Curse

Rexsis Kai · May 18, 2008, 04:14 AM // 04:14

Ok title says it all.

build so far:
Lvl: 19
Class: N/Mo
Stats: 16 DM 10 SR 8 HP
Skills: Deathly Swarm / Horror / Fiend / BoTM / Healing Circle / Consume Minion (the teeth with tounge thing lol) Dark Bond / Rebirth

My minions are getting owned left and right, I can not seem to keep them out long enough for them to do their job, what am I doing wrong? Should I change up my build, I am in the process of capping Flesh Golem. If anyone has a solid MM PvE build that has worked greatly for them, please help me out.

uby · May 18, 2008, 04:32 AM // 04:32

the minion degen gets to be too much to overcome after about 20-30 seconds. you NEED to constantly cycle through minions.

if you want to have a minion that doesn't die as easily, use flesh golem and buff him with nightmare weapon as N/Rt. weapon spells actually work on pets and animated allies!

otherwise, i wouldn't focus too much on trying to keep your expendable minions alive.

Legends · May 18, 2008, 04:48 AM // 04:48

Yes, whats stated above is true. Constantly make new ones!

DarkNecrid · May 18, 2008, 04:50 AM // 04:50

They can't die, they're already dead.

horseradish · May 18, 2008, 05:12 AM // 05:12

bring [death nova] so they do something when they die.

graverobber2 · May 18, 2008, 06:41 AM // 06:41

try [[Jagged Bones]], that way, you'll immediatly get a new one
(kind of hard to cast it on all your minions, though)

Abedeus · May 18, 2008, 06:52 AM // 06:52

Jagged Bones + Death Nova = ULTIMATE PWNAGE ON 24 LEVEL MOBS!

horseradish · May 18, 2008, 07:15 AM // 07:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by graverobber2

(kind of hard to cast it on all your minions, though)

If you don't auto-target the minion, it targets the closest one that isn't enchanted with JB, so at least it's easier than nova.

Cathode_Reborn · May 18, 2008, 08:30 AM // 08:30

Can't really comment till you tell us what's making them die so much

[skill]Aura of the Lich[/skill]

That reduces the cost of sacs so you can spam BotM all day.....if that helps.

Abedeus · May 18, 2008, 08:32 AM // 08:32

Best if you have yourself as MM and a necro hero with death nova, jagged bones and so on. Heroes like maintaining things on minions.

Shadowmere · May 18, 2008, 08:46 AM // 08:46

Try using [aura of the lich], it gives suprising surviavability and halves saccing cost meaning BotM hurts a lot less, combine with [masochism] to entirely eliminate any semblance of energy issues. Put a little self regen on top of those two and you can very easily keep minions alive indefinetly.

Marverick · May 18, 2008, 02:39 PM // 14:39

[skill]Jagged Bones[/skill] with a dual 20/20 death set is ftw

Chthon · May 18, 2008, 03:58 PM // 15:58

Most of the advice posted above is worthless.

It is patently incorrect that "the minion degen gets to be too much to overcome after about 20-30 seconds."
In many cases there aren't adequate corpses to cycle minions when you'd like to.
Jagged Bones + Death Nova are great for heroes whose AI allows them to instantly target the appropriate minions for enchanting, but pretty terrible for you who has to target each minion with the mouse.

So, what do you do?
First, you need to cast BotM more frequently than you probably are right now. In order to offset max degen, you need to cast BotM once every 6.1 sec. Use that as your baseline. Decrease the frequency if all of your minions are younger, and increase the frequency if the monsters are adding damage on top of the minions' natural degen.
Second, recycle minions when they are old. Keep track of minion ages in your head and summon new minions against the minion cap to replace old ones. Of course, you shouldn't cycle against the cap if all of your minions are still young (that's just wasting energy) and you can't cycle at all if there's not enough corpses.

General advice on your build not related to keeping minions alive:
1. Deathly Swarm is a terrible skill. Armor-sensitive cold damage = poo.

2. Taste of Death + Dark Bond is overkill. In PvE, especially in Normal Mode, you shouldn't even need one skill solely dedicated to keeping yourself alive, much less two. If you're having trouble with getting killed, the most important thing to work on is probably your battlefield positioning. If that's not enough, I'd suggest looking at skills that serve as self-preservation but also do something useful for your team, for instance EBSoCourage. If you absolutely must bring a skill that is solely for self-preservation, Dark Bond gives you the most bang for the skillslot.

3. Soul Reaping was broken by a nerf a while ago, and it seems like fixing it is not a top priority for a-net. Post-nerf, you pretty much need an e-management skill to keep a MM going through random patches where SR doesn't return much energy. Masochism is the best for the job in my opinion. SoLS is an option.

4. Flesh Golem isn't a bad elite, but it's not great either. Order of Undeath is the "money skill" that really puts human MM's in a whole different league than hero MB's. AotL is nice for reducing your sac costs very low and providing a great heal, but I rarely use it because you can do those things adequately with non-elite skills. People suggesting JB don't know what they're talking about; first of all, without a minion interface, using it well is pretty much impossible for a human player; second of all, while great for a Minion Bomber, a Minion Master shouldn't really want weak jagged horrors taking up space in his/her army.

You say you want a build?

Copy/pasted from the last half-dozen times I've answered this question:

12 + 1 + 3 death
10 + 1, 2, or 3 SR
8 self-heal's attribute

0. Rez or Rez Scroll
1. Bone Fiend
2. Melee Minion: Bone Horror OR Vampiric Horror
3. BotM
4. Self-Heal: Heal Area OR Mystic Regeneration OR AotL
5. E-Management: Masochism OR SoLS (OR maybe none if you make low-cost selections for other skills)
6. Elite: OoU OR AotL OR maybe Flesh Golem.

Leaves you with 0-2 optional spots. EBS's are good options, as are many other PvE-only skills; Rotting Flesh and Well of Suffering are probably the strongest options in the Death line; Blood offers Dark Bond and a few utility skills that work at low rank; You can dip into your secondary for utility. Whatever you do, please don't use the silly cold-damage skills in the Death line -- they are all expensive, slow-casting, armor-sensitive, low-damage garbage. And that goes double for deathly swarm.

Loli Krasivaya · May 18, 2008, 04:21 PM // 16:21

Chthon,

As much as I agree with your post, I disagree with your minion choices.

I've found that vampiric horrors are more or less useless, especially if you have a good self-heal, because the return is meh and the recharge is killer. I also dislike bone fiends because the entire purpose of the mm (at least in later stages of the game) is defense and indirect damage (through hero's jagged bones and death nova).

Imo I would bring shambling horror and animate bone minions. The bone minions are great bombing fodder, or simply meatwalls if you don't have a jb hero along and sac enough. I could understand bone horror, if you have the time to stand back and raise, but I really dislike vampiric. The shambling horror is self-explanatory, and with the minion left behind it helps keep an army of 9 up at all times. I dislike fiends because I've noticed they often aggro onto the caster.

Despite the mystic regen nerf, it still works surprisingly well with AotL for great survivability. And also, I assume you know heal area/healing circle heals mobs? Just a fun fact.

And like Chthon said, deathly swarm is a waste of a skill slot.

Good luck with your mm, but tbh, try out curses or n/rt heals. Necros can do so much.

Moloch Vein · May 18, 2008, 06:17 PM // 18:17

Vampiric Horror isn't bad because the recharge is approximately correct for build a correct differential of Fiends vs Horrors. It's also a comfortable addition to an OoU bar.

Shambling is trash in my humble opinion.

The Meth · May 18, 2008, 06:37 PM // 18:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

Vampiric Horror isn't bad because the recharge is approximately correct for build a correct differential of Fiends vs Horrors. It's also a comfortable addition to an OoU bar.
Shambling is trash in my humble opinion.

Agreed on vampiric, but since the OP is complaining about not being able to keep minions up shambling would be an excellent addition.

Level 16 Jagged minions deal more damage then bone horrors and only slightly less then bone Fiends. They gain an even greater damage advantage when you go against enemies with more then 60 armor, because the degen is armor ignoring. Their slightly lower health and armor is more then offset by this damage increase along with the fact that you got them for free. The only time they won't be doing more damage then horrors is if you get like 5 of each minion on the same target, but then since you only have 2 or 3 jagged minions at a time due to the recharge it never happens.

Also, if you are going to use damage spells don't use deathly swarm, its crap. Use good stuff like [Death Nova] or [Icy Veins]. Maybe [Putrid Bile]

Self heals are nice if you are going to be in a human group, but with h/h feel free to get rid of it and bring something more useful. [Enfeebling Blood] will prevent 5x as much damage as any heal would have fixed up.

N1ghtstalker · May 18, 2008, 06:42 PM // 18:42

with dark bond they'll die fast if you take damage btw
try [verata's sacrifice] too

mrmango · May 18, 2008, 06:48 PM // 18:48

Verata's Sacrifice sucks now, look at the horrible recharge.

Turbobusa · May 18, 2008, 07:04 PM // 19:04

Blood of the master + aura of the lich + masochism if you must, should do the trick.
Ignore verata's sacrifice, it sucks horribly in every way of looking at it.

mistokibbles · May 18, 2008, 09:01 PM // 21:01

Just leave the MMing to a hero. Jagged Bones + Death Nova with bone minions. The superfreak hero AI will use SoLS as often as possible and is much better with death nova. BoTM won't be needed so you can slap utility skills on the bar. Prot Spirit, Aegis, Foul feast, remove hex, ect.