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.

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).

Prophecies Only Dedicated Minion Master
With no Vampiric Horrors or Flesh Golems the Prophecies only Minion Master is more limited in their choice of minion. Fortunately both Animate Bone Horror and Animate Bone Fiend recharge quickly, allowing you to tailor your little army's composition to best suit your party's current needs (Fiends for outright damage, Horrors for creating a "wall of flesh" to keep the rest of your party safe). Tainted Flesh should be cast on as many Bone Horrors as you can, along with any melee fighters in your party, to spread disease amongst the enemy mobs - coupled with a Death Nova this will give a -8 health degeneration. A viable alternative to Tainted Flesh is Virulence - use it to get a 16 second burst of poison, disease and weakness on your target after you blow a minion up in front of them.

Factions Only Dedicated Minion Master
The slow recharge of Animate Vampiric Horror makes it difficult for a Factions Minion Master to create a "wall of flesh", though the size and power of the Flesh Golem goes some way towards making up for this. As both Bone Fiends and Vampiric Horrors cost 25 energy to create taking a little extra energy into battle to compliment the Soul Reaping bonuses can be helpful: again, Ghial's Staff or the Wailing Wand from Honglei Sun are good choices.