Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone and hello Anet,

!Imortant note: since many of you replied to this topic with concerns about pvp, this thread and problems with minions I bring up in it is mostly focusing on PvE!

Now as some of you have already noticed, and most people will still disagree with, minios with the corespec patch and the newly added better AI patch have been improved drastically. Not only did the corespec added some nice damage to them via deathmagic and also bloodmagic, but with the AI patch they finally attack the enemy I want them to attack.
As soon as I saw the patchnotes and tested it ingame I litterally shed a tear..
this is the first step to finally make minions somewhat viable.
there DPS is finally at a good point and more importantly VERY reliable!
I even did fraktals with my MM Nekro, did not get kicked, and also did a fairly good amount of damage as even some of my teammates had to agree when I was killing a boss solo after everyone whiped, and killing trash so much faster then some other classes.

this all sounds pretty awesome right? maybe it will hype you enough to play a MM nekro?
do you like Minions now? yeah? thats good men, thats reeeeal good.

SADLY THOUGH.. there are some HUGE issues why it isnt playable still.. mainly 2 points that needs Anets attention if they care about minions even a tiny bit.

1. Minions die to everything.. everything? everything!
In any lategame scenario there comes a point in a fight where almost every boss in the game fires huuge areas of AoE at your team.. as a player you can dodge that.. as a minion.. well.. you die.. everytime instantly..
there is a absolute simple solution to this, or a more complex one which I will go over in just a minute..

the simple solution: make minions immune to every AoE attack or at least give them 90% damage reduction to AoE abillity. this is a thing the MM Nekro needs to not be laughed at and people dont be like: “oh you use minions? so you lose half your dps on every boss? way to go men” -kicked.
note: this should only affect PvE content

the complex solution: this would be much more appreciated IF you can code this, I am not a coder so I have no clue about those things, but it would make it so you still need some skill to play.
make it so that if there is an aoe target at you and it hits you (the necromancer) it will also hit any minion in its aoe. But if you are not standing in that aoe or dodge it or block it, the minions insinde the AoE wont get damage aswell. So that they are kinda bound to your skills of dodging in regards of getting hit by an AoE, that would make for a fine solution.. again if it is codeable..

now dont get me wrong here, I dont want minions to be invincible.. they should still get full damage from singletarget enemy attacks and cleave damage.. they just shouldnt die to every ground targeted attack from a boss.
And this shouldnt be a trait or something, this needs to be a core function!

2. Minions can still be stupid, so I want to punish my slaves for beeing stupid
in some scenarios minions in general can be annoying to deal with, sometimes when you want to corner stack or when you are trying to get an enemy into a specific spot, minions run over there, keep the aggro and the enemys is out of place..

want I want for this problem, no what I demand, is give us Nekro F2 skill “KILL ALL THE MINIONS!” <- named exactly like this.
No but seriously, minions can get annoying and sometimes you need to get rid of them. A F2 skill to kill all active minions could only appear if you have a active minion, this can not only be useful to get rid of them but also you can do some damage with it and (maybe?) get some use out of Death Nova(maybe?).

And now for the most important change of them all!!! Give flippers to all our Fleshgolems!!!
I dont care how ugly you make his animation or dont give him a animation at all, I want my golem under water! not necessarily because i need it underwater, but for the sole fact that it dies EVERYTIME I dip my toe into the water.. aaargh!

there are some other issues I have with minions, like the blood fiend heal should be an attack of him healing you for some value instead of sacrificing it (lowering your dps), or missing a valuable third utillity minion.. but non of those matter if we can finally get the changes above.

so PLS Anet, give minions the last bit of lovethey deserve, as you will hopefully do with engineer.
what do you guys think about my suggestions? would you play minions? are you playing with minions right now? what are the reactions you get when playing minions in a group?
Let me know!
thanks for reading!
/greetz Smoky

EDIT: one thing I forgot to mention.. Minios should also heal back up right after you are out of combat instead of 8 seconds later…

you’ve got to be kidding me ha3… If they buff MM necro even more, I will faceroll solo queue at PVP.

gin.7158:

you’ve got to be kidding me ha3… If they buff MM necro even more, I will faceroll solo queue at PVP.

you might not have read my post maybe, but non of my suggestions affect pvp in any major way..

destroying your own minions wonth help in pvp, and make them aoe immun should only be applied to npcs and not other players, that would be op indeed.

MM wouldn’t be strong enough in PvE no matter if they lived or died. They could use AoE reduction, simply because in PvP they should be equally possible for single target or AoE builds to kill the minions, and AoE will always be vastly better without AoE reduction, and literally every other game has figured out that AoE reduction is necessary for pet characters.

Honestly, just zero cast time on some of the minion actives is probably enough.

If you can cast taste of death with zero cast time, then you never have to worry about losing your heal (which you already cast) to stupid AI and AoE soup everywhere.

((Well maybe not never, because there is Death Shroud skill lockout and MoA to worry about, but zero cast time on the active goes a long way to making the skill useable).

Here is What OP should ask for: A trait that gives minions a “Block” charge similar to guardian focus 5.

Then minions would be able to run around forever in (most) pulsing fields without getting touched (this protects against Longbow F1, wells, symbols, but doesn’t work against weapon cleaving, meteor shower, icebow 4 or locust swarm).

You would actually have to target the minion and hit it with an attack before it died to AoE soup.

The other thing OP could ask for is a useful Runes of the Lich. Right now, it is the worst rune set in the game and could easily be buffed to pop a Lich 4 or a “Rise” without being OP (both of those are still worse than the privateer parrot).

But keep in mind that useable minions isn’t something that the community wants (maybe we want it but the overall community and the devs who listen to them don’t). The Pvp community will unleash holy nerfing hell on anything that makes minions semi commonly played.

Smokin Dice.9103:

gin.7158:

you’ve got to be kidding me ha3… If they buff MM necro even more, I will faceroll solo queue at PVP.

you might not have read my post maybe, but non of my suggestions affect pvp in any major way..

destroying your own minions wonth help in pvp, and make them aoe immun should only be applied to npcs and not other players, that would be op indeed.

Y my bad0

nekretaal.6485:

Here is What OP should ask for: A trait that gives minions a “Block” charge similar to guardian focus 5.

Then minions would be able to run around forever in (most) pulsing fields without getting touched (this protects against Longbow F1, wells, symbols, but doesn’t work against weapon cleaving, meteor shower, icebow 4 or locust swarm).

You would actually have to target the minion and hit it with an attack before it died to AoE soup.

If it works like you say that would be great too I guess, but im more worried about AoE in pve.. i think in pvp it is just fine.

I think minions are good enough right now, far better than they used to be after continual buffing over the past three years.

Any more buffing and Necromancer will be competing with Ranger for afk-to-win botting title.

MM doesn’t afk at all, it isn’t remotely comparable to Ranger’s afk builds. If you do nothing as the MM your entire build sucks.

I agree and hope it stays that way but now minions are quite good and do not require buffing.

gin.7158:

you’ve got to be kidding me ha3… If they buff MM necro even more, I will faceroll solo queue at PVP.

This is the problem I run into. MM necro (especially geared with soldier) is all but unbeatable in 1-vs-1 even if paired against their moa nemesis mesmer or engie.

I main necro and love necro and have been forced to the dark side of mm necro since I basically only have 25 minutes of free time day—-at most, sometimes less.

Anyway, I hope the devs up base necro more than mm necro.

Minion survivability is fine outside of like 3 of the fractal bosses. They can facetank Lieutenant Kholer’s condition spam spin move and only go down to like half health.

DPS is still not competitive with wells build though. My basis for this is how long it takes to solo the graveling at the very start of AC.

Iunno about in PvE…

But from a PvPer: Get outta here.

A Volcano.2510:

gin.7158:

you’ve got to be kidding me ha3… If they buff MM necro even more, I will faceroll solo queue at PVP.

This is the problem I run into. MM necro (especially geared with soldier) is all but unbeatable in 1-vs-1 even if paired against their moa nemesis mesmer or engie.

I main necro and love necro and have been forced to the dark side of mm necro since I basically only have 25 minutes of free time day—-at most, sometimes less.

Anyway, I hope the devs up base necro more than mm necro.

Pretty much this…

Personally I think Minion Masters are cancer in PvP…

Remember how OP and annoying Engi turret tank was and how it is now? I don’t want minions to be nerfed like turrets so lets keep them as they are. Anything that allows you to rely on AI for damage (aside from ranger) is going to be a controversial build.

People, he is talking about PvE, not PvP (maybe the OP should have put a HUGE aclaration of this at the beginning, as people don’t really read too much)

I can agree with reduced AOE damage for minions in a PvE environment.

I agree with the OP on pretty much every count. Maybe instead of a destroy button (because I just BET Victor von Frankenstein wished he had one of those) a “come here” function, where out of position minions would be summoned to the Necromancer’s location. But tying the AE damage to that of the Necromancer and teaching the Flesh Golem how to swim I really like the sound of.

yeah just to clarify, it could be like: minions take no(or tied to the necro) AoE damage from non-player sources.
fixed.

gin.7158:

you’ve got to be kidding me ha3… If they buff MM necro even more, I will faceroll solo queue at PVP.

I already do that on MM Q.Q

Soooooo.. did I get exactly what I asked for?

-minons taking 95% reduced damage from all non directly targeted attacks

Guess I need to thank you again Anet, really making the right changes to the game nowadays.
feel free to hire me for the balancing team