MM build help?

this is a build i am setting up for my monk/necro. jsut woudnering if these certain set up will work.

Verata's Sacrifice
Blood of the Master
heal area
Animate Bone horror /Animate Bone Fiend
Signet of Devotion
Dark Bond
Marty
Infuse Condition

thing is will Marty work with infuse conditon? if it dose means i can be a monk minon master without ppl saying you do nothing as a monk :P

any improve ments are very much welcome

I've played a necro primary as my main player since the game was released. I've got all the secondaries for her too... monk secondary seems to work out the best for keeping your minions alive as long as possible (heal area). I speak mainly from experience, so if my knowledge is a bit off from the official rules... I apologize. This is also my first post. Note: I use minions as a general term for Bone Horrors, Bone Minions, and Bone Fiends, if I am speaking of one in particular I might say horrors or fiends, but to decrease confusion the full name "Bone Minions" will be used to refer to them specifically (since minions alone will refer to all three types).

So the type of MM you want to do depends on what you want to use it for (pvp, farming, quests) and what you will be going up against. Here is some general advice (not particular to any build, but is directed more towards a monk secondary):

-Necro primaries make the best MM's for 3 reasons.
1. Soul reaping gives you an infusion of magic at exactly the right time, when an enemy dies, that way you can make a minion from their corpse (and your minions act as batteries giving you more energy whenever they die). It also gives you nice +X (X = the your level in soul reaping) above your head to let you know that something just died. So you can catch deaths as soon as they happen and so help keep yourself from suffering from corpse denial (see below).
2. Death magic runes For some skills higher levels in attributes mean that you get a few extra seconds or a few more points of damage. For others the jump is much larger and more significant. Minions are one of these more significant jumps. Each rank (a linear progression) in Death magic means you get a raise in the level of your minions (with increased health, armor, and damage). For Bone Fiends and Bone Horrors this means you will be able to consistently raise them at level 18 and with a +1 to Death item (20% chance) you will get a level 19 one-fifth of the time. This is very close to the max level of player characters, and you can probably maintain 20-30 if you get enough corpses left behind. That is a lot of firepower.
3. Bloodstained boots I explain these below (under corpse denial). Since they are armor only necro primaries can wear them. They don't make Necro primaries THAT much better though... reason number 1 and 2 are far more important.

Without the runes (since you are not a primary necro) you will max out at level 14 (with an occasional 15 if you have the right wand/stave/focus).

Without soul reaping you will probably run into energy management issues.

That's my push for necro primaries... now to the rest of the info...

Bone horrors:
-Have the highest armor, they can take pressure off of your tank(s).
-Are melee... they will run to engage the enemy.
-They are your cheap minion, usually good to bring along with one of the other two types to get as many minions up as quickly as possible.
-Hit the hardest

Bone fiends:
-Have range... which means they can switch targets very easily. It also means that more can engage the same enemy and do so more quickly.
-Because they are ranged... tend to clump together and stay closer to you and away from the enemy, which makes them the best for using heal area on (so that you won't accidently be healing the enemy).
-Hit softer than Horrors, but attack faster... overall damage rate is higher.

Bone minions:
-As expensive as bone fiends, they are just weaker bone horrors (4 levels lower), but you get 2 for 1 corpse.
-Hit the same as Bone Horror of same level
-Make excellent grenades (explained below)


All minions:
-Watch out for aggro, you can't control minions at all except by running very far away... which will sometimes cause them to break away from the fight to rejoin you. Bone fiends tend to be better about breaking away in my experience.
-All cause physical damage, this means that anything that affects or is affected by physical damage affects them (i.e. Barbs, Mark of Pain, Greater Conflageration, etc.).
-Minions are not considered party members but can usually be considered allies. This means that certain skills will not affect them (such as Order of Pain, Order of Vampire), this would be highly overpowered if they did though. They can, however, be affected by Life Bond, Healing Breeze, or other spells that affect "ally" or "other ally."
-Minions degen more and more over time, the cap is -10, but that is not the "behind the screen" cap. Eventually Verata's Sac along with healing breeze or any other regen will no longer work. At this time only instant heals such as heal area or Blood of the Master will help keep them alive. Usually it is a good idea to just let the fast dying ones fall and conserve your energy.

Strategies for skills for MM:
-Barbs can be used to kill a single enemy extremely quickly (with a high curses skill) since all the damage minions cause is physical. This is great against the last man standing (i.e. bosses) since all your minions will focus their fire on him.
-Death Nova is good fun. You will already have a high Death Attribute, so the damage will be maxed out for you. You will also be having guys (your minions) dying around you all the time that you can cast it on. It is nice AoE damage and causes poison to enemies in the blast area. This is preferentially cast on melee fighters, mainly Bone Minions, to turn them into grenades since they will run forward and get close to the enemy. Bone Minions are the best for this since they die quickly and you get two for one corpse, and so you get maximum use and damage from Death Nova.
-Taste of Death, good way to set off your Death Nova grenades when you want them to (otherwise the enchantment may wear off), gives you an extremely good heal in the process.
-Dark Bond is an excellent way to tank, at the cost of your minions, just use it when you have lots of them and you are getting focus fired.
-[B]Well of Blood will regen all of your minions in the AoE, Well of Power will stack with this regen. Plus these will help teammates too without benefiting enemies (as Heal Area does), downside is that it uses up a corpse.
-Blood of the Master will heal nearby minions without healing enemies, but it will cost you life. For two infusions of health (when no enemies are nearby) use Heal Area right afterwards to heal yourself of your sacrifice and to heal your minions more.
-Heal Area, watch out for enemies, you don't want to constantly be healing them. This is more effective with fiends as they will stay closer to you. Good way to heal yourself after your sacrifices from Blood of the Master and/or Verata's Sac.
-Verata's Aura, ALWAYS bring to pvp (if you are playing a MM). Otherwise your minions will turn against you once a single primary or secondary necro on the other team uses this. I don't know what PvE enemies use it (if any) so I don't usually bring it out for PvE (since you will lose all your minions when it ends... though you can just renew it). Good to bring for fun to pvp even if your build isn't MM, since it will screw over the MM's unless they have it too.
-Verata's Sacrifice, you MUST bring this skill unless you don't care about keeping your minions alive. This is the easiest way to do it. It also removes conditions from them to help them stay alive longer, or to remove their weakness, or their cripple, etc. making them more effective. You just get it instead, so live with it, ask a monk for help, or bring your own condition removal. In my experience this skill works on your minions even if party members cast it, don't know if this has been changed (I haven't done MM with a fellow necro player in a long time).
-Purge Conditions works well since it is cheap, fast, unlinked, you can target yourself, can remove multiple conditions, and it renews even faster than Verata's Sacrifice (which means you can use it each time if need be).
-Verata's Gaze is useful for stealing enemy minions (for when the enemies beats you to the corpse), but it needs to be used twice to get a single minion. I found that it isn't very useful for this purpose, since your own minions (and party members) will probably have it down to half health or dead before you get control of it (Verata's Aura is far superior for this purpose). It is, however, very useful with Malign Intervention.
-Malign Intervention, uses are three-fold. One, you are making the enemy drop more quickly if they have some way to heal. Two, you are denying the corpse from being used by enemy necros since it is automatically raised as a masterless Bone Horror; just use Verata's Gaze (only one casting) to make it yours. Three, the savings in energy. Yes, Animate Bone Horror equals 15 energy and Malign Interv + Verata's Gaze = 15 energy, BUT your 10 energy cast from Malign Iterv is regenerating while you are waiting for the enemy to die, meaning that to get the minion you only have to spend 5. In addition, if there is someone stealing corpses (finishing corpse based spells before you complete yours) you may waste that full 15 whereas most enemies don't carry V's Gaze and you will get the masterless horror almost guaranteed. The only downside it the recharge time is slow so you can't spam this around.
-Tainted Flesh can be good fun combined with Death Nova to give everyone in the area (as disease spreads) both Poison and Disease for a good amount of health degen.
-Offering of Blood is a good way to get some fast energy, your minions will cost you a lot of energy, just have a good heal monk on your team or use heal area if you have it (though that would be less effective since it will cost you energy also). Mesmer secondary is also a good way to manage energy.
-Mark of Pain kicked all kinds of butt in mobs before the new AI. Still useful for dumb pvp players. With 20+ minions (if they happen to target the same enemy) and Curses at 12 you would be dealing 34 damage to all baddies near the target. That used to bring down mobs quick (680+ damage about every one and a half seconds... I can't remember their exact attack speeds). Now with AoE AI the crowd kind of disperses. Good if you want to have this effect, bad for killing them (unless they happen to run together). If you are going to use it, don't combine with Barbs since you want your target to last as long as possible to spread the pain around.
-Well of Suffering, your a MM, your Death Magic is high, you need corpses right? Cast this on the first corpse to fall and you spread a nice degen around that the AI won't run away from. This makes more corpses fall more quickly. More corpses = good. Don't use if there are no other corpses to be had unless you deem it more helpful than another minion. Putrid Explosion has the same application with faster damage.
-Infuse Condition, useful if you have no condition removal (yourself or party member) and you are really worried about getting the conditions passed to you. I usually just bite the bullet and choose a different skill.

Corpse Denial:
You will be denied corpses. Corpses can only be used once. There are quite a few skills that use corspes. All of them are faster than any of the "Animate X" skills. You may also be in the middle of casting "Animate X" when another body falls. Then an enemy starts to cast, and they will finish before you. Not getting to use a corpse is called "corpse denial." There are several things that can help you out:
-Wand/Staff/Focus with 20% chance fast cast (and skill renewal) for Death Magic Skills. I think the collector in Snake's Dance gives you one of these. Try to find a Wand and Focus with this if you want to increase your chances (don't know if this combo exists, I use Staff personally).
-Mesmer primary. Fast Casting. Spell interrupts or Diversion (to stop their casting of "Animate X" if multiple corpses fall). But you do give up the soul reaping (can be made up for with Inspiration skills) and the runes to get higher level minions (not as important for certain builds such as Bone Minions + Death Nova).
-Bloodstained Boots (only for primary necros). I've been in an argument with a friend about this before and whether or not if they actually work. This doesn't work like fast casting, it works like the wand/staff/focus item. There is a CHANCE that you get faster corpse exploitation, it is not a guarantee. I don't know what the chance is (probably 10%), but I do know that I would occasionally pull off an animate skill far faster than normal even though I had no Wand/Staff/Focus which increased speed (but I did have Bloodstained Boots on). Good place to keep your Rune of Fortitude since you really don't ever need to take them off.
-Malign Intervention (see above for explanation). Combine with Verata's Gaze to actually get the horror on your side.
-Kill the enemy necro. Call targets on them first. Get rid of them. If they are dead, they can't steal corpses (and will most likely be a corpse you can use).
-Your own corpse denial skills. Your Wells, Necrotic Traversals, and Consume Corpses operate faster than their "Animate X" skills. Though this doesn't give you the minion, it gives you other benefits (health, energy, damage to enemies, enchantment stripping) along with denying them the minion. My favorite is consume corpse since it heals me and gives me more energy so I am ready for the next corpse.
-Don't be forced to share. This may seem obvious, but I am including it for the benefit of all. Generally it is NOT a good idea for two necro's to use corpse spells. Coordinate with other necros before leaving to make sure you don't steal corpses. Just ask. Say "My build uses corpses. Does yours?" This is VERY important if your primary is not a necro, as it is assumed that most corpse users are primary necros and a primary necro might not ask if there are no other primary necro's.

Good tips:
-"Doing the dance." Heal Area and Blood of the Master have a limited range. If you start casting spells on your minions they will start spacing themselves in a circle around you. If you get enough minions, the circle will get larger and the minions will be farther away. Then your AoE for these heals will not get all of them. If you run around in small circles ("doing the dance") then you will aggro them together into a tighter bunch and be able to affect more minions with these two spells.
-Stay alive. Trust me, nothing will kill your party faster than a large group of buffed minions who have a nice +10 health regen, Tainted Flesh, and multiple Death Novas on them that suddenly turn into enemies because they no longer have a master, this, IN ADDITION to the enemies that are already there. A secondary necro teammate using a skill slot for Verata's Aura can help save you from this fate if you are really worried about it (I generally don't).
-Verata's Sacrifice and Death Nova are enchantments. They will last longer if you have an item that makes enchantments last longer. Switching to this item right before casting this will make them last longer (useful for putting Death Nova on a swarm of minions before going to the next PvE group). Also be sure that the enemy doesn't have Shatter Enchantment or something similar. You will be losing your minions faster and won't get the damage from Death Nova or the health regen from V's Sac. Just stick to Blood of the Master and Heal Area for enemies that remove enchantments.
-Minions go away if you go through a portal, don't bother keeping them up if you are about to leave the area.
-Go with a patient group, or henchies. You will be the busiest in the party AFTER the battle is over. Impatient groups will keep on running while you are trying to make your army. So you have to choose between going with them, or leaving the corpses behind. This is usually where energy is a bigger factor than skill refresh. Your animate skills are expensive (and slow to cast) and you don't have Energy Storage. Items will offset the speed but not the energy. This is why it is a good idea to constantly be summoning minions (while you are getting soul reaping, if you have it) while enemies are dying. Offering of Blood is your only respite as a necro (consume corpse helps but uses the corpse). If someone else can bring BiP or Blood Ritual (such as the necro henchie) then you don't have to worry as much.
-Kill animals. You know, the neutral creatures. They are easy to beat and will give you a corpse you can use. Good for getting that initial minion.
-Use your team for that initial kill, design them around it, once you get the minion factory going you will be causing more damage than anyone else out there. But remember, if you are short on bodies because the enemy doesn't leave corspes behind (damn elementals and skeletons), or it is a long time between fights (your minions WILL eventually die off), you will need their firepower again. So don't spread yourself TOO thin.
-Curses are good. Things like Enfeebling Blood or Shadow of Fear will reduce the damage output of your enemies. This will decrease the damage intake of your minions (and party members). This will mean Verata's Sac can keep up with damage and you won't have to use Blood of the Master or Heal area as often (conserving energy for more minions).

There is more to say. I could give you several strategies. But reviewing the skills and mixing and matching them will reveal strategies on their own. Just pick stuff appropriate to what you want to achieve.

Now that I am finished with the general guidelines, I am going to advise on your build specifically (but it would help if I knew what you wanted to use it for).