Necromancer pets suck?

Being a pet fan guildwars seems not to be that type of game. Since you have to keep healing your pets it drains your mana therefore you can't do other things but watch your pets, this limits gameplay. I think guildwars should make a better pet system for necromancers so it would be a funner class to play because I rarely see primary necromancers around the guildwars world. One thing I could suggest is limit the amount of pets you can have so they act as support dmg and the necromancer could be nuking it but at the same time watching out for arggo. One last thing i have to suggest is making a necromancer a good pvp class it seems no one uses them for pvp and rarely for pvm or is it just me?

"Minion Necro's" get stronger as the battle progresses. In GvG there are many NPCs that get killed and can be used to generate minions. (Same with PvE.)
Also, the early maps of Tombs can provide bodies with little problem.

Singley, minions are not super strong. As a "Zerg" horde they will be a problem to the opponent, or even your own team. (Since the game includes movement blocking.)
Surrounding and holding an opponent in place for AoE spells to take effect, can really hurt them.

Because an ever increasing horde would soon sweep the field, the minions need to degenerate to remain reasonable in power.

i dumped necro, specifically because i could find no way to use the pets in a positive fashion. Sure, they can be temporary cannon fodder, otherwise, they are just useless.

So i picked up ranger so i could use troll nurgent and charm animal, so i dont have to RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO around with summoning and healing all the time.

There are so many better ways you can make the pets be fair to everyone. Having to heal them is just a waste of time, with any other class you could have killed the enemy already. Plus in pve it's hard to find a corpse in the begining of the match and the begining is the most immportant mm? So realy this problem is big and needs to be fixed necromancers plainly suck. In GvG whats the point in running around healing your pet, your gonna be healing your pet while they wail on you haha. So your dead there and there is barely any stradgey involved in a pet necromancer or barely any stradegy you can use because your low on mana.

Why do you even bother to heal them? Just kill something else and then raise up another minion. There are very valid reasons for why their health saps away, one of which was mentioned by greentongue. The purpose of minions isn't to keep them alive. It's to use them to help you kill while the minions are still alive, and then to raise more from the new corpses.

If you want something more.. permanent, use a ranger.

Well in all due respect, just because a class isn't to your fitting does not mean it simply "sucks." True however in reasons for pvp there are certain problems, but how I've certainly played necromancer I never complained I "sucked."

Remember this game is not for you to just sit and let your minions be while you do damage and never worry about them. There is certainly plenty to do then just healing them in the midst of battle. Their degeneration rate doesn't really happen noticeably until you are out of combat.

Also can I ask you how many attributes you've put into death magic? If you have a low number in death magic of course you can't maintain your minions well. However when you raise them in levels you will certainly notice they last a lot longer for you to start pumping minions out.

Yes, your right but one question haha what do you do in pvp or GvG??? and alot of people dont like to keep healing there pet this is why there are barely any necromancers and lots of rangers. Yes of course there are reasons why guildwars made the necromancer that way but they should change it so there are more necromancers running around im sure no one lieks to keep healing there pet or keep recasting it.

*raises hand

I like raising more minions and keeping them fit

lol, only problem I really see in GvG is that when someone dies if you don't raise their corspe quick enough they respawn. Plus I'm sure when in GvG your enemies will tend to ignore your minions at the beginning thus will ensure you to grow minions through out battle. I don't know... lol Some other GvG expert can enlighten you on the topic however I love summoning.

No I didnt just say necromancer sucks because I didnt liek it its because eveyrone I talk to in real life don't realy like them and maybe your 1 out of 20 which plays a necro lol. I kno I barely saw necromancers, I played the whole beta. Also I tested the necromancer in GvG too see the necromancer at its best or close. I noticed that it was still anoying to pvp with it. i don't understand why they don't just make the minions weaker and set no health degeneration makes more sense. Plus it makes it funner.

Well your gonna be keeping your minions alive and making more, what if someone attacks you? You wont be building up a army anymore.....

That is the beauty of this game. "Strategize"

If I have current minions out there and some dude or npc jumps only at me. Do the one thing you can do Run to your minions and let them basically be a wall against whomever just tried to chase you. If its from arrows just straffe. I love this game because you can straffe against arrows lol...

If I don't have any minions, but some dude comes up to me then I use the skills that I rarely use, but only for such encounters. Seriously In battle you won't really be healing your minions all the time. In battle their degeneration rate isn't noticeable.

-edit-
Also if you start to notice they really are degenerating too quickly or about to die. Simply make use of their death like Death Nova or something.

1: Your minions dont just sit there and wait for you to run to them they attack whoever is closest.
2: If a player not a npc gets on you, you wont eb getting him off you till your dead.
3: If one fo your minions is attacking a player then that player will msot likely attack the minion.
4: Most GvG or PvP battles there arent npc's. If there is you kno that group will suffer.

This is why necromancer should atleast be able to control there pets. If taking off the degeneration isnt possible. Something has to be done to make the necromancer a better class so more people play it. Necromancer(pet class) in this game is not nearly as fun as diablo, everquest, world of warcraft and dark age of camelot. THE DEGENERATION RATE IS NOTICABLE, maybe its not because your not watching them? Or somsone is killing them and you think its there dmg?

Id think Malign Intervention would be a better choice over raising/summoning from existing corpses, maybe, possibly. MI now causes the target to recieve 20% less healing, and the horror spawns immediately upon death. Then just slap a death nova on it.

1. Of course they will be attacking whomever's closest run to them still regardless. I don't know if its me but whenever I do that they tend to attack the person that is attacking me.
2. Your skill bar isn't full of raising skills. Save those extra skills for issues like that (i.e. snares and stuff like that)
3. If whomever is attacking that minion and only is concerned with that minion then that would mean you're party isn't really doing well in focusing attacks. If a warrior is going up agaisnt a warrior with minions I believe he isn't going to attack the minion before the other warrior first.

I simply have nothing to complain against necromancer pets. Only the fact that in GvG and such enemie's corpses tend to respawn a tad quick making you unable to make use out of it. When theres more than 1 minion attacking someone and when that person attacks that minnion the only health you see degnerating is because that minnion is being attacked.

In battle you don't regenerate Hp like you would when out of battle. From my understanding and from what I've seen thats exactly what happens to minnions only the opposite. So as long as you're in battle then thats that.

I am perfectly fine with necromancer the way it is. It'd be nice if they lowered degeneration rate and what not, but the problem is that it'd be too easy to play necromancer being able to produce a huge army. If you lower there degeneration rate significantly you would be able to build upwards of 10-15 in PvE battles.

remember that minions are not the only reason ppl go death, i mean there are a few nice skills in there for say a necro/warrior

think about in gvg a necro/warrior in the back with say 8 death magic, there we are slashing away with are sword and then see someoen drop and notice hey look my enemy and i are equal health - around half, thenu see a corpse on the ground, cast soul feast and theres ~ 175 health, giving u the edge.

minins are easy to create and someone could run a necro/monk build using 2 or 3 mendings on your minions - wouldnt that stop the degeneration - and necros dont need that much energy - hey look my minion is about to die 5 energy to make it a bomb. maybe take a rez and then say vengence from monk side. i mean its a differnt way to look at it, but ur creating like super minions i guess.

Thank you dovi for reminding that the fact purely remains "It's how you play your build that makes it either sucky or good."

Honestly I see more Necros than I see eles and at times I see more mesmers than eles. It varies, but I seriously don't care as much. If you seriously need a long time pet. Rangers are the way to go. That way you not only have a pet and never really worry about constantly healing it, but you can focus doing other things.

Actually, I'd just brought up the decay rate in another thread, although I do feel that there's ways to cope with it. I'll be trying more in the next beta.

I do think it'd be neat to be able to create a longer-term minion (i.e. Skeletal Warrior, like a true Necromancer would), but for fairness it'd have a stronger detrimental effect on one's energy/health, not be an available skill until late in the missions (perhaps the reward of a particularily difficult quest), and it shouldn't be possible to have more than one or two. And it'd still have a decay rate, albeit fainter (you couldn't take them mission-to-mission or combat-to-combat).

BTW, the current decay rate isn't tied to Death Magic from what I understand, and may not even be dependent on combat from what I remember. It just increases exponentially with time.

Keeping your minions alive? Permanent undead minions? As others have alluded to in other parts of the discussion, I thought the whole point of those little melee guys was to spam Death Nova on them and create walking bombs. In that case, you’ll want your minions to die quickly, even bringing along a skill like Taste of Death to make them keel over on command.

If you really want to be a death necromancer, the attribute line contains all the tools you’ll ever need to make the most of minions, including keeping them alive in between fighting. That said, there are going to be many situations where a less conditional character would benefit your team more.

i would like to add in that necros are allways one of the most powerful classes you can choose.

its all about your ability to play them and the skills you combine together.

now i must go make myself a necro build.

As others have said, if you're wanting a permanent pet, go with a Ranger, but even then you're going to have to take time to heal your pet, unless you don't mind taking a 5% DP each time they die.

Personally, I don't see Necromancers as a "pet" class, and reiterating points others have made, the Minions are pretty much cannon fodder, and used to either engulf an opponent or spam them with Death skills to turn them into "walking bombs." I'd say reevaluate your build first before you decide to blurt out that "this class sucks" or "they have major issues." The friendly folks over at Arena.net know what they're doing