xenoranger

Someone on these boards once said that Soul Reaping is the most effective energy management in the entire game. To be honest, they're 100% correct. Consider this....

You're fighting enemies.

A party member dies, you gain SR bonus.
A Minion dies, You gain SR Bonus
An enemy dies, you gain SR bonus
A spirit dies, you gain SR bonus

So, anything dying gives you an SR bonus. Try playing a necro anywhere in the game with at least 1 in SR. Just try it.

At first, I put nothing into soul reaping, but later I found having around 7 would give a boost for spells if I'd been casting away and had depleted a good chunk of energy. Although you can regen about 1 unit of energy ever 3 second (per pip of regen), it's a better idea to have a backup plan. Also, since most necromancer skills cost 10 energy , having around 7 gives you a nice boost.

There are other energy management options, but Soul Reaping is free. Plus, the soul reaping elites are very insidious. I find Wail of Doom extremely useful against attack classes. Just hit them with it, and boom, instant shutdown of attack skills.

Icy Veins is a little less useful, but it carries a nice after effect. When you hit someone with it, it does nice application damage, then when they die, boom and it's AOE damage to enemies.

Although that's all Soul Reaping has for skills, before Factions, I used to use high soul reaping for Minion Mastery and corpse exploitation. Something dies, and you get that nice little SR bonus notifying you that there may be an exploitable corpse.

Come to think of it.... NO OTHER GAME has ever had an energy management like soul reaping. It's almost too good.

Pick Me

It all depends on what you want to do. Do you want to be a person using Necro skills mostly? Or do you just want to dabble with the necro and mainly use other professions?

I have a Necro/Mesmer and a Ritualist/Necro.

Is Sould Reaping important? If you want to become a MM, then yes, as its the only source of energy you will have (you can have Offering of Blood, but thats an elite and you need to put points into Blood Magic to make it useful). To have skills into gaining energy, means you will have less slots for your necro skills.

My first Necromancer was a Necro/Warrior. I killed him off because I sucked at both types.

I then created a Necromancer/Mesmer because I liked the mesmer and I've always like the Necromancer. I didn't know anything about Soul Reaping, or how beneficial gaining energy is. At the time (Prophecies only), that was the only benefit of Soul Reaping, so what was the point of it, right? Well, now I can say, that Necromancers can get excellent use out of Soul Reaping. Extra energy per death (minion, enemy, ally, innocent bystander) gives you more energy to do more casting. Some spells take a lot of energy to cast, so sometimes, spamming is not an option. So if you can gain energy for free, then its a good benefit.

Mesmers are fast casters (primary only), so what is better, cast high end spells faster with less energy regen (they only get 3 pips), or cast high end spells with faster energy regen (necros get 4 pips) and have soul reaping.

Necromancers also can obtain level 16 (using a sup rune and +1 headgear) in any necromancer attribute, but can also go as high as 18 (+2 to blood and curses - use of a blood skill).

I chose the Ritualist/Necro to be a MM because of Spawning (increases life of summonables by 4% per level), and there is a spell that gives you back energy everytime you create a minion or spirit.

Prior to the time I received that skill (Spawning skill, Boon of Creation or something like that), I found it very energy taxing to be a MM.

If you choose not to be MM, then you can manage without soul reaping, but you will be basically limited to level 12 necro spells if you aren't a primary Necro.

My suggestion, play a necromancer as a 2ndary character. Reason is if you don't like it, you can eventually change that 2nd profession for something else.

Since I've always like Necromancers (from D&D and Diablo II and Bard's Tale Series), I chose the necromancer as a primary.

I still love Necromancers.

Hope this helps somewhat in your decision.

xenoranger

Well...
Consider somethign else.

Necromancer primaries are all about insidiousness. The majority of necro skills are not direct damage, but rather ways to soften and weaken the enemy. Although they can be used outside of a necro primary, the best bang for your buck is to be a necro primary. People will argue with me on this once, but you can more easily raise curses and blood skills to pull some very nice and tactical tricks on others.


Here's the question. Do you want direct damage, or are you more of a support player? Necros are 90% support. THeir support comes in the form of hexes and conditions that can be applied. They also strip enchantments better than any other class in the game. If you want a nice support class, go necro. If not, choose another primary.

Ensign

In PvE, Soul Reaping is awesome. Don't leave home without it, it's the best primary attribute there.

In PvP, it's very build dependent. On a death guy who targets corpses it's rather attractive still. On a blood or curses guy, it's only good if you have a lot of spirits on your team. If spirits are dying it's a good to ridiculous attribute - if there aren't spirits, it's fairly mediocre, not something to invest heavily in.

Peace,
-CxE

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