Build talk:N/any Bone Fiend MM Hero

1) Aura of the Lich has a 45 second recharge. You need another minion spell or two. 2) AotL gives +1 to death magic, so you decide to take a bunch of curses spells? I'm not seeing the logic. 76.25.21.240 15:18, 12 December 2008 (EST)


 * AotL is all the Minion you need. I tried AotL + Vamp horrors. I barely had Vamps because AotL fueled me like maed. -- ›[[Image:Many srs beans.png|Srs Bean Mafia.]] Srs Beans R Srs  15:20, 12 December 2008 (EST)

Air of Superiority is pretty useful in this build - kill at the most 10 enemies and your bar is recharged. Mazza558 16:01, 12 December 2008 (EST)
 * Plus it recharges Curses nukes too. Synergies amirite. 16:15, 12 December 2008 (EST)


 * Might want to add Glyph of Swiftness to optionals to help the recharge of AotL for the few people who don't have AoS. J  ustin  6  [[image:Justing6_siggypic.png|19px]] 15:16, 13 December 2008 (EST)

If you can get Glyph of Swiftness,you have Eye of the North, therefore, you can get AoS. But your idea is true, Arcane Echo Mabye? --Xilarth The Wise  17:41, 13 December 2008 (EST)
 * I made this build 19 minutes earlier than thsi one and posted it and yet it wouldnt show up in testing section for hours :(, o well delete mine then [[Image:Muffin.jpg|19px]]P WNAGEMUFFIN   crabs  17:47, 13 December 2008 (EST)
 * With the Glyph of swiftness note I meant the people who haven't gotten that far in EotN (me tbh). J  ustin  6  [[image:Justing6_siggypic.png|19px]] 18:54, 14 December 2008 (EST)
 * The "O Brave New World" quest chain can be done in about 45 minutes, provided you have access to Rata Sum and Gadd's Encampment.78.145.182.183 05:40, 19 December 2008 (EST)

Curses
Can we have suggestions for the Curses skills? --SBR88 22:22, 13 December 2008 (EST)

Heroes
Has anyone actually tested this with them? I think Build:N/any Minion Bomber Hero would probably be more reliable, tbh.

Imo, make this build for players only, something like:

GoLE is the lazy version of SoLS, and it'll be recharged by AoS, so it'll probably save more energy in the long run, anyway. It's mostly just filling out the current bar, tbh. ــмıкε нaшк  18:47, 14 December 2008 (EST)
 * to halve the casting time of Barbs, most importantly.
 * , might not have the Energy for it, though.
 * , obviously.
 * Heroes would need another minion spell because the don't have access to AoS. Add to variants please or take off the hero tag. --68.32.187.152 19:46, 15 December 2008 (EST)
 * Tbh, just keep this for PvE, and Build:N/any Minion Bomber Hero for Heroes. The other one already has all the variants/optionals and includes Jagged Bones as an optional Elite, too. ــмıкε  нaшк  20:01, 15 December 2008 (EST)

Made a PvP version
here: --‎ Fire  Tock  Rules! 19:03, 16 December 2008 (EST)
 * Same thing >.> just tag this for those--[[Image:Relyk chtistmas2.jpg|20px]] Christmas Relyk  15:46, 24 December 2008 (EST)

Am I doing something wrong?
I probably am, but just to clear things up, am I supposed to cast curses while I have minions up? or only spam BotM and only use curses to kill things without minions? Because the bone horrors seem to only have a 3-7 second life span in battle, or is that normal? (I've never played MM much before,) 64.229.223.221 14:22, 3 January 2009 (EST)
 * BotM provides a huge heal for all your minions. Use it sparingly, cause of pretty big sacc cost. Still, minions should last you a whole battle if you're healing enough and if your tanks are half decent. And curses should be used when you have a few minions, and probably lots of physical members on your team. It makes shit asplode, helping you to raise more minions. You either aren't healing enough, have too few minions, arent using curses enough, or have really crappy tanks. 14:29, 3 January 2009 (EST)

Mainbar Issues
This build has a few. Granted, all my opinion here, but here goes. :P One issue being that you list a large number of optionals, but have only one optional slot open. Furthermore, since you don't give alternative attribute information (how many points to pull from Soul Reaping to use any of the variants in non-DM/SR categories), it's assumed you'll be using those abilities with only the 3 attribute points remaining....which makes most of them totally not worthwhile. It'd be wise to rearrange the optionals section to something cleaner and more helpful, such as the way this build organizes its optionals. Secondly, why Foul Feast and why spam it? I assume for the energy and for general condition removal team support, because I don't see any benefit to spamming it for any other purpose. The health regained by spamming FF is minimal, and you will likely lose much of it if you transfer any degenerative conditions. So it doesn't nearly help to counteract the health sacrifice of this build. Does this build assume that your monks focus only on removing conditions from and healing you? It seems like you'd be better served pushing Foul Feast into optionals and grouping it with Infuse Condition. This opens up a second optional slot (which most people running this build probably were doing anyways) and puts synergetic skills together. --BuildKitten 17:39, March 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * You're very free to improve it yourself. -- Chaos?  -- 18:20, March 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * Can do, I just tend not to screw around with builds I didn't make until I'm sure I'm not the only crazy person who thinks it needs changing. :P Spruced up the build optionals section.  Didn't remove FF as I'd rather wait for more opinions before changing the mainbar.  --BuildKitten 22:58, March 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * This whole build is flawed because its a human attempting to MM. Human MMs should only use OoU because they can't bomb worth shit. Life   Guardian  23:00, March 14, 2010 (UTC)

WELL tag
How can this build be given a WELL tag for inferiority to another build when they are in different categories? Fynal 02:46, March 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * fix'd. Life   Guardian  02:50, March 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the tag should be removed, and never should have been added to begin with. There is no logic to the deletion of this build, it's only on there because of Life Guardian's personal opinion on the subject.  This build is not "inferior" to the one provided.  It's just different.  Frankly, I read the WELL clause over, and it doesn't apply here.  This build is not a carbon copy of the OoU build, and it outperforms OoU in some cases.  You're basically abusing this tag on the grounds that you, personally, don't find the build useful.  Your opinion != legitimate reason to delete a build.  --BuildKitten 04:32, March 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * AoTL has a lower damage output, but can pump out considerably more minions, especially in areas with less corpses. Also lil' better at tanking and that. -- Chaos?  -- 12:32, March 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * I didn't put the well tag on the build, I just made it make sense. Even the previous build would make sense because, as I said before, humans make largely inferior minion bombers. Life   Guardian  16:58, March 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * Why isn't this tagged for heroes anyway? I'm sure lots of people run AotL on their heroes. Spaggage  talk  17:08, March 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * "humans make largely inferior minion bombers" < Just because a human might not manage bombing as well as a hero does not mean that a build which allows for bombing is necessarily instantly bad for humans. Not to mention that, as far as I can tell, this is not even a bomber build.  It's got BotM which is usually used for maintenance of minions, to keep them alive.  Bombers don't try to keep their bombs alive.  It's not inferior to the listed build, either, it's just different.  It's far superior to OoU for energy management, speed of raising an army, and general corpse management.  I'm not seeing any legitimate reason for the deletion of this build, beyond the general opinion that "humans can't maintain a bomber build"....when the build is not a bomber build to begin with.  --BuildKitten 17:10, March 15, 2010 (UTC)

I'm removing the tag, the underlying theory behind the three MM builds we have is sufficiently different enough to warrant separate build space. One is minion bombing where low level minions and death nova create your domages (which heroes are particularly good at). Another is a human build which maximises damage from minions and keeps them out the frontline so they wont get killed (OoU) and this one maximises minion level (to 21) allowing effective meat shielding and some damage. People often don't take MM in pve because, to be fair, it's pretty boring (and being boring isn't a valid case for WELLing). - Athrun Feya  - 18:49, March 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * AotL can go on a minion bomber =\ Life   Guardian  18:58, March 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * it could but that doesnt mean it should. jagged is so much better, if you want your damage to come from death nova then constantly making and breaking low level minions is far better than just a finite few which are harder to kill, bit of a no-brainer. - Athrun Feya  [[Image:Lau_bfly.gif]] - 19:05, March 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * Finite few? wat. Life   Guardian  20:23, March 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * The point I think AthrunFeya is trying to get across is that an MM bomber build wants lots of weak expendable minions to increase its damage output. If you use AotL then you are making stronger minions which won't blow up as often and therefore you are decreasing its damage output. However, I would can see having a stronger army that can blow up for more damage when they fall is better late game. tbh I run Jagged Bones on hero MM bombers and run AotL in Human MM builds.-- Jarad 01:23, March 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * You can use OoU or Animate Flesh Golem on a minion bomber, too. It's just stupid to do so when other skills do the job much better.  Just because it's using a skill designed for quick minion creation doesn't make it a bomber.  Nothing you've said so far makes any sense at all, honestly.  You repeatedly seem to suggest that this is a bomber build, but the WELL tag pointed to an OoU build, which is not a bomber build either.  So which is it?  Is it inferior because it's a human bomber build (which it's obviously not....if you took some time to actually look at the build, you'd note that it has Blood of the Master for minion upkeep, and keeping minions alive defeats the purpose of bombing), or is it inferior for raising a large maintainable army because OoU deals more damage (but loses to AotL in several non-damage-related areas, such as energy-efficiency, speed of raising minions, level of the minions raised, etc.)?  This is a perfectly viable alternative to OoU MMs, and you've yet to give a real reason why this is inferior beyond your opinion and gross misunderstanding of the actual intent of the build. >_> --BuildKitten 05:44, March 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, the original mainbar did suggest it was more of a bomber build but interestingly still had blood of the master. Consequently, I've pulled Death Nova into the optionals, humans can't use it properly anyway. - <font color="SteelBlue">Athrun <font color="Black">Feya [[Image:Lau_bfly.gif]] - 13:18, March 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Didn't look like a bomber to me. At all. O_o  Bone Fiends (a ranged unit who won't even go near the foes, making them a shitty bomber) + BotM = the most failtastic bomber of all time.  Did you perhaps get that impression because of the flavor text above the mainbar (where it suggests this build is for quick armies, bombing, and support)?  Because the build itself doesn't suggest bomber to me in the slightest. --BuildKitten 16:01, March 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Death Nova kind of implies a bomber (cant think of any other situation where its useful). But the rest of the build, like you said, disagreed hence why I took Death Nova out the main bar. - <font color="SteelBlue">Athrun <font color="Black">Feya [[Image:Lau_bfly.gif]] - 16:05, March 16, 2010 (UTC)

Variant Suggestions
Conviction and Mystic Regeneration at 8 earth prayers for defense and to cover sac costs. Personally I always prefer just letting the backline heal my sacs but often PuGs demand you take a self heal. Also, in situations where you can maintain an 11 minion army without needing AoTL then all you're really getting out of it is the +1 death magic (and it can kill your fiends) so it makes sense to at least have the option of using other elites then. Animate flesh golem is the obvious choice, a level 29 golem can soak up and dish out a lot of damage especially against foes at a lower level than it, but maybe spoil victor or other elites could be good optionals too. Of course you'd have to change the name of the build though, maybe "Army Minion Master" since at least the people I talk to refer to general non-bomber MMs as army MMs. Necromas 17:42, April 17, 2010 (UTC)

Second Variation
AotL Minion Master as I see it should be used. The variations I have are not mentioned as options in the page, therefore I feel that I should mention this. I have used this variant for months for vanquishes, underworld runs and hard mode missions and it functions perfectly in any environment and have never needed to make even minor alterations. Build Below. Theorlando 21:12, June 9, 2010 (UTC)

Attributes and Skills
[build prof=N/Mo DeathMagic=12+1+3 HealingPrayers=12 SoulReaping=3][Aura of the Lich][Blood of the Master][Necrosis][Masochism][Rotting Flesh][Healing Breeze][Heal Area][Restore Life][/build]


 * Healing Breeze may be replaced if so desired, as it functions only as a self heal.
 * Restore Life may be replaced by any rez one sees fit. However it has good synergy with healing prayers.

Equipment

 * Max armor
 * Minion Master insignias on Legs, head and arms
 * Radiant Insignia on Chest
 * Survivor Insignia on legs
 * Superior death rune
 * Highest Vigor rune you can afford
 * 2 runes of vitae
 * Rune of Attunement


 * Weapons
 * Wayward Wand (death) (Unique end game factions)
 * Deldrimor Death Focus (end game proph) (or suitable replacements)

Usage
This build has 2 aspects of it: MM and damage.
 * MM:
 * Use Masochism then Aura of the Lich to summon up to 11 Lv21 bone horrors. Use Blood of the master periodically when out of combat to keep minions at full health, Heal area is very useful out of combat because it heals the caster and therefore removes the necromancers health sacrifice from the monks concern while out of combat, while also healing the minions substantially. While in combat Blood of the Master should be spammed as necessary to keep up minion health. Whenever Lich recharges and there are dead foes it should be used to replace minions that accrued -10 degen from their long life. Healing Breeze (or variant) is useful for being independent of monk healing.
 * Damage:
 * Opening with rotting flesh (while enemies are not aggroed) will usually cause the entire enemy party to suffer from disease for about 30seconds. This allows Necrosis to be spammed relentlessly on any enemy in the area as needed and targets can easily change. Keeping minions upkept should take precedence over damage in most cases. Due to constant minion deaths and the low cost of spells, Necrosis can be cast for eternity without going under 30 energy. Rotting Flesh should not be used frivolously due to it's cost however.

Counters

 * Unstoppable once army gets rolling, as long as Blood of the Master is used smartly
 * Energy drains like shutdown mesmers.
 * Dervishes and Smiters can kill minions easily if not cautious
 * Long Durations without corpses (allied corpses work fine)

mainbar
MoP + battle standard + barbs/nothing, imho. melee buffs all the way -- ςοάχ? -- 01:15, June 10, 2010 (UTC)

Comments
Fiends are awesome on non-bomber MMs, stop suggesting versions without fiends unless you have a damn good reason to leave them out. They attack faster and at range so they do a lot more damage (specially with buffs/debuffs) and it means your army is less vulnerable to AoE since the fiends and horrors will be apart.

I was actually really surprised at how much of a difference blood bond makes, the per hit healing isn't spectacular but the on death healing really makes the bone horrors last longer. And of course it heals your parties attackers too. Take it on a hero though if you can because otherwise blood isn't a stellar attribute for an MM.

Necrosis is also totally mandatory, it can't be mainbared because it's conditional and you won't necessarily be able to cause the condition but dammit you'll always have people/heroes in the party causing conditions and hexes. It's the only DD skill you will ever need on an MM and there's little reason to ever take any others when you can have necrosis. Necromas 16:06, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Death Nova
I say we add death nova (atleast) to variants/optionals because now we have the minion menu screen thing I Luv Cheetos 21:47, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I say we mainbar it because it's incredible. Kirzath 19:44, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Would this work with heroes?
Because I have EBSoH on my Ranger player and both Bone Fiends + EBSoH would break the game.--173.66.203.20 14:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Possibly, but I think heroes would be much better off just bombing. Chill728 16:47, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

This and Build:N/any Minion Bomber Hero
I still wonder why we have them seperate <FONT COLOR="#ff8c00">S</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff4700">h</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff0000">a</FONT><FONT COLOR="#d90000">d</FONT><FONT COLOR="#b20000">o</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8b0000">w</FONT> 22:27, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * bomber is hero-orientated with purpose of damage via minions exploding with Death Nova. this one is for players looking to create solid minions that don't like dying and healing them with BotM. [[image:Chieftain Alex Sig.jpg|19px|link=User:Chieftain Alex]] <font face="Calibri" color="Black" size="2.5">Chieftain  <font face="Calibri" color=CC6633 size="2.5"> Alex  22:33, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, well, it's annoying at least <FONT COLOR="#ff8c00">S</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff4700">h</FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff0000">a</FONT><FONT COLOR="#d90000">d</FONT><FONT COLOR="#b20000">o</FONT><FONT COLOR="#8b0000">w</FONT> 22:33, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

improvements
what would you suggest? or is AotL simply inferior to other possible elites? &#9823;Fianchetto 00:16, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Inferior, only useful in pvp. [[Image:They.jpg|36px|link=User:They]] 00:32, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

@Rask
This isn't a hero build. AegisDok 22:19, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Archive?
I don't see where this needs archiving. OoU Minion Masters are meant to pump out damage while AotL Minion Masters are meant to create meat walls and inflict damage via death nova.-- Jarad 19:47, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Which is done better by Minions and Jagged. <font color=6C87A3>jī·gō·dǔ -  20:49, 14 Jun 2012 (UTC)
 * Which was meta before AotL Minion Masters came into being. AotL make larger, heartier minions for more meat shielding and what not. Each one has a different reasoning behind their usage. That being said, this build is inferior to this and I would be for archiving if this were the reasoning.-- Jarad 04:29, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd archive your face just for rolling a necromancer main, that's completely ignoring the fact that you can take minions on heroes and push some retardedly epic AoE with MoP AP or IV. tl;dr this is shit because I say it's shit [[Image:They.jpg|36px|link=User:They]] 04:38, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * As I have only seen players use aotl MMs, there's no reason to archive when someone wants to say OoU when I know no one would ever be fucked to try OoU.-- Relyk 04:49, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * What Relyk said. I was arguing your initial archival reasoning, not whether the build works. It is called a discussion page for a reason ;) -- Jarad 04:55, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Nobody runs OoU, its just a toting build for claiming on talk pages.. <font face="Constantia" color=#D2691E>Cɥıǝɟʇɐıu Alǝx  09:15, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * That said, I put the archive tag because it has a trash rating (3.00). Feel free to discuss and remove it if necessary. etc etc. <font color="DarkGoldenRod" size="2px">Silen†  12:28, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I could tag it for meta since I don't really care about the build getting bandwagoned to trash, but I don't care about gw these days.-- Relyk 21:46, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Unarchived
This has seen a resurge in popularity. A separate page from minion bombers is justified as this build serves a different purpose. Minion bombers create squishy minions which are meant to die and trigger death nova. This minion master creates bone fiends which are meant to survive because of their attack damage. Usually aura of the lich is chosen for even stronger minions and a balanced mix of ranged and melee minions, additionally serving blocking purposes. Tagged as hero only because players can gof or the OoU build; although tbh I have seen players picking AotL instead of OoU in the last years. Different matter, though. Any objections to this page's resurrection? --Krschkr (talk) 11:43, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Ratings
If this build is going to stay in the build namespace, the old votes should probably be removed as they refer to skills no longer present in the build. FoolzPermaSwag's vote may still fit to this build. --Krschkr (talk) 11:43, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Welcome back, old style minion masters
I for one welcome the return of minionballs, kudos for the changes. NapalmFlame (talk) 21:08, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Why is this a page?
This build has nothing focused strictly towards taking advantage of bonefiends other than just having it on the bar. Everything recommended is focused on a minion master hero that doesn't want all of his minions to run in and die. Shouldn't this be titled "MM Hero"? It makes no sense to call it anything else with the recommendations. Almost all use AotL if they are a minion master, or multiple minion types, maybe sometimes bonefiends. Doesn't mean this is a bonefiend build. I would prefer to see a generic aotl build with aotl, shambling, and bonefiend, and then have skill recommendations or swaps to fit different playstyle or players preferences and the advantages of having the minions. This is no different than throwing vampiric horror on the bar and saying, vampiric horror mm hero. It just doesn't make sense. Needs to be cleaned up and renamed. Shadeinthebox (talk) 08:26, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Which are skills focused strictly towards taking advantage of bone fiends? None. Which are skills of which bone fiends benefit noticeably? See team integration.


 * The hero is busy enough creating minions and trying to keep up with the team, so if possible the cracked armor should be outsourced.
 * The PvE skill is not available to the hero.
 * Barbs' has a very burdensome casting time and energy cost.
 * Could argue about mark of pain at 11.
 * The paragon shout requires adrenaline and barely pays off. If someone else has it anyway, good.
 * Blood bond is a nice to have bonus if brought by the team (BiP healer!), but the MM himself can use blood of the master.
 * Restoration magic spirits should be put on heroes with 12 (or more) restoration magic, communing spirits on soul twisting ritualists.
 * Bonus: Heroes don't use OoU often enough to make it pay off.
 * The core of this build is to create bone fiends at high death magic because of its special features which result in good damage with an acceptable blocking ability. Other minions don't attack ranged and don't attack with such great speed, so a "vampiric horror MM" would indeed not make so much sense. Just look at the recharge time. It also doesn't make so much sense to name this build after aura of the lich, even if it currently is the most common elite skill for bone fiend MMs, because that elite skill is used for decisively different builds aswell. Bone fiends deal damage by being kept alive, death nova bone minions deal damage by dying while being enchanted. This difference has a great impact on how the backline should ideally be set up and has a minor impact on the midline (see team integration). --Krschkr (talk) 12:57, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Player/Hero Split
Player and hero build pages are always split. I've moved the changes that refer to player builds to the page Build:N/any Order of Undeath. If you think that the OoU page's elite skill slot should be opened up, you can suggest a page rename on its talk page and if there are no objections (I don't have any) the page can be moved and receive a variable elite skill slot. --Krschkr (talk) 15:50, 22 December 2020 (UTC)