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Minion Master Build

#1 {lang:macro__useroffline}   Neraphym {lang:icon}

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Posted 21 April 2006 - 01:59 AM

Alpha's Minion Master Build:


Intro:

This guide is for the wonderful guilty pleasure of playing a minions master. Minion Masters are Necromancers that speciallize in death magic, and more specifically, creating hordes undead soldiers to annihilate the enemy. This is by far my favorite build to play with.


Equipment:

A very nice piece of unique armor exists just for Minion Masters. It's called the Bloodstained Boots. These boots decrease the casting speed of any spell that targets a corpse by 25% (cannot go below 1/4). It may not seem like a lot, but it really helps you beat Stone Summit Gnashers to exploiting corpses. These are a must have for any necro.

Next is the Bortak's Bone Claw. This item offers cold damage, gives you +3 energy when your health is above 50%, and has a 20% chance of improving your casting speed. This is a really great weapon for a Minion Master, but is, unfortunately, rather expensive.

Finally, we need Bortak's Bone Cesta (Focus Item). This gives 12 energy, a 20% chance of halving casting time, and a 20% chance of having 1 more skill point in Death Magic. This is exceptionally beneficial, as it will sometimes give you level 19 minions instead of level 18. This item is also quite expensive.

Both of the Bortak weapons can be dropped by Bortak Bonesmelter inside Sorrow's Furnace or purchased from collectors. If you can't get a hold of these weapons, buy a collector's staff to at least get the 20/20 speed bonuses. The collector can be found in Snake Dance for 5 Mountain Troll Tusks, or in Diviner's Ascent for 5 Minotaur Horns. Attatch an Insightful and an Enchanting mod if you can. Bortak's Bone Staff is also a decent weapon to use, but you're stuck with a warding wrapping (+7 Armor vs Physical).


Attributes:

Focus all your stat points in Soul Reaping and Death Magic. Use a Vile Scar Pattern for +1 Death Magic, and attatch a Superior Rune of Death Magic to it. This will give you a 16 in Death, which is what all skills listed in this guide are set to. Lastly, get a Minor Rune of Soul Reaping and place it where ever you like. This will get you to 13 in Soul Reaping. Soul Reaping is absolutely wonderful with death magic, as it gives you an extra boost of energy right when you need it, and that's when someone dies and leaves a corpse for you.

Death: 16
Soul Reaping: 13



Skills:

Here is a detailed list of the skills I use on my Minion Master. The following descriptions of these skills are based on a build with a 16 in the Death Attribute. E stands for Energy required to cast the spell, T stands for the Time it takes to cast the spell, and R stands for the time it takes for the spell to Recharge.

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1. Deathly Swarm
2. Rotting Flesh
3. Virulence (E)
4. Blood of the Master
5. Verata's Sacrifice
6. Animate Bone Fiend
7. Animate Bone Horror

8. Ressurection Signet



Deathly Swarm
E: 10
T: 3
R: 3
Deathly Swarm flies out slowly and strikes for 84 cold damage on up to three targets in the area.

This is a wonderful spell for dealing damage. Doing 84 damage to 3 different enemies for only 10 energy is pretty decent. The casting time isn't great, but overall, this spell is pretty useful. Try to only use this when it will hit two or three enemies.


Rotting Flesh
E: 15
T: 3
R: 3
Target fleshy creature becomes Diseased for 26 seconds and slowly loses Health.

Disease is a nice thing to have on enemies. Not only will it slowly decrease the enemy's health, it can spread from enemy to enemy, quickly infecting large groups. It also lasts for a decent amount of time. Alone, Disease isn't that great, but when you infect large groups of enemies, the damage really piles up. Rotting Flesh is somewhat expensive, though, but it sets you up for this next spell...


Virulence (Elite)
E: 5
T: 1
R: 15
If target foe was already suffering from a condition, that foe suffers from Disease, Poison, and Weakness for 16 seconds.

Virulence is a killer. If an enemy is suffering from any condition, hit it with Virulence to add Disease, Poison, and Weakness. The Disease and Poison deal damage, while the weakness prevents damage to you and your team. The disease, as mentioned previously, can also spread. If you are a Mesmer as your second class, you can couple this skill with Epidemic to spread all 3 of these conditions to all the nearby enemies. This combo can be lethal if used correctly, and does wonders if your team is using the book trick.


Blood of the Master
E: 10
T: 1
R: 5
Sacrifice 10% max Health. All adjacent undead allies are healed for 122.

One of the most important aspects of being a minion master is keeping your undead armies alive. Blood of the Master is a wonderful means to accomplish this. This skill is practically the same as the Monk skill, Heal Area. Unfortunately, this skill has a rather limited range, and does not always hit all of your minions. When you stop moving, the minions will get in neat, orderly rows behind you (when not in battle). After standing still a bit, they will scatter out and surround you in a nice formation. In this formation, Blood of the Master will not hit most of your guys. To get them back in tight, tap the movement buttons to move forward a bit. The minions will all run towards you and get in really close. This is the best time to use this skill.


Verata's Sacrifice
E: 10
T: 2
R: 30
Sacrifice 15% max Health. For 21 seconds, all undead allies gain 10 health regeneration. All Conditions are removed from those allies and transferred to you.

Verata's Sacrifice is a godsend to all Minions. The 10 Health regeneration will keep your minions alive a heck of a lot longer, and at a relatively tiny cost. The only downside is the 11 seconds you have to wait without the minions having VS on them. Use Blood of the Master to keep them alive when VS runs out and isn't fully recharged yet. If you use a Collector's staff instead of any of the Bortak's weapons, you might luck out with a quick recharge and a longer lasting enchantment.



Animate Bone Fiend
E: 25
T: 3
R: 5
Exploit nearest corpse to animate a level 18 bone fiend. Bone fiends can attack at range.

Bone Fiends, in my opinion, are the most desirable undead soldier you can get. Although they lack the armor that bone horrors have, they can attack at a range and have a much faster rate of attack. Unfortunately, they cost 10 more energy. When you have a choice between Horrors and Fiends, take the Fiends.


Animate Bone Horror
E: 15
T: 3
R: 5
Exploit nearest corpse to animate a level 18 bone horror.

Bone Horrors have a higher armor level than Bone Fiends do, but attack slower and at close range. They are also a lot cheaper, and can be summoned when you don't have enough energy to afford a Bone Fiend or Animate Bone Fiend is still recharging. Bone Horrors are nice supplements to Fiends because the Horrors can distract the enemy melee fighters and take the damage while the Fiends pump out the massive damage.


Ressurection Signet
E: -
T: 3
R: -
Resurrect target party member. That party member is returned to life with 100% Health and 25% Energy. This signet recharges when you gain a morale boost.

Ressurection Signet isn't really a must have, but it is extremely usful in emergencies. This should be replaced by Rebirth if your secondary is a Monk. If your secondary is a Mesmer, I'd recommend putting Epidemic here. There are other skills you can put here if you really don't need a Ressurect.



Using Your Skills:

Being a Minion Master is a very easy and enjoyable job. All you do is sit around and wait for things to start dying. Once something dies, cast Animate Bone Fiend or Animate Bone Horror. Eventually, you will amass a fairly large army of these undead monsters. Keep them alive by continuously using Verata's Sacrifice and the occaisional Blood of the Master. If things aren't dying and corpses aren't available, turn to your other skills and start doing some damage. Use the Rotting Flesh and Virulence combo to infect groups on enemies and cause some health degen. Nuke close by enemies with Deathly Swarm for some decent damage. Note that everytime something dies, you get 13 energy, whether it be friend or foe. Things dying often is key to your build.

In between battles, use Blood of the Master and Verata's Sacrifice to keep your remaining minions at full health so they last long in the next fight. Note that minions will always have a health degeneration. It starts out small and insignificant, but over time, this degeneration grows. After a while, the degeneration can excede the 10 regeneration gained by Verata's Sacrifice. At this point, it is useless to continue to try and keep such a minion alive, so abandon that effort and focus your attention on other minions that have a longer life span left.

Other decent skills such as Taste of Death, Vile Touch, and Death Nova can be pretty useful. Mix and match skills based on the area you are fighting in. If you have any more questions, just ask. I'll add a small FAQ at the end of this including any questions I get asked along with my best answers for them.
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#2 {lang:macro__useroffline}   Goto {lang:icon}

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Posted 21 April 2006 - 06:54 AM

I was going to mention that Death Nova might be quite useful, but you did mention it right at the end. bluetongue.gif

Turning your near-death horrors into bombs and inflicting enemies with poison sounds like a plus to me, especially with virulence handy.
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#3 {lang:macro__useroffline}   Moogalite {lang:icon}

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Posted 21 April 2006 - 09:11 AM

Death Nova is ok if you use Bone Minions for an ettins farm but nothing else as you can keep up the death novas but with a large army of them this is nearly impossible

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#4 {lang:macro__useroffline}   Neraphym {lang:icon}

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Posted 21 April 2006 - 11:27 AM

Yeah, Death Nova is really hard to put on all your guys, as there's no way to know if they already have it or not. I also forgot to mention the Tainted Flesh elite spell. This one also goes well with the build. I'm going to add a little more at the end about certain places and farming routines that involve MM's, such as SF and Tombs.
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#5 {lang:macro__useroffline}   Aaron {lang:icon}

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Posted 21 April 2006 - 11:46 PM

My build I made recently is quite close to yours, Alpha. My Necro is an N/Mo, so I have the added availability of Monk skills. Instead of Virulence and Rotting Flesh, I use Heal Area and Infuse Condition. Heal Area is usually casted after I cast Blood of the Master for an added heal for the minions and myself. I use Infuse Condition primarily in Sorrow's Furnace, as there are many condition-dealing monsters there. The other good thing about Infuse Condition is that it doesn't hurt the minions in most cases. They can't bleed or be poisoned thumb.gif .
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#6 {lang:macro__useroffline}   Moebius {lang:icon}

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Posted 05 February 2011 - 10:01 PM

The Wiki article on damage suggests that progressively increasing skill levels above 12 give less and less benefit in term of damage inflicted versus the loss of health incurred, so I wonder if just increasing Death Magic to say 14 might be more effective overall. Flesh Golems, Shambling Horrors and Vampiric Horrors all have longer recharge times but offer extra bonuses. I'm not knocking your build which looks pretty effective, but there are alternatives which might be of interest.
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