Minion Discussion. How can we improve minions?

[Rhyse.8179]

The basic function of minions is fine, I think. By that I mean "Summon, they hit stuff, active when needed." They are held back by outdated actives and bad ai - I really think that's all that needs to change.

All: Survival - They all should have some kind of resistance to cleave damage. The AI is too stupid to avoid anything, and will happily march to it's death at the most obvious and inconvenient time. They need a massive cleave reduction or they will just be on cooldown during any serious fight.

All: AI Targeting - They have a tendency to wander off and do stupid things, or attack the least useful enemy in a group. They should instead get the "Thieves Guild" ai. I recently made a Thief alt and was amazed at how responsive and useful the minions summoned by "Thieves Guild" are. What they do is simply to lock their target on whatever your target is. I'm so happy to watch the thieves march accross the battlefield and promptly arrive at my chosen target and start hitting it. It's amazing that all minion AI doesn't do this - Necros need this badly.

All: Wandering Off - Minions will target anything and wander large distances to get to it. This leads them to get left far behind the necromancer, only to die uselessly, and keeping the Necro in combat the entire time. I get that we aren't suppsoed to have Ranger like control of them, so I suggest a "Cull Minions" skill that instantly kills all your minions and reduces their resummon cooldown. This way we could at least stop them from keeping us in combat or pulling unwanted things.

Bone Minions - They just aren't worth taking. Back in the day, access to a blast finisher made them valuable, now thats not enough. They should be buffed up to do reasonable passive damage. Also, they should leap to the target an active to make it more responsive. Activating the Boom, then waiting for them to crawl over to the field you want to combo in only for it to fade away by the time they get there is part of what makes them so useless.

Bone Fiend - Under rated in terms of damage - I'd say it's passive state is fine as is. However, it is squishy as all heck and the active is completely useless. Immobilize is a weak CC to start (Especially in PVE), plus you have to wait for the minions next attack for it to activate, plus it's a slow moving projectile. It's almost impossible to use. The active should be completely replaced. It would be great if it also had the Devourer ability to burrow and retreat, to keep it from getting cleaved to death.

Blood Fiend - The game has moved on from the time this was useful. BF is good at long term sustain, while the game has shifted towards heavy burst damage and made that usage obsolete. It's good at what it does, but nobody needs what this skill is selling. Needs a full rework. Maybe put the "minion cull" here somehow? Not sure how that would work.

Shadow Fiend - This minion is in great shape. It's a low dps offtank, and the active gives Chill and a large chunk of Life Force. The teleporting active helps compensate for the bad AI, since with a button press it's right on your intended target. I use this in several Chill based Reaper builds. I don't think it needs any changes.

Plague Worm - I love this skill in concept. Temporary, hard hitting artillery. It does hit hard, which is part of the equation, but it the rest doesn't work out well. It seems to NEVER target what you want it to, enthusiastically impaling the weakest and least important foe while you fight the boss. It also is a royal pain to pack up when combat is over. You either have to use the teleport destruction skill, which may be out range, requiring you to walk back over to the worm. Or you have to just leave it there and keep walking, which is a VERY bad idea, since it stays alive long past the map loading distance and will put you into combat by attacking anything it sees in the meantime. Basically, this skill would be fixed with sticky targeting and a culling skill mentioned above. Suggestion: reverse the activation effects. Make it Teleport you to the target location on summon, leaving the worm in your old position, and then detonate the worm on activate but without the teleport. That'd be a great skill.

Flesh Golem - This guy is just fine. He's the only one with any survivability thanks to his huge health, his damage is quite respectable, and the active is murder on break bars. I don't think he needs any changes other then the baseline Cleave and AI tweaks. Plus, he can swim now!

[Lumin Arius.6952]

Blood Fiend is awful. Increasing the range on it's attack to 1200 instead of the 900 it has now would be ideal, as well as increasing the frequency that it attacks just a little bit. Also Taste of Death should be reworked to heal yourself and nearby allies up to five (a sort of combination of Taste of Death and Feast for the Dead from GW1). This way minions can benefit from a bit of healing as well if you're going solo or give more sustain in group fights.

Bone minions should be on some sort of ammo system and trigger their explosive skill automatically after they attack a certain number of times (maybe 5). Increasing the ammo count to 3 can give an extra minion for use, and the ammo system allows players to properly manage the numbers: spend all three rounds at once for a bigger boost in damage but risk not having the minion count for certain traits.

Bone Fiend range should also be increased to 1200 instead of the 900 it has. Maybe add 2 stacks of bleeding on top of the cripple it does for the auto attack to boost DPS. You can even add an ammo count to how many times Rigor Mortis can be used (maybe 2) and add 2 stacks of bleeding on that as well, or even vulnerability.

Flesh Wurm should be able to "burrow" to a new location if you get out of range from it's Necrotic Traversal skill. This way you can re-position it to another location without getting a cooldown.

Just a quick thought on what could work if they decide to make changes to minions. There might even be the possibility of a specialization that overhauls minions for viability, but i'm not sure how many people would like that idea.

[Lexan.5930]

I would love minions to get some changes. I was thinking they could work similar to skeletons in diablo 3 where quiping the skill summons the minion but it cost life force to use the ability making minions a tradeoff of utility to damage and really synergise with life force since they now provide life force when they die.

Blood fiend could get some kind of heal per second

bone minions could spawn on a timer and the explosion could be on the ammo system. Shadow fiend feels good as it is honestly, maybe have the cast ability be on a longer cooldown to allow for a faster re summon. Flesh worm needs something but i dont know what and bone fiend needs some serious work. It's low damage output and inconsistant use abiulity needs some love.

[Lahmia.2193]

@Lumin Arius.6952 said:Blood Fiend is awful. Increasing the range on it's attack to 1200 instead of the 900 it has now would be ideal, as well as increasing the frequency that it attacks just a little bit. Also Taste of Death should be reworked to heal yourself and nearby allies up to five (a sort of combination of Taste of Death and Feast for the Dead from GW1). This way minions can benefit from a bit of healing as well if you're going solo or give more sustain in group fights.

Blood fiend's passive heal is effectively 308 health per second, which is 36 less than warrior's healing signet. For Pve (the only place you should be using them), it is actually pretty good as a passive and even better if used with Blood Magic. We already have Signet of Vampirism's active and Well of Blood as two group heals. There's no need for another.

[Hyper Cutter.9376]

@Rhyse.8179 said:All: Survival - They all should have some kind of resistance to cleave damage. The AI is too stupid to avoid anything, and will happily march to it's death at the most obvious and inconvenient time. They need a massive cleave reduction or they will just be on cooldown during any serious fight.Last I checked, all AI allies, minions included, already have this circa... HoT's launch or something, I think.

[Lahmia.2193]

@Hyper Cutter.9376 said:

@Rhyse.8179 said:All: Survival - They all should have some kind of resistance to cleave damage. The AI is too stupid to avoid anything, and will happily march to it's death at the most obvious and inconvenient time. They need a massive cleave reduction or they will just be on cooldown during any serious fight.Last I checked, all AI allies, minions included, already have this circa... HoT's launch or something, I think.

Yup. 95% less damage taken from attacks not targeted at them in pve. I think it includes 95% less duration on conditions too, but I might be wrong there.

[Lonewolf Kai.3682]

@Lahmia.2193 said:

@Lonewolf Kai.3682 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:Honestly, I hope they leave them as they are. At the moment they are simply an easy mode in casual pve. And that's all they need to be.

I disagree. In todays gw2 environment with the excessive amount of stun breaks and cleanses, the actives need an update to be competitive.

That wouldn't help them really, since taking them in anything other than pve is a waste. At the end of the day, they are AI. And anet won't be wanting another cancerous minion/turret meta on their hands. Which is why I find it unlikely they will see major buffs unless they are revamped (much in the same way spirit weapons were).

This is exactly why they need updating, and I’m not talking about the passive nature. I’m talking the actives.

[Rhyse.8179]

@Hyper Cutter.9376 said:

@Rhyse.8179 said:All: Survival - They all should have some kind of resistance to cleave damage. The AI is too stupid to avoid anything, and will happily march to it's death at the most obvious and inconvenient time. They need a massive cleave reduction or they will just be on cooldown during any serious fight.Last I checked, all AI allies, minions included, already have this circa... HoT's launch or something, I think.

Meh. They still charge headfirst into AOE's and promptly die, making them useless for any kind of boss encounters. That needs to be fixed or they will stay useless, no matter how much they are buffed.

[Obtena.7952]

I have a hard time thinking Minions is a family of skills that needs improvements. Once they are traited, they tank, do damage and provide all kinds of useful utilities. I don't even think being slow is a problem for them unless you are melee and outrun them, which in that case you don't really care if they are slow anyways.

If anything (unpopular opinion here) ... I think Necro should have limitation on how many minion skills they can run and it should require a GM trait to run the full family of minion hotbar skills.

It's true, they are just dumb AI, so they stand in massive AOE damage and don't have the best pathing, but that's just part of the package you have to consider for choosing them for the content you are doing. If anything, I think that's how they are balanced as skills on Necro. I think if we want to consider the pathing/speed stuff, just give them a LITTLE more range.

[Lily.1935]

So many comments.. I wish I had the energy to respond. But I don't currently.. Life has worn me out.

On topic. GW1 minions were highly disposable and had the dumbest AI across both GW1 and 2. They stood in Aoe like chumps and didn't even seem to care. Died a lot because of it. Yet MM was one of the most useful builds for PvE and in JQ. It even showed up in weird PvP builds from time to time. So the idea that Minions need to be brilliant masterminds of tactical thinking isn't something I agree with. Yes, I'm exaggerating about that. People were arguing that they should be smart enough to move out of Aoe... But honestly? I don't think so. Minions don't feel pain. They're not people.

[Bunny.9834]

@Lily.1935 said:So many comments.. I wish I had the energy to respond. But I don't currently.. Life has worn me out.

Minions don't feel pain. They're not people.

Somewhere in Tyria, a bone minion sheds a tear.

[Lily.1935]

@DragonSlayer.1087 said:

@Lily.1935 said:So many comments.. I wish I had the energy to respond. But I don't currently.. Life has worn me out.

Minions don't feel pain. They're not people

.

Somewhere in Tyria, a bone minion sheds a tear.

Lol.

[coro.3176]

IMO, the skill in minion builds comes from knowing where your minions are positioned relative to your enemy, even if you can't see them, and being able to react appropriately with their active skills - eg. blowing bone minions behind you because you know they're on top of your enemy, charging flesh golem so that it hits an enemy who can't see it coming around a corner, using Shadow Fiend for a clutch blind.

I'd focus more on buffing those active skills rather than improving minion survivability and attack damage.

[nekretaal.6485]

You cannot improve minions.

The pvp community in this game hates hates hates playing against or losing to AI. AI based mechanics like minions or Turrets or Gyros will always suck because the community wants it that way.

If I had to improve minions, I would do so by attaching weak minion skills to weapon skills, like putting a minion on Focus 4 so it functions the same way as mirror blade.

[coro.3176]

Trait: 15% chance on hit, summon a Shambling Horror. No icd?

[DeathsProphet.7460]

@"nekretaal.6485" said:You cannot improve minions.

The pvp community in this game hates hates hates playing against or losing to AI. AI based mechanics like minions or Turrets or Gyros will always suck because the community wants it that way.

If I had to improve minions, I would do so by attaching weak minion skills to weapon skills, like putting a minion on Focus 4 so it functions the same way as mirror blade.

"You cannot improve minions""If I had to improve minions"Doesn't work that way haha.

Game developers can do whatever they want and if they choose to fix minions then they will. It's a complex game, there are more than enough options out there to fix minions without making them op in situations like pvp. The real question is if they will end up getting fixed?

[Rhyse.8179]

@"Lily.1935" said:So many comments.. I wish I had the energy to respond. But I don't currently.. Life has worn me out.

On topic. GW1 minions were highly disposable and had the dumbest AI across both GW1 and 2. They stood in Aoe like chumps and didn't even seem to care. Died a lot because of it. Yet MM was one of the most useful builds for PvE and in JQ. It even showed up in weird PvP builds from time to time. So the idea that Minions need to be brilliant masterminds of tactical thinking isn't something I agree with. Yes, I'm exaggerating about that. People were arguing that they should be smart enough to move out of Aoe... But honestly? I don't think so. Minions don't feel pain. They're not people.

Unfortunately GW2 as designed won't allow minions like that.

-GW1 minions hit as hard as a players autoattack.-GW1 minions had roughly as much health as a player.-GW1 MM builds could summon up to 12 minions at once.-GW1 minions could be directly buffed, or benefit from debuffs on the enemy.

To compensate for that raw power, they also had limitations.

-They were dumb as bricks.-They had low armor and took higher damage per hit.-They had permanent, uncurable health degeneration.-They could only be summoned from a fresh corpse (dead player or NPC)

There's no way anything like that is going to happen in GW2. The game mechanics that supported it are gone. Realistically, a Shatter Mesmer is closer to the GW1 MM build then modern Necro is. I'd love to see it, but it would take a full game overhaul. If Anet wants to go back to the "disposable minion" paradigm, they going to have delete all the current minion skills and rebuild them from scratch.

[Muusic.2967]

The only thing I would change about minions is that they don't all need to be recasted if the necro gets transformed, crystallized etc. It's really a pain to have to wait 20s before you can actively fight again every time you're fighting a Mesmer NPC that turns you into a Moa or Branded that locks you in a crystal.

[Lily.1935]

@Rhyse.8179 said:

@"Lily.1935" said:So many comments.. I wish I had the energy to respond. But I don't currently.. Life has worn me out.

On topic. GW1 minions were highly disposable and had the dumbest AI across both GW1 and 2. They stood in Aoe like chumps and didn't even seem to care. Died a lot because of it. Yet MM was one of the most useful builds for PvE and in JQ. It even showed up in weird PvP builds from time to time. So the idea that Minions need to be brilliant masterminds of tactical thinking isn't something I agree with. Yes, I'm exaggerating about that. People were arguing that they should be smart enough to move out of Aoe... But honestly? I don't think so. Minions don't feel pain. They're not people.

Unfortunately GW2 as designed won't allow minions like that.

-GW1 minions hit as hard as a players autoattack.-GW1 minions had roughly as much health as a player.-GW1 MM builds could summon up to 12 minions at once.-GW1 minions could be directly buffed, or benefit from debuffs on the enemy.

To compensate for that raw power, they also had limitations.

-They were dumb as bricks.-They had low armor and took higher damage per hit.-They had permanent, uncurable health degeneration.-They could only be summoned from a fresh corpse (dead player or NPC)

There's no way anything like that is going to happen in GW2. The game mechanics that supported it are gone. Realistically, a Shatter Mesmer is closer to the GW1 MM build then modern Necro is. I'd love to see it, but it would take a full game overhaul. If Anet wants to go back to the "disposable minion" paradigm, they going to have delete all the current minion skills and rebuild them from scratch.

You should read my elite specialization post, the Deathcap. Its lengthy but it does explain how this feel could be put into the game without completely changing the system to accommodate corpses or something like that. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/49593/the-deathcap-minion-master-elite-spec#latest

[Timarius.2895]

After playing around with minions some more in GW2 and not comparing it to my MM in GW1, I think the following could make minions are much more attractive options.

Summon Blood Fiend - Damage now scales with power (low scaling). Healing now scales with Healing Power (low scaling).--Taste of Death - Now causes the Blood Fiend to dive towards its master and explode, healing in an AoE around it and providing a short regeneration effect (or possibly Vigor since Bleed converts to Vigor). Healing on this skill already scales with power.

Summon Bone Minions - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).---Putrid Explosion - Now causes Bone Minions to leap to your target before exploding. Damage now scales with power (low scaling).

Summon Bone Fiend - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).--Rigor Mortis - Your Bone Fiend fires two immobilizing shots at your target immediately and is no longer immobilized to do so. Cooldown reduced to 40 seconds. Damage now scales with power (low scaling).

Summon Flesh Wurm - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).--Necrotic Traversal - Now causes you to swap places with your Flesh Wurm causing a poisonous blast to enemies near the Wurm. Poison condition on this skill now scales with Condition Damage.

Summon Shadow Fiend - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).--Haunt - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).

Summon Flesh Golem - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).--Charge - Now grants stability to allies near the Flesh Golem as it roars before its charge. Interestingly enough, this is the only minion active that scales with power.

Another interesting fact is that Lich Form's Summon Madness minions already scale with power. I'm not sure with Shambling Horrors from "Rise!". Honestly the whole situation is weird with most turret and minion abilities not scaling, but phantasms, spirit weapons, and gyros do. I can write off the turrets due to their ability to constantly apply boons, but minions don't feel right.

And if the idea of making minions scale like this makes you squeamish, there's always changing either Death Nova or Corruptor's Fervor to cause your minions to gain a small percentage of your stats.

[DeathsProphet.7460]

@"Timarius.2895" said:After playing around with minions some more in GW2 and not comparing it to my MM in GW1, I think the following could make minions are much more attractive options.

Summon Blood Fiend - Damage now scales with power (low scaling). Healing now scales with Healing Power (low scaling).--Taste of Death - Now causes the Blood Fiend to dive towards its master and explode, healing in an AoE around it and providing a short regeneration effect (or possibly Vigor since Bleed converts to Vigor). Healing on this skill already scales with power.

Summon Bone Minions - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).---Putrid Explosion - Now causes Bone Minions to leap to your target before exploding. Damage now scales with power (low scaling).

Summon Bone Fiend - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).--Rigor Mortis - Your Bone Fiend fires two immobilizing shots at your target immediately and is no longer immobilized to do so. Cooldown reduced to 40 seconds. Damage now scales with power (low scaling).

Summon Flesh Wurm - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).--Necrotic Traversal - Now causes you to swap places with your Flesh Wurm causing a poisonous blast to enemies near the Wurm. Poison condition on this skill now scales with Condition Damage.

Summon Shadow Fiend - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).--Haunt - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).

Summon Flesh Golem - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).--Charge - Now grants stability to allies near the Flesh Golem as it roars before its charge. Interestingly enough, this is the only minion active that scales with power.

Another interesting fact is that Lich Form's Summon Madness minions already scale with power. I'm not sure with Shambling Horrors from "Rise!". Honestly the whole situation is weird with most turret and minion abilities not scaling, but phantasms, spirit weapons, and gyros do. I can write off the turrets due to their ability to constantly apply boons, but minions don't feel right.

And if the idea of making minions scale like this makes you squeamish, there's always changing either Death Nova or Corruptor's Fervor to cause your minions to gain a small percentage of your stats.

While I definitely like your ideas and feel they would make minions stronger, the whole concept of minions needs to be completely redesigned or supplemented by an elite spec dedicated to minion mastery. You said you didn't look at minions from GW1 when designing your ideas but I think we should look back at them if we want to see the true definition of a minion master. Neither OP or UP, the GW1 minion master offered support, damage, and an interesting style of play while being viable in multiple game modes. The GW2 version shouldn't even be called a minion master. Summoning the same 5 minions and then forgetting about them until you activate their 1 single ability is boring and pretty worthless compared to other utility skills. The GW1 minion master was about swarming the enemy with an army of unique minions, each varying in strength and utility. You could explode your minions for poison damage, summon multiple minions that could heal you, or take along the flesh golem that hit like a truck. Now, you have 6 options that offer no variability and require no active gameplay. You summon them before a fight and use their active skills...that's it. I want to see a minion master that can sacrifice his own health to strengthen his minions and then command them to attack a specific target or apply conditions at his command. There are so many cool ideas that could be integrated in this way. Now before people say "GW2 wasn't designed for that", think about it for a sec. These are game developers we are talking about here. If they want to design a working minion master elite spec that is both entertaining and balanced, then they sure as hell can. If they want to design a minion master that can control his or her minions with varying effects like we have seen in the "enemy of my enemy" quest, then they can! I get so tired of people saying its impossible to fit minions into GW2 when they've managed to fit an entire mount system into the game and continue to create different content. Rather than buff the minions we currently have now, I'd love to see an entire rework of minions or an elite spec of the future.

[Anchoku.8142]

How about...

Jagged Horrors launch themselves in a parabolic arc at the player's target as projectile finishers 1 sec after summoning doing a small amount of direct damage and perish upon landing. Does not home.

[Timarius.2895]

@DeathsProphet.7460 said:

@"Timarius.2895" said:After playing around with minions some more in GW2 and not comparing it to my MM in GW1, I think the following could make minions are much more attractive options.

Summon Blood Fiend - Damage now scales with power (low scaling). Healing now scales with Healing Power (low scaling).--Taste of Death - Now causes the Blood Fiend to dive towards its master and explode, healing in an AoE around it and providing a short regeneration effect (or possibly Vigor since Bleed converts to Vigor). Healing on this skill already scales with power.

Summon Bone Minions - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).---Putrid Explosion - Now causes Bone Minions to leap to your target before exploding. Damage now scales with power (low scaling).

Summon Bone Fiend - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).--Rigor Mortis - Your Bone Fiend fires two immobilizing shots at your target immediately and is no longer immobilized to do so. Cooldown reduced to 40 seconds. Damage now scales with power (low scaling).

Summon Flesh Wurm - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).--Necrotic Traversal - Now causes you to swap places with your Flesh Wurm causing a poisonous blast to enemies near the Wurm. Poison condition on this skill now scales with Condition Damage.

Summon Shadow Fiend - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).--Haunt - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).

Summon Flesh Golem - Damage now scales with power (low scaling).--Charge - Now grants stability to allies near the Flesh Golem as it roars before its charge. Interestingly enough, this is the only minion active that scales with power.

Another interesting fact is that Lich Form's Summon Madness minions already scale with power. I'm not sure with Shambling Horrors from "Rise!". Honestly the whole situation is weird with most turret and minion abilities not scaling, but phantasms, spirit weapons, and gyros do. I can write off the turrets due to their ability to constantly apply boons, but minions don't feel right.

And if the idea of making minions scale like this makes you squeamish, there's always changing either Death Nova or Corruptor's Fervor to cause your minions to gain a small percentage of your stats.

While I definitely like your ideas and feel they would make minions stronger, the whole concept of minions needs to be completely redesigned or supplemented by an elite spec dedicated to minion mastery. You said you didn't look at minions from GW1 when designing your ideas but I think we should look back at them if we want to see the true definition of a minion master. Neither OP or UP, the GW1 minion master offered support, damage, and an interesting style of play while being viable in multiple game modes. The GW2 version shouldn't even be called a minion master. Summoning the same 5 minions and then forgetting about them until you activate their 1 single ability is boring and pretty worthless compared to other utility skills. The GW1 minion master was about swarming the enemy with an army of unique minions, each varying in strength and utility. You could explode your minions for poison damage, summon multiple minions that could heal you, or take along the flesh golem that hit like a truck. Now, you have 6 options that offer no variability and require no active gameplay. You summon them before a fight and use their active skills...that's it. I want to see a minion master that can sacrifice his own health to strengthen his minions and then command them to attack a specific target or apply conditions at his command. There are so many cool ideas that could be integrated in this way. Now before people say "GW2 wasn't designed for that", think about it for a sec. These are game developers we are talking about here. If they want to design a working minion master elite spec that is both entertaining and balanced, then they sure as hell can. If they want to design a minion master that can control his or her minions with varying effects like we have seen in the "enemy of my enemy" quest, then they can! I get so tired of people saying its impossible to fit minions into GW2 when they've managed to fit an entire mount system into the game and continue to create different content. Rather than buff the minions we currently have now, I'd love to see an entire rework of minions or an elite spec of the future.

The reason it was necessary to focus on GW2 minion skills is because I have my own idea for an elite for Necromancer that involves minions. I'm going to write that post up before I go back to GW1 tonight.