0
A Minion Guide
Introduction
This guide is intended to encompass all of the different minions, their various effects, and which to use for certain situations.
Minions and why should I care.
What is a minion you might ask? Well a minion refers to an animated undead servent, of which there are 7 currently created.
- Bone Minion
- Bone Horror
- Vampiric Horror
- Bone Fiend
- Shambling Horror
- Jagged Horror
- Flesh Golem {E}
Now you might ask, why on earth would you want to waste a skill slot on creating a lower level, slower attacking, less AL then your standard warrior. If you look at it like this MMs seem silly, however when you have a full army of 10 you can be one of the most destructive forces in the game.
(all stats are tested by me, and health/armor based on level 16 Death Magic)
Bone Minions
Minion level: 0(Death 0)..10(Death 12)..13(Death 16)
Health: ~340
Armor: ~39
DPS: ~4
Cost: 15e
Recharge: 5s
These are the weakest minions in term of damage, armor and health. They are lower level but you get 2 of them per activation. Bone Minions do however make good bombs(placing death nova, and killing them off). Unless you are intending to play as a minion bomber, it's best to leve these at home.
Bone Horror
Minion level: 1(Death 0)..14(Death 12)..18(Death 16)
Health: ~440
Armor: ~72
DPS: ~8
Cost: 10e
Recharge: 5s
This is usualy one of the two core skills in an MM's army, as they are cheap to make, have relatively decent armor and decent damage output. It's not something you want to make an entire army, as you sacrifice too much DPS in doing so.
Vampiric Horror
Minion level: 1(Death 0)..14(Death 12)..18(Death 16)
Health: ~440
Armor: ~72
DPS: ~8
Cost: 15e
Recharge: 15s
These share the same Damage output as bone horrors, but convert damage dealt into you gaining health. Note that the health gain is not affected by Healing reduction (predatory season, deep wound, etc). Vampiric horrors cost more then a standard melee minion (25) and have a fairly long recast so they are more difficult to use as your main melee minion. They can easily supplement your army and add some self heal.
Bone Fiends
Minion level: 1(Death 0)..14(Death 12)..18(Death 16)
Helath: ~440
Armor: ~54
DPS: ~14
Cost: 25e
Recharge: 5s
These do the most DPS without sacrificing your elite slot, They also attack at range(shortbow range). However you sacrifice Durability for damage. So generaly it's a good idea to have these in the midline while your melee minions attack things up front.
Shambling Horror
Minion level: 1(Death 0)..14(Death 12)..18(Death 16)
Health: ~440
Armor: ~72
DPS: ~8
Cost: 15e
Recharge: 15s
A new addition to the minions, It's kind of a two for 1 deal. However due to it's long recast it shouldn't be relied on as your main melee minions, when these die they respawn a level 16 Jagged Horror.
Jagged Horror
Minion level: 0(Death 0)..12(Death 12)..16(Death 16)
Health: ~400
Armor: ~64
DPS: ~6DPS + 6DPS against fleshy targets not already bleeding
THese are spawned from either a minion dying with Jagged Bones on it, or when a shambling horror dies. They do about 6DPS base damage, and cause bleeding with each of their attacks. This Bleeding seems to last about 30 seconds.
Flesh Golem{E}
Minion level: 3(death 0)..21(Death 12)..26(Death 16)
Health: ~600
Armor: ~103
DPS: ~26
Cost: 15e
Recharge: 30s
The golem is the best minion in terms of Damage, Armor and Health. It even leaves an exploitable corpse when it dies so you can simply make a new one out of it. The only reason to not bring a golem is if you use your elite for something else. The Golem increases in size at higher levels.
So what minions should I be using?
Generaly Speaking, every MM uses a couple horrors (between 3 and 5) to tank an army of fiends, This balances between max DPS and Max surviveability.
Keeping the army alive
Minions suffer from degeneration that cumulatively worsens over the lifetime of the minion. Each minion starts at degeneration of -1 and gains another pip every 20 seconds following the forumula: Degen = (Ammount Of time alive(in seconds)/20) + 1 (rounded down) Also note that minions continue to get more pips of degen past 10 although only 10 will be in effect at a time. More than 10 degen will start to counteract any regen spells you might use. There are a few ways of keeping the army maintained, the most common beeing Blood of the Master.
Blood of the master
This one simply heals your minions for 122 at the cost of 5%+2% health sacrifice for each minion. This is the most common choice because it's unconditional and heals for a good amount, you just use it, heal yourself and repeat.
Feast for the Dead
This is more of a skill used for a minion bomber and not really someone trying to keep an army of minions alive. It heals your army at the cost of killing one of your other minions. Healing per second on Feast for the Dead is not enough to counteract a full -10 Degen.
Verata's Sacrifice
This one has fallen out of favor with the long recast and minions beeing able to out degen the regen it gives. With Glyph of Renewal{E} you can keep the regen up with 5 second gaps, making it a reliable form of healing in areas with alot of corpses.
However, the most common method is using Blood of the master, followed by a self heal continuosly to sustain the army as this is by far the most effective means. With the recast of Verata's Sacrifice maintaing an army with it isn't going to happen (except at the expense of your elite slot as mentioned earlier), and maintaining it with Feast of the Dead isn't very viable either except maybe in extremely corpse heavy areas.
Skills useful with minions
Death Nova
This is generaly used by minion bombers, they Create bone minions slap death nova on them and blow them up in the enemies face for 105 armor ignoring damage per bomb, as well as causing poison.
Dark Bond
This redirects 75% of the damage you take to your minions (does not incluide loss of health due to sacrificing or life stealing) This is useful for keeping yourself alive, as No alive minions is better then 10 Minions attacking your party.
Putrid Flesh
This is a skill used by Minion bombers to cause even more degen with their bombs, it causes disease to enemies near the bomb.
Taste of Death
This can be used in a couple ways, the first is to use it to trigger death nova explosions by killing off the minion. The second is as a self heal in emergency situations(don't want the MM dying after all)
Feast for the Dead
Yet another useful bombing skill, this one instead heals your minions to give a bit of time for you to put death novas on them.
Jagged Bones{E}
This one makes a jagged horror apear out of the minion that dies with this enchantment on it. This makes it an ideal skill for Minion Bombers.
Order of Undeath{E}
This one adds a substantial amount of DPS, it makes your minions do +17 Damage for 5 seconds, at the cost of 2% per hit by a minion. This can add more DPS then Flesh Golem in most cases.
Aura of the Lich{E}
This skill halves your HP and damage taken(including sacs) making it easier to spam spells like Blood of the Master. Since it halves your HP, it halves the sac amount and then halves the damage taken from the sac resulting in a sac cost that's only 1/4 the original. Commonly used with Dark Aura and Blood Renewal.
Icy Veins{E}
Not really a Minion master skill per se, but with the large amouhnt of deaths you'll be causing you can throw this on something near death to add in a bit of Aoe damage.
Mark of Pain/Barbs
As you're going to be doing a large amount of physical damage these will cause you to do even more damage through AoE, or just on Single targets. This is best used by a curses necro.
Malign Intervention
This spawns a level 18 Masterless horror whenever the target dies, if you combine it with Verata's Gaze it let's you get up to 3 minion per corpse for bombing.
Dwayna's Sorrow
This is a monk skill that heals all allies when the enchanted creature dies. It works well with minion bombers as their minions are in a constant cycle of death.
Discord{E}
With the introduction of Jagged Horrors, and death having a couple hexes in it you can quickly add up damage with this spell.
Tainted Flesh, Virulence, Contagion, and Toxic Chill are notable skills because they are Elites in the Death Magic attribute but have a weaker synergy with Minion builds that the ones listed above.
So how do I use these minions?
The first, more common way is a minion master. It follows this general template.
16 Death
9-13 Soul Reaping
Rest in another Attribute
Animate Melee Minion
Animate Bone Fiend
Third Animate/Utility
Minion Heal
Self Heal
Self Protection
Utility
Generic Resurrect
For instance, A Build centered around Order of Udneath might look something like this.
Animate Bone Horror
Aniamte Vampiric Horror
Animate BOne Fiend
Blood of the Master
Order of Undeath
Heal Area
Taste of Death(for emergency heals)
Rebirth
the other, less used way is minion bombing. These builds can vary greatly, but they all follow the same basic principle.
Death: 16
Soul Reaping: 9-13
Other Attribute: 0-9
Animate Spell
Death Nova
Minion Kill
Utility
Utility
Utility
Utility
Generic Resurrrect
For instance, one build might be
Animate Bone Minions
Death Nova
Taste of Death
Dwayna's Sorrow
Jagged Bones
Verata's Gaze
Malaign Intervention
Generic Resurrect
Originally Posted by Aemchair Warrior
