Are Minion Masters Passive builds?(Multi game perspective)

[Redpawa.4108]

Minions as a utility type will always be passive skills.Currently the two most widely used minions are Wurm and Flesh Golem. The only use for wurm is to teleport, and Flesh Golem is taken because the other two elites have active drawbacks (Long-cast transform skill, Self-bleeding). Currently Flesh Golem is so weak that racial elites are consistently taken over it.
The main options for improving minions are to make minion’s a secondary effect on normal skills, dedicate an elite spec to it, or make minions into a secondary proffession mechanic e.g. phantasms/symbols.From these, minionmancers would hate the first option, everyone else would hate the second, and the third is still meh.

[Lily.1935]

@Redpawa.4108 said:Minions as a utility type will always be passive skills.Currently the two most widely used minions are Wurm and Flesh Golem. The only use for wurm is to teleport, and Flesh Golem is taken because the other two elites have active drawbacks (Long-cast transform skill, Self-bleeding). Currently Flesh Golem is so weak that racial elites are consistently taken over it.

The main options for improving minions are to make minion’s a secondary effect on normal skills, dedicate an elite spec to it, or make minions into a secondary proffession mechanic e.g. phantasms/symbols.From these, minionmancers would hate the first option, everyone else would hate the second, and the third is still meh.

Minions kinda already are a secondary mechanic for necromancer. Both Lich and rise summon them and minions aren't limited to their utility either with Rune of the Lich existing. Going in that direction would be great. Adding more temporary minions to be summoned through weapons could be amazing. And I have some ideas for that as well.

I dislike the idea of every weapon skill summoning a minion. That would be awful. But 2 skills for core weapons such as on focus and staff summoning minions with a life span of 6-10 seconds does offer some more unique play with them.

As for Minion Utility skills? Yeah they're uninteresting. Shadow Fiend and Blood fiend are common in PvE but no where else and Bone minions and Bone fiend are open world exclusives....

Making Bone fiend's command skill more engaging, like a ground target aoe could help with its passivity and offer some utility. While Bone minion would actually benefit greatly from the charge system and increasing their numbers by 1. Both of these forces you to be aware of your minions location when you decide to use them and gives more engagement.

I don't want to replace any skills on Scepter, warhorn, Either Daggers, or axe. But Focus could use some love for sure and I feel a Nice temporary minion like an unstable horror could really help out its utility...

Minions are kinda treated similarly to engineer elixirs. They both show up on more than just utility skills they're associated with and both have far more potential to be built into by the class.

[Xaylin.1860]

@Lily.1935 said:

@Redpawa.4108 said:[...] The main options for improving minions are to make minion’s a secondary effect on normal skills, dedicate an elite spec to it, or make minions into a secondary proffession mechanic e.g. phantasms/symbols. [...]Minions kinda already are a secondary mechanic for necromancer. Both Lich and rise summon them and minions aren't limited to their utility either with Rune of the Lich existing. Going in that direction would be great. Adding more temporary minions to be summoned through weapons could be amazing. And I have some ideas for that as well.

[...]

Minions are kinda treated similarly to engineer elixirs. They both show up on more than just utility skills they're associated with and both have far more potential to be built into by the class.

Oh boy, this again. It's really pushing my buttons, no offense.

Sure, many things are subjective and you might just say others simply disagree with you. Fair point. But adamantly stating Minions were a secondary class mechanic or more important than other Utility groups is not making it more true. It doesn't make sense when looking at how GW2 Necromancers are designed as a whole. Minions might have played a more significant role during developement but this was scrapped. Every decision ANet made since then treated Minions as Utility group no better than any other. This is also heavily emphasized by the last Death Magic rework which basically removed Minions from all Minors. In contrast to the rework of Zeal, where Symbols became even more important.

Actually, your comparison to Elixirs is quite accurate. However, what you're more likely looking for are 'Explosions' which - even before the respective traitline was reworked - were scattered across all Engineer weapons and skills. Even on Elixirs (Toolbelt). By the way, just as for Minions, the importance of Elixirs within Alchemy has been reduced with their last rework. I'm a bit dumbfounded, though. Do you believe Elxirs to be a secondary class mechanic of Engineers? They clearly are not. Why even make this comparison? Regardless, you misinterpret the importance of those skills and their relevance for the class!

You got an argument that Minions show up on other skills. But we are talking about two skills here. How does that prove anything? I've brought this example before. Mesmer got Stealth on Glamours, Signets, Manipulations and Illusions. It's also on a weapon. And we got several traits. Does it make Stealth a secondary class mechanic? No! It's just something this class does and that fits the theme of being trickery. You can find arguments like this for many effects on many classes if you just wanted to. But it doesn't really prove anything.

What about Symbols? Closest to Symbols are probably Explosions. How would this look on Necromancer? Corruption would fit that bill way better than Minions considering every weapon set up has some sort of manipulation. Even though all those Boon corruptions and Condition transfers don't classify as 'Corruption'. If you wanted something to compare to Mesmer Illusions, Spectral skills would be the equivalent on Necromancers. Because their main theme is fueling the class mechanic (Life Force). And they are connected to Soul Reaping after all. You know... the 'class defining' traitline? Then again, this comparison is flawed from the start anyway. Because neither Symbols nor Explosions are Utility groups. Sure, Illusion Utilities fit your desired set up. But those are primarily a resource. So we'd be back at arguing wether Spectrals shouldn't be more important, not Minions.

Don't get me wrong.

• I'm all for making Minions more active by reworking Death Magic and/or the Utility skills.
• I'm all for making them less ugly although this is purely my personal taste.
• I'm open for an e-spec with a pet mechanic although I'd rather have something more 'mobile'.

However, the agenda of pushing Minions to be more important for the class than they currently are or even becoming the class mechanic, I do not agree with. Minions are not a class mechanic outside of Ranger and even for Mesmers they are mainly a resource. Minions are not more important to Necromancers than other Utility skills. The class design in GW2 does not support this assumption. At least that's what I believe.

My personal opinion aside, it's unlikely ANet will invest time to do such a rework. So I'd rather adjust my expectations accordingly than being disappointed in the end. Now, if you just wanted to theorycraft: Sure, whatever floats your boat. Minions could be incorporated into the class. But so could Marks. Corruptions. Spectrals. But aside from theorycrafting this is probably not going to happen. Maybe on an e-spec. But even that can't be confirmed at this point. However, if you wanted to spend energy on this specific topic, I'd probably go for e-specs.

[Lily.1935]

@Xaylin.1860 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Redpawa.4108 said:[...] The main options for improving minions are to make minion’s a secondary effect on normal skills, dedicate an elite spec to it, or make minions into a secondary proffession mechanic e.g. phantasms/symbols. [...]Minions kinda already are a secondary mechanic for necromancer. Both Lich and rise summon them and minions aren't limited to their utility either with Rune of the Lich existing. Going in that direction would be great. Adding more temporary minions to be summoned through weapons could be amazing. And I have some ideas for that as well.

[...]

Minions are kinda treated similarly to engineer elixirs. They both show up on more than just utility skills they're associated with and both have far more potential to be built into by the class.

Oh boy, this again. It's really pushing my buttons, no offense.

Sure, many things are subjective and you might just say others simply disagree with you. Fair point. But adamantly stating Minions were a secondary class mechanic or more important than other Utility groups is not making it more true. It doesn't make sense when looking at how GW2 Necromancers are designed as a whole. Minions might have played a more significant role during developement but this was scrapped. Every decision ANet made since then treated Minions as Utility group no better than any other. This is also heavily emphasized by the last Death Magic rework which basically removed Minions from all Minors. In contrast to the rework of Zeal, where Symbols became even more important.

Actually, your comparison to Elixirs is quite accurate. However, what you're more likely looking for are 'Explosions' which - even before the respective traitline was reworked - were scattered across all Engineer weapons and skills. Even on Elixirs (Toolbelt). By the way, just as for Minions, the importance of Elixirs within Alchemy has been reduced with their last rework. I'm a bit dumbfounded, though. Do you believe Elxirs to be a secondary class mechanic of Engineers? They clearly are not. Why even make this comparison? Regardless, you misinterpret the importance of those skills and their relevance for the class!

You got an argument that Minions show up on other skills. But we are talking about two skills here. How does that prove anything? I've brought this example before. Mesmer got Stealth on Glamours, Signets, Manipulations and Illusions. It's also on a weapon. And we got several traits. Does it make Stealth a secondary class mechanic? No! It's just something this class does and that fits the theme of being trickery. You can find arguments like this for many effects on many classes if you just wanted to. But it doesn't really prove anything.

What about Symbols? Closest to Symbols are probably Explosions. How would this look on Necromancer? Corruption would fit that bill way better than Minions considering every weapon set up has some sort of manipulation. Even though all those Boon corruptions and Condition transfers don't classify as 'Corruption'. If you wanted something to compare to Mesmer Illusions, Spectral skills would be the equivalent on Necromancers. Because their main theme is fueling the class mechanic (Life Force). And they are connected to Soul Reaping after all. You know... the 'class defining' traitline? Then again, this comparison is flawed from the start anyway. Because neither Symbols nor Explosions are Utility groups. Sure, Illusion Utilities fit your desired set up. But those are primarily a resource. So we'd be back at arguing wether Spectrals shouldn't be more important, not Minions.

Don't get me wrong.

• I'm all for making Minions more active by reworking Death Magic and/or the Utility skills.
• I'm all for making them less ugly although this is purely my personal taste.
• I'm open for an e-spec with a pet mechanic although I'd rather have something more 'mobile'.

However, the agenda of pushing Minions to be more important for the class than they currently are or even becoming the class mechanic, I do not agree with. Minions are not a class mechanic outside of Ranger and even for Mesmers they are mainly a resource. Minions are not more important to Necromancers than other Utility skills. The class design in GW2 does not support this assumption. At least that's what I believe.

My personal opinion aside, it's unlikely ANet will invest time to do such a rework. So I'd rather adjust my expectations accordingly than being disappointed in the end. Now, if you just wanted to theorycraft: Sure, whatever floats your boat. Minions could be incorporated into the class. But so could Marks. Corruptions. Spectrals. But aside from theorycrafting this is probably not going to happen. Maybe on an e-spec. But even that can't be confirmed at this point. However, if you wanted to spend energy on this specific topic, I'd probably go for e-specs.

Your perspective is fair. I'm not so much asking for a minion on every weapon, I'd personally hate that. More having like 2 more on some existing weapons. My preference would be on Staff and Focus. My reason for Focus I explained because Focus' 4 is a pretty uninteresting, bad skill which is clunky to use. Maybe its different in PvP. But for PvE and WvW i don't know anyone who uses it except for desperation and even then you have better options. So having something Unique compared to other weapons would be nice.

As for staff I didn't explain this. Marks were supposed to be like symbols. I strongly dislike the gameplay of marks. I find they're too restrictive in WvW when trying to create counter play for keeps, they lack punch for PvE and sure you can place a bunch of marks on a point but it acts like an obvious trap which isn't interesting. And we have players wishing for marks on every or most weapons which is... NO! So I'd really like to completely get rid of them. They used to be on Lich but were removed. Staff I feel could be more interesting with some support skills. One such skill I would like to see is the ability to summon 2 extremely low damage and low health Blood Minions that you can pop to heal allies. My concept would be they have a short life span, 10 seconds at most and would be sacrificed similar to Bone minions but rather than damage they heal.

Support elements were removed from Focus and staff over the years. Reaper's touch was a bounce that provided regen. Yeah, its not a bit loss, but I strongly dislike the move away from support for core necro. Staff lost their ability to pull conditions off allies and transfer them to foes from Putrid mark. And recently Wells lost their Vampiric ritual which could grant allies protection. From my perspective this move away from support is extremely bad for the necromancer's overall design. So my desires for staff is based on my desires for more support options.

Now what would these changes do in tandem? Well, not a whole lot. A Scepter/Focus combo or Axe/focus combo could be interesting with staff in a Minion bomber spec. You summon Unstable horrors with Focus, swap to Staff and summon two blood minions and sac them close the death time of the unstable horrors giving some mini nukes with Death Nova.

Or staff on its own as giving you the means to prepare the minions to be sacrificed at the right time to aid allies.

[Al Masone.1274]

As others have said, minions suffer from a trait line that supports their passive usage, and no weapon is dedicated to them. Also their secondary abilities aren't generally that great, so you don't really have much reason to use them.IMO, a rework of minions that would make a minion master more interesting and more active should focus on the fact that minions are basically puppets easy to replace. To that end I'd like a combination of secondary skills and trait line that will make you summon and expend minions quite often and way faster than now, with possibly the only exception being the flesh golem.To put up quick theory I would say:General:

• greatly reduce the time to summon minions (I guess at first the wanted to emphasize the stress of raising undead minions, but that definitely never worked)
• minions are immune to damage but have degrading health (I think degrading health has a nicer feel rather than a fixed amount of time, but either may work. I don't think minions should be susceptible to damage as that alone can make them a nightmare to manage. They still are susceptible to CC though.)
• minions active skills are usable while in shroud, but you can't summon them.
• above each minions skill you will get to see how much time they have left.

Blood fiend:

• Life lost due to degrading health (se above) is added to your lifepool
• Attacks don't siphon life (due to previous addition), but extend the duration of the blood fiend
• Active skill "The blood fiend explodes in a cloud of necromantic energies that restored the health of nearby allies depending on how much health the blood fiend had when it died" (I'd give fixed amount depending on the health perecentage it had when it died)

Bone minions:

• Passively explode when they died
• Active "command your minions to jump at the target and explode. If the explosion hits, par of the CD for the summon is refunded"

Bone fiend:(personally I think that all minions should be melee oriented, with the exeption being the wurm because it is first and foremost and escape tool, but I'll give an idea anyway)

• Auto still 900 but attacks while moving and slowly tries to reach melee with the target. Targets hit at 600 or less range get a debuff that increase damage done by allied minions and summoned creatures (would apply to allied ranger pets, elementals, turrets, and so on)
• Active "command your bone fiend to borrow towards your target, where it will immobilize it with its claws and deal damage.

Shadow fiend:First of all please change its aesthetics, It's just a black blob right now. Maybe make it looks like a ghostly black raven.

• Passively applies blind to nearby enemies every few seconds (kinda similar to well of darkness, but moving and with a smaller, smaller area, basically only hitting those it's in melee with).
• Active "The shadow fiend dissolves in a swarm of dark energy that affects the target area, dealing damage and corrupting boons, but no longer inflicting blindness. Extra damage against blinded enemies. At the end of the effect the shadow fiend to turn back to normal until it eventually dies.

Flesh wurm:Only one I wouldn't change, though here to I'd put the degrading health so that you want to plan a bit more before using it.

Flesh Golem:

• DOESN'T have degrading health, making it your only permanent minion, but it is affacted by damage unlike the other minions
• It should almost feel like a ranger pet but not quite.
• No longer applies crippled
• Has an aura of decay that deals damage and removes boons from targets it's in melee with
• Gains quickness for a few seconds when summoned, and everytime you enter or exit shroud.Active Charge remains the same

DM trait line:1 - FLESH OF THE MASTER - Your basic minions last longer and you gain stacks of death's carapace at intervals while they last. Using a minion active skill grants a buff that removes the casting time of the next minion summoning skill you use.2 - NECROMANTIC CORRUPTION - Basic minions take conditions from you while you're near them (600 or so range). When they damage enemies with their respective active skills, they transfer those conditions.3 (REPLACE DEATH NOVA) - While you are in shroud, your basic minions gain pulsing quickness but their life degrades faster. When your minions die, they spawn a jagged horror. (don't really know what to do with the poison nova)4! (Replaces that weird thing that is unholy sanctuary) - All your minions grant you life force while you are not in shroud. While you are in shroud, your flesh golem transforms in a more powerful version (mainly more damage and health, but I'd add a charge that ends in a AOE knockdown).

People say to rework staff, but in wvw it's pretty much essential as a zoning tool. So I think that role should actually go to the dagger.My idea would be that, while minions aren't affected by damage, you are, and so a Minion Master actually wants to be just behind his own minions, not far away. My idea for the dagger would be of a medium to short ranged weapon (600), that still has a life steal skill to keep you alive while your minions to their job.Skill 1 - sequence1 - cleave a small area near your target twice, striking nearby enemies. Basically the same dagger attack we have now, but ranged and strikes up to 3 targets2 - strike your foe again and gain life force3 - strike your foe and gain life force and health

Skill 2Steal health from nearby foes. Heal effetiveness increased if you have conditions on you. Damage increased against opponents affected by conditions (any condition works, but damage doesn't stack per conditions, let's not get crazy)

Skill 3Immobilize a foe a summon jagged horrors around him. Extend the duration of your minions