Guild Wars 2

ProxyDamage.9826:

I just tested to make sure I wasn’t just being biased from my previous attempt at using the bloody things.

Where did you test at? How did you test them? How in the world it took you that long to kill them is beyond me. Did you send just them in while not attacking yourself? Did you attack with just auto and staff and pray? I have already stated my pet peeve is the 1 1/2 cast time of the summoning since they are necessary to my survival. However did you know that the cast time is a mere quarter of a second longer than most of our attacks?Which says alot more about the ridiculousness of the Necro as a whole than the Minion master.

I have no idea what your point on this was. You simply proved my point. Ignoring the minions will get you dead and me permanently healed. I actually fought a bunker ele with a thief chasing me the whole time. They both completely ignored my pets and tried to focus me down. They both died and I never once had to sacrifice my blood fiend. I used Siphon health, Life Transfer heals, and minion heals, and whenever I got to 50 percent health I would swap to DS and continue to kill them. I dropped the thief 3 times in the fight and the ele twice before finally stomping them. D/D ele bunkers are a pain when you are stomping their partner.

Again the only guys who I have a world of trouble with are engineers and condition rangers. Everyone else I can handle or competively kill. As a test, I once ran in circles while letting my pets single handly kill a warrior. Everytime he popped Frenzy I popped pet traits to get away. Blind for charge, Bone Fiend immobilize, Golem Charge, and Flesh Wurm Portal, all of them were amazingly effective.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Times I’ve been killed by a minion master: 0

1. Minions do not do laughable damage.
2. Times I have encounters a semi-decent Minionmaster in tPVP or sPVP = 1. The rarity of Minionmasters is amazing because of the amount of negativity and misinformation by fellow players. I had to convince my tPvP team to let me try it. I actually got messages from several engineers, elementalists, and bunker guardians complimenting my ability to not only compete but kill them. I had one engineer who screamed Fing Pets and then proceeded to kill them all the next time he saw me in a fight with someone.
3. You have multiple defense from siphon life, death shroud, and weapon abilities. I have the same defense as any Power build or tank does outside of the crappy Spectral skills.

ProxyDamage.9826:

In PvE MM builds fail because they lack either single target DPS or AoE, while being a pain to manage (low health minions need to be constantly noted, euthanized and re-summoned lest you end up forced to summon at a bad time) and impossible to control properly (to prevent accidental agro pulling, for once).
This actually brings out a question I have regarding your build: You claim to be a power-oriented build, if I read it correctly, and yet you have so little attack… 2.1k attack was it? That’s… nothing. A power build should boast over 3.5k attack at least. I have way more than 2.1k on my necro, and I’m paying a ridiculous premium for ~1.4k condition damage and nearly 30k health. So, what’s up with those stats? Not accounting for gear or something? If so, can you provide some numbers WITH gear? I’d be interested to see what kind of numbers you’re working with for damage and survivability. Who knows, maybe I am wrong about something. Very unlikely, but it has happened before.

I don’t run a pure power build. I run a crit happy power build in pvp. In PvE I run berzerker gear using orbs instead of gems to boost my crit and crit damage. I run glass cannon with Minions. I will check my numbers tonight and get back to you.

Look, I am not saying they are perfect my point lies in that they are better than advertised, and that a majority of your complaints are based on playstyle. here is a counter point to yours. Why would I ever bring a condition Necro? Rangers build bleeds faster and do better condition damage, Elementalists are significantly better hitters and roamers, and Mesmers (well we all know them). So If I am running a dungeon why bring a condition Necro since they die quickly compared to other classes and do significantly less damage while taking longer to get their conditions up.

My guild actually tested this with the same guy playing condition spec ele and condition spec necro. Ele destroyed the same target in a portion of the time with more health left over. In fact a grenade engineer brings more to the table than a condition mancer.

So Thief, engineer, Ranger (not in pvp), and ele alll apply conditions with better numbers, and Mesmers provide more utility so why bring the condition mancer?

ProxyDamage.9826:

Bas.7406:

Currently in pve or pvp the Minion mancer is rarely seen in dungeons, spvp, tPvP, and questing. Occasionally we will pass a Necromancer who has 1 or even two minions, but the minion mancer has slowly fallen out of favor due to the strength of the necromancers condition damage, and the dagger power/lich form builds.

Correction. “Minion” based builds didn’t fall out of favor because other builds were stronger, they fell out of favor because they were pretty bad. You’re relying on AI, which is rarely a good thing, and the minions themselves are rather lackluster. They’re not that strong, not that resistant, their abilities are meh at best, you can’t control them properly (even less so than Ranger pets), extremely long cast times and cooldowns, and most of the bloody things don’t even regen at all.

In PvE the minions are unreliable since you can’t control them properly, and summoning a new one is extremely unresponsive because of cooldowns and cast times. In PvP the whole concept is laughable since, again, the impossibility to properly control the minions together with slow cast times and long cooldowns makes them unreliable “meat walls”, and mostly everyone will simply ignore the minions and go directly for you, since you’ll be extremely weak.

It’s not that every other build is way better than them, although they generally are, it’s that the build itself is, currently, extremely flawed. I question whether it’s viable at all, really.

Correction: None of this is factually true. They are very strong. Combined they are as powerful anything not named Lich Form. They respond very well with a few minor glitches that can be worked around which is still better than some of the other utilities we have. They are very resistant if specced correctly.

Your second point about getting wrecked when they ignore it is ignorant at best. If I dodge a thief’s burst. He gets trainwrecked a warrior who gets locked out or confusion during 100b gets trainwrecked. A condition necro who gets all his conditions cleansed will get wrecked.
Every single class and utility that doesn’t say bunker has the option of getting wrecked. Do I need to post more examples?

Let’s also clarify how you can’t control them. Let’s make this very clear just because you can’t do something doesn’t mean everyone can’t. Minions are easily controlled with their utility buttons, and I have yet to have one randomly attack something I didn’t want to attack or that wouldn’t have aggro’d to me anyways.

To top it all off, It’s better for minion masters when your pets are ignored. The good players destroy the minions and then kill me. The bad players who think minions are horrible leave the minions up and get farm killed by Minionmasters. I guess we know which category you fit in.

Thanks for your obviously biased opinion which contained nothing of any value to the Minion Master. In the future, constructive posts usually don’t contain worlds of misinformation along with overstated complaints while completely ignoring anything of value.

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

So this build will be better ? ( check sigils and runes )

I did notice your sigils and runes, but you lose out on 300 condition damage minimum and a host of damage from corruption skills and weaken your deathshroud capabilities. It’s not that it’s horrible it’s just not optimal.

Updated notes about Deathshroud and Minions

Edited and fixed the links. Please let me know if there are still issues.

Haley.2390:

Bas.7406:

Axe/Focus and staff have 2 ways to build life force, axe 2 and Staff auto. Staff auto is slow as mollasses, and Axe 2 can be cut off. I find I rarely have probablems building life force in pve dungeons, in pvp I can go quite some time between DS compared to DS builds.

Axe/Focus and Staff in your setup has 3 ways to build Life Force. You forgot about Focus #4. If there is a party member within 600 range of your Focus #4 target, you’ll gain 15% Life Force once all the bounces are done. If there isn’t, then you run up to be within 600 range of your target and you’ll get 15% Life Force. That’s a lot of Life Force to not be mentioned.

Note: the actual max distance bounce of the Focus #4 is a tiny bit less than 600 range. And it does not bounce to minions or clones, that’s why you need to run up if there are no other players nearby.

You are absolutely correct, and I can’t believe I missed that. I am going to add your comment to the MM Q & A thread. I appreciate the correction. I didn’t notice the lifeforce gain because I am rarely within 600 feet when initially casting Dagger 4. I appreciate the correction and information.

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

The best and fastest way to build life force is via Dagger 1st skill , got staff as main ( landing marks ) and Dagger/focus ( switch to get might and damage ).

No one ever disputed this. Try dagger/warhorn for maximum damage ;p. Warhorn 5 is amazing for consistent damage, and works perfectly thanks to the cripple with dagger auto.

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

Here is what I have got >> focus on condition damage , power ( got it from 20 spite and little gears ) and toughness .
My build >> http://tinyurl.com/a5t3h9a >> check runes/sigils and traits.
My gear is carrion.

As our minions don’t benefit from our stats you should focus on condition damage as your main weapon should me Staff to heal them.

Absolutely not. Condition damage is the worst possible way to build a minion master. There are three reasons to ignore condition damage as a necro.

1. There are so many condition runners in dungeons, and your damage will be significantly worse since you don’t have a single beneficial trait to condition damage.

2. There are significantly better utilities for conditionmancers that running minions with a condition build is baffling.

3. Power builds benefit from Death Shroud much more than Condition builds, and since Death Shroud is your big hitter in a Minionmaster build it makes almost no sense to run conditions.

chocomamma.1539:

Could you please post how you traited the MM build and what you chose for each one? The links are all blank trees. I am trying my hand at MM right now and am at lvl 23. I am loving it and would like to know how to trait for later levels cause I love my minions to much to give them up. Also what skill do you use for healing?

I apologize for the links. It is odd that no matter what site I chose to link from it bugs out on these forums. The build numbers are as follows. I will see what I can do to fix the links.

1. Minion Master – 20/0/30/20/0
2. Boon Stripper – 20/0/30/20/0 – a few minor talent switches
3. Axe Smasher – 30/0/20/20/0

As a minionmaster you always heal with blood fiend, but I must warn you, that the blood fiend will die alot until you get Flesh of the Master. It’s one of the reasons I recommend holding off on full minions until 50. Though I did run blood fiend the whole way.

This spot is reserved for future Questions and Answers

Even More Questions and Answers

Q. My Minions go brain dead and forget to attack sometimes. How do I make them more responsive?

A (Courtesty of Riot Inducer.8964): For general PvE play how you initiate combat is vital to how your minions perform. Often times if you simply start casting weapon attacks at your enemy your minions (melee ones specifically) will get very confused and not attack but simply stand at your side, I don’t know why this is but the flesh golem is particularly susceptible to this.

The solution I have found is to use alternate methods of initiating combat as minions will get hung up a lot less if you start combat by using a minion’s active skill on an enemy, the Shadow Fiend’s Haunt is great for this but the Flesh Golem’s Charge works as well. These skills can also be used to break those specific minions out of their trance, but it isn’t guaranteed. Alternatively you can start combat defensively by waiting until an enemy is aggroed and has drawn first blood, retaliating then will almost always ensure no minions get stuck. Additionally since the Flesh Golem is the only minion that will attack enemies without first being commanded to it can be used to initiate first blood on the enemy by simply moving it into aggro range.

Additionally if you’re in combat and notice some of your minions have gone brain-dead on you I have found switching between targets can sometimes break them out of it.

More Questions and More Answers

Q. What about Death Shroud with Minions?

A. A tricky thing since death shroud is a pretty strong ability. The biggest issue with Death Shroud and minions is when you run axe and staff, you will have a hard time building life force if your Axe chain is cutoff for any reason. The biggest issue with Death Shroud and minions is that you lose the ability to use their utility skills while in death shroud. I have actually gone whole matches in tpvp without once going into death shroud, or even passing the halfway point on life force (NOTE: This rarely happens in pve).

Note (Courtesy of Hayley): Axe/Focus and Staff in your setup has 3 ways to build Life Force. You forgot about Focus #4. If there is a party member within 600 range of your Focus #4 target, you’ll gain 15% Life Force once all the bounces are done. If there isn’t, then you run up to be within 600 range of your target and you’ll get 15% Life Force. That’s a lot of Life Force to not be mentioned.

Note: the actual max distance bounce of the Focus #4 is a tiny bit less than 600 range. And it does not bounce to minions or clones, that’s why you need to run up if there are no other players nearby.

Q. Why would you take Axes when everyone tells me they are bad?

A. Axes and Minions have as good a synergy as dagger or staff and minions. In a minion build, none of your weapons actually gain anything except focus if you spec into it. Possibly a reduced cooldown on daggers, but other than that, no weapons see a gain. Axes provide the best middle ground between melee with daggers (better at building force) and the aoe and weak single target damage of staff. Axe is severely underratted as a weapon. Besides staff is our only aoe weapon. Axe 3, Focus 4, Dagger 5, and Warhorn are the only aoe abilities in our weapon arsenal outside of staff 2-5. If you run staff offhand, you can drop 2-5 than switch and hit Focus 4 followed by Axe 3 for some nice aoe, but than you have built zero Life force, and are runnign single target. Plus when you stack the Vulnerability on an enemy with the minions train wrecking him. mmmmmmm

Q: At what point should I look at running with minions?

A: From lvl 2 to lvl 35 I would say no problem. However once you start running Explorable and Story Mode Dungeons, you will face serious issues until you pick up Flesh of the Master. Other Power builds will feature more damage until you get at least 40 talent points to pick up Training of the Master as well. This is where Minionmancers generally call it quits, and switch to other specs. Essentially until lvl 50 we don’t see the full damage and survival skills the Minionmancer features. Once you pick up both of these you will find yourself at a disappointing disadvantage in dungeons to DS Power and condition Necros. In questing, Minions are always awesome!

Q: At what point should I look at running with minions?

A: From lvl 2 to lvl 35 I would say no problem. However once you start running Explorable and Story Mode Dungeons, you will face serious issues until you pick up Flesh of the Master. Other Power builds will feature more damage until you get at least 40 talent points to pick up Training of the Master as well. This is where Minionmancers generally call it quits, and switch to other specs. Essentially until lvl 50 we don’t see the full damage and survival skills the Minionmancer features. Once you pick up both of these you will find yourself at a disappointing disadvantage in dungeons to DS Power and condition Necros. In questing, Minions are always awesome!

My name is Bas, I have always been a fan of finding the unwanted builds and helping to resurrect or identify why they are bad. In SWTOR, I was known as theOPF, and helped revamp and dispute many of the bounty hunter hatred at the beginning of the game, and brought about the resurrection of the AP Bounty hunter. I have written guides for several games, and still find that I spend more time in games testing and trying multiple different builds and classes more than playing. I could say more, but there is no need I simply wanted to give an idea as to my approach to the game.

This is my attempt to help the Minion Necros.

As my guild’s resident tPVP Bunker Killer and fun-loving Minion Master, I have a bit of insight into the Necro. I will be honest with you. I don’t know everything, and I am really bad with condition Necro so I tried and fell in love with the Minionmancer build. I have started a thread containing common Questions and some answers from other Minionmancers. The goal with this thread is not to fight the Minionmancer stigma or even to fight for the minionmancer. That can be handled in the Builds thread. This is for all the questions and answers that we routinely run into as a minionmancer. I have added a few, and in the other thread some questions have been answered as well. We ran out of space on the builds thread, and so I decided to start a Q and A thread solely for the minion macer.

If you have a question please ask away, and we will do our best to answer or help guide you along the way of the minionmancer.

Questions and Answers

Q. How do Minions function in high level questing?

A. Minions are both a benefit and a negative when it comes to questing. They routinely pull off you, and with their side benefits, and Vampiric Master Traits they can keep you alive for a long time. The downside is they routinely pull agro when you simply are running from one location to another.

Q. What Minions do you carry with you then?

A. Blood Fiend, Bone Fiend, Shadow Fiend, Flesh Golem, and my personal favorite for tournaments, and in general the Flesh Wurm. The Flesh Wurm is amazingly productive and completely underrated. The Chain skill is a stun breaker, and you can also use it as a poison field if someone is dumb enough to get near it. In tpvp and spvp, I have used it to escape from crowded battlefields or simply to transport away from a thief and/or get to a base that I left him out. In PVE, he is a stun breaker saver of Kohler missed dodges, and is the hardest hitting minion not named flesh golem. To top it off he is almost never killed in a fight.

Bone Minions are my least favorite of all time. They die quickly, and the only reason to take them is as blast fodder. The worst possible scenario is when I summon them go to Death Nova, and then watch them die before blowing them up and waiting for them to come off cooldown!

Here is the order of damage for each pet.

1. Flesh Wurm – 833
2. Flesh Golem – 770
3. Bone Fiend – 572
4. Shadow Fiend – 330
5. Blood Fiend – 239
6. Bone Minions – 159

If you bring Flesh Wurm, Bone Fiend, Flesh Golem and Shadow Fiend you have the most total damage.

Visionary.5681:

Move it to Tier2. Then someone might use Axes!

At the minute Axes isnt viable without Axe Training.

No one takes Axe Training as its crap compared to Close to Death.

Actually axes are amazing in team play and with minions where daggers lose out in terms of forcing you to be on top of your target. There are many explorable dungeon fights where movement and the ability to be 600 feet away for Axe 2 burst = best possible scenario.

Hmmm, it won’t let me add Q&A to the above posts. I may have to start a new post and reserve 2 to 3 boxes for Q & A. I have reached the limit of characters on the top two posts.

Razraal.1806:

Please, creating minions out of AIR is simply ridiculous. At least on the predecessor of this game, you’d need corpses to animate your walking horrors.
MM on GW2 is horrible, it’s nowhere as powerful as it was on GW1

I have no idea why you even commented. There are two obvious flaws to your comment.

1. You don’t create out of air. You summon from the darkness and/or shadow world or from the earth. Your lack of understanding of the basic storyline is evident, but we will overlook that and comment on your second comment.

2. Not everyone played GW1, in fact a lot of us in GW2 hated GW1’s over complicated ridiculousness. Plus MM is the best pet utility skills in GW2. Way better than Turrets and Spirit Pets, better lifetime and durability than Spirit Weapons and Elemenal Summons, and on par with the current state of ranger pets.

Riot Inducer.8964:

Great posts! Minion Masters certainly have their share of issues but they are still a lot more viable than people give them credit for.

As a MM myself I think everything here is great and valuable information but the number one issue I’ve seen people have with running a MM is the AI issues minions have atm. While there’s no total fix for this yet I have figured out some tricks that can help a prospective MM overcome the issues brain-dead minions sometimes cause.

For general PvE play how you initiate combat is vital to how your minions perform. Often times if you simply start casting weapon attacks at your enemy your minions (melee ones specifically) will get very confused and not attack but simply stand at your side, I don’t know why this is but the flesh golem is particularly susceptible to this.

The solution I have found is to use alternate methods of initiating combat as minions will get hung up a lot less if you start combat by using a minion’s active skill on an enemy, the Shadow Fiend’s Haunt is great for this but the Flesh Golem’s Charge works as well. These skills can also be used to break those specific minions out of their trance, but it isn’t guaranteed. Alternatively you can start combat defensively by waiting until an enemy is aggroed and has drawn first blood, retaliating then will almost always ensure no minions get stuck. Additionally since the Flesh Golem is the only minion that will attack enemies without first being commanded to it can be used to initiate first blood on the enemy by simply moving it into aggro range.

Additionally if you’re in combat and notice some of your minions have gone brain-dead on you I have found switching between targets can sometimes break them out of it.

Excellent points! I will add this to my question and answers portion at the top. I have noticed that if I send them in they all attack while if I attack there is a delay. I like to lead off with Bone Fiend’s lockdown over the Shadow Fiend Blind.

The Switching targets one works like a charm. One other thing for folks to remember is that for some reason Marks do not always trigger minion attacks. While your standard auto weapon attacks usually do. On the plus side, that still makes them leagues better than Turrets (I once dropped a rocket turret within 30m of a boss and it turned and started firing into a wall).

Silvanus.5821:

capuchinseven.8395:

Silvanus.5821:

capuchinseven.8395:

Turn off auto attack.

I’m sorry but how does that help?

…the comment was, “If you need to dodge fast in middle of chain and you can’t then it’s a hindrance”. Turning off auto attack allows you to break the chain and dodge during the chain. What is it that you don’t get?

If you turn off auto-attack, to keep up with the same DPS by the skill (and apply the same amount of cripple) you are going to have to spam 1 -> Makes no difference with having auto-attack on and pressing ESC when you want to dodge.

Also, I didn’t mean that in an offensive way.

The only major hinderance I can see with sword auto attack is if the character dies, stealths or somehow you drop target, you leap in a random direction which can get you killed.

capuchinseven.8395:

deepwinter.9015:

That’s a nice opinion, bro, but its not a fact!

So while I respect your opinion it is hardly a fact concerning the use of Sword and Dagger together.

He’s right though, if you need yet another evade then you likely have bigger problems, and if you don’t need the extra evade then dagger is a waste and the off hand is better spent on a axe for Whirling Defence, horn for buffs and speed or torch for burning fields.

Thanks, capuchin, sometimes people mistake facts as opinions simply because they don’t like the facts. In this day and age, people seem to think that all facts are just opinions unless they thought of it.

Deepwinter, Redundancy is a fact. Dagger 4 and Sword 3 are redundant. Your condition which is the sole reason is duplicated with a lower cooldown so reapplying the poison becomes redundant. Torch applies a seperate poison altogether.

While I still find axe to be the better choice for condition builds as bleeds are the best condition out there. Plus you have Chill, bleed, and poison. You are correct that you lose burn, but you could have your pet or crit to burn on. Axe offers the highest possibility of crit bleed or crit burn attacks since the axe hits multiple targets and even on single targets hits twice per attack.

However, I concede that with crit to bleed – sword plus torch is pretty nice.

I ran across this question while playing last night, and figured it would add to our efforts.

Q: At what point should I look at running with minions?

A: From lvl 2 to lvl 35 I would say no problem. However once you start running Explorable and Story Mode Dungeons, you will face serious issues until you pick up Flesh of the Master. Other Power builds will feature more damage until you get at least 40 talent points to pick up Training of the Master as well. This is where Minionmancers generally call it quits, and switch to other specs. Essentially until lvl 50 we don’t see the full damage and survival skills the Minionmancer features. Once you pick up both of these you will find yourself at a disappointing disadvantage in dungeons to DS Power and condition Necros. In questing, Minions are always awesome!

striker.3704:

I’m glad to see we run the same build. I personally prefer the bone minions though as they self combo with death nova and are single-handedly our strongest nuke. They also apply a much higher DPS against 2 or more enemies if you can get their blasts off.

However, the flesh wurm is by far more reliable in any one on one fight.

I don’t have the same life force generation issue. In fact more often then not I have full life force before it comes off cooldown since axe+focus/staff has so many ways to gain life force.

Also, I personally think DS is almost always worth using when you have the cooldowns up off of it. That single target fear is great in PvP and the gap closer is useful for catching anyone who flees the horde. I don’t even need to mention how amazing life transfusion is for minion up-keep.

Key word is if you can get the burst off, and only if you can get it off twice. Than bone minions are better. Axe/Focus and staff have 2 ways to build life force, axe 2 and Staff auto. Staff auto is slow as mollasses, and Axe 2 can be cut off. I find I rarely have probablems building life force in pve dungeons, in pvp I can go quite some time between DS compared to DS builds.

Levian.6742:

I’m glad that someone is finally doing this. I used this same setup, exactly, until around level 30-40 then switched.

One question. Does it really have some of the highest damage? Even more than a DS crit build? Because those are beastly, especially combined with Wells

It really depends on your definition of highest damage. Highest single target damage in a power build over a period of time. Easily! Highest burst belongs to lich form and highest aoe belongs to well builds. DS crit build is very nice, but it’s peaks and valley’s the minion s are consistent damage.

Ramiah.5648:

I… I think I heart you. Seriously, the ONLY reasons I haven’t played a Necromancer is because 1) People laugh at me, and 2) I want to primarily summon stuff. Your posts reinforce the negatives, but also show me the possibilities of at least being decent with minions. It gives me a little hope that I don’t have to wait for a patch before being willing to really give necromancer a chance. Thanks for the info and inspiration.

However, your links say Bad Link when I click them. Could you post the actual http: so I could view your links?

Sorry about that for some reason these forums don’t like into the mists.com So I switched it to GW2DB. The reason you have alts is to handle those who want to laugh at you ;P. Once you kill someone a few times using minions people stop laughing and they do one of two things.

1. Kill your minions leaving you to kill them.
2. Find a buddy to come kill you .

If it’s in pve, I don’t care what people say. I only have trouble with a few bosses, but that’s normal with every class and every build. I find that minions is the only way I like to play though Lich Form is awesome!

Questions and Answers have been moved to https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/MinionMasters-The-Q-A-Thread/first#post1274660

Currently in pve or pvp the Minion mancer is rarely seen in dungeons, spvp, tPvP, and questing. Occasionally we will pass a Necromancer who has 1 or even two minions, but the minion mancer has slowly fallen out of favor due to the strength of the necromancers condition damage, and the dagger power/lich form builds.

As my tPVP team’s resident bunker killer I routinely run both tank minion builds as well as burst minion builds. I will not claim that it is for everyone or that I don’t get trainwrecked occassionally by good trap rangers, well necro, or 100B warrior team. However I did find them to be less of a hassle than others have claimed, and found them to be amazing in most pve dungeons.

I followed 3 principle rules when working on making the Minionmancer:

1. It must do a decent amount of damage to offset the loss of utility skills for Minions.
2. They can’t die within two to three seconds.
3. It must be fun to play, and allow me to stay upright a majority of the time.

I find that there are two essential rules you have to remember when running minions.

1. Flesh of the Master, Minion Master, and Training of the Master are mandatory pickups.
2. You have to run a power build.

Death Nova and Vampiric Master are amazing traits, but not necessary. You can swap either out for 10 more in Spite or 10 more in Blood Magic for Field Consumption. I never go anywhere without Vampiric Master. Personally, I prefer Death Nova for PVE and Boon Stripping for pvp.

With this build you can run Knights, Valkyrie, or Berzerker, It is probably the easiest gear to run Berzerker’s gear and survive. I prefer Berzerker’s simply because it’s ridiculously easy to avoid a majority of damage in this build, and since I prefer to have Vampiric Master, I can withstand a lot of stray damage.

Positives:

1. Easy to survive, and minions do live a lot longer than expected.
2. The strongest non-lich form power build out there.
3. Can tank or burst depending on gear level.
4. Minions, Minions, and more Minions

Negatives:

1. Without the minions you are extremely fragile
2. Condition damage currently is a lot stronger in aoe situations.
3. Loss of Lich form and the loss of constant DS of other power builds.
4. Without being able to pull the minions away from fights, you can lose all of them in one quick aoe blow. Ex. Lt Kohler.
5. I seriously hate the summoning time. In a fight for my life having to summon a minion is ridiculous.

Here are several builds that I run or have experimented with.

Minion Master build - http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/2568-minionmancer

Boon Stripper (more for pvp) – The boon stripping makes for an amazing neuter of bunker guardians and bunker ele’s. http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/2569-boonstripper-minions

Axe Smasher - I am a huge axe fan More personal damage less survival. http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/2570-axesmashing-minion

Thank you for reading, and I look forward to your feedback, and any questions.

Below I will post some of the more popular questions I am asked

deepwinter.9015:

Bas.7406:

1. Never combine it with the dagger.

…

Again sword/dagger is the most common combination, but it’s also the most worthless combination. Axe/Dagger, Axe/Torch, or Sword/Torch are all better for condition builds. Sword/Axe and Sword/Warhorn are better for power builds.

That’s a nice opinion, bro, but its not a fact!

In a PvE fight like Subject Alpha (Crucible of Eternity), Sword+Dagger trivializes the encounter, allowing a Ranger to remain in the red AoE circles and avoid all damage.

In a PvP encounter, Dagger allows an additional evasion from classes like Warriors, Guardians, D/D Elementalists and especially Thieves. The Dagger’s ranged Cripple and Bleed are excellent while chasing a runner and waiting for a weapon swap or simply applying an extra 3 stacks of Bleed.

With that said, I’m not ruling out the effectiveness of Warhorn. The Warhorn has its place, and I carry one specifically for situations that its suited for – or for mixing it up a little.

So while I respect your opinion it is hardly a fact concerning the use of Sword and Dagger together.

Sword/Dagger may give you an additional evade if you need to evade twice in the span of 10 seconds outside of dodging. If you need that than by all means you have bigger issues at hand than using a weapon that simply dupilcates itself. Besides Hornet Sting = way better than stalker’s strike.

My point remains Axe/Dagger maxes way more sense than sword/Dagger. Sword/Axe has better defense with WD and Sword/WH offers better damage and bufffing.

Your opinion may be your opinion, but it’s flawed logic. 3 evasions and two poisons with 10/15 second cooldowns would never be used unless you are playing an incredibly bad ele or thief who brought no dazes or lockdowns.

Necromancers, thieves, and rangers are the least requested class because they have the fewest talent people playing in pve. They also provide the least amount of group buffing/healing. They are also the worst represented on forums, and so people who have no clue and try to play a class incorrectly screw it up for those who enjoy the class.

Take heart the elementalist and engineer went through the same crap at the beginning of the game, and now everyone wants one in pve. So it will turn around.

Heck, I run Minionmancer on my Necro with great success. Even though i get sworn at by my own guild when I first did it. Now they request it. In tPVP, I am the sole Minionmaster I have ever met, and I get laughed at until they die. I am now my guild’s designated bunker destroyer in pvp, and burrow/boss tanker in dungeon runs.

It’s about learning to play your class and ignoring people who have no ability to think outside of what they have been told or what they couldn’t do themeselves.

Two things will help you alot with using the sword.

1. Never combine it with the dagger. The sword auto is it’s hardest hitter, and the othr two are avoidance attacks. Sword is best used in power builds and combined with Axe or WH. The dagger 4 and Sword 3 are the exact same ability with the exact same cooldown and so one will never be used. Essentially you are wasting a skill. You can use the sword in condition builds, but as one poster above stated use it with the torch.

2. The Sword auto can be cutoff at any time during the attack by simply tabbing off the target or clicking on the map somewhere unfortunately this may cause you to leap in that direction, but it works the same as a dodge. So does simply weapon switchign during the auto-attack.

Again sword/dagger is the most common combination, but it’s also the most worthless combination. Axe/Dagger, Axe/Torch, or Sword/Torch are all better for condition builds. Sword/Axe and Sword/Warhorn are better for power builds.

@Me Kill You, I saw you at the CM entrance last night :P. Btw, you are correct that on Crit chance procs force all of them into cooldown. I was not aware of that at all. I was aware that they stacked multiplicative and that they would proc even in an offhand, but that they would reset the CD on all the on crit procs I was unaware of. Thank you.

For those who arent’ aware. Here is the wiki explanation of Sigil Procs

“Sigils that hold a charge per kill cannot be stacked (i.e. +5 power per kill and +5 condition damage per kill), one or the other shows up. This applies even if you swap weapons. For example, if you had two different “On kill stacking stat bonuses” sigils on two different weapons, only the sigil of the weapon you make a kill with first will take effect. If you swap weapons and make a kill, the sigil from the second weapon will not take effect.

Charging and non charging sigils can be stacked.

Sigils that trigger on critical hits can trigger on any critical hits; the critical does not need to be scored with the associated weapon’s skills. For example, a character with an off hand weapon imbued with a Sigil of Rage can still gain quickness with a critical hit with their first three skills.

Sigils that have a chance to trigger on critical hits stack their chance percentages multiplicatively, not additively. For example, two major Sigils of Fire, which each have a 20% chance to trigger on critical hit, will have a 36% chance to trigger, not 40%.

Sigils that trigger on critical hits will not trigger on critical hits caused by mesmer illusions. It is unknown if this is true with other summons.
A single cooldown is shared by all sigils active effects cannot occur for the duration (i.e. a Sigil of Rage will prevent the activated effect of another Sigil of Battle/Strength/Air/Geomancy for 45 seconds but will not affect the passive effect of a Sigil of Smoldering/Force for the cooldown).

The weapon in the mainhand triggers active effects before the offhand."

This means you should have a passive, a charging, and an active sigil if you want to take full advantage of the ability or you could just stack 3 of the same actives.

I use sigil of rage for the quickness and sigil of Air for lightning damage. I keep sigil of water for a chance to heal on my rifle.

Scepter is great for clone stacking quickly for shatter builds. Other than that it’s pretty awful. You can stack confusion faster with other builds.

I carry a rifle for times when I don’t feel like melee. The damage is pretty equal to my Axe build. I ran an entire dungeon in rifle because I felt like not dodging or strafing :P. Rifle is just fine for damage, and for fights like cm or when I am pugging and running glass cannon than I roll rifle. I have no interest in dying repeatedly because no one is running support.

I have support gear and I have glass cannon gear. Some days, my guild is taking a break and I want to do a quick pug, but don’t feel like swapping my gear to more support. So I roll in with a rifle until I find out if they have a good defensive specced player.

As a side note, my guild runs 3 support players (guardian, ele, Ranger) though the ranger goes full dps sometimes. So running defensive is something we don’t need anymore. When we first started running dungeons, I ran double maces, soldier runes, shouts and 2600 armor. However, we wanted to move a lot faster, so they asked me to swap out to my axe gear so I now run Berzerker, rune of the pack, with 2100 armor and a ton more damage. On days where I don’t feel like avoiding damage a lot I swap to rifle and shoot things down.

Yojack, interesting build, and I always enjoyed your posts in WoW and SWTOR. However, I am puzzled by your choice in a few items.

1. Healing shouts with zero healing gear is a bit low. Though I get you use it mainly to clear conditions with the healing being a side effect.

2. You do realize that you adding 30 percent chance to heal allies to multiple weapons is redundant. If you have it on one weapon it applies to all weapons. Such as if you have it on your offhand warhorn you don’t need it on your rifle as it still will proc if you are using your rifle.

Thanks for the information, but I don’t think any build that has less than 2500-2700 armor is great for survival.