Spooky

You can go Ranger / Necro or Necro / Ranger and have both a Pet and Minions, yes. This kind of build is commonly referred to as a "Zoo Keeper."
As for what kind of summons a Necromancer can have, they are Fiends, Horrors, and Minions. They will all degenerate health over time, and aren't particularly powerful in and of themselves - but they do have some useful applications. In a PvE setting, summons are very good at keeping aggro away from the caster, allowing you to focus more on damage output than self preservation. So long as there's corpses around, you can continue raising summons, and if you have a means to keep them alive, it's possible to build up a small army to do your work for you. You can also do fun things like 'Minion Bombing' .. sending summons out to intentionally die, and casting Death Nova on them.
In a competitive setting, offed summons will trigger a Necromancer's Soul Reaping, so sometimes people will use it as a 'free' Energy source.

A Zoo Keeper is certainly a different experience from most classes you can expect to play .. give it a try the next BWE, you'll probably have fun with it.

Sausaletus Rex

Zoo Keepers (I always like to call them St Francis after St Francis of Assissi, friend of all creatures big and small, but I think that's a losing battle...) are not the best of ideas. They can work and work well but you are, at minimum, devoting two of your 8 skill slots, and probably more. My largest problem when running such a build is that I might be able to summon a lot of critters to support my pet but there's not much else *I* can do. Getting summoned minions requires a corpse which requires you to put something down to gain a minion. Once you get a few minions up and running you're able to steamroll but getting to that point with a Zoo Keeper is a bit hard - by yourself anyway. Pets and minions, for that matter, aren't very effective by themselves. They're not as strong as normal characters or even mobs without a lot of buffing. It can work in PvE, although you'll benefit from partying with a damage dealer or two who can get you that first corpse, but I wouldn't try it in PvP. Much for the same reason that even in PvE I'd make sure I wasn't grouped with another minion/well using Necro - there's only so many corpses to go around. If you and another Necro both want to expoloit a corpse, only one of you can, the other's out of luck and out of energy and time, if you cast together - or worse, you nearly get your summon off only to have someone come along and Consume Corpse or Necrotic Traversal your corpse away. There just aren't enough deaths in PvP to make a Death Necro really effective and by the time there are, the battle's likely already been decided.

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In my day, we didn't have virtual reality. If a one-eyed razorback barbarian warrior was chasing you with an ax, you just had to hope you could outrun him.

Mercer

I guess I will have to decide whether I want to be a damage dealing blood sucker or a zoo keeper.

lllCo2lll

Oh lol I didn't know the build I was creating was called a zoo keeper. Anyhow So far it is fairly effective in PvE with my girlfriend. Also for me it is fairly fun, and there is surely plenty to do with this build. As long as you know how to maintain your minions so that they continue to live just for a bit longer its really effective added to the fact that the npc healer consistently keeps my minions living while I keep them alive too. The most I've ever had at one point was I believe 7-8 minions with my pet also, Its beneficial when your party has no high armor, but only damage dealers, so keeping an army of minions as a road block so far has made things smooth and fun. It all depends on how your play style is, hence why I love this game. However I haven't tested it in PvP, but I hardly think it will be effective since I noticed that at times corpses disappear a tad too quick so I miss the chance to exploit the corpse. If corpses didn't disappear quick, but like in PvE it might make a zoo keeper effective being able to dispence an army and continually maintain a roadblock. Overall the way my girlfriend and I are playing with our strategy, its perfectly effective in PvE.


Also a question, I've realized that minions at first when you summon them. Their health doesn't degenerate that quick, but over time it seems as though it quickly diminishes quicker and quicker. Is it me or is that how it is?

Scaphism

Minons in PVE =
Minions in Arena and GvG =
Minions in Tombs = Sometimes


Generally in tombs there are enough corpses floating around that you can get a decent amount of minions going. In Capture the Relic Maps they can be quite good for blocking your relic, and in King of the Hill there will always be a ton of corpses near the altar, so you will always have ammo for your minions (and wells). Putrid Explosion works there as well.

Death magic got some very nice boosts this BWE, but I'm not entirely sold on it for PvP yet. The skills that got the biggest boosts, IMO are:
-Malign Intervention: This now reduces effective healing on the target, making it VERY attractive in focus fire situations.
-Verata's Sacrifice now gives your minions 10 health regen for 8-18 seconds. Assuming you want to keep your minions alive, this is an excellent way to do so. It has the side effect of transferring all conditions on them to you, but necros have lots of ways of getting rid of conditons. Try Plague Sending, Touch, Signet, or don't even look outside of the death line and use Infuse Condition. All conditions that you recieve are transferred to your nearest minion instead. Combo that with Verata's Sacrifice and suddenly all conditions from all minions are transferred to just 1, and he'll have +10 regen anyways so he wont take any damage, at most he'll be crippled and deep wounded.

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Moon Requiem

I dont agree with everyone here saying minions are worthless in PvP. In fact, I think every Tombs groups should have its minion master.

Jump your death magic with a +3 death magic rune, the minions you will raise will be lvl 19/20. Use the "ranged" minions (bah 25 energy) and they will stay away from most area of effect spells. Finally, since minions are generally the last targeted, they can add up lots of damage over time. If they are targeted first, you have less pressure on your team.

I also should mention Dark Bond, Infuse Condition and Taste of Death give you a pretty solid defense.

One way or another, minion master is a must. A lvl 19 bone fiend hits a mage for an average of 50 at a fairly quick attack rate. I asked several players against whom I played in gladiator area (hard get someone to answer in tombs). In a tombs fight, you can easily get 4-5 minions. Of course your caracter uses many skills slots to get those minions, but they are everything but weak.

Finally, those minions tend to attack the target you are currently attacking. You can have *some* control over them and allowing you to dish solid damage on called targets.

lllCo2lll

Yeah I've noticed that when I use my staff to shoot at a certain target (i.e. the middle monsters of a mob) they run charging straight to that in a sort of wall fashion (very beneficial).

Also my question didn't get noticed. Is it me or do minions degeneration seem to get more quicker as time increases, because I realized no matter how the monk and I try to keep them alive at a certain amount of time when I get them full health I walk away look back they are pratically almost gone.

Yukito Kunisaki

The minion degen I believe to be an excellent anti-abuse factor. It's part of the game.

I remember in Diablo II [yes I know comparing is bad blah blah] when you could summon stupidly large amounts of skeletion minions, sheesh...

Being able to just traverse a map with 9-20 minions would make minion masters nothing short of God-like. They never have to get near a battle and whenever something drops, bam, more minions. The accelerated health degen is a nice safety precaution in my book.

lllCo2lll

I understand the anti-abuse if there is a degen rate, but What are the exact details on the numbers. Like how long does it take to reach a certain degeneration point. That way I know when its futile to spam as many things to heal my minions.