Curse

kaldak · Apr 16, 2006, 11:44 PM // 23:44

Good guide. Hopefully it can make a dent in the "Why cant I MM???" type posts.

Just a few comments:
-- 12 soul reaping is more than you really need. 10 works fine. I even go down to 9 if I'm going to be using Essence Bond on a tank doing the quest item trick (such as the gear in sf).
--Bone Minions are worth considering. They're actually quite cheap in the long run once soul reaping kicks in. They're not neccessarily better than horrors, but if you're ever in a situation where you need more defence than offense, consider taking minions and horrors.
--Blood of the Master can be replaced by Heal Area or Healing Spring. I still like to take BotM along if I have room, but if I'm carrying one those other two spells BotM is ususally the first thing to go if I need an additional slot.
--There's another collector's set that gives you a total of +42 energy at the cost of -2 energy regen. Dont use this as your primary set, but its very nice to switch to when you need to eek out a few more spells after the battle has ended.

Bel Ebih · Apr 17, 2006, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

I won't get into the debate about MM secondaries in this thread, but (and I think Bel will back me here) the one thing you can say for sure about N/Mo is that it's easy on the monks.

Yeah, I agree. But the funny thing is, from my experience when I run as N/Mo, most Monks have these itchy trigger fingers that leads them to heal you anyway, even after they see you have a self-heal for sacs, and even if you tell them it's really not necessary. And since you usually use Heal Area right after saccing, they end up healing you after you've already self-healed. Same thing happens when I run any N/Mo build actually (Battery, Orders). Maybe they just get bored.

Contessa · Apr 18, 2006, 08:16 AM // 08:16

I don't use scars when I minions nor do I have energy problems. With ranger secondary in PvE I just cast energizing wind and I can spam fiends and horrors. I love life transfer or troll unguent. I travel with one or the other to counter blood sacrificing for blood of the master and verata's sac. I travelled with this build tonight to run a friend to Copperhammer from the War Camp. It worked like a charm.

Death 16
Blood 11
Soul Reaping 9
Beast Mastery 6 or 7 (I can't remember the exact number, but it's the rest of the points for energiziing wind)

Life Transfer
Deathly Chill
Horrors
Fiends
Verata's Sac
Blood of the Master
Demonic Flesh
Energizing Wind

I do all kinds of variations on this build for minioning. I've had my soul reaping down to even 7 and it works fine with energizing wind.

An earlier build that I used was this:

Ferocious Strike (for energy) or Feral Lunge
Disrupting Lunge
Horrors or minions*
Fiends or rotting flesh*
**Any combo of the following: Verata's Sac or Blood of the Master or Troll Unguent or Healing Spring
Comfort Animal
Charm animal

It's lots of fun, but you need to have high soul reaping until you can cap Ferocious Strike.

*Also, when I was a lower-level necro, I used animate bone minions and replaced the other summoning spell with rotting flesh or deathly swarm. The reason is that the extra soul reaping helped make up for the lack of attribute points and energy until I got to a higher level.

**I didn't even bother with healing until I got past Kryta. I didn't need it for myself (or minions) because there were plenty of corpses to replenish my army except for a few places with undead like around Temple of Ages.

I view myself as a healer for my minions. I don't like to tax the monk to heal me. Monks already focus on keeping everyone, including themselves, alive and watching their energy. I like to make sure they have enough energy and time for emergencies.

Mistress Mindbender · Apr 18, 2006, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Energizing winds is trash. Sure, you can summon minions for only 10 energy, but you have a 25% longer recharge on minions. You have to take 5 seconds to keep summoning it every time you move, and the kicker is that it makes the recharge time on verata's sacrifice 37.5 seconds, which means that at 16 death your minions degeneration is un countered for 16.5 seconds, or 44% of the time.