Guild Wars 2

To be honest, corrupt boon needed a nerf. A full condition-flip, that was essentially unavoidable by skill (aka only avoidable by pure luck) was pretty crazy. Disregarding the problems with the skill itself that need to be fixed (bad priority system, LoS issues that plague it), 5 boons flipped is, I think, a reasonable amount.

It just needs, as others have said, a reworking of the crappy priority.

I use a 20/0/20/0/30 build with my minions. They sit up front, taking a lot of aggro and hits away from myself and my team, which helps a ton in less coordinated groups, plus the to-structure damage they have is unholy. And with Deathly Perception, I still have very high personal damage, with vuln and might stacking.

I wouldn’t suggest it if you have a super-coordinated group, but it works great for pugs. And they actually work amazing on certain CoE paths, especially the one where Alpha does the crystal thing. Every crystalled minion takes a lot of pressure off your group.

The dumb is strong with this thread.

1) Stop grouping “AI” together in one big lump. When was the last time you saw an Ele or Guardian with a full AI build? Compare their results to Phantasm Mesmers. Also, Phantasms, Pets, Minions, Turrets, every single “AI” build works completely differently. Spirits have very little similarity to Minions, which aren’t that similar to Turrets. They all operate very differently, and once you take them out of the hands of an utter noob, the entire playstyle is vastly different.

2) If you have never played an AI build well, or have never seen one played well, which I guarantee most haven’t, then your input is fundamentally flawed. It is still valid, in that you can give the perspective of an unexperienced player when it comes to these builds, but don’t pretend like you know them through and through when you don’t even have the slightlest idea of how they function.

The second quote is 100% about PvP, which is where 80% of balance decisions happen. PvP balance generally drives the overall game balance.

Bweaty.9187:

Kinda funny, you converted me over to the idear of that not being the way GW should do it!

Here’s my ideas how:

Have minions take a max % life per second. Like our Spectral skills only make % life force per second, but in reverse.

Have a thing like GW1, where minions dieing return energy/lower CDs so minions can be summoned faster. In a way that, if your minions been up for 1 or 2 min, it’s full CD, but if it die’s within 10sec of summon, it should be able to be cast again faster.

Its honestly a hard thing for me. On one hand, I don’t want it because I feel it diminishes the “proper” way that minions should be: mindless undead servants. However, this game is very different from GW1, and maybe this feature simply needs to come in. I certainly would never agree to an “attack” or “guard” or anything of that nature, but a way to call them back to you might be able to fit with the theme and help out our gameplay.

I have been pushing the idea that many of our on-death things should be reworked to include ally and minion death, although possibly at a reduced effect.

Bweaty.9187:

Vamp ‘buff’ was only a buff if you weren’t using a siphon spec, and a buff to minion damage with power. 50% to 30% increased vamp & the nurf to what minions siphon per hit, actually dropped it by almost a quarter.

Just for clarity, I believe this is due to bugged scaling. I reported the minion healing as a bug (as it is bugged), and it was confirmed as such. The “goal” was for them to be the same (or slightly buffed) when traited with BT, and better if not, but… well we all know what happened.

Greymantle.9168:

Bhawb.7408:

Also it is showing scaling with power, which just isn’t accurate.

It took us a while to get there Bhewb, but that’s all I was getting at. It was showing it. So what I was saying was right and other people were seeing it not just me, but in the long of the short of it, what I was seeing in game was wrong. Good times just getting a straight answer lmao.

If only that wonderful tooltip fix we just had a while ago actually worked… nah that’s crazy talk.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

If a minion makes a hit, it’s 10% less damage so its a nerf to all minion that make a singular hit. I don’t see how it wouldn’t affect all of them.

This is just my own wishes, but I’d like to see the viability of keeping pets up and alive (vs Putrid Explosion from Bone Minion for example). I know I’m in the minority since you and several other MM players want to have their minion slots on CD but with powerful effects from their actives rather than keeping them up and running like pets. But still, I’d like to see it as a viable alternative. Perhaps this is something that could be explored in Traits.

If you look at the overall picture, you’ll see that a very minor (10% damage) tradeoff of power from one trait nets us a massive amount of power, far more than we lost, across the board.

And a “keep minions alive” playstyle currently doesn’t have the means to truly support it. They would need to introduce new minion skills and probably some new traits to fully support it. I would love to see it happen, I am all for more playstyles, but it requires quite a bit of change.

Azzer.8137:

So you are doing fractal 40+ on your necromancer?, cause if you are i would love a video showcasing it as i’ve been turned down million of times because i am a necromancer. We bring almost nothing to the table (compared to all other professions) but we do have great condition removal though.

No, I’m far too lazy to do fractals atm, although I’m finally getting in to it.

That said, there are necros that run fractals at 70+. No class in the game will make your group unable of doing Fractals, only make it harder/more time consuming.

Ghostextechnica.3270:

How do you see this working out for the condi Necro in PvE?

I really can’t see how they could improve condition builds in PvE without doing something about the condition cap! This is a hint? Or have they found another way?

Condition cap could potentially be worked around (giving the higher level mobs a higher condition cap, removing it for them, or giving individual caps on those mobs), but I don’t see that happening right away, especially because of, say, Epidemic (as much fun as it’d be to Epidemic 50 bleeds…)

However, the condition cap is not what kills condition builds in PvE. It is an issue, yes, but only when you have 2-3 condition users in the group that center around the same things (Mesmers and Engineers, for example, tend to have very few bleed stacks, but focus on other conditions).

The problem is multi fold.
1) My 1500 condi-damage conditions can get overridden by the 100 condi-damage Ele’s, or Guardians. This is a big issue because those classes in specific have passive conditions that they can’t not apply, and then my 900 DPS burning just got turned into a 400 DPS burning.
2) Conditions overall suffer from lower DPS, worse high-end scaling, and lack of “buff-ability”. Power scales the best with full investment, and in PvE there isn’t much of a downside to being full zerker. Also, the majority of buffs to damage have to deal with direct damage, boosting it even higher.
3) There is a ton of “condi hate” in PvE. Condition removal, debuffs to application, bosses having the majority of their eHP in HP and not armor, structures in general. There are quite a few mechanics to work against conditions, and relatively few against power.
4) Boons can generally do the exact same thing as conditions, but better, more reliably, with higher uptime, and almost no downsides. Just look at Protection vs Weakness.

They really need to address these problems (and they somewhat have in the newer PvE designs) before conditions are on-par with power, even if groups will be limited to 1-2 condition players each.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Just for clarification, you’re calling for a decrease in minion damage, but asking for stat increases by scaling via armor tiers?

At first I was like don’t reduce minion damage, but scaling would help that, if thats the case.

This is only a 10% nerf to Training of the Master, so people who don’t take the trait are unchanged, and with Putrid Explosion getting buffed and Golem/Shadow getting cleave (which will be a buff to DPS any time they hit more than 1 target), the only minions this “really” effects are Bone Fiend and Flesh Wurm, both of which are really taken for their utility, not so much the damage (Flesh Wurm will still hit like a truck).

Norjena.5172:

Condition dmg in PvE is fail, think what u want. But the truth is true. Play it if u like it. Play if u have fun. But don´t play it if u want to do “good” dps.

Unless you are trying to break speed run records, it really doesn’t matter if you’ve got a bit lower DPS. You’re already playing Necro, you obviously don’t care about that, so why not go condi.

Dark Pathed Pact = Dark Path into Dark Pact. You can cast Dark Path and leave DS while the projectile is still on route, and teleporting doesn’t interrupt your actions. So, you cast Dark Path, start casting Dark Pact, and when you get to the target they are immobilized.

Putrid Mark “saves” the combo field it is on. So if you cast Putrid Mark on, say, a poison field, but the opponent doesn’t step on the mark until after the field is gone, Putrid Mark will “remember” the combo, and trigger it regardless. It also can double-combo, once with the on-cast “saved” field, and then with whatever field its on when activated.

gebrechen.5643:

Not sure what’s wrong but my Corrupt Boon still gets blocked a lot of the time in wvw.

CB is a projectile, and WvW has god awful map programming that makes it have LoS and pathing issues all the time.

Phenn.5167:

It’s really supposed to be fixed? That’s encouraging. The last I heard/read the devs were saying, “Marks are the best skills evar and the ‘bug’ is working as intended.” I’m glad that’s not the case.

That was in reference to Putrid Mark, and that dev got shot down by another dev who said they have a fix for it and it should be in on the 26th patch (but he wasn’t sure).

I don’t know what you mean by “affected” as they don’t have any direct interaction with each other, but they do stack, so if you have both they will both give their +% chance to crit, and the stacking is additive (50% + 5%).

It is a bug, it affects every skill we have, and it is supposed to be fixed on the next patch, IIRC, or soon thereafter.

It depends on what you need, in PvE, and your build. There are other things you can put in there, depending on build, that will be “universally” helpful, instead of depending on your boss.

Or, if you know the boss you are about to fight, just swap it back and forth depending. Test it out yourself, figure out which bosses will take the damage, and only use it on them.

ronpierce.2760:

I’d agree with changing how axe works as far as adding a combo, but I’m not really sure if they do skill rehauls do they? I may be wrong, but I don’t remember any weapon skills thus far being hugely redone, has there been any? (Not talking about fixes/updates, but total reworks)

There haven’t been entire reworks of weapons, but shifting/changing of functionality. Look at Ranger LB, which has had its #2 changed to stack vuln on its own (instead of 10 stacks automatically on the #3), and changed the #3 to be stealth.

Thief sword has seen quite a few shifts as well, including the addition of a chain on the #3 (iirc).

But to my knowledge there hasn’t been quite as heavy of a rework as I think is required for Axe.

It’d have to be an aura to “work” within the game, I think. But otherwise yes it’d be a very welcome addition.

Andele.1306:

Please stop mentioning that, every necro since release (well the first SW rework) knows of it, same for lich/well bomb, Dark pathed pact and the mark combo field save.

It might surprise you, but not every single person on the forums has been playing Necromancer since launch. Especially judging by a few of the threads/comments, we see new players here fairly often, who don’t know these tricks, and would very much like to learn them.

1) Its a flat +50% crit chance, while in DS (so if you had 25% crit before, it is 75% while in DS)
2) This is a common display “bug”. A lot of trait-based effects don’t change your character-stat display.

Stx.4857:

As another poster pointed out, PvE in this game is easy(he neglected to mention high level fractals however), so Necro is still fine as long as you know how to play him.

I haven’t experimented with minions in dungeons, but I can’t imagine the HP boost they received has made them survive the massive Boss AE that happens on certain dungeons and fractals. I would love it if minions could survive in group pve, it would give Necro’s something nice to bring to a group. They also do decent dps if kept alive.

High level fractals are hard, but I know of Necros who have done the “pointlessly” high level of fractals that don’t actually give you extra rewards, so its not impossible. The reality is that there is no such thing as a dungeon so difficult you need a perfectly optimized group to run it. As long as you know the dungeon, each person individually has a solid build, and in the harder dungeons that your party has a decent overall composition (of builds, no 5 condi builds, or 5 glass cannon thieves), you’ll be able to complete anything in PvE. Not trying to say we aren’t subpar, but its not like you are barred from a single piece of content solely because of your class choice.

Minions actually live long enough, if traited. Blood/Golem have over 30k HP traited, the rest of the utility minions sit around 26k each, and even Bone Minions sit around 13k. They can actually stay alive soloing any boss without a massive PBAoE attack for a while, which makes them great for pugging groups, because they will take aggro off the inexperienced group. It gives a lot of time for rezzing, they take certain single-target attacks (like Alpha Golem’s crystal thing, which is OP against most pug groups).

Are they great for your really optimized group that you run with every day and you guys have every dungeon down to a science? Depends on the group (remember that all the AoE buffing a normal PvE group will do also applies to the minions, and a Flesh Golem with banners, 25 stacks of might, and fury isn’t playing around). I’d still say your group would probably be faster with another warrior, but that’s pretty much true for anyone.

I’m sorry, when was the last time power saw a Nerf that didn’t affect conditionmancers? And have you not been paying attention to the continuous nerfing happening to condition builds?

Lily had made the suggestion before of a new Death Magic (master iirc, maybe GM), that, while in DS, copied all conditions applied to you to up to 5 targets around you.

That highly discourages all condition-based focus (immobilizing a Necromancer all of a sudden becomes a death-trap for your own team), and along with the increasingly popular idea to bring Shade back to replace its red-headed step-brother FitG, can give us some strong counter-focus that still retains smart play/counterplay.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Uh-oh. Lily is agreeing with Bhawb. The First Seal of the Apocalypse has been broken! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES !!! :P

Everyone ends up agreeing with me once, I can’t always be wrong (a broken clock is still correct twice a day :P).

@Kraag, I agree that we need it. I agree it sucks to not have it (there have been times I’ve been in PvE recently and my instant thought after taking a massive hit was “old DS could have saved me”).

But honestly, I just don’t think its worth going back to the old system. It would work in the short run, things would definitely be much more workable, but I can just imagine the devs (if they ever posted) dropping by every thread we have complaining about the still broken system of us having far too limited of options for 1-shot mechanics and saying, “well with Near to Death you guys get one every 7 seconds, that’s already too strong, so we can’t add any others”. I would honestly prefer waiting it out in the short term, rather than have them Dumbfire us again…

Thedenofsin.7340:

snip

Amazing post, and part of why I thought this idea was terribly dumb.

Lets face it, and I believe I have said this a few times, I wouldn’t even take a PotH that has had its values tripled over Minion Master (an Adept trait) in any build, ever.

@Kraag, this is why I keep asking for those options. But re-instituting a broken system (which it was, although I realize this isn’t a shared opinion by all) to band-aid another broken system (and this doesn’t even fix the actual problem) doesn’t help us. We’re just left with two broken systems, instead of one.

What they need to do is start implementing realistic defensive options for us. We have two true defensive options that really feel good: Spectral Armor while in DS, and Plague. Other classes have many, many options. Weapon sets (trading off weapon-damage or utility for defense), utility skills (and not just one), traits (multiple traits of varying strength, tier placement, and tree placement), and potentially more.

Keep the old DS system gone. It just wasn’t a healthy system to keep in the game, it made no sense, it had 0 readability, and putting it back in the game doesn’t fix anything. But we need defensive options.

Axe 1 shouldn’t be Dagger 1’s damage, nor would the Devs ever allow that. I realize the point, but it is a non-issue because it simply wouldn’t happen. Melee single target will always > ranged cleave damage wise (when compared between equivalent situations, including classes).

Also, remember that no matter what, dagger has two things axe doesn’t, besides significantly higher damage: a lockdown (that axe cannot hope to compare to) and sustain (which needs some buffing still). Dagger is the melee, highest DPS (of our weapons), high sustain weapon we have. Axe would become a ranged DPS (between dagger and staff) with AoE.

Dagger = single target DPS, sustain, lockdown
Axe = AoE DPS, limited support/control

Dalanor.5387:

With our improved LF generation its has a potentially 100% uptime. On paper. In a magic world. If you know what i mean.
And btw its true no one complains about Deathly Perception, but on the other hand there is Foot in the Grave …

Foot in the Grave was kind of the obvious replacement… Shade would replace FitG, which was only implemented to be a nerfed Shade.

And no, there would be no way to have 100% uptime, which is why this is balanced. Shade gives you CC immunity while in DS, and unlike way back when Shade was still around, DS cannot be permanent (not remotely so) anymore.

Dalanor.5387:

And again i feel Near to Death is what holds the developers back with this old trait … But seriously, we need something against CC which isnt stability.

Near to Death really wouldn’t do anything problematic with Shade, in the same way no one considers NtD too strong when combined with the offensive 30 SR trait. You still need to sit in DS to have the effect.

Well, assuming flow is right (trust but verify, and I’m too lazy to verify right now), staff actually isn’t in that bad of a position as far as self-cleansing goes. 3 per person hit is perfectly acceptable imo.

I would really like to see the return of some allied cleansing though, 3 conditions off each ally (does not scale like yours does). It was such a good team-support skill, and in most PvP situations, you’re cleansing 2 allies at most.

Dalanor.5387:

Shade

More and more I feel like Shade would make a lot of sense

I am not of the mind that dagger 1 needs any cleave/damage changes. It is a workable weapon right now (needs small changes but not in that direction) so don’t fix what isn’t broken.

I had kind of assumingly I guess (probably because I was talking with ronpierce at the same time) thought it was cleave at the same time as the changes.

Here is the problem with axe that isn’t really addressed often enough: a massive identity crisis. Until you actually say “this is what axe is” you can never fix it. As it is right now, Axe 1 is a vulnerability stacking AA; a support skill. Axe 2 is a single target channeled “nuke”; a medium single target DPS skill. Axe 3 is a PBAoE cripple, boon strip, and retal for you; AoE support and tanking. Overall, axe is a 600 range, single target DPS, AoE control/support, power weapon.

That is why any damage condition I am against; why do we want to add more confusion to a confused weapon set. Same with gap closers and such, it is a ranged weapon with no current need or mechanics as that.

Turn it into an AoE DPS weapon with a little control support. Less utility than staff, but better damage.
Axe 1 – Now a chain. First attack is the current Axe 1, functions the same but cleaves, Axe 1 part 2 would be a small channeled attack, single target

Axe 1: Rending Claws – same mechanics as now, but with cleave
Axe 1 chain: channel for 1s, hitting three times for 1% LF per hit dealing similar damage as it does now (maybe cleaving?)

Axe 2: A frontal cone attack, after a short cast (1/4s) ghastly axes rip through the ground moving fairly quickly (but a very fast opponent should be able to dodge) and dealing high damage, returning 5% LF per opponent hit – 10s CD

Alternate idea: same entire concept, a frontal cone that has a slight travel time and can deal very high damage (with appropriate investment) along with LF gain per hit. But change the looks, and give it a blind component

Axe 3: Unholy Feast

I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the forums. Realize that the forums are for two kinds of people: people who feel the class is terrible and come to complain, or people who are very much invested in the class and want to try to make it better (which can often do the first thing inadvertently).

Necros are fine in PvP. Even when we were arguably at our weakest, good players made them work.

Necros are fine in WvW, in every situation, to varying degrees of success and with different builds.

PvE is too easy for you to ever care. But even then, Necromancers are fine.

When it comes to the two PvP modes, just get used to the fact that you are going to be a target. At its worst, you just need to play better than your opponent (oh no!). But it is entirely doable in every way.

PvE, not only isn’t hard enough for it to matter, but we aren’t too far off from other classes. Is it subpar to run a Necro? Yes. Who cares? Elitists or idiots (people you don’t want to run with anyway). Fact is, using minions my Fractal group 4 manned an entire fractal run last night after our 5th quit. And I solo’d the Imbued Shaman after my team died, again with minions (I didn’t kill it, but my minions distracted him while I healed up my team, from completely dead). Necromancers, while being subpar for the most optimized of PvE groups, we actually can provide a lot of safety that others don’t. But again, when the only difference is a 20 minute dungeon run, or a 22 minute dungeon run who the hell cares.

Now, does this mean Necros don’t need a lot of work still? No. But even if you can consider us very lacking in many areas, we’re still workable.

runeblade.7514:

This is infuriating whenever I want to stomp! Foot in the Grave should be useful not useless!

Sure, there is a Deathshroud stomp trick but it hardly works.

If you have the timing down it doesn’t “hardly” work, it always does. Its just like dodge-jump, it has a precise, somewhat weird timing depending on your setup, but it will always work once you know the timing.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Idea:
Grandmaster trait that prioritizes boon removal (Stability, Protection, Regen) then put it in Blood. Unused tree gets new life and WvW gets a new tactic.

Not worth a GM at all.

Rennoko’s idea makes the most sense; make them work like conditions (I’m pretty sure the game already tracks them in the same way).

For PvE just go dagger. You’ll be using berzerker gear so your personal damage won’t be lacking, you’ll probably have focus so you’ll get some vulnerability, and any “serious” content you’ll almost always have people there stacking vulnerability themselves.

flow.6043:

lol you guys really aren’t using the staff much these days ^^
It’s 3 per target, always has been since the nerf.

I believe I have publicly announced my boycott of staff :P I don’t use it in any of my power builds anymore (I really only used it for the ally cleanse). Frankly, I prefer Axe over it nowadays, and that shows how low my opinion of staff is.

Leash range is currently 1920, if I recall the testing I did not that long ago (I forgot to update it in my minion-related notebook, of course).

@ronpierce:
Okay, that makes more sense for dagger. I do think LF gain on dagger should be pretty high, considering its the highest risk weapon we have, so we’ll get the hurt the most anyway.

Death Shroud – actually my only worry is that we do have access to one of our 6 skills: WoB would still heal while in DS. It couldn’t be “activated” there, but you could pop it, jump into DS, and come back out with (assuming you had some regens, and maybe a little siphoning) around 10k more HP than you went in with. That was really my only worry, is that a Blood Magic wells build with high healing power would drop a lot of still-on siphoning and hop into DS and come back out full :P otherwise I think for a GM 100% would be fine.

Also, I want to steal one of Rennoko’s ideas and quote it here for the axe discussion:

I honestly think Axe 1 should be a 3 part chain.

1 and 2 would be quick attacks that deal the crap damage it deals now, but provide vuln still, and the 3 would be a mini version of Axe 2 as it is right now. Then you could rework axe 2 into something else, possible an AOE/frontal cleave manuever. Call it blistering slash and have it apply like a 2 second burn or something in a 90 degree frontal cone (or 180) at 600 range and deal good damage.

Arikyali.5804:

I had the impression that minions were as important to a necromancer, as a pet was to a ranger, or illusions were to a mesmer.

My ‘build a minion’ will only be consisting of Shadow Fiends. A Shadow Fiend army!

Nope. Minions are a fairly key theme of the Necromancer, just like traps are to the ranger or turrets for an engineer, but all can be left completely out of any builds.

I like that idea. It would make Axe a more consistent weapon overall (as far as its identity) and give power builds a better range weapon.

I don’t think it needs burning though, just because its a power weapon (burning would confuse that). Deal strong frontal AoE damage, and apply a condition.

I agree. I enjoy that it actually has counterplay, but it needs help.

Just as a note before I post feedback, if I don’t mention something, then I already agree with it; since I agree with most of what you have to say.

Minion Damage
The cleave change I like. It keeps them from being totally single target to getting a little cleave, and makes shadow at least more useful. I like the change, my only “worry” is: does the cleaved part proc vampiric master? Because as the trait works now, it would.

Call Back
I still feel a bit conflicted about this. But I think the more I play PvE (I had minions out during the Norn fractal, and it was a pain that they kept some mobs away from the fires to fight) the more I think this might be a spot where “feel” of the class needs to give way to making gameplay better

Pet Scaling
Love the idea. I think its a good way to keep “power creep” from happening as they add more ascended stuff.

Death Shroud
I think this should be a new grandmaster trait, with Vampiric Rituals being dropped to master. I actually think we aren’t too bad on the sustain front (although not perfect yet), and this would be a massive base buff. As a trait though, I think it would be appropriate, and maybe slightly buffed from what you listed (siphons go unreduced).

Staff
Btw, staff CDs are confirmed, and should be getting fixed on the 26th, or soon after. But it is a bug and being fixed soon.

Dagger
-I actually think dagger 1 is fine as is. I like that the LF gain is “gated” behind a chain, it gives more play

spoj.9672:

Making axe 3 a blast finisher would be a massive step forward for necros in pve. Heck making warhorn 4/5 a blast finisher should also be considered.

Making warhorn 4 a blast finisher would be interesting, and I think perfectly fine.

Not saying that Axe 3 shouldn’t be a blast btw, just feels a bit strong already. I feel like axe needs more help than that (axe AA needs to be reworked).

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Putrid Mark can still act as a total cleanse for you if you hit enough foes with it. It transfers 3 conditions per affected enemy.

But yeah, the loss of ally cleansing really made the skill pretty lame, even if it is the only attack in the game that ignores Blind.

Can someone confirm this? Because its been my understanding that it only transfers 3 conditions to one target, and has nothing to do with number of targets hit.

DownPour.5903:

This might be out of context and not for this topic, but did anyone mention adding a blast for axe 3? It is a blasting animation, and good for people who don’t run MM to have 1 more blast.

Tbh, I think the only people that regularly run Axe are MMs, lol. Not that it’d be a bad spot to, the animation looks like it could blast, but I feel like that skill on its own is actually really good. Unfortunately all the “blast” looking skills we have are already pretty great.

Some people have said to add whirl to axe 2, which wouldn’t be a terrible idea.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

They aren’t creepy and disgusting. They are wonderful beautiful pieces of flesh-art. Flawless, obedient, and occasionally slightly volatile. Now bunnies, those are down right freaky. The long ears, the teeth, those soulless eyes…

+1

But yeah, minions are kind of like Build a Bear – Necromancer version. Except instead of walking into a shop with cute stuffing, pretty clothes, and assorted adorable animal things to stuff, our “store” is a battlefield littered with corpses, bones, and assorted bits of death. So we pick out a few pieces of a body, a skull here, a ribcage there, sew them together, stuff them with the various decaying entrails we find around us, and boom. You get wonderful little sacks of ew running around.

Also, you can very easily play your entire game as Necromancer without ever summoning a single minion, after you get a second healing skill.

iAmTheDuke.6201:

Why is it that stability is last? Why is it not random like nullification?

1) It’d be best if you’d make new threads instead of reviving ancient ones
2) Mesmers are all about the random
3) They probably were thinking about the person defending more than the attacker when they had priority systems for us. For example the thief steal prioritizes stab (IIRC), because it is by far the most useful for them to pick up. However, ours were probably looked at from the POV of the defender, who wants stability gone last.