http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh Engineer from The abjured.
http://www.twitch.tv/noscoc Necro from The abjured.
http://www.twitch.tv/romoncoke Warrior from oRng.
http://www.twitch.tv/phantaram Elementalist from The abjured.
http://www.twitch.tv/sizer2654 Thief from TCG.
All of them are “high rated pvp streamers” as you say.
All of them are in top teams.
All of them usually stream everyday.
Pls.
I had several friends who were so excited and wanted to return to the game when they heard that a GvG inspired PVP mode is coming. Their reaction after finding out that it’s a 5v5? Hell no.
So much could have been done with this game mode. The scale, bigger. Not WvW big, obviously, but enough to cater to 10 players (and DESIGNED for 10 players. none of that ‘well you technically can, in custom games.’)
Zerging with pixel bombs an issue? Punish players for zerging. Do you see 5 players always in a single lane in MOBA’s?
People’s complaints since the BETA of the game was that the game’s called Guild Wars get there hardly is any activities to do with the guild itself. Guild hall? Oh good. Now you can enjoy that comradery by afk sitting in a room together.
This was a huge disappointment and certainly a turn off for many people who were ready to drop cash on the expansion.
It should shoot a tiny baby ghost quaggan going wooOOoooOOOooooOooo but alas, one can only dream.
I think we are in a “point of no return” for pvp scene and all depends on Anet choice.
2 super important decisions:
1- Splitting queue for every game modes (conquest, DM, Stronghold)
2- Increase the balance frequency (really important too)
With 2 these steps, PVP scene can grow A LOT.
The alternative is game over.
You can only go so far to preserve the population. Taking a risk once in a while might pay off.
Razor xxxx (Desolation ; Off)
Bring back: ‘Gamer’ title + MAT’s!
Throw out: Hotjoin!
Bring back: ‘Gamer’ title + MAT’s!
Throw out: Hotjoin!
queues
Stronghold / Battle of Kyhlo / Courtyard
6 Stronghold 2 Battle of Kyhlo 1 Courtyard 1 no vote
Courtyard
logs offSeparate queues for different modes please.
Yeah, this is a terrible scenario, it’s an incredible waste of time/resources/ads/blogs/events/videos/realtimeshow to put a new game mode like stronghold behind this system.
Really, can’t do this mistake.
And BTW this is an old issue, DM should be in a different queue too.
Many people like DM, probably more people would play DM if there were a dedicated queue and maybe with better maps (more open space) it could be very fun.
Many times you think “eh the spvp population is low” but have u considered the fact that is low because people don’t like conquest and would play other game modes?
(edited by MarkPhilips.5169)
I know Necros have a lot of issues right now, but something REALLY keeps getting on my nerves. Why can the Flesh Golem not be used underwater? All the other mobile summons can be used, so why not the golem? Especially since just touching water can make it despawn and make you wait for the cooldown to expire.
Please remove the restriction. I do not see any purpose in its existence other than to annoy Necro players.
Stronghold was advertised to not only require different roles and builds than Conquest, but also to attract different types of players.
If both game modes are in the same queue, we will most likely end up with matches where all players who do not end up in their desired game mode will leave the match immediately. And I couldn’t even blame them for that.
This is one of my concerns as well. But really, who can blame them? We’ve had Conquest forever now. People are tired of it, or just flat-out not interested in it.
It won’t be able to damage the door. It can damage NPCs.
[VZ] Valor Zeal – Stormbluff Isle – Looking for steady, casual-friendly NA raiders!
If you don’t agree then please do contest my points and let me know what you think, I may be missing something, Cheers!
Stronghold will be the downfall of GW2 PvP. The hype train just hasn’t slammed into the station at full speed yet.
Response to OP’s points
Capture Points: Thinking capture points makes for a bad game is extremely short-sighted. If it’s solely because of bunkers, then you haven’t PvP’ed in a while. Bunker builds have been pretty much dead since TCG lost WTS China, and even before then, they were a dying breed. Players at the top tiers learned to play the map better and in doing so, could out-perform a team with dedicated bunkers.
If you dislike capture points, you should hate Stronghold too. Stronghold has fixed objectives (gates, supply depot) that can be easily denied by a very defensive build. The profession and build may change, but the concept is the same. For example, a turret engi could just set up at the supply depot. In fact, the heavy importance of the single supply depot makes the defensive player position more influential to gameplay.
Roles: The roles described in the article are dreams – not reality. Players will always ignore designer intent and go straight to the most efficient strategy, especially when combat vs. players can be minimized. For example, in Alterac Valley from WoW, a 40v40 PvP area with NPC-backed objectives, the two opposing zergs just run past each other in the middle and turn it into a PvE race. In early GW2 PvE, players constantly farmed quick and easy dungeons, even with diminishing returns, instead of doing different paths to prevent diminishing returns.
Out of whatever remains of worthwhile objectives, there will be a handful of builds which are so much better at a specific role that any other build for that role won’t be worth playing. For example, GS/Sword warrior for supply running. It has the survival, mobility, and access to stability to just constantly channel and run supply and won’t be stopped before reaching the supply return point. GS/sword warrior already does this with the orb on Spirit Watch, which is a big reason why Spirit Watch is the worst conquest map.
Casual Appeal: This is a double-edged sword. Yes, the point of each objective is more clear and it seems like there’s a lot to do at first glance. First, when there are many objectives with different functions, there is a large opportunity for bad choices. Luckily most of these choices will be known to be bad with some experience and the community will quickly arrive at a simple meta which ignores many map mechanics. There go the choices.
However, you’ll always have new people who don’t know or don’t care to learn which choices are bad. For example, I still see people in conquest double-capping uncontested nodes. You also have the optimized builds for each role described previously. Put all that together and Stronghold chat will quickly turn into a toxic quagmire like you see in MOBAs. When a player goes for an objective that isn’t worthwhile, they’ll be chastised. If they do something useful but with a poor build for that, they’ll be called out. When that team loses, people will get mad and take it out on that player. At a casual level, simplistic optimized builds will carry players and teams, just like turret engineers do in conquest.
Kirrena Rosenkreutz
GW2 HOT with its new stronghold game mode will only be worth it if specs actually change. Hopefully they use the opportunity of the expansion to fix mechanics which simply don’t work like necro life siphon and the dominance of passive sigil procs (and many other issues). Weapons like thief shortbow should probably see total reworks to reduce its spammable mobility, necro scepter should be reworked so its a condition weapon (scepter 3), and the game should be re-balanced with MUCH less evades and therefore less auto attack damage (sigils, mesmer, etc). Perhaps the total removal of vigor and the rebalancing of all weapon skills which cause evades would be a good start.
Character: Henry rank million/Duke Henry
Necromancer/Casual Warrior
[Team] Best WvW guild of all time. EASILY.
Necromancer/Casual Warrior
[Team] Best WvW guild of all time. EASILY.
I forgot, little OT but very very important:
Balance Frequency
With HoT we’ll have 9 new specs (A LOT of new stuff) + 1 new prof. Without a fast balance, the entire pvp scene risks to collapse.
Have you plan to speed up (at least 1 month) the balance frequency and not a 6 month old meta anymore?
I think is really crucial.
A lot of the questions on here have been answered in the past already. So let me answer a couple for you so they don’t waste time during the cast; double stating what they have already told us.
1: Yes, you can solo Q into the game mode.
2: Yes it will have its own Q’s
3: Yes it will have its own leader board
4: When time runs out, if both lords are up, the team with the most points wins. This is how it already works in the event of a tie and how it will continue to work.
5: No, this is not GvG so stop saying that. It is sPvP.What’s the GvG then? All I hear is Stronghold being the new GvG?
they are saying that because along with it will come a guild leaderboard
I’m still amazed that WvW people “created” their own version of “GvG” completely ignoring the official gamemode established in GW1, and when that gamemode gets a successor in GW2 they say “it’s not real GvG” because it’s not the zergfest they created. I’m just speechless.
Personally, I am impress because those WvWer (all 100 of them) manage to railroad development of the game and got their unsupported game format a custom built location for them to zerg till the cows come home.
A lot of the questions on here have been answered in the past already. So let me answer a couple for you so they don’t waste time during the cast; double stating what they have already told us.
1: Yes, you can solo Q into the game mode.
2: Yes it will have its own Q’s
3: Yes it will have its own leader board
4: When time runs out, if both lords are up, the team with the most points wins. This is how it already works in the event of a tie and how it will continue to work.
5: No, this is not GvG so stop saying that. It is sPvP.What’s the GvG then? All I hear is Stronghold being the new GvG?
they are saying that because along with it will come a guild leaderboard
I’m still amazed that WvW people “created” their own version of “GvG” completely ignoring the official gamemode established in GW1, and when that gamemode gets a successor in GW2 they say “it’s not real GvG” because it’s not the zergfest they created. I’m just speechless.
I think it is because most MMO’s GvGs their GvGs are like the GvGs we see in GW2..
When I heard about ‘GvG’, I was thinking about the ‘Annihilation Deathmatch’ aswel.. Since all other mmo’s I played were annihilation as GvG..Ofcourse, I never played GW1 so I don’t have this ‘GW1 GvG should be respected in GW2’ kind of thing
It just depends what MMO’s this current playerbase played in the past
Guild wars 2 isn’t like most MMO so that is a terrible argument. There is a saying when in Rome act like the romans, it would be a good idea to keep that in mind.
As u know im pro. ~Tomonobu Itagaki
This is an mmo forum, if someone isn’t whining chances are the game is dead.
This is an mmo forum, if someone isn’t whining chances are the game is dead.
I’m still amazed that WvW people “created” their own version of “GvG” completely ignoring the official gamemode established in GW1, and when that gamemode gets a successor in GW2 they say “it’s not real GvG” because it’s not the zergfest they created. I’m just speechless.
I’m still amazed that WvW people “created” their own version of “GvG” completely ignoring the official gamemode established in GW1, and when that gamemode gets a successor in GW2 they say “it’s not real GvG” because it’s not the zergfest they created. I’m just speechless.
Forum Lord Chaith
Twitch.tv/chaithh
New Twitter: @chaithhh
Twitch.tv/chaithh
New Twitter: @chaithhh
A lot of the questions on here have been answered in the past already. So let me answer a couple for you so they don’t waste time during the cast; double stating what they have already told us.
1: Yes, you can solo Q into the game mode.
2: Yes it will have its own Q’s
3: Yes it will have its own leader board
4: When time runs out, if both lords are up, the team with the most points wins. This is how it already works in the event of a tie and how it will continue to work.
5: No, this is not GvG so stop saying that. It is sPvP.What’s the GvG then? All I hear is Stronghold being the new GvG?
they are saying that because along with it will come a guild leaderboard
I’m still amazed that WvW people “created” their own version of “GvG” completely ignoring the official gamemode established in GW1, and when that gamemode gets a successor in GW2 they say “it’s not real GvG” because it’s not the zergfest they created. I’m just speechless.
So something I absolutely loved in GW1, EQ and early WoW (with the warlock) was sacrificing my health for some kind of cool benefit. Be it, sacrificing health to give mana/energy to others, sacrificing health to do more damage, sacrificing health to heavily debuff enemies or sacrificing health for some kind of utility such as moving quickly or regain health quickly for a set period of time. In GW2 there was a bit of playing with your health pool with the condimancer and plague signet, but it’s a really pale comparison and pretty trivial because the conditions can be ditched quickly.
In the coming xpack, and with some new utilities, traits and what not, and the possibility of a new specialization that takes life force and uses it as something other than a shield and different damage abilities, I’m hoping this old style of gameplay can be brought back.
Some ideas I thought could be interesting are:
- Utility that sacrifices health and/or life force for quickness.
- With the mention in the PoI about mushrooms shortening skill cooldowns, maybe some unique group buffing: new elite sacrifice or constantly drain health to give a buff to yourself and nearby allies to decrease skill cooldown by x%.
- Short cooldown utility ( < 5 sec) that sacrifices 10+ % max health to double the condition damage of the next bleed (or two bleeding applications).
- Sacrifice health utility skill that greatly increases (+50%) outgoing heals (possibly to also nearby allies)
- Drain health utility to increase the power and toughness of minions.
Then on an slightly unrelated note: The signet of vampirism reminds me a bit of the debuff applied by barbs. It’d be interesting if stacking debuffs like that could be applied that could have extra damage done scale with a stat like power or condi damage. The benefit of having that over something like applying vulnerability is then there is a controlled flat damage boost that makes it easy to balance around, and it can provide some interesting new synergies, like fast but softer hitting attacks (like the dagger aa) being able to provide harder spike damage, or less power heavy derived attacks still being able to trigger the boost damage without any loss to the debuff’s final output.
What are you willing to sacrifice?
I’m not saying that the immunity to condis is the wrong approach, I just don’t like it. I don’t see why they couldn’t add an attribute to skills that labels an area as “imminent AoE” or “current AoE” to assist with AI. I’m no AI expert, but adding some flags would be the easy part. But really, you’re probably right, not a whole lot would necessarily change in the fight. Watch the minions for their tells, focus the Necro him/herself, only this time the minions might not fall over due to collateral. I’ve just seen “immune to condis” in various places that struck me as odd, because changing it to “immune to direct damage” in those places would cause a literal nuclear explosion on these forums.
Adding flags wouldn’t be “hard”, it would simply require someone to manually add that to every single (relevant) skill in the game. It is a ton of boring work, and has the potential to introduce a massive number of bugs. You are correct though, it wouldn’t actually be difficult, it is just a bit more code for each skill, and it would fit into something like an expansion (where you traditionally go through and re-code at least part of the game), and would then allow changes like this.
Also a big difference between “immune to condis” and “immune to direct damage” is that everyone deals direct damage, even condi builds deal some direct damage. But not everyone applies damaging condis. Especially in the case of carrion, there isn’t a massive difference in the amount of power between a condi/power build, the big difference is crit/ferocity multipliers.
And I fully think that minions needing to path up small ledges is a failure of the AI. Why not have the AI jump up the ledge after them? Especially if they have to run around to a ramp on the side, then the player jumps back down and they have to run back around. That’s AI/pathing issues, and I don’t see why that wouldn’t be incorporated in some of the fixes. I’m not against kiting, but that style of gaming the kiting system shouldn’t be such an easy thing to do.
Fair enough, but that is a level of changes above what I’m looking to address. That requires a full rework of how AI works. Its still a good idea, just beyond the scope of what we could reasonably suggest.
And with respect to just running around in a circle, perhaps the minions should be 10% faster than players, or benefit from boons (such as Swiftness) that are on the Necro? Then you’d have to actually use snares/slows to kite, which is how I personally think kiting should be anyway. Simply being able to run and attack without being caught also just doesn’t seem right, but perhaps they’re compensating for the Necro helping their pets out with his/her own control.
I also don’t think the Minions should be so squishy, I just think it’s truly the AI that is selling mobility short.
I think the biggest problem is that minions have to stop to attack, but players don’t. In normal PvP, equal speed still allows a melee target to chase and hit their enemy all the time. But for minions, once they reach the target they stop, do their attack animation, then start running again, and the distance created during that one attack is enough that without a speed difference they will never be able to hit again. So one way to fix it would be to simply allow them to attack and move at the same time like we do. Another would be a small speed buff, yes, or simply a way to give them swiftness outside Pack Runes.
The AI is definitely hurting mobility, yes. Ideally they would be pretty equal. Also worth noting that most mobile minions are melee, which makes the AI issues worse/more prevalent.
Don’t need to call it zombie crate, what you’re asking for was in GW1
I vote for an elite skill that drops a blob of minions on an enemy and instantly rek them while they’re stunned/imob.
As for names for this new minion elite, I suggest “Iwinbutton”.
Ah yes, zombie crate that spawns a blood fiend, 2 bone minions thst explode on contact, a bone fiend that uses his immob instantly and a flesh golem. I am all for a zombie crate! :P
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
Yeah, unfortunately ANet really removed any way to debate that it is a bad idea. They demolished its scaling, lowered its base healing IIRC, and then halved the time that it would exist as a field.
Did Anet ever offer any explanation for this?
Who was using Well of Blood?! No one in PvP that’s for sure which is where they base the balancing from right!?
WATER FIELD OR RIOT
I read through this thread without seeing the timestamps, then got to the end and just laughed at the juxtaposition. Namely, Bhawb’s examples above stalwartly defending the stance that making it a water field would be a bad idea because of the niche power it would bring, then the final post being “Yeah that skill was horribly gutted, would be fine now.”
It was a pretty stark anticlimax to the build-up of discussion that was going on, but I thoroughly enjoyed.
Alduin Nightsong, 80 Human Necro
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
Critical Bugs:
Necros are no strangers to bugs. We have bugs flying out of our warhorns, but Minion Masters specifically suffer unlike no other from its list of crippling bugs.
Moa: Currently, Moa, unlike for any other class with pets, despawns or kills all of our pets. This is due to our utilities’ unique functioning with Transformations. (Critical**)
Pet Pathing issues: More specifically, hitting an enemy directly when pets are 600-900+ distance behind you, they lose the ability to track their target and will freeze in place for the duration of the fight, this includes instances of jumping terrain and starting a fight and them having to take a long route, in many cases they won’t come at all until the fight is over. (Critical**)
Flesh of the Master: Currently, when this trait is in use, going “down” causes all pets to die. (Moderately Critical*)
Misc.: I’m not sure whether to consider the blast finisher on putrid explosion, and activation times “bugs”, but they certainly need looked at, as they are unreasonable in their functionalities.
Conclusions and Expectations:
Hopefully at least someone is still with me at this point. What do I expect from this massive list of proposed changes? I want to remove some of the sustained and passive damage from the pets and move it into activation, and increase the impact of timely activation. Additionally, I want to retain the ability to counter minions by CC and snares, as well as single target damage, while also reducing their excessively potent weakness to AOE to more match that of turrets, but still with more downfalls (kitable, and in the thicket). Additionally, I’d like the general and inexcusable “clunkiness” to be reduced on minion activation abilities so that they can be used as clutch and with more precision when watching the flow of battle, rather than feeling random at times. Essentially, this is the goal and these are a strong step toward that goal. While they are rather bold, we feel this will take Minion masters further out of the purely passive damage spectrum, and add more benefit to time attacks and ensure they land.
Lastly, I think 2+ years is long enough to want some of our major bugs fixed, especially with pathing and Moa.
Past Threads:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Sikari-s-Push-to-Revive-the-MM-Necro/first
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
(edited by ronpierce.2760)
Traits:
Flesh of the Master. Reworked. Remove the 50% health bonus. Instead, Pets are now immune to damaging conditions and critical strikes. Reasoning: Our primary issue in PVP is our unrivaled weakness to AoE effects to the point of effectively pushing MM out of high end PVP. As a baseline benefit, Turrets can be used in team pvp because they have a natural protection from all Conditions, CCs and Critical Hits. We just want some of that AoE protection ( while still being able to still single target down the pet if needed) without them being obliterated in high spam situations. Additionally, unlike turrets, we don’t think full condition immunity is the way to go. Cripple and chill are valid defenses against Minion Masters and should remain as such, but this way, condition builds and berserker builds will not be able to clear our board within a single sweep in 5 seconds (literally). In addition to making them survive better in team play, players in a cluster are also less susceptible to mass minion death Death Nova, equally toxic.
Training Of the Master. Reworked. Remove the passive 25% bonus damage to minions. Replace with an increased functionality and damage to minion activations. A basic set of examples:
[Putrid Explosion: Increases damage by 50% (consider the 25% we’re losing, which is why these numbers may seem high) and is now unblockable.
Haunt: Greatly increased damage on haunt. Haunt now spawns a 4 second dark field on the enemy when activated in addition to the initial blind.
Rigor Mortis: Increased damage, and Rigor mortis now also dazes the target for 1 second in addition to the Immobilize.
Necrotic Traversal: Now grants 2 seconds of stability and removes cripple, chill and immobilze on sacrifice.
Charge: Increased damage by 50% (Again, from base) Flesh Golem gains 10 seconds of swiftness and 100% crit chance for 10 seconds on activation. (Probably about 6 seconds or 4 hits after the animation ends)
Taste of Death: No longer sacrifices the Blood fiend. Now heals all minions for the healing amount when used. 35 second cooldown added to the on use. (About 4k healing to pets every 35 seconds)]
Reason: I know that’s a lot, and the numbers might sound scary, but these are 50% increases from the trait in conjunction to the 25% they’re losing on ALL auto damage and triggered attacks. In net, this would be a loss in damage but put more damage into the commander’s control. Additionally, this adds a key point for increasing build diversity, as non-Minion Master necromancers may wish to take this to make specific use of single pets instead of taking other traits.
Minion Master: Now also reduces the cooldown of pet active abilities. Reasoning: This is to help counteract the large dps loss from sacrificing 25% bonus damage and to increase the active portion of playing Minion Master.
Vampiric Master: Revert the 10% nerf to leeching. Reasoning: Our survival in high end absolutely needed no nerfing, and lower skill play will be benefited by other changes.
Abilities
Putrid Explosion: Currently, the blast finisher portion of the attack doesn’t trigger until 3 seconds too late. This makes it so that most times, the weakness isn’t applied when using Explosion with the Death Nova Trait. This delay in the blast needs to be reduced to .1 second (enough to recognize the field).
Necrotic Traversal. Currently, the poison field is spawned at the base of the minion. Instead, (baseline) spawn the field from the point of the necromancer prior to teleportation.
Haunt: Haunt currently has a 3 second “cast time” by the pet before activating. This makes its already questionable ability a huge lack in DPS and healing for a single blind. It isn’t even viable for a stomp cover as it takes longer than a stomp to activate even if you use it prior to stomping. As it stands, trying to have your pet place a blind on one enemy requires the same set up as churning earth… Think about that. 1 second ready insead.
Rigor Mortis: Currently, it takes two full attack rotations (quite a while) to fire the immobilizing shot. Instead, make it interrupt its current auto attack and instantly cast for the rigor. This is purely a QOL and clunkiness change, as the tell for the attack itself has always been its unique projectile. Even making it more noticeable would be acceptable.
Charge: Charge has a very unusual 1.5 second cast time. Post changes and nerfs to Charge, the cast time should be removed considering its weaker state (as far as connecting potential goes) and to match other minion skills.
Bone Minion, Shadow Fiend, Flesh Golem: Currently, when spawned, all melee pets are summoned at the base of the necromancer. Instead, these melee specific pets should spawn at the foot of your target when spawned with a target, or at the necromancer without a target. This would be similar to Mesmer phantasms.
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
(edited by ronpierce.2760)
Current Issues Overview :
AoE Gating Viability:
As it stands, AOE is by far the largest issue with Necromancer’s minions. They simply don’t have the ability to last in any ‘decent’ AOE and have no real defenses against it. Unlike Turrets, which can be placed outside of battle range and are immune to critical hits and conditions, our pets run directly through any hazard and has no protection against them~ at all. In fact, many times even with the 50% increased health trait, a bone minion will die before it ever reaches a longbow warrior once, it’s that bad. And that is just a single person and skill! AoE is very heavy in the current Meta and they simply have no protection against it, to the point that even 1v1 is becoming a downhill battle (our king utility to a team), and team battles are a lost cause entirely.
Low Risk, Moderate-High Reward:
Minion Masters get a lot of hate for their ease of play (granted, some is ignorance), but this doesn’t have to be the case over all. There are changes that could be made to reduce the stream of decent damage from minions and increase Master/Minion collaboration to maximize usage. This way, lower skilled minion masters aren’t wiping the floor with other low skilled players, and if handled well, great MMs can potentially rise higher in the ranks for their efforts. This would be the ideal outcome.
Clunkiness:
There are a lot of clunkiness issues with minion Masters center around poor and outdated mechanics. I don’t doubt MM tends to get forgotten about when it comes to updating outdated issues, especially since they can be subtly tucked away(though powerful) issues, such as Putrid Explosion’s blast going off 3 seconds late and long activations on Minion abilities. Others, on the other hand are not so subtle. Minion movement, especially on terrain needs serious help. Scenarios such as someone running up a ramp and jumping off the side leave them backtracking and spending a lot of idle time out of our control.
Major Bugs:
While I’m not entirely sure how to separate bugs from general clunkiness, there are a few notable bugs that are undeniably bugs and need to be fixed sooner rather than later. For instance a mandatory trait (Flesh of the Master) currently kills all pets when you go down. Similarly, due to poor coding, when being transformed via the Moa ability you also lose all of your pet skills. I can assume this is a bug because this does not happen to Guardian Spirit weapons, Ranger Spirits, Mesmer Clones and Phantasms, nor Engineer turrets, and is likely a function having to do with Elite transformations killing pets, and someone took a shortcut and in the process we took the hit for their shortcut.
Suggested Changes and Reasoning: (Warning, Length.)
We’ve taken the time to discuss in depth solid ways to handle the issues stated above. We consider ourselves “experts” as far as playing Minion Masters goes, and have a high interest in balance and gameplay. That said, while biases are inevitable, we tried to be as fair as possible in our suggestions. As such, I will also try to explain our reasoning behind our proposed changes to the best of my ability.
General:
Cast times: I believe all pet cast times in the game should be brought down from 1.5 seconds to 1 second. All summons in the game share this number except turrets that sit at a comfortable .5 second cast and phantasms that have a comfortable ¾ cast. It can take 6 seconds to summon 4 utilities, 7.5 if you run your healing pet, which is enough time to lose if you didn’t already have them (post fight), and mid-fight it just isn’t a reasonable activation, especially in comparison.
Pet Health: I suggest a small 15-20% increased health in sPvP and WvW to lessen the gap from PVE, and in conjunction with a proposed Trait change (effectively lowering max minion health).
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
(edited by ronpierce.2760)
- Warning, I am attempting to reduce clutter, so I will spoiler sections. I apologize for mobile phones.-
Intro:
(Expect a long read. Minion Master is a personal passion for me, as far as GW2 goes and I do my best to see it gets the recognition it deserves, and also to provide constructive discussion around the build. This write up is primarily for developers, but also avid Minion Master Players. Thanks for taking part!)
Hello everyone. My name is High Warlord Sikari, and I’m writing my third Minion Master centric write up in 2 years. I’ve worked with and discussed with various Devs within ANet over the years to try to find that sweet spot for my favorite, and the most interesting build in the game (imo!). This time I’ve had collaboration with another well-known Minion Master, Bhawb. I’m here to discuss my current feelings about the Minion Master, where it is, where it could and should go in the future, and cover as many grounds as possible for aspiring Minion masters as well as motivating Developers to not forget us!
(Credibility: Some personal information, as High Warlord Sikari, I have won various 1v1/2v2 tournaments. Have peaked at #5 for a time in the leaderboards a while ago, but generally I’d find myself to be between 50 and 200, even during MMs weak points, before losing interest in tPvP for a while. I have played Minion Master since the beginning and stuck with it through thick and thin.)
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Minion Master Overview:
Minion Masters are an interesting sector in Guild Wars 2, and more specifically, I feel it is a vastly misunderstood build. Where many combatants tend to focus on maximizing their personal damage output and leaning on more “passive” or secondary defenses (such as boons and evades), the Minion master has more passive damage flow but requires heightened abilities to hold an enemy in place and avoid critical abilities to ensure the minions are able to function at their maximum potential. Because of this passive damage aspect, Masters have received a lot of lash-back from the community as an easy or “brainless” build. That just simply isn’t true. To understand the MM you have to first acknowledge that we have the lowest access to critical defensive boons such as protection, vigor, aegis, and typically have no CC breaks. Instead our focus is simply shifted from aggressive play to attention to controlling the field for victory and survival. Indeed, it takes a new point of view to see the uniqueness behind playing a Minion Master.
That said, the overall objectives for a minion master is just that, focusing on controlling the battlefield, working with our minions to allow them to do their jobs, and above all, be aware of the direct dangers to the master. These elements are what give minion masters such a fun and unique play style, but this can always be improved. From here, I’ll discuss the current issues that we’re facing as a build, and some changes suggested to remedy these issues.
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
(edited by ronpierce.2760)
not commenting untill i see the whole map lay out and actual usage of treb and if its effective or not.
personally i would love to treb if it actually has a great out come and depend on your instinct.
PvP Server Programmer
Also, your we rate people on wins. Like many have said, people get carried. That’s a stupid way to rate people. You need to use a player rating system.
I believe TrueSkill uses player ranking in the game when updating ratings, but I’m not sure that would work as well for us. I’d love to use TrueSkill, but it has a patent and I hear Microsoft doesn’t license it out to competitors. Also, our point structure isn’t designed for this, and would probably need a bit of an overhaul.
People being carried only matters if they are constantly carried by the same people, but it is true that this causes their ratings to take longer to reach the same accuracy.
I’ve been toying around with my own rating system in my spare time, but it’s not well tested or verified, never mind production ready.
Server Programmer (sPvP)
Isle of Janthir: Flux, Latch, Aegir
Isle of Janthir: Flux, Latch, Aegir
<continued>
Putting it all together…
Match highlights:
When a match starts, you should focus mostly on surviving, building LF and putting pressure before you can move to the juicy part.
I like to go over close with whoever caps it to make sure it’s not being pushed by someone (engies and warriors like doing that, and you’re a perfect deterrence).
When you start fighting over mid or close, stick to ledges, place your Wurm in the escape spots and start putting pressure. On average, your favourite targets would be engies, other necros and squishies.
I like to pick targets myself, if you play solo a lot, this is the best thing you can do in the beginning. At this point, there is usually someone already training you hard and this is the crucial moment, because you now have to survive and put pressure waiting to make use of your true strengths. If your team focuses correctly, opportunities for Corrupt Boon and Terror spikes should happen and this is the time where you add your damage interrupting the targets and fearing them to negative hp, i.e. the downed state.
At all times I’ll try to stay at a safe distance to make sure I can avoid as much pressure as possible and not to get gibbed by some crazy spikes or cc-locks.
In practice though, you will find that having a thief and a warrior jumping at you with all their cooldowns forces you to start kiting them around and usually it’s best to stick near to the node so that if things go south you may get rezzed by your team.
As for the duels, I honestly don’t feel comfortable dueling over a node as a necro. I not only find other professions inherently better at fighting over small areas than the condi necro, I also believe that the current meta makes it rather hard for condi necros to perform that already difficult role. I also don’t think that’s where necro can shine the most and thus doing it as necro isn’t optimal.
However, fighting for a node against an engie, another necro, a thief or a ranger I find, on average, to be skill-based, so you may very well go for it. With the others it’s more tricky, but a thing to remember is to avoid celestial eles above everything. Fighting them is a waste of time that will likely result in you getting killed with fire.
If you’re wondering on how to actually fight, I’d say try to force your opponents to dodge and pop their defensive cooldowns. You should bring their health as low as possible (around 50%) and push for a Terror spike. You should also aim at interrupting their heals and maintaining poison and weakness on them. When playing against other condi specs you can try playing with Deathly Swarm and Putrid Mark condi transfers – they can absolutely devastate your opponent.
Some additional advice:
- I consider Nightmare runes not worth it because you don’t have any control over the proc and it was nerfed lately. Personally, I use Traveler’s and I’m happy with the passive mobility they provide, allowing you to rotate and kite more effectively.
- similarly to the previous one – I hate Reaper’s Protection and instead have been running Greater Marks for a long time now.
- I also use Soul Marks instead of Master of Terror to generate LF with my turbo marks – unblockable, with lower cooldowns, generating LF, what’s not to love? I also think that in general it’s easy to lose value on Master of Terror, because good players break stuns and dodge properly so the increased duration may never happen.
As you can see, my build is less focused on damage and more on keeping myself alive and performing careful, timed interrupts and corrupts, so playing on the strengths and offsetting the weaknesses.
I think that’s it for now. It’s quite late here and I still have some learning to do.
Tell me what you think and ask if you have any questions.
Leman
(edited by leman.7682)