D/D is bad for just about any build. Staff plus s/d is the best for condition builds, but wells are not for condition builds.
Dagger/warhorn or dagger/focus or axe/focus are better for well builds. I would recommend dagger/warhorn with wells since you need to lock a guy down inside it.
@sorrow – It is apparent that you and I will agree to disagree. I would take the time to go over the differences between balance and equality/similarity. How niche fields bring balance, but destroy equality and the push for everyone having the same advantages which is where the confusion lies.
As for your drawings, they hold enough truth to cause an error in understanding. It’s as one person once pointed out to me. You know just enough to be wrong. You are not far off, but you took a left when a right would help you to arrive at the correct conclusion.
I would go into more details, but I am writing a column on this exact topic and it’s regard to gaming for a website that’s about to launch.
They are slightly more responsive, but the major ones still become unresponsive from time to time or stand still. Bone Minions and Flesh Golem will still have extended periods of inactivity. I will generally find a high health target and just do general attacks until they decided to attack this will usually fix the bugged out ai. The Shadow fiend I have not seen him bug out recently.
Most players who scream about it have very limited patience. It’s not perfect, but it has improved over pre-patch. Unfortunately they buggered DS when fixing it.
It depends on playstyle and spec. I run minions and have tried DS power spec. I attempted condimancer, and found it severely lacking compared to Elementalist and Ranger who I already had. The long cooldowns and slow building of conditions made it feel less enjoyable and more please don’t miss. My opinion then is weighted towards Power builds.
PVE: We are pretty strong. We have almost no trouble staying alive in just about every situation. We can’t explore with the ease of rangers, but no one can :P. I have no fear taking on champions or multiple veterans. Minon Builds make my life much easier while DS centric builds are nice but a little tougher to do general pve in.
Dungeon: Minions get a bad rap, but they are really strong here. They are the most universal utility we have. With the short cooldown and high damage reward they are our best utility not named Blood Is Power for damage builds. The key is in understanding that they will die, so I have a 24 second cooldown on an ability that may live 30 seconds or less. For DS Builds, they are shiny and look cool, and everyone thinks that outside of Condi that it’s the way to play. All Power builds are great single target builds. The amount of control and survival we have means that we have to be rezzing others quite a bit.
WvWvW: I have limited experience here in any class that’s not a ranger or warrior, but I know of others who have great success with the necro.
sPvP: A giant zerg rushing from one area to the next, is awesome for every version of the necro. Though I typically test builds in sPvP instead of playing to win. The staff is really strong in sPvP.
tPvP: We are misunderstood because the ratio of bad necros to good necros is very slanted. Anyone who has played in tPVP for over 200 games will tell you the same. If you rarely run into a Necro and when you do they don’t cause you any concerns this is normal. It’s also one of the reasons many of us are successful we are underrated. I have seen countless matches where I am completely ignored by an entire team because no one thinks necros can do anything. Then they start dying, and they start focusing on me. tPvP takes some getting used to in terms of playstyle. Initially you will feel weak and underpowered, the key is to remember you will never outburst the Thief, Mesmer, or 100b Warrior, but you will out live them, and can kill them. You are the bunker single target killer. If your team turns to focus someone, you should be dropping someone else. Ranger in the back picking off your teammates time to focus him down so he plays defensive. Thief and Mesmer jumping in and out drop some marks swap to single target and drop off a big chunk of their health and they run. Guardian tanking the damage and not allowing your team to get to the dps. Boon strip the sucker and force him to worry about himself.
Only vulnerability stacking affects minions output outside of minion traits. Minion damage is static and based on your level.
:P I wasn’t running conditions with minions, it was a condition build I recently made. I wanted a high AoE condition damage build using scepter/dagger plus crits to quickly apply lots of high damage conditions then epidemic them to larger groups. Thinking that 20% extra damage to this build sounded perfect I grabbed it (strangely enough I still got incredibly good results from this as long as I remembered I wasn’t a bunker anymore). But since it doesn’t work, that’s 30 traits that are very useful into some life siphoning and life force generating.
I’ve been trying to make non-minion builds (although as I say that I’m working on my minion build) to have some kind of ability to vary my setup beyond MM and easy-mode wells/staff in PvE.
Have you ever tried a full on DS centric build? With a mixture or signet/spectral/wells? I actually had a build if I can look it up where I was in DS every 10 seconds with Life blast being ridiculously awesome. I was stacking might like it was going out of style. 18-25 with stacks of vulnerability it was hilariously fun, but I never used my utilities except to build more LF so it was kind of boring after awhile. Let me see if I can find it.
Necros are good just not at damage. I’d suggest the mesmer out of those 3 if damage is your primary concern.
So your saying mesmers are good at high damage but die easy?
Yep, if you can catch the mesmer. The problem is misdirection and clones. A bad mesmer dies quickly. A good mesmer is annoying.
Can someone explain to me why an attrition class like the necro also has some of the longest skill cooldowns in the game? An attrition class should rely on weaker but readily available skills to wear down the enemy. The damage from an attrition class should be super CONSISTENT and not victim to missing and waiting for 40 second cooldowns.
Any skills that takes over 40 seconds to recharge is a spike skill, and it should deal over 4k of damage instantly. This isn’t even that much when you consider the damage of a single hit from a thief.
This is a great point, and what of my pet annoyances with the class our Utilities are situational with extended CD’s. It’s also one of the reasons I play MM, lower CD’s, Higher Damage, and non-situational Utilities.
On the same note, wells are extremely powerful on ridiculously long cooldowns because they are very powerful. I don’t get why Spectral Utilites and some of the corruption ones are so long.
Which ones in particular upset you?
Bhawb, stop running conditons with minions and you wouldn’t have made the mistake :P. I never run close to death, and am one of the few that don’t really enjoy it. I am sure it’s pretty awesome with dagger bunker builds though :P.
Please see the forum below you We are not a high damage class. Please move onto the mesmer and ele forums.
High damage and lasting long do not mix. Please move on to the mesemr and ele forums.
We are good in a few things, but not a niche class so it depends on your definition of good. Please move on to the mesmer and ele forums. I belive they have what you are looking for.
TA makes you look like a plant. Arah is death coming for you. I think the answer is simple.
Also there are a few other options available, plus you can mix and match.
cut
So, taking back the Warrior-Elementalist example, in that case Warrior is underpowered because they are not able to perform as good as elementalists do at higher level of skills, as you said. So none, if he wants to play at high levels, should pick a Warrior because it is cut off from any high competitive environment and therefor putting efforts into getting good as a Warrior is pointless. Is that balance in your opinion. NOPE. No profession should be cut away from any situation or any skill level.
The learning curve thing apply also at high skill levels, not only low levels.
Conclusion: You should at least check what your examples and ideas logically imply, before saying I have no idea on what OP means.
Except you are incorrect in your assumptions. The lower skilled class can triumph over a high skilled class because there is less room for error. Because more people are able to play warriors than ele’s well you have class balance. A higher skill cap which is only attainable by a few can beat a similarly skilled warrior with all things being perfect. Because we are not perfect, the ele has a higher probability of losing the fight, and will definitely lose to a skilled warrior if he makes a single mistake.
This is the definition of balance. OP would be if the warrior was the best class to play regardless of player. The thief before they nerfed BS and HB were the definition of OP. You could press two buttons and no one could survive. That is OP.
You simply proved yoru inability to understand OP. OP is when a simple thing can wreck a complex thing regardless of skill level. In the case of the Ele versus Warrior, the Warrior will wreck the ele if the ele makes a dumb mistake. If the ele doesn’t the warrior will lose.
Only bugs that really affect my gameplay still are DS 2 bugging out. Though I did have it work hilariously on a boss the other day. I used it to close a gap after diving away from an aoe, and it ended up pulling the boss to me.
The randomness of Focus 4 is a bit of a headache. I actually dropped dagger because it is so hard to stay withing 100m of someone who moves that I figure it’s not worth it.
DS dropping on stuns and kb’s if used before the kb, but it’s usable after.
I think there are a few spectral skill bugs and one or two signets, but we are way better off than Rangers and Elementalist who have a littany of talents and utilities taht don’t work correctly.
TL;DR more QQing about a class that is perfectly fine if you know how to play it. The only problem with necro is you can’t throw a build together in a few seconds and expect anything. We have one of the worst learning curves in the game, if you want to do well as necro, sit down, grind it out, and expect it to take a long time.
Perfectly stated. ^^ he knows what hes talking about
I have bhawb friended and still haven’t said a word to him in game. I am terrified haha!
Love your sig, Duck.
We should create a guild for Necros who love the class where we can actually converse in peace haha. We will call it death is coming :P.
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Let’s break it down for you slowly so you can pick it up, because apparently me answering your questions in a well worded essay was too complex.
You still did not addressed what I want to address.
Is having an huge HP pool enough to make a Necro an attrition class to survive long enough the fights? Has the Necro good amount of tools to avoid enemy to escape?
The answer is NO.
Yes, your concept of what attrition is is broken. A large HP pool is exactly how attrition battles are won. Avoiding and escaping are not attrition, so if we are an attrition class why would we have escape tools. Thieves, ele’s, and mesmers are escape classes so mobility is needed they are hit n’run. Guardian and Necros are attrition classes stop comparing us to a class that is not in the same league as us.
We don’t escape our goal is to stay in and fight. That’s the definition of attrition. Stop confusing the class.
Despite what you want to say, having an huge HP pool doesn’t help to live enough to make the fight long as they should to unleash what the Necro potential should be. Why? Because we lack of any other defensive mechanism.
Defense and escape tools are not the same please learn the difference. We have blindness, chill, retaliation, cripple, and immobilize as well as protection and siphon heals these are all attrition and defensive tools. We have access to more than any other class in the game. We do not have access to escape or high mobility tools, because we are not escape classes.
We are supposed to have viable constant heals thanks to blood magic, but would you define Blood Magic traitline as viable? No.
Who told you this? where did you get this misinformation? We have access to more viable methods to deal damage and heal ourselves with that damage than any other class in the game. Blood Magic is viable, your concept of the traitline is broken. You keep thinking we are like water elementalist. Except that’s incorrect because blood magic requires you to deal damage and gain heals from that.
Once again you are confusing attrition and defensive with healing.
We are supposed to have access to a good amount of boons via spectral skill, but do we get enough boons? No, just compare it to Guardians or Elementalists.
Incorrect where do you get this information. Guess which class is the best at destroying boon classes? Necro’s! So let’s try this again.
How does boons translate to attrition? They don’t. Stop confusing an attrition class with a boon class. We have zero boon to damage traits so at what point did you confuse us with a boon class. And for Guardians and Elementalist to become that boon giant then they have to give up a lot. BTW, if you want to be entirely reliant on boons like the guardian than you are crazy. A temporary buff no thank you, give me DS anyday over the boon baby.
We are supposed to be a profession which is hard to run away from, but do you think that the tools we have are enough? Do we feel that a Thief or an Elementalist has an hard time running away from you? No, just Shadow Refuge or RtL and they are miles away.
This is the first thing you have said that is correct. We are a pain in the kitten to flee from. RtL is usable every 25-30 seconds and is almost always used at the beginning of the fight. BTW, if they use RTL guess what I got to get them back. Chill plus DS 2. boom I am right back on them, thank you for participating. And when a theif runs (they all do) guess what that’s a WIN for me! I just won the attrition battle. He fought a fight he realized he was going to lose and fled.
You just took the two most mobile classes and used them as examples? That’s ridiculous. You know who can’t run from us, Warriors, Guadians, Rangers, Mesmers, and other Necro’s. You see what I mean by your problem. You are comparing us to the best of a specific niche.
Of course we aren’t a profession which is supposed to be slippery as a Thief is, but we aren’t the profession the developers said we are meant to be, BY FAR.
We should be able to win attrition fight and impede enemy’s escapes as easy as a Thief burst down a single target and runs away, a Mesmer confused the emeny spamming clones or a Warrior deals massive damage in close range. This doesn’t happen in this game, unless we have played completely different games.
And this is the point I want to make.
Guess what happens when a thief misses his burst and can’t disappear – he dies. Guess what happens when you destroy a mesmer’s clones – he dies. Guess what happenes when a warrior misses 100b. He dies fast. They are niche classes we can avoid their damage and just keep trucking.
Actually, a guardian can get infinite vigor with 5 trait points. (tons of avoidance.) and also has access to moves that offer invulnerability, and the ability to clear 3 conditions every 10 seconds, or 2 conditions with 10 points.
Try 2 conditions every 10 seconds if they never use their heal and have traited for it. Guardians never get the ability to do a passive 3rd condition cleanse.
But, Guardians also rely heavily on boons. Guess which class is best for removing those boons and countering the heavy armor+ healing?
Was just going to point that out. Infinite vigor is traited and they lose out plus vigor is a boon, while DS is not. I can remove a boon, you can’t remove my DS. Every point that he made is a specific build that a guardian has to take and weapons he has to use for those points.
If a guardian builds to remove conditions (ridiculous since they can just whirl finish and use symbols), than they lose out on damage traits. Guess what class can do damage while still keeping their big burst reduction? Guess which class can drop so many conditions (not just bleeds) so fast on a short CD that the guardian would have to spend the whole fight cleansing conditions? You guessed right.
They call me the bunker killer for a reason :P.
Guardians got some pretty good escape mechanics… Teleport, some leaps… Wall of “in your face you is not getting through”… All works.
The teleport skills require you to have a target. Usually you’ve exhausted them and they’re on cooldown if you’re already running away. The wall of “in your face you is not getting through” is kind of a joke. It doesn’t last very long at all and it can’t be cast on the move. Most people just walk around it or go through it anyways. :\
All I’m saying is that Guardians and Necromancers are very alike in the escape mechanism department.
What another player with common sense? Shhhh, dont’ tell him other classes have the same issues. He says the necro is the only bad one because he can’t play it well!!! Common sense is not aloud!
Sarcasm aside, you are correct guardians and necro’s are the same things from two different viewpoints. Neither have great avoidance they both fight to outlast the other class. But a good Necro will always beat a good Guardian. They aren’t built to beat us we are the kings of fights that never end.
*THIS IS A kittenING BALANCE THREAD NOT A “IMPROVE YOUR SKILL” THREAD.
BALANCE: How Necro performs compared to other professions related to the effort you put into playing.
How many times do I have to say that? I never said here, neither on any part of all my posts that I don’t feel effective on my Necro. Those are only assumption made from you and any other l2p guys here.
This doesn’t mean by any form that Necros are well balanced and that the efforts I put in my playing are the same I put in any other profession to obtain the same results. You get the point or am I going to get another stupid l2p post?
All I see here is me trying to point out and get some sense on what Necro lacks and what should be improved and you and Talentless keep kittening about “l2p”, “Necros are fine”, “go play turneys”, “Minions are fine” and another bunch of bullkitten.
What I want to hear in this topic is WHY you think that HP and Death Shroud are valid alternatives to mobility, evades, invulnerability, boons, visual confusion and extra heals, not keep earing the same thing over and over on how I must be a bad player, how you guys are good at playing Necro and minion masters, how random guy none know is good at Necro and blah blah blah.
I got distracted by all your kittens. What are you trying to say again? You can’t balance something that is balanced. We are in the middle of the road with everything. Isn’t that what balance is? What are you confusing balance with I want the best of everything?
We don’t get smashed and we don’t smash people. We are balanced. Just because a thief, warrior, or mesmer can wtf pwn someone in 2.5 seconds doesn’t mean everyone should be able to do that. That’s not balance, that’s imbalance.
Anet never promised balance. In fact, they have said numerous times they like having niche roles. Our niche role is simple, in a battle of attrition we will win. Our goal is to extend a fight, not avoid it, run from it, or blow through it. We extend fights, that’s why we have cripples, chills, fears, and multiple small healing returns because we are an attrition class.
The sooner you realize that it’s not the class that’s broken it’s your vision of the class that’s broken. Again doing everything the best is not balance, doing everything well is balance. We do everything well. I would say there are only two balanced classes engineers and necros and guess what they are the least played.
You don’t want balance you want niche. You want to be able to burst or be able to tank or be really mobile, but that’s not what we do. We outlast, we wittle you down in a million different ways. We take one target and make their life miserable.
It’s not the class, it’s your concept that’s broken. Besides everyone hates kittens, get a dog.
Necros have 1 immob on dagger… thats it… maybe some pets do as well dont know. I ran pets for a time, found that they stood still and got killed by everything without doing any good and never looked back.
We dont have alot of blinds… Dagger 4 and Well of Darkness, Plague… Blind disappears after 1 attack… When someone is hitting you 3 times a second or so neither will help much.What I see most on forums are people on one side pointing out flaws and sometimes glaring holes in the mechanics of a class… The other side that say everything is perfect who also say that noone but them apparently know how to play the class.
The latter often being elitist jerks with no idea about anything, either that or they play thieves and just want to mess with the rest of us:PThe fact is, necro trait lines need to be looked over. For example Death Magic forcing minion related traits on you even though you have to specc it to get a usable staff…
DS UI sucks balls… plain and simple, no condition or boon tracking. Big skill bar in the middle of the screen.
Plague and Lich removing oh so many things they should not touch…
Axe being so lackluster in dmg(wouldnt even mind a shorter range(melee) if it only cleaved and did a decent amount more dmg)… and hitting only one target for that tiny amount of dmg. Gotta like the 3 skill though, it rocks.
Not one person has ever said the Necro is perfect. We are saying it’s not broken, and that massive overhauls being requested are ridiculously shortsighted. I will ignore your comment about minions because we have attempted to show you that minions are valid not perfect but as valid as every single other utility we currently have.
It is an impossibility to be an elitist jerk and have no idea. The whole concept of an elitist jerk is that they know more than you and like to be a jerk about it. You can’t be an elitist and be stupid it doesn’t work that way. Plus not one of us is being elitist we are attempting to show you and get you to understand. Elitist would be saying shut up go away and blocking you.
DS UI is a fix that everyone wants. I hate the new change where being knocked down or stunned takes you out of DS immediately. The trait lines aren’t horrendous and the Death Magic tree is pretty strong, but you are correct it’s impossible to get a good staff build without picking up a few useless traits. However it’s also impossible to get a great crit happy power DS build without picking up crap in the Curses tree you don’t want. here is the kicker though this is true with every single class in the game. Some have it slightly better. Our bunker builds are synergized really well.
Plague and Lich removing is never going to change unless you want to lose the stat boost you get when you go in to it. Trust me losing the health and toughness boost in Lich form to be able to keep your utilities would cause a crying fest this world has never seen. I would hate to be crushed in 2.5 seconds in that ungainly giant.
Axe is not that bad. Auto attack is crap, but it’s perfect for Minion builds because you can get to 25 stacks and then flip to DS and life blast for major damage while your minions wreck someone. Would I like a cleave? Yes! Will it happen? No, because Anet is instead intent on having more single target focus. Axe 2 plus 25 stacks of vuln = 8k damage in top end pve gear, and 3-4k damage in full power build gear. If the damage was increased, guardians would weep and cry upon seeing us approaching. Axe is good for what it is. We are not gettng a burst weapon.
You lost your credibility when you said you are successful at playing minion master and probably you won’t get it back until you post a video of you being successful as minion master.
You lost all credibility when you said Necro’s can’t survive well. Any semi decent Necro player that has a video (nemisis) is proof that you are not just wrong, but far off base. Your inability to think of anythign you have not come up with yourself is the issue here. Dimissing other opinions because of you lack of skill only makes you seem trivial, childish, and petulant.
I can give you references, and the day you step into a tournament (probably your first time) it will be proven to you time and time again by players who take the time to learn a class and think comments through before posting. There is a reason the necro sees the least amount of changes, because any changes made could swing the necro to overpowered quickly.
My lack of a desire to take the time to video my accomplishments in life are an odd thing to you. Because if a man don’t post on you tube he must be a liar? So everything you see on the internet is true!!!!? I always knew that the best players were on youtube..doh!
You have been countless alternatives to your play style, and your constant reply is always the same….“I am a great player, necro is broken. You are all liars and jerks who think you are better than me, but this class is broken because I can’t play it well.” If you can’t listen to others who have constructive criticism than you should roll a different class.
None of us are saying the Necro is perfect. We are saying you are playing it by focusing on it’s limitations instead of it’s strengths. We all agree that the Necro needs a few bug fixes and tweaks, but the Ranger is in massive need of an overhaul not us.
One final thing, learn to do the math before saying minions are bad. CD to up time to damage dealt, Minions are the single best damage utility we have not named Blood Is Power.
I agree but the only problem I have bunker ele’s. I can’t beat them at all. I have tried everything. I can beat every other profession but ele’s. Any thoughts on how to beat them?
If they carry a staff, chuckle and destroy them while running in circle. If it’s a s/f you are in for a world of a long long fight. If it’s a d/d or s/d, than check their boons. Wait till they jump out of water attunement and then use the ability to swap all boons into conditons if you are a condimancer.
If you are a minion mancer, always take the trait remove boons. Also the sigil that removes boon on crit is amazing against bunker ele’s. They are really tough, but if you push them off their spot, and dodge the knockdowns, and time your burst when they are out of water, you can beat them.
I have more problems with condition ranger bunkers and engi bunkers.
Oh yeh… My necro tends to get focussed by boss critters like 70% of the time… And there are only so many tricks you can pull out of your hat when bosses gives you the evil eye with all their CC and heavy hitting attacks.
Eles pretty much beat necros across the board on all things then… They hit for more direct dmg, they can heal way better, they bleed better and they got some pretty nifty utilities as well… Pretty boring elites though, would love to keep that greatsword around for a long time, say permanent… it rocks.
Ele’s also have a higher skill cap than any other class in the game. But they can only do one of those things better at any one time. The difference is the necro can partial bunker and outdamage, but an ele can only do one or the other. If they push condition than they lose their healing or dircet damage. It’s why you only see two types of ele’s in tPVP burst or bunker. I hate them both, but they are amazing classes when played right.
In fact, I would dare to say that a really good ele is the only class that can completely change a game because of their mobility. My tPVP team beat two straight teams that were being carried by a single player. In one game it was a ridiculously good theif who never died, but wrecked us one by one as he caught us. Unfortunately, it’s not enough since the rest of his team wasn’t very good. We then fought a great mesmer with his team. Luckily for us, Mesmers are easily dispatched when they are focused, and their bunkers were so bad that they got demolished.
For the final game we faced an ele so good she swung the battle and they won. The rest of the team was average, but they could hold out long enough so the ele could come and bother us. It took 3 of us to kill her, she was ridiculously good at avoiding damage while keeping us from capping. I think we killed her three times but it took so long they were able to keep backcapping us.
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My hammer warrior regularily hits for over 2k dmg on autoattack… Can bring 4k knockdowns and then keep you down. So dont say that you lose dmg cause you take control. I stomped a fully geared thief with him after I let him hit me for 50% of my health. Granted, dmg is way higher with GS – but hammer still hits like a truck.
And yes DS can hit pretty hard, but out of it necro attacks are laughably weak… And DS is utterly useless if you arent specced for Power which IS WHAT I SAID in my post.
And besides, Lifeblast is slow cast so not very bursty… Not very long range, 900 is ok though.
And I can think of way more classes if built for power outdamages a necro easily so those rankings you are pulling right out of your imagination.And me bringing up sPvP… every class do well there if played right. I manage 1v2s with both engi and necro there being no issue…
I have fought really good Hammer warriros, and never worried about being killed by them. I am talking about tournament play not sPvP. sPVP is trial run stuff for screwing around. tPvP is where you see legitimate play.
I have yet to run into anymore than one tPvP hammer warrior, and he was trainwrecked when he was alone by every single guy. 4k from yoru best attack that can only be used every 15 seconds, and is easily dodged? heh, yes please, send me some warrior.
If your necro is weak outside of ds, than stop running staff or scepter in power builds. Staff is completely awful for damage. I carry it for the fear and condition removal. Axe or dagger in power builds can chew someone up.
Boasting about destroying a thief is like a thief boasting he took off half your health. Everyone can destroy a thief, avoiding their damage is the hardpart. I stated Necro’s destory bunkers, you counter with you destroy thieves? Show me a Hammer warrior who doesn’t get wrecked and can destroy a bunker build and I will be suitable impressed. I have seen several different necro’s destroy bunkers while avoiding being counter punched by the thief.
For survivability, I disagree with the learning curve argument. Once again it goes back to the fact that you cannot “learn” to use your health “better”.
You can learn to stealth better on a thief. You can learn to clone better on a mesmer. You can learn to Ride the Lightning better on an elementalist.
You cannot use your health better on a necromancer, which is all it got. When there is nothing to learn, there is no learning curve. A necro just have to try to kill the enemy before the necro’s large hp pool + DS runs out. This is no easy task when combined with necro’s mostly underwhelming damage.
Actually you can learn to use your health better. DS , fear, chill, siphon health, regeneration, 2 dodges. The same way a good Mesmer, Thief, and Ranger have to master dodges, and ele’s have to improve on swapping and knockdowns, we have to learn to maximize our available health and return on it. You can use DS offensively and Defensively which is way better than warriors, mesmers, rangers, and engineers class specific traits.
On a side note. Life transfusion will heal you if you pop it just as DS is wearing off. If you aren’t in DS than it heals you. I save it right until the end if I am low on health and pop it right before I go out. 2k heals thank you!!
Further emphasis to the point that Necro is not a one-hit wonder. I have never even tried running a minion build, yet here is someone having reported great success with it. I too did not prefer a condimancer build, because it didnt suit my playstyle. Sometimes I feel people have the thought that their class is supposed to do one thing and when they cant do that one thing, they cry foul. Time is better spent seeking advice and opinion than buffs.
I enjoy the fact that’s it’s not a one-hit wonder. I don’t like to get wrecked if i make a mistake, and so playing thief, warrior, ele, and mesmer are brutal for me in sPvP and tPvP.
Yep, you can look up footage from the beta matches they officially held, 5v5, there was a necro that, as I remember, demolished people.
ANet has said a few times that they are very cautious of buffing necros directly (as opposed to bug fixes which indirectly buff us to what we should be), because we are a very high skill cap class, and they don’t think the majority of the community is close to reaching it. While buffs might make the average necro more competitive, it would also make those at the very top of the skill spectrum even better.
I am by no means the best necro out there, but as a minion mancer glass cannon, I ran into two average players, and destroyed them both 4 times in a row, before a third guy came to help them. I held Mine for almost the entire match which was on their side. My team spent the entire fight fighting at keep because I could take and hold the opposing teams close side for half the fight.
Granted, it was a Power Ranger and a Burst warrior so neither really were great players or builds that aren’t pretty easy for us to drop. Nothing like a LB ranger who stands within 1k to prove how easy it is. I also once fought a bunker guardian (MM owns these guys), Thief (pretty bad one though) and s/d ele on a point for a nice long time before they killed me off.
In the same note, I once ran into an engineer who destroyed me in 2.5 seconds, a thief who blew every cooldown and dropped me because I forgot to hit ds when he came out, a mesmer I could not beat for the life of me, and a condition ranger who absolutely fed me lunch and then asked if I would like some dessert.
On a good day against the rigth grouping, a good necro can hold out indefinitely against multiple targets.
I’ve just said what made me think the class is underpowered and I’ve also provided a deeper analysis showing WHY the Necromancer is underpowered. What you guys are saying here is that the class isn’t underpowered because you are getting good results with. This means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Learning curve is strictly related to the overall balance level. The Thief is an extremely easy to play profession because you can just press two buttons and your enemy is down and you have no need to time your dodges because Stealth cover your kitten Has the Thief no learning curve? Of course, but because it is overpowered, not because it is different. Because you don’t need to put efforts into the profession to get better, that’s the point.
In a well balanced game, an unskilled Thief should have a tough time with an unskilled Necro, same sitation should be at higher skill level but it absolutely doesn’t happen in this game, as you also pointed out.
I have 4 80’s and have spent well over 200 plus tournament and hot join games on a few of my 6 characters. I have spent countless hours attempting to play the Warrior and Thief on tournaments and wvwvw and I can’t play them effectively. I die too often, can’t kill many of the classes, and routinely find myself losing battles I can win on my ele, ranger, and necro. Does this mean they are underpowered and bad? In fact, I have more hours spent on my warrior and ele than I do on any other class by far, and yet I can do more in one tournament or wvwvw match with my necro than with either of those classes. My Paid tourney team even requests that I bring the necro every time.
I play a minionmaster which has been called the weakest of all builds, and absolutely wreck guardians, ele’s, thieves, and anything that isn’t an engineer or ranger with massive aoe. I have gotten countless requests in game to share my build and what I used to kill people off. My tournament teammates have asked me to show them how to do it since thy had the same experience as you did with the necro.
I am an awful mesmer and thief player, I am brutally inefficient with my warrior, I can’t seem to handle the delicate balance in pvp or wvwvw with the ele, but I am really strong with the ranger, guardian, and Necro. Does this mean that all those classes are horribly underpowered while the Necro is great?
Just because you spend hours playing a class that you are not really strong in does not have any bearing on the class. You have been given countless tips and strategy from bhawb and talentless. They have tried to show you how they make it work, but you only see your inability to play it well as a sign the class is bad and not yoru playstyle.
I don’t run around the theif boards claiming they suck because I can’t play it as well. I don’t complain about condition Necro builds even though I feel they are the worst of all condition builds out there. I simply came to the acknowledgement that just because I can’t do something well doesn’t mean I am not good at something else.
I am a very successful Minionmaster. If you want I can give you references who will tell you that. I will face you in a match sometime and prove it to you if you wish. The class needs some minor tweeks, not a rework. Talentless is right, we have more built in survival and ways to live than any other class in the game. We are an attrition class, which is perfect for my playstyle.
BTW, I run Minions in pvp, and warriors are a joke. I can burst them down, and they die so fast. IF a warrior brings a control weapon than they can’t really hurt you unless they play perfect.
I can out live the thief, warrior, mesmer, and out damage them if they go tankish so I don’t know why you are complaining. We can’t outburst the burst, but we can outlive the burst classes, and we can outdamage the bunker builds. That to me is awesome!
If you think DS is bad, than you are seriously playing the Necro wrong. I almost audibly chuckled when you stated that Lifeblast was bad compared to every other classes power builds. Have you played a ranger, guardian, or engineer? Let me rock your world for a second here.
1. A DS Centric power build will hit over 2k on a regular bases with Life Blast. It will also stack might (I had 18 stacks in a non-DS build), pierce and stack vulnerability. That’s amazing.
2. No class can be great at damage and do great control. Not a single one. A hammer warrior cannot do great damage. If you focus in one area, you will see a significant drop off in other areas.
3. You should really go find another class to play. The Necro like the engineer is not good at any one thing except surviving. Power Necros are 3rd in terms of pure damage behind Warriors and Thieves in pve. In terms of condition damge we are a distant third behind rangers, who are the kings, and elementalists, who can stack it twice as fast and do more pure damage. In terms of group utility, we are behind Mesmers and Guardians, but ahead of the rest. In terms of survival we are number 1.
So as you can see we are neither the best or worst at anything, we sit easily in the top 3 of most sections of the game. The playstyle is what you don’t like, and that is not going to change. They came out and stated the Necro is not a burst class they win the battle of attrition. If you play it right this will happen every time.
For example, last night I did AC with my core group. They ran guardian, thief, ele, thief, and myself minion Necro. We never once wiped because I never died. Everyone else went down multiple times, and I rezzed them when I could, but for the most part I spent any fight where we lost two or three kiting and siphoning until someone was rezzed. This was AC which is easy, but we had a couple bad pulls.
In every other dungeon it’s the same, I get outlast everyone. I rarely have to dodge because I will use DS to offset a major blow or one of my two dodges ;p.
Good points.
I also agree with the Blood Fiend, I stopped using him after Beta (MMs were just plain OP in beta, so you could get away with Blood Fiend and still be able to 5v1 just about anyone), but his healing/damage her hit is pathetic. He doesn’t bring enough damage to be offensive enough to work, doesn’t bring enough healing to work on defense (unless you are telepathic and can use his heal right as he is about to die), and doesn’t bring enough mixed to warrant it. I’ve felt bad for the lovable little sack of organs and bones since release, he’s just bad outside of easy-mode PvE.
Edit: not to say you can’t use him, I still mess around with him sometimes, but he isn’t worth the 20 toughness and small amount of healing in most situations.
I only dropped him in pvp play because healing is situational, and he will be dead sometimes when I need a heal. In pve, and dungeons the added small heals are worth keeping him since he usually stays at range. I am usually partnered with a guardian or ele so condition cleansing is not something I worry about. In pvp, he is just so lackluster, and rarely there when you need him. If he moved a little more or had the ability to avoid damage by retreating every 10 seconds if something hit him, I would use him.
But I think everyone agrees there really is only one heal to use in pvp. It isn’t Well of Blood or Blood fiend ;p. You only get one guess.
I think they wanted to make sure the healer role (from the trinity) was gone.
However, it was done to the point where it renders a bunch of traits useless. Like that one where you heal when you leave deathshroud… for a whopping almost 300. Yeah, that’s really useful. Heal every 10s for less than 1 auto attack. Actually, I just remembered… that trait doesnt’ even scale with healing power!
It doesn’t need to scale it’s one of our many tiny heals that add up over time. We have 5 different ways to heal all within a short period of time. I have never sat there and thought dang I wish I had guardian shout heals right now.
I’m running axe/dagger and staff for weapons since the axe scales better with power and dagger for condition removal. Usually running Blood, Suffering, Darkness and either Corruption or Power depending on the fight. Right now I’m 0/30/10/30/0, but I"m considering moving 10 out of Curses into Soul Reaping to maximize DS Life Transfer and Life Blast. Right now I have about 1400-1500 in tough and vit, which is right where I want to be, the rest is in power, prec, and %crit. I have no condition damage atm.
Should I try to move some gear around to ditch the %crit for something else?
No, but you should get rid of the dagger it’s worthless when you have staff, and does not blend well with power builds. Focus or Warhorn are awesome for power builds. You are fine with the rest. Though Well builds generally work best with Dagger/WH.
Finally Ground Targeting for Wells is worthless, run dagger/WH and spend those 10 points in something else.
@bhawb, The changes he has made are too drastic for MM. If you look at the changes it would essentially make it more valuable to destroy your minions than to use them or keep them alive. This isn’t skill it’s simply staging as opposed to using your minions aggressively you would simply be sending them in to purposely die. Not to mention if this was the case. Your minions would simply be ignored, and since they can’t have that big of a bonus plus do consistent damage, they would hit for almost nothing.
1. The only changes that Minions need are an aoe damage reduction, and a better responsive timing to Targeting. They should neither be a fire and forget or a mandatory part of any build. The changes indicated especially to the Bone Fiend and Flesh Wurm would make them ridiculously worthless because their damage would have to be reduced to makeup for the condition add, the Shadow Fiend would be ridiculously op, and the Bone Minions would be fodder as usual.
2. The reason the Flesh Wurm hits hard is because he has no condition attached to his skill. I would prefer it not be changed. We have completely opposite takes on Flesh Wurm and Bone Minions. I find the Bone Minions to be the most useless in PVP and Dungeons, but much better for high movement fights. In PvP, I go nowhere without the Flesh Wurm. It does the most damage. Allows you to port vertically as well as horizontal as long as you can walk up there. The poison is simply a side benefit, and not the main purpose of it.
I have actually used the Flesh Wurm to protect a point, then when it was under attacked ported away from a guy trying to get me, and then moved towards the point. It can and will port you anywhere you can run within a certain distance. I have ported through walls, up ramps, across stairs. I never use it for the poison field, as the poison field is just a side benefit.
3. This was my point. It was as though he had made the changes completely dismantling the current state of MM, and making them exactly like the Mesmer clones.
4. I agree here, but our minions are in a good state damage wise. The key is that killign off the minions to survive is either OP or UP. If you are in tPvP they would simply be ignored because killing them would give you greater benefit than leaving them up. As they currently stand, if you ignore them, they will kill you. If you focus on them, i will kill you. With the changes indicated, the damage would have to be nerfed which would make them nothing more than mesmer clones.
Finally, you can’t have a consistent blind without it being OP. As it stands now, when running minions, Shadow Fiend, Bone Fiend, and Flesh Golem are the only ones that are consistently used. With Shadow Fiend the active is constantly used because it applies a blind, how is that boring. If we had an attack with a blind it’s also used all the time, is that more of an active playstyle? I don’t see your issue with the current minion active abilities.
You have three situational abilities in Bone Fiend Immobilize, Flesh Wurm Stun Break, and Flesh Golem Charge, two consant usage in Bone Minions and Shadow Fiend. How is that not significantly better than running corruption (situational on half, with blood is power being spammed everytime it’s up), spectral utilities (situational for every single one), or Signets (crap). In the end, as it currently stands you have a decision as to when to use half your actives with minions.
I stopped using Blood Fiend recently, and haven’t noticed it’s loss at all which is really sad.
Maybe instead of siphon and proc heals, we should be asking for more boon access?
Im pretty sure that the whole point of necros was that we dont rely on boons/dodge that much but facetank, fear and DS around to absorb damage and then regenerate the resource spent, with our on hit heal being 25-27 at level 80 while a thief has the same amount at level 20 makes it kinda pointless, just as most other siphons (since trait ones dont scale of power nor healing and signet of the locus goes from a 4:1 Damage-heal ratio to a 1:4 damage heal ratio making it just a weaker heal if mobs are hugging eachother).
You only get 25-25 on your on hit heal at 80? I have seen 60-70’s for on hit heal and way more than that from my minions.
We have to remember that we have a significantly longer lifetime thanks to DS, multiple ways to do direct heals, and access to Chill, Weakness, Blind, and as you pointed out fear. All of which are designed to reduce the amount of damage we take. I think many times people look and see that we have no aggressive huge heals, but forget that we have a multitude of little heals that just keep coming back. I remember going into DS one time with my minions at half health, and then coming out of DS at 90 percent health :P. Granted that was a hilarious one time event where everything went off from minions siphoning to life transfer heals and siphon heals.
I am reconsidering some of my stat priorities and wanted some input. I’m currently running a well/support build with about 1.5k tough and vit. I am primarily gearing power/prec, but to fill in some spots with more defensive stats I’ve also picked up a bit of crit%. I am wondering if I would be better served replacing my 2 pieces of power/crit/%crit pieces with power/prec/cond. I am using axe/dagger and staff for weapons.
Wells are better suited for power builds, so condition damage would counter productive. If you are looking to swap out for some defensive stats, though if you are running support I am not sure why you would need defensive stats, go wit Toughness (knight gear), Healing (Cleric), or Vitality (Valkyrie).
I am just throwing around ideas. The point is, Necros need to do something besides stack bleeds and go into death shroud and sometimes do cripple/poison and give themselves might. In my opinion, the class needs something more interesting as a “special ability” (compare death shroud to mesmer illusions, huge difference in how interesting and skillful the mechanics are), and needs to bring something group-oriented to group play.
Try playing a non-conditionmancer. Lich Form is hilarious because it’s so big!
I have 3 80’s already and regualry play with 6 or the 8 classes. Death Shroud is way better than 70 percent of the other classes :P.
Necro’s bring chill which is amazing in pvp and decent in pve. They bring the ability to “tank” or outsurvive just about any other class in the game. I run minion power build, and have a ton of fun bringing cripple, chill, and fear to my team as well as Life Transfer heals and great 1v1 target damage. If you don’t see how chill and cripple are beneficial to group play, you haven’t played in some of the dungeons. The higher you get the more kiting becomes important. In fact there are several fights out there where I spend time kiting a few mobs while my team rezzes someone or drops the other guys we are fighting.
I think Spectral utilities need some changes as they are pretty close to useless in pve outside of situational usage. However, the necro themselves adds a ton to group play. Vuln Stacking, slows, chills, and the ability to survive through just about anything. We don’t burst like a mesmer, warrior, or thief, but I rarely have to dodge, and I rarely need to get rezzed.
With the recent changes to releasing in dungeons, the ability to survive is huge!
Don’t listen to him, those are amazing fixes to minion skills, which at present cannot fully do what they are intended to do. Only suggestion is that Bone minions can be activated still to detonate when in best positioning (if you meant that, then don’t mind me), and for the bone fiend to do it at range; since it is a ranged minion it will not likely be close enough to immobilize the right person unless the range is large.
MMs would be competitive with this.
All the other skills look good, but I cannot say 100% if those are still balanced skills, but it looks good to me. Traits look great, I don’t know power/condition builds well enough to know if this nerfs them, but if it doesn’t, then I’d say nearly every change in this is darn near perfect to what I’d like to see, without unbalancing necromancers. In fact, most of these seem more like fixes to things that didn’t work as intended, rather than buffs.
Great job, hope ANet reads it and at least looks into these ideas and tests them.
For the first time, I completely disagree with you. These are the death knell in any serious MM build. If I wanted glorified Mesmer clones than sure this works for MM, but the changes to many of the traits are awful.
Bone Minion changes are nice. Flesh Wurm would never be taken with those changes. Shadow Fiend becomes OP and Bone Fiend becomes Bone Minion light. All the changes would do would be to remove Flesh Wurm completely from any play. Make Shadow Fiend mandatory, and turn us into Mesmers with ghouls who uses Bone Minion and Bone Fiend only to sacrifice them repeatedly for buffs.
How is this beneficial in any way to the play of MM builds?
I am sorry, but you must not play a Minion master. This an absolute death to MM tanking or burst builds. It would be absolutely pointless to have so many sacrifice traits especially considering your removed their reduced CD’s.
The point of minions is to keep them up longer and resummon them quicker, not let them die off faster to buff me. MM is acceptable damage wise in it’s current state. The major changes that minions need is a slight bump in responsiveness when I am attacking a target, and a slightly better avoidance to aoe damage since we can’t pull them out.
Personally I would prefer to take they take away the summoning time of minions, but it’s not horrible. The CD is mandatory.
Here are the reasons your minion changes are either oddly placed or will essentially kill the two viable minion builds.
1. You have essentially turned the minions into buff bot version of mesmer clones. This is completely ridiculous and I can guarantee you it could be seriously OP. i can think of two builds that would absolutely destroy people with a full minion destruction build.
2. The Flesh Wurm as it’s currently constructed is amazing damage and is most useful as a stun break or return portal. Changing it into a posion machine would reduce it’s usefulness by half and be completely pointless in pve where there are already numerous classes that perma attach poison to a target. Leave the Flesh Wurm alone he is the best of our minions.
3. You have way too many sacrifice traits and removed the CD reduction, and the Adept tree is complete crap in your Death Tree for any real minion player now unless you are running staff. I know you think that’s the only way to play it, but for those of us who play MM bunker or MM cannon we never use staff as it’s perhaps the most useless cannon ability. In fact, a majority of us run Axe/Focus and D/W which makes that Adept changes worthless to every single one of us.
4. Thanks for taking away our toughness per minion alive, that will make it so much easier to choose MM over other builds.
In the end, I prefer not to have my minions be uglier versions of the mesmer, and that’s essentially what you have done with them.
You have some good trait changes, but none that actually benefit MM at all. And moving the bonus dagger traits to the Curses tree that just killed every Dagger MM out there who likes to have reduced cooldown.
It’s almost like you have never played serious MM before, and made all these changes based on running around with a staff and wondering why your minions don’t do more. As a serious MM tourney player, and dungeon runner, not one of yoru MM changes makes sense outside of fixing Bone Minions. Some are overpowered changes, and others are just poorly thought out.
Your changes actually greatly benefit anyone who isn’t a decent MM player.
Hm… I never noticed it so much before, but oh well. So for healing them it’s really only staff, focus, and that trait for life transfer?
Maybe if I start following engineers around… their turret can heal my minions, and the minions can give the turrets some kind of lifespan by being more annoying to enemies.
Focus does not heal minions because Focus adds a boon which minions don’t acquire. Only Staff 2 and aoe type heals affect your minions.
As to the Bone Fiend question, for as long as I have played the Necromancer, the bone fiend has tanked for me. I have rarely had an instance where he didn’t tank it. I wish he had the under the ground knockback that Ranger Pet Devourers had. I have found that if you begin the attack with using a minion utility to attack them or your hardest hitting attack first you can hold off from him getting focused.
However, the main reason he gets all the love is that he does a good amount of damage on a double hit, and is always the first minion to attack. He essentially knocks off the top 3 reasons you will end up face tanking. Low Health, Low Armor, good damage, attacks twice before anyone else does, and finally he sits at midrange. Remember Anet uses distance, health, armor, damage, and when you attack as the basis for threat. It’s why guardians can “tank” so effectively (low health, no range, decent damage).
That’s part of my point. I’m not running a minion heavy build, so its all or nothing when you get down to it. Already was to min/max things, but I got some utility out of flesh wurm that makes it worthwhile if it wasnt for it dying everytime I used plague form. My impression is the game encourages hybrids where this mechanic discourages it heavily.
The bigger question is why are you using Plague Form. It’s hands down the worst elite we have. I think the only thing worse than Plague Form in our arsenal of awesomeness is Underwater Death Shroud abilities.
I see your point, but the main reason for losing all of them is that the form give you a large increase in stats, and having other utilities active at the same time may make it seem OP.
Just so you are aware, plague form is really only good if you are working with a large group or about to die and need 20 seconds more of life. :P>
I run axe/focus and either pickup Axe training or boon removal. Run Rune of the Eagle or rune of the Pack depending on feel. If I want to really go boon removal crazy I go 60 percent removal of boon on crit and run Berzerker amulet with rune of the Eagle, and then Run 20/0/30/20/0 with Boon removal. Otherwise I will run 30/0/20/20/0 swapping axe training and close to death, in my opinion they are pretty even.
3200 power 32 percent crit with 25k health ad 2100 armor is pretty awesome. Minions will return more health than I get taken off normally, add in axe training and minion damage, you can wreck someone. You do have to get used to occassionally going down really fast when your endurance is up and your minions don’t respond well when you get jumped.
You must have laughed with delight when Anet said they were going to take a good look at nerfing the constant aoe builds. They are usually our biggest problems.
They did? Oh lawdy that will be great. Those are the only builds that can constantly shut me down as an MM. Otherwise its usually ridiculously long fights (I had a few 1v1s with a necro that lasted a few minutes every time), with whoever winning usually depending on who gets team help first or if someone seriously outplays the other.
I play glass cannon MM but I have tried the bunker MM. I find glass cannon much better for my ability to do some damage. Bunker MM is so tough to kill. I ran Bunker MM for 4 or 5 tournaments, and in one tournament I fought 3 people before they eventually killed me off. Granted it was bunker ele, 100b warrior, and I think a GS Guardian. I downed the warrior about 10 times in the fight, the bunker ele was nearly impossible to kill, and eventually the guardian locked me down with Scepter 3 while the warrior dropped 100b on my and my Flesh Wurm was on Cd so I eventually died.
Longest fight I ever fought.
I went back to Glass Cannon MM after that because fighitng a Bunker ele for 3 minutes is just so brutal. Haha, I actually tried bunker MM because a buddy of mine was begging me to try it. However, with a bunker Guardian and a non-glass cannon ele on the team already running a 3rd bunker player was a no-go.
@repeller, Please listen closely to an Active tournament MM player. I run glass cannon Axe/Focus with Staff or D/W depending on area we are playing in.
1. I have no problems with people trying to kite me. Typically, I do the kiting. I initiate 75 percent of my fights. With minions, it’s the best way to begin.
2. Minions are neither Kitten in damage (I have no idea what this means) or squishy as hell. They last longer than most of the utility damage that we through out there. The only time they get trainwrecked is in massive aoe battles, and everything gets trainwrecked there. In fact, when you run the numbers, the minions when specced correctly are the hardest hitting utility skills we have.
If you get snared and people run, than you aren’t using your minions right. Bad positioning, using your minion skills at the wrong time are at issue here, not the minions ability. I have over 200 games as a MM (I also have a ranger, ele, warrior, and thief that I do tournaments with). I only do tournaments as a MM. It has slowly become the most requested toon for me to play on my team.
Why is it the most requested toon for me to play? Because it absolutely train wrecks bunker guardians, bunker ele’s, Power Rangers, and any ranged class that likes to kite.
Just to further debunk your issues here is my team’s most common makeup.
- bunker Guardian
- D/D Thief
-Portal Mesmer
- bunker Ele
-MM Cannon
- Condition Ranger
Here is our standard plan when approaching a group. If it’s a bunker guardian or ele, the team takes out the ranged or damage, while I work the guardian or ele over. If it’s a guardian we only need me. If it’s the ele the Thief will switch over at 50 percent health to drop him. If it’s a bunker ranger or engineer or Mesmer, I take out the ranged, while they drop the bunker.
If we are being attacked, I attack the ranged classes while they drop the warrior or thief. You want to know why we do it this way? Because MM excels at dropping targets 1v1 especially kiters, because if they hamper me, I swap to axes, and my minions are all over them. I seriously never run into an issue where someone with regular success both kills my minions and kites me.
With Axe 3 and Focus 5, you can keep someone locked down so my minions can kill them easily. If he focuses on killing my minions, I kill him. If he focuses on trying to kite me, my minions are free to wreck him. I won’t say it never happens, but it doesn’t happen all the time. A good mesmer is incredibly difficult to kill, an avoiding all conflict thief is a pain, A strong conditions shortbow ranger can give me a headache, but there is not a single class that routinely wrecks me or makes me at any time feel underpowered.
Tip number 1: If they snare you or run you won, swap to staff and lay marks, or weapon swap.
Tip number 2: STOP SAYING THE WORD KITTEN!!! It only makes you weaker.
First let me start with this: I think the necromancer has the best minion of the game, period. (Flesh golem)
2nd- it has the coolest summons out of every profession.
3rd- in this other topic I list the many pros/cons of summons/minions for the many professions in GW2 while giving a possible solution to the problems, if you want to contribute please second this
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Summoned-units-discussion/first#post1304965
I must admit that while I can usually follow many topics. I have trouble with yours. You need to be much cleaner in your presentation to get a topic rolling. Your too general and not specific enough in your descriptions.
I just saw something today in Heart of the Mists that surprised me. Apparently minions can proc on-crit sigils.
To be clear, I was running Flesh Golem as my elite and have a Sigil of Flame on my main-hand dagger. I was just seeing if Shroudstomping became possible again (not with the normal timing, at least. No idea if it is at all) since the last patch. I was testing on the NPC’s of the different professions. While I was stomping one, my flesh golem kept attacking.
I was mid-stomp animation when I saw the flame blast. There were no other players around.
Testing to confirm what I saw will be difficult due to the small crit chance of minions (assuming they have the same base 4% crit chance as most other NPC’s). Has anyone else noticed this?
Are you sure it didn’t proc on Life Blast?
Yeah, its when they get stuck clone chasing that it becomes painful.
I have found that I can generally outlast bunker engi’s, its the ones that run in circles dropping grenades that I have had the most trouble with because of the constant AoE. And I just haven’t run into many trap rangers that I can remember, whenever I am in tPvP they and I generally have the same job, on opposite sides of the map, so we never actually meet.
You must have laughed with delight when Anet said they were going to take a good look at nerfing the constant aoe builds. They are usually our biggest problems.
Are you seriously trying to claim that only 1 or 2 dungeon bosses has AoE?
So at least we all concluded that minions are useless in large scale wvw zerg vs zerg. So to make up for it minions better be AWESOME in 1v1 right?
Speaking of 1v1, try 1v1ing an elite thief with minions. Here is your typical encounter with elite thieves.
Um, you are completely incorrect in this entire statement. Let me help you out here. Every utility we have is on an extended cooldown. Condition mancers suffer from having to swap utilities based on the pull and the target. There is only one utility that is even of any repeatable value.
Power Necro’s have even more situational utilities especially if they go with Signets or Spectrals. There is almost no reason to use most of the spectrals on a regular basis. This means that a majority of our utilities are situational except……..wait for it……..wait for it…..You got it Minions!!!!!
So if you can guarantee me that you have never reused one of your utilities or even fought an entire boss with epidemic sitting there because you forgot to switch it out than by all means you are correct. Having to resummon a minion on a 24 second cooldown is a totally horrible thing to have us do. I mean outside of Blood of Power it’s brutal having a non-situational utility.
The only minion I almost always end up resummoning countless times against a boss is Shadow Fiend. Bone Fiend would be second followed by Flesh Golem. I almost never resummon Blood fiend or Flesh Wurm. Because they are both ranged. You know what happens 24 seconds after I lose shadow Fiend. HE IS BACK dealing damage. You know that only one or two other utilities have as much uptime without waiting for it to come off CD.
Wait you probably never did the math and calculated that you had really long corruption skill cooldowns, while my minions just keep coming back and killing. If you have a problem with Minion CD’s then you must hate Spectral utilities (situational at best) Corruption (obscene cd’s), and Signets (virtually useless most of the time).
If you are losing to a thief as a minionmaster regularly, you have some serious play issues perhaps you should roll a guardian?
I very, very rarely die to a thief in 1v1. Even fully specced to burst, they can’t do more than half your HP, and after that you heal a lot of it back just using dagger 2 and the passive siphoning from minions/your own attacks. And even as a bunker necro, if the thief goes full burst to be able to do that kind of damage to you, it gives them such low survivability that you can do the same to them with your own minion bursts. Not to mention you can use DS to absorb their bursts.
The one class/build that will give you a lot of trouble are mesmers that are very good with spamming clones and shattering them before they die (minions tend to kill the clones very quickly, which actually shuts down some of the mesmer’s power if they don’t pay attention). If they pay attention though, you will almost always lose, and that is more so because mesmers are incredibly good 1v1.
Yes, Bwahb, I am going to add you as a friend in game. It’s great hearing from another MinionMaster who has no issues with Minions in all situations except maybe wvwvw.
I actually have no issues with Mesmers outside of the full glass cannon GS wielding kill or be killed ones. The key to killing mesmers is to make sure you begin the attack, if they catch you first, you are almost always going to die because your minions will be clone chasing. If you begin the attack, they will stay on the mesmer.
I have a world of issues with bunker engineers and trap rangers, especially since they buffed their elite skill to be very painful.
one thing i wish is that all your minions would regen health like the flesh golem does when your out of combat.
also it would be nice not to have to recast them all every time you zone or enter and exit the water.
The zone one matters so little, it’s not really a big deal. The water one is not correct unless your underwater utilities are different than your above minions.
If you keep them in the same spot you don’t have to resummon them. Except the flesh golem and flesh wurm neither of which can swim.