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Author: barlauja
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23 Comments
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Beginners PvE Minion Master(MM) guide by a beginner Necro
My Necro's only 8 hours old, so I thought I might relay some early experiences. Please, remember this isn't an advanced Necro guide. So let's begin.
The MMs role as I see it is to provide a larger party than the standard 4 or 8, to provide cannon fodder, and provide an expendable force of body blockers.
Let's first look at the necro's attributes:
 | Soul Reaping (Primary attribute)
For each point of Soul Reaping, you gain 1 Energy whenever a non-spirit creature near you dies. You may only gain Energy in this way 3 times every 15 seconds.
This is your main energy management
Death Magic
Without Death magic, you can control no more than two undead servants. For every two ranks of Death Magic, you can control one additional undead servant. Many necromancer skills, especially those that animate undead servants, manipulate corpses, and deal cold damage, become more effective with higher Death Magic.
Here's the first thing I learned. I didn't read the debion for Death Magic to begin with and couldn't understand why I could only control a few minions at start, when I knew Necro's can control up to 10 minions. So, while Soul Reaping may be a Necro's primary attribute, for a Minion Master, Death Magic is the most important, in my experience.
The last two are only used for support spells.
Blood Magic
No inherent effect. Many Necromancer skills, especially spells that damage and steal Health from your foes, become more effective with higher Blood Magic.
Curses
No inherent effect. Many Necromancer skills, especially Hex spells that reduce your foes' effectiveness in battle, become more effective with higher Curses. |
Skills:Obviously we'll need some animation spells:
| | | Energy | Activation | Recharge |  |  | Animate Bone Fiend.
Spell: Exploit nearest target corpse to animate a level 1-14 Bone Fiend. Bone Fiends can attack at range. | 25 | 3 | 5 |  | Animate Bone Horror
Spell: Exploit nearest corpse to animate a level 1-14 Bone Horror. | 15 | 3 | 5 |  | Animate Bone Minions
Spell: Exploit nearest corpse to animate two level 0-10 Bone Minions. | 15 | 3 | 5 |  | Animate Shambling Horror
Spell: Exploit nearest corpse to create a level 1 - 14 Shambling Horror. When the Shambling Horror dies, it is replaced by a level 0 - 12 Jagged Horror that causes Bleeding with each of its attacks. | 15 | 3 | 25 |  | Animate Vampiric Horror
Spell. Exploit nearest corpse to animate a level 1-14 Vampiric Horror. Whenever a Vampiric Horror you control deals damage, you gain the same amount in health. | 25 | 3 | 15 |  | Animate Flesh Golem (Elite Skill)
Elite Spell: 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. | 15 | 3 | 30 |
So now let's pick our Animation spells. Animate Flesh Golem should be your elite, the flesh golem is your powerhouse fighter and should be acquired as soon as possible, possibly by an elite tome :). Unfortunately, this is not a core skill, so unless you have factions, you'll have to look elsewhere. Now let's look at the quickest recharging animation spells: Animate Bone Fiend, Animate Bone Horror, and Animate Bone Minions. You want a quickly recharging spell to help build your army as fast as possible. My current choice is Animate Bone Minions. My main reason for this choice is that it animates two creatures at once, to help build your army as fast as possible. I don't currently care for Animate Bone Fiend because of the high cost and as ranged attackers, they don't body block as well. You may have to go with this one if you've got a Factions character, as you won't be able to get Vampiric Horrors until Kaineng Center. Animate Bone Horror wouldn't be a bad choice either if you've got Prophecies, but will only give you one minion. Since I've got a Nightfall character, Animate Shambling Horror is my choice, and it's nice it's available in Kamadan. The other thing I like about this spell is that when it dies, you get a free jagged horror.
Now that we've got some animation spells, we need a way to heal them, as minions have natural health degeneration that gets worse over time.
There are only two possible early minion healing spells for a Necro.
| | Sacrifice | Energy | Activation | Recharge |  | Blood of the Master
Spell: Sacrifice 5% max health + 2% more Health per creature healed. All undead allies are healed for 30-99. | 5% | 5 | 1 | 2 |  | Feast for the Dead
Spell: Destroy target animated undead ally. All of your other undead animated allies are healed for 10 - 82 Health. | | 5 | 1 | 10 |
If you don't have a Nightfall character, your only option is Blood of the Master. Nightfall characters have access to Feast for the Dead, but I don't see that as a good choice as it would be hard to target the oldest minion or the one with the least life. One important thing to remember about Blood of the Master, though, is that when you have 10 minions, you will sacrifice 25% of your maximum health. If you have another MM in your party, Blood of the Master will heal their minions as well, as they are allies. If both you and them have 10 minions, you will sacrifice 45% of you maximum health, and you can kill yourself with this spell.
This should make it obvious that you'll want some self healing, since you don't want to have to rely on your monk(s) to heal your significant health sacrifices. The only early Necro skill for this is Vampiric Gaze.
| | Energy | Activation | Recharge |  | Vampiric Gaze
Spell: Steal 18-52 health from target foe. | 10 | 1 | 5 |
This is why I've chosen Monk as my secondary, and my current monk self heal is Healing Breeze.
| | Energy | Activation | Recharge |  | Healing Breeze
Enchantment Spell: For 10 seconds, target ally gains health regeneration of +4 - +9. | 10 | 1 | 2 |
Equipment
| This one is fairly obvious and reduces your animation spells to 2 1/4 seconds from 3. This is best placed on either the hands or feet, since other insignias bonuses are greater on the chest or legs. | Reduces casting time of spells that exploit corpses by 25% | Bloodstained Insignia |  |
| In order to control 10 minions, your death magic needs to be at 16, which means headgear with +1 death magic and this rune.The -75 Health doesn't need to be a concern, and can even help, as a lowered health, means a lower health sacrifice for Blood of the master. | Death Magic +3 (Non-stacking)
Health -75 | Necromancer Rune of Superior Death Magic |  |
| Minor runes are always safe since there's no health reduction. While some health reduction is fine, remember, you still need to stay alive while fighting, and don't want to reduce your health too much, too quickly. Eventually, a superior rune here would likely be good. | Soul Reaping +1 (Non-Stacking) | Necromancer Rune of Minor Soul Reaping |  |
Here's some good choices for the other spots:
| This would seem a good choice for the chest, as that is the most hit body part and it's likely you'll get +15 armor most of the time | Armor +5 (while you control 1 or more minions)
Armor +5 (while you control 3 or more minions)
Armor +5 (while you control 5 or more minions) | Minion Master's Insignia |  |
| Extra energy is always good, and if you use this one, the legs would be the place to put it, if you've got a MM insignia, otherwise, the chest. | Energy +3 (on chest armor)
Energy +2 (on leg armor)
Energy +1 (on other armor) | Radiant Insignia |  |
| Again, energy is always good. | Energy +2 | Rune of Attunement |  |
The Play | As soon as the first kill is made, raise a Flesh Golem, if you've got that spell. He will then help getting the next kill. Next, cast your longest recharging animation spell, followed down the line to the quickest recharging spell. Don't forget to periodically heal your minions, especially is your animation spells are recharging. Because of the minions natural health degeneration, you'll want to periodically animate new ones, even if your controlling the most you can, as it gets harder and harder to heal them. Try to always keep a flesh golem alive. Remember, that you'll need to get enemies close to your agro bubble to have your minions attack, but once they're engaged, you should back up since your armor maxes out at 60. So It's pretty much raise minions, heal them, raise minions, heal them, heal yourself, rinse and repeat.
Remember not to spread your attributes too thin when choosing optional skills. |
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