Guild Wars 2

Necromancers in Guild Wars 2 are completely different from their Guild Wars 1 counterparts. This has it’s strong points as it creates a distinct playstyle and feel compared with their predecessors. Many of the aspects of Necromancer need work and I’m sure many players agree with that sentiment. I don’t intend to cover all of the avenues of the profession in this thread, but I do want to make a suggestion.

With the reveal of the core specializations, it’s apparent that MM necro is being buffed slightly. However, I feel the core problem with MM being unviable in almost every aspect of the game has not been addressed. Minions simply die too quickly in dungeons, zergs, and other high end content where deadly AoE skills litter the ground. The whole reason to build a MM necro is to have a large uptime on minions, however; long cooldowns mean the quick and timely demise of our minions leaves us naked and lacking in DPS.

One potential way to address this issue is to buff minion health and defense to make them more durable. However, I feel buffing them enough to make them viable in these end game scenarios would have negative side effects. PvP skills and PvE skills can be separated and that is one way to solve the issue, but I feel it still doesn’t quite fix the problem. With super tanky minions, you would risk trivializing most general pve content because minions would be invincible to all but the strongest of mobs.

So how do we solve this problem to make MM necro a viable and most importantly a fun build choice to make. If I had one wish for a change to minions, it would be this: Remove minion Cooldown timers entirely, instead replaced by a life force cost. Precise balancing aside, this would make it so that given the necro has the life force to spare, they can constantly have minions up. So what does such a change do to make the play style more fun?

Personally, when I think of Minion Master, I think of Guild Wars 1. The point of sacrificing utility slots for minion summons, is to have those minions out dealing damage and contributing some of their utility to fights. I want my minions to always be alive and I absolutely hate waiting on a cooldown timer to summon a new one. I think this change solves the problem of the waiting without making minions too overpowered. As I mentioned, the exact life force cost would need to undergo balancing. Additionally, minion damage might be scaled back slightly to account for the increase in uptime. You also don’t need to buff minions up to make them as tanky either, if they die the MM can summon more if they have the life force to spare.

It feels like Staves were made for MM necros as well. The idea of sitting in the back laying down marks and firing claws from a distance while your minions are in combat seems natural to the playstyle. Marks as well as the auto-attack can generate life force which means a MM has methods for fueling their army.

I think this one change could improve the fun factor of MM builds by a lot and I think additional uses for life force should be considered for other skills. As it stands, the only use for life force is in Death Shroud and for many necro builds including MM builds, hopping into death shroud creates an awkward change of pace in the class that doesn’t feel quite right outside of a few scenarios. Right now my build revolves around using DS purely for a fury buff before swapping back out to using daggers. I don’t stay in the form for more than a half a second and I certainly don’t use any of the life force unless I need another health pool.

Please share your thoughts on the coming buffs to minions and even provide your own insights that could make the necro more exciting to play in pve content.

Interesting idea, but as long as minions have the same awful AI they have now it’s still not gonna be very good.

Minions don’t remotely die instantly in PvE, they have higher base HP (and in many cases armor) than players do. Utility-skill minions have base 17k HP, elite/heal minions have 22k base, and that is increased to 25k and 33k respectively. There is almost nothing in the game that does that much damage in a single hit.

The reason MM isn’t used in PvE is because the utility they bring (distracting the enemies) isn’t particularly necessary when you can just bring them into a corner and murder them in half a second. In addition, you lose the ability to run the standard glass cannon build when running minions. The first issue is an issue in the design of PvE and won’t change until we get more difficult content, at which point being able to summon 141k HP worth of meat shielding is potentially relevant. The second issue might be fixed in this current trait rework, as minions won’t actually compete too much with DPS loadouts, as you can still go two other trees and those extra trees don’t add a ton of damage.

If flesh golem was as tanky as greater earth/ice elemental then it would be used as a tank for bosses like Mossman and Archie. Unfortunately it dies way too fast.

Meat shields need to be considerably tanky to make up for the fact that they dont dodge and they just facetank every hit.

Bhawb.7408:

Minions don’t remotely die instantly in PvE, they have higher base HP (and in many cases armor) than players do. Utility-skill minions have base 17k HP, elite/heal minions have 22k base, and that is increased to 25k and 33k respectively. There is almost nothing in the game that does that much damage in a single hit.

The reason MM isn’t used in PvE is because the utility they bring (distracting the enemies) isn’t particularly necessary when you can just bring them into a corner and murder them in half a second. In addition, you lose the ability to run the standard glass cannon build when running minions. The first issue is an issue in the design of PvE and won’t change until we get more difficult content, at which point being able to summon 141k HP worth of meat shielding is potentially relevant. The second issue might be fixed in this current trait rework, as minions won’t actually compete too much with DPS loadouts, as you can still go two other trees and those extra trees don’t add a ton of damage.

Excellent point, but even if it’s not a single hit. If the minion dies before the Cooldown has finished you’re still left without a minion and a wasted utility slot.

Great points for the remainder, content where a meat shield was useful would be a big promoter of this sort of play style.

OlliX.1705:

Interesting idea, but as long as minions have the same awful AI they have now it’s still not gonna be very good.

Agreed, in Gw1 the minions at least attacked as soon as the MM attacked. Minions just be standing around while I’m auto attacking mobs lol.

EDIT: In fact, the minion just purely has full cooldown when they die. Which although isn’t often in general pve, in boss fights and dungeons with deadly aoe, this happens quite frequently making the point of having minions a burden rather than an asset.

Lolnut.9812:

OlliX.1705:

Interesting idea, but as long as minions have the same awful AI they have now it’s still not gonna be very good.

Agreed, in Gw1 the minions at least attacked as soon as the MM attacked. Minions just be standing around while I’m auto attacking mobs lol.

There’s also the problem of not having a good way to make them stop once they’ve started attacking.

Minions are a utility skill.

There is nothing unique about minions. They are equivalent to turrets, phantasms, or spirit weapons.

Nothing about the class mechanic benefits minions, other than they don’t disappear like the other utilities do.

Choosing minions as a utility skill, means that you don’t have… Utility. Doubly so because necromancer skills have terrible utility.

There is no special reason why 1 utility skill type deserves an entire trait line. Maybe minions as a skill type should get one trait, but Definately not one trait line.

nekretaal.6485:

There is no special reason why 1 utility skill type deserves an entire trait line. Maybe minions as a skill type should get one trait, but Definately not one trait line.

I strongly agree with this viewpoint. From Oct last year:

Jayce.5632:

Merging traits would be better. There is no one should select more than two traits at any tier to max out a single weapon and three traits to max out a single utility skill group. I mean really, 4 traits just for staff, 6 for minions. I could perhaps see spending more than three just on DS, but it would still be a hard sell.

I do dislike the idea that minions have to be an entire build type. While GW1 you did have “MM” builds, the entire build wasn’t just minions, it was minions and supporting skills to set them up. I don’t particularly think we need more than 1-2 minion-only traits, as long as stuff like Beyond the Veil, Transfusion, Deathly Invigoration exist to allow a Necromancer to support the minions.

on a personal basis I love what there doing with minions in the changes, true with the current version I’m going for I lose out on death nova however I gain another condi transfer that can be useful particularly when combined with unholy martyr and still get the increased damage then threes the beyond the veil thing which would help there survivability however there would be two things I wouldn’t mind 1.AI to be fixed in pve and pvp its not fun to lose a fight because the minions decided they didn’t want to fight at that moment and the second is less likely but might help necro in some regard is for there to be another set of minions of the shadow verity providing a bit more support with there actives instead of damage

Problem: Conditions siphoned off by minions usually die with said condition

Fix: Conditions not only are siphoned off by minions, but are transferred to the target

Problem: Minions died due to stepping in conditions or you need a meatshield to guard you

Suggestion Call from the Grave: Add an F2 skill that recalls your minions. When hit, Shadow Fiend blinds target for 1 second. (10 second cd)

Note: I do like like when leaving DS you and minions gain protection. Would it be too much to add Vigor for 2 seconds?

can see how that would work I think the protection bit will help minion survivability if used properly however that being said having a button or two for minions would be nice. perhaps the new specialization will have a couple talents you can chose to help minions[please note I said choose as in have other choices to pick if your not into minions]

CodeHavoc.7926:

Problem: Conditions siphoned off by minions usually die with said condition

Fix: Conditions not only are siphoned off by minions, but are transferred to the target

This one has already been done in the latest rendition of Necromantic Corruption, which also includes the 25% damage increase.

Balekai.6083:

CodeHavoc.7926:

Problem: Conditions siphoned off by minions usually die with said condition

Fix: Conditions not only are siphoned off by minions, but are transferred to the target

This one has already been done in the latest rendition of Necromantic Corruption, which also includes the 25% damage increase.

Just giving credit where credit is due.

An interesting thing is that entire trait makes unholy martyr look alot more inviting. (I think thats its name atleast).

The ability to soak condis from your minions to regen life force. And hten have hte minion take it back and give it to an enemy is really interesting.

Edit: It feels like minions will in that way atleast provide sustain while were in DS and wihle were out of it. Vampiric traits out of ds and unholy martyr necromantic corruption combo in ds. ALSO Blood fiend is gonna be a really good kittening heal now with necromantic corruption thrown in. Heals AND transfers condis on auto attack? holy kitten.