The Necromancer class doesn't really scratch that "summoner" itch.

[Aodlop.1907]

If you're not really into the whole death & decay theme, it feels kind of meh. Besides, you don't actually have spells or talents focused around enhancing your summons or interacting with them much.

 

I'd love a summoner class is what I'm getting at.

[LucianDK.8615]

Anet doesnt want ai to fight for you. Scared by the GW1 necromancer whom could maintain a huge horde, 30+ skeletons. Though it later got downsized.

 

But it was a large mass of bodies that groups going through the more difficult cantha missions, would constantly beg for necromancers to carry them.

 

So yeah, the GW2 necromancer is a shadow of the performance of the past.

[Teratus.2859]

There is certainly room for improvement although I've long believed that too many people in Gw2 mistake the Necromancers Minions for "offense mechanics" when they are far more proficient as defensive support utilities.
Just look at all the traits that benefit them, it's all defence/support based.

Death Magic.

Flesh of the Master:
Increases Minion Health and gives the player Carapace for every minion they have.

Carapace increases the players Toughness stat by +20 per stack to a max of 30 stacks = 600 toughness.
Minions alone can provide and even sustain 6 to 10+ stacks if played right which is an easy 120 to 200+ free and easily accessible toughness.

Necromantic Corruption:
Minions deal more damage and take conditions from you, transferring conditions to targets when they attack with a 10 second cooldown per minion.

The damage increase on this is largely irrelevant, Without any kind of boost from your own stats Minions are never going to be pushing out insane dps, even if you know how to make yourself a 1 man army with 12+ minions dishing out damage.
The biggest benefit of this trait is the condition cleansing aspect, the more minions you have the harder it is for enemies to keep conditions on you, thus the harder it is for said conditions to stack!
Fast stacking can get around it but could also end up being dangerous for the enemy should that huge stack of burning etc get pulled off and sent back by a minion.
Admittedly this is a tricky trait to make active use off but nevertheless it is definitely a useful support utility to have, even if it is just for keeping your Necromancer condi free as much as possible.

Death Nova:
Creates a poison field when a minion dies and summons a Jagged Horror in it's place.

Admittedly this isn't that good of a trait in PvE, the Jagged Horror is probably the most useful element of it since it keeps your minion count up when you loose one, (Thus maintaining some Carapace) however the CD makes this skill significantly less useful as most of the minions that will be "dying" will be Shambling Horrors and they will mostly die around the same time leaving you with only 1 Jagged Horror rather than multiple.
The poison fields they produce can be useful in competitive modes I guess but not really in PvE.
The potential of combo fields however is not too bad but unfortunately Necromancer really really!! sucks in this department so there are very very few times where you will be taking advantage of a Poison Field to pull off a Blast Finisher for AoE Weakness which is arguably the better combo effect they have access to.
Most of the time you'll be throwing out Poison Bolts from a Whirl finisher which are just not that useful.

Blood Magic.

Vampiric:
Siphon Health (lifesteal) when you attack a target, Minions also siphon health (lifesteal) when they attack and transfer that health to you.

This trait is arguably the best Minion trait in the game by far!! and it's a bloody minor.. pun intended 😄 
If you are playing a minion Necromancer with the focus on the one man army playstyle (having as many minions as possible as much as possible and maintaining them) then you are going to be having a significant amount of constant incoming healing from this trait.
Every hit you do is around +30 health and every minion hit will give you +50 health.

So lets check the minions themselves.

Blood fiend, Healing minion: 
It attacks once around every 3 seconds and heals it's master for around 920 health.
Add Vampiric and that gets boosted to almost 1000 incoming health every 3 seconds, nothing to scoff at at all.

Bone Fiend, Ranged Minion:
The main thing about this minion is that every attack it does is a x2 double hit and from range.
Range alone is going to help keep this thing alive and out of danger like the Blood Fiend.
Now while I haven't checked specifically I am pretty sure that Vampiric triggers on both hits from this minions attacks effectively doubling the incoming health it provides when it attacks every few seconds.

Bone Minions, Sacrificial minions:
You get 2 of these minions upon summoning but they are very weak and won't really survive for long in combat even with buffs which is why I personally choose to go with the Bone Fiend instead.
Having two minions will also double the incoming lifesteal healing every 3 seconds when they attack and will provide 2 carapace stacks instead of just one, but the most useful element of these summons by far is that they are one of the only ways that Necromancers can access somewhat reliable blast finishers.
It's a matter of preference here but personally I other options.

Flesh Wurm, Artillery support:
This isn't a bad minion, certainly deals more damage than most of them and has some useful utility allowing you to teleport to it's location and again trigger one of the rare blast finishers that Necromancers have access too.
But it also has some drawbacks as well, It is always rooted in place and cannot move and unlike other minions it attacks once every 4 seconds.
Sadly this means that it isn't really that good for lifestealing support.
This minion is far more useful in competitive modes for it's teleport function if you ask me, which is why I don't use it.

Shadow Fiend, The Fast attacker:
Shadow Fiend is a must on minion builds that utilise Vampiric, It has a teleport to target skill that Blinds, Chills and Weakens it's target as well as provides life force for the Necromancer and unlike most other minions it attacks every 1,5 seconds rather than every 3 seconds like most others do.
This effectively doubles it's lifesteal healing potential for the usual 3 second attack rotation of other minions.

Flesh Golem, The Elite Minon:
Not much to say, it's the elite minion, it attacks pretty much constantly at .8 second intervals which is great for Vampiric and it's on command move is a huge and very useful CC attack that does massive damage to break bars.

Summon Madness, The Lich Skill:
Honestly I never use for multiple reasons, the cooldown on Lich form is way too long for me especially on a skill that only lasts 30 seconds.
Summon Madness has you constantly summoning short lived minions that can explode if they survive for 6 seconds.
It's not compatible with how I enjoy minions so yeah I don't use it and have little to say about it.

Lastly and most definitely the best minion skill in the game!
Rise!, The Reaper specialization exclusive shout:
This skill is frankly amazing!
It's a weak AoE attack that deals some damage to all enemies around you in a 600 radius.
It summons a Shambling Horror at your location every time you use it as well as upto 5 additional Shambling Horrors for every enemy you hit with the shout, potentially giving you 6 minions every use of the skill.
If you are running the Death Magic minion traits as well then all the Shambling Horrors you create using Rise! will Leave Death Novas upon death which can add a little extra damage and they will also provide extra carapace stacks.
6 Horrors = another 120 toughness for you while they are alive.
Vampiric also works with these minions as well so every Shambling Horror you have will be feeding you another 50 health per attack, that's another 300 health every attack rotation with 6 Horrors in your army.

The main thing you want these minions for however is their Dark Bond ability!
When a Shambling Horror is attacking/in combat, you get the Dark Bond buff.
This buff cannot be removed or ripped from you, the only thing that removes it is killing all of the Shambling Horrors you have summoned.
Dark Bond is basically a unique Protection boon, reducing incoming damage by 33% and on top of that it stacks with the Protection boon as well with diminishing returns.

So think about it, Shambling Horrors live for 25 seconds.. in combat they will provide this Dark Bond effect.
That basically means Rise! on top of providing more minions, more Carapace, More incoming healing also provides 25 seconds of unremovable protection all of which is on a skill with a modified 36 second cooldown!
That is borderline broken as hell OP!! for a single skill if you ask me and I love it XD

So with this in mind.
A Minion build with Blood Fiend, Bone Fiend, Shadow Fiend, Flesh Golem and Rise! is easily going be constantly pumping you with incoming healing.
Is going to provide you with easy to access 200+ toughness from carapace regularly.
Is going to to be pulling conditions off you constantly 
Is going to provide you with regular 25 seconds of unremovable protection -33% incoming damage.

Combining all that with a more tanky focused Necro stat set as well as the awesome lifesteal healing you can get from the Dagger 2 skill and you are almost unkillable in PvE.

There are no other classes in the game that does a Summoner playstyle like this and personally I think that's actually quite sad as well.
I would love to see other classes like Elementalist get an Elite Spec based around summoning and sacrificing elemental minions.
But I would hate to see Necromancer minions become the kind of high DPS, offensively focused sacrificial minions that I have often seen other players wishing for on here.

Necro Minions are a defensive!, support! mechanic for the Necromancer and if more people played them that way they would understand just how good they are at keeping you alive.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Teratus.2859

[Fueki.4753]

Necromancer isn't supposed to scratch any Summoner itch.

It's supposed to scratch that death and decay itch. But it's not really great at that either. It doesn't even use corpses for anything anymore.

Mesmer probably scratches that Summoner itch better than Necromancer.

[Zalavaaris.5329]

50 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Necromancer isn't supposed to scratch any Summoner itch.

This is the definition for necromancy. 

"Necromancy is the practice of magic or black magic involving communication with the dead – either by summoning their spirits as apparitions, visions or raising them bodily"

It should scratch the summoner itch. 

[Handsel.2891]

11 minutes ago, Zalavaaris.5329 said:

This is the definition for necromancy. 

"Necromancy is the practice of magic or black magic involving communication with the dead – either by summoning their spirits as apparitions, visions or raising them bodily"

It should scratch the summoner itch. 

Well, arguing by the real world definitions of in-game concepts can create a hole deep enough to swallow all of Tyria.

To stay with the professions, what's the real life definition of the word engineer, for example? I don't think it mentions dual wielding pistols, for one.

[Fueki.4753]

36 minutes ago, Zalavaaris.5329 said:

This is the definition for necromancy. 

"Necromancy is the practice of magic or black magic involving communication with the dead – either by summoning their spirits as apparitions, visions or raising them bodily"

It should scratch the summoner itch. 

It's stated ingame by Trahearne that we do not summon the dead.

In fact, nothing about Necromancers is directly using the literal dead in any capacity (as far as player actions are concerned). The Death theme has been reduced to simply using the Death spectrum of magic.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Fueki.4753

[SunTzu.4513]

To be honest i was hoping for some kind of new elite with a summoner theme. I would really enjoy to buff my minions and debuffing my enemies and finally let the minions explode in one big glourius boom. Or something like this: You need to summon lesser minions and sacrifice them to get one big thing. I really like the approach GW2 take on the whole death magic thing. It's not evil it's just a spectrum of magic that you use. I'm really jealous about the engis. Something like the mech i always wanted for my necro. A big summoned abomination which i can order to use different attacks and buff it with utility skills...

[Dadnir.5038]

There is a good reason the necromancer does not scratch the "summoner itch", that's because minions aren't built into the main mechanism of the GW2 Necromancer. It's not that you can't play a "summoner" and be succesfull as Terratus very well said, it's just that the minions not being tied to the main mechanism just make them feel like they are extra feature instead of the main focus that you would expect from a "summoner" (and that is enough to feel that it is "lacking" something).

Edit: The minions active skills and the lack of direct control over your "minion army" also make you feel like you're minion caretaker instead of being the master of a "minion army" and that really push the fun out of the gameplay.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Dadnir.5038

[Zalavaaris.5329]

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

It's stated ingame by Trahearne that we do not summon the dead.

In fact, nothing about Necromancers is directly using the literal dead in any capacity (as far as player actions are concerned). The Death theme has been reduced to simply using the Death spectrum of magic.

Then they suck at naming and nomenclature. 

[Cranky wo Coffee.5914]

They really missed the boat when they made the revenant. The revenant should have been an actual Ritualist.  

[Teratus.2859]

3 hours ago, Zalavaaris.5329 said:

Then they suck at naming and nomenclature. 

It depends on what they mean by summoning in that regard.

Players don't get to "summon" the dead exactly but can conjure up undead minions and control them.

But there are Necromancers in the universe that can "summon" the spirits of the dead and communicate with them (We enlist a Necromancer to do this in the personal story for us)

So in universe Necromancers do actually fit into the correct nomenclature.
Where they don't so much is specifically in the player class Necromancer which is bound more by necessary game mechanics than actual lore.

Player class Necros are more of a mix and match of various other things like Warlocks, Lich's and Vampires.
 

[Zalavaaris.5329]

1 hour ago, Teratus.2859 said:

It depends on what they mean by summoning in that regard.

Players don't get to "summon" the dead exactly but can conjure up undead minions and control them.

But there are Necromancers in the universe that can "summon" the spirits of the dead and communicate with them (We enlist a Necromancer to do this in the personal story for us)

So in universe Necromancers do actually fit into the correct nomenclature.
Where they don't so much is specifically in the player class Necromancer which is bound more by necessary game mechanics than actual lore.

Player class Necros are more of a mix and match of various other things like Warlocks, Lich's and Vampires.
 

I can't tell you how much I always wished a necro in gw2 would go all zhaitan and literally raise the dead. The little meat minions aren't as edgy as I'd like. I've always wanted that to be different as a necro person in all games that will allow me to. 

[Nimon.7840]

Dear Palawa Yoko, please shut those mouths of the players that want even more super annoying ai gameplay. Necro already has that!

[Teratus.2859]

10 hours ago, Zalavaaris.5329 said:

I can't tell you how much I always wished a necro in gw2 would go all zhaitan and literally raise the dead. The little meat minions aren't as edgy as I'd like. I've always wanted that to be different as a necro person in all games that will allow me to. 

Both Zhaitan and Palawa Joko did pretty much exactly that.
Although it's quite easy to overlook their association with Necromancy because the main thing we associate them with are Elder Dragon and Lich instead.

Zhaitan was more along the lines of having a natural affinity for Death Magic, though he was not a practitioner of the Necromancy art that is practiced by mortal races.
He still tapped into the same spectrum of magic that is studied by Necromancers and while we could say Zhaitan was a Necromancer type being he would not be a Necromancer in the same way mortals are.

Joko on the other hand was an avid practitioner of Necromancy and was one of the most powerful Necromancers in the world long before he became a Lich.
Joko is very much the closest thing Gw2 has to an all powerful, evil and genuine Necromancer who commands an undead army.
Specially if you don't consider Zhaitan to be a real Necromancer.

There have been other bad Necromancers in the game as well though mostly they've been event bosses or story bosses etc.
Such as Shady Hammon who lures you into an abandoned graveyard and sets Fleshreavers on you.
And the Necromancer Bria who tries to steal the souls of Charr cubs.

Also a fun fact: Bria and her Shadow Friend are the only enemy NPC's in the game that use the Death shroud mechanic.

[Obtena.7952]

True, it's not fulfilling the summoner theme. I'm OK with that. It's a tired, boring and typical necromancer implementation. 

[Zenith.7301]

Anet has been terrible implementing and supporting pet specs and classes until Mechanist coming out this xpac.

[Kronos.2560]

I would have loved necros to summon an army of meat shields from corpses but that chance was long over when they first implemented the new shroud Necro when gw2 first came out.

 

But we can still slightly play a necromancer rile decently with rise on the reaper. Ironically that one skill basically beats out all the other minions combined.

 

My only gripe is minions look terrible. I would pay some good gems to be able to customize/reskin the minions in better themes. Even as undead because to me it looks like all necromancer minions are just a bunch of ugly rats. A Necro should feel cool with zombies, dogs, golems heck even smaller dragons or wyverns and all sorts of other monsters! My biggest peeve is still seeing the difference of the gw1 golem vs gw2. The gw1 version looked soo much cooler vs the meatblob we have now.

 

 

[Rym.1469]

There is a potential workaround ArenaNet could go for for the players who want to live out this summoner fantasy and not break the game trying to make it an elite spec and a thing that exists in all game modes.

If they ever go for Profession-specific Masteries, the Necromancer mastery for a region of open world pve zones or just for a map could allow players to raise dead from corpses like in GW1. This way, we could make players who are into it happy, make an interesting set of masteries and keep the AI hordes away from competitive environments.

[Dadnir.5038]

9 hours ago, Rym.1469 said:

There is a potential workaround ArenaNet could go for for the players who want to live out this summoner fantasy and not break the game trying to make it an elite spec and a thing that exists in all game modes.

If they ever go for Profession-specific Masteries, the Necromancer mastery for a region of open world pve zones or just for a map could allow players to raise dead from corpses like in GW1. This way, we could make players who are into it happy, make an interesting set of masteries and keep the AI hordes away from competitive environments.

The AI horde is already available within the competitive modes and it's pretty much hated by a lot of the sPvP community. A reaper minionmaster can get quite a lot of minions behind him no matter the gamemode. Suggesting even more via PvE mastery wouldn't do any good to the game nor improve the "summoner" feel of the necromancer.

Like I said in my previous post, the issue isn't that you can't summon a minion army, the issue is that it isn't integrated to the main mechanism of the spec which make summoning minion feel like an afterthougth feature instead of a profession's focus (something that would be needed to get the "summoner feel").

Still, imagine a, let's call it, lich shroud (with an heavy "Orr feel" to it):

- Lich shroud: As you remain in Lich shroud you periodically summon risen grubs to assist you. (1 on entering shroud and then another every 3-4s. Max 5 risen grubs)

- LS#1: Life Dart: hurl a dark energy dart to your target.

- LS#2: Ghastly Wraith: Summon a fantasmal wraith that shadow step to your target and create a symbol. 

- LS#3: Ghastly Defiler: Summon a fantasmal risen defiler that pull your target onto him, poisoning it.

- LS#4: Ghastly Preserver: Summon a fantasmal risen preserver that create a field at your target location that last 5s, deal damage to enemies that are within and heal allies within.

- LS#5: Ghastly Flock: Summon 2-3 fantasmals risen Eagle that drop bombs onto your target location.

- Add a trait that spawn a risen grub when the fantasms disappear and you got your "summoner".

[Lynx.9058]

I'd love to get just a theme pack that changes the models for all the necromancer minions into actual skeletons, zombies,  etc.  I'd pay gems for that.

[Lily.1935]

Next time, hopefully. A necromancer MM elite spec really needs to be fairly frail for it to work in a new way we haven't seen in GW2. Currently, Minion Masters are extremely bulky which makes them annoying. A more frail MM wouldn't be as bad as the current MM.

 

There is a lot you could do with it, Esper since the Pet controls were added to Mechanist. Which we could do for a MM spec. But really, next time. I'm already going to be pushing for a MM. I was fairly certain we wouldn't get one this time but come on anet, by then it'll be 9 years without a MM elite spec?

 

Also Scourge is a summoner. Just because you can't kill their Shades doesn't make them less summons.

[Randin.5701]

On 12/5/2021 at 2:32 PM, Kronos.2560 said:

My only gripe is minions look terrible. I would pay some good gems to be able to customize/reskin the minions in better themes. Even as undead because to me it looks like all necromancer minions are just a bunch of ugly rats. A Necro should feel cool with zombies, dogs, golems heck even smaller dragons or wyverns and all sorts of other monsters! My biggest peeve is still seeing the difference of the gw1 golem vs gw2. The gw1 version looked soo much cooler vs the meatblob we have now.

 

 

This is honestly the big thing that holds me back from using minions, silly as it may sound. Has me hoping that the next expansion will give us a Mechanist-style pet elite spec--maybe controlling some sort of bone construct or a wraith or something like that--just so we get a pet that doesn't look so goofy. I'd also accept them revisiting the flesh golem and making it look more like the GW1 one. 

[Teratus.2859]

On 12/7/2021 at 4:24 AM, Lily.1935 said:

Next time, hopefully. A necromancer MM elite spec really needs to be fairly frail for it to work in a new way we haven't seen in GW2. Currently, Minion Masters are extremely bulky which makes them annoying. A more frail MM wouldn't be as bad as the current MM.

 

There is a lot you could do with it, Esper since the Pet controls were added to Mechanist. Which we could do for a MM spec. But really, next time. I'm already going to be pushing for a MM. I was fairly certain we wouldn't get one this time but come on anet, by then it'll be 9 years without a MM elite spec?

 

Also Scourge is a summoner. Just because you can't kill their Shades doesn't make them less summons.

Yeah I've also brought up in past posts on other threads that Scourge is pretty much our more offensive summoning spec for Necromancer as well.

It plays more like a Ritualist than a Minion Master but it still offers that more offensive focus while taking away a lot of the passive bulk Necro gets from it's older Shroud forms.

I'd much prefer they stay the way they are, Scourge having the more offensive Shades with group support utility at the personal expense of the Necromancer where as base Minions remain the more defensive/self support mechanic that make the Necromancer ridiculously hard to kill.

It would be nice for minions to get some kind of command abilities like pets as well although honestly I would settle for just the ability to toggle them in and out of passive mode.
Experienced Minion players are capable of manipulating their minions in combat to make the most of their skills etc
It's not hard to do and it can be situational but it can be done when you're used to minion play.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Teratus.2859

[Wintermute.5408]

Meh. Minionmaster is there, it's functional enough for occasional fun with it. Maybe something like a single mega-pet espec would be cool, but that's already Mechanist.