Guild Wars 2

Good morning fellow Necros. I currently play a MM Necro after a year of playing a condition build. I really enjoy it so far, however my main question that I have is this: I see most MM Necro builds using Soldiers gear. What makes this the best gear for the build?

I have currently been using Knight’s Gear in this setup:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V00;3sHkD0s3wI-K0;9;4J-TJ-18;229A16;26Nk05;1DucYDucYK-GWVIaW50;0VAVFWKXP2V3a_5F-3k-B-7V-17VU

This is the setup using Soldier’s Gear:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V00;3sHkD0s3wI-K0;9;4J-TJ-18;229A16;26Nk05NV0DucYDucYMOlScHN02dYqd0-50A1F2KZQ_7LV4s5i0Agk1Agk

I am not seeing much of an advantage in using Soldier’s gear except for the increased health pool, am I completely missing something here? Thanks in advance!

Hey.

First up, Knight’s gear is actually about the same DPS as soldier gear. The only time you should consider Knight’s to be better than Soldier is if you have on crit procs or a very high crit damage and power from elsewhere.

Given that the DPS is likely to be the same or similar, you’re better off with Soldiers as the eHP is quite, quite insane – plus MM builds don’t generally have the on-crit procs or gear which would make Knight’s worth it.

Well, precision seems a little meh unless you have a decent amount of crit damage or running a condi build with barbed precision but that’s just me. I feel with soldier’s you’re just alot more insanely tanky, just my opinion anyhow. I’d be curios to hear from other necro’s and their thoughts as I’ve also been running MM here and there and I do find it to be a fun build.

Minions (ranger pets also) are the same, whatever stats u wear (unlike mesm phantasms).
So you take the ones, which make u hard/impossible to kill , and minions will do the same. Also if minions die and you get to live long enough to resummon them, nothing is lost

You can do MM on any gear you like. Soldier’s and Knight’s stats are a bit tanky and include power and toughness. Your MM build may be 20/0/30/20/0, which is tanky already so you can use Rampager for precision, power, and condition damage improvement, Cleric’s for power, toughness, and healing, Berserker for power, precision, and crit damage bonus, or any other type or combination you like.

The basic idea is to trait for your build. Then use weapons, armor, and trinkets for balance. You can trade between dps and tankiness, or make up for a lack of precision to enable critical hits.

In PvE, zerker would be the best, as with everything pve. Outside of it, it makes sense that you would want to be fairly sturdy, as your minions are doing most of the work.

I think Knights is better for necros though. Necros have poor sustain and have the highest base health along with warriors. Thus the higher toughness from knights would be more beneficial.

I run full apothecary with undead runes when going MM. 1300+ healing power, 1200+ condi damage, 21k+ hp and 2800 toughness is nothing to turn your nose up at.
with the correct traits, sigils and a successful rotation I can hit a spike of up to 20 bleeds, with full minion utilities thats a hole lot of DPS with a surprising amount of survivability.
regen ticking at about 287 a sec and the passive siphoning from minions is more than enough to keep you on your feet.
I’m new to MM but a necro old timer and don’t know why I havent played it sooner.

I guess the reason you see everyone running soldier stats with MM is because its a strong bunker spec, you can run mostly any stats with MM spec and make it work in your own way if you know what you’re doing.

Bull Zooker.1672:

I run full apothecary with undead runes when going MM. 1300+ healing power, 1200+ condi damage, 21k+ hp and 2800 toughness is nothing to turn your nose up at.
with the correct traits, sigils and a successful rotation I can hit a spike of up to 20 bleeds, with full minion utilities thats a hole lot of DPS with a surprising amount of survivability.
regen ticking at about 287 a sec and the passive siphoning from minions is more than enough to keep you on your feet.
I’m new to MM but a necro old timer and don’t know why I havent played it sooner.

I guess the reason you see everyone running soldier stats with MM is because its a strong bunker spec, you can run mostly any stats with MM spec and make it work in your own way if you know what you’re doing.

I played a full Rabid gear Condition Mancer for a long time. I never thought about using it with Minions as I was always told that dagger/warhorn and axe/mace just work better with minions in general. I am curious though how you manage to work both sides of a condition build and the minions, since most of the traits taken for minions do little to nothing to affect condition dmg.

Bull Zooker.1672:

I’m new to MM but a necro old timer and don’t know why I havent played it sooner.

Probably still traumatized from 2012 minions.

As far as I know, minions don’t crit, and since minions do most of the damage precision becomes a waste of stats.

Vitality will give you a very high pool for minions to siphon to you.

The longest you stay alive the better, the key is to keep summoning them as they damage when they are alive and they damage when they die. MM with soldier’s stats can rez people and NPCs while minions kill the enemy even when your health is going down and toughness makes it possible for you to flee with low health without the chance of dying in a single hit.

Also, make sure to use the minion skills, they are very useful.

Anchoku- Thats probably it!
I dont want to share too much but essentially the 20 traits you would normally place in spite, go into curses, in pvp this means you can still take (a low ticking) terror and in pve means you get a bit extra bleed duration and an extra way to apply weakness and a further bleed stack. I have played it with full rabbid gear too but I prefer it on apothecary spec, its very rewarding if played right.
the minion active skills are fun to play with too, the shadow fiend is a good LF generator and helps with stomps (blind) which everyone knows is an issue with pvp necro, the teleport from worm is incredible and has saved me lots of times, immobilise from bone fiend improves our kiting even furher, blasts from bone minions for near to perma weakness and helpfull in other fields and charge from the big guy are also great fun to play with.
I find its a compromise to the hybrid glassy spec everyone seems to be running, the player deals with applying the conditions and the minions deal the direct damage.

Lagerfueled – as a side note, axe/focus would be more optimal than scepter/dagger in a minion build due to the vulnerability application, but I find I’m likely doing more damage than my minions 90% of the time so I figure why buff their damage when I can do my lwn? buffing your damage as a collective rather than just setting your minions up to do the damage for you.
I find this a real asset in pvp as your minions arent always reliable (AI issues) its good to not be completely reliant on minion damage.

also play what you want to play, just because someone says something isnt optimal doesn’t mean its not fun.

Condition damage in a MM? Which conditions are you applying?

bleed, poison, cripple, weakness, fear, immobilise, blind.
all from minion actives and weapon sets.
of course you would be running scepter/dagger and staff.

We’ll have to see what’s left of the hybrid build Nemesis popularized after the change to Dhuuf and crit damage. The fact condition damage is tied to precision could shift the balance toward less aggressive builds. I did not quite understand what the patchy team meant about separating crit % (bonus increase.)

What it will do to Soul Reaping should be more straightforward if the trait line just gets converted so I hardly expect that to change people’s builds – Necro’s trait for the skills after all. Damage even from zerker builds was never amazing but the skills associated are the candy.

I guess I am curious how the crit bonus change will affect other professions, too, but for some professions it might not change the most popular builds, just nerf them slightly.

when i look at the traits for MM, 20/0/30/20/0…. death 25 gives a boost to power from toughness, and spite 15 gives a bonus to healing based on power. that’s the reason i personally chose soldier’s armour and weapons. i chose Carrion trinketts to help a little with the condition damage from marks (obviously staff) and sceptre / focus (i like chill and bouncing regen). as for all the vitality? well, i just wanted ONE character of mine to have near 30k HPs. (since my other 3 80s are elementalist, ranger, and guardian) coming from a PvE only perspective here.

in largescale group events, like scarlett invasions, i swap major traits to boost wells, marks, and life-transfer heal. then immediately switch back once scarlett runs away again…

i try to build my toons so that the trait points i spent will offer two basic builds, or primarily one build with a hybridized secondary build… just cause i’m lazy and don’t like to run back to town for every group event i come across…

In my opinion, cleric’s is the best for an MM. I use Life transfer to heals allies to keep my minions or my party members alive, and the enemy annoyed.

I much prefer Knight’s. Higher armor, better damage, and Necro has high base Hp already.

Knight’s also allows you to run sigils like Blood or Fire.

I’m running Zerker/Cavalier with either 20/0/30/0/20 pr 20/0/20/0/30.

the question is for what gamemode you wanna use the ugly little beasts, PvE/WvW or S/TPvP….

Pls never go soldier or apothecary in PvE (maybe some world events but thats it…)

Soldier – Higher usage of DS and better power scaling (both things which dont matter for mms)
Knights – Higher armor and proc chance (kinda important for it)
Zerker – High damage no survival, thus high reliably on DS and dodge timings/body blocking with minions while attacking from afar (works for axe/focus MM)

Bull Zooker.1672:

bleed, poison, cripple, weakness, fear, immobilise, blind.
all from minion actives and weapon sets.
of course you would be running scepter/dagger and staff.

Well, cripple, weakness, fear, immobilise and blind are not affected by condition damage at all, so you are just using condition damage for bleed and poison coming from the scepter.

If you stopped using the scepter and used axe or dagger instead this would provide more synergy with the minions by applying vulnerability and you could forget about condition damage and focus on any other stat.

This is, of course, just a way to play, so if you think this is working for you that’s OK, but I wanted to point it out as I didn’t realize it at the beginning either and found it was much more powerful to forget about condition damage completely when using minions.

blutstein.2468:

Pls never go soldier or apothecary in PvE (maybe some world events but thats it…)

Can you please elaborate on this a little more? Especially the “please never” part since I do not understand why you are basically asking someone else not use a specific combination as if that affected you or other players.

I am trying to learn here.

Thanks!

In PvE there is absolutely no reason to be running full Soldier. Zerker with just enough defense mixed in is more than enough.

Which brings me to my next point, never run full MM in PvE either, it isn’t worth it. Minions in PvE are useful solely for their quality as meat shields. Yes they will add some DPS on top, yes they will give a little bit of utility, but it is pretty much pointless to take them as anything more than meatshields. And to do that, you only need 20 into DM for +HP and -CD. After that you should be spending the other 50 trait points into personal offense or support for your team.

Tl;DR you shouldn’t be using a full set of either in PvE.

Andele.1306:

Soldier – Higher usage of DS and better power scaling (both things which dont matter for mms)

Can you please elaborate on this a little more? I am curious why you think Death Shroud and better power scaling do not matter for minion masters.

I play MM and I spend half my time in death shroud (torment is a great AoE, as well as life transfer and life blast does a lot of damage with high power figures).

My dagger and my focus let me re-charge death shroud very, very fast, and I use it as often as possible, this also gives me more chances to interrupt with fear. The dagger attacks very fast, which keeps siphoning life and life force my way every time I hit.

Also, why do you think power scaling doesn’t matter when power makes every minion attack harder?

I am trying to learn from other people experiences here, so please share.

Thanks!

Power does not make minions hit harder. Minions do not scale anything except conditions inflicted with your stats.

Bhawb.7408:

In PvE there is absolutely no reason to be running full Soldier. Zerker with just enough defense mixed in is more than enough.

Which brings me to my next point, never run full MM in PvE either, it isn’t worth it. Minions in PvE are useful solely for their quality as meat shields. Yes they will add some DPS on top, yes they will give a little bit of utility, but it is pretty much pointless to take them as anything more than meatshields. And to do that, you only need 20 into DM for +HP and -CD. After that you should be spending the other 50 trait points into personal offense or support for your team.

Tl;DR you shouldn’t be using a full set of either in PvE.

Are you speaking strictly from a grouping standpoint? I tend to switch builds when grouped to a more DPS/Deathshroud focused build, the MM build is strictly for open world PVE and exploring.

Or, are you saying to take the minion traits for health, and ignore the damage ones for a build more focused on buffing my own damage?

I’m saying at no point in PvE is there a need for that much survivability on a Necro. Open world PvE, dungeons, world bosses, solo or group, anything. Now, obviously it isn’t that big of a deal, its not like you’ll be unable to do something because your DPS is too low, but you are basically wasting stats.

Basically, if you want to use minions in PvE, you really just need 20 points in Death Magic, which maximizes their tanking potential, and then you do the entire rest of your build as something separate. You can either go for personal damage at that point (like 20/0/20/0/30 or something like that), or maybe support (0/10/30/30/0), but the only minion traits that you ever want to take are, at most, -CD, +HP, and in a support build Death Nova.

So basically, if you are running MM in PvE, its really that you are sacrificing your utility skills to get refreshable meat shields, traiting the bare minimum to support that (20 DM) and then the rest of your build is normal.

Bhawb.7408:

Power does not make minions hit harder. Minions do not scale anything except conditions inflicted with your stats.

Do you have any source for this information?

I will try to test this with the dummies by removing my armor.

murven.7581:

Bhawb.7408:

Power does not make minions hit harder. Minions do not scale anything except conditions inflicted with your stats.

Do you have any source for this information?

Yes. A year of playing the game.

murven.7581:

Do you have any source for this information?

I will try to test this with the dummies by removing my armor.

Yes. I have played this game since beta, and have exclusively used minions in sPvP, and fairly often in WvW/PvE. I am generally considered one of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to minions.

They don’t scale.

True on all, only 3 pve places where necro cannot/shouldnt run rampager/zerker/carrion (which is after scav/div rune update better than rabid for pve) is high level fractals where without soldiers (or sentinels, but thats overkill) you kinda die horribly by agony/not having more youtube money than god and effects/mistlock crap, Tequatl (immune to crits) and doing temple runs/meta boss farms since you kinda have to dodge in zerkers and im too lazy for that kitten when the bosses have no real mechanics to them.

Bhawb.7408:

murven.7581:

Do you have any source for this information?

I will try to test this with the dummies by removing my armor.

Yes. I have played this game since beta, and have exclusively used minions in sPvP, and fairly often in WvW/PvE. I am generally considered one of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to minions.

They don’t scale.

Well, I was talking about an actual source; as reputable as you may be, your opinion cannot replace that.

But thanks for your experienced opinion, I guess I have been playing the minion master wrong all this time.

It is probably too late for me, I do not have the gold to replace my armor, so I will just keep it the way it is until I have tons of gold to waste again.

There is no such thing as a reputable “source” for video games like this, unless the devs have specifically opened up about something, and even they can be wrong. 95% of all the collective knowledge that the Necromancer player base has is just based off experience, with the 5% being based off a source like a red post.

Also, you can just go test it. That is how I know as much as I do, I just tested things that came to me. Its how I figured out things like their HP values or DPS when the wiki was frankly terribly off (seriously who updates the wiki).

Bhawb is right, minion’s don’t scale with your stats at all. This is why soldier’s is so good for minions. Most of your damage comes from them, so you can stack defensive stats to be as tanky as possible.

Also like he said, if you want hard evidence, you’re gonna need to test it in-game if you don’t believe us.

striker.3704:

Bhawb is right, minion’s don’t scale with your stats at all. This is why soldier’s is so good for minions. Most of your damage comes from them, so you can stack defensive stats to be as tanky as possible.

Also like he said, if you want hard evidence, you’re gonna need to test it in-game if you don’t believe us.

Unless its pvp, no, they dont deal near enough damage to compare to a player at 80 and while soldier is the second highest power dps setup (no mix matching) chosing either zerker, knight or even rabid (since you can actually run a very good condi minion setup) usually covers the weaknesses of minions much better.
Ofc that shouldnt prevent anyone from having a soldier set of gear for taco and fractals on their necro, just its like the /worst of the good/ builds that you can pick if going minion master.

Bhawb.7408:

There is no such thing as a reputable “source” for video games like this.

Yes, I understand, and I value the information you are giving me, it is really helpful.

Bhawb.7408:

its not like you’ll be unable to do something because your DPS is too low

Not strictly true.

http://youtu.be/458qBs7fIG8?t=28m

If they hadnt of tried to chill, poison and avoid the aoe lifesteal as much as possible they never would of been able to kill lupi.

spoj.9672:

Bhawb.7408:

its not like you’ll be unable to do something because your DPS is too low

Not strictly true.

http://youtu.be/458qBs7fIG8?t=28m

If they hadnt of tried to chill, poison and avoid the aoe lifesteal as much as possible they never would of been able to kill lupi.

so this vid was made to show a MM party arah run or to prove nemesis MM build sucks because the idiots kept on using minions in lupi p3 ? If they used minions just phase 1+2 they could make it to a 35min run max, which isnt that bad for this build imo…

You wouldnt take minions for any phase of lupi. Doing that is just stupid. This was just a showcase of why. Also yeah it was proof of that build sucking aswell.

spoj.9672:

You wouldnt take minions for any phase of lupi. Doing that is just stupid. This was just a showcase of why. Also yeah it was proof of that build sucking aswell.

If you know where to summon flesh wurm it’s ok + if you know his attack rotation you can also use bone minions to have a small burst at the right time..

+ Until phase 3 you can use minions AT THE RIGHT TIME n.n the only kittened thing is his healing 360 absorb thing if you got minions up.. Just use some that can be deposited when needed

Lagerfueled.5324:

Good morning fellow Necros. I currently play a MM Necro after a year of playing a condition build. I really enjoy it so far, however my main question that I have is this: I see most MM Necro builds using Soldiers gear. What makes this the best gear for the build?

I have currently been using Knight’s Gear in this setup:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V00;3sHkD0s3wI-K0;9;4J-TJ-18;229A16;26Nk05;1DucYDucYK-GWVIaW50;0VAVFWKXP2V3a_5F-3k-B-7V-17VU

This is the setup using Soldier’s Gear:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V00;3sHkD0s3wI-K0;9;4J-TJ-18;229A16;26Nk05NV0DucYDucYMOlScHN02dYqd0-50A1F2KZQ_7LV4s5i0Agk1Agk

I am not seeing much of an advantage in using Soldier’s gear except for the increased health pool, am I completely missing something here? Thanks in advance!

• Soldier gear advantage with 20/0/30/20/0 is being a complete tank , you deal decent damage + good minions abilities that do damage + heal you
• I used the same set-up once, because it was very good at spvp, but if you learn the build in pve you know that it’s to easy to survive so you won’t need that much of extra damage, now I went full berserker with 20/0/20/0/30 , A real DPS’er through the use of DS + runes of the scholar + Minions n.n I also replace blood fiend for Consume Conditions, way better healing skill I don’t know what the new nerf later will bring to berserkers (so to me to) but I’ll let you know how much stuff has changed..
• Why minions ? I like the idea of creating an undead army and have them attack, so I’m like a Mini-Commander (for 0gold) Rushing into packs of mobs and killing kiting destroying
• Necro 4 President, all the whiners should shut it, our class is unique and if you practice you can be very good at it to prefer a profession that you should ‘master’ then brainless skill spamming like warriors.. I do not dislike warriors, they got a nice way to play and support, dps to. But why would you want a full zerker party of 1 profession + healertank guardian if there’s so much more out of there I have warrior 80 to, but after those so called ‘rush’ parties I got really bored, I prefer playing my dear Necros so I can actually do something and think about my actions and movements n.n

Falcon.8713:

+ Until phase 3 you can use minions AT THE RIGHT TIME n.n the only kittened thing is his healing 360 absorb thing if you got minions up.. Just use some that can be deposited when needed

Or just take useful utilities that are helpful in all 3 phases? Only minion ive bothered with when soloing lupi is flesh golem for phase 1 + phase 2. But it ended up not really being worth it because I had to save it for phase switch and he died too often in phase 1. The cast time to resummon is huge.

spoj.9672:

Falcon.8713:

+ Until phase 3 you can use minions AT THE RIGHT TIME n.n the only kittened thing is his healing 360 absorb thing if you got minions up.. Just use some that can be deposited when needed

Or just take useful utilities that are helpful in all 3 phases? Only minion ive bothered with when soloing lupi is flesh golem for phase 1 + phase 2. But it ended up not really being worth it because I had to save it for phase switch and he died too often in phase 1. The cast time to resummon is huge.

I didn’t talk about golem, only about Flesh Wurm and Bone Minions because you can kill them when they’re at wrong place wrong time.. , I thought that you were talking about a group fight, which is easy if you’re doing 5 man dungeon.. Still can use 1 utility skill next to minions.. why replace all of them if you can use them anyway if you know WHEN o.o

Why use them if you can use better utilities?

I mentioned solo because its more important to not take useless utilities in a solo. In a group your teammates can probably out dps any lifesteal lupi gets from your minions. Plus its easier so you dont need anything special.

That’s what I mean, what better utilities do you prefer then ? o.o

Well of suffering for the superior dps and vuln. Plus it clears locusts in phase 1. Signet of locust helps you get out of aoe life drain faster, can also take spectral walk for that. Signet of spite for increased dps. Blood is power for increased dps. Spectral grasp for emergency lifeforce generation if you are playing condi and the chill always helps. Plague form is good for emergency stability on phase 1-2 switch and if you get caught in a bubble. Both consume conditions and well of blood are fine for heal.

When i solo him I take pure dps utilties because I dont need the extra safety.

No need for all of that if you just got a decent group → You can play like you want to

Andele.1306:

striker.3704:

Bhawb is right, minion’s don’t scale with your stats at all. This is why soldier’s is so good for minions. Most of your damage comes from them, so you can stack defensive stats to be as tanky as possible.

Also like he said, if you want hard evidence, you’re gonna need to test it in-game if you don’t believe us.

Unless its pvp, no, they dont deal near enough damage to compare to a player at 80 and while soldier is the second highest power dps setup (no mix matching) chosing either zerker, knight or even rabid (since you can actually run a very good condi minion setup) usually covers the weaknesses of minions much better.
Ofc that shouldnt prevent anyone from having a soldier set of gear for taco and fractals on their necro, just its like the /worst of the good/ builds that you can pick if going minion master.

The problem with stacking damage stats as a minion master is that unlike the other specs, all of which have traits or utilities that directly benefit from getting certain stats, minion masters don’t gain as much as the other specs for getting damage stats. Sure, PvE is easy enough as is, but that doesn’t change the diminishing returns. If you run full damage, you would be better off just going for a deathshroud, direct damage, or condition build.

striker.3704:

Andele.1306:

striker.3704:

Bhawb is right, minion’s don’t scale with your stats at all. This is why soldier’s is so good for minions. Most of your damage comes from them, so you can stack defensive stats to be as tanky as possible.

Also like he said, if you want hard evidence, you’re gonna need to test it in-game if you don’t believe us.

Unless its pvp, no, they dont deal near enough damage to compare to a player at 80 and while soldier is the second highest power dps setup (no mix matching) chosing either zerker, knight or even rabid (since you can actually run a very good condi minion setup) usually covers the weaknesses of minions much better.
Ofc that shouldnt prevent anyone from having a soldier set of gear for taco and fractals on their necro, just its like the /worst of the good/ builds that you can pick if going minion master.

The problem with stacking damage stats as a minion master is that unlike the other specs, all of which have traits or utilities that directly benefit from getting certain stats, minion masters don’t gain as much as the other specs for getting damage stats. Sure, PvE is easy enough as is, but that doesn’t change the diminishing returns. If you run full damage, you would be better off just going for a deathshroud, direct damage, or condition build.

And that is why you shouldnt go minions at all. Anyone in a so to speak off “end game” pve guild will ask you to take a alt (guard war ele ranger or thief, last 3 only if you are really good with em) than a necro and will plain tell you sod off if you show up with minions.

Andele.1306:

striker.3704:

Andele.1306:

striker.3704:

Bhawb is right, minion’s don’t scale with your stats at all. This is why soldier’s is so good for minions. Most of your damage comes from them, so you can stack defensive stats to be as tanky as possible.

Also like he said, if you want hard evidence, you’re gonna need to test it in-game if you don’t believe us.

Unless its pvp, no, they dont deal near enough damage to compare to a player at 80 and while soldier is the second highest power dps setup (no mix matching) chosing either zerker, knight or even rabid (since you can actually run a very good condi minion setup) usually covers the weaknesses of minions much better.
Ofc that shouldnt prevent anyone from having a soldier set of gear for taco and fractals on their necro, just its like the /worst of the good/ builds that you can pick if going minion master.

The problem with stacking damage stats as a minion master is that unlike the other specs, all of which have traits or utilities that directly benefit from getting certain stats, minion masters don’t gain as much as the other specs for getting damage stats. Sure, PvE is easy enough as is, but that doesn’t change the diminishing returns. If you run full damage, you would be better off just going for a deathshroud, direct damage, or condition build.

And that is why you shouldnt go minions at all. Anyone in a so to speak off “end game” pve guild will ask you to take a alt (guard war ele ranger or thief, last 3 only if you are really good with em) than a necro and will plain tell you sod off if you show up with minions.

It also doesn’t help that this spec is getting a blanket nerf next patch.