User:Nano Spade/Build:N^Mo Death Barrier

Attributes and Skills
[build prof=Necromancer/Monk name="N^Mo - Death Barrier" Blood=1+1 Death=10+1+3 Protection=10 SoulReaping=11+2] [Animate Vampiric Horror] [Blood of the Master] [Signet of Lost Souls] [Foul Feast] [Dark Bond] [Infuse Condition] [Life Bond] [Life Barrier] [/build]

Secondary


Usage

 * then to protect your team mate(s) from 40% of any type of received damage.
 * helps mitigate the damage you receive, but is used as a non-critical bonus (and cover enchantment) in tough situations.
 * to consistantly remove all conditions from an ally, recover some energy and heal while automatically transfering those to your minions thanks to enchantment.
 * to heal vampiric minions, who in turns help filling your healthbar.
 * for occasionnal healing and energy gain, while Soul Reaping take cares of your leftover e-management.
 * to enlist in your undead strike team a level 16 Vampiric Horror whose damage will heal you.

Equipment
The goal is overally to not compromise your attribute and skills, and bolster some utility bonuses (like enchanting and bloodstained) over a decent Health no less than 450 (equivalent to a agressive pet) and a good sized energy pool.

As always, use weapon swapping technics to cover extra needs, either in energy and fresh blood (a.k.a. Health).

Runes
As stated in the above build description :
 * Rune of Major or Superior Death Magic on the head : -35/75 Health.
 * Rune of Superior Vigor : +50 Health.
 * Rune of Major Soul Reaping : -35 Health.
 * Rune of Minor Blood Magic or Rune of Vitae : 0/+10 Health.
 * Rune of Vitae : +10 Health.

The Death Magic attribute can be lowered to regain +40 Health, the main consequence being (as always for a minion master) a compromise that will slightly haunt back your minions' efficiency and resilience.

Armor insignias

 * One small piece of armor (heads, boots or hands, preferably the latter) equipped with a Bloodstained Insignia to use corpses faster.
 * Minion Master's Insignia on armor to improve your survivability and synergizes with your undead cohorte.

Going for Survivor and/or Radiant insignia sets and mix is another possibility depending on what other equipment parts you unearthed in your adventures.

Weapon upgrades
From weaponsmiths or loot-equivalent, since the nominal damage of staves dont depend on attribute levels (exclusively on character level, as long the requirement is fullfilled), you have the choice of the appearance and/or type of damage.

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 * Boneclaw Staff deals cold damage in the hands of a skilled Death Magic wielder, which is its damage type of choice for skill synergy.
 * Soul Spire instills dark damage (no specific defense against, but no synergy either) in the heart of their foes : with Soul Reaping as main attribute, no one would look less than this.
 * Protective Staff based on the Protection Prayers attribute unleash holy damage on the hapless targets.
 * Hale staff head to counter the detrimental effects of your attribute runes : +30 Health.
 * Insightful staff head to provide a better energy pool, especially useful when you are preparing/redoing your setup, or when overdoing your number of sustenable enchantements : +5 Energy.
 * Staff wrapping of Fortitude to maintain a consistent reasonable Health level : +30 Health.
 * Staff wrapping of Devotion to add a nice Health boost as long as you are under an enchantement, but beware of the counter wrecking risks : +45 Health when enchanted.
 * Staff wrapping of Enchanting to maximize the length of your non-maintained enchantments thus avoiding some of the recast expenses and delays : +20% to enchantment duration.

Minions
Some level 16 Vampiric Horrors (at 14 in Death Magic) that yield a base attack of 15 (critical at 42) physical damage, at a whooping attack rate of roughly one every 3.2 seconds, flanked by an armor rating of 64 and enjoying an alreading slightly degenerating health bar worth 400 points.

The added bonus is that any damage they generate will heal you, including augmented damage through skills like, (to be verified who is granted ownership of the extra shadow damage),  or.

On you

 * Massive enchantment removal will require from you a huge amount of energy to setup your configuration anew.
 * Life stealing or massive health degeneration may dismiss the barriers all together (life falling under 50%).
 * Death penalty by reducing your energy pool.

On minions

 * Skills that have dramatically augmented (and detrimental) effects against summoned creatures, like, , or  specifically.
 * and would cause hamock to your minion army as they respectively steal and cancel control on them.
 * Holy damage as it does double dmaage on undead creatures.
 * Life stealing but not health degeneration (since minions have it increasing naturally with time, capping after a short while at -10 pips).
 * Critical hits since the minions have a comparatively low-level (16 in our case), thus increasing the chance of a sundering (-20 armor rating) maximized hit of the weapon of choice.

As bodyguard

 * Massive enchantment removal (at least two, if not more in case of cover enchantments).
 * Life stealing as it ignore the protections.

Variants

 * Swap the Rune of Superior Death Magic for a Rune of Major Death Magic and gains 40 maximum Health.
 * Replace by a resurrection skill.

Minion Bomber
From "Puncturing leechers" to "explosing meatshields" motto, but beware of energy management in the process of "equipping" anyone (and everyone) with your bombing pattern.
 * Replace by the more spammable (and expandable).
 * Replace by.

Minions of all trades
Depending on the size (up to 9 servants at 14 in the Death Magic attribute) and state of your army (they take quite some pounding : for you, for your protected ones, from transfered conditions, from the fight heat and due to natural degeneration), you can keep up to two of your team members under your protection or up to four or five under "simple" damage reduction (around 40% depending on your Death Magic rune).

Those heavy-duty configurations cost respectively two times 15+10 or four times 15, so take time to let your energy refill naturally (yet slower and slower) in between cast of the maintained enchantments; or you won't be able to act upon opportunities further battles have to offer.

Energy cycles
With your Soul Reaping effect alone (13 per death, up to three times every 15 seconds), you should be able to rise a minion on the hapless corpse/creature that triggered it, especially if you just "monitored" it with your  (up to two times during the same interval).

That amount of energy can also be used to renew a downed barrier, remeber that you'll have to reapply the life bond after it. By the way, don't forget to cut the life bond when the is not in place or in the correct order (it should be the earliest so that the half-shared damage is the reducted one). Your will cover you in any case (for a short while), but it would hurt the efficiency of that build drastically (and be counter-productive on the long term).

Your off-combat skill bar may be consuming on energy, but your in-combat skills are quite energy-friendly (+8..-2..-5 ) - save the animating process (that has been covered above) - so feel free to use them when needed, despite your low to non-existant natural energy regeneration.

Synergies
The build work particularly well with :
 * Protecttion-oriented healers.
 * Noticeably as the damage you'll receive via the bonds will be nullified.
 * spirit as it defend against incoming damage but also from life stealing.
 * spirit heavy-use, for instance combined with and.
 * Any other form of further damage reduction as there is no cap limit, but a multiplicative combo (for instance 50% and 50% reductions give a combined 75% in the end).


 * Damage dealers who afford one skill to self-heal (preferably under the form of health regeneration, as it generally double serves as a cover enchant).


 * Paragons as their Leadership attribute provides energy gains based on the number of allies affected by their shouts.
 * Hence why the inherently half costing shout is more than welcome to help you move your undisciplined - degenerating - army around without a halt. Since it speeds up and slightly heals all allies in earshot range (even overcompensating capped degeneration).


 * Providing to your creatures will also heal you on the splattered damage caused.

Trivia

 * The name "Death Barrier" is the play word (using, as a common practice, names of key skills and attributes of the build) about the frontier between life and death, one using the latter to guard the entry to the other side for you and your companions.

Mechanisms (official wiki)

 * Bonder
 * Minion master