Curse

Moloch Vein · Jan 07, 2008, 09:33 PM // 21:33

I think the idea of bringing a hybrid MM/MB equipped with the core skills from both jobs is a pretty bad idea.

I also think that the idea of bringing a hybrid MM/MB equipped with Jagged Bones is a pretty bad idea.

The only way I can see this working would be to bring a sole Death Nova on the MM bar. While the annoyance in micro-managing the build, as Ensign has noted, remains, it is a fact that the minions of an MM die too. If they ideally don't die from anything else they will at least die when the MM recycles his army and hits the minion cap.

It's debatable how well it would work, but if nothing else the minions would be likely to die by a foe, since, after all, they are tanking.

Longasc · Jan 07, 2008, 09:55 PM // 21:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emik

N/D Regenerating Order

Blood Magic: 12+1+3
Soul Reaping: 9+3
Earth Prayers: 9

[skill]Order of the Vampire[/skill][skill]Order of Pain[/skill]Masochism[skill]Blood Renewal[/skill][skill]Signet of Pious Light[/skill][skill]Vital Boon[/skill][skill]Mystic Regeneration[/skill][skill]Blood Ritual[/skill]

Weapon usage:
I used a Spear of Enchanting with the -50 offhand.
Too keep your HP low but not too low to make yourself vulnerable.
(...)
Build is open for comments of course.

I made a similar build there:
http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:N/...of_the_Vampire

The core of the idea is
[skill]Order of the Vampire[/skill]
Masochism
[skill]Signet of Pious Light[/skill]
-> cancel your own enchantment, get back energy and heal yourself.

Vital Boon is counter-productive, as people already said.

You do not need extra superior runes. If you run a normal armor with a Superior Blood Rune and Superior Vigor, Signet of Pious Light heals you for +/- 10, roughly the same amount of the life sacrifice.

-> You do not need extra low hp gear, the advantage of this build. This is important for me, as I rarely play Orders when I play my Necro.

There is not much reason to set Soul Reaping to 12. Masochism's Breakpoint for 4 energy is 13. And as you need some Earth Prayers, you will never reach it.

As you basically do nothing else but spamming orders and using blood ritual, you have some 2-3 skill slots left over.

I put some PvE skill wards in. The problem is it is not always wise to have the whole party in a ward, and often people just do not take advantage of it anyways.

Maybe people have some ideas how to make the orders build better. I know of some excessive builds using Awaken the Blood and Blood is Power, 50% Life sacrifices crying for special armor and equipment - I do not like them.

Longasc · Jan 07, 2008, 10:14 PM // 22:14

@Guide.

1.) How about adding Sab's 3 Necro build as example. It is more a hero thing, but it shows the great synergy of Curses with Minions and a Soul-Reaping powered healer.

2.) Enfeebling Blood is mentioned, but you could explain why Weakness is so useful in Hard Mode. It is quite obvious if you experienced it yourself, but maybe it needs some explanation.

3.) Anti-Bison build: Add Necrosis, remove Dissonance. It helps to speed up killing things.

4.) Add Icy Veins to the "Death Magic" Elites. MMs have usually high Soul Reaping, and at 13 Soul Reaping it adds the nice AoE nuke upon death - even heroes use it well.

"Other options, like Toxic Chill, Icy Veins and the likes, can summarily be dismissed as trash."

I use Icy Veins and you undervalue it. Maybe because of your preference of self-healing MMs that just run Minions and no Death Nova or utility skills.

16 Death, 13 SR.

1. Icy Veins
2. Death Nova
3. Rotting Flesh
4. Animate Shambling Horror - or Blood of the Master
5. Animate Bone Fiend - or Blood of the Master
6. Animate Bone Horror - or Blood of the Master
7. Signet of Lost Souls
8. Dark Bond

This works for Heroes. You can also give them 8-9 Protection prayers for Prot Spirit and Hex Removal or Extinguish.

There is more variety to working minion builds - and if they are run by heroes, who make very good use of Death Nova, I would not exclude that from the Minion Master bar, even if his job is not to blow up the minions.

Moloch Vein · Jan 07, 2008, 10:59 PM // 22:59

Answers:

1) I have been thinking about adding a special section on synergizing necromancer team configurations at the end. It will make the guide much longer, however.
2) I can do that
3) First build is for zero pve-skills, I actually think vampirism is better than dissonance by far for that build.
4) I don't think I undervalue it. Icy Veins lacks a punch in medium- to high-level PvE since none of its damage is armor-ignoring. Its main use is for farming dye in Old Ascalon and running dumb spike builds in HA.

I don't claim that it's impossible to create hero MM builds that pack some utility. I can't very well include every viable MM build ever created. It's just my definite opinion that when an area calls for a traditional MM it usually calls for one as strong in that role as possible. As you might've noticed some MB examples pack a lot more "utility".

Note, again, I don't mean to be rude. Might express myself a little harsh but just trying to get point across.

Longasc · Jan 07, 2008, 11:26 PM // 23:26

I think you are right on the pure and traditional MM part. This is excluding all hybrids, and that is okay.

I still disagree on Icy Veins. Just give it to heroes, and do not use it yourself. It is a bit like Death Nova on human players and having a MM build instead of a bomber.

There is also general issue with players as MM's and Death Nova vs Heroes doing the same. Heroes place it very well, and they do not get tired of doing it - and has no targetting issues. Now how to figure out how to include this into a guide without giving people the impression MM'ing is better left to heroes.

I would still do it and point out that human MMs can still do better, but that AI controlled Hero MM's should definitely be given Death Nova, as they have the advantages mentioned above.

Regarding 3.):
OK, zero PvE skills. But is this really useful? What is if this player does not have FACTIONS? Then the whole build collapses.
I would say make one with Vampirism and/or Necrosis. Is it too far fetched that people have these skills?

There was also one more suggestion, the 55 HP build. There is also a problem of posting too many builds, but the general problem of the necro build is that it is basically a Ritualist. Which is quite natural, as Necros and Ritualists have great synergies and both serve Grenth somehow.

- still, it is not really a Necromancer anymore. (I must admit, I did the tournament with a similar idea, Necrosis and Vanguard Assassin).

I also do not think somebody is rude just because he disagrees on minor or major issues, no worries. I am sometimes easily offended, but not if you make a point.

Ensign · Jan 07, 2008, 11:38 PM // 23:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

it's minion slots...maybe you could say that a MB only needs 6 or 8 minion slots or so to keep a steady stream of minions wandering into good explosion locations.

I think you can say that at first glance but it doesn't hold up under scrutiny. The limiting factor isn't the number of minions you have up at a time (that's just how much carry-over the bomber part of the build is going from mob to mob), it's turnover rate. Sure you benefit somewhat from carry-over from the bomber mechanics, but it's much less important than how often you make new minions and blow them up. Bomber mechanics make very poor use of the minion cap, in fact, as the only time it really comes into play is when restocking after a mob before moving to the next one.

On the flip side of things, the Fiend part of the build is limited mostly by the minion cap. Fiends carry much more momentum from mob to mob and stockpile better, but do not benefit nearly as much from recycling against the cap.

In an environment with abundant resources, cycling 2-3 melee minions with Jagged Bones + Death Nova, with a background of Bone Fiends, is much stronger than pure Fiends (or Fiends with a few leftover melee); and a bunch of Fiends filling up your cap is better than some crappy minions for carrying momentum. I think the combination actually makes best use of the cap, and it's what you'd want to use if energy, corpse availability, and attention are not limiting resources.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Though the MM is only losing half its DPS, it's also losing more than half of its ability to quickly take a monster out of play before it gets a chance to hit back or heal.

Less than half. Compared to pure Fiends (which I don't think is entirely fair, as there are significant advantages from holding a few melee minions, if for nothing other than protecting the Fiends), you'll have a majority of fiends and a few melee minions; melee minions deal roughly half fiend damage, so even with a 6/4 split you're looking at roughly a 20-30% damage reduction - which you should be more than making up with Death Nova.

The real loss in damage you'd take from doing this isn't from mixing your minions, it's from not running Order of Undeath if you otherwise would be, as you mentioned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Similarly, decreased presence is going to reduce by more than half the MB's ability to take full advantage of its AoE effects by reducing the odds of having a detonate-able minion in the right place at the right time to score a big AoE hit at any given moment.

My feeling is that if you honestly need a ton of shitty minions with Death Nova in order to get 1-2 of them to be effective then the whole bombing idea is utter shit to begin with. The main draws of the Jagged Bones / Death Nova angle in my experience are that it needs far fewer minions (corpses) to be effective, and gets much more mileage out of each corpse by recycling those minions for more Death Novas. That's my experience with it, which is admittedly brief. If playing a bomber really does require me to power-use corpses to make lots of crappy minions just to get the good parts to function at all, I'd abandon the entire concept; having to waste that many corpses on trash is just plain awful, and it makes the main draw of the character in my mind (low corpse need/high corpse utility) null and void.

Chthon · Jan 08, 2008, 03:30 AM // 03:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I think you can say that at first glance but it doesn't hold up under scrutiny. The limiting factor isn't the number of minions you have up at a time (that's just how much carry-over the bomber part of the build is going from mob to mob), it's turnover rate.

You could probably keep up with your cast times with only 3 minions or so, but you're not going to get good mileage out of the explosions because they may not be standing in the right places. Ideally, your going to want to have enough detonate-able minions around that there's always going to be one or two standing in a sweet spot to make the explosions' AoE count. That's going to take a good 6 or 8.

Quote:

Less than half. Compared to pure Fiends (which I don't think is entirely fair, as there are significant advantages from holding a few melee minions, if for nothing other than protecting the Fiends), you'll have a majority of fiends and a few melee minions; melee minions deal roughly half fiend damage, so even with a 6/4 split you're looking at roughly a 20-30% damage reduction - which you should be more than making up with Death Nova.

I'm not entirely clear on what sort of hybrid you're advocating. I thought you were taking a standard 5-7 fiend / 3-5 horror mix from the MM, preserving the horrors, and cutting it in half. So you'd be losing half your DPS. Looking at your last post, it seems more like your cutting the horrors from the MM side of the build and letting the bone minions from the bomber side take over for them. That's a very bad move for your tanking ability, but it does preserve more of your offensive punch.

Quote:

My feeling is that if you honestly need a ton of shitty minions with Death Nova in order to get 1-2 of them to be effective then the whole bombing idea is utter shit to begin with. The main draws of the Jagged Bones / Death Nova angle in my experience are that it needs far fewer minions (corpses) to be effective, and gets much more mileage out of each corpse by recycling those minions for more Death Novas. That's my experience with it, which is admittedly brief. If playing a bomber really does require me to power-use corpses to make lots of crappy minions just to get the good parts to function at all, I'd abandon the entire concept; having to waste that many corpses on trash is just plain awful, and it makes the main draw of the character in my mind (low corpse need/high corpse utility) null and void.

It's not quite that bad, but, yeah, MB is definitely inferior to MM. MB's real draw is that the hero AI does it very well, while it does MM very poorly, so that the actual performance is better with a hero MB than a hero MM. But, I can't really recommend it for a human player. So why does MB warrant mention in the guide? In part because it's fun and passably effective, even if it's second-best. In part because because getting a MM build and a MB build helps new players stop trying to mix them in awful and counterproductive ways -- and I promise you, these forums are FULL of new players posting awful muddled hybrids as "uber leet MM builds."

Moloch Vein · Jan 08, 2008, 06:12 AM // 06:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Longasc

I think you are right on the pure and traditional MM part. This is excluding all hybrids, and that is okay.

I still disagree on Icy Veins. Just give it to heroes, and do not use it yourself. It is a bit like Death Nova on human players and having a MM build instead of a bomber.

I think the main reason why you overvalue it is exactly that you slap it on heroes. If you put it on your own bar you tend to see how abysmal that spell's performance is for yourself.

Attached is what happens when you hit a level 26 Losaru Bladehand (Dunes of Despair Hard Mode) with an SR13 Icy Veins initial damage.

Ensign · Jan 08, 2008, 07:45 AM // 07:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

I thought you were taking a standard 5-7 fiend / 3-5 horror mix from the MM, preserving the horrors, and cutting it in half.

Basically you turn the Bone Horrors in a MM build into Jagged Horrors and cycle them with Jagged Bones and Death Nova instead of just letting them tank and die. You might want Bone Horror over Bone Minions, based on how many corpses you want to burn on melee guys anyway.

Longasc · Jan 08, 2008, 08:45 AM // 08:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

I think the main reason why you overvalue it is exactly that you slap it on heroes. If you put it on your own bar you tend to see how abysmal that spell's performance is for yourself.

Attached is what happens when you hit a level 26 Losaru Bladehand (Dunes of Despair Hard Mode) with an SR13 Icy Veins initial damage.

27 Damage - means it must have had around 120 AL. (13SR=79 damage to 60 AL targets). Worst case scenario, isn't it.

79 armor depending Damage is not that bad. The splash damage if the mob explodes is 98 to nearby targets. They are not always max AL mobs, and nearby is a decent range and it adds some AoE damage.

It also works when you are without minions or low on minions. Icy Veins can be comboed with Necrosis on a human MM. Adds quite a bit more than Jagged Bones (used better by heroes than humans imo) and Flesh Golem, which takes up a slot on the bar for one special minion. I still see more use in this skill than in Flesh Golem.

To add a new aspect, what gripes me about the whole Minion Master and Minion Bomber part is that people should just leave it to Olias and play Curses themselves. Chthon already mentioned it, the AI is just so much better with Death Nova.

Moloch Vein · Jan 09, 2008, 01:55 PM // 13:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Longasc

27 Damage - means it must have had around 120 AL. (13SR=79 damage to 60 AL targets). Worst case scenario, isn't it.

79 armor depending Damage is not that bad. The splash damage if the mob explodes is 98 to nearby targets. They are not always max AL mobs, and nearby is a decent range and it adds some AoE damage.

Actually, seeing very low numbers from Icy Veins is very common in mid-high level PvE. It's a spell of the "necromancer wanting to be elementalist" type, without the utility, and those are rarely much good.

If you absolutely must run a direct damage elite from the Death Magic line on a hero I'd go with Discord. That way you know what you're getting - 100+ damage to every monster in the game.

Quote:

Icy Veins can be comboed with Necrosis on a human MM.

So can any hex or any condition.

Quote:

I still see more use in this skill than in Flesh Golem.

An unfair comparison, because nobody is claiming Golem is very strong. However, it's not that I think that Flesh Golem is good, but as a newbie MM spell it's way above Icy Veins. Icy Veins simply isn't energy-efficient in PvE, while Flesh Golem is. A green player given that skill will simply spam it and maybe forget his main job, and the main job of an MM isn't to spam Icy Veins.

kaldak · Jan 12, 2008, 10:16 AM // 10:16

I think the point of Icy Veins is to spread it around, creating an EoE-like effect once things start dying. Maybe I'm just stating the obvious, but that didnt seem to come up at all in the discussion of the skill...

As for the AI being better with minions... certainly when it comes to bombing, but they dont seem to get the hang of AotL or OoU very well. If olias is the best MM you've seen, I dont think you've ever seen a particularly good MM.

MarxF · Jan 12, 2008, 10:25 AM // 10:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

If you absolutely must run a direct damage elite from the Death Magic line on a hero I'd go with Discord. That way you know what you're getting - 100+ damage to every monster in the game.

Ice veins is a good spell. Period. Discord is way too conditional. A condition AND a hex? Good luck casting that on the 300 enemies you are faceing everytime you play PvE. Furthermore, Icy Veins IS a hex which makes it so nice with Necrosis.

Ensign · Jan 12, 2008, 12:30 PM // 12:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Longasc

Icy Veins can be comboed with Necrosis on a human MM.

Using a mediocre elite to set up a mediocre skill is not a recipe for success in any part of the game. Even if you have a monstrous Soul Reaping spec the damage is pathetic in any of the advanced stages of the game, where armor respecting damage starts to lose value quickly. Necrosis is a skill that has never managed to stay on my bar longer than half an hour or so before I take it off again - I've never wanted to use it in any situation where it made a difference.

Moloch Vein · Jan 12, 2008, 12:34 PM // 12:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarxF

Ice veins is a good spell. Period.

Well, it used to be pretty good in HA. In PvE it's trash, for reasons mentioned above.

Quote:

Discord is way too conditional. A condition AND a hex? Good luck casting that on the 300 enemies you are faceing everytime you play PvE.

First of all it's hex/condition or enchantment/condition and I assure you a hero won't have a problem finding a target like that. Second, no, it isn't a great elite, it's simply a poor-man's Necrosis to slap on a hero. However, the damage is reliable, and if you really can't think of anything better to bring and absolutely want a DD spell, I think it's the best you can get out of the Death Magic line.

Quote:

Furthermore, Icy Veins IS a hex which makes it so nice with Necrosis.

You don't need to sacrifice your elite slot just to get a hex. Seriously, even Putrid Bile is better in PvE, and that isn't saying much.

And yes, of course the "point" of Icy Veins is to spam it on all targets, thus creating a mediocre, armor-dependant "EoE-like" effect when they die. First of all the damage dealt by this effect is trash, second it's not reliable, third it's hardly energy-efficient, and fourth this perfectly illustrates (to get back to the original contention) why you should definitely not bring this on a Minion Master bar. I assure you, that character is going to need his energy and time for other things than spamming Icy Veins every 6 seconds.

Don't be sad, though. It's still a great spell for farming Ornate Grawl Necklaces

mrmango · Jan 13, 2008, 11:13 PM // 23:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Using a mediocre elite to set up a mediocre skill is not a recipe for success in any part of the game. Even if you have a monstrous Soul Reaping spec the damage is pathetic in any of the advanced stages of the game, where armor respecting damage starts to lose value quickly. Necrosis is a skill that has never managed to stay on my bar longer than half an hour or so before I take it off again - I've never wanted to use it in any situation where it made a difference.

Really? I don't play on my necromancer much anymore, but I used necrosis half the time when I did. Is it too costly because of the spammability?

Carinae · Jan 13, 2008, 11:48 PM // 23:48

I find Necrosis is a useful skill, but certainly not a cornerstone skill for any build. In that regard, it has decent synergy with SS builds. It lets you do something while waiting for SS (et al) to grind down a mob. You can pop off 90 armor ignoring damage every 3s.

It isn't and shouldn't be a primary damage skill, but you can pick monsters off with it who aren't dying fast enough from your hexes. Mostly it satisfies my impatience. There might be better things you can do with the slot/energy, but it serves its purpose. Just be careful not to overextend your energy, Necrosis is a filler for 'extra' energy/time. Hexes are your primary purpose.

I assume the 'extra' energy/time is why Ensign dislikes it. There are more efficient uses of your abilities, I'm sure. But then again, this is a game, and as inefficient as DD is, it tends to be fun/satisfying. As long as you don't compromise your primary purpose, its a fun skill.

Moloch Vein · Jan 13, 2008, 11:55 PM // 23:55

The best use I have found for Necrosis has been bringing the finishing touch to an SV build.

Ensign · Jan 14, 2008, 07:23 AM // 07:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

I assume the 'extra' energy/time is why Ensign dislikes it.

I always have better things to put on my bar. It's worth the energy and time I spend using it, but I don't have a lot of excess time and energy where I have nothing better to do than use Necrosis. It's something that doesn't get used all that often, and doesn't get used often in situations where it makes a difference. I've used it a good bit in the 1v1 areas of EotN, and it's an ok filler skill until you get your titles up, but if you've made decent progress on your titles I don't know how you're finding a slot for this thing. It's not a bad skill, it's just never an all star.

Moloch Vein · Jan 14, 2008, 02:17 PM // 14:17

I think it's hard to appreciate the value of Necrosis if you usually play PvE with a "balanced" team, or one concentrating on physical damage. If you do, you will always have the "bread-and-butter" spear/sword/axe/hammer/dagger on your team that'll put down the enemy when it's almost dead.

If, on the other hand, you are playing with a party configuration of mainly or only casters, a skill like Necrosis is nice to bring. I think of it as the "anti-LoD". It patches up the final little bits of damage that your big time nukes and hexes won't accomplish. The best example, as I noted above, is if you're playing an SV on a team carrying a minion bomber. In that situation Necrosis is a pretty decent match.

Is it strong, no, not really, but it can be useful.