Guild Wars 2

I think we should let ourselves be heard more. Minions were working just fine on release. But since a few patches they have been completely and utterly ruined. They just stand around doing nothing. I have completely removed minions from my build now, because they are useless.

This problem also affects minions summoned by Lich Form, which again is a skill on the Lich Form -skillbar you might as well not use at all. The first thing that happens when a necro in Lich Form summons Bone Minions, is they run away from the target, and then stand around doing nothing.

This was working fine on release, but it was broken with an update. Anet, this should have high priority. And we necromancers should be more vocal about it. The thing with the downstate health is also bad, don’t get me wrong. But this is an entire line of skills and traits that is now made useless. We should be angry about this. This is not what we spent money on originally.

I’m more angry at the lack of communication from Anet to the Necro community. Looking at the last 35 PAGES of threads, over 1000 topics, there are only 4 responses from Anet.

1 is from closing a thread
1 is from a thread started 6 months ago where the Necro community sent a “bugged” cake to Anet
1 is about Epidemic
1 is about the new DS #5

So there’s only been 2 game mechanic feedback posts out of the thousand threads.

Does anyone know who is the Necro expert from Anet? Do they still work there?

there are people like me who rage on forums quite a bit, ive been banned multiple times trying to get anets attention because they can’t design a class properly.

I think the majority of people have just had enough of trying to ask for fixes for the past 9 months or w/e and now just accept it, anything we do get is just icing on the cake.
Hell i don’t even rage that much anymore because im just accepting how bad this company is at class balance.

Try pressing one.

I’ve been suspended so many times I lost count. Not once have I even come close to actually doing something offensive. 7 out of 10 times I criticized anet in a very polite way… but some folks can’t deal with it. But then again its actually rare even for moderator clowns to show up here… Try making a critique in event sub-forum.
I remember I posted screenshot of karka event at last stage and the “server will shut down in…5…4…3” Got suspended for 2 weeks in about… 2 minutes. Post didn’t include text lol.

Obviously I don’t want anyone to get suspended. But maybe we should try and draw their attention to this rather big problem. I can’t see any reason why anyone would want to play a minion master at this point, since the minions don’t attack when you need them to. What we have now, is a nice skillbar full of mini pets.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Obviously I don’t want anyone to get suspended. But maybe we should try and draw their attention to this rather big problem. I can’t see any reason why anyone would want to play a minion master at this point, since the minions don’t attack when you need them to. What we have now, is a nice skillbar full of mini pets.

xD nice one!xD

HiSaZuL.2843:

I’ve been suspended so many times I lost count. Not once have I even come close to actually doing something offensive. 7 out of 10 times I criticized anet in a very polite way… but some folks can’t deal with it. But then again its actually rare even for moderator clowns to show up here… Try making a critique in event sub-forum.
I remember I posted screenshot of karka event at last stage and the “server will shut down in…5…4…3” Got suspended for 2 weeks in about… 2 minutes. Post didn’t include text lol.

I’m in the same boat. I will admit I’ve made some pointed comments after feeling completely abandoned by anet but I have never posted anything offensive and have had multiple posts deleted, edited, and infracted. Its getting to the point that it seems like the only thing that is accepted is blind praise and anything pointing out legitimate flaws in a constructive manner is punished. I’ve been trying to think of other avenues to be heard as a community but I am far from a viral savvy person. They should realize most of us are posting because we love the game and want to see it succeed and not dwindle due to bugs, broken mechanics, and poor balance.

Mammoth.1975:

Try pressing one.

As a (kind of) minion master necro, what i’m most angry about atm considering minions, is not that they are a bit stupid, but that this was in the april 30 patch note: “Summoned creatures and pets can no longer draw aggro from enemies that have not already aggroed on their master” and it doesn’t seem to be working at all. Or did i misunderstand something? This is supposed to mean that if i run past something that doesn’t agro on me, but my minion runs closer to it, the minion still shouldn’t draw aggro, cause i’m farther and haven’t drawn aggro… right?
Apart from this, the only annoying thing is when i’m using staff and auto-attack from a distance, only half of the minions will run to the target, the other half will just stand right next to me and watch the others or i dunno.

I am upset about alot of things i think you can see by the last tournament where not one team ran a Necro just where things are with the class at the moment.

They need to fix the lack of

-Stability
-Mobility
-Minion Ai

This is not even taking into consideration traits and the like, They make a big deal about Necromancer has a lot of different specs that can be played and yet you only really see one viable build in tournament play(conditionmancer) and you don even see that because teams would rather take something else.

Its pretty kitten really.

First, if you are getting suspended, its probably because you are going about asking for changes in a toxic way. I’ve seen a lot of the posts made by people who complain of being suspended, and they are widely abusive and vulgar. Cut out the needless aggression and you could get your point across without being punished.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Obviously I don’t want anyone to get suspended. But maybe we should try and draw their attention to this rather big problem. I can’t see any reason why anyone would want to play a minion master at this point, since the minions don’t attack when you need them to. What we have now, is a nice skillbar full of mini pets.

I’ve mained MM since BWEs, and I’ve had a lot of success. Not to say their AI is perfect because it isn’t, I’ve had Flesh Golem sit around plenty of times which makes me lose out on DPS, and they need to fix it. But honestly I can work with their AI if they are fixing other things to make Necros more viable in PvP. I think the first change they need to make is to increase Flesh Wurm’s teleport to a much higher range (5000? bring it in line with portal), and make it able to port to that location regardless of where you are, but then make it placed at your feet to avoid abuse (unless they can manage to avoid abuse without it).

MMs aren’t used at a high level in large part due to the need to be mobile to off-point defend (which is where they are best), and their huge weakness in team fights to AoE.

Xaragon.3520:

I am upset about alot of things i think you can see by the last tournament where not one team ran a Necro just where things are with the class at the moment.

They need to fix the lack of

-Stability
-Mobility
-Minion Ai

This is not even taking into consideration traits and the like, They make a big deal about Necromancer has a lot of different specs that can be played and yet you only really see one viable build in tournament play(conditionmancer) and you don even see that because teams would rather take something else.

Its pretty kitten really.

The real problem at high level play is that there are so few people the meta is incredibly stale. There aren’t hundreds of Necros, there are like 10 at most, and almost all of them play Condi. That means people aren’t looking at MM builds, power builds, hybrid builds, etc. they are just seeing a bunch of condi necros. In EU condi necros are in trouble because all the necros there (to my knowledge) have essentially the same playstyle, and right now that playstyle is hard-countered by the condi removal meta.

It has nothing to do with how necros could actually perform, but how they are seen as performing, and the complete lack of people playing to change that opinion.

The flesh golem…. jeez that thing likes to stand around A LOT, and I have no clue why it can’t be used underwater. Even if I want to swim across a bit of deep water it auto kills it which is really annoying.

I also hate how they don’t warp to you like a ranger pet when jumping off a ledge. Sometimes they do, but most of the time they like to take the long way around while aggroing everything along the way.

Bhawb.7408:

The real problem at high level play is that there are so few people the meta is incredibly stale. There aren’t hundreds of Necros, there are like 10 at most, and almost all of them play Condi. That means people aren’t looking at MM builds, power builds, hybrid builds, etc. they are just seeing a bunch of condi necros. In EU condi necros are in trouble because all the necros there (to my knowledge) have essentially the same playstyle, and right now that playstyle is hard-countered by the condi removal meta.

It has nothing to do with how necros could actually perform, but how they are seen as performing, and the complete lack of people playing to change that opinion.

They’ve been tested. Its just been shown to be sub par. There are plenty of people left playing. If they actually fix the AI, then maybe it will be shown that minions aren’t bad, but no one is going to put their faith in a bunch of skills that even have the “chance” to bug out.

Bhawb.7408:

First, if you are getting suspended, its probably because you are going about asking for changes in a toxic way. I’ve seen a lot of the posts made by people who complain of being suspended, and they are widely abusive and vulgar. Cut out the needless aggression and you could get your point across without being punished.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Obviously I don’t want anyone to get suspended. But maybe we should try and draw their attention to this rather big problem. I can’t see any reason why anyone would want to play a minion master at this point, since the minions don’t attack when you need them to. What we have now, is a nice skillbar full of mini pets.

I’ve mained MM since BWEs, and I’ve had a lot of success. Not to say their AI is perfect because it isn’t, I’ve had Flesh Golem sit around plenty of times which makes me lose out on DPS, and they need to fix it. But honestly I can work with their AI if they are fixing other things to make Necros more viable in PvP. I think the first change they need to make is to increase Flesh Wurm’s teleport to a much higher range (5000? bring it in line with portal), and make it able to port to that location regardless of where you are, but then make it placed at your feet to avoid abuse (unless they can manage to avoid abuse without it).

MMs aren’t used at a high level in large part due to the need to be mobile to off-point defend (which is where they are best), and their huge weakness in team fights to AoE.

Xaragon.3520:

I am upset about alot of things i think you can see by the last tournament where not one team ran a Necro just where things are with the class at the moment.

They need to fix the lack of

-Stability
-Mobility
-Minion Ai

This is not even taking into consideration traits and the like, They make a big deal about Necromancer has a lot of different specs that can be played and yet you only really see one viable build in tournament play(conditionmancer) and you don even see that because teams would rather take something else.

Its pretty kitten really.

The real problem at high level play is that there are so few people the meta is incredibly stale. There aren’t hundreds of Necros, there are like 10 at most, and almost all of them play Condi. That means people aren’t looking at MM builds, power builds, hybrid builds, etc. they are just seeing a bunch of condi necros. In EU condi necros are in trouble because all the necros there (to my knowledge) have essentially the same playstyle, and right now that playstyle is hard-countered by the condi removal meta.

It has nothing to do with how necros could actually perform, but how they are seen as performing, and the complete lack of people playing to change that opinion.

I have to disagree, You have had top level players on your show disagreeing.
Personally i play power and i love it but to say any of the issues are not key issues is just wrong .

Its just other classes have more to offer at this moment in time and necro’s need to catch up in certain area’s

I like minion builds as well but the pets are unreliable.

In response to Bhawbs wurm change, all they would need to do to avoid exploitation is increase port range and keep cast range as is. I think itd be a nice change until all good players learned wurm hiding spots.

Unfortunately a buff like that would require an increased recharge on builds already vulnerable to CDs if moa’d/or facing mass aoe

Huh? I’ve heard complaints about the minions but as far as I can see I press 1 and they go attack the thing I have targeted. Yeah sometimes they get stuck places but I’ve never played a game with minions that don’t get stuck. You guys want they should just be able to steamroll everything without user intervention or something?

rizzo.1079:

Huh? I’ve heard complaints about the minions but as far as I can see I press 1 and they go attack the thing I have targeted. Yeah sometimes they get stuck places but I’ve never played a game with minions that don’t get stuck. You guys want they should just be able to steamroll everything without user intervention or something?

Use them outside of sPvP and you’ll see exactly what everyone is talking about. They’re especially spazstick in WvW for some reason.

I’m just past being angry and just kind of find it comedic. The thing is, the fewer players play Necros, the less incentive there is to actually maintain the class and then the fewer players play Necros. Whereas if you have one or two woobie classes then you keep the other classes happier because they’ll never be bottom rung.

Roll an alt, I say.

Edit: Then again, they did just acknowledge our downed hp problem. Maybe there’s hope yet! Flagellates self

Kravick.4906:

rizzo.1079:

Huh? I’ve heard complaints about the minions but as far as I can see I press 1 and they go attack the thing I have targeted. Yeah sometimes they get stuck places but I’ve never played a game with minions that don’t get stuck. You guys want they should just be able to steamroll everything without user intervention or something?

Use them outside of sPvP and you’ll see exactly what everyone is talking about. They’re especially spazstick in WvW for some reason.

I only play PvE, they never stand around for me after I’ve pressed 1 unless they’re stuck on something, which is rare and the places they stick are understandable. I’ve only leveled my necro in the past month or so though, am I missing something they did in the past that they don’t do now?

Hanzo.9624:

Mammoth.1975:

Try pressing one.

try it with a dagger, minions won’t move a bit

vicious.5683:

Hanzo.9624:

Mammoth.1975:

Try pressing one.

try it with a dagger, minions won’t move a bit

I would put a bug report in then, that’s not correct functionality. Staff and scepter/dagger work just fine.

rizzo.1079:

vicious.5683:

Hanzo.9624:

Mammoth.1975:

Try pressing one.

try it with a dagger, minions won’t move a bit

I would put a bug report in then, that’s not correct functionality. Staff and scepter/dagger work just fine.

it’s working as intended. You have to hit the target with auto atack so as a dagger user, you have to engage in melee combat before your minions start to think about to help.

Ah there you go then, you solved your own problem!

Mammoth.1975:

Try pressing one.

Usually works fine for the bone fiend. Wish I could say the same for the golem and the shade. As an axe user I had the shade attack in about one out of ten fights so I just stopped using him entirely. Luckily I was never a big fan.

rizzo.1079:

Ah there you go then, you solved your own problem!

it’s not a problem, just a complaint =P

but this “just press 1” should work for dagger too.

I see why it doesn’t though, I’d rather have my minions attack only the mob I specifically tell them to attack rather than a mob I target that’s outside my weapon range.

Every Minion [exept wurm] has AI problems :
-bones : mostly even when Golem is starting to attck, they are chilling and aint moving
-fiend : need range decreasing , because immobility skill isn’t mostly working (even when necro is in melee range)
-Shadow: takes him to long time to respond (skill or attacking)
-Golem: well, personaly I never had problems with him in pvp.
-All: if you fight mesmer + clones/Engi + turrent or smth that have pet, Minions often will attack not your target ,but instead pet/turrents/clones

Xaragon.3520:

I have to disagree, You have had top level players on your show disagreeing.
Personally i play power and i love it but to say any of the issues are not key issues is just wrong .

Its just other classes have more to offer at this moment in time and necro’s need to catch up in certain area’s

I like minion builds as well but the pets are unreliable.

I’ve talked to those people on the show. They don’t feel like Minion builds are good in high level tournaments for two reasons:
1) Exploitable AI (a good MM can get around this, and I do all the time. Note that this isn’t about AI bugs where they don’t aggro, but purposely doing something to bug a minion out)
2) AoE spamming. This is why I don’t think full minion builds in their current state can work in higher level tournaments. Full minion builds work around having your own mobs that do consistent control, pressure, and added survivability. They die so quickly to AoE though that this kind of playstyle doesn’t work out well. Minion hybrids (what I run), work much better because they don’t rely on minions living very long, you use them for their control, then let them die if they happen to (ranged ones die rarely so thats not a big issue).

You also have to realize that at the end of any talk, they have all admitted that they have never used minions often, nor really tried to make them work. They might have messed around with them once or twice, but there are no high level players (to my knowledge) that play minions consistently. Gibbly is the only high level player that I know of that actually made a solid minion build to use.

Also, realize when I say minions I don’t mean a super generic 20/0/20/20/0 build with your 6-0 slots all being minions, I’m talking about any build that was made with the purpose to use minions as some main focal point of the build. I don’t run full minion slots in my builds unless I’m on specific maps, but minions in the right setup can be a really nasty build for certain purposes.

I don’t care how you try to justify it Bhawb. Minions aren’t anything but a gimmick at this point. People have tried, and they just don’t work. You sacrifice way to much for what little they give you, and if they die, you lose not only your utility slot, but your traits as well.

as they die a lot, minion skills should have shorter CD’s and casting times

Totally agree on casting times. They already have very short CDs, lowering them much more borders on removing the main counterplay of the build.

I’d like to see some acknowledgement from Anet about issues with the AI and that a fix is being worked out, but from the hundreds of threads I’ve never seen a response to this specific issue.

No bhawb being constructive, positive and respectful while giving criticism doesn’t grantee anything depending on where the criticism is made.
Last time I seriosly tried to make a coherent list of problems in a specific scenario was back in Halloween event. I didn’t even ask for changes, balance, directed anything towards anyone. Simply made a list of broken/buggy encounters. Unfortunetly that included item mall. About 7 posts that replied to mine or quoted it agreeing with it got deleted and even the guy who simply said “I can confirm that happens” all got suspended I got even a few pms from those folks. Ironically most took it pretty well just being amused by mods. Some weren’t amused but well… >_>
Anyway… at some point people loose interest if they unconsciously develop the feeling that no matter how and what they present to the table it will be brushed off as rubbish if it’s not something the party in charge cares for. Think how many long standing necro forum goes have dissapeared in last 4 months. There used to be so much interesting info on these boards. There were some epic theorycrafting discussions, bug debates, ideas, speculations, lore debates. It’s all gone. All that’s left for the most part are questions from new blood or complaints about something.

We are angry, but what can you do but beat your head against the door. The minion AI is coded poorly, and they are bewildered on how to fix it, or else they would have fixed it. I think if the minion problems were as easy as changing a description of a skill, the devs would be all over it, but i think it has their head scratching. To be honest, the kitten minions should respond immediatley to my button press and attack the char/mob i have targeted. its pretty kitten simple in concept, but i guess it is hard in code. That said, I don’t think they really give a rats kitten I think they are only concerned around balancing 5v5, and right now, in their point of view, it is close to balanced. So, no, they won’t worry about necro minion ai, because if someone choses to mix that minions with what already works on a necro (with fixed AI), necros will domi0nate and break their balance, and they will be forced to … oh no, do some work and take a serious look at their game.

However, who cares, its 9 months after release, approaching 10, and they dont care.

They fixed moa abuse against lich/plague/ds by changing necro skill description :P

I too looked forward to playing with minions when I started playing. I ended up putting the necro on hold so and played a ranger instead because the pet AI worked consistently. Also the fact that flesh golem dies every time i try to cross a river to the next objective is nothing more than an annoyance!

any kind of dev comment saying its on their agenda would at least give me hope.

so WoW and DAoC both had a way to directly control minions. Unless i am missing something why doesn’t GW2?

Because they don’t want to. We had less control in GW1, they would attack everything in a certain area that was red, and there wasn’t a thing you could do to make them change their mind except kill every, single thing that you came across. The only difference was that they were at least guaranteed to be bloodthirsty, they really never had issues with sitting around.

Never liked idea of undead minions being controllable. But that’s not the issue.
To make an example I’ll use a mostly terrible game with a pretty good summoning class, all things considered. Hellgate London. Class had not a single class ability that did actual damage except for shooting your left/right gun. Everything and I mean everything dealt exclusively with either summoning minions or maintaining them.
Here…. your minions definitely feel like rotting carcases in more ways then one. And you never have any idea what they are going to do… will they get paranoid and run away? Decide to have a picnic? Attack invisible enemies?(Oh yes I’ve seen golem go around attacking invisible things… Only reason i even remember that winter event with a miniature snow glob city thing. Golem just loved getting stuck standing and endlessly whacking on something that you didn’t see). Will they just die in a single attack? Will they survive a fight with 1 hp each and die in the next fight when someone sneezes?
That dungeon for molten alliance nonsense… molten armory or what even they are called. Every single last pull has aoe mobs that 1 shot all minions. You can’t honestly say that there is anyone in anet who plays necro after something like that.

Bhawb.7408:

Because they don’t want to. We had less control in GW1, they would attack everything in a certain area that was red, and there wasn’t a thing you could do to make them change their mind except kill every, single thing that you came across. The only difference was that they were at least guaranteed to be bloodthirsty, they really never had issues with sitting around.

Also there was no in and out of combat and if a single minion died pretty much everything in a current GW2 range systems 600 range would just fall over dead from the chain reaction of nova, bile, barbs and mark of pain.

HiSaZuL.2843:

Think how many long standing necro forum goes have dissapeared in last 4 months. There used to be so much interesting info on these boards. There were some epic theorycrafting discussions, bug debates, ideas, speculations, lore debates. It’s all gone. All that’s left for the most part are questions from new blood or complaints about something.

I don’t know if you’re wearing rose-tinted glasses or if you’re just making kitten up because it suits your point of view, but the necro forum has always been just a giant whinefest, even in beta. There’s about half a dozen rational posters, and that’s all there’s ever been.

Mammoth.1975:

HiSaZuL.2843:

Think how many long standing necro forum goes have dissapeared in last 4 months. There used to be so much interesting info on these boards. There were some epic theorycrafting discussions, bug debates, ideas, speculations, lore debates. It’s all gone. All that’s left for the most part are questions from new blood or complaints about something.

I don’t know if you’re wearing rose-tinted glasses or if you’re just making kitten up because it suits your point of view, but the necro forum has always been just a giant whinefest, even in beta. There’s about half a dozen rational posters, and that’s all there’s ever been.

Forums didnt exist in beta, first 3 necro posts were question what build to use, starting a bug list and a question does shadow fiend look to you like a black sperm too or is it just me (that i to this day cherish because it made me pay attention to the kitten minions a bit to notice how bad they are).

Andele.1306:

Mammoth.1975:

HiSaZuL.2843:

Think how many long standing necro forum goes have dissapeared in last 4 months. There used to be so much interesting info on these boards. There were some epic theorycrafting discussions, bug debates, ideas, speculations, lore debates. It’s all gone. All that’s left for the most part are questions from new blood or complaints about something.

I don’t know if you’re wearing rose-tinted glasses or if you’re just making kitten up because it suits your point of view, but the necro forum has always been just a giant whinefest, even in beta. There’s about half a dozen rational posters, and that’s all there’s ever been.

Forums didnt exist in beta, first 3 necro posts were question what build to use, starting a bug list and a question does shadow fiend look to you like a black sperm too or is it just me (that i to this day cherish because it made me pay attention to the kitten minions a bit to notice how bad they are).

Maybe I’m thinking of headstart. The bug list in itself had tons of thinly veiled whining after a few pages, people claiming obviously intended behaviour was bugged. The point remains. This forum has been filled to overflowing with whiners since day 1.

*No, it was definitely beta. They were up for bwe2, and reset of course on release. Actually, they were up for bwe1 too, and frozen in between the beta weekends so you could read them but not post.

Shameless plug for you condimancers out there that don’t believe MM can be used. I personally don’t like MM in tPvP outside of this build and thats frankly because I treat them like they are dead.

They are not the cornerstone of the build because in PvP, like siphoning, they cannot fit varied roles if they are your main focus. I trait for 20% recharge and poison on death, nothing more. Use them sacrificially and rely on your condition damage and you can work wonders 1v1 or with group debuffing. Constant aoe poison, bleed, weakness, and chill.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/The-Hungerer-tPvP-condi-roamer/first#post2021997

I actually just used a variation of what I used in the all-necro tournament with the SOAC team, and it was working very well (despite my badness). The key is, like you say, treat most of them as expendable. Don’t rely entirely on them, don’t try to stack your entire build with them, but in the right builds they can be very strong.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Pet-Control-Window/first#post2072837

If you really care about the necromancer class, comment on this thread about having a box to control your pets better.

I give you this:

Try pressing one.

And also:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Necromancer-pets-will-not-always-attack/page/2#post2059121

2nd page about halfway down. There’s your answer. Stop complaining already.

Most were quite disappointed with the minion AI, and people just gave up on trying to get Anets attention.
They don`t care.
They barely even reply here, but if, god forbid, you request them to look into it, the mods will slap you with infractions within minutes.
The best thing you can do is to not use any of the garbage on the gemstore, or any gems at all. Maybe if enough people do it they will realize they need to pay more attention to their customers.

I actually thought people were whining over nothing as minions do seem to be reactive enough in pvp and that is where I started playing with them… Then I tried WvW as mm. Yeah, fix this kitten please