Curse

Sniper22 · Aug 30, 2008, 01:51 AM // 01:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadowmere

ok, seriously. You need to stop being so rude, but seeing as that's not likely I'm gonna have to point out the flaws in your argument. You more or less said here you prefer jagged bones because it's more defensive, ok fair enough when jagged triggers you "renew" your minions...with weaker ones, however if you've ever tried stuff like this in HM or higher end areas you'd realize those weaker minions are just great big cracks in your minion wall, if you're really interested in defesnive minion tactics take Aura of the Lich and spam BotM, that makes for a very stable minion wall even against high damage.

And sure you can get a few of them to explode on the enemy but you're still not doing it as effeciently as Olias could, simply beacause you can't target them as readily as heroes can, hell the heroes can still select the minion with the lowest health in less than 1/2 a second and death nova them first in combat. I'm guessing you pre prep your minions not go after them on the fly all the time. The simple fact is yes humans can run minion bomber builds however with the current interface we're given heroes will ALWAYS run it worlds more effeciently than any human can.

Rude? Lol you're the one who seems to think there is only one way for a minion master to play. Ok aotl, been there, done that, nothing special there. Might be great in AB, honestly the build was limited to the recharge time on botm and sometimes its still not enough. No I don't preprep minions when they go in. Sure they can cast it on the minion with the lowest hp, but doesn't really mean that minion is gonna die. Honestly I think hero builds lack taste of death (haven't seen it) which definitely provides more damage for a little extra kick to kill them. Then you can just summon up more to keep your minion count high. I'm not saying OoU can't deal a lot of damage either (the old way), but it most areas it's not even worth bringing it when you are spending energy on other skills. It NM it does work great compared to jagged because of lower AL and damage. It's probably like casting OoU probably still gives your minions about a +50% dmg boost for HM with varying AL of the mobs which is kinda decent and it really works great if minions can actually attack only one target. Edit - probably more of a boost compared to its damage in HM but w/e. But I really hate this skill for 2 reasons.

1) It's boring
2) Eats up all your energy so you have no room for anything else (fiends at 25e with vamp horrors at 15e, constantly using botm and maybe heal area if you wanna save your monks the effort, it just seems to be a big burden on your energy to try to use that skill constantly - dont give me any crap about infinite energy on necros cause thats a lie).

Yes, necros minion masters should have more options to bring as elites. Flesh golem is mainly pointless, aotl has its uses sometimes, and then there's jagged bones, which can just get boring or frustrating at times.

Oh just because a hero can target minions better, that doesn't mean they are better to bring in a party over people. Most heroes are wicked stupid and lack common sense.

Chthon · Aug 30, 2008, 03:09 AM // 03:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Unequivocally.

It brings damage. What else are you gonna run? FG, AotL, IV, Discord? Nothing brings damage even remotely close to OoU. It's also a dangerous spell to use, so you have to be prepared for that. Very unfriendly to noobs.

The real shame is that the options for a MM are so limited.

That pretty much sums it up.

Assume 7 fiends and 3 horrors, with their places in their attack animation cycles randomly and evenly distributed. At 16 Death (the old) OoU will give 17 * ((7 * (5/1.9)) + (3 * (5/3.17))) = 393.6 armor-ignoring damage per cast. The other elites can't compare.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sniper22

But I really hate this skill for 2 reasons.

1) It's boring
2) Eats up all your energy so you have no room for anything else (fiends at 25e with vamp horrors at 15e, constantly using botm and maybe heal area if you wanna save your monks the effort, it just seems to be a big burden on your energy to try to use that skill constantly - dont give me any crap about infinite energy on necros cause thats a lie).

I don't disagree. Running it is quite difficult. Especially with Soul Reaping nerfed so badly. But it's still the strongest option (or at least was the strongest option).

Quote:

Yes, necros minion masters should have more options to bring as elites.

Agreed. We had one good option. Now we have none. Hopefully we'll get our one back. I'd like to have more.

[Edit: Decimal places are important

)

zwei2stein · Aug 30, 2008, 08:17 AM // 08:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Unequivocally.

It brings damage. What else are you gonna run? FG, AotL, IV, Discord? Nothing brings damage even remotely close to OoU. It's also a dangerous spell to use, so you have to be prepared for that. Very unfriendly to noobs.

The real shame is that the options for a MM are so limited.

Why don't you people just accept that MM is alike Fire Magic. Not worth making it work for highend stuff. Fine for NM.

a) Why bring MM to highend PvE and if you do
b) Why should it be human and not hero (aka, micro manager god)
c) Why haven't I seen screeshots of parties of good players with OoU/Fiends used in HM and elite stuff, yet seen tons of them with MN hero?

OoU has its issues:
* Damage is spread around without focal point. Not issue in NM, issue in HM. Focused damage > Fairly random damage.
* As you said it is hard to use, which means you have to build around its downsides. Which means that your builds will have slots that could be otherwise used to support party used for what ... self heals? In 2008 GW?
* You can't really run it at full efectiveness because you are going to be loosing minions left and right as BoTM is not ideally spamable along this. how else will you keep em alive? Tank'n'spank?

OoU is easily replaced by moderatelly specced, i.e., Splinter weapon with has damage potential of 420 damage@ 10 spec. No dangerous life losses. Same spamability, no elite slots, damage can be directed faily well. You don't need MM to bring it. Yes, other elites cant compare.

Sniper22 · Aug 30, 2008, 06:35 PM // 18:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

That pretty much sums it up.

Assume 7 fiends and 3 horrors, with their places in their attack animation cycles randomly and evenly distributed. At 16 Death (the old) OoU will give 17 * ((7 * (5/1.9)) + (3 * (5/3.17))) = 393.6 armor-ignoring damage per cast. The other elites can't compare.

Yes this is good damage, and it will pwn hard on a single target which can sometimes be useful because I noticed a lot of the time that minions will attack monks first (maybe it's because I attack them, but sometimes they will still go for the monk even if I don't). But if its spread on 3 targets then your damage is down to about 133, death nova will do 105 to the amount of targets in range and adds poison (not that much of damage). IMO if you want some decent damage I'd bring the non-elite mop skill :P. The only reason why I would bring fleshy is because there is nothing else to bring. Jagged bones and OoU require specific minions to work (bone minions, vamp horrors... etc). Fleshy will work with simple fiends and horrors.

Marverick · Aug 30, 2008, 10:30 PM // 22:30

Jagged Bones does not require specific minions to work with. But yea it really is better off on heroes, who can instantly target minions getting wailed on and turn them into new minions.

WTB 1...3 Flesh Golems that hit with a ranged attack.

Carinae · Sep 01, 2008, 05:54 AM // 05:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sniper22

you're the one who seems to think there is only one way for a minion master to play.

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I'll answer it anyway.

Not at all. There are several successful strategies for being a good MM, and a great MM knows how/when to use each of them. But there is (was) ONE damage oriented build that stood above the others.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sniper22

It NM it does work great compared to jagged because of lower AL and damage.

It works identically in HM and NM. The damage from OoU is armor-ignoring. The direct minion damage is effected by HM/NM but not the damage from OoU.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sniper22

2) Eats up all your energy so you have no room for anything else (fiends at 25e with vamp horrors at 15e, constantly using botm and maybe heal area if you wanna save your monks the effort, it just seems to be a big burden on your energy to try to use that skill constantly - dont give me any crap about infinite energy on necros cause thats a lie).

No question. But then again, that part of why it's a more advanced skill...it requires a smart player to make it work well. I'll grant that the idiotic SR timer does indeed make it unnecessarily difficult to play the skill, not because it reduces the available energy below the necessary threshold, but because it makes the energy returns unpredictable. You simply don't know if you'll get the energy back or not, and it can sometime jam you up in a bad way.

E-management needs to be predictable!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sniper22

Yes, necros minion masters should have more options to bring as elites. Flesh golem is mainly pointless, aotl has its uses sometimes, and then there's jagged bones, which can just get boring or frustrating at times.

Agreed, completely.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

OoU has its issues:
* Damage is spread around without focal point. Not issue in NM, issue in HM. Focused damage > Fairly random damage.

You do realize that even a high-end AoE damage-dealer (of any class) can't come even close to matching a MM's damage, even without OoU, right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

* As you said it is hard to use, which means you have to build around its downsides. Which means that your builds will have slots that could be otherwise used to support party used for what ... self heals? In 2008 GW?

If a self-heal keeps you alive, and enables you to roll mobs, then I'd say that it's worth it. There is certainly a trade-off to consider, but if it's worth it, it's worth it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

* You can't really run it at full efectiveness because you are going to be loosing minions left and right as BoTM is not ideally spamable along this. how else will you keep em alive? Tank'n'spank?

Well, that's part and parcel of requiring a skilled player to use OoU, now isn't it? You need to be able to support OoU (including BOTH energy and hp issues) while standing on BotM at the same time.

A high-end MM should be able to run BotM, on recharge, regardless of whatever else is on your bar, while interlacing other spells between BotM casts, potentially including OoU, and not dying from damage received or from sacrificing too much. Isn't this complaint akin to admitting to not being a high-end MM?

Ensign · Sep 01, 2008, 06:15 AM // 06:15

The entire point of the PvP/PvE split was so that Izzy and co didn't have to care about PvE at all when balancing skills anymore. Why they didn't bother to split this is beyond me - and no, it's not exactly useful in PvP either.

-Lotus- · Sep 01, 2008, 06:41 AM // 06:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

You do realize that even a high-end AoE damage-dealer (of any class) can't come even close to matching a MM's damage, even without OoU, right?

wait, wait, wait.... what?

are you kidding? minions do almost no damage. the only time they can help dish out damage is in combination with a curse necro with barbs/MoP and that takes another character. minions distract, they dont really kill anything.

System_Crush · Sep 01, 2008, 08:07 AM // 08:07

Since OoU was changed I tried working with a single boosted minnion, but even with [[Judge's Insight] and [[Strength of Honor] it still not as good as 10 minions(well except against undead perhaps)

I've modified my [[Aura of the Lich] build a bit and started using that to MM, I've tried taking Olias just to [[Death Nova] the minions for me, he does enchant them, but the whole point of a Deathless wall is to not let any minions die, so it's not that useful.
Its still way better than a flesh golem though

(Just to avoid being flamed for talking about having a build but not posting it)
[build prof=N/Rt name="Deathless Wall... With lights!" Death=12+3+1 Soul=10+3 Resto=8][Spirit Light][Weapon of Warding][Blood of the Master][Masochism][Aura of the Lich][Animate Bone Horror][Animate Bone Fiend][empty][/build]

jayce · Sep 01, 2008, 09:48 AM // 09:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Lotus-

wait, wait, wait.... what?

are you kidding? minions do almost no damage. the only time they can help dish out damage is in combination with a curse necro with barbs/MoP and that takes another character. minions distract, they dont really kill anything.

upon reaching full force, i rarely ever see 10 minions have a hard time killing their intended targets, so much so that the other seven party members can pull up chairs and eat popcorn while doing nothing but watching. even after the release of factions.

Jayce Of Underworld

zwei2stein · Sep 01, 2008, 11:40 AM // 11:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Well, that's part and parcel of requiring a skilled player to use OoU, now isn't it? You need to be able to support OoU (including BOTH energy and hp issues) while standing on BotM at the same time.

A high-end MM should be able to run BotM, on recharge, regardless of whatever else is on your bar, while interlacing other spells between BotM casts, potentially including OoU, and not dying from damage received or from sacrificing too much. Isn't this complaint akin to admitting to not being a high-end MM?

If build is hard to run, it does by no means mean it is also good build.

In fact, the larger error margin is the better build is because it allows good player much more flexibility and allows more "to the limit" gameplay as you can continue performing at your 100% where and when you need it: Under pressure and emerge victorious from situations which would end up FUBAR should you run build that is less forgiving.

Being able to kite, interruption/lagspike in wrong moment not being catastrophic, etc ... They are as priceless.

I will gladly admit that I am not high-end MM because it would be insane to bring human MM to highend areas while you can bring curses human and hero MB.

I submit to you this: If i am generous on OoU equals 66 DPS (1s cast + 5s duration, 400 damage total) plus base minion damage, which physical classes can easily emulate by doing whatever + splinter with bonus of being able to be pushed much further, and have this perk: Focus.

Say you attack group of 10 enemies with 600 hp each and you do your ideal a/i 66 DPS.

In worst case scenario your damage is spread evenly causing ~6.6 DPS a/i + base damage per enemy. Your armor ignoring damage it at level of simple degen condition, we double this to take base damage into account and it is basically poison+disease. This way damage generated by you takes this mob down is 3/4 of minute (actual mobs have bit more health than 600 thou), which is ages in PvE. And you would do just as fine if you just spread disease + poison. And much better when you add some death nova explosion damage.

Any decently buffed physical would take down first foe in several seconds and would continue at that pace throughout mob. No randomness, focus. Reliability. Mob size cut down at fast intervals, high priority targets dealt with in seconds.

Of course, if you face less mobs, OoU is more focused and more powerful it is.

See, this is gist of issue of old OoU: It does not scale well with enemy group size. It scales wrong way: the more enemies you face the less powerful and reliable it provides. But this is problem of all the "MM"

Competing build (MB) scales perfectly with mobs: You get more damage per explosion and you get them faster if you face tougher and larger mobs.

2c. Feel free to mourn OoU anyway.

Calista Blackblood · Sep 01, 2008, 06:57 PM // 18:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

They ruined the single best MM elite for a cheap low-end PvP gimmick. The exclusion of FG is a dead giveaway for the PvP connection, because that's really the only time you'll have a chance to be in that situation. A super-FG wouldn't affect PvE at all, anyway.

Did they apply their precious PvP/PvE split?
No.

Did they pick a crappy DM elite for the change?
No, they picked the very best one for a human Fiend-based MM. Well Done.

Is there any silver lining? (Does the new functionality offer anything interesting?)
No, not really. ...and definitely not worth the loss of the previous OoU functionality.

Some Possibilities:
Massive Death Nova bomb (have fun setting that up)

Massive Dwayna's Sorrow party heal. (if you're popping ALL your minions for a party-heal....well, cya at the shrine.)

Vamps+OoU (as Moloch suggests) for AB.

Shamblings work with OoU (the Jaggeds spawn successfully)

sorry first page post brought back

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

You can target the minion that survives.

That is the gem of OoU.It doesn't state it in the skill description but this is very correct.You can easily make your 1 perma minion anything you want,and keep probably indefinately.I tested this out the night of the update and was able to have 1 vamp horror alive for well over 5 mins (boredom so I gave up)

All I had to do was click on the minion i wanted to keep.Even managed to pimp a jagged horror from a dead shambling :P

upier · Sep 01, 2008, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

No question. But then again, that part of why it's a more advanced skill...it requires a smart player to make it work well. I'll grant that the idiotic SR timer does indeed make it unnecessarily difficult to play the skill, not because it reduces the available energy below the necessary threshold, but because it makes the energy returns unpredictable. You simply don't know if you'll get the energy back or not, and it can sometime jam you up in a bad way.

E-management needs to be predictable!

[Oob].
The problem is that bad players want e-management that would reach the insanity that is SR while being predictable.

On-topic:
With Discord in the game - I don't see why any other death elite would be desired.

Vazze · Sep 01, 2008, 08:34 PM // 20:34

I do not play my necro too often but OoU was one of my favorite elite. The new OoU is not necessarily weaker than the old. I tried shambling + bone minions + death nova +OoU and the bomb was pretty intense with 8+ minions, and you always have a few jagged left after the wipe. But...it is incredibly annoying to line up the little suckers in front of every mobs (not too close, not too far), and enchant them with death nova (10x2.75s= 27.5s!!!!). This build is even worse to play than Jagged. Just an idea: if death nova would enchant all your minions in a single spell (25 energy, 5s cast, 60s recharge) it would make it playable. Minion targeting keys could help too.

Sniper22 · Sep 02, 2008, 12:17 AM // 00:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

It works identically in HM and NM. The damage from OoU is armor-ignoring. The direct minion damage is effected by HM/NM but not the damage from OoU.

No question. But then again, that part of why it's a more advanced skill...it requires a smart player to make it work well. I'll grant that the idiotic SR timer does indeed make it unnecessarily difficult to play the skill, not because it reduces the available energy below the necessary threshold, but because it makes the energy returns unpredictable. You simply don't know if you'll get the energy back or not, and it can sometime jam you up in a bad way.

E-management needs to be predictable!

Yes I know the OoU damage is not affected, but the more likely for them to get pwned is greater. All it takes is one aoe dmg dealing mob to wipe them all out and you'll have to start all over again. Arrgh those stupid inferno imps... >.<

Yes and the problem with it being so hard on energy already, is it eliminates the ability to use other support skills as well as other builds.

Accursed · Sep 02, 2008, 12:22 AM // 00:22

Yes it still is useless and it will continue to be useless until Izzy buffs it.

Carinae · Sep 02, 2008, 01:40 AM // 01:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sniper22

Yes and the problem with it being so hard on energy already, is it eliminates the ability to use other support skills as well as other builds.

I agree completely. They could remove the SR timer from PvE and still leave it in PvP. Would that really mess up PvE, given everything else they allow now?

If you're really looking for an e-management skill to assist with OoU, try [Consume Corpse]. (or as I call it, Soul-Reaping-on-a-button)

Sniper22 · Sep 02, 2008, 02:37 AM // 02:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

I agree completely. They could remove the SR timer from PvE and still leave it in PvP. Would that really mess up PvE, given everything else they allow now?

If you're really looking for an e-management skill to assist with OoU, try [Consume Corpse]. (or as I call it, Soul-Reaping-on-a-button)

That might possibly work, but we'll have to see if OoU gets buffed so I could test that hahah. At this point in this game, I don't see why they don't change soul reaping for pve... They already messed up all the farming with perma sf aka godmode.

Vazze · Sep 02, 2008, 03:06 AM // 03:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

You do realize that even a high-end AoE damage-dealer (of any class) can't come even close to matching a MM's damage, even without OoU, right?

Actually, all physicals can get near or even above the ~130 DPS of an average MM (without old OoU, on lvl60 armor) with the buffed asuran scan and their damage will be focused on critical targets. Although in most cases it is not a good idea to spec for pure DPS, the unfocused DPS of the MM is not that great, especially in HM against high lvl armor. (Depending on how well mobs are bunched up, AoE casters can have bursts of very high DPS as well.)

Calista Blackblood · Sep 02, 2008, 04:37 PM // 16:37

wow from skill discussion to mechanic QQing

.this forum really does have it all under one roof