Build:Me/N Keystone Minion Bomber Hero

This build uses a Keystone Signet mesmer hero's high fast casting attribute value for death magic spells.

Attributes and Skills
[build prof=Mesmer/Necromancer FastCast=12+1+3 DeathMagic=12 DominationMagic=3][Keystone Signet][Optional][optional][Signet of Lost Souls@16][Signet of Sorrow@16][Symbolic Celerity][Animate Bone Minions][Death Nova][/build] Fill the remaining free slots with signets fitting your team build and the area this hero is going to be used for.
 * Damage:
 * – reliable damage.
 * – additional AoE damage if team mates provide hexes.
 * Debuff:
 * – for Weakness.
 * Interrupts:
 * – with additional damage.
 * – disables interrupted spells.
 * – energy gain.


 * Variant:
 * You may drop [Animate Bone Minions|Animate Bone Minions] in favour of another signet if your team already has enough minions.

Equipment

 * 5 artificer's insignias.
 * Rune of superior vigor.
 * 3 runes of vitae.
 * 40/20/20 death magic.

Purpose, team integration

 * Release your necromancer minion master from [[Death Nova] so it can cast more useful skills instead, such as [[Discord]. Due to 16 fast cast this mesmer casts death nova in less than a second with 36% chance of a further casting time reduction to less than half a second. This results in less time lost casting death nova compared to a necromancer. It will also lead to a faster distribution of death nova, increasing its total damage output compared to a necromancer's despite the mesmer's lack of death magic attribute runes.
 * Instead of using this hero mainly for the death nova distribution they can also be used as a minion bomber by adding animate bone minions, which the mesmer will cast considerably faster than a necromancer. The resulting level 10 bone minions are ideal for minion bombing purposes, as they will get targeted with high priority and quickly die, usually triggering death nova. The increased energy demand can be met with external energy support such as [[Blood is Power] or using signet of lost souls and leech signet.
 * Never use this hero in team builds featuring [[Shelter].

Counters

 * Lack of exploitable corpses.
 * Due to the mesmer's fast minion creation opposing corpse exploitation is barely an issue.
 * removing death nova from minions.
 * being removed results in less useful signets, but barely decreases the AoE damage output.

Exemplary Videos
Examples of team builds which rely on this hero:

Build used for death nova distribution:

Build used in synergy with discord necromancers:

Build used to distract opponents from party members with level 10 bone minions: