Minion changes, thoughts

this might allready have been discussed a lot, but i wanted to voice my opinion.

there are 3 major changes to the minion mechanics and skills,
1) limit on minions animated
2) Blood of the master changes
3) verata's sacrifice changes

also the difference of having factions and not having it makes a BIG difference, minion masters have more toys to play with now.

1) limit of minions
This was needed IMHO, i've seen people run around with 30 minions instantly obliterating everything in their path, however this comboed with the other nerfs really screwed players with prophecies only over, they don't get any of the new monion types. they are still stuck with the same old ones.

2) Blood of the master
this is actually well done, an improvement if you ask me, the 10% you sacrificed before, and the higher energy cost made it a kind of.. meh.. skill, it hurt if there wasn't a lot of minions getting healed, it owned if there was a lot. I like the range changes too, it was really hard to maximise the effect before because you were dealing with a heal area sort of spell, and minions rarely group up well for that, they all stand on one side of you, or too far from you to get healed with it
Now, with the changes its a very well balanced skill, cheap energy-wise, somewhat spammable (depends on how many minion you control). it has the potential to keep your minions alive for a long time, and it can kil you fast if you don't watch out

3) verata's Sacrifice
i think Anet did a great job on BotM, but i think they made this skill extremely overpowered, or completely useless, depending on how you look at it. with the new flesh golem elite minion, a lot of people benifit from the 3 minion max instant recharge, by only using the golem. and they can keep a constant +10 regen on it. while the golem tears everything apart
and the little guy with 10 of any not-so-great minion can't use the skill at all, sure, he can use it for a short while , but 60 seconds is overkill.
I think this skill should be somewhat like BotM, it should depend on the number of minions, i sugest something like a base duration on the +10 regen, and then +1 second for each controlled minion, and have it at a constant recharge, but not 60 seconds, 25 or 30 perhaps.
another option is to make it like it used to be, but make it an elite spell. that way it couldn't be comboed with the golem.


the minion master still works. but its harder to do now, not everyone can be one. which is good in my opinion. the faction minions are really needed to be usefull though. the prophecies ones are good, sure, but they don't compare to the factions minions, which means you ahev to get factions if you want to be effective.
on the other hand, i think factions needs these because of the missions being a lot harder than prophecies missions, which were pretty easy, and still are with the current minnion master. allthough monions tend to become very weak against the later enemies, when you start getting above lvl 20

I hope you didn't think it was a waste of time reading this.
feel free to comment, flames wil be ignored

No it's never a waste of time reading anyones opinion but i have to kind of agree with you..... half the reason im gettin factions is cause i need it to be a good mm still lol. The flesh golem just tears things apart, and whats especially fun is when you get a monk to bond it........with 10 regen on it......... OMFG PWNT

I agree, Verata's Sacrifice was hit hard and it was completely unneccesary as well. Even before, you could only maintain a minion army for so long with it before you needed fresh bodies. 10 pips of regen for 18 seconds (iirc) and 12 seconds without it while waiting for Verata's Sacrifice to recharge ended up with the older minions dropping, even with Blood of the Master.

IMO, BotM and VS should have been left untouched while only the amount of minions you could keep up was reduced like it was.

The limit on minions is just stupid. 10 is not even close to an army. Which is what they still call it.

BotM is ok but 25% sacrifice is just lame, specially now they screwed VS up beyond use. I just ignore that skill nowadays, its not even worth looking at.

Verata's Sacrifice: i think it was 18 seconds at 12 death 21 at 16 death

the problem with it was that misinos would acumulate degen that was greater tthan -10 if they werea live long enough, you got to the point where you won't even cancel out the degen if you had enough time.

veratas aura could have used a slight nerf, people were runing fast recharge skills to get it back faster than the duration, but the way it was done makes the skill completely useless

Didn't Veratis Aura last 312 seconds at lvl 16 Death with a 60 second cooldown? I hardly see them needing to run fast recharge skills to do that.

i mean pre-nerf

I liked the changes they made on the minion limit and BotM, VS was unecessary. With a minion limit now you actually need to understand the MM a bit to use it effectively, unlike as Viruzzz said, 30+ minions will crush anything in its path and anyone could do it too.

So did i :S

No they couldn't, a crappy MM would never have 30+ minions. It takes a certain degree of skill to keep minions alive that long (and a nice flow of corpses). Nowadays if theres a steady flow of corpses i don't even need to bother healing, i just summon a new minion and replace the old ones they die off. Now thats something anyone can do.

IMHO:

Verata's Sacrifice was nerfed because of the Flesh Golem in PvP. The beta-testers didn't know how to counter a level 26 creature under 10 pips of regen. So they cried, and Anet stomped on VS.

The 10 minion limit was also added because of the 12vs12 PvP format.....again, people didn't know how to counter a MM, so MM's dominated 12vs12. "We don't know how to beat that, nerf them Anet!"

What I don't get is the speed that Anet had on this issue. New powerful PvP builds appear all the time, and they sweep the PvP arenas for a month of so before counter builds are developed!!!

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

THERE ARE COUNTERS TO 80 MINION ARMIES, EVEN UNDER 10 PIPS OF REGEN!!!!

Anyone who has played MM with any degree of skill, knows EXACTLY how to play an Anti-MM. But did they give the community time to adapt????? Nooooooo. Beat down with the nerf-stick!

I can't even begin to articulate my disappointment in this awful, awful patch. I am perfectly willing to discuss 'balancing' of the MM class, but this was butchering not balance.

Why waste a skill slot on VS now? I have every intention of having 10 minions as often as possible. Did you really intend for me to let 7 minions die, so I could spam VS every 10 seconds until the next mob?

Flesh Golem: Good for solo-farmers, decent but not that great otherwise. Uses up your Elite spot, not a total wash, but not worth nerfing the whole class.

Vampiric Horrors: Ummm? Not very good at all. Slow recharge, low damage. Advantages?? Well, you can attack through Mark of Protection with these guys, and you get some extra health out of it, but healing was the LEAST of a MM's concerns!!

Put things back the way they were and let the PvPers act like the skilled players they claim to be. Counters are available, hell, some of the counters are over-powered, but they weren't touched!!!

Can you even begin to imagine the screaming if Anet suddenly introduced a 4 enchantment cap????? I mean seriously, if I can only run 10 minions, then everyone else should be capped at 4 enchantments/spirits. Let's call that: Balance!

True That.

Umm... i think there are more reasons behind the nerfing than you think.
Can't be sure why they did it the way it is now.

It's been done, so live with it. It's like many other nerfs (aoe nerf, etc...).

And i don't know what people like in MM afterall in PVP. In HA clearly useless... unless you run MF. And you dont have much chance against any decent team wich has a vague idea on some opaq strategy against MF.

What really hurts minon master in PvP is the Ab. It was your dream right? 24 people kicking the bucket, also some pets, yummi. You can see minon master in Ab in every match. Screw them :P

Make build to screw them. Just put in cc, one well, putrid (maybe on fast casting bases, but i dont think it's needed) and the minon master is done but you can still have an effective build in case of no MM in the opposing team.

The idea is to leave them no bodies, put up well of suffering with like a -6 degen. If the MM is not carefull and lets minions wander around in the wells... sh*t happens. And if you really want to be a great anti-mm necro, strip in 1-2 inteerupts, spot the minion master and interrupt the animate/heal skills from time to time if you can't cc/well/putrid in time.


So MM is an option only for 12v12 Ab. That's where a MM left alone could do miracles with the minion armies if it wasn't the 10 minion cap (bone friends + fw ... ftw?). And Ab is crap anyway, so the old pvp community wouldn't make a big fuss about something being uterly "uber" in Ab.

Of course there will be a new breed of Ab pvp dudes who won't really notice anything about skill combos beaing overpowered since many of the fighting goes on in huge packs and you take damage from so many parts that you can't really see wich one was the "uber", overpowered combo of skills.


So ... Dunno. IMO running MF in HA is kinda noob. Running MM in Ab is intresting, your choice. Can't wait to face your MM in Ab, I know what you do and it will be my pleasure to screw you over and over.

The flesh golem is not that good, he's only useful as a tank. His attacks are impressive but they are so slow that his dps suffers.

Aura of the lich is a much better elite. It basically allows you to constantly use BotM for 28 health each shot, which is easily regenerated if you have vampiric horrors. Between vampiric attacks and constant healing from BotM, your horrors are not dying any time soon.

Carinae, i cudnt have said it better, well, maybe, but u beat me to its....also, i agree wit evilsod, upkeeping an army of 25+ required a bit of skill, and if u cud do that, u deserved to flaut ur mm skillsez, but now that max is only 10, a noob jus out of presear cud do it. BotM definately suffered a hit, but since i use(d) heal area, it never really hurt me anyways, now vs, that totally suckd, even wit the whole instant recharge thing. and since i dun have factions (yet), im f**ked over. 10 is no army, specially if ur farmin grenths/snakes/ etc., puny lvl 18's not gunna do much at all, considerin in snakes, smite spells r used, even wit minion bomb, its not gunna do much, and soloin is completely outta da picture. ive basically hung up teh mm title till i get factions. the update wuz a truly dark day in the history of gw, and will continue to plague the necro imo..............

Your post is a dark day in history and will continue to plague the English language until you improve on your spelling and grammar.

i do my best

Most of the whining in this thread can be summed up in a single sentence:

OMG I CAN'T MAKE AN ARMY THAT WILL OBLITERATE ANYTHING IN MY WAY WITH LITTLE TO NO EFFORT

lol :P
/signed

I agree with Carinae. Just 1 thing i'd like to know thunderpower, if your so sure that wasn't the reason, then what was it? Have Anet even commented on why they completely demolished the entire concept of the MM along with half the skills?

Sekkira, anyone who has played a decent MM will know that you actually need effort to summon a large army. And those MMs will also know that as soon as the corpses stop rolling in or you come up against a large amount of AoE/multi target damage, your suffering huge losses. So please, stfu.

hey, i liked obliterating things with little to no effort. it wuz especially nice when u didnt need sum noob tank to aggro everything. those were the days, those were the days.........
(back when i new grammar, hehehe)

Anyone who has played a decent MM will know that AoE is no problem with such large numbers and it really doesn't require too much skill to build up and maintain this.

I retort with:

was hoping this thread would survive a bit longer before the flamefest started.

also, i don't see how you can talk about an MM for farming, you need to have corpses to make minions at all, and most of the time, anywhere worth farming is hard to kill with a MM (and no minions)

We will not be dismissed this easily. We are making clear, concise arguments on the recent changes. You are not.

If you think it takes no skill to raise and maintain 50+ minions, you're very mistaken. That took skill.

Before it was: always draw aggro yourself becoming a target, screen the attackers off on the Horrors, heal with BotM, don't get killed while sacrificing, what targets to attack and in what order, what to do when melee attackers go after the Fiends.

Now: just activate AotL + BR and spam BotM like mad. Why bother with any strategy, they are going to die quickly anyway, just replace and slam!

Solo farming is EASIER with Flesh Golem and Pain! Now it takes ABSOLUTELY no strategy.

Cast Pain
Pain kills Lynx/Mergoyle
Cast Flesh Golem
Go get soda/potty break
Come back and cast 3 Fiends
Recast FG
Slam into mobs

There's Ettin Farming!

/signed on the STFU

wut u mean solo mm's cant farm?!?! with a lvl 16 death, plus the staff upgrade, deathly swarm/deathly chill/vile touch (not all in same skillbar) cud output enough dmg to get ur first corpe. summon horror/minion, deathly swarm and help horror/minion kill another. its really not that difficult to build an army when soloin. plus, if u go max death, then add blood and sr, u got sum mo offensive spells. since u dun really need that many that many spells to upkeep army (vs, BoTM, i sumtimes used well o blood). any "good" necro imo can improv wit skillz to make a successful solo mm build, and still be able to upkeep massive army. all u gotta do is play around wit skill combos and see wut works when, not that hard.

I still love my minion master, pre-nerf, there'd be no reason to be anything else BUT an MM in PvE really. The only instance that would happen, is if you were in a group with other players.

I hate the nerf, but it makes a hell of a lot of sense, so I can't see myself crying like a 13yo girl about it. I have OTHER things in the game to cry about... such as BLOODSTAINED BOOTS FFS!!!

Spam animate fiends/horrors, depending on which isn't recharging, priority on the fiends as that's where the damage is. Hit VS whenever it recharges, BotM to keep whatever you can up in the downtime of VS. Obviously you have to get your minions into position for BotM, but that wasn't exactly a brain drain.

Now tell me where is the hard part about being a MM? Would it be this perhaps:

Hmm, now where did i put my DoTAoEs... Oh thats right, all the frigging place. Would you mind telling me your secret for moving those stupid minions out of DoTAoE spells like Firestorm before getting blasted by Incendiary Bonds, Fireball and slowly wiped out by SS. All the while a Shadow Warrior is standing in the middle of the row of Fiends doing some hefty damage with Hundred Blades. Of course a decent MM would somehow make an extra 15 corpses appear to make up for the useless minion AI getting them all slaughtered...

You seem to think that spamming BotM, recasting VS and randomly summoning minions took no skill at all, so how much skill exactly does just recasting 'Summon Bone Fiend' everytime somethings dies take? Hell thats all i did for the entire length of the spider cave. Why worry about my old minions dieing from degen/damage when i'll have renewed them with a fresh new fiend in about 30 seconds.

hmmm, does EoE work wit ritualist spirits or minions and such? never tried, but if it does, it wud make fo one welluva death nova/EoE spike, hehehe

and evilsod is right, the challegne is not summoning minions, its being able to upkeep them DURING the battle. i dun think AoE trigger affects summons, so basically, they jus run up and get slaughtered mercilessly. still havnt tied healing seed on em, but that wud make it a helluva lot easier, tho ud need alot in healing. o well, im happy wit my FoC "spike"......

I think they stopped EoE working with spirits, but as far as i know EoE totally massacres minions. 1 or 2 die from natural degen and over working and the rest will soon follow in a huge EoE bomb.

o yea, forgot it hurts everything. wuda been interestin if it did work when tied wit death nova, oober deaths fo everybody, hehehe............

Would be quite an interesting twist on an EoE bomb. A pack of minions covered in Death Nova all exploding suddenly. Hell you'd only need 6 to kill someone if they all copped it together.

Bone Horrors are awfully good at body blocking, maybe you should use them some time. You also talk as if you're going to be taking on 10 different sets of mobs at once. The reason why MM was overpowered is due to the overwhelming damage you could throw at each group by sheer number.

If you ran in there knowing you'd be spammed with DoT AoE's and SS, your minions deserved to get wiped.

So, now that I've layed down the MM 'skill' in a single paragraph, are you just going to retort with assumptions to flaws in my explaination, or post your own reasons why a decent MM takes skill?

i think im gunna see if EoE works on minions, then i wudnt have any prob with update at all. plus, solo necro mm wud be back, YAY!!!!
(if it works.........)

Well I would like to point out that 1 aoe CAN wipe out an entire army Sekkira. Normally the fiends will create a firing line, and get wiped out in one aoe.

Now even with the VS "Nerf" I can still maintain my minions. Start echoing VS, this gives you an additional 10 seconds. And to Carinae I say this.... It looks like the MM's will be the ones doing the adapting. You also stated that healing is not an MM's concern. Well...it kinda is now, considering that one of the main heals we have for minions is gone .

At the last sentence, isn't that exactly what your doing? I never would've thought to use Horrors.... oh wait its that skill thats always next to Summon Bone Fiends on my skillbar when i play MM.

Its a shame that the last time i checked spells don't really get blocked by Horrors. Also they weren't invunerable to SS either, so the chances are that even if they're not in the battle to begin with, which seems to be your next 'point' did you ever stop and think that they may be standing near things that have been inflicted by them? Or have you also come up with a method of stopping Horrors standing near pets w/ SS and Fiends standing near Rangers w/ SS? (waits for witty reparte(sp?) about how i should move round and attack from the other side, meaning i enter the battle by the time its over) and of course stopping any minion from ever entering an DoT spell? It sounds like all you actually do when you play MM is stand at the back and watch while your minions slowly degen from boredom.
So these 10 mobs at once... i dunno when you last visited FoW, but there always seemed to be a fairly decent selection of groups there. Infact the group in the right of the start contains everything i just mentioned, Shadow Warrior/Ele/Mesmer/Beast.

anyways, since nerf, the whole horror body blocking is useless, unless u bottleneck enemy in tiny little cavern, and i havnt seen many in gw.

btw, doom movie sux, dun waste money on it.
advent children rulzes imo, very good cg movie, ROCK ON SQUARE ENIX, ROCK ON!!

Agreed, you can either bring up 10 Horrors and body block well, 10 fiends and do a lot of damage quickly thanks to the range, or some of each and hope for the best.

in my eyes, the prophecies mm is dead. period.

What you're saying is basically along the lines of "MM's are completely useless and there is no way to have them not die." Unless you're trying to point out my flaw in when I said that they were a completely unstoppable force (please point that out though, I'm unsure what my fingers are typing, it's these brain cramps you see).

In fact, forget that, I don't know what the hell you're on about or what point you're trying to make.

I'm still waiting btw.

true, they were insanely powerful in pve, but so were 55's. they "fixed" 55 wit the AoE trigger, and im fine wit dat, cuz it didnt completely nerf the build. now, the mm nerf completely destroyed that build in prophecies. sure, get factions u say, but ive been reading alot of negative comments on it. in this case, the nerf stick was switchd witha nerf nuke imo, very depressing........