On summoning Flesh golem Runes of the Krait trigger. However on charge it does not trigger. You don’t get 2 uses out of it. That’d be nice but it isn’t the case.
It doesn’t overcome the ICD but both are capable of procing the rune set.
I’ll have to test that and get back to you.
Also, minions can’t proc any gear related stuff like this.
Just to note, it depends on what the proc is. Flesh Golem doesn’t proc this because he is the one interrupting your target, not you. However he will proc Krait runes because those proc off of using an elite skill, which is fulfilled whenever you summon him or use charge. So it depends on if the proc is based off of just using a skill, or based off an action that you are trying to have the minions do.
On summoning Flesh golem Runes of the Krait trigger. However on charge it does not trigger. You don’t get 2 uses out of it. That’d be nice but it isn’t the case.
Everyone with the kittens Greatsword and Sword. Honestly, those are the two most common used weapons among professions. You have ranger, warrior, mesmer, and guardian who can all use both these weapons and they are for the most part good options for all of them.
Why no love for Maces? Why can’t necromancers get a mace? Why does it always have to be swords?
Well if your trying to be so efficient then get off your kitten condi build in pve =)
But I guess you are right about trash mobs having extremely dangerous conditions, and are also right that wvw zerging is just so faceroll. It’s nothing compared to standing in a corner and dpsing. I mean it’s not like you need to watch out for the hammer train and the peripheral gank squad all while attacking targets and staying with your driver or blasting waters or any of those other extremely easy wvw zerg things.
Pve = pro.
You do realize we where strictly talking PvE right? I mean, I see how you can get easily confused and all. But I mentioned it a half a dozen times.
Also, I do player power as well in PvE. I don’t prefer it because it doesn’t scale as well as conditions and you are much more frail, but its still useful in a lot of situations.
reapers might, signet mastery, and spiteful spirit. all better.
Reapers might: Damage reduces to get a significant boost while using a condition build, ends up both wasting time and lowers the damage.
Signet Master: I use 0 signets on my build. Useless to my build as I will not replace any of my skills for a signet considering none of them are particularly useful. for my build. Maybe Plague signet and I could see an argument for that but still would much rather take well of power. I’ve used both interchangeably and WoP proved to be the better option time and time again.
Spiteful Spirit: An extra 100 damage here or there, or 0 damage depending on the situation. Having extremely low power, a condi set can’t take much advantage from it.
Considering that I use corruptions and sometimes can’t afford to remove them using skills, spiteful removal is still the best choice for a condition set.
I hate when people bring up zergs. You can face roll in a zergs, balancing on zergs is stupid.
Because trash mobs are so threatening that you need a trait to get rid of conditions that you can easily wipe in other ways? Because trash mobs in PvE are great balance points? Trash mobs are the definition of faceroll, you just spam DPS after you’ve pulled them and they melt.
The point is the trait doesn’t matter to your success. You aren’t going to suddenly lose fights if you don’t have this condi, it just makes things more convenient for you. If a trait has no impact on whether you win a fight or not its just not well designed. Necromancers have far more than enough condi removal for PvE’s uses, you really only need extra in small roaming and sPvP, both of which this trait is absolutely useless in.
And I have had it be very useful in fights. Its saved me quite a few times in Fractals. Mostly from crippling and Chill. Mostly though, it allows me to keep moving. It saves time, which is important. There Isn’t a better adept trait in spite for a condi set, this is a fact.
In zerg fights you have absolutely no need for more condition removal than the already up to 5 full/near full condition wipes (WoP, plague signet, CC, staff 4, dagger 4). Just CC and staff 4 will be more than enough, really.
I hate when people bring up zergs. You can face roll in a zergs, balancing on zergs is stupid. In many dungeons however, that condition removal when faced with trash mobs who apply loads of conditions, primarily crippling, is extremely helpful. Starting with the point “Well zergs” is stupid. Its dumb, stop talking.
Have it on an ICD, point being it needs a trigger mechanic that isn’t useless.
It isn’t useless. I’ve gotten loads of millage out of it. There is no other minor trait I would rather take for my condi build. In spite that is.
Spiteful Spirit is actually pretty fun. It’s amusing to turn someone’s massive multi-hit burst against them.
we were talking in the context of PvE. And Retaliation isn’t that good in PvE. I’d much rather have condition removal then retaliation in pve.
Have it on an ICD, point being it needs a trigger mechanic that isn’t useless.
It isn’t useless. I’ve gotten loads of millage out of it. There is no other minor trait I would rather take for my condi build. In spite that is.
I think most traits you listed arent useless perse but too weak to take compared to other traits.
The only useless ones are in my opinion spiteful marks, necrotic corruption and speed of shadows. Thoes should be removed and replaced with better ones. The rest should simply be buffed.
Edit: To spiteful removel it could be changed into something like if something dies around you (be it minions ,allies or enimies) remove the conditions. So you could get some control over it if you have e. g. boneminions and selfdestruct them and still have the old effect.
what you’re suggesting is too good for an adapt trait.
I’m quite fond of Spiteful Removal for PvE. It allows me to keep moving on my condition build Which has 6/6/0/0/2. When you finish a fight as a necromancer there is nothing worse then having 60 seconds of crippling or bleeding/poison and having to wait after a fight to get it off. Not having to spend a cool down on a skill or heal is convenient. Its really what I would call a “Quality of life” trait.
PS, losing a condition on minion death would make the trait bad. We already have a minion trait that pulls conditions off of you so having something on minion death is redundant.
(edited by Lily.1935)
Hounds of Balthazar don’t generally run into issues because they don’t live very long, and they don’t have a secondary active that causes a lot of buggy issues. Almost all duration-gated summons do slightly better because they don’t have much time to screw up.
except the minions are screwing up as soon as they are summoned.
Flesh Golem (and all minions) have AI issues that need to be fixed, but you can generally work around them.
I’d like to know the work around when I’m in melee range of my foe attacking with a dagger, getting hit as my minions are literally standing there NOT DOING A GOD KITTENS THING! Flips a table At the same time the Human racial hounds of balthazar attack my target and don’t have any bugs that I’m aware of or if they do, I haven’t noticed them.
As a necromancer player since GW1 I have to say GW2’s necromancer feels nothing like it used to.
I often feel its a do or die situation all the time. Most the time trash mobs don’t cause any problems, but they don’t cause any problems for any of my other 4 avatars either. The necromancer being my main is interesting. We don’t get the option to just run away from a fight, even in PvE. Sometimes we can’t just escape. Its not worth it a lot of the time. Sometimes it would take us less time and effort to just kill the for then to try and progress. This slows us down quite a bit. Where as on my guardian or Mesmer, I can easily escape, either through just being invalnerable to attacks, preventing me from being hit so I can maintain my speed or teleporting and vanishing.
I feel like I have to have thick skin because we are always getting hit by attacks. We don’t have many ways to prevent ourselves form being hit, so we often just get it. The large health pool helps us quite a bit to alleviate this problem but not against bosses who can often knock out your death shroud in one strike. This often puts us as a Mid-line fighter. We need to be close enough to deal our damage, but far enough so we can effectively use our endurance. This limits what we can do.
That said we are extremely good at mid-line damage/support. We can apply a tone of conditions in a rather short time period. We also have excellent boon stripping, allowing us to cripple enemies that otherwise would give our party problems through retaliation or protection(although this hasn’t been too useful yet.). The mid-line is were the necromancer really shines.
Personally though, I don’t feel like I’m as powerful as I used to be in GW1. Back then I felt like the center piece of the group or at least an important part. Everything I did was done extremely well but never felt like I was broken or over powered. I guess you could say back then I felt like the Envoy of death. Now I feel more like I have a death wish.
Aggressive minions that go ape kittens all over any foe that crosses their line of sight is far better then minions that don’t do anything. I’ve wanted to build a minion build after the introduction of Nomad armor, but seeing as they literally DON’T DO ANYTHING I can bring myself to bother with it.
The problem with necromancers always seems to be “Hey, this sounds like a really cool build concept. OH but wait.. The necromancer can’t make it work because they are missing X or Y doesn’t work right.” And What I mean is the Minions have a 50-50 chance of being pacifists.
Condition sets on the necromancer are fairly diverse. And i can’t say all work in all situations though. Considering that different condi builds function better inf different situations. For example, Going pure Rabid with runes of the Krait is fantastic in PvE especially with epidemic. Although its not as good in WvW. Although it can work, from what I hear Dire/rabid mix is preferred. But I’m not the best person to ask for WvW seeing as I dislike WvW because it gives me a headache and I never seem to know whats going on. Another good idea is Rampagers. This is supposed to be one of out best damage sets but it has major problems with it. It takes our strengths from both sides of power and condi builds but at the same time takes both sides weaknesses.
No build is perfect. And I might suggest getting Rare equipment of each first if you have the money for it and experiment a little before making a final choice.
No. I enjoy running conditions and I’ll continue to do so, regardless of anyone saying otherwise.
So I was doing my own calculations for my own Condition damage set, and if I include Dhuumfire, the damage gets to about 50k over 10 seconds. This might sound like a bit of a drop compared to what Nemesis was getting, however I wasn’t using cons during my experiment. This is also in a decent situation. Not the best possible situation and not the worst. But an expected situation. So, although its quite a drop from 60k or 70k as he shows later in the video. Condition damage is nothing to laugh at. Especially considering how much higher a condi necro’s defenses are compared to a Zerker.
The trade off between the two is noticeable. But I feel its worth it for my play style. Conditions may not be as favored in PvE as a power is, however I do enjoy both sets for different reasons. And Conditions do provide something Power can’t.
I find it interesting how little the devs understand death shroud. I didn’t say this when I posted before but this is actually what they said “We can give the necromancer lots of Movement. Imagine if a necromancer could just leave Combat any time they wand after draining their death shroud. They could just come back with full death shroud.” HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA Gasp HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Even if we COULD escape from combat in this hypothetical Situation, the odds of us getting back our death shroud and doing it in a timely manor that we come back in order to break their hold on that point without them actually leaving is NEVER going to happen. Its like they think Death shroud regens over time. Which it doesn’t. If you are not in combat, Death needs to occur for it to regen or you need to sit in one spot spending several minutes swapping in and out flesh golem to kill it and get it back. In a PvP match, you don’t have that much time.
In general, I don’t think they necessarily didn’t know of our faults (or did), it was, to me, more of a talk about where they want things to be, instead of how things are. They didn’t really mention anything that would make me think they did or didn’t know of issues like this, because they were talking very very broad things, like Necromancers can’t have good boon access. That said, this is a really good list of specifics.
1) Totally agree. There is no reason this should stop our stomping, it is our defensive mechanic, just like a guardian putting on stability + protection while ressing.
2) Agreed again. Either a trait to allow healing, or simply allow all self-traited healing (obviously change Transfusion so it doesn’t try to heal you through DS) to go through DS. Start off small, but give us something.
3) This is by design, and I think its fine. If we had ways of accessing CC immunity (stability, Shade, mechanics that aren’t stopped by it) this would be absolutely fine, we have by far the best ability to simply take hits to the face and laugh them off, the issue is that our ability to do that is stopped by CC. Give us access to these mechanics, and maybe a few slight buffs to LF gain on weapon skills (mainly scepter) and we’re good to go.
4) This is simply PvE design. Look at some of teh Queen’s Gauntlet bosses (which are trivial in a condi build, even if you have no idea what you are doing), and even some of the Boss Blitz bosses, and you can see some spots where condi is just as good as zerker.
I’m aware that Our inability to avoid most attacks is part of our design. But my point wasn’t that this should be completely removed, just that its a far larger weakness then the devs are aware. I didn’t mention all the weaknesses either because I feel they did do a good job of it for the most part, I just feel that a few things needed to be said regardless. Yes, Condition builds are really good in some situations in PvE. The problem is when you get into world events and even dungeon bosses. Were you have people or even party members harming your over all damage.
I love being a glowing green ping pong ball.
Black shadowy ping pong ball.
this skill is useless anyway, even the well of blood is better than this…
Considering Well of Blood is actually really good, that’s not saying much.
Even Anti toxin spray is better then SoV.
A little while ago I watched one of Arena Net’s videos on moving forward with the professions in Future updates. And I found their understanding of the Necromancer’s current abilities to be a bit lacking. So I would like to point out a few flaws they didn’t cover that I feel need to be addressed.
Stoming/Resing – This is one of the areas that necromancers are lacking. Most players abuse a bug in order to do this while in death shroud to prevent themselves from being completely destroyed. Entering and Exiting Death shroud shouldn’t interrupt our Stomp or res of a party member or foe and we should just be able to activate it while in death shroud without the abuse of a bug. This is something that has bugged me for a while and other people I’m sure.
Vampirism and death shroud Of our 2 defensive(Or self sustain) mechanics you would think they could work well together. Yet this isn’t the case. Activating death shroud makes Vampirism virtually useless for the duration its active.
We get hit by everything – This is a major problem with necromancers. We are still extremely vulnerable to CC in PvP and in PvE our amazing health bar literally does nothing for us against stronger enemies. They talked about this one a little bit but I don’t think they really got how much it actually effects us.
Stacking conditions in PvE – This is less of a necromancer problem and more of everyone’s problem. Necromancers have great pressure damage using conditions. Its a real shame that the stacks are often overridden by other players who have far weaker condition damage reducing your 2-3k tick bleeds to 280 ticks or worse, no ticks. Fix this!
I think that’s all I can think of right now. Any thoughts comments on these? Am I blowing some of these too out of proportion? Let me know your thoughts.
some of this stuff you can do is abuse of a bug in the system. And you should just be able to do it without abusing it. Such as the stomping and resing. There is no reason why arena net shouldn’t allow you to just do this.
Yeah didn t know this was a bug untill the hate I got today…
That also explains why I get reported and get flamed because of ’’hacking’’….
Its really dumb and shallow that people would report you for doing this considering that the necromancer is probably the worst stomper in the game without abusing that bug. We should just be allowed to stomp and res in death shroud without abusing a bug. Its really stupid.
some of this stuff you can do is abuse of a bug in the system. And you should just be able to do it without abusing it. Such as the stomping and resing. There is no reason why arena net shouldn’t allow you to just do this.
I’ve suggested Disease multiple times. Although personally I think it should be a condition. And a rare condition like it was in GW1. Personally, I would prefer it to have higher damage then poison. Maybe 300 with full rabid/dire/Carrion armor or perhaps 400, non stacking. And like Bawb said spread to enemies only.
But I also have the rather unpopular opinion that we should have a few more condition and boons to round things out for Condi damage sets to have a higher diversity among professions.
I’d use a mace with a block and cleave abilities.
@Bwab, not sure if this is true after patch, seeing as the greatsword warrior now does some pretty decent damage, necro will always be that forgotten profession left to die in a corner, next to a ranger. Soon to be joined by mesmer.
Almost certain its still true, seeing as in a group we can abuse all the same mechanics they can (new runes, sigils, etc.).
yeah. Still really enjoy the profession though. Especially with the rune and sigil changes. Makes me feel so much better.
I still enjoy the profession, but I’ve been leveling my alts more seriously for when I end up in pug groups that lack some vital utility (like a thief for avoiding mobs), because I really can’t justify sitting on Necro if the team is struggling and I can swap. But in organized groups I love it.
The second profession I really like using is my guardian. Though i’ve been experimenting with a supportive turret build for my engineer lately. Usually I switch to guardian when we need more support. Considering the necromancer’s support is primarily in conditions and it doesn’t always function that well as damage mitigation as many bosses can attack through blind as though it wasn’t even applies, never fumble attacks or are just immune to CC such as chilled, crippling or fear.
When it comes to damage though, the ability to maintain 20-25 stacks of bleed along with permanent poison seems to make as a excellent back line DPS. Along with Epidemic bosses with trash mobs become a non-issue allowing allies to focus on the main target rather then worrying about adds.
Still, there is quite a bit that is to be desired with the profession.
Bad defensive options, lack of good weapons, no meaningful PvE utility all really hurt the profession.
yeah. Still really enjoy the profession though. Especially with the rune and sigil changes. Makes me feel so much better.
I never had a problem with necromancer damage. Its pretty good actually. Its there defenses that I’ve always had issues with. My necro can kill things pretty quickly and can tap mobs in zergs fairly well as well. I don’t have an issue with either of these things. For tapping zergs, being a power necro makes that much harder then a hybrid or condi set but for the most part you shouldn’t have an issue. We have plenty of AOE attacks and our damage output is high on its own.
What we really lack is the ability to defend ourselves and escape from conflict. Not saying we have no defensive abilities, just that our defenses are not up to par with other professions.
the main problem is that the necro design was carried over from gw1 where the necro was a party support multi-tool who did a little bit of everything and was very versatile. However with the gw2 combat system the multi-tool aspect becomes useless and the class is struggling to find a new identity. Anet is trying to find a way to give them a new role without fundamentally changing them.
I find it to be a different problem. They stripped most of what made the necromancer in guild wars one.
I made a better suggestion a while back. This is too restrictive and similar to Aegis. A boon that reduces the overall damage of conditions would be far more useful but wouldn’t lock out condi users from being able to actually kill people. I made this suggestion along the same lines as adding more conditions as I think the condition meta needs some major work from both the defensive side and offensive.
I have been wanting a build save since day 1. Should not be too really.
Plus now that you will be able to switch builds for free, build saves will become even more desirable.
See, what I want them to do is make it so you can load up unlocked ascended armor stats as well. This will make ascended far far more desirable then Exotic as you could load up the ascended stats through your panel. This would also be a major gold sink because for the players who want to experiment with builds and do as much as possible, you will see people who will go out of there way to get as many ascended armor sets as possible. Like myself.
For those who don’t care so much, this wont change anything for them in the slightest. How this relates to what you are talking about is armor is a much larger part of a build then it was in GW1, with a few exceptions like 55 or 600. So having that option to load up armor that is saved to that build as well would be absolutely amazing.
But then again, I might be dreaming a bit too deep with that one.
That’s a real shame. Being able to switch traits on the fly now is the perfect opportunity to release a build manager. They could even sell build slot unlocks…
bad idea. just do what they did back in GW1. Have us save the builds to our computer.
Healing power is especially bad for the necromancer because their normal heals already do so much for them along with the fact they still can’t heal or be healed in DS its advantages are not real advantages. Since you can’t even steal life in Death shroud it hurts that much more.
I kinda feel like the necromancer should have an AOE pull much like the guardian has with their greatsword.
out of combat, mesmers are the least mobile profession. In combat necromancers are the least mobile profession. Although Guardian doesn’t have very good mobility in combat, they really don’t need it with how much barrier skills and invulnerability they have.
I’m hoping that necro gets torch before sword, personally. Some of the torch skins just scream necro (like Occultist’s Flame).
I say mace before sword. There are too many swords running around and not enough maces.
Which kind of adds to my point. I’m not necessarily against the idea of corpses as a mechanic, I just don’t really see the point to it. If, like you said, corpses are everywhere, then when does the corpse mechanic actually matter? It wouldn’t really change anything from how they work now.
I’m all for corpses if they have something tied to them, like Jagged Horror currently. Or, potentially, summoning minions with special features based on the corpse they were summoned from. I just personally find it bland to only use them as a resource, and not have any other impact. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with it, since as you said in most cases it’d work just fine, I just don’t see the point.
GW1 had such a interesting counter play with corpses. You wanted to use them up before competing necromancers used them. It was interesting. Diablo II hand multiple enemies that revived each other and summoning skeletons would destroy the corpse.
Minions don’t have good staying power. Not in PvE. Their impact is minimal at best and at worst they bug and remove your utility. The point is to give them staying power while preventing them from just dominating ever thing. Corpses are not hard to find in Dungeons however at the same time all the corpses will most likely be used in a single fight because of how fragile minions are. This makes the build very active and requires the player to pay attention.
And like anything in the game. The point is and always should be enjoyment. The biggest point I can make is it would be fun.
Although there is also the minion counter play idea that GW1 and Diablo II had. But that would require a lot more then just a suggestion about giving minions staying power and their recycled feel back.
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.
Again, only a few skills would require corpses. Another suggestion was on weapons. Personally, I would like a weapon that is dedicated to minions but can function on its own. A weapon we don’t yet have.
Using weapons to summon a minion would make it a bit like a mesmer using a weapon to summon a clone or a phantom – there is a bit of a overlapping machanic in there.
Jagged Horrors (with trait) in a sense do require corpses to summon.
I like Minionmancer too but I think we need to be a more creative here…
not all weapons. I’m not even suggesting changing any of the weapons we have to fit the minion play style. A new weapon that may or may not be given to us in the future should have this synergy with minions.
And there is already overlap in the game if you want to compare minions with illusions. Minions function far more like spirit weapons or turrets then illusions.
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.
actually MMs in GW1 were very capable of maintaining a good number of minions on a small number of corpses even with their natural health degen. The reason Minions were ever useless in some situations in GW1 was because a few select enemies didn’t leave corpses behind. This seriously limited their viability in all areas of the game.
However, considering GW2’s design it isn’t a stretch to think that corpses wouldn’t just be on fleshy creatures. We would have elementals, skeletons, ghosts, machines that could be summoned off of as well. And also removing the Degen restriction from gw1 the minions will be able to survive traveling(something that I found to be the biggest killer of minions in GW1).
To add, I don’t have any trouble finding corpses in dungeons. They seem to be plentiful with how many trash mobs are thrown at us. The only dungeon this might be a problem in is TA. But not all builds need to be good at 100% of the content, especially with the revamp of the trait system. And providing the skills can be swapped out at any time out of combat I don’t see any issue.
I know you enjoy minions as they are, Bawb. And I’m not suggesting to take away your play style with minions. My suggestion is only to expand on what could be done with minions.
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.
Again, only a few skills would require corpses. Another suggestion was on weapons. Personally, I would like a weapon that is dedicated to minions but can function on its own. A weapon we don’t yet have.
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.
See, I’m coming at this from a different angle. I think that having a few spamable minion skills would actually solve this problem in PvE. And Having evolving minions would only complicate things too much.
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 aboveSome 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.
See, I think requiring a FEW minion skills to use corpses would actually promote diversity rather then create an unfun restriction. GW1 required corpses for almost all of the minion skills and the Minion master was one of the most fun, challenging and engaging builds in the game. And I never said all minion skills requiring it.
…And stop with your kitten Pistol joke…
I know what you mean, and many people agree with that I guess , but they won’t remove minion skills to get more minions at once that are spammable, but if you think about the traitsystem, MM’s would be OP and dominant over everyone else, some people even claim us to be OP now at PvP..
+ Would lead to a nerf anyway :p
except the only spamable minion skills I suggested would require a corpse. So it wouldn’t be OP. Because it still would have a major restriction on it.
I never liked the way minions function in GW2. It just felt off to me when I first started, even though I imagined something similar when I was theory crafting about what GW2 might be like. But after some thought once I heard about all the nodes for crafting mats and loot being individual, I felt that the system implemented for minions in GW2 was unnecessary. It just felt hollow in its implication. A shadow of its former self.
Going off of what we have seen with node sharing in GW2, my first internal reaction to this was “OH! so Arena Net CAN have multiple minion masters summoning from the same corpse!” Oh how wrong I was. Despite that, I still hoped the Minions would be something interesting. Sadly, I still don’t see them as engaging as they were back in GW1.
We didn’t see too many Minion skills in GW1 that summoned minions without corpses, but one skill sticks in my mind when relating to GW2. Malign Intervention was an interesting hex that would summon a minion of your foe died before the hex ended. Although the minion was masterless and ultimately more trouble then it was worth, it did make for an interesting concept. After Fighting Loopy I couldn’t help but to be reminded of this skill once again. A debuff that knocked you down after a few seconds and spawned a maggot. Although an annoying skills, I felt that this would be in line with what the necromancer does and could be adapted for a necromancer skill that functions similarly.
More thinking about the minion master made me feel it should function differently then it currently does. Some minion skills, in my opinion, shouldn’t have a second skill. But rather be able to be spammed. This was one key feature that made the MM in GW1 so appealing. Although I wouldn’t suggest removing all the minions second skills. Such as Flesh golem or Shadow fiend. But the requirement for corpses is something I personally would like to see on a few minion skills. As well as alternative ways to summon minions outside of just popping them out of nothing.
Minions from Corpses, minions as a side effect from utility skills, Minions from weapon skills and even minions from minions I feel should all be considered for a recycling type of minion build. Rather then just the Minion Spam that feels only slightly more interactive then the GW1’s Spirit spammer.
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?
It really depends on the dungeon or fractal. In some areas they can be fairly helpful. Others, it doesn’t matter so much, such as Cof path one. For the most part we aren’t bad, just not great.
One area we actually shine in is the Volcanic Fractal. Once you get the hang of it a condition necromancer can make the fractal much easier with its condition spreading as well as its well of power to convert burning into aegis.
Once Unholy Sanctuary becomes available, some of our weaknesses should be softened. But the major problem of defense is still going to be an issue.
not my personal style at all. I wouldn’t put something like that on my necromancer. But if I had to choose, The first one. its a bit more cultist like. Seeing as they favor sexuality and death a bit more. The second suggests a bit more gypsy then necromancer.