Curse

Xenomortis · Jun 09, 2010, 11:22 AM // 11:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zebideedee

Yet to find a human player who can outplay a hero MM. Met a lot of MM when I was doing JQ, I could single handedly take out all of there minions, think most were too busy making minions than using death nova etc.

Simple answers:
All forms of PvP are distinct from PvE. i.e.: PvP ≠ PvE
Death Nova is not an appropriate skill for human minion masters for a number of reasons.
Blood of the Master spam becomes viable in PvE assuming you have a half-way decent backline.

Quote:

Originally Posted by majoho

Be my guest, it's not like you're any kind of authority on the subject.

So you are of the opinion that a human MM should be trying to use Death Nova?

The Riven · Jun 09, 2010, 12:04 PM // 12:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zebideedee

Go ahead, I'm speaking from personal experience here. The fact that you have no response leads me to believe your looking for ammo elswhere before you respond. Anywhoo, thats neither here nor there.

Speaking from personal experience... Yet you have somehow failed to grasp the very basic differences between PvP and PVE, MM and MB.
The fact that a you in your vast experience have never met a capable human necromancer is somewhat troubling and a dire indication of the level of general PUGs in this late stage of the games life.
The Ability for human Minion Masters to utilise PvE only skills means they are not only a viable alternative to a hero they are in all ways a far superior addition to a team.
That you advocate human MM's using Death Nova instead of maintaining or producing a stronger, more powerful minion army is quite frankly frighteningly stupid.

Sword Hammer Axe · Jun 09, 2010, 12:13 PM // 12:13

The most respect I have ever had for MM is a Rt/N with SoS, Bone minions and those upon creation skills Rt's have. It heals party members, brings good damage, creates good diversions AAAND it also is a perfect example of interclass usability XD

slowerpoke · Jun 09, 2010, 12:44 PM // 12:44

Heres a screen from back in 2005, in Sorrows Furnace

Jidai · Jun 09, 2010, 12:48 PM // 12:48

I seriously misread the title... thought this was a completely different thread..... memories... :P

majoho · Jun 09, 2010, 01:10 PM // 13:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Simple answers:
So you are of the opinion that a human MM should be trying to use Death Nova?

I never said that.

You decided to diss me for no good reason - there's no reason to say "you suck" unless you're 12 years old.

Personally I don't play MM on my necro because my other options (Curses and so on) are better when my hero can cast Death Nova in a way a real person couldn't.

You might disagree on what the best way to play a MM is, but that's ultimately just an opinion because it varies depending on what you are trying to accomplish.

Countess Marie · Jun 09, 2010, 01:15 PM // 13:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zebideedee

Yet to find a human player who can outplay a hero MM. Met a lot of MM when I was doing JQ, I could single handedly take out all of there minions, think most were too busy making minions than using death nova etc. I took out all their minions when i came a across them

MM & Rupts are heroes strong points and should be taken advantage of

Do you mean in pvp? I've never really done much pvp MM.

But, I take offense to what you said about MM heroes being better. I've done a lot of pve (although I have taken long breaks from the game) and there is just no way.

I don't use Order of Underneath, I like Aura Lich now. We're all different, though, of course. And I don't use pve skills, either, so keep that in mind.

But let me state what I've learned from both doing MM/death (it's basically my favorite thing to do and I can make a build for any pve any mode as long as there are some corpses. Death magic dmg is insane...) and also watching heroes do it.

Heroes in general have very limited AI. I believe that the priority of what they cast is defined by energy. Meaning that they will not wait until they regen... they will just cast what they have energy for. Of course, with necro, that is negated slightly because of Soul Reaping. However, since Nova is a low energy skill, hero MMs tend to get stuck on it and that is one of the reasons why people say they are so good at targeting it and Jagged Bones.

They DO understand when a minion is dying, so that is a plus, but the thing is that when I play MM I focus on trying not to let my minions die. If they do die, I feel I have failed... and that usually only happens when I am getting chased around and can't spam. Or when I make new minions.

A large amount of these hero AI problems are solved by supporting as a human MM. So, if you take your human MM and bring another MM (one to cast nova, if you want or jagged... and to summon when you can not) for support it's not bad. Can probably support 30ish minions with botm. I learned that in Viz Square... but about 22 is great because it's not as risky to sac yourself to death during spam.

So, anyway, the AI WILL prioritize nova over making minions. It will get stuck at low energy. And it will not heal the minions properly. Not to brag, but I am pretty sure I could change your mind about human MMs.

Another thought, a blasphemous one, even. I personally believe MM is more viable now than it was back in 2005. The minion cap is bad, but botm spam is much more effective of a heal than even 30 second +10 from old vsac. I personally use both, it makes a difference esp in hard mode. And the minions have become so freaking powerful. I remember when I'm practically orgasm when I got a 19 minion from a +1 20%. Now we're getting like lvl 21s and 22s. It makes a huge difference. They hit harder and last longer.

To whoever said curses are not necessary, I like bringing a curse necro. Mark of Pain and Barbs tend to really work well (even if the hero rarely targets them correctly.) I haven't tried splinter hero, though, that may be better.

And to complete my wall of text, death magic offers so much armor ignoring damage, too. I've tried to use it and tried to use barbs/MoP myself, but there's just too much going on with blowing up corpses and raising minions as well as keeping my enchantments up and spamming. Maybe I have an over inflated view of myself, but from experience MM is not as easy as it seems; it requires concentration and constant usage of skills.

-CM

Xenomortis · Jun 09, 2010, 01:31 PM // 13:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by majoho

I never said that.

You decided to diss me for no good reason - there's no reason to say "you suck" unless you're 12 years old.

Personally I don't play MM on my necro because my other options (Curses and so on) are better when my hero can cast Death Nova in a way a real person couldn't.

You might disagree on what the best way to play a MM is, but that's ultimately just an opinion because it varies depending on what you are trying to accomplish.

Me saying "then you suck" was out of line. I admit that. Is the entirety of your argument based on that?
But what I disagree with (quite strongly) because it's completely flawed is what I read from your (and other) posts, specifically:
Heroes with Minions > Humans with Minions.

This may not be what you're trying to convey but it's certainly what I'm seeing and what others appear to be seeing.

I'll agree that running minions is not necessarily optimal for a human, but it's not because your hero can spam Death Nova better than you.
The reason why we run hero minion bombers is because running minions is a job heroes do at a passable level and with their ability to spam Death Nova we get returns when the minions die.
You make the impression that Death Nova triggering on dying minions is all that makes them worthwhile and therefore because heroes spam Death Nova, they're better with minions than me - this is simply false.

Death Nova is a crutch - if it weren't for the fact that heroes could spam it then the offensive aspect of the template falls apart for them and a lot of people simply wouldn't bother with them.

This is ultimately why I said what I said.
If a hero performs better than a given human, then that human is doing something very wrong. I can think of two things that heroes can do better than humans, one is spam interrupts (which they do so indiscriminately) and the other is spam Death Nova on minions (which they can do because they don't need to click on things) - neither are things a human has to do to best the hero in the field of disruption and minion damage respectively.

Lodar Aric · Jun 09, 2010, 01:45 PM // 13:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowerpoke

Heres a screen from back in 2005, in Sorrows Furnace

Brings back memories!

Going off my experience human MM (Minion Masters) are, in the hands of a capable player better than hero MM's. Order of Undeath with a few vamp horrors to cover the health loss, combined with fiends pump out some nice dmg. EBSOH also adds to the dmg you can pump out.

MB's (Minion Bombers) are better run imo by heroes. It’s not impossible but it can be a pain to manually death nova minions, especially if you have all 10 engaged in combat and all bunched up. The ai controlled heroes just don't have this problem.

If i am not running a necro primary myself pretty much every time (unless there are hardly any corpses- so rare) i venture out to do a mission, or a vq a MB is always one of my hero slots. AOTL with masochsim creates some decent tanks, and if/when they are killed then death nova does the job.

On my Primary Necro i tend to run a Order of Undeath MM, if the group i am in already has a necro MM and their bar is good i will switch to SS, or mark of pain nuker. If I’m doing HM and there is loads of nukes- smiting or other aoe then i won't run a MM.

zwei2stein · Jun 09, 2010, 01:54 PM // 13:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

...

Death Nova is a crutch - if it weren't for the fact that heroes could spam it then the offensive aspect of the template falls apart for them and a lot of people simply wouldn't bother with them.

...

It is kind of basis and whole point of running MB build, of course build will fall apart without this skill...

It is as if you called bone fiends in human-run builds a crutch...

Xenomortis · Jun 09, 2010, 01:59 PM // 13:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

It is kind of basis and whole point of running MB build, of course build will fall apart without this skill...

The Minion Bomber template itself is a fall back because heroes cannot run MM builds effectively in Hard Mode. Having your minions die to get some damage out of them is somewhat undesirable.
Without Death Nova the template could not exist and the build would lose most of its damage - leaving it with defensive support and there are better options for that.

majoho · Jun 09, 2010, 02:09 PM // 14:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Me saying "then you suck" was out of line. I admit that. Is the entirety of your argument based on that?

Kinda, I don't see me posting a simple sentence warranted that.

Quote:

But what I disagree with (quite strongly) because it's completely flawed is what I read from your (and other) posts, specifically:
Heroes with Minions > Humans with Minions.

This may not be what you're trying to convey but it's certainly what I'm seeing and what others appear to be seeing.

We obviously see this from different perspectives, as I mentioned in my previous post it's situational what is the best MM build for a certain area - and I do agree with you that for a non-bomber human IS better.

And btw. others aren't seeing my post they are jumping on your bandwagon

But the simple fact is that the minion oriented spells "Jagged bones, animate bone horrors, death nova" on a Hero is one of the best uses there is.

zwei2stein · Jun 09, 2010, 02:19 PM // 14:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

The Minion Bomber template itself is a fall back because heroes cannot run MM builds effectively in Hard Mode. Having your minions die to get some damage out of them is somewhat undesirable.
Without Death Nova the template could not exist and the build would lose most of its damage - leaving it with defensive support and there are better options for that.

At least for me, point of running it is not to run it as "fallback" plan, it is trully bombing pattern. Because: why try to fix broken stuff when you can simply replace whole build with something completelly different (with, say, spirits which heroes do know how to run decently).

Novaed minions are incredibly good at softening bigger clusters and function as likeness of pain inverter (most aoe casting enemies simply do not survive cluster of novaed minions)

(they also heal a lot if you use dwaynas sorrow btw)

You are still looking at it from MM perspective (minions dying being undesirable ...). Not really good way to judge it because aside investing to DM, they have little common (as in, zero skills used in common), not even same purporse.

maxxfury · Jun 09, 2010, 02:19 PM // 14:19

It seems that some people have never seen the damage output that a OoD human Minion MASTER can achieve....its way above what a hero bomber can output..

Heros micro death nova like an savante! and refuse to spam OuD and havent access to Ebsoh. So you let the hero bomb instead as they can do that with a pretty good level of success..

Heroes bomb as they don't use the master skills very well at all, and humans don't bomb as the setup is weaker and mind numbingly micro heavy running nova. Thats about the jist of it, as Xeno has already posted.

They are basically a totally separate style tho, with the only similarity been minions and death magic. like comparing a prot to a heal monk.

*must dash will finish post later!

Xenomortis · Jun 09, 2010, 02:31 PM // 14:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

Not really good way to judge it because aside investing to DM, they have little common (as in, zero skills used in common), not even same purporse.

Actually they do have the same purpose.
There are two reasons people take minions and without both of them, there's not much reason to invest into them.

1. Detract damage away from your team.
2. Deal damage to the enemy.

A minion bomber build does very little of 2 whilst it's performing 1. When the minions die, 1 is no longer going to be fulfilled but 2 is going to spike for a brief instant.

An OoU MM is going to be fulfilling both 1 and 2 very well whilst he's keeping up a reasonable minion count.

Both builds are affected by untimely minion deaths and both have little to do when there are no corpses left and all their minions have been obliterated (these are scenarios that do come up).

Quote:

Originally Posted by majoho

We obviously see this from different perspectives, as I mentioned in my previous post it's situational what is the best MM build for a certain area - and I do agree with you that for a non-bomber human IS better.

There's a problem though - I cannot think of a place or even hypothetical circumstance where I would say a perfectly run bomber build is superior to a well run MM build.*

Edit:
*When I made this statement I was working under the assumption (like I always do) that I'm playing with competent players or I've built for it (should I be H/Hing with me as a MM). A trivial situation in which I would concede that running OoU would be a bad idea is if I was in a truly terrible pickup group with a backline consisting of people who thought Orison of Healing and Heal Other are amazing skills and think that Prots are a waste of time when I'm attempting to do something in HM. Due to the sac costs of running an OoU bar I wouldn't recommend it at all.

Martin Alvito · Jun 09, 2010, 02:41 PM // 14:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Countess Marie

But, when was the first time you guys really respected Death Magic in high-level content?

I never thought it got any respect by the masses until Sorrows Furnace.

There's a reason for that. The area was more densely populated than other areas of the game, meaning that corpse exploitation was more potent there than in other locations. Also, the monsters there had no AoE with which to quickly wipe out minion armies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Countess Marie

And everyone wanted necs to run SS or worse, BIP. I was like... MM LFG?? And they'd be like... stfunub. "We'd rather bring another nuker!"

That's because the local optimum was to run a pair of nukers. With competent tanking and an optimal OoB Monk bar, you could run four players instead of five. The pair of nukers could spike out mobs faster than the Necros with less risk. The long recharge of Meteor Shower wasn't a problem due to long walks between fights (especially if you were smart enough to use Serpent's Quickness), and the series of KDs prevented damage, kept the monsters in place and stopped enemy monks from healing.

The catch is that everyone had to know what they were doing (especially the tank) and run the right bars. There wasn't much margin for error with a single Monk and only one copy of Rebirth, so your garden-variety pug was usually better off with the Necros.

Also, once the AoE nerf hit the Necros were clearly the better option.

EDIT: Ah, Minion Factory. Amusing gimmick.

AsyaMordina · Jun 09, 2010, 02:43 PM // 14:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nihilim Dhiamara

I've only been playing from faction release but could anyone post some screenshots of it? I would love to see 50 minions in actions

Excel's minions in Halls.

nah, not OP'd.

Countess Marie · Jun 09, 2010, 03:13 PM // 15:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

There's a reason for that. The area was more densely populated than other areas of the game, meaning that corpse exploitation was more potent there than in other locations. Also, the monsters there had no AoE with which to quickly wipe out minion armies.

That's because the local optimum was to run a pair of nukers. With competent tanking and an optimal OoB Monk bar, you could run four players instead of five. The pair of nukers could spike out mobs faster than the Necros with less risk. The long recharge of Meteor Shower wasn't a problem due to long walks between fights (especially if you were smart enough to use Serpent's Quickness), and the series of KDs prevented damage, kept the monsters in place and stopped enemy monks from healing.

The catch is that everyone had to know what they were doing (especially the tank) and run the right bars. There wasn't much margin for error with a single Monk and only one copy of Rebirth, so your garden-variety pug was usually better off with the Necros.

Also, once the AoE nerf hit the Necros were clearly the better option.

EDIT: Ah, Minion Factory. Amusing gimmick.

There was no risk... if the tank was holding the gear what risk was there?

I agree sort of about the AoE simply because they would just stand in a maelstrom.

Death magic damage is insane, all the nuker had to do was drop 1 person. Kind of like in Tombs pve, too, because the way the aggro balled you'd already have rotting flesh on everyone, then the first guy would drop (the purpose of having a nuker), and you'd put down well of suffering and spam putrid. Plus after the first mob you'd also have minions attacking. I can't fathom how one more nuker would be better than (or even equal to) that.

I actually ran OoB back then (although I should have gone with a targeting curse like MoP.) I think my bar was something like oob, horror, fiend, vsac, putrid, wos, rot, strip enchantment. Trust me, man. The AoE damage of -10 degen plus 126 armor ignoring dmg every (not counting quick recharge) 5 seconds owned plenty of mobs.

The one downside was, of course, I'd always be screaming KILL THE BINDER. But after a few runs people understood why.

-CM

aspi · Jun 09, 2010, 03:53 PM // 15:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxxfury

It seems that some people have never seen the damage output that a OoD human Minion MASTER can achieve....its way above what a hero bomber can output..

Heros micro death nova like an savante! and refuse to spam OuD and havent access to Ebsoh. So you let the hero bomb instead as they can do that with a pretty good level of success..

Are you talking about an orders necro or an Order of Undead? I think it's the latter and in your hurry mistyped it

I tried to run it once after reading it here or pvx but never got the hang of it. Even with soulreaping it seems very nrg unfriendly.

snaek · Jun 09, 2010, 04:08 PM // 16:08

since ppl seem to be posting their screenies, i thought i'd do the same (i wish i had some from my sf/topk days).

by no means was i trying to be clear as fast as i can, but rather was just a test i did for fun to see if i could hit 30 minions with my necro heroes. i used mes skills, but this was done before the mess buff/confusing images nerf (it used to be a cheap 5en aoe hex).