Thinking about minion bomber builds
I put some serious thought into it…. I get annoyed that the bone minons never seem to be where I want them to when they explode. I don’t like that I have to give up burning and/or terror though.
I also hate every minor trait in the death tree.
I don’t like the Death Magic minors either, but at least this build makes use of the jagged horrors. No idea how effective it would be, though.
As an aside, does Putrid Explosion or Death Nova deal more damage? Does Training of the Master affect either one?
Yes I’ve tried minion bomber builds, but they aren’t like they were in GW1, and they aren’t worth it in general. The damage just isn’t remotely high enough to validate an entire build around having your minions blow up. Bone Minions actually deal more damage if you blow them up than if they just die.
Death Nova is more an additional strength to a build using minions, but it isn’t enough to make a build off of. You want to use it in a build that already wants or can use minions, and then it is added in to discourage people from killing them carelessly.
Training of the master does affect Putrid Explosion, I’ll check Death Nova, and they don’t stack; death nova’s damage doesn’t proc on any minion killed by you activating their skill.
Edit: Yes TotM affects Death Nova. Proc damage went from ~1.3k to ~1.7k. Btw, killing 6 minions at once with TotM and Death Nova can deal 10k damage…
(edited by Bhawb.7408)
wait so death nova deals damage along with the poison field? that’s lame that it doesn’t proc when you use the active.
wait so death nova deals damage along with the poison field? that’s lame that it doesn’t proc when you use the active.
Death nova deals about 1.3k direct damage when a minion is killed. It doesn’t proc on active because it would have made each bone minion explosion 4k damage, which is OP.
i could see that being pretty kitten strong on the bone minions, especially if there crit proced.
Well considering that Bone Minions already self combo off the death nova field I’m ok with them not getting the bonus Death Nova damage. Still I feel like the other sacrifice minion actives could benefit from Death Nova’s damage.
Well considering that Bone Minions already self combo off the death nova field I’m ok with them not getting the bonus Death Nova damage. Still I feel like the other sacrifice minion actives could benefit from Death Nova’s damage.
that is also a good point, the bone minions are probably the best balanced minions of the bunch. the others could definitely use a buff like that, especially the flesh wurm sense the poison field that it makes overrides the death nova one.
i have been using a build somewhat similar to the the OPs that focuses on the minions dying sense trying to keep them alive in the super hectic environments is basically pointless
i definitely like the op’s use of lich form, i was tempted to try and make build similar to that to make use of the mark of horror like that ( kinda wish that that ability was on something else other then lich form although my build might make better use of it then the flesh golem but i like the flesh golem’s charge ability and passive cripple to much)
(edited by TheycallmeCoconutJones.7052)
On the upside, the build is intended for ZvZ combat, so all the minions should die quickly (bone minions being detonated as soon as they’re in range).
I may play around with it for a little bit. 3.5 silver isn’t a huge investment, since my gear would stay the same as my normal condi build.
My problem with the build in general is you’re really not getting a big improvement from Death Nova. Essentially the only times its going to proc the damage is when Shadow Fiend and Jagged Horrors die (you lose out on damage if you let bone minions die).
I feel like its ineffective for what you are giving up. You could be doing so much more. Not saying its bad, but at a first glance I feel its giving up too much for too little; a gimmick that isn’t gimmicky enough to be worth it.
I use bone minions in spvp all the time. They are super fun to burst with.
I would never go 30 deep into death though. Death nova just isn’t worth it to me. If it stacked with minion explosion then I would use it.
I can kill a heavy golem in about 3 seconds.. and chieftan/svanir in like 5 seconds with this burst. Focus4 > well of suffering > explode minion > axe2 > explode minion
2x 80 Necro, 80 Ranger, 80 Thief
honestly after thinking about it a bit i hope they make it so death nova explosion stack with the bone minions in the next patch. it would only be 8k damage every 16-20 seconds and even if they crit that jumps up to 16k, and that’s what like 2 auto attacks from a thief?
Yeah, bone minions can burst really well, and if that is all you want to use them for there isn’t any reason to get death nova.
honestly after thinking about it a bit i hope they make it so death nova explosion stack with the bone minions in the next patch. it would only be 8k damage every 16-20 seconds and even if they crit that jumps up to 16k, and that’s what like 2 auto attacks from a thief?
That’s two backstabs from a full glass cannon thief who’s invested basically everything he has into a backstab build. Compared to a single utility skill + 30 points into the minion line.
Do you think its balanced that a 27k HP, 3k armor, fully defensive bunker build should be able to hit as hard as a full glass thief with maybe 1/4th of the necros eHP? It’s like going back to the BM rangers that could do 10k damage bursts with their pets despite being fully defensive.
(edited by Bhawb.7408)
Yeah, bone minions can burst really well, and if that is all you want to use them for there isn’t any reason to get death nova.
honestly after thinking about it a bit i hope they make it so death nova explosion stack with the bone minions in the next patch. it would only be 8k damage every 16-20 seconds and even if they crit that jumps up to 16k, and that’s what like 2 auto attacks from a thief?
That’s two backstabs from a full glass cannon thief who’s invested basically everything he has into a backstab build. Compared to a single utility skill + 30 points into the minion line.
Do you think its balanced that a 27k HP, 3k armor, fully defensive bunker build should be able to hit as hard as a full glass thief with maybe 1/4th of the necros eHP? It’s like going back to the BM rangers that could do 10k damage bursts with their pets despite being fully defensive.
30 points into death tree + 20 into spite for the minions damage + being extra lucky and having BOTH of the little kitteners crit which you have no way if increasing the chance of and that’s assuming that the extra 1.7k added from death nova and training of the master can crit.
don’t get me wrong i understand where your coming from, having a full tank build doing as much damage as the backstab thief or some glass zerker warrior would be rather broken if it were as easy for them to actually get that burst to hit, but we would still have to invest 50 of our trait points to get that then have to have the minions actually make it to the target pop both of them and then get lucky enough for them to both crit.
With the 50 trait points invested, non-crit damage would be 7.4k, 1.7k from each Death Nova, and 2k from each explosion, as well as 12 seconds of weakness and massive poison uptime depending on how long they stand there.
That’s 7.4k AoE damage without any meaningful setup, with the cost being 50 trait points and one utility skill. If you can’t land the explosions mid-fight, you shouldn’t be playing this game, they are easy to land against any class, even evade-spam thieves can be hit relatively easily if you are paying attention.
That is way too much damage for one utility skill to do on a 16-20 second CD with little-no setup, relatively little cost, and that only in traits (which most builds using this would grab at least 20 of anyway).