Build talk:Me/N Keystone Minion Bomber Hero

I think if this is not going to be an area-specific build, you must have a cover enchant for Symbolic Celerity if the entire build will not work upon it getting stripped, which will happen in some areas if your team does not have a lot of enchants, for example, Afflicted Necros in Factions, and Mesmers in NF with Shatter. Also, PvX guidelines state that a build should not have more than 4 optional slots.--- IGN: Saxazax I (capital i) or Saxazax I I - (talk) 01:10, 3 May 2018 (UTC) I think that this build should not need energy management--I mean, if you only have 3 skills that are energetic out of 8, then you should not need any skill to manage energy. You indeed might need an energy management signet if you are spamming Animate Bone Minions with a 40/40 set. But In that case, since this is designed for a player, you should use Signet of Lost Souls instead of Leech Signet--it's much easier for a player to use than an interrupt (especially true for Hard Mode in which foes have reduced skill activation). I think in that case (and this comment is similar to the one I left on the 7 hero Keystone Discorder setup), if you are going to bring Animate Bone Minions, then all your signets that you bring must be 1/4sec activation times--you will get 5 signets replenished every 15 sec and you don't want to have skills sitting on your bar not being used to their full potential. In other words, you would not want to have a bar with 8 relatively weak skills all with a 3sec or less recharge time--you would have numerous skills sitting there and doing nothing while you are using one or two on recharge. Instead it is better to bring a variety of power-to-recharge skills so that you use a powerful skill which has a long recharge, and then spam the low-recharge skills until the powerful one has been recharged. For example, you might have a build with Maelstrom, which has a 30 sec recharge, and a number of other Water spells with a short recharge. No--first, it is important to have backup skills incase the one you need fails--For example, you're in HM and your Enfeebling Blood Necro dies. The enemy casters are wanding away, but you can't AoE weakness them, and you wish you had a backup source of AoE weakness--that's why you bring Signet of Weariness. Second, it has an additional effect of energy denial for nearby foes, which is almost unheard of in most bars--most bars are single-target energy denial. And the casting time is a non-issue--it's about 1.5 seconds. Plus, it gets recharged every 15 sec with Keystone. Signet of Weariness should be on the main bar if the build is designed for General Use. Yes you do--Panic is a skill, like anything else, and can be interrupted, disabled, or your Mes can be kiting from an enemy melee when he or she should be using Panic--this is why it is important to have multiple copies of similar effects: if one fails, you're not dead in the water. Moreover, if you're using this on a hero, what if there is an off-damage target that didn't get Panic on it? It would sure help to have backup interrupts--so, you should bring Signet of Disruption/Distraction even with a Panic hero. Blood Renewal at level 6 Blood Magic or so might work. I'm not sure how well heroes use it, but it would ensure that the hero will use it if he or she is taking damage. In this way it will have a high chance of covering Symbolic Celerity. In fact, I think that this build could work best with Order of Pain instead of Minions skills in Death--Order of Pain benefits from Fast Casting, as well as covers Symbolic Celerity which lets you stay specialized fully into Fast Casting and Blood.
 * Definitely mainbar the best general-use signets. Variants are just as valid as Optionals after all. Toraen (talk) 10:38, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * There's no best general-use signet. If you need extra energy you want to have signet of lost osuls and leech signet, else both are pretty weak. If you have a sufficient amount of hexes and want extra direct damage, unnatural signet is good. Else, it's just a bad single target damage signet. Signet of weariness takes too long to cast for too few effects if you already have sufficient sources of weakness. And if you run something like a panic mesmer you don't really need additional rupts like signet of disruption or distraction. Those signets just completely depend on team and foes. Also, while I'd personally want to mainbar bone minions, this build is viable without them aswell with a shifted purpose, so that's not a good idea either. I'll put signet of sorrow into the main build because it slightly evens out the lack of single target damage of a keystone mesmer, allows to use all keystone charges up etc., but keep in mind it suffers from enchantment removal. That said, the criticism on a lack of cover enchantments; first of all heroes don't understand which enchantments are to be covered and which are to be used as cover. Symbolic celerity is (sadly) not kept up outside of combat, so you'd have to rely on luck. Secondly, any enchantment you could add to this build would be pretty much a wasted skill slot. You want to bring useful signets for their primary effect and keystone triggers. Also, if symbolic celerity is removed, that may be unfortunate as the signet's main effects are weakned, but the primary reason to bring the signets is to trigger keystone signet. The 4 available rupt signets still rupt, they just have slightly less powerful additional effects. If this was something like a Me/Mo smiting prayers signet keystone mesmer the loss of symbolic celerity would hurt way more, as then you'd lose out on most of the single target damage, which is your main reason to run a Me/Mo anyway. But this hero works (at lowered but sufficient effectivity) even when symbolic celerity happens to be removed. --Krschkr (talk) 14:31, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "If you need extra energy you want to have signet of lost osuls[sic] and leech signet"
 * Re: "General use" comments: interrupts are useful no matter where you go. Unnatural signet is useful whether you have lots of hexes or not--most foes have enchantments. And Signet of Weariness is useful everywhere, against casters as well as melee. "Signet of weariness takes too long to cast for too few effects if you already have sufficient sources of weakness"
 * "And if you run something like a panic mesmer you don't really need additional rupts like signet of disruption or distraction"
 * "it suffers from enchantment removal. That said, the criticism on a lack of cover enchantments; first of all heroes don't understand which enchantments are to be covered and which are to be used as cover. Symbolic celerity is (sadly) not kept up outside of combat, so you'd have to rely on luck. Secondly, any enchantment you could add to this build would be pretty much a wasted skill slot."
 * In response to not having a cover enchant and this build's damage and rupt effect still triggering from keystone despite the nullified single-target effect of each signet... This build must either be listed along with another one with lots of cover enchants, or be listed for specific areas where enchant removal is not a problem. A general use build should not be so vulnerable to the tens of thousands of skill combinations throughout PvE.--- IGN: Saxazax I (capital i) or Saxazax I I - (talk) 02:33, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Keystone Death Nova Hero is a build for heroes, not players. Test the build yourself and you'll see that you need energy management if you're not supported by your team. Orders are not worth it unless you run like 4 physicals in your team and that's highly unlikely. Every build is vulnerable to dozens of different skills or scenarios. If you argue like that, you can't play anything in this game. You'll always face some drawbacks, but you even it out chosing your utility skills properly and making a working team build. --Krschkr (talk) 13:46, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

My changes
I made the changes that I feel are needed to make it fulfill the requirements of a standalone hero bar. This means mainbarring Animate so Death Nova has a target and ensuring it has the energy to keep summoning minions via SoLS. I did make sure to include the bolded note so that readers would know that this can be used with a separate MM and how to change the bar in that case. Toraen (talk) 09:49, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh and if I were to fill out the remaining optionals with 'general' skills, it would likely be Unnatural and Clumsiness sigs, since they are usable in pretty much every situation/team and provide the most damage. The interrupts are nice and have their uses, but I'd generally cover my targeted caster shutdown needs with other mesmer bars on the team. The single target interrupts this could take would be rather redundant then. Really I view the AoE interrupts on this as more of a bonus than the main point (since a hero won't be using non-interrupt signets to specifically interrupt adjacent foes). Toraen (talk) 10:45, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Fine for me. Should change the name to Build:Me/N Minion Bomber Hero with mainbar minions. --Krschkr (talk) 13:46, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "Keystone Minion Master"?--&#32;Saxazaxx - IGN: Saxazax I (capital i) or Saxazax I I - (talk) 00:41, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

"Animate" Justification
Quoted from Build talk:Team - 7 Hero Keystone Discordway:

''". . . the only reason to roll a Mes is for the Fast Casting on Death Nova--Necros already have a -25cast insignia for "animate" skills. So even though a Mes would cast those spells 25% faster [than a Necro], a Necro has better energy management, +8 attribute levels with a superior death headpiece and Masochism, and better energy management to boot. I think that the concept of putting Death skills on a Keystone mes is a waste because if you're going to put 12 attribute points in a specialization, at least half your bar should be from that specialization. As a general rule, the way I usually configure my bars is: 6 points in an attribute = 1 skill on the bar; 8 points = 2 skills, 10 points = 3 skills; 12 points = half the bar. This would not be an issue if your Mes was running a different elite, but because there are no Death Magic Signets, you're better off either using a different elite from Fast Casting like Psychic Instability and keeping Death Nova, and bringing Putrid Bile, Deathly Swarm, or other skills from Death Magic, or simply using other skills entirely that have a long cast time. Or, you could lower the attribute points in Death Magic and make them like this:'' [build prof=Mesmer/Necromancer FastCast=10+1+3 DominationMagic=10+1 Inspiration=8+1 DeathMagic=8][Keystone Signet][Signet of Distraction][Signet of Disruption][Signet of Weariness][Unnatural Signet][Mantra of Signets][Leech Signet][Death Nova][/build] ''Keep in mind that the Poison duration does not decrease with lower attributes. . . ."''--&#32;Saxazaxx - IGN: Saxazax I (capital i) or Saxazax I I - (talk) 01:00, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

In reference to the bar I mentioned but did not make:


 * Deathly Swarm + Signet of Sorrow or Putrid Bile
 * Rotting Flesh + Deathly Swarm
 * Power Drain + Well of the Profane--&#32;Saxazaxx - IGN: Saxazax I (capital i) or Saxazax I I - (talk) 01:00, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Anyone want to do something with this build or respond to what I said here?--&#32;Saxazaxx - IGN: Saxazax I (capital i) or Saxazax I I - (talk) 14:50, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * What about this:


 * 11 Death
 * 10+1+1 Fast Casting
 * 10+1 Inspiration--&#32;Saxazaxx (talk) 17:11, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

I spent some time directly comparing the bar mentioned in the discussion of 7h keystone discordway (above) and the variant posted for this build, given a Necro MM was in my team and providing cheap minions. The posted build with symbolic celerity consistently outperformed the stance build, without sacrificing much resilience in the setting of an appropriate team comp. Also bringing damage > utility signets typically worked out better as I wasn't relying on my midline to provide the utility in the team.

For the PI vs keystone minion bomber, I found the damage less reliable in the PI suggestion, granted the knockdowns were nice. But, comparing a PI bar to the keystone is kind of apples to oranges, and I'd have to spend more time with it to see which is optimal. Either can provide the fast casting death nova as well as the other. My feeling is you could throw death nova at 12 death on any fast caster, but to what advantage? Why not just bring hearty minions and let the MM tank and the mesmers push bigger damages without specs in death? If you really want a minion bomber mesmer though, the original build does the trick.Juniper real (talk) 20:10, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing the test. I think that because you only get roughly 25% greater reduced activation time from fast casting than Necro with a -25% activation insignia, this build is gimmicky. Not to mention, a Necro is already a one-stop shop because he or she will have +attribute runes and Soul Reaping (as well as Masochism if you really need it) to deal with high energy costs--the idea behind bringing Keystone and other signets was to have 0-energy skills and use all your energy on Animate skills.
 * Otherwise, I think that making "General" builds and trying to perfectionize them is a losing battle to begin with. It's a more interesting project to make different builds specifically designed for different areas, or groups of builds that synergize well, because we can go back and forth for ever, saying, "Well, in X situation, Y would be better than this build," because that will probably always be true because there are so many different areas and levels of difficulty in the game.--&#32;Saxazaxx (talk) 01:48, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Bloodstained insignias do not affect death nova. --Krschkr (talk) 13:20, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I think a damage test with Toolbox on a FC Mesmer with only Animate and Death Nova, vs. a Necro with only Animate and Death Nova, both with 40/40 sets, will put an end to this question.--&#32;Saxazaxx (talk) 21:08, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
 * It would most certainly show whether a mesmer only equipped with death nova or a necromancer only equipped with death nova deal more damage. Which isn't very helpful an information: Be it a mesmer or necromancer, there's 7 more skills in the builds to keep in mind. And it doesn't end there: What about the usually 7 other team members? You have to track the possible synergies within the team. Also, a mesmer fulfills different utility roles which don't show up in a damage report than a necromancer does. It depends on the concrete area you play in and the concrete team setup around the mesmer or necromancer which of them you'd pick. If this game had 10 levels we would make guide pages for each of them. But there are hundreds of different missions, quests, dungeons and areas, all with their own specialties which promote certain tactics and disadvice from others. Therefore the approach has to be to provide builds which work well in a large number of different encounters, which work in general. I count this build among those which work well in general and have a lot of potential for synergies with the team. But it is up to the players to compile teams in a reasonable way, tying builds together for cross-build synergies. Whoever isn't able to do as much will most likely go for one of the many pre-made full hero team builds found on PvX anyway. --Krschkr (talk) 21:23, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

". . . you could throw death nova at 12 death on any fast caster, but to what advantage?" This is a fair argument; I would extend it to include any other skill tree: why not put 12 Water Magic and give a Keystone Mesmer Deep Freeze and compensatory energy skills? - Because an Ele, like a Necro, is already a one-stop shop for those skills with Water Attunement and boosted attributes from Runes.

The real problem with this build, over and above the justification on whether or not to bring Animate as well as Death Nova, is the following: with 12 in Death, you have no backup attributes to invest into Dom or Illusion if Celerity gets stripped, and the build becomes half as effective. More thoughts later...--&#32;Saxazaxx (talk) 01:03, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Let's take a look at this. What's common between deep freeze and death nova?
 * Not a mesmer skill.
 * Two seconds casting time (affected by fast casting).
 * Has a scaling and non-scaling magnitude.
 * But where are some differences between deep freeze and death nova?
 * Death nova scales in armor ignoring damage, deep freeze in armor dependant damage. The armor dependant damage isn't good, the armor ignoring damage is. Deep freeze is not as much about the damage as about the snare.
 * The fixed duration effect of death nova is a damage condition, which will only last a few seconds before the foe should die, but it can assist in condition based skills. The fixed duration effect of deep freeze is a snare which works just as well at 0 water magic. The snare is the important part of deep freeze, so if you want to snare things you don't have to invest into water magic at all when utilizing deep freeze.
 * Death nova has no recharge time and will be used very frequently while there are low-health targets around, which is why it's combined with animate bone minions or other team members which bring minions. Whenever the hero uses death nova a full second less is spent casting that skill in comparison to a necromancer. Due to the frequent usage a lot of casting time is saved in comparison to a necromancer. In stark contrast to deep freeze, which can't be used more often than once every 16 seconds. Why'd you need fast casting for that one single spell?
 * So let me sum up: Death nova is a powerful skill which benefits both from attribute investment and fast casting. Deep freeze is an ok-ish skill which does not require an attribute investment and does not benefit much from fast casting either. It's a skill you'll barely ever need and when you do in Moddok Crevice, you can put it even on a healer. There's no actual point in bringing it on this mesmer. I've replied to the symbolic celerity point before so I won't repeat myself here. --Krschkr (talk) 10:20, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

When would you use this?
If we're embracing the mesmer + ST hero meta, is there ever a reason to run this bar? Is it better than a standard keystone? Is there even a reason to run keystone over esurge/panic/inept? Keep in mind that the generic keystone bar is rated good, making the great ratings here questionable. Perhaps it's just a matter of cleaning up the other page? LifeGuardian (talk) 03:20, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * This is meant for people which and occasions where you play without ST prot, hence the comment on the build page to never combine these two builds. Because of the popularity of ST prots we wouldn't archive minion bombers either. The only keystone build which has received a rating is this, which is not meant for heroes and might need a rework. I'll look into keystone builds for players a bit more in detail at some point in the future. There's also this unrated hero build which has a different justification (bar compression, less easily countered, best of domination magic), but I guess you didn't mean it. So, what's the reason to run this build? You'll have a minion bomber with additional damage and interrupts, faster minion creation and faster death nova. If you don't need the utility a necromancer bomber would bring but rather some more shutdown that's great. If you already have a minion bomber or perchance two minion heroes (some people do that) the build does a good job in spreading death nova, giving the real necromancers a free skill slot and a lot of time to cast more important skills or utility. This build does not primarily compete with panic/esurge/ineptitude as it fits a different role. --Krschkr (talk) 10:39, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Also: Normal mode and 6-man areas, were you don't usually need an ST and the Panic/Inep combo becomes less useful as foes attack slower and use less skills (the latter applies to NM only). --Smiley (talk) 19:24, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Does the discussion here apply?
https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Archive_talk:Rt/N_Explosive_Growth_Minion_Bomber --Saxazaxx (talk) 21:48, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The linked discussion is about a minion bomber which counteracts its own purpose with too much minion health, no casting time reduction (even worse than a necromancer) and no possibility to add meaningful utility skills without turning other skills on the bar useless. The only thing he offers is additional armor dependant damage, while this build adds armor ignoring damage and interrupts alongside the halved casting time. So I don't think that the discussion found there applies here. --Krschkr (talk) 21:55, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Combine pages
Why are there 2 pages for keystone mesmer heroes? Especially when this one tells you to drop minions and nova for more signets when there is already someone who bring the bombing. We should just combine both pages (the othe being https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Build:Me/any_Domination_Signet_Hero) to avoid unnecessary clutter. ZStepmother (talk) 16:17, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think these should be combined as they serve pretty different purposes. This build is a minion bomber or at least death nova outsourcing option (where does it say to drop death nova?) with interrupts as utility. The other build is an alternative domination magic mesmer designed to work without symbolic celerity. Combining both builds would result in having two builds with different purposes and almost entirely different skills on the same page. --Krschkr (talk) 16:22, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I strongly agree with removing or merging this build into the general Domination Signet build. There are so many issues here so let me take them one by one.


 * First, this build is a bad minion bomber. The linked Ritualist Bomber discussion actually applies because of the negatives of a non-Necromancer Bomber build: specifically, higher Death Magic means higher Death Nova damage (poison doesn't matter) which should always be the main point of any Bomber build.


 * Second issue ties into this: this build does nothing when creating minions, yet can't keep them alive to bring into the next fight. The Ritualist build is actually better in that regard, and was still archived. Sure, Fast Casting animate reduces downtime, but when the point of the rest of the bar is shutdown through INTERRUPTS, any downtime is bad downtime. Fast Casting Death Nova is not THAT good.


 * Third issue: Symbolic Celerity is not used efficiently by Heroes, nor is Signet of Sorrow. Meanwhile, Signet of Lost Souls is not needed on a build full of 0-energy skills. If you have issues with energy on a Bomber build, Signet of Lost Souls will not be enough to save you. Nor will Leech Signet for that matter, which is a bit counterproductive with Keystone Signet in the first place. You're much better off picking a damaging signet variable to push the first kills instead of Leech Signet.


 * Fourth issue: the build literally says "You may drop Animate Bone Minions in favour of another signet if your team already has enough minions." That means we don't really care about the animating on this build, only the Death Nova "outsourcing". If that's all we care about, then just put it as a variant on the Domination Signet Hero which still has maxed Fast Casting but can also afford to drop a few points from Domination Magic for Death Magic while retaining better damage from signets WITHOUT Symbolic Celerity.


 * Fifth and final issue: As alluded to in the second issue, this build does not do a good job of role/bar compression - not even for NM or 6man HM areas (4man can't afford to take this even in NM). The main issue is that the two sides of the skill bar are counterproductive to each other and vulnerable on their own. The Keystone side relies on Symbolic Celerity (vulnerable), conditional effects (50% health or team hexes) and has an active focus on shutdown to reduce incoming damage. The Bomber side has a focus on spreading Death Nova on minions and then wants those minions to die so they explode, but shutdown delays this, and animating/Death Nova-spreading still takes some time which messes with the ability to shutdown. It's also heavily intended to be played with other MM or Bomber teammates, so it's weak on its own. If Keystone is for shutdown to reduce damage and the minions are used for meatwalling, stronger minions (higher Death Magic) that can be kept alive between fights do a better job at protection/blocking and can still explode for damage. If Keystone is used for damage then this whole thing is way inferior to any Necro build that can help push damage to bring the first corpses much more effectively.


 * Final notes: if this build only exists as part of a team build, there's literally no reason to have its own page. Just detail it on the team build page. The Domination Keystone Hero build is superior to this, and that's still only rated Good. Also, the vote scores seem absurdly high for what the comments say about it, and one vote is literally copy-pasted. Really, just merge as 12+1+3 FC, 10/8+3 Dom, 8/10 Death variant if you insist on having a Mesmer bomber build. Sacropedia (talk) 00:53, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 1.) I still find that discussion to not apply here. Point a: No secondary profession utility. Does not apply here because the primary profession adds damage and interruption as utility whereas the ritualist is stuck with pure minion bombing. Point b: Primary profession is worth more than a primary necromancer. This does not apply to mercenary users, it does also not apply to most teams where this hero would see use (there will usually already be 2-3 necromancers, leaving not so much space for mesmers that using one of these would make you lose valuable mesmer slots you'd prefer to use otherwise). Point c: Lower auto attack damage. Pointless whether it's mesmer or necromancer, the main damage from minion bombers comes from death nova and their main job is distraction. Point d: No soul reaping. True, but the hero can bring energy management skills or get supported with blood is power, which basically everyone has in every team composition anyway. Point e: Additional damage compared to necromancers is armour respective and therefore not worth much in many occasions. Does not apply because the KSS minion bomber's extra damage is purely armour ignoring. Point f: Higher level armour is preferable over more health due to spawning power. Does not apply here as these minions have neither the higher level nor spawning power health bonus. They have few armour, few health and are thus both easy to kill and soaking up aggro more effectively than level 15 bone minions or level 21 bone horrors from necromancers. I find this to be an advantage, not a disadvantage. Point g: Lower death nova damage. This is true per death nova trigger, but these mesmers often get death nova through when a necromancer would not because the minion dies during casting. More death novas mean more damage.
 * 2.) If the way to the next fight is a compass range any minion master/bomber build will have to stop to heal them and to allow for them to catch up. No minion master/bomber build has trouble to carry minions from one fight to another if the distance is small. Over small distances, the minions will be as good as fresh. Over medium distances, old ones will have perished and new ones will be slightly damaged, causing the hero to use death nova on them already. That's not in itself bad, as it's a minion bomber and you want the death nova for damage dealing. For the second part of your argument, I don't really understand your point. Of course the hero won't be able to do something else while using a skill, but that's true for all skills with an activation time and/or aftercast delay. The N/Mo bomber won't use spirit bond on party members while creating minions. The Rt/N minion bomber won't use explosive growth while creating minions. A communing prot with splinter weapon won't create protective spirits while supporting the team's offense. If it's crucial that a hero immediately and always does a specific job (like using spirit bond, like using shelter) you must not equip that hero with a hybrid build. Now, that's also true for standard mesmers. Following your point, you'd have to remove unnatural signet, energy surge and spiritual pain from standard domination mesmers so they use their interruption, as when using damage skills they won't interrupt. But you clearly wouldn't say that because it's those heroes' job to deal direct damage and to interrupt targets. They won't intelligently decide when to use what, but you equip them with a build that is capable of both and hope for the heroes to use their skills in such a way that the overall performance is good. The same's true for a KSS minion bomber: It does not only have the job of minion bombing (no minion bomber has that restriction!), but also of interrupting and dealing additional damage doing so. While the hero is creating minions he won't do that, when he's doing that he won't create minions. That's how hybrids work. The overall performance of a KSS minion bomber is good, adding this unique mix of offense and defense.
 * 3.) Yes on symbolic celerity, depends on signet of sorrow, no on signet of lost souls. Heroes only use symbolic celerity in combat which is indeed unfortunate. It would be better if they maintained it outside of it. If you have external energy support and don't need to bring energy management signets you barely lose anything but a bit of single target damage from unnatural signet and signet of sorrow. The interruption signets will interrupt no matter the attribute level and keystone signet is unaffected by symbolic celerity anyway. Signet of sorrow is used – although often not spammed as much as would be useful. I still found it to be used effectively enough to be brought. After all, heroes use no skills perfectly, but many adequately. And I find signet of sorrow to be used adequately in a KSS build. What you're underestimating, though, is the energy consumption of this build. Without external energy support it needs signet of lost souls and possibly leech signet to counter the large investment into minions, death nova and symbolic celerity. It's not ideal, but it helps, just like i.e. power drain on non-signet mesmers.
 * 4.) It does not mean that you don't care about minions. It means that there is a build variant without minions which makes primary necromancer minion bombers more effective by outsourcing death nova. I wouldn't mind that note to be removed, as it apparently causes confusion. (Although I find it interesting that this confusion mainly occurs on this build and not the dozens of other builds with variants.) The build works both as a minion bomber on its own and as support for other minion bombers.
 * 5) PvX is not about normal mode with the exception of beginner builds, so that's out of discussion anyway. And the bar compression is not as bad as you make it seem. You say that you can't even afford to bring this hero in party size 4 in normal mode – who needs heroes for party size 4 normal mode content – yet I find it to be an effective hero choice for party size 4 hard mode content as a standalone minion bomber. The counteracting of the two roles of the build is also something I don't really agree with. The hero has both offensive and defensive elements. You make it sound like the shutdown of this hero would cause the minions to not take any damage whatsoever. That'd be great, as it would mean that you could bring a 5 skills hero for a team's entire defense and bring three pure damage dealers as the rest of the team. Of course that's not the case. Interrupting a spell can delay minion deaths, sometimes with good results (allowing to cast death nova on more of them before they're killed), which plays into the defensive role of a minion bomber. The hero alternates between minion bombing and interrupting and there's nothing wrong about that. This way he does all of his jobs: Provide shutdown, provide damage, provide distraction.
 * About your final note, the build is not limited to one team build. --Krschkr (talk) 01:55, 2 November 2019 (UTC)