User:NieA7/sandbox

Overview
This guide discusses the type of Necromancer who specialise in maintaining armies of animated creatures (known hereafter as minions), generally known as Minion Masters.

Why Bother?
An average minion does less damage than an 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 henchmen like Devona or Cynn can deal more damage faster? The simple answer is quantity.

Whereas only eight members can join a party (and then only at the higher levels of the game), a single minion master can control up to ten minions. The damage from one minion may seem to be minor, but ten is quite a formidable force.

An Army of One
A general does not attack. A commander does not wield a weapon. A minion master's life and strength is not in the fight, but in the army. For the majority of players, this represents a fundamental shift in thought. Whereas an elementalist or ranger will try to find the best set of skills to use directly on a target, a minion master must find a balance of skills to both preserve their army and give it the strength to roll over whatever is placed in its path.

Starting up
The minion master is a build based on inertia. Overcoming the initial barrier of the first 3-4 minions is the hardest part - a large army makes it easier to kill enemies, which in turn makes it easier to maintain a large army. In an eight member party the other players will be only to happy to provide a continuous flow of corpses, but in smaller groups bringing some damage skills (such as Deathly Swarm and Rotting Flesh) will help ease the first few kills.

The corollary to this is the absolute necessity to maintain your army. If your army dies you'll need to start a new one, which means dealing with "first corpse" difficulties all over again. It is important that you spend as little time as possible between engagements. Minions live on a timer: their inherent degeneration increases every 20 seconds up to a maximum of 10. They also have hidden degeneration, so that if they live long enough health regeneration spells will have no effect on maintaining their health. If you spend a lot of time between skirmishes it will become very hard to maintain your minions, and you will not have any fresh corpses to animate.

Rolling Thunder
Once your army is built your role changes from construction to maintenance. If you're carrying them stop casting damage spells - your purpose is no longer direct damage as the army will cause sufficient damage on its own. Maintaining your army should be your only goal at this point. Fresh minions require less healing than aged ones, so animating new creatures should come first, followed quickly by healing. You should aim to exploit new corpses as quickly as possible.

Blood of the Master is generally the best way to keep minions alive so long as you can manage the health sacrifice, which can easily climb to 25% of your maximum health (more if there is another minion master in your party, as this skill affects all allied minions). Verata's Sacrifice can also be used, though its long recharge limits its usefulness. Some Healing Prayers skills can be put to good use, though this will mean spreading your attribute points more thinly (see the table below for a quick summary of useful healing skills).

Engaging the Enemy
When approaching an opposing force the minion master should be in the lead, or at least be one of the first into the area of combat. Minions follow blindly behind their master, and will only move forward to attack when their master attacks, is attacked, or a creature enters their aggro bubble (which is slightly smaller then a standard player aggro bubble).

If you are using any minion type other than Bone Fiends it is advisable to attack once then step back and allow the minions to cluster around the foes (this is traditionally called a "minion wall" or "minion block"). Bone Fiends will attack at range and will not block the path of your enemies. After the first attack (preferably with a ranged weapon) the Minion Master should concentrate on healing and maintenance.


 * Create new minions as soon as possible. Get used to watching for a Soul Reaping or experience signal, rather then watching the field for falling foes.
 * Keep casting Blood of the Master, but be careful - over sacrificing can kill you fairly easily, as the sacrifice cost increases with each minion you control.
 * Bone Fiends tend to clump together into a ball, making Heal Area, Karei's Healing Circle and Healing Burst very useful heals. Be careful - large clumps of fiends are prime targets for area of effect attacks, and minions are not intelligent enough to move out of the area of effect.

It is important to remember that minions are ruled by extremely simple laws. They attack everything not friendly to their master, have no ability to differentiate targets for tactical or strategic 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. Though you can still cast Blood of the Master, disengaging any combat normally means you will lose most - if not all - of your army.

Worst Case Scenario
The most important note on dying: DON'T.

As a minion master, your existence is the only thing keeping your army from the throat of your allies. Should you fall, your army will become masterless and attack everything in sight, including your party, pets and any allied heroes. Everyone in the party should know that you are playing a minion master build. Healers playing with a minion master in their party should focus on the minion master in an emergency situation - many parties have been obliterated due to a minion master losing control of their army. The same holds 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, possibly causing them to wipe.

A minion master does not have to fully rely on outside healing/protection. Dark Bond is probably the most effective way to deal with large damage spikes. Even with only a modest investment in Blood Magic it will last a substantial length of time. For Monk secondaries Heal Area, Karei's Healing Circle and Healing Burst can be used to heal both oneself and any minions in the area.

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

Non-Necromancer Minion Masters
Minion masters have traditionally been primary Necromancers as Death Magic's native profession offers many advantages.


 * Necromancer Headgears and runes allow a Necromancer to increase Death Magic to a base level of 16, compared to a maximum of 12 for secondary Necromancers. This means:
 * A primary Necromancer can control up to ten minions, whereas a secondary Necromancer can only control a maximum of eight.
 * Minions will be 20-33% higher in level than those created at 12 Death Magic. This results in higher minion health, armor and damage.
 * Soul Reaping (the Necromancer's primary attribute) grants a constant flow of energy from dying minions - without this a secondary Necromancer may quickly find it difficult to cast the high-cost minion creation skills.
 * Specialized Necromancer armor, such as Bloodstained Boots and Minion Master's Armor, give unique and highly useful bonuses for minion masters.

Ritualist
In spite of the above drawbacks, the Ritualist may take on the role of minion master with some success.


 * For each point in Spawning Power (the Ritualist's primary attribute), minions gain 4% max health, allowing a minion created at 12 Death Magic and 16 Spawning Power to have more health than a minion created at 16 Death Magic. However, the lower level still means it will deal less and take more (due to lower armor) damage in combat - compared to a high Death Magic minion, a high Spawning Power minion will survive longer between fights but shorter in a battle.
 * A level 21 Flesh Golem created by this Ritualist would have 820 Health, while a level 26 Flesh Golem will normally have 600 Health.
 * A level 14 minion created by this Ritualist would have 590 Health, while a level 18 minion will have 440 Health.
 * In addition, a few Spawning Power related skills work directly with minions. Many of these skills make a Minion Bomber variation an attractive choice.

In short, the Ritualist will have fewer and weaker minions compared to a Necromancer, but they will have more health and a few specialized skills are opened up.

Death Magic
Death Magic directly affects the number of minions you can control, their survivability and their damage potential.

Soul Reaping
Soul Reaping is absolutely the best way to reduce the cost of casting corpse spells, and should be dedicated to keeping the army rolling. For example, with a Soul Reaping of 10, casting Animate Bone Horror costs only a net 5 energy, while casting Animate Bone Minions will actually gain you a net 5 energy.

Don't waste the Soul Reaping bonus. You get energy for everything that dies, be they allies, enemies, pets, minions or creatures (spirits too, though they only give a half Soul Reaping bonus). Try to keep your energy at least one soul reaping bonus beneath your maximum to ensure that no energy is wasted. If you do have extra energy, use it to heal your minions or yourself.

For most minion master builds Soul Reaping should be at least 10.

Spawning Power
The Ritualist's primary attribute Spawning Power affects both minions and spirits, giving each an extra 4% health for each point in Spawning Power. In addition, Signet of Creation, Boon of Creation, Explosive Growth and Spirit Channeling work with minions as well.

Armor
Any necromancer armor will work, but some are more useful than others. Scar Pattern (and its 15k variant) and Cabalist's armor provide extra energy, but generally speaking Minion Master's Armor is the most useful as it increases your AL when you control 1 (+5 AL), 3 (+10 total AL) and 5 (+15 total AL) minions. Whilst providing no benefit during the painful starting phase, the extra armor will help you survive when you (and your party!) need it the most - when you control many minions. It works particularly well in conjunction with Dark Bond.

In addition the base armor, the following equipment is considered the standard for a minion master:
 * Bloodstained Boots reduce the casting time of spells that target corpses by 25% (minimum 1/4 second). Only around 12.5% of all attacks hit the boots and they provide just 1 additional energy, so the decrease in casting times far outweighs the advantages of all other armor classes.
 * A headgear with +1 Death Magic.
 * A superior rune of Death Magic.

Weapons and Focus items
Weapons are of less use to Minion Masters in damage output than for other profession and build types. Sacrifices in direct damage in favor of higher casting speeds or faster recharge times are worthwile.

The ideal weapon set for a Minion master should have as many of the following characteristics as possible:
 * Halves skill recharge time of death magic spells (very important)
 * Halves casting time of death magic spells (somewhat important)
 * +1 to Death Magic (20% chance) (somewhat important)
 * Additional Energy (important)
 * Additional armor or health (slightly important)

Here are some example Death Magic weapon sets:
 * The Bone Staff from Luven Underwood, combined with a perfect Staff Wrapping of Death Magic 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
 * Ghial's Staff
 * The Bone Spiral Rod from either Gertrud or Telamon and a Bleached Skull from Dai Waeng.

Note on bomber builds: In builds that specialize in using Death Nova the hierarchy of useful mods changes somewhat from those of a traditional minion master.
 * Halves casting time of death magic spells (very important)
 * +1 to Death Magic (20% chance) (very important)
 * Enchantments last 20% longer (very important)
 * Lengthens poison duration on foes by 33% (important)
 * Additional Energy (important)
 * Halves skill recharge time of death magic spells (somewhat important)
 * Additional armor or health (slightly important)

An example of an ideal minion bomber weapon set would be a Poisonous sword or axe of Enchanting paired with Bortak's Bone Cesta. Improves skill recharge is almost entirely unnecessary for a minion bomber, fast recharging Verata's sacrifice is not nearly as useful to a minion bomber as enchantment extensions or fast cast as these mods will help keep Death Nova up on as many minion as possible.

''Note: Items which provide 15 energy at the cost of an energy pip, such as the ones provided by Kraviec the Cursed and Isabaeux Navarre, are very useful, but can carry significant drawbacks. When using these items, have high Soul Reaping, and carry a second set without the regeneration effects for traveling or when deaths are sparse.''

Minion creation skills
There are six unlockable minion creation skills: Animate Bone Fiend, Animate Bone Horror, Animate Bone Minions, Animate Flesh Golem, Animate Vampiric Horror and Malign Intervention. All of the are tied to Death Magic.

Minion related skills
There are several skills in the game specifically related to the control of minions, ranging from healing through control to destruction. All minions begin with a -1 degeneration and gain an additional -1 degeneration for every 20 seconds they remain alive. After 3 minutes (180 seconds) they have -10 degeneration. Actual health lost due to degeneration is capped at 20 health per second (i.e. 10 degen), but minions can have much more than -10 degen, eventually to the point where strong regeneration skills like Verata's Sacrifice and Healing Breeze will have no effect on the health lost by the minion.

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

Other useful skills
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 while the enemy keeps attacking you. Energy management guide and Recharge (Glyph of Renewal) and Nature Rituals (Winnowing, Predatory Season) and Interrupt.

Simple Army Master
These three core skills form the basis of a general purpose Minion Master build. The idea is simple - create minions as soon as you can, use Blood of the Master to keep them alive and Dark Bond to keep yourself alive (don't forget that if you die any minions you are controlling will become aggressive towards everything, including your team mates). Bone Horrors, Bone Minions, Vampiric Horrors and Flesh Golems can be used instead of or as well as Bone Fiends.

Specific Builds:

Minion Bomber
A Minion Bomber is different from a normal Minion Master in that the aim is not to keep minions alive for a long time while they do their own thing, but rather to raise them quickly then explode them in the middle of enemy mobs. With 16 Death Magic when a minion enchanted with Death Nova dies they will not only cause over 100 damage to all adjacent foes, but will also poison them for 15 seconds.

Specific Builds: Build:Rt/N Explosive Growth Minion Bomber

Opposing Forces
Should you find yourself facing a Minion Master, in either PvP or PvE, it is important to focus on attacking the army where it is weakest. Simply hacking away at the minions is slow, and gives the minions time to hack away at you. Here are some simple tactics to use against Minion Masters.


 * Targeting the army
 * Holy Damage: Minions, like all undead creatures, take double damage from holy and light based damage. Monks equipped with smiting skills (especially Ray of Judgment) can quickly destroy minions.
 * Area of Effect: Minions are not smart enough to flee from area of effect spells such as Fire Storm, Meteor Shower or Balthazar's Aura. These spells are particularly effective against Bone Fiends, due to their tendancy to clump.
 * Stealing the army: Verata's Aura and Verata's Gaze can turn minions against their creator, while Signet of Creation will destroy all minions and spirits in the area after 30 seconds.
 * Targeting the master
 * Killing the master: Once a minion master dies, the army will become masterless and attack everything.
 * Interrupting: Interrupting key skills such as Blood of the Master can leave a Minion Master with a much weaker army. Skills like Distracting Shot and Power Spike are moderately effective, while skills such as Power Block can be devastating. However, skills like Debilitating Shot and Power Leak are less effective, due to the energy bonuses Soul Reaping provides.
 * Targeting the field
 * Corpse Denial: Minion Masters rely on a steady stream of corpses, and animate spells are slow to cast. Use the corpses before they can with fast spells such as Consume Corpse, Necrotic Traversal and Soul Feast.
 * Spirits: Ranger spirits such as Edge of Extinction can be very destructive. Be wary of spirits that may assist the Minion Master, such as Winnowing and Predatory Season.