Purity Lich - a Minion Master innovation

I decided to throw together an MM build together today, but I hadn't capped Animate Flesh Golem yet so I figured I would try something new with what I had available--Aura of the Lich. Here goes:

Necromancer/Monk

Preliminary Attributes:
Death Magic: 12+1+3
Soul Reaping: 12+1
Spare: 6 points

Skills:
Animate Bone Fiend
Animate Bone Horror
Blood of the Master
Aura of the Lich {E}
Contemplation of Purity
[Open]
[Open]
Resurrection Signet

Basic strategy:
This build is centered around using Aura of the Lich to allow for spamming of sacrifice skills, specifically Blood of the Master or possibly one of the two open slots. AotL is a really powerful spell that almost allows an MM to manage its own health independently. Low on health? Need a condition and/or hex removed? Cast Contemplation of Purity and you'll most likely be back at full health with fewer/no conditions and ready to keep on sacrifincing. Of course, don't forget to summon fiends and horrors all the while!

Thoughts for open slots:
-Blood Ritual (Change atts to 10+1 Soul Reaping, 9+1 Blood Magic)
-Verata's Aura (In case you're partying with a second MM who might die, or you don't trust your healers)
-Death Nova (Always a nice standby, especially if you have an A/Mo Naruto kid in your party. )
-Deathly chill/swarm (straight offense not tied to minions/corpses)
-Heal Party, infuse health (hey, why not? add points to healing prayers)
-Enchantments in general (for support, and to buff your Contemplation of Purity casts)
-New build entirely. Aura of the Lich could probably be used for sacrifice-heavy support builds other than MM.

Gear: Anything works. I really like using a 20/20 wand and 20/20 offhand for that juicy 40/40 bonus.

Strengths:
-Resilience. Half-damage goes a long way, and in the face of high degen or bad healing, cancel Aura of the Lich with Contemplation of Purity to restore your health to a safe level.
-Versatility. Two open slots means you have space to support your teammates or deal more damage. Also, ample space to bring a capture signet in PvE.

Weaknesses:
-Energy. An Achilles' Heel for any MM build, this build demands a lot of energy. 4 pips of energy regen is enough to let you spam Blood of the Master to your heart's content, but for summoning you're going to have to rely on intelligent casting and Soul Reaping to keep you going.
-High degen: if you get hit with high degen, you can probably counter the worst of it when Contemplation of Purity to cancel Aura of the Lich, but if you're not paying attention the degen will wipe you out pretty quickly. Be ready to concentrate on the game while running this build.

Credit: Myself

So far, I've only used this build to faction farm the Jade Arena with henchies, a purpose for which it has worked very well.

Comments, thoughts, and criticism are all welcome.

looks really good so far

AotL + spamming BotM has been a discussed topic since the MM update.

I ran this in tyria after the nerf, but when I arrived in Cantha I prefered my elite slot to be Flesh Golem{e}... if you summon Vampric Horrors then the BotM sac will be no biggy because the vamps counter it with their heals.

just something to keep in mind

Yeah, like Undead said, using AotL has been discussed before. Other than that, it's kinda a standard build. Personally, I only bring AotL if i'm dual MMing for a quest, mission, or whatever.

With Vhorrors, you can survive without AotL. Just add Soul Feast, and you have hp management.

As the others have said, AotL is nothing new.

If you go MM, go all out on Death Magic. Verata's Sacrifice should be included in your build. Since you have AotL, you can spam VS until you hit your 4th minion. Then at least you don't have to spam BotM as much.

Not too sure why you picked up Contemplation of Purity, is it for removing a hex? If its for healing or removing a condition, use plague sending instead. The healing is laughable, you lose AotL, 1 condition, and 1 hex. Plague sending will allow you to keep AotL and transfer 1 condition to your foe.

Resurrection Signet? You are a monk, surely you have better rezes than that, right?

I would suggest that you think about bringing Consume Corpse, the only drawback is the location of the corpse.

Sorry if this isn't really new, I've just never seen anybody take AotL with them.

Yes, Contemplation of Purity's healing bonus is meaningless, but its purpose is to remove Aura of the Lich when you need more health--at 16 Death Magic. AotL heals you for 253 when it ends. Since AotL halves your maximum Health, heavy degen can be especially devastating, and Contemplation of Purity allows you to restore your health to normal immidiately while getting rid of conditions and hexes.

Using AotL with another enchantment like Death Nova and then casting Contemplation of Purity would remove two conditions and two hexes, bring your maximum Health back to normal, and heal you for 253, thus clearing you of nearly all negative effects and restoring your health to full. Plague Sending could definitely work, but I would only bring it when I'm a party I'm comfortable with--in the average PUG or with henchies, you're better off playing it safe and just getting rid of the conditions as soon as you can. If you want to take it a step further, you could put Draw Conditions into the build with Plague Sending so you can be trading conditions to your enemies when you can't summon minions.

The reason I like AotL is because it provides sacrifice-management and a nice, big self-heal when it ends. Also, since I can use it to keep clean of conditions and hexes with CoP, I'm getting a lot of different uses out of it. I don't want to keep AotL on, I want to strip it as much as possible so I can get all that healing. I should have made that clearer in my original post.

@ Soul Feast, Consume Corpse: Waste of a corpse? I'd rather summon something than possibly teleport into harm's way. CoP is also a 1/4-second cast, which brings my ACT down a bit, and removing AotL heals for more than either of these spells.

@ Vampiric Horror: The Health gain per attack sounds good, but how much is actually gained per minion and over what period of time? Is it worth the 25 energy?

@ Verata's Sac: I dont like this skill anymore. 10 pips of regen for 10 seconds (16 death magic) only gives 200 health, and it's useless once you have more than 3 minions because of the cooldown. Two casts of BotM heals any number of minions for 244. Also, when you have 4 or fewer minions BotM only requires a <13% sacrifice, slightly less than the 15% sac that Verata's Sac requires.

@ Flesh Golem: I capped Golem today after I finished designing the build I posted. A Golem's higher-damage might make it a better choice of an elite than AotL if you're not interested in using a lot of Sacrifice skills.

Vamps gives you same amount of life as their dmg, and they hit like horrors. Didn`t you test it? The only problem is hight recast time (15 secs). I`m using them, when I`m taking Flesh Golem, and Fiends, if I`m using AotL.

consider N/E and bring Glyph of Lesser Energy. I like that one b/c it allows me to bring Vhorrors & Fiends. Plus, you can bring your AotL.

@ Nirvax: I know how Vhorrors work...I was just wondering if anybody had any hard data.

@ xenoranger: Glyphs are definitely useful with fiends/vhorrors, I'll give that build a shot too. Probably with Flesh Golem or Tainted Flesh though--AotL is risky if you can't strip it yourself.

Quote: If animated at lvl 18, Vampiric Horrors do 13-18 damage against warriors with 100 Armor Level. Source:http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Vampiric_Horror


I did research and added damage done by minions to Guild Wiki for golem and all horrors against 100 armor.

When I get to it, I'll add info on dmg by minions and fiends.

Try Dark Bond and Blood Renewal.

Cover DB with AotL and you'll take only 1/8th damage and your minions take 3/8th when you get hit.

Blood Renewal can counter degen and saccing to some degree.

Other possibilities: Protective Spirit, Healing Breeze, Enfeebling Blood, Shadow of Fear

Quote: Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

I test everything against warrior armor. Mainly b/c minions are going to be infantry more than anything. This way you have a better idea of what to expect if you're going into battle. Besides, I use minions to put space between me and the warriors.