Curse

wsmcasey · Mar 02, 2006, 04:22 PM // 16:22

The only problem I'm having now is maintaining more than 20+ minions. I can't seem to get all of them in my botm or heal area radius. I try grouping them or running around them to cast the ones I can't reach, but its not easy. Any tricks to this?

Wicked Shadow · Mar 02, 2006, 04:40 PM // 16:40

Well, to heal the most that I can, I move a little bit to get them grouped behind me, then turn around and as they're all rushing toward me to get behind me I use heal area. It may not get them all, it heals well enough.

Ira Blinks · Mar 02, 2006, 06:11 PM // 18:11

wsmcasey
easy, just hug the wall.

wsmcasey · Mar 02, 2006, 06:31 PM // 18:31

I've tried the running forward, and then casting as they catch me.....haven't tried hugging the wall. Whats that do?

Ira Blinks · Mar 02, 2006, 06:54 PM // 18:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by wsmcasey

I've tried the running forward, and then casting as they catch me.....haven't tried hugging the wall. Whats that do?

Isn't that obvious?
You stand close to the wall (facing away from it). Minions are trying to form up behind you, but since there isnt much space they all will be very close to you.

PrincessKyra · Mar 02, 2006, 07:12 PM // 19:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samueldg

BOTM is to heal your minions when theyre grouped...
heal area is to make you self sufficent..its a big heal for when your clear of monsters and sacing life..

the reason why nec/mo works better than say n/r or n/e comes down to being self sufficient.. you dont need the monk holding your hand and healing you so you can do YOUR job which is to make minions.

fiends are a damage dealer. in the case of topk, using fiends means you have less blockers to keep stuff off your rangers... ( case in point.. when somethings comes in range of melee on fiends the rangers are RIGHT there and are a juiceir target.. monster AI isnt the greatest but it does work that more often than not your entire ranger 5 man team will get killed THEN the fiends will get attacked.., play it safe and take horrors and minions making a melee wall.. with 5 barragers and an orders nec nothing will live long enough to do a lot of killing on your melee minions..)

now in the case of oro farming, fiends are the bomb.. you want a lot of them because you have a full time tank holding a gear.. melee minions dont generally do the damage a fiend does so theyre not as useful and they also take AOE damage from whatever is hitting the tank..

Im all for coming up with new builds.. but in the cases of 90% of farming teams you have a singular job and doing THAT job to the best of your skillset is what is required... be creative on your own time when your doing a mission or testing somthing with your guild.. when your on a farm run those people in that PUG are not there to fail because you wanted to try something...nec/mo is popular and saught after in topk and oro farming because its proven to work very well.. your not the first nor will you be the last to want to try something out but I guarantee its HAS been tried and has been found wanting in comparison...

you have to consider the whole team when doing stuff.. in TOPK you have ONE monk on a b/p team... this job is to heal damage from attacks .. not heal sacrifices from an ill prepared necro..

I agree 100% with Samueldg. Your point is very well stated. If everyone understood this, PUG land would be such a nicer place! I will definitely bring heal area on my next Tombs run as MM.

wsmcasey · Mar 02, 2006, 07:14 PM // 19:14

hmm....Ill have to try that. That would probably help in Thunderhead mission.
Not so good in the middle of the Desert.

Samueldg · Mar 02, 2006, 10:30 PM // 22:30

thanks kyra.

I spend a lot of time tryin to hammer home the simple differences in teams and how small things effect so much more..

glad to see someone got it

to me when I join a group thinking about what everyone else has to do theyre job and what they need to get it done and what I need to get it done makes things a LOT smoother for everyone..

case in point, Ive went through a bajillion rangers trying to explain to them on a b/p team they have ONE primary job.. shoot barrage as often and as constant as they can.. everything else they bring or do is to support that mission.. putting points into beast mastery and bringing your interrupts on BM skillset ( disrupting lunge) is counter to what your pet is needed for... your pet needs to die and be rezzed.. if your spaming comfort animal to keep him alive so you can use that interrupt you are a detriment to the team because of two things 1. you cant shoot effectivly and spam comfort to heal.. 2 your pet dieing allows a larger minion army..and Yes I want them to die so I can have a LOT of ene to make more from both pets and monsters..

everything else on a ranger build should be centered around one primary skill ... marksmanship
with a decent amount in expertise to keep the spammin of barrage up... favorable winds being a marks req and defensive stuff for the grasps.. aka throw dirt and dust trap. the key word is DEFENSIVE... runnin up and tryin to get off a dust trap next to a grasp is askin for no monk sympathy... or even more laughable is runnin up and throw dirt on a dryder...
both ive seen a great deal of in topk..interrupts are nice because they lower the frequency in which the monk is needed.. and with one monk you dont want him having to cast spells ... his ene isnt everlasting..

I have honestly went through topk as a monk healer and NEVER had to heal anyone .. no kiddin..
everyone had theyre stuff well and togheter and when they got conditions or hexes I only had to remove them.. with div favor and casting the remove they healed right back up..

Ive went through as MM being self sufficent and had no shortage of minions and horrors pileing in front of everything, pets dieing and me making minions of them while rangers barragin like mad and rezzing pets....... the monk actually went afk and we continued through the last to passage ways in HOH with no monk.. he came runnin when we got to the darknessess

Ive gone in with orders using mending breeze and occasionally HA and kept a constant stream of OOP and OOV up more often than not overlaping them and seeing the mission done under an hour everytime..

Ive also spent countless starts and see the whole team get wiped out within the first 20 minutes because a ranger didnt have a pet as was casting something he shouldnt even have had in his skill bar.. Ive seen MM actuall sac themselves down to nothing.. watch all theyre minions die while runnin to the next mob... and then bitch because the monk was healing rangers who had pets that pulled aggro..
Ive seen an orders nec without monk secondary sac out in under 2 minutes in the first area.. relying soley on blood magic and claming to be self healing..

nothing heals you like healing.. plain simple fact of this game...
IF your going to use sacrificing skills use self healing as well.

but the all time biggest problem with any pug is people assuming its easier than it is because other groups they have heard of do it so well.. they never think to ask how...

a great example is Thunderhead...
Ive actually taken the time and did it with henchies.. after failing it with countless pugs... I posted a screenshot of it because I thought that was by and far the coolest thing Ive ever done with henchies.. and got a plethora of replies " yea yea seen it blah blah"

the Irony is 90% of this people who posted " been done nothing impressive" have never done it themselves.. but they believe its easy and simple because they have seen ten screenshots.. of others doing it even harder.. most of them will continue to fail to do it in a pug...........

Ira Blinks · Mar 03, 2006, 04:03 AM // 04:03

Samueldg
you either selfsufficient, or play your role well... never both. This obvious contradiction in your statements left me with no will to read it to the end.

VampiricuS · Mar 03, 2006, 05:58 PM // 17:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by PrincessKyra

IMO: A good MM in tombs has at least 10-15 horrors/fiends up all the time. This creates 2 walls of defense for your team while dealing steady damage.

1. To keep a steady supply of horrors/fiends, you need to constantly make horrors & fiends during a battle because Lvl 18 horrors/fiends still die fast. If you're spending your energy on blood skills during the battle, corpses probably aren't being used efficiently.

2. To keep a large number of horrors/fiends alive while traveling to the next mob area, heal area is not sufficient. I consider any primary MM without Blood of the Master AND Verata's Sacrifice to be very ineffective.

3. A good MM should not die often. If the MM dies, it's usually because defenses were depleted after minions died. Verata's Aura is a waste of a skill slot in Tombs.

4. If you want to deal damage other than that of your minions, bring Spiteful Spirit and Suffering. These skills do not need to be spammed often, saving your energy for raising horrors and fiends.

5. It makes more sense for an Orders necro to bring Blood Ritual [edit]. When I'm MM for Tombs, I use the following:

Animate Fiends
Animate Horrors
Blood of the Master (large heal for minions)
Verata's Sacrifice (counter minion degen)
Rebirth
Spiteful Spirit (direct damage to entire mobs)
Suffering (degen entire mobs)
Enfeebling Blood (weaken mobs so minions last longer)

16 death, 10 soul, 10 curses

I have to disagree on the build slightly.

I use necro monk because heal area is worth it to me, here is why.

in tombs I do use BoM and veratas, but to be honest, veratas sac is only good for when you first raise them. half the time you cant get close enough to ensure all of them get affected.

any other place like the furnace for example, i run up and use BOM to heal them with combination of V.Sac. step back, use heal area to heal myself (its quicker than a sig) and when the battle is done, i use BoM and heal area after (heals myself after sacrificing health to use bom and heals them again). just seems more efficient.

I also use the N/Mo build for "Ressurect" not rebirth, i like my energy.

my MM build:

Death 16
Soul 10
Healing 9

1.Horror
2.Fiend
3.BoM
4.Veratas Sacrifice
5.Death Chill
6.Death Nova (for bombing) / or Deathly Swarm, depending on cituation
7.Heal Area
8.Ressurect

Samueldg · Mar 03, 2006, 07:33 PM // 19:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ira Blinks

Samueldg
you either selfsufficient, or play your role well... never both. This obvious contradiction in your statements left me with no will to read it to the end.

actually you CAN do both....

apparantly you cant since it says N/me under your name as char class..

IF your self sufficient and doing your job in spaming minions and keeping them up.. hello, thats your job...

ReKLiS · Mar 03, 2006, 08:00 PM // 20:00

can the MM solo very well?

PrincessKyra · Mar 03, 2006, 08:07 PM // 20:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by VampiricuS

I have to disagree on the build slightly.

I use necro monk because heal area is worth it to me, here is why.

in tombs I do use BoM and veratas, but to be honest, veratas sac is only good for when you first raise them. half the time you cant get close enough to ensure all of them get affected.

any other place like the furnace for example, i run up and use BOM to heal them with combination of V.Sac. step back, use heal area to heal myself (its quicker than a sig) and when the battle is done, i use BoM and heal area after (heals myself after sacrificing health to use bom and heals them again). just seems more efficient.

I also use the N/Mo build for "Ressurect" not rebirth, i like my energy.

my MM build:

Death 16
Soul 10
Healing 9

1.Horror
2.Fiend
3.BoM
4.Veratas Sacrifice
5.Death Chill
6.Death Nova (for bombing) / or Deathly Swarm, depending on cituation
7.Heal Area
8.Ressurect

Yeah, I've updated my build to remove curses and put in heal area due to everyone's suggestions. I was amazed at what a big difference it made!

Heal area made it possible for me to double my undead count. I was maintaining 20-30 horrors + fiends for the majority of a tombs run yesterday, and we completed it in 55 minutes. I brought restore life to reduce energy problems for post-battle rez as well. Didn't use it much, since I had such a good team. I'll definitely bring death nova for my next run.

This thread is really helping me a lot

Ira Blinks · Mar 03, 2006, 08:20 PM // 20:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samueldg

actually you CAN do both....

apparantly you cant since it says N/me under your name as char class..

IF your self sufficient and doing your job in spaming minions and keeping them up.. hello, thats your job...

oh so thats why when i farm SF ppl who been there for a while go like "wow! thats what i call ARMY!". I said that before, and I say that again: If you have anything on your skill bar that is not death magic skill, you dont deserve to call yourself MM.

Also I find it funny how people avoid answering valid point with blank statements how other people suck...

Undead Shadowknight · Mar 03, 2006, 09:22 PM // 21:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ira Blinks

oh so thats why when i farm SF ppl who been there for a while go like "wow! thats what i call ARMY!". I said that before, and I say that again: If you have anything on your skill bar that is not death magic skill, you dont deserve to call yourself MM.

Also I find it funny how people avoid answering valid point with blank statements how other people suck...

I disagree with this statement. I do agree you should have almost all death magic, but I still believe that there are more than just 1 way to do something.
To be picky and anal about your statement. What about heal area and rebirth/res?

I also have SS on my bar for when my minions are attacking or at beginning of maps where I can't have any minions. And I have had the same kind of comments but at different locations. I have even seen tanks just sit back and watch the minions kill everything.

Carinae · Mar 03, 2006, 10:24 PM // 22:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ira Blinks

I said that before, and I say that again: If you have anything on your skill bar that is not death magic skill, you dont deserve to call yourself MM.

This is a ridiculous statement and I can only encourage you to re-read the thread to understand why. I could say "If you don't have Heal Area on you skillbar, then you're not a real MM", and it would be closer to the truth.

N/Mo might not be the BEST build, but it's the most optimal anyone's discovered yet. The difference is not small. Why do you have a Mesmer secondary? Are you not using it at all?

Have you tried N/Mo? I have tried N/Me and N/E and N/Mo and N/R. I'm looking forward to trying N/Rt.

Step outside Beetletun and see how far you get solo. Not very far? Either sacced yourself to death, or had to skip a minion heal to regen didn't ya?

Now USE that experience to improve your SF build. Don't be a drain on your monk(s). Use soloing as a gauge to become self-sufficient.

Monks are there to repair DAMAGE, not saccing. If you're using a monk to counteract sacrifices, your doing the same thing as crappy Elementalists who can't manage their own energy and NEED a Necro Battery there to in order to do their JOB!

There are many ways to be a MM. But the whole point of this thread, is that N/Mo provides a serious advantage that the others do not. This is one of the few rare cases in GW where one particular build clearly IS stronger.

Carinae · Mar 03, 2006, 10:35 PM // 22:35

FYI to OoB users here: Because of the increased sacrifice, you're going to need to re-order your casting just a little bit, so that you run HA right after OoB.

VS=>BotM=>HA=>OoB=>HA=>

Ira Blinks · Mar 04, 2006, 12:47 AM // 00:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

bla bla bla i dont know you, but im sure you suck...

this thread (as well as "Do You Need to Be A Monk Secondary to be an effective MM?") is a stinky pile of trash mr. smartass. To answer your question about Me as secondary: yes, I dont use it when i play MM build (unless it is tombs or any other area with lots of mesmers), im just too lazy to go and switch, since i dont need it anyway. Your statement about absence of self heals on pure death necro is simply pathetic - go study necro skills, that might give you a clue.
You can argue as much as you want that i can not get as many minions as N/Mo, because i can. In fact i can easily maintain same kind of army in Oro farm, but when it comes to FA any N/Mo i've seen so far bites the dust.
N/Mo is simple and newb friendly like W/Mo, thats the only reason so many people pick it... that does make them decent, but it desn't make them good.

Manic Smile · Mar 04, 2006, 03:49 AM // 03:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

FYI to OoB users here: Because of the increased sacrifice, you're going to need to re-order your casting just a little bit, so that you run HA right after OoB.

VS=>BotM=>HA=>OoB=>HA=>

Once again I suggest two Superior Runes.

Manic Smile · Mar 04, 2006, 04:07 AM // 04:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ira Blinks

this thread (as well as "Do You Need to Be A Monk Secondary to be an effective MM?") is a stinky pile of trash mr. smartass. To answer your question about Me as secondary: yes, I dont use it when i play MM build (unless it is tombs or any other area with lots of mesmers), im just too lazy to go and switch, since i dont need it anyway. Your statement about absence of self heals on pure death necro is simply pathetic - go study necro skills, that might give you a clue.
You can argue as much as you want that i can not get as many minions as N/Mo, because i can. In fact i can easily maintain same kind of army in Oro farm, but when it comes to FA any N/Mo i've seen so far bites the dust.
N/Mo is simple and newb friendly like W/Mo, thats the only reason so many people pick it... that does make them decent, but it desn't make them good.

Frankly you are making an ass of yourself...and not because of what you are saying.

Back to the discussion, it is the overall utility of HA and the presence of a hard rez that makes /mo strong. In PvE any rez >> rez sig...so what if a great party never needs rezing it's about that one time everyone dies off and you're the last left alive without a rez...it happens. Not to mention I can think of many cases where rebirth saved a game where rez sig(granted any rez but rebirth but that's rather mute) would hav be utterly useless.

Hexes are an iffy thing to depend on for the sake of self healing as you may not get the full benefit, have it smited off for more damage, and not even get it off in some cases with their casting times. Enchantments are the same problem. SF is a horrible place to test your builds strength due to the gear/keg trick. The few quick casting time spells that steal life are of the blood line and while they do work very well, and synergize with OoB(should you be using it) they give no utility to either other party members or your minnions. HA simply outpreforms them with little cost. On the margin I still get 15 energy from OoB...more then enough...and a HA of 110 which not only heals me minnions but is great for clutch situations with my party...while not dieing and lowering my sac cost to OoB(especially curcial since the update)

Finally you don't use any mez skills so it's rather arbitrary what sub class you play.