Vastin wrote:
I just ran up a Lich to about lvl 28 - he's going fine, except that the points I have been throwing into Advanced Necrotic Minions appear to be a complete waste.
The minions summoned by this category are mostly vampires - which are a LOT weaker than your basic armored skeletons, ghouls, archers, and skele mages. Whereas any of those others can hit for 100+ a turn, the vampire (and master vampire) can only hit or cast for around 20, and their defense is unremarkable. All told they are a complete waste of minion slots, suitable only for prompt detonation.
The Dreads are ok - but not particularly better than the basic undead - and I strongly suspect that if I ever pulled a barrow wight, it would promptly destroy my entire horde with an acid cloud.
All told, I'd have to advise burgeoning necromancers to stay completely away from ANM - it's a big investment for an actively negative return. The bone giants could be worth it in combination with Animus so you can double up on them, but definitely avoid the tier 4 talent. All told, I'd go shades instead to help make your basic minions more effective if you are running a minion build.
In total, running a blaster non-minion lich is almost certainly more effective than the minion lich. Between the issues of soul management, high mana costs, micromanagement, and constant friendly fire issues, the lich minions don't really come across as a particularly formidable force. Not terrible mind you - but they require even more careful methodology and patience than the summoner, which is saying something.
so, part of the problem here is the ai engine. If your minions started to behave a lot more cleverly and kill faster, so would every npc in the game using their ai (some use dumb, some tactical). so sometimes be careful what you wish for.... The ultimate solution, imo, would be to tweak the ai so that it is different for our summons, but DG likes symmetry at every lvl. So we and npcs are mirror images of each other in many respects. This makes sense programming wise.