N/E Minion Zookeeper Build

This guy is still in its early stages so if I need to remake him, I will...

Just some things to tell you. I'm not going N/Mo to heal my minions. That'll end up with me being expected to heal my party and I'm not very good at that at all.

Tried N/R. Pet sucks. When it dies I can't use it's corpse for anything for a few seconds. That's fatal.

If there's another way to utilize a good secondary to keep this build hot, I'd like it. But for now, N/E using ele high dmg helps this build move fast.

stats:

10+2 Death Magic
10+1 Soul Reaping
11 Air Magic

Deathly Swarm [for mob killing and corpse creation, hopefully]
Animate Bone Minions [Quantity over Quality]
Animate Bone Fiend
Death Nova
Taste of Death
Lightning Strike
Lightning Orb
Thunderclap {E}

Walking nukes is the name of the game with this build. The elemental part is there to spam high dmg and knockdown my foes so that when the minions catch up, Death Nova to death... [pun?]

2 summoning skills designed to just alternate in the cooldown times of each other. Minions > Fiends for using Death Nova. Fiends just backup Minions in this case.

I'd like another opinion on this because right now I'm doubtful to some extent. What's a good minion master secondary that I will use? High dmg spells to kill, soul reap, summon, repeat...

I feel as though even with the best armor and foci, I think this build will run out of energy. I was thinking going Earth magic using Obsidian Flesh and the armor skills so that I'm safe while I spam Deathly Swarm. Make corpses, nuke, repeat...

Ideas?

I don't see the need for Fiends. Death Nova doesn't work well with them. You're not going to be healing them. I'd rather spend 25 mana doing some damage, especially because you're an Elementalist secondary. I also don't see why you're taking Taste of Death. Minions die fast enough in the higher levels that you barely have time to cast Death Nova on them, so it's not worth it to use Taste of Death.

Thunderclap? Do you really find this more useful than Lightning Surge? I can see how this might be useful, since when your Minions die, you'll get 24 energy, but I don't see how it's better than Lightning Surge. If you replace Thunderclap, Fiends and Taste of Death with Lightning Surge, Res Signet and Gust, you'll have almost as much knockdown, more damage and a lot more energy.

I don't like res signet. Gale causes exhaustion and without e.storage, it's not worth it.

No fiends huh? hmm...

Minions I make as walking nukes but if fiends aren't good, then maybe I replace thunderclap with Tainted Flesh, having my minions unstrikable in melee out of fear would be neat.

Oh, wait a minute... If I did ditch fiends for point blank bombs, perhaps I could use something that's more lasting than knockdown?

remake:

10+1 Soul Reaping, 10+2 Death magic, 11 Water Magic

Deathly Swarm
Animate Bone Minions
Death Nova
Taste of Death
Tainted Flesh {E}
Ice Spikes
Frozen Burst
Glyph of Lesser Energy

Spikes and Prison both depend on enemy's situation. Enemies with/out friends at distance or close range. Tainted Flesh {E} will help my minions disease my foes and I can use it on myself/teammates too. Taste of Death Nova combo is for when I need hp badly and am next to a healthy minion ^_^. OR a healthy minion is next to someone about ready to die.

Since this build is all about expensive spells, the elementalist Glyph should keep me out of danger of extreme waiting for my ice or minions to come out. The Frozen Burst's recycle time coincides well with the Glyph too I think.

So now we have a walking nuke build with more synergy and less ability to escape from Death Nova's clutches.

Fiends drop faster, and you get two. Essentially you'll be able use death nova more with fiends, but they can easily be dispatched at a distance.

Oh, dark bond is another defensive skill to look into, 75% damage done to you is redirected your nearest minion.

Quote:

Exploit corpse for some survivability?

well dark bond is a blood magic skill so you might want to invest some poins into blood and lose the water

I'm not losing my ele half. I don't believe that pure classes work out at all.

Ice with necro sounds almost natural.

Grenth is the Lord of ice ele and necros so I think it's fine.

On the fly I can switch to Spinal Shivers and use ice skills to interrupt to a minor degree but I'm not going to stick with it.

Hmm...

If i was me, which i am, id tell my team to jack off and go monk secondary, only for heal area. Then tell them if theyre desperate for heals they can stand next to you. I feel heal area is almost mandatory for minion builds besides mass. You only need heal area, then combined with veratas sacrifice and blood of the master, your good.

If I told my team to jack off I'd be short an entire team I suppose lol...

But N/Mo sounds quite efficient healing minions and such. Verata's Sacrifice with Purge Conditions, or worse, Plague signet sounds uncanny.

yeah but youd be so amazing theyd accept your arrogance