Here is my question. There are a few skills that allow the necromancer to have a powerful minion such as an archmage instead of several skeletal mages. Is the power of the archmage static or is it based on the maximum number of skeletal mages? For example, if my max is 3 mages, is it the same as if I had 6 mages?
Archmage does not and remains static, but Abomination scales based off the number/type of minions sacrificed to it.
So all those skill points I put into having extra mages is pointless with that skill then? The Archmage has a bonus of 130% damage. So 3 regular mages do more then. Probably should scale to make up for it.
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Yes, +Max Skeletal Mage is a worthless stat here.
Yes, 3 Skeletal Mages out-damage it.
Thereâs a reason no one plays it and that if you want to play with a singular giant minion that people play Assemble Abomination.
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Hey there!
Necromancer currently doesnât have that great variety of build with single powerful minions. A lot of passive talents favour a mass minion playstyle. So ailment chances like poison or armour shred are starting to shine with many minions and attack speed.
From my experience the Archmage and also Skeletons Dread Phalanx are non optimal build styles as they offer less damage (and cumulative hp) than going for additional minions.
I found one Archmage build nice to play as it doesnât scale with more mages. I use my Archmage to sacrifice my Skeleton Warriors. So the build is more dependant on the number of Skeleton Warriors as ammunition for the Archmage. More Mages donât help as the rate at how often my Warriors can be sacrificed cannot be higher than my Skeleton resummon sustain. Itâs a very fun build that I think can easily do around 200 corruption. But I donât know if this fits your fantasy of playing one big minion.
Abomination is one excellent minion to go single minion. It can be devastating and you can get a good amount of sustain lategame so you donât have to resummon the Abomination that often (it usually has hp decay and dies after some time automatically). The preperation time is what is the big downside of that playstyle. you need to summon a bunch of minions and then channel the Abomination summon for a few seconds. Having to do this mid bossfights or in other dangerous situations might certainly kill you. So you have to be aware when to stop and resummon in preperation.
Thereâs also the possibility to make a Golem build with the retaliation branch of the golem. The key concept is to have the bone golem retaliate with bone nova and trigger it additionally by hitting him with Marrow Shards. Iâm not sure if this is still a âviableâ playstyle currently. I have not done this kind of build, yet, but I remember it being a thing some patches ago.
If you are really into the âone big minionâ playstyle you might want to check out the Primalist/Beastmaster as he has some options for this. He has passives that limit your companion limit to 1 but greatly buffs your single minion. You could go Raptor or Bear with it (or maybe Spriggan as a Druid).
I hope this helps a bit. Iâm also hoping that EHG buffs the Necroâs Archmage and Dread Phalanx build options to have a comparable option for big but few minions. The skill nodes are already there, so I think itâs not against their philosophy. But it needs much love.
Cheers!
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Right now, I am massing up a lot of minions. I have 2 rogues, warriors, and archers, 5 mages, 5 exploding zombies with parasites that spawn out of them, 6 wraiths at once, and 2 blood golems. It makes for quite an interesting army to say the least.
Yeah, thats great.
Just be aware that when it comes to lategame, it is easier to scale damage if you commit to one type of minion. As long as you just scale generic minion damage, it doesnât matter a lot. But there are passive nodes that increase specifically minion melee damage others increase spelldamage (includes zombies as they do spelldamage)
So usually I choose wether I go melee minions or ranged (spelldamage). Dread Shade is really your most powerful damage modifier. My favourite style is taking the âenemy of my enemyâ node so I can cast it on enemies. The minions wonât decay and you can further choose if you want to buff all minions within the radius (default - excellent for melee minions that surround your target) or minions not within the radius (skillnode in the tree - works with ranged minions that attack from distance).
yep still viable, but I found lich with deathseal is the strongest setup for damage, and ehp.
and here is my low life marrow shard necro version.
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