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Are Minion Masters Passive builds?(Multi game perspective)


Lily.1935

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This is something I've been seeing people claim a lot lately. That Minions are Passive builds and are bad for gameplay. Now There are two points in that statement. Both of Which I don't entirely agree with but I'll only be discussing one of those points because that's the one that matters to me personally. Passive builds being bad for the game I'd argue isn't true as long as there are more viable active options, but that mostly just boils down to opinion. I didn't fault people for playing the 2 button back stab deadeye build that was almost as braindead as you can get and I wouldn't fault someone who wants to sit back and shoot fireballs or let their minions fight for them.

More I want to discuss this idea that Minions Masters are passive. And my perspective on this is, Well it depends. I've played a minion master build in every game that would let me and I have some wide experience with it. And the claim I see being thrown around just isn't true, but I can absolutely see why people feel that way. Some Games do create MMs where the player is quite passive while their minions do all the work. Grim Dawn I think would be a fantastic example of a Passive Minion master since the minions summoned have decent bulk, have quick reaction time, do a lot of damage and the support you provide are passive auras I think in that game its absolutely true minions are quite passive. When looking at one of the oldest, Diablo II, where part of this meme comes from I'd Argue they're not as passive as they appear. Minions in D2 are notoriously frail and require constant engagement from the player to summon more. Although I don't think its much better than Grim Dawn in the player's engagement with the environment it is much better.

In some cases Minion builds almost act like an RTS game within the game you're in. You can command your minions and pick specific minions to buff, kill, heal or what have you. It can be quite active in these cases but that's not the only way to get engagement with your minions. When looking at some examples of games that Have both fairly passive minion builds and very involved active builds Guild Wars 1 and Diablo III come to mind. We'll start with Diablo III as their are quite a few. We have several on the witch doctor which Use a snowball type moment Minion build in most situations and use other skills to modify the way those minions attack or how they deal damage. Its mostly that the Minion master acts as a support for her minions as opposed to Just existing and buffing them by being alive like in Grim dawn. The other Prominent builds very. Necromancer in D3 has several minion builds, one of them using a node dropped by enemies as a resource(corpses) and summons their army specifically so they can be attacked by the foes. They manipulate aggro in such a way to push them into striking your minions while Cursing foes as sort of a debuff support. Another build is the Singularity MM which engages with your Energy resource as well as the corpses on the ground in order to maintain a steady stream of some of the highest damaging minions in the game. The build is difficult to use and very very fragile and requires constant engagement from the user lest they be killed.

Going into Guild wars 1, Minion masters are some of the most unique as there are so many different ways to modify them and the gameplay is both slow enough and quick enough to see the results. Although an Aura of the Lich Minion master is a snowball type minion build which is fairly simple to use the more advanced builds such as Minion Bomber on Necromancer or on Ritualist are quite possibly the most challenging builds to use in the entire game, requiring absolute attention. You need to be aware of the field, your minions health, your ability to load your minions up with the right buffs, when to heal them and when to kill them. It was such a difficult task to do most players opted to just use the game's Hero mechanic and gave the role to an NPC. Very few dared try and play a minion bomber build because of how much it asked of the player to engage with.

When looking at all of this in relation to Guild Wars 2 its a bit of an odd argument to me. And one I feel does have merit depending on the game you're coming from or games you've played. And it also depends on if you've played the builds or not. From my perspective, in most games I've played the role of the Minion Master is almost that of a Cleric or Bard for their minions. That they often act as a strange kind of support playing a somewhat RTS mini game. Depending on the requirements of the game this will determine just how passive or active they are.

This is where Guild wars 2 begins to differ though from my other experiences. Rather than the necromancer using their skills to compliment the minions usability and acting as their support its the other way around. The minions are your support. Which has made them quite passive. And I do agree minions in GW2 have a bad habit of being quite passive. I don't think this is entirely a bad thing, but for my opinion on this discussion I prefer being the Active user who supports my Minions as opposed to the other way around. Minions are mostly just used for their utility in GW2 and many would say that these skills would be better if they were just on the necromancer and not attached to some minion. And I have to agree with that. I Don't want to agree with it because i have no desire to remove minions, always a vigilant advocate for minions. But I understand that perspective.

Now I get to the primary point of this discussion. I do agree that minions are quite passive in Guild Wars 2 specifically. But where I differ is I say they really don't have to be. Minions can be just as active and engaging as any other build and I personally feel that if an Elite spec were to go the rout of a Minion Master there is a whole host of design space available to them that would allow for deeper engagement. I'd argue that a Minion master elite spec could be a strange sort of Support spec and that it could compliment existing minion skills while also not requiring you take them, instead having skills that influence minion behavior putting the Minion master in that sort of Cleric/bard like role for your army.

As for improving engagement from a core necromancer perspective, well I made a whole post about that already which I'll link here. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/100887/summon-pet-builds-conflicts-and-solutions

But what do you guys think? Do you think Minions are doomed to forever be passive or are you like me and see some interesting potential for some explosive active play?

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  1. A rework to the current minions in both appearance, visuals in general and power.
  2. Give a weapon (Staff) a rework and have it be the defecto cat-herding weapon. Right now for Ranger is Axe man-hand that gives our animal companion specific ability commands or well "Added" commands. Its one of the few, I feel Pushing staff to be the minion stick would help it have a place while also benefiting necromancers minions. Besides what kind of MM doesn't use a stick? (Could do Dagger/dagger too)
  3. We would need added bonuses in the trait tree to be more impactful, such as for example perhaps one that makes it when a minion dies it does X. Which you could then build something around~
  4. Likely they could fold some minions into one another.. (bone-horrors/shambling horrors could be merged with the shade. both being replaced by something more ghastly.)
  5. Would need defenses for the caster based on minion type/amount.

These are all things it would require, ontop of that I Feel like they need a overhaul to the theme of being a summoner. But who am I kidding... they will just make an E-spec for guardian in which it does minions better than necromancers do~

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But what do you guys think? Do you think Minions are doomed to forever be passive or are you like me and see some interesting potential for some explosive active play?

I don't think GW2 necromancer's minions are designed to be passive, because they each have an active skill associated. Where it goes wrong is that some of those active skills clearly aren't worth using actively and the 4 traits associated to minions are all in favor of using them passively.

In an environment that would play into the passive strength of the minions, the current minions are 100% overpowered. (Un)Fortunately, such an environment does not exist in GW2. The fact that the closest environment where the minions can play into their passive strength is sPvP, is an issue in itself because players don't like to be destroyed by AI in PvP.

For me this is where it goes wrong, ANet push minions build toward a passive use of minions by rewarding such gameplay while an active use of them isn't necessarily rewarding. Or I should say that an active use of of minions in a minionmaster build isn't rewarding while the active use of minions into a non-minionmaster build can be rewarding. This is where there is a need to change things, a minionmaster should also feel rewarded when he actively use it's minions and non-minionmaster build shouldn't feel excluded from those 4 traits dedicated to the passive use of minions.

What need work:

  • Putrid explosion: Hand down the most unreliable skill in game, replace it by something like: Dark fury: sacrifice a minion. You, and up to 5 allies within 300 radius of you, gain 5 might (8s) and fury (3s).
  • Rigor mortis: The perfect example of an overly strong effect on the paper but incredibly useless in practice. This is a bone minion of a devourer, make it's active dig it's way toward the necromancer's target/or targeted area and then explode sending bone shrapnel that bleed foes within the radius.
  • Flesh of the master: Remove the extra health for minions, it's not needed. Make the minion's active skills grant 5 carapace stacks to the necromancer instead.
  • Necromantic corruption: Potentially the single strongest trait of the necromancer. It need change, more control on the necromancer's end and less overall potential. Keep the damage increase and condition drawing as passive, tie the condition transfer as a "when downed" effect.
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@"Dadnir.5038" said:

But what do you guys think? Do you think Minions are doomed to forever be passive or are you like me and see some interesting potential for some explosive active play?

I don't think GW2 necromancer's minions are designed to be passive, because they each have an active skill associated. Where it goes wrong is that some of those active skills clearly aren't worth using actively and the 4 traits associated to minions are all in favor of using them passively.

In an environment that would play into the passive strength of the minions, the current minions are 100% overpowered. (Un)Fortunately, such an environment does not exist in GW2. The fact that the closest environment where the minions can play into their passive strength is sPvP, is an issue in itself because players don't like to be destroyed by AI in PvP.

For me this is where it goes wrong, ANet push minions build toward a passive use of minions by rewarding such gameplay while an active use of them isn't necessarily rewarding. Or I should say that an active use of of minions in a minionmaster build isn't rewarding while the active use of minions into a non-minionmaster build can be rewarding. This is where there is a need to change things, a minionmaster should also feel rewarded when he actively use it's minions and non-minionmaster build shouldn't feel excluded from those 4 traits dedicated to the passive use of minions.

What need work:
  • Putrid explosion:
    Hand down the most unreliable skill in game, replace it by something like:
    Dark fury:
    sacrifice a minion. You, and up to 5 allies within 300 radius of you, gain 5 might (8s) and fury (3s).
  • Rigor mortis:
    The perfect example of an overly strong effect on the paper but incredibly useless in practice. This is a bone minion of a devourer, make it's active dig it's way toward the necromancer's target/or targeted area and then explode sending bone shrapnel that bleed foes within the radius.
  • Flesh of the master:
    Remove the extra health for minions, it's not needed. Make the minion's active skills grant 5 carapace stacks to the necromancer instead.
  • Necromantic corruption:
    Potentially the single strongest trait of the necromancer. It need change, more control on the necromancer's end and less overall potential. Keep the damage increase and condition drawing as passive, tie the condition transfer as a "when downed" effect.

I'd rather Carapace be used to buff the minions in some way than the master. I personally don't like just how bulky the Minion master is in GW2 with no investment. In no other game I've played was that the case.

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I'd run a minion build if Necro actually had any control over when and what they attack. Maybe it'd work better in content where mob encounters are more isolated like dungeons or fractals, but I don't imagine people running a minion build for that type of content. It's more for solo world content, but even then it's still frustrating due to the lack of control you have over your minions. I only ever use it during single mob world encounters where I need to be a little more tanky and have minions soak up some damage so I can solo it.

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@"Lily.1935" said:But what do you guys think? Do you think Minions are doomed to forever be passive or are you like me and see some interesting potential for some explosive active play?

Probably.

It'd take work for ANet.

ANet doesn't have the resources for work on old stuff.

Take a look at all classes and their trash utility skill lines to see, when many simply need a few number tweaks rather than an entire overhaul of their mechanics.

Minions could be more active. In theory. But in reality it just won't happen and is made even less likely to happen given that they're utility skills.

Since, something like that quest/heart in Domain of Vabbi where you control the Awakened mooks with a banner would be a functional way to bring about the "Minion Master" fantasy without minions being passive, giving a weapon set that tasks you with directing them and triggering their abilities.Or something like PSO2 which I've been playing a bit since it got a Western release, where the Summoner class uses their pets as their weapons, which is similar in a way to the aforementioned banner but with the ability to swap weapons to bring out a new pet that has new attacks.

The best I could see, is an E-Spec that replaces Shroud with "Minions" that you can then control with the new Shroud skills (Whether it'd be a transformation like Death Shroud/Reaper Shroud or a set of independent F skills like Scourge is up to what ANet deems most suitable). Which could happen because it would be creating something new, which ANet can justify working on.

But in this case the actual "Minion" utilities will still be mostly passive where you just use Shadow Fiend's active every 20s and Flesh Golem's active every 40s and never use Bone Fiend's active or Bone Minion's active because they're not worth using. Of course, Flesh Wurm exists in a state where it's ONLY good for its active, because its a terrible minion but provides a nifty bit of mobility for Necro in PvP.

(It's worth noting, that the suggestion about having Bone Minions respawn on timers to replicate how Mantra charges work would make using Bone Minion's active worthwhile. Bone Fiend's active just plain sucks though)

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@Viger.1347 said:I'd run a minion build if Necro actually had any control over when and what they attack. Maybe it'd work better in content where mob encounters are more isolated like dungeons or fractals, but I don't imagine people running a minion build for that type of content. It's more for solo world content, but even then it's still frustrating due to the lack of control you have over your minions. I only ever use it during single mob world encounters where I need to be a little more tanky and have minions soak up some damage so I can solo it.

The necromancer do have control over when and what it's minions attack. The only think it does not have is a way to make them stop attacking.

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@"Lily.1935" said:[...]As for improving engagement from a core necromancer perspective, well I made a whole post about that already which I'll link here. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/100887/summon-pet-builds-conflicts-and-solutions

But what do you guys think? Do you think Minions are doomed to forever be passive or are you like me and see some interesting potential for some explosive active play?

First of all, I do think your thoughts are valid. However, I feel like you're asking or wishing for two different things. You'd like Minionmancers to be more active. But you'd like to play a pet-zoo style Minion Master in contrast to someone who maybe just utilizes other entities temporarily. To me, those two are quite significantly distinct topics.

When talking about the Master as an active 'Nurturer' of its Minions I see a systematic issues with GW2 game mechanics. In PvE the aggro system is problematic when designing interesting AI mechanics. Pets would have to able to bind mobs or even environmental objects to them to make this playstyle possible unless you just aim to flood your foes with pets. So a low hanging fruit might be having a Minion with a taunt. It could work for OW/solo. It probably still won't work well for group content, at least pathing and navigtion will still remain problematic. And this is not an GW2 exclusive issue. Personally, I've never experienced a multiplayer game or even MMO that has a pet class with durable or permanent pets where the role as a pet master actually mattered in group content. In group content, the role mostly shifts to party support (e.g. Lore-master in LotR) or tank (e.g. pet-classes in DAoC). I've rarely seen viable offensive builds and considering Death Magic is more about defense, let's not go down that road too far. Unfortunately, looking at Death Magic, Necros as Minionmancers are neither set up for group support nor tanking in a group - at least not in the sense of letting your pets tank. [Enter Jennifer Coolidge: Waiiiit a minute ... the supportive stuff kinda sounds like something Scourge can already do... :# . I wonder why nobody decides to play an active Sourge-Minionmancer... /s] Those issues only get worse when talking PvP. But maybe most importantly: Necormancers are no innate pet class. It's not their class mechanic. It is not. I can't stress this point enough. People need to wrap their head around it. It probably won't change! This heavily limits what can be done with this specific playstyle because Necromancers won't have any skills to directly interact with their pets nor to command them in an adanced way. And to be fair: Not even Rangers can get much further than solo pew pew Bowbear.

I do believe current Minionmancers are rather passive due to two quite simple reasons and Dadnir mentioned both of them. Available traits encourage keeping them alive and being passive while the active skills don't measure up to the passive effects. Right now, they basically work like Signets with AI as vehicle for the effect. Of course, skills and traits can and could extensively be reworked to overcome those issues. But when building on what we've got, having a zoo type build will probably never be active due to mechanic reasons and most certainly not efficient enough for group content unless you bloat their numbers. It is more realistic to remove passive traits and buff active effects. Or at least rework Minion centered effects to affect 'allies' so it can be transferred to group content. It could even go as far as we've seen with Spirit Weapons. So yes, I do believe that Minionmasters or Summoners could become more active in GW2. However, I don't believe this would go hand-in-hand with a type of build you seem to enjoy.

I'm not so sure how your link contributes to active gameplay. I mainly see buffs and a bandaid how to counter strong pets in PvP?

@"Thornwolf.9721" said:

  1. A rework to the current minions in both appearance, visuals in general and power.
  2. Give a weapon (Staff) a rework and have it be the defecto cat-herding weapon. Right now for Ranger is Axe man-hand that gives our animal companion specific ability commands or well "Added" commands. Its one of the few, I feel Pushing staff to be the minion stick would help it have a place while also benefiting necromancers minions. Besides what kind of MM doesn't use a stick? (Could do Dagger/dagger too)
  3. We would need added bonuses in the trait tree to be more impactful, such as for example perhaps one that makes it when a minion dies it does X. Which you could then build something around~
  4. Likely they could fold some minions into one another.. (bone-horrors/shambling horrors could be merged with the shade. both being replaced by something more ghastly.)
  5. Would need defenses for the caster based on minion type/amount.

These are all things it would require, ontop of that I Feel like they need a overhaul to the theme of being a summoner. But who am I kidding... they will just make an E-spec for guardian in which it does minions better than necromancers do~

To 1: Personally, I never liked their appearance. But some people do. So not really an issue, isn't it?To 2: All Ranger weapons have at least 1 such skill, not just Axe. Because pets are their class mechanic. Not the case for Necro.To 3: No more Minion traits, please. The amount of traits attributed to just one single Utility group is already unparalleled. We don't need more, we need less. Even after the rework of Death magic. We still got Death Nova. And there is a reason why similar traits were removed from Mesmers.To 4: That's basically just a buff. Not that I'm generally opposed... but what's your specific point here?To 5: Like... Flesh of the Master? Not a fan... doesn't necessarily require active gameplay and people are already complaining about double shatter clutter...

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Yup, it is a passive playstyle that's bad for the game, especially seeing how -from what I remember- you'd want to build tanky and your proposed change from recent post in another thread boils down to "spawn more minoins and with less delay".Also minion builds are already viable in most of the content available in gw2 and wanting them to be on par with meta builds isn't reasonable for me.

In some cases Minion builds almost act like an RTS game within the game you're in.

I also by far can't agree with this comparison. Most complaints I've seen are based on people wanting more minions with less downtime and more dmg output so the player can focus strictly on surviving by building tanky, standing back or running around (around the point, in case of pvp mode) while the minions swarm and slap their opponents. Comparing this to "rts playstyle" feels like giving it a biiit too much undeserved praise.

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@Xaylin.1860 said:

@"Lily.1935" said:[...]As for improving engagement from a core necromancer perspective, well I made a whole post about that already which I'll link here.

But what do you guys think? Do you think Minions are doomed to forever be passive or are you like me and see some interesting potential for some explosive active play?

First of all, I do think your thoughts are valid. However, I feel like you're asking or wishing for two different things. You'd like Minionmancers to be more active. But you'd like to play a pet-zoo style Minion Master in contrast to someone who maybe just utilizes other entities temporarily. To me, those two are quite significantly distinct topics.

When talking about the Master as an active 'Nurturer' of its Minions I see a systematic issues with GW2 game mechanics. In PvE the aggro system is problematic when designing interesting AI mechanics. Pets would have to able to bind mobs or even environmental objects to them to make this playstyle possible unless you just aim to flood your foes with pets. So a low hanging fruit might be having a Minion with a taunt. It could work for OW/solo. It probably still won't work well for group content, at least pathing and navigtion will still remain problematic. And this is not an GW2 exclusive issue. Personally, I've never experienced a multiplayer game or even MMO that has a pet class with durable or permanent pets where the role as a pet master actually mattered in group content. In group content, the role mostly shifts to party support (e.g. Lore-master in LotR) or tank (e.g. pet-classes in DAoC). I've rarely seen viable offensive builds and considering Death Magic is more about defense, let's not go down that road too far. Unfortunately, looking at Death Magic, Necros as Minionmancers are neither set up for group support nor tanking in a group - at least not in the sense of letting your pets tank. [Enter Jennifer Coolidge: Waiiiit a minute ... the supportive stuff kinda sounds like something Scourge can already do... :# . I wonder why nobody decides to play an active Sourge-Minionmancer... /s] Those issues only get worse when talking PvP. But maybe most importantly: Necormancers are
no
innate pet class. It's not their class mechanic. It is not. I can't stress this point enough. People need to wrap their head around it. It probably won't change! This heavily limits what can be done with this specific playstyle because Necromancers won't have any skills to directly interact with their pets nor to command them in an adanced way. And to be fair: Not even Rangers can get much further than solo pew pew Bowbear.

I do believe current Minionmancers are rather passive due to two quite simple reasons and Dadnir mentioned both of them. Available traits encourage keeping them alive and being passive while the active skills don't measure up to the passive effects. Right now, they basically work like Signets with AI as vehicle for the effect. Of course, skills and traits can and could extensively be reworked to overcome those issues. But when building on what we've got, having a zoo type build will probably never be active due to mechanic reasons and most certainly not efficient enough for group content unless you bloat their numbers. It is more realistic to remove passive traits and buff active effects. Or at least rework Minion centered effects to affect 'allies' so it can be transferred to group content. It could even go as far as we've seen with Spirit Weapons. So yes, I do believe that Minionmasters or Summoners could become more active in GW2. However, I don't believe this would go hand-in-hand with a type of build you seem to enjoy.

I'm not so sure how your link contributes to active gameplay. I mainly see buffs and a bandaid how to counter strong pets in PvP?

@"Thornwolf.9721" said:
  1. A rework to the current minions in both appearance, visuals in general and power.
  2. Give a weapon (Staff) a rework and have it be the defecto cat-herding weapon. Right now for Ranger is Axe man-hand that gives our animal companion specific ability commands or well "Added" commands. Its one of the few, I feel Pushing staff to be the minion stick would help it have a place while also benefiting necromancers minions. Besides what kind of MM doesn't use a stick? (Could do Dagger/dagger too)
  3. We would need added bonuses in the trait tree to be more impactful, such as for example perhaps one that makes it when a minion dies it does X. Which you could then build something around~
  4. Likely they could fold some minions into one another.. (bone-horrors/shambling horrors could be merged with the shade. both being replaced by something more ghastly.)
  5. Would need defenses for the caster based on minion type/amount.

These are all things it would require, ontop of that I Feel like they need a overhaul to the theme of being a summoner. But who am I kidding... they will just make an E-spec for guardian in which it does minions better than necromancers do~

To 1: Personally, I never liked their appearance. But some people do. So not really an issue, isn't it?To 2:
All
Ranger weapons have at least 1 such skill, not just Axe. Because pets are their class mechanic. Not the case for Necro.To 3: No more Minion traits, please. The amount of traits attributed to just one single Utility group is already unparalleled. We don't need more, we need less. Even after the rework of Death magic. We still got Death Nova. And there is a reason why similar traits were removed from Mesmers.To 4: That's basically just a buff. Not that I'm generally opposed... but what's your specific point here?To 5: Like... Flesh of the Master? Not a fan... doesn't necessarily require active gameplay and people are already complaining about double shatter clutter...

I used my previous threat as a baseline for what could be done to make them more active. As for permanent minions? Well, I never made the claim that was a requirement for a good minion build. In fact I never spoke of it in this thread at all. I was comparing the MM across games. The MM I personally find most useful to a group is actually the guild wars 1 Minion master. If you haven't played it I'd highly recommend it. Those minions are not permanent. Their life is on a timer. They degenerate over time but they are exceptionally bulky having comparable health and armor to a paragon in that game. And their damage is decent too. Their flaw is the health degen and the fact that they show no fear from aoe which can lead to them being whipped out. Still, fantastic build and would recommend playing it if you get the chance.

Guild wars 2 would need a different approach due to its systems. I've suggested both the Deathcap and Diabolist in the past which give the player direct control over specific minions that are summoned using life force as well as utility skills which buff minions in some way. Those minions actually did have health degradation. So they weren't permanent and the intention of my design was to allow for a more hard hitting striker type minion master whose active and involved with combat as well as a zerger for the players who enjoyed that. Me I want to play the striker type.

I think one of the biggest things for minions is getting them where they need to be. So some means to teleport them I feel is necessary in some capacity. That or super speed.

Oh and Minion Masters used to be Meta in GW2. It wasn't what I prefer because the cleric or bard for the minions wasn't you it was the druid and Chronomancer at the time. You just made them. But that was nerfed into oblivion. It was actually extremely good. It was meta in Fractals and raids. It needed to be nerfed... But anet killed it instead.

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@Lily.1935 said:

@Lily.1935 said:[...]As for improving engagement from a core necromancer perspective, well I made a whole post about that already which I'll link here.

But what do you guys think? Do you think Minions are doomed to forever be passive or are you like me and see some interesting potential for some explosive active play?

First of all, I do think your thoughts are valid. However, I feel like you're asking or wishing for two different things. You'd like Minionmancers to be more active. But you'd like to play a pet-zoo style Minion Master in contrast to someone who maybe just utilizes other entities temporarily. To me, those two are quite significantly distinct topics.

When talking about the Master as an active 'Nurturer' of its Minions I see a systematic issues with GW2 game mechanics. In PvE the aggro system is problematic when designing interesting AI mechanics. Pets would have to able to bind mobs or even environmental objects to them to make this playstyle possible unless you just aim to flood your foes with pets. So a low hanging fruit might be having a Minion with a taunt. It could work for OW/solo. It probably still won't work well for group content, at least pathing and navigtion will still remain problematic. And this is not an GW2 exclusive issue. Personally, I've never experienced a multiplayer game or even MMO that has a pet class with durable or permanent pets where the role as a pet master actually mattered in group content. In group content, the role mostly shifts to party support (e.g. Lore-master in LotR) or tank (e.g. pet-classes in DAoC). I've rarely seen viable offensive builds and considering Death Magic is more about defense, let's not go down that road too far. Unfortunately, looking at Death Magic, Necros as Minionmancers are neither set up for group support nor tanking in a group - at least not in the sense of letting your pets tank. [Enter Jennifer Coolidge: Waiiiit a minute ... the supportive stuff kinda sounds like something Scourge can already do... :# . I wonder why nobody decides to play an active Sourge-Minionmancer... /s] Those issues only get worse when talking PvP. But maybe most importantly: Necormancers are
no
innate pet class. It's not their class mechanic. It is not. I can't stress this point enough. People need to wrap their head around it. It probably won't change! This heavily limits what can be done with this specific playstyle because Necromancers won't have any skills to directly interact with their pets nor to command them in an adanced way. And to be fair: Not even Rangers can get much further than solo pew pew Bowbear.

I do believe current Minionmancers are rather passive due to two quite simple reasons and Dadnir mentioned both of them. Available traits encourage keeping them alive and being passive while the active skills don't measure up to the passive effects. Right now, they basically work like Signets with AI as vehicle for the effect. Of course, skills and traits can and could extensively be reworked to overcome those issues. But when building on what we've got, having a zoo type build will probably never be active due to mechanic reasons and most certainly not efficient enough for group content unless you bloat their numbers. It is more realistic to remove passive traits and buff active effects. Or at least rework Minion centered effects to affect 'allies' so it can be transferred to group content. It could even go as far as we've seen with Spirit Weapons. So yes, I do believe that Minionmasters or Summoners could become more active in GW2. However, I don't believe this would go hand-in-hand with a type of build you seem to enjoy.

I'm not so sure how your link contributes to active gameplay. I mainly see buffs and a bandaid how to counter strong pets in PvP?

@"Thornwolf.9721" said:
  1. A rework to the current minions in both appearance, visuals in general and power.
  2. Give a weapon (Staff) a rework and have it be the defecto cat-herding weapon. Right now for Ranger is Axe man-hand that gives our animal companion specific ability commands or well "Added" commands. Its one of the few, I feel Pushing staff to be the minion stick would help it have a place while also benefiting necromancers minions. Besides what kind of MM doesn't use a stick? (Could do Dagger/dagger too)
  3. We would need added bonuses in the trait tree to be more impactful, such as for example perhaps one that makes it when a minion dies it does X. Which you could then build something around~
  4. Likely they could fold some minions into one another.. (bone-horrors/shambling horrors could be merged with the shade. both being replaced by something more ghastly.)
  5. Would need defenses for the caster based on minion type/amount.

These are all things it would require, ontop of that I Feel like they need a overhaul to the theme of being a summoner. But who am I kidding... they will just make an E-spec for guardian in which it does minions better than necromancers do~

To 1: Personally, I never liked their appearance. But some people do. So not really an issue, isn't it?To 2:
All
Ranger weapons have at least 1 such skill, not just Axe. Because pets are their class mechanic. Not the case for Necro.To 3: No more Minion traits, please. The amount of traits attributed to just one single Utility group is already unparalleled. We don't need more, we need less. Even after the rework of Death magic. We still got Death Nova. And there is a reason why similar traits were removed from Mesmers.To 4: That's basically just a buff. Not that I'm generally opposed... but what's your specific point here?To 5: Like... Flesh of the Master? Not a fan... doesn't necessarily require active gameplay and people are already complaining about double shatter clutter...

Oh and Minion Masters used to be Meta in GW2. It wasn't what I prefer because the cleric or bard for the minions wasn't you it was the druid and Chronomancer at the time. You just made them. But that was nerfed into oblivion. It was actually extremely good. It was meta in Fractals and raids. It needed to be nerfed... But anet killed it instead.

How could they kill it if the build isn't dead? It's just not meta and it shouldn't be.

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Please don't bring minion mancers to WvW. Same thing with PvP. In competitive you will get nuked down pretty quick, because your weakness is your minions, once dead, you die because all your utilities and elite is spent. I will say its fine for PvE content, but competative, gtkitten-o.

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@Xaylin.1860 said:

@"Lily.1935" said:[...]As for improving engagement from a core necromancer perspective, well I made a whole post about that already which I'll link here.

But what do you guys think? Do you think Minions are doomed to forever be passive or are you like me and see some interesting potential for some explosive active play?

First of all, I do think your thoughts are valid. However, I feel like you're asking or wishing for two different things. You'd like Minionmancers to be more active. But you'd like to play a pet-zoo style Minion Master in contrast to someone who maybe just utilizes other entities temporarily. To me, those two are quite significantly distinct topics.

When talking about the Master as an active 'Nurturer' of its Minions I see a systematic issues with GW2 game mechanics. In PvE the aggro system is problematic when designing interesting AI mechanics. Pets would have to able to bind mobs or even environmental objects to them to make this playstyle possible unless you just aim to flood your foes with pets. So a low hanging fruit might be having a Minion with a taunt. It could work for OW/solo. It probably still won't work well for group content, at least pathing and navigtion will still remain problematic. And this is not an GW2 exclusive issue. Personally, I've never experienced a multiplayer game or even MMO that has a pet class with durable or permanent pets where the role as a pet master actually mattered in group content. In group content, the role mostly shifts to party support (e.g. Lore-master in LotR) or tank (e.g. pet-classes in DAoC). I've rarely seen viable offensive builds and considering Death Magic is more about defense, let's not go down that road too far. Unfortunately, looking at Death Magic, Necros as Minionmancers are neither set up for group support nor tanking in a group - at least not in the sense of letting your pets tank. [Enter Jennifer Coolidge: Waiiiit a minute ... the supportive stuff kinda sounds like something Scourge can already do... :# . I wonder why nobody decides to play an active Sourge-Minionmancer... /s] Those issues only get worse when talking PvP. But maybe most importantly: Necormancers are
no
innate pet class. It's not their class mechanic. It is not. I can't stress this point enough. People need to wrap their head around it. It probably won't change! This heavily limits what can be done with this specific playstyle because Necromancers won't have any skills to directly interact with their pets nor to command them in an adanced way. And to be fair: Not even Rangers can get much further than solo pew pew Bowbear.

I do believe current Minionmancers are rather passive due to two quite simple reasons and Dadnir mentioned both of them. Available traits encourage keeping them alive and being passive while the active skills don't measure up to the passive effects. Right now, they basically work like Signets with AI as vehicle for the effect. Of course, skills and traits can and could extensively be reworked to overcome those issues. But when building on what we've got, having a zoo type build will probably never be active due to mechanic reasons and most certainly not efficient enough for group content unless you bloat their numbers. It is more realistic to remove passive traits and buff active effects. Or at least rework Minion centered effects to affect 'allies' so it can be transferred to group content. It could even go as far as we've seen with Spirit Weapons. So yes, I do believe that Minionmasters or Summoners could become more active in GW2. However, I don't believe this would go hand-in-hand with a type of build you seem to enjoy.

I'm not so sure how your link contributes to active gameplay. I mainly see buffs and a bandaid how to counter strong pets in PvP?

@"Thornwolf.9721" said:
  1. A rework to the current minions in both appearance, visuals in general and power.
  2. Give a weapon (Staff) a rework and have it be the defecto cat-herding weapon. Right now for Ranger is Axe man-hand that gives our animal companion specific ability commands or well "Added" commands. Its one of the few, I feel Pushing staff to be the minion stick would help it have a place while also benefiting necromancers minions. Besides what kind of MM doesn't use a stick? (Could do Dagger/dagger too)
  3. We would need added bonuses in the trait tree to be more impactful, such as for example perhaps one that makes it when a minion dies it does X. Which you could then build something around~
  4. Likely they could fold some minions into one another.. (bone-horrors/shambling horrors could be merged with the shade. both being replaced by something more ghastly.)
  5. Would need defenses for the caster based on minion type/amount.

These are all things it would require, ontop of that I Feel like they need a overhaul to the theme of being a summoner. But who am I kidding... they will just make an E-spec for guardian in which it does minions better than necromancers do~

To 1: Personally, I never liked their appearance. But some people do. So not really an issue, isn't it?Wont play them because they look stupid, guild wars 2 is all about appearences. If they look stupid ontop of being clunky, and having little use then why bother? I mean really my condi-rev loves minion-mancers because its free bags. Minions both look/are a joke right now. Could be removed, likely wouldn't even effect anyone other than those of us who like the "idea" of a minion-mancer. Which I do. I mained one for a long time in guild wars 1.To 2:
All
Ranger weapons have at least 1 such skill, not just Axe. Because pets are their class mechanic. Not the case for Necro.Alright, bet. Change the class mechanic at core to be around minions, remove death shroud and make the shroud unique to reaper/whatever other E-spec shows up? I mean they clearly aren't afraid to dink with the mechanics of a class as they do it all the time with Rev/Warrior/Ranger (Soulbeast in particular is a good example.)To 3: No more Minion traits, please. The amount of traits attributed to just one single Utility group is already unparalleled. We don't need more, we need less. Even after the rework of Death magic. We still got Death Nova. And there is a reason why similar traits were removed from Mesmers.In my mind death-magic should be all about minions. It should NOT be about shroud as I feel like Soul-reaping is there for that, I also feel like Carapace should be a baseline thing for necromancer since they lack mobility. If you lack mobility than typically you go for sustain and thats the trade off that is made for the class as a whole, ele's and messmers are faster but we are the tanky casters.To 4: That's basically just a buff. Not that I'm generally opposed... but what's your specific point here?Point is some minions just lack a reason to exist, they simply do not on their own offer enough incentive to bring. The bone horrors are primarily a good example, little rats you can detonate but really aren't that useful. The Scorpion is another, you never really see it in any real format and could be rolled into the shade/flesh-wurm and their effects given over to them to make the minions that do get used better. Then they could replaced with something more useful.To 5: Like... Flesh of the Master? Not a fan... doesn't necessarily require active gameplay and people are already complaining about double shatter clutter...People QQ about everything, I honestly think the argument for active/passive gameplay is mute. Passive skill effects/traits exist on EVERY class except a few and even then there are utilities that provided passives. Either remove all passive/anything not active and make it twitch reflex based gameplay, or allow there to be variations and offer more if one decides to go down a path. By not doing so or giving compensation for choosing minions all they are doing is gimping what could be; Minions will never be good until they give more to the caster and offer more in terms of combat. Fewer minions to choose from (Two corporeal minions to summon, then two spirits to have do specific tasks) Could be a good way. Make the spirits like Kalla's summons and then make the minions a not so powerful version of rangers pet, perhaps find a way to actually make it more tied into the profession because honestly right now they feel tacked on.

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I think minions will remain as they are because there are several complications hindering any growth and rework.

Minions have a very low skill threshold for their base value. New players can pick all three traits in Death Magic and a full bar of "pets" with limited control and the minions will both defend the player by pulling aggro and provide a good base rate of damage. Any increase in dps will have to come from the player character rather than minions.

The experience and skill needed to make the most out of these sometimes wayward pets is a long path. Experienced players will recognize that...

  • traits in Death Magic are not all necessary or always beneficial,
  • minions have active skills to use so use them,
  • minions are each unique in their capability and a build may use only a single minion to acquire that capability,
  • players can actually support their minions rather than let them die by taking a more aggressive role in their management, including healing them.

Another point about minions is they also do not have much of a reward in terms of dps for skilled players. Minion skills are generally conditions and control effects so using their active skills does little to scale dps up. An Ele trying out a Necro MM may wonder, "What even is this?" when attempting to find a rotation.

Then there is the Ranger profession with its own pet that is supposed to be intentionally more controllable than Necro. Necro has more minions that can be out at the same time but Ranger pets have to be stronger and more controllable. That profession design requirement is a big deal.

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@"Anchoku.8142" said:I think minions will remain as they are because there are several complications hindering any growth and rework.

Minions have a very low skill threshold for their base value. New players can pick all three traits in Death Magic and a full bar of "pets" with limited control and the minions will both defend the player by pulling aggro and provide a good base rate of damage. Any increase in dps will have to come from the player character rather than minions.

The experience and skill needed to make the most out of these sometimes wayward pets is a long path. Experienced players will recognize that...

  • traits in Death Magic are not all necessary or always beneficial,
  • minions have active skills to use so use them,
  • minions are each unique in their capability and a build may use only a single minion to acquire that capability,
  • players can actually support and their minions rather than let them die by taking a more aggressive role in their management, including healing them.

Another point about minions is they also do not have much of a reward in terms of dps for skilled players. Minion skills are generally conditions and control effects so using their active skills does little to scale dps up. An Ele trying out a Necro MM may wonder, "What even is this?" when attempting to find a rotation.

Then there is the Ranger profession with its own pet that is supposed to be intentionally more controllable than Necro. Necro has more minions that can be out at the same time but Ranger pets have to be stronger and more controllable. That profession design requirement is a big deal.

I don't think they really are doomed to be so inactive. And the player can take a more involved role in their minions in GW2's engine today. The issue is that we don't have the means to do that. At the moment minions are used for either their utility or their passive benefits but not as an active part of the player's bar. Flesh golem and Shadow Fiend are used in raids for their respective utility. Charge does massive breakbar damage while haunt gives life force to the necromancer. Frequently used on Reaper as well as on scourge due to its relatively decent life force generation without interrupting your actions. Blood Fiend is exclusively used on Reaper because its minor increase in damage and the reaper rarely needs to pop their heal due to the healing they get from blood fiend, soul eater and their allied healers. Those are the ones that see use there.

As for the others, Flesh Wurm is used in specific situations in PvE, though very rare, and in PvP and WvW as a means of escape. For that purpose Flesh wurm is probably the most active in its use but also not the greatest at it due to its long cast time. For Bone fiend it lacks the punch they would need and activating their utility doesn't really give you enough engagement with the minion. Last we have Bone Minions for Minion skills, which ask the players to destroy them, but in doing so you can get a burst of damage which is a bit more involved because you have to be aware of where they are before using the skill, but at the same time it lags because once you've used both of them you don't have their bodies for the minion traits plus you have to resummon them. Bone minions are used occasionally in specific situations for their life force where there's a lot of down time, but not much else.

Other Minions exist as well. Jagged Horrors which are not tied to a skill anymore spawn on enemy death which is still quite passive and we also have shambling horrors which are defensive in nature. Lastly we have Unstable horrors which was added sometime after the Jagged horror nerf that do quite a sizable chunk of damage but their limited life span does no favors for the user in a minion build. This issues with these minions is you have even less control over them than you do with your minion skills. And in spite of their Limited life span, controlling how and when they die is nearly an insurmountable task.

How could this be solved though? Well, there's a few ways. One such method which I've heard from other people is having an existing weapon the necromancer has being converted into the Minion weapon. Staff being a popular choice although I personally feel Warhorn or Focus could also do the trick or have some minor abilities to be granted for minions or perhaps summon them. How I'd personally go about that though is if I was to give it to say staff, Staff wouldn't require minions to be useful but be a support weapon first and aid minions as a part of its kit but not be its primary focus. For Focus I'm not sure, I think it would be interesting if it could damage foes and call them to a location or even spawn an unstable horror or two for a bomber type build. And for Warhorn I might offer up their Locus swarm also give the buff to minions while granting them super speed. But that's just some ideas.

The other solution which doesn't need to be separate is the introduction of an Elite specialization that would completely change out life force mechanic and shroud into these sort of utility skills for minions with the first skill summoning minions that are more directable than the current ones with utility skills that provide support for minions and allies alike, giving players a more hands on approach to playing a minion master.

The solution doesn't need to exist within the Minion skills themselves, but can come from outside. The introductory minion build we see all the time in open world can still exist along side a more advanced minion build which works in end game content but is difficult to get a hang of. My personal thoughts on that are a Player using an open world minion build and seeing an end game minion build and working to learning the more complex build would be a good thing for their engagement. I like the idea of as a player grows and learns with the game they get to grow and learn their playstyle in new ways.

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^Proposing to suddenly turn a whole weapon to be connected to and dependant on a single group of utility skills (and at the same time making that utility skill group dependant on a single weapon) isn't exactly reasonable and doesn't support build diversity. Forcing it into "being a support for your minions" only furthers the issue of being overly safe and running away/around while minions keep dealing passive dmg for the player. You're trying to make minionmancer into a literal one-man army/squad and it doesn't make much sense here.Leave that kitten in h'n's games.

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It would be nice if...

  • using minions was somehow more complicated so that
  • dps is more dependent on minion use

However, the amount of profession rework and rebalancing makes it unlikely and there are problems with core Necro that I consider higher priority.

Maybe we should dust off one of those old profession rework threads or create a new one and poll the community on issues and their priority. Reaper and Scourge addressed two huge problems with core but Core's limitations still disappoint.

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@Lily.1935 said:I used my previous threat as a baseline for what could be done to make them more active. As for permanent minions? Well, I never made the claim that was a requirement for a good minion build. In fact I never spoke of it in this thread at all. I was comparing the MM across games. The MM I personally find most useful to a group is actually the guild wars 1 Minion master. If you haven't played it I'd highly recommend it. Those minions are not permanent. Their life is on a timer. They degenerate over time but they are exceptionally bulky having comparable health and armor to a paragon in that game. And their damage is decent too. Their flaw is the health degen and the fact that they show no fear from aoe which can lead to them being kitten out. Still, fantastic build and would recommend playing it if you get the chance.

Well, since I didn't play it it is hard for me to know how Necromancer Minions worked but then. In the videos I've just skipped through it mainly looks like you're swarming enemies with a horde of Minions with occassional heals. So yeah, probably more active then GW2 MM passively camping for materials. But that's hardly an active build. Also, how would you not consider those Minions not permanent? Sure... degrading health and all. But it does look like you can basically keep them alive with some healing anyway. Personally, I imagine something different when talking about playing an active Minion class. Regardless wether I do like it or not: Couldn't you do anything similar with Scourge already? Not talking meta. But the playstyle is somewhat available if you chose to.

If I am wrong, please just guide me towards some videos. It's hard to know without ever having played GW1.

@Lily.1935 said:Guild wars 2 would need a different approach due to its systems. I've suggested both the Deathcap and Diabolist in the past which give the player direct control over specific minions that are summoned using life force as well as utility skills which buff minions in some way.

Okay... but then we're talking about Elites. Of course, this is a way to implement more Minions. Maybe the only realistic one when expecting deeper gameplay than we currently have. However, I'm still not sure how realistic it is due to several reasons. Two of the probably more important ones:

  • ANet hasn't succeeded in implementing interesting AI Utility skills yet and keeps struggling
  • What would happen with baseline Minions if Necromancers got a Minion centered Elite?

@Lily.1935 said:Oh and Minion Masters used to be Meta in GW2. It wasn't what I prefer because the cleric or bard for the minions wasn't you it was the druid and Chronomancer at the time. You just made them. But that was nerfed into oblivion. It was actually extremely good. It was meta in Fractals and raids. It needed to be nerfed... But anet killed it instead.

Something being meta isn't really a qualifier for anything, is it? And it hardly was very active or intricate to play either. It just was strong numberswise.

@Thornwolf.9721 said:Wont play them because they look stupid, guild wars 2 is all about appearences. If they look stupid ontop of being clunky, and having little use then why bother? I mean really my condi-rev loves minion-mancers because its free bags. Minions both look/are a joke right now. Could be removed, likely wouldn't even effect anyone other than those of us who like the "idea" of a minion-mancer. Which I do. I mained one for a long time in guild wars 1.

That's fine and as I said I don't like them either. But some people do. And yes, cosmetics are important. But you rarely can please everyone. I just don't see ANet investing time and resources in such a change. The benefit for the game and - of course - financial performance just isn't there.

@Thornwolf.9721 said:Alright, bet. Change the class mechanic at core to be around minions, remove death shroud and make the shroud unique to reaper/whatever other E-spec shows up? I mean they clearly aren't afraid to dink with the mechanics of a class as they do it all the time with Rev/Warrior/Ranger (Soulbeast in particular is a good example.)

This is how it could work. But again... why would they do that? They could add a Minion Elite. But then it would still not be their main mechanic. And again: They can't always please everybody. Many people like the Shroud. Some people might want Spirit Minions. Others Skeletons. Yadda yadda. I'm afraid current Necro is what you get and even an Elite spec can't change everything about that.

@Thornwolf.9721 said:In my mind death-magic should be all about minions. It should NOT be about shroud as I feel like Soul-reaping is there for that, I also feel like Carapace should be a baseline thing for necromancer since they lack mobility. If you lack mobility than typically you go for sustain and thats the trade off that is made for the class as a whole, ele's and messmers are faster but we are the tanky casters.

There is absolutely no class that has a whole traitline dedicated to one Utility group. Why should Necromancer be any different? Dedicating Death Magic to one Utility group basically kills it for any other set up. That's horrible design when looking at how the traitsystem in GW2 actually works.

I also don't really get why Carapace should be baseline. The defense you're asking for is baseline Shroud...

@Thornwolf.9721 said:People QQ about everything, I honestly think the argument for active/passive gameplay is mute. Passive skill effects/traits exist on EVERY class except a few and even then there are utilities that provided passives.

Of course, people do. And of course, there are some passive effects on other classes. Warrior is the prime example. Still, Minionmancer is probably the main offender of just standing around and not dying anyway. And while it's less successful in PvP because people can outplay Minions, they are still pretty sturdy. Even if you disagreed, playing against passive effects is no fun and I would rather not have more in the game.

@Thornwolf.9721 said:Minions will never be good until they give more to the caster and offer more in terms of combat. Fewer minions to choose from (Two corporeal minions to summon, then two spirits to have do specific tasks) Could be a good way. Make the spirits like Kalla's summons and then make the minions a not so powerful version of rangers pet, perhaps find a way to actually make it more tied into the profession because honestly right now they feel tacked on.

Well... they're 'tacked' on... because they're not the class mechanic?!

Minions could theoretically offer more in combat. But in return they would have to lose passive effects because they'd be too strong otherwise. Sure, it would indeed be nice to have one less organ-donor-Minion in exchange for something shadowy. But again: Cosmetics don't really make Minions more active. And I thought that's the main discussion we're having here?

@Lily.1935 said:How could this be solved though? Well, there's a few ways. One such method which I've heard from other people is having an existing weapon the necromancer has being converted into the Minion weapon. Staff being a popular choice although I personally feel Warhorn or Focus could also do the trick or have some minor abilities to be granted for minions or perhaps summon them. How I'd personally go about that though is if I was to give it to say staff, Staff wouldn't require minions to be useful but be a support weapon first and aid minions as a part of its kit but not be its primary focus. For Focus I'm not sure, I think it would be interesting if it could damage foes and call them to a location or even spawn an unstable horror or two for a bomber type build. And for Warhorn I might offer up their Locus swarm also give the buff to minions while granting them super speed. But that's just some ideas.

All dandy. But while I'm not in ANets head, it is pretty safe to say: This is not going to happen.

Again: Minions are not part of the class mechanic of Necromancers. It's a single Utility group. What you describe holds only mostly for class mechanics.

  • Mesmer: At least 1 Clone and 1 Phantasm per weapon set
  • Ranger: At least 1 skill that interacts with the pet per weapon set

This is not the case for Necromancer. Yes, what you describe could work. But it doesn't make sense from a design point when looking at the class. It's like saying 'Oh, Mesmer got Prismatic Understanding, I love it. Let's put some Stealth associated skills on every weapon!'. Just because you could theoretically do it, doesn't mean you should. There is absolutely no reason why Minion skills should merit this sort of attention. I mean... I get it... GW2 Necro is different than GW1. But so is Mesmer. That's life!

Now, if you were looking for anything that could be spread across all weapons on Necromancers - right now it's basically Boon corruption/condition transfer - ANet could easily look into something like putting Marks on every weapon considering Marks could theoretically could do anything but aren't linked to a specific Utility group. Something like inverse Symbols. But then again: Why would they? This thought hardly has more substance than suddenly wanting Stealth on every Mesmer weapon.

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@Lily.1935 said:How could this be solved though? Well, there's a few ways. One such method which I've heard from other people is having an existing weapon the necromancer has being converted into the Minion weapon.

Regulating a weapon to a specific family of skills is a terrible idea; Necro ALREADY has a small pool of weapons to choose from. Frankly, you can think of anything you want if there isn't a problem to solve except the one you create to implement the ideas you have ... and that's the issue here. The only problem is that the traits promote passive use ... the only solution to that (if it's even a problem) is to adjust the traits to have benefit when minions are not up.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Lily.1935 said:How could this be solved though? Well, there's a few ways. One such method which I've heard from other people is having an existing weapon the necromancer has being converted into the Minion weapon.

Regulating a weapon to a specific family of skills is a terrible idea; Necro ALREADY has a small pool of weapons to choose from. Frankly, you can think of anything you want if there isn't a problem to solve except the one you create to implement the ideas you have ... and that's the issue here. The only problem is that the traits promote passive use ... the only solution to that (if it's even a problem) is to adjust the traits to have benefit when minions are not up.

You should quote the whole paragraph before bringing up objections. Since it has some key elements you missed.

How could this be solved though? Well, there's a few ways. One such method which I've heard from other people is having an existing weapon the necromancer has being converted into the Minion weapon. Staff being a popular choice although I personally feel Warhorn or Focus could also do the trick or have some minor abilities to be granted for minions or perhaps summon them. How I'd personally go about that though is if I was to give it to say staff, Staff wouldn't require minions to be useful but be a support weapon first and aid minions as a part of its kit but not be its primary focus. For Focus I'm not sure, I think it would be interesting if it could damage foes and call them to a location or even spawn an unstable horror or two for a bomber type build. And for Warhorn I might offer up their Locus swarm also give the buff to minions while granting them super speed. But that's just some ideas.

Before you make criticism you should understand the person's position your criticizing first. This isn't an attack on you this is a critique of your methods of debating. I'd much rather not repeat myself over and over again. Because, rather than expanding on the ideas or engaging with legitimate criticism I have to reexplain myself, which Isn't something I want to do and I'm sure you don't like having the same thing repeated at you over and over again.

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I've played the scourge Minion pvp build. The issue is that the pet AI is too dumb to them to be useful. They just die very quickly in anything larger than a 2v2 and then you have NO benefit from your utilities. The build is made weaker by nor having any real condi clears or stunbreaks. and the minions are only good when they all swarm 1 guy. TBH minions aren't impactful enough for PvP and they're a joke in WvW.

Now if you want to talk PASSIVE, play flamethrower scrapper. Turn your brain off and collect the free PvP rating.

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@Obtena.7952 said:I did read your whole post, even if I didn't quote it all. The fact is that minions as implemented are not a problem. There IS a potential improvement on the traits if there is an objection to how passively minions are played though.

I agree. My criticism of your response was in that I mentioned how I would balance a weapon would be as a support weapon first and a minion support weapon second. I don't have an interest in making core weapons dedicated to a single skill type. But that's more because of the skill lock in weapons. But that's a different discussion.

As for traits, this is something I would like to hear your perspective on. I too dislike the high number of rather dull traits for minions and feel the Adept and Master could be made baseline baring their carapace granting and condi transfer and those traits could be adapted for general use summoning so it would include Shades but I digress.

What are your ideas?

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@Obtena.7952 said:My idea is just to fix the traits so they encourage people to use the minion skills, not just sit on minions. To be honest, I don't think specifics will be helpful here. The problem isn't with minions.

The Minion Traits are already exceptionally powerful. In the old Raiding MM build the master trait made the master effectively immune to all conditions while the Grandmaster today is actually quite good. Without any changes to death if Minion skills or other means of spawning minions were made to be effective, the master and grandmaster traits would make death worth taking alone.

I've actually seen some recommendations for death on scourge for Souless horror and Sloth because of those two traits. Although that build alteration takes no minion skills. I tried it myself though we didn't have a very good run and did feel worth it to me but I'm willing to experiment further.

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