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First thing you need to know is that GW2 has many activities like :
- PvE : Raid, Fractal, Strike, Open World*
*Open World including solo free roam, meta events, gold farming, roleplay and OW is a huge aspect of gw2 by many means.
- PvP
- WvW which mean World vs World is a massive battleground
To your question
- Minion necro, yes this build can be considered newbie/solo friendly for the pace is slow and secure, give you more time and comfort getting used to the game and by no mean they are weak in fact minion build is one of the strongest solo build available. The weak you heard is due to the state of meta mainly focus on 2 boons Quickness and Alacrity while at the same time you have to be able to deal DPS or HEAL. If you choose minions you lose most of the ability to give out Quickness this can be view as being useless in group play or big meta but nobody really cares about how you perform in OW, if you do great ppl love you, if you mainly play solo build no one can judge you either. When you are alone minion build is perfect, if you are around ppl you can just switch to something more useful or play as you like like a tank, last man standing. I my self play minion from time to time when i'm tired of being someone errand boy.
- Raid/Frac/Strike do not even think about minion builds.
- PvP/WvW this is where you get creative really so anything, literally anything might works as long as you know what you're doing.
- Turret engi is the weaker version of minion necro and hardly use anywhere else except braindead AFK farming and you don't want to be part of this joke.
- Mech however...is a different matter they are stupidly strong, easy and go on and on. Tons of mech around these days due to how strong and easy the class are even in Raid/Frac/Strike. Some might view mech in a negative light mainly because braindead gameplay but seriously tho, play as you like is what matters.
It's a lot more complicated and harder to say for certain in sPvP because it depends on team composition and matchups. What's important to know is that each minion type uses up a utility skill slot (3 in total), so the more minion types you want, the less of other utilities your build is going to have. Also, the skill that each minion type can execute is usually also slightly delayed and depends on its own positioning, so depending terrain, it can miss. But I have played it in sPvP in the past with moderate success, mainly as a tank to bunker down on capture points.
For WvW, it's completely fine to run it but there are certainly much better options because minions can die really fast or won't do much if the opposing side is 10 men or more. It's also often that you may want to disengage to get away but the minions may keep you in combat, which can affect your run speed or ability to mount up. People do still run it in WvW so don't be afraid to if you feel like it. You can rest assure that no one's going to have an issue on what build you run in open world or WvW because it's generally not organized. So you can try it out and tweak as you go along.
- Aside from Mech and Ranger's pet, you can't control necro's minions. They are AI and you really don't want them running like headless chickens in Raid plus minion is basically useless in there, they die really fast, and in there you want to be useful because if you decide to take up minions you lose access to your entire utility bar, in case you don't understand each class has 5 utilitity slots changing these depends on the situation and in raid you want the best in slot, being helpful, help boosting others dps while if you take minion they stay in those slots and practically do nothing, they just sit there render you stuck with 4 or 5 uncontrollable AIs.
- Minion are strong in solo because you don't have to take responsibility of the situation, you are a one man army, they can distract enemies for you but in raid one poke from boss and your entire legion vanish like thin air not to mention raid mechanics required you to often engage/disengage since you can't control your minion, you can have the worst possible outcome. The same for Turrets but they can't even tank for you in solo and broken like doll from mob attacks.
- Mech and Ranger has their own pet control bar and doesn't take up any thing from utility bar.
Meeting the damage check is an unspoken rule in instanced content, raid/strike groups have a minimum of 5k-12k DPS (depending on the leniency of the group).
Adding this just to clarify on utility slots in case it confuses people since I mentioned it was 3 total utility slots earlier. There are 5 total slots for skills that are not tied to the equipped weapon, namely, 1x healing skill slot, 3x utility skill slots and 1x elite skill slot for a total of 5 slots. For necromancers, each of the 5 slots can be equipped with a different minion type, making it a total of 5 different minion types that you can have via equipped skills.
1) Minions cannot be focused on a single target.
2) Minions do low DPS compared to other other skills.
3) Minions cannot dodge high-damage skills
With those issues in mind, please bear with my absolutely ignorant theorycrafting for a moment: can minion necromancers not play the role of an off-tank/off-DPS? The necro handles the mobs/adds, while the rest of the party focuses on the bosses or high-value targets
I was thinking that a pure minion build like this (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAs+ZlFwmYUsK2IeqSfPXA-zRRYCREYGN/lBBxAh08aOL+JWJA-e) would create minions for dealing with lesser mobs--hopefully taking pressure off of the main tank. The necro would then spam scepter/torch/scourge attacks as the primary source of damage. It also helps that a necro can create additional jagged horror minions with each minion they kill thanks to death nova. death nova will also help dead minions do more dps by creating poison novas when they die.
And when it comes to raw DPS against a singular boss, i was planning to just plant minions right beside them. If they live, they do damage while i spend my APM/cooldowns on scepter/torch/scourge abilities. if they die, they create a poison nova that deals DPS to the boss.
one question though: do minions count as allies? and if they do, does that mean each dead minion replenishes 10% of a necromancer's life force? if this is the case then dead minions would be even better as they should help me better spam sandstorm shroud when it's off cooldown.
That said, I was thinking of a secondary hybrid build (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAs+ZlFwmYgMR2IeqSfPXA-zRRYCREYGN/lBBxAh08aOL+JWJA-e)
I replace two utility slots with corruption spells. The plan is to bleed/poison myself, summon a minion, and have that minion transfer the corruption to an enemy. Not sure about the viability of this build, but eh--more time to waste.
Hm. So the problems with a pure minion build on instanced raids seem to be:
1) Minions cannot be focused on a single target.
2) Minions do low DPS compared to other other skills.
3) Minions cannot dodge high-damage skills
>> You are absolutely right and i would like to add one more thing, in raid enviroment there are many mechnics required you to have full control over your course of action since the minions can't be controled at will they will cause a huge mess which can lead to a wipe.
With those issues in mind, please bear with my absolutely ignorant theorycrafting for a moment: can minion necromancers not play the role of an off-tank/off-DPS? The necro handles the mobs/adds, while the rest of the party focuses on the bosses or high-value targets
>> Yes you can but not with minion, In raid where you have full access to boons with the help of others and due to how durable necro was designed simply by taking utilities other than minion can help you boost not only yourself but also other team members as well. If your minions are dead your DPS will be abyssmal while also render you useless or even wipe yourself without being able to do anything useful at all. They get killed very fast and the cooldown on them is pretty long while raiding every second count.
>> If you want to play as an off-tank its ten times better to play with just Flesh Golem and use Plaguedoctor stats to provide extra healing and support to the team.
I was thinking that a pure minion build like this (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAs+ZlFwmYUsK2IeqSfPXA-zRRYCREYGN/lBBxAh08aOL+JWJA-e) would create minions for dealing with lesser mobs--hopefully taking pressure off of the main tank. The necro would then spam scepter/torch/scourge attacks as the primary source of damage. It also helps that a necro can create additional jagged horror minions with each minion they kill thanks to death nova. death nova will also help dead minions do more dps by creating poison novas when they die.
>> The role of tank in gw2 isn't like in any other mmos, sometimes the tank can also be a healer or supporter as well and to take up tanking position required deep knowledge about the mechanics so it really isn't necessary to have an off-tank.
And when it comes to raw DPS against a singular boss, i was planning to just plant minions right beside them. If they live, they do damage while i spend my APM/cooldowns on scepter/torch/scourge abilities. if they die, they create a poison nova that deals DPS to the boss.
>> There are a system called Combo Field in the game, and overlapping, creating multiple poison fields is the last thing you want and the damage isn't high compared to you plus other utilites, you basicaly making yourself into an extra bag for the team to carry.
one question though: do minions count as allies? and if they do, does that mean each dead minion replenishes 10% of a necromancer's life force? if this is the case then dead minions would be even better as they should help me better spam sandstorm shroud when it's off cooldown.
>> You are right but taking one Signet of Undeath is better than having minions in the long run and trust me you hardly encouter any Life Force issue at all.
That said, I was thinking of a secondary hybrid build (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAs+ZlFwmYgMR2IeqSfPXA-zRRYCREYGN/lBBxAh08aOL+JWJA-e)
I replace two utility slots with corruption spells. The plan is to bleed/poison myself, summon a minion, and have that minion transfer the corruption to an enemy. Not sure about the viability of this build, but eh--more time to waste. [/quote]
>> Your second build look better than the first but both aren't builds can be used for raiding, you better off with just Flesh Golem and for raid either you go full dps or healer or supporter + semi-dps, in this case healscourge or harbinger is better.
>> You are on the good start, learn about each stat and what they can do also to save you from future trouble, 2 same sigils on a same weapon or swap setup doesn't stack so becareful.
Not quite. Minion Necros using Rise were absolutely broken and insanely powerful in WvW from for most of the year, until they got nerfed due to community outcry. It was so bad that competitive guilds wouldn't fight other competitive guilds unless they were using a non-Rise team comp.
Again, it's just a matter of balance. Granted, that's probably one of the handful of times Minion Necros were so good.
PvP/WvW no