Guild Wars 2

1. No to all. It does effect regen tho.

2. Minions don’t scale with gear at all so no real specific prefered damage stats.

3. See above.

4. Not really, necros can do well speced for power or conditions or hybrid.

5. Have yet to test it.

One suggestion I would make is to think a little out of the box regarding your minions ie don’t just fill your bar with minions and leave them auto attacking until they die and you recast them. This type is not so helpful in group content.
Heres a different kind of minionmancer i’ve been thinking about today, not really finished tho:

Bone Minion Combo Fielder

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcVm9Vomhomomhomxax9MosbVMcq

So each Bone Minion’s Putrid Explosions does 1592 damage, this becomes 2069 with Training of the Master and 2388 with Close to Death. As well as that Death Nova’s explosion and Poison Cloud further increases the damage, especially on the 2nd detonation when you gain a combo poison-blast.

The Bone fiend’s basic attack Cripples and its active ability Immobilizes synergizing with the Bone Minions.

Well of Corruption adds a Dark field to blast with, you could go with another Well, perhaps Suffering for solo PVE – I’m thinking Corruption or Power for the utility they provide.

Well of Blood gets you a light field. Handy in PVP if you want to watch Thieves kill themselves ambushing you.

On PVP Spectral Grasp might be a nice swap for the Well of Corruption.

For weapons Staff is really good regardless of what you spec yourself as, for this type of build it has a physical and blast finisher and a poison field.
Really you want staff regardless, fear, condition swapping, chill, poison, crazy bleed, regen and a 1200 basic attack. I wish the necros other weapons and offhands offered better options.

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Just remember that most of your damage is coming from the necromancer him/herself and the utility skills are more of a way to gain a fuctional advantage rather then your primary source of damage. Even this above bone minion build which has everything aligned to maximise the Putrid Explosions the Bone Fiend will be doing alot more DPS then then Bone Minions will be. Just no where near the burst.
Also if your thinking about trying to do really minmax DPS you might want to look at a build using Well of Suffering, Blood is Power and Bone Fiend. Its got a minion in it!