The Deathcap [Minion Master Elite spec]

Aside from my love for ritualist and its fascinating synergies with necromancer I have another love from GW1 that I've never truly felt was executed quite good enough in GW2. Not for lack of trying on Arena Net's part. And that is the Minion Master and Minion Bomber! The Zerg spec we've been requesting for ages. Although The spec I'm about to suggest is nothing like the GW2 minion master currently, or even in its prime. It isn't a stalwart tank of soaking damage, but rather a fragile Master of Minions destined to Die! Arena net already has all the tools they need in order to make such a unique spec for the necromancer and I'll be taking some of their old Ideas and refurbishing them into a new one.

My Inspiration for this spec is obviously from

Unique Mechanic: Spore Horrors(working title)Rather than death shroud, and much like Scourge, the Deathcap spawns minions as its skill one as opposed to entering a shroud. The F abilities are designed to aid in their actions, which the player will have greater control over these unique minions compared to their normal minions. They have no cool down but take life force to summon and life force to command. These minions will scale based on your armor. So if you build as a berserker, they will be more frail but hit much harder. If you build tanky the same is true. Their Condition damage scales identically with yours, so that has no change.Some unique function of the minions is they have an attack chain where they strike foes every 3/4 a second. When a spore horror dies it will cause a blast of a 120 radius, damaging up to 3-5 foes in the area, depending on game mode and balancing. The minion death will trigger your shroud skill one. So combination with traits like Unyielding blast, Dhuumfire and Reaper's Might will in fact combo with these minions.

1. [F1] Summon Spore Horror: Summon a Spore Horror. Spore horrors degenerate health over time. You may control up to 5 of them at any one time. These minions explode on death dealing damage scaled to your power and their crit chance is based on your current crit chance including Fury. approximate cost, 1,600 life force. No recharge. 1/2 second cast time.
2. [F2] Undead Leap: Call target location damaging foes, each Spore horror leaps that that location and damages foes and causes crippling. Approximate cost of 2,200 life force. 3/4 second cast time. 7-8 second cool down. 1,200 range. Minions leap at a distance of 500 of their target. The first strike you will do will achieve the boon corrupt of something like path of corruption while the later hits will not. Even if you have no spore horrors this skill will now spawn one for you.
3. [F3] Vile Miasma: Breath a vile cloud in a cone out from you that poison's and confuses foes. Your spore horrors release spores into the air that poison and confuse your foes around them. 300 range in a cone in front of the player. 120 radius around the horrors. Life force cost, around 2,400. 3/4 second cast time. 10-12 second cool down. Never forget that Arena net promised us that the necromancer would apply confusion. NEVER FORGET!
4. [F4] Discord: Conjure an aoe blast of horrifying toxins that poison your foes and cause fear. Spore horrors are sacrificed and create the same AoE blast. If you have 4 or more spore horrors, summon 3 spore horrors at your location. If not, summon 1 instead. Life force cost, 3,300, approximation. 1 second cast time. 180 Radius around yourself and the minions. cool Down 15-20 seconds.
5. [F5] Cadaverous shroud: Gain 2 stacks of stability and your spore horrors become bonded to you. All damage you would take is redirected to those minions for a time. Minions take the burden of health sacrifice. Summon a spore horror if you have none. No cast time. Duration 8-10 seconds 25-30 second cool down a 4,600 life force, approximation.

Each of these skills are designed to use your minions as a means to sacrifice and re-summon them. Most of the skills will trigger the minions death which will trigger your traits. This set is a life force hog though, a bit more so than the Scourge, which its meant to be as these are designed to be recycled.

Unique Skill Type: Sacrifice

The Necromancer in GW1 really had to be mindful of their health. Otherwise they could easily die due to their sacrificial nature. Blood magic and Death magic in GW1 were especially focused on health sacrifice while Curses was a bit easier on that, offering self afflicted conditions and transfer conditions as a part of its kit along with hexes. But here we have an Old idea of using your own health as a resource. Not your life force, that's used for your new Unique minions. Your actually health pool. And yes, these Skills can kill you! But the benefit they will give will be absolutely great! The sacrifice cost will be fixed numbers as opposed to percentages like it was in GW1. This lets people build into high HP specs that can fuel this to greater effect.

1. [Heal] Foul Feast: Heal yourself then steal health from each of your spore horrors. Lose life after the skill has complete. 300 health cost. 3/4 second cast time. 25 second cool down. Unlike the other sacrifice skills you'll see this one has the cost after you use the skill. I figured that would fit better as a heal. its life loss would be minor as to not offset the balance of the heal.
2. [utility] Blood of the Master: Sacrifice health to heal each of your minions for 3.5k(0.5) and Grant them 6 seconds of Quickness and Super speed. The more targets healed, the higher the sacrifice cost. 500 health per minion healed. 3/4 second cast time. 15-20 second cool down. I Couldn't make a Minion master elite spec without the inclusion of this iconic skill from GW1. But I feel it would need a bonus. And giving minions a boost seems like that bonus.
3. [utility] Malignant Field: Sacrifice health to Create a large AoE field at your location. This Field poisons foes for 3 seconds each second and corrupts a boon each second. Lasts 6 seconds. Radius 300. 700 health sacrifice. 1/2 second cast time. 30 second cool down.
4. [utility] Order of Amanita: Sacrifice health. Allies inflict confusion and poison with their next 3 attacks. 300 radius. 1k health sacrifice. 3/4 second cast time. 25-30 second cool down. Amanita is a poisonous mushroom family. They are known for their Red caps with white spots. Aside from that this is a fairly standard aoe damage buff to allies.
5. [utility] Plague Carrier: Sacrifice health to break stun of you and your allies and grant 1 stack of stability. Allies transfer conditions with their next few attacks. 300 radius. 250 health per ally. 1/4 second cast time. 35-40 second cool down. How many conditions this should be I'm not entirely sure. But it is something the necromancer does, and giving them the option to let their allies pretend they are necromancers too doesn't seem like a half bad idea.
6. [Elite] Flesh of My Flesh: Channel the powers of life and death to Revive up to 5 downed Allies and or resurrect defeated allies as your loyal minions for a short time. Revived allies gain a 10% Damage boost for 5 seconds, resurrected Allies die after 10 seconds, gain 20% damage boost and gain benefit from Minion traits. Up to 5 targets. Health cost 1.5k health per ally. 1 1/2 second cast time. Radius 600. 180 second cool down. I've wanted this in the game for so long! I don't know how it could work in Anet's current system but OMG this could really turn a raid around as an elite! in WvW it could make for some interesting counter play against larger zergs.

Cool Downs are a bit more difficult to determine for these as is the health cost since we've never had skills quite like this in GW2. So for now I'll leave it blank. But the ideas are all there. These are quite potent effects that could see quite a bit of use across game modes.

Weapon of choice, Shield

Taking into consideration just how much damage the Deathcap will be doing to itself the best possible option for them has to be the Shield as their weapon. Without a proper death shroud, only having their Cadaverous shroud as a means to aid them, no barrier like Scourge to help buffer the damage. So the Deathcap will be given something different. BLOCKS! Actual scaling mechanic with damage! Its primarily a control and defensive weapon taking Inspiration from Diablo 2, which I know Guild Wars original devs have had a hand in.

Bleached Bastion: Raise your shield to block attack. Each attack blocked grants you 2% life force. This skill will change to Spiked Targe if you successfully block an attack. 3 second channel time. 20 second cool down.

• Spiked Targe: Grant allies retaliation damage foes and cause Bleeding. 300 radius.

Bone Wall: Send out a cone of bones shooting forth from the ground knocking enemies back behind a summoned bone wall. Causes crippling and bleeding. Knock back distance 320. 1/2 cast time. 30 second cool down. The Bone wall itself starts off with an animation of bones spiking from the ground and moving outward slowly, pushing enemies back till its edge when it finally summons a bone wall between you and the foe. It counts as an immobile minion that can be killed and acts as a barrier between you and them, much like Ring of Warding or Line of Warding at that point. The difference being is it lasts much longer but is also capable of being killed. The bone wall does act as a body block.

• Bone Spear: Shatter your bone wall into spears bleeding and damaging foes. With proper play a good necromancer could use this at the right moment when a foe is about to break through to harm them further.

Traits

Finally we get to the traits! For these traits I wanted to offer 3 themes with them. Summoning, Affliction and Vitality. Each path will emphasis a different play style giving more a zerg feel, or the infectious host and finally playing with your health.

Minor Traits

• Dark Liege: Infuse your life force into the fungus in the area to animate Spore Horrors and gain access to Sacrifice skills. Spore Horror are impacted by the corresponding traits for shroud.
• Toxic indulgence: Whenever you or a minion you control would deal physical damage to a foe gain a small bit of health.
• Putrid Flesh: Damage and poison foes when your health drops below set health thresholds. 90%, 60%, 30%. 180 radius. Each threshold has a 5 second internal cool down.

Top Traits

These traits focus primarily on summoning to aid allies or your minions.

• [Adept] Explosive Growth: Damage Foes and grant fury to allies on summoning a Minion. This will not trigger shroud skills when summoning spore horrors.
• [Master] Minion Master: On Summoning a minion You deal 2% more damage per minion you have active for 10 seconds. On Minion death you deal 2% more condition damage per minion active for 10 seconds. Maximum of 14%
• [Grandmaster] Night of Living Dead: Spore horrors no longer lose health over time and you can summon an additional 2 horrors, but Summon Spore horror now has a 5 second cool down.

Middle Traits

These traits focus on the affliction side of the Spec. Primarily dealing damage through poison.

• [Adept] Putrify: Poison lasts 20% longer. Whenever you inflict poison corrupt a boon into 1 stack of confusion for 3 seconds. 5 second internal cool down.
• [Master] Dead man's Fingers: Shield skills now inflict poison. Summon bone walls becomes summon Fungal Wall which poisons foes near it and the wall is increased in size. knock back increased to 600.
• [Grandmaster] Virulence: Poison deals 33% more damage. Whenever you poison a foe poison adjacent foes for 5 seconds(3 seconds WvW). 240 radius. 10 second internal cool down. Each target will trigger the trait individually and spread their poison to adjacent foes. The spread will not occur if the foe has resistance.

Bottom Traits

With the last set of traits we have traits that care about sacrificing health and vitality.

• [Adept] Death's Indulgence: Gain life force whenever you sacrifice health. Reduce the recharge of sacrifice skills by 20%. 7% life force on a 5 second cool down.
• [Master] Vital Fervor Gain 150 Vitality. Your Spore horror skills have a reduced life force cost by half but now cost half that in health. Using these skills now counts as sacrificing health.
• [Grandmaster] Masochism: Putrid flesh now has increased radius by 120 and deals increased damage and poison. Whenever you Sacrifice health trigger Putrid Flesh.

And with that I think this is just about everything. Boy I'm glad to be done with this! This was such a hard one to design for and there are a few things I certainly got a bit too underpowered or over powered I'm sure. But the primary focus for this should be its themes and how some of these ideas might play out in the game. Let me know what you guys think, this took me quite a while to flesh out and literally hours of writing and rewriting skills and abilities so that they could function cohesively. I probably messed a few things up, but Hey! At least its now done!

One additional note I'll make is that the power potential with Death magic and the minion traits is pretty crazy. I knew that going into this. But those traits aren't balanced all that well to begin with. But the build potential is there for a few different ideas here and there. Let me know what you think and as always keep it respectful!

UPDATED!: Some additional information has been added to the design with a few buffs and nerfs to some areas of the fan made elite spec. Putrid flesh has been nerfed as has Flesh of my flesh. Cadaverous shroud has be buffed and stability has been added in a few places to help ease some of the crowd control this elite spec would likely suffer. Spore horrors are now more functional and capable of engaging the target. With this update I wanted to smooth out some of the rough edges to give fans a more cohesive idea. A few suggestions have been taken note and implemented in some way, although I couldn't justify adding some of them. Confusion on poison as a minor trait was too powerful without a conditional clause to it, so it was added as the only condition the boon corrupt could apply. I limited it to 1 stack since confusion is quite strong too. I added bleeding to spike Targe feeling that adding confusion wasn't in the design space for the shield. Sorry. I also moved the shield skills around to better reflect their desired cool downs since Bone wall will have a much longer cool down, it is now skill 5.

After considering it, I decided to update the Spore horror skills. The skill two is no longer recycling minions but a pursuit skill for the minions. Discord is now the death and recycling skill. Minions will no longer leap on their own, but rather you will need to use Undead Leap for them to engage the target.

Edit: Due to my own ignorance, a trait name has been changed due to its similarity to a Fascist saying. I deeply apologize for my ignorance.

I would love to see something like this come into the game in some way, shape, or form. However I can already hear the complaints the would start up from people who had to deal with minion-mancer Deathcaps, (Running minion Utilities and all minion oriented traits to like 11-15 Minions depending on Traits like Death Nova)

I'm not saying this would be the best way to go or that your idea is bad, I just feel like if this were to be implemented a lot of people will just go A.I.!?!?!? NERF IT WITH FIRE without any other reason until it becomes Engi Turrets 2.0 or back to non scaling minions.

But I would rework the shroud mechanic and have the E-spec Augment the already existing minions and have re-skins of Fungi enemies in HoT (for A-Nets sake, modeling is hard)Blood Fiend - Mini Mushroom Empress that attacks faster, has shorter range, but does more damage and heals more, active skill could explode into water field with benefits.Bone Fiend - Mushroom Spike Thrower that throws spikes that bleed and active skill will be a ground targeted Spike Barrage that Cripple, Vulns, and Bleeds.Bone Minions - Mushroom Bomber that essentially act the same but the active would be a Ground Targeted AoE that the Mushroom leaps to.Shadow Fiend and Wurm - Need some ideas for these.Flesh Golem - Mushroom King attacks faster but essentially the same, active skill becomes a charge that you target like Warrior GS #3 skill, but turns into another skill for about 5 seconds that allows the mushroom to do that ... leaping headbutt slam thing?Edit: I would like to see it turn into a unique mushroom empress that just Citadel Bombardments target area with a whole bunch of sporelings though, instead of what's listed above.

Have the Night of Living Dead Trait cause the augmented Bone Minions to passively summon a Mushroom Bomber every 30 Seconds to a Max of 4 (up from 2) and in addition to the active skill, they'll leave that goop the mushrooms do that Damage and Cripple but the cool down of the skill becomes 10 seconds.

I would like to see it implemented similar to what you have imagined, but even if it was it would probably be slowly chipped down by QQ and the Necromancers luck at receiving the good balance :expressionless:To re-iterate, I'm just throwing rough ideas out there for you to consider because this might open some new things for the shroud skills like placing down Slothasor Poison mushrooms or something.

! Also :+1: for Golgari, I made a Fungus deck in MTG one time and it would get upwards of Millions of Saprolings out of No-where

Also I'm doing this on break so it is rushed and not 100% thought out, if you need elaboration on anything just let me know.

First things first, I like this. It's an interesting take on the minion master spec that doesn't instantly go for "Demons from the underworld!" or "Edgy shadowbeings!" that I've seen before. Although I'd personally like some love-craftian horror to be part of the surely-not-too-distant Confusion Spec for the Necromancer (MADNESS!!!), fungal spores does tickle that fancy somewhat in the same sense fish-people do it.

First things first, if you're adding Confusion to the mix, then I feel that perhaps 1 trait should also be dedicated towards Confusion in some extent. Certainly, it shouldn't be overloaded with it given that Necromancer has access to all other Damaging Conditions by baseline, but just slapping it on in one place makes it feel a bit tacked on and out of place.

Suggestions:

• Instead of Corrupting a Boon, Putrify now causes Confusion (1 stack, 6s PvE/2 stacks, 4s PvP) whenever you Poison a Foe. ICD would be 2s in PvE and 8s in PvP/WvW.
• There is already a trait like Toxic Indulgence. Vampiric in Blood Magic causes Minions' attacks to Siphon Health from enemies they hit and heal the Necromancer, I assume this would work with Spore Horrors just as well. As a replacement, I'd suggest something like:
  • Toxic Indulgence - Regenerate Health while you or a Minion is affected by Poison. Regenerate more Health if you're also near a Poisoned Enemy. Radius: 240.
• I feel like the Chain Skill from Shield #5 (Spiked Targe) feels a bit underwhelming far as synergy with the rest of the kit goes. Perhaps an effect like the one below could work as a punishing counter-attack to over-aggressive enemies:
  • Spore Bomb - Chains from Bleached Bastion. Detonate fungal growth on your shield the shower the area in spores, granting Retaliation (4s) to Allies and creating an Ethereal Field that pulses Confusion (1 stack, 4s) to enemies within. Duration: 6s. Radius increases the more Attacks you Blocked with Bleached Bastion. (180 Min/360 Max).
• Shield Skill #4's Chain Skill (Bone Spear) should be a Blast or Projectile Finisher I feel, if you decide on the above change. All the synergy!
• I'd personally wanna see a Living Bomb sorta skill in this kit, where you tag an enemy and if it dies while tagged, it does so in a putrid explosion that Stuns nearby enemies and spawns a Spore Horror from their body.

All-in-all, I like this concept and the abilities you've put forwards. It's a great take on a Minion-master spec that also calls back to the original game, without trying too much to be a favorite rerun of something that already exists. But maybe I'm biased with my love for Lovecraftian-style horror over spooky scary skellingtons. +1 from me, OP.

@Cheshire.2465 said:I would love to see something like this come into the game in some way, shape, or form. However I can already hear the complaints the would start up from people who had to deal with minion-mancer Deathcaps, (Running minion Utilities and all minion oriented traits to like 11-15 Minions depending on Traits like Death Nova)

I'm not saying this would be the best way to go or that your idea is bad, I just feel like if this were to be implemented a lot of people will just go A.I.!?!?!? NERF IT WITH FIRE without any other reason until it becomes Engi Turrets 2.0 or back to non scaling minions.

But I would rework the shroud mechanic and have the E-spec Augment the already existing minions and have re-skins of Fungi enemies in HoT (for A-Nets sake, modeling is hard)Blood Fiend - Mini Mushroom Empress that attacks faster, has shorter range, but does more damage and heals more, active skill could explode into water field with benefits.Bone Fiend - Mushroom Spike Thrower that throws spikes that bleed and active skill will be a ground targeted Spike Barrage that Cripple, Vulns, and Bleeds.Bone Minions - Mushroom Bomber that essentially act the same but the active would be a Ground Targeted AoE that the Mushroom leaps to.Shadow Fiend and Wurm - Need some ideas for these.Flesh Golem - Mushroom King attacks faster but essentially the same, active skill becomes a charge that you target like Warrior GS #3 skill, but turns into another skill for about 5 seconds that allows the mushroom to do that ... leaping headbutt slam thing?Edit: I would like to see it turn into a unique mushroom empress that just Citadel Bombardments target area with a whole bunch of sporelings though, instead of what's listed above.

Have the Night of Living Dead Trait cause the augmented Bone Minions to passively summon a Mushroom Bomber every 30 Seconds to a Max of 4 (up from 2) and in addition to the active skill, they'll leave that goop the mushrooms do that Damage and Cripple but the cool down of the skill becomes 10 seconds.

I would like to see it implemented similar to what you have imagined, but even if it was it would probably be slowly chipped down by QQ and the Necromancers luck at receiving the good balance :expressionless:To re-iterate, I'm just throwing rough ideas out there for you to consider because this might open some new things for the shroud skills like placing down Slothasor Poison mushrooms or something.

! Also :+1: for Golgari, I made a Fungus deck in MTG one time and it would get upwards of Millions of Saprolings out of No-where

Maybe. But that's sorta the story of every elite spec of necromancer. :|

The Spore horrors themselves are fairly frail. And they degenerate over time too. Unless traited for that. But you know. The idea is out there. I don't think People will have as much of a problem with the Spore horrors as they do with shades. These can be CCed and controled as well as killed.

@"TheSwede.9512" said:First things first, I like this. It's an interesting take on the minion master spec that doesn't instantly go for "Demons from the underworld!" or "Edgy shadowbeings!" that I've seen before. Although I'd personally like some love-craftian horror to be part of the surely-not-too-distant Confusion Spec for the Necromancer (MADNESS!!!), fungal spores does tickle that fancy somewhat in the same sense fish-people do it.

First things first, if you're adding Confusion to the mix, then I feel that perhaps 1 trait should also be dedicated towards Confusion in some extent. Certainly, it shouldn't be overloaded with it given that Necromancer has access to all other Damaging Conditions by baseline, but just slapping it on in one place makes it feel a bit tacked on and out of place.

Suggestions:

• Instead of Corrupting a Boon, Putrify now causes Confusion (1 stack, 6s PvE/2 stacks, 4s PvP) whenever you Poison a Foe. ICD would be 2s in PvE and 8s in PvP/WvW.
• There is already a trait like Toxic Indulgence. Vampiric in Blood Magic causes Minions' attacks to Siphon Health from enemies they hit and heal the Necromancer, I assume this would work with Spore Horrors just as well. As a replacement, I'd suggest something like:
  • Toxic Indulgence - Regenerate Health while you or a Minion is affected by Poison. Regenerate more Health if you're also near a Poisoned Enemy. Radius: 240.
• I feel like the Chain Skill from Shield #5 (Spiked Targe) feels a bit underwhelming far as synergy with the rest of the kit goes. Perhaps an effect like the one below could work as a punishing counter-attack to over-aggressive enemies:
  • Spore Bomb - Chains from Bleached Bastion. Detonate fungal growth on your shield the shower the area in spores, granting Retaliation (4s) to Allies and creating an Ethereal Field that pulses Confusion (1 stack, 4s) to enemies within. Duration: 6s. Radius increases the more Attacks you Blocked with Bleached Bastion. (180 Min/360 Max).
• Shield Skill #4's Chain Skill (Bone Spear) should be a Blast or Projectile Finisher I feel, if you decide on the above change. All the synergy!
• I'd personally wanna see a Living Bomb sorta skill in this kit, where you tag an enemy and if it dies while tagged, it does so in a putrid explosion that Stuns nearby enemies and spawns a Spore Horror from their body.

All-in-all, I like this concept and the abilities you've put forwards. It's a great take on a Minion-master spec that also calls back to the original game, without trying too much to be a favorite rerun of something that already exists. But maybe I'm biased with my love for Lovecraftian-style horror over spooky scary skellingtons. +1 from me, OP.

I do like your Ideas there! I suppose just slapping a few confusion stacks isn't the only thing that should be done, but a bonus confusion stack on Poison was considered, but I felt it might be a bit powerful. Either way, I'm happy to have more of it. Thumbs up from me! Cool modification! I rather enjoy your ideas.

I like how you implemented the idea of the summons scaling with the player but i do have a few questions.

Have you considered how active these summons would be? Would they have several unique attacks to make use of the characters critical / conditions stats or just chase with a ridiculously low speed and slap for laughable damage like all other minions. This is not including other f skill as those can still be counted as your skills and not the summons skills even if some of them do trigger at the summons locations.

Shroud skills being triggered on the death of these summons meaning i assume they explode with some kind of radious when they die naturally, from taking damage, or command. Which dont get me wrong is not a bad idea.

The f5 seems a bit lacking even more so from the fact that its locked to your summons. Its not really a shroud its more of just a better version of reapers "Rise" The amount of damage that comes across in the game in todays meta in pvp and pve can be rather large. IF you are squishy your minions are squishy not to mention decay over time without a trait. They ideally wont be soaking much damage unless the summoner builds tank and heavy which then makes you sustain tank Its got a heavy life force cost and a lengthy cooldown.

suggestion for f5I would look into actually building something a bit more simplistic shroud here that can offer some protection similar to scourges desert shroud as opposed to forcing this skill to be 100% locked to your f1 summons.Consider the idea if scourge could not use desert shroud without first having a shade summoned give the shade hp and if the shade dies/expired desert shroud stopped functioning on the spot. You could argue that it would be super technical and require the highest skill cap but not every spec needs to be complicated to play and to succeed.

My concernsMy biggest concern her is risk vs reward. Necormancer has never had very good luck dealing with risk vs reward in its skills that require a trade of some sort. Sacrifice of any kind even with your minions needs to be very worth doing. Anet has yet to make all corruptions worth the negative applications they apply and this makes me distrust any risk reward ideas they might want to implement in the future. Not to bash your idea which is solid i just dont trust that anet could do it without over tuning it resulting in a nerf or under tuning it making it not wroth it in the first place.

The utility skillsYou never want to punish the player just for thematic reasons. Not every utility needs to consume health its ok if a few of them do and they better be darn well worth it for doing so. Generally these could end up worse than current corruption skills if the reward is not high enough and thats a major concern. At least corruptions can be xfered into bonus damage or converted into boons as a +Do you remember the backlash that came from just adding 10 vuln stacks to consume conditions. Some one had a genious idea to add a condition to a skill that eats conditions.In this case is healing yourself to lose health, breaking stun to lose health,

The elite is a very sound idea but would be very situational. End game it could stop a potential wipe from occurring but at the same time in pvp and wvw it would quickly become a bandwagon staple that would be impossible to balance properly where it wont feel under / over powered. But its a darn cool idea :+1:

The shield

Most of its good till you get to that retaliation on block i would dump this and replace it with a new skill unless you planned to work in some kind of retaliation build across one of your trait sets.

@"ZDragon.3046" said:I like how you implemented the idea of the summons scaling with the player but i do have a few questions.

Have you considered how active these summons would be? Would they have several unique attacks to make use of the characters critical / conditions stats or just chase with a ridiculously low speed and slap for laughable damage like all other minions. This is not including other f skill as those can still be counted as your skills and not the summons skills even if some of them do trigger at the summons locations.

They would be capable of catching the target. But Unique skills on their part wasn't something I considered. I do like the idea though! Letting them have a leap just as a normal one of their skills would work wonders for them. So yeah, I do like this idea.

Shroud skills being triggered on the death of these summons meaning i assume they explode with some kind of radious when they die naturally, from taking damage, or command. Which dont get me wrong is not a bad idea.

Yes, they do explode on death. The impact scales heavily with your power.

The f5 seems a bit lacking even more so from the fact that its locked to your summons. Its not really a shroud its more of just a better version of reapers "Rise" The amount of damage that comes across in the game in todays meta in pvp and pve can be rather large. IF you are squishy your minions are squishy not to mention decay over time without a trait. They ideally wont be soaking much damage unless the summoner builds tank and heavy which then makes you sustain tank Its got a heavy life force cost and a lengthy cooldown.

suggestion for f5I would look into actually building something a bit more simplistic shroud here that can offer some protection similar to scourges desert shroud as opposed to forcing this skill to be 100% locked to your f1 summons.Consider the idea if scourge could not use desert shroud without first having a shade summoned give the shade hp and if the shade dies/expired desert shroud stopped functioning on the spot. You could argue that it would be super technical and require the highest skill cap but not every spec needs to be complicated to play and to succeed.

Hmm. Perhaps it could summon a Spore horror on its own and grant stability? This way you could have something to link to if your minions are all dead. I don't feel it should be as powerful as Desert shroud though. The damage you would take is redirected to your minions. Meaning they all share in that damage as opposed to the closest one just taking the brunt of it. It might need some more work shopping, but it was inspired by the skill Dark Bond. here is also the option to make sacrifice skills count as damage so this can help buffer that damage. But the spec really is built around Minions, so its kinda hard to just decouple them.

My concernsMy biggest concern her is risk vs reward. Necormancer has never had very good luck dealing with risk vs reward in its skills that require a trade of some sort. Sacrifice of any kind even with your minions needs to be very worth doing. Anet has yet to make all corruptions worth the negative applications they apply and this makes me distrust any risk reward ideas they might want to implement in the future. Not to bash your idea which is solid i just dont trust that anet could do it without over tuning it resulting in a nerf or under tuning it making it not wroth it in the first place.

I think Anet is learning and improving as time progresses. Its always going to be a concern. As it stands now, I talked about this spec with a few of my guildies and they seem to think they're over tuned. I don't but, hey we'd have to see right? Anet isn't going to implement it exactly as is if at all regardless of what we do.

The utility skillsYou never want to punish the player just for thematic reasons. Not every utility needs to consume health its ok if a few of them do and they better be darn well worth it for doing so. Generally these could end up worse than current corruption skills if the reward is not high enough and thats a major concern. At least corruptions can be xfered into bonus damage or converted into boons as a +Do you remember the backlash that came from just adding 10 vuln stacks to consume conditions. Some one had a genious idea to add a condition to a skill that eats conditions.In this case is healing yourself to lose health, breaking stun to lose health,

I think the big issue right now is the necromancer can't have any sort of meaningful support or damage due to shroud and even scourge isn't that much of a departure from the norm in terms of how much raw damage they can take. The idea of sacrificing health isn't just a flavor reason but its also part of the skill's balance to allow more breathing room for the necromancer to have some real solid damage output. I do Agree that corruptions don't quite hit that mark But I feel that might be because of their old design and Arena net's disdain for reworking old skills in any significant way.

The Skills I have now are significantly powerful! A stunbreak for the party that gives them condi transfer! An AoE buff that causes allies to inflict 15 stacks of poison and confusion in total, a large field that both poisons and corrupts boons making resurrection difficult and just large enough to cover a point in PvP. These are not insignificant in the slightest. And its allowed this power because it hurts. Anet did this to the holosmith, damage themselves for a large DPS boost. I don't see why we couldn't benefit from it.

The elite is a very sound idea but would be very situational. End game it could stop a potential wipe from occurring but at the same time in pvp and wvw it would quickly become a bandwagon staple that would be impossible to balance properly where it wont feel under / over powered. But its a darn cool idea :+1:

The Elite was something I've wanted for a long time. Its just so hilarious to me to revive a dead ally and grant them some interesting bonuses. Is it too good? It might be but I couldn't make the suggestion without its magical Christmas land version.

The shield

Most of its good till you get to that retaliation on block i would dump this and replace it with a new skill unless you planned to work in some kind of retaliation build across one of your trait sets.

For the Shield to have retaliation this was added because it grants it to allies. This means minions around you if they are the closest. Giving minions retaliation is there to really help a power Minion master work since there isn't much else there for them aside from blowing yourself up with sacrifice skills using the bottom trait lines, which is really gimmicky, but oh so much fun. Anyway, its to off something on both ends of the spectrum. That's my justification at least.

Anyway, Thanks for the comment. Giving me quite a bit to think about. I'm liking these posts so far.

I didn't even read this. BUT PLEASE NO MORE AI BASED SHIT FOR NECRO

@Nimon.7840 said:I didn't even read this. BUT PLEASE NO MORE AI BASED kitten FOR NECRO

But you're a necromancer... Our whole thing is summoning spirits, reanimating corpses and conjuring shdes....

Also Minion master is one of the most requested elite specs for necromancer and it has to happen eventually. You might as well give it a read. it won't be for everyone.

@Lily.1935 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:I didn't even read this. BUT PLEASE NO MORE AI BASED kitten FOR NECRO

Not gonna. Cause ai based spec will be hold down on DPS or tanking or supporting.Cause it could get too op in PvP or wvw if you make minions strong.

I don't see necromancers as minion specs. Sure let's take diablo 3. It also has a minion build, but it also has two non minion builds.

I'd even go this far and want to remove the current minions necro has. Cause they are the reason, why necro is considered to be a noob class.

You could make this a real necromancer, that spawns a minion, to walk to the enemy and explode. But not having minions up all the time

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:I didn't even read this. BUT PLEASE NO MORE AI BASED kitten FOR NECRO

I'm going to disagree heavily. Minions have nothing to do with that. It's all death shroud and reaper's shroud. Shroud is the reason everyone thinks the necro is a noob class. Also, just read it. You're jumping to conclusions without a good basis for what you are criticizing.

@Lily.1935 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:I didn't even read this. BUT PLEASE NO MORE AI BASED kitten FOR NECRO

Still don't like it. For the reasons i already mentioned

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:I didn't even read this. BUT PLEASE NO MORE AI BASED kitten FOR NECRO

Its not going to be for everyone. But a Minion elite spec is going to happen sooner or later, and if Anet's pattern is correct our next elite spec is either going to be a dedicated healer or minion master.

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:I didn't even read this. BUT PLEASE NO MORE AI BASED kitten FOR NECRO

It seems like you want to make necromancer into another class entirely.

Sorry, but summoning tons of permanent / semi-permanent minions is what necromancers do. GW2 is one of the few MMOs that does it right, and I highly doubt its something they would remove entirely as there are a TON of people who play necromancer just to summon a bunch of things.

You can (and many other games do) balance AI based specs in PVP. No reason why ANET couldn't do it.

@Nimon.7840 said:Not gonna. Cause ai based spec will be hold down on DPS or tanking or supporting.Cause it could get too op in PvP or wvw if you make minions strong.

Guess Arenanet missed that on Mesmers then.But then again... they miss everything that has to do with mesmers.....If they actually did their job, the game would be more balanced.... even mesmers... but they only play mesmers themselves i guess, since it never seem to get nerfs or get balanced.i did not play in 5 years.....2012-2013... the mesmers were stupidly op.... 5 years later...they are still the same. = completely incompetent designers.And, necro have been the same crap for 5 years too.

@eldain stenlund.4306 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:Not gonna. Cause ai based spec will be hold down on DPS or tanking or supporting.Cause it could get too op in PvP or wvw if you make minions strong.

Necros have had a few ups. Lots of downs, but some ups. The Death shroud still haunts us though. I say Arena net should just completely rework the necromancer but that's just me. Aside from that, opinion on the spec? That is what this post is about.

Necros have had a few ups. Lots of downs, but some ups. The Death shroud still haunts us though. I say Arena net should just completely rework the necromancer but that's just me. Aside from that, opinion on the spec? That is what this post is about.

No real issue of necros using mushrooms...either as food or pets.On contrary, it would be interesting.But i do prefer necros to use Wraiths, Ghosts, Zombies, Skeletons or other weird re-animated corpses/souls....they are necros after all. (or should be).But yes, it would be fun to send of some kamikaze bomb shrooms that explode in enemy face and spread diseases.

Did you know..Necros are in such bad balance shape and design that even the NPCs in the game does not want to be necromancer.Hardly any npcs in gw2 are necromancer as profession!!....Shows how little the designers care about this necromancer profession.(only found a handful npcs in the entire world with necromancer profession).

@eldain stenlund.4306 said:

Necros have had a few ups. Lots of downs, but some ups. The Death shroud still haunts us though. I say Arena net should just completely rework the necromancer but that's just me. Aside from that, opinion on the spec? That is what this post is about.

They're not Mushrooms, but Fungal infected Minions. Its like Cortasepts only with dead things as opposed to living. the Fungal kingdom is quite a massive one that doesn't just include mushrooms but molds and other colony based organisms. Its still in the Necromancer's wheelhouse but its taking the unique magic of life and applying it to necromancy.

And I see. I can understand that. How do you feel about scourge from a design standpoint? Its got a similar bending of what the necromancer can do since sand would be more akin to earth magic.

@eldain stenlund.4306 said:

Necros have had a few ups. Lots of downs, but some ups. The Death shroud still haunts us though. I say Arena net should just completely rework the necromancer but that's just me. Aside from that, opinion on the spec? That is what this post is about.

They're not Mushrooms, but Fungal infected Minions. Its like Cortasepts only with dead things as opposed to living. the Fungal kingdom is quite a massive one that doesn't just include mushrooms but molds and other colony based organisms. Its still in the Necromancer's wheelhouse but its taking the unique magic of life and applying it to necromancy.

And I see. I can understand that. How do you feel about scourge from a design standpoint? Its got a similar bending of what the necromancer can do since sand would be more akin to earth magic.

One thing I do really love about this Spec concept is that you could build it in so many different ways. It has a lot of Build diversity in it compared to Reaper and especially scourge. Even with Similar weaknesses to scourge in that shroud mechanics are a bit limited based on entering and exiting it does offer something quite unique.

Let me make a few builds.

• Minion Support/Open world: Blood Magic(Top, Bottom, Bottom), Death Magic(Top, Top, Top) plus Deathcap(Top, Top, Top). Probably the most relaxed build. You overwhelm your foe with raw numbers that just stick around. Use utility of minions if you desire to maximize the number of minions available. High Toughness with tones of fleshbags. Axe/Shield and Staff isn't a bad choice here, but a condi variant wouldn't be bad either.
• Minion Bomber: Death Magic(Situational, Top Top), Soul Reaping(Top, Middle, Bottom) or Curses(All depending on location), Deathcap(Middle, Middle, Middle). Running with Scepter/Shield and Staff or just an OH dagger or focus wouldn't be bad as the second weapon for this, depending on the situation. This one wants to be summoning minions constantly to toss into the fight and explode. Foul Feast as the heal skill as this will be the strongest raw healing as well as Order of Amanita, Shadow fiend and a utility of your choice and elite depending on situation would be a potent DPSer. Variations could include Blood of the master, Corrosive poison cloud, Epidemic, Malignant Field, or what have you. This seems like one of the most potent Builds available as it provides party support and substantial DPS. Its major flaw would be its frailty and high cost of spore horrors. But it has some amazing room for growth. Its potential is quite high. Death isn't required, Curses isn't required, Soul reaping isn't required but all combo so well with the spec that any could work.
• Suicide Bomber: Spite(Top, Top, Middle or bottom), Soul reaping(Situational, Middle, Middle or Top), Death Cap(Bottom, Bottom Bottom). Using the sacrifice skills and the Mechanics from the deathcap to cut life down to size you can cause massive damage in an aoe area to knock out foes. Easily one of the most Gimmicky builds but it could find some pieces of it being used in PvP, PvE and WvW to clean up foes or give something surprising to enemies who try to focus fire you. I really like this as a concept and think it could be quite devastating if not very fragile. It probably wouldn't be good in PvP without an escort but an Escort bomb team might be a unique trait in the meta we haven't seen before. Good teams would be able to counter it, but we could see some fun games with it. I'd watch some of the Top PvPers use a team comp around this for sure!

There are defiantly possibilities to mix and match here. Vital Fervor seems like it could be favored for Deathcap in raids with low enemy count to help the minion bomber sustain its DPS. While in other situations Minion Master might be taken because of the high level of recycling that is available to them. There is also the possibility of a Power minion master Variant that uses the permanent Minions of Night of Living Dead along with Death Perception and Blood of the master to do some interesting zerg burst damage!

No mater what you choose, I've designed this to have so much build potential with minions that it can fit any Minion master out there! So what might you guys use if this was a thing or something similar?

@Lily.1935 said:One thing I do really love about this Spec concept is that you could build it in so many different ways. It has a lot of Build diversity in it compared to Reaper and especially scourge. Even with Similar weaknesses to scourge in that shroud mechanics are a bit limited based on entering and exiting it does offer something quite unique.

Let me make a few builds.

• Minion Support/Open world: Blood Magic(Top, Bottom, Bottom), Death Magic(Top, Top, Top) plus Deathcap(Top, Top, Top). Probably the most relaxed build. You overwhelm your foe with raw numbers that just stick around. Use utility of minions if you desire to maximize the number of minions available. High Toughness with tones of fleshbags. Axe/Shield and Staff isn't a bad choice here, but a condi variant wouldn't be bad either.
• Minion Bomber: Death Magic(Situational, Top Top), Soul Reaping(Top, Middle, Bottom) or Curses(All depending on location), Deathcap(Middle, Middle, Middle). Running with Scepter/Shield and Staff or just an OH dagger or focus wouldn't be bad as the second weapon for this, depending on the situation. This one wants to be summoning minions constantly to toss into the fight and explode. Foul Feast as the heal skill as this will be the strongest raw healing as well as Order of Amanita, Shadow fiend and a utility of your choice and elite depending on situation would be a potent DPSer. Variations could include Blood of the master, Corrosive poison cloud, Epidemic, Malignant Field, or what have you. This seems like one of the most potent Builds available as it provides party support and substantial DPS. Its major flaw would be its frailty and high cost of spore horrors. But it has some amazing room for growth. Its potential is quite high. Death isn't required, Curses isn't required, Soul reaping isn't required but all combo so well with the spec that any could work.
• Suicide Bomber: Spite(Top, Top, Middle or bottom), Soul reaping(Situational, Middle, Middle or Top), Death Cap(Bottom, Bottom Bottom). Using the sacrifice skills and the Mechanics from the deathcap to cut life down to size you can cause massive damage in an aoe area to knock out foes. Easily one of the most Gimmicky builds but it could find some pieces of it being used in PvP, PvE and WvW to clean up foes or give something surprising to enemies who try to focus fire you. I really like this as a concept and think it could be quite devastating if not very fragile. It probably wouldn't be good in PvP without an escort but an Escort bomb team might be a unique trait in the meta we haven't seen before. Good teams would be able to counter it, but we could see some fun games with it. I'd watch some of the Top PvPers use a team comp around this for sure!

There are defiantly possibilities to mix and match here. Vital Fervor seems like it could be favored for Deathcap in raids with low enemy count to help the minion bomber sustain its DPS. While in other situations Minion Master might be taken because of the high level of recycling that is available to them. There is also the possibility of a Power minion master Variant that uses the permanent Minions of Night of Living Dead along with Death Perception and Blood of the master to do some interesting zerg burst damage!

No mater what you choose, I've designed this to have so much build potential with minions that it can fit any Minion master out there! So what might you guys use if this was a thing or something similar?

A very important thing to think about when it comes to having a minion army.How much HP do they have, are they affected by AoE 100 % or do they take reduced damage from AoE.If they have good dmg potentials, but die on slightest AoE... then they will be useless.If they have good dmg potentials, but also very resistant to AoE.... then it could be very very op.... just stand back around a corner and send in your pets over and over.

But it should be possible also to have both Power AND Condition build on the minions to get the best out of it.So you can go full zerker.. or full condition tank....and the minions have different effects.(easily done in traits).

As i said, i have no real issue with it.... Since i know for fact, there are zombie shrooms in OUR REAL world that takes over their host and turn them into zombies.So far, they only affect insects.

@eldain stenlund.4306 said:

@Lily.1935 said:One thing I do really love about this Spec concept is that you could build it in so many different ways. It has a lot of Build diversity in it compared to Reaper and especially scourge. Even with Similar weaknesses to scourge in that shroud mechanics are a bit limited based on entering and exiting it does offer something quite unique.

Let me make a few builds.

• Minion Support/Open world
  : Blood Magic(Top, Bottom, Bottom), Death Magic(Top, Top, Top) plus Deathcap(Top, Top, Top). Probably the most relaxed build. You overwhelm your foe with raw numbers that just stick around. Use utility of minions if you desire to maximize the number of minions available. High Toughness with tones of fleshbags. Axe/Shield and Staff isn't a bad choice here, but a condi variant wouldn't be bad either.
• Minion Bomber
  : Death Magic(Situational, Top Top), Soul Reaping(Top, Middle, Bottom) or Curses(All depending on location), Deathcap(Middle, Middle, Middle). Running with Scepter/Shield and Staff or just an OH dagger or focus wouldn't be bad as the second weapon for this, depending on the situation. This one wants to be summoning minions constantly to toss into the fight and explode. Foul Feast as the heal skill as this will be the strongest raw healing as well as Order of Amanita, Shadow fiend and a utility of your choice and elite depending on situation would be a potent DPSer. Variations could include Blood of the master, Corrosive poison cloud, Epidemic, Malignant Field, or what have you. This seems like one of the most potent Builds available as it provides party support and substantial DPS. Its major flaw would be its frailty and high cost of spore horrors. But it has some amazing room for growth. Its potential is quite high. Death isn't required, Curses isn't required, Soul reaping isn't required but all combo so well with the spec that any could work.
• Suicide Bomber
  : Spite(Top, Top, Middle or bottom), Soul reaping(Situational, Middle, Middle or Top), Death Cap(Bottom, Bottom Bottom). Using the sacrifice skills and the Mechanics from the deathcap to cut life down to size you can cause massive damage in an aoe area to knock out foes. Easily one of the most Gimmicky builds but it could find some pieces of it being used in PvP, PvE and WvW to clean up foes or give something surprising to enemies who try to focus fire you. I really like this as a concept and think it could be quite devastating if not very fragile. It probably wouldn't be good in PvP without an escort but an Escort bomb team might be a unique trait in the meta we haven't seen before. Good teams would be able to counter it, but we could see some fun games with it. I'd watch some of the Top PvPers use a team comp around this for sure!

There are defiantly possibilities to mix and match here. Vital Fervor seems like it could be favored for Deathcap in raids with low enemy count to help the minion bomber sustain its DPS. While in other situations Minion Master might be taken because of the high level of recycling that is available to them. There is also the possibility of a Power minion master Variant that uses the permanent Minions of Night of Living Dead along with Death Perception and Blood of the master to do some interesting zerg burst damage!

No mater what you choose, I've designed this to have so much build potential with minions that it can fit any Minion master out there! So what might you guys use if this was a thing or something similar?

Well, in PvE they'll be impacted by the same rules as other AI companions allies summon. So as long as they're not focused its a 90% or something like that damage reduction. Which means easily sustained.

In PvP they'll be far more fragile, but I don't think one strike will kill them out right from a powerful blow. And this depends heavily on how the necromancer builds themselves. Considering that they will be difficult to summon right away, the deathcap will need to build up momentum to get them going, much like in GW1. So a full 5 minions might be quite formidable, but this would require care from the player. They naturally degenerate health and there are a few improvements I've been considering. Such as each of the mechanic skills spawning a spore horror if you don't already have one. And giving an aoe burst around the player for using it.

One thing I should have mentioned is that All of the F abilities excluding Cadaverous shroud have an activation time, unlike the Shades which is the opposite. Meaning they can be controlled and interrupted.

Another Improvement is adding Stability to Cadaverous shroud as well as bone wall and possibly plague sending since they are so much more vulnerable to CC which I didn't initially consider.

@"Lily.1935" said:Aside from my love for ritualist and its fascinating synergies with necromancer I have another love from GW1 that I've never truly felt was executed quite good enough in GW2. Not for lack of trying on Arena Net's part. And that is the Minion Master and Minion Bomber! The Zerg spec we've been requesting for ages. Although The spec I'm about to suggest is nothing like the GW2 minion master currently, or even in its prime. It isn't a stalwart tank of soaking damage, but rather a fragile Master of Minions destined to Die! Arena net already has all the tools they need in order to make such a unique spec for the necromancer and I'll be taking some of their old Ideas and refurbishing them into a new one.

My Inspiration for this spec is obviously from

, The Sylvari and from the Golgari. Each element is considered into the design to make a spec that has a unique feel for a minion master as well as giving visuals that can really excite the player. I loved the way the scourge was implemented using sand and death through heat and dehydration. The Deathcap takes the themes in a different direction but with them embodying death through toxins, rot, and the little infectious minions themselves. Since the Golgari have the most parallels to the sylvari in GW2 I figured that an elite specialization that THEY developed using their unique life magic would be excellent to compliment the necromancer's death magic. The color Scheme of the Deathcap will be slightly different from the normal Necromancer Skills. Where the necromancer is more Greens, Turquoise and blues with a little bit of red and yellow, the Deathcap offers Browns, Purples and dark green in its color scheme to really emphasis the idea of rot and decay.

Unique Mechanic: Spore Horrors(working title)Rather than death shroud, and much like Scourge, the Deathcap spawns minions as its skill one as opposed to entering a shroud. The F abilities are designed to aid in their actions, which the player will have greater control over these unique minions compared to their normal minions. They have no cool down but take life force to summon and life force to command. These minions will scale based on your armor. So if you build as a berserker, they will be more frail but hit much harder. If you build tanky the same is true. Their Condition damage scales identically with yours, so that has no change.

1. [F1] Summon Spore Horror: Summon a Spore Horror. Spore horrors degenerate health over time. You may control up to 5 of them at any one time. These minions explode on death dealing damage scaled to your power and their crit chance is based on your current crit chance including Fury. approximate cost, 1,600 life force. No recharge. 1/2 second cast time. Each Minion causes shroud skill 1 to trigger only on death, not on summoning. So combination with traits like Unyielding blast, Dhuumfire and Reaper's Might will in fact combo with these minions. Otherwise they function like normal minions.
2. [F2] Putrid rebirth: Call target location damaging foes, each Spore horror leaps that that location and damages foes, sacrificing themselves then summon 3 new Spore horrors at your location if 4 or more horrors were sacrificed this way. If not, spawn a single spore horror instead. Approximate cost of 2,200 life force. 3/4 second cast time. 7-8 second cool down. The first strike you will do will achieve the boon corrupt of something like path of corruption while the later hits will not. Even if you have no spore horrors this skill will now spawn one for you.
3. [F3] Vile Miasma: Breath a vile cloud in a cone out from you that poison's and confuses foes. Your spore horrors release spores into the air that poison and confuse your foes around them. 300 range in a cone in front of the player. 120 radius around the horrors. Life force cost, around 2,400. 3/4 second cast time. 10-12 second cool down. Never forget that Arena net promised us that the necromancer would apply confusion. NEVER FORGET!
4. [F4] Discord: Conjure an aoe blast of horrifying toxins that poison your foes and cause fear. Spore horrors are sacrificed and create the same AoE blast. Life force cost, 3,300, approximation. 1 second cast time. 180 Radius around yourself and the minions. cool Down 15-20 seconds.
5. [F5] Cadaverous shroud: Gain 2 stacks of stability and your spore horrors become bonded to you. All damage you would take is redirected to those minions for a time. Minions take the burden of health sacrifice. Summon a spore horror if you have none. No cast time. Duration 8-10 seconds 25-30 second cool down a 4,600 life force, approximation.

Each of these skills are designed to use your minions as a means to sacrifice and re-summon them. Most of the skills will trigger the minions death which will trigger your traits. This set is a life force hog though, a bit more so than the Scourge, which its meant to be as these are designed to be recycled.

*Spore Horror MinionsSome unique function of the minions is they have an attack chain where they strike foes every 3/4 a second. The minions also have a Unique ability to leap at your target on a 10 second internal cool down to better aid in the engage. They will use the leap within 500 range of their target. When a spore horror dies it will cause a blast of a 120 radius, damaging up to 3-5 foes in the area, depending on game mode and balancing. The minion death will trigger your shroud skill one.

Unique Skill Type: Sacrifice

The Necromancer in GW1 really had to be mindful of their health. Otherwise they could easily die due to their sacrificial nature. Blood magic and Death magic in GW1 were especially focused on health sacrifice while Curses was a bit easier on that, offering self afflicted conditions and transfer conditions as a part of its kit along with hexes. But here we have an Old idea of using your own health as a resource. Not your life force, that's used for your new Unique minions. Your actually health pool. And yes, these Skills can kill you! But the benefit they will give will be absolutely great! The sacrifice cost will be fixed numbers as opposed to percentages like it was in GW1. This lets people build into high HP specs that can fuel this to greater effect.

1. [Heal] Foul Feast: Heal yourself then steal health from each of your spore horrors. Lose life after the skill has complete. 300 health cost. 3/4 second cast time. 25 second cool down. Unlike the other sacrifice skills you'll see this one has the cost after you use the skill. I figured that would fit better as a heal. its life loss would be minor as to not offset the balance of the heal.
2. [utility] Blood of the Master: Sacrifice health to heal each of your minions for 3.5k(0.5) and Grant them 6 seconds of Quickness and Super speed. The more targets healed, the higher the sacrifice cost. 500 health per minion healed. 3/4 second cast time. 15-20 second cool down. I Couldn't make a Minion master elite spec without the inclusion of this iconic skill from GW1. But I feel it would need a bonus. And giving minions a boost seems like that bonus.
3. [utility] Malignant Field: Sacrifice health to Create a large AoE field at your location. This Field poisons foes for 3 seconds each second and corrupts a boon each second. Lasts 6 seconds. Radius 300. 700 health sacrifice. 1/2 second cast time. 30 second cool down.
4. [utility] Order of Amanita: Sacrifice health. Allies inflict confusion and poison with their next 3 attacks. 300 radius. 1k health sacrifice. 3/4 second cast time. 25-30 second cool down. Amanita is a poisonous mushroom family. They are known for their Red caps with white spots. Aside from that this is a fairly standard aoe damage buff to allies.
5. [utility] Plague Sending: Sacrifice health to break stun of you and your allies and grant 1 stack of stability. Allies transfer conditions with their next few attacks. 300 radius. 250 health per ally. 1/4 second cast time. 35-40 second cool down. How many conditions this should be I'm not entirely sure. But it is something the necromancer does, and giving them the option to let their allies pretend they are necromancers too doesn't seem like a half bad idea.
6. [Elite] Flesh of My Flesh: Channel the powers of life and death to Revive up to 5 downed Allies and or resurrect defeated allies as your loyal minions for a short time. Revived allies gain a 10% Damage boost for 5 seconds, resurrected Allies die after 10 seconds, gain 20% damage boost and gain benefit from Minion traits. Up to 5 targets. Health cost 1.5k health per ally. 1 1/2 second cast time. Radius 600. 180 second cool down. I've wanted this in the game for so long! I don't know how it could work in Anet's current system but OMG this could really turn a raid around as an elite! in WvW it could make for some interesting counter play against larger zergs.

Cool Downs are a bit more difficult to determine for these as is the health cost since we've never had skills quite like this in GW2. So for now I'll leave it blank. But the ideas are all there. These are quite potent effects that could see quite a bit of use across game modes.

Weapon of choice, Shield

Taking into consideration just how much damage the Deathcap will be doing to itself the best possible option for them has to be the Shield as their weapon. Without a proper death shroud, only having their Cadaverous shroud as a means to aid them, no barrier like Scourge to help buffer the damage. So the Deathcap will be given something different. BLOCKS! Actual scaling mechanic with damage! Its primarily a control and defensive weapon taking Inspiration from Diablo 2, which I know Guild Wars original devs have had a hand in.

Bleached Bastion: Raise your shield to block attack. Each attack blocked grants you 2% life force. This skill will change to Spiked Targe if you successfully block an attack. 3 second channel time. 20 second cool down.

• Spiked Targe: Grant allies retaliation damage foes and cause Bleeding. 300 radius.

Bone Wall: Send out a cone of bones shooting forth from the ground knocking enemies back behind a summoned bone wall. Causes crippling and bleeding. Knock back distance 320. 1/2 cast time. 30 second cool down. The Bone wall itself starts off with an animation of bones spiking from the ground and moving outward slowly, pushing enemies back till its edge when it finally summons a bone wall between you and the foe. It counts as an immobile minion that can be killed and acts as a barrier between you and them, much like Ring of Warding or Line of Warding at that point. The difference being is it lasts much longer but is also capable of being killed. The bone wall does act as a body block.

• Bone Spear: Shatter your bone wall into spears bleeding and damaging foes. With proper play a good necromancer could use this at the right moment when a foe is about to break through to harm them further.

Traits

Finally we get to the traits! For these traits I wanted to offer 3 themes with them. Summoning, Affliction and Vitality. Each path will emphasis a different play style giving more a zerg feel, or the infectious host and finally playing with your health.

Minor Traits

• Dark Liege: Infuse your life force into the fungus in the area to animate Spore Horrors and gain access to Sacrifice skills. Spore Horror are impacted by the corresponding traits for shroud.
• Toxic indulgence: Whenever you or a minion you control would deal physical damage to a foe gain a small bit of health.
• Putrid Flesh: Damage and poison foes when your health drops below set health thresholds. 90%, 60%, 30%. 180 radius. Each threshold has a 5 second internal cool down.

Top Traits

These traits focus primarily on summoning to aid allies or your minions.

• [Adept] Explosive Growth: Damage Foes and grant fury to allies on summoning a Minion. This will not trigger shroud skills when summoning spore horrors.
• [Master] Minion Master: On Summoning a minion You deal 2% more damage per minion you have active for 10 seconds. On Minion death you deal 2% more condition damage per minion active for 10 seconds. Maximum of 14%
• [Grandmaster] Night of Living Dead: Spore horrors no longer lose health over time and you can summon an additional 2 horrors, but Summon Spore horror now has a 5 second cool down.

Middle Traits

These traits focus on the affliction side of the Spec. Primarily dealing damage through poison.

• [Adept] Putrify: Poison lasts 20% longer. Whenever you inflict poison corrupt a boon into 1 stack of confusion for 3 seconds. 5 second internal cool down.
• [Master] Dead man's Fingers: Shield skills now inflict poison. Summon bone walls becomes summon Fungal Wall which poisons foes near it and the wall is increased in size. knock back increased to 600.
• [Grandmaster] Virulence: Poison deals 33% more damage. Whenever you poison a foe poison adjacent foes for 5 seconds(3 seconds WvW). 240 radius. 10 second internal cool down. Each target will trigger the trait individually and spread their poison to adjacent foes.

Bottom Traits

With the last set of traits we have traits that care about sacrificing health and vitality.

• [Adept] Blood to Soil: Gain life force whenever you sacrifice health. Reduce the recharge of sacrifice skills by 20%. 7% life force on a 5 second cool down.
• [Master] Vital Fervor Gain 150 Vitality. Your Spore horror skills have a reduced life force cost by half but now cost half that in health. Using these skills now counts as sacrificing health.
• [Grandmaster] Masochism: Putrid flesh now has increased radius by 120 and deals increased damage and poison. Whenever you Sacrifice health trigger Putrid Flesh.

And with that I think this is just about everything. Boy I'm glad to be done with this! This was such a hard one to design for and there are a few things I certainly got a bit too underpowered or over powered I'm sure. But the primary focus for this should be its themes and how some of these ideas might play out in the game. Let me know what you guys think, this took me quite a while to flesh out and literally hours of writing and rewriting skills and abilities so that they could function cohesively. I probably messed a few things up, but Hey! At least its now done!

One additional note I'll make is that the power potential with Death magic and the minion traits is pretty crazy. I knew that going into this. But those traits aren't balanced all that well to begin with. But the build potential is there for a few different ideas here and there. Let me know what you think and as always keep it respectful!

UPDATED!: Some additional information has been added to the design with a few buffs and nerfs to some areas of the fan made elite spec. Putrid flesh has been nerfed as has Flesh of my flesh. Cadaverous shroud has be buffed and stability has been added in a few places to help ease some of the crowd control this elite spec would likely suffer. Spore horrors are now more functional and capable of engaging the target. With this update I wanted to smooth out some of the rough edges to give fans a more cohesive idea. A few suggestions have been taken note and implemented in some way, although I couldn't justify adding some of them. Confusion on poison as a minor trait was too powerful without a conditional clause to it, so it was added as the only condition the boon corrupt could apply. I limited it to 1 stack since confusion is quite strong too. I added bleeding to spike Targe feeling that adding confusion wasn't in the design space for the shield. Sorry. I also moved the shield skills around to better reflect their desired cool downs since Bone wall will have a much longer cool down, it is now skill 5.

Taking suggestions into consideration I made a few updates.

I like an e-spec that focuses on minion as one of necro's main theme so here what i think about this e-spec.

Pros:

1. Revives the lesser-used core specs and make it more competent.
2. Lore related is very nice.
3. Skills and traits are well thought and constructed. Buff allies is what this e-spec should do.

Cons:

1. The minion-centered may restrict other build as it only focus around it, making the e-spec less versatile while it has variety of builds. Adding a main-hand weapon might add more variety to it.
2. The mechanics may lean towards another dull and not engaging playstyle like scourge (matter of personal taste).
3. The redundancy in AoE-based skills like scourge and reaper and more importantly support which what scourge should prevail.
4. Pvp might become more chaotic with saturation of clones/minions.
5. Thematic-wise might not be satisfactory to some people (The e-spec reminds me of HoT mushroom wiggling its leg when upside-down :S)

Opinion

This e-spec can be what the necro e-spec should be if the main issue missing in previous e-specs and core necro already solved by another e-spec (3rd e-spec) before which embody a single-target duelist-type (has a reliable disengage and mobility).
The redundancy of scourge being support can be fixed with scourge reworked towards more of a defensive support/ corrupter (Dps will further be reduced i guess ;w;) and this e-spec an offensive support as well as other suitable roles.Last but the most important is the concept and name. Even though it directly describe the whole theme, Im not sure if it sounds badass to give a good first impression. My suggestion is to add the word blight as it is also fungus-related (deadly one) and, has a general meaning of harm and rot and also widely used term to describe its meaning.This is my personal opinion and i might be wrong or missed something already mentioned. Feel free to correct.

p/s: I also created a minionmancer e-spec a while ago but i guess i will save until the best time to share :S (still halfway finished).

@"EdDreath.2508" said:I like an e-spec that focuses on minion as one of necro's main theme so here what i think about this e-spec.

Pros:

1. Revives the lesser-used core specs and make it more competent.
2. Lore related is very nice.
3. Skills and traits are well thought and constructed. Buff allies is what this e-spec should do.

Cons:

1. The minion-centered may restrict other build as it only focus around it, making the e-spec less versatile while it has variety of builds. Adding a main-hand weapon might add more variety to it.
2. The mechanics may lean towards another dull and not engaging playstyle like scourge (matter of personal taste).
3. The redundancy in AoE-based skills like scourge and reaper and more importantly support which what scourge should prevail.
4. Pvp might become more chaotic with saturation of clones/minions.
5. Thematic-wise might not be satisfactory to some people (The e-spec reminds me of HoT mushroom wiggling its leg when upside-down :S)

Opinion

This e-spec can be what the necro e-spec should be if the main issue missing in previous e-specs and core necro already solved by another e-spec (3rd e-spec) before which embody a single-target duelist-type (has a reliable disengage and mobility).

The redundancy of scourge being support can be fixed with scourge reworked towards more of a defensive support/ corrupter (Dps will further be reduced i guess ;w;) and this e-spec an offensive support as well as other suitable roles.Last but the most important is the concept and name. Even though it directly describe the whole theme, Im not sure if it sounds kitten to give a good first impression. My suggestion is to add the word blight as it is also fungus-related (deadly one) and, has a general meaning of harm and rot and also widely used term to describe its meaning.This is my personal opinion and i might be wrong or missed something already mentioned. Feel free to correct.

p/s: I also created a minionmancer e-spec a while ago but i guess i will save until the best time to share :S (still halfway finished).

Scourge provides more of a Defensive support already along with boon support. This spec's support is more akin to that of a thief that uses venom share. This support aspect is geared toward condi and its revival is just a flavor win as a manipulator of death. The minions in my head would probably look more like Gorsaval than mushrooms. More like this. I mentioned the Golgari because of their theme to give people a good idea of what that might be. So the concept art of their undead is quite striking and very dirty and corrupted looking.

Here's some reference Pictures.https://magic.wizards.com/sites/mtg/files/image_legacy_migration/images/magic/daily/mm/mm223_korozda_guildmage.jpghttps://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/005/142/193/large/svetlin-velinov-golgari-germination.jpg?1488803771https://magic.wizards.com/sites/mtg/files/image_legacy_migration/images/magic/daily/features/feat214a_103.jpghttps://img00.deviantart.net/38bd/i/2012/263/2/3/deathrite_shaman_by_steveargyle-d5fddd4.jpghttps://i.pinimg.com/originals/39/94/db/3994db226d76449629a4ce115304bbcc.jpghttp://s3.gatheringmagic.com/uploads/2018/02/14/ML_64.jpg

Aesthetically, its not for everyone. But an elite spec or even a class doesn't have to be designed for everyone. For example, I HATE reaper! I despise that elite spec, it is not at all what I want to do with necromancer. And there are plenty of the community who hate the Scourge. But that's fine, reaper wasn't designed for me and Scourge wasn't designed for them.

This spec is also far more frail than Reaper and Scourge. So its play style demands something quite different. And considering the Spore horrors do require an activation time it avoids the cantrip problem that Scourge had at the launch of PoF. I also think this Spec will be far more difficult to run in PvP because of the fact its Skill one requires life force. Summon Sand Shade doesn't require energy to use, so the player will have to engage with nothing much like reaper and core necromancer and need to build from there. If they don't have permanent minions this means they have to be wiser about how and when to summon them. And if they do, keeping them up will be important as the enemy might focus to cleave them down. So in PvP, it might require a lot of dedication from the player to get going. Not saying it can't be strong, it absolutely can be! And some skills are designed for PvP. Malignant Field is absolutely designed for PvP, but might not be enough still, who knows.

I hope this clears a few things up. Glad to keep the conversation going on though.