Guild Wars 2

Reading threads about the Reanimator trait and the Summon Flesh Wurm skill, I thought of a possible change that might make both desirable.

Necrotic Traversal (formerly Summon Flesh Wurm):
1st skill allows the Necromancer to spawn a chrysalis or egg sac at the target location.
2nd skill works like Necrotic Traversal currently works, except the player travels to the egg sac.

If an enemy destroys the egg before the 2nd skill can be triggered, the Necromancer gets (insert condition) for n seconds (for balance, and lore-wise because of the shock of the severed connection), but the egg still causes a poison blast and n jagged horrors are spawned instead… which subsequently do their trademark ‘Bone Minions with Asthma’ thing where they totter towards the nearest hostile and flail limply at it before dying.

Reanimator:
Spawns Flesh Wurms instead of jagged horrors. Changing the spawned minion to a ranged one means no more dying before it can get a hit in – a valid target is either in range or it isn’t. The Flesh Wurm would likely have to be much weaker than the current version, so that it gives the Necromancer’s team a brief boost in damage output in an area for n seconds, comparable to the benefits offered by other 1st tier minor traits.

So… improvement? More fun? Fair?

Munrock.3092:

which subsequently do their trademark ‘Bone Minions with Asthma’ thing where they totter towards the nearest hostile and flail limply at it before dying.

lol. I spat my coffee out and it kitten near came out my nose. Well played, sir.

I actually really like this idea.

It would be cool if the animation for necrotic traversal when we teleport it shows our character death animation, then we are reborn from the egg sack and burst out! It would be sort of a decoy in PvP and just look awesome.

Would you be limited to a single wurm active at one time? I feel like the current 30 second icd for reanimator is too much for It’s current state, but with flesh wurm’s that dont decay it might be quite well balanced.

What’s the point in having wurms spawning after enemies die?

Elmentcius Koronel.6234:

What’s the point in having wurms spawning after enemies die?

Much cooler IMO. If it made the wurms a little smaller and weaker and either removed the cooldown or kept it short like 4-5 seconds that would be super fun.

Even better if they explode out of the corpse. =p

I think this idea might need some balancing rework. Not sure if the worm would need to be on an icd, or if it should degenerate or whatever, but that’s something the number crunchers can decide.

But overall I think it’s a very nice idea. The idea of a worm exploding out of a freshly killed corpse pleases my sense of necromancer aesthetics, and being inherently immobile could limit a lot of balance issues around getting free minions for kills.

Well done

Luke.4562:

Imo it would be a nice idea if Bone Horrors would spawn like Jagged Horrors from the Lich’s Mark (so they won’t have to search for the target far or casually going after other undesired targets) and having more stational Wurm out each time, to gain more ground control like the engineer’s turrets.
Also it would be nice if the pet’s AI would work like the Thief’s and Mesmer’s minions, by the moment they works better than ours..

Yeah I actually wish our minions were temporary and could be linked to targets like Phantasms, the AI issues would completely vanish, and they could be made stronger to compensate, while also fitting that theme of disposable pets.

Better yet, a new 2hand weapon that focuses on Minions that work like phantasms/clones, then have the utility minions just be temporary pets like all the other utility pets.

Mr. Fleshy (a.k.a kitten Golem) can still be permanent though.

DOO EET ANET! =D

A worm spawning from a new corpse does make more sense than a jagged horror. And Jagged horror is pathetically useless. Even if you summon a bagillion of them in lich form they still just die to any single low damage AoE before ever doing any noticeable damage.

But I would rather get a jagged horror buff to HP and damage or a static amount of time they last with a buff to damage. It would also be a lot easier to just open the jagged horror drop down menu (cause their development suite is just a big ole excel workbook with drop downs and collapsibles) and give Jagged Horror 50% more health and 50% more damage.

Very easy problem to solve I could fix the issue in the time it took me to search for Jagged Horror in the development window.

In all honesty, I’d like to see the trait removed. Causes more issues than anything, and gives you no value from it specifically.

Brasilium.3470:

In all honesty, I’d like to see the trait removed. Causes more issues than anything, and gives you no value from it specifically.

In another thread, I suggested that it be changed to give health to minions, as a fraction of the Life Force you absorb. If you have minions out, it lengthens their lives, if not minions aren’t forced on you at awkward times.

Someone else mentioned that JH’s lives should not be limited based on a bleed-like mechanism but that JH’s should damage themselves when they hit, so they don’t go away until they’ve accomplished something.

A more literal “Reanimator” effect could turn the corpse into a generic skelaton (maybe have five models it chooses from based on the corpse’s size and shape) that will crawl slowly up to 200 units to explode near the closest enemy, leaving a poisonous cloud. (If it doesn’t reach an enemy after moving 200 units, it shakes its fist and disappears.)

And to clarify: lupicus where the minions are a hindrance, jade maw where it can slow down the completion of a fight, and other times where they just decide to aggro everything, I’d love to see it as a class mechanic for f2 or something to use the last enemy you killed as a well or minion, but death shroud is very powerful even if all it’ll be truly good for is some survivabilify since in no way does its functions work together.

Maybe if we see more precise minion control this would be less of a problem.