Guild Wars 2

Is it possible to play Necromancer effectively without ever touch minions/pets?

Further to what Justine said, not only is it possible, it’s generally considered that minions are relatively low damage, and their AI is poor, so other than the CC and sustained damage of the flesh golem, they don’t fit that well into most builds.

Yes.
I don’t run with any minion skill because I just don’t use any of the skills that have them.

Minions are like training wheels. They add a lot of automatic dps and sustain in PvE. Use them to learn how Necromancer works. Then, put them away and try builds without them. Later, you will learn which minions to add to your build and when.

You can play a necro with whatever you want really… But if you’re looking to min/max your damage output, you’ll be using Flesh Golem for your elite and Blood Fiend or your healing skill.

That said, minions are quite helpful for doing things like soloing dungeons. Boss attacks still hit really hard, so having them target minions instead gives you plenty of time to build your life force for when they do actually target you.

Some minions are worth the slot, but like most skills it’s all a bit situational…

Bone Fiend – Fires two bolts with 100% projectile finisher bonus. If the encounter has classes who maintain lots of combo fields this will result in a serious contribution to damage in the long run.

Shadow Fiend – Has an on-use Blind effect, which with talents can be used to apply bleed stacks. Not exactly massive damage but handy if line of sight is a bit ropey or range becomes an issue.

Personally I would rather stand over a fallen corpse and reanimate it in skeletal form. I really wouldn’t even mind if it hit like a wet noodle; anything would look and feel better than the current minions.

PS: Shadow Fiend also generates life force on use, every 20 seconds, which is not a negligible contribution to more reaper use, etc.

I wish minion mancers didn’t exist. It’s difficult to even target the necro and it turns into a utter FusterCluck if there are two on the same point.

EnderzShadow.2506:

I wish minion mancers didn’t exist. It’s difficult to even target the necro and it turns into a utter FusterCluck if there are two on the same point.

Hit “tab” once and you immedietly get the Necro.

Burst down the blood fiend and watch the necro perish.