Minion

This article is about the summoned creatures. For the user interface, see User interface#Minions window.

“

Minions are magical servants created from the remains of our enemies and, sadly, at times our friends. Summoning a minion "exploits" the corpse, in essence using it up. Minions are unstable, so they will constantly lose health until they collapse into a pile of useless fodder. Whenever you control a minion you will see an icon appear. Inside that icon will be a number representing how many minions you control. Your death magic [sic] attribute directly affects how many minions you may control at any one time. You can control two minions plus one additional minion for every two ranks of Death Magic you have.

— Ekundayo, Expert Necromancer

A minion is an animated undead NPC created by a Necromancer skill, usually from an exploitable corpse.

Minions are considered summoned allies (not party members) bound to the Necromancer. In various occurrences, notably if the Necromancer dies, the minions become hostile to all creatures (except other minions that became hostile at the same time), including the party, a state referred to as "masterless". These minions remain masterless even if the former master is resurrected.

The minions rarely last long, cannot use skills and have a rather low damage output. However a minion master can control several of them at the same time, so they can be used to sponge or distracts attacks and offensive spells away from the party and allow to benefit more from skills such as Barbs. Their frailty can also be used to one's advantage with skills such as Death Nova.

Properties

Behavior and AI

• Minions will usually follow their master, except if a foe enters their Danger Zone or their master attacks a foe, in which case they will prioritize attacking this foe, not retreating from battle until it dies, regardless of their master's actions.
  • Minions do not consider skills, even offensive spells, as "attacks". They will also not attack a called target.

Defense

Minions typically cannot last long :

• They have an armor rating of 3.75 × level + 5, giving them an armor rating of 80 at level 20. The exception to this are Bone Fiends who instead have an armor of 2.84 × level + 3.1, giving them an armor rating of 60 at level 20
  • However minions are usually below level 14-18 even with maximum investment, and as such will usually have a lower armor rating.
• They suffer increasing health degeneration that mimics decomposition, starting at 1 pip at creation and increasing by 1 pip every 20 seconds.
  • Although this is capped to 10 pips, their inherent degeneration appears to be able to increase indefinitely (nullifying attempts to use health regeneration after time).
  • For example, at level 18, minions will live for 1 minute 24 seconds before dying due to decomposition.
• They are especially vulnerable to critical hits, as they tend to be lower level than foes.

Offense

• Melee minions attack once per 3.10 seconds and Bone Fiends attack once per 1.86 seconds.
• The minion's auto-attack damage is based on some kind of attribute that is based on level.
  • Wail of Doom reduces their damage by a large amount whereas Heroic Refrain increases their damage.
• Minions have energy, even though they don't use it.

Anomaly.Critical hits do not cause minions to hit for maximum damage. They do however get the bonus damage factor (1.414...), see Critical_hit#Damage.

Miscellaneous

• Minions are not fleshy, except Flesh Golems.
• They can gain experience and level up.
• They are not infused.
• They can be knockdowned.
• They can be affected by environment effects such as Fount Of Maguuma and Aura of the Bloodstone.
• They will teleport with their master when using a teleporter, but they are not teleported during cinematics.

Control of minions

The number of minions a player can control is based on the character's rank in Death Magic:

Death Magic	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
Maximum minions	2	2	3	3	4	4	5	5	6	6	7	7	8	8	9	9	10	10	11	11	12

A player can use the minions window to display the health bars of their minions (default [Y]).

Anomaly.The minion control limit is only checked when a new minion is acquired.

Anomaly.Though Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support does not count towards the minion cap, summoning one will cause the game to check the players minion control limit.

Counters

• Minions are undead summoned creatures:
  • They take double damage from holy damage.
  • They are affected by anti-summon skills.
• They never use skills, so they almost always take full damage from Wastrel's Demise and Wastrel's Worry. Since they often cluster, those skills often do high damage against their allies.
• They do not flee from area of effect damage. As minions tend to cluster, this makes them especially vulnerable.
• Necromancers can gain control of enemy minions via Verata's Aura or Verata's Gaze.

List of minions

Minion	Created by	Notes	Profession1
Bone Fiend	Animate Bone Fiend	Attacks at range.
Bone Horror	Animate Bone Horror Aura of the Lich (elite) Malign Intervention Minion Apocalypse	The "standard" minion; fairly tough and deals decent damage.
Bone Minion	Animate Bone Minions	Lower level than horrors, but Animate Bone Minions is the only non-elite skill that can simultaneously create more than one minion per use.
Flesh Golem	Animate Flesh Golem (elite)	High level minion, but each character can only have one existing at a time. Are fleshy.
Jagged Horror	Animate Shambling Horror Jagged Bones (elite)	Inflicts bleeding with each attack.
Shambling Horror	Animate Shambling Horror	Spawns a Jagged Horror on death.
Vampiric Horror	Animate Vampiric Horror	Master gains health equal to the damage it deals.
Candy Golem	Animate Candy Golem (disguise skill)	High level Candy Corn creature, but each character can only have one existing at a time.	-
Celestial Horror	Star Servant (celestial skill)	High level minion, but each primary Necromancer can only have one existing at a time.	-

1. Based on Amateur Hour and There Can Be Only One.

Gallery

• 

  Flesh Golem and Celestial Horror

• 

  Bone Fiend

• 

  Bone Horror, Vampiric Horror, and Bone Minion

• 

  Shambling Horror

• 

  Jagged Horror

Notes

• In PvP, minions appear as green triangles on the compass just before they become masterless.
• Minions, like Spirits, do not count as foes during vanquishes.

Bug.Minions set free before a cinematic will often run free, attacking and possibly killing defenseless ally NPCs and PCs. If controlled they will attack hostile targets who are part of the cinematic or they can block the camera views.

Anomaly.A minion will regain full health and stop degenerating health for a couple of seconds if it is forced masterless. This may be a visual bug, as the minions die before their health reaches 0 after this occurs.

Anomaly.Minions who are enchanted before being turned masterless will keep their enchantments but the effects of the enchantment vary depending on the skill itself (example: Jagged Bones will not spawn another minion, however, Vigorous Spirit will heal the minion every time it auto-attacks). Minions who are hexed and become allied will keep their hexes and trigger the hex effects. Shouts will also trigger on them after turning hostile, such as "Brace Yourself!", as well as Skills such as Angelic Bond.

Trivia

• Up until the April 26, 2006 update, there was no limit to the number of minions that could be controlled by one character.
• The Minion interface was introduced in the March 3, 2011 update.
• According to Headmaster Kuju in the reward dialogue of the quest Old Friends, Dark Times, minions are edible.

See also

• Anti-summon
• Asura Summon
• List of minion skills
• Minion master
• Spirit
• Summoned creature

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