MM Nerfed??

this is sooo random... so whats next? nerf firestorm? Nope. Next up is Barrage. It will cost 10 energy and be easily interruptible. You heard it here first.

So can someone actually definatively prove that MMs are now worse than other classes, like BMs were for so long, or is this just a bunch of people crying about Anet nerfing something they like? First off, you should look at an MM skill bar. The MM skill bar has few attacks and all minion management skills. As such, the MM is support only. Their job is to make minions after things start dying. But, the MM themselves are frail and very easily killed. As such, an MM must use skills like Dark Bond and Infuse COndition to draw conditions to the minions. THis makes the minions weaker. It becomes a balance of weakenning minions and the master. If you go N/Mo, you can compensate a little by healing, but to be effective and not run outta energy, you need high soul reaping or offering of blood. either way, a MM is at his/her weakest when doing 1 of 2 things. Either A) Animating minions or B) Healing minions.

Why???

A) Animating Minions
3 second casting time makes them easy to interrupt. The cost is higher than most skills (15 min) and they can't move at all or they have to restart the casting. If you get a warrior or mesmer on them (even a ranger with distracting shot), you can prevent them from creating minions.

B) Healing Minions
All minion healing skills require a sacrifice. Sacrificing costs life. Just wail on a sacrificing necro. Sure, they can use monk skills to protect or heal themselves afterward, but because of the high costs for effective minions in death and soul reaping, points in healing are generally what's left over. Basically, a N/Mo won't be much stronger than a simple N (only) build for an MM.

oh... I should add C) Recovering energy)

Why... The best MM's require tons of energy. Since horrors are stupid, you need to go with Fiends. Fiends cost 25 per. Basically, you use fiends and horror in tandum. This way, your army will grow and be at high levels. How is this bad? Well, soul reaping gives a +1 per level. You need it failry high to keep up with the casting costs to be effective. And if enemies aren't dying enough, you need Offering of Blood to replenish lost energy. The problem here is that once again, you're sacrificing or out of energy. Weakness.


I could write loads of tutorials on how to kill an MM. They have so many weaknesses and are a huge liability. Basically, Kill the MM, and the minions turn on the party. Simple formula. In GVG, Warriors would go after me when I played MM. As soon as I was down, they didn't have to worry about my minions. The minions attacked whatever was closest (friend and foe) and died fairly quickly b/c of AOE skills used.

To honestly say that the MM is a strong build is foolish talk. It's useful, but also a huge liability. Especially when I've had 30+ minions, died, and my minions overtook my own party.

If you can honestly consider what I've said and still say the MM is too powerful, try reading it again. MM is useful primarily in the field. Very limited in PvP.. and even with Vamp HOrrors, you still can't say that MMing is all that powerful.

Just nerf the vamp horrors (by limiting their numbers) and you'll have a much easier answer to the problem of invincible MM's using VHorrors.

First off, you should look at an MM skill bar. The MM skill bar has few attacks and all minion management skills. As such, the MM is support only. Their job is to make minions after things start dying. But, the MM themselves are frail and very easily killed. As such, an MM must use skills like Dark Bond and Infuse COndition to draw conditions to the minions. THis makes the minions weaker. It becomes a balance of weakenning minions and the master. If you go N/Mo, you can compensate a little by healing, but to be effective and not run outta energy, you need high soul reaping or offering of blood. either way, a MM is at his/her weakest when doing 1 of 2 things. Either A) Animating minions or B) Healing minions.

Why???

A) Animating Minions
3 second casting time makes them easy to interrupt. The cost is higher than most skills (15 min) and they can't move at all or they have to restart the casting. If you get a warrior or mesmer on them (even a ranger with distracting shot), you can prevent them from creating minions.

B) Healing Minions
All minion healing skills require a sacrifice. Sacrificing costs life. Just wail on a sacrificing necro. Sure, they can use monk skills to protect or heal themselves afterward, but because of the high costs for effective minions in death and soul reaping, points in healing are generally what's left over. Basically, a N/Mo won't be much stronger than a simple N (only) build for an MM.

oh... I should add C) Recovering energy)

Why... The best MM's require tons of energy. Since horrors are stupid, you need to go with Fiends. Fiends cost 25 per. Basically, you use fiends and horror in tandum. This way, your army will grow and be at high levels. How is this bad? Well, soul reaping gives a +1 per level. You need it failry high to keep up with the casting costs to be effective. And if enemies aren't dying enough, you need Offering of Blood to replenish lost energy. The problem here is that once again, you're sacrificing or out of energy. Weakness.


I could write loads of tutorials on how to kill an MM. They have so many weaknesses and are a huge liability. Basically, Kill the MM, and the minions turn on the party. Simple formula. In GVG, Warriors would go after me when I played MM. As soon as I was down, they didn't have to worry about my minions. The minions attacked whatever was closest (friend and foe) and died fairly quickly b/c of AOE skills used.

To honestly say that the MM is a strong build is foolish talk. It's useful, but also a huge liability. Especially when I've had 30+ minions, died, and my minions overtook my own party.

If you can honestly consider what I've said and still say the MM is too powerful, try reading it again. MM is useful primarily in the field. Very limited in PvP.. and even with Vamp HOrrors, you still can't say that MMing is all that powerful.

Just nerf the vamp horrors (by limiting their numbers) and you'll have a much easier answer to the problem of invincible MM's using VHorrors. You could write a tutorial on how to kill x with any class. Are they actually worse then other classes now? And if that one build is worse now... maybe you should change it? Novel idea, huh.

Maybe, just maybe - they made this update because of PvE.

Just throwing that out there.

Peace,
-CxE The MMs in 12v12 were perceived strong because folks a) didn't have VA or VG unlocked at the time and b) had rarely had to deal with full blown MM armies in the PvP realm. This combination meant the MMs could run across the battlefield as conquering heros (who didn't hear a "Here comes the MM!!!!" cry during 12v12?). As the FPE went on tho, folks started to figure out how to beat massive army necros. Does anyone truly believe that if the FPE was a week long event that by the end MMs would have seen their success drop dramatically in 12v12s?

Did Anet hear/see these cries? Possibly. Is it also possible that they saw the sheer power demonstrated in ToPK, SF, ettin runs, Desert Solos, and other PvE areas? The old MMs enabled one player to perform multiple roles with a minimum of effort.

I would love to see your build. My original is N/Me. I find that 16 in curses isn't worth it on most. Still, if you could share this build, I'd like to hear it. There are a variety of Necromancer and Mesmer PvP builds that can be found throughout the forums, but here's some of the core skills I've been playing with:

16 Curses and 12 Illusion

Clumsiness
Ineptitude (E)
Distortion or Sympathetic Visage
Price of Failure
Faintheartedness (or Shadow of Fear if you're preparing for IWAY)

16 Curses and 12 Domination

Empathy
Wastrel's Worry (just in case they bring the hex helm or decide to sit still during hexes)
Spiteful Spirit (E)
Price of Failure
Faintheartedness (or Shadow of Fear if you're preparing for IWAY)

I've even played with a Crippling Anguish build, which helps with kiting those pesky Sprint/Rush warriors.

There are just way too many permutations to narrow it down to a single build that works all of the time. But some of these core skills really can put a cramp in a warrior's style, especially if they decide to attack through these hexes (or be stupid enough to Frenzy while they are in effect).

Quoted for relevance:

The MMs in 12v12 were perceived strong because folks a) didn't have VA or VG unlocked at the time and b) had rarely had to deal with full blown MM armies in the PvP realm. This combination meant the MMs could run across the battlefield as conquering heros (who didn't hear a "Here comes the MM!!!!" cry during 12v12?). As the FPE went on tho, folks started to figure out how to beat massive army necros. Does anyone truly believe that if the FPE was a week long event that by the end MMs would have seen their success drop dramatically in 12v12s?

Did Anet hear/see these cries? Possibly. Is it also possible that they saw the sheer power demonstrated in ToPK, SF, ettin runs, Desert Solos, and other PvE areas? The old MMs enabled one player to perform multiple roles with a minimum of effort. I did the MM thing on FPE... for about 3 rounds of 12v12. Then I figured something out: my blood spiker build could own.

MM is fun and it has been profitable for me in terms of SF/ToPK farming. However, it's not really what has made me the most plat in this game or given me the most enjoyment.

My 55hp iNecro and my blood spiker build combined with good knowledge of where to farm has made me the most plat.

My blood spiker and curse builds have been the most fun in terms of PvP.

Overall, while I'm sad that I won't be able to animate 30+ minions, I'm not going to fret too much. I still have faith in my little green goth girl's ability to compensate.

As for the ANet nerf... basically they just downgraded MM's so that people would give Ele's a second look.

So can someone actually definatively prove that MMs are now worse than other classes, like BMs were for so long, or is this just a bunch of people crying about Anet nerfing something they like? The way I saw it, MMs were so powerful because they were situational (needed lots of corpses, and had problems if battles were not frequent) and had less control then almost any other build out there. Minions lacked the intelligence of pets, often aggroing when you didnt want them to or not concentrating their attacks where you wanted them. That was the tradeoff for having so much damage potential when the situation was just right. Now an MM still has all of those restrictions and problems, but could probably barely outdamage a Barrage ranger under the best of conditions.

So yeah, I would say that MMs are now weaker than most support builds. Minion bomber is still probably quite doable, but without a better way of targeting minions for death nova it isnt a very enjoyable build for me.

Nope. Next up is Barrage. It will cost 10 energy and be easily interruptible. You heard it here first. actually i suggested that a few times by now (not the interruptable part ofcourse). Character that already beats most others in damage, interrups, degen, survivablity, etc., etc should not be able to deal aoe damage so easily. It can be energy cost or recharge time or scattering effect or anything...
But that is offtopic really...

How will people do the Monk's path now? They at least should make that quest simpler. A mesmer can hench monk's path. All you do is stand a bit out of range and pull each pair of scarabs as they come up, you won't get overwhelmed then.

Actually using tactics ftw?

OMFG! Max minion is 10 and that is NOT a small number, can't really say it's a nerf.

How often you see MM with more than 10 minion? Expert level MM can maintain 12, compare to 10, that's not a big change. are you dumb? I have 20+ EASY during a missions *sigh* I have a pic of an oro run with an easy 40 minions....well if they dont fix this im done with gw....glad i didnt prepay for factions

are you dumb? I have 20+ EASY during a missions *sigh* I have a pic of an oro run with an easy 40 minions....well if they dont fix this im done with gw....glad i didnt prepay for factions Thats the only reason you play guildwars? /: (

I'd like to see tanks nerfed.. They havent' been nerfed in any game ever sicne ( ironically) the original nerf in Ultima Online ( where weapon damage was dropped so much that people said the swords were made out of nerf, which is where we get the word nerf today.) Tanks are rediclously strong and flexible, being able to solo well, group well, deal massive damage, run areas, etc. Sadly, no one nerfs THEM, just other, weaker ( and harder to play) classes. LOL! Yea!

High damage, high armor
No specific spellcasting restrictions
3 melee weapon specialties
More rune than other classes
Can solo

Tanks are unbalanced big-time. Nerf tanks.


What really gets me upset is that they did this right before Factions! We were gonna have a rebalance in early April, then that was moved to mid-May so we'd have time to settle into Factions first. Then the day before Factions, they nerf the bejesus out of MMs.

Come on!

Anet really seems disjointed and confused this week. They publish updates, then revoke them, then patch the revocation, then patch the patch for the revocation......Then the next day, reinstate the revoked patch.

Now they need to revoke the reinstatment of the revoked patch.

Seriously, I am really having a hard time finding a desire to play tonight. If we make another good build they'll hammer that down too. What's the solution? Stop posting builds here on Guru or any forum? Become a closed community so good builds don't become popular?

The Minion Master build is dead. Long live the Minion Masters!

Maybe, just maybe - they made this update because of PvE. Anet's actions influenced by PvE? Surely you jest?

Im pretty sure pets and minions have the same AI. No they don't. You can control what your pet attacks to a certain degree, but your minions will attack the first thing that enters their aggro circle or the target their master has struct, whichever comes first, and they don't switch targets when their master does. There are other minor differences.

A mesmer can hench monk's path. All you do is stand a bit out of range and pull each pair of scarabs as they come up, you won't get overwhelmed then.

Actually using tactics ftw? Quoted for truth.

Hahahahahahahah.

You guys can't really be serious can you?

A MM 'required' for a Monk's Path?

Hahahahahahah.

Hello all:

The main cause of the 10 Max Minion nerf arises from the minion health degen. The constant, accumulative degen on the minions made all the difference. VS is not effective to fight this degen, and will probably be ignore by all players. BotM is nice, but is not effective to fight this degen neither. Mind you, if ANet decides that MM should not be keeping minions around from one aggro wave to the next, that's fine.

Just for your info, I don't think MM has a life better than everyone else in the PvE world. In PvE, it's everyone against the world... If ANet nerf MM, they are just making PvE more difficult for everyone. Before, one MM can help in tombs, in SF. By keeping a group small, everyone involved has a higher chance of getting a Green. Now, you'll need more members to do half the tanking/damage the old MM could do. You'll be grinding more fruitless grinds.

Cheers.

WarCheese There are countless people i could easily go and prove wrong, which is not even funny. People who are crying about this nerf, realized the time when other professions got nerfed and they were passively buffed because they were left as the major damage dealers of entire game? Let me tell you why you are crying out loud right now. Just like once eles ( including my self ) cried. We were major damage dealers. An army of One. Someone said Oh Necros are so fragile, and this and that. You think someone can pass through so many minnions easily and kill a necro at first place? Being one man army is all we want. And when we are pushed towards being balanced, we cry. I feel buffed in long time as elemental. Even though i held a minnion master, and nearly found SS and other stuff a Joke for my usage in terms of efficiency and hard times, i stoped playing necros. They made me feel cheap. MM always had a better life than any of us. Every team wanted an MM in their build. Now, they will get other professions along with MM to support them, what is so bad about the game being balanced? Think for a moment, if you were on the oposite end of an Alliance battle with a person in oposite team, holding 40 minnions, what would u do ? go and kill him? or try to prove how cool he is? You would hate him for him being so over powered. At this point, an MM can't solo no more with minnions in missions, which seems much balanced to me. For the person who said MM are fragile, how do you solo if they are so fragile? I know exactly how it feels to be on the wrong side of nerf hammer, and guys, accept it. Just like we eles did, for possibly the longest time of this game. We were nerfed to the grounds, and barrage teams just rocked on the back of an MM to tank for them. Now, Tactics are required, and Playing MM is not that easy since you do not hold the entire mission/farming area in your palm.
Live with this. Just like we all are living through nerfs, watching our favourite professions getting nerfed to ground. Every profession rises after the nerf, but takes time. Till then, Good Game To all of You.
It is time that you MMs should stop thinking like once we eles did of ourselves in this game, which was.. Superior. We both are balanced now, As much as an Ele needs you to block foes from him while dishing out the damage, you need an ele to start creating large piles of corpses for you in PVE. And in some places, Alliance battles type PVP too. Mind you, i am not saying other professions dont kill. What i mean to say is, eles are passively buffed by this nerf, and we both can play on equal terms now.

Regardz
An Elementalist.

Hello all:

The main cause of the 10 Max Minion nerf arises from the minion health degen. The constant, accumulative degen on the minions made all the difference. VS is not effective to fight this degen, and will probably be ignore by all players. BotM is nice, but is not effective to fight this degen neither. Mind you, if ANet decides that MM should not be keeping minions around from one aggro wave to the next, that's fine.

Just for your info, I don't think MM has a life better than everyone else in the PvE world. In PvE, it's everyone against the world... If ANet nerf MM, they are just making PvE more difficult for everyone. Before, one MM can help in tombs, in SF. By keeping a group small, everyone involved has a higher chance of getting a Green. Now, you'll need more members to do half the tanking/damage the old MM could do. You'll be grinding more fruitless grinds.

Cheers.

WarCheese Its more important that the classes be equal than the game be easy. I would really like it more if PvE was harder.

What I'm having trouble seeing is why MMs are so bad. Who cares if they were gods before, it just matters how they are now. What makes them worse than a BM? Im pretty sure pets and minions have the same AI. MMs are still good for something arent they? They have nowhere near the same AI. Pets will switch targets to the one you are targeting, and will break off from combat if you run away. I dont remember for certain, but I think pets may even try to avoid AoE attacks the way enemies do. Minions attack the first thing they see and are then out of your control until everything in the area is dead.

If in return for all these nerfs minions got upgraded to pet-level AI, I'd be pretty happy. The ability to force 10 fiends to target the enemy monk or caster would go a long ways to make up for the recent losses. But as it stands now I think you'll find alot of other builds will now outdamage MMs simply due to the natural shortcomings of minions.

oh, and boo to extra wide pictures inserted into forum threads!

ok, all you people saying "who cares your getting great spells with factions" um....ok WHAT IF YOU DONT GET FACTIONS? I'm getting nerfed to hell just so the people buying the new game are better? Oh boy I now get 10 max bone fiends and thats if I can even keep them alive long enough? MM was really the only build in this game I enjoyed, I did it since the original prophecies beta, and now its nerfed. gg anet, only way I think would be good to go with minions is go back to how diablo is, take away their health regen and make their health stay at max, but no regen thats about the only reason I could see coming back all the other classes were unoriginal, MM was the only thing different and cool I liked....man I'm really going to miss this


R.I.P., Vampire X
Holy @#$#@$ nice