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 sugguest that a minion master is simply wasting their time. why bother to maintain minions at all if Gorgo The Heroic does more damage, and does it 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 formitable 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 weild 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 fundemental 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 ballance 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 oppinions vary signifigantly as to which armor is preferable.
 * Necrotic (15k) and Tormentor's (15k) armor provides extra armor against all attacks, giving extra resiliance 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 pericing, which an MM is more likley 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 largey 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 nessisary 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 outweight 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 posible:
 * 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.

It is advisable to have a separate Vile Scar Pattern with a Superior Rune of Death Magic which can be swapped in to provide the final 4 points when playing a minion build.

Additionally, it is helpful to have an item of death magic, such as a staff, weapon or focus. Bortak's Bone Cesta is an excellent example of such an item.

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 Minions costs only 5 energy. 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

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]]
 * 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
 * Other notes on minions
 * minions are often used as energy reserves for necromancer heavy parties, or as minion bombs with Death Nova.

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 turn a opposing minion against 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

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 is not faithful.

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.

Playstyle
While this build may not be for some, it is possible to sustain on average 15 Fiends at a single time. Animating the first few Fiends is not easy due to your lack of damage-causing spells, but a good Monk will make sure you stay alive long enough to create a few. Killing all enemies in each mission is advisable, to sustain a constant level of energy and corpses for minion creation.

The basic skills for maintaining minions are Verata's Sacrifice and Blood of the Master. Simply using these skills does not mean infinite life for your Fiends. Fiends generally tend to group together so they are easier to heal than Minions, but they are that much easier to attack via AoE spells. Before the fight begins, start by casting Verata's Sacrifice followed immediately by Blood of the Master - begin the fight as soon as possible, keep a watchful eye on your Fiends as they create corpses to Animate, watch their health along with yours and above all: don't waste Soul Reaping! You get 10 energy for everything that dies - including your allies, enemies, pets, minions, creatures or anything without a heartbeat in the area! Try to keep your energy 10-15 beneath your maximum, to ensure no energy is wasted. Use time spent not animating more Fiends doing things like healing your minions, healing yourself or using damage spells. You've got free energy headed your way, don't waste it, but don't get too far ahead of yourself.

Due to the sacrificial nature of your healing spells on your minions, you will eventually need to heal yourself. This can be done by Taste of Death and Consume Corpse. Remember that sacrificing your minion for 420 health also will yield you 5 energy as well. Not to mention the 1/4 second casting time and no cooldown! Try using that under extreme circumstances. Consume Corpse allows you to gain a substantial amount of health, and may take out of aggro when under attack. Try to create a minion every 5 seconds.

Playing the MM this way is extremely tricky as you have one too many things going on: our health, your Fiend's health (all of them), your energy vs Soul Reaping, available corpses to exploit, explode, consume etc. Sacrificing too much will certainly wipe your entire team. They won't like it when once subservient Fiends turn on them because they now have no master! It is extremely important you maintain your health. Sacrificing a minion is not always a bad thing, it can save your hide. Remember, there should be plenty of corpses lying around to animate!

Contrary to what most people believe about any type of minion, is that they do degenerate health immediately and will not gain the full healing benefits of Verata's Sacrifice. Verata's Sacrifice is +10 health regeneration for X number of seconds. Each arrow of health regeneration is 2 hit points... so +10 means 20 hit points per second. Your friends will NEVER see that, since they are born with a degen penalty of -1. As time goes on, they begin to degen faster and faster until even Verata's Sacrifice will not help. Blood of the Master in effect at 16 Death Magic is more powerful than Verata's Sacrifice, however, combine the two for an excellent advantage. Do not use Verata's Sacrifice while out of battle, simply spam your AoE heal-bomb every 5 seconds. Verata's Sacrifice is much more important in-battle than out of it.

Moving fast is where it begins to get slightly difficult. As a MM you cannot afford the time to wait for cooldowns on healing spells or cooldowns on "utility" spells or skills. Waiting around to naturally regenerate health is not efficient. You must continuously press forward, ensuring your entire party is ready for it, taking a few moments before a boss to get your bearings, but never waiting on excessive cooldowns. You have to be constantly animating whenever you get the chance and make sure you stay alive.

There are many factors to keep an eye on and it can be pretty hectic at times. This build requires a lot of patience and practice to adjust to constantly throwing a heal every 5 seconds, animating, maintaining sub-full energy levels, aggro control, not over-healing, over-using skills etc. Don't be discouraged if you aren't able to get the hang of it right away. Just remember the key to mastering this build is time. That's it.

Pressing Forward
Moving fast is a key aspect of sustaining a large army, taking time to wait for cooldowns is not a viable option with 20-something minions running around. Move from battle to battle as quickly as you can to keep the minion train rolling.

Dying
Upon death of the minion master, all controlled minions will become masterless. This means that all your minions will now attack all targets, including your team mates. In this situation it is possible that your entire party will be wiped out, therefore the minion master should remain the highest healing priorty. Verata's Gaze can be useful to recapturing masterless minions after resurrection.

Example Builds
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