Curse

Master Cougie · Nov 02, 2010, 05:38 PM // 17:38

Hiya!

I'm an average player looking for help on my Necro. I don't fully understand Necro roles, so please be gentle with me.

What I'm after is some advice, I've got the collectors edition but I have only really been on Fractions, the others I have only really looked at briefly.

At the moment I'm running a MM set up, skills going in order of,

Deathly Swarm
Bone Fiend
Vampiric Horror
Shambling Horror
Flesh Golem
Blood of the Master
Vile Miasma
Flesh of my Flesh (Rt)

15 death Magic
11 Soul reaping
4 Restoration Magic

(OAhjUwGbINpBqQJ7oC0wD8sLGA)

The only decent equip I have is
Grim Cesta (Req 11 death) E+12 HP+20

I don't have a great deal of funds (20k) but I'm really feeling like I'm missing something on the build, I don't do much damage without the minions, energy isn't much of a problem, always have a healthy supply.

Just feels like, prehaps I'm doing it wrong?

I have a few Elite skills. - Blood is Power, Flesh Golem and Wail of Doom.

Should I look at another kind of build? I always have to go out with 2 hero monks, otherwise I get splattered.

I also have another question, does the weapon effect your skill damage?
I have a Bone Spiral Rod 11-22 (with other bits) but does it change the damage of, for example Deathly Swarm?

If this is in the wrong place please feel free to move it, I do sound really noobish and I do apoligize.

Thanks!
Master Cougie.

tacotown · Nov 02, 2010, 07:31 PM // 19:31

herro cougie~

1st off, direct answers for direct questions:
the weapon's damage modifiers do not affect spell damage, it affects regular attacks and attack skill damage
spell damage is up to your attributes (so i guess it's arguable that a 'master of my domain' inscribed off-hand affects spell damage, but never mind that)

as for being a minion master.. the hero minion bomber build is hard for a human to top. but, as i always say, pve is all about what YOU want to play.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Cougie

I don't do much damage without the minions

as a minion master, you have to understand that if you don't have minions, you won't do damage. if you want to deal more damage as an MM, i'd recommend Order of Undeath.

looking into other builds is always an option, it's a game afterall, experimenting and messing around is more fun than copying a build off of wiki to win. for a new player i'd recommend a spiteful spirit curses necro of sorts, (much control and damage in one package) but that's just my own preference. if blowing up minions is your thing, go for it.

my main advice is to finish your attribute quests (i think you've yet to complete them, seeing your numbers) and ask guildies for their builds to try and see how others play and also to get a feel about which skills are preferred (there are some utter garbage skills out there imo). also nightfall is worth playing since you'll get heroes and pve skills without investing too much time, not to mention there are quite a few useful nightfall-only skills. prophecies should be avoided like the plague, but again, that's just my preference.

gremlin · Nov 02, 2010, 08:08 PM // 20:08

I tend to agree with tacotown a Minion master does pretty much all its damage via its army of Minions.

You need a monk along to heal you when you sacrifice health healing your minions.

The more points you have in death the stronger and more long lasting they will be.
When I mm I am almost constantly hitting blood of the master to keep them alive in a fight.

There are other styles of Necro Minion builds were you only have the minions around to kill them off and cause damage when they die.
See minion bomber builds.
These rely on skills like Death Nova - Putrid Explosion and Putrid Flesh these damage poison and disease enemies when the Minion dies.

The Necro is a very good versatile class as you will discover when you find more skills and try out alternatives.

JoeGrogan · Nov 02, 2010, 09:03 PM // 21:03

The more minions you have the more damage you do. In saying that you may consider dropping shambling or vampiric, and put some points into curses - to take mark of pain, and barbs. These two skills synergise very well with minions to up the damage - mark of pain to do aoe damage, and barbs to spike down single targets.

Other option is to put some points into blood magic - there are some skills to heal minions, direct damage and heal yourself, but best for upping minion skills is order of pain - spam away.

Great bonus about taking barbs, mark of pain, or orders is that any physical damage doers in your party will have their damage output inscreased too.

The other skills that work great with a minion master are masochism (but requires that you get to eye of the north), and my favorite elite for MM - aura of the lich - but this requires to get right to the end of prophecies, or some kind soul to help you out with the right War in Kryta bounty on.

Countess Marie · Nov 02, 2010, 11:01 PM // 23:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Cougie

Hiya!

I'm an average player looking for help on my Necro. I don't fully understand Necro roles, so please be gentle with me.

What I'm after is some advice, I've got the collectors edition but I have only really been on Fractions, the others I have only really looked at briefly.

At the moment I'm running a MM set up, skills going in order of,

Deathly Swarm
Bone Fiend
Vampiric Horror
Shambling Horror
Flesh Golem
Blood of the Master
Vile Miasma
Flesh of my Flesh (Rt)

15 death Magic
11 Soul reaping
4 Restoration Magic

(OAhjUwGbINpBqQJ7oC0wD8sLGA)

The only decent equip I have is
Grim Cesta (Req 11 death) E+12 HP+20

I don't have a great deal of funds (20k) but I'm really feeling like I'm missing something on the build, I don't do much damage without the minions, energy isn't much of a problem, always have a healthy supply.

Just feels like, prehaps I'm doing it wrong?

I have a few Elite skills. - Blood is Power, Flesh Golem and Wail of Doom.

Should I look at another kind of build? I always have to go out with 2 hero monks, otherwise I get splattered.

I also have another question, does the weapon effect your skill damage?
I have a Bone Spiral Rod 11-22 (with other bits) but does it change the damage of, for example Deathly Swarm?

If this is in the wrong place please feel free to move it, I do sound really noobish and I do apoligize.

Thanks!
Master Cougie.

I can help you out w/ MMing. If you want... most MM builds are gonna be similar (unless you are bombing) but it's more in how you are playing and getting the rhythm correct.

I mean, you can talk to me on GW if you want... and I'll show you what I mean.

But in terms of your build, I'd always put max in death to start, and I wouldn't waste time with any spells you have to target. Every skill you have should be either an enchantment, a spam heal for your minions, or a corpse exploiting skill. That's to maximize your effectiveness. Having Taste of Death can be good, too.

You have way too many minion skills on your bar, too. Usually having one ranged and one melee on your bar is good. But it has to be a fast recharge... if you have something like vamp horror, it's good eventually, but I prefer not to wait. So, with what you have, you might want to bring Flesh, horror, and fiend... at most.

Basically, blood of the master is the backbone of a non-bombing minion build. You need to figure out what health you are comfortable running (lower is better) and maybe protect yourself w/ Dark Bond if you want. Then train yourself to be spamming botm every moment except when you know something is going to die or when a spam will kill you. If you get further enough in the game to get Aura Lich and if you have Masochism, you put Dark Bond 1st, Maso 2nd, and Aura Lich last... and unless you get in a really sticky situation (as you should be a little further out of aggro range and your minions should be eating everything), you won't ever lose bond and you won't ever need to have high health. Especially on Normal mode.

Lastly, (are you writing this down? lol...) if you are running hard mode, you might consider bringing a soul twisting rit hero with shelter, displace, union... I've heard people say that spirit spam fails with minions, but I disagree. It actually maximizes the power of minions as well as protecting your characters, too. That way, unless you meet a bunch of eles or something spamming holy dmg... your minions should never die. And as long as your minions are alive, your whole team is pretty much safe.

Peace

-CM

LifeInfusion · Nov 03, 2010, 12:54 AM // 00:54

Deathly Swarm --> drop for dark bond to help with survival
Bone Fiend
Vampiric Horror --> bone horror, waste of energy when you can bring horrors (heal isn't that much)
Shambling Horror --> no synergy, really...but it doesn't hurt to have it
Flesh Golem
Blood of the Master
Vile Miasma --> pve skill / signet of lost souls to fund fiends...also subsidizes BOTM
Flesh of my Flesh (Rt) --> drop for Res chant, you don't want to endanger yourself...I use Vengeance since it gives me free bodies

12+1+3 death Magic
12+1 Soul reaping
3 blood magic

You need 16 Death magic on a MM. 15 doesn't cut it since you lose 1 minion.

If you don't have cash for weapons, use the collector's ones. They usually come with 20% skill recharge on the focii and wands.

EDIT: without dervish secondary you can go N/Mo
dark bond
Bone Fiend
bone horror
Heal Area
Flesh Golem
Blood of the Master
signet of lost souls
Res chant

12+1+3 death Magic
10+1 Soul reaping
8 Healing

Johny bravo · Nov 03, 2010, 01:42 AM // 01:42

The effectiveness of the minion master to do a significant amount of damage went away when the capped the number of minions you have. While minions can still help they are no better then most characters auto-attacking. Now the minions or more like cannon fodder so the enemies are to preoccupied to attack your team. This is where the minion bomber comes into play (death nova), the minions provide both energy (to you or any necros) and damage when they die.
If you really want to play MM though (I enjoy it at times as my necro is my main) I would suggest unlocking Aura of the Lich(AOTL) using balthazar faction and then buying an elite Necro tome (PM me here for my char name if you can find me online I will give you one for 100g, I live in China though so my hours are weird).
Once you have AOTL you can have a a little more fun.
I run AOTL, Masochism, Bone minions, death nova with a maxed out death this gives me 11 minions. If you haven't been to EOTN you can't get Masochism yet but it is not essential. At this point you have all the minion skill you really need so you can now focus on what else you want to do.
If you want to do more damage you can bring skills like barbs (takes long to cast), weaken armor or mark of pain for example.
If you want to be more party support for /monk and bring dwanya's sorrow. If you keep casting this every time a minion dies it will heal your party
You could go /paragon and bring fallback to improve you parties speed and heal them while they are moving.
Just remember that when distributing your attributes you want to max death and get soul reaping to 8-9. the rest you can put in whatever other attribute you want.

Necro is a very versitile class and can be played many different ways don't get too caught up with one build

Chthon · Nov 03, 2010, 03:42 AM // 03:42

1. It saddens me to see that much of the response you've gotten thus far has been full of incorrect advice....

2.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Cougie

I'm an average player looking for help on my Necro. I don't fully understand Necro roles, so please be gentle with me.

Let's start there, then. Generally speaking: Death necros run minions and provide mitigation by way of meat shielding and direct (but unfocused) damage. Curse necros provide mitigation by way of debuffs and damage by way of force multiplication. Blood necros provide damage by way of force multiplication and diffuse healing.

Since you seem to have focused in on death magic already, let's look at that in a little more detail.

You accomplish mitigation largely by having the maximum number of minions up and ready to draw fire. That means 16 Death Magic and Masochsim are "must haves" because they get you to 11 minions. You also need to keep the minions standing. That means striking some balance of tougher minions to start with, quick minion replacement, and spamming Blood of the Master. (Note that minions follow the usual hp formula (80+20*lvl) and have 4AL/lvl, except for Fiends and Bone Minions, which have only 3AL/lvl.)

The second part of mitigation is positioning. Knowing the minion and monster AIs well enough to have your minions where they need to be to take the brunt of the damage for your team.

You accomplish damage by stacking armor-ignoring buffs onto your minions. Quick explanation of the importance of armor-ignoring damage: Sometime between the release of Sorrow's Furnace and PvE Tombs, the devs got lazy and went with a "bigger numbers = more difficulty" design strategy for the monsters that wasn't really reversed until WiK (and even then not entirely, see BLA). As monster level pumps from 20 to 30, the effectiveness of armor-sensitive damage falls ~40% from the supposed balance point based on 20vs20 PvP, while the effectiveness of armor-ignoring damage stays constant. What this means in terms of minions is that the base damage they do will head towards zero pretty quickly as monster levels rise. The remedy for this is to buff them with some armor-ignoring damage. There's basically 2 skills available for this job, and you should use them both: Order of Undeath and Ebon Battle Standard of Honor.

The other component of minion damage is attack speed, which is why Bone Fiends are a must-have, but I'm sure you knew that.

3. Which more or less brings me to a point I've made before, but think I should make again. The last update to Masochism pretty much closed off all room for variety among minion master builds. There's basically one optimal template and everything else is simply not as good.

16 Death
13 Soul Reaping

Bone Fiend [why? fast attack speed]
Vamp Horror [why? horror-class hp and AL for meat shielding, plus heals to offset your life sacrifice costs that synergize very well with the buffs]
Order of Undeath [why? damage. See above]
Ebon Battle Standard of Honor [why? damage. See above.]
Blood of the Master [why? It's the only minion heal skill with adequate heal/sec to deal with natural degen, much less monster damage]
Masochism [why? 11th minion, plus decent bonus to everything else in the build]
Signet of Lost Souls OR Consume Corpse [why? build as it stands needs more energy; these are the best two options for getting it]
Solution to the "Vamp Horror/HM Problem." See below.

And that's it. There's really nothing you can replace any of those skills with and get a better result for doing it. It's the optimal minion master build until we get a balance update that changes something.

So, about the "Vamp Horror/HM Problem," what is that? That's a phrase I just pulled out of my backend to describe the fact that monsters in a not small number of HM areas can kill your Vamp Horrors faster than the animate skill can recharge. Solutions to this problem come in three general categories: (1) You can try to improve the recharge on Vamp Horror with Air of Superiority or Ebon Battle Standard of Wisdom; (2) You can try to supplement the Vamp Horrors with a third minion type; or (3) You can swap the Vamp Horror for a Bone Horror and try to recover the lost healing with the free slot. (For NM and HM areas where the "Vamp Horror/HM Problem" isn't a factor, shunt some points from SR to run 8 Healing Prayers and Heal Area for a self-heal/minion heal.)

3. Let's take a moment to gently correct some bad choices. Comments are in bold.

Quote:

At the moment I'm running a MM set up, skills going in order of,

Deathly Swarm Cold damage is armor-sensitive, and thus tends towards poo as monster levels climb. Also, awful energy efficiency.
Bone Fiend
Vampiric Horror
Shambling Horror Recharge is far too long to be worthwhile, even as a supplemental solution to "Vamp Horror/HM Problem." Also, damage on Jagged Horrors tends to be less than regular horrors because bleeding rarely makes up for the lower level.
Flesh Golem Nothing wrong with him, just nothing right with him either. Only acceptable because you don't have OoU yet.
Blood of the Master
Vile Miasma An awful skill that combines armor-sensitive cold damage with even worse degeneration
Flesh of my Flesh (Rt) There is nothing wrong with running a rez. However, you will eventually find that a MM bar is too cramped for it, and opt for rez scrolls instead.

15 death Magic Needs to be 16, discussed above
11 Soul reaping 13
4 Restoration Magic 3

4. Regarding Equipment

Best set would be a 20HCT/20HRT wand + a 20HCT/20% +1 Death Magic Focus.
You can craft the wand in Leviathan Pits/Vasburg Armory, pick it up as a green in a couple of places, or buy the inscription+wrapping for ~5k in Nightfall.
The focus is only available as a green (Bortak's or Arminds) or by assembling it with an inscription and focus core. A poor man's substitute with slightly inferior mods is available from a collector for pulsating growths.

A second-best choice would be a staff with either +5e/20HCT/20HRT/20% +1 Death Magic (Ghail's Staff is a cheap green with these mods) or 20HCT/20HCT/20HRT/20% +1 Death Magic .

5.

Quote:

I also have another question, does the weapon effect your skill damage?
I have a Bone Spiral Rod 11-22 (with other bits) but does it change the damage of, for example Deathly Swarm?

No, it does not. It only effects the damage from your auto-attacks. In general, you may wish to read up on the game mechanics. Understanding the math behind the game will make you a lot better at it.

6. So as not to leave you misdirected:

Quote:

Originally Posted by tacotown

as for being a minion master.. the hero minion bomber build is hard for a human to top.

No. A good human MM is many orders of magnitude more effective than the best hero minion bomber. You simply have never seen one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeGrogan

you may consider dropping shambling or vampiric, and put some points into curses - to take mark of pain, and barbs. These two skills synergise very well with minions to up the damage - mark of pain to do aoe damage, and barbs to spike down single targets.

You don't have enough attribute points to do this effectively. Excellent reason to partner with a curse necro though.

Quote:

Other option is to put some points into blood magic - there are some skills to heal minions,

Only Blood Bond, which is questionable at the attribute levels available.

Quote:

but best for upping minion skills is order of pain - spam away.

Order of Pain does not affect minions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johny bravo

The effectiveness of the minion master to do a significant amount of damage went away when the capped the number of minions you have. While minions can still help they are no better then most characters auto-attacking.

Assume 7 Fiends, 4 Horrors against monsters with such high armor that minion base damage is reduced to zero. The DPS from OoU and EBSoHonor alone is 7*((19+15)/1.9) + 3*((19+15)/3.17) ~= 157DPS. (And remember that's lowball because base damage won't really be zero.) I'd like to see someone auto attacking for 157DPS. For that matter, there are very few dedicated damage builds that manage that level of DPS.

(Now, if you had said that the damage is unfocused and hard to control, you might have had a point. But you're just dead wrong on it being low damage.)

Xenomortis · Nov 03, 2010, 10:18 AM // 10:18

Order of Undeath is scary to use at first. The health loss from that skill alone is enough to deter newer players.
On top of that you really need to spam Blood of the Master to keep hold onto your fiends for as long as possible (they're one hell of an investment).
This build means you really need to trust your backline, since (beyond the Vamp Horrors) you don't have any self healing. The upside is that, provided you do your job and your team doesn't rush miles ahead of you, you'll make your backlines job much easier as well as provide a ton of upfront damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Best set would be a 20HCT/20HRT wand + a 20HCT/20% +1 Death Magic Focus.

40/20/+1(20%) Staff actually. +10 energy vs +12 isn't really meaningful but the recharge bonus on a staff is applied to all spells instead of just the Death ones. Of course, it hardly matters since almost all of your spells are Death Magic, you don't care about recharges generally and the Deadly Cesta wand looks better than any of the staves on offer.

Master Cougie · Nov 03, 2010, 01:57 PM // 13:57

Woooooowwwww.... Guys, this is amazing! I've read through it once but I think I may have to read through again, and a few more times after.
These replies are full of knowledge! I have jotted the more important looking stuff, while looking through the GW wiki to find out what these skills are.

So far I have sound that the max AP to one skill set is 12, to get higher you need skills(Macochism) and armour/weapons with desired +AP

I have all the campaigns but it looks like I need to go ahead and go through the others to aquire skills and such. I will work through the skills and aquire them slowly.

"Best set would be a 20HCT/20HRT wand + a 20HCT/20% +1 Death Magic Focus." ---- HCT = Half cast time/HRT = Half recharge/20% = customise?

My brain now hurts, first thing first is aquiring skills and the missing AP from quests, then getting armour and weapons sorted out.

Also, tacotown stated that I should ask guildies for help. I'm not in a guild. I usually team up with my other half. I wouldn't know where to look for a nice guild anyway lol

.

You guys are diamonds. I need to read through the replies some more and look at finding some skills that have been listed.
-Master Cougie

Carinae · Nov 03, 2010, 04:59 PM // 16:59

Chthon is exactly correct regarding proper MM bars, so remember his post and work towards the goal of running those skills. However, I want to remind Chthon that the OP is a beginner MM. To that end, I think we, as veteran necromancers, should encourage newbies towards a slightly different initial skillset:

Flesh Golem as the elite, along with Dark Bond.

Flesh Golem, as you correctly noted (and as Ensign pointed out) isn't the greatest elite skill for a MM, but it's also a skill that can't really go wrong. It's a safe skill, even for beginners. Plus they get a kick out of raising that monster, so it's got a fun-factor. Obviously OoU is THE elite, by far, for veteran MMs, but it is very energy-intensive, and managing the sacrifice is usually well beyond the ability of a beginner. The end result is that beginners either are starved for energy and can't run OoU, and therefore dislike it because it offers them no benefit, or..... they kill themselves with it and dislike it because it "gets them dead."

Another self-heal option is Karei's Healing Circle (aka: Heal Area with a better icon) due to it's synergy with MM functionality. It functions as a self-heal, as a secondary minion and even as an emergency party heal (It's saved both H/H teams and player teams for me) should BotM get Distracted/Diverted, which can sometimes be a real risk considering the constant spamming of BotM. It's a solid option to consider, although, it does stretch ones attribute points to the limit, admittedly.

I think SoLS just plain sucks on an MM bar. It can't be used on-demand, distracts the player from his minions, and distracts the player from watching the field. It's (literally) infinitely out-classed by Consume Corpse and lacks any support benefit like Heal Area. The ONE thing it has going for it: it's a signet, so it's free.

I also would highly recommend Dark Bond for a beginner MM. I think this is a no-brainer. They don't know what they are doing, and a safety-line keeps them from rage-quitting in frustration when they run their MM too close to the frontline, or forget to use terrain to their advantage. Dark Bond is the single best defensive skill any MM can use. It's flat-out over-powered, but somehow doesn't draw the scrutiny of other over-powered options. 75% damage-reduction, across the board. Everything --- armor-sensitive damage, armor-ignoring damage, everything except life-steals get blocked by this, making it arguably comparable to Protective Spirit or Save Yourself. It also has a low-cost and an excellent 30s duration, even at ZERO spec with no Enchant extensions. Furthermore, it's 20s recharge not only means it can be maintained, but it can be re-applied if stripped. Finally, Dark Bond synergizes very well with Flesh Golem as it's anchor.

Although I agree it isn't necessary for veteran players, and the slot can be put to better use, it, just like Flesh Golem, isn't a BAD choice. I won't criticize any MM bar with Dark Bond on it, newbie or veteran, unless the protection is redundant and unnecessary, for example in the presence of Save Yourself or Protective Bond.

Chthon · Nov 04, 2010, 03:32 AM // 03:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

40/20/+1(20%) Staff actually. +10 energy vs +12 isn't really meaningful but the recharge bonus on a staff is applied to all spells instead of just the Death ones. Of course, it hardly matters since almost all of your spells are Death Magic, you don't care about recharges generally and the Deadly Cesta wand looks better than any of the staves on offer.

So you trade away 2e that you might conceivably use from time to time in favor of 20HSR for non-death spells that aren't even on your bar? I'm going to have to say that the wand/focus combo is still superior, even if marginally so. Now, if you've got some damn stylish staff like a BDS, that might be worth giving up 2e for...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae

Chthon is exactly correct regarding proper MM bars, so remember his post and work towards the goal of running those skills. However, I want to remind Chthon that the OP is a beginner MM. To that end, I think we, as veteran necromancers, should encourage newbies towards a slightly different initial skillset:

Flesh Golem as the elite, along with Dark Bond.

A fair point and I agree with your reasoning. OP, start here; work up to OoU later.

Quote:

I think SoLS just plain sucks on an MM bar. It can't be used on-demand, distracts the player from his minions, and distracts the player from watching the field. It's (literally) infinitely out-classed by Consume Corpse and lacks any support benefit like Heal Area. The ONE thing it has going for it: it's a signet, so it's free.

In my mind, the distraction of trying to find a guy at low HP for SoLS is roughly equally bad as the loss of a corpse to Consume Corpse. I use both from time to time, and, whichever one I'm using, I always find myself wishing I had brought the other.

Also, agreed that Dark Bond is one very potent skill. The only criticisms that can be leveled against it are that it's "selfish prot" and that there's just no room for it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Cougie

HCT = Half cast time/HRT = Half recharge/20% = customise?

Yes, "20 HCT" means the "20% chance of half cast time for spells" mod, and "20 HRT" means "20% chance of half recharge time for spells" mod.

Caster weapons generally need not be customized because the damage bonus means almost nothing. They have awful damage to begin with, further lowered by monster armor creep, and you should be too busy casting to wand things very much anyway. That said, the only reasons not to customize are (1) laziness and (2) hoping to re-sell your weapons or transfer them to another character's heroes later.

Xenomortis · Nov 04, 2010, 03:31 PM // 15:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

So you trade away 2e that you might conceivably use from time to time in favor of 20HSR for non-death spells that aren't even on your bar? I'm going to have to say that the wand/focus combo is still superior, even if marginally so. Now, if you've got some damn stylish staff like a BDS, that might be worth giving up 2e for...

The BDS is ugly.

I do have non-death spells on my bar. I always have EBSoH and I usually take EBSoC as a result of a lack of imagination. EBSoW is a possibility, but of little worth.

2 energy isn't meaningful - I'd be happy to lose it if it means my damage ward is up faster for me to place down wherever my Fiends have wondered off to.
Most of the time two energy isn't going to make any difference and when it does, waiting 2 seconds isn't going to affect much.

Arghore · Nov 13, 2010, 03:28 PM // 15:28

Interesting thread, even though im a veteran necro, im not a veteran MM :P ... but seeing it's the preferred build on some maps (and sometimes on teams), i have to run it from time to time ... my current build:

Massochism - +2 death
Aura ot Lich - + 1 death, minions without corpse, allot of minions at once
Bone Fiend - range, attackspeed, minion mix
Shambling Horror - minion replacement, bleeding
Blood ot Master - minion heal
Deathly swarm - to do some damage (will be replaced by standard after reading this)
Taste of death - Self Heal
Rebirth - best rez. for PuGs (pick up groups), since you can get ppl outof sticky situations

And i might contemplate about replacing Taste of Death, but seeing i PuG allot i can't always rely on decent monks to keep up with supporting my BotM, in which case i tend to sacrifice a minion to heal myself and make a new one ... but Swarm will deffo go (even though ill prolly miss the 'idea' im also doing some damage myself)

ARMOR
Thing that isnt covered in this thread is some advice on armor, esp. Insignia's ...
Some of this will depend on preference, but as a starter i would advice:
1x bloodstained - reduces cast time on exploiting corpses (aka. making minions), doesnt stack !! so only one
3x Minion Masters - increases armor based upon the amount of minions you have
1x which you prefer - i tend to take Undertaker, since it increases armor depending on my HP state ... but you might also want to take survivor, radiant (on chest) or stalward/bonelace ... or even another minion masters (if you want to play MM solely)

The other thing to put on armor are runes, as allready mentioned for a MM you will want a Superior Rune of Death Magic, for that extra minion (though also read below about consumables) ... another rune you would like to invest in would be Superior Vigor (its 17-20k to buy, so you might want to save up for it) ... then to keep the health loss from using Major and Superior Runes limited, i tend to go with a rune of Minor Soul Reaping ... leaving 2 rune spots open ... here i tend to go with Vitae runes, mainly because i use a tad different weapons then adviced here in this thread, so some might argue that going with attunement is the better option ... to spell it out:

head: Blood stained, +1 Death Magic Head gear, +3 Superior Death Magic
chest: 'choise' Insignia, Rune of Superior vigor
gloves: Minion Masters Insignia, Rune of Vitae/Attunement
pants: Minion Masters Insignia, Rune of Vitae/Attunement
boots: Blood Stained, +1 Minor Soul Reaping

* Now i set this up so that the Superior + Choise is on the chest, if you want to run a different build, say Curses, you will want a different armor set, but with this setup you can keep the chest piece on, and dont have to go buy another superior vigor ...

Consumables:
Now when checking the wiki, you might have wondered, why do all the skill overviews go beyond 16, when i can only get 16 attribute points ... this is because there are certain items that can raise your attribute points, which, if you are a MM can be fairly interesting since every 2points in death magic give you a potential extra minion ... items are:

- Weapon upgrades +1, these give a 20% chance on +1 death
- Shrines (Factions/Nightfall), /kneel at a shire of Grenth and buy a blessing to get +1 to all necro attributes ...

Then there are the festival (drops) consumables:
Halloween - Candy Corns, raise attributes +1 for 10min
Easter - Golden Eggs, raise attributes +1 for 5min

A last consumable would be 'Grail of Might' found in the Eye of the North expansion:
EotN - Grail of Might, raise attributes +1 for 30min (amongst other things)
*!* this is a somewhat expensive consumable to use, and tends to only be used in Elite area's, realy difficult missions or speed clears ... so use them as such and not as a thing to pop every 30min ... amongst other things they cost a skill point, one you will probably want to use for skill for now anyways

If you check my build you will see that, with my runes and skills i get upto 17 deathmagic, thus i use either candy corns or golden eggs, to raise my points to 18 and get 12 minions... If MM is the only build you run constantly, you might want to considder only using those sweets when you are in a tough situation with enough corpses ... like i said above, i tend to run other builds so my consumable rate on MM builds is somewhat low since I only run it so often ...

*add*
some might want to know what kind of weapons i use, seeing i mentioned i dont use the recommended ones ...
main: 20% HSR, 15e^-1 regen
off: 20% HCT, 30HP

I run the 15e^-1 on almost all my builds and prefer the higher energy (soul reaping suffices for gaining energy so i dont miss the +1e regen) ... and i still get to enjoy the higher energy without having to put insigna's or runes on my armor to gain them...

+30hp, like i said i play PuG's allot, 30hp doesnt sound like much persee, but the psychological thing plays a part here too, i think my HP are around 515hp standard, just over 500, which gives a bit more confidance then 485hp...

One last thing i would like to mention, is another build i tend to solo with when Nickolas the traveler has us going in low level area's (works upto lvl13/14), its a fun build as it makes me feel like a lich

... why you might wonder, well check it out

N/Rt (curses 15, death 10, soul 11)
Drunken Master - to move faster
Mark of Pain - area damage
Vanguard Sin Support - to trigger MoP
Spitefull Spirit - area damage
Vampiric Horror - Minion's & Self Heal
Vampirism - Ghost & Self Heal (rank skill)
Hexers vigor - Self Heal
Signet of lost souls - energy + hp (or flesh of my flesh, when with friends)

Raising spirits & minions as you go (max around 4/5 horrors, depending on recharge bonus) makes one feel like a powerfull hero, and it gets even better when you use a mysterious summon (say after 2x dieing in a tough spot) and get a Smoke Phantom... RAWR Lich Power !!!

*/add*

@OP, gl and hf !!

Slough · Nov 13, 2010, 05:15 PM // 17:15

Thanks for this thread. I am confused by some things, but it did show me WHY my Swarm was losing its luster at level 20, and why my minions were shifting to agro magnets from agro/damage dealers. I did not want to cause thread bloat by posting a new thread, but I could definitely use a few hints on my build at this point.

1st off:

I play mostly weekends and can't do 40 hrs/week in the game.
I play with 5-6 people static on the weekend, and solo when no one is on.
My static group and I picked this up to play until GW2 comes out and have been very happy with this game. (If I'd only stuck with it!!! - I bought Prophecies at launch and played for one month only).
We do not PVP at all

Thus far I am a level 20 Necro/Mesmer and have been doing a 'sloppy' MM build.
Gear: Just got my Tyrion armor at the Asura Gate vendor (still need the scar pattern, but have all other pieces). Using "Insightful Soul Shrieker" bonus staff.

My strategies/skills/abilities have changed a lot since I started and tend to shift depending on if I am solo, grouping with friends, or on the makeup of our group or the mission we are attempting. (may throw points back into blood and put blood well up etc. if a certain encounter can't be overcome without it etc. due to group make up/situation.)

Stats: I have played with these (see above) when mission/group makes sense), and they were much more focused at one point, but they are all over the place at the moment. I use one Mesmer spell "Conjured Phantasm" for quicker kills on solo/tough targets and stacked it with Rotting flesh, and was going to add faintheartedness as a third debuff to help the minions kill faster.

Should I keep the Mesmer spell? ( I love how it shrinks a mobs HP so quickly, and the quicker something is dead, the quicker I can raise up more minions, or exploit the corpse in some other way).

3 Illusion
1 Blood (wasted point unfortunately)
12 Death (15 with items on my armor - looks like I need to get that to 16)
9 Soul Reaping
9 Curse

At this point I just want my minions to pull a little more weight damagewise while still being able to run interference. Some AE damage that ignores armor would be nice.

Abilities
Rotting Flesh
Conjured Phantasm
Sunspear Rebirth Sig
Jagged Horror
Bone Minion
Vocal Minority
Plague Touch (when I get dotted with Dis/hex I go down fast)

I think I am at a crossroads right now because I started out as a straight MM with going bomber an eventual goal, but I love Utility at heart. A little Guidance would be helpful, because I don't want to waste points buying abilities I won't use. Sorry for the scattered nature of this thread.

LifeInfusion · Nov 13, 2010, 05:26 PM // 17:26

Quote:

2x bloodstained - reduces cast time on exploiting corpses (aka. making minions)

It doesn't stack. You only need one (head/gloves) for the full effect. Head is easier to swap with, gloves is hit less so if you have a full set of armor for MMing put it on gloves.

Arghore · Nov 13, 2010, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Tnx Life, i was unaware it didnt stack :/ ... ill be correcting this on my armor (aswell as my hero) ... and ill correct it in my post aswell

...

@Slough, it tends to be better to specialise in one role, if you like conjure (and you use it during solo's) why not put it on one of your heroes (gwen f/e) ... if you play with 6 then maybe bloodheal (see thread) is something for you to run when with friends, its a heal/damage hybrid build i personally like allot ... as you can run a 6man team with 1 monk, you and 4 other 'choise' professions ... if you like MM allot take the advice in this thread to construct your build and forget about all the other things you might want to do, you cant do everything in the end

...

**Marty Silverblade** · Nov 13, 2010, 10:41 PM // 22:41

Also, Undertaker's Insignia sucks. For an MM build your health will need to be below 20% for it to outdo Minion Masters. For other builds your health will need to be below 40% for it to outdo Tormentors/Blessed/whatever. Below 40% health is where you NEED a heal. Armor is good but when you get low it's not going to help all that much.

noneedforclevernames · Nov 14, 2010, 12:32 AM // 00:32

As many have pointed out, minions are not meant to be damage dealers, unless you use death nova and let them die in battle. They are mainly used to tank in PVE when you use heroes/hench.