Guild Wars 2

Necros need a minion BUFF, it was the main thing that made necros special. They should have never been nerfed, they could have been fixed but not nerfed. Thanks to alot of whiney individuals, I cannot apreciate the great feeling of a necromancer that I was able to have in the original GW. It felt so good to spawn 12 bone horrors with aura of the lich, Now I can only spawn 6 minions that die instantly. They should add a minion that acts as a foot soldier, they should bring back bone-horrors. you should be able to spam as many as you want, but on the downside, they will die easy, and dont do alot of damage.

Oh hears an idea!! what if they cost life force? what if they depleted lifeforce the same way staffs replenish it, that would seem fair, that way you sacrifice death shroud for minions, stop minion mustering, and promote necro steam roll.

What if it was an alt staff attack, similar to the way eles switch attunement, that would be cool.

Silence, silence everywhere, can you hear it my friend?

Forget minions and imagine they never were as the many other necro, you may start enjoying the necro a little better…. or level an alt mesmer or guardian like myself, now those get some lovin’ ^^

Mesmer, guardian, thief = the new holy trinity.

Trust me necro is my main, I always ditch minions in dungeon. Its just sad that I have to. Necro doesnt feel like necro anymore, I want to try all classes for sure. But i’m hoping arena net will work on minions.

Wait. Minions suck? Well looks like I’m deleting my necro. I really only wanted to play it so I could use a bunch of minions. Oh well I guess that I can always go ranger if I want a pet. sigh.

I want minions to get some love as well. I miss minion mastering. It was my favorite thing to do in Guild Wars 1.

My Suggestions
Fix the “Reanimator” trait. The minion that spawns is useless. One way to make this more useful would be for it to spawn a random minion, a minion that Death Nova’s on death, or a new minion. Maybe one that has a Plague Signet built into it and passes it conditions to foes on death. You could also remove or reduce the 30s cooldown as balance required.

Another suggestions would be put minion skills on recharge as they are cast rather than when minions die. Then allow a cap of 15 minions assuming a 30 death trait tree. Bone minions count as 0.5 of the cap (much like Zerglings in Starcraft II). Then limit each type of minion to maintain balance, cant have 15 golems for example. You could however have 30 Bone Minions and zerg things! Super fun! Then if they have to, balance the detonation with a cooldown so you can’t zerg-bomb things.

Another one would be no hard cap. A soft cap minion population of 50% death tree (15 minions at 30 death) and then each additional minion (16+) consumes a percentage of lifeforce per second or X seconds. This would need to be an optional trait (or Rune) though so people not building for it don’t lose their class mechanic.

Maybe find a balance of what is mentioned above and tune it into “Rune of the Minion Master”. Something like:
(1) +3 Minion Cap
(2) +10% Minion Health
(3) +5 Minion Cap
(4) +15% Minion Damage
(5) +7 Minion Cap
(6) On hit, Minions transfer conditions from themselves to foes. (3s cooldown)

Keep in mind that allowing such high numbers of minions may require the trait of “+20 toughness per minion” to be nerfed or nixxed. Maybe we could trade it for a Vampiric Minions (minions steal life on hit) trait or something reminiscent of Parasitic Bond (transfer conditions to minions passively)

I actually really like the idea of being able to use life force to spawn minions quickly. I mean, Life Force is unique and all, but I sorta find it limited to certain situations. I’d rather much like different ways to spend it other than to always go into Death Shroud. Spending it on minions makes a lot of sense to me…

My Proposal

Create 3 more profession buttons:
F6 – Spawn Bone Horror
Cost: 30% Life Force
Cooldown: 10s
Description: Minion. Necromancer creates a bone horror at its position. The necromancer is allowed a cap or 5 bone horrors out at a time. Bone horrors are a low hp, low dmg melee minion.
F7 – Wrath of the Grave
Cost: 40% Life Force
Cooldown: 40s
Description: Corruption. Necromancer calls the wrath of the grave, granting quickness to the necromancer and all of its minions at the cost of chilling itself.
Quickness (4s)
Chilled (4s)
F8 – Spectral Fury
Cost: 40% Life Force
Cooldown: 30s
Description: Spectral. Necromancer is infused with Spectral Fury, granting itself Fury, Stability, and Might for a limited time.
Might(15s) x1
Fury(15s) x1
Stability(5s)x1

This gives us necromancers access to many boons that we don’t have otherwise and provides us with more unique profession skills like the other professions. Let me know what you guys think.

Kind of changing my mind on my proposal right now. It would be kind of OP if all necro’s received access to quickness and stability by default. I’m going to work up something new now. Thinking basically, 3 different Death Shrouds. The current one, 1 for minions, 1 for condition builds…

nutspanther.2476:

My Proposal

Create 3 more profession buttons:
F6 – Spawn Bone Horror
Cost: 30% Life Force
Cooldown: 10s
Description: Minion. Necromancer creates a bone horror at its position. The necromancer is allowed a cap or 5 bone horrors out at a time. Bone horrors are a low hp, low dmg melee minion.
F7 – Wrath of the Grave
Cost: 40% Life Force
Cooldown: 40s
Description: Corruption. Necromancer calls the wrath of the grave, granting quickness to the necromancer and all of its minions at the cost of chilling itself.
Quickness (4s)
Chilled (4s)
F8 – Spectral Fury
Cost: 40% Life Force
Cooldown: 30s
Description: Spectral. Necromancer is infused with Spectral Fury, granting itself Fury, Stability, and Might for a limited time.
Might(15s) x1
Fury(15s) x1
Stability(5s)x1

This gives us necromancers access to many boons that we don’t have otherwise and provides us with more unique profession skills like the other professions. Let me know what you guys think.

Seems like every time I browse through the Necro forums, I find at least 1 amazing idea that would breathe new life (or perhaps undeath) into the profession. This idea is amazing because it addresses so many issues with one simple stroke of design. I can’t decide which idea is better, this one or the “3 pacts” idea (3 different flavors of death shroud: one for power/crit attacks, one for conditions, and one for minions) which another player posted.

I wish Anet would put more effort in to stuff like this, or at least fixing traits that have been broken since launch but were WORKING in the BETA (I’m looking at you, Deployable Turrets). Alas, it seems Anet’s priorities are more like…

Bots>Bots>Account Security>Bots>Holiday Content>Bots>New Content (fractals)>Eating>Sleeping>Bots>Blogging about anti-bot measures>Bots>Daydreaming>Going to the dentist>Bots>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Fixing trait and skill bugs.

Don’t get me wrong, though… I do appreciate the slaying of bots by the thousands.

Necro minion AI needs to be fixed first so we can accurately gauge minion effectiveness. After that, we can judge the need for buffs/nerfs.

The fact is Minions are just a Summon-Use, Resummon-Reuse Tool, they have nothing special, it’s a raw and flat system; Minion Masters should have a unique mechanic to grow up and mantain an horde of minions without getting too much unbalanced.
I agree on the fact maybe we need a minion working as a foot soldier as Voidrunner suggested and i think it should be Jagged Horrors from the Reanimator trait (with some rework) allowing them to grow in number, increasing attrition, being maybe easier to take out (which balance the fact they’re so many) but having a deterrence system which doesn’t let them die so easily without any consequence (advantage for the necromancer or something negative for the opponent who kills them).. Something like a more incisive Death Nova(or a Malediction, some kind of Berserk, Might or Fury to the Neromancer and his pets,…) or giving the Necromancer more Life Force when they die.
It would be nice that growing the horde would give some important buff, so taking care of it would give some “prize” for doing it (actually in Minion Mancer builds i don’t feel the necessity to keep them alive, if they die, i just resummon them..).

Summing up, Minions aren’t attractive as they are now, they don’t have a deep influence on the player.. the fact the AI is bugged ruins it more.

PS: for God Sake rework the Flesh Golem concept! I’d pay moneys to see a terrifing minion as it was on GW1!

Xenon.4537:

nutspanther.2476:

My Proposal

Create 3 more profession buttons:
F6 – Spawn Bone Horror
Cost: 30% Life Force
Cooldown: 10s
Description: Minion. Necromancer creates a bone horror at its position. The necromancer is allowed a cap or 5 bone horrors out at a time. Bone horrors are a low hp, low dmg melee minion.
F7 – Wrath of the Grave
Cost: 40% Life Force
Cooldown: 40s
Description: Corruption. Necromancer calls the wrath of the grave, granting quickness to the necromancer and all of its minions at the cost of chilling itself.
Quickness (4s)
Chilled (4s)
F8 – Spectral Fury
Cost: 40% Life Force
Cooldown: 30s
Description: Spectral. Necromancer is infused with Spectral Fury, granting itself Fury, Stability, and Might for a limited time.
Might(15s) x1
Fury(15s) x1
Stability(5s)x1

This gives us necromancers access to many boons that we don’t have otherwise and provides us with more unique profession skills like the other professions. Let me know what you guys think.

Seems like every time I browse through the Necro forums, I find at least 1 amazing idea that would breathe new life (or perhaps undeath) into the profession. This idea is amazing because it addresses so many issues with one simple stroke of design. I can’t decide which idea is better, this one or the “3 pacts” idea (3 different flavors of death shroud: one for power/crit attacks, one for conditions, and one for minions) which another player posted.

I wish Anet would put more effort in to stuff like this, or at least fixing traits that have been broken since launch but were WORKING in the BETA (I’m looking at you, Deployable Turrets). Alas, it seems Anet’s priorities are more like…

Bots>Bots>Account Security>Bots>Holiday Content>Bots>New Content (fractals)>Eating>Sleeping>Bots>Blogging about anti-bot measures>Bots>Daydreaming>Going to the dentist>Bots>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Fixing trait and skill bugs.

Don’t get me wrong, though… I do appreciate the slaying of bots by the thousands.

Haha, thanks. Honestly, they were both me and I like either, only issue with the first one is I can see quickness and stability on any build we want being considered OP.

Other than the Flesh Golem, all 4 other minion skills are useless in wvw. That’s 4/16, 25% of our available utilities skills being useless. They die way too fast to be of any use. In fact they often slow down your running speed and prevent you from escaping.

Minions are also useless in PvE dungeons. If these overpowered mobs can one hit kill you, trust me they can one hit kill your minions too. In fact, all 5 of them would die with one AoE nuke.

Even Flesh Golem is useless except for that charge skill. That allows it to knock down a bunch of foes before dying a few seconds later.

Hello I really like to play as a summoner necromancer. After playing enough time I encountered the following problems:
- Minions is not listening to me. I understand they must attack my target, but in reality they are attack someone want, or just stay at in place. Why not do a panel like hunter pets?
- Minions not restores life in not fight. Who invented it? Why in the next battle I must enter weakened? Flesh golem restored life!
Please take a necromancer minions more comfortable in the game. Thank you for your attention.

P.S.Sry for my eng.

It would be cool for all of these ideas to come true, i mean the reason i bought this was because i saw the first games necromancer and it was amazing because i love necros but there are so little in gaming and then i heard the second game was about to come out so i waited to buy this one thinking the necro was going to be even more of a boss. The whole idea of a Necromancer is to summon summon summon…. and a little life transfer. Why not give us like 16 minions at once with caps or maybe add more types of minions, fix the AI, and give a control panel where we could bind a few summons to one key for attack or heal. And also give either a better healing summon or a different one. I would also like to see death with a hood and a sythe as our elite as a summon and golem to be 3rd tier instead. Or maybe give us a weapon set where we get a sythe and, 1 could be slash, slash again, and then a small life transfer ( thieves have poison as a combo why cant we have a small life transfer) it could also summon weak minions that could be hellhounds or a walking hand. We could also have minions like a skeleton knight soldier that would bleed or a cursed ghost that would chill. We shouldnt also have to use up one utility skill for a weak mionion that will die in the first attack we should have the class things such as F1 could be summon bone minion.

Vadavim.6409:

I actually really like the idea of being able to use life force to spawn minions quickly. I mean, Life Force is unique and all, but I sorta find it limited to certain situations. I’d rather much like different ways to spend it other than to always go into Death Shroud. Spending it on minions makes a lot of sense to me…

Instead of using life force we could have a different bar for this.

It would really help if flesh golems can survive swimming. I don’t need them to attack. Just don’e die in water. It would make wvw much more enjoyable.

the problem with the minions are that their life pool is very short , their damage output is low also and lastly their ai and pathing is down right a joke . arena net will not fix these issues , i don’t see why people dont understand that. they are to busy working on events and other things that don’t relate to the necro class. if you want to play a character that has "minions " play a mesmer because they are the true pet class in the game . rangers come 2nd as for necro minions . dont expect anything anytime soon from anet

change Reanimator – > “whenever a minion dies, a Jagged Horror spawns at that location. Jagged Horrors have retaliation.”

Then swap it out with something like Dark Armor, making it an optional trait.

Minion masters get something good to take that helps make minions useful even when they kitten and get splattered.

Non-Minion masters aren’t shoehorned into a minion trait.

Win-win.

-blood fiend gets a 200% “buff” to it’s health steal that doesn’t actually get applied (still old value)
-Minion AI (which has been buggy since BWE1) still hasn’t been fixed
-bone minion putrid explosion still has a 3 second delay when it activates combo fields
-the number of ticks on death nova is bugged
-bosses with AOE mechanics that scale with number of allies shut minions completely out of many dungeon paths.

There are many issues with minions that need to be fixed before any buffs can happen sadly. How long it’s gonna take for us to actually get these fixes could take a substantial amount of time (look at shadow form in GW1).

striker.3704:

-bosses with AOE mechanics that scale with number of allies shut minions completely out of many dungeon paths.

Check this thread. If the boss or challenge you’re thinking of isn’t listed there already, write a post about it!

These are all great ideas. Arena-Net needs to make sure that necro’s are the guys that bring the armies, the meat shields and the diversion.

the only thing I’m happy with is that the minions don’t die over time.

Minions AI need to be fix’d as soonas possible, ‘cuz only place it is not useless is Hot Join games. In TPvP it is not so effective as i could be.
Don’t realy understand why you guys what to play MM in WvW, i think power/condition Necro will be ther much better, ’cuz you kill easily zergs.
As for PvE necro in my opinion has no issues, I think in PvE no class has any issues ,because PvE is too kitten easy.

Once a month this thread pops up. Minion AI isnt an issue, the issue is general NPC AI through anet. Half the ideas are way overpowered. If you are struggling or disagree with minion ai. Here is a simple guide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riyMsBRxXHs

Bas.7406:

Once a month this thread pops up. Minion AI isnt an issue, the issue is general NPC AI through anet. Half the ideas are way overpowered. If you are struggling or disagree with minion ai. Here is a simple guide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riyMsBRxXHs

Short Version:

Staff or Axe Autoattack Twice changes minion focus nearly every time. Scepter autoattack is slightly less reliable. Pathing issues are pathing issues, and don’t really have anything to do with AI problems, but will make the AI look like it isn’t listening.

nutspanther.2476:

Kind of changing my mind on my proposal right now. It would be kind of OP if all necro’s received access to quickness and stability by default. I’m going to work up something new now. Thinking basically, 3 different Death Shrouds. The current one, 1 for minions, 1 for condition builds…

a thief dodges and has haste ? that dosent seem op? oh and lets not forget he also loses conditions all in one simple dodge ?

Necros have to use heal or minion traits to remove conditions both depending on either casting heal or having live minions

Or staff 4, or entering death shroud, or plague signet, or Well of Power, or Deathly Swarm, in addition to our heal and minions. We have the most condition cleansing of any class.

nutspanther.2476:

Kind of changing my mind on my proposal right now. It would be kind of OP if all necro’s received access to quickness and stability by default. I’m going to work up something new now. Thinking basically, 3 different Death Shrouds. The current one, 1 for minions, 1 for condition builds…

A shroud for condition builds is basically our underwater shroud set as is.

Criselli.7462:

nutspanther.2476:

Kind of changing my mind on my proposal right now. It would be kind of OP if all necro’s received access to quickness and stability by default. I’m going to work up something new now. Thinking basically, 3 different Death Shrouds. The current one, 1 for minions, 1 for condition builds…

A shroud for condition builds is basically our underwater shroud set as is.

Underwater Shroud is so amazing. Group Cleanse, Condi Transfer Autoattack, Cone Fear, AoE Blind/Poison. It just screams support!

I actually like it better than the ground level one. Biggest gripe I have about underwater is that there’s no ground-target skills, but it’s not such a big deal.

necros were also supposed to have 3 bone minions well surprise u get 2 only and they usualy insta die

3 bone minions was too strong. If you play soldier MM right, you can already brute force most builds down, another bone minion means a bit more siphoning, a bit more toughness, a bit more damage on hit, and (most importantly), another explosion. That extra explosion is another 3k damage+death nova+combo finisher, it would be too much.

Bhawb.7408:

3 bone minions was too strong. If you play soldier MM right, you can already brute force most builds down, another bone minion means a bit more siphoning, a bit more toughness, a bit more damage on hit, and (most importantly), another explosion. That extra explosion is another 3k damage+death nova+combo finisher, it would be too much.

yea and 2 are way to weak they are usualy the 1 st ones that get killed in all situations

You aren’t supposed to have them out auto attacking much, you wait for them to take a bit of damage, then blow them up when its convenient or before they die, whichever comes first. I’ve run bone minions since beta, I don’t have an issue with them blowing up, you just need to watch their HP (MMs are all about the micro managing).