Curse

Carinae · May 08, 2006, 07:59 PM // 19:59

@Ensign: I'm the OP, and I'm not really expecting a reversal on this issue, but they over-nerfed us.

If they had left VS alone, then at least we would have had 10 reasonably robust minions. At least there would be some momentum from mob to mob.

Or they could have not added any minion cap, and made it harder to maintain them by changing VS.

But 10 minions and no regen for them, after playing for 8 months with 80 minions under +10 regen, is rather extreme. I feel that the resentment of this patch is deserved and (for the most part) not over the top. If it comes out that this was all because of PvP...get ready for some real screaming.

A comparable example would be if Anet came out and said, "you know, being able to stack enchantments indefinately is overpowered, we're setting a limit of 4 enchantments per person."

The screaming would never end.

Not only do we feel blindsided by the change, but a flat cap on minions basically says Anet doesn't understand the build well enough to balance it properly.

It's difficult to explore PvE now, we're basically looking for the next mob right away. Absolutely no staying power anymore. Startup mode all the time, and that makes it a lot less fun.

I can talk about a balance, I understand we were crazy powerful, but this is too much, and Anet silence is unbearable.

lilnate22 · May 09, 2006, 01:03 AM // 01:03

on april of 2006 anet killed the ever loving MM....

on may22nd of 2006 the MM was reborn!!!

hey cmon YOU (me.. im a good ol' wamo!) are the necromancer... king of all dead! just rise back stronger than ever!

Silent Elvin Ranger · May 09, 2006, 11:22 PM // 23:22

Whos the genious who nerfed MM in the first place? Some jerk (or jerks) who do not even know how to use a MM imo. Sure 10 minions is ALRIGHT, but when u aggro a group with 10 minions (lets say its a group of 10 monsters) its 1v1 for the minions. Seeing as the armor level of the minions and there ai is terrible, you would be looking at 1 DEAD mm. Even if u spammed BoTM. It sacs too much so it is still not very good to spam. I know the AI of minions is to follow the spike that is called, but still u kill 1 after the other 9 enemies BEAT THE SHIT out of ur minions. O and lilnate, what f they put the armor of tanks down to the same as ranger armor. What are you gonna do "just rise back stronger than ever!". After a nerf like that...Tanks would get their ass HANDED to them on a silver platter (with croutons!). This nerf against MMs is alot more than having a bit less stronger army...its affecting the whole build (how to quickly raise, control, maintain and attack with ur minions), its like having warriors (the character that can take the most hits) getting killed like A PUNK BITCH!@

Elvin

Ka RaTae · May 10, 2006, 02:34 PM // 14:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silent Elvin Ranger

Whos the genious who nerfed MM in the first place? Some jerk (or jerks) who do not even know how to use a MM imo. Sure 10 minions is ALRIGHT, but when u aggro a group with 10 minions (lets say its a group of 10 monsters) its 1v1 for the minions. Seeing as the armor level of the minions and there ai is terrible, you would be looking at 1 DEAD mm. Even if u spammed BoTM. It sacs too much so it is still not very good to spam. I know the AI of minions is to follow the spike that is called, but still u kill 1 after the other 9 enemies BEAT THE SHIT out of ur minions.

You are exactly on target! With only 10 minions, the fights last too long, which means the minions die. The key to a good MM is numbers. Without numbers you can't just play the classic MM that stands in the back and directs his horde. I personally think that sucks that we are not allowed to do that any more. I have messed around with stuff now vs. groups of Am Fah , and it's ridiculously hard to get 10 Minions and keep them going. Most times as soon as you enter battle with a new group you loose 3 or 4 right away. Sins hit hard in the opening seconds, and they seem to just wipe them out. BotM is awesome now, but it isn't enough on it's own to keep stuff alive in a real fight. Plus if you have to actually stop spamming BotM to say replace a minion or cast rotting flesh or something then it's probably going to cost you a minion to do that. Verata's just isn't good enuff anymore to be considered as supplemental healing, and taking heal area and running up into the fray isn't really what this style of play is meant to do, plus there is always the chance that you heal the enemy.

I will say that I do not have the Golem yet with my PVE guy, and that it may change things somewhat, but I really don't see any benefit from having more then 3 minions anymore. It seems like we are being forced into 3 or less so that we can keep them at +10 pips at all times plus use BotM.

I will also say that it's about time that they fixed the dam henchie AI. It is annoying that if you forget to call a target or are busy the henchies will stop fighting after a death leaving the minions to try to handle it all by themselves. If the Minions are smart enough to find a new target, why aren't the henchmen? As a matter of fact, if the monsters that you fight are smart enough to priortize targets, why aren't the henchmen?

Kcp · May 10, 2006, 03:27 PM // 15:27

I guess my statement about clearing luxon/kurzick explorable areas with 4 henchies and 10 minions fell on deaf ears.

Even ran a 3 man group of necros thru ferndale, with no HEALS. Spammed Botm the entire time

How did I stay alive spamming Botm? Those uber new non-elite minions thats how.

Crying about the MM is OLD, please delete your necros you don't deserve to be playing one as much as yall piss and moan you're making the rest of us look bad.

You guys are starting to sound like the Ele's. Give it a rest.

Njall · May 10, 2006, 03:49 PM // 15:49

After having played a lot with my MM, I can say one thing : I love the changes. Reckless haste and SS are really good to kill warriors or assassins (especially those NPCs who use Frenzy

) and Desecrate Enchantments +Defile Enchantments is amazing vs casters.
Uh ? oh.. the Flesh golem ? I can't say, you know, when I'm asked to play MM (usually by some player who doesn't know about the nerf), I have to take Aura of the lich if I want to keep my minions alive (I feel really sorry for would-be-necromancers who don't own Prophecy... well.. at least, they'll have to buy it and it'll be good for A.net).

Btw, to all those great MMs who manage to stay alive using vampiric horrors to heal themselves so they can spam BoTM : how do you do between fights ? I mean... everyone is able to raise minions during a fight.. but keeping them alive when there isn't any mobs... and your horrors can't heal you... how do you do that ?

Ka RaTae · May 10, 2006, 07:50 PM // 19:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kcp

I guess my statement about clearing luxon/kurzick explorable areas with 4 henchies and 10 minions fell on deaf ears.

Even ran a 3 man group of necros thru ferndale, with no HEALS. Spammed Botm the entire time

How did I stay alive spamming Botm? Those uber new non-elite minions thats how.

Crying about the MM is OLD, please delete your necros you don't deserve to be playing one as much as yall piss and moan you're making the rest of us look bad.

You guys are starting to sound like the Ele's. Give it a rest.

Don't recall anyone saying they couldn't stay alive, more that it was a huge pain to get 10 minions and to keep them up, but even if they did so what!

If you don't like the thread I suggest you delete your forum account because no one needs to read your flames. If you want to post your formula for running a new MM then post it. But flames help no one. I actually agree with alot of your statements from this post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kcp

Lmao. MM wasnt nerfed. Flesh golem hits harder then a wammo on steroids. So what if you can only summon 10 minions. Keep summoning them and reap in soul reaping for never ending energy and a net costs of 12 energy per summon with 13 in soul reaping. Spam blood of the master, dont even put veratas sacrifice on your bar. WTF is so hard?

I cleared ALL of luxon and kurz territory with 4 henchies , my necro with minions. Thats right a 5 man team with henchies. I maybe had 3 party wipes the entire exploration of both territories combined.

You ppl that are complaining are a bunch of cry babies. GW's is constantly evolving. adapt or die, it's that simple.

Necro is still the most powerful class in the game learn to play one instead of crying constantly for anet to do this and that.

Why don't you post a video of you doing this with 4 henchies only. As the proverb goes...1 picture is worth 10,000 words. So a video must be worth 10,000,000. I do agree in pricipal about the constant resummon and stuff, but it appears that most peoples roblem seems to stem from the fact that with only 10 they don't kill fast enough to keep up the flow of new bodies.

Contessa · May 10, 2006, 08:28 PM // 20:28

I've spent a lot of time thinking about and playing my MM since the change. Here's an overview of what I've found. I'm not looking for any arguement. I just wanted to state what I've found. I mainly play PvE so I don't have many comments for PvP, GvG or the others:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Longasc
BotM got a considerable boost.

Blood of the Master

I agree. It's the best necro healing spell for minions. The biggest annoyance is spamming it (which gets old very fast). There are plenty of spells to counter the blood sacrifice, so I haven't found that to be an issue.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Longasc
The new Vampiric Horrors are very useful, and Animate Bone Minions is now even some kind of energy management.

After trying these things out, I must disagree.

Vampiric Horrors:

I do not find Vampiric Horrors useful at all. Also the recharge time and energy cost aren't worth it to me (if you get interupted while casting the recharge time is 15 seconds or more depending on the interupt and you just lost 25 points of energy).

If the Vampiric Horrors healed themselves with every hit, that would be a different. That's what I thought was going to happen when I read the name. That would have been balancing to me with the reworking of Verata's Sacrifice.

Self-healing

I'd rather have troll unguent or a monk healing spell ready at any time.

If I need to heal, it's generally because my minions are already dead and I'm getting attacked. Being dependant on your herd for healing and energy (via minions dieing) is not the best tactic. You are still dependant on too many factors to make it worth it. (My comments are only for minion master, not minions bomber builds).

The energy reaping seems to be helping some people though, so it might be worth more exploring/exploiting. This was around before the nerf though. Also, if you get interupted (while making those minions at 0 death magic), you'll be out the energy.

New Armor

If you need energy and health in an emergency, chances are your herd is dead or already dieing, and if you are at that point, run! That minion master armor ain't going to save you. I'd rather have that extra armor protection when I'm low on minions, but I can see a group not wanting 10 minions running around if the master dies (the only reason I can see for this armor being created). If you're playing the game right, you shouldn't be dieing all the time anyway, especially if you have a bunch of minions. That to me is a much better defense.

Make the armor enable the MM to have more than 10 minions. Now THAT would be MM armor.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Longasc
The Flesh Golem is not useless, btw. It is a premium tank and dishes out due to high level. It can be really useful in Urgoz Warren, doing things and performing in roles a normal Bone Horror or Fiend could not.

Flesh Golems

Useful. Wish we could have 10 of those.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Longasc
What I really would like:

Completely rework Verata's Sacrifice. Make it a condition remover with some extras, emphasize its only remaining strength or something like that, for healing it is soooo useless compared to BotM that it is no longer worth the slot IMO.

Verata's Sacrifice

I completely agree on Verata's. It needs to be reworked. If it made it so while the minions were regening, it also buffed their attacks (something like they could spread conditions like weakness or a +10 to each hit) then it wouldn't be so bad.

The Future

Ok. Unfortunately I don't believe the cap of 10 minions will be changed. It seems like when Anet does a change/nerf, they are very unlikely to undue it. They'd probably change something like casting speed if they did change it.

The only way I will ever enjoy playing a minion master again is to be able to have more effective minions. Some improvements that I think would help:

Target selection for your minions.
A better way of selecting your minions if you want to cast a spell on them (enchantment, hex whatever)
Better spells to buff your minion attacks.
Life-Stealing minions or completely rework the healing spells.
Have an elite skill, armor of item that makes it some you can have above 10 minions (removing the cap would be good, but I'd settle for even 20 minions at this point)
Make the cap of 10 only apply to alliance battles.

One very unfortunate thing is that I won't be playing a minion master with my necro anymore. I actually find it more effective with my mesmer and fast casting to raise an army quickly. All my spellcasters in Factions get interupted more often so the fast-casting really helps.

Let's face it, commanding minions hasn't been viable in a lot of areas even before the nerf (no fleshy corpses, interupts, enemies beating you to the corpses with faster spells like putrid explosion or making wells). In these areas MM are useless. MM were never one-trick ponies, we have always had to remake our build. The frustrating thing about the changes is that they are even less viable now.

Anet is always says they read the forums for ideas. I already posted this on gwonline.net, but figured there would be more of a chance for a developer to read this if it's on both sites.

Bottomline:

It's just not fun to play a minion master anymore.

Kcp · May 10, 2006, 08:43 PM // 20:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ka RaTae

Why don't you post a video of you doing this with 4 henchies only. As the proverb goes...1 picture is worth 10,000 words. So a video must be worth 10,000,000. I do agree in pricipal about the constant resummon and stuff, but it appears that most peoples roblem seems to stem from the fact that with only 10 they don't kill fast enough to keep up the flow of new bodies.

Maybe you don't know what I've already done for the necromancer community? Why would I lie? Ask around I don't B.S. when I say I can do something

Asking me to make a video to prove that you can run a 5 man team with henchies is a waste of time, as i've already made 20+ videos on how to use a necromancer in places that people said no necromancer could go alone.

I'll just sum it up for you.

Skill bar:

Necro/anything

plague touch
Botm
flesh golem
vampiric horror
bone fiend
cap sig
cap sig
res sig

Death magic =16
Soul reaping =13

OMG that's world shattering isnt it. Sometimes i'd take rotting flesh instead of a cap sig if i've already snagged an elite in the area.

If making the initial kill is "too hard" maybe you need to rethink your target priorities. Always summon flesh golem first of course because it hits harder then a wammo on steroids and can be resummoned if it does go down in case you dont get any other minions up.

Pick and choose your henchies as you please. You need a tank, healer,protection, and whatever else you want for last spot. The less amount of allies in the party means you are going to get healed after each BoTm running a hench squad.

So enough crying already.

Rion · May 10, 2006, 08:57 PM // 20:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Contessa

Bottomline:

It's just not fun for me to play a minion master anymore.

Fixed. Please don't speak for us all.

Carinae · May 10, 2006, 09:09 PM // 21:09

@Contessa - Agree 100% with your entire post. Well done.

Gmr Leon · May 10, 2006, 09:10 PM // 21:10

Carinae I completely agree. When I managed to get Blood of The Master and Verata's Sacrifice I went straight to practicing and managed to maintain a good number of minions. Though with this nerf as some call it I am now reduced to 10 minions..

studentochaos · May 11, 2006, 10:55 AM // 10:55

/signed

I often was hard on this build as it was frequently in the hand of idiots and even to the best players would often prove tempermental. However, it was an essential part of the Necromancer identity and was really a lot of fun to play.

Were they really that big a threat in PvP? I remember the MM running around in alliance battles being good, but certainly not unbeatable. Anyway those battles are long and to maintain a huge number over that time is impossible. Additionally the counter to this added needed variety to the matchs.

Quite a sad day the minions died.....

(On a final note veratas sacrifice isnt dead, it is a totally new skill. I can now perpetually maintain 3 or fewer minions. If one is a flesh golem that isnt SO terrible, but it is just an elite skill pet....)

Ka RaTae · May 11, 2006, 11:09 AM // 11:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kcp

Maybe you don't know what I've already done for the necromancer community? Why would I lie? Ask around I don't B.S. when I say I can do something

I never said you were lying or inferred that you were. I simply stated that for a lot of people it would be way helpfull to see this in action. It would also be interesting to see this done with no Flesh Golem.

Minus Sign · May 11, 2006, 11:32 AM // 11:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

@Contessa - Agree 100% with your entire post. Well done.

QFT. The most satisfying post I've read in here for a while now. You said it all. *Cheers*

shadowmist · May 12, 2006, 12:00 AM // 00:00

While I don't have a necro anymore, having deleted mine months ago, I do have experience playing MM. Having less than 12 or so can make things a bit rough solo. I'd rather have around 16 or so minions. On average, MM's I see have about 20 or so minions at a time, and I've never seen more than 30. I assume having more than 40 would take a high amount of skill to do, something that Guild Wars is supposed to encourage.

Playing a Rt/N, I've found minions to be close to useless at higher levels. They make okay meat shields though.

They'll die fast if you send them up, which you have to if you want to play a Nova Bomber. It isn't always reliable with Mark of Pain as they have no targeting system and you can't always tell who they're attacking.

Vereta's Sacrifice is close to useless now. If you have to use it once, you won't be able to use it again for a long time. Almost a complete waste of a slot now.

Flesh Golem {E} and vamp horrors are nice, but not great. You can only have one flesh golem, which is powerful, but its still only one. Vamp horrors take forever to recharge making it hard to manage and almost impossible to get more than 5 up at once. And the worst part is, both of these are Factions only. Anyone without Factions were basically nerfed without compensation.

I completely agree with Carinae, this nerf should be fixed. Perhaps raising the maximum amount to 20? Maybe removing the degeneration inherent on all current minions? I dunno, but it definetly needs to be fixed.

/signed

Ensign · May 12, 2006, 06:16 AM // 06:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

@Ensign: I'm the OP, and I'm not really expecting a reversal on this issue, but they over-nerfed us.

How, exactly, do you justify this as an over-nerf in your mind? A minion master with 10 Fiends is still the most powerful character on a PvE team, hands down. One minion master usually provides enough momentum to make the rest of a mission or explorable area trivial (barring a few ridiculous situations like 430 point infernos to the face). We're talking about 160 DPS machine gunning down targets, with such a significant meat wall that the minion master can be fully justified in a PvE build as a *defensive* character. I do not understand how a nerf that *reduces* a character to 'strongest character in the game' can ever be considered an overnerf.

An overnerf, from every definition I've ever seen of it, it something that reduces a powerful mechanic into one that is all but useless. If minion masters were overnerfed, no one would ever want them in their group because they are such a weak character. But that is the exact opposite of reality, a vast majority of teams actively search for and embrace minion masters *because they are such strong characters*.

Look, I can understand that you don't like your pet character being nerfed. No one does. But there's a gap between that emotional bitterness, and rational analysis of the changes themselves. I will respect the emotional reaction for what it is, but as soon as you start to try and make logical, mechanical arguments based upon those emotions I'm going to call you on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

If they had left VS alone, then at least we would have had 10 reasonably robust minions. At least there would be some momentum from mob to mob.

I've never seen this problem of lack of momentum from mob to mob. Hell, in a lot of zones you have to try really hard to walk for 15 seconds without hitting another mob. Sure you can't stand around waiting with a pack of fiends the same way you could with Verata's, but standing around waiting isn't exactly something I've made a habit of in PvE. Maybe it's a playstyle thing.

I can understand where they're coming from with the nerf to Verata's Sacrifice. Remember that it's not a factions skill, so they'd have to balance minions without it - but Verata's was so ridiculously strong that it'd be incredibly difficult to maintain that balance with Verata's available. Hence the flip, turning Blood of the Master from crap into something very, very good, and Verata's from the only minion maintenence skill you'll ever need into the bottom of the pail. I do not understand why Verata's needed to be nerfed so hard, especially considering the current strength of Blood of the Master (having both on your bar now would largely be overkill) - but at the same time, I can overlook the skill becoming trash *because* it was already redundant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Or they could have not added any minion cap, and made it harder to maintain them by changing VS.

I know some people who lobbied for this sort of change before the final one was settled upon, but ultimately I think that the current version is actually for the best. Consider the alternative - maintenence of minions would have to be raised to a difficulty where you could not keep many more than you currently can. We're not talking about making a nerf with a wink that'd supposedly reduce the number of minions you could maintain to 10, but really that meant 50 if you did it right. It'd mean nerfage to the point where 10 is what you'd get if you maintained them right. When you consider that monk healing skills like Heal Area also have to be part of the equation, that'd mean a serious re-working of the durability of minions - such as a reduction of minion health and increased minion degeneration - as well as the minion maintenence skills themselves. In other words you'd be looking at a huge nerf to minion maintenence across the board.

The consequence of this is that maintaining even small numbers of minions would become increasingly difficult as well. A new minion master would very likely feel like a complete gimp, since his minions would be so hard to maintain, and it would require a lot of practice to make the character reasonable. A hard cap on the number of minions, on the other hand, does not have that access problem - it lets them make it even easier to maintain minions, actually, and increases access without allowing the profession to become ridiculous. Because of the cap, you get better skills and better minions all around, making the profession more robust and interesting to play. It might seem harsh to have a hard cap, but it certainly beats the alternative.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

But 10 minions and no regen for them, after playing for 8 months with 80 minions under +10 regen, is rather extreme.

You're damn right it was extreme. But what's important is not the magnitude of the change, but the power of the end state. If the power of the end state is reasonable the magnitude is inconsequential. It has to be that way - I mean, can you really argue that something that's ridiculously overpowered has to *always* be ridiculously overpowered, because nerfing it would be too big of a change? Of course not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

I feel that the resentment of this patch is deserved and (for the most part) not over the top.

I do not wish to argue whether the resentment that always comes with someone's pet character being nerfed is justified or not. I don't feel that emotions are something that one ever has to justify.

What I am asking is that your resentment not cloud your judgement about the current strength of minion masters, and whether or not the change made sense on those grounds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

A comparable example would be if Anet came out and said, "you know, being able to stack enchantments indefinately is overpowered, we're setting a limit of 4 enchantments per person."

That example fails on a couple of levels. One is that it's very likely going to be an overly general solution to a very specific problem. Granted they *could* create a disaster where characters are stacking enchantments 10 deep across the board, and that would justify a response of this magnitude. But more realistically you're looking at a very specific problem, such as damage buff stacking, and those are better addressed more directly - ala, by making those buffs no longer stack.

The other big problem with that sort of change is how it will negatively affect a lot of other mechanics that were previously balanced - for example, spammable protection skills would lose a huge amount of utility if they would simply fail if enough enchantments were around. Again if that's specifically the problem you want to address it that way, but if it's not the problem you probably shouldn't address it in a way that breaks a lot of other things in the process.

A hard minion cap directly addresses the problem they are trying to attack - enormous minion armies. I will agree that it is not an elegant solution. At the same time, I would argue that it is less destructive to the profession, and has a lot less incidental damage than a more elegant solution would.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Not only do we feel blindsided by the change, but a flat cap on minions basically says Anet doesn't understand the build well enough to balance it properly.

Why is that? I've had this discussion before, and I have not yet heard of an alternative nerf to minion masters that would curb the problem of ridiculous minion armies, while having a *smaller* impact on regular minion master play. In fact I like this specific nerf because it allows them to create new skills that would *enhance* regular minion master play without creating balance issues.

If you know of an alternative, though, I would like to hear it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

It's difficult to explore PvE now, we're basically looking for the next mob right away.

You understand that the alternative that you've been hinting at so far, of making it more difficult to maintain minions, would make this problem *much, much worse* than the hard cap on minions? The hard cap allows them to make good maintenence options that would specifically allow this type of gameplay. With a 'soft cap' instead, you'd be forced to run from mob to mob to keep your minions up because that's the *natural consequence* of making it much more difficult to maintain minions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

I can talk about a balance, I understand we were crazy powerful, but this is too much, and Anet silence is unbearable.

What makes the silence unbearable? Hell, why should they say anything? The reaction to PvE balance changes, at least the nerfs, is *universally* a flame pit. The small percentage of rational discourse is going to be drowned out by a sea of irrational outrage, as people aren't looking to give constructive feedback - they're looking for a convenient target for their anger. No one sane wants to make themselves such a target.

Are you really looking for the explanation that you've probably already seen and might understand logically, just for confirmation? Or are you looking for someone to say it so that you can fire back and disagree with them?

Peace,
-CxE

nitrile · May 12, 2006, 07:28 AM // 07:28

I played MM for some time before it became really popular. By most accounts I was fairly good at what I did but more importantly I enjoyed doing it, and for the same reasons as Carinae shared in the first post, and I'm going to use the same terms, like momentum because the handling of that was precisely how I defined the role. To be effective requires you are constantly busy with your task, I've had conversations that I've restricted to one word replies just be minimally polite; the same as when I play a monk. But it was worth it because it meant it to the party you got momentum going and kept it going, wherever you were at the time. It came with the satisfaction of being very powerful when you did reach that critical mass, and in most places that did actually take some skill (and not overlooking help from the party, by doing their own jobs properly) to reach that. The SF Orozar quest both pre-keg and pre-farming almost required you were good for the party to survive it, just like it required monks. Now, the task of a MM is all just running uphill with no chance of reaching the proportions that made you really powerful. Climbing mountains may be difficult. But you always get to look off from the top. That's not the case anymore.

I've not bought factions on my necromancer's account yet, but I've seen MM's in Cantha (pve) that are still very powerful. As they should be, considering the number of bodies around. One mission we even brought along 2 MM's, to sidestep the limit but they did no more than I'd have expected to do myself in that situation, assuming old rules and I can only ask why do this at all. It's exactly like turning a 60mph road into a 30mph one - you can't forget your trip is going to take longer than it used to and all I can see is now missing potential. I've no doubt the factions skills add useful versatility if not anything unique (I mean really, the flesh golem is just a level 26 ranger pet), but the changes they've made to me just crush what was the most fun about a MM. This is not like the AoE "nerf" which made the AI react more intelligently, and I play an elementalist and like it just fine. However a hard limit of 10 is excessive. If Anet needed to control an abuse, perhaps they could have instead restricted the exploitation of a ranger's pet to once per map, not once per res. Or perhaps make AI preferentially target a controlling necromancer (albeit rather less vigorously than gear/bookholders) like pvp players would, rather than their minions. What they did in fact implement just cheapens the role, because it says, "You may never do better than this."

My perspective is, that across the continent of Tyria (before) I could expect to have controlled 8-15 minions normally - sometimes a horde more than that, sometimes zero. This "new" MM is made for the cantha environment, whether you have flesh golem/vampiric horrors or not. However in Cantha you can expect numbers of fleshy creatures that only rarely appear in Tyria, so you're effectively guaranteed that number. What we have with Factions is the "prophecies minion master" becoming a "cantha minion master" and a new continent. But the end result in cantha looks the same; even I thought so myself at first look but playing it is all wrong. It's possible anet even consider that they were helping, after all everywhere I've been so far in Cantha comprises of (if not fully, then almost) entirely of fleshy enemies. So the role is of use more globally now, unlike the situation in ring of fire, glint's lair or similar places. But I lament that we'll never have it how it was.

Laura Whitefox · May 12, 2006, 07:28 AM // 07:28

Ok MMs got nerfed a bit... ..but that doesnt made them any useless for me. I have an MM myself so im not just talking out of the blue without experiencing what the changes made. Its sure not as much fun as before, but its still very good.

For example Yesterday we were playing around with rits with my friend in vizunah. We made a group, only 1 place left. Like 5 of us said: "an MM would be good". And we got 1. Then in the coop the other team had an MM too. we had so many minions we could barely move normaly most of the time lol. I always like to have an MM in the group in Chanta. They can defo make things easier/faster.

Everyone who knows what it was to be an MM be4 this nerf also knows it was a bit overpowered. Face it, there were lots of areas where (if i helped some friends) the others barely had to do anything coz the minions owned everything in secs and im talking about high lvl areas. They do good dmg and can also provide a wall that a warrior couldnt.

Hey, and look on the bright side... ..if You accidentaly die, Your team has a chance to survive

lol joke...

Also, seemingly noone noticed that in Chanta there aren't much corpseless areas. There are no undead, not much ethereal creatures, no jades, just some stone or essence guys so an MM is usefull in the entire area and its good. But without this limit an MM could reverse the whole da** Halo flood (A.K.A.: Afflicted

). Just think about how fast the minions own shiro if You take 2-3 assassins who use the spec skill given by Kuunavang in the last coop. And he is supposd to be the hardest of all enemies. ^^

Something else: Someone mentioned before, that MM armour should expand the number of minions You can control. I like this idea ^^ /signed

So dont get discouraged by the fact that You cant make 30+ fiends. You are still very usefull as an MM. Just play around a bit with builds thats all.

Seamus · May 12, 2006, 10:48 AM // 10:48

The main problem with the nerf in my opinion has nothing to do with the minions or BOTM. BOTM is very painful to cast if you don't have anything to compensate. I can very easily keep the pets of >2< Minion Masters alive using a combo of BOTM and Healing Breeze. I just have myself selected the whole game, spam BOTM, and when Healing Breeze runs out, I recast it. I have the other MM handle stuff like bombing, TF, or Rotting Flesh. As for the pets, the addition of Vampiric Minions is EXTREMELY nice (Though, personally, the recast time should be 12 seconds, and the mana 20, to make things a bit easier on the Necro and make this skill more attractive), and the Flesh Golem is a veritable powerhouse that, in conjuntion with Fiends and conditions, can make just about anything go down in a very short manner of time.

The biggest concern I have with the update is Verata's Sacrifice. Yes, yes, it recasts instantly if I have 3 minions or less. Meaning, more or less, I get to use it for the first 2 minutes of the game. From there in, I'm forced to BOTM/HB spam. The WAY overblown recast time is a major hindrance to the new MM, and if they could either make the spell last longer or recast shorter I'm sure many Necro's would stop whining.

Anyway's, just my thoughts. Hopefully, some of you guys agree.