My minions lack assertiveness...

...and thus are interfering with my plans to take over the world! *insert evil MUAHAHAHAHA here*

I'm starting to think I'm doing something wrong...

I've used two different MM builds. Olias has a standard Jagged Bones/Prot MM build. Razah has a standard Explosive Growth Bomber build. Together or separately, they can generate a really lovely wall of happy little gloopy minions to do my bidding.

Only... they don't seem to be DOING my bidding!

Instead, they're often hanging out at the back of the party, grouped around Olias or Razah while those two stand there wanding Death Nova on them again... and again... and again... and again... and again... even as the rest of the party (mostly casters, myself included) is engaged in some ZOMGWEAREDYINGHERE battle.

How do I get them to charge ahead of the rest of us and take the initial volleys from the foes? How do I keep the rest of us from being the initial target of the foes when it seems like the only way to get the minions engaged is for me to move close enough to draw aggro - in which case all of those first casts of hexes and AoE seem to focus on my poor self.

What am I doing wrong here?

If you want them to go ahead, make sure they're in the first three Hero slots and get into the habit of flagging them ahead. (one of the first Hero spots should *ALWAYS* be a Monk or something else with a hard rez so that you can flag them away to safety if things go all pear-shaped and then micromanage them into resurrecting the party)

Or you might try waiting a few seconds before each spawn so that they can catch up and thus get close enough to be triggered into action when you start attacking.

Minions usually don't attack until they view their master as attacking. You can try doing things like pinging your attack to motivate them. Still, for some reason unknown to me, they seem to respond to a hero's thoughts faster than yours. Presumably from a programming perspective this could indicate an "engaging in hostile behavior" mode that would be impossible to replicate on the player. Anyway, if you try attacking with a long rang weapon (longbow, flatbow) and then run back a bit, it should encourage the minions to run up a bit faster.

I refer to this as the minions being "on a smoke break."

You can either flag them forward (which, if the MM has Dark Bond, shouldn't be a problem -- it's usually not even a problem without DB, since you can unflag as soon as the minions engage) or you can attack with your wand. For some reason the AI can sometimes get lazy if you're on the edge of the aggro bubble and casting with no attacks (weapon/wand/whatever).

livia is so pro. we charge into a mob and kill it and she starts making minions while i go to the next mob. i engage next mob and liv takes her sweet time animating and casting death nova half a compass bubble behind me. when im done with the new mob she arrives in time to make more minions and start the cycle anew best hero

Minions aggro when one of the following happens:
1. A monster enters their aggro bubble;
2. A monster enters another minion's aggro bubble;
3. A monster attacks them;
4. A monster attacks another minion;
5. A monster attacks their master;
6. Another minion attacks a monster;
7. Their master attacks a monster.

(Not sure about a monster entering the master's aggro bubble b/c natural minion follow looks identical to aggro when the master and the monsters are in the same direction.)

Best solution is to flag the hero forward. You can also ping a target to force the hero to attack.

Heroes are ridiculously stupid with death nova. I highly discourage the usage of them as MBers if you don't want to waste half your time standing around while they reanimate and re-death nova things. Take it off and your necros will be right up with you most of the time and the minions run in immediately. Especially true if you are using AotL to animate all corpses at the end of battle, then you don't even have to wait the 5s for them to finish the cleanup.

Thanks for all the responses everyone. I was beginning to get a bit paranoid

I've disabled Death Nova a few times... my friend Missy and I joke about this being a "time out" for the MM. I've also thought about just flat out replacing it with something else, but haven't figured out what. I'm not into doing speed clears or anything like that, so a battle taking a few seconds longer isn't of much concern to me... mostly I just want to survive and, wherever possible, have all of my heroes survive too.

I'm going to try flagging them forward, see how that works for me. I have tried this in the past, but with the hindsight of experience, I now know I was flagging them too far forward (nearly into the midst of the mob instead of in aggro range) and my MM was getting obliterated too often. Failing that (or finding it feels too much like micromanaging, which I'm not keen on) I'll remove DN and give them some other skill to play with instead.

Thanks again for the thoughts and ideas... gives me a place to start with finding a better way.

i used to put death nova and jagged on somebody else just so the minions will rush forward

I don't really seem to have a problem with mine, but then I don't use it so often anymore. I guess what would work as well is to run into aggro, then run back a little. Turns backline into frontline.

Usually i have to wait a bit after each mob till Olias is done casting minions and enchants on them.
Dont have a much of a problem with it, am not in a hurry then.

When i really need the minions, i flag Olias to where i need him.

I use neither Death Nova nor Jagged Bones on my MMs and i'm fine. Had the same problem when i did and i cba with flagging the MM always in front to aggro first.

I have this habit of constantly throwing out the main flag when I'm moving, and deleting it again as soon as all my AI buddies are at or near it. That solves a lot of problems, from MMs not keeping up due to continually enchanting minions, to healers wasting energy on obsessively spamming their spells at minions. With the flags bound to keys, it's hardly any trouble, much easier than microing heroes all the time.

I changed my 3 necro heroes slightly to help out with exactly what you describe.

Move the monk prots from the MM onto the curses/support necro, add fall back, anthem of envy and if you're Vqing, godspeed too. 10 points in command you're good to go.

Now your mm hero can keep up with your party, heal the minions a little as they go into battle and the anthem of envy buffs your spirits damage too.

I remember one build I got from either here or pvx had heal minions and another skill which I can't remember that had Olias healing and casting on minions while the rest of us were in a fight, then after the fight was almost over Olias would be like "We're ready now! oh, they're all dead!", those skills were promptly removed from his bar shortly after

I spent part of yesterday capturing some skills like Discord, Jagged Bones, and Toxic Chill, and bought the non-elite Explosive Growth. I haven't learned how to use Discord effectively yet (haven't followed the Discordway build) but these elite skills are interesting so far. Explosive Growth isn't publicized that well -- I didn't know about it until I read about it in the wiki in relation to another skill -- but it seems almost unbalanced in its potential, as does Jagged Bones. I know, nothing you haven't heard long ago.

I agree... and I'm absolutely blown away by the fact that my Ritualist, Razah, is ten times the minion master any of my necros could even hope to be. The combination of Razah as an EGrowth MM Bomber (with AotL) and Olias with the standard MM-Prot using Jagged Bones is incredible. I don't really care for Discord since it doesn't seem to fit the way I prefer to play, so instead I'm able to take Razah & Olias with their minion armies, Livia as a resto, and Whispers running a standard Spiteful Spirit build.

I'd imagine that if I were running Discord, being able to drag Razah along as my MM would definitely be pretty awesome.

Between the four of them, Gwen running Panic, Ogden as a Tease/Boon-Prot and a random 7th (usually either a modified Barrage ranger or an earth warder w/Shockwave) I'm pretty much free to run whatever kind of build I want for myself without worrying that my heroes can't support my activities or keep us all alive when I've gotten just a bit TOO creative with my own build. LOL

This is an Olias MM build I put together for the Battle for Lion's Arch where you have enemies coming up stairs and I needed a disposable melee warrior! It works so well it is now what I usually use. I know what everyone will say, "Flesh Golem is for noobs!" But the big guy is effective!

This build starts off slow. From the first combat you will usually get one flesh golem and one shambling horror. But just keep rolling. And after a few combats you will have a horde of nasty minions! Sometimes Olias even puts the well in a useful place!

Death 16
Soul Reaping 12
Protection Prayers 6

Animate Flesh Golem
Animate Shambling Horror
Death Nova
Well of Suffering
Taste of Death
Protective Spirit
Blood of the Master
Resurrection Chant or some rez or Masochism

I put the MM in slot 1. Flesh Golems are very aggressive. Flag Olias to your current position and then unflag before starting attack. Sometimes running back through your minion wall is the best idea if they are still on coffee break.

Olias = O'Lazius as in "Ah! I see from all the fresh corpses that there must have been a fierce battle here only recently! Fortunately I don't need any of them since I was keeping all my minions safe back there on that hill!"

Oh, aye, he's very effective. Switched from Jagged Bones to the Flesh Golem long ago and saw an immediate improvement. However, I then discovered Aura of the Lich, which is best of all on my Olias (leaving Fleshy just on my own Parasitic Bond + Necrosis spammer for lack of anything better to put on his bar due to me sucking at spreading Curses around or maintaining an army :P).

On a slightly different tack....

This is what my MM heroes use:
(Death magic 12+1+2/3, Souls Reaping 10+1, Healing Prayers 8)

Animate Flesh Golem
Animate Bone Horror
Animate Shambling Horror
Vile Miasma
Putrid Bile
Heal Area (the Hero AI is good at using this)
Blood of the Master (and this)
Rez Chant

Make sure the Hero is on "Guard" and not "Avoid", btw

ANyway.... The Vile Miasma and Putrid Bile, basically ensure that the hero will want to attack - which makes the minions attack - and not sit around casting spells - which doesn't make the minions attack.

Edit - looking at this I realize that I also used to have SR at 12 (11+1) and HP at 6. I not sure why I changed it, try both.