Guild Wars 2

I have found that axe/focus is the best bet for minion builds especially tankish minion builds. As explained above, minion have a static damage output which can only be bumped by debuffs on the target. Axe/Focus is teh best output for it.

Is it better than dagger 1 for damage output? Nope, but axe auto is a constant stacking Vuln which is fine for most situations. It’s also our best alternative outside of staff for range power builds. Since I dislike spamming 1 to damage, and prefer to kite in tournaments Axe is awesome for that.

In dungeons, if you aren’t running with a grenade specced Engineer than Axe is the best for group play.

Bhawb is right. Minions are fine, and are perhaps are best 1v1 build outside of Lich Form. You can build for tank or burst, and even the burst build is extremely survivable. ONly bad MM are kited. I run Axe/Focus and Dagger/WH are amazing in keeping people locked down. I usually run staff for aoe and large group zergs.

I run MM in every single facet of the game and only in Huge AoE situations do they really become weak. But that’s essentially WvWvW and 1 or 2 bosses.

Tip to breaking roots and 100b traps carry flesh wurm and not Bone minions. Drop Flesh Wurm while kiting. If you get trapped port/pop and continue killing. Your pets can outheal most conditions, unless you are facing ranger or engineers. They are brutal.

Thieves will always flee just keep doing what you are doing, and don’t worry too much about them. They hate minionmancers. Next time, hit Axe 2 or swap to DS and use Life Tranfer and watch it suck the life out of them a bit more.

Rennoko.5731:

Always conditions. I tried all the other builds and it just feels silly to me in comparison to similar style melee builds. If I really want to get my face in there and lose all my cool condition based AOE, I will just play on my thief or phant mesmer.

But thats another discussion for another less interesting thread. I will do my best to stay open minded and give some minions a try on the single target bosses. Worm ahoy!

Necro is the only class that i can’t do conditions well with, and that has more to do with my lack of skill with ground targetting abilities. I play condition ranger and condition ele fine but can’t do it with Necro.

I feel the opposite of you. I think our condition builds are significantly underpowered compared to power builds and bunker builds. The ele can build bleeds faster and does more damage with their burns, the Ranger can stack bleeds faster and more powerful. So our tank and power builds make more sense.

As a minion mancer I can tank and deal damage like a guardian, well maybe not that well. But we can build a good bunker build with wells/dagger or minions. Remember that we are there to win the battle of attrition. We are not burst, and we are not heals we take care of only our own, and will outlast the rest.

Rennoko.5731:

I hate to lose Blood is Power. It is a huge DPS boost for me, not just because of the power but because of the bleed itself, assuming we are not bleed capped. In general, if it is a single target boss, then I will agree with you. Corruption boon, and really anything else do not help DPS the boss down any faster, so substituting a minon for two utilties would be okay. I tend to not use my ultimate on most boss fights (especially single target ones).

Fire fractal I couldn’t justify it though. Locust, BIP, and EPI with plauge are all very good on that one with the adds.

I should be more flexible with my utilities, but I get so used to having them on all the time because of WvW, that I tend to leave them along even on single target fights where locust and epi are nearly useless.

Good points though, since most of your minions stay at range of blow up avoiding black cloud puffball. They would be much less likely to die to the less often ranged AOEs.

My guess is you are condition mancer. In that case Blood is Power is amazing. I will sometimes swap out one of my minions for blood is power and just not target anyone when using it :P.

Vilar.2680:

Dude, no one should be able to win a 2v1, this is the very definition of overpower! (ofc i’m assuming that all players have the same level of ability) .

Shhh, common sense and rational thinking are not allowed in teh Necro forums. On that subject line, I have a ranger, thief, elementalist, and Necro that I split time in tPvP with. My thief is easily the best single target killer, the ranger is meh unless condition or beastmaster specced, the ele I run bunker build because it’s very effective right now, and My necro I run power Minionmaster, the Necro is by far the easiest to kill 2 v 1 with. I have run into so few of them that when I do run into a necro 8 times out of ten they are condition mancers with staff offhand and most of them stand still and spam buttons.

Necro’s are not extremely powerful, but the battle of attrition can be won.

@Rennoko – I never use them in WvWvW. I play one of the three main wvwvw classes when I venture there (ele/ranger/warrior). With Aoe being the predominate feature in wvwvw outside of zerging Minionmancers have no chance. To top it off, we have no ability to get away or avoid a fight like Ele Mobility, Mesmer avoidance, and Thieves stealth. Engineers and Necros rely on being in a group, and praying we aren’t singled out.

As for boss fights, I almost never lose all of them at once. I run Blood Fiend, Bone Fiend, Shadow Fiend, Flesh Wurm, and Flesh Golem. Wurm, Bone Fiend, and Blood are all pretty good at staying at range if you summon them at the appropriate distance. If the boss moves, than Bone fiend and Shadow usually die. 24 seconds later they are back up. I am not sure how this isn’t better than runnign with spectrals or condition spec where epidemic and corrupt boon are situational at best, and cooldowns are really high.

24 seconds is nothing in a fight.

Rennoko.5731:

lettucemode.3789:

Rennoko.5731:

I was surprised that a condition/bunker P/D thief didnt make your list. I would think that would be hell for both Power and Condition. I know it is hell for condition, because of all the condition removal on stealth.

My power build uses Shrouded Removal, which drastically reduces P/D thief effectiveness. Without that trait, yes, they are hell.

That trait is amazing, and I have thought about dropping reapers protection just for it. I am in and out of DS so often it would be a huge advantage. I think part of the reason that trait gets so little play is we can’t really track conditions going on and off while in DS. Whenever they fix it so we can see that horrendous stack of bleed hurting us while sitting in DS I bet this becomes a lot more popular.

It really depends on the skill of the thief. Too many of them are tunnel vision and just chase me. I run Axe/Focus which makes chasers my favorite to play with. The dual pistol bunker Thief is a pain if I don’t get Axe 3 off to hammer back their burst. Thieves are single target so if you avoid their major hit than they are really easy to drop. Bunker thieves are really good at avoiding damage. Minions force them to use their stealth all the time. This means they don’t do much to me.

They go invisible. I drop marks, than swap back to axe focus and wait for them to appear. Most run away from me. Really good burst thieves focus on dropping me within the first few seconds or disappearing then coming back to try it again before I regain health.

Rennoko.5731:

I just can’t get into minions anymore, the sacrifice is too much for me, and their damage contribution is too little. I think even if they responded well I would have a hard time using them. They are too fragile and their impact in a fight is too small.

I think if I was less capable of kiting effectively and killing things without taking hits in PVE I would use them more, but since I have adjusted to not having things tank for me, and the minions are too stupid to kite for themselves, it all seems counter productive.

They are still way to fragile to the dreaded red circles on the ground and lack the initiative to get away from them. And in PVP, AOE’s shred them. Oh minions

Point 1 is incorrect. Traited correctly they do anywhere from 2200 – 3k all together. I have posted a list of each of their damage before on my minion guide. They do enough damage to lay to waste anything in pve.

Point 2 is correct. AoE’s wreck them and the 1.5 cast time plus the CD on some of them makes them very tough to maintain if you lose them all at one time. Having said that, they are nerfing AOE damage soon ;p. The only guys I have trouble with in pvp is Condition bunker engineers and rangers. They do so much damage in aoe dots’ and are hard to kill. The rest is a toss up.

Tip don’t run conditions with minions. Axe plus minions burst = scary stuff.

Vagelis.9562:

Sieg.8439:

I’m one of the stubborn idiots still using the Minions build, and yes, Flesh Wurm is by far one of my MVP’s. Or MVM’s. Most Valuable Minion? Anyway.

Like everyone is saying, he has one of the most useful utilities in that he gives you an escape button when you need it. He has fantastic damage and good health to boot. But I really only equip him when I’m settling in for a long fight.

It takes guts to play as Minion master these days , i salute you

It’s way overblown how bad they are. It’s like hearing if you don’t run GS as a warrior you are bad or Engineers can’t do damage outside of Grenades or Rangers are worthless. I run minions in everything, and routinely do really well in tournaments and dungeons. Everytime I go in people whine, and everytime I leave they say the same stuff. “I thought minions were bad, with some moron who has a necro saying, they are he just worked really hard.”

Minions are great in 80 percent of pve fights. They suffer in high end fractals as every pet/spirit/minion does that’s not named Mesmer, or in instagib fights, but reduced cooldowns and knowledge of fights goes a long way in keeping them alive.

Minions are fantastic in pvp mainly because no one knows what to do with them, and they hit much harder than people assume.

Rennoko.5731:

I would have to disagree on elementalist. That is one class that I rarely ever lose to any more. Assuming equal skill level and familiarity with the classes, a necro has a DD eles number, even without using corruption boon. If you run corruption boon, it isn’t even close.

DD eles really fall into a three categories. PVT, Passaflora armor, or knights/zerker mix (very rare with DD). None of those build help them come out on top because they cannot clear often enough against a condition based necro. The zerker build really has the best chance because it often catches people off guard because the ‘MO’ of the DD ele is boons and mobility, not damage.

If you run a power build and you are up against a DD ele, then yeah, you are going to get outpaced in healing and eventually you will get worn down (in my experience). But with a condition build, I just wait for the splash or for them to leave water and then fear/dot/hide behind a tree/strafe. Also dodge roll the updraft and its even easier.

My hardest fight with conditions is always a knights armor guardian with a lifesteal build/food, and condition clearing utilties/traits.

My point was they are the toughest skill cap wise, not the toughest to kill. As a MM Power Necro, the following are the toughest kill for me.

1. Bunker Engineer
2. Bunker Condition Ranger
3. Burst Mesmer’s while DS is down

I find it interesting that Condition Mancers struggle with Guardians, while Guardians are the easiest kills for power necro’s. They are even easier than thieves because they don’t do as much damage. It makes me laugh everytime I run into a guardian and they immediately assume that I won’t kill them than start freaking out when they are at 10 percent health with their heal already used.

Rangers who complain that their pets die or that they have to control their pets in order to have them avoid AoE are like elementalist who complain that they need to attunement swap in order to be effective or Engineers who complain that they have to use kits to be at their best (pistol/Elixir excluding).

Pets and their control are an integral part of being a ranger. I would think the bigger issue is your utility skills are completely awful outside of Traps. However Anet has noticed that and will make some changes upcoming. I actually fought a full Anet team in spvp recently. They rolled 5 bunker classes and were great guys (not great players).

It was a lot of fun, and I learned a bit on how a FT Engineer can control a point for some time (I killed him eventually with my minionmancer). I learned how bad a ranger is if they aren’t condition specced with entangle and traps. My thought was they took one look at how weak he was compared to the others and are looking at possible changes.

I have a low level ranger, and the lack of viable utilities and that LB is really weak inside 1000m is what disappointed me the most. However, I have had no trouble keeping a single pet alive through an entire dungeon unless I make a mistake and not get tunnel vision.

I do agree that Spirit Weapons, Spirit Pets, and Minions need some sort of AoE avoidance since there is no ability to control them. I don’t think ranger pets need the same things since you have multiple ways to keep your pet alive. Granted I think they need a small bump in the ability to not die instantly if they are left in a random or if you are a half second late on a return to me.

However, if you take away their ability to get damage from aoe. You will effectively make them wrecking machines in pvp. A good condition tank with the improvements to tank will train wreck 3 to 4 people. A good LB ranger will wreck someone until he is spotted :P haha. A BM is pretty fun to fight, but losing to them is a rarity. Unfortunately they die often to cleave attacks unless you are running dog, drake, moa, or bear which is a bit ridiculous.

My recommendation is to have pets switch to the back of a target if you use the f1 skill. This would give you the ability to avoid cleave actions and yet still keep the pet skills an active part of the game.

Flesh Wurm hits the hardest survivest the longest and provides you with the only really good non-elite Minion Utility Skill. It’s fantastic in pvp and dungeons, but really sucks in wvwvw and questing (long cd and no movement).

I run Axe/Focus as it’s the greatest vuln stacking with Minions but I do not run Axe main with DS/Lich Power Crit Build. Dagger has two things going for it.

1). Auto Attack speed and damage. The Axe has horrid Auto attack and speed and if you take off auto attack on axe you lose the double hit by spamming 1.

2) Life Force build is significantly higher as Dagger 1 than with A/F builds. It’s also an amazing bunker weapon with the right skills.

Because auto attack is used so often everyone seems to think Axe 2 is awful. It is actually extremely strong, and a couple of Necro buddies were testing it out. They were able to get to 8k damage on Axe 2 with Power/Tough/Vit gear and one guy got to 9k with Valkyrie gear. This is with Axe Training. Without Axe training they varied between 5 and 7k in Arah and HoTW. Needless to say neither felt that the Delay on Axe 2 was worth putting up with the really lackluster feel of axe 1. Dagger Auto was just too easy, and they could get to DS significantly faster which is where their big hitter was.

I run axe because I really like the burst over the steady damage with my minions.

I actually avoid Dagger, and run Axes, but that’s because I am a double kitten mew! Just as a footnote, I also do sPvP and tPVP as Minionmancer to great effect. I have been requested to join several pvp only guilds, but I pve too much to be a regular.

@Ratphink – Greatest post EVER!!! I can’t believe I missed the triple accusation!! I Think I found my new signature haha.

I am either going with “BAM! Triple Accusation: That Bas is not only a mindless fanboy, but also male homosexual. If not homosexual, that they are female and are still addicted to performing felatio.” or "All I read is “blah blah blah” WTB moar kitten to suck on. "

Which choice! Though this “Bas spittin’ truth all day erry day – lettucmode” is probably best. I just don’t want to sound egotistical haha!

Anchoku.8142:

Jagged Horrors, btw, were occasionally useful as cannon fodder. The patch may have inadvertently taken even that use away.

It was taken away because it was being used as a rezzing tool by opponents. They did it with a few items that were accidentally triggering rezzes

lettucemode.3789:

Ok, that is fair to say, I agree necros are harder to play than other classes.

Technically that’s not correct. Elementalist have the highest skill cap in the game. Necros and Engineers fall into the tough to play because of they don’t fill any niche. They don’t heal extremely well, they don’t burst well, but they both play fantastic attrition builds. In pve, attrition is an interesting role to fill. With the increased difficulty of dungeon and changes to avoidance Necros and Engineers may see an increase in the benefit of their playstyle.

The problem many necros face is that they want to be able to burst like other ranged, but we are more like the engineer in that we do a lot of little things well, but nothing great. I enjoy the playstyle.

Relair.1843:

How in gods name would a simple ‘attack’ and ‘retreat’ button for pets be in any way OP?? Saying because we have DS makes no sense, the two have nothing to do with one another. Thats like saying ranger traps should be placed randomly and only go off sometimes when they should be triggered because their mechanic is already a pet bar, so having both things that work properly would be OP. People just want functional, useful minions that dont get instagibbed by boss AoE and actually attack what they’re supposed to. Thats not too much to ask for, considering even mmos from 10 years or more back could do this. Anet needs either fix the kitten things or rename the class, seeing as most people who sign up to play necromancers figure they’re going to get good undead pets.

You aren’t asking for a slight UI fix, you are askign for a complete change in the mechanics of a utility skill. The only thing minions need is a slight fix to UI. Attack who I am attacking when I attack. That’s all they need. A slightly better lifetime would be nice, and a reduction on the summoning time would be a considerable improvement to the playstyle in pvp.

A majority of necro complaints on here are ridiculous requests. I just read a post where someone wanted Minions to act like illusions with the ability to destroy them on request. An attack retreat button would turn them into pets, and not minions. It would be borderline OP because Guardians and Rangers would then request and deserve it on their Spirit Pets and Weaposn, and what about Mesmer’s and their clone wars?

Your option would open a can of worms that would seriously affect gameplay as a whole. Necro’s are in a good place currently with a few ease of life play changes needed.

1. Better Signet synergy. – I puzzle often as to how the active/passive effects were thought of.

2. Better Minion AI and a slight bump in Minon health or avoidance – Attack who I attack when I attack that’s all. They fixed the second part but not the first.

3. Either a cleave on axe or dagger or slightly better damage on Axe (the idea to move Axe training to Tier 2 is really good)

4. Beat the man who thought of staff sound effects (so so annoying)

5. Spectral wall changes – As it currently sits, it’s almost useless.

6. Remove jagged horrors as 5 point ability. Even as a minion master that ability puzzles me since they usually die before doing anything, and the amount of toughness they add is usually ineffective since the guy just died.

7. Improve siphon life skills marginally. I think it should be tied into healing power, but at a low percentage.

8. Death Shroud UI improvements – All we want is to see the cooldown on our utilities and attacks.

These are simply ease of life changes. Not one of them is groundbreaking.

So first we all want ranger skills with Minions, now you want mesmer skills with minions? Let’s just make it so when we roll a new jagged horror appears but it looks like us and we can disappear and then reappear. Ooo, or just change elite minion into the ability to change an opponent into the Flesh Golem.

All of your ideas are overboard, mesmer mixed with Jagged horrors. Not taking any damage? ARe you serious? Do you realize how crazy that would be burst wise? You would wreck any bunker and pvp would be a joke. Why don’t you just roll a mesmer?

When are we going to stop treating Minions like they are a core ability? Death shroud is our core ability. Small changes are all that are needed we don’t need things that change the UI or the ability to control them.

All that is needed is that they attack who I attack when I attack them. That’s it.

Matt H.6142:

I think Spirits are great in the support role of a longbow ranger. And I was untouchable in PvE with Storm, Stone and Frost

Why would you waste a utility skill on Storm? QZ is significantly better in terms of every step as well as the pet utility rez being way better as well. Stone and Frost I could see, but Storm is so bad.

It is a leveling/questing tool. It is pointless in dungeons, and any place where your pet might die alot.

It’s also pointless in pvp and WvWvW, because switchign pets for skills is key. What’s even more frustrating is that the 2sec quickness is hilariously bad because if you switch and are at range the pet will not even attack before the quickness is gone. If you are in melee range, and switch for quickness, you may get one hit from it.

To answer your question, it’s one of the most mindnumbingly frustrating talents in the game. I have tried to use it in a dungeon, and have made it 80 percent of the way through dungeons with micro managing my pets every move to get to 25 stacks and then having a random boss swing wipe out all my hardwork and instakill my panther.

Minions are actually in a nice place right now outside of them randomly freezing and not attacking anything. Spirit Pets and Spirit Weapons are essentially useless with their current health being brutally low, and with the follow trait and 15 percent chance to buff being really weak for high end talents.

The only good thing about Spirit Pets is that Frost Spirit’s buff Stacks so If you have two rangers who both carry it into a dungeon and drop it and then use your other utilities for useful skills (I think you can find two useful utilities) than you can essentially have a 10-20 percent damage buff going a majority of the time.

Anchoku.8142:

Bas.7406:

Junkpile.7439:

Why not give minions own skillbar and skills like in some f2p games? You could choose if you go full pet, hybrid or normal build.

Because that would make them OP, and we would essentially be rangers with magic instead of arrows. The pet skill bar is the inherent trait of rangers. We have Death Shroud and Life Force. It’s not happening.

That is correct! Making Necromancer a better pet class than Ranger is forbidden. All those gold-farmers would drop Ranger in a heartbeat.

Nice sarcasm there :p. But the statement still holds true. A necro with Death shroud and a pet skill bar allowing us full control over multiple pets would be considerably OP. One of the reasons for them being a utility skill is that they are like Guardian Spirit weapons. They are add-ons not essential parts of your skill set.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Bas.7406:

SupahSpankeh.8452:

Axe in DS with Axe Training will still, and I can guarantee this, do less damage than staff with no training in DS.

Base stats and power coeffecient for Axe are garbage. It’s a kiting/superiority weapon, not a main DPS weapon. Use it as such and it’s axe-ceptable.

LOL

That’s the most ridiculous assumption out there. Staff is our single weakest weapon. It has great marks when traited, but is at all points not a main dps weapon. There isn’t a single knowledgeable necro that would claim that. Staff is great in specific situations. Axe is great all the time, and DS is our most powerful attack outside of Lich Form.

Actually, because Staff is a 2-handed weapon it has a higher base-damage which affects the amount of damage that LifeBlast deals.
You can test it yourself in the mists, equip a 1-handed weapon and staff and switch between the 2 in DS, Staff equipped damage will be higher.

Edit – Axe is also a horribly niche weapon while Staff is versatile as heck, just look at the amount of builds that use each weapon.

It’s not higher than Axe Training. I will double check again today, but I find staff to be the absolutely worst weapon to possibly use in pvp unless running in a coordinated team as a support. it’s too easily dodged, the damage is minimal unless traited for Marks.

CHIPS.6018:

Minions are useless in 1v1 against anyone that kites. Your minions just run around in circles and never hits the enemy. The only thing that can get them is the flesh golem’s charge. Everything else either doesn’t hit or doesn’t deal much damage.

In zerg vs zerg though, minion aren’t too bad in the chaos IF there weren’t that 10 second delay before they start fighting.

You have it backwards. Minions crush 1v1 and eat kiters for lunch (you do realize you have multiple minion utilities), and die quickly in zergs.

Vagelis.9562:

Bas.7406:

I use minions for everything on my Necro except WvWvW. I can’t seem them being very good in teh zerging aoe fest that is WvWvW.

@Vagelis. Tank Minion builds are amazing :P. Flesh Wurm actually does significantly more damage than you stated. Remember TA is downscaled to the appropriate level. I have watched my Flesh Wurm kill off Thieves and others in tPVP. Bigger issues are aoe bosses that wipe out any and all pets.

i know , just not used in other dungeons . TA has many stationary bosses or safe areas. In pvp i use a corruption / well build with marks , but im intrigued to try vampiric master too.

The Minions are really strong in several Dungeons.

AC – except Kohler, Troll, and Traps. The rest they rock through though Spider boss can cause some issues. Flesh Wurm shouldn’t die on any of those fights or any boss fight in most cases.

CM – Turmaine is awful for any pet build. Frost and Wahlen are a bit of a headache because of their aoe and directional blasts that can one shot pets.

SE – It’s been awhile, but I seem to recall Mark 1 and Mark II golems being a major issue as well as the Prototype’s causing some Minion wipes.

TA – Greater Nightmare Vine can be a headache and you could own it. It’s all up to placement of those cursed bombs. One of the nightmare tree paths is tough.

CoE – Subject Alpha used to cause headaches, but they said it’s fixed.

HoTW – No major issues

CoF – No major issues only rousing success.

Arah – Lupis though they fixed some of the issues. I haven’t really brought the MM into all of them yet.

Fractal of The Mists – I haven’t seen any issues so far, they die as often as everything dies, and help in some fights.

Junkpile.7439:

Why not give minions own skillbar and skills like in some f2p games? You could choose if you go full pet, hybrid or normal build.

Because that would make them OP, and we would essentially be rangers with magic instead of arrows. The pet skill bar is the inherent trait of rangers. We have Death Shroud and Life Force. It’s not happening.

I use minions for everything on my Necro except WvWvW. I can’t seem them being very good in teh zerging aoe fest that is WvWvW.

@Vagelis. Tank Minion builds are amazing :P. Flesh Wurm actually does significantly more damage than you stated. Remember TA is downscaled to the appropriate level. I have watched my Flesh Wurm kill off Thieves and others in tPVP. Bigger issues are aoe bosses that wipe out any and all pets.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

The one thing to note on Reanimator is that the patch should have also sent the Boss Targeting fix live. You know, where bosses like Lupicus and Subject Alpha no longer target minions and NPC’s unless they are all that’s left? Any of them where it is actually detrimental for the minions to be targeted should no longer do so.

Note that with Jade Maw, it is not detrimental to have minions targeted as it does not harm your team.

Now, why this wasn’t mentioned in the patch notes, I don’t know.

Not having Lupicus and Subject Alpha target my minions? Seriously! That would be awesome. I was getting tired of having to bring only my non-pet ranged classes to those two stupid fights.

Vagelis.9562:

Flesh Golem still attacks anything in its wake , rest minions are way more responsive , im glad about that.( can’t understand why everyone QQs about them , they always attacked what i attacked , anyway) No nerfs , so still happy

You probably used their utility skills, didn’t use bad pathing to your target, did not tab target during the middle of a fight, and initiated contact a majority of the time. All the things we pick up over time when we notice small issues and compensate for them.

The shadow fiend, bone minions, and Flesh Golem were the big perpetrators of buggy AI. Bone Minions and Flesh Golems would bug out and not work at all until killed off. Shadow fiend would usually right itself.

They are a bit more responsive, and I noticed a much tamer Flesh Golem this run around. His aggro meter is down from 900m to a more manageable 600m :P.

I have noticed being knocked immediatiely out of DS on any form of interrupt or KB last night during tPVP play. I did not notice it in pve play.

I noticed slight improvements on AI. The Flesh golem no longer runs off and attacks everything close to you. However, he still has moments of standing around, though it isn’t as bad as previous. I can generally get him to attack a target as long as I don’t start tab targeting. For the rest of the minions it still holds true that once you use their utility skill they will always attack.

So you want to keep the forum clean, and yet you started a new post directly under the post discussing the Patch Notes. Did you know Irony is a form of humor?

SupahSpankeh.8452:

Axe in DS with Axe Training will still, and I can guarantee this, do less damage than staff with no training in DS.

Base stats and power coeffecient for Axe are garbage. It’s a kiting/superiority weapon, not a main DPS weapon. Use it as such and it’s axe-ceptable.

LOL

That’s the most ridiculous assumption out there. Staff is our single weakest weapon. It has great marks when traited, but is at all points not a main dps weapon. There isn’t a single knowledgeable necro that would claim that. Staff is great in specific situations. Axe is great all the time, and DS is our most powerful attack outside of Lich Form.

Levian.6742:

@Bas

I know some people are asking for this. In another thread a few months back people were asking for the Ranger’s F1-F3, and I made a similar argument, about how it would be in no way fair, us getting their profession mechanic as well as our own.

By asking for the Ranger AI, I (and I assume most others) just meant something functional. Something that attacks your target when you attack it. Something that attacks an enemy who attacks you first when you are out of combat. Something that doesn’t run off to attack enemies who aren’t even close enough to draw aggro from you OR your pet.

Personally, this is all I want. I just want it to work =\

I wholeheartedly agree. I love the Minions, and find them to be a lot of fun to work with. I think they need some tweaking especailly their repsonsiveness when switching targets or moving while fighting.

Levian.6742:

While in the video, he didn’t do any of the things that are supposed to help “fix” or work around the minion bugs, I personally think that was his point. This (in my eyes) was a video to show players (and A-Net) who may or may not believe that we actually have minion AI issues, or think that we are exaggerating the issues we do have.

This video shows clearly the average gameplay of an average PvE player, who might not have any idea of the little work arounds we have figured out. Minions and Pets are supposed to defend you when you’re attacked, whether or not you attack back. And they do, sometimes. Also in PvE, I too often jump off cliffs with or without pets just because its something you do when travelling. We shouldn’t have to worry about little things like this, it should be working.

I know you’ve worked hard to make minions work. I can see it in the threads you’ve made. I think your the first person in a long time to admit they use a minion build, and share it on the forums, let alone offer solutions to some of the issues. But like I said, I don’t think this is the point of the video, it’s to show that there are some very big issues with our AI, and it gives a very clear example to anyone who watches what they are, and what may be causing them.

I wholeheartedly agree that Minion AI needs tweaks. I just think the Necro as a whole has other utility issues that are of greater need. Signets need to be retooled, I don’t know of many people who even use spectral utilities outside of the 30 second swiftness one.

I think the main reason the Minion AI has not been adjusted is because of the amount of troubleshooting it would take to get it perfect. I can almost guarantee that if they can’t fix RTL pathing issues easily than Pet pathing issues will always be a problem. Rangers, Engineers, Guardians, and Mesmers have larger issues with whole specs being completely unplayable due to AI issues. Spirit Pets are virtually useless, Turrets are a complete travesty in pve, Spirit Weapons are as bad as Minions with slower attacks that are easily dodged, and Mesmer clones have to be shatter or be completely wasted and lets not get started on mesmer targeting ai with clones getting stuck in walls.

However, I put it. I am not defending it. I am simply saying that it’s not bad, and there are work arounds that work most of the time.

marianitten.1247:

Bas.7406:

We are not saying its’ not an issue just saying you did everything possible to magnify the issue and nothing that most of us do to offset the bug.

The only thing i did in the video is starting combat.

You initiated combat with ground targeting abilities.

You never once used your Golem’s utility skill to reset his attack.

You jumped off a cliff while attacking which screws up every pet/utility AI out there.

You ran up and let them attack you before attacking back while noting he didn’t defend you.

These are the issues everyone noted earlier. Again I am not saying the AI needs some tweaks. The second video gave a clearer example of issue that crop up as he did every trick that we like to use to reset them, and still had the Golem bug out though the fiend did reset.

Levian.6742:

While yes, some people are asking for a simple attack and follow button, most of us would be happy with properly functioning minion AI. Just as it was stated, the AI that Ranger’s pets have.

Let me reiterate that for everybody – NOT asking for Ranger’s f1-f3 skill mechanic, JUST a working, functional AI similar to Ranger’s pets

Ranger’s Pets AI is not their profession mechanic – that’s the “attack” “Pet special attack” and “follow” buttons. So please, Bas and Cempa, and people like you, stop criticizing for a minute and think rationally. What would be so OP, so broken about asking for minions that function properly? Nothing at all, because they should never have been broken from the start.

Actually, that’s where you are wrong. Read some of the minion posts people are complaining because tehy don’t have the attack and don’t attack buttons. The main reason the pet ai works is because when it sticks (and it does) you simply command them to attack.

I am not trying to break this conversation. I would like some small adjustments to the AI. When I switch targets, I would like for them to switch sometime during the fight or not freak out and stop attacking. I would like for them to attack a target when I am attacked and not stand there watchign them beat me until I command them to attack.

But there are some broad changes and ridiculous assumptions to the class that are being requested, and that’s what I would like to see stopped. Quit comparing them to ranger pets or mesmer clones. Trust me mesmer clones are awful ai, and if you change targets you lose them. They are comparable to Engineer Turrets, Ranger Spirit Pets, and Guardian Spirit Weapons. If you compare them to those options you will come out going okay there are worse options.

Axe training buffs your power base when Axe is equipped at 80 it adds over 100 Attk when I switch to Axes it buffs every attack not just the Axes let’s hope Anet doesn’t notice that :P.

marianitten.1247:

And look to my video.. in the first part I’ve never changed to staff. Scepter all time.

Scepter is liable to the same issues as staff as if you begin with attack 2 your pet will mindlessly stand. Your video also showed you dropping stages, and standing around being hit by starting the fight with being in close range.

We are not saying its’ not an issue just saying you did everything possible to magnify the issue and nothing that most of us do to offset the bug.

Just as a note, bone minions are the worst in terms of buggy ai, your shadow fiend was pretty good in attacks, I have no idea what is going on with your flesh golem. You did everything that you were supposed to do, and your flesh stolen just watched. I would screenshot your combat log and send in a bug report to anet.

I didn’t notice anything wrong with either fiend. As bad as that was, my main was an engineer, and turrets are much much worse.

Cempa.5619:

Because THEY ARE NOT PETS! They are minions, meaning you are not supposed to control them. If you want a pet go play Ranger!!

Exactly! It drives me crazy that people compare minions to ranger pets and clones. Btw, mesmers complain infinitely about dumb clones or that when they change targets all clones disappear. I am glad minions aren’t like that.

Ranger pets are their iconic class trait. Like our Death Shroud, if you want to give up death shroud for minion control you need serious help.

Comparable traits to minions are Ranger spirit pets and Guardian Spirit weapons. I can guarantee you that both of those classes would easily trade with us. Are they perfect? No, but considering they are the only utility skill you can drag into any part of the game without losing effectiveness it’s a win. Corrupt boon is crap in pve and questing. Epidemic is a waste in 1v1 and in a majority of small fights. Most of the spectral skills are either horribly long CDs or buggy. I have yet to see anyone run full signets.

My point stands most of you over exaggerate and are just on here to whine because you have no clue how to play effectively with minions. It’s ridiculous some of your requests and claims of broken mechanics. The standing still not attacking is a little annoying, but its not game breaking.

Buggy fear, conditions being useless against burrows, plague signet not passing conditions, the complete worthlessness of most signets and some spectrals, and our complete lack of any form of cleave effect on power builds are way more pressing issues.

Lets not even take into account that rangers are in a way worse position than we are with every utility being completely underwhelming except traps and quickness.

I know asking for rational thinking here might be tough, but come on, big picture people.

There are numerous topics already posted about this, and it’s not that bad. They don’t stand around whole fights, and they don’t charge off 2000 meters to fight someone who isn’t attacking. Overreaction and exaggerations have been around for thousands of years and people still do it even though it solves nothing. Go figure

The pets will always attack the person you attack. The problems you see are as follows.

1. The pet when summoned during a battle will stand still for several seconds before attacking. This is the annoying part. It is easily remedied by either hiding behind said minon at which point he is hit and then attacks or simply using his utility.

2. When traveling across terrain you begin an attack while changing pathing such as dropping from a cliff leaping over a wall. The pet will stall for a few minutes and then turn and attack. This has to do with all pet ai including ranger pets. The same remedy applies.

3. Your pet randomly attacks someone who isn’t targeted. This only happens with the flesh golem and it will only happen if withing 200-400m during his aggressive state. Remember he stands a good 20-30 feet behind you so when he goes to his spot after a battle a spawn may trigger his attack.

4. We are better off than rangers who have zero really good utilities outside of traps, and whose pet will die faster than ours unless it’s a bear, drake, or dog, and thereby they will lose 30 percent of their damage.

Finally, you aren’t even 50 yet which is when Minions start to come into their own. At 36 your minions are still dying an awful lot because you don’t have Flesh of the Master. So listen to me and relax and read the minion Q and A, and the minionmancer tips and tricks on the forums.

Hieronymus.2146:

Yeah, the cool down is not bad at all on Minions with the appropriate trait, I mis-typed when I typed cool down and meant the Cast time. Re-reading what you wrote at the top of the forum, about the cast time on the minions being roughly equilvalent to the cast time on all of our abilities, and so not making much of a difference in suckyness, though I agree with.

Yeah, bone minions are terribad, but when they go pop, I really love it. I am looking for a replacement for this utility, and will try the Wurm when I run a dungeon as you suggest.

As far as running everyday Pve/PvP, maybe I will stick with the Epidemic? I just hate the intolerable cool downs on the wells and corruptions, it makes it so, you have to stand around with your thumb up your necrotic kitten waiting to do something. At least with the Epidemic, I can target a MOB that is being focused by the group/zerg and spread some loving every 15 seconds, which is acceptable, as opposed to the 60 seconds or 45 seconds or half minute that is the current deal.

What are your thoughts on Fetid Consumption? I’m really enjoying that fact that my conditions get stripped off of me every few seconds. I have yet to take the MM build to WvW granted, won’t be able to till they reset and my server gets bumped up.

I have been scared actually to Dungeon run with the AI of minions. I am so worried that I will wipe the group because of the insane, psychopathic AI. You have given me a little courage to try though, any tips/pointers for doing this?

Also, you might want to check out the trait Death’s Embrace in the power tree, which makes your downed state 50% more effective. I found this to be a remarkable good trait that has saved me many times. It really eats through an enemy’s heath, transferring it to you.
I have to agree that so far my experience as MM has been pretty fun and effective.

Can’t wait to try it in WvW (whenever they reset). Also, hoping they fix this class or address it in three days.

Thanks

WvWvW is rough on minion builds. Heck it’s horrifying for any pet build. Engineer Turrets, Ranger Pets, and Thieves Guild all get rocked by the sheer amount of AoE which is one of the reasons Anet is looking at nerfing aoe. AoE Builds are the only way to do WvWvW, and Minionmasters are singletarget specialists.

Fetid Consumption is great if you run with no condition removal players. The downside is your pets drop even faster. I could see it being nice in WvWvW if your minions live, and in tPvP in a bunker type build or even in a questing facility. In dungeons, I run with either an engineer, elementalist, Condition Mancer, Guardian, or warrior with Rune of the Soldier so I never even worry about conditions. All of those classes have better group removal conditions than I have plus siphon life with pets = amazing for survival.

I have actually started runnign with Axe Mastery or Close to Death and only went to Flesh of the Master in the Death Magic tree.

Dungeon Tips:
1. Your minions won’t attack anything unless directly attacked or you attack first. The psychopathic ai has more to do with lazy bone minions and Flesh Golem’s desire to kill everything within 400m

2. Never begin a fight unless running bunker build as you will lose one or two of your Minions instantly.

3. Run Dagger for bunker build, and Axe for Berzerker Build. I don’t like Staff, but it does have it’s utility purposes. I usually run Axe/Focus primary and Dagger/Warhorn secondary.

4. Don’t summon the Flesh Wurm unless you know the fight is going to last longer than 40 seconds, and don’t bring the bone minions unless you have a combo field being cast all the time.

5. If you get a pet stuck where he isn’t fighting switch targets than switch back or use his ability to break him out.

6. Have fun, and enjoy watching others freak out when you solo a guy that was killing everyone.

What’s Cliff Diving?

Softspoken.2410:

This video is depressing, but not for the reason you think.

You never acquired a target for your minions. Most minions will never attack mobs until you attack them. Flesh Golem is exceptional in this regard in that it does occasionally acquire targets that haven’t aggroed onto anything yet. (I suspect it is also quick to turn on mobs that have turned aggressive to it, but not to the Necro, but can’t say for sure.) This behavior is to prevent minions from forcibly engaging every mob between point A and point B.

Thanks, this is what I was trying to point out. Though I will admit that they actually don’t attack until you actually hit them. It’s one of the reasons I hate the staff with Minions if they don’t hit the trap your minion stands there. And if you screw up and take a shortcut over a wall or off a cliff while attacking, than you either have to wait until they run down stop stand beside you reset their setup and then attack. If you jump down without being in combat they will appear immediately beside you.

The only minion who has extreme pathing and targeting issues is the Bone minion. They will sometimes get stuck fighting nothing 100 feet from your target so you can’t blow them up which defeats the point of them. I have since dumped them for teh amazing Flesh Wurm.

Figured I should bump this up since there are so many negative minion threads at the moment.

Okay so in pvp my build gives me these stats

3104 attack
43/38 crit/crit damage
2100 Armor
23k health

With Runes of the Eagle and boons. I could end up with more health if I swapped out some abilities. I am currently runnning 30/0/20/20/0.

If i switch to a full power build, here are the stats

3269 attack
35/23
2100 armor
23k health

Runes of Ogre and Berzerker

Granted by swapping runes I could get a bit more power or health, but

I didn’t have time to check my pve stats.

Both of those are similar with every ai issue. The jagged horrors have always been horrendous. IN the first part of the fight he attacked everyone who hit you once or was within a certain range.

The second pathing issue is even worse with ranger pets and engineer turrets. It’s also easily fixed by simply using your pets utility which you never once attempted to do. Also in the case of the four guys attacking you. You never once attacked until near the end. Maybe he thought you wanted to die.

If you attack, and you don’t drop off a hill to attack they will pick up the attack as well. If you stand there and just get beat to death they will do nothing unless they are hit at which point they will attack. Is it annoying sure, but it’s not the worst thing ever like you are painting it to be. We covered these issues and remedies for them in the Minion mancer Q and A thread.

@Hieronymus – Bone Minions are the absolute worst pets. They sometimes get stuck and never move. They die repeatedly before you can use them, and sometimes I want to chuck them. I never use them. Flesh Wurm is awesome! It does the most damage, and dies the least. It’s not great for questing, but for dungeon fights it’s awesome.

I wholeheartedly agree, that worrying about healign them is meh. It can be done, but I let them die and simply resummon them when the cd is up. It’s not that long of a cd, The cast time is ridiculous, which is my major complaint. That and the fact that sometime I have to hit the utility skill twice to get him to do their ability.

Death Nova is meh, but it’s an added damage. It applies it to a small area where the pet dies. About the size of an extended Mark.