Curse

Plague · Mar 27, 2006, 11:31 AM // 11:31

I'm starting this thread since I saw nothing exactly like it elsewhere. Its purpose is to analyze the purpose of a Flesh Golem in comparison to a standard Fiend-Horror Minon Master (MM) build, and to expound on what its strengths can be.

If you're familiar with being a minion master, skip what's italicized. It's merely a long review.

Let's look at the skills in question:

Quote:

Animate Bone Fiend
25 Energy
3 Cast Time
5 sec Recharge
Exploit nearest corpse to animate a level 1...14 bone fiend. Bone fiends can attack at range.

Quote:

Animate Bone Horror
15 Energy
3 Cast Time
5 sec Recharge
Exploit nearest corpse to animate a level 1...14 bone horror.

Quote:

Animate Bone Minions
25 Energy
3 Cast Time
5 sec Recharge
Exploit nearest corpse to animate two level 0...10 bone minions.

Quote:

Animate Vampiric Horror
25 Energy
3 Cast Time
5 sec Recharge
Exploit nearest corpse to animate a level 1-14 Vampiric Horror. Whenever a Vampiric Horror you control deals damage, you gain the same amount of Health.

Quote:

Animate Flesh Golem
15 Energy
3 Cast Time
30 sec Recharge
Exploit nearest corpse to animate a level 3...21 Flesh Golem. The Flesh Golem leaves an exploitable corpse. You can have only one Flesh Golem at a time. This is an elite skill.

Firstly, I'd like to discard both vampiric horrors and minions from the discussion, for one becase Vampiric Horror's main benefit is the extra health, which is not a concern in this discussion, and for Minions, because it is a slightly underused skill. The main benefit to bone minions is that while the resulting subordinates created have lower levels and subsequently lower power output and less health, they will net you twice the energy from Soul Reaping and additionally are two targets rather than one.

The argument against this is that more powerful MM builds in PvE can quickly roll over mobs of enemies specifically with Fiends and to a lesser extent, Horrors. In PvP, MMs obviously don't see a lot of use outside of special team builds. These builds usually center around en mass production, so needing more bodies isn't really a high priority. If it is not a team build, and you're on your own, you have other concerns. Additionally, when mobs of your own minions die, it is usually from area of effect (AoE), so stacking either 2 horrors together or 4 minions together will result in the same thing.

So, assuming the debate for Minions is to the side for the moment (and a debate for another day, please), let us move on.

Next, let's consider the benefits of a standard Fiend-Horror build. Typically, a minion master in PvE is going to be self-sufficient so there is no downtime while moving his army. This means most MMs are N/Mos, mainly for the sake of Heal Area. Additionally, depending on your build, you may also be carting around something to grant yourself energy. Myself, my skillbar, attributes and weapons look like this:

Quote:

Skillbar:
Deathly Swarm, Animate Bone Fiend, Animate Bone Horror, Offering of Blood, Vengeance, Heal Area, Blood of the Master, Verata's Sacrifice

Attributes:
Blood Magic: 7+1, Death Magic, 12+1+3, Soul Reaping 8+1, Healing Prayers: 8

Weapon: Collector's Truncheon, Cold Damage 11-22 (req 9 Death), Halves skill recharge of Death Magic spells (20%)
Focus: Collector's Grim Cesta, Energy +10 (req 8 Death), Death Magic +1 (20%), Health +30

So, how this build works in PvE, like most other MM builds, is I get the ball rolling by using Deathly Swarm on either an enemy or a wild animal so I can get myself a corpse. I start off my army with a level 18 (or a level 19!) Bone Fiend, and subsequently will only use Fiends unless the skill is recharging. Why? Fiends don't need to run to their targets - they can attack from anywhere. When it is recharging, I use Bone Horror. When entering combat, I will cast Verata's Sacrifice and then attack/cancel so my army runs forward. I cast Heal Area to heal back any sacrificing I've done on my way to this point, healing both myself and my army as it runs past me.

At this point, something WILL be dying. An army is a powerful thing, unless you're up against singularly strong bosses or monsters with a lot of AoE use. My Soul Reaping will be going off the charts, so I need to act fast: I use Animate Bone Fiend and Horror alternately, trying to get the most I can out of Fiend. Horrors are also nice because Fiends sometimes get stuck shooting into walls, sso Horrors pick up the slack. The problem here is that the army can become a little too efficient, killing off everything at once instead of one at a time. Rather than summoning a new minion with every death, you now have many corpses, a limited energy pool and no fresh Soul Reaping going on. This is what Offering of Blood is for, although it sees only occassional use. It gives you that extra umph to pump out one last Fiend with no wait time.

Now that you've exploited every corpse, it's time to get on the move again. By this time, your minions are dying, so you'll need to quickly cast Blood of the Master to save any minions with about 5 health remaining, then use Verata's Sacrifice, and then Heal Area to try to max out their health and restore your own. At last, you go back to work, letting very old minions die off rather than waste time keeping them alive once they breech the -10 Health range into a range you can't stop with Verata's Sacrifice. Using this method, you can amass an army of anywhere from 20-30 minions with great consistency.

Why do I mention this? Well, for those that don't know, it's useful. For another, to make it obvious how powerful a MM can be using this build. Entire mobs of level 24 Avicara will be reduced to scraps in less than 30 seconds, if even that long. Why?

Damage output: each minion can perform a hit of around 10-30 damage, a wide range that will increase depending on what you're attacking and what profession it is, etc. Let's say you do about 15 damage normally with a single Bone Fiend/Horror. Let's say you have 20 of them. That's 300 damage per 2 seconds or so. Try getting that using one person with any other build, even for only 2 seconds. An army will last as long as you do, and even kill willingly if you happen to die, which won't be often in PvE since you won't ever be the target of attacks.

Sheer numbers: when you have about 20 minions, you've reached the limit of what you can heal with Blood of the Master and Heal Area, since there are too many of your babies to target all at once. This is basically the only reason you are not a completely unstoppable killing machine, rolling insanely across the landscape, destroying any and all life you see. If you could perform the same damage output as an entire minion army on your own, you still would be at a disadvantage: you only have one healthbar! An army has many, and they can only all go down at once from AoE attacks, or Edge of Extinction hits. Sure, those Avicara can kill off a minion easily, but what about his 19 pissed off undead brethren? No, sir, it's chicken for dinner.

GOLEMS

So, this finally leads me to the Flesh Golem.

Let's hypothesize as to how useful this will be in PvE. A attribute level of 16 will give you a level 26 Golem. I'm guessing that a random +1 Death per 20% will net you a level 28 Golem. That's a big puppy. A powerful big buddy. However, you may only have one at a time. In addition, it's only one minion. Not 20.

If you were to place Flesh Golem into the Bone Horror slot on my skillbar, replacing the seldom-needed elite Offering of Blood, you would lose and gain a few things. The power output produced by a Golem is remarkable, but it's still only one immense creature. The damage output provided by many fiends that you heal is too overwhelming an advantage. In addition, leaving out Bone Horror also creates the problem of waiting for Fiend to recharge in combat. The key rule for a minion master is NO DOWNTIME.

Basically, a Flesh Golem is the Necromancer's equivilent to a pet. Animate Flesh Golem is the equivilent of Charm Animal, with some minor ups and downs, the most major being that it is an elite skill.

So, I conclude (and I'm sure you have already too) that using standard means, Flesh Golem is a theatrical skill for a true Minion Master.

PVP

Now, let's move on to PvP. Here, we'll address the Minion Factory. Some ideas have already been suggested for creating a Flesh Golem Factory. How you ask? A few main skills and classes:

8 MMs, 7 are Saccers or 6 Saccers, 1 pure MM, 1 backup class, etc.
Verata's Aura / Verata's Gaze

The idea here, although obviously no one can practice it anymore for a while, is that while you may only summon one Golem, you can control more than one. So, depending on how many saccers you have, you can seize control of Golems a necro loses when he dies.

So, one person initially kills himself. Another animates a Flesh Golem. That person kills himself. The next person in line uses Verata's Aura to capture this Golem while another MM animates a new Golem. That MM sacrifices himself. The "gatherer master" uses Verata's Gaze/Aura (depends on how many Golems are loose) to capture this new Golem. Typically, unless there is an emergency, you'll be using Gaze, since it recharges after 5 seconds. You may need 2 "Gatherers."

You can see where this is leading. With a Rezmer, or a Trapper/Light of Dwayna R/Mo or whatever reviving your comrades, and with proper coordinatation, you can in theory start your very own army of Flesh Golems, either in PvP or a coordinated PvE scenerio. This would be a slow process, however.

And this is where the thread comes in. Organizing the usefulness of the Flesh Golems. How do you properly utilize the capabilities of this beast?

PVE, etc

Another possibility looms for the Golem in both PvE and PvP: a support minion build. A typical MM build works mainly in PvE. It will destroy practically everything in its path, and requires a lot of bodies, which is why it doesn't work too well in PvP. Now, picture this: you can finally create a skillbar using Death Magic skills that does NOT revolve around minions but instead revolves around conditions, attacks or corpse control. The single skill of Animate Flesh Golem can provide a massive boost to such a simple build, even in PvE. Now, picture this skill being used in Random arenas or PvE team control missions. With only one corpse you can raise the equivilent of a small army and not have to worry about your skillbar being impacted due to a minor focus on minion mastery! In addition, the Golem provides itself with a new body.

Of course, all this may be wishful thinking. There may be a counter skill we have not yet seen, or the Golems could be easily raped by condition-happy Assassins or simply with a Blind spell. In addition, being pure Death in chapter 1 has never been fun unless you're a minion master, since practically all the skills deal with them. Fortunately, in chapter 2, we'll be getting a lot of new Death spells that have nothing to do with minions.

---
Conclusion~

A Flesh Golem is not a replacement for a Minion Master build. It will not outproduce the sheer destructive power of a PvE snowballing army.

A Flesh Golem is an excellent support skill, although it is perhaps a questionably-brought elite. Using a Flesh Golem means you will not need to heal back an army, stick around picking at corpses or waste away your entire skillbar on one special kind of build.

A Flesh Golem may be a destructive force in PvP, especially in smaller arenas. Creating an army of them, however, may be next to impossible. If it does become possible, a nerf may be on the way.

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So, finally, questions: how would you, personally, utilize a GvG build using the Flesh Golem, if at all? And could it be more effective than a standard MF build?

Also, can it truly be as effective in PvE? Obviously not in areas with lots of easily-slain monsters, but still? How do you see it impacting the game?

banishd · Mar 27, 2006, 11:39 AM // 11:39

does anyone remember back when the game first came out
how we would farm the flesh golems in ember light camp
and how easy they were too kill?

yeah.

Studio Ghibli · Mar 27, 2006, 11:54 AM // 11:54

I think the "minion" minions will be a bit more useful with the arrival of the ritualist--Rit/Nec.

Besides that little blurb though, I never tried the flesh golem out during the PFE event. I did, however, hear they did pretty good damage.

It'll be a welcome elite, though, when I do try it. My current MM does not use OOB. Rather, I used, uh, one of two elementalist signets--either to instantly recharge, or to have a spell cost 25 less energy.

snikerz · Mar 27, 2006, 11:59 AM // 11:59

you could use him as a self heal, example would be to cast death nova on it, then kill it with death taste, and reanimate it. or whatever,

Ghull Ka · Mar 27, 2006, 12:01 PM // 12:01

Outstanding post! Really good work!

I particularly admired the "theatrics" aspect that you bring up. In a pure MM build, a Flesh Golem will add style and flare, and a bit of a break from the normal scene of decapitated chickens shooting arrows out of their tails. He's big, impressive, and makes cute little squeaky sounds... what's not to love?

From a "standing army" point of view, however, you're spot on. It's just not a worthy sacrifice to make if your goal is to generate an army of Fiends. I prefer Glyph of Renewal + Verata's Sacrifice as my elite/heal combo, it's tremendously effective. If I were to incorporate a Flesh Golem into my standard minion build, I would not be able to support half of the Fiends that I currently can.

Being a Death Necromancer has always been: Minions or No minions. As you noted, our options for No Minions have been somewhat limited up until now... you can only toss Deathly Swarm so often before you start to wonder if you can be doing anything more productive with your time. Aura of the Lich, Virulence and Tainted Flesh are nice elites, but not as generally useful as one would wish them to be; they're normally part of a "concept" build. So a Non-Minion Death Necromancer usually ends up diverting some to Blood and bringing along a Well of Power.

So now we have a rather nice melee powerhouse to use to round out the No Minion builds ideas for Death Necromancers. I think it's heaven. Some ideas:

1. Some extra punching power for your "Animate Bone Minions + Death Nova + Taste of Death" combo. Additionally, you can Death Nova the Flesh Golem and animate a new one from a nearby corpse... the one with the nova will die, go BOOM, and Golem number two is already on its way into the fray!

2. With the higher level of the Flesh Golem, you can work him into Curses or Blood builds by using "leftover" points. If 12 points in Death Magic gets you a level 21 Golem, 10 points or so could still get you a sturdy "pet" for your non-Death builds. Heck, all of those Mo/N out there that used to put 10 into Blood Magic for Offering of Blood... they can bring along Freddy the Fleshy now instead! (heh ok, i know, bad idea).

3. Wells and Bombs. With a MM build, you turn every corpse that falls into a Fiend. That's your job. In a No Minion build, you can turn corpses into all sorts of things. Don't need to re-create the golem just now? Ok, blow that corpse up or make a Well of Suffering out of it. The more options that we have to fiddle with corpses in No Minion builds, the better; let no dead body go unused!

I'm very pleased with Animate Flesh Golem. We asked ANet for an elite minion skill and they delivered. True it's not an elite designed to mainatin a large standing army of Fiends, but we already have elites and skills that allow us to do that very well. We can raise up undead armies that shred pretty much everything in their path; we don't need a new elite to help us do that.

This elite mixes things up a bit, gives us a fresh (though slightly rotted) face to look at, and makes people go "woah sweet golem, man" from time to time. Me likey!

(I just wished it looked like the ones out in Perdition Rock. Sigh...)

dcraftjr · Mar 27, 2006, 12:04 PM // 12:04

i tried the flesh golems and i dont see a big difference of damage of that to a fiend. I dont think its even worth it for an elite. If you are gonna do PvP MM, then you should go fiends with a protection elite.

Pharalon · Mar 27, 2006, 12:34 PM // 12:34

Golems do less damage than Fiends at 16/17 Death (15% less damage, optimally), and they've got all the problems associated with crappy melee AI, which makes their actual damage output even worse. You're not taking them onto the battlefield do hurt the enemy. You're taking them to be a corpse on demand. Their only real use is to tank in PvE, as their level gives them a massive amount of HP + Armor, and they get a good amount of level based damage reduction off most creaures. In PvP, you're abusing Veratas Aura to build up a large battery of walking corpses that act as an energy store and give you something to raise fiends out of when you want to do damage. It may be useful in tombs, but in GvG you're going to loose that advantage after the first 5 minutes of engagement, and be left at a serious disadvantage after that.

fiery · Mar 27, 2006, 03:01 PM // 15:01

Flesh golem, just a fleshy bear that attacks like any other minion. Offering of blood, I say is a waste, seeing in PVE a ton of monsters are everywhere pump up soul reaping.

Plague · Mar 27, 2006, 04:24 PM // 16:24

At level 26, can someone give us an average damage rating per hit?

VampiricuS · Mar 27, 2006, 08:40 PM // 20:40

I had fun with it this weekend. I find it to be very useful in pve. I would never bring a MM in pvp let alone gvg so that ends that discussion. There are many advantages to be had with the Golem. Also they (like the new henchies) showed improved AI this weekend.

Pharalon · Mar 27, 2006, 09:36 PM // 21:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plague

At level 26, can someone give us an average damage rating per hit?

At lvl 26, vs a lvl20 60AL target, it'll do an average of roughly 42 damage per strike, which works outto be 14DPS, compared to a lvl 18 fiends 29damage per strike for 16.5DPS

myword · Mar 27, 2006, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pharalon

At lvl 26, vs a lvl20 60AL target, it'll do an average of roughly 42 damage per strike, which works outto be 14DPS, compared to a lvl 18 fiends 29damage per strike for 16.5DPS

gg flesh golem!

Manic Smile · Mar 27, 2006, 09:44 PM // 21:44

-some wrong info-

wow guess I missed something there

Haggard · Mar 27, 2006, 09:46 PM // 21:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by VampiricuS

I would never bring a MM in pvp let alone gvg so that ends that discussion.

Clearly youve never been 'ganked'.

crazy diamond · Mar 27, 2006, 09:50 PM // 21:50

Although admitedly I didn't test the Flesh Golem extensively, most of the time it just felt like a ranger pet for my necro that I had to keep ressurecting. Other than the exploitable corpse for bombs wells or whatnot, I didn't really find much else to it, except as a big meaty meat shield.

I don't see what's particularly so special about it that would make it take up the elitse slot however. It was fun to have him tag along, especially when I also had my ranger pet, but it's not the kind of skill I would pick as my elite.

Mandy Memory · Mar 27, 2006, 09:59 PM // 21:59

My MM never brought an elite...so im just brining this as well as fiend and horror... (and why do you bring heal area with no healing prayers? drop the blood magic and put it in healing)

Plague · Mar 27, 2006, 10:12 PM // 22:12

As far as being able to carry around an infinite, usable corpse goes...

It's really quite pointless. Say you kill a wild animal and make a Golem out of it. You cart it around, letting it die rather than heal it, raise it back out of its own body and continue.

Is this a real benefit? Sure, if you only come across a single corpse the entire time you play. Having two corpses and only one available Golem nets you next to nothing.

If the Golem is really that weak, there's really little reason to bring it. So you have a portable corpse. So what? As soon as you exploit it, it's gone forever. If a Golem dies, you have to make a new Golem just to maintain its usefulness.

Unless one of a few different things occurs, this skill will fall into disuse.

*Allow Necros to summon more than one Golem, but not an infinite amount.
*Make Golems have an alternate use, like stealing 1 energy per hit for you, or raising their own minions, like "real" Flesh Golems, something.
*Give Golems higher DPS, armor penetration or lesser shadow damage - something worth carting around.
*Remove the Elite status of the skill. It could use a lot more.
*Lower the Golem's health but remove natural health degeneration.

I get the feeling ANet overestimates the usefulness of a more predictable source of Soul Reaping energy. Normal minions serve the exact same purpose. Animate Minions even provides double that benefit.

And make the things bigger. I was hoping to raise a massive, twenty foot tall Perdition Rock Flesh Golem, not a bone horror's fat cousin.

[edit]: And I just forgot to add in that I was using 8 Healing.

crazy diamond · Mar 27, 2006, 10:26 PM // 22:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plague

*Remove the Elite status of the skill. It could use a lot more.
*Lower the Golem's health but remove natural health degeneration.

I think these would be best suited to making it more useful. Being able to summon more than one would kind of defeat the whole purpose of it being more powerful than regular ones. Which is kind of the problem, it really isn't that much better than regular ones it would seem.

Personally, I would just remove the Elite status. If not remove the degen.

Insanity · Mar 27, 2006, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Assumption: Flesh Golem death triggers Soul Reaping (ie: energy battery)

Then this skill is equivalent to the Mesmer elite Mantra of Recall which provides an energy battery for times of need.

That's the only reason it's elite... energy management.

Insanity

greenlantern · Mar 27, 2006, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Let me start out by saying that this has a lot of thought put into it and that I can appreciate, but there are a few things that I find off.

1. If you like being an mm why are you using those crappy weapons? I might have a few more bucks than the standard GW user, but you can get the bortak offhand for very cheap or go to LA dist 1 to find something better. I have 5 primary weapons that I use for MM based on where I’m at.

Shadow Staff
Req 8 curses
20% casting death
10% recharge
+5 energy
+1 20% death

Shadow Staff (Not Green)
Req Death 11
10/10
+5 energy
+30 HP

max Req 8 death
+15/-1
20% recharge death skills

Req 12 deadly cesta
+5^50
20% casting

Req 9 cesta
+12 energy
20% casting blood
+1 death 20%

I usually don't show my weapons, but I just want to know that if you are so hardcore into MM then invest a little to prove it.

2. That Golem build is very risky. 1 mistake and your team will die. BTW PVP MF sucks! I'm R8 and I have never been beat by MF(almost did once, but not because of the MF team). I have even ran this build and I am sorry I was R2 then... never again. Now the new 12vs12 I can see both the Golems/minions owning people if its done right. I did try this over the weekend and it is hard to get an army with many death necros on the field and the auto rez.

3. Offering of blood? I never have issues with energy, but then again if you put more into soul reaping and less into Blood(unless you have a monk that needs BR) you would have less of a problem. It does depend where I go, but running Gylph of energy is great (new UW)

My necro is my favorite/first Character. I can run all necro builds pretty well, but MM is my favorite. This is not a flame against your post, but from an experienced MM I will have this golem on my bar (depends on where I am) when I'm running N/mo