Daddicus.6128

> @"Lahmia.2193" said:

> > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > > @"Lahmia.2193" said:

> >

> > > Yet minions are the most brain dead way to play in gw2.

> >

> > A particularly apt description, considering they're undead, and thus their brains really are dead.

> >

> > But, we'll have to disagree on this. And, since I'm about halfway through Mist Attunement 2, I must be doing something right. ;)

> >

> >

>

> What build do you use?

My fractals necro is a viper reaper with four minions (the health one, plus the three that do CC). The last utility slot usually holds a well, but I re-slot it depending on instabilities and general mayhem level and specifics of the fractal. Scepter and focus weapons are primary, greatsword secondary.

The thing that makes it work, I think, is that I don't use all my skills in a rotation. If there's a breakbar, I use one or more of 2, 5, and the three minion skills. If there are boons, 3 and 5 (and the extra slot, if well of corruption is there). I've grown used to fractals, so I have a feel for whether I need to use all the CCs or boon strips right away, or save them for a more appropriate time. For example, fighting Subject 6 in Thaumanova, I'll save the CC for the vets unless the team has enough DPS/boons to take him down fast enough (which at T4 is rare).

Death, Blood, and Reaper trait lines.

Since I don't do a lot of DPS, I focus on keeping the minions going (so they can do their CC more often), being a tank, and helping the party (in that order).

The problem THIS thread refers to is the loss of all of the minions at the same time. Their CC (and my health/toughness) are critical to the build, so losing them all at once means I'm a liability to the party until they come back. I've learned how to work around it, but I don't feel I should have to.

My questions go way back, and require a little background. I ran 30 characters through the main storyline, to get a chance at all the branches. When I did so, I was flabbergasted by how much the early storyline missions were weaved together. Like, a passing reference in Asuraland to the Floating Grizwhirl, which figures heavily in the human storyline and dungeons. I wasn't expecting so many tie-ins.

So, my first question is how much work did you guys have to do in order to make all those tie-ins happen? Or, was it that the teams just worked together often enough that it just "clicked"?

The second question has to do with the storyline noble human friend Faren. How come he doesn't recognize your character later in the story (if you started as a noble)?

THANK YOU for asking this. I didn't realize they changed them to a consumable.

> @"Lahmia.2193" said:

> Yet minions are the most brain dead way to play in gw2.

A particularly apt description, considering they're undead, and thus their brains really are dead.

But, we'll have to disagree on this. And, since I'm about halfway through Mist Attunement 2, I must be doing something right. ;)

I think the real reason is that they might fight with each other. Then, you'd have a dead mini following you around. They would have to remake the model as a dead version, and that's just too much work.

Or, maybe it's as the guys said above. But, I like my idea better. :)

> @"Thornwolf.9721" said:

> > @"Cynder.2509" said:

> > Why would you even play minion master in fractals? ugh... Why would you even play necromancer in fractals?! Go meta or go home!

> > I suggest looking up builds at metabattle or snowcrows if you want to be effective ;)

>

> You're part of the problem. A piece of the community who needs meta's because you're unable to come up with your own build and bash people for doing so, Minion-masters should be a thing they were good in GW1 and its a playstyle some people tend to like. It has a huge niche that often will support a game simply for having a GOOD version of it.

>

> When the community does the "Its not a-nets fault it sucks, its your fault. Play meta or kitten off" It reinforces the lack of desire on the devs part to do anything about it, its not fun and its not fair that you want to play X type of character, and the game then tells you "No you must be rainbow sparkles, and not do dark magic." Stop being part of the problem and be part of the solution~ Offer feedback to help A-net make it better, to fix it and make being a minion/horde master fun because that would be the only reason Id play necromancer... because our current necromancer is only one in name alone.

Oh, I don't know. I think I could find other ways to play necros. Blood magic and curses have some very interesting synergies. But, yeah, I really like minions. I grew up with Dungeons & Dragons, and characters were evil if they made undead, so I never used them. But, there's just something about that that attracts me. When GW1 had minions without making you the enemy, I thought it was GREAT! At least one of my necros will always be playing with minions. (And, yes, you can take that two ways. :))

> @"Tiviana.2650" said:

> > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > > @"Tiviana.2650" said:

> > > > @"Cynder.2509" said:

> > > > Why would you even play minion master in fractals? ugh... Why would you even play necromancer in fractals?! Go meta or go home!

> > > > I suggest looking up builds at metabattle or snowcrows if you want to be effective ;)

> > >

> > > This has to stop, the whole meta thing is stupid, making over half the specs and professions considered useless. Not a good way to balance a game, and the fact that its so ingrained into the players now, they refuse to take people that dont play "the meta"

> > >

> > > Seriously balance the professions. Giving everything to a few and leaving the rest to rot is terrible design.

> >

> > Unfortunately, there will always be meta builds, because there are people (and yes, I have other words to describe them, but those would get me infracted) who only understand DPS, healing (with the goal of keeping the DPSers alive), and buffs (to have the DPSers do more damage.)

>

> True but its anets fault for making them that way. If they didnt make the professions the way they are they wouldnt be meta. They design them to be that way, thereby feeding into the meta.

I think it's more acquiescing to the inevitable. Min-maxing will always be possible, unless the balancing is absolutely perfect. But, I don't think perfect balance is even a good goal, let alone achievable.

I think we're stuck with meta builds.

And, they can be helpful. In PUGs, it can be handy to know what your teammates are playing. Having a meta druid is probably a good thing. Same with meta chronomancers, healbrands, etc. If someone is new to the content, I would rather have them playing a meta build, so I know how to react. It would be a little strange, for instance, to have the chronomancer focusing on DPS for himself rather than alacrity for others.

> @"Kuulpb.5412" said:

> > @"Cynder.2509" said:

> > Why would you even play minion master in fractals? ugh... Why would you even play necromancer in fractals?! Go meta or go home!

> > I suggest looking up builds at metabattle or snowcrows if you want to be effective ;)

>

> I play necromancer in fractals, and i can safely say that a lot of people who do fractals with me are dead long before I am (Reaper at the time of this).

Exactly. I try to rally them while downed, but frequently some still die. I can't count the number of times I've finished the Aetherblade fractal as the only person standing.

But, it hurts too, with Mai Trin. I won't move out of the lightning circle when I have the purple star (unless I have a nice spot to go where she can hit me without leaving the circle), but staying frequently overwhelms my ability to heal. Those times, I have to rely on my allies' healing. But, I would rather go down than let her escape the lightning field.

> @"Tiviana.2650" said:

> > @"Cynder.2509" said:

> > Why would you even play minion master in fractals? ugh... Why would you even play necromancer in fractals?! Go meta or go home!

> > I suggest looking up builds at metabattle or snowcrows if you want to be effective ;)

>

> This has to stop, the whole meta thing is stupid, making over half the specs and professions considered useless. Not a good way to balance a game, and the fact that its so ingrained into the players now, they refuse to take people that dont play "the meta"

>

> Seriously balance the professions. Giving everything to a few and leaving the rest to rot is terrible design.

Unfortunately, there will always be meta builds, because there are people (and yes, I have other words to describe them, but those would get me infracted) who only understand DPS, healing (with the goal of keeping the DPSers alive), and buffs (to have the DPSers do more damage.)

> @"Donari.5237" said:

> I don't play MM but I do use the minion heal, along with Rise! And it's frustrating in Siren's Landing that minions last only seconds. I don't think it's been a real issue in any other open world map but Siren's Landing really socks it to me. Maybe they're trying to say that there is so much restorative magic fighting against all vestiges of Zhaitan that necromancy is just a Bad Idea there.

I could accept that. I've often thought that minions seem to be immune to an awful lot of stuff (like zones of burning or other area-effect damage). I've often thought that having minions last forever is something of a problem. But, I would like to see them die independently. When they die all at once (including the healing minion), it's a real problem for me.

> @"Trise.2865" said:

> I can understand the Mount thing being a bug... as if it were tricking the skill into thinking the minion didn't exist, because at the time it doesn't.

> I haven't seen it happen in Fractals, but I don't really pay attention to my minions until I need them. Though I have had Mantras reset when forced into cooldown via mechanic, so that may be related.

I was not aware of that. That very well could be related. It's similar, at a minimum. Is it consistently forced into cooldown?

I've run into quite a few situations where all minions are instantly destroyed and the clocks reset on their associated skill. As far as I know, there's no other class that has a major build that's completely disabled like that. **Is there a reason? Or, is this a bug?**

Situations where I've seen this (the first three are 100% of the time):

* Siren's Reef fractal: picking up a cursed treasure or having one tossed to you.

* Snowblind fractal: Elite guy at the final boss fight. If you are caught the area of effect of his big attack, they're destroyed regardless of whether they were in the area of effect.

* Mounting, dismounting, and remounting in rapid succession. ("Rapid" means 1-2 seconds.)

* Aquatic fractal: (inconsistently) if you're caught in the swallow attack. It doesn't always happen, though.

It would be OK to have them account bound, but not required. It would reduce the cost of supreme runes, I suspect.

I would make more, but I already have 25 of my 27 mains having a 32-slot bag of some kind, so it's not critical to me.

I would rather they just created an elite spec for the baseline professions, and beef them up to the same level as the other elites in the profession.

So, supportive, but I would like to see simpler.

Well, I went and bought the six I needed, which I thought was enough to also finish gold. It turns out that one of the gold crates I had was random (vs. choice), so I'm still shy one gold weapon.

But, I'm glad I did it. Now I don't have to think about it any more.

And, you're right: MA4 will take forever. MA3 will probably be done the same day I get MA2, or close to it.

Thanks for all the help!

Yeah, that's the reason I was hesitant to buy them with pristines: I'm working towards Mist Attunement 2, and it requires 1200 of them. But, it really didn't make any sense to save them once I learned that the golds do salvage to useful stuff.

Now that I know you can get ectos out of golds, I'll be completing it shortly.

I do like doing lower-tier fractals, because I like helping people. But, you're both right: to do them just to avoid golds is absurd.

Also, I've been playing tier 2 lately, to avoid getting too many gold weapons before completing fractal master. But, that just isn't right.

Odd. normally, exotics salvage to dark matter, but I just tested, and you do indeed get ectos. So, it won't be completely worthless.

You could be right, though, about them not balancing them at some point. I'm way ahead in the gold collection vs. where I am in Fractal Master. Only two golds left to get (and I have one crate), where as I need 8 more of the lesser ones (with two crates in-hand). It could be random chance, but I've been watching as I received duplicates, and I get a lot more gold ones than normal.

I've run into a problem with the fractal and golden fractal weapons sets. By the time one gets close to earning golden, the normal fractal set is only half done. I think this is because you only earn the normal ones on lower levels, with half of the weapon drops being golden on the highest tier. But, by the time you get that far, you're almost always doing tier 4 fractals.

But, the prize for earning the whole non-golden collection is a golden weapon, which by definition you won't be able to use (because you already earned golden a long time before).

So, the solution seems to be to buy all the normal weapons with pristine relics.

But, then, once both collections are complete, there's another problem: further drops are completely useless. You can't salvage them for anything valuable.

Does anybody else see these things as a problem?

ANet, don't read this (it might make you think you can make more money selling character slots):

I have a whole character who does nothing but carry all my books around.

Great ideas! I will try each of them (except maxing out my characters: I can only afford the 27 I have now).

Thank you

What are your favorite methods or places where the most volatile magic can be farmed?

> @"Warscythes.9307" said:

> > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > > @"Mysticjedi.6053" said:

> > > DPS meters are good for groups who want to clear content fast because they either;

> > > A. Think speed equals skill

> > > B. Have a limited okay window and want to go through materials they have already done for the joy of it, without teaching it

> > >

> > > Typically I look for semi exp groups when I have plenty of time and don't care as I do not expect them to use DPS meters. I like for exp. groups when I am in a rush and expect my DOS to be monitored.

> > >

> > > If you are concerned about not hitting benchmarks play Druid, Healbrand, or Chrono. Their dogs sucks, but that isn't why they brought. Just keep everyone else alive and boon'd up and life is good.

> >

> > Or my favorite, a condi minion reaper who specializes in breakbar-breaking, boon-stripping, and being alive long enough to rally (or even revive) other teammates. He has miserable DPS (except in end-case situations where he switches to greatsword.) But, interrupting Ensolyss in his big windup is SUCH a great feeling that I really don't care what others think about my DPS. Or, my all-time favorite: killing Firestorm while downed and all of the other four players are defeated. But, that only happened once. Interrupting Ensolyss happens more frequently.

>

> See the issue here is that you can play a power reaper, do exactly the same thing and do double the dps. In fact a power reaper would actually be better at breakbars because you don't actually need to use executioner's scythe for damage, you can just save it for cc bars. The only advantage I would see is epi and range damage but considering you are saying that you are doing miserable damage, I don't think that's helping much here. I think not understanding how some builds and skills work is the issue here. Plenty of classes can instant break cc bars, that is not good enough because you need to do damage and break bars, that's what the role is called no? A dps. If you want to play off meta builds like condi reaper then be my guest, but understanding the limitations of classes and builds is incredibly important to understanding the game.

I only occasionally use the scythe for cc. I have five cc on my main skill bar, and either two or three boon-strips (depending on the instabilities and bosses).

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