Guild Wars 2

So, my necromancer is really fun, but I’m struggling with where to put those last 10 points. I run Minions mostly, with support when I want to switch.
Currently I have 20/0/20/20/0, which gives me most of the things to run both builds.
Minions have everything but Death Nova/Necromantic Corruption and Fetid consumption.
Having this build also allows me to switch and use Wells/Marks when I want to support, since I have access to Staff mastery and then Spiteful Marks and Greater Marks, and then also have and Ritual Mastery for wells.

What I am trying to do is run a build where I can switch on the fly if I know minions don’t work on an upcoming boss or (more likely) a group complains that minions are terrible for whatever.
Spite would give me Axe Training to compliment my Focus during weapon swap for a bit of extra damage there.
Death Magic seems the logical choice as I could get Death Nova (or Necromantic corruption) with minions and Ritual of Protection for wells. I hear those aren’t very good traits, though.
Blood Magic 10 gives me Fetid consumption with minions, to draw conditions and support occasionally WITH the minions, and then also gives me Vampiric Rituals to lifedrain with wells, which is nice to help protect me when I run in to cast wells, since I don’t have Curses 20 to cast them at range.

Also, Bas had a post a while back that talked specifically about Minion Builds, but I can’t seem to find it. It was very concise, talking about why you should go power with minions, etc. Was hoping it would provide insight if I could find it.

Are your stats more aggressive (power/prec/crit damage) or defensive (toughness, vitality)? If you’re defensive, definitely don’t take 30 in spite: your role isn’t going to be doing damage when well/staff supporting, and the trait won’t help your minions, so traits that are mostly just More Damage aren’t right for you. If you’re really aggressively statted then I question your overall strategy of switching to support mode, but then 10 points in spite would work.

Otherwise the death magic traits are pretty solid, in my opinion. I’d only take the blood magic traits if you’re finding yourself having more trouble with conditions than anything else while in minion mode.

tl;dr – Go death magic unless you’re a power build in disguise (then go spite) or you can’t handle conditions with your minions (then go blood magic).

Death Nova is a nice supportive trait for fights, because it is going to lay down a poison field when your minions die, and poison fields are a great source of weakness via blast finishers (an underrated but nice thing to have), and Ritual of Protection is still really nice, as you can get up to 15 seconds base (assuming 4 wells + traited well on res).

But in reality, there is no wrong choice, it all depends on what you like best. For me, I don’t have an issue staying alive in PvE, and conditions aren’t a big factor to me with all our condition removal, so I wouldn’t put the 10 in Blood magic as I don’t have the need (plus you’re going to get the protection when you run in). I don’t personally like Axe training, Bas will disagree with me here, but I don’t think trying to max personal damage is worth it when you are going full MM; your personal damage is only a small part of the picture.

Basically speaking, power builds just synergize all around best with minions. The weapons you will use, the gear/food/traits/runes you pickup, and even the playstyle is all much stronger if you do a power build. That isn’t to say that conditions could never work, but that in general power builds have much more natural synergy.

When using Minions you kind of have to go all in to make them effective; i would recommend 20/0/30/20/0 with heavy tank armour and trinkets (anything with Toughness or Vitality as a major stat).

Pro Tip: You can swap out II (Bloodthirst) in Blood Magic for VI (Transfusion) as it will provide you with a 2,698 AoE heal for your Minions every-time you Life Transfer (every 40 seconds)

Okay, thanks for the advice. I was only using Transfusion when I was going support because it didn’t occur to me that minions would get healed when there weren’t others around. I was still using Life Transfer for AOE damage and whatnot even with minions, but that would add a heal for them instead of overkill on the life gain for me only.

I was leaning toward the 30 in Death Magic because I like Death Nova so I still get something out of the minions if they die, and it lets me take staff mastery sometimes for AOE tagging when minions are out and I’m doing events, etc.. I don’t like getting the monster’s attention, which I why was wary of pumping Toughness, but if I put Vitality Runes on my armor that will still keep it lower than someone who is built for it.

Axe Training wasn’t really necessary to me anyway, I use axe more for stacking vulnerability to add some damage from my team/minions. All I really lose is a 3sec faster AOE cripple recharge.