Xenoranger's Minion Master Build

Attributes:
Blood: 10
Death: 16
Soul Reaping: 11

Recommended Equipment:
Vile Scar of Superior Death (Scar + Sup Death Rune)
Revenant Tunic
Revenant Leggings
Revenant Gloves
Blood Stained Boots
Any Rod/Staff/Whatever that gives a bump to health and energy

Runes:
Sup Death
Sup Soul Reaping
Major Vigor
Minor Blood

Skills:Rotting Flesh (Death) 15,3,3 Life Siphon (Blood) 10,2,2 Vampiric Gaze (Blood) 10,1,5 Vile Miasma (Blood) 10,1,15 Animate Bone Horror (Death) 15,3,5 Animate Vampiric Horror (Death) 25,3,15 Animate Flesh Golem (Death) {E} 15,3,30 Verata's Sacrifice (Death) 10,2,60

HOW IT WORKS:


AttributesBlood:
With Blood as high as it is, your Life Siphon and Vampiric Gaze shoudl cover more sacrifices. They are also Useful attacks against non-flesh creatures.
Death:
Death at level 16 provides the highest possible minions. This means that all horrors and v.horrors will be at level 18, and your golem will be at level 26. This can be improved by paying an avatar of Grenth to increase your skills by 2 levels.
Soul Reaping:
With 11 in Soul Reaping, you should always find yourself within range to animate bone horrors if not better. When something dies, just look for the XP to flash above your character (or a party member's life bar to empty). You should see the +11 energy (per death) for Soul Reaping and be able to animate your next minion.



Recommended Equipment:Vile Scar (Death +1)
You top out at level 12 on death magic. The only way for any of your minions to reach higher levels is to have a Vile Scar for your helmet. Adding a Superior Rune of Death to this will bump you up an additional 3 levels, which make a death level of 16 feasible.
Revenant Armor (Health +30)
Basically, you sacrifice some health by adding superior runes. This is built around a 400 HP character. Having the revenant armor makes up for the some of your lost HP due to superior runes.
Blood Stained Boots
This speeds up the casting of skills that target corpses. It's essential because it improves your ability to raise minions before (some) other spells can be cast that exploit corpses
Other Items giving bump to Health and/or Energy
I use Kole's Torment for the +30 to HP and +15 to Energy. Although you may not have access to this item, you should try to find or construct a staff, wand, or whatever that will give you a bonus to both HP and Energy. Having this will prove invaluable and increase your life expectancy as well as casting ability.

RunesSuperior Rune of Death(Death +3)
boosts you to a workable 16 if used in conjunction with a Vile Scar (Death +1). This enables the highest minions possible
Superior Rune of Soul Reaping (Soul Reaping +3)
Soul Reaping is the best energy management available in the game. It allows the necromancer to regain energy for every death (ally or enemy) The +3 bonus from this rune enables you to spam minions without spending many attribute points into soul reaping. Realistically, you're only spending 7 levels worth of points, but getting 10 with this build.
Major Rune of Vigor (HP +30)
This is another portion required to offset the penalty for the superior runes. The bonus to health is just what the doctor ordered to keep you around a little longer.
Minor Rune of Blood (Blood + 1)
This incurrs no penalty to HP and offers a slight offset to your attribute points spent on blood magic. It's just a nice little method of getting a free bump to your blood without a downside.



SkillsRotting Flesh (Death) 15,3,3
This is a nice way to start a group degen. This spreads disease which can be transferred among enemies. Disease is a -4 degen to the health bar and sets up for another attack.
Life Siphon (Blood) 10,2,2
Although monk healing is preferred, Life Siphon can offer a nice ammount of energy recovery. The regen can also offset any degens you may incur due to ranger arrows, mesmer skills, or whatever.
Vampiric Gaze (Blood) 10,1,5
An instant health skill. Not much to say, but it gives a quick boost in energy and can cover most sacrifices.
Vile Miasma (Blood) 10,1,15
Remember we used disease on the enemies by casting rotting flesh? If the target opponent is suffering from a condition, Vile Miasma adds a -3 (at lvl 10) to their degen. With that -6, it won't be long before you have a fresh corpse.
Animate Bone Horror (Death) 15,3,5
This is still the cheapest grunt for your money. With Soul Reaping at 10, you should regen the missing 5 energy in less than the 5 second recharge time.Either way, these guys should be your backup minion if a better one is not available.
Animate Vampiric Horror (Death) 25,3,15
Spam these guys whenever possible. Not only do they redirect damage dealt as health to you, but having their constant bumps to your health works very nicely. Plus, they do just as much damage as Bone Horrors and have the same 1:24 Life expectancy (if not healed or under attack).
Animate Flesh Golem (Death) {E} 15,3,30
Here comes your tank. Golems have huge ammounts of life. At level 26, they can deal some major damage to enemies. Having a golem on your side empowers you to send him forward to make more corpses. Once you get the golem up, chances are you won't have time for other spells because the corpses begin to pile up fast. Plus, the fact he makes an exploitable corpse when he dies, just sweatens the pot. When travelling, he'll last 1:46. This is nice, but don't worry about healing him. It's easier to just wait until he dies, then animate a fresh golem from his corpse than attempting to maintain him.
Verata's Sacrifice (Death) 10,2,60
Well, all minions require healing. This isn't for your golem as much as it is for your horrors and v.horrors. Using this will ensure they live longer than the 1:24.

NOTE: If you have 3 or Less minions, Verata's Sacrifice recharges instantly. It's a pretty nice skill.

StrengthsSoul Reaping:
With your stats as they are, it's easy to raise 10 minions in no time flat.The constant dying of enemies offers quite a bit in energy recovery
The Zerg:
Horrors and V.horrors deal 13-18 damage against an armor level of 100. Having 9 will mean you can dish out 117-162 accumulative damage across multiple enemies. In addition to this, your Animated Flesh Golem can deal 32-55 damage to an armor level of 100. This bumps your accumulative damage dealt to enemies to 149-217.

(NOTE: I said accumulative damage.)
Vampiric Tendancies:
Using Vampiric Horrors as often as possible means that you will be constantly regaining life. They attack about once every 1.5 seconds, so you're looking at 13-18 health regained every 1.5 second from 100 Armor Level enemies. The more you can spam V.Horrors, the better.
Minion Chain:
Having multiple minion skills on your bar means that you can spam without having downtime. Although V.Horrors have a 15 second recharge time, the 5 second recharge time means you can keep pumping Horrors while you wait for V.Horrors to recharge.Just make sure you're not over zealous and attempt minion #11, because if your Flesh Golem was teh first minion produced, you'll kill it. (a mistake I've made)


WeaknessesOffense:
This build has very few attack skills and therefore cannot deal much in direct damage. As such, it's a support build. Minions are the primary source of damage dealt, so the first corpse is the most important. Animating the Golem as quick as possible is essential.
Defense:
Built around a 400HP class means that you're 150 points weaker than other classes using the revenant armor. Considering that the average HP is around 520, you are still considerably weaker. As such, there's temptation to use dark bond. This is a bad idea because yoru minions are also healing you (the Vampiric Horrors). Either way, you cannot take much in direct damage.
Minion Stealing:
Because you lack Verata's Gaze or Verata's Aura, you cannot reclaim stolen or lost minions. You can replace Vile Miasma with Verata's Gaze or Verata's Aura, but that just means you're at a loss for and additional attack skill. Either way, you are very vulnerable to minion theives.
Hostile Minions:
If you die, all your minions become hostile. It's best to stay near the back of the party, but at the same time, you can't predict how a battle will progress. Should you die (especially shortly after animating a golem), your party will have to clean up your minion mess.

Well written, informative post. Interesting build. Hopefully this will inspire some people to stop whining and realise that just because MM builds were nerfed, they're far from useless.

A note on your attributes, I'm pretty sure you can go 16-10-9, so you'd probably be better off doing that and saving yourself 75 health from the Superior Reaping. That'd make +energy armour more comfortable, too.

Thanks again for contributing.

Well, I've tried it like that , but the ability to spam minions just wasn't there as effectively as I wanted it. That's why I use the double sup rune model.

This is actually a slight dirrivative of my old minion zerg build where I was able to just spam minions (pre-nerf).

I've been working as hard as Verata to figure ways to make minions last longer and be more effective. So far, we're making slow progress. =p

Seriously though, the nerf killed the ignorant MM's and strengthened the strong ones. I'm currently running tests of efficiency and diminishing return of minions concerning damage and life span. If you love minios as much as I do, you'll find a way to make it work.

Verata's Sacrifice became a horrible healing spell with the nerf given the crazy long recharge time.

Why not replace that with Blood of the Master, which now has an unlimited range?

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