Guild Wars 2

Minion master has always been a rather fumbling build in Guild wars 2, sometimes its been good, usually buggy and most the time its just been rather bad. There was a single glorious time when Minions were amazing(And I know they’ve been decent in PvP from time to time, but i’m going to ignore that for the time being. If you wish to talk about it feel free but this is more a general improvement post.). However now minions have once again taken the back seat to more reliable builds.

Anyone who’s read my previous posts on minions in the past knows that I feel that minion masters should be an active role rather than a passive one and that the necromancer should take part in their maintenance to sustain them. You’d also know that When it comes to minions I favor the zerg mentality of having a dozen weaker minions swarming the foe over a couple of strong minions. So that’s what this suggestion is going to be focused on, but without changing the over all feeling of the Minion master.

Looking back to the one time that minions were amazing in PvE we see a build that only ran a single minion skill. Blood Fiend. The build was a condi build that used a blood fiend and relied on Lich lord to sustain the bulk of its force. The build was reminiscent of the GW1 minion build Aura of the Lich. However, the issue with this build was that, although it did benifit from the minion traits it didn’t use the minion skills. I’m going to suggest some changes that will incentivize play more minion skills be added to the skill bar so the traits get used with the intended skills.

1. Jagged Horrors: You’d be hard pressed to find a necromancer player who agrees with the nerf to these little guys. Although most would probably agree they needed a nerf, the one that was implemented was overkill. Not only did it kill the intended build but it killed a Grandmaster trait and any new builds with minions popping up in PvE. Jagged horrors should have a change back to their former glory, only this time limit their numbers not their duration. 8 at one time seems like a good limit on them. This lets you use Lich if you want to but also allows people not using it to slowly build to that number. Once a new jagged horror is created though the oldest horror should automatically die, just like how minions worked in GW1.

2. Death Nova: The 15 second mark is fine on this, however I’d like to suggest one change. Whenever a minion you control dies you spawn a jagged horror. Just as a side note. This would make it function much like Jagged bones in GW1 and give you a good reason to sacrifice minions on your skill bar. Although I think this benefit should only apply to Minion Skills and not all skills that just so happen to summon minions. This way we can further incentivize minion masters to take actual minion skills.

3. Bone Minions: The fact that this skill summons only 2 minions is criminally low. Especially when compared to both “Rise” and Lich form. Its unclear to me how many minions this skill should summon, but I’ve been stuck on 5. Its recharge might need to go up a little bit, but not too much as these guys don’t pack too much damage on their own. But this skill should be the back bone of any minion build. Yet its left to fester on the skill bar as a skill not even MM’s will touch. 2 minions is very clearly too low. And I will admit that 5 might be a bit too high for PvP. So lets just make the 5 for PvE than. So how it works.

4. Minor Improvements to other minion skills: This one is a bit hard to place for me in terms of what should be changed on other minion skills. So I’ll leave it open to everyone else to reply. What do you guys think? How should the others be improved if at all?

Please leave a comment and as always, keep it civil.

Personally. I hate any kind of “zerg” whether than be people or minions, the idea of throwing a trillion rats at my enemy and they die is annoying to me. I’d rather have a couple decent pets that require some activity to control with some passive ease as far as being “minion master goes”.

Minions in general are fine imo especially coupled with blood magic and death magic, good luck dying. The only thing I’d want to see for them really is some ability to scale their damage either through a complete rework of their skills effectively creating a rotation or some DM trait that scales minion damage with power or healing power, idk, something, but make it utilize a different stat combination. Unless you’re raiding or doing optimized high level fractals minions are fine much like everything else with like 90 billion times the survivability.

Rework some the traits in DM, perhaps one that works like Master of Corruption giving all minions some added conditions, Ideally bleeds and poison so you can run either condi or power minion master equally(?)

Bone minions – Make them bigger, last longer, hit harder, have the ability to plant themselves as mines then explode at your will, explode even harder, longer CD

Do something with Lich form jagged horrors to make them usable and not exploitable as they were before

Flesh is great imo, fine as is

Rise is good

Shadow is whatever the active is alright I think it should be more defensive though like make it turn into a smoke wall/cloud that blocks projectiles or blinds foes in the cloud

Bone Fiend – this one is whatever much like Shadow, the active is fine I suppose as far as PVE goes the use is negligible

1. I agree with limiting JH quantity as you suggest.
2. Death Nova lost some shine with the JH nerf and minion deaths are only controllable for Bone Minions, which explode anyway, and Flesh Wurm’s teleport, which you save for use in a pinch. Death Nova can stand some buffing now that a hoard of little bleeders is not possible.
3. Bone Minions have decently short ICD so use them as homing poison fields, summon again, and repeat. I feel okay with them.
4. Shadow Fiend is my least desired minion because, well, blind. If it blinded and left a dark field, I might use it more.

Edit: Bone Minions’ dps is not helped by Death Nova. They could do with a special buff of their own when traited with DN. Something like a damage increase or an AoE bleed on death.

Blackagar.1052:

Personally. I hate any kind of “zerg” whether than be people or minions, the idea of throwing a trillion rats at my enemy and they die is annoying to me. I’d rather have a couple decent pets that require some activity to control with some passive ease as far as being “minion master goes”.

If you don’t like that play a Ranger! Minions are supposed to be disposable and rather weak on their own.

Maybe those are minions for you, but for me they’re zombies that you can repair, control and modify with black magic. As long as they’re weaker than me they’re a minion in my book. They die and I summon a new one.

Though I too personally prefer the idea of a lot of little kittens swarming someone, I feel that both options of a couple bulkier minions and many little ones should be available. Maybe readjusting the number of Bone Minions to 3 or 4 inherently or through a trait could help as well as a much needed “fix” to Lich Form/Mark of Horror (jagged horrors) to be more active and useful without being (too) exploitable. Perhaps like the often suggested complete overhaul of the skill and a new one for jagged horrors (like the multiple suggestions for a “Signet of Horror” if I’m not mistaken). As it stands, the only way to get a large “zerg” of minions reliably is through “Rise,” which is locked behind an elite specialization (for better or for worse).

Perhaps the trait “Death Nova,” or any other minion traits, could adjust/modify Lich Form if it will never be significantly changed. Like maybe have an incrementally reduced cooldown based on the number of summoned minions and/or foes killed by minions?

Also, maybe minions could use lifeforce instead of, or at least with a reduced, cooldown. That way lifeforce could be used beyond just a “second health bar” and minions/their skills could be used more frequently/actively.

That’s my two cents at least.

Blackagar.1052:

Maybe those are minions for you, but for me they’re zombies that you can repair, control and modify with black magic. As long as they’re weaker than me they’re a minion in my book. They die and I summon a new one.

Zombies are pretty disposable and replaceable. They directly fall under that Zerg idea. Thats what they do, zerg. They aren’t sophisticated, they aren’t particularly strong and they tend to be easily dispatched. Now this is refering to RPGs and not Movies, since movies make them Zerg on steroids.

But non the less, the point of the MM was to overwhelm with numbers. Quantity not quality. Now when I say that I’m not saying minion should have buggy AI, or just be dispatched in one hit. Right now Minions, all minion skills aside from Blood fiend and flesh golem, are rather low quality skills. But they don’t provide the Quantity to make up for their low quality. Its why you don’t see players running them too often, except maybe as a joke.

Quality, Such as Pets have quite a few skills, higher damage and health and are far easier to command. They give or receive buffs and aid in battle. They are more a companion than a minion. And that’s the pets intention.

For Minions the necromancer even says “Its my fault for making them so disposable.” And that’s their point. They should be Disposable. Overwhelm with numbers, not quality. The other quote “I hand raised that minion!” is a joke. The character shouting that actually doesn’t care at all that the minion died, because she’s supposed to have 10 more at stand by.

If you look at other fantasy games or stories, Zombies primary strategy in all of them is to overwhelm. There is no complex tactics with them. In some cases they even physically create a tidal wave of corpses. They are specifically designed as a force that overwhelms, not a covert tactical force of what you want. They are not sophisticated, they are not supposed to be high quality. Only Flesh golem has that honor.

Of course this is also kinda the argument of the Stitcher vs the summoner. The Sticher being like Frankenstein and the summoner being more like a Lich lord.

Dignified Loser.7689:

Though I too personally prefer the idea of a lot of little kittens swarming someone, I feel that both options of a couple bulkier minions and many little ones should be available. Maybe readjusting the number of Bone Minions to 3 or 4 inherently or through a trait could help as well as a much needed “fix” to Lich Form/Mark of Horror (jagged horrors) to be more active and useful without being (too) exploitable. Perhaps like the often suggested complete overhaul of the skill and a new one for jagged horrors (like the multiple suggestions for a “Signet of Horror” if I’m not mistaken). As it stands, the only way to get a large “zerg” of minions reliably is through “Rise,” which is locked behind an elite specialization (for better or for worse).

Two points.

First the bone minions. With the current way the traits work there really isn’t room to modify just one minion skill in how they work. Its also just better to improve it at its base. And I’ve been doing some major thinking on that and I feel that 5 is the best number for them at least in terms of PvE.

The second point is I purposely left open idea for Shadow fiend, Bone Fiend, flesh worm and Flesh Golem for people to make suggestions to make them higher quality.

Lily.1935:

Two points.

First the bone minions. With the current way the traits work there really isn’t room to modify just one minion skill in how they work. Its also just better to improve it at its base. And I’ve been doing some major thinking on that and I feel that 5 is the best number for them at least in terms of PvE.

The second point is I purposely left open idea for Shadow fiend, Bone Fiend, flesh worm and Flesh Golem for people to make suggestions to make them higher quality.

Two points:

First, yeah, that’s fair. 5 seems a little much in my opinion, but I may very well be wrong.

Second, I haven’t particularly used Shadow Fiend and Bone Fiend so I’ve no clue what to do about those (besides a cooldown reduction). The rest I feel are adequate from my own experience, but if I had to say anything I might change:
-Flesh Wurm: Give it a melee attack in addition to it’s current ranged one. Instead of teleporting to the wurm maybe swapping places with it (without killing it) could make it more versatile.
-Flesh Golem: Allow it to work underwater? Give a temporary buff to nearby allies and/or minions when activating it’s “charge” ability (like a 10% damage/condi damage buff for 15 seconds)?

3. Bone Minions: The fact that this skill summons only 2 minions is criminally low. Especially when compared to both “Rise” and Lich form. Its unclear to me how many minions this skill should summon, but I’ve been stuck on 5. Its recharge might need to go up a little bit, but not too much as these guys don’t pack too much damage on their own. But this skill should be the back bone of any minion build. Yet its left to fester on the skill bar as a skill not even MM’s will touch. 2 minions is very clearly too low. And I will admit that 5 might be a bit too high for PvP. So lets just make the 5 for PvE than. So how it works.

There is no way this would happen… Simply because, technically, what you suggest is potentially :
- 3 more combo blast in a short time
- 200 life leeching per second (probably the thing that Anet fear the most)
- An unknown but substancial amount of instant damage due to the active skill of this minion skill.

There would be just one thing to do to this skill, Just make the active part ground targeted.

Yes ple, more minions. Fix Lich form. 150sec cd/40sec minion duration. that way with spectral mastery it can be 120 sec cd and still be ok.
Alternatively made minion attack every 4s with 6s bleed, so they dont stack to many at once, but still be able to keep 10ish bleeds at all time.

Dadnir.5038:

3. Bone Minions:…. make the active part ground targeted.

I like this suggestion.

Anchoku.8142:

Dadnir.5038:

3. Bone Minions:…. make the active part ground targeted.

I like this suggestion.

This can’t happen, minions are uncontrollable, ground target will mean to give the minions target and wait for them to reach it and then explode. Do you see the silliness in this?!
There is easier fix, The blast happens at players location. No matter where the minion is you blast around you.

mazut.4296:

Anchoku.8142:

Dadnir.5038:

3. Bone Minions:…. make the active part ground targeted.

I like this suggestion.

This can’t happen, minions are uncontrollable, ground target will mean to give the minions target and wait for them to reach it and then explode. Do you see the silliness in this?!
There is easier fix, The blast happens at players location. No matter where the minion is you blast around you.

Well, this would probably be the most practical mechanism for the necromancer, however the blast is supposed to be a byproduct of the exploding minion, it would be illogic to make it happen at the necromancer’s location.

True that, but I can’t think of anything in between. Larger blast maybe, 360 as big as meteor shower/time warp.

Talking about minions.
Rigor Mortis should be aoe 2 or 3 target instant immobilize with 30-35cd.
and
Haunt should has much faster reaction, something like 1/2 or even 1/4 and a bit larger aoe.

minions are so f****** ugly I don’t even want to use them.

I have to admit to liking the idea of having a Bone Minion teleport to a ground target, and exploding there, over hoping the minion is somewhere close to where you expect it to be.

Shadow Fiend teleports and blinds. Flesh Wurm and Bone Minions both “pop” on command. Making Bone Minions’ teleport to their death should not be difficult, though it does require extra effort by the Necromancer.

Anchoku.8142:

I have to admit to liking the idea of having a Bone Minion teleport to a ground target, and exploding there, over hoping the minion is somewhere close to where you expect it to be.

Shadow Fiend teleports and blinds. Flesh Wurm and Bone Minions both “pop” on command. Making Bone Minions’ teleport to their death should not be difficult, though it does require extra effort by the Necromancer.

Effort isn’t a problem for me. I don’t mind that. I feel teleportation would hurt some of the flavor of the minions, however I’m not so sold on this position and whichever direction Anet wants to go with it, I’m okay with it.

About minions i love them. But i don’t think anet will ever again do something for us mm… can say i’m wrong but raids are what they are focused the most now. They’ll probably put minions away for more condis…. but i still hope for new minions! Give us an elite skill that summon a giganticus lupicus!

Acnologia.6934:

About minions i love them. But i don’t think anet will ever again do something for us mm… can say i’m wrong but raids are what they are focused the most now. They’ll probably put minions away for more condis…. but i still hope for new minions! Give us an elite skill that summon a giganticus lupicus!

Don’t be like that, remember that they gave minions to the scrapper.

T-T yo…. you are right there is still hope… maybe…

Acnologia.6934:

About minions i love them. But i don’t think anet will ever again do something for us mm… can say i’m wrong but raids are what they are focused the most now. They’ll probably put minions away for more condis…. but i still hope for new minions! Give us an elite skill that summon a giganticus lupicus!

Raids are the reason Minions were nerfed in the first place. The ability to maintain 30 minions was a bit ridiculous. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but I could sustain about 12 in open world. I personally feel they went about the nerf in the wrong way, but I do agree they needed to be nerfed, just not to the current crippling extremely.

I was able to cast 21 minions in total hot release…. good days

Acnologia.6934:

I was able to cast 21 minions in total hot release…. good days

Were you on beta when “Rise” summoned Jagged horrors instead and they only degened instead of having a time limit? Fun times.

Yeah XD that was epic

I played a necromancer in age of conan and that was pretty cool. You had a certain number of “slots” and summoning different minions used up a certain number of slots. So you could have 2 melee and 1 mage minion, or 5 melee, or 8 shambling skeletons or loads of little blobs that exploded into poison. It felt like it let you customize your own little army for the situation at hand.
There were also abilities that if killed an enemy summoned additional pets that didn’t use a slot, but only one of each type could be active.
It was fun!

Lily.1935:

Blackagar.1052:

Personally. I hate any kind of “zerg” whether than be people or minions, the idea of throwing a trillion rats at my enemy and they die is annoying to me. I’d rather have a couple decent pets that require some activity to control with some passive ease as far as being “minion master goes”.

If you don’t like that play a Ranger! Minions are supposed to be disposable and rather weak on their own.

Let’s not pretend ranger pets are used for anything more than Cc and fury uptime. I do agree though that minions should be about quantity over quality. However, minion builds in this game have been lack luster since release. I miss mechanics from guild wars 1 where Necro was so perfect. Exploiting corpses was so cool. Also skills like veratas sacrifice are what Necro needs. Sacrifice your own HP to heal minions. This fixed time limit is crap. We need ways to manage them ourselves

For Bone Minions exploding on ground target, why not have them make a high-speed screaming leap to the target location and explode on impact?

Regardless, I wish they would change it so the lowest health bone minion would be the first to detonate, rather than the closest to the Necro.

The one to Rule.2593:

Lily.1935:

Blackagar.1052:

Personally. I hate any kind of “zerg” whether than be people or minions, the idea of throwing a trillion rats at my enemy and they die is annoying to me. I’d rather have a couple decent pets that require some activity to control with some passive ease as far as being “minion master goes”.

If you don’t like that play a Ranger! Minions are supposed to be disposable and rather weak on their own.

Let’s not pretend ranger pets are used for anything more than Cc and fury uptime. I do agree though that minions should be about quantity over quality. However, minion builds in this game have been lack luster since release. I miss mechanics from guild wars 1 where Necro was so perfect. Exploiting corpses was so cool. Also skills like veratas sacrifice are what Necro needs. Sacrifice your own HP to heal minions. This fixed time limit is crap. We need ways to manage them ourselves

The minions in GW1 where something special. And GW2 will never have minions like that. It pains me to say that, but its true. I’ve given up on that idea a long time ago. Right now I’m just trying to salvage at least something that was good about them.