General minion mastery guide

Overview
This guide discusses the class of necromancers who specialize in maintaining large armies of animated creatures, generally known as Minion Masters.

Why Bother?
The average minion does slightly less damage then the average ranger or warrior against the same foe, and attacks slightly slower. at first glance this would suggest that a minion master is simply wasting their time. why bother to maintain minions at all if Devona or Aidan can more damage, faster? the simple answer is quantity.

where as only 8 members can join in a party at the higher levels of the game, the average minion master can keep between 8 and 12 minions at all times. The damage from one minion may seem to be minor, but twelve minions is quite a formidable force. exceptional minioneers can keep upwards of 16 minions, and under favorable conditions two or three times that. 

An Army of One
A general does not attack. A commander does not wield a weapon. A minion masters life and strength is not in the fight, but in the army.

For the majority of players, this represents a fundamental shift in thought. Where as an elementalist or ranger will try to find the best set of skills to use directly on a target, the minion master must find a balance of skills to preserve the army and give it the strength to roll over whatever is placed in it's path.

Armor
Any necromancer armor may be used, and opinions vary significantly as to which armor is preferable.
 * Necrotic (15k) and Tormentor's (15k) armor provides extra armor against all attacks, giving extra resilience to the Minion master. this extra armor comes at the cost of extra holy damage.
 * Bonelace (15k), Fanatic's and Cultist's Armor provides extra damage against piercing, which an MM is more likely to encounter given the fact that a large army will keep warriors outside arms reach.
 * Scar Pattern Armor (15k) provides extra energy, but provides no additional armor of any kind.
 * Necromancer's and Initiate's armor is largely unsuited to general use, providing no additional energy or defense, and should not be used if other armors are available.

in addition the base armor, the following equipment is considered necessary for a Minion Master:
 * Bloodstained Boots provide additional speed to corpse exploiting spells, including animation spells. boots take approximately 12.5% of all attacks, and provide only 1 additional energy, so the increase in casting times outweigh the advantages of the armor classes.
 * a Vile Scar Pattern imbued with a Superior Rune of Death Magic

Weapons and Focus items
weapons are of less use to Minion masters then most, and sacrifices in direct damage can be quite productive when paired with high casting speeds or fast recharge times.

the ideal weapon set for a Minion master should have as many of the following characteristics as possible:
 * Improves recharge time of death magic skills (very important)
 * Improves casting time of death magic skills (somewhat important)
 * +1 to Death Magic (20% chance)(somewhat important)
 * Additional Energy (important)
 * Additional Armor of Health (slightly important)

Here are some example Death Magic weapon sets:
 * The Bone Staff from Luven Underwood, combined with a Perfect Staff Wrapping of Fortitude and a Perfect Insightful Staff Head.
 * The Death Magic Truncheon from Arliss Vaughn and Death Magic Focus item from Sir Pohl Sanbert
 * Bortak's Bone Claw and Bortak's Bone Cesta
 * Bortak's Bone Staff

''note: items which provide 15 energy at the cost of an energy pip, such as the ones provided by Kraviec the Cursed are of arguable use. be careful when selecting a focus of this type that you are not left with a large, but empty, pool of energy. ''

Death Magic
Death Magic directly affects your minions survivability and damage potential. One of the reasons why there are no Necromancer Secondary Minion Master builds is primarily due to the fact that minions simply cannot be effective with death magic of 12 or less.

Note that minions are significantly less useful in high level areas, but can be more effective in low level areas, due to the larger numbers

Soul Reaping
Since a Minion Masters purpose is to utilize corpses to create a breathing army to support the party, Soul Reaping is the major way in which the MM will be gaining both energy and targets for animation spells. Minion masters should have a decidedly different view of Soul Reaping.

Soul reaping is the best way to reduce the cost of casting corpse spells, and should be dedicated to keeping the army rolling.

With a soul reaping of 10, casting Animate Bone Horror costs only 5 energy. at 10 soul reaping, the death of one minion fuels Verata's Sacrifice, Blood of the Master, or Heal Area, providing enough energy to keep the army alive. this makes creating and keeping an army a much cleaner prospect.

Soul Reaping should be at least 10, though skills such as Offering of Blood and Mantra of Recall can help mitigate a lower soul reaping bonus

Don't waste Soul Reaping! You get energy for everything that dies. allies, enemies, pets, minions, creatures, anything without or without a heartbeat. Try to keep your energy at least one soul reaping bonus beneath your maximum, to ensure no energy is wasted. If you have extra energy, spend it on healing your minions, or healing yourself.

Blood Magic
While Less important then Death Magic or Soul Reaping, Blood Magic has some interesting effects for Minion Masters. skills such as Offering of Blood and Dark Bond can make or break a Minion Army.

Skills
Discussion and comparison of skills for different uses.

Minion creation skills
There are three minion creation skills: Animate Bone Fiend, Animate Bone Horror or Animate Bone Minions. Each has their own set of pros and cons.


 * Animate Bone Fiend [[Image:Animate_Bone_Fiend.png|right]]
 * Advantages to Fiends:
 * Ranged Attack: Fiends attack with a ranged attack, which has approximately the same range as a Short Bow
 * Faster Attack: Fiends attack slightly faster then horrors or minions, approximately once every 2 seconds, giving them a greater damage per second.
 * Disadvantages of Fiends:
 * Lower armor: fiends have significantly less armor against physical attacks, and thusly take more damage
 * Other notes on Fiends:
 * Clumping: Fiends tend to clump together, making them easier to heal, but also easier to nuke.


 * Animate Bone Horror [[Image:Animate_Bone_Horror.png|right|128px]]
 * Advantages to Horrors:
 * Body Blocking: large number of Horrors can create an wall in front of foes, preventing them from reaching more valuable targets
 * Higher Armor: horrors have significantly higher armor against physical attacks, and server better tanking then any other animated creature.
 * Less Expensive: Horrors cost only 15 energy, and are the least expensive to create.
 * Disadvantages to Horrors:
 * Melee attack: horrors must approach a target, making them prime candidates for traps and ranged attacks
 * Slower Attack: horrors attack slightly slower then other animated creatures, approximately once every 3 seconds, giving them a lower damage per second.
 * Other notes on Horrors:
 * Horrors are available before any other animated creature in the Prophecies campaign.


 * Animate Bone Minions [[Image:Animate_Bone_Minions.png|right]]
 * Advantages to Minions:
 * Two for one: creates a pair of minions from each corps
 * Three for one: since soul reaping returns energy when minions die, parties with a minion army will gain triple benefit from soul reaping
 * Disadvantages of Minions
 * Much lower level: minions are less effective then other animated creatures, as they are animated at a much lower level
 * Melee attack: horrors must approach a target, making them prime candidates for traps and ranged attacks
 * Slower Attack: horrors attack slightly slower then other animated creatures, approximately once every 3 seconds, giving them a lower damage per second.
 * Other notes on minions
 * minions are often used as energy reserves for necromancer heavy parties, or as minion bombs with Death Nova.
 * contrary to the skill icon, minions share the same upright, mostly humanoid model of the horror, scaled down slightly. perhaps either the skill icon or minion model will be corrected in future game updates.

Malign Intervention, while a minion creation skill, creates a masterless horror, which must then be tamed with either Verata's Aura or Verata's Gaze. because it has no special properties, and the requirement for additional skills, it is rarely used in PvE. However, Malign Intervention has a powerful use in PvP, as it can create the horror with essentially zero casting time (the horror is spawned as soon as the target dies) meaning the caster be "beaten to the corps" by an opposing necromancer.

there are two additional minion creation skills slated for the Factions Campaign, Animate Vampiric Horror and Animate Flesh Golem, although very little is known about them at this time.

Keeping the minions alive
all animated creatures start life with a -1 degeneration, and gain an additional -1 degeneration for every 20 seconds they remain alive. as an example, a fiend that was animated 3 minutes (180 seconds) ago has a total of -10 degeneration. Minions can never lose more then 20 health per second (i.e. 10 degen), but can store MUCH more then -10 degen, eventually to the point where strong regeneration skills like Verata's Sacrifice and Healing Breeze have no effect.

several skills are available to counteract this degeneration, and provide battle healing.

Blood of the Master provides a one time spike heal to all nearby friendly animated creatures. this skill has a short cast time, high healing return, and fairly low energy cost. because of the high sacrifice cost, it is used primarily as a combat heal.

Verata's Sacrifice provides an excellent way of extending the life of minions, as the major threat to their existence is the large inherent degeneration. even at the highest levels, Verata's Sacrifice cannot maintain constant regeneration, and other support skills must be used. in addition to providing healing, Verata's sacrifice transfers any conditions from the minion army onto the minion master, where they can be purged, passed back to the opposing party with Plague Signet, or otherwise handled.

Monk Spells are effective on minions in the same way they are effective on party members. contrary to popular belief, healing a minion with a monk spell does not increase it's degeneration. spells such as Heal Area are very effective with minions, though single target spells such as Orison of Healing and Healing Breeze are too expensive to use regularly

Keeping yourself alive
staying alive is especially important to a minion master, as a masterless army will turn on the party, and a large masterless army stands a good chance of winning against even the most prepared party.

Dark Bond provides and excellent way to reduce damage to the minion master. by redirecting 75% of the damage to a nearby minion, the Master can take approximately 4 times as many hits before falling. minions are more expendable then party members.

Infuse Condition does for degeneration what dark bond does for direct damage. by redirecting conditions such as burning and bleeding to the nearest minion, the minion master suffers essentially no ill effects from this. combines with Verata's Sacrifice, this can move all conditions from the army onto a single minion, who acts as a scapegoat for the rest of the army. a single minion can be replaced easier then 10 can be healed.

Taste of Death is a very useful emergency heal. this almost always results in a full heal, since minions usually have nearly as high or higher health then the caster (thanks to superior runes). additionally, a minion death due to Taste of Death triggers Death Nova, Soul Reaping, and many other "on death" functions. Taste of Death is preferable to Soul Feast for two reasons; Taste of Death provides additional energy from soul reaping, and Taste of death can select a target, consuming the oldest minion with the highest degeneration, and replacing it with a freshly spawned creature.

Other skills
Verata's Gaze is used to loose an opposing minion from it's master, or tame a masterless minion. because it is a single target, and must be cast twice to fully turn a minion, it is less used then the broader Aura, however, Verata's Gaze creates a perminate bond.

Verata's Aura can be used as a quick way to regain an army after being resurrected, or steal an army from opposing necromancers. Verata's aura immediately turns all minions in the area to you. Verata's aura has a drastic downside, in that when it ends, you're entire army, regardless of how they were accumulated, will turn against you. once you cast this spell, you MUST maintain it. should it be strip or lost, your faithful army we become masterless.

Death Nova is used to turn weak and inexpensive minions into walking explosives. most often used with Animate Bone Minions, due to the much lower energy and corps cost per animated creature. Taste of Death is sometimes used as a trigger, but often minion bombs are allowed to simply detonate once they absorb enough punishment.

Energy Recovery Skills such as Offering of Blood, Mantra of Recall, Energy Tap, etc... these skills are used to ballance minion creation when nothing is dying, such as early in or just after combat. use these skills to create energy to heal, or animate your army.

Ranger spirits affect all creatures in the area, including minions. The most useful spirits are Winnowing, which provides additional damage to all minions, and Predatory Season, which heals the fiends.

Starting up
Minion master is a build of inertia. a large army makes it easier to create corpses, which in turn makes it easier to maintain a large army. overcoming the inital barrier of the first 3-4 minions is the hardest part. players new to this build will most certainly wish to bring some damage skills, such as Deathly Swarm to ease the first few kills.

coorilary to this is the absolute nessesity to maintain your army. If your army dies, you'll need to start anew, which means dealing with the "first corps" difficulties all over again.

Rolling Thunder
once a small army is built, your focus should change from building to maintanance. stop casting damage spells. your purpose is no longer direct damage, the army will cause sufficent damage on it's own.

maintaining your army should be your only goal at this point. fresh animated creatures require less healing then aged creatures, so creating new creatures should come first, followed quickly by healing with Verata's Sacrifice, Blood of the Master, or other healing spells. The army, once rolling, will take care of creating new corpse, which should be animated as soon as posible.

it is important that you spend as little time as posible between engagements. minions live on a timer, and their inherant degeneration builds with every second live. time spent between combat is time where your army is degenerating, that degeneration is accelerating, and no corpses are available to create new minions.

A classic technique of using limited area healing on large armies is the "MM Shuffle". take a step forward to align minions behind you for travel, then press the reverse key (usually "X") or double tap the backwards step key to spin around. this will cause the minions to clump up very close to you while the rearrange themselves for travel in the new direction. this clumping will pack more minions into the limited area of effect of Blood of the Master and Heal Area.

Engaging the Enemy
when approching an opposing force, the Minion Master should lead, or be one of the first into the area of combat. Minions follow blindly behind their master, and only move forward to attack when there master attacks, is attacked, or a creature comes into their aggro bubble, which is slightly smaller then a standard player aggro bubble.

If you are using horrors or minions it is advisable to attack once, then step back and allow the minions to cluster around the foes. This is traditionally called a minion block or minion wall.

after the first attack (preferably with a wand or other ranged weapon) the minion master should concentrate on healing and maintenance.
 * create new minions as soon as posible. it is sometimes helpful to watch for a soul reaping or experiance signal rather then watching the feild for falling foes.
 * maintain Verata's Sacrifice. Verata's Sacrifice affects all friendly minions within your selection range.
 * when using fiends, move as close to the center of the clump as posible, cast Blood of the Master or Heal Area, and step back away from any attacks. large clumps of fiends are usually prime targets for area of effect attacks, such as Meteor Shower, Kindle Arrows, and Cry of Frustration.
 * when using horrors or minions, it is usually safe to step in close to combat, as the animated creatures will prevent the foes from attacking you. do not use heal area with horrors, as heal area will heal foes as well as minions.

it is important to remember that animated creatures are ruled by extreemly simple laws. they attack everything not friendly to their master, have no ability to diferentiate targets for tactical or stragic value, and never disengage. if you or the party decide combat is not worth fighting, your minions cannot be told to escape. sometimes this can be beneficial, as a minion army will give the foes a target as you and your party escape. disenaging any combat means you will loose most, if not all, of your army.

Worst Case Sceanario
the first note on dying: DON'T.

as a minion master, your existance is the only think keeping you army from the throte of your allies. should you fall, your army will become masterless, and attack everything in sight, the party, pets and alied heros, being the closest target, will be the first target.

Everyone in the party should know that your are playing a minion master build. Healers playing with an MM on their party should focus on the minion master in an emergancy situation. No single party member can cause more trouble with their death then an MM. many many parties have been obliterated because a minion master lost control of the army.

Should the worst case happen, quickly use Verata's Gaze or Verata's Aura to reclaim some of all of your army. Reclaming one minion means one less minion your party members need to kill, and one less minion trying to kill your party members.

The same hold true if you need to leave a party. stop healing your army and wait for the minions to degenerate naturally, or use Taste of Death to destroy them. if you leave a party, your minions will become masterless, and attack the remaining party, posibly causing them to wipe.

A last note on dying: DON'T.

Basic Army Master
this is an example of a basic army maintenance minion master.

with this build, it is possible to sustain on average 15 animated creatures.

Examples of more specialized Minion Master builds

 * 1) N/Me Minion Master
 * 2) N/R Minion Master
 * 3) N/E Renewal Minion Master
 * 4) N/Mo Minion Meister
 * 5) N/E Damage Mix Minion Master