Editing Earth priest tips (section)

=== Tank/dps minion tips ===

set minion's combat style with "eps_style xxx". Deft-style worked best for my purposes.

Make minion out of big race = more melee damage, less avoidance, less hits in face/nec
Make minion out of small race = less melee damage, more avoidance, more hits in the face/neck
Make minion out of medium race = balance between the two.

if you want to maximize minion's survivability, try taking Unification of Dhubr and/or coven_sec/mage_sec. Phantasmal shroud blocks hits, venom ward when casted on minions stuns enemies, tho
im not 100% sure if you can cast it on minion, but probably can, and mage_sec would give you mirror images to put on minion. Other tips on the topic are just basic ones, use "eps_style warding" (1h+shield) or "Deft" (1h+shield/2x1h). personally
i FEEL like minion tanks better with 2 daggers instead of 1h+shield, but i did no testing on the matter more than just a "gut feeling". I have done very little testing, but from what I 
can see it feels like making a minion out of orcs have worked well for me (medium size race). For this race (from shanty orcs) the armours from inner Adroal guards fit fine, iron breastplate+
iron greaves+ "best" gauntlets and collar and such you can find from there. Also i think Calluin's items fit. Or if you or your friend can kill Bitts from Refugee area, his items are better,
but need resizing (unless you make a minion out of him, but he is larger sized so wont avoid hits as well as medium size), but if you plan on running for few hours, i believe the resize cost
is worth it (unless i remember it totally wrong). Naturally the best tank is Herald of Death due to its big selfheals. Other ones are Wight (self heals), Graveborn (no self heals, but feeds you mana),
and not sure about Strigoi, it has self heal but I skipped using it for some reasons back in the day, so I dont know how it fares in the tanking business.
Using Earth coffin blocks enemies melee hits, so it will help your minion as well.


To maximize minion's damage output, you can either make the minion out of a huge race like B'rogh or Firbolg, and arm it with the biggest, meanest 2 hand weapon you can find (like Sura's
maul from Refugee camp, he is also a B'rogh to make your minion out of!) and then put some style like "eps_style savage/berserk" etc. Or, go the infusion-route and equip on your char 
as many infusion gears you can find, arm minion with either 2x daggers or some 2h weapon (2h weapons make infusions hit bit harder, but 2x daggers proc them bit more often) and
maybe take Nomads of the wild (+infusions, +infusion chance) and Arm of justice (templar_sec for Tools). For this, obviously use melee minion you can arm, or Ethereal (force it to use 
its staff in 2h, but it cant take hits too well iirc, and is more of an caster), Strigoi or Herald will do on the melee-side.  
Unfortunately minion's damage output is quite low (at least in the "higher levels"), but these steps can help some.


Always keep buffs up on minion: Dhubr's care adds resists, Power of earth gives strength and hpmax, Essence of the nether will drain hp from melee hits (tho it will also give -cold resist, unless it doesn't work that way on a minion), Spirit Nexus will drain souls from corpses
and use them to heal minion a little (and give bonus exp, unless that has been changed), I dont remember if Gift of Elements worked on minions anymore, as undeads work bit different than living. But shouldn't be hard to test.


Obviously when you cannot conjure some minion type yet, you will have to make due with what you currently have untill you can summon the one you want! (new types come available with each 20% intervals of combined % of your Necromancy-mastery, and Necromancy-skill, more or less).

Lich and Ethereal are best on the caster side (for damage, tho Lich might have been a sort of a hybrid between caster and melee, not sure, it was a long time ago).

Obviously Herald is the best minion of them all, it gives you instant spellcasts (for aoe as well!) and self heals and thus can tank well, also it casts some spells.

For both cases, there are minion charms on the next topic