The Power of minions

Even before the Necromancer spell was made, players had ways of enlisting help from mobs. Void golems could be built and controlled, and had many of the powers of warriors and thieves intrinsically. Clerics were able to charm mobs to a certain degree. They also were able to animate corpses into undead zombies that did their bidding.

Now, both necros and mages can make minions using their mana alone.

Control Points

Main article: control points

control points keep players from making too many minions and also allow various combinations of minions. Each of the casting classes has its own control points. Following is a description of each class and its minions.

Mages Get Elementals

(Note: Since I do not have a mage primary, I may not be completely accurate on this elemental stuff. Please send athlon tell/mudmail in game if you disagree with anything in this section.)

Mages,, at the pinnacles of their training in fire, lightning, and ice spells, can summon elementals from the elemental plains to take hits or assist them in combat. All elemental minions also have a lesser form that requires fewer control points but is, well, lesser. All elemental minions improve with cast level, as well as the knowledge level of the spell that summoned them.

Fire Elemental

The first elemental minion summoning spell is the fire elemental spell at level 32. Fire elementals are merely ok in both attack and defense, and make general purpose mage minions.

Lightning Elemental

At level 34, the next elemental summoning spell unlocks. The user must know chain lightning to be able to cast the spell. Lightning elementals have high attack power, but do not take a lot of damage before disappearing. They also can cast lightning bolt on mobs, which can cause the boom effect.

Ice Elemental

At level 36, ice elemental unlocks. It cannot hit hard, but it does soak up a lot of damage. Not much else is known about it at this time, because no one is level 36 yet.

Clerics can Charm

Cleric minions are, at this time, limited to charmed minions. At level 16, clerics can learn the charm spell and begin to attempt to charm minions. Unfortunately, a cleric can only charm a minion much weaker than himself, and the stronger the minion, the shorter the duration of the charm. Cast level allows a cleric to enlist the help of more powerful charmed minions, as well as increasing the duration of the charm.

Charmed minions can be ordered to do just about anything with the order command. Whether they can execute the order often depends on the stats of the minion, especially when it comes to spellcasting and wearing equipment. Make sure your minion's int , mana and wis is high enough before ordering him to cast something; if any of these are not high enough, he will most likely fail and mana will be wasted. As a rule, mobs regenerate much slower than players, especially when it comes to mana.

Charmed mobs also do not automatically enter portals. You will have to order charmed mobs to enter portals before you enter them yourself. There are also many no mob rooms, or rooms restricted to a certain type of mob. If you attempt to enter one of these rooms, your charmed minion may be left behind.

Charmed minions, after the charm spell wears off, will leave you and recall to the room they were in when you first charmed them. If this room does not exist (perhaps you charmed a mob in an instance and the instance is gone), mobs will stay where they are. If the mob is aggressive, it will begin to attack you as soon as the spell is gone.

Thieves seek Deliverance with Decoys

The only minions thieves can make are shadow decoys. At level 25, thieves learn the shadow decoy skill. The better learned the skill, the greater the chance of successfully making combat decoys. Shadow decoys rescue the thief, similar to a necromancer clay man, but take much less punishment. Unlike the clay man however, thieves can make many decoys at once, as long as they have enough mana.

Necromancers Master minion Control

Necromancers are the masters of minion summoning. From animations to undead, necromancers have the final say in almost anything minion-related. Read on to find out why.

TO BE CONTINUED