Guild Wars 2

Hiya. I’ve been using a pretty basic minion build with my reaper for general PvE stuff, but I feel like it can be optimized a bit. I was wondering if there are any guides any of you know of (besides the woodenpotatos hundred minions build). If not, maybe I could get some advice on what important traits/skills/Runes to use, and which weapons? Right now I’m using GS + Staff and mainly Power stuff. Any tips/guides would be greatly appreciated!

Full zerk. You have the bonus of being one of the most survivable classes in the game when running minions. The little buggers constantly pump HP into you with lifesteal and give extra, passive toughness, this isn’t even considering the 50% damage reduction from rise. So why not supplement a second HP bar and all these perks with the highest damaging set in the game.

Weapons:
I prefer axe-dagger, dagger-warhorn

Dagger gives you a passive and permanent 25% run speed with quickening thirst (Blood Magic). Axe is your ranged contingent while also applying Vulnerability for EXTRA MINION DAMAGE! Dagger being your main, up-close damage alternative.

Build:
I run
Death Magic 1,1,1 of course pump those minions.

Blood magic 2,3,3 The first tier doesn’t do much so quickening thirst is your go to. Vampiric aura is nice when allies are around… I’m not sure if it works on minions or not (Needs to be tested, or informed by someone with more knowledge then I)… A decent alternative is 1 to heal allies when dropping shroud. Lastly taking transfusion for amazing minion and ally healing in a group fight…

Reaper 1,3,3 This ones a tricky tree, we don’t get a TON out of this for minions but my god do we want “Rise”. You want to take quicker shout cooldown for “Rise!”. Decimate defense works well with Axe 1 giving you extra crit, and the last tier is sketchy I usually take Reaper’s onslaught since it’s faster attacks in shroud and there are some fights even amazing minion siphons can’t save you from so tanking in reaper works well.

For minions, take blood fiend, “Rise!”, bone minions, shadowfiend and good ole fleshie.
I haven’t been bothered to check minion DPS in a long while, but Bone Minions and Shadow pulled slightly ahead of Bone Fiend in combat (According to old charts on the necro forums.)… Bone Fiend has the bonus of being able to attack from range but on a long boss fight Shadow fiend attacks faster and his more damage in the long run. Worm is amazing as well, but I dislike the constant upkeep of summoning him in every fight, try him out mileage may vary.

Running Pack runes on my necro, when I take a hit my minions have a chance to get fury might and swiftness. I’ve had good mileage with lich runes, even if they aren’t super damage oriented more jagged horrors and in turn more toughness is NEVER a bad thing in our line of work.

With this setup I can pump out lots and lost of damage while always being the last one to fall in 5 man content. I can solo hold a Cliffside fractal arm myself easily up to level 70 ((Haven’t tested past that.)) and in hot content I’m basically a killing machine god as I jump from event to event, soloing camps and taking down champs solo.

Bonus tips.
Rise minions explode for ALOT on death and you can time it too if you watch your rise cooldown. Smacking 5 targets with rise will leave your Shamblings exploding at about the 2 to 7 second mark on Rise’s cooldown. (They also add toughness PER Shambling Horror up!)

An alternative to Fleshie is Lich 4, summoning 5 Jagged Horrors… This doesn’t provide a ton of synergy but it’s fun as hell, we’re not bleed oriented and Lich has a massive cooldown unless you’ve specced into spectral skills for a reduced cooldown. To do this you’d need to sacrifice either Reaper line, denying you rise, or Blood Magic, denying you that amazing minion passive healing. Still a blast to use and some fractals and dungeons promote this.

Flesh golom absolutely molests break bars. (When Charging)

Flesh Golem has high toughness and will draw aggro in some cases, this can be bad for some bosses, for instance in the dredge fractal, this is a good time to swap lich for that.

This is the extent of my knowledge and build. I’m sure others partaking in our craft can add some of their own info or even correct my own if I’ve made a mistake. But for the moment, I hope this aids you in your quest to conquer Tyria with hoards of undead.

Here is what I run without Reaper:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRIQNAW3djM0QTNWZDu1A7NOmGK6MsDpwslvgKQOAFQAA-ThSDABOcBAUVJ4RKxyS5BIaGwR9HAeAA3s/QK6AKwEHA-e
I am not sure what sigils(at work and can’t check) I have on the Axe/Focus…but they are more damage focused sigils.
This build is almost untouchable…only the strongest bosses even make a dent…the healing and life steal is so heavy that i rarely ever have to recast a minion and only on major spikes do I drop below 50% health.

This is the Reaper setup I use:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRIQNAW3YnMbCdbiN1Au1As3glpBb6BcBqASDgCQAI+DWCfhA-TxiEABkoDgKlHlqEcDNDCpEDhjAQCXAABOIAys/wmq/AwDAMxBA-e
Same Accessories…Same Staff but swapping Life sigil to Demon Summoning(its personal choice for fun). I am in process of making to Zealot Armor, Lich Runes(although Pack are a solid alternate choice as mentioned in a previous post). I use Axe and Dagger for swap here, for the movement boost we lose from giving up Signet of Locust.

The biggest missed thing about playing an effectove MM…is Minion Control. We have little control…grnated…but by selecting targets and moving your minions around the field of batel…and using the blinds, charge, etc effectively can make a HUGE difference.

There are lots of good options to explore with a MM using reaper or not…its all I have ever played(tried the other styles and just didn’t like them for myself). Experiment, try weird combos and see what happens…you will be surprised. Have Fun!

MM in PvE is basically just a power build with Death Magic and minions. So put on your favorite minions (don’t pick Shadow Fiend for my own sanity), pick up Death Magic, then with the rest of your build pick up the best DPS you can.

When you first hit 80 it can be very expensive to gear yourself out in full berserker plus scholar runes, so full cavalier plus scrapper runes is a good alternative. You can use assassins trinkets if you want to boost crit chance a bit, or go with Reaper/Death Magic/Soul Reaping, in which case you don’t need precision that much as you will be in shroud as much as possible anyway (close to 100% crit chance in shroud with the appropriate traits). This is if you don’t mind getting into the fray with your minions rather than standing back and letting them do the dirty work. The extra toughness is nice when running around solo in HoT zones.

Thanks a lot for the replies, I really appreciate it. Since it was suggested twice, I assume Axe+Dagger is the best weapon to use? I’ve also been using Bone Fiend instead of Shadow Fiend…oops. >.>

WereDragon covered it really well. I run almost the exact same thing, but I prefer a Greatsword. I’m not sure why, as it took some getting used to, but Gravedigger does massive damage when you are full zerk and it’s spammable when you hit an enemy with less than 50% hp. With GS 4, 3, 2 and Shroud 4 & 1 our aoe is simply sick. And best of all, it’s low risk. I then use an axe/warhorn as a swap. The secondary set is really just for longer fights, though. Locust swarm builds life force pretty quickly and the axe I just use for axe 2 and a couple auto attacks before switching back to GS unless I need the axe’s range. I use runes of the scholar for that 10% boost; they were well worth the price tag.

Btw, I’ve also tried minions with sinister gear and valk gear. In valk, you’re basically unkillable, but you sacrifice a lot of DPS for extra survivability that imo you don’t really need. In sinister, with some changes to playstyle and a focus more on condi, you have some advantages against foes in Heart of Thorns with higher toughness. The problem for me with sinister though was that my dps was only as good as zerker in longer fights when those conditions could really tick. Now Sinister let me do some pretty sick epidemics in HOT, but idk if that’s worth the ease and convenience of zerker gear since I can handle large groups with zerker just as well. I didn’t get a chance to use Viper, which would be better in longer fights with its expertise, but you’d still have the condition ramp-up time to deal with.

So right now in zerker gear, I can kill some things with a gravedigger+auto attack while my minions do the rest in much less time than if I had to wait for conditions to tick. So bc it saves me time and it’s better all-around for most encounters, I recommend zerker.

Def don’t use staff unless you’re running a condition build. It’s damage is pitiful.

Rio.4259:

Thanks a lot for the replies, I really appreciate it. Since it was suggested twice, I assume Axe+Dagger is the best weapon to use? I’ve also been using Bone Fiend instead of Shadow Fiend…oops. >.>

Axe/Dagger is a good weapon set to have appropriate ranges, since Axe doesn’t love to be in WH range. However if you don’t already have a WH slotted and don’t need the condi transfer, WH > dagger OH.

And no, Shadow Fiend is trash compared to Bone Fiend. His active is a significant DPS loss (3s cast time), compared to BF’s DPS gain and massive immob duration, he is melee (so dies) and loses out on 2x projectile finisher per attack, all while doing the same DPS and attacks per second.

I have a question to add to this: I already have zerker with scholar runes. Is it worth it to use a set with pack/lich instead? And how viable is Viper’s?

Don’t run full zerk on a power necro. Decimating strikes is 50% crit, and death perception is another 50 in shroud. Valkyrie is a much better use of stats. You only need 30% crit rate to cap outside of shroud in pugs. 20% if you have a warrior with banners, and 10% if you have a ranger with the precision buff.

You can run Viper’s and scepter, if you like, or even axe. Minions will take advantage of vulnerability stacking. Dagger-focus / staff on Berserker-Scholar is my current favorite in PvE roaming, with or without minions, but run whatever you want. In a group, watch your precision as FrostDraco says.

Also, no toughness means your minions will tank for you and they may die so take Death Nova. If you want your minions to live, use toughness, Blood Magic to heal them, and take one of the other two DM GM traits.

FrostDraco.8306:

Don’t run full zerk on a power necro. Decimating strikes is 50% crit, and death perception is another 50 in shroud. Valkyrie is a much better use of stats. You only need 30% crit rate to cap outside of shroud in pugs. 20% if you have a warrior with banners, and 10% if you have a ranger with the precision buff.

Valkyrie armor sounds good for grouping, where you will always have 25 stacks of vulnerability up, but what about for solo open world? Wouldn’t your crit chance be low outside of shroud without using berserkers armor? So wouldn’t you need berserkers armor if you want to use a greatsword (for crit gravediggers) or if you want to use Blood Magic instead of Soul Reaping (assuming the 2 non-negotiable trait lines are Reaper and Death Magic for a reaper minion build)?