Guild Wars 2

Dice Dragon.4326:

Uh, they look pretty similar to minions in gw1 imo, a little more goofy, but for the most part, not that odd.

If you mean the minions look about the same, they don’t. Horrors were vaguely humanoid that more resemble the current Golem. Fiends were little headless raptors. Personally, I prefer GW1 fiends, but I’m okay with GW2 minions (human-skulled rats are creepy). I like the Shadow Fiend since it’s nice to see that necros are able to make minions out of more than just flesh and bone. Wurms look nice, but I don’t use them often.

If you mean in the same art style, I’d generally agree. Although a lot in the first game were just made of bone, and several we have have exposed organs and the like. Which is cool.

striker.3704:

barti.7685:

Ynot.8397:

No, you can’t micro because the pets don’t have the ability. Hit DS(our survivability mechanic) and you lose your minions. Go underwater and our only elites ruin the ability to use our minions. I don’t use lich, I use golem and I run a condition spec. I actually really like the golem even with all the issues. I tried to spec into giving my minions a ton of health but they still die in a heartbeat.
For the record, these are all really WvWvW and t/sPvP issues. In PVE they are alright and I don’t mind going minion build. They have a lot of fixes that need to be done. After those are fixed I might just go back to my minion build for everything, but as of right now they are kittened.

lose your minions in deathshroud o.O ?! i never ever ever experienced that. you can also heal your minions with mark of blood and life transfer btw.

what he means, is that a lot of the minions outright stop attacking when you enter DS. You also can’t use the minion actives when in DS.

Can you use any actives? Is this uniquely a minion master concern?

Illiji.5318:

I personally liked the idea of “set it and forget it” pets, but… eh… I honestly don’t care what happens to minions at this point.

Minions shouldn’t be that anyway, they have active skills you know.

They complain a lot!

Whichever way you look at it, elementalists already get twice as many weapon skills as anyone else. And that ranges from pure damage to self/team support, crowd control, and self-defense. I’ve only recently started playing elementalist, but already I’m pretty impressed with what all I can pull off with rapid swapping to an appropriate element.

Giving them twice as many options would mean they’d have four times the weapon sets as everyone else, a great variety in damage, self-defense, and crowd control abilities, and basically all cooldown times would be irrelevant.

Elementalists don’t need weapon swap — they can already swap to four different sets!

I did some searching and didn’t find any topics on this. Didn’t see it on the wiki either. Also not sure if this is the most appropriate section.

I’m not sure if “alignment” is the right word, but it’s not labeled in the game. It’s the simple system that pops up all throughout the game, like a sort of minigame. When talking to NPCs, and when you roll your character, you’re given three stats:

Charisma
Dignity
Ferocity

From what I can tell, they have no bearing on anything except a little title and icon on your hero screen. Also from playing around, there are 10 possible alignments based on how you balance out those stats:

Medium Charisma is “Charming,” picture of a rose
High Charisma is “Captivating,” picture of a padlock in the shape of a heart
Charisma/Dignity is “Diplomatic,” picture of a dove and olive branch
Charisma/Ferocity is “Scoundrel,” picture of a pirate hook

Medium Dignity is “Honorable,” picture of a badge (IE, a police badge)
High Dignity is “Noble,” picture of a crown
Dignity/Ferocity is “Militant,” picture of a shield with a sword on it

Medium Ferocity is “Brute,” picture of a punching fist
High Ferocity is “Barbaric,” picture of a skull with crossed axes

All Three is “Unpredictable,” picture of drama (or mesmer) masks

I took pictures of each icon. Is this worth putting on the wiki? Notably it’s not that hard to adjust your alignment just by repeating talking to key NPCs. I did it by standing between speed buff NPCs in Divinity’s Reach and talking to them back and forth.

Also, does this do anything at all? Or is it just for fun? And if so, what alignment are your characters and/or what alignment do you shoot for?

ryokoalways.3450:

I’m unable to load into Queen’s Throne Room.

Same here. Two characters over a span of time, neither gets in.

Haven.6531:

I don’t have a problem with the nature of the relationship. The dialogue was what annoyed me. He repeated “he’s my love, afterall” 3 or 4 times and I’m just like… I get it, calm down, I’ll save him for you.

It’s really no different than Tiachren never shutting up about his girlfriend.

Munrock.3092:

Anyway, the reason they don’t use firearms is because some of their pets rely on sensitive hearing, and the others are a bit jumpy. If a Ranger used a firearm they’d risk deafening their pets, and seriously risk being mauled by their own startled arctodus.

War horses and dogs and other combat animals are typically trained to tolerate the loud noises of gunfire and other sounds so they don’t spook. I might accept that answer though, if we assume rangers never go near other players or enemies using firearms. In which case you’d wonder why they aren’t running away as soon as an engineer runs by.

Qixilver.3784:

I heard it has to do with the lore of the ranger. Supposedly they didn’t want to use technology or something like that. But wouldn’t the invention of anything (i.e. bow and arrows) be considered technology? Then again the same could be said of Amish who use buggies which could be a form of technology. I guess it just depends on how you want to look at it.

But rangers can use spearguns. Those aren’t technology?

Josher.9612:

“Now, now now” with meaningless bugs and tweaks is pushing it. Non working traits or fubar trait lines, or weapon skills that don’t do what they claim, SHOULD BE now, now, now….if ANET cared.

If only caring translated into manpower, the world would be a much better place.

I just wish Flesh Golem could swim. It seems silly that the only elite I can use underwater kills all my pets. So I have to not use pets, or not use an elite.

They do last longer at higher levels. But they still die quite fast. And it makes them totally useless at low levels since they can die before they even get a chance to animate an attack. At the very least, Death Nova gives them a purpose.

MrLee.6892:

Hey be thankful! We Rangers got NOTHING!.

A dev posted not long ago stating that they had several ranger tweaks planned soon and explained why they can’t update every class every patch. I suspect it’s the same for necromancer. Game development just doesn’t fit the “now now now” that players would like it to.

Seems highly unlikely.

Vangy.7403:

and why u want your pets Dispari to be chaotic? u know ofc that necromancers specialized on summoning right? “Necromancy (/?n?kr??mænsi/) is a claimed form of magic involving communication with the deceased – either by summoning their spirit as an apparition or raising them bodily – for the purpose of divination, imparting the means to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge. it comes from the Greeks and its Necro = Dead body and mantis =prophecy or divination” source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necromancy

so even some necros does not use pets the pet ui should be there. cause necromancer controls the DEAD to his own WILL!…. instead Rangers pet should be more savage and Chaotic instead! cause beasts has their own will.. abominations obay to their masters! capice? anyway both rangers and necros can have control over their pets… Ranger still can be special cause he can have almost any beast in the game…necros has only few.. still we should be able to control them.

By the game’s lore, especially following the first game, is that minions are just magically animated servants. Not unlike a golem made of wood or metal. They just happen to be made of flesh and bone. One of the pets is even “flesh golem.” They should not have souls and it’s unlikely they even have useable brains.

The necromancer doesn’t really regard them very highly. Sometimes she’ll dismissively say “I guess I have to make another one,” or other versions of “Oh, it died.” They aren’t persistent pets, unlike a ranger’s wolf or bear which limp back to their master to be helped. If a necromancer pet dies they just move on. I don’t think they’d really have time to teach them any tricks, even if we assume they’re capable of learning them.

The necromancer does have the ability to control them to an extent, because they follow her, they attack or don’t attack depending on her actions, and they can be issued certain commands. It seems likely they’re capable of performing one or two very simple tasks (such as “use your one ability on that guy”), but a full set of pet controls would be out of character.

Besides which, there are two good reasons not to do this.

One is that there’s already a class that has controlled pets. Some people (like me) like both aspects. I have a ranger and a necromancer. In my experience, games often offer both options instead of making it so all pets are the same. Sometimes I like the uncontrolled pets. It’s less micromanagement for me to worry about. So making it so all pets are the same gives players like me less options.

The other is that, from a balance standpoint, being able to control swarms of highly variant pets can be difficult to control. Being able to control something means its effectiveness can vary much more than an uncontrolled unit, depending on the ability of the driver. Being able to control six such things can make it so the output of the class varies to much and can wind up being excessively powerful in the right settings, which is hard to dial back without hurting players of less ability. I come from a game where one of the classes has six fully controllable pets, and the drawbacks for that are numerous and significant.

I prefer mindless zombies.

striker.3704:

In dungeons minions tend to fall flat due to obscene AOE. Not to mention terrible AI. In solo “over world PvE” I find minions to be acceptable, though the flesh golem’s decision to pull everything you aren’t fighting incredibly annoying.

I’ve done several dungeons and I haven’t found this to be true. Some pets die occasionally but not much more than doing anything else.

I like uncontrolled chaotic pets. And it’d be silly since that’s the special ability rangers get, and not every necro has pets. If necros really need something else, I’d look somewhere else for a buff.

I also prefer the headless raptor bone fiend from the first game over GW2’s devourer.

I haven’t found AoEs to be that big a deal. Two of the pets I can make move when I want to, two I want to die anyway, and anything that does die drops poison fields. Once I start resummoning more things, and immobilizing the Bone Fiend, my pets are very spread out. And even if they do die, the recharges are short.

Daniel.1389:

Thx for you fast and good explaining answer

It sounds like you found a way to use the Minion Master in an effectiv way, but it also sounds like you say they only viable if you let them Explode if they Die and dont make viable Damage without this :/

To clarify on that, I ONLY mean the Bone Minions. The one that summons two little pets. Their active skill is “blow up.” Their damage by itself is awful. But their burst damage when exploding is very high.

The rest of the pets are good. I use Flesh Golem and Shadow Fiend for tanking and alpha. I use Shadow Fiend and Bone Fiend for their conditions. And the Blood Fiend is a neat and useful combination of healing and damage. I do sacrifice him sometimes when I have to. I have a reasonable amount of +healing bonuses in armor so it’s a pretty potent heal. Although I will admit I swap out that one pet for Well of Blood in dungeons only.

I’d definitely keep the pets alive if you can, except the Bone Minions which are best utilized by making them go boom.

Well I’m no expert, but I have taken my necro to 80 using minions the whole way. And as you said, I’ve done very little PvP and am not that interested in it and really have no advice for it.

I found myself waffling a lot on whether I care about my pets dying or not. Early on they will die quite often. But you can eventually get a trait for +50% HP on them. The other thing that helped a lot is that I started using staff as my main weapon, and I have Mark of Evasion, so I end up doing a lot of regeneration which lands on my pets. But even so, I don’t mind the pets dying. You can have 5-6 of them at a time and the skills recharge fairly often

As far as forcing pets to tank, both the Shadow Fiend and the Flesh Golem have activated powers that force them to attack a target. In dungeons I always alpha with the golem, so he gets everyone’s attention first. This allows the actual players to more safely get positioned and start attacking.

For traits I have 20 spite, 30 death, 20 blood. I have +30% damage from Training of Master, as well as blood’s Vampiric Master. I also have Death Nova, which is useful with Jagged Horrors (I have no idea if it’s a bug that they die so fast, but at least Death Nova helps them not suck).

With staff it’s pretty easy to kite since you can cast behind yourself while running forward, and you have a fear, and two of your pets cripple (and immobilize sometimes). With that, spamming regen, and the bonus toughness and health siphoning, I find my character to be pretty durable.

Minions are definitely for blowing up. Their damage is pretty awful without exploding, but I generally keep them alive unless I’m fighting more than one target, or a veteran or stronger.

I’m watching a mesmer guide with my girlfriend so I’ll try to answer more questions if you have any in a bit. =p

Hmm, I’ve done dungeons with some of my friends and I haven’t had any issues save some specific scenarios. I haven’t had any problems using them as damage or as tanks. There are simple ways to get them to do what you want them to do. With various traits they’re useful for doing damage, conditions, and taking damage. And you can get extra toughness and siphoning from them.

Even if minions aren’t the most effective necromancer build, I’m just a fan of pets. I feel naked playing a necro that doesn’t have them. I’ve always been the type of player that plays what I want and makes that work, rather than just playing what works best.

I love my squeaky British warrior plant!

After playing through a bunch of arcs, it took me a while to even realize there were any same-sex couples in the Sylvari. When Caithe reveals it, it’s through story and it’s not forced in the player’s face or anything. All of it’s done very matter-of-factly and I’ve never found it forced at all. In fact I was glad to find it’s not overly mentioned or brought to anyone’s attention. It just is.

I like the Sylvari a lot. They have a really unique culture and background. I can tell a lot of time was put into making them a unique creation. The fact that they don’t care about things like the gender of their partners helps that I think. It’s well-implemented.

lorndarken.3702:

pve is simple , pvp is where you see the differences of the game , and NO 1 on 1 should not be the case according to arena net in terms of a class as you put it " Designed for fighting 1 on 1 " , funny you can figure that out before arena net has . or have they ? , nvm my point is . even for someone like you who does not care about pvp , should at least acknowledge the fact the disparity of " Balance " and not just focus on the pve element of the game but also see the pvp side of it as well .

Is that it then? In PvE it doesn’t matter and it’s just PvP where the class underperforms? Are all these threads just talking about PvP? Because I’m okay with that.

lorndarken.3702:

go to wvw , get in a 1 vs 1 fight with a thief , and make sure you both are of = lvl to make it fair . then come back and tell us what you learned today .

Necro is the 2nd worst 1 vs 1 wvw class in the game , engineers are worse then us , not because of bugs but because of damage output is low for them .

I don’t care about PvP, and even if I did I wouldn’t test my character by pitting them against a class designed for fighting people 1 on 1. I’m talking about in PvE.

I finally got on the boards and was surprised to see that necros are being called underpowered and thieves overpowered. My personal experience is exactly the opposite. Maybe people are mostly going on about PvP but my necro is my best character. I always pull off a lot more stuff than my friends. I get downed the least in dungeons, and even my girlfriend playing her guardian is jealous of me (not that I’m saying she’s running the most effective guardian build). I ran several story missions up as much as +4 to my level. And I doubt I’m playing a very effective build myself, I’m just doing what sounds good to me. Not sure what I’m doing differently than everyone else; none of the other classes I’ve tried other than warrior have felt as safe.