Curse

Rioter · Aug 14, 2005, 04:43 PM // 16:43

I was just wondering what you guys suggested for a summon Necro/elementalist.
I'm not sure how to distibute my points. my theory is to summon units to act as meat shields and deal minor damage, and support them with high damage skills (thats where being an elementalist comes in) How should i use my attribute points, and what skills should i use??I've never made a necro or an ele before so a user friendly build would help

Shifty Geezer · Aug 14, 2005, 05:01 PM // 17:01

I'm not sure a Necromanger will have enough energy for damage dealing spells. I've find my minions, up into Kryta, are very effective (they've been level 11 for most of the PvE game to date) and I basically just supply more to my army, with some curses to bring the enemy mobs down a peg or two. When 5-6 Undead Minions + party start smacking up an enemy, they don't last long at all, plus they keep the enemies intentions away from the support chars at the back.

Having played an Elemonkalist and run out of energy quite often, I can't see a Necromanger working. An Elemancer would definitely work. You'd lose the Necro rune bonuses which would keep Minion levels lower but contribute more of your own firepower. I don't know how effective they would be in such circumstances. Less HPs would mean you couldn't maintain a larger army due to the constant health degeneration Minions suffer.

Bleidd · Aug 14, 2005, 06:04 PM // 18:04

I think it'd work perfectly fine as long as you kept up a steady stream of dead mobs/dead minions to Soul Reap off of. That just means having to pace your offensive casting with your Soul Reaping gain. In the long run you have the potential for as much energy overall if not more than an Elementalist primary.

chowdah · Aug 14, 2005, 06:56 PM // 18:56

I run a minion master build - its Nec/Mes but I stopped using Mes when I got Life Transfer. I just go pure Necro now. This build gives me level 18 bone minions and I have a off-hand item that gives me a 20% of them being 19. In a 6 or 8 man team an additional 5-15 (or more - I had 26 one time) level 18/19 minions are brutal. Also many mobs seem to like to attack minions over henchies/players so more help there.

Note: This is a PvE build - I don't play PvP so no idea if it will work there.

Blood Magic: 9 (8+1)
Death Magic: 16 (12+3+1)
Soul Reaping: 8(7+1)
Curses: 9 (8+1)

Vampire Gaze
Life Siphon
Life Trasfer
Animate Bone Horror
Verata's Sacrifice
Blood of the Master
Suffering
"Free Slot"

My Truncheon + Cesta give me 57 Energy and with 8 in Soul Reaping its very rare for me to run out.

Nice thing about being a Minion Master is it only takes a few skill slots - then you can secondary in anything else. I personally run a lot of Degen spells and sometimes Putrid Explosion (great when you are in a pinch I find). Combined 5-10 Degen + dozen or more level 18 minions on top of a mixed group tears through mobs very fast. Well of Blood or Well of Suffering is another massive assit to getting the most out of your minions. And if you feel your minions are still taking too much damage Shadow of Fear and/or Enfeebling Blood will keep then alive much longer with less work for you - and they help your group out too.

Something also to keep in mind is with Soul Reaping sometime is better to let a really hurt Minion die rather than trying to save it as the Energy can be put to good use - such as raising a fresh minion.

Carinae · Aug 14, 2005, 08:07 PM // 20:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

I'm not sure a Necromanger will have enough energy for damage dealing spells.

This is completely untrue.

I am a N/E Blood/Fire/Curses Necro and can deal ENORMOUS damage to targets without running out of energy. I don't use minions at all. My Soul reaping is set at 8 and I have the collectors Grim Cesta +27/30/-1. This gives me 57 energy and 3 pips of regen.

Loook into getting the Elite spell "Offering of Blood". Used properly, it can give you Unlimited energy. And I do mean unlimited.

Zeru · Aug 14, 2005, 08:22 PM // 20:22

You're talking about ether renewal

Offering is good but crap in comparison.

For a minioner (insanely strong in pve) you'll typically want these skills:
Blood of the Master
Animate *** (fiends deal more damage but minion bombs are better later on)
Veratas Sacrifice
Death Nova
Taste of Death

From there it's up to you how you make your char.

Curses for debuffs (shadow of fear/enfeebling blood)
Blood for support (blood is power)
Ele for nukes (many)
Ele for wards

Carinae · Aug 14, 2005, 08:46 PM // 20:46

For an N/E I'm talking about Offering of Blood. For a N/Me, then yes Ether Renewal would be better.

Rioter · Aug 16, 2005, 07:14 PM // 19:14

thanks guys, however i was hoping one of you could give me a layout of the 8 skills i should end up using (as a n/e) and if you could, sort of guess at what my attribute placement should be?

entropy · Aug 16, 2005, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

For an N/E I'm talking about Offering of Blood. For a N/Me, then yes Ether Renewal would be better.

um Ether renewal is an ele skill not a necro or mesmer skill and i believe it uses energy storage as its attribute making it useless to anything but a primary ele.
On the other hand i ran a ME/E and if you use elemental attunement and something other than earth such as air you can do massive dmg with little cost. it cuts the spells energy cost in half which is great. Though fire isnt a bad choice but the exhaustion would hurt a necro I've never played a hydromancer though. The great thing about ele attunement is the fact that its unatributed so you can gain the effect without having to put points into energy storage

Rioter · Aug 19, 2005, 01:46 AM // 01:46

I appreciate that guys but you seem to be compeltely neglecting the whole point of the post. I need a descent guide to a N/E summoning build. the recommended stat points and skills i should be using are kind of what im looking for here

Attimus · Aug 19, 2005, 02:23 PM // 14:23

My N/E does pretty good

deathmagic=16+3 (superior rune)
Then i put the rest into FIRE
Left over goes into Soul Reaping=7
(I'm not at home so i cant tell you exactly)

I have a minor vigor too

Skills are:

Fire storm
Flame Burst (sometimes substitue Deathly Swarm)
Flare
Veritas Sacrifice
Glyph of Energy (elite)
Searing Heat
Meteor SHower
Animate Bone Fiend (with 16 in death magic you get lvl 18 fiends!)

Before I had Glyph of Energy, i had Glyph of Lesser Energy. The elite really is awesome because Searing Heat and Meteor shower cause Exhaustion, and cost 25 pts. Glyph of energy makes them cost 20 less energy and do not cause exhaustion.

With this build I can keep up 8-12 fiends easily. Usually the Fiends can kill the monster before i can nuke, but if i'm low on fiends or the monster is high lvl I nuke away! My energy is unlimited! I have 43 energy, but with 7 in soul reaping I get 7 energy whenever someone dies. Fiends, enemies, allies it doesn't matter. That and the glyph keep me going. The only thing that slows me down is skill recharge. The Grim cesta I use has quick recharge on death magic so i can bring fiends up fast as hell. The only thing that keeps me back is the number of corps available. I've gotten up over 20 at one time. I've seen people do more, but I'm not sure how.

Rioter · Aug 19, 2005, 02:33 PM // 14:33

Where do you get Animate bone fiend, and are bon fiend and the little guys you get at beginning the only summons in the game?

Epinephrine · Aug 19, 2005, 03:08 PM // 15:08

Soul Reaping is so underrated - in PvE it is a great way to get energy. use an 11/10/10 split, put points in Fire/Soul/Death for example. Run two superior runes, one in Soul Reaping, one in death, add a death scar for 14 death. Yeah, you have low health, but there are so many other targets and you can suck life from your undead if you need it - your taste of death steal you over 300 health in a 1/4 second from the nearest undead, so you can refuel anytime. 11/13/14 is not bad, you get good tough minions and generate 13 energy every time a creature dies - this means that if you run horrors you are essentially getting 11 energy from each enemy that dies that you raise as a horror (13 energy for the creature's death, -15 for the raising of the horror, +13 when the horror dies later), and 13 energy from the ones you don't raise. If you run minions as death bombs you get 14 energy from each enemy you raise as a minion (13 from the death, 25 to raise the two minions, 26 energy after the two die), but if you enchant half of them with death novae it drops to only 9 per death. You essentially are a caster with over 12 energy coming in per death, 4 pips of regeneration and a free army of undead. Hard to argue with that.

The mistake people make when running necros is not enough Soul Reaping - much like the mistake people make with rangers - not enough expertise. Enough Soul Reaping and your army is free, and each one raised gives you enough leftover energy to put a death nova on it and taste of death it later. The bit of extra energy after that can go to healing them, and your 4 pips of regeneration can be used to cast other spells - but the point is that it costs you nothing to run the whole damn army - you still, after raising them, enchanting them with death nova and healing yourself from their lifeforce, detonating them in the process, have extra energy over your 4 pips! and have that entire 4 pips+ to cast with! THAT's how to play a necro. Granted, curse and blood necros don't need as much, I only have about 10 soul reaping on my blood necro setup, but if I am going death with minions I want 16 death/15 soul reaping; if I am going with a secondary class I go 14 death, 13 soul, 11 in the secondary - and energy is never a problem.

Mithie · Aug 19, 2005, 03:58 PM // 15:58

I'll *ASSUME* you're talking about PvE.

In which case: I'd recommend the following:

11 (+3) = 14 soul reaping
10 (+4) = 14 death magic
10 = 10 fire

Your skill bar should be loaded with:

Animate Bone Minions
Death Nova
Meteor Storm
Fire Storm
Fireball
Elemental Attunement {E}
Taste of Death
and a res sig or cap sig (or Mark of Rodgort if you have a ranger teammate with Greater Conflag)

Start the round by dropping a meteor shower (not Ele Att yet, since you'll be getting much of the energy back by soul reaping). Wait a while until a corpse appears. Raise minions. At this point, you won't have lots of energy since you'll be hit with partial exhaustion plus -25 energy for casting minions. So slap on death nova on both your minions hit taste of death twice. Bam bam, you should have lots of energy now plus the enemy mob will be thinned down and poisoned. Hit elemental attunement and start spamming fireball/firestorm/meteor shower in that order. Then, raise bodies, and hit the next mob.

That's the way I do it with my N/E.

Epinephrine · Aug 19, 2005, 04:09 PM // 16:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mithie

...

Wow. So similar to mine. I have one more in fire, one less in soul reaping, but really close to the same layout. Good to see someone else likes the soul reaping too

Rioter · Aug 19, 2005, 08:13 PM // 20:13

thank you and yes i do mean for PvE, obviously a summoner isnt the best idea for pvping. Dont yout hink i should be using bone minion or w/e it is AND bone fiend? im going to be relying mainly on my summons and the more i have the better. also, Where do you get Animate bone fiend, death nova, and meteor shower, and are bone fiends and the little guys you get at beginning the only summons in the game? and also i find that at this point my summons dont last long enough to get more than maybe 3 at a time (their level 8, im level 7). and you all seem to be looking at fire ele skills. i was wondering why your all fixed on fire eles, are they just better or are they easier to use?

Epinephrine · Aug 19, 2005, 08:29 PM // 20:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rioter

thank you and yes i do mean for PvE, obviously a summoner isnt the best idea for pvping. Dont yout hink i should be using bone minion or w/e it is AND bone fiend? im going to be relying mainly on my summons and the more i have the better. also, Where do you get Animate bone fiend, death nova, and meteor shower, and are bone fiends and the little guys you get at beginning the only summons in the game? and also i find that at this point my summons dont last long enough to get more than maybe 3 at a time (their level 8, im level 7). and you all seem to be looking at fire ele skills. i was wondering why your all fixed on fire eles, are they just better or are they easier to use?

You get the other animate skills much later in game. Fire is used because it is high area damage and is the easiest to collect - most of the available skills at lower levels are in fire - you will have a long list of fire spells before you have a collection of useful earth spells. Other types of skill are fine, but fire is big damage, available early and does area damage, which complements minions pretty well, as they don't all mob one guy but spread damage around pretty badly.

As for your guys not lasting long - nature of the beast. They don't really shine till higher levels anyway, and if you want them to last you should have a way to heal them - later on it's Verata's Sacrifice, at some point it's blood of the master, but really it is hardly worth healing them - just drop a death nova on him instead and laugh as he goes boom. Also, creature density and the number of corpses falling really influences how well you build an army - in some areas you can roll with a huge army (when you see fields of tengu and other critters) in other areas you find that you are much less use (my early necro despaired of the hordes of elementals I had to go through for the Duke's Daughter quest...)

Rioter · Aug 20, 2005, 12:39 AM // 00:39

thanks but im not exactly sure... well i really have no idea what the nature of the beast, veratas sacrifice, and blood of the master do, nor do i know where to get them... i dont even know where to get death nova for that matter

Danaus · Aug 20, 2005, 02:25 AM // 02:25

I was considering making a Necro Summoner myself at one point here shortly, RPing based. Instead of a N/El combination, however, I was thinking N/Mo.

My thought was that the monk abilities could help keep some of the minions alive, but wasn't positive. At the least, it would help offset some of the damage one takes while using Necro skills to keep the minions alive longer. In that vein, what Monk skills would work best? Does Heal Party work on minions? Does Healing Seed go off from the decay damage of minions? Looked on here for a N/Mo build but didn't see one offhand based on minions. If someone knows of one, please point it out.