Talk:Minion

Minion AI
This comes at an achilles heel of mine, I neither play Necro nor Ranger. Can anyone verify whether or not minion AI is the same as Necro AI? --Karlos 09:26, 13 Oct 2005 (EST)


 * I think you mean "pet" AI. And they definitely don't behave the same.  I play both ranger and necro.  Pets always attack their master's target and change target with their master.  Minion AI is a bit more free.  They will generally run after the first thing you attack, if you get in the first attack.  But if you change targets, they generally will not.  Also if something attacks you or a minion before you start fighting, then the minions will go for it.  Basically, if you're attacking something when a minion needs to aquire a new target, it will usually go for your target.  But it's not guaranteed and it's unlikely to change it's mind once it picks something. --Squeg 10:05, 13 Oct 2005 (EST)


 * Squeg is definitely right. Having played extensively with both Ranger pets and minions, they are clearly different.  Everything Squeg said sounds correct.  The much shorter version is that Pets are more responsive and usually switch to your target relatively quickly.  Minions are more mindless and likely to attack whatever is closest. --JoDiamonds 07:44, 25 October 2005 (EST)


 * Actually there AI is even worst than that I'm an elementalist and I can tell you they don't flee from AOE unlike all other monters in guild wars. and will sit without a care in the world under a firestorm or other skill designed to make them scatter Very much like brickhead tanks you see about the place, This is both good and bad given that they can dish out more focused damage rather than scattering about like chaff but are prone to begin broken up by nukes.

Minion Properties
Can minions be afflicted with conditions that don't normally work on undead? (ie, bleeding, poisioned, etc)? I wouldn't think so, but never actually confirmed. The answer to this question would (most likely) make a good addition to this page. Geblah187 12:34, 5 November 2005 (EST)

Yes, minions can have conditions on them, they burn good for example. Otherwise Verata's Sacrifice and Infuse Condition would be partly nonsense. But they can not bleeding, undead, no flesh! --Ollj 16:22, 5 November 2005 (EST)


 * They suffer from any conditions that normally work on undead. So no poison, bleeding, or disease.  But all others work fine. --Squeg 05:52, 6 November 2005 (EST)


 * They act like Undead for conditions except the Flesh Golem, which is susceptable to all conditions. --Ckal Ktak 15:11, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

Species?
Ok, I know they take double from Holy. But it is still possible that minons are a separate species from Undead when Edge of Extinction is concerned. I mean, heck, black widow and warthog are the same "type of creature", so maybe all the animated things belong to one species on their one... -PanSola 18:24, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Tested using The Undead Hordes quest. Yes they are seperate from other undead creatures. | Chuiu 09:53, 23 March 2006 (CST)

I am taking it upon myself to combine this article with the General_minion_mastery_guide, and i hope to be able to delete this article and redirect to that guide within a few days --Honorable Sarah 07:15, 23 March 2006 (CST) 


 * Move the tips over, but don't merge articles. Having a separate article that just briefly lists different minion types, what conditions affect them, the fact that holy damage is doubled against them, &c. is useful. --130.58 07:19, 23 March 2006 (CST)


 * I agree, it would be a bad idea to combine the articles as it would make this article subjective rather than objective. Some people only want general information about Minions without having to weed through large amounts of subjective information about maintaining them. | Chuiu 07:31, 23 March 2006 (CST)


 * i'm trying to see it, but i really don't. having a single large article on minion mastery is a good idea. smaller "Beastiary" type article for the minion types should be sufficent for the casual reader. perhaps this article should be remade into a disambiguation page? --Honorable Sarah 07:58, 23 March 2006 (CST)


 * Anyone just interested in Minions should find the degeneration rate (for example) here, even if not looking for minion mastery. Just take out the Minion master tips and leave the rest imo. --Xeeron 18:34, 23 March 2006 (CST)


 * Minions should be a subspecies of undead... --Jamie [[Image:Jamie.jpg|24px|(Talk Page)]] 04:45, 4 July 2006 (CDT)

Minion statistics (Damage etc.)
I've been doing experimentation on minions and have compiled an excel file of data to add in somewhere, including damage low/high/average damag evs AL60;attack rates (and thus DPS) and damage distributions. I include critical hits (as for most players it is the true damage rate that matters, not the crit-free damage rate) and the data is based on 400 hits for each of Minions, Fiends, Horrors, Vampiric Horrors, Flesh Golem at the appropriate level for a 16 Death (the level of most interest). I am currently adding data on leel 13 Horros (11 Death Magic) to determine if it is the same as the damage from Minions at 16 Death (also level 13), as well as planning to add another few hundred data points to the Flesh Golem (its larger damage range required more hits to have the same degree of accuracy/distribution). Where should this data go? As well, it disagreed with the data listed (Fiends didn't attack at Hammer rate of 1.75 seconds, nor did the horrors attack every 3 seconds) so I changed that info already. Just looking for advice as to where to stick it--Epinephrine 15:18, 5 June 2006 (CDT).


 * Excel files can be uploaded as normal files and linked to using [[Media:]] . I do believe that the raw data used in all these empirically determined tables should be part of the GuildWiki record, so thanks in advance for the excel files. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 15:52, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * It won't let me upload, as .xls isn't an image file.

Damages
Since I can't easily upload the file I'll stick summary data here -

The attack speeds were calculated based on 30 attacks - I got repeated 95 second times with a few 94 second times for 30 attacks on the melee animates, I used the 95 second time for the calculation since it was more common - I suspect it's just slight variations in attack animations used, as a pair of Horrors for example will attack in synch and drift back and forth out of synch with each other - so there is some degree of randomness to it, but the difference in damage output between a 3.133 and a 3.167 attack rate is pretty slim, and it lies somewhere in there on average.

Level 26 Golem vs. AL60

Mean 85.1525 Standard Error 0.92737434 Median 84 Mode 85 Standard Deviation 18.54748681 Sample Variance 344.0092669 Kurtosis 0.143775375 Skewness 0.790466445 Range 81 Minimum 53 Maximum 134 Sum 34061 Count 400 Confidence Level(95.0%) 1.823150459 30 hits in ~94-95 seconds = 1 attack/3.166666667 seconds DPS = 26.89026316

Level 18 Fiend vs. AL60 

Mean 27.4775 Standard Error 0.329898951 Median 27 Mode 25 Standard Deviation 6.597979014 Sample Variance 43.53332707 Kurtosis 0.17812836 Skewness 0.53035055 Range 32 Minimum 17 Maximum 49 Sum 10991 Count 400 Confidence Level(95.0%) 0.648557327 30 hits in 58 seconds = 1 attack/1.933333333 seconds DPS = 14.2125

Level 18 Horror vs. AL60

Mean 27.65 Standard Error 0.336994307 Median 27.5 Mode 32 Standard Deviation 6.739886139 Sample Variance 45.42606516 Kurtosis 0.820861935 Skewness 0.726685857 Range 32 Minimum 17 Maximum 49 Sum 11060 Count 400 Confidence Level(95.0%) 0.662506281 30 hits in ~94-95 seconds = 1 attack/3.166666667 seconds DPS = 8.731578947

Level 18 Vampiric Horror vs. AL60 

Mean 27.4825 Standard Error 0.329614698 Median 27 Mode 29 Standard Deviation 6.592293956 Sample Variance 43.4583396 Kurtosis 0.299248206 Skewness 0.585737247 Range 32 Minimum 17 Maximum 49 Sum 10993 Count 400 Confidence Level(95.0%) 0.647998507 30 hits in ~94-95 seconds Attack rate 1/3.166666667 DPS = 8.678684211

N.B. So, the same Damage as Horrors and Fiends, and same DPS as Horrors. As well: 1.) The amount of health gained is not a "heal" - it is unaffected by healing reduction. (tested using Predatory Season, 20% global healing reduction) 2.) The damage is physical, and is affected by armour. 3.) The damage dealt is NOT a life steal, as it is affected by Prot Spirit and Shielding Hands. (Release the Vamp Horror by using Contemplation of Purity to dipel a Verata's Aura, tried both these skills - to up the ratio of damage dealt to my health I used a 105 setup on AL15 armour, making it easy to exceed 10% per hit; For the Shielding Hands I did the opposite - heavy armour with a weaker fiend, so that damage was consistently low enough to be reduced to 0 with Shielding Hands).

Level 13 Minions vs. AL60

Mean 11.495 Standard Error 0.143575668 Median 11 Mode 13 Standard Deviation 2.871513359 Sample Variance 8.245588972 Kurtosis 0.870966656 Skewness 0.780408403 Range 14 Minimum 7 Maximum 21 Sum 4598 Count 400 Confidence Level(95.0%) 0.282259314 30 hits in ~95 (94-95) seconds Attack rate 1/3.166666667 DPS = 3.63 (doubled for 2 minions) 7.26

Minions are pointless since the maximum minion update, as a single casting takes two of your minion slots, making them VERY weak, except as bombs.

--Epinephrine 10:38, 16 June 2006 (CDT)

XP
A small, simple question: Do you gain XP for killing a masterless minion? -- 09:16, 22 August 2006 (CDT)


 * No. Tested multiple times, versus masterless minions of both allies and enemies. (Think: this would make powerleveling much faster...)24.6.147.36 10:57, 10 December 2006 (CST)

Critical hits and other questions
What's the critical hit rate for minions? Is it fixed, or does it vary by minion level and / or attribute level? Can all minions inflict critical hits, or just some of them? Does the Critical Strikes attribute improve their critical rate? What about Critical Eye and Siphon Strength? Do they count as your critical hits for the purposes of energy gain from the Critical Strikes attribute or the effects of Sharpen Daggers, Way of Perfection, Critical Defenses and Dark Apostasy? Do hits from minions generate adrenaline? Does pacifism prevent a minion from attacking when it's cast directly on a minion, or does it only work when it's cast on the necromancer? -- Gordon Ecker 19:04, 28 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Unless you know something I don't Minions have 0 Critical Strikes (just like every other attribute - for example, minions my Necro creates don't get a Soul Reaping bonus when something dies), and all the skills you list only work on the caster (making it impossible for them to ever appear on a minion). This isn't a place to discuss pets as the pet AI is different to the minion AI. No idea about Pacifism on minions, I assume it works on them the same as it works on everything else (see the notes on the skill page). --NieA7 04:56, 29 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Sorry, I copied and pasted the info from a similar series of questions about pets when I was half-asleep. It's corrected now, and I'm testing what I can with my necromancer. Anyway, there is a remote possibility that minion attacks may count as belonging to the caster for the purposes of the skills in question, which I won't be able to test until after my Assassin has progressed further in the game.-- Gordon Ecker 19:25, 29 September 2006 (CDT)

Apparently the base critical rate of minions is 0 or close to it and Death Magic doesn't affect it. As I expected, minion attacks don't generate adrenaline. Although improbable, there is a remote chance that of some bug or undocumented feature allowing Critical Eye and Siphon Strength to allow minions to inflict critical hits, or allow Sharpen Daggers and Way of Perfection may proc off of minion criticals. A far more likely possibility (but still only a possibility) is that "Go For The Eyes!" may, as a literal reading of the skill description implies, allow minions to inflict critical hits. -- Gordon Ecker 20:19, 29 September 2006 (CDT)
 * I've tried it at a very high level of Command, but... It doesn't seem to work.  ~80% additional crit rate doesn't ensure any kind of consistency.  Not even a couple of 47-48's fly off with any kind of reliability when using it.  And my GftE spammer was using it every 2 of their own attacks, so it was pretty frequent.  It is my opinion that minions have a permanent 'dulled weapon' effect that simply causes them to be fundamentally unable to cause a critical hit. Merengue 18:08, 4 November 2006 (CST)
 * It turns out that the original test was flawed due to the false assumption that all critical hits inflict maximum damage. Testing with "Find Their Weakness!" indicates that minions can inflict critical hits, but, like pets, their critical hits have a damage range rather than inflicting automatic maximum damage. -- Gordon Ecker 07:10, 16 March 2007 (CDT)

I threw together a table of the estimated critical and non-critical damage ranges, based on the assumption that minion critical hits use the same &radic;2 damage multiplier as weapon critical hits. -- Gordon Ecker 07:51, 16 March 2007 (CDT)
 * A suggestion: Why don't you go into a Scrimmage, create a Melee minion, and have somebody be targeted by it from his backside. As the minion is preparing its attack, the person moves, causing 100% critical hit possibility (If it also applies to minions anyway). Zulu Inuoe 22:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I saw a critical hit from a level 18 bone minion, 46 damage (used a mod that made criticals obvious)

Messed up AI?
Ever since I got nightfall, my minions have become nearly useless in battle. It used to be that they would team up on a target until he was dead, and then switch targets to fight someone else. Some people complained about their AI, but it was predictable and they spent most of their time alive attacking. Now, however, my minions run around half the time, seemingly switching targets at random and often being in the middle of nowhere, which really hurts my Rt/N since their death nova's usually go off when they aren't near anybody. I preferred it when they would mob opponents until they or it died, since then the death nova's did a nice spike of damage. Anybody else noticed this? VegJed 15:17, 30 October 2006 (CST)
 * I noticed the same thing. Two thousand health 20:04, 2 December 2006 (CST)

Yea noticed it too, thought it was just me User:InfestedHydralisk --86.90.168.85 17:01, 13 December 2006 (CST)

And another thing...when im moving forward, my minions or sometimes just standing there...--InfestedHydralisk 17:03, 13 December 2006 (CST)
 * Yea, they don't seem to want to follow you now. -- Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 18:24, 13 December 2006 (CST)

Was looking at minions and the debate of wheter they crit or not i did a rather simple test took a bone horror used find their weakeness and GFTE and the deepwound was applied but no extra damage as in minions dont do extra damage with crit (not saying all of this is 100% true just saying)

While i was in the middle of two kournan soldier mobs,and using only melee minions,my minions couldnt seem to make up their mind about wich mob to attack,they kept going back and forth between each mob,this can be a serious problem in higher lvls of the game with large numbers of enemies confusing minions as too wich target too attack,i seriously think we need a control panel to lock target with minions or maybe just better ai with them,cuz they can be useless in fights where the enemies are numerous but very spread out.

Summoned Creatures and Lightbringer Title
A general question, don't know if anyone has tested since the update (January 19th), but do summoned creatures gain the benefit of the Lightbringer title if you have it equipped?--&mdash; xis10al   16:59, 27 January 2007 (CST)

Minion Size
The picture showing that minion level determines its size in this article is completely fasle, no such thing happens and the image is a resut of camera angle and terain level. --62.105.179.10 10:25, 15 February 2007 (CST)
 * The picture is not a an optical illusion where one image seems bigger than the other based on distance or background. Unless they have changed this in an update and was not documented, it still stands as true. &mdash; Gares 10:33, 15 February 2007 (CST)
 * Edit: I will personally research this when I get home. As I have seen at least flesh golems change size based on death attribute in the past, it does not mean it hasn't been changed. &mdash; Gares 10:38, 15 February 2007 (CST)
 * I checked this out with a short test, the minions do indeed still change size. This is not limited to the Flesh Golem; I tried out Bone Fiend, Bone Horror, Vampiric Horror, Shambling Horror. All change size based on their level. --Zampani 13:31, 15 February 2007 (CST)
 * Im gonna rofl, this discussion is just idiotic--Relyk 06:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * What's so funny? It's game mechanics discussion... from a year and a half ago... RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 16:52, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Minion recycling?
How does the recycling of minions work? If you animate a corpse while already having the maximum number of minions, which of your previous minions gets dusted in favor of the new one? The one with lowest health? The oldest? Shouldn't a section on this be on the page somewhere? -- Quizer 14:08, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * To the best of my knowledge, minions follow a FIFO rule (first in, first out) so the oldest minions always get replaced first. And additional note about this would be very appropriate. --Zampani 15:45, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * According to the Death Magic article: "Additional minions summoned beyond this limit cause your minion with the fewest hitpoints remaining to die." But, on the talk page of the General Minion Mastery Guide, user Theeth says it's the oldest one that dies. The one with the fewest hit points, or the oldest one? I think i'm gonna test this tonight. --Deadly Lollipop 10:49, 13 March 2007 (CDT)
 * I did the following experiment, which can be repeated by any necromancer.


 * Kill a group of 3 monsters.
 * Cast Animate Bone Horror with 1+1+3 Death Magic. A level 6 horror is created.
 * Remove head piece, and cast Animate Bone Horror with 1 Death Magic. A level 2 horror is created.
 * Cast Blood of the Master to heal them to max.
 * Cast Animate Bone Horror again, with 1 Death Magic.


 * The result: level 2 horror dies, and gets replaced.


 * This experiment seems to support the "minion with lowest health gets replaced" theory; and certainly proves that the FIFO theory is wrong. --Deadly Lollipop 13:27, 13 March 2007 (CDT)
 * Excellent test. I'm both shocked and amazed by the results, and glad to get to the root of this! --Zampani 11:04, 14 March 2007 (CDT)


 * Maybe the lvl 2 died because he was the weakest, it could be like the weakest or oldest dies. InfestedHydralisk  [[image:Shadow_Prison.jpg|19px]] 18:42, 20 March 2007 (CDT)

Minions help drops?
I've heard that with the new changes to the drop system for HM, minions increase the amount of gold that drops. Anyone can confirm or deny this? Phool 02:45, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

Energy
I've Noted through an experement that Minions have energy, I'm Not Sure How Much, Or Weather its based on Level, But I attempted (with a mesmer) To use either feast on a Minion, which then resulted in a Heal, I'm not sure weather its worth mentioning in the article, but i thought I would say! --86.144.108.174 16:11, 29 May 2007 (CDT)

Spectral Agony
Considering they're not infused,wouldn't it be extremely difficult to keep them up against monsters that use spectral agony,such as Mursaat?


 * Not really, they turn into mass damage sponges and keep it away from your party. And it chews up its recharge, where you can bring back the minion after you kill the guy :P --Gimmethegepgun 18:47, 30 May 2007 (CDT)

Amount of Minions
Hi, I've got a question: with my Necromancer, when I exploit corpses the maximum amount of minions I can have is 5. When they are all at great health, and I exploit another corpse to get a 6th minion, one dies and is replaced with the last one I created. How can I raise this maximum of five? Do I simply need to exploit corpses with a different minion skill when I've reached the amount of 5 with the same minion skill? &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.206.83.153 (contribs).
 * The answer to your question is in the article. BigAstro 14:11, 2 September 2007 (CDT)

Standing bug
I was playing in Sacnoth valley and noticed on two separate occasions that my minions where hit by meteor shower after all the targets were dead and they were coming back, but after they were hit they just kinda stood there. They wouldn't move for anything, they weren't hostile, they just stood there. I've got a screenshot of them standing there like a bunch of nerds if requested. Anyone else experience this? --Powersurge360 04:24, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I've never seen it, but then I don't MM much.[[Image:Entrea Sumatae.png|Entrea Sumatae]]Entrea Sumatae  [Talk]  04:26, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I noticed it with my hero's minions. (Me at school, I'm such a slacker)--70.158.51.100 13:14, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Max Limit Minion Deaths
Had a quick simple question that I hope someone can answer for me. When a minion is killed off due to you going over the max limit of available minions, do "on death" triggers occur like a normal death of the minion, or do special conditions apply. Ie. If you go over the max level and your minion with the lowest health is enchanted with Death Nova and Jagged Bones, will those enchantments trigger when the minion is killed? 63.215.28.43 08:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It's an old comment, but I say they do. 212.226.177.30 07:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. It's an "artificial" death, but it's still a death.  Why else would you earn soul reaping from it?  What's funny is when you have only shambling horrors at like half health and go over the limit (possible only with lower death magic ranks): it starts a chain reaction. :P  RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 20:54, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

di minions give experience to players on death?
lets say i was fighting another minion master in ab, and i just nuked all his minions to hell, would i gain xp, if so i can see a pve lvling bug involving flesh golems :O.74.186.169.130 15:13, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Talk:Bone_Fiend involves a Bone Fiend lvling up (was rather epic to see :P ). Anyhow, you won't gain xp from Minions, and I doubt Minions would gain xp from other Minions. --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG|Ohaider!]]-- (s)talkpage  15:45, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Minions can GAIN exp, but never GIVE it. RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.jpg]] 02:58, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Article Cleanup
I like the new article a lot, especially after RoK's updates. (As always, I went too far trying to preserve original text.) I especially like eliminating the overly thorough examples that I had left in place. And apparently, some of the details have changed since it was first put together (e.g. minion degen having no limit).

A couple of minor thoughts:
 * " If a new summons will create too many Minions " vs " If a new summon will raise more Minions "
 * → I know the "thing" being summonsed is singular, but I consider "summons" to be one of those mixed beasts like, "fish" that is plural and singular. Is there already a consensus or policy? If not, can I sway anyone to the dark side of using: A summons?


 * " Soul Reaping: The death of your minion will trigger the Soul Reaping energy bonus, refunding all or part of the summoning cost " vs " Soul Reaping: Death of both allied and enemy minions will trigger the Soul Reaping energy bonus, refunding all or part of the summoning cost. "
 * → IMO, the "refund" is when your own minions die. When enemy minions die, it's not so special. So, I would either rephrase to eliminate the "refund" idea OR to highlight the idea that minions contribute to soul reaping, like any other creature.
 * → BTW: What happens if there are multiple necros? who gets the bonus?

Finally, thanks for catching the terminology mix ups: rank/attribute (original text) and spell/skill (my confusion).

--Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 21:35, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * A summons is a ticket you get when you are called for jury duty or other law-related stuff - summons. A summon is the noun form of the verb "to summon," which is an action of summoning something or someone - summon. So it's not really a "dark side," to me it's just wrong.
 * I hear you; I just disagree - summons is what I (and cRPG colleagues) have always used. Still, I'll respect the consensus here. (I appreciate the dictionary cite, although I somehow doubt that they'd be up on the latest RPG jargon.) --Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF )
 * I was not aware of the jargon, but I rephrased the note to remove the conflict entirely. I would normally refrain from using any jargon terminology that cannot be looked up in the dictionary (most dictionaries online these days do keep track of slang, jargon, etc.), unless it is defined on this site, which I haven't searched for.  RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.png]] 22:52, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Every necromancer, friend or foe, will get a soul reaping bonus from any eligible creature that dies in their range. The soul reaping comment can be rephrased to remove the "refund" part, or split into two sentences, but I feel like it's important to state that you get bonus from allies' AND foes' minions.  I will try to take care of that.  RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.png]] 22:25, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Cool. I'm good with that. Thanks. --Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 20:59, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Nature ritual vs minions?
Is there a nature ritual such as Frozen Soil that prevent minions from being summoned?