My MM, I'd like your input

After tinkering a bit with my necro, I came up with the following Necro MM build. I really like it, but ofcourse its open to improvements. You guys have any suggestions? Here is the build:

N/ele

10 curses
16 death
10 soul reaping

20/20 death collectors cesta along with a +1 death wand

skills:

Barbs
mark of pain
veratas sacrifice
bone fiends
bone minions
glyph of energy/glyph of renewal
glyph of lesser energy
resurrection signet

strategy:

I use the glyph of energy in missions with a lot of corpses so I have a constant source of energy for summoning, I bring glyph of renewal in missions with fewer corpses so I can have a constant veratas sacrifice to maintain the fiends I do have.

The standard MM stuff, make army, follow warriors, use glyph when low on energy. My twist is barbs and mark of pain

A tough boss? Put barbs on him, he'll get 8 extra armor ignoring damage everytime a fiend/minion hits him, or a party member ofcourse. This may not seem like much, but with 10+ minions that adds up VERY fast. You can ofcourse use this on weaker enemies too for a fast kill. No energy? use a signet.

Some of you were probably shaking your heads when you saw mark of pain, saying: "but they will run away". True, they will run away...eventually. I usually have more than 15 fiends following me around, and they fire almost simultaneously (very closely packed together). I place mark of pain on the nearest opponent, before fiends are in range. Then, they all fire almost at once at that nearest opponent. All the surrounding enemies get 35 dmg per fiend. If theyre still alive after this first volley, sure they run off. Thing is, they will have so little life left it doesnt really matter. I also find that they sometimes run in the same direction, making it useless. In short mark of pain is a strong spiking skill.

I tested this build a few times in thirsty river and mineral springs. Worked like a charm. Anyone have any suggestions for improvements? I tried N/r, but found that spirits didnt help, and orders dont affect minions either.

Well, I will post my build and compare:

N/E, 16 Death, 10 Blood, 10 Soul

Glyph of Lesser Energy (cast before bone fiends)
Vampiric Gaze (general damage spell)
Taste of Death (a lifesaver)
Order of blood (or whatever that sac health, gain energy skill is called :P)
Blood of the Master (hide in the mass groups of fiends and spam it)
Veratas Sacrifice (If it isn't rechargring, you are letting your fiends down)
Animate Bone Minion (ONLY for when fiend is recharging)
Animate Bone Fiend (C'mon, you know the point)

Run in with the group, Vampiric gaze/call target, glyph of lesser energy when it is near death, Animate a fiend, Veratas Sacrifice, Blood of the master/Taste of Death/Blood Dealy Spell as needed. Rinse and Repeat.


I see that your build focuses on your minions dealing damage, while not worrying so much that they stay alive. In my opinion, if you are going to do that, you need to constantly fight and rez fiends to make it effective enough to keep a supply up. That is why mine focuses on getting fiends, and keeping them alive.

I know I may just be posting a build that is on the main site, can't remember, oh well. If so, thanks guru :P.

Your build is a nice build over all, but you need more ways to keep those minions alive!

Quick question, how often do you raise minions instead of fiends?

Well, I always found that Horrors were better than fiends, because I only have 40 energy max, so I have enough energy to use them both one after the other and keep the minions coming, as well as enough in soul reaping to get energy once the guys I'm going to raise dead from die. All I need to complete my MM is a rune of superior death magic, as my fiends/horrors are only lv15

i don't understand why you're going N/E. Glyphs are nice, but heal area for N/Mo gives you more uptime with your minions and hard rez in PvE, or Serphants Quickness+Healing Spring for N/R is a nice combo for quick minion roleout.

Having your soulreaping higher is nice for mana, but with OoB Elite, you don't need it near as much and self healing is better imho with the ranger/monk alts.

Why are you guys going Ele?

BTW; nice touch with Barbs. Most times I MM I don't use many/any single target spells. I'm all about keeping my army up.

EDIT: and where's Blood of the Master? It doesn't seem like you could keep a fiend swarm up for very long without it...

I'd suggest in areas where you have lots of corpses, your soul reaping should be providing you with more then enough energy - so Glyph of Energy is prolly overkill. I do agree that BoTM would help your build. MMs are one of those classes that don't have to have an Elite to be succesful.

I had honestly never thought of putting down barbs, mostly because I typically run a N/R and I use winnowing which has a similar (if non-target specific) role.

You might want to consider Horrors over Minions. They're 10 energy cheaper (but yes you only get 1) so they can utilize a corpse without causing quite the drain on your energy. As a /E though you obviously have good energy management skills to give you a better return on Minions (2 deaths and all).

N/E is a fine alternative to the N/Mo and N/R builds. Its just a different way of managing dumb, semi-dead lumps of flesh.

Im using veratas sacrifice to keep my minions alive, and often thats more than enough. especially when using it along side of glyph of renewal (constant veratas). I dont need blood or healing etc. because I have a full time veratas. OR so many corpses I dont need to keep em alive long

I usually stick with just fiends, but when there are way way too many corpses I spam minions instead, since you get two for the price of one. This means more minions to use barbs and mark of pain with. 2 minions = 2 hits, 1 fiend = 1 hit

I tried N/r with healing spring and spirits, but spirits didnt work as well as barbs (for me)

also, I dont bring any blood dmg spells because I rely on others to make the first kill, or I kill animals in the area.

Spirits vs barbs. One is good for a set area, but crosses multiple targets. Other can be cast more often but goes away when the target dies.

I like winnowing only because summons tend to start spreading their attacks out after the first mob is killed.

I could never really see the difference in damage when using winnowing. With barbs, it shows the beatiful steady stream of 8 armor ignoring damage.

Sometimes having the energy glyphs is overkill I agree, but more often than not they just allow for constant cursing along with fiend maintenance. And like I said, when corpses and energy are plentyful, I bring glyph of renewal instead of energy. Double MoP, Fiends, Veratas, barbs...

I dont bring BotM, mainly because I focus on damage over numbers, (quality over quantity). I believe veratas alone is enough healing (21/30 regen + 10), but when I am in a mission where corpses are more scarse I use glyph of renewal with veratas to have a 30/30 regen + 10. That is full time +10 regen, if that doesnt help, neither will BotM.

on a side note, my previous MM looked like this:

favorable winds
winnowing
serpents quickness
veratas sacrifice
bone fiends
bone horrors
bone minions
healing spring

Like I said, I didnt really see a big difference in damage with the spirits, whereas I see that barbs has a significant effect. So thats my change here, large skill low difference to single enemy large difference

Serpents quickness allowed for faster recharge of veratas, although it wasnt 100% constant yet. Replacing this with glyph of renewal got me the 100% constant veratas.

I ditched my healing spring, since it was no longer necessary with the constant veratas

bone horrors were removed for a rez sig, no big deal.

another important difference was spirits took an eternity to put up, in which fiends and veratas could not be used. Barbs and MoP only take 1 second. I usually didnt have the time to put up spirits.

I think changing the build was an improvement overall, would you guys agree with that? Or should I change back to my N/r...

My MM build--

ne/mo

veratas sac _ Blood of the master _horror _ fiend _ heal area _ consume corpse or ess bond in furnace...Rebirth

Sometimes i take out minnion for another e spell like offering... Running like this i have no e problems and fiends stay alive alot longer since they are ranged...

barbs is an interesting idea, but in my experience you simply cant be an optimal MM without at least 2 ways to heal your minions. V Sac just cant keep them up on its own nearly as long. And the problem with most N/E builds I see is the lack of a self heal, which puts pressure on the monk and gives you no way of getting out of a sticky situation. Of course this is likely to change with the introduction of vamp horrors... Until then I'd suggest considering Aura of the Litch and/or Blood Renewal

The biggest issues I have with Barbs and Weaken Armor, is that I can't apply either one before the target dies. It's just a waste of a slot when the target falls anyway, usually right as the hex lands.

Now if either one was AOE........