Guild Wars 2

I just wrote this more or less in another post, but it works here too:

I leveled a Necro to 80 when the game first came out and loved the minion build once it was fully traited. Minions with increased life that siphon health back to you with damage dealt + the death shroud trait that heals you, your allies AND your minions during life transfer + your healing well (that also heals your minions) = a nearly invincible mini army that delivers constant damage in pve. The minions provide a great, damage inflicting meat shield while you run around chaining combos together with your staff.

You may kill things slower than some other classes and may not do as much damage per hit, but I often found myself still standing after everyone else had gone down.

I leveled a necromancer to 80 when the game came out and really enjoyed the minion build for pve despite all the bad things said about it in the forum. It doesn’t really shine until you get a bunch of traits, but once you do you can have your minions siphon health back to you on every hit while you heal them (and yourself) with a heal well, all while chaining your own damage spells from afar. It’s a ton of fun commanding your own little meat shield army.

I have a lvl 80 Necro as my main, and I run a minion based build that the majority of forums goers look down upon. Why do I run it? Survivalbility baby. With the + toughness per minion trait, minion heal via DS and staff, life transfer to me per minion attack and the healing well, I can maintain a healing synergy that keeps myself and my minions alive and fighting. While my minions hammer away on mobs, I round them up and then lay waste with mark combos from my staff. The staff combo burst damage alone isn’t as high as a thief’s or warrior’s, but when added on top of the constant minion damage being done, and the damage you can inflict by jumping into DS, it’s more than enough to do massive AOE damage which heals everyone at the same time.

It’s awesome watching your entire screen fill up with numbers (both white and green) in DS while everything melts around you.

Edit: Oh and btw, don’t ever listen to anyone criticize Necromancers for dungeon runs. I ran Arah once with only four people and I was one of two folks who always seemed to be alive when others were respawning… It’s all about your personal skill.

Have fun leveling your AOE killing machine!

I personally prefer my Guardian over my Warrior alts. Guardians can put out a ton of dps, but can also heal / buff allies during battle when things get rough. They have a number of defensive oriented utilities and weapons to help them survive battle (I’m looking at you shield and mace).

1. Is there any way to see the population on any given server?
2. Are there server specific forums anywhere?

I play on Boris Pass and it feels like the population has gone down significantly since launch. Where it was initially common to see tons of people questing, I now get excited to find a small group during dynamic events. It’s not barren, but it sometimes feels pretty close, even in Orr.

I’ve tried every class but Elementalist, Mesmer and Engineer. My main and only lvl 80 is a Necromancer -

Want to have a pet and be a great mid-range attacker while having access to traps and swords, daggers and torches for fighting up close? (You can light people on fire). Go Ranger.

Want to deal ungodly amounts of in-your-face damage across multiple foes while being able to rotate through defensive weapons that heal you and your allies? Go Guardian.

Want to scream HULK SMASH while you bulldoze through enemies with swords, maces, bows and rifles (and more)? Go Warrior.

Want to read forum post after forum post crying about broken traits and abilities, and how terrible your profession is? Go Necromancer!

No, I know that (I also said that in my first post). I just want the respawn time to be more aware – if I cross a river that has no bridge, I shouldn’t have to wait 30 seconds to respawn my Flesh Golem as a minion build once I get to the other side (where there are often enemies that immediately attack you). I’m not sure how they would do that, but there has to be a way.

My main is a necro and I love me some MM…except when I have to swim across a short body of water. I understand that they die so you can’t use land-specific minions underwater, but couldn’t the cooldown be lessened so that I could respawn everything instantly when I get back on land? It also seems really spotty too – some of the minions stay alive while swimming across a river, yet sometimes they all die instantly. The Flesh Golem always seems to instantly perish no matter how far I swim…

/rant.

Necro is my only lvl 80. I went conditionmancer for most of my leveling, then switched to minion master for lvls ~60-80. A fully traited MM is actually pretty awesome for PvE, even in Orr. With the right traits, it goes like this:

1. I gain 20 toughness per spawned minion.
2. Minions have 50-60% more health (putting them at a full health bar…I don’t remember the exact percentage off the top of my head).
3. Minions have increased damage (again don’t remember the exact percentage).
4. Minion respawn time is reduced.
5. Minions siphon health from enemies back to me while fighting.
6. Death Shroud’s Life Transfer (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_Transfer) siphons health from all enemies within a fairly large radius, transferring it back to myself AND allies (which includes minions).
7. Well of Blood (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Blood) heals myself AND allies (which includes minions).
8. The staff’s Mark of Blood (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mark_of_Blood) grants regeneration on allies (including minions).

Am I an unstoppable tank? No, but I do have high survivability as long as I utilize my staff combos, hop in and out of DS for minion healing / additional damage, drop the occasional healing well and move around accordingly. Also remember fear is an awesome defensive weapon – I can fear away a group of enemies attacking me with my staff / DS fears long enough to redirect my minions towards them (and then slip myself behind the minions). I can also fear enemies back into marks for all kinds of fun.

With the above I can continuously survive waves of 6+ enemy groups for as long as I need to, even in Orr. Your minions will eventually die, and you will have to run around dodging enemies until their cooldowns are done, but they don’t typically ALL die at once if you’re playing smart – aka, don’t run headlong into huge mobs…

Minion AI isn’t the greatest, but I’ve found that playing a MM requires you to actually pay attention to your minions (weird, I know), so you’ll know pretty quickly if one isn’t attacking the right enemy (or is just standing idly by itself). Either retarget someone new or use the minion’s ability to refocus it. Necromancers excel at AOE, so you ought to have another appropriate target nearby to attack if you’ve correctly corralled them.

I’ve found that while other professions can sometimes do more DD, I always seem to be the best AOE dealer in PvE. I am personally terrible at PvP, but have seem some really great PvP necros there as well. Definitely recommend the profession!

I can take on and survive huge mobs running all minions and traited into them for health siphoning and life transfer healing. They also give me toughness per minion. Pair that with the healing well and I can sit back and do damage with my staff while they dps and act as meat shields for me. It doesn’t work very well in pvp unless I’m on a good team. If so, I dominate as I can act as support like I’m supposed to.

You have to learn to go through both weapon sets to really sustain damage with a necro. I have a lvl 60 condition spec with a sceptor / dagger and staff; I stack my bleeds and poison with the sceptor rotation, spread everything using epidemic, then switch to my staff to maintain damage / conditions while the sceptor skills reload. I also pop in and out of DS depending on my health and whether I need the additional bleeds. If I have my conditions spread properly then I also pop DS to use life transfer for AoE. The fear within DS is alright to get one guy off your back when fighting 1-3 people, but it’s pretty worthless in a large group because it only targets a single person.

Don’t get me started with minions. They’re absolute garbage.

I think ANet really needs to add a strike cone to our dagger / axe attacks. I have a guardian alt and that was one of the first things I noticed – I could swing the greatsword around and do equal damage to 3 people. With a necro, you have to switch targets (which makes spreading conditions even more important). Whittle them all down with conditions then finish them off one by one.