Guild Wars 2

If im spec with the general Minions master build, will I get more DPS by keeping my two bone minions alive and fighting or will I get more by just by blowing them up immedietly? IF keeping them alive is better how much time would I need them up before their damage adds up to be more?

I would test this myself, but Im no good at that kind of stuff

Its actually very close in my experience, DPS is pretty similar 1v1 (slightly towards blowing them up), and should not be the determining factor because of the nice utility of having them up. Essentially what you want to do is always keep them summoned, never let them sit on CD if you can help it. Always blow them up when they are getting low HP, and if you blow one up, blow up the other one at the earliest moment where they will cause damage.

Besides that, you want to blow them up in specific situations.
1. Blow them up if someone is very low, and you need to finish them off, it catches people off guard to suddenly eat 4-5k damage
2. If you have Death Nova, blow them up on downed bodies, not only will it cleave revivers, but the poison makes it a pain to get them up, and since it leaves a field its impossible to cleanse the body.
3. Any kind of burst rotation. MMs have pretty nice “burst” rotations, that are somewhat long, but involve a lot of CC, and often really annoy the enemy and can force heals at the start of a fight.
4. When you can hit 2+ people, Death Nova can do upwards of 10k to their team if it hits all 5, plus it can siphon off of every person.

Btw, did some testing. Non-crit hits are basically one tenth of the explosion, 220-250 with 30% damage trait, and 10x that for an explosion . They attack around every 3 seconds (not exactly, but close), meaning for DPS reasons alone blowing them up is faster in every situation. Just remember that siphoning from keeping them alive and the utility is much better. Smart explosions are good explosions.

Burn them, especially if you got Wurm and Bone fiend up, DN + Poison field +Projectiles will do more damage then their chip attacks.

With this build http://tinyurl.com/mw4pqgj , I prefer to keep them alive all the time , but when one of them dies , I blow up the other one to be able to summon them again.
When fighting a boss , your damage won’t matter much as the will heal you ( 114*2 per sec ) which will keep you alive.