properly all the time then let players tell the kitten things when to attack and retreat, problem solved. GW2 is supposed to be so advanced and the next evolution of mmos and all that, when games 10 years older have far better AI in place for pets. Its inexcusable.

Ranger Spirit Pets are awful. Comparing utility skills to ranger pets is not a viable comparison. The Ranger pet is it’s class mechanic.

Counterparts to Minions are as follows: Guardian Spirit Weapons, Ranger Spirit Pets, Mesmer Illusions, Engineer Turrets, and Elementalist Elementals.

Guess what all of those have in common – pathing issues, ai issues, and random bugs. When you compare minions to their comparable counterparts we come out ahead.

Bas.7406:

Tenebrous.2451:

Cough Cough Minion AI Cough Cough

That’s not a core issue. That’s a utility build issue. Core issues are issues at the heart of the class that affect every single build. Since the utility pet ai is a game wide issue that affects mutliple classes it seems ridiculous to keep bringing it up as a Necro Core issue.

To top it off, they have been gradually fixing it with each patch. It’s better now than a month ago and it was better a month ago than it was at launch. I am speaking from hundreds of hours of Minion play. It’s not as bad as it is being painted.

Seems core to me since it affects the viability of a mainline build, but if you want to argue semantics, go ahead.

And no it is not the same for every class. When my ranger attacks something the pet runs and attacks it every time. I use my flesh golem outside of dungeons, in WvW and when I gather stuff and kill for dailies, and he does not do this with any degree of consistency. Still. Too many times I have seen the big lug just sitting there not knowing what to do untill the mob I am attacking happens to wonder by.

I am not asking our minions to be ranger pets, just know when to attack like one.

Still prefer dagger to axe (though a cleave would have pushed me to axe) for the damage output. Liking the minion stuff, I just hope they stealth fixed the issue with my bone minions acting as cheerleaders rather than attacking half the time. If they did that then I’m happy.

Now I just have to choose between the mobility of warhorn and the great buff to focus…choices choices choices.

Bone minions are pretty good. They deal comparable damage to well of suffering minus the vuln, apply the damage more “bursty” and have half the cooldown. The rest is meh and really AI dependant, yeah, but bone minions don’t suffer much from the AI or low health.

Rennoko.5731:

On a side note, anyone else shocked they buffed the one part of axe that was already the strongest selling point by far, while leaving the damage alone on the #1 skill?

Yeah, I actually mistook the 10 percent buff to the Axe auto. Axe 2 10 percent is about 800 damage in full berzerker.

Ok, so minions are fairly bad but take up a considerable amount of potential utility skills and traits.
Condition builds are severly limited due to obvious reasons; power-builds are not viable because the axe is not strong enough and the dagger is single target (and one of the few melee weapons without a gap closer, thanks for that).

But none of that is a core issue with the class and its available playstyles? Well alright then, guess there really is no point in having a discussion on the official forums.

I wasn’t shocked by the Axe changes, I think they are fine. You cannot put good damage on a no-cooldown attack that stacks vulnerability, otherwise it might become the most efficient way to to do damage and there’d be little reason to use anything else. As it is now you have to choose between doing damage with 2 or stacking vulnerability with 1, and you choose differently depending on the context of the fight. I like that, tbh.

Tenebrous.2451

And no it is not the same for every class. When my ranger attacks something the pet runs and attacks it every time. I use my flesh golem outside of dungeons, in WvW and when I gather stuff and kill for dailies, and he does not do this with any degree of consistency. Still. Too many times I have seen the big lug just sitting there not knowing what to do untill the mob I am attacking happens to wonder by.

I am not asking our minions to be ranger pets, just know when to attack like one.

Comparing a class mechanic to a utility skill is not viable. When you play your ranger, how viable is spirit pets, because that’s the correct counterpart to compare it too.

This ridiculous assumption that Ranger pets and Necromancer Minions are the same is the core issue necromancers have. They are not the same, comparing them is ridiculous. They are completely different playstyles. You can choose to not play with Minions, you cannot choose as a ranger to not play with a pet.

I would gladly agree that having aoe wipe out all my pets is a horrible thing, but until you stop comparing a class mechanic with a utility skill this conversation will go nowhere.

Bas.7406:

Relair.1843

“Not that bad” isn’t good enough. Rangers dont have that problem, if you can’t design an AI that functions properly all the time then let players tell the kitten things when to attack and retreat, problem solved. GW2 is supposed to be so advanced and the next evolution of mmos and all that, when games 10 years older have far better AI in place for pets. Its inexcusable.

Ranger Spirit Pets are awful. Comparing utility skills to ranger pets is not a viable comparison. The Ranger pet is it’s class mechanic.

Counterparts to Minions are as follows: Guardian Spirit Weapons, Ranger Spirit Pets, Mesmer Illusions, Engineer Turrets, and Elementalist Elementals.

Guess what all of those have in common – pathing issues, ai issues, and random bugs. When you compare minions to their comparable counterparts we come out ahead.

um, as someone who plays a mesmer, and a necro, I can say that mesmer’s illusions are a breath of fresh air in comparison to necro minions.

their behavior is utterly different, an illusion only targets one thing, but minions need actual AI that is deeper than “target whatever player used spell on, cast x every y seconds” they never stop attacking for no good reason, and they won’t run around and pull aggro unless their attack winds up puting them in another mobs aggro range (berserker mainly)

turrets attack randomly based on whatever is in range, so they aren’t a good comparison either

Haha, looks like some people don’t know how to say, “Thank you!”

Are minions still being cheesed by Agony?
If yes, then MM is still unviable in fract.

bytes.1650:

Ok, so minions are fairly bad but take up a considerable amount of potential utility skills and traits.
Condition builds are severly limited due to obvious reasons; power-builds are not viable because the axe is not strong enough and the dagger is single target (and one of the few melee weapons without a gap closer, thanks for that).

But none of that is a core issue with the class and its available playstyles? Well alright then, guess there really is no point in having a discussion on the official forums.

So why are you even playing? You repeatedly post about how bad things are, we repeatedly refute with actual in-game play knowledge. According to you no one should ever play a necro and they aren’t viable anywhere. Except that’s not true at all. Good tpvp teams always have a necro. The top wvwvw teams love necros.

you have no concept of reality, and you have no point outside of bashing Necros. Find another class if you think this class is horrible all the way around.

Power necros are very strong. Condition Necros are still the top at what they do. MM is strong and may be even better now.

Your opinion is not based on fact, it’s based on your inability to play the class the way you want too. Go play a theif and leave the necros to those of us with valid legitimate issues.

Rennoko has a valid issue with condition capping. Chips has a valid issue with DS UI being crap. Bhawb has a valid issue with Signets being almost worthless as a basis for a build. I had a legitimate issue with Axe damage being sub par. Dagger/Well guys have issues with inability to lock someone into a well or even slow them because wells are one dodge out.

You have no point , no valid complaint. you just get on and rant, and no matter what anyone says you just keep whining. This leads us to one conclusion. You shouldn’t play a necromancer.

Bas.7406:

Relair.1843:

Tenebrous.2451:

Bas.7406:

The only major issue that we currently have is the DS UI issue. That’s the only major problem Necro’s have.

Cough Cough Minion AI Cough Cough

And minion survivability. They could have the best AI in the world and it doesnt help if they’re all dead 90% of the time every boss fight and any wvw skirmish of more than 2 or 3 people.

This is just blatant exaggeration. That’s like me claiming wells are complete crap because if you drop them and the boss doesn’t step on it youa re completely useless 90 percent of the time.

Come on! Minons die, wells, miss, corruption skills have limites, spectral skills are specialized, and signets are pretty weak. Look at it context and quit with the blatant exaggeration. If your minions are dead 90 percent of the time in a boss fight learn to use minions better. You have 3 ranged. If you aren’t an idiot you can place them so they don’t all die at the same time. Bone Minions are supposed to die. Bone fiends are not meant to tank bosses. Stop acting like it’s a game breaking issue.

They are freaking minions. They die, it doesn’t prevent you from playing, you can still do as much damage as a conditino mancer who brought epidemic to a boss fight. You can still wipe out players in pvp.

Yes, MM has issues in WVWVW where large aoe zergs just mow things down. Every pet class has the same issues. That doesn’t mean they aren’t viable.

Sure I was slightly exaggerating but not that much. I guess we just have differing expectations of what it is to be a necromancer. Every mmo since the dawn of time has given them strong, useful pets. If we’re meant to just chuck minions at a target and watch them die in 3 seconds then so be it, but then lower the cooldowns on them. Or at least beef up the flesh golem, if you take all minion traits he is your main source of damage and usually the first to die to a boss because of melee based cleaves and spins and aoes and then you are useless. Its not the same as saying oh your wells or condition utilities are on CD, you have huge power or cond. dmg and your weapon skills are still useful then. If you are a MM you probably have lots of healing and toughness you are pretty useless if all your minions are dead most of the time.

I just don’t understand how you can lump minions in with clones and thieves guild and stuff, most people who make a necromancer make it for pets. But I suppose thats how Anet sees it, they are junk second tier utility and not meant to be your main power source like ranger pets. =/

Calcifire.1864:

um, as someone who plays a mesmer, and a necro, I can say that mesmer’s illusions are a breath of fresh air in comparison to necro minions.

their behavior is utterly different, an illusion only targets one thing, but minions need actual AI that is deeper than “target whatever player used spell on, cast x every y seconds” they never stop attacking for no good reason, and they won’t run around and pull aggro unless their attack winds up puting them in another mobs aggro range (berserker mainly)

turrets attack randomly based on whatever is in range, so they aren’t a good comparison either

Actually that is my point. They are utility skills that rely on a slightly worse ai. Illusions are gone if you swap targets and you have to do it all over again. Spirit weapons you have to resummon. Spirit Pets are crap. Turret AI is so bad, and they die so fast that it’s hilarious.

My point was that comparing utility skills of similar styles (not exactly the same) we come out ahead.

Relair.1843:

Bas.7406:

Relair.1843:

Tenebrous.2451:

Bas.7406:

The only major issue that we currently have is the DS UI issue. That’s the only major problem Necro’s have.

Cough Cough Minion AI Cough Cough

And minion survivability. They could have the best AI in the world and it doesnt help if they’re all dead 90% of the time every boss fight and any wvw skirmish of more than 2 or 3 people.

This is just blatant exaggeration. That’s like me claiming wells are complete crap because if you drop them and the boss doesn’t step on it youa re completely useless 90 percent of the time.

Come on! Minons die, wells, miss, corruption skills have limites, spectral skills are specialized, and signets are pretty weak. Look at it context and quit with the blatant exaggeration. If your minions are dead 90 percent of the time in a boss fight learn to use minions better. You have 3 ranged. If you aren’t an idiot you can place them so they don’t all die at the same time. Bone Minions are supposed to die. Bone fiends are not meant to tank bosses. Stop acting like it’s a game breaking issue.

They are freaking minions. They die, it doesn’t prevent you from playing, you can still do as much damage as a conditino mancer who brought epidemic to a boss fight. You can still wipe out players in pvp.

Yes, MM has issues in WVWVW where large aoe zergs just mow things down. Every pet class has the same issues. That doesn’t mean they aren’t viable.

Sure I was slightly exaggerating but not that much. I guess we just have differing expectations of what it is to be a necromancer. Every mmo since the dawn of time has given them strong, useful pets. If we’re meant to just chuck minions at a target and watch them die in 3 seconds then so be it, but then lower the cooldowns on them. Or at least beef up the flesh golem, if you take all minion traits he is your main source of damage and usually the first to die to a boss because of melee based cleaves and spins and aoes and then you are useless. Its not the same as saying oh your wells or condition utilities are on CD, you have huge power or cond. dmg and your weapon skills are still useful then. If you are a MM you probably have lots of healing and toughness you are pretty useless if all your minions are dead most of the time.

I just don’t understand how you can lump minions in with clones and thieves guild and stuff, most people who make a necromancer make it for pets. But I suppose thats how Anet sees it, they are junk second tier utility and not meant to be your main power source like ranger pets. =/

Careful making such claims around Bas. He’s the bunker-killer on his tPvP team, he has lots of first hand experience with minions and knows that they’re not second-rate skills from that experience.

Bas.7406:

Tenebrous.2451

And no it is not the same for every class. When my ranger attacks something the pet runs and attacks it every time. I use my flesh golem outside of dungeons, in WvW and when I gather stuff and kill for dailies, and he does not do this with any degree of consistency. Still. Too many times I have seen the big lug just sitting there not knowing what to do untill the mob I am attacking happens to wonder by.

I am not asking our minions to be ranger pets, just know when to attack like one.

Comparing a class mechanic to a utility skill is not viable. When you play your ranger, how viable is spirit pets, because that’s the correct counterpart to compare it too.

This ridiculous assumption that Ranger pets and Necromancer Minions are the same is the core issue necromancers have. They are not the same, comparing them is ridiculous. They are completely different playstyles. You can choose to not play with Minions, you cannot choose as a ranger to not play with a pet.

I would gladly agree that having aoe wipe out all my pets is a horrible thing, but until you stop comparing a class mechanic with a utility skill this conversation will go nowhere.

Why is the AI not comparabile, because that is all I am talking about.

All I am saying is that the Ranger pets knows when to attack every time, and most people think minions should know when to attack every time, and not stand around doing nothing at random. So are you saying that because a minion is not a core class mechanic, it should have cheesed AI? Plus, if they should have defective AI, then that does not effect the viability of the MM build?

When did I talk about AoE?

In random pve soloing and 1v1 or small scale pvp minions are fine, if thats what he uses them for primarily no wonder he thinks they are so good. Its champions/boss fights and large scale situations that their performance disappoints me in so greatly.

Relair.1843:

Sure I was slightly exaggerating but not that much. I guess we just have differing expectations of what it is to be a necromancer. Every mmo since the dawn of time has given them strong, useful pets. If we’re meant to just chuck minions at a target and watch them die in 3 seconds then so be it, but then lower the cooldowns on them. Or at least beef up the flesh golem, if you take all minion traits he is your main source of damage and usually the first to die to a boss because of melee based cleaves and spins and aoes and then you are useless. Its not the same as saying oh your wells or condition utilities are on CD, you have huge power or cond. dmg and your weapon skills are still useful then. If you are a MM you probably have lots of healing and toughness you are pretty useless if all your minions are dead most of the time.

I just don’t understand how you can lump minions in with clones and thieves guild and stuff, most people who make a necromancer make it for pets. But I suppose thats how Anet sees it, they are junk second tier utility and not meant to be your main power source like ranger pets. =/

Now that I agree with, now we are on the same page. In previous games, Minions were considered a core mechanic to Necro’s. You made a Necromancer/warlock you got a pet who tanked damage. They were a core mechanic. Anet did not make them a core mechanic simply a utility tool you can use. DeathShroud is our core mechanic.

Do I think Flesh Golem and Shadow fiend need a bump in aoe/cleave avoidance? Absolutely, I would love it. The issue is how that would affect pvp and tournaments where the Golem could viably turn into a bunker.

We have the shortest cd in the game. The summoning time is what I don’t like. 24 seconds between summoning a minion is fine. I bring blood, bone fiend, bone minion, Flesh Golem, and Flesh Wurm, that’s 3 ranged that I post at different spots, 1 melee, and 1 guy I just use to blow up every 16 seconds.

As a side note, when your minions are all dead you lose very little toughness and the consistent healing, but not really a lot of damage. We are essentially the same damage as Well guys when their wells are on cd, and DS guys when they aren’t in DS. There is a drop off, but it’s no greater than the other builds see.

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

Are minions still being cheesed by Agony?
If yes, then MM is still unviable in fract.

Bingo! This I agree with, and it saddens me a lot.

Tenebrous.2451:

Why is the AI not comparabile, because that is all I am talking about.

All I am saying is that the Ranger pets knows when to attack every time, and most people think minions should know when to attack every time, and not stand around doing nothing at random. So are you saying that because a minion is not a core class mechanic, it should have cheesed AI? Plus, if they should have defective AI, then that does not effect the viability of the MM build?

When did I talk about AoE?

No, i am saying the AI is not the same. One is a controlled ai tied to a class mechanic. The other is utility skill without a controlled targeting ai.

Look, I think the ai needs improvements. I dont’ think it’s so bad it’s unplayable. I think the fact that if I switch targets in the middle of a fight, sometimes my minions don’t switch they keep attacking target 1 other times they lock up and look at me before switching.

Your statement was we have horrendous ai, but we don’t. Even the ranger pet has a delay when you target swap or use aoe to start a fight. My point is comparing a class mechanics response with a utility skills response is not a valid argument.

lettucemode.3789:

Careful making such claims around Bas. He’s the bunker-killer on his tPvP team, he has lots of first hand experience with minions and knows that they’re not second-rate skills from that experience.

haha, not sure if you are messing with me or not :P.

Bas.7406:

Now that I agree with, now we are on the same page. In previous games, Minions were considered a core mechanic to Necro’s. You made a Necromancer/warlock you got a pet who tanked damage. They were a core mechanic. Anet did not make them a core mechanic simply a utility tool you can use. DeathShroud is our core mechanic.

Do I think Flesh Golem and Shadow fiend need a bump in aoe/cleave avoidance? Absolutely, I would love it. The issue is how that would affect pvp and tournaments where the Golem could viably turn into a bunker.

We have the shortest cd in the game. The summoning time is what I don’t like. 24 seconds between summoning a minion is fine. I bring blood, bone fiend, bone minion, Flesh Golem, and Flesh Wurm, that’s 3 ranged that I post at different spots, 1 melee, and 1 guy I just use to blow up every 16 seconds.

As a side note, when your minions are all dead you lose very little toughness and the consistent healing, but not really a lot of damage. We are essentially the same damage as Well guys when their wells are on cd, and DS guys when they aren’t in DS. There is a drop off, but it’s no greater than the other builds see.

The difference is those wells/condition build types have a ton more power/cond dmg/precision/crit etc. MM focusing on toughness and healing has pretty terrible weapon skill damage. I don’t mind that I can’t keep the whole minion army up 24/7 that would be unrealistic. But there needs to be some kind of change to allow you to help your poor minions. Make spectral wall into a dome or have bigger range so we could plop it down on flesh golem before a big attack, add some kind of ‘minions evade when you dodge’ trait, or my personal favorite and this would solve a ton of the issues: make blood fiend’s heals affect itself and all other pets as well as you.

This is nice and all, but they didn’t even touch the blood magic trait line in a way that matters. Having to wait for 2+ months for something that may or may not come is going to eat up a hell of a lot of bank space holding this pointless gear and it’ll cost an arm and a leg to replace it.

Guess I’ll look into an Axe focus build.

Bas.7406:

Tenebrous.2451:

Why is the AI not comparabile, because that is all I am talking about.

All I am saying is that the Ranger pets knows when to attack every time, and most people think minions should know when to attack every time, and not stand around doing nothing at random. So are you saying that because a minion is not a core class mechanic, it should have cheesed AI? Plus, if they should have defective AI, then that does not effect the viability of the MM build?

When did I talk about AoE?

No, i am saying the AI is not the same. One is a controlled ai tied to a class mechanic. The other is utility skill without a controlled targeting ai.

Look, I think the ai needs improvements. I dont’ think it’s so bad it’s unplayable. I think the fact that if I switch targets in the middle of a fight, sometimes my minions don’t switch they keep attacking target 1 other times they lock up and look at me before switching.

Your statement was we have horrendous ai, but we don’t. Even the ranger pet has a delay when you target swap or use aoe to start a fight. My point is comparing a class mechanics response with a utility skills response is not a valid argument.

Ok lets make it very simple:

All I want the AI to do is attack when I do and not stand around when I am doing nothing. Delays on switching etc. are somewhat understandable. Apparently you have some reason why this should not be so.

The ranger pet just happens to be pretty consistent in attacking. I would take this one attribute and say I would like our minions to know when to attack like a ranger pet, and somehow this is invalid?

Listen, I just want minions to do their jobs, attacking my enemies when I attack them, reliably, but they do not, and I really do not care if it “is a controlled ai” or lacks “a controlled targeting ai.” They are not reliable, because you don’t know when it will do what is supposed to do. When I hit Epidemic, it will do its job. Period. No exceptions.

I don’t care that epidemic was probably easier to implement. I don’t care what AI the minions do not have. I want them to do their jobs reliably.

Relair.1843:

The difference is those wells/condition build types have a ton more power/cond dmg/precision/crit etc. MM focusing on toughness and healing has pretty terrible weapon skill damage. I don’t mind that I can’t keep the whole minion army up 24/7 that would be unrealistic. But there needs to be some kind of change to allow you to help your poor minions. Make spectral wall into a dome or have bigger range so we could plop it down on flesh golem before a big attack, add some kind of ‘minions evade when you dodge’ trait, or my personal favorite and this would solve a ton of the issues: make blood fiend’s heals affect itself and all other pets as well as you.

Actually that’s just gear preference. There is no reason to run toughness and healing as a MM. Absolutely none! People do it for tpvp because MM bunkers are hilariously powerful. Remember Minions gain nothing from your stats or gear choice so not running berzerker doesn’t make sense.

I run full berzerker and the only difference between me and a Dagger/Well guy is generally 20 percent crit chance if he specs into curses or 30 percent crit damage if they spec fully into Soul Reaping, and that’s if we both spec full zerker gear and ruby orbs.

I agree minions need some help. I think giving them the ability to gain boons would be a nice step. Some sort of AoE avoidance or reduction in damage would be nice (though I could see this causing a world of problems in pvp). Heck I liked CHIPS Idea of being able to sacrifice them (though I am not sure how that would work without adding an extra button or removing their secondary skills).

These are some really good updates!
I’ve been carrying focus instead of dagger for the last 4 weeks in an attempt to cull the plague of gaurdians and ele’s in WvW, the fact it packs a bit more punch now should make it a bit more fearsome.

If anyone can do some testing later (stuck at work), I’d love to see some results from the vampiric changes, been something I ‘wanted to play’ but was disappointed by it since beta.

I’m not really tempted to pick up an axe though just yet

Bas.7406:

bytes.1650:

Ok, so minions are fairly bad but take up a considerable amount of potential utility skills and traits.
Condition builds are severly limited due to obvious reasons; power-builds are not viable because the axe is not strong enough and the dagger is single target (and one of the few melee weapons without a gap closer, thanks for that).

But none of that is a core issue with the class and its available playstyles? Well alright then, guess there really is no point in having a discussion on the official forums.

So why are you even playing? You repeatedly post about how bad things are, we repeatedly refute with actual in-game play knowledge. According to you no one should ever play a necro and they aren’t viable anywhere. Except that’s not true at all. Good tpvp teams always have a necro. The top wvwvw teams love necros.

you have no concept of reality, and you have no point outside of bashing Necros. Find another class if you think this class is horrible all the way around.

Power necros are very strong. Condition Necros are still the top at what they do. MM is strong and may be even better now.

Your opinion is not based on fact, it’s based on your inability to play the class the way you want too. Go play a theif and leave the necros to those of us with valid legitimate issues.

Rennoko has a valid issue with condition capping. Chips has a valid issue with DS UI being crap. Bhawb has a valid issue with Signets being almost worthless as a basis for a build. I had a legitimate issue with Axe damage being sub par. Dagger/Well guys have issues with inability to lock someone into a well or even slow them because wells are one dodge out.

You have no point , no valid complaint. you just get on and rant, and no matter what anyone says you just keep whining. This leads us to one conclusion. You shouldn’t play a necromancer.

Last post i’m going to make here, i might aswell talk to a wall. I went into more detail about the things which aren’t really working right now, but because i mention them all, instead of picking out a single one, i don’t have a point and am just angry?

And you never refuted any of these points. You get excited about miniscule details of skills or extremely limited situations where you can use them.

“Here i’m putting a heavy bleed on my enemy with Blood is Power, while giving myself Might. On the downside, i bleed aswell, but i quickly transfer that bleeding onto my enemy aswell by using Deathly Swarm! Truly the necromancer is the king of conditions!”

That is marketing gibberish you will find in teaser-videos of game devs and nothing more and most definitely not incredible ingame-knowledge.

Nice to see mostly positive feedback here.

A good change from the depressing complaining we see so often.

Overall these look good. I’m not sure how much they affect my build personally (Power D/WH+Staff) but it has me thinking I might want to give MM a shot.

Tenebrous.2451:

Ok lets make it very simple:

All I want the AI to do is attack when I do and not stand aroudnd when I am doing nothing. Delays on switching etc. are somewhat understandable. Apparently you have some reason why this should not be so.

The ranger pet just happens to be pretty consistant in attacking. I would take this one attribute and say I would like our minions to know when to attack like a ranger pet, and somehow this is invalid?

Listen, I just want minions to do their jobs, attacking my enemies when I attack them, relabiably, but they do not, and I really do not care if it “is a controlled ai” or lacks “a controlled targeting ai.” They are not reliable, because you don’t know when it will do what is suppose to do. When I hit Epidemic, it will do its job. Period. No exceptions.

Look, now you are talking about the AI in general which was my point. The Minion AI is pretty good a majority of the time and excellent compared to other non-controlled AI. 95 percent on all minions not named Flesh Golem. Why Flesh Golem is so much worse? I don’t know. Though it’s at 70 percent of the time now.

If you look at my comments, I have agreed that their response time is slow. I will actually have to test ranger pet ai, because as far as I have seen the response time when you don’t use the F1 key is about a half a second or two delay depending on pet (don’t ask me why). I have also noticed sometimes when i switch argets quicky, my pet does not on my ranger.

Granted I haven’t played my ranger in about a month and I haven’t really tested response timing in a while.

Take for example Mesmer Illusions or Spirit Weapons from Guardians. They have the same ai issues (less so for mesmers though they do have some odd targeting at times.), and the same pathing issues (especially mesmer illusions their pathing issues can be so horrendous it actually causes hidden illusions).

My point of all this is that I think all AI needs to be tweaked a little bit more. That it’s not a core fundamental issue as DS UI is. It’s a minor issue on a viable build. The way it currently sits MM is viable. Is it perfect? No, but it’s definitely a good build in any non-fractal dungeon and any non-zerg wvwvw situation.

Side note: Epidemic does not always hit neither does plague signet. They can be dodged, missed, blocked, and out of ranged :P. Just picking.

bytes.1650:

Last post i’m going to make here, i might aswell talk to a wall.

This is the most valid thing you have stated on the forums in the past three days.

Bas.7406:

bytes.1650:

Last post i’m going to make here, i might aswell talk to a wall.

This is the most valid thing you have stated on the forums in the past three days.

Ha!

I like the update and hope to try it soon. A lot of it seems more of a sideways buff to better enable MM and power builds giving strength to options other than straight conditionmancer. I expect a lot more minions running around as people try them out and, hopefully, more players are attracted to the profession. I did not have any real issue with playing a support role but know that is not what most players prefer.

Honestly, I was expecting lesser buffs and only to improve support role utility and survivability, not a direct damage buff like today’s patch.

Overall they made steps mostly in the right direction. Nerfing d/d elementalists is good and I also play an elementalist. The many bug and exploit fixes are all good too. I was getting pretty sick of the engineer crap. It does seem odd that of all the things to buff with necros they helped minion masters but we’ll see it goes.

I love the changes to necros. They buffed some of our worse abilities, gave us decent damage buffs to axe/focus, fixed some bugs, and gave me a reason to use a healing skill other than consume conditions. Awesome job.

The change to spinal shivers is nice. if only its base damage wouldnt be so pathetic.

And still no changes to the DS UI, wtf, Anet?

not that i expected anything of this patch…

I imagine the UI is a pretty difficult thing to change.

Heck yeah my axe/focus build got some love! Now I won’t feel like as much of a loser for using them :P

I’m curious as to why people are getting angry at Anet buffing stuff some people don’t use… isn’t one of the chief complaints of this game is that there isn’t enough build variety? If you feel you have access to different weapons with different strengths along with access to more utilities that you find appealing it goes towards solving issues surrounding build diversity.

Now half of what I’m reading is people complaining about them buffing stuff nobody uses. Of course they will. You were complaining that nobody was using it.

I for one, am off to try out axe. Always loved running a focus, but I may finally test out this Axe/Focus combo. Though it’ll be very hard to give up my MH dagger. I freakin’ love that thing.

114 per minion hit, 926 per Blood Fiend hit. That alone is an absolute ton of healing. Including siphon on hit after swap, Blood Magic 15 trait, and healing for 316 per tick on downed 1, I can face tank Chieftain and come out of the fight with 15-20k HP.

Ratphink.4751:

I’m curious as to why people are getting angry at Anet buffing stuff some people don’t use… isn’t one of the chief complaints of this game is that there isn’t enough build variety? If you feel you have access to different weapons with different strengths along with access to more utilities that you find appealing it goes towards solving issues surrounding build diversity.

Now half of what I’m reading is people complaining about them buffing stuff nobody uses. Of course they will. You were complaining that nobody was using it.

I for one, am off to try out axe. Always loved running a focus, but I may finally test out this Axe/Focus combo. Though it’ll be very hard to give up my MH dagger. I freakin’ love that thing.

Its probably not all the same people complaining. Some people value variety more and complain about wanting them to buff less useful options, some people just want to use the stuff that already works well and have it work better. The latter are the ones who are saying “no one uses it so why bother”.

Better axes works for me. Its one of my favorite weapons visually, so having it be more useful beyond “looking cool” is definately a good thing.

zainey.5021:

Overall they made steps mostly in the right direction. Nerfing d/d elementalists is good and I also play an elementalist. The many bug and exploit fixes are all good too. I was getting pretty sick of the engineer crap. It does seem odd that of all the things to buff with necros they helped minion masters but we’ll see it goes.

I agree with you, but the downside is there are no good engineer tournament builds now. The 100nades was annoying, but it was really their only scary build. It was easily avoided and was essentially a melee burst build. It was not really op more annoying. I think engineers and rangers are in a real bad place right now. They are both easily countered with only one or two viable builds and a bunch of really odd skill to trait matches.

I am super excited about the MM buffs. Axe/Focus – Blood Fiend, jagged horror, better boon stripping, better heals!!!! OMG!!! I may never die in pve.

Actually the engineer’s needed a grenade nerf. It’s unfortunate they don’t have another good build, but grenades needed a nerf.

Bhawb.7408:

114 per minion hit, 926 per Blood Fiend hit. That alone is an absolute ton of healing. Including siphon on hit after swap, Blood Magic 15 trait, and healing for 316 per tick on downed 1, I can face tank Chieftain and come out of the fight with 15-20k HP.

Holy crap! it’s that good now? I was seeing massive heals while in tpvp before with minions siphon. I think they just made MM a ton more fun to play and Blood Fiend may now be a viable alternative to Consume conditions.

I am now going to laugh hilariously in dungeons when everyone is going down and I am still kiting and tanking things with my health just sitting.

Bhawb, you have to admit that you are now more than excited about bunkering as a MM, and you may even venture into full berzerker mode with Minions :P. Bunker Killer or Bunker MM – Are we seeing the next version of the BM Ranger Bunker?

On the comment about “reducing aoe” (cleaves, bounces, etc)

Warriors just got an additional cleave (banner auto) to their already long list of cleaves, yet it’s too much for necros to gain 1 through axes.

I’m far too excited for this patch than I realistically should be for a video game. And I am definitely looking forward to playing MM more, it is going to be so much more enjoyable, and I might finally pick up using minions in PvE.