User:NieA7/Build:N/any Dedicated Minion Master

As part of an 6 or 8 strong PvE team a minion master should ideally concentrate on only two things - their minions and their health. This build is designed to create minions as fast as possible whilst ensuring their master's safety.

Equipment

 * Minion Master's Armor with Bloodstained Boots
 * A 20/20 Death Magic focus and a Death Magic wand that reduces skill recharge

Usage

 * As this build carries no non-minion related skills you should hang back while the rest of your team secures the kills.
 * As soon as a body becomes available cast Animate Flesh Golem, followed by Dark Bond (Dark Bond should be kept up continually so long as there are minions under your control). Try to keep a Flesh Golem around at all times, but don't cast the spell while you still have one alive - use Death Nova and Taste of Death to finish it off first.
 * As other bodies are created cast Animate Vampiric Horror.
 * Bodies should not be left unexploited, if Animate Vampiric Horror is recharging cast Animate Bone Horror.
 * Keep raising minions when the limit of 10 is reached - you'll only be killing your oldest, most knackered minion when you do.
 * Cast Blood of the Master when your health is full (so long as you have a few Vampiric Horrors this should allow regular health boosts for your minions).
 * Cast Death Nova on any minion, pet or team mate who seems close to death, but don't allow this to distract you from raising and maintaining minions.
 * Never hesitate to use Taste of Death if your health falls below around 33% - your team will be in much more trouble if you die while controlling 10 minions than if you consume them all.

Variants
If you're a secondary Monk Rebirth is a better choice than a Resurrection Signet.

In an area where conditions are common Death Nova can be substituted for Infuse Condition.

Major Variant: Aggressive Minion Master
This build carries a couple of overtly offensive skills, allowing you to play a more direct role in the fight. Cast Rotting Flesh as soon as you can to allow disease to spread among the enemy. Once you have at least 5 minions (in order to get the full boost from the Minion Master armor) consider throwing a few Wells of Suffering into the mix - with disease that's enough to provide you with a -10 health degeneration lasting for up to 26 seconds.

For a more hit and run style of play Well of Suffering can be replaced by Rising Bile. Cast both this and Rotting Flesh then move out of aggro range - if the enemy cluster together they'll have -4 health degeneration for 26 seconds, closely followed by a 120 damage spike.

The armor recommendation remains the same, however with two high cost offensive spells a little more starting energy becomes useful. Ghial's Staff is a good choice, failing that a 20/20 Death Magic focus and a Death Magic wand with +15 energy and -1 energy degeneration will be fine (the Wailing Wand from Honglei Sun is ideal).