Looking for a Minion Master build

Can someone please give me some options on a minion master build and what's a good primary/secondary class combo for it? Also, some opinions on minion masters and if they are any good. Thanks.

I'm planning a necro/ele with death, soul reaping and either fire or water for pve play at release. Depending on what skills I can get, I'll probably start off with some animate spell, something to keep my minions alive, and hopefully taste of death and death nova. Then I'll add in some damage like fire storm, deathly swarm, fireball, or maelstrom from water if I go that route. I think it will be a fun pve and possibly tombs build. The idea in pve is to let the minions soak up the damage and bombard with ele skills to do aoe damage to groups that are fighting minions.

Well, as a minionator you'll want to go primary Necro. Soul Reaping turns those minions into walking energy batteries. And runes means you can push your Death Magic, the attribute you'll use to summon minions into the 16s, if not higher.

As for secondary there are a few ways to go. The biggest problem with a minionator is that once you get a few minions you'll be steamrolling but you need to put some enemies down in order to get those corpses to get those minions. So some offensive punch is a good to add. I'd go Elementalist for that and you'll also be able to pick up some energy management skills there, too, so you'll have yet more energy to play with, pick up some Air Magic skills or even Water (Most Death elites are subpar so you'll likely have an elite slot free) for Water Trident and use that Glyph of Lesser Energy to cut the cost of your minion summoning, for example. Or, your minions will be dying frequently so taking Monk will get you an ability to heal them and to heal the rest of your party as well. Take some Healing, get Healing Breeze and use that to counteract their degeneration, for example. Mesmer gives you access to a lot of energy management, too. I wouldn't play it as a hybrid Necro/Mes but just splash Inspiration to get Energy Tap or Drain. Ranger gives you things like Serpent's Quickness and those rituals you can use to ramp up you cooldown so you can cast things more often as well as some nice defensive stances. Warrior also gives you defense, going Tactics you can pick up a shield and some of the *insane* shouts and stances like Watch Yourself! or Shields Up!. It's really a matter of what you're looking to shore up if you're set on playing a minionator.

Anyhow, as a minionator, you'll want decent Soul Reaping (If this is PvE you'll get more than enough energy from an SR 8~10. If it's PvP don't bother with a minionator or SR in the first place) and high Death Magic (There's a bit of a split here. If your minions are important, max this out. If your minions are fodder, keep it low so they'll die quicker for your Death Nova/walking boms/SR boosting schemes), for sure. A 12/12/3, 11/10/10, or 12/10/8 attribute layout is probably what you'll be looking at. I'd go SR - 8+1, Death - 12+4, and leave that 10 for whatever I'm splashing from the secondary but it depends on just what you're getting and from where.

Then, you'll need a minion summoning spell. Animate Bone Horror is hands down far and above the rest if you're looking for effective minions. It's 10 energy less and you'll summon a melee minion. You can go with Animate Bone Minions, which is 25 energy, if you're looking at your minions as walking batteries because there'll be two and you'll double your SR boost that way and you should pick up Death Nova if that's what you're looking at, too. Verata's Sacrifice is a great way to keep your minions in good health. Taste of Death is great self-healing, should you need it. Things like Malign Intervention have possibilities, too.

So, you're looking at a core of something like: Animate Bone Horror, Verata's Sacrifice, and Taste of Death. That's the bare minimum you need to play with minions and, obviously, leaves you a bit of room to add in some other things, too.

Here's a strong minionator, who'll use traps for a bit of offense and healing while building up an army:

Necromancer/Ranger

Soul Reaping: 8+1
Death Magic: 12+4
Wilderness Survival: 10

Animate Bone Horror (Death)
Taste of Death (Death)
Malign Intervention (Death)
Verata's Sacrifice (Death)
Dark Bond (Blood)
Spike Trap {E} (Wilderness)
Healing Spring (Wilderness)
Serpent's Quickness (Wilderness)

Here's a death bomb setup, where the minions will be cheap and used mostly to fuel things. Needs a better elite, but I'm just dashing these off here...:

Necromancer/Elementalist

Soul Reaping: 8+1
Death Magic: 10+2
Air Magic: 12

Animate Bone Minions (Death)
Death Nova (Death)
Putrid Explosion (Death)
Taste of Death (Death)
Chain Lightning (Air)
Lightning Orb (Air)
Elemental Attunement (Air) {E}
Glyph of Lesser Energy (Unlinked)

Minions work well in tombs, they are not completely useless in pvp.

I used this build in pvp.

N/E
Glyph of energy - 15 sec recharge instead of 30 sec recharge of glyph of lesser energy alone is worth the elite slot.
Maelstrom
Deep Freeze
Shard storm
Animate bone fiend
Taste of Death
... (can't remeber)
...

Anyway ele spells are great for relic maps. Also with 2 spells that require 25 en other than animate, you can put that elite glyph to good use before corpses drop. Drop a deep freeze on a warrior train or maelstrom on their monk. After you get corpses you can cast 3 minions very quickly because that glyph is just godly for spamming minions. On maps where fight goes back and forth and a priest is involved I have managed to get 8 minions up at a time without healing them. If you wanted you could get barbs or something and severely amplify their damage.

Dark bond is stupid use of a slot. Taste of death uses minions' HP better. If you are getting hit by physical damage taste of death is just as valid tactic as dark bond and it can be applied to non physical damage as well. Not to mention dark bond is blood.

Minions are the very epitome of the "just too late" aspect of the Necromancer. That is, they're always doing something "just too late" for it to matter. To raise minions you need corpses. To have corpses you need people to die - your team, theirs, doesn't matter. But, for deaths to be happening the battle is transistioning out of the stage where it's being decided into the stage where it's *been* decided. Someone's won or lost by that point and what's left are the details. That's not an issue in PvE because each mission or EA is a series of battles strung together, you can take some of your advantage (or disadvantage) from one to the next. But PvP is, in most cases, one single and quick battle.

A lone minion is not a problem, they're only a handful when you get them in bunches. To get enough minions to be effective your team has either swamped the other team and you're overwhelming them. Or your team has been decimated and your minions are clogging things up and protecting what remains of your team by muddying the waters - that's not going to help against an experienced team with effective target calling. In other words, it doesn't help you win it helps you "win more". It doesn't help you not lose it helps you "lose less". They don't impact on the significant portions of the battle - the runnup to a fight and the actual decisive moment of that fight - they help in the mop-up. They don't get your team into or out of that mop-up stage, they just help with the transition from that stage into the victory stage. As such, they're awful in competitive play and it's not a matter of finding a good build or better tactics to make use of them, it's a structural flaw. As long as they need corpses and as long as you get corpses throgh deaths, they'll be suboptimal. Planning for winning the mop-up stage means you're planning on playing scrubs or dominating the match. Planning for it to be non-competitive, in other words. Against an equal opponent you don't care about pressing your advantage, not nearly as much as you do about gaining that advantage in the first place.

It's important to remember that "this has worked" is not the same thing as "this is good". Play cards long enough and you'll eventually hit that Royal Flush but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to play for that hand each and every game. There's luck, there's player skill and experience disparities, and everything else. There's not much of a competitive scene or competitive play occuring at the moment simply because there just aren't enough people playing to push the tech level up and cause outmodded and suboptimal strategies to fall by the wayside. Minions in PvP are one of those strats because they suffer from a fundamentally crippling flaw.

Thanks for the posts, this will help me out a lot. Will have to experiment with it a little. Gonna try that Necro/Ranger build, thanks Sausaletus Rex and for all the info too. Might give a Necro/Warrior a shot too.

I'm beginning to doubt the "too little too late" arguement. The idea is that once you start loosing you will keep losing. Honestly, that is not always true. If you are playing a somewhat closely balanced team, once someone starts dying either you keep dying, and yes, necros suck in that situation, too little too late. But, if its a really close fight both teams may be able to rez their downed players and keep fighting. In this case necros shine by using that cycled energy and exploiting corpses and using them as a resource. Necros get better, not worse as you fight teams closer to your level. And the fights that you know you will win or lose aren't the fights that matter; the close fights that go back and forth matter the most and are where necros are at their best.

I don't know if this works, but you could build a Necro/Monk and use Infuse Condition and Martyr. I'm not sure if that combo works, but if it does it's a great way to heal your entire team at once.

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