Curse

Donovan Cyclonus · Sep 13, 2008, 11:55 PM // 23:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

Are you playing with friends?

well real people, yes.

Chthon · Sep 14, 2008, 01:10 AM // 01:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

Are you playing with friends?

They must be very tolerant friends...

Anywho, to try to explain, somewhat patiently, to our OP why necro tanks are a bad idea:

Let's start with the general concept of tanking. Mostly it's outmoded. The original idea was that one person with high damage mitigation (through armor, stances, enchants, or some combination thereof) would grab all of the aggro and keep it. This would (a) reduce the amount of damage the party took by channeling it all straight into your damage mitigation skills, and (b) line the monsters up for easy AoE nuking.

Things have changed since then. The monster AI has been altered several times, making the monsters less willing to ball up, and less willing to stay balled up, especially if you try to nuke them. Partywide damage mitigation has become much more available (see Imbagon). Elementalist nukes have become less effective (see monster level-creep (and armor-creep)) and have fallen behind curse necro "nukes" that require the whole team in the thick of things throwing out physical damage, and mesmer CoP nukes that have such a huge radius that they don't need the monsters balled.

In the face of these changes, the role for a tank is extremely limited. You can almost always do better with an imbagon (or other SY spammer) providing the damage mitigation, and offensive characters that don't rely on balled-up monsters providing the offense. There's a few areas where the monsters are numerous enough that balling them and nuking them is a worthwhile time-saver. And tank-n-spank is a somewhat easier playstyle for teams with a fair number of bad players to employ successfully (only the tank and one of the monks have to be decent, and everyone else has to be just "not retarded"). Outside of those very limited situations, the classic "tank" concept is dead.

The fact that tanking is pretty much outmoded to start with already bodes ill for the idea of a necro tank. But let's assume for a minute that you're playing in a situation where tank-n-spank is worth doing. In that situation, can a nero tank be good? No. Not even in that situation is that a good idea. Here's why:

1. First and foremost, it's about damage mitigation. You don't have any. Tanking works because it reliably directs raw damage-per-second that would ordinarily be beyond your monks' healing-per-second into damage mitigation skills that reduce it to a manageable level. Your "tank" doesn't do this. You're trying to rely on self-healing and a large life pool to outlast damage. Your (very inefficient) self-heals help a bit, but, aside from that, you're not doing a damned thing to help your monks with the damage-per-second-exceeds-healing-per-second problem. If anything, you're making the problem worse by directing some damage that might have gone to a ranger or paragon and amplifying it by sending it to a low-armor necro.

If you want to make a tank that works, it needs to function in such a way that, when it takes a hit, it takes less damage than the same hit would have caused had it struck another party member. After a quick review, you'll discover that the entire necromancer skillset has ZERO skills that serve this function. ZERO. No inherent armor bonus, no armor buffs, no blocking, no damage prevention, nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Yes, we have no bananas. So why try to make a tank out of a necro? Unless you can leverage Soul Reaping or a 13+ spec in a necro attribute into something that another class can't do just as well, AND leave yourself enough attributes and skillslots to pick up adequate damage mitigation skills from your secondary, then there's just no point.

[Edit: As Moloch points out, necros do have ONE damage mitigation skill -- AtoL. Maybe that's something you could build around: If you had NF, I'd say try N/D w/ AotL + Armor of Sanctity + Mystic Regen + at least one cover enchantment + an AoE condition skill (probably E.Blood). It would still be a pretty bad tank, but it might work passably in some parts of the game.]

2. Your build includes skills that work against successful tanking:

2a. Demonic Flesh increases your max-hp, and that makes the monster AI less willing to stick to you and more likely to go attack your teammates, which means you've failed as a tank.

2b. Offering of Blood has a big enough sac that it might get you killed sometimes, in return for what? Energy. Something you shouldn't be lacking since you already have Soul Reaping.

2c. Bone Minions are excellent for a Minion Bomber build. In that context, they provide decent damage (via death nova and triggering MoP/barbs for a curse necro) and decent damage prevention by soaking up hits that would otherwise strike your party.

In the context of a tank build, they're awful. Having some super-low-hp, super-low-armor targets wandering around is almost certain to pull the monsters' attention off of you and onto the minions; and then, once they've killed the minions, the monsters will move on to your teammates; and you'll fail at tanking.

3d. Consume Corpse is positively boneheaded. The moment you teleport, aggro will break and the monsters will head for your teammates, meaning you've failed at tanking.

By way of disclaimer, the rest of your skill picks are, frankly, bad. Just not bad enough that they're actually working against you like the 4 I've listed.

OP, I hope that helped you understand a bit better why necro tanking is a hopelessly bad idea, and maybe gave you something you can take away and apply to other aspects of the game.

Calista Blackblood · Sep 14, 2008, 01:19 AM // 01:19

@Chthon,was waiting for that

Moloch Vein · Sep 14, 2008, 12:17 PM // 12:17

Well, to be honest, you _can_ "tank" a little with Aura of the Lich in most areas. As long as they don't have heavy enchantment removal.

Anyway if you only have Proph and EoTN you should try to grab all the PvE-only skills because they'll make life much easier for you.

System_Crush · Sep 16, 2008, 11:32 AM // 11:32

A necro tank is generally a poor idea, but if you try to it should include [[Protective Spirit], [[Animate Shambling Horror] and/or [[Animate Vampiric Horror] a low amount of max health [[Masochism] a fast recharging heal and a lot of [[Blood of the Master] spamming.

As minnion walls generally make better tanks than your average PUG warriors or perma sins.

Also do you mean a W/D should tank? Cuz I've never seen a good D/?tank that didn't use [[Obsidian Flesh] or [[Shadow Form], but then again the last time I let the dervish tank was before GWEN was released.

[EDIT]
Read through Chthon post... /agree

[EDIT2]
Hmmm would there be a point to use [[Aura of the Lich] with [[Life Bond] and [[Protective Spirit] and enough soul reaping to maintain on 6-8 team members? at 12 prot of course

Calista Blackblood · Sep 16, 2008, 11:36 AM // 11:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by System_Crush

A necro tank is generally a poor idea, but if you try to it should include [[Protective Spirit], [[Animate Shambling Horror] and/or [[Animate Vampiric Horror] a low amount of max health [[Masochism] a fast recharging heal and a lot of [[Blood of the Master] spamming.

As minnion walls generally make better thanks than you PUG warriors or perma sins.

gg on minions causing scatter

Kion · Oct 16, 2008, 05:39 AM // 05:39

I don't understand all the hate, tanking with a necro isn't that hard, I actually can think of something very effective that would work.

UNHOLY FEAST
SIGNET OF AGONY
ANGORGODONS GAZE
VAMPIRIC SPIRIT
VAMPIRIC GAZE
AWAKEN THE BLOOD
RES SIG

And something optional..
But with a 16 blood magic +2 with awaken and with the energy from soul reaping and angorgodons gaze you would be VERY hard to kill.

Calista Blackblood · Oct 16, 2008, 05:57 PM // 17:57

NO! this thread died a month ago

There is more to the build in this instance as to why,precisely,exactly,undoubtably it is a bad idea to tank on a necro

Tyla · Oct 16, 2008, 06:01 PM // 18:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kion

I don't understand all the hate, tanking with a necro isn't that hard, I actually can think of something very effective that would work.

UNHOLY FEAST
SIGNET OF AGONY
ANGORGODONS GAZE
VAMPIRIC SPIRIT
VAMPIRIC GAZE
AWAKEN THE BLOOD
RES SIG

And something optional..
But with a 16 blood magic +2 with awaken and with the energy from soul reaping and angorgodons gaze you would be VERY hard to kill.

I really do hope this was sarcasm.

joshuarodger · Oct 17, 2008, 01:36 AM // 01:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kion

I don't understand all the hate, tanking with a necro isn't that hard, I actually can think of something very effective that would work.

UNHOLY FEAST
SIGNET OF AGONY
ANGORGODONS GAZE
VAMPIRIC SPIRIT
VAMPIRIC GAZE
AWAKEN THE BLOOD
RES SIG

And something optional..
But with a 16 blood magic +2 with awaken and with the energy from soul reaping and angorgodons gaze you would be VERY hard to kill.

are you freaking kidding me? this is one of the worst builds i have ever seen, ever. first you're using a superior rune and saccing 75 health, then you're going to try and be the first character into a mob. then you're using awaken the blood which makes you sac more health, then you use sig of agony then.... it doesn't even matter probably. i'm sure you're going to come back and say it works great nothing can kill me. take it to the charr homelands and try to vanquish something. or take it to just about any HM dungeon. you'll see why it's the worst build of all time. this will probably be destroyed anywhere in in HM actually. just try it. please try it.