Curse

Moloch Vein · May 21, 2009, 04:34 PM // 16:34

I've come to really dislike the standard minion bomber builds used in teams lately. If you don't know, I'm talking about the whole Jagged Bones, Death Nova, ABM, Taste of Death thing. Now, the real problem isn't in those skills. It's in the fact that people are usually putting other skills on the bar, and the hero won't have time to cast them properly, because he will usually be busy enchanting minions, players, allies and Pyre's pet with Death Nova. And Jagged Bones. (Not on Pyre's pet.)

So for a while I "solved" the problem by removing Death Nova. "Let's use the minions as Barbs trigger". I never used Jagged. It's mediocre. 15 seconds recharge for a spell that makes a minion that... well, it bleeds stuff. Mostly just one "stuff". Why is it that Olias manages to cast DN on every living thing in radar range and my Jaggies only ever hit one target?

But I miss Death Nova. Exploding Minions Are Good. They die anyway. Fast. So I'm back at square one. I want the Nova, but then I can't get anything but it. Not on time. Not reliably. Ever wished for a Spirit Bond while Olias was on his 2.75 second "let's blow things up" cycle?

So again I try to remedy the situation.

Old build:

(I don't trust BB code anymore, it always bugs.)

Death 12+1+3
Soul Reaping 10+1
Healing Prayers 8

Empathic Removal - Foul Feast - Animate Bone Horror - Animate Bone Fiend - Dwayna's Sorrow - Heal Area - Blood of the Master - Signet of Lost Souls

Substitution skills include Chilblains. My /Mo secondaries never take a rez, monk rez skills all suck (except UA.) The nerf to Foul Feast actually hurt this build for me. It made me sad.

New bar:

Death 12+1+3
Soul Reaping 10+1
Command 8

"It's Just A Flesh Wound!" - "Fall Back!" - "Never Surrender!" - Death Nova - Animate Bone Minions - Blood of the Master - Taste of Death - Signet of Lost Souls

Substitution skill could be Signet of Return. The problem is, if I remove Taste of Death, Olias isn't likely to be the last man standing...

So now I get three skills that bomber man can use while making minions and going through his endless Nova cycle. And boy does he love using the elite. Apparently he thinks everything is just a flesh wound. Dazed on melee, Blind on casters...

(Attribute levels are up to debate, 11-10-10 is certainly viable, you might not need a superior rune in the second build if you're anal about that.)

Opinions?

Ariena Najea · May 21, 2009, 04:46 PM // 16:46

I like this one a lot. I've never been much of a fan of Never Surrender, but the synergy with minions is glaring. It's Just a Flesh Wound looks great on this, even without speccing into Motivation. Fall Back is definitely a good fit, although with all of these shouts, I wonder how well the energy is managed? I am interested in what you have seen energy-wise while bringing this.

HigherMinion · May 21, 2009, 04:58 PM // 16:58

With this build, can Olias FINALLY keep up with the group?!?!

Moloch Vein · May 21, 2009, 05:22 PM // 17:22

Energy is fine on the build. He still spams Death Nova too much between battles. Never Surrender should no longer affect allies, that "bug" was supposedly fixed.

Shadowmere · May 21, 2009, 05:40 PM // 17:40

I like it, i've used "Fall Back!" on MM set ups before and it works wonders for keeping up with a group (although I've noticed the AI tends to use it just before engaging a mob to kind of "catapult" the melee at the enemy)

If it were a standard MM set up as opposed to a MB i'd switch out Taste of Death for Leader's Comfort (at 0 attribute it still will trigger it's full healing a lot of the time with minions around)

But yeah it sounds good, might not offer the same amount of party support as a N/Mo MB but it should def be a lot more efficient.

xanarot · May 21, 2009, 05:46 PM // 17:46

Im not sure wether this is pve or pvp, but if you're pve you might want to consider Aura of the Lich.

+1 death magic to make all minions slightly stronger is nice, but more importantly it exploits ALL corpses in the area and turns them into bone horrors. This significantly reduces the time my MM is creating minions and frees up time for other casts.
Nice side-bonus is the guaranteed horror you get from this spell, even when there's no corpse present.

I dont know it exactly, but my entire build goes about:
Aura of the lich - bone minions - blood of the master - death nova - protective spirit - signet of lost souls - foul feast - hex removal

Gigashadow · May 21, 2009, 05:53 PM // 17:53

Given all those shouts, one thing you might want to try out is having a second hero that is a Paragon with Blazing Finale, so that whenever a shout ends on a target, enemies start burning. He'll be shouting a lot. Unfortunately you can't put it on the necro because it's a leadership skill.

I'd previously tried using It's Just a Flesh Wound + Blazing Finale on a single paragon, but he didn't use the condition removal skill as much as I wanted. However I'll see how it works with that on a necro.

Dawn Angelheart · May 21, 2009, 05:59 PM // 17:59

Sometimes if we have 2 necros or something along the lines of it, double death nova really speeds up the cycle and move speeds of everything since theres 2 casters

legacyofkain85 · May 21, 2009, 06:12 PM // 18:12

i like the idea very much,going to try it ,maybe change it a bit,but overall it's just a flesh wound as elite looks promising.

Johny bravo · May 21, 2009, 07:21 PM // 19:21

Jagged/Bone minions is better the aura of the lich in Pve. The idea of of the sabway build is to use the minions as bombs and energy management. Aura does exploit all the corpses in the area but it has a long recharge and doesn't have the ability to keep up with the dying minions the way Jagged/bone minions does. In addition you use bone minions to make low level minions that blow up to create higher level jagged horrors that also inflict bleeding. Overall this is superior. As for the death nova issue I tend to disable it between battles to help Olias keep up.

The other skills are nice additions to the the build itself and can be useful but I find putting prots on my minion bomber bar is very effective as I can force pre-prot as necessary.

I also changed the curses bar to more of an interrupt bar, SS, enfeebling blood, and Barbs are the only 3 curses I use the rest are Mesmer interrupt signets and mantra of inscriptions, as I find that is very useful in HM plus not as energy intensive as the default SS bar.

MercenaryKnight · May 21, 2009, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Taste of death has never been used by hero ai before. They won't sacrifice a minion even if their about to die. Atleast that's how they used to use the skill. But the rest is a good idea to give them something to do while busy casting.

My only suggestion is getting rid of blood of the master. Having heroes use it when you want minions to die can be annoying, sure it can help move the minions from place to place but fall back should be good enough. Maybe just throw in shambling horror as well for the extra minion on death if your worried about minion counts inbetween battles.

smilingscar · May 21, 2009, 08:35 PM // 20:35

I like this, it looks fun. I'd hate to lose fall back, but I bet a nice variant would be to go all motivation with an echo like [[finale of restoration]

Gigashadow · May 21, 2009, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by smilingscar

I like this, it looks fun. I'd hate to lose fall back, but I bet a nice variant would be to go all motivation with an echo like [[finale of restoration]

You won't really need to give up anything of importance though, as Blood of the Master isn't needed on a minion bomber, for the same reason Jagged Bones isn't. Either you are plowing through an area that generates a lot of corpses, or you aren't, and if it's the latter you probably shouldn't be bringing a MM anyway. If you do need to go afk a lot between battles, though, then it could be useful, but if you are, say, vanquishing or doing missions at a brisk pace, then I can't say I've ever missed either of those skills when I took them off the bar.

Carboplatin · May 22, 2009, 05:23 AM // 05:23

the AI doesn't use "flesh wound!" as often as i'll like.

HigherMinion · May 22, 2009, 12:19 PM // 12:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by R Langdon

the AI doesn't use "flesh wound!" as often as i'll like.

I'm using this build right now, and the IJaFW is spammed so much, it's one of my favourite condition removal skills. It's so fast, if you get hit with daze or blind, you most certainly won't be in the next second.

I'm thinking you could possibly drop anti condition on other heroes if you have one, for another hex removal if needed.

And yeah, the MB can keep up alot better (8^)

Moloch Vein · May 22, 2009, 04:55 PM // 16:55

By the way "Stand Your Ground" is a good option for the bar, sort of.

Ratson Itamar · May 22, 2009, 06:36 PM // 18:36

The problem that you're having with your MB is that he tries to swallow more than he can chew. I bring skills with long effects and recharges, like Aegis, so he will focus more on the bombing. I don't give him any energy management skills because I often bring another minion "creator" (the second hero only has 1 minion related skill - Animate Bone Minions).

Aside from that, I don't use Jagged Bones nor do I use Aura of the Lich. When I don't run Discord and a utility Elite isn't necessary I bring Icy Veins. Have you tried it before, it's fun seeing monsters explode. Apart from being amusing, which is what the game is about, it's also pretty affective.

Moreover, I don't like "It's just a flesh wound". An elite just to get rid of conditions is rather weak in most cases. Empathic Removal has the potential to remove 2 hexes and two conditions and a guaranteed 50 heal for the caster and the target every 8 seconds. On top of that, heroes actually use it well (for example, they target a clean target to remove an hex from themselves if there isn't any other target who is conditioned or hexed). Even if a strong condition remover is needed then Restore Condition is better than "It's just a flesh wound". It provides a potentially strong heal and access to the rest of the protection line.

All in all, I see the upsides of your build; no after cast, being able to use more than 1 skill at a time and moving faster (though it only lasts for a bit less than a quarter of the recharge). I think it comes down to this: Which is better, more healing and utility or multi-tasking really smoothly? (notice I said "more", the N/P also got some healing and utility). I will have to try this build before I reject it. Nice Idea Moloch (even though I have seen it before in a video from link in these forums).

Moloch Vein · May 22, 2009, 07:54 PM // 19:54

In my opinion IJAFW is stricty better than RC for a hero. RC pins your hero in one place for 1.5 seconds. One major advantage of the instant shouts is that the hero does not shut down while kiting. Since paragons rarely kite you rarely see this benefit on that class.

AtomicMew · May 22, 2009, 08:11 PM // 20:11

Hardly anything new. People have been using dual N/P's to speed clear VQs since forever.

Your version needs serious rework.

First off, why would you take "it's just a flesh wound" when you can take FF, which is practically the same thing except non-elite and also e-management??

Secondly, Heroes are terrible with NS" SYG! Is a far superior skill if you dont have SY! Or possibly FTW! Otherwise, Command doesn't offer you much besides FB! and possibly use of a shield.

Lastly, elite choice. The best, by far is discord. But if you're unwilling to use discord, and don't want the standard AotL or JB, Incoming! would be a decent choice to speed up your VQs.

Considering 70-80% of the time spent during a VQ is running from place to place, Incoming! would be your best choice if you are just going for pure speed.

Moloch Vein · May 22, 2009, 08:21 PM // 20:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

First off, why would you take "it's just a flesh wound" when you can take FF, which is practically the same thing except non-elite and also e-management??

Because you can't rely on a timely removal of a deep wound from a hero that is going to spend most of his time casting Death Nova (2.75 seconds) or Animate Bone Minions (3 seconds). And why the hell would you need the energy management from FF in PvE? Lastly FF was nerfed and is now on a 5 seconds recharge which makes it shine a little duller.

Quote:

Secondly, Heroes are terrible with NS" SYG! Is a far superior skill if you dont have SY! Or possibly FTW! Otherwise, Command doesn't offer you much besides FB! and possibly use of a shield.

Mentioned it as a variant.

Quote:

Lastly, elite choice. The best, by far is discord. But if you're unwilling to use discord, and don't want the standard AotL or JB, Incoming! would be a decent choice to speed up your VQs.

You seem to misunderstand the point of the build. The less skills with an actual casting time, the better I feel it is. Also your hero isn't likely to follow your attack calls with any urgency since he's going to be busy doing his Death Nova round-robin.

Quote:

Considering 70-80% of the time spent during a VQ is running from place to place, Incoming! would be your best choice if you are just going for pure speed.

You need to micro "Incoming!" for that, but otherwise, sure.