Curse

RaathCatarn · Jun 30, 2006, 08:41 PM // 20:41

I was just curious, as it seems like it could make be part of a really nice dual farm build.

The skill bar would look something like:

Animate Flesh Golem
Animate Vampiric Horror
Verata's Sacrifice
Blood of the Master
Dark Bond
Blood Renewal
Life Bond
Balthazar's Spirit

And the attributes:
16 Death (12+3+1)
9 Soul reaping (7+2)
9 Blood magic (8+1)
8 Prot Prayers.

Thoughts? Just wondering. I've played Minion Master for almost a year now, so am wondering to what other limits it could be pushed.

SisterMercy · Jul 01, 2006, 08:29 PM // 20:29

Could work. Some potential negatives follow, but try it. When testing and tweaking any new build, try with henchies in a few different zones first (since what works in one area might be lousy in another, depending on the types of foes faced).

Any MM-heavy build will be relatively ineffective in areas of non-bleeders (i.e. ghosts, skeletons, stones, azures, etc.) but if you're in Cantha, fortunately there aren't too many of those. If you're PvP, only the Golem is really useful, unless you have any teammates or pets onside that plan to do a lot of dying. But you probably knew those things.

Life Bond and Dark Bond only move damage around, minion to you to closest minion. I'm assuming you want a Golem tank and the Vampiric Horrors to take all the damage. But generating new Horrors costs 25 energy, and they might not always be the closest minions -- at least Bone Fiends attack at range, cost 15 Energy and might be more likely to fit the "closest minion" bill. Or if there are going to be sparse corpses, Bone Minions will give you two bangs for the buck, with the same Energy cost as Vampiric Horrors.

Life Bond will not be so effective against Enchantment-stripping foes.

Dark Bond has 20 second recharge, so you do have some limits on frequency of passing your damage to your closest minion. Contrary to what I said earlier, this partly justifies using Vampiric Horrors.

Life Bond also assumes that you will be able to select your Golem in the middle of a busy battlefield. For that, I wish they'd create a minion sub-menu or include them in the party list (at least for the Necros who created them). Golem (+ Dark Bond) + Taste of Death + Death Nova would be highly effective ways of creating re-animatable minion bombs if they were more easily selectable.

With the combinations of Verata's, BotM, Dark Bond and especially Renewal, I suspect there will be some wild health fluctuations. If grouping, let your healer know what you're doing, so he/she doesn't panic.

Baal Catarn · Jul 01, 2006, 08:56 PM // 20:56

Quote:

Could work. Some potential negatives follow, but try it. When testing and tweaking any new build, try with henchies in a few different zones first (since what works in one area might be lousy in another, depending on the types of foes faced).

So far I've tried around Bukdek Byway against Jade Brotherhood with one henchman (Talon) and Xanqua Skyway against Vermin and Jade Brotherhood.

What I've noticed so far is that energy is aboslutely no issue against those particular foes, as Life Bond + Balth's Spriti keeps my energy just fine, along with the two regen.

Quote:

Life Bond and Dark Bond only move damage around, minion to you to closest minion. I'm assuming you want a Golem tank and the Vampiric Horrors to take all the damage. But generating new Horrors costs 25 energy, and they might not always be the closest minions -- at least Bone Fiends attack at range, cost 15 Energy and might be more likely to fit the "closest minion" bill. Or if there are going to be sparse corpses, Bone Minions will give you two bangs for the buck, with the same Energy cost as Vampiric Horrors.

It does reduce the damage heavily, Life Bond and Dark Bond. As long as I'm not being aggroed, the damage is fairly manageable, even with all the sacrificing you mentioned. Blood Renewal can generally keep my health up long enough. I've found that vampiric horrors are... lack luster so far. Only have 1-2 up does not heal nearly enough life to make up for the cost, so I may go with Bone Fiends as you said.

The only real problems I have ran into is that fact that no Flesh Golem = No Power, so I CANNOT solo with out some kind of damage output, or getting lucky by find an animal such as a tiger, and that's hardly something to rely on. A Whammo might just be enough, if they are smart, and keep themselves relatively healed, as I can bond them until (or even after) my golem is up. Massive amounts of conditons and degen on myself, are also a problem. It makes Blood Renewal hard to manage, and sacrificing health much more dangerous than it needs to be.