Guild Wars 2

Specifically, it seems that my bone fiend is suddenly primary target for 95% of things I ever attack or which aggro from nearby, while the other 5% or so (presumably never having seen a bone fiend before and not knowing which it is) attack my character instead. It’s really bizarre, they will go for it with such frequency that I can attack things and then just cast marks on the bone fiend. They’ll even trigger the fear one and then come back for it if they’re still alive by then.

Before this I was nearly always having to replace the bone minions the most often. I would even detonate them as they arrived at a target in some cases because as missiles they were more useful, though in their case it was often due to AoE more than them being singled out. Presently things will go for the bone fiend, then me. If there’s no bone fiend occasionally they’ll make do with a shadow fiend, but I assume they’re disappointed it wasn’t there.

Anyway, besides serving as a trap, this has made it pretty lacking in use. I’m forever using staff #2 on it just to delay its inevitable (re)death even fighting one rather mediocre thing at a time. Maybe if it even had the sense to just orbit me keeping out of their melee it might nearly be useful and serve as something to laugh at, but it just sits there… waiting to be destroyed… again.

It’s always been like that, I wish they would change it as well. I know the bone fiend is high damage for a minion but every AI enemy seems to have an unnatural prejudice against him. Half my fights as a MM come down to knocking things off of the bone fiend until the enemy dies.

Hm… I never noticed it so much before, but oh well. So for healing them it’s really only staff, focus, and that trait for life transfer?

Maybe if I start following engineers around… their turret can heal my minions, and the minions can give the turrets some kind of lifespan by being more annoying to enemies.

LameFox.6349:

Hm… I never noticed it so much before, but oh well. So for healing them it’s really only staff, focus, and that trait for life transfer?

Maybe if I start following engineers around… their turret can heal my minions, and the minions can give the turrets some kind of lifespan by being more annoying to enemies.

Focus does not heal minions because Focus adds a boon which minions don’t acquire. Only Staff 2 and aoe type heals affect your minions.

As to the Bone Fiend question, for as long as I have played the Necromancer, the bone fiend has tanked for me. I have rarely had an instance where he didn’t tank it. I wish he had the under the ground knockback that Ranger Pet Devourers had. I have found that if you begin the attack with using a minion utility to attack them or your hardest hitting attack first you can hold off from him getting focused.

However, the main reason he gets all the love is that he does a good amount of damage on a double hit, and is always the first minion to attack. He essentially knocks off the top 3 reasons you will end up face tanking. Low Health, Low Armor, good damage, attacks twice before anyone else does, and finally he sits at midrange. Remember Anet uses distance, health, armor, damage, and when you attack as the basis for threat. It’s why guardians can “tank” so effectively (low health, no range, decent damage).