Talk:Death Magic

I've got a question for the minion-type PVE Necros out there: how helpful are the minions once you hit, say, the desert? Or the southern Shiverpeaks? It seems like, unless you manage to get your Death Magic skill up to insane levels, they just wouldn't be high enough level to really -do- anything for your team, too easily taken out by a L24 AOE attack and such. Do you raise the buggers and then just exploit 'em for benefit, or do they actually see combat? I'd be really interested in a "usage notes" type-thing for PVE minion masters, charting what skills you tend to use as you go through the areas. My early missions got a lot of use out of Bone Horror + Mark of Pain, but I dropped Death for Curses by probably Lion's Arch. --Nunix 22:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Lv18 minions are VERY useful. I don't play a real minion master (Mo/N), but I play WITH minion masters.  Your team might need to kill 3~4 corpsy mobs to get things started, but after that it can easily snowball.  Well, this is from Sorrow's Furnace experience (which doesn't have much AOE from enemy), Your Milage May Vary.  It only gets into trouble when there is a monk boss AND either another monk or another boss.  That severely mess up the kill rate and the minion army start to drop.
 * Basically, use Bone Fiend as your main army, with Bone Horror if you need to exploit another corpse fast while Fiend is recharging. Verata's Sacrifice + Heal Area + Blood of the Master to keep the army from decaying too fast.  Mark of Pain definitely helps a lot.  If the enemy also have corpse-exploiting necros, make sure to wear Bloodstained Boots. -PanSola 23:29, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Either that or you take Death Nova with Minions and make tons of walking bombs, with Taste of Death to detonate on cue if needed. I went through SF with a necro that did that, was quite effective. Using Verata's Sacrifice and Blood of the Master to keep your bombs alive between encounters. --theeth 23:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Heh, so in other words: they are useful, if you spend the points, runes, and weapon bonuses on Blood to get the levels up. ;) Good to know! I tend to cruise through RPGs perpetually under-powered, so it's always interesting to hear about how things can be if you're properly beefy, har! --Nunix 00:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You mean to get Death up (-: Right after the first AoE AI update, at least half the groups farming SF are screaming for minion masters d-: -PanSola 00:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Might also be worth noting that since skill costs are constant, later in the game you'll have more attribute points and possibly more soul reaping. This sort of makes minions "cheaper" later on.  --Fyren 04:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * That made me think, when I played a minion master some time ago, soul reaping would trigger twice, once when the mob would die and once when the animated undead would die. Is it still like that? --theeth 08:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I have heard nothing to the contary ever, so I think it is still like that. -PanSola 09:16, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yup, still works that way. --Rainith 12:04, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Personally, I use Vampiric Horrors exclusively. I find that the minions fiends and horrors just are not beneficial to my style of play.  I do a lot of farming captures and such, using just the henchmen.  I set my death magic to 16, and soul reaping 12. The level 18 Vampires cost 25 energy, but the high soul reaping compensates.  They are generally, fairly short lived, but they keep a constant flow of healing on me (16 to 18 HP per hit) and they replenish my energy constantly by killing for me and by dying off. I'm a monk secondary, with 4 healing, equipping Healing Breeze and Resurrect to help keep the party alive. Select death skills you are comfortable with, paying attention to casting cost and speed. I use Rotting Flesh for my lead attack, and follow up with a constant barrage of Bitter Chill (often with the odd Deathly Swarm thrown in against well grouped mobs) and an Icy Veins on the target to finish it off (causing 92 damage to all nearby foes) Bitter Chill recharges instantly until you have more HP than the target, and at 5 points to cast, you'll rarely run out of energy.  Additionally, I will bring either Vampiric Gaze (blood magic to 6) Rising Bile (120 damage to all foes in the area) or signet of capture if I'm hunting for a new elite skill. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.235.196.194 (talk &bull; contribs) 01:19, 7 August 2006 (CDT).
 * vampiric horrors are hard to maintain in a full army, since you have to wait three times as long between animations. those of us who remember the MM before Verata's Nerf still use both horrors and fiends because you can animate in rapid succession. --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 01:31, 7 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Agreed, but as I'd pointed out, they fit my style of play. I'd neglected to mention my use of a bone spiral rod (11-22/half death recharge @20%/+15 energy -1 regeneration) and Bleached skull (+12 energy/half death casting and half death recharge @20%) with bloodstained boots to keep that skill recharging and discharging as fast as I can...  maintaining an army isn't my goal, causing massive damage while my henchmen die off and my group of minions grows is how this works for me.  I will try to keep the healer alive, but the others are expendable, just as the minions are...that's why I equip resurrect :)