Guild Wars 2

This is mostly for PvE. It seems like minion builds are really good for nothing due to how awful the AI is and how you are completely powerless to do anything about it.

Blood fiends will often go for passive structures, or simply retaliate and force you to sack them like potatoes. The corpse dogs are even worse, due to their short range and propensity to bring armies to you.

Why can’t we control our pets beyond one ability?

Please, give us a bar or something, so we can at least determine what they attack.

Another pet peeve of mine is the fact that nothing regenerates except for the flesh golem. Why is this the case? I don’t see this really killing balance in PvP and it sure as heck would make soloing for a petmancer somewhat less painfully tedious.

Anets design philosophy is a guy with 2 pets, 1 at a time is a class mechanic so he gets to control them. A Minion “master” with 5-6 pets is just a minion utility hog and has no control, and isn’t very masterful. Hopefully some design logic is under way, because it’s disheartening.

Pets – Can be controlled, Their skills can be activated on command
Minions – Can’t be controlled, Their skills can be activated on command
Illusions – Can’t be controlled, can only be shattered on command

Besides the usual AI concerns which have come a long way btw, this differentiation is important and should stay so that variety is kept.

The only problem I keep pointing is that the Flesh Golem out of all the minions cannot Swim but I’m hopeful it will be fixed eventually.

I don’t even want control.. I just want a “yield”. That’s it. I don’t need an attack. I just need something to jerk them with me. :/

Yendorion.2381:

Pets – Can be controlled, Their skills can be activated on command
Minions – Can’t be controlled, Their skills can be activated on command
Illusions – Can’t be controlled, can only be shattered on command

Besides the usual AI concerns which have come a long way btw, this differentiation is important and should stay so that variety is kept.

The only problem I keep pointing is that the Flesh Golem out of all the minions cannot Swim but I’m hopeful it will be fixed eventually.

Keeping something broken as a mechanism for enhancing variety is not a valid methodology for game design.

It makes about as much sense as having a burger on the menu without a bun, but having a chicken sandwich come with one automatically as a means of having variety.

I’m not buying it.

UI clutter is my suspicion – Guild Wars 2 has gone to great lengths to keep the number of buttons to press and on-screen icons at an absolute minimum, and adding a control bar for one subset of necro skills is disproportionate presence for a subset of the profession.

The typical comparison is the ranger pet control bar: note that for rangers, their shouts, signets, two of their heals and about 1/5 weapon skills have effects for their pets specifically: their entire profession is based on having a pet – minions are just a sideshow for necros, like spirit weapons for guardians.

crestpiemangler.7631:

Yendorion.2381:

Pets – Can be controlled, Their skills can be activated on command
Minions – Can’t be controlled, Their skills can be activated on command
Illusions – Can’t be controlled, can only be shattered on command

Besides the usual AI concerns which have come a long way btw, this differentiation is important and should stay so that variety is kept.

The only problem I keep pointing is that the Flesh Golem out of all the minions cannot Swim but I’m hopeful it will be fixed eventually.

Keeping something broken as a mechanism for enhancing variety is not a valid methodology for game design.

It makes about as much sense as having a burger on the menu without a bun, but having a chicken sandwich come with one automatically as a means of having variety.

I’m not buying it.

Except that it’s not broken, it’s clearly a design choice and who says what’s valid or not? Some people choose to have burger with cabbages instead of buns for low-carb Diets in fact :P

ronpierce.2760:

I don’t even want control.. I just want a “yield”. That’s it. I don’t need an attack. I just need something to jerk them with me. :/

Oh this I would love to see!!!

Softspoken.2410:

UI clutter is my suspicion – Guild Wars 2 has gone to great lengths to keep the number of buttons to press and on-screen icons at an absolute minimum, and adding a control bar for one subset of necro skills is disproportionate presence for a subset of the profession.

The typical comparison is the ranger pet control bar: note that for rangers, their shouts, signets, two of their heals and about 1/5 weapon skills have effects for their pets specifically: their entire profession is based on having a pet – minions are just a sideshow for necros, like spirit weapons for guardians.

I understand that design decision and concept behind the UI, but, unlike spirits, the inherent problem is that pets can be “aggroed”.

Spirits might be a sideshow, but they are a FUNCTIONAL sideshow. Pets aren’t really functional. The flesh golem is just a forced preference of cooldown…

By virtue of clutter minimization, why do some of the pet skills even exist if they are meant to be broken and redundant? Why not replace pets then with something a necromancer might actually use?

A long time ago I used to run a MM build while leveling and enjoyed it for the most part aside from the occasional “holy kitten” moment when they would agro stuff I didn’t want or the flesh golem would attack something else a long way off.

The most annoying thing though was how the Flesh golem would stand just outside the healing well radius more often than not when I would try to heal him back to a respectable level before engaging the next round of enemies.

It was not too long after I shelved the MM and the Necro for a while. I didn’t resurrect him until I got hooked on WvW and discovered how much fun it was to zerg blast with him.

I can’t remember the last time I put any of the AI minions on my bar. I am sure they have their usefulness somewhere, but it is not present in the ways I play this game.

Edit; I shelved him during the point in time where ORR was wall to wall mobs spamming CC and nearly instant respawn. I found it to be a pure nightmare while using minions.

We asked for long time a way to control minions in Gw1, we used to have like 15-25 minions up before the nerf, then anet attached the amount of minions whit dead attribute at max 10 minions, and we never ever ever get a way to control thems, at least we can just run and somehow the minions comeback at you spawn, in gw1 they just fight untill they are dead or kill the enemy.

crestpiemangler.7631:

Softspoken.2410:

UI clutter is my suspicion – Guild Wars 2 has gone to great lengths to keep the number of buttons to press and on-screen icons at an absolute minimum, and adding a control bar for one subset of necro skills is disproportionate presence for a subset of the profession.

The typical comparison is the ranger pet control bar: note that for rangers, their shouts, signets, two of their heals and about 1/5 weapon skills have effects for their pets specifically: their entire profession is based on having a pet – minions are just a sideshow for necros, like spirit weapons for guardians.

I understand that design decision and concept behind the UI, but, unlike spirits, the inherent problem is that pets can be “aggroed”.

Spirits might be a sideshow, but they are a FUNCTIONAL sideshow. Pets aren’t really functional. The flesh golem is just a forced preference of cooldown…

By virtue of clutter minimization, why do some of the pet skills even exist if they are meant to be broken and redundant? Why not replace pets then with something a necromancer might actually use?

Minions start attacking things if:

• They are attacked
• You attack a target
• You are attacked

As far as I know, spirit weapons behave in the exact same way. I consider these to be pretty legitimate criteria for gaining aggro.

And honestly, I don’t find minion skills broken, so just stating your conclusion (‘broken and redundant’) isn’t all that convincing to me.

They have all started healing if your out of combat a while :-))

Steps have been taken to get there ability cast times down, so you can consider using them as interrupt.

There main problem now seems to be. Amount of splash damage they take, and no ‘come back’ command. Lots of other games have ‘reduced aoe damage’ some even use ‘max damage pet can take per hit’ to stop them getting 1/2 shot.

Soft, if you actually use minions for any length of time in PvE, ya’ll see they have lots of non-functional things that could be easily fixed.

One and a half hours of farming Mount Maelstrom:
Didn’t attack till I’d killed the mobs: 3 counts.
Ran off and attacked a target up the ramp and around the corner: 1 count.
Ran off and stood in lava till killed: 4 counts.
Stood in fire circles and would not move till mob dead. LOTS N LOTS.

I will say, they are SOOOOO much better than they used to be. Tho a simple ‘come back’ button would do wonders. Even PvE aside, in sPvP people do pull your pets and use spots they know they ‘wig out and run around invis walls’.

Bweaty.9187:

They have all started healing if your out of combat a while :-))

Steps have been taken to get there ability cast times down, so you can consider using them as interrupt.

There main problem now seems to be. Amount of splash damage they take, and no ‘come back’ command. Lots of other games have ‘reduced aoe damage’ some even use ‘max damage pet can take per hit’ to stop them getting 1/2 shot.

Soft, if you actually use minions for any length of time in PvE, ya’ll see they have lots of non-functional things that could be easily fixed.

One and a half hours of farming Mount Maelstrom:
Didn’t attack till I’d killed the mobs: 3 counts.
Ran off and attacked a target up the ramp and around the corner: 1 count.
Ran off and stood in lava till killed: 4 counts.
Stood in fire circles and would not move till mob dead. LOTS N LOTS.

I will say, they are SOOOOO much better than they used to be. Tho a simple ‘come back’ button would do wonders. Even PvE aside, in sPvP people do pull your pets and use spots they know they ‘wig out and run around invis walls’.

Runs up ramp with 6 pets following them, not able to catch up
Jumps off
Kills you while 6 pets run all the way back around and down the ramp at a normal/slow pace
Die
Rez, they’re all on full cool down

I’ll agree the lack of a “Heel” button is frustrating, since Minions are kind of stupid and will needlessly run into danger zones.

As for PvP – I seriously don’t think that’s a minion issue: there is a lot of bad pathing on those maps. Stairs and bridges often break the path finding of shadowsteps, if the complaints I’ve read are accurate.

pet control wouldnt be an issue if they didnt just stand there while i attacked something. by the time they engage a target, it’s just about dead anyway

If to compare pets/Illutions : Necro MM is the worst of all. Pathfinding system and reaction times are sometime just suicidel. For example Fresh Golem: just today it charged 8 times into the wall + 12 times he just stand near me and does nothing, while i was under heavy attack.

kishter.9578:

We asked for long time a way to control minions in Gw1, we used to have like 15-25 minions up before the nerf, then anet attached the amount of minions whit dead attribute at max 10 minions, and we never ever ever get a way to control thems, at least we can just run and somehow the minions comeback at you spawn, in gw1 they just fight untill they are dead or kill the enemy.

Wrong on two counts. With maximum death magic you could get up to 12 or 13 minions. And I believe sometime after GWEN came out we finally got the ability to control minions.

necro should be able to give at least 2 commands: attack and return to me

that way necro doesn’t need to worry all the time about dumb AI not reacting or reacting in dumb way etc.

my favorite would be that we would actually have better selection of elite minions and they would be a little bit more like ranger pets tbh.

jalmari.3906:

necro should be able to give at least 2 commands: attack and return to me

that way necro doesn’t need to worry all the time about dumb AI not reacting or reacting in dumb way etc.

my favorite would be that we would actually have better selection of elite minions and they would be a little bit more like ranger pets tbh.

We can wish that all we want, but (and I guess I can agree with them) they don’t want to basically turn a single spec into its own profession as far as making them more like ranger pets. Now, I do agree there needs to be a “yield/yank” but I can understand why they don’t want an “attack”, because then they’d realize how lame the ranger class abilities are…. I agree that an attack AND yield would be best for the game, but I don’t think they’re up for the necessary changes to follow.

Feel free to hop in here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Sikari-s-Push-to-Revive-the-MM-Necro/first#post2319377