Been having lots of fun with Summon Bone Minions

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

So really all I do now in Spvp is test out different builds just to see if I can come up with viable ways of making reaper into an unstoppable bruiser. It’s just what I like to do.

There’s so many weird things you can do with reaper to get the same results with different setups.

Recently I’ve been tested out “Summon Bone Minions” and set the utility to auto attack... you don’t have to set it to auto attack but what this does is it will automatically summon your bone minions and kill them the second they are born.

They grant 10% life force on death per minion (15% with soul reaping and death magic) so after about 60 seconds you can have full shroud out of combat.

I actually found this really useful in so many situations in ranked arena because I can go into any fight and start with full life force without having to take on aggro from other players.

Anyway just sharing this with everyone just so that you might want to give it a try. You can use literally any setup you like, you just add bone minions to your utility slot and it’ll give you a huge advantage prior to any engagment

[Anchoku.8142]

Great tip. I will give it a try.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Bone Minions aren't bad in combat either. Putrid Explosion actually does pretty good damage, and, despite what people say, they are durable enough to at least reach your target in a fight. They won't get many hits in, but they can at least reach them and go boom most of the time. Blast finisher isn't unwelcome. That said, starting the match with ~50% life force as opposed to 0 is a massive boon.

[Flumek.9043]

In the end youll swap to spectral pull, does same but more.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@Flumek.9043 said:In the end youll swap to spectral pull, does same but more.

That’s what I was using before summon bone minions. At first I felt weird without the pull. But then you kinda get us to it and you have more life force more often, without risk of failures.

[Kumouta.4985]

I had a bit of success with a death magic weakness spam build using bone minions and a few other minions, and rata sum runes(on reaper)(before these runes got changed into 0 dmg might field which was a terrible nerf) a while ago. The nice thing is that it also grants lf to all other necros, so the more you have the meatier we get.

[Tukaram.8256]

I like letting my minion take the aggro... but that sounds like a fun thing to try :)

[Dadnir.5038]

What's scarry is that initially they removed LF from minion's death due to players using minions as LF source in PvP... In other words in the way the OP suggest to use bone minions.

Now that players use bone minions this way again, I'm curious to see whether ANet will remove the LF again. After all, generating LF is the job of spectrals skills not minions skills. Will they consider this exploiting an unintended use again or will they turn a blind eye to the behavior?

[Anchoku.8142]

If they turn off LF gen from minion death, that really leaves only SoU for pre-contact LF gen, yes?

[Dadnir.5038]

Nope technically you can waste lich form as well for 15% of LF.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@"Anchoku.8142" said:If they turn off LF gen from minion death, that really leaves only SoU for pre-contact LF gen, yes?

Reaper also has "Your Soul is Mine!" and Blighter's Boon+boon generation as options. Not efficient, but you can at least eat a hit in Shroud with what you can build up before even a thief can get to you.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@"Anchoku.8142" said:If they turn off LF gen from minion death, that really leaves only SoU for pre-contact LF gen, yes?

Reaper also has "Your Soul is Mine!" and Blighter's Boon+boon generation as options. Not efficient, but you can at least eat a hit in Shroud with what you can build up before even a thief can get to you.

Kybraga, a very good necro duelists uses on one of his builds Blighter's Boon with Blood is Power to get 15% LF. So if you use Blighters boon, that's also a very good way to generate life force (when combined with Summon Bone Minions, you can pretty get 50% Life force right out of the gate)

Of course, that's if you use Blighters Boon. For those that prefer Onslaught, SBM is the primary option to gaining LF out of combat.