Archive:Team - Minion Factory

Minion Factory (MF) is a team PvP build based around on the production of minions, preferably |bone fiends. The core of a MF team consists of:


 * Two Saccers, who commit suicide to provide corpses.
 * One or two minion masters, who raise minions from these corpses
 * One or two fast-casting mesmer/monks ("rezmer") to resurrect the saccers

The saccers, minion master, and rezmer work together to generate a large number of minions while the party waits to enter a battle.

Saccer
These characters are usually primary or secondary necromancers, bringing:


 * Awaken the Blood
 * Blood is Power (elite)
 * Signet of Agony
 * Illusion of Weakness if the other profession is mesmer

Wearing a Vampiric weapon and usually the -50 cesta given as the reward in Cities of Ascalon.

Two saccers are needed, who may also have several superior runes in their armor to help decrease their maximum starting health. Blood is Power has a 33% health sacrifice, which is increased to 50% with Awaken the Blood. Two casts of Blood is Power (usually on the rezmers) are therefore sufficient to commit suicide. Once their corpses have been exploited for minions, the rezmers resurrect them. They have 1 maximum health after DP stacks up so the Vampiric weapon kills them off.

This process can be also done with necromancer/mesmers with an attribute rank of 5 in Illusion Magic. Illusion of Weakness sacrifices 113 health at this rank, which is generally more than the maximum health of a character with five superior runes. Once resurrected, the saccers can use Signet of Agony because it requires no energy and the combined sacrifice and bleeding will kill the saccer.

Once their job is over and the round starts they can switch to a normal weapon set and spam Necromancer skills that would normally require health loss (Like Blood is Power). This is because they have one health, and at one health you do not lose any health when you sacifice. If they die it doesn't matter.

Minion Master
These are always primary Necromancers. The skillset usually is:


 * Animate Bone Horror / Animate Bone Fiend
 * Blood of the Master
 * Verata's Sacrifice
 * Verata's Aura (to quickly reclaim minions if killed)
 * Taste of Death
 * Animate Flesh Golem (Elite)
 * Dark Bond (a high Blood Magic rank is not needed)

They can use their secondary to help the recharge for Verata's Sacrifice if there is only one minion master (by using Echo or Glyph of Renewal). They go secondary monk for Heal Area otherwise.

If the team has two minion masters, then one summons |horrors and the other |fiends. Fiends are perhaps more effective because they don't have to chase |kiters. The minion masters use Verata's Sacrifice every so often to keep the minions' health degeneration minimal, and Blood of the Master helps the healer heal the minions.

When the battle starts, the minion masters must stay alive. Dark Bond diverts the damage minion masters would take to the minions. They should use Taste of Death for a quick heal in emergencies, and Grenth's Balance for even more dire situations (though it tends to be overkill).

If the minion masters die, they must be resurrected quickly so they can reclaim the masterless minions (who will have turned on the party) with Verata's Aura.

Rezmer
These characters are fast-casting mesmer/monks with:


 * Vengeance
 * Light of Dwayna/Resurrect/Rebirth
 * Heal Area
 * Arcane Echo/Echo (elite)

Restore Life has fallen out of favor because of the buffing of casting times on other resurrections.

A rank of 16 in Fast Casting is ideal, as it halves the time spent on the resurrections. Try to use the echos on the high recharge resurrects because they have the best cast times. You always have a resurrection spell ready to cast with this build.

Healer
The usual skillset is:


 * Heal Area
 * Healing Seed
 * Infuse Health
 * Orison of Healing
 * Divine Intervention
 * Healing Touch
 * Either Martyr or Restore Condition

While out of combat, the healer's main skill is Heal Area to keep the minions alive. In combat, the healer needs to keep the minion masters alive by any means necessary. Healing Seed is used to counter melee pressure, Infuse Health and Divine Intervention for spike damage, and Martyr or Restore Condition for condition spreading attacks.

Spirit Lord
These members are ranger/necromancer. Their skillset includes:


 * Edge of Extinction
 * Fertile Season
 * Pestilence/Toxicity
 * Winnowing/Predatory Season
 * Healing Spring
 * Oath Shot (Elite)

Healing Spring helps with healing the minions out of combat. When the combat starts, the spirit spammer summons his spirits one after the other in a place that is hard to reach. A good example is behind the stairs in the Global Tournament &mdash; the minions will body block it. If the spirits are killed prematurely, Oath Shot should be used to recharge them.

Fertile Season is used to increase minion health and counter the effect of |spikes. Winnowing increases minion damage.

Counters

 * Spike damage is generally the best counter to a MF build. Taking out the minion masters makes the now masterless minions turn on the party. Prevent their resurrection with a strategically placed Frozen Soil.
 * The MF team is the most vulnerable at the start of the battle. Rush them.
 * Minions, being undead, take double holy damage. Send in a well-protected warrior with Balthazar's Aura to thin the minion ranks.
 * All minions are treated as belonging to the same species; Edge of Extinction makes quick work out of them.
 * Another awesome counter is simply a well placed AoE spell like Meteor Shower. Minions are not smart enough to move fast enough so you can destroy the minion masters work in a matter of seconds.
 * MF teams generally have weak protection and hex countering mechanisms. Degen pressure can be very effective once the minion wall is broken.
 * Use Verata's Aura yourself to steal their minions. This is most effective right after the MF minion masters have just used it after being resurrected, as Verata's Aura has a long recharge time. Note, however, that this extremely effective counter against MF has little to no use against any other kind of build, so it may be a wasted skill if MF teams are not popular in the metagame.

Trivia

 * There are second hand reports that this build was created by Isaiah Cartwright, the ArenaNet developer in charge of skill balance for Guild Wars.