How does minion degen work?

Recently I started trying out a build that I observed other MMs using, N/E with glyph of renewal from the ele secondary. However one thing that I still can't figure out is, even though the effects of Verata's Sacrifice lasts for 21 seconds, but it seems like at a point my minions just degen their way to death no matter what I do.

How does degen work? Does it keep increasing depending on the age of the minion?

Indeed it does, so Verata's Sacrifice only postpones the inevitable. It however is still a potent skill as it does make them "live" for a lot longer.

Oh bugger, guess I wasted 1K capping that elite! >_<

Minions are subject to constant health degeneration, starting at 1 "pip" of degen at summoning, and increasing by 1 pip of degeration every 20 seconds. (One pip of degeneration is -2 health per second.) While their actual health will never experience degeneration greater than -10 pips (20 health per second), they can have hidden degeneration greater than -10, if they have been "alive" long enough, that will counteract any regeneration from such skills as Verata's Sacrifice or healing breeze

Information taken straight from guildwiki

So the minions die no matter what?

A N/Mo can keep a minion alive indefinalty, but it is unpractical (5steps cast, 5 steps cast again)

minions were never meant to live forever, you can make them last a pretty darn long tme though. if your playing minion master, you should just try and move through the mission/area as fast as you can, the more the kill, the more you can raise (and the faster you kill, the more your army snowballs)

Yea but you can always death nova them if their about to die..

If you want to be good minion master, you have to have veratas sacrifice.
Usi this skill nonstop, when it ends, imediately cast it again. This is a key to keep minions alive for longer period.
Also use only bone friends, they kill faster becouse they dont have to run to target

The way to keep minions alive is to out-spike heal the degen. Adding regeneration to them just delays the inevitable; Eventually it will have no effect no matter how much you try to stack.

What it DOES do is allow a single minion master to get their minions to last long enough for a the trek towards the next monster spawn, and a while after, enabling them to not only carry a chunk of the force they gathered in the last fight, but to build up a bit more, creating a steadily growing army, until it peaks out, depending on the amount of healing you have. [Edit: As a note, much like Ether Renewal Enchanters, and QZ Blessed Signeteers, if you go past the break point where you have enough direct healing to counter the degeneration, then the peak army size becomes infinite.]

also, moved to Q&A

Agreed with Mercury Angel - you obviously can't keep them alive indefinitely using Verata's Sacificre, since it trades in health regeneration, as opposed to healing, and is nullified after 3 mintes or so, and then only serves to reduce the rate of degeneration.

While I guess you could use heals (Heal area, Healing spring) and so on to keep an army going, it really isn't very efficient; at -10 degeneration you would need ot heal each minion by 20 health a second, that's pretty substantial and can't be done with a large group (you can't catch them all with a heal area, for example)

Minions simply aren't designed to last forever. Using verata's sacrifice to keep them going is a good step; blood of the master helps too, but really they are doomed to die. If you bet on your minons lasting 3 minutes each for example, then figure out the rate at which you are making new corpses, and you can figure out how big an army you can muster. 1 kill per 10 seconds = 18 or so minions (or 36 if you are using actual minions) - if they live longer you can have a bigger force, or if you kill faster, but a minion master needs to keep rolling - it's a momentum thing. I typically run at least 2 minion skills if I am doing a serious minion build, as I want to always have a skill ready when a corpse goes down - the rate of raising them is vital. A huge energy pool helps, since the deaths will often come all in a row, and you need room to hold the influx of energy; operating with +27 and +15 is fine; you have 2 pips of energy regen but a nice sized pool of energy, and with good Soul Reaping you don't worry at all.

Blood of the master + veratas sacrifice and is monk is secondary heal area. But sooner or later that won't matter the degen would be to great and through all the heals there lives go down even faster.

About 5 minutes is the average life of a minion that isnt attacked and only 1 minion master healing them.

MF builds and stuff take 2 minion masters, and the monk often carries heal area - greatly prolonging the minions.

1 minion master assuming good body supply can keep ~8-10 minions up at any given time.

What is the reach of Veratas Sacrifice?
I use VS and Heal Area, but I find that more than 16 (=3 rows of 4 minions) is impossible to maintain, because those beyond the third row get no healing. Heal Area definitely don't reach the fourth row, but does Verata Sacrifice?

Well, if you're a minion master, I would say that you have lots of bone friends by default...

*giggle*

Ahem. Anyway, Bone Fiends cost freaking 25 energy and aren't all that durable. Also they clump up and get nuked. Gimme my Horrors any day.

VS affects all the minions, even if not gathered around you. Heal area, Healing spring and Blood of the master are all affecting the area around you though.

In base 10, 3*4 = 12 the last time I checked.

Verata's Sacrifice seems to have infinite range. You can also heal 16-20 minions with Heal Area by stepping forward so they clump around you, then step back and quickly cast Heal Area.

True - all good MM know the "heal my army" shuffle. I do it with Blood of the Master typically, but it works with Heal Area too. Sometimes a ranger in the group will have a healing spring to dance in.

To those criticising fiends - they are great if you are using them with something else to keep aggro off them - you really want ot divert the damage off them though, as you said, a meteor shower on your fiends is bad news.

25 energy to raise a fiend isn't bad, I find can always afford it, but I run a double superior rune build pretty often, so 15 Soul Reaping goes a long way; every time I raise minions I essentially gain energy, since their deaths (15 each) generates more than I paid for them (25) - so my fiends are subsidised.

This also works well with blood of the master or healing spring. Its the main way to make minions live longer

they degen the longer u have them