Profession: Rt/N
Name: The New Minion Bomber
Type: PvE
Category: Nuker
Attributes:
12+3+1 Spawning Power (Base, Hat, and Superior Rune)
12 Death
3 Restoration (More if you’re feeling generous)
Skill Bar:
(Spawning Power)Boon of Creation: Gain Energy and Health whenever you create a minion.
(Spawning Power)Explosive Growth: Zap 5 enemies around a corpse whenever you create a creature, whether by Animate or Enchantment.
(Death Magic)Animate Bone Minions: Two minions, one spell.
(Death Magic)Death Nova: For 30 seconds, if target ally dies, all adjacent foes are poisoned for 15 seconds and take massive damage.
Last four skills if playing Factions:
(Death Magic)Taste of Death: Also known as the Big Red Button. Steals massive health from a minion, giving it to you.
(Death Magic)Rotting Flesh: Give your enemies a disease. From far away. You naughty boy!
(Restoration)Flesh of my Flesh: Your hard Rez.
(Death Magic)Animate Flesh Golem: Your heavy-fisted, ever-present, body-guard. Leaves a corpse when he dies. {Elite skill}
Last four skills if playing Nightfall:
(Death Magic) Jagged Bones: For 30 seconds, if target minion dies, get a lvl 12 Jagged Horror that causes Bleeding with it's attacks. {Elite skill}
(Death Magic) Putrid Flesh: Blow up your minion to disease foes around it for 13 seconds.
(Spawning Power) Spirit's Gift: For 60 seconds, whenever you create a creature, all allies near it gain 53 health and lose a condition. Like Disease.
Optional slot:
(Spawning Power)Signet of Creation: All Spirits and minions in area get +7 regen for 30 seconds, then blow up. Yes, the opponent's too.
or Flesh of my Flesh: Rez.
or Taste of Death: Minion go boom, you gain health.
These skills are not set in stone. Mix and match as you like, according to what area you're in, monster condition-resistance, what the party calls for, Capping an Elite skill, personal playing style, or expansion. Taste of Death, Rotting Flesh, Flesh/Flesh, EG, and Golem can all be swapped out for Signet of Creation, Attuned Was Songkai, Cap Sig, Animate of your choice, Tainted Flesh, Deathly Swarm, Well of Suffering, etc. Look in the Rit:Explosive Creation of GuildWiki for other variations and skill sets.
Suggested Equipment:
The Weapons NPCs and Collecters can give you the Death equipment you need, until you get a suitable Rare or Green. Starting out as a level 1, find a Rod that gives you an Energy bonus when you’re Enchanted. If you can swing it, also get equipment that lowers Casting time. At least until you get the gold/materials/time to get something better, according to the handy-dandy guide down there. Right now, I have a Poisonous(33%) Katana(+5 Energy) of Enchanting(20%). Got it from Shichiroji in Divine Path, the last mission in Factions. In my offhand, I got Armind's Focus: +12 Energy(Death), +1 Death Magic (20%), Halves Casting Time (Death 20%). For Armor, I’ve experimented with both the Energy and the Health-boosting sets. Personally, I settled onto the Energy set.
Low level: Staff, Half Casting/Recharge(10%) when using Death Magic, Energy +5 (Weapons NPC at Shing Jea Monastary)
Middling: Staff, Half Casting/Recharge(20%) when using Death Magic, Energy +10 (Weapons NPC at Kaineng Center)
High: Rod with Half Casting(20%), Energy+5(Health>50%) when using Death Magic, Focus of Death Magic +1(20%), Energy +12, Health +30 (Sheco in Bukdek Byway)
Optional: Rod of Half Casting/Recharge(20%) when using Death Magic (Kurzick: Vasburg Armory/ Luxon: Leviathan Pits)
Elite: Poisonous(33%) Sword/Axe of Enchanting(20%), +15% damage^50% Health, Energy +5, with Bortak's Bone Claw and Bortak's Cesta in a second weapon slot (Tyria Greens). (Rare Drops. Shichiroji in Divine Path has +5 Energy Weapons, but no 15^50.)
Optional: Ghial's Staff Or the equivalent Middling Staff with Enchanting +20% instead
In Nightfall, you can also pick up Armind's Focus, which is pretty much the Bortak offhand.
If you don't have the greens or all the parts of the Elite weapon sets, switch between your Rod/Focus and your Sword/Focus, depending on what spells you're casting, or whether you're starting the battle out. Takes practice, it does. And just because everyone keeps asking, Sheco needs a total of 190 Bone, 30 Scale, 6 Plant Fiber, and 10K for the Rod/Focus set. Shichiroji needs 40 Iron, 6 Steel, and 10K. You have to Salvage/Buy/Trade the mods yourself. You only get to Divine Path when you beat Shiro. Once you leave that area, you gotta beat Shiro AGAIN to go to the area again. If you didn't pick up a +5 Energy Weapon before you get to Shiro, then now's your chance to get one. FYI, I didn't, so I had to buy it. In general, Nightfall focuses on Half Skill Recharge equipment, which is useless to the minion bomber.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BarGamer, from the Guildwiki:
1 being very important, and 5 being not so much:
(1)Lengthens poison duration on foes by 33%
(1)+1 to Death Magic (20% chance)
(2)Halves casting time of Death Magic spells
(2)Enchantments last 20% longer
(2)Additional Energy
(5)Additional armor or health
(5)Halves skill recharge time of death magic spells
Playing a Minion Bomber:
This is for all those people who say that Ritualists stink, that Minion Mastering got nerfed, or on the flip side, just plain love to mini-manage and have the lightning-fast fingers to prove it. This build is an insane combination of condition-spreading, minion mastering, and non-aggro-breaking (minion-centered) Point-Blank AoE.
The Skill Bar explained:
The joy with this build is that when you get two minions for the price of one spell, you also reap double the benefits from Boon, Growth, and Spirit's Gift. Boon of Creation is the First-place winner, easily. At 12 Spawning, you're only eating 5 Energy loss per Animate Minions. At 16, you're only losing 3 Energy. Explosive Growth is the Second-Place winner, here. When you deal 136 Lighting damage to 5 foes, usually in the middle of those angry mobs, it's usually enough to kill off enemies that were softened up by the Death Nova.
Flesh Golem is not only another tank, but when he dies, he leaves behind an exploitable corpse. If you don't have a Flesh Golem around with you at all times in Factions, you are not fully exploiting this skill. Same thing with having 8 Jagged Horrors.
As can be assumed, use Taste of Death to blow them up, or when you're low on health. If you're feeling lazy or just need a slot for Capture Signet, drop Taste of Death and just let the enemy kill the minions for you. As you're not a Necro main, you don't have a Superior Death rune, so your minions are lower level. And therefore, easier to kill. I’ve also met with success in dropping Deathly Swarm/Rotting Flesh for the Cap Sig.
In Factions, Flesh of My Flesh is the hard Rez that every Minion Master needs. You should be THE last person to die, even after the Monks. When you have to run away, fire off a few Death Novas on your doomed party members, then make tracks. When you return, Animate their corpse, THEN Rez. The half-life the spell puts you at is irrelevant, when you've got Taste of Death a single tap away. If you do fall in battle, ask politely that you be Rezzed first, for the simple reason that you can Animate your fallen party members and that you have a hard Rez.
Nightfall Alternate Jagged Bones instead of Flesh Golem. This means that when a minion goes boom, it triggers Explosive Growth/Boon of Creation again and the resultant Jagged Horror is itself a target for Jagged Bones (and Death Nova). Furthermore, Jagged Bones doesn't need to be targetted, instead, it's auto-casted on the nearest minion without JB. This is doable even in levels that have few exploitable corpses. We have just achieved infinite combo status.
To start out in Factions, you will be some wierd combination caster of sorts until you get your first Animate. Until then, suck it up to experience and go play with your Union/Shelter Spirit-summoning, Lightning-zapping, Item-holding, Swarm-slinging self. Do every quest that you can in the Monastery, especially the training ones, because they give you free skills AND experience. Save up on Bolts of Cloth, you need them for the Armor traders.
Know where your next Bone Minions are coming from. This allows you to target one of the minions, fire off Death Nova while they're doing the Animate animation, then select the second minion, by which time he's already wandering off. If you haven't enchanted your second minion by the time they reach the enemy/are already getting attacked, you need to practice a little. In the case which you CAN’T know where your next minion is coming from, the previous GW patches let you know which minions are already primed, via that handy Enchanted arrow, so that you don't waste a Death Nova. When you miss targeting a minion and start walking towards battle, hit Esc or a directional arrow to stop yourself. If you have Nightfall, spam Jagged Bones.
Starting out as Rit/N in Nightfall:You can't. Port your Factions one over. For more details, see Page 3.
Starting a battle in Factions:
First things first. If you don't have your max of 8 minions, or the ones you do have are on their last legs, Taste of Death your Flesh Golem. Now make Minions. Death Nova them while they politely stand in a circle around you. Do it fast, you only have ~30 seconds before the first one wears off. When handling henchmen, Flags lets you stay put while targeting/calling so that they go in first. After the Warrior henchies take the aggro, send in your first wand attack so that your minions can go in. Only then do you cast Boon and Growth, so that you get the maximum time out of your Enchantments. You don’t need them until the first enemy falls, right? Speed the process along with Rotting Flesh. When the first enemy falls, your first AND last Animate should be Flesh Golem, unless he's already up. First, so he can kill more things, and last, so you can start things off at the next group of enemies. Keep up your Boon and Growth enchantments throughout the battle.
Ending a battle in Factions:
When they're all dead, go ahead and Animate a few more times, replacing your low-health minions with fresh ones. Don't worry if you accidentally Animate from one of your party members, they can still be Rezzed, and hey, it's their fault for dying. If EG has worn off, don't bother re-casting it, you only need Boon for this. While your Animate is recharging, pick up loot, check your map/guide for directions, massage your poor fingers, etc.
Starting a battle in Nightfall:
If you have no minions, Flag your NPCs into battle, cast Boon, EG, and SG, put Nova on Gehraz and any other melee fighters, and wait for the first mob to fall. Animate, Jagged, Nova-Nova. Repeat as necessary. When your Bone Minions get into range of a nice group of enemies, Taste of Death or Putrid Flesh it. Jagged. Every Animate or minion-kill-spell should be followed by a Jagged Bones, then anything else. Your Jagged Horrors are higher level than your Bone Minions, which means that they can do more melee damage and Bleeding degen. Needless to say, keep up your enchants.
Ending a battle in Nightfall:
Animate up to 8, then start casting (with your Necro Hero) Jagged Bones on all your Bone Minions and low-health Jagged Horrors, and kill them with either Putrid Flesh or Taste of Death. Putrid is preferred, as it's a guaranteed kill, and therefore less casting time than two Tastes of Death. As before, no need for Explosive Growth, just Boon and SG.
Suggested Henchies for Factions:
Healers, Fighters, Nukers, and the Earth henchy. If you have any of the Animates besides Bone Minions or Flesh Golem, take Eve, she has Blood Ritual. Last-picks are Rits, Archers, and Brutus the Blood Necro, in that order. You don't need Interrupters, Illusion, or any of the others.
Suggested Henchies/Heroes for Nightfall:
Both Monk Heroes, Tah and Dunkoro, Eve for Blood Rit, Cynn, Devona, Gehraz, and the last Hero slot open for "Required Hero:" or whatever. Adjust this last slot according to the area, personal preference, or however much you stripped your other characters for their equipment and gave it to your heroes. (My Prophesies MM and Nuker are pretty much naked now.) Once you cap Jagged Bones, that last slot will be Olias or Master of Whispers (MOW), whichever you like better, as a rather odd MM. As a Healing Monk, I also gave Dunkoro "Dwayna's Sorrow," for party heals whenever a minion dies. How to use: I put Dunkoro's Hero Skill Panel right where I can see it, and select myself, then click the skill. I, and most importantly my minions, all get a 30-second buff. It's acceptable for Nova to run out, between MOW and I, I can just recast it.
The Necro Hero:
Remember when we said that the damage becomes disgusting with another MM in the party? I wasn't lying. When you first get Olias or MOW, drag them over to Vizunah Square and level them up to 20. Stick them with the Traditional Prophesies MM build but with a twist. From 1 through 8, his skills should be: Death Nova in his first slot, Dark Bond, Heal Area, Karei's Healing Circle, Golem, Vamp, Fiend, and Rez Sig. Feel free to change those skills around as well, it doesn't matter that much. In places where you need a little more firepower and the corpses are plentiful, go nuts having two MMs. Choose wisely what areas you take him through. Otherwise, he will be a constant source of aggravation as his (still) primitive AI steals corpses from you.
Once you cap Jagged Bones, Olias or MOW's roles change. Ideally, he'll never cast an Animate. Instead, he essentially becomes your Enchant Slave. Other people have other words for it.
From 1 through 8: Nova, Jagged, Heal Area, KHC, Bitter Chill, Deathly Swarm, Optional, and Rez Sig. Because MOW's primary profession is Necro, you can safely give him a Sup Death Rune/Soul Reaping, and let him go to town. Because of the way Enchantment-stacking works with Jagged Bones, you'll never waste a casting of Jagged Bones, and sometimes Nova. The optional slot is if you feel sorry for him, and want to give him Fiends for more damage, Vamps for more melee damage and survivability, Shambling Horrors for damage and two Jagged Horrors for one spell (Jagged Bones), Dwayna's Sorrow for party heals, Verata's Aura if you find yourself dying a lot but don't want your minions getting totally away from you, Deathly Chill, or any other spell you feel like sticking in there. Re-arrange the skills as you see fit.
As mentioned earlier in "Ending a battle in Nightfall," make sure to open MOW's Hero Panel and after disabling his first 4 skills so he doesn't waste any, one at a time, start converting your lvl 10 Bone Minions/12 Horrors to lvl 16 Horrors. The benefits of this should be immediately apparent. If you decided to give MOW Animate Shambling Horrors, and all 10 are still pretty healthy, let him keep them for now. Otherwise, give him fresh ones.
Tip: If you can't keep track of your minions when they're right in front of you, and you can't predict their movements when a minion temporarily dies before getting back into the circle, it's a sign that you're not likely to do either of these critically important skills when in battle. Clean your mouse, replace the batteries, do ANYTHING to improve your hand-eye coordination. Spend some time practicing targeting your minions, ways to get them to light up, stopping on a misclick, and such. Customize your interface, your skill bar, your hot keys. This is my personal setup, it might work well for you: QWER//ASDF = Putrid, SG, Boon, EG//Taste, Jagged, Animate, Nova. This puts C and Tab right there for enemy targeting and wanding, or moving with the Space Bar. Personally, I use the mouse to move around, not that the minion bomber needs to do much moving around if the battle is going well. If the battle is going badly, hit X to 180 and I still use the mouse to run away. Other people have success remapping other keys or using the keypad to move, that's just my method.
Notes: You need to have fast fingers, and lots of corpses. The areas where this build fails include: Tahnnakai Temple Mission, where those Temple Guardians don't make exploitable corpses; Arborstone Mission, where you get interrupted to heck by falling rubble; any area with heavy Stonescale Kirin, because they make minions too; and the Kessex Peak area in Tyria, because they have Shepard of Verata, who use Aura of Verata on your minions. Most problems with this build fall under those categories.
Places where this build rocks the house include the narrow alleyways and sewers of Kaineng City, Vizunah Square, Echovald Forest, Raisu Palace, and especially against the Am Fah. Those guys are WEAK. Not like the Jade Brotherhood and their Knights. If you have a Necro-main MM with you in these areas, the damage just becomes disgusting, especially if you coordinate your Animates. In Napui Quarter, one of our fans recommends Well of Suffering instead of Rotting Flesh, because of the mixed fleshy/non-fleshy monster types.
The Necro-main MM will be the happiest about this, since all the Bombing you're doing is feeding him Energy. You see, he's forced to keep killing his minions, just to keep his Energy up, of which he needs a lot. The Ritualist doesn't, on both counts. The Ritualist gets Energy when he creates, and is just as happy letting his minions do melee damage until they die, whereupon they go boom. It's a critical difference in tempo.
Another strategy is to aggressively use the Minion Cap to your advantage. Once you have 8 minions (or however many your Death Magic has your Cap), all with Nova up, Animate another pair of minions. Two of your lowest-health minions are force-killed, double-Novas. You also gain two full-health minions, Boon Energy, and EG goes off. You just gained 8 separate benefits from one spell. You see, with high Spawning, Taste of Death is no guarantee that your minion will fall. The Minion Cap enforcement however, is hard-coded in. A necro-nerf is a Ritualist exploit, just waiting to be discovered.
In Nightfall, that same nerf/exploit becomes even more disgusting. Assuming an ideal situation where all 8 of your minions have Nova and Jagged Bones on them, a single Animate Bone Minions creates a cascade effect of activating Novas, EGs, SGs, Boons, and Jagged Horror spawns, leaving you with nothing at the end but 8 Jagged Horrors, a field of dead corpses, and a screen full of numbers, and a full health and Energy bar. You might want some help with the enchants casting, therefore, due to nobody answering the previous update's rhetorical question, you guys get a new section!
Evolution of the Rit/N
Spirit's Gift, Reclaim Essence, and Putrid Flesh are awesome together. Healing your own minions is beneficial when you've got a no-fail Big Red Button in Reclaim Essence, and with the new henchmen, making sure they stay un-diseased with Spirit's Gift is even better. I like the Reclaim Essence build better than the Jagged Horrors/SOC variant mostly because me and Signet of Creation never got along.
So here's what's gonna happen. For all you Factions Minion Bombers who are porting over to Nightfall, here's how it's gonna break down. Once you cap Reclaim Essence, use that build until you cap Jagged Bones. Unless you REALLY like Flesh Golem, and expect not to see any Enchantment-strippers or other Mesmers. For PVE, use my skill template with the single-swap of Golem for Jagged Bones. If you're in PVP, use Signet of Creation AND Jagged Bones. Everyone is happy.
But just to be fair, let's compare and contrast all of them. The real difference between them all is: What is the kill condition, when does the degen start, and where is your energy?
Factions
Original Build: See above.
You've got good AOE damage upon minion creation and destruction, disease-degen at the beginning and throughout the fight and poison-degen upon minion death, and steady melee damage with Bone Minions and Golem. At the next fight, you will have a minimum of two Bone minions, and a max of 7 plus Golem, or 8 Bone minions. With Taste of Death, you will never, EVER, die. Health gain from Boon is largely ignored in PVE, might save your life in PVP. Rare energy management issues. Minions die either through battle or TOD.
Signet of Creation Variant:
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Build:R...osive_Creation
MASSIVE Nova AOE/Spike Damage, possibility of death because of no Taste of Death, and no Animates while Signet is active. Assuming you killed them all, Poison and Disease degen completely ignored, little steady melee damage. At the end of the fight, you have however many minions you Animated, and no Henchies. If you didn't kill them all, degen SHOULD kill them all while you frantically Animate. At end of fight, use Blood of the Master to keep your minions alive while you rez your Henchies and between battles. At next fight, you have all minions, all Hencies, and no-so-great health. Frequent energy management and dying issues. Minions die through SOC.
Nightfall
Pre-Reclaim/Jagged
This is what you have when you just ported over. Firstly, go to the skill trainers and get Spirit's Gift and Putrid Flesh. Your Elite is Flesh Golem.
Flesh Golem/Reclaim Essence
You'll have this build if you did Factions and capped Reclaim Essence. Swap out Taste of Death or Rotting Flesh for the Capture Signet. Enjoy it while you can.
Reclaim Essence Build: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Build:Rt/N_Reclaim_Essence
You've got good AOE damage upon minion creation and destruction, combined poison/disease degen on minion death via Reclaim and only Poison-degen if no Reclaim, and spotty melee damage with Bone Minions. At the next fight, you will have >2 minions AND all your henchmen. With Boon of Creation and Spirit's Gift, you have to be in the thick of combat to stay alive. Makes me nervous, it does. No Energy management issues, even with Enchantment-stripping or other Mesmer tricks. Minions MUST die through Reclaim or Putrid Flesh, and shouldn't at any other time. Lots of targeting skill needed. Optional slot should reflect the enviroment: Damage skill for easy areas, Taste of Death for difficult areas, Flesh of My Flesh for impossible areas. Unknown death/PVE/PVP stats.
Reclaim Essence/Jagged Bones
You'll have this build when you've successfully capped Jagged Bones. Swap out your rez for the Capture Signet. Enjoy it while you can.
Jagged Bones Build Reclaim build, swap out Reclaim for Jagged Bones.
You've got good AOE damage upon Bone Minion creation and GREAT on destruction(which is actually creation again), disease and poison degen upon minion death, and steady melee damage with Bone Minions at the beginning of the first fight, and steady melee damage/Bleeding degen with Jagged Horrors at the end. At the next fight, you will have your max of 8 Horrors AND Henchies. Boon and Spirit's Gift keeps you and them alive, especially with Jagged Bones spawning healing you. If any Henchies die, let your two monks take care of it. Bone Minions WITH JAGGED BONES die through Putrid Flesh, Jagged Horrors never actually die.
Jagged Bones/SOC Variant(PVP) Jagged Bones Build, swap Flesh of my Flesh for SOC.
MASSIVE Nova AOE/Spike Damage, possibility of dying because of no Taste of Death and no Animates while Signet is active. Assuming you killed them all, Poison degen completely ignored, little steady melee damage. At the end of the Signet, you have a possible 7 Jagged Horrors, and no Henchies. If you didn't kill them all, immediate Explosive Growth AOE and Poison degen SHOULD kill them all. If they're STILL not down, follow the usual Jagged Bones strategy of Jagged Bones-Nova-Putrid. If even THEN... You're probably facing a boss. At next fight, you have all minions. Frequent energy management issues. Bone Minions/Jagged Horrors die through SOC/Putrid Flesh.
And because everyone is asking, trade in 1, 3, or 5 Monastary Credits to the Quartermasters. Same thing with the Imperial Commendations, the Kurzick Equipment Requisitions, and the Luxon Totems. Mostly, I spend it on ID and Salvaging kits.
Credit: Bar Gamer, AKA Soy Oil, AKA Myself
Post-Notes: This guide has been cross-posted to GameAmp.com. However, since you can't EDIT your guides, like you can here, this guide is better. Also, I accidentally sent an email of the un-editted guide to the webmaster. Oops. 
So i guess this is original creation from my head without testing.
