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Author: mriswith
12,572 Views
53 Comments
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The nerfed MM; the do's, dont's and tactics.
** disclaimer **
I have made this build myself with experimenting and trying. Similarities to guides that might have been written somewhere on the internet are pure coincidence and not intended. All my characters have builds on them that have
evolved throughout the PvE part of the game and are formed by trail and error.
Please do not flame me if it might not work for you, or becuase you think it should be build in a different way. I have spend 2 months experimenting, rebuilding and buying items, so i have thought this well through. Otherwise i
wouldn't have shared it. I love this profession and i hate to see that some people tend to get to hate MinionMasters due to the case that they have little minions alive all time and because they tend to die quick.
There are good MM's out in GW. And i still find some while playing Necro Order in ToPK. But i see too that since the nerf, a lot of MM's use builds that will not work anymore, or are less effective.
** disclaimer **
Everybody knows that some time ago the MM (minion master) necromancer got nerfed. The amount of minions became bound to the spent attribute points (maximum 16) as well as veratas sacrifice and blood of the master. For the minion maintaining skills an additional sacrifice per minion was introduced.
Most people saw the MM as a dead (lol; i love the irony of that...) necromancer profession. Still there are, luckily, minionmasters around. What i do notice however, especially in ToPK, is that most MM's havent overcome the nerf. They
maintain hardly 3 minions, and die a lot due to sacrifice and aggro.
It bothers me a bit lately that, if i use my necromancer in ToPK or in Cantha (tyria has long been finished by that character), people tend to say that they 'finally' found a 'pro' or 'good' minion master. I do not call myself as such, but since apparently people have troubles being MM's i thought to write this guide for the 'nerfed necromancer'.
For this guide, i use ToPK barrage/pet teams (Tomb of the Primeval Kings) as example for the tactics and skilluse. I learned to be MM in here and i still think its the best place to learn it.
The kind of armour you use is not important. I have tried, scars, bloodstained boots and ended up with tormentors armour. I still dont see the difference while raising minions,as long as your soul reaping gives enough energy back. I do not need more than 45 energy. The downside of scars as well is that they provide lesser armour. So If you happen to get into aggro, scars tend to kill you.
below is a example of my armourset and used runes (some are useless but that is because i have switched runes and stuff to be able to switch between necromancer professions)
Try for weapons to get 20/20. It provides the possibillity to raise minions faster and to let skills recharge faster. Also a +1 deathmagic mod on the weapon might be nice, and will provide stronger minions in 20% of the cases, but it is not a necessity. I use:
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kole's torment (10/10; i dont use it for attacks; only for the 10/10 mod. In the tactics you will see that attacking with a staff is not necessary)
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spinal rod + bleached skull (20% recharge, 20% +1 deathmagic, + 30 health, + 17 energy)
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For the skills i use the following set;.
Rebirth
Resurrect target party member. Target party member is returned to life with 25% Health and zero Energy, and is teleported to your current location. All of target's skills are disabled for 10-4 seconds. This spell consumes all your
remaining energy.
Heal Area
Heal yourself and all nearby creatures for 30-150 health. (120 with this build)
Taste of Death
Steal 100-340 health from target animated undead ally (if anyhting goes wrong;
you will have a backupheal)
Verata's Sacrifice
Sacrifice 15% max health. For 5-10 seconds, all undead allies gain 10 health regeneration. All conditions are removed from those allies and transferred to you. Instantly recharges if you have 3 or fewer undead servants; this skill now only affects undead servants you control (10 seconds with this build)
Blood of the Master
Sacrifice 5% max health + 2% more Health per creature healed. All undead allies are healed for 30-99. (122 with this build)
Animate Bone Horror
Exploit nearest corpse to animate a level 1-14 Bone Horror. (lvl 18 with this
build)
Animate Bone Fiend
Exploit nearest target corpse to animate a level 1-14 Bone Fiend. Bone Fiends can attack at range. (lvl 18 with this build)
Animate Flesh Golem (Factions) Elite Skill
Exploit nearest corpse to animate a level 3-25 Flesh Golem, the Flesh Golem leaves an exploitable corpse. You can only have one Flesh Golem. (lvl 26 with this build)
Do's
: Do the team a favor and be Mo for secondary profession. A MM without selfhealing is useless.
: Stay in the back. Your task is to raise minions. Rangers and warriors will do the 1st killing.
: Raise the strongest or most usefull minion you have 1st. However; mind mesmers. They can and will interrupt and you will have to wait to raise, for example, your golem
: take a weapon with mods yu need. Dont depend on damage since you will harldy use it.
: Blood of the Master works at great distance. As long as your minions are in the minimap they will be healed. Same applies to veratas Sacrifice.
: stay safe and run away when needed. A dead MM is a nuisance for the team. Never let minions run loose. To keep yourself alive when needed; use taste of death.
: Tell the monk to focus on the team. You should be able to take care for yourself.
: Let your minions get to a target by using your staff only once. After that withdraw to safety
Dont's
: Dont be a hero and stand next to rangers/warriors. Keep to the backline.
: Of course never sacrifice yourself to death. You have heal area for a reason
: Dont bring skills that do not involve raising minions and maintaining them.
You will not use them, and they keep important skills out of your skillset.
: Dont let your minions be aggroes. They are a bad lure since they will not come back after they have seen a foe. Let a tank or ranger lure. When the aggro is far enough from the rest of the foes; set them loose.
: never rely on a monk to upkeep your health. You have healingskills yourself; use them. The monk needs to be able to focus on the team, not you.
: Dont keep clicking on animating minions. You will lose your protective wall by letting in gaps of minions that die. Upkeeping their health is as important as your own.
tactics:
previous descriptions are kinda basic. Most MM's will have or had this setup. The use of skills however differs. And this is where it tends to go 'wrong'. 1st of all, your postition in the group is very improtant. Depend on the fact
that rangers and warriors are the frontline. Don't be a hero and stand in between them. Your job is to raise minions, nothing else. Even your wand will not make a difference so skip attacking. This is why you can take any 20/20 wand. So wait until you see your + energy from soulreaping; a corpse is available, raise your 1st minion. If you are near mesmer, raise a bone horror. You have a descend chance to get interrupted. The first minions you would want
to raise is the flesh golem. If you are interrupted it takes a long time to recharge. If you were not interrupted, raise to flesh golem.
Now comes the time as well to keep the 2 minions you have alive. The horror might die in the process, but what you really want is fiends. Before the golem and the nerf, the horrors were nice tanks. Now the golem is sufficient, and
fiends will form the protective high damagedealing backline. In order to keep the 2 alive; spam 2 blood of the masters followed by heal area. Since you are in the backline of the team you can do this without risk and you might even
help the monk with healing if any of the teammates are nearby. Your 2 minions will have 240 additional health atm and this will give you time to raise your first fiend. Now comes the click and act. You now have to raise the little army to backup and protect your team. start with blood of the master, followed by bone fiend or animate bone horror. Keep those 2 buttons clicked and only use heal area when, to your own taste, your heath is too low. This way you will raise 10 (with 16 att, this is the max) minions. If you have 10. Stop animating minions. Keep the ones alive that you have by using Blood of the Master. Use heal Area to heal yourself. BotM -> Heal Area -> BotM -> HA. Keep this going
until the battle is won. If a minion dies in the process, then you can raise a new one.
In between battles you keep your minions alive by using: Blood of the Master, Veratas Sacrifice (when available) AND heal area. I have seen too many MM's wthout HA and wondering why the minions keep dying. That is the reason...For the next battle keep the same tactics. Mind: "always stay in the back. Preferably even behind the monk.
Only use Taste of Death when things tend to go wrong. If foes break though your little minionwall and start beating you up, only then use it and run away. A dead MM is often a teams death...
Previous tactic also tells why i dont use healing breeze; it cant keep up with my use of BotM. Heal area is, imho, the best way to raise/upkeep your health.When the degen becomes to great on minions (you will notice this when you are
in between battle and yu still have to spam BotM and HA to keep them alive) its time for new minions. In the forthcoming battle raise new ones. Sibnce you can keep only 10; 1 minion will die. The minion with the biggest degen will always die. This way you can replace your good old buddies by new ones. Mind; during the replacement, dont't forget to use BotM and VS to keep your new ones alive. It is pretty much the tactic as in the beginning.
If your job is to block stairs or hallways (Hall of Hero's), move a bit to the front and let the team take position beside you. 1 warrior or ranger must be in front of your minions to make the initial lure. If the foes come your way,
select one, fire once (so damage still doesnt matter), let the minions make their first step and move backwards as quickly as possible. Minions and foes will meet halfway and thus will nicely block the passage. Ranger can then use
barrage to make quick kills. All you have to do is spam BotM and HA (own health) to keep the minions alive as long as possible. Again; if 1 dies, replace it by raising a new minion.
I hope that this guide is of some use to people. Whether they are new to the profession or experienced MM's.[/COLOR][/I]
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