Curse

ChoKILLate[FDG] · Nov 16, 2005, 06:58 PM // 18:58

What are some typical MM and Curse builds for the smaller (5-6 man) FA groups?

I had a friend try last night and he was not very useful until the first enemy death. He was a Necro/Mo and had:

Animate Bone Fiend
Blood of master
Heal Area
Verata's sacrafice

...then he had stuff like healing breeze, rebirth, and offering of blood which I told him could be better utilized by other skills. What other skills should he be using for the MM build?

Art · Nov 16, 2005, 07:38 PM // 19:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChoKILLate[FDG]

What are some typical MM and Curse builds for the smaller (5-6 man) FA groups?

I had a friend try last night and he was not very useful until the first enemy death. He was a Necro/Mo and had:

Animate Bone Fiend
Blood of master
Heal Area
Verata's sacrafice

...then he had stuff like healing breeze, rebirth, and offering of blood which I told him could be better utilized by other skills. What other skills should he be using for the MM build?

Your wrong actually, his build sounds logical. A minion master is at core a monk for minions, and there are limits to how far afield he can go and still perform the core mission. The best minion is bone fiends. It has the highest DPS, and groups most easily to be healed. Its armor is inferior to bone horrors, but that doesnt matter once you have a warrior holding the keg.

Keep in mind a few things. First, minions gain, health, armor and damage every level. It is therefore best to have 16 death (which means lvl 18 minions). Second, Bone Fiends cost 25 energy. For the most part, if you don't raise a bone fiend, your going to see a well of suffering or enemy. And another minion is more dps, equals faster killing, less strain on the monks and a better experience. The minion master should therefore be contesting every corpse, preferably with bone fiends (at least inside; horrors (or at least some) make sense without a keg). So he has to have 25 energy on hand. How? Well, high soul reaping for starters. Offering of blood is another useful way to help; soul reaping alone wont cut it if you want to contest *every* corpse. Third, obviously if you want the minion master to be contributing in other ways, he has to spend energy to do that. Depending on how much he spends, that may mean an uncontested corpse later. Fourth, its actually best to have two minion raising spells, for situations where things are dying left and right and there are dark binders around. That way you can continuously raise without losing corpses as you wait for recharge. (You should see me farming Orozar -- 25 level 18 bone fiends and horrors is typical -- combined damage likely over 125 per second.) Fifth, keep in mind the minion master more or less needs a defensive skill, particularly with a PUG. You really really dont want 15 bone fiends turning on the party while your in combat. Taste of Death (or another skill) can go a long way to preventing that.

Now the minion master *does* have the flexibility to put some points in another attribute line, and a few slots which can be used for some other purpose. Sixth, however, there isn't a great offensive spell in the Death line. The most common choice is deathly swarm, which is 80 or so cold damage, with some damage on 2 nearby additional targets. Not bad sure, but its a slow cast (3 seconds), usable every 5 seconds I think, and the heavily armored dwarves take 40 something. After that, there is a decent spell that does some meaningful damage when the targets health is over 50. And if you want to use your elite and energy for it, Tainted Flesh provides some DPS by diseasing foes. (Rotting flesh is single target disease, but one class of the dwarves in Grenth's gives the disease back to you.) So for DPS, there are some good choices, but nothing overwhelming in death. Blood has better damage & life stealing spells by far, but you aren't going to have 16 blood. Curses, mark of pain is great, barbs and weaken armor are good for bosses. They are all kind of situational however, and none will provide starter damage when you dont have minions. (I use mark of pain and love it, but again, its situational and not starter damage.) Well ok, there is no DPS so compelling its obvious you need it, what about support via well of blood or power? Logical enough, but your sacrificing your elite which is being used for energy management, which will mean you can't contest each and every corpse. Well of power helps with energy sure, but its not going to be flexible enough to let you contest every corpse. (Well in the wrong place, looks just like the well of suffering, costs a corpse, costs 15 energy.) Seventh, N/Mo is selected for heal area -- blood of the master alone doesnt do as much for your minions because its every five seconds and involves a health sac. (Remember, fiends group for easy healing away from foes.) Healing needs at least 8 points. With 16 death, and high soul reaping, how many points does that leave? Not many.

There are many viable builds. I use a very different build, N/E which I love. However, your friends build sounds quite logical and typical. If he didn't wow you, its either because he isn't using the skills effectively, or because your group was weak. The power of a minion master = (minion masters skill) * (groups skill). Why? Minions only live so long, they get more degen over time. Faster killing means more minions. (Not to mention a better party means fewer minions die in combat, which should be rare once the keg is in hand.)

Sorry for the long winded answer. Bottom line, sounds like your friend knows what he is doing and will, in time, wow you with an unstoppable minion horde.

ChoKILLate[FDG] · Nov 16, 2005, 08:09 PM // 20:09

He didnt wow me compared to other minion masters I have been with, so I was wondering what other skills he should equip besides those 4. Obviously offering of blood is probably the elite to go with, but as a necro, I thought that him having healing breeze, rebirth...and one other (I forget) was a waste of his skill slot. Both our monks had rez skills.

I will probably suggest a second minion skill, taste of death, and swarm to him. We did seem to have a lot of wells of sufferings so either he got beat to the corpse or could not recharge his minion spell fast enough. How about something like putrid explosion, just to get rid of other corpse while his minon spell is recharging?...or well of blood?

BTW...can you cast death nova on a fiend? If so this could be a good offensive spell to use on the bone horrors.

Carinae · Nov 16, 2005, 09:11 PM // 21:11

You can cast Death Nova on minions/fiends. The problem is that when you get 20+ minions, there are too many to manage with single cast spells. DN is great when you can clearly tell who is about to die, and target that one. But that's very hard to do in the heat of battle AND keep healing the other minions.

You really need both fiends and horrors, because you have to grab those corpses NOW! You can't, CAN NOT wait for a recharging spell. Those Binders/Gnashers are fast.

Necro's should watch their energy bar, and the nano-second soul-reaping triggers, you need to begin raising fiends/horrors. Putrid and Wells are a waste of a good corpse.

Fiends do cluster up and make it easy to heal them, but Horrors cluster around the enemy and tend to contain aggro. I try to raise 3-to-1 Fiends over Horrors, but in a heated battle, I am literally standing flat-footed SPAMMING Fiend/Horror As Fast As I Can!

Volarian · Nov 16, 2005, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Here's what he should go for and forget about offering of blood.......I'd rather bring Spiteful Spirit (lvl6 att pts =22dmg) than worry bout OOB.

16 Death
11Blood
9Soul Reaping
6Curses

Horros/Minions
Blood of the Master
Veratas Sacrifice
Life Siphon
Mark of Pain/Spiteful Spirit(MoP when I bring Blood is Power for casters, Spiteful if I decide to up curses in place of blood)
Rebirth

I have 60energy base, gain 9 on every death and do loose the occasional body to the Binders but that doesn't really matter much as WoS on the Kegger has lil affect if your monks are decent.
Whether you go Nec/Mo or not, even with heal area/veratas sac/blood o master......its still at times very difficult at keeping all of your minions upright due to energy consumption at raising them.

But he should definitely swap out some of his skills, make att pt lvls optimal for Minions + minimal support (rebirth for the just in case scenario, BiP or BR to regen casters energy)

Carinae · Nov 16, 2005, 10:38 PM // 22:38

I have to respectfully disagree with Volarian here.

If your going to do Minions, especially in a ~5 man farming group, you need to focus on Minions alone. You're not there to Battery or Spiteful anyone. Bring Offering because you burn through a TON of energy, and you'll need energy when you don't have it otherwise. Just focus on Minioning. A single WoS won't hurt the Kegger, that's true, but it can wipe whole swathes of minions.

If you want a Battery/Spiteful necro, bring another necro.

Once a dedicated MM gets going, you are unstoppable. And DON'T stop to rest! Obviously, let the casters rest a little, but don't wait for them to fully recharge. Keep going, a MM is a Motion Engine. Thoses Minions will crush everything in their path, but they don't last forever even with serious healing/BotM.

Ollj · Nov 17, 2005, 02:02 AM // 02:02

minion masters with offering of blood.
everyxtime i see such stupidity i leave instantly!
they GAIN energy everytime a minion dies.

who the hell needs oob there?

same with necros that eat more than 5% of their own minions with 16 death magic.

Animate Bone Minions
Animate Bone Fiend
Blood of the Master
Verata's Sacrifice
Malign Intervention !!!!!
Verata's Aura !!!!!!!!!!!
Aura of the Lich (to stand close to diing foes and minions) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Blood Renewal/Death Nova/Deathly Swarm/Plague Touch

16 death
13 soul reaping
3 simplicity (aka as blood magic)

seriously. its soooo simple, why not doing it that way?

Yellow_lid · Nov 17, 2005, 02:42 AM // 02:42

My MM build has yet to fail me completely. Most of what is said ^here^ I agree with COMPLETELY.

Skills:
Animate Feind
Animate minions
Vereta's sacrifice
Rotting Flesh
Taste Of Death
Death Nova
Mark of pain
(open, preferably a dmg skill so's that you aren't COMPLETELY useless without minions)
Attributes:
15 death (yes only 15 I don't have a sup)
11-12 Soul Reaping
3-4 Curses

When your group first attacks it will be against 1 gnasher or ranger and several seige golems. From the Gnasher I'd raise minions w/Nova. Then Aggro the group going up the opposing slope. Once you start killing fleshy things it's mainly Fiends from there on out. Spam Vereta's sacrifice as often as possible, it has a regen time of 30 sec and a duration of 20, so your minions should have a regen of 10 for 20sec then their natural degen rate for 10. Finally if push comes to shove and the baddies are killing minions faster than you can make them stop going fiends and go minions W/NOVA. They are useless w/o it.

Note: I haven't tried this but theoretically speaking if you could get a MM, Sac, and Rezmer you COULD have a 3 man farming group. just be sure the sac has vereta's aura in case you die... lol.

erythro · Nov 17, 2005, 03:59 AM // 03:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ollj

minion masters with offering of blood.
everyxtime i see such stupidity i leave instantly!
they GAIN energy everytime a minion dies.

Hmmm... i respectfull disagree wat have you say, its not that really stupid for a minion master two have offering of blood, and its not always there is a minion does so you can gain energy, what if you run out of energy and still no one is dying yet.. and being a minion master mean burning a lot of energy, for me i nid fast energy, so i can summon as soon as possible, i can raise minions and fiends about 30+ of them, and yet i never fail in this build.

Blood Magic 11+1[12]
Death Magic 12+4[16]
Soul Reaping 6+1[7]
Curse 1+1[2]
Illussion Magic 1
Domination Magic 0
Inspiration Magic 2

Vampiric Gaze [My Medic kit... just for emergency]
Bone Horror
Bone Minion
Verata's Sacrifice
Taste of Death
Offering of Blood
Blood of the Master
Energy Tap

as you can see i can support my self in Health and Energy monks won't bother healing on me once i get my army of deads as a result it will be easy for monks to do there jobs.

Just sharing my opinions.

Ollj · Nov 17, 2005, 04:17 AM // 04:17

Ah thats funny. He says he needs fast energy and he uses 5 3 30 Energy Tap with 2 inspiration magic (wich is as good as 0 inspiration magic, waste more attribute points).
Wow thats 8 energy every 35 seconds.
You gain 11,6 energy every 35 seconds with natural energy regen of 4.
You gain 13*n energy with 13 soul reaping everytime one of your 60 minions dies.

You have 4 skills that give minions in different ways, quantity(25), quality(25), instant+neutral(15) and stealing(15).

Third wors scenario, youre out of energy. Use 2 items that give more energy and less energy regen.

Second worst case scenario: someone else uses your corpse for a minion while youre out of energy or skills recharge.
use veratas gaze in that case, you will get some minions with relatively low health, they either die soon and youre full of energy and/or you use veratas sacrifice!

Worst case szenario is someone uses your corpse with a faster skill that doesnt make a minion. ah you would be slower than anyways.

A good minion master learns to let die as much minions as he only needs for energy and uses energy skills to keep them alive as long as he needs no energy.

erythro · Nov 17, 2005, 04:44 AM // 04:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ollj

Use 2 items that give more energy and less energy regen.

I don't use that i got bortak's set i cast minions faster and so wat if some one gets my corpse? as a minion master whenever i see binder or gnasher i prioritize to kill them, its not always the can get all the corpse from me, my main goal is raise and maintain i don't nid high soul reap, i have my offering of blood and energy tap is just for back up when my offering of blood is still recharging.

And by the way i don't always get those scenario that you have mention i don't think negative..

Well i respect your own opinion.. its just we have different thoughts.

ChoKILLate[FDG] · Nov 17, 2005, 02:28 PM // 14:28

First thanks for all the comments, it has been helpful.

Question: Since this is a Necro/Mo the use of heal area seems to really help keep minions alive, so I think he would want Offering in his case, as he has 2 spells to keep them alive, rather than let them die.

However, if energy is an issue, how about a monk skill like Essense Bond? This is a low energy enchantment that feeds energy each time target ally takes physical damage. It can be spammed on minons and when these minions get hit you can heal them and gain energy at the same time. If they die the enchantment ends and can be cast on another minion or minions.

Is that too much of a pain?

Ollj · Nov 17, 2005, 03:16 PM // 15:16

yes, if you plan wasting some time waiting to let your minions get more and more energy degen and yourself less and less health, you can heal area anbd oob.
Otherwise, just use your minions expansive as long as you have them, your heal area wont save them, your energy wont be a problem.

You can not bond minions, the more you have the less a single one gets attacked, not worth maintaining the skill.

ChoKILLate[FDG] · Nov 17, 2005, 03:39 PM // 15:39

Yeah I figured bond was a waste, however, I like heal area. It means he can heal himself and his ranged minions, and also heal them in between battles without loosing health.

I will give him the 2 opposing builds and see which he likes best in actual combat. BTW what secondary do you use Ollj and do you use any skills from it?

Volarian · Nov 17, 2005, 04:10 PM // 16:10

Carinae - if I played solely self-centered I would 100% agree with you (not saying you are in anyway), but I play within and for my team. My suggestion is based on the needs of not only myself but my team mates, so I could always switch BiP for Offering and bring BRit to help the casters out a lil.
At the same time I check with the Mo's to see what they normally bring on runs as a pure healer (I play Monk too and a damn good one) and will ask if they have room for Heal area<--for the minions
I don't trust that every person in the game knows it as well as me and know I don't know it as well as allot of others, so I will take my time to ask questions and try to have everyone on the same page/idea for how the party is to function.
I will give the swap idea a try to see how if at all it helps - so far my build works 100% of the time with a good TEAM, only failing when ppl dont know how the Necro works or don't bring skills that assist the team as a whole.

Art · Nov 17, 2005, 05:42 PM // 17:42

Carinae is the only person on the forum whose post I (almost) totally agree with. It isn't self centered to focus on raising and maintaining the biggest possible army. It helps your team *FLY*. I can get 25 minions up (all level 18 fiends or horrors) up during the Orozar quest. With 25 minions up, your DPS can approach or even exceed 150 per second. Certainly over 100 dps is not unusual.

As for OOB, I don't use it anymore, but its very very logical in certain builds. I disagree violently with almost everything the poster who bashed OOB said.

Carinae -- my only comment for you is try making a slot for Mark of Pain. At 7 curses (only costs one level of SR in my build) Mark of Pain will do 0-insane damage (well over 500 total damage at times), depending on how well you select a target and how the mobs are grouped. Thats well worth the 10 energy in certain spots. Nothing like seeing a giant row of 24 damage indicators across the entire screen. I once felt like you do, but the extra speed that MOP brings helps with the minions.

MOP is classified as AOE, mobs flee, so you need to have 15 or so fiends to make it worthwhile and pick a target taking most of the fire. Fiends hit every 2 seconds. Say 8 of your 15 fiends are on a single target and there are three mobs around the target. In two seconds, you will do 8 (for 8 attacks over 2 seconds) x24 (at 7 curses) x3 =576 damage. Less after that since the mobs start to flee from the AOE effect.

In the jungle room, where the melee guys bunch really really tightly, its probably possible to do more like 7 or 800 damage with a level 7 curse mark of pain. I don't know how to take screen shots or movies so can't say.

Worth thinking about.

Art · Nov 17, 2005, 05:54 PM // 17:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Volarian

Carinae - if I played solely self-centered I would 100% agree with you (not saying you are in anyway), but I play within and for my team. My suggestion is based on the needs of not only myself but my team mates, so I could always switch BiP for Offering and bring BRit to help the casters out a lil.
At the same time I check with the Mo's to see what they normally bring on runs as a pure healer (I play Monk too and a damn good one) and will ask if they have room for Heal area<--for the minions
I don't trust that every person in the game knows it as well as me and know I don't know it as well as allot of others, so I will take my time to ask questions and try to have everyone on the same page/idea for how the party is to function.
I will give the swap idea a try to see how if at all it helps - so far my build works 100% of the time with a good TEAM, only failing when ppl dont know how the Necro works or don't bring skills that assist the team as a whole.

Volarian, I understand your point that not evey monk has his stuff together enough to be energy self-sufficient. But if they dont have their stuff together, then its dangerous -- not helpful -- to add the sac of BIP on top of minion based sacs. I'd rather just refuse to go with a monk who insists on BIP -- its a pretty good sign they aren't that experienced, since you shouldn't need BIP in sorrows if you have a good build. Sure, there are some very good monk builds that could benefit from a bit more energy, but there are also very good monk builds that don't require that. The most experienced monks chose the later.

Carinae · Nov 17, 2005, 09:02 PM // 21:02

@Art - Thanks! I'm shocked, a nice response on this forum??!!!

I am indeed considering Mark of Pain, I am also considering Barbs.

Barbs would raise the damage by 8+ for each attack that every minion does. It's also NOT AoE!! That's a big plus, because I don't want my minions chasing enemies and aggroing even more than normal.

But to fit Barbs or Mark, I'll need to drop either Vamp Gaze or Res Sig. I am leaning towards losing Res Sig, and just telling the team up front that I don't have res ability.

Finally, people need to understand that a dedicated MM is not a support necro. Everyone else is there to support the MM. Roles are reversed. The MM will be the offense and defense of the entire team. During the battle at the beginning of Orozar I have had my whole team be BORED because there was nothing for anyone to do.

Art · Nov 17, 2005, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

@Art - Thanks! I'm shocked, a nice response on this forum??!!!

I am indeed considering Mark of Pain, I am also considering Barbs.

Barbs would raise the damage by 8+ for each attack that every minion does. It's also NOT AoE!! That's a big plus, because I don't want my minions chasing enemies and aggroing even more than normal.

But to fit Barbs or Mark, I'll need to drop either Vamp Gaze or Res Sig. I am leaning towards losing Res Sig, and just telling the team up front that I don't have res ability.

Finally, people need to understand that a dedicated MM is not a support necro. Everyone else is there to support the MM. Roles are reversed. The MM will be the offense and defense of the entire team. During the battle at the beginning of Orozar I have had my whole team be BORED because there was nothing for anyone to do.

I think weaken armor is better at low curses than barbs, but I haven't done the math or anything to prove it. I'd rather have mark of pain than either, but both are good for bosses.

Detis Zan · Nov 18, 2005, 07:23 PM // 19:23

I second Carinae's comment.

Being a Minion Caster/MM you do need to do YOUR job to the fullest..

Why did the group choose you? Because you're raising an army that can deal close to more dmg than the group itself!

Think about it: You're a Warrior with the good combo armor, skill set (say like... Axe for dmg or Sword for inflicting stuff.) but you know you can't heal much and eveyone depends on you being the wall from all the damn enemies. So the monks help the warrior a lot. Pre-patch the eles as well but the eles didn't help everyone else... They were nukers completely into their job killing the crap out of monsters and I always did good in a group that were dedicated to their job..

Prot monks are dedicated to Prot and Healers are dedicated to Healing but they can manage to switch over to either side because..well they're monks they have to heal little and prot a lot or prot a lot and heal little. =P

Necros are different though. Being Blood/Battery/Curse you can help out the group in different ways.. But being a battery...what do you do? Very little dmg and mostly putting YOUR energy into everyone's else energy.. People think that's being helping because they depend on YOU to suck the energy out of you.

Being a MM is different they depend on YOU to be the Defensive/Offensive person. And if you can't help anyone else because you're ALREADY helping by casting the minions (your whole point of this build) needed. You're not support you're the ele who's nuking with dmg only with minons.

So don't confuse MM being there to support everyone.. they're already doing that by casting as many allies as possible and keeping them around.

There's different MM builds that can be support but people do depend the large army you can supply.