Curse

funbun · May 10, 2005, 04:04 PM // 16:04

How are your Attibute Points distributed? That's what made my character. I'm Monk/ME. Just focus on 3 attributes any more and your spells won't be powerful enough.

Necro are good for res. They have the best Res spell in the game. Pet creeps are great too as they provide more tanks.

The Fox · May 10, 2005, 04:19 PM // 16:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by TopGun

A Necromancer/Monk? In RP terms, that's the most backwards thing I've ever heard. Since when do all-holy priests turn the dead into mindless abomonitations?

One day she was a beautiful monk, who would hunt down the undead necros and slay them with her holy magic. However, she died to a necro and it cursed her into becoming one herself. Death after life resulted in supreme necro abilites, yet she retained some of the powers of her former self. Being a previous hunter of necros, she has excelled, because she knows what will try to kill her.

lol just threw some b.s. out there to come up with a "RPG" type scenario where there could be a necro/monk. ? happy now ?

Kordesh · May 10, 2005, 04:40 PM // 16:40

Here is my biggest issue with Necros. The majority of their spells seem to have no point, as there is another skill that does the same exact thing only it won't require you sacrifice your HP or it won't have some kind of negative effect to it. The functionality of their spells is very limited.

ATM I have a necro/mesmer

12 Death
10 Blood
7 Illusions
4 Soul Reaping

The soul reaping helps ALOT with high death. Things need to die for you to use most death abilities. The soul reaping bonus helps best when it gives you the 10 energy you need to detonate some persons corpse after they die.

I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing splitting between death and blood. The returns for increasing death higher than it already is seems to not be worth it. To increase death by 1 I would need to lose 2 to 3 blood points.

Illusions is just sort of a backup. Phantom Pains or whatever it's called is a pretty decent DoT and quick casting. There are a few nifty abilities in that tree, although domination might be better overall. I personally would love to get Clumsiness at some point. Great spell.

Template I've been thinking of. I call it "Playing Dead"
Get as many touch spells/HP tap spells as you can get
Use illusion of weakness
Use something else on yourself like barbs or tainted flesh or whatever\

Basically the idea is to make yourself look like an easy target, and then pound them the second they get in melee range.

Cakes · May 10, 2005, 04:57 PM // 16:57

I'm Necro/Mesmer... I only use one Mesmer skill and that is conjure phantasm, combined with life siphon it works a treat.

I'm not sure what you mean by not doing much damage.. I'm at level 20 with it and ive done a lot of travelling just with henchman... without my guild. After a couple of tries at getting to Temple of Ages, I think that is what it's called, I finally got there. I don't use curses at all, I've pretty much got my points split evenly between Blood, Death and Soul Reaping (which is fantastic by the way). I am thinking of getting rid of Death Magic though.

Either way.. when I'm in a group of henchmen my Necro does a hell of a lot of damage.. I managed to get from The Wilds and walk all the way past Ventari etc. back to bergen hot springs.. just with a group of henchmen, so they can't be THAT bad :P

Kordesh · May 10, 2005, 05:03 PM // 17:03

Why would you get rid of death magic? Death magic has some of the best abilities. Curses does too, but nobody seems to do Curses *shrug*

I stopped using life siphon a long time ago. One big reason. The cast time. It took forever to cast and it did very little damage/return. I almost never used it. Eventually I replaced it with that spell that diseases the enemy for 24 seconds or whatever. A combination of the DoT skills and that mesmer skill which spreads the effect to other nearby creatures can be nice. Pets make nice meatshields for a while as well. Once you hit lvl 20ish you're lvl 14 bone minions don't do much in PvE, so bonefiends are generally better so you get the damage at a range. Also, putrid explosion. That's all I need to say. Ability is amazing under the right circumstances. I haven't done PvP in retail yet *been waiting to finish out most of the PvE* but corpse explosion+healer trying to rez somebody is always fun.

Cakes · May 10, 2005, 05:05 PM // 17:05

I just don't seem to use my minions much... I'm usually in a group with atleast two warriors anyway so I don't really NEED to use it.

Kordesh · May 10, 2005, 05:19 PM // 17:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cakes

I just don't seem to use my minions much... I'm usually in a group with atleast two warriors anyway so I don't really NEED to use it.

it's not so much for "need" as it is the extra firepower it provides. Most of the time I opt for corpse explosion if there is a nice grouping around the body. In PvP having what is essentially an extra henchman running around for a little bit can be invaluable.

BChan · May 10, 2005, 05:42 PM // 17:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kordesh

Here is my biggest issue with Necros. The majority of their spells seem to have no point, as there is another skill that does the same exact thing only it won't require you sacrifice your HP or it won't have some kind of negative effect to it. The functionality of their spells is very limited.

ATM I have a necro/mesmer

12 Death
10 Blood
7 Illusions
4 Soul Reaping

The soul reaping helps ALOT with high death. Things need to die for you to use most death abilities. The soul reaping bonus helps best when it gives you the 10 energy you need to detonate some persons corpse after they die.

I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing splitting between death and blood. The returns for increasing death higher than it already is seems to not be worth it. To increase death by 1 I would need to lose 2 to 3 blood points.

Illusions is just sort of a backup. Phantom Pains or whatever it's called is a pretty decent DoT and quick casting. There are a few nifty abilities in that tree, although domination might be better overall. I personally would love to get Clumsiness at some point. Great spell.

Template I've been thinking of. I call it "Playing Dead"
Get as many touch spells/HP tap spells as you can get
Use illusion of weakness
Use something else on yourself like barbs or tainted flesh or whatever\

Basically the idea is to make yourself look like an easy target, and then pound them the second they get in melee range.

if you don't see the benefit of the sac spells you are not reading it right...the ones with a sac a 5 energy a piece for the most part. In addition their activation time is <=1s plus their recycle time is quick. This makes them spamable. Now if you do use them you have to invest in blood or monk so that you are getting hp back or you will kill yourself.

Bamelin · May 10, 2005, 05:49 PM // 17:49

I am a Monk/Necro.

Heal Area is VERY handy when you have 6 or more Minions around you.

Other Monk/Necro combo's include such fun spells as
Infuse Vitality + Soul Reaping
Vengeance + Death Nova

Kordesh · May 10, 2005, 05:49 PM // 17:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by BChan

if you don't see the benefit of the sac spells you are not reading it right...the ones with a sac a 5 energy a piece for the most part. In addition their activation time is <=1s plus their recycle time is quick. This makes them spamable. Now if you do use them you have to invest in blood or monk so that you are getting hp back or you will kill yourself.

I'm not saying all of them are bad or that all of the sacrifice abilities don't work well. The abilities just seem to overlap. I've checked the refresh and energy costs and cast timers and there doesn't seem to be a point to some of them. When I have time I might look thought and find some specifics.

Epinephrine · May 10, 2005, 05:58 PM // 17:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kordesh

I'm not saying all of them are bad or that all of the sacrifice abilities don't work well. The abilities just seem to overlap. I've checked the refresh and energy costs and cast timers and there doesn't seem to be a point to some of them. When I have time I might look thought and find some specifics.

Well, one major point is to use them to activate Dark Aura. Dark Pact by itself is horrible - hurt yourself to hurt your opponent about the same amount, and spend energy doing it? That's backwards, it doesn't even make any sense - if I had a spell that took no time for me, dropped did equal damage to me and my opponent and dropped him 5 energy I'd use it; then at least it's an energy drain. Ah - but mix it with Dark Aura and you get the ability to spam a spell that does area of effect damage based on sacrificing - and a fair bit of it too! Yes, you need healing of some form to make it work, but you can spend energy fast and dump damage into a group.

Kordesh · May 10, 2005, 06:05 PM // 18:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Epinephrine

Well, one major point is to use them to activate Dark Aura. Dark Pact by itself is horrible - hurt yourself to hurt your opponent about the same amount, and spend energy doing it? That's backwards, it doesn't even make any sense - if I had a spell that took no time for me, dropped did equal damage to me and my opponent and dropped him 5 energy I'd use it; then at least it's an energy drain. Ah - but mix it with Dark Aura and you get the ability to spam a spell that does area of effect damage based on sacrificing - and a fair bit of it too! Yes, you need healing of some form to make it work, but you can spend energy fast and dump damage into a group.

From my understanding of dark aura, it only did damage if an ally was sacrificeing health. So I thought you would need 2 necros to effectively use it.......I didn't even think about the fact you could cast it on yourself.

Epinephrine · May 10, 2005, 06:17 PM // 18:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kordesh

From my understanding of dark aura, it only did damage if an ally was sacrificeing health. So I thought you would need 2 necros to effectively use it.......I didn't even think about the fact you could cast it on yourself.

Yes, "Ally" is anyone on your team; "Other ally" is used when it cannot be cast on self. You can thus deal large amounts of damage, and provided you have ways to heal you can do a very good job of it.

Creed · May 11, 2005, 12:41 AM // 00:41

Necro can be good at P v P and P v E it simply depends on how tactical you are. Death magic is mostly for PvE in honesty, but i've made it work for p v p as i'll show you..

In both these builds suicide builds.. maxing blood is the key. Max it out, (this is considering you are going pure necro, i consider no other 2nd classes remember that.)

Blood is at 12 at that point... sounds fine.. now buy a superior rune of blood magic, and add it to your armour, making your blood magic 15. Now again get another supirior rune and add it to a diffren peice of armour. Making your blood magic 18. Ok so you're hp is suffering, balance both those runes out with sup- vigor runes. (I never said this would be cheap lol). And maybe add another +1 blood rune (minor) to the last armour slot.

so right now your necro has an astonishing 19 blood magic.

Skills like renewal of blood should never leave your skill list.

If you take curses and not death magic this is how the set up works in PvP.

1. Blood renewal.
2. Dark pact.
3. Demonic flesh. (optional)
4. Vampiric gaze.
5. Vampiric touch.
6. Unholy feast.
7. Well of power. (very oprional

)
8. Elite skill... Grenths balance.

Either optional skills can be replaced by Awaken the blood for an extremly risky, high damage nuking necro.

As you may see from the skills above there's alot of hp sacrifice involved.

Open out with Blood renewal, followed by demonic flesh and then a dark pact, risky.. brings you down to less than half of your max hp.. but it's worth it.

The lower a necros hp is the stronger he becomes, as i'll show.. After casting the dark pact you will have just enough time to cast grenths balance, and take well over 150hp off your enemy. At this point blood renewal kicks in and boom your hp is roughly 640 (demonic flesh) and you are fully healed. Even if you use 'normal' tactics from now on any 1 person fighting you is likly to be a wlak over.

If you do decide to use death magic.. Alot of these tactics stay the same...

except for the elite skill, you can take aura of the lich, to heavily reduce the amount of hp sacrificed, and the amount of risk taken, using demonic flesh you can also make sure your hp is'nt as low as aura of the lich would want it to be

. But with that you have to rely more so on vampiric spells to increase your hp if it's lost. Awaken the blood should be taken if you choose death magic as the hp sacrifices are halfed, meaning.. if they are doubled by having awaken the blood spell running, it only breaks even, and with the +2blood magic... you are going to cause alot of damage

Well there you are folks. A necro (pure necro) build that works, ok it's risky, very risky, but it works.

People seem to think mesmer is the 'advanced' class. They're wrong, look at the combo i created for the necro, and there are hundreds of tactics like it usable from the necros skill list. Necro is simply a difficult class to use well.

I'd like to name this 'build' but in reality i'm simply showing what the necromancer can do by himself. This build... if you want to call it that is 'The necromancer'. Truth is a necros spells work best with... a necros spells, he really does'nt work well with other secoundary classes that i've seen, (for damage dealing effectivness) but i'll continue to look.

The Fox · May 11, 2005, 01:38 AM // 01:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Creed

Blood is at 12 at that point... sounds fine.. now buy a superior rune of blood magic, and add it to your armour, making your blood magic 15. Now again get another supirior rune and add it to a diffren peice of armour. Making your blood magic 18. Ok so you're hp is suffering, balance both those runes out with sup- vigor runes. (I never said this would be cheap lol). And maybe add another +1 blood rune (minor) to the last armour slot.

I believe that the game will only count the highest rune of the same attribute type. Therefore you can gain +3 with a superior rune and +1 with a scar, but you can't get to 18 by adding more runes of the same type.

Check out awaken the blood if you're willing to use another skill slot.

1/2_Extreme · May 11, 2005, 01:44 AM // 01:44

Any way i can make a N/Mo build work in pvP?

1/2_Extreme · May 11, 2005, 01:48 AM // 01:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Fox

Well i only got to play the first two early release days, since i've been at school and haven't been able to pick up my preorder. However, in those days I got past lions arch with my necro/monk and enjoyed it the whole way. Contrary to these posts, I remember being one of the semi-tank characters that usually killed faster than my allies. Maybe this was due to the fact that necros have access to some very useful spells early game while other classes might now; however, i really like the necro and think LOL don't flame me for this... i think my build is going to be great in pvp too.

Really? I havent had much success with my N/Mo build. Please give us some details on your build?

EG: What did you put your skill points into?, What skills are you using?

Creed · May 11, 2005, 11:04 AM // 11:04

Thanks fox, i thought that might be the case alright.

The tatcis i proposed will still work, based on the balance skill, allowing any damage done to you, to actually weaken your enemy in the long run.

As i already said Awaken the blood is risky, especially if you dont use your elite skill as being aura of the lich. 66% of your max hp from 1 skill, is simply insane. With Aura of the lich, you drop that back to 33% and since your hp is already 50% of what it should be, that is'nt all that bad. Making your max hp thta bit higher using demonic flesh allows for you to control the situation, only taking half damage from all sources, without having to keep looking at your hp.

Question: Why is it, you can gain the extra 1 from a scar, but if you add a minor rune to another peice of armour you cannot get that +1?

As, why could'nt you simply add a +3rune to the scar, overwritting its original +1.. aww well, the tactics i made dont specifically need for the necro to have really high blood magic but the higher the better.

EvilWizard · May 11, 2005, 04:04 PM // 16:04

I went with a Necro/Ranger for PvE and I am entirely happy with it. I send my Ranger pet in and make bone minions as monsters die. I sit back away from the main fray and lay down suppressive fire with my bow and use ignite arrows for area damage. I seem to put out a great deal of damage and I self heal so the primary healer can focus in on the others in the group. I don't see a lot of this profession combo around and I have to wonder why?

kxn · May 11, 2005, 04:53 PM // 16:53

lol wtf do you seriously think a necro is made to be a hardcore killer? no hes just there as a nuker, in fact, i believe necro/ele combo is one of the best in the game. you can nuke and as a lot of your skills, and you can heal while doing a good chunk of damage.
currently i am using the combo, my set up is set as:
deadly swarm
vamp touch
vamp gaze
then some other life stealer thing (Forgot name)
putrid explosion thing
glyph of lesser energy
then the last 2-3 are either usually frozen blast / ice spikes or firestorm
and always a ressurection signet.

with this i dont know what you guys are having trouble with the undead or tengu but it seems to work fine with me. all far distance i just use swarm and spikes first, then let my teammmates kill something from there and use putrid. the putrid explosion is one of the best skills in the game that a necro can have.
1) it has no cooldown
2) with 9 points on it, it does 82 damage to everything regardless of its level.
3) its splash damage
by the time you use putrid, your energy is around 20 so easily doing a good 160 damage to everything around.
sorry but if you are complaining about necro you must really suck with him/her

if you are playing a boss you can nuke the shizzle out of him hard. especially since most of your skills can work instantly after the other, currently im holding 45 energy and if i use the spells i have, thats a good 250 damage within 10 secs.

you can flame me if you want, but im fine with what i have.