Curse

WhiteAsIce · Jan 31, 2010, 12:04 AM // 00:04

What are the useful PvE skills for a MM, for each variety of them? I almost always have EBSoH, but what others are useful to have?

This is what I'm running on my MM:
Aura of the Lich
Animate Bone Fiend
Putrid Bile
Blood of the Master
Masochism
optional
optional
EBSoH

I have SoLS and Mindbender in the optional slots in the meantime, although I rarely use SoLS.

Elon's Rose · Jan 31, 2010, 12:20 AM // 00:20

Because of Soul Reaping, Assassin Support is essentially a free cast. The Summon skills from the Asuran line and Air of Superiority are helpful as well.

IronSheik · Jan 31, 2010, 02:14 AM // 02:14

OoU, Fiend, Vampiric, SolS, AoS, EBSoH, Option, Masochis

[OoU Maso;OAhjYwFc4QIVlMUB5iVVbhwlXM]

ac1inferno · Jan 31, 2010, 03:29 AM // 03:29

- [[Ebon Battle Standard of Honor] for a huge addition to minion damage.
- [[Air of Superiority], quick recharges, energy, etc.
- [[Great Dwarf Weapon] for party support; it is recommended that you take GoLE over SoLS if using this.
- [[Mindbender] to have your spells cast faster. Excels in areas with corpse denial.
- [[Sunspear Rebirth Signet] if you're not using all your PvE slots.

Xsiriss · Jan 31, 2010, 11:45 AM // 11:45

If your party causes conditions/hexes,take necrosis fro soem targeted damage. 'You Are All Weaklings' is essentially enfeebling blood with no sac,useful with higher norn ranks.

You,as an MM and a human,don't ever need res unless it's in a mission or expect to have your healers die.

Xenomortis · Jan 31, 2010, 12:25 PM // 12:25

Ebon Battle Standard of Honor or Courage are nice options - the former increases damage and the latter keeps your minions alive for longer (and party members if they don't have SY).
AoS is sort of ok. If you're running AoTL you'll get much more use out of the recharge bonus but the energy bonus is trivial.
GDW can be nice if you want to help increase your team's damage even further - and you can put it on minions.

Currently however, my standard OoU bar only has two PvE skills as I cannot fit a third one in:
OoU, Bone Fiend, Vamp Horror, BoTM, Masochism, EBSoH, EBSoC, Consume Corpse.

I don't have an AoTL bar.
Looking at your bar however, I would say take EBSoH and EBSoC (fiends are an expensive investment so you don't want to lose them) and GDW.
Also, don't take Putrid Bile. Lose that and take some energy management (either SoLS or Consume Corpse).

I Will Heal You Ally · Jan 31, 2010, 01:42 PM // 13:42

Wouldn't Technobabble be very usefull when minions are attacking a bunch of grouped casters?Since it's an aoe daze right?
If you use ward you could aswell use rad field? since you need both to be in the ranger of minions and monsters, unless they're fiends.
Um you could go that weakness skill/or any aoe-long duration-skill so you can spam Necrosis (sunspear)
If using Ebon Vanguard high point title (with the ward) I sa use the sin
As for Norn Finish Him! and YMLaD! with necrosis is great

Chthon · Jan 31, 2010, 05:50 PM // 17:50

You don't have room for 3 PvE skills.

In fact, the masochism buff, while it was a nice buff, took almost all of the choice out of MM builds.

The following 7 skills are pretty much set in stone:
1. OoU
2. EBSoHonor
3. Fiend
4. Vamp Horror
5. BotM
6. Masochism
7. SoLS or Consume Corpse

That leaves you 1 skill to customize with....

...And even that isn't exactly a free slot. In HM I really strongly recommend using another melee minion to compensate for times when Vamps get killed faster than the summon skill recharges. (You could substitute Bone Horrors for Vamp Horrors, but then you'd have to use the free space on a self-heal so you can still stomp hard on OoU, so you'd gain nothing by doing so.)

If you are in an area where Vamps hold the line without needing another melee minion, then top choices for the space would be Heal Area and EBSoCourage.

HigherMinion · Jan 31, 2010, 06:51 PM // 18:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elon's Rose

Because of Soul Reaping, Assassin Support is essentially a free cast. The Summon skills from the Asuran line and Air of Superiority are helpful as well.

However, Animate Bone Fiend is not. You need to be saving as much energy as possible to keep the minions raised, as well as casting OoU as often as possible. Not even Soul Reaping itself and/or SoLS can sustain that energy usage. I would highly recommend Air of Superiority for e-problems solved.

Xenomortis · Jan 31, 2010, 07:06 PM // 19:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

However, Animate Bone Fiend is not. You need to be saving as much energy as possible to keep the minions raised, as well as casting OoU as often as possible. Not even Soul Reaping itself and/or SoLS can sustain that energy usage. I would highly recommend Air of Superiority for e-problems solved.

Consume Corpse manages.

You may not have noticed, but the OP has AotL, not OoU.

AtomicMew · Jan 31, 2010, 07:54 PM // 19:54

Is SolS/consume/AoS really necessary? At 15 SR, you get 15 for every corpse and another 15 when a fiend dies, which is 30 when fiend only costs 25. If anything, it seems if you take high energy sets to manage the swings, that should be enough.

Xenomortis · Jan 31, 2010, 08:11 PM // 20:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by trcvrs

Is SolS/consume/AoS really necessary? At 15 SR, you get 15 for every corpse and another 15 when a fiend dies, which is 30 when fiend only costs 25. If anything, it seems if you take high energy sets to manage the swings, that should be enough.

Keeping up OoU, having 8 fiends and keeping minions alive long enough to deal damage in HM is very taxing on energy.
Yes, extra energy management is necessary.

HigherMinion · Jan 31, 2010, 08:25 PM // 20:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Consume Corpse manages.

You may not have noticed, but the OP has AotL, not OoU.

Oh, I didn't even notice. In that case there are little E-problems.

Chthon · Jan 31, 2010, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Consume Corpse manages.

You may not have noticed, but the OP has AotL, not OoU.

I noticed, but I didn't think it was necessary to beat OP over the head about the poor choice. Just mention OoU as the only good elite option in passing and let him/her figure it out without feeling bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by trcvrs

Is SolS/consume/AoS really necessary? At 15 SR, you get 15 for every corpse and another 15 when a fiend dies, which is 30 when fiend only costs 25. If anything, it seems if you take high energy sets to manage the swings, that should be enough.

Well yeah, IF the math worked like that, you wouldn't need a skill to manage energy. But there's this horrible stupid thing called the Soul Reaping nerf that breaks that "corpse + minion = 2 SR hits" identity. If you're killing at any sort of decent pace you can expect to lose most of your potential SR triggers to the timer. Realistically, you're not going to get 1 trigger for the body and 1 trigger for the minion. You might get 1 trigger between them. Getting no triggers at all (and spending the whole 25e out of pocket) isn't uncommon. Yeah, it's pretty shitty what that nerf does to minion builds...

(Btw, that's also why I slightly prefer SoLS to Consume Corpse. If you're sitting 7e or 8e away from max energy you really don't want to take that SR hit, since half of it will be wasted. Timely use of SoLS can fill your energy before the target dies, so that potential trigger isn't counted against the cap, so you can pick up a (hopefully) full SR hit a little later.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

However, Animate Bone Fiend is not. You need to be saving as much energy as possible to keep the minions raised, as well as casting OoU as often as possible. Not even Soul Reaping itself and/or SoLS can sustain that energy usage. I would highly recommend Air of Superiority for e-problems solved.

Are you suggesting AoS in place of SoLS/Consume Corpse, or in addition?

WhiteAsIce · Feb 01, 2010, 12:56 AM // 00:56

Well I used my only Elite Necro Tome to learn AotL instead of OoU. I also spent some money on a 40/20/20 Death staff, so I wanted to put it to good use, since AotL is an enchantment and OoU is not.

HigherMinion · Feb 01, 2010, 08:18 AM // 08:18

I was suggesting AoS in conjunction with SolS; I hadn't thought of using Consume, as that's a waste of a corpse as a MM; In my opinion atleast. But who cares about that

aspi · Feb 01, 2010, 03:14 PM // 15:14

Havent tried the skill OoU yet, but is it really true that hero's don't use this skill themselves? I don't wanna micro manage my heroes because that is something I don't have to do with aotl.

Chthon · Feb 01, 2010, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

I was suggesting AoS in conjunction with SolS; I hadn't thought of using Consume, as that's a waste of a corpse as a MM; In my opinion atleast. But who cares about that

The argument behind Consume is that eating 1 corpse to raise another is better than leaving both on the ground because you have no energy. When I've tried it, it's been my general experience that this argument rings true. It takes a little more attention to keeping a mental tally of corpses and soon-to-be-corpses, the the results are good. I prefer SoLS because it front-loads nicer and allows me to prevent SR hits overflowing and going partially to waste, which is a big indirect energy gain.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aspi

Havent tried the skill OoU yet, but is it really true that hero's don't use this skill themselves? I don't wanna micro manage my heroes because that is something I don't have to do with aotl.

A hero minion user and a player minion user are 2 totally separate things. The AI is too dumb to do a lot of things that a required of a decent player MM. One problem among many is that is won't use BotM or OoU when it should, then decides to go ahead and use them when it shouldn't. On the flip side, the AI is very good at targeting minions, which means it can use Death Nova and Jagged Bones far better than a human can. The end result is that (good) player minion users tend to be Minion Masters who dedicate themselves to raising, maintaining, and buffing expensive, effective minions; while hero builds tend to be Minion Bombers that focus on raising, detonating, and replacing cheap, expendable minions.

MasterSasori · Feb 01, 2010, 06:26 PM // 18:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by aspi

Havent tried the skill OoU yet, but is it really true that hero's don't use this skill themselves? I don't wanna micro manage my heroes because that is something I don't have to do with aotl.

Heroes are pretty bad with OoU. Builds such as Jagged Bomber works better on heroes because they are very good with microing and they use Death Nova very efficiently.

Humans know how to use OoU correctly and thus make great MMs but mediocre MBs. It's kind of how interrupts are in HM. Heroes generally are better than players at rupting.

AoTL works well for both humans and heroes and is always a good choice because of the extra death boost and you start out with a minion before every battle.

The funny thing about MM heroes is that sometimes a death magic elite isn't always best. They can use other elite from secondaries and they work well.

As for PvE skills, I suggest EBSoH. I don't really find any other PvE skills that are necessary enough to put on the bar. Maybe Air of Superiority for the recharge? EVAS is also strong but not really necessary.

aspi · Feb 02, 2010, 09:26 AM // 09:26

Thanks for the tips guys, I never thought about tweaking my heros because they seem to work ok. But I see there is always room for improvement.
Jagged bones bomber is in the making