Guild Wars 2

So it was announced they will introduce new skills into the game, and it got me thinking about how they could make minions more interesting and varied. Currently, there are two ways to play with minions, one is a symbiotic relationship, they keep you alive, you keep them alive, the other is less care-bear; minions are there for their utility and damage until they die, which then causes bad effects.

One is built around the idea of basically using minions as Health/Condition batteries, siphoning conditions off you, healing you with every hit, and otherwise being there as extensions of you. This is built completely around the idea of sustaining a small army of minions, which then sustain you back. Blood Fiend is the embodiment of this group, the longer you keep him alive, the longer he will keep you alive, with very high sustain, however the cost of him dying is large.

The other is built around using them very much like utilities. You summon them, use them for their utility purposes (their actives) and then when they die it isn’t much bigger of a deal than when any of your other utilities goes on CD. Bone minions are the embodiment of this group, they are summoned specifically for their active which kills them, their only use in living is dying at the appropriate time and place.

I feel like both groups could be done better though, and I think introducing new skills would work towards this. I’m not the first to come up with this, but there are a few minion ideas that I think would work nicely.

For the first, I’d love to see a version of Vampiric Horror, except that every basic attack is a life steal for himself. And also a “tank” minion, one with very high HP and toughness, but does not do lots of damage.

The second I think is pretty close to where it needs to be, once they fix up minions in general. Not saying nothing could be added here, but I feel like the current minions fill in this area nicely.

Also, I think a lot of people would like to see a minion “factory” type playstyle. Essentially summon lots of really crappy minions, not caring if they die. I’m not 100% sure if this would fit into the game as is, or if it fits into the design wanted by the developers, but if they put in appropriate limits, I think a jagged horror summon, and/or a shambling horror summon (a minion that spawns a jagged on death), we could see more playstyles about just bringing out lots and lots of minions.

Anyway, I’d love to hear what people think about this. Minions are a fairly core part of our design right now, so I’d like to see if there are minion-centric playstyles I missed (that are valid within GW2, and are not overriding someone another summon class has). Am I right in the three styles? Did I miss anything? Feedback? Thanks.

Edit: wow that was more than I planned to write.
TL;DR what new minions would you like to see?

any minions that i could actually be able to control!

I’m a royal MM ( in both gw1 and gw2 ) XD
My build http://tinyurl.com/qeztlzz
I find both conditionmancer ( wells and epdimic >> long cd ) and powermancer ( spectral ) are weaker than MM.
I really hope that ANet add new minions skill ( from a torch > flaming ones XD ).

as for minions i would like some humanoids…since we have all defeted zaitan and he is not anymore the controler of all the undead…right? :p or some custom humanoid undead creature anyway…

I’d personally like to see more monsterous looking minions with spikes and what not. Maybe a mini version of Zhaitan. I also like the idea of it being a tank.

Hopefully they introduce more traits that compliment the minions in general though.

@Bhawb:
“One is built around the idea of basically using minions as Health/Condition batteries, siphoning conditions off you, healing you with every hit, and otherwise being there as extensions of you. This is built completely around the idea of sustaining a small army of minions, which then sustain you back. Blood Fiend is the embodiment of this group, the longer you keep him alive, the longer he will keep you alive, with very high sustain, however the cost of him dying is large.”

Could you please explain this build/gear to me more? I’ve only heard about the “utility” type MM.

PM if you want so that the thread doesn’t get derailed.

We have a trait for minions to blow up in a poison cloud but I would like them to spam boon AoE like Stability, Protection, heal, Vigor, Aegis, and so on when they die. That would really be attractive for group support and in improving performance of tank builds. It would be even nicer if Death Magic GM proc’d a minion-specific boon on death and Blood Magic’s GM made minion special attacks siphon a little health, too.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

…

So there are different ways to build this group, however the key traits are Necromatic Corruption, Fetid Consumption, and Vampiric Master. That isn’t to say you need all 3, or can’t run them in other builds, but the idea is that you have minions who do a lot for you while alive, and are built around the idea of keeping them alive and autoing as much as possible.

So a build example could be 20/0/20/30/0, with staff (greater marks) and axe/dagger and focus. Staff/focus keeps up some regen, staff 4 pulls off conditions (except its bugged now), and those extend the life of your minions. So if you keep up, say 5 minions, each time they attack you’ll get HP, for every minion up you lose 1 condition per 10 seconds. So while they are alive, they keep you alive, and in turn you try to keep them alive. It is similar to what BM Bunker Ranger’s used to do, but you are more active in needing to keep them up.

@Anchoku, we aren’t getting boons like thakittens just counter to our design.

Also what about an ability like Summon Jagged Horror – summons one jagged horror (max 5), 15s CD. Every time it is up you can use it to summon a new jagged horror.

Also, someone had mentioned something like they have in Starcraft, a unit that you could plant and have it spawn minions. Summon Shambling Horror – summons one shambling horror, on death shambling horror spawns a jagged horror. Its active roots it in place for 10 seconds, spawning two jagged horrors.

Not saying any of these ideas are balanced, but I’m just throwing stuff out.

Skeletons
Skeletons
Skeletons
Skeletons

Did I mention Skeletons?

Thx for the explanation Bhawb.

Yeah, boons are contrary to the class ideal.

I like ideas for the spawning minions, but I still think I’d rather have a vicious looking tanker.

I think they should add a tank minion in as well, it is just that they have Jagged Horrors here already.