Guild Wars 2

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HiSaZuL.2843:

manveruppd.7601:

HiSaZuL.2843:

Golem doesn’t even warrant being an elite. It has less damage then some clones… and on par hp with thiefs elite… which summons 3. Point is they are lacking in survivability. Mostly due to aoe killing them instantly and partually due to the fact they don’t regen so you never start combat with your minions being fully healed…If MM could provide even the slightest in combat passive healing from damage or passive it would solve it partualy or at least let them all heal ooc. And if they just plainly gave summons aoe resistance… it would solve half the problem on the spot. If they all regenerated ooc and had some resistance to aoe my gripe would be solely with underwater lack of golem and being stuck with elite that punishes MM.

Well you can’t really compare the Golem to a skill that only has 30" duration and 4 times the recharge. TBH I’m happy with its damage and survivability, I only have a problem with its AI.

As far as ordinary minions go, hbowever, I completely agree, they should give them ooc regen. Or at the very least allow us to dismiss and resummon! Having them clinging on by a sliver of health makes me feel like the opposite of a GW1 minionmaster, who started out pathetically weak until he got his first few minions up and then became an unstoppable juggernaut. GW2 MMs get weaker as the fight progresse, which is psychologically rather dispiriting. If I run to the next point with 2 minions almost dead and 1 on the recharge I might as well lie down and let them kill me.

Yep. Every second fight is you engage every minion dies and you have 4 skills on cd with maybe golem out… Useless that is. You either run away and come back when things off cd or just tough it up and do it yourself which is utterly moronic in its base concept. And again minions are still made out of wet paper golem included.
Soon as he can survive some dungeon aoe… you can tell me hes alright. Besides its not like he regens in combat any fights that last more then 30 seconds incur a useless elite that provides nothing to the table. Past maybe 20k damage. Thats a few auto attacks from warrior/thief whoopdy doo… some elite that is.
Can you play MM… sure… is it enjoyable… I think sticking a hedgehog up your own kitten would be equally gratifying .

What dungeon are you in, and what minions are you using where you lose every single one every second fight? I have done every single dungeon as an MM, and Flesh Golem almost never dies, bone fiend rarely dies, Flesh Wurm only dies if he pulls threat (rarely), and bone minions die because I tell them too.

Are you just rushing in with your head down screaming LEROY Jenkins!!!! I have no idea or concept as to how you would have to play in order for every single minion to die every single pull or even every two pulls.

HiSaZuL.2843:

Don’t get me wrong… as far as pve goes I refuse to touch anything other then full MM… it works… but cmon. Golem doesn’t even warrant being an elite. It has less damage then some clones… and on par hp with thiefs elite… which summons 3. Point is they are lacking in survivability. Mostly due to aoe killing them instantly and partually due to the fact they don’t regen so you never start combat with your minions being fully healed…If MM could provide even the slightest in combat passive healing from damage or passive it would solve it partualy or at least let them all heal ooc. And if they just plainly gave summons aoe resistance… it would solve half the problem on the spot. If they all regenerated ooc and had some resistance to aoe my gripe would be solely with underwater lack of golem and being stuck with elite that punishes MM.

I disagree with your assertion on golem, but I understand your point. They can’t give it more or they would have to extend the cooldown. Aoe Doesn’t kill all your minions instantly. It depends on the aoe used, and the minions being hit. That’s why the ranged guys are awesome, and it’s also why I constantly tell everyone “BRING THE FLESH WURM!”

AS for the underwater problems, I hate it more than you know. I have never been a fan of plague form, but I think it’s to offset the fact that we are amazingly powerful in underwater fights though no one actually fights underwater.

Calcifire.1864:

one thing that I’ll say minions are missing is OoC healing

the flesh golem does, but no other minion regens out of combat, and we have no way of dismissing them other than the zombie hamsters explosions and the blood fiend’s sacrifice. that makes it perfectly feasible for you to go into battle with 3 minions nearly dead, and 2 seconds into the battle they die and go on CD

I agree, but 24 second CD’s are pretty nice. It is a bit annoying that there is no way for me to heal them or as you pointed out kill them off so I can resummon before the next fight at all outside of Life Transfer heals or Staff 2.

CHIPS.6018:

kKagari.6804:

These ideas are terrible. Makes me so glad to have DS.

DS is useless in high level fractal, and any future high level pve content. If you have any other ideas that allows necro to fight in high level fractal, I am all ears.

Come on that’s not even close to true. DS is useless for your build and your playstyle, but it is far from useless. DS 1 is awesome for DS centric and dagger well builds. Please be more clear in your criticism of things.

If you had stated, DS for condition builds loses it’s value in high level fractals for anything outside of a defensive tool. That is correct. Your comment is seriously jaded and incorrect.

HiSaZuL.2843:

Still does nothing to fix the fact that minions are made out of wet paper.

Overexaggeration – they are fine, and routinely tank everything short of champion mobs for me.

HiSaZuL.2843:

And you don’t have a single way to heal them under water… nor can you use a golem under water.

You have a quicker summoning time underwater, but other than that I agree, though I never really noticed the not healing before. It bothers me alot that I can’t use anything except Plague underwater.

Seetoo.9316:

On the comment about “reducing aoe” (cleaves, bounces, etc)

Warriors just got an additional cleave (banner auto) to their already long list of cleaves, yet it’s too much for necros to gain 1 through axes.

I thought that was the funniest thing about the patch notes. Non-GS warriors which is almost no one. Warriors who have the worst abilities for pvp got a buff to their banner builds (if you carry the banner around) haha. I have yet to meet one banner warrior in tournaments let alone one who uses it as a weapon in pve.

everyone should be getting invites. Hit me up in game as well.

Bhawb.7408:

114 per minion hit, 926 per Blood Fiend hit. That alone is an absolute ton of healing. Including siphon on hit after swap, Blood Magic 15 trait, and healing for 316 per tick on downed 1, I can face tank Chieftain and come out of the fight with 15-20k HP.

Holy crap! it’s that good now? I was seeing massive heals while in tpvp before with minions siphon. I think they just made MM a ton more fun to play and Blood Fiend may now be a viable alternative to Consume conditions.

I am now going to laugh hilariously in dungeons when everyone is going down and I am still kiting and tanking things with my health just sitting.

Bhawb, you have to admit that you are now more than excited about bunkering as a MM, and you may even venture into full berzerker mode with Minions :P. Bunker Killer or Bunker MM – Are we seeing the next version of the BM Ranger Bunker?

zainey.5021:

Overall they made steps mostly in the right direction. Nerfing d/d elementalists is good and I also play an elementalist. The many bug and exploit fixes are all good too. I was getting pretty sick of the engineer crap. It does seem odd that of all the things to buff with necros they helped minion masters but we’ll see it goes.

I agree with you, but the downside is there are no good engineer tournament builds now. The 100nades was annoying, but it was really their only scary build. It was easily avoided and was essentially a melee burst build. It was not really op more annoying. I think engineers and rangers are in a real bad place right now. They are both easily countered with only one or two viable builds and a bunch of really odd skill to trait matches.

I am super excited about the MM buffs. Axe/Focus – Blood Fiend, jagged horror, better boon stripping, better heals!!!! OMG!!! I may never die in pve.

bytes.1650:

Last post i’m going to make here, i might aswell talk to a wall.

This is the most valid thing you have stated on the forums in the past three days.

Tenebrous.2451:

Ok lets make it very simple:

All I want the AI to do is attack when I do and not stand aroudnd when I am doing nothing. Delays on switching etc. are somewhat understandable. Apparently you have some reason why this should not be so.

The ranger pet just happens to be pretty consistant in attacking. I would take this one attribute and say I would like our minions to know when to attack like a ranger pet, and somehow this is invalid?

Listen, I just want minions to do their jobs, attacking my enemies when I attack them, relabiably, but they do not, and I really do not care if it “is a controlled ai” or lacks “a controlled targeting ai.” They are not reliable, because you don’t know when it will do what is suppose to do. When I hit Epidemic, it will do its job. Period. No exceptions.

Look, now you are talking about the AI in general which was my point. The Minion AI is pretty good a majority of the time and excellent compared to other non-controlled AI. 95 percent on all minions not named Flesh Golem. Why Flesh Golem is so much worse? I don’t know. Though it’s at 70 percent of the time now.

If you look at my comments, I have agreed that their response time is slow. I will actually have to test ranger pet ai, because as far as I have seen the response time when you don’t use the F1 key is about a half a second or two delay depending on pet (don’t ask me why). I have also noticed sometimes when i switch argets quicky, my pet does not on my ranger.

Granted I haven’t played my ranger in about a month and I haven’t really tested response timing in a while.

Take for example Mesmer Illusions or Spirit Weapons from Guardians. They have the same ai issues (less so for mesmers though they do have some odd targeting at times.), and the same pathing issues (especially mesmer illusions their pathing issues can be so horrendous it actually causes hidden illusions).

My point of all this is that I think all AI needs to be tweaked a little bit more. That it’s not a core fundamental issue as DS UI is. It’s a minor issue on a viable build. The way it currently sits MM is viable. Is it perfect? No, but it’s definitely a good build in any non-fractal dungeon and any non-zerg wvwvw situation.

Side note: Epidemic does not always hit neither does plague signet. They can be dodged, missed, blocked, and out of ranged :P. Just picking.

Relair.1843:

The difference is those wells/condition build types have a ton more power/cond dmg/precision/crit etc. MM focusing on toughness and healing has pretty terrible weapon skill damage. I don’t mind that I can’t keep the whole minion army up 24/7 that would be unrealistic. But there needs to be some kind of change to allow you to help your poor minions. Make spectral wall into a dome or have bigger range so we could plop it down on flesh golem before a big attack, add some kind of ‘minions evade when you dodge’ trait, or my personal favorite and this would solve a ton of the issues: make blood fiend’s heals affect itself and all other pets as well as you.

Actually that’s just gear preference. There is no reason to run toughness and healing as a MM. Absolutely none! People do it for tpvp because MM bunkers are hilariously powerful. Remember Minions gain nothing from your stats or gear choice so not running berzerker doesn’t make sense.

I run full berzerker and the only difference between me and a Dagger/Well guy is generally 20 percent crit chance if he specs into curses or 30 percent crit damage if they spec fully into Soul Reaping, and that’s if we both spec full zerker gear and ruby orbs.

I agree minions need some help. I think giving them the ability to gain boons would be a nice step. Some sort of AoE avoidance or reduction in damage would be nice (though I could see this causing a world of problems in pvp). Heck I liked CHIPS Idea of being able to sacrifice them (though I am not sure how that would work without adding an extra button or removing their secondary skills).

It seems to be a random issue, but I have seen it. I don’t go down often in dungeons, but I have seen it where I went down, and not even half a second later I am dead.

Yes they are, there are three to four different builds. Check the guides up top. I wrote one for them. They are viable for everything except Fractals (Agony!)

lettucemode.3789:

Careful making such claims around Bas. He’s the bunker-killer on his tPvP team, he has lots of first hand experience with minions and knows that they’re not second-rate skills from that experience.

haha, not sure if you are messing with me or not :P.

Tenebrous.2451:

Why is the AI not comparabile, because that is all I am talking about.

All I am saying is that the Ranger pets knows when to attack every time, and most people think minions should know when to attack every time, and not stand around doing nothing at random. So are you saying that because a minion is not a core class mechanic, it should have cheesed AI? Plus, if they should have defective AI, then that does not effect the viability of the MM build?

When did I talk about AoE?

No, i am saying the AI is not the same. One is a controlled ai tied to a class mechanic. The other is utility skill without a controlled targeting ai.

Look, I think the ai needs improvements. I dont’ think it’s so bad it’s unplayable. I think the fact that if I switch targets in the middle of a fight, sometimes my minions don’t switch they keep attacking target 1 other times they lock up and look at me before switching.

Your statement was we have horrendous ai, but we don’t. Even the ranger pet has a delay when you target swap or use aoe to start a fight. My point is comparing a class mechanics response with a utility skills response is not a valid argument.

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

Are minions still being cheesed by Agony?
If yes, then MM is still unviable in fract.

Bingo! This I agree with, and it saddens me a lot.

Relair.1843:

Sure I was slightly exaggerating but not that much. I guess we just have differing expectations of what it is to be a necromancer. Every mmo since the dawn of time has given them strong, useful pets. If we’re meant to just chuck minions at a target and watch them die in 3 seconds then so be it, but then lower the cooldowns on them. Or at least beef up the flesh golem, if you take all minion traits he is your main source of damage and usually the first to die to a boss because of melee based cleaves and spins and aoes and then you are useless. Its not the same as saying oh your wells or condition utilities are on CD, you have huge power or cond. dmg and your weapon skills are still useful then. If you are a MM you probably have lots of healing and toughness you are pretty useless if all your minions are dead most of the time.

I just don’t understand how you can lump minions in with clones and thieves guild and stuff, most people who make a necromancer make it for pets. But I suppose thats how Anet sees it, they are junk second tier utility and not meant to be your main power source like ranger pets. =/

Now that I agree with, now we are on the same page. In previous games, Minions were considered a core mechanic to Necro’s. You made a Necromancer/warlock you got a pet who tanked damage. They were a core mechanic. Anet did not make them a core mechanic simply a utility tool you can use. DeathShroud is our core mechanic.

Do I think Flesh Golem and Shadow fiend need a bump in aoe/cleave avoidance? Absolutely, I would love it. The issue is how that would affect pvp and tournaments where the Golem could viably turn into a bunker.

We have the shortest cd in the game. The summoning time is what I don’t like. 24 seconds between summoning a minion is fine. I bring blood, bone fiend, bone minion, Flesh Golem, and Flesh Wurm, that’s 3 ranged that I post at different spots, 1 melee, and 1 guy I just use to blow up every 16 seconds.

As a side note, when your minions are all dead you lose very little toughness and the consistent healing, but not really a lot of damage. We are essentially the same damage as Well guys when their wells are on cd, and DS guys when they aren’t in DS. There is a drop off, but it’s no greater than the other builds see.

Calcifire.1864:

um, as someone who plays a mesmer, and a necro, I can say that mesmer’s illusions are a breath of fresh air in comparison to necro minions.

their behavior is utterly different, an illusion only targets one thing, but minions need actual AI that is deeper than “target whatever player used spell on, cast x every y seconds” they never stop attacking for no good reason, and they won’t run around and pull aggro unless their attack winds up puting them in another mobs aggro range (berserker mainly)

turrets attack randomly based on whatever is in range, so they aren’t a good comparison either

Actually that is my point. They are utility skills that rely on a slightly worse ai. Illusions are gone if you swap targets and you have to do it all over again. Spirit weapons you have to resummon. Spirit Pets are crap. Turret AI is so bad, and they die so fast that it’s hilarious.

My point was that comparing utility skills of similar styles (not exactly the same) we come out ahead.

bytes.1650:

Ok, so minions are fairly bad but take up a considerable amount of potential utility skills and traits.
Condition builds are severly limited due to obvious reasons; power-builds are not viable because the axe is not strong enough and the dagger is single target (and one of the few melee weapons without a gap closer, thanks for that).

But none of that is a core issue with the class and its available playstyles? Well alright then, guess there really is no point in having a discussion on the official forums.

So why are you even playing? You repeatedly post about how bad things are, we repeatedly refute with actual in-game play knowledge. According to you no one should ever play a necro and they aren’t viable anywhere. Except that’s not true at all. Good tpvp teams always have a necro. The top wvwvw teams love necros.

you have no concept of reality, and you have no point outside of bashing Necros. Find another class if you think this class is horrible all the way around.

Power necros are very strong. Condition Necros are still the top at what they do. MM is strong and may be even better now.

Your opinion is not based on fact, it’s based on your inability to play the class the way you want too. Go play a theif and leave the necros to those of us with valid legitimate issues.

Rennoko has a valid issue with condition capping. Chips has a valid issue with DS UI being crap. Bhawb has a valid issue with Signets being almost worthless as a basis for a build. I had a legitimate issue with Axe damage being sub par. Dagger/Well guys have issues with inability to lock someone into a well or even slow them because wells are one dodge out.

You have no point , no valid complaint. you just get on and rant, and no matter what anyone says you just keep whining. This leads us to one conclusion. You shouldn’t play a necromancer.

Tenebrous.2451

And no it is not the same for every class. When my ranger attacks something the pet runs and attacks it every time. I use my flesh golem outside of dungeons, in WvW and when I gather stuff and kill for dailies, and he does not do this with any degree of consistency. Still. Too many times I have seen the big lug just sitting there not knowing what to do untill the mob I am attacking happens to wonder by.

I am not asking our minions to be ranger pets, just know when to attack like one.

Comparing a class mechanic to a utility skill is not viable. When you play your ranger, how viable is spirit pets, because that’s the correct counterpart to compare it too.

This ridiculous assumption that Ranger pets and Necromancer Minions are the same is the core issue necromancers have. They are not the same, comparing them is ridiculous. They are completely different playstyles. You can choose to not play with Minions, you cannot choose as a ranger to not play with a pet.

I would gladly agree that having aoe wipe out all my pets is a horrible thing, but until you stop comparing a class mechanic with a utility skill this conversation will go nowhere.

Rennoko.5731:

On a side note, anyone else shocked they buffed the one part of axe that was already the strongest selling point by far, while leaving the damage alone on the #1 skill?

Yeah, I actually mistook the 10 percent buff to the Axe auto. Axe 2 10 percent is about 800 damage in full berzerker.

Relair.1843

“Not that bad” isn’t good enough. Rangers dont have that problem, if you can’t design an AI that functions properly all the time then let players tell the kitten things when to attack and retreat, problem solved. GW2 is supposed to be so advanced and the next evolution of mmos and all that, when games 10 years older have far better AI in place for pets. Its inexcusable.

Ranger Spirit Pets are awful. Comparing utility skills to ranger pets is not a viable comparison. The Ranger pet is it’s class mechanic.

Counterparts to Minions are as follows: Guardian Spirit Weapons, Ranger Spirit Pets, Mesmer Illusions, Engineer Turrets, and Elementalist Elementals.

Guess what all of those have in common – pathing issues, ai issues, and random bugs. When you compare minions to their comparable counterparts we come out ahead.

Relair.1843:

Tenebrous.2451:

Bas.7406:

The only major issue that we currently have is the DS UI issue. That’s the only major problem Necro’s have.

Cough Cough Minion AI Cough Cough

And minion survivability. They could have the best AI in the world and it doesnt help if they’re all dead 90% of the time every boss fight and any wvw skirmish of more than 2 or 3 people.

This is just blatant exaggeration. That’s like me claiming wells are complete crap because if you drop them and the boss doesn’t step on it youa re completely useless 90 percent of the time.

Come on! Minons die, wells, miss, corruption skills have limites, spectral skills are specialized, and signets are pretty weak. Look at it context and quit with the blatant exaggeration. If your minions are dead 90 percent of the time in a boss fight learn to use minions better. You have 3 ranged. If you aren’t an idiot you can place them so they don’t all die at the same time. Bone Minions are supposed to die. Bone fiends are not meant to tank bosses. Stop acting like it’s a game breaking issue.

They are freaking minions. They die, it doesn’t prevent you from playing, you can still do as much damage as a conditino mancer who brought epidemic to a boss fight. You can still wipe out players in pvp.

Yes, MM has issues in WVWVW where large aoe zergs just mow things down. Every pet class has the same issues. That doesn’t mean they aren’t viable.

xev.9476:

Rennoko.5731:

xev.9476:

Enough with the freakin’ mindless cheerleading already.

I think if you asked Bas, this was pretty much a patch that exceeded his wildest dreams. I think he has every right to be cheerleading.

For conditions this patch basically changed nothing, which is sad, but at least it gives me a chance to change things up with another build.

Core game issues like the condition cap/(not quite there)minion reaction/minion survivability are shared across all the classes that do/have those things, not just necros.

Hopefully they at least fixed the dodge roll MOB, that would be a nice conditions fix. The enfeeble instant cast fix was nice too.. that was a very heavily used skill for spvp. And compared to what we NORMALLY get in patches… this is freaking payday by comparison.

Claiming the necro has no issues save for DS UI is remarkably thoughtless. It’s mindless cheerleading. I’m happy with the changes we received, but I’m still frustrated that none of these changes will do anything to alter the desirability of condition necros for dungeon groups (or other conditions builds from other classes). It’s likewise frustrating to see thoughtless buffoons continually posting how “x” class has no problems and all is really fine and dandy.

Again, that’s not a core necro issue. That’s a game issue with condition builds period. that’s a specific build. When you run a singular build based on conditions than you will have issues, there are three other builds that don’t have this problem. That means it’s not a core issue.

Crying over something that affects all classes equally and saying it effectively kills the necro is mindless and a little petulant. Core issues are issues that affect the entire necro itself. The only singular core issue is DS ui.

Tenebrous.2451:

Cough Cough Minion AI Cough Cough

That’s not a core issue. That’s a utility build issue. Core issues are issues at the heart of the class that affect every single build. Since the utility pet ai is a game wide issue that affects mutliple classes it seems ridiculous to keep bringing it up as a Necro Core issue.

To top it off, they have been gradually fixing it with each patch. It’s better now than a month ago and it was better a month ago than it was at launch. I am speaking from hundreds of hours of Minion play. It’s not as bad as it is being painted.

Rennoko.5731:

Haha, yes, I am a bit beyond excited. MM became even better than before. Yes the AI is still abit faulty, but as you pointed out that’s a game wide issue not a core necro issue. I noticed Guardians got Spirit weapons health buffs.

Minions don’t die as often as people think, and now they heal for more. Focus hits harder, Axe 1 has a longer vuln ticker (I was hoping for a 10 percent damage increase on 1) Axe 2 got an increase (10 percent at max damage is at best 800 damage so we may break 9k with axe 2 now at max gear) it’s still below Dagger Auto in terms of damage done, but it’s more inline.

Necromantic Corruption was already powerful with it just working for flesh golem (I didn’t know this) now it works for everything haha. I can’t wait to see it.

I will admit. I laughed out loud when I saw the warrior changes. Apparently being the king of speed runs in pve means zero improvements for pvp abilities. Though I think we may now see Banner warriors running around in tpvp haha! Ooo, and impale that’s SCARY!

bytes.1650:

Guess there are a few changes that might interested sPvP necros. The rest is more or less pointless or does nothing for efficient dungeons runs/high-level fractals.

And obviously does not change any core issues with the necro, but i assume nobody thought we would see something like that in this patch.

Alright negative nancy, sometimes you have a valid point, but in this case you don’t. The only dungeon necro’s have issues with is Fractals past lvl 40. Minions are gone after level 10, Power Necro’s (nice buff) tend to struggle past lvl 25, and 40 is where most necro’s kind of disappear, but guess what SO DOES EVERY OTHER NON MESMER/WARRIOR/GUARDIAN/ELEMENTALIST. So that’s three classes that essentially don’t play past 25 because of preconceived notions that are being proven to be ridiculous on a regular basis.

Not to mention once you get past a certain fractal lvl Mesmers can’t even use clones because they only make it tougher. As for core issues, that seems to be your own personal opinion and not the opinion of the majority of the players who play high end tournaments and pve. In fact, I would say if I took a poll out of the active necros who do high end dungeon runs and tournaments or play on top 10 ranked servers in wvwvw. That your core issues would be widely dismissed as simply a desire by one player to have things work for him the way he sees them, and not a real issue.

The only major issue that we currently have is the DS UI issue. That’s the only major problem Necro’s have.

Calcifire.1864:

still no attack that may be comparable to a melee cleave though (wtb “Ghastly claws now hits up to three enemies” :<)

but ignoring that, YESS PVE MM

Remembering the fact that Anet said they wanted less cleave and less aoe abilities in game, that change will never happen.

Draegan.1472:

Didn’t Minions heal for 30 health before? Adding 50% to that isn’t that much health. We’ll see I guess.

That’s a good question, but even it it is that low 3 more heal per attack x 5 minions can equate to about 20-30 healing per second extra.

HOLY CRAP!! Minions HOOOO! Did Focus just become the absolutely best weapon out there. Spinal shivers!!! I spam that ability anyways!

Axe/Focus got some serious love.

Blood Fiend an 80 percent increase this might make it actually viable for MM. I will never die in pve now that’s for sure.

Drachshyish.2319:

Yeh Kilger… Necros tend to get focussed fast. Why? Because we are so slow and are generally the easiest to get down fast.

No, drachish we are focused, because left alone we will wreck zergs. We are amazing when left alone. Warriors damage burst can be avoided. Theives can only take down one at a time at best. Elementalist are either dead in seconds or not worth the time invested to kill them since the damage they do is minimal. Rangers are extremely weak outside of condition specs of which they can only do in spurts. Engineers are never seen, and the ones that are seen are bunker builds. Guardians are bunkers usually, and so trying to force you to attack them.

That leaves the necro. Condition and Power mancers can do a lot of damage if left alone, we can focus targets down and our damage is consistent so hard to avoid the burst. Epidemic is extremely powerful. We are the hard counters to the opposing teams bunkers. Therefore we get focused down first. Everyone else you can avoid the damage with a simple dodge or lockdown. you can’t dodge the necro consistently. They control and reapply conditions so you have to remove conditions overremoving them.

Quit oversimplfying the answers. We are not focused down because we can’t run. We are focused because the alternative is a bad choice. If the idea was simply let’s kill the guy who can’t run than warriors and guardians would die first every time. The difference is the negatives of leaving a necro alive versus leaving every other class outweighs the negatives of other classes.

Oblivion, are you west coast or east coast? I would love to catch you ingame some time. You need a better format and a good editor to clean it up a bit, or at least have it broken down a bit into sections. However, it’s a pretty good very basic view of the Necromancer.

I think you severely shortchange MM, but most people do. The reason the axe is underwhelming is because it’s designed to work at best with Minions. I don’t think it’s designed to work as your main weapon, but rather as a weapon to use when needed.

panikos.8309:

silly question: I love my necro and everything, but why would someone that wants massive critical damage and in your face damage go for a necro ? Thief and warrior comes to mind for that kind of class. But saying that I will try lichdom/madaxe builds and see what are they all about

Two very simple reasons

1) Playstyle – I play a necro better than I do a theif or warrior. I die too often on those, and a good Necro is really hard to kill.

2). One trick ponies are easy to kill. It’s why in high end tournament teams you actually see almost no warriors and very few thieves. To beat a good player on another class, a theif has to be amazingly good. In team fights, a theif is not a game changer. Plus in pve, I spend so much time rezzing those two that our damage equals out.

A good game changer is a class that when played right can turn a match around. Theives and warriors are niche playstyles. Guardians, Necro’s, and Elementalist are game changers. Great ones can make a match incredibly difficult, bad ones are ignored.

@johnny,

Outside of Fractals lvl 10 and a few boss fights Minions are quite effective. The problem is the mindset in thinking that they are pets. They are not. They are minions. They are like wells except they are up for a longer period of time deal slightly less damage, and have a shorter cooldown. Sometimes you will screw up and lose them all at once, but a majority of time they are a benefit.

Fractals 10 and above are bad for any pet type class only reason mesmers can skip it is due to the time warp.

Lordrosicky.5813:

There is no way you beat a bunker guardian with a minion necro 1 on 1 unless:
1, THE guardian’s skill level was way below yours
2, The guardian had no cooldowns left
3, The guardian started the fight on less health.

Have fun fighting a guardian with a minion necro when he is just going to bash off the point constantly with his constant stability whilst you have none.

Also a guardian has amazing condition removal on alot of the builds that current bunker guards run. As in you can unload your entire condi necro burst (on a proper condition build) and the guardians condition removal will just get rid of the conditions and load up on boons faster than you can reapply them.

Ranger however is a hard counter to the guardian.

I could care less about condition removal. Your common misunderstanding about necros is what makes us so powerful against guardians. I will take a few seconds to help you out.

1. Condi necro’s can control and reapply conditions faster, and strip boons better than anyone else in the game. No decent condi necro sits through stability.

2. Minion mancers strip boons as well. Rip through guardians heals, and deal consistent damage rendering his aegis pretty ineffective.

3. Your lack of understanding of a Necro’s abilities are prevalent in the game, and one of the reasons at high end tournament we are so successful againt bunker builds.

I have never once ran into a bunker build i couldn’t dispatch with ease, and I have never once had another Necro have an issue with any of the numerous various builds guardians come into.

Apparently you have ran into necro’s who only spam conditions all at once, never know how to move, only use staff, and completely avoid weapon swapping. I think you need a bit more experience before talking.

Sounds great tropen, I will try to get you an invite a little later today.

Prana.8690:

I’m not an awesome player, but I figure that I’m above average: to put it in perspective, with my non-cookie-cutter bleed thief, I go into fights against most professions feeling that I’ve got a reasonable chance of victory.

Anyhow, one evening I was in a duel server for a few hours and there was a bunker guardian in there killing everyone he fought. When my chance to fight him came up, we ended up calling it a draw after about 10 minutes: we both always had the cooldowns we needed to prevent the other from winning.

As a Minionmancer Necro, I was in an match where the bunker guardian was beating everyone down. I walked in killed him in less than a minute, and walked away. Necros are the hard counter to guardians and elementalists. The day I lose to one of those would be a first. On the necro forums, not one person has ever commented about having trouble with a guardian.

Now a grenade engineer or a trap monkey/ranger ugh or that crazy p/d theif build ugh, but guardians are almost nothing. The reason more people think the guardian is great is because there are more theives, eles, mesmers, and warriors than any other build. The guardian has great counters to each of those classes, but you ask any ranger, engineer, or necro if they have any issues dispatching a guardian, and not a single one will say even break a sweat against the guardian.

CHIPS.6018:

The huge difference is that all those class mechanics work alongside the player’s regular skills. Mesmer clones do not disable your regular skill bar. Thief stealing do not disable your regular skill bar. etc.

When you DS you cannot use any of your regular skills. You cannot be healed. Your whole skill bar is replaced by 4 DS skills, which only benefits one specific build of power and critical.

For example a conditionmancer that uses staff and Epidemic is worst off when he has DS on. DS doesn’t support his build. In fact DS shuts down his whole build. A zerg might be scared of the necro when he spreads conditions. But once he turns on DS, they LOL at him since he is no longer a threat.

Actually, the huge difference is that while in DS I take no regular damage, and can use CC, heal others, or deal damage while suffering no negatives. The only way to knock me out is to do a knockdown. No other class can bear the complete burst of another class and not lose health.

Mesmers key mechanic – shatter is useless if you kill their clones (very easy to do)
Theif stealing is on 45 second cooldown and is simply a niche in non-steal builds. As for stealth, any single ability use outside of the one stealth ability immediately breaks stealth.

DS is completely different mechanic, and because of this it’s based on different rules. I am not saying it’s perfect, I am saying that you are way too far into the negative to see the positives of the ability.

Mesmers, Guardians, and Engineers have the f1-f4 mechanic, and every single one of them have builds that don’t even use their key Mechanic. There isn’t a single Necro build that doesn’t gain something from using ours.

Warriors key mechanic cannot protect them in fact there are whole builds built around never using their key mechanic. Multiple builds

Rangers wish their key mechanic worked long enough to be effective. I am glad I don’t ahve that one.

Theives key mechanic is can miss, be dodged and is on a 45 second CD. If you consider stealth their key mechanic, than it’s temporary can be broken on action or damage.

Elementalists are the only other class whose key mechanic is as intregal as DS is to Necro builds. Simply because you don’t like the key mechanic doesn’t mean it needs to be overhauled. Tweaked so that we can see our CD’s? Yes. Do I want it overhauled completely for something resempling 1/3rd of the other classes? NO THANK YOU.

If you want to do something unique fine, but this idea can easily be thrown into overpowered or completely revamp and break the class. Plus you are taking the one awesomely unique aspect of our class, and homogenizing it. The concept of DS is awesome and very Necro. It’s the lack of seeing our CD’s that’s frustrating a majority of players.

Slagburst.5304:

Yeah seems boon stripping in PvP would be greater. I personally have never played around with alot of the grandmaster minion specs. Though Death on Posion Cloud always had me wondering. Axe training is fantastic and I use that quite a bit, but in WvWvW I tend to go with close to death since on keep defense and offense im running distance wells and staff dmg. But close to death is almost always on its one of those abilites that onceyou start using you dont want to get rid of, ever =)

One other key note, While the fury swap in and out is really nice, it’s also counter to a DS centric build or power build’s idea. I would rather have fury for my Life Blast. The only time I would pop back out is if I was going to use Lich Form right after.

In fact if you pickup key DS talents, it becomes even more central to stay in DS for the length of Fury. If I pickup LB might stacking and pierce/vuln stacking. Than staying in DS with Fury up is absolutely essential.

In fact the only reason to shroud dance would be for well or Lich form usage. In every other case it would be better to use the fury in Deathshroud than outside of it. Since you have DS every 10 seconds a majority of the time Life Blast with fury > Necro regular attack with fury.

Dagger/WH, Dagger/Focus, and Axe/Focus, Lich Form, Death shroud. These are all great non-condition types of weapons. In fact we only have on condition style weapon choice adn build. We have multiple ways to do power builds.

There are 4 types of builds all are viable for dungeons.

1. Conditions
2. Hybrid
3. Power – DS Centric or well
4. Minions

All of them work, all of them are great. It just depends on grouping. If you are in a group with no main condition player than go as condition spec, if youhave a main conditon player in the group, and you have condition gear swap to hybrid. Otherwise run DS Centric, Wells, or Minions.

Ignore those who say minions aren’t good. They just can’t play them.

Just a note, Condition removal from minions is crap compared to boon stripping. As a regular MM tPVP player. Boon Stripping is amazing against a majority of players, conditons removal every 10 seconds is meh. It’s nice, but I would take – Axe Training, Close to Death, Boon Stripping, Death on Poison cloud, Life blast pierces over that ability.

Terok.7315:

Retaliation can kill you.

If retal kills you, than you should probably not be playing pvp. I guess boon stripping, and deathshroud aren’t on your keys. The main classes that have large access to retal are the main classes we destroy quickly and easily.

Guardians, Warriors, any engineer not named grenadier.

Monoman.2068:

Bhawb.7408:

PvP is definitely just an issue of perception in the community. Every tournament team I have played with have been completely fine with necromancers. The reason being that we have the most survivability with the least amount of investment. We also have builds that completely and utterly counter two of the most popular classes: guardians and elementalists (seriously, we crap all over them day and night). We are perfectly fine in PvP, and just as competitive as others.

That’s just wording our terrible survivability with investment (vs other survival builds) to sound positive. Your last point does a better job at making necromancer sound situational than a competitive class.

No he is absolutely correct. We hard counter the two most popular classes in the game. I actually get requests to bring my Necro over any other class I play simply because we can take down Elementalists, mesmers, and Guardians faster and better than anyone.

We also have a better lifespan if played correctly. Using DS correctly combined with siphon life abilities are the simplest survival skills in the game.

Lyn.2098:

http://www.waste.org/bauhaus/l/oflilliesandremainkittenml (I’m actually laughing right now… Replace “kitten” with “s . ht”, leave out the spaces)

Seriously. Anything more fitting?

I can’t seem to get it to work

A few more fun ones

A-net, We have a problem. – Apollo 13

It’s Alive! It’s Alive – Frankenstein (talking about the minions)

I love the smell of Spectral in the morning!

Minion on, Minion off – Karate Kid

bumpity bump to let you know invites are extended

Bumping for all necro players