Guild Wars 2

Minion Spec
Running 10 Spite, 30 Death, 30 Blood
Dagger/Focus – Staff
Traits: Spite II
Death III, X, and XI
Blood VI, VII, and XI

Keeping minions alive:
Blood VI transfuse makes your death shroud Life Transfer a Minion Battery.
Staff Skill 2 grants regen to your minions.
Staff Skills 3 and 4 Poison Field with Blast Finisher = AOE weakness, greatly reduces the damage all allies take.
Focus with Reaper’s Touch can provide some spot healing to minions.
Also I have a Sigil of Superior Water on my Dagger that does aoe heals on autoattack.

A few minion tactics.
A good use for minions is projectile blocking. Flesh Wurm is nice against Kohler in AC. You put the Flesh Wurm between you and him and when he tries to pull you in he hits the flesh wurm instead of you. If he does manage to pull you in you blow up the Wurm and are out of there instantly.

If you use Well of Blood for healing you can use Blood XII to heal minions even more, and you can set off blast finishers like staff 4 and Bone Minions to give allies AOE Retaliation.

Any boss you want to avoid getting hit with projectiles just put a minion between you and them. I really enjoy minions during fights like the Jade Maw in fractals. Having minions blow up instead of allies frantically grabbing Crystals.

There are some fights minions should not be used:
One is against the boss that is fought in every path of Arah. 1st stage grubs might spawn on minions. 3rd stage he aoe life steals and your minions become his health battery.

Another is the boss in SE that puts flame circles around every ally you have.

When you have minions you are also the tank, and support for those minions. They will all eventually die yes, this does not mean you failed.

When I don’t run minions I don’t respect I just switch traits:
Marks – Death II, Death V, Blood III
Wells – Blood IV, Blood VIII, Blood XII, Death IV
Anti Condition – Spite III, Death VI, and Staff skill 4 transfers conditions to enemies.