The passive is pretty weak, literally anything can give you more LF/s, and the active is difficult to use since the cast time is as much time as it takes to be stomped. Plus, IIRC, poison + some damage on the body can actually block your skill from working, its on a massive CD, and its rare that you get a good death-grouping to use it.
I know some people have had success with it in PvE with pugs (who often will die all in a cluster from trying to res), but that’s all because of the active.
I think Unholy Sanctuary will likely be fine on its own. Realize that as it stands now, any traits on the defensive end of things are pretty much straight buffs, since we don’t have any, so trying to make them as strong as they “should” be might not work (since we already work with very little).
That said, as the trait is now, I think its fine. The numbers might need to come up a little, but I think its a good idea. Your ideas aren’t bad either, but I think they would constitute a second trait, not additions to this one.
BF’s only real issue is the lack of other traits/mechanics to be used alongside it outside of a full MM build. If we had other strong condition removal, and ways to mitigate burst, I’d use him more. But as it stands, the loss of CC’s removal is really hard, and the loss of a way to heal a lot right away (when I can’t avoid burst well), seals the deal in anything but an MM build that has so much sustained healing and condition removal that it covers up for him.
MM builds have low skill floor but a very high skill ceiling. If they were so easy to use at their maximum, we wouldn’t have had threads complaining about AI since literally the day the game was released. A bad MM is a free kill for anyone with a brain, and a good MM takes just as much skill to play as any build.
To the above: we do not raise the dead themselves. While it is technically within our power, its a big no-no. The need for corpses stems from the need for raw materials to build our golems with; if we were building a golem of stone, we’d need a mass of stone to work with, in the same way.
Re-corpses. I’m not saying its a terrible idea, or that it’d be put on all minion skills, but I don’t see it generally being a meaningful limiter or play mechanic in this game, unless the corpses had some meaning to them. For example, a skill that used corpses to raise minions, and the corpse itself has a meaningful impact on the minion raised (trash mobs give you trash minions, boss corpses give you a bigger more kitten minion). Otherwise, if the corpses are used solely as a resource, it doesn’t end up doing a lot for you. In PvE/WvW there are corpses (or easy to kill things just waiting to be turned into one) literally everywhere, and it wouldn’t really limit anything. But in PvP/some dungeons, there is no way to reliably get corpses to use your skills, and now the limit is just keeping you from using your skills. It wouldn’t really be fun or interesting, just an arbitrary way to keep you from using your skill.
So I’d love it if corpses were used as a possible buffing mechanic or had play, but not if it became like GW1 (although only for certain things). However, this is all in the idea of skills. Traits can certainly be niche, and I could see corpse-based traits being just fine.
They could just put a limit on the number of minions that could be summoned with the skill (which they would do no matter what). It requires you to keep the minions alive consistently.
Also, all ideas for that were presented with significant drawbacks. In Lily’s case the need for corpses, in mine making a Necro weaker.
This is pretty nice when you consider we have unmatched AoE condition application. It isn’t supposed to sustain you 1v1, but when you can put out a lot of AoE conditions the healing is pretty nice.
Just because our HP is high doesn’t mean we are entitled to larger heals. If you look strictly at the amount healed, it matches the best single target heals, and outclasses many. Its ability to remove conditions is huge, because it is a full wipe on a skill that you already want to take. It gives us one of the strongest sources of condition removal in the game (plus it makes it impossible for poison to affect our heal) all packaged in an already good heal.
Yep we’re aiming to restart it. We had a long session of things coming up, plus Tenderly was on his way out of the game, and I was a bit burnt out, both in game and with the forums. But once we get things settled we’ll be back strong.
Timing is definitely something we can talk about and work with anyone who would like to be on but can’t with the current time.
An evolving minion would actually be really cool. It would highly reward the MM for keeping them alive, as well as give you a sense of pride. Not to mention it could really fix some issues for PvE (where minions could probably hit the kitten mode pretty often), but without being too bad for PvP (where if the enemy was smart they could just kill the minion). Mechanics would need thought for balance, but awesome idea.
So whats the purpose of this topic then if MM is getting buffed?
Because there are also nerfs. A very small nerf to a trait, a nerf to putrid explosion, and a change to VM (which will result in a nerf for some and buff for others, depending on scaling). And any time something is nerfed, even if other buffs are made the nerfs are all that people focus on.
Why clerics and what’s good at 4x vamp + 2x melandru ? The life leeching ?
Also, why do you prefer bone fiend over shadow fiend ?
I’ve been testing Minions out at golems to check their ‘activation mode’ : when I start attacking after 2s they always join in battle, but when I’m in the tourney they start slacking :/
Clerics gives you three beneficial stats. High toughness to keep you alive, lots of healing power for consume conditions/regen/transfusion (CC will pretty regularly heal for 10k with some conditions on you, transfusion heals minions for a crapload), plus still strong power for your own attacks. It gives a lot stronger sustainability than Soldier’s, which really relies on winning the fight before it drags out too long; this will be even more the case once vampiric master gets healing power scaling.
Vamp + sigil of leeching not only gives you four sources of 975 heals, but those heals also do that much damage, which is a pretty significant boost. It means every 10 seconds when you swap a weapon you will deal 975 damage and heal for 975. Every time you heal you will do the same, and randomly you will get a proc that does it. Its a very noticeable buff to sustain, which synergizes strongly with the Cleric’s amulet to make it nearly impossible to beat you 1v1. 2x Melandru is because I don’t really like the final vamp sigil proc, and -10% condition duration is one of the better 2 rune stats.
Bone Fiend imo is way better than shadow fiend in most MM applications. He deals ranged damage, which makes him harder to kill and more reliable on damage dealing, the projectile finishers are going to increase his utility/DPS in any fight with fields, the cripple adds on to the tons of crippling that Golem/Axe/Warhorn cause, and his active is basically never avoided and is a very long immobilize, which when properly chained can keep someone hard CC’d for 10-15 seconds.
I’m not suggesting to completely change all minion skills to fit this. Just a few so we can have more diverse minion masters. But what do you guys think?
For a long time I’ve been asking for them to expand the minion system. I think the minions we have now are “fine” (disregarding some standing AI/balance issues), but I think we could use some new skills and traits that are designed to increase the type of playstyles available.
I don’t think corpses should be used, simply because it wouldn’t really do anything meaningful, except on occasion bar you from using the skill when you need it, and not really in a fun way.
However, I’d like to see:
1) A pistol off-hand that “shoots” jagged horrors
2) An ability that just summoned minions every time it was pressed
3) New minion types that expand on how MMs are played
4) New traits that accomplish things above
Some other ideas:
1) A skill that scales up. It has some negative effect (maybe sacrificing an increasing % of HP, or self-applying worse conditions), but summons progressively stronger minions.
2) Along with above, skills/traits that either make the Necromancer weaker or hurt the necro, but with the benefit of allowing more strength to the minion. Examples: reserving % of your HP to summon “infinite” amounts of minions (X% on each cast, each minion alive reserves it, so if you had 5 minions out with the skill and each reserved 5%, you’d only have 75% of your health available), giving your toughness to them, giving your boons to minions, giving your life siphoning to them, etc.
3) More types of minions/additional expansions of what they can do (Curse of the Master, adds conditions to every X attack, for example).
Basically, minions are a pretty significant part of the Necromancer identity. In GW1, we had a fairly large amount of options in how we wanted to play, both with minion types, and then your overall build (enchants, hexes, elite, etc.), and I’d love to have more ways to play MM in GW2. It also allows for more ways to balance minions, instead of every MM being a tanky DPS assassin buiser healer support bunker.
I have regularly healed for over 10k with the skill, which is pretty significant considering it also fully wipes conditions off you, preventing a lot of extra damage as well. It is an amazing healing skill.
Its already been announced what’s happening. Reanimator into Death Nova, PotH into FotM, and the two new traits give extra toughness while in DS, and more LF on death at the 5/15 spots respectively. It’ll be a flat buff to all MM builds that go at least 20 into DM.
I won’t. The added useful strength of the replacement is way more, and you can still get them through they trait they had the best synergy with.
The MM nerfs are in no way significant to their PvE use. 5% damage nerf is tiny (you really shouldn’t use that trait in PvE anyway), and vampiric master, while again it shouldn’t be used in PvE, won’t make a big difference.
I used to run A/F and D/WH, 20/0/30/20/0, Clerics, 4x vamp 2x melandru, sigil of leeching on each set, bloodlust on dagger, hobbling on axe
CC/bone minions/bone fiend/flesh wurm/flesh golem
Dunno whats up with minion AI atm, if I get around to playing again I can let you know, but its generally not as big of an issue as people make it out to be. Take them to the NPC golems and play around with your skills and see what makes them aggro well, and keep in mind that they tend to dislike elevation differences.
Honestly, balance of the traits aside, the new trait changes might make me play the game again.
If they scaled it to ticking per second, they’d also need to scale back its durations, which is the point. Its actually more forgiving to enemies with quick reactions, and less forgiving to people who are screwing around.
Guardian is much more impressive in WvW where the stats are out of control… their burst is quite terrifying. There are very few burst guardians in WvW though generally. It is so much easier to play boon spam, and much more effective in the zerg.
I include WvW in that statement. Yes their burst is scary, but I found that every 1v1 I had as long as I didn’t go full-kitten on the first burst it was an easy win, since they had no way to deal with me afterwards.
I find that playing MM in dungeons/fractals is nice simply to reduce the general difficulty of everything for your team. You’ll be a bit slower than if you ran with an optimized group, but the tendency of bosses to focus minions, especially with single-target things (like CoE alpha golem), makes content a lot easier for a group that might have difficulty otherwise. It won’t be faster than running another DPS, but it’ll be simpler when you have a pug group that can’t manage as well.
Having a select-able DS bar would be really cool, but don’t expect it to be vastly different than what we have now (it presents more balancing, because they have to balance each DS combination with each possible weapon/utility/trait combination).
It wouldn’t innately solve anything though, any more than them fixing our trait system. My issue with DS is much more that it can’t really be defensively boosted, despite being our major defensive utility. It stems from a general lack of any kind of viable defensive options. We don’t have truly defensive weapons (whereas almost every class has at least defensive off-hands), we have very limited defensive utility skills (spectral armor, mainly), and defensive traiting is massively lacking.
Also, barring minions and very few abilities, the only working defenses we have are entirely related to condition application; applications which can be dodged, and conditions which can then be nullified afterwards, all while being strictly weaker per-second than standard defensive options. No one else has to put up with that.
Nope. No trait version of a skill shares a CD with the skill on your bar, such that activating one puts the other on CD. They do tend to have the same CD length, however (but not always).
Warriors are great 1v1, but I’ve never found guardian to be that great 1v1. Maybe its because MM has spoiled me.
I think condition spam is already quite out of control in the game, so I would rather see the current effectiveness of this skill improved, rather than extra conditions stacked on top of it.
This. Plus the skill isn’t about the damage. Yes poison does damage, but even if it didn’t this skill would remain basically the same, because its about the shutdown potential of poison’s healing reduction plus weakness’ endurance/offensive reduction.
You will go back to your original HP that you had when you entered DS, however if you get forced out of DS due to damage, any damage that your LF didn’t absorb will rollover.
They are supposed to scale, yes.
Everyone knows power is broken, otherwise it wouldn’t be the single go-to for the DPS race we fondly call “PvE”.
On a side note, conditions themselves tend to be weak, the valid complaining is more due to the fact that they scale with only one stat (two if you count duration, but that simply extends things), whereas power takes three. In your comparison, you’re using an amulet with full offensive stats vs an amulet with significant defensive stats (toughness), and one mediocre offensive stat (precision with no other power stats). You could just as easily use this example to show why conditions are broken: a heavily defensive amulet has comparable DPS to a fully offensive one (power is broken, thats why Ferocity happened, but its valid).
That’s part of why power is best in PvE, because it scales up using more stats, and thus has a higher ceiling, whereas condition damage has 1.5 stats, and so hits its max very easily, with more than enough room for defense. Plus conditions often have spammable AoE. Its why conditions really only see use in PvP.
Its not far from a good skill, I used to swap it in in WvW small GvG fights, because my “team” was usually thrown together last second and we often had issues securing stomps. So picking up this skill would allow me to pretty much mark someone as dead the second they hit the ground (it even stops a lot of hard-resses), and then we could more or less ignore them, since their team trying to res them was actually a huge liability.
But, that was a very rare niche. This skill is so close to being amazing, but its just a tiny shred off of it. Like Drarnor said, a slight CD reduction would do wonders for the skill.
I use “fine” to say that it is serviceable. Not necessarily that it is as good as it could be, but it shouldn’t really prevent you from anything. PvE minions dropping aggro doesn’t really matter, it is at worst a drop of 2k DPS total, if you are running TotM, plus VM, and 6 minions. They’re really just there to eat damage, and they tend to do that anyway.
Yes Anet should fix their aggro (how they hell they manage to break it all the time is beyond me), but it shouldn’t bar you from using them in PvE. sPvP is a very separate issue, but I’ve always found them to have pretty limited issues there (except FG’s perpetual issues where Charge messes up his aggro).
It isn’t used largely due to the fact that it almost only be used by non-power, non-minion builds, because its largest use is downed pressure, and power/minion builds can get a ton of that already (through wells/death nova). At this point you’re almost strictly looking at condition builds, and its just very rare to see a non-damage focused condition build.
It’d potentially be very strong in support based builds, but those are just very rare, and the few that exist focus around wells.
I haven’t had any new issues with them, what exactly are they doing that’s new?
They do that to everyone, its not special that they do it to us.
And no, you’d only want it if it didn’t come with the drawbacks they have, like the HP pool of a Bone Minion.
I stopped reading the second you talked about minion AI, because it was abundantly clear you don’t have a single clue what you are talking about. Not only is minion AI exceptionally easy (press any weapon skill), but it has consistently gotten better the longer the game has been out through patches.
Minion AI is incredibly easy right now, its fine.
I’d suggest not using MM builds in fractals unless you are built non-traditionally, aka a zerker MM build. No need for the standard 20/0/30/20/0 soldier build.
They are used interchangeably, there is no real difference in this game, with the lack of a true taunt-like system.
In general a bunker only matters in PvP modes, where it is your job to plant yourself somewhere and be immovable, whereas a tank’s job is a bit more generically just to take as much of the damage focus as possible. A bunker does not necessarily have to be a tank, but all tanks could function as bunkers.
It doesn’t have to do with what “extra” things they bring besides survivability. Some bunkers have no team support because they aren’t team-fighting much, others have a lot, while some bunkers bring a lot of damage and others do almost no damage. Same with tanks, the only difference is that tanking requires holding aggro, which traditionally in games requires securing a lot of “threat” really quickly (often involves doing a crapload of up front damage). But in PvP this doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
That’s all they do to us; not die. Its not just individual anecdotes, thieves I talk to specifically state Necromancer as an impossible matchup when the Necro plays correctly, even in WvW. Yes they can often get away whenever they want, but that’s not very special.
However will I fight this guardian that’s as glassy an offensively spec’d Necro with no DS and whose damage output is entirely based off burning and burning alone?
If you get killed by a perma-stealth thief you need to rethink playing Necro. I’ve talked to a few thieves, and most say that Necromancer is the only (or one of the few) professions that they have no chance against unless they just get super lucky or the Necro is awful.
Is the thief able to get away very often? Yes. But they should never kill you. I’ve flat out ignored a thief ganking me in WvW while I was heading to my team (I figured he’d peel off when he saw them) but he was so persistent I turned on him when I had half HP and absolutely destroyed him. We have tons of targeted AoE, a lot of which even shows you where the thief is, and multiple other abilities that ignore stealth in some way.
Also, the old S/D thieves are the only ones who can spam enough evades to have no real counterplay. Everyone else has pretty significant downtimes on their un-hittable frames (not to mention that, again, a lot of our stuff ignores defenses).
Minions can bunker points pretty easily if you’re spec’d to Clerics/30BM/30DM. I wouldn’t use a Necro as a team-fight bunker, but you can hold up until 4 people are spamming AoE on you, depending on how well you managed to get minions positioned and how much help you have.
Other than that, there are a few builds that can also bunker, but not as well, imo. I’d never use a Necro as the main bunker of a team, but they do very well for immobile off-bunkers that are going to sit in high traffic areas to free up your real bunker (probably Guardian) to roam.
Its been announced for a long time that eventually they will change 5/15. It will be a while, however, because they will not do it for us alone, it’ll be in another big trait pass, and they want to actually fix those minors, instead of a crappy bandaid patch.
ETA is Soon™
No.
If you get killed in a zerg by being stunned at 900 range, you can’t blame anyone but yourself.
If only we had a crapload of unblockable AoE… oh ya, we do.
Literally every single response I saw was nothing like that.
At worst their reaction was that it would be difficult to do. Not that they wouldn’t, not that they haven’t considered it, not that they will ignore those requests, only that it would be hard. They then encouraged all pet-related suggestions.
Every response they made was either encouragement (“these are interesting/good changes”), or clarification (“this might be hard to do, but we haven’t written off doing it”).
Because that is literally the definition of what we are, both from a standpoint of lore and dev description of what we should be.
And yes lore does. Where do you think they get the theme of the class from? Or the idea for skills? If there was no lore backing of any kind, every class would just be a random assortment of whatever they felt like adding. Lore is absolutely the foundation of the theme of the class, which heavily influences, guides, and limits what a class does and does not have.
(edited by Bhawb.7408)
Vampiric/Vampiric Precision can only proc when damage is dealt
Vampiric Ritual will proc on any well pulse.