Guild Wars 2

I was talking about this with someone earlier. We both feel that one of the problems holding minion builds back is that they’re purely single target damage.

Since the AI was fixed the minions respond better than ever before. In particular ranged minions are particularly good and don’t have any trouble hitting a target, which is why I think its fair that they can stay single target.

The melee minions can be kited fairly easily, especially in fights with multiple targets with opponents running around constantly. Being able to cleave up to 3 targets would considerably help them deal damage in larger fights, and would help them hit something even if the actual target is kiting them. Since Robert Gee has been pretty good at explaining why or why not certain balance things like this are or are not happening, I’m asking to see if its possible that we can expect cleave damage on minions, or if its something that will probably never happen (like the blast finisher thread in the mesmer forum).

Besides the lack of cleave and the fact that moa kills them instantly (can you look at this too), minions are in a great spot, and I’m so happy that the AI was fixed!

While we’re at it, can we get the cast/summon time reduced a bit? One second would be really nice…

Vydahr.4285:

While we’re at it, can we get the cast/summon time reduced a bit? One second would be really nice…

Exactly. If the Shadow Fiend and Flesh golem cleaved up to 3 targets, and the Flesh Wurm would have an AOE where it hits its primary target (pass suggestions) and reduced the cast times, we’d be in business for PVE. They spawn in .5 seconds in water! Not to mention, you’d think they’d be fine with them being faster casted, considering they take a moment to latch on to a target when they spawn at the caster. Bone minions with a significantly faster cast time might actually see some use, which would be glorious.

… Why? The Necro himself can still cleave just as good regardless of skilling minions or not. The only skills that add “cleave” is wells – which has other flaws compared to minions. MM is in a good place for its specific purpose, single target/small groups. You dont want to make something good at everything, or you end up with an Elementalist. And nobody like Elementalists.

Dawdler.8521:

… Why? The Necro himself can still cleave just as good regardless of skilling minions or not. The only skills that add “cleave” is wells – which has other flaws compared to minions. MM is in a good place for its specific purpose, single target/small groups. You dont want to make something good at everything, or you end up with an Elementalist. And nobody like Elementalists.

How would having 2 minions(flesh golem and shadow fiend) cleave 3 targets suddenly make MM good at everything?

The fact that there are even enough enemies for the cleave to be a factor inherently means the MM is in a subpar situation. It just makes the skills much friendlier to PvE and non-MM builds in PvP, without actually making full MM builds stronger, since they don’t want to teamfight anyway.

Bhawb.7408:

The fact that there are even enough enemies for the cleave to be a factor inherently means the MM is in a subpar situation. It just makes the skills much friendlier to PvE and non-MM builds in PvP, without actually making full MM builds stronger, since they don’t want to teamfight anyway.

It would still help the build in smaller fights like 2v2s. And even though it’s obvious that MM isnt a very good teamfighter to begin with, having cleave damage would help it there greatly. I mean I don’t believe a build is a truly viable build unless it can be good on both 1v1s and teamfights. The cleric MM builds that you promote have good support in teamfights but poor damage in teamfights because minions are single target and can die if your enemy has a lot of cleave pressure.

While it wouldn’t be a full fix, it would certainly help.

Oh I totally agree its a good change, just that it wouldn’t suddenly overpower MM because the only time they’d be cleaving is when they themselves are at much higher risk of dying and the MM is in a weak spot.

I’d be all for cleave on the melee minions, but if that happens then they need to go and do that to ALL pets then. Ranger pets, Elementalist summons, Spirit Weapons, ect. Having just the necro minions do it would be out of place.

Electro.4173:

I’d be all for cleave on the melee minions, but if that happens then they need to go and do that to ALL pets then. Ranger pets, Elementalist summons, Spirit Weapons, ect. Having just the necro minions do it would be out of place.

Yeah I can agree with that too. I mean I totally think that if engi drones turn out to me minion-esque then it would be something relevant to think about for all AI from here on out.

Electro.4173:

I’d be all for cleave on the melee minions, but if that happens then they need to go and do that to ALL pets then. Ranger pets, Elementalist summons, Spirit Weapons, ect. Having just the necro minions do it would be out of place.

The only other class I think should benefit from this suggestion is Ranger. But elementalists already have many other damage sources and so do guardians. Those last two don’t need it. Both necromancer and rangers are not in a good spot, so they do need to have their pets become more efficient.

Nynuwe.5893:

Electro.4173:

I’d be all for cleave on the melee minions, but if that happens then they need to go and do that to ALL pets then. Ranger pets, Elementalist summons, Spirit Weapons, ect. Having just the necro minions do it would be out of place.

The only other class I think should benefit from this suggestion is Ranger. But elementalists already have many other damage sources and so do guardians. Those last two don’t need it. Both necromancer and rangers are not in a good spot, so they do need to have their pets become more efficient.

The classes maybe be in a good spot, but the summons themselves aren’t.

Spirit weapons are almost universally viewed as the worst utilities Guardian’s have by a wide margin. Elementals aren’t viewed quite as harshly, but that’s probably because they aren’t a full utility set (just part of another set) and the fact that pretty much everything that’s not a cantrip or Ice Bow is overlooked by Ele’s. Plus the fact that one of them is an Elite and Ele’s have terrible elites all around, so Glyph of Elementals isn’t “that” bad by comparison.

Heck, if we’re talking about which minions / summons need cleave more, I’d say that Spirit Weapons and Elementals need it MORE than Necro minions. Granted, they need a lot more improvements than just some cleave, but every little bit helps.

I certainly don’t agree with the idea that poor utilities belonging to classes that are already “good” should just be left bad just because the class can already perform fine without them. All utilities should be useful to their respective classes regardless of how good the class is.

Electro.4173:

Heck, if we’re talking about which minions / summons need cleave more, I’d say that Spirit Weapons and Elementals need it MORE than Necro minions. Granted, they need a lot more improvements than just some cleave, but every little bit helps.

Hahaha

Pitching an ele buff…

…in a necro forum.

That takes balls.

I like balls.

I think the answer on this quesion is quite obvious: coz it would require rebalace of most summons.

But otherwise i doubt it would help much as i had no issue with minion auto attack most of time but with their active skill, considering that they will always be ‘rooted’ in place while doing their auto attack and there is cast delay as well so getting everything in right place is kinda tricky sometime.

Even if they add clave you would still have to deal with their root in place and animation length so rather then clave it would make more sense to increase range of auto attack or simply animation speed.

Beside most summons are decent while soling pve as they do their job of soaking dmg quite well.
Cant even remember when was last time when i actually had real mm build but most necros are doing just fine without minions so i doubt something like that is high on their to do list.