Using level 5 minions in Hard Mode.

I had an idea at the weekend for a Hard Mode PVE hero team build that turned out to work even better than I hoped.

The idea came from the Necro 55/Spoil Victor solo build that works because your health is always below that of the monster, so SV continues to work until the monster dies.

This is not a detailed build, but more of a set of ideas for you to work with.

You – Whatever you are happy playing, but this will possibly not work as well for a Melee based character. I played a Choking Gas Ranger, with Throw Dirt for when the melee mobs get to close.

Hero 1 – Blood Necro – 16 Blood, 6 Death, remainder in Soul Reaping. Equipped with Spoil Victor, Animate Bone Minions, Signet of Lost Souls, Res, other Blood Magic line skills of your choice.

Hero 2 – Curses Necro – 16 Curses, 6 Death, remainder in Soul Reaping. Equipped with Spiteful Spirit, Reckless Haste, Insidious Parasite, Signet of Lost Souls, Animate Bone Minions, Res, Other Curses skills of your choice.

Hero 3 – Protection Monk. 14 (or more depending on your runes/preference) Protection, 12 Divine Favour. Full Protection but MUST include Protective Spirit.

Hench 1 – Healing Monk
Hench 2 – Healing Monk
Hench 3 - Warrior (Can probably be any class)
Hench 4 – Paragon (Can probably be any class)

How it works:

With only 6 in death magic, both necros can only raise 5 level 5 minions each. Each minion will only have a maximum of 180 health, thus when ever a monster under the effect of Spoil Victor attacks a minion it will almost always take damage.

During my playing with this build, I found that it was working even better than I expected.

“Why is that level 30 warrior boss pounding on that level 5 minion and it isn’t dying?” I thought..
After watching closely, I realised that Tahlkora was using Protective Spirit on the minions, and in effect the minion was playing a sort of 55/105 build, albeit with 180 health. For once the hero monks tendency to try and keep minions alive at all costs actually works in our favour.

Make sure you call your target to get the two necros to hit the target with both SV and SS.

Then sit back and watch the monsters kill themselves!

Variations: I would like to see how this works with a second real player and some more heroes instead of hench, A real 16 Death Magic necro without any minions but with BoTM/Verata’s Sacrifice, Death Nova and maybe something like Tainted Flesh might be a fun addition.

Successes: I vanquished three maps yesterday afternoon including Jahai Bluffs with this build without any real touble, I really wasn’t looking forward to vanquishing Jahai Bluffs but it went extremely well, and the party actually ended up with 2-6% moral boost rather than my usual large amount of DP. Only eight more maps to go for Vanquisher of Elona. :-)

Edit:

I persuaded one of my Guildmates to come and play this build with me last night. My setup was exactly as above. He played was playing his dervish. He set up his Olias with 16 death magic, no minions, BoTM, Tainted Flesh, Verata's Sacrifice, and Death Nova. He played his two hero monks as Light of Deliverance Healers. We then set out to vanquish Arkjok Ward. This was an absolute walk in the park! We had one sticky moment with the Mesmer Boss that we had both forgotten about, but other than that it was simple. We cleared the area in 1 hour 18 minutes - around 320 kills, and I ended up with 10% moral boost. It was a really enjoyable and fun run :-))

Edit 2:

Thanks for the nice feedback! Glad you are enjoying the build!

I made Elonian Vanquisher last night, which also gave me People Know Me :-))

I found that if you play yourself as Mesmer secondary with 12 in domination and add Backfire and Empathy, this setup becomes insanely powerful even against the insta-kill ele boses. The last map I cleared was Turai's Procession with the horrid Searing Flames boss that I had deliberately left to last as I was not looking forward to facing him at all. With this build, myself as secondary mesmer, 2 hench monks, Hench Paragon and Hench Mesmer I had no trouble at all. Finished the map with 10% moral boost on all players!

Nice, lol. I'll have to try this out, seems like something fun to do. Death Nova would be a nice addition, as you say.

Interesting, but how do you esure your monk(s) cast Prot Spirit on minions?

Could you tell me which 4 heroes did u use??? I really wanna try~!!!!

Quote:

I'm apalled at how well this works. Stupid ass Talkhora will indeed keep PS up on all the minions. How stupid is that.

Very clever idea.

Nice nice nice! I'm impressed Thank you for sharing.

Great work! I tried a variation of this setup last night and vanquished 4 areas to polish off all of Kourna in about 3 hours. Thanks for the great builds!

great build, bumped hehe

This is honestly the most clever (good) build I've seen in a long time. Excellent find.

I thought that the enemies are already attacking as fast as they can, so Reckless Haste won't have an effect. So, you could switch that out for something else. Otherwise, it is a rather clever idea. Too bad I can't try it (no Factions).

Is this still working?? cuz i tried it but i found that my monk doesn't keep prot spirit up on the minions, or sometimes only cast once or twice......what did i do wrong?

EDIT: in fact, stupid tahlkora almost never cast any spells no matter what kinda mode i put her in (att, def, or avoid combat). wtf?? may be it's got something to do with the build? if yes can someone post a 'working' build for her?

Thx

Hechmen 4?

Huh?? what??
Anyways I've tried the setup as described but i always get massacred at the fortress at jahai bluffs, even when i pulled carefully (i was playin offensive spirit spammer) but the prot monk just won't try to keep the minions alive(they die in 1 hit by the zealots anyway) so i really don't understand how the OP managed to vanquish jahai with it. I think i must be doing something wrong. any comments or suggestions??

I had not played this build for a while, as I have been mostly doing ABs, so I thought I would try and see if it still works.

On my first run through I got totally massacred and the heros seemed to be very reluctant to use their skills.

It took me a few minutes to realise that I had my heros set to passive.

Once changed to Guard, they behaved normally and the builds seem to work as well as ever even with my over-agro on a few occasions.

As an experiment I added Death Nova to one of my necros and this worked pretty well too.

Glad you enjoyed the build :-)

Its a clever idea... BUT its really not beneficial over a proper MM. A lvl5 Bone Minion will survive 1 or 2 attacks and 1 spell, AoE will annihilate the lot of them.
A proper MM (i guess using Jagged Bones for the extra minions) and an SV necro would be better imo.

The hench still use PS on the minions... the minions still have far lower health than the enemies do but a single AoE attack won't instantly wipe them all out.
Additional bonus is the proper MM can use Death Nova for a little extra kick, they'll live for longer between battles and he can heal them.

I guess it would be better if we get a 3rd Necro hero with GWEN, that way we can use SV, SS and an MM

Quote:

My hero monk is barely ever using Prot Spirit on the minions :\

I'm having the same problem as some of the others here, Tal (I tried with Dunkoro with the same prot build) simply won't cast prot spirit (it's listed first and she's on guard). Can anyone who has been successful with this post their hero builds? Thanks.

(Edit)
Let me lay out how this has been going down for me. I'm the SS necro with tal as the prot, master as blood and the Mesmer hero setup as dom and interupt. 2 Heal henchies, Devona, and the paragon hench. Head in the fortress at jahai bluffs after first hitting the insects on the plains to raise the 10 minions. First group goes down easy (no scribes). Second group has two scribes. I set the mesmer one one and everyone else on the other for a SS/SV spike with extra whacking from devona. 3-4 seconds in _both_ scribes have got off their meteors despite having been supposedly spiked/blocked, and every minion is dead because tal won't use prot spirit to save our lives ( or our minions' lives). We can take down the sceond scribe, but one or two heroes are usually down at this point, weakened by the AOE damage and pounded by the melee enemies. Usually by the second or third group there is 3-4 scribes and we are toast. I have all three heroes set to guard, but I've tried attack to no effect. I have to assume that the prot spells I've decked tal out with are causing her to ignore prot spirit. (this is why I'd like to see what config others have given their prot monks).

Stupidest thing I've ever heard of..... and I can't wait to get home and try it out ^^ silly talkora

Very clever idea. One of the few good ideas that come out of the stupidity of hero AI casting ps on minions as they're degenning...

Nice one, now to finish NF to get MoW. Although i guess you could use Norgu with SS and a higher dmg empathy?

Seemse like a very fun idea .
Ima try for myself and see if it works

i gotta try this, its genious
welldone for such a clever build. i think i need an elite and 2 skills though

edit: this is mental, i know theres not much corpses on fire island but i went there and killed about 30 enemies in hard mode in about 2 minutes
i was also sturggling with defend denravi but i managed to it on hard mode better than easy mode. I also got the area vanquished