Curse

Francis Crawford · Jun 01, 2006, 02:57 AM // 02:57

I'm playing MM with all 25-energy animates -- Fleshy, V. Horrors, Fiends, and all Death Magic skills otherwise except for rez.

Assuming I dumped Fleshy for an energy elite, which would be best? I'm leaning towards Glyph of Energy (60 energy per minute, if the timing works out right), because it requires no attribute points and hence lets me max out Soul Reaping. It does preclude reusable rez, but so be it.

xenoranger · Jun 01, 2006, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Totally depends on the build man. I used to use offering of blood. Nice way to keep your skills in 1 prof. Plus, you can use Life Siphon and other blood skills for HP management.

Mantra of Recall is good, but the wait just seemed kinda pointless to me.

Glyph of Energy means you spend roughly 10 on each minion. Problem there is that it's 4 seconds casting time (1 + 3) between the spells for each minion. Problem with both this and Offering of Blood is the recharge of 15 sec. Hmm.....

I just know that Mantra of Recall is the worst of these. It's 20 recharge time for a +15 (diff between 10 cost and 25 output) isnt' as ideal.

Hmm.... Looks like Glyph of Energy is the best way to go there. There's no points spend on unnecessary attributes and if under a hex where all casting causes exhaustion, it negates that. (IE: Battling Glint)

I never considered Glyph of Energy, but I think I might from now on.At least.. while an N/E, it works.

Evilsod · Jun 01, 2006, 05:32 PM // 17:32

You'd be better using Glyph of Lesser Energy though and saving your elite imo. Not only do you still not need to put points into a 3rd attribute line (assuming pure Death/Reaping) but you can still bring your Golem or use AotL to spam BotM.

Don't forget that OoB sacrifices 20% max health. Which really isn't a good thing, a monk still has to heal it so even though your gaining maybe 5 more energy over Mantra of Recall, someone on your team is losing it to heal the difference. Unless of course your using Blood Renewal (since you've pumped plenty into Blood to make OoB worthwhile), but your still sacrificing 45% life to deal with something that to a monk looks like a Fireball or 2 so you'll get healed anyway.

xenoranger · Jun 01, 2006, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Well.. if worse comes to worse, you could use Claude. BRit is a nice skill if someone else is using it on you =p

Evilsod · Jun 01, 2006, 05:55 PM // 17:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by xenoranger

Well.. if worse comes to worse, you could use Claude. BRit is a nice skill if someone else is using it on you =p

That guy rules for that

He's the best member of the team if your a Ranger and feel like spamming skills ALOT more than you should be doing.

xenoranger · Jun 01, 2006, 07:21 PM // 19:21

I've played Battery a few times. It's interesting to see you use it on a warrior and watch them go. Now, people look at my like WTF would you use it on a warrior. Well, BRit gives them more than the standard 2 pips for energy, so they can use some of their attacks a lot quicker. An assassin is another good person to put BRit on.

When playing with hench, I'll take Claude b/c he does actually add BRit to my enchantments when I ping low energy. This seems to work well in PvE.. In PvP, you can't rely on a battery to help out, so ... not a whole lot can be done.

Back on topic.. sounds like Glyph of Energy is the way to go. At least if you want to pour an elite into it.

Turbobusa · Jun 01, 2006, 09:01 PM // 21:01

save ur elite, get glyph of lesser energy as evilsod said.
aura of the lich is the best MM elite to me. no need for energy management since minions are 25. I just raise my army to 10; then spam botm(blood renewal when needed),animate fiends, get ur soul reaping...That limit is not so bad.

Francis Crawford · Jun 02, 2006, 02:00 AM // 02:00

I find that in PUGs I'm often the one slowing the group down in two ways. First, I stop walking and cast BotM a lot. Second, I twiddle my thumbs after a battle waiting for my energy to recharge, so I can exploit all the lovely corpses.

Not a lot I can do about #1. But an energy elite could help with #2, I think.

And Glyph of Energy has about 3X the benefit per minute that Glyph of Lesser Energy does. But yeah, it might be interesting to at least experiment with that, even though it's only 20 energy/minute for the non-elite (i.e., the equivalent of 1 pip).

AtomicMew · Jun 02, 2006, 02:36 AM // 02:36

I never understood why other MM's felt the need for energy management. Soul reaping is more than enough. Seriously. If you play your cards right, soul reaping at 12 gives you 24 per body - once when it initially falls, once when your minion falls. That plus natural regen should be more than enough to do whatever you need.

The only times you don't get the benefit of soul reaping is when you're initially raising your army, and when bodies are hitting the floor so fast that your cast rate can't keep up. In the latter case, why would you be complaining about energy?

Flesh golem is the best elite for MM, even from an energy perspective (imo).

Flesh golem costs 15 to cast (compare to 25 fiend cost). But it also conserves a corpse, so that's 22 energy saved right off the bat. Then, you have to consider that even after several battles, it DOESN'T get recycled. So it's as if you're only really maintaining 9 minions, and you'll always have a fresher army (since another weaker minion will be recycled instead.)

xenoranger · Jun 02, 2006, 04:49 PM // 16:49

Glyph of
Energy = 20 Less
Lesser Energy = 15

Energy gives 15 net
Lesser gives 10 net

Energy Recharges 15 sec
Lesser Recharges 30 sec

Obviously, necros have no exhaustion to worry about, so it's no big there.

You could use lesser, but you have to wait a full 30 sec for recharge.

hmm..... I can't see how that'd help too much since you need to cast more frequently.

GoEnergy sounds like the way to go, but GoLEnergy's recharge makes it less useful. I'd think with high enough SR, you could use GOLEnergy.

Try adjusting your stats to see what happens. Make sure SR is fairly high. Mine is always at 10-11. I don't need a glyph, but I also have a Sup SR on me.

Prob not a definite answer, but a little more to consider.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

Soul reaping is more than enough. Seriously. If you play your cards right, soul reaping at 12 gives you 24 per body

Not quite. Your level in SR determins how much you get back. SR lvl = nrg gained. 1 = 1, 12=12. Even at 16 SR, you only get 16 per death.

If you can increase your DPS, you can get some serious nrg outta the deal.

sno · Jun 03, 2006, 03:01 AM // 03:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by xenoranger

Not quite. Your level in SR determins how much you get back. SR lvl = nrg gained. 1 = 1, 12=12. Even at 16 SR, you only get 16 per death.

He meant your minion. If someone dies you get energy for that corpse, use it to make a minion. When that minion dies you get the same energy again, so 2x as much as your soul reaping for one corpse.

pork soldier · Jun 04, 2006, 12:37 PM // 12:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by sno

He meant your minion. If someone dies you get energy for that corpse, use it to make a minion. When that minion dies you get the same energy again, so 2x as much as your soul reaping for one corpse.

There's still the energy cost of raising the minion, so it's not really 2x the energy .. think of minions more as energy sinks or stored energy.

Another good trick if you're not running death magic is to carry malign intervention on your bar, throw it on your target when you anticipate the need for energy "real soon now." When your target dies you'll raise a low level masterless horror that triggers SR again when it dies.

Caedere · Jun 04, 2006, 01:18 PM // 13:18

Bone Minions + Soul Reaping = Crazy delicious

Seriously, though - I've never, EVER had problems with energy management as a MM. I have 10 in Soul Reaping and that works out just fine. Someone dies, I get 10 energy, use 15 of it to get Bone Minions. Net less of 5 energy so far. Death Nova each Minion, there goes 10 more energy, and then Taste of Death 'em when it's a good time to, which is 10 more energy, but I get 20 back. That 20 lets me raise 2 more Minions and the circle of death continues. :P

Not to mention having a Flesh Golem walking around as a battery on top of that... again, you should NEVER have energy problems, even if you're spamming attack spells in between raise guys.

Evilsod · Jun 04, 2006, 01:28 PM // 13:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caedere

Bone Minions + Soul Reaping = Crazy delicious

Seriously, though - I've never, EVER had problems with energy management as a MM. I have 10 in Soul Reaping and that works out just fine. Someone dies, I get 10 energy, use 15 of it to get Bone Minions. Net less of 5 energy so far. Death Nova each Minion, there goes 10 more energy, and then Taste of Death 'em when it's a good time to, which is 10 more energy, but I get 20 back. That 20 lets me raise 2 more Minions and the circle of death continues. :P

Not to mention having a Flesh Golem walking around as a battery on top of that... again, you should NEVER have energy problems, even if you're spamming attack spells in between raise guys.

Bone Minions are an absolute waste of space if your an MM. A lvl13 Minion can survive about 2 hits before it dies, the point of the minions is to make a blockade and to hurt things, that and Bone Minions counts as 2 minions, 2 very crap minions. The only place Bone Minions are needed is when your playing SS/BR, 15 energy to cast (and you stop the sodding Beasts jumping around) and your net gain is at least 5 when both of them die very easily.

I'm really dissapointed with the Flesh Golem tbh. I don't have Factions, but i've been on the recieving end of 1 when the MM died. They hit hard you can't deny it, but there attack speed is absolutely awful. Seriously i've seen rangers with Hornbows and Shadow of Fear attack faster! I'd save my elite on keeping the rest of my minions alive over bringing 1 of the slowest hitters in the game. But i guess until i can see the damage it causes first hand (they sure as hell can tank though) i can't let em down entirely...

Edit: Forgot the point of this. Glyph of Lesser Energy does indeed have twice the recharge time. But you SHOULD have plenty of energy until your raising minions after the fight. at which point, standing around for even 15 seconds waiting for a second recharge on GoE is still too long. Lesser Energy is far more flexible, its not elite and you should only really need energy to raise 1 minion after the fight anyway. Specially with things around that can exploit corpses, you should be raising them the instant something dies.

Francis Crawford · Jun 04, 2006, 10:09 PM // 22:09

In response to the "What do you need all that energy for anyway?" comments, I note two things not much discussed in this thread:

1. BotM spamming
2. Attack spells other than minion damage.

Maybe I'm trying to do too much, but if I have more energy, I can always find a way to use it.

E.g., let's assume Fleshy's casting cost is "free" (a little generous), and Glyph of Energy = 6 Deathly Swams/minute (also a little generous). Which adds more to the damage you deal?

Evilsod · Jun 04, 2006, 10:22 PM // 22:22

Deathly Swarm is effected way too much by armour imo to be effective. I merely bring it with me to do damage if there are no corpses or my minions have been slaughtered...

You'd be better in a brawl simply picking out which minion is about to get its head kicked in and casting Death Nova on it than spamming Deathly Swarm. BotM spamming doesn't cost that much either. plus if your doing BotM spamming, you will have dedicated your elite to Aura of the Lich or have a very good self heal to spam also. Otherwise you'll have a Golem and won't be spamming quite so much.

Caedere · Jun 05, 2006, 12:27 PM // 12:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilsod

Bone Minions are an absolute waste of space if your an MM. A lvl13 Minion can survive about 2 hits before it dies, the point of the minions is to make a blockade and to hurt things, that and Bone Minions counts as 2 minions, 2 very crap minions. The only place Bone Minions are needed is when your playing SS/BR, 15 energy to cast (and you stop the sodding Beasts jumping around) and your net gain is at least 5 when both of them die very easily.

I'm really dissapointed with the Flesh Golem tbh. I don't have Factions, but i've been on the recieving end of 1 when the MM died. They hit hard you can't deny it, but there attack speed is absolutely awful. Seriously i've seen rangers with Hornbows and Shadow of Fear attack faster! I'd save my elite on keeping the rest of my minions alive over bringing 1 of the slowest hitters in the game. But i guess until i can see the damage it causes first hand (they sure as hell can tank though) i can't let em down entirely...

Edit: Forgot the point of this. Glyph of Lesser Energy does indeed have twice the recharge time. But you SHOULD have plenty of energy until your raising minions after the fight. at which point, standing around for even 15 seconds waiting for a second recharge on GoE is still too long. Lesser Energy is far more flexible, its not elite and you should only really need energy to raise 1 minion after the fight anyway. Specially with things around that can exploit corpses, you should be raising them the instant something dies.

I must be playing a MM totally different from how you play it, then.

Thank goodness my way of playing works out just fine.

Evilsod · Jun 05, 2006, 12:49 PM // 12:49

That still doesn't change the fact Bone Minions are shit... unless you intend to spam Death Nova onto them as they WILL be dead within 10 seconds, then why bring em? Last time i checked MMs where used primarily to make a wall between the enemies and Barragers/casters, not to charge in and die. Unless your using the Kamikaze Minion technique anyway

Caedere · Jun 05, 2006, 12:59 PM // 12:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilsod

That still doesn't change the fact Bone Minions are shit... unless you intend to spam Death Nova onto them as they WILL be dead within 10 seconds, then why bring em? Last time i checked MMs where used primarily to make a wall between the enemies and Barragers/casters, not to charge in and die. Unless your using the Kamikaze Minion technique anyway

Bingo.

I always figure the whole point of being a MM was to make things die.

The only time I ever even have BotM equipped, for example, is in PvE... and that's just so I don't have to start from scratch every time I run into a new group of enemies.

Francis Crawford · Jun 08, 2006, 06:46 AM // 06:46

Well, I was talking about PvE. And 10 minions, while hardly doing the damage of 10 other players, do still do an awful lot.

As for self-heals -- as long as the Vampiric Horrors are alive, they give a lot of healing.

Death Nova vs. Deathly Chill is a good point, however.