Necromancers

I feel that for the summon skills, the minions either should not lose life over time or the recharge time should be dramastically shortened. With necromancers on my team, i hardly see anyone summon anything because the "lose life over time" is to great a penalty if you need corpses to summon.

I played with a high level necro just recently and they seemed to have about 5 minions all the time. I think it's essential that the minions lose life over time, otherwise a necro could literally amass an army of the undear rivaling that of the Charr army. If they didn't lose life they would have to be limited in number instead. And anyway, you can cast healing spells on them to make them last a bit longer if you really want.

There is also moves that keep them alive really well. One gives them a regen rate of 10 I believe, that would work just great. I think having them die is kind of made to even things out AND work towards the necromancer, what with their soul reaping skill and all.

I chose a E/N because i wanted tanks for soloing, is there anyway to make the minions last longer with nec or elementalist skills?

Any recommendations for what skills to go for?

what you really need to keep them alive is...

monk skills

Blood of the Master and other such skills, basically skills that take your health and give it to yer minions. But...honestly, with them you should always have at least 3 horrors, 6 bone minions, or 2-3 fiends depending on the rate that you kill things, it isn't hard. *Edit* (Not all of them at the same time, I'm assuming you only bring one summon skill with you at a time. If you bring two, you get the idea, you'll have varied amounts.)

I find Heal Area really useful for between fights as the minions group around you when not fighting. Seriously the main problem i have is lack of mana

I don't like the RATE at which they lose life. It seems so fast. This comming from a N/Mo (minion master).

It's exponential, meaning it steadily increases. But the speed at which it picks up is saddening. If there could be more of a delay between each pip of health degen on my minions, it'd be nice...

Edit: That's not to say though, that I don't love my job:

It's game balance.

It's a bit of an unfair advantage when you can exploit the corpses to make instant meatshields whereas other parties sans Necromancers must use their warrior-based members to take all the flak.

Alecia (the Monk NPC) will sometimes automatically heal the minions if no other player has sustained any damage.

It's timing, too. With my Necromancer, I use Soul Reaping as a way to keep tabs on how many minions I have. It may sound daft to anyone else, but it's helped me keep track of how many minions I have that are out on the field. With every corpse (that I haven't exploded or used Blood Well on) I make sure I've summoned a minion from it.

Speaking as someone who really loves the Necromancer class, I summon like there's no tomorrow because I'm a tactful coward. I'd rather do everything it takes to keep the enemy from getting near me if I can possibly manage it.

The could there be a health bar for the minions just like there are allies?

They are allies, right?

Untill I die, so why not let them be allies?

They are on our team.

Minions aren't really meat sheilds because nobody in PvP is going to attack them. What I have noticed though is that when a necro comes in with a million minions around him he tends to lag people out on my team. Sorry ... just thought about it and I guess in PvE they might work as meat sheilds. Not sure which you are referring too. I always tend to think of things in PvP. Need to stop doing that

Just look at that screenshot and there's your answer. You would have a health window with like 20 bars on it. Pretty annoying if you ask me. I sure as hell wouldn't want those appearing on my screen. Maybe, if they only appear on the necro's screen. If you do have the health bars though it makes managing your minions infintely easier which could become a balance issue.

well in response to teh first post. it could be that the necros you are playing with are Cursers or blood magi anyway and don't summon minions.

Verata's Sacrafice does nothing more than buy a little time up at the higher levels. Lvl 17 undead, at least, degenerate at such a rate that you might only get 1/16th of the bar up from the time you use it until the end, and it's even worse than that when the skill recycles. (That is, if all you brought was Verata's Sacrafice, there would be no way to keep them alive). However, I don't think it has an AoE, so its purpose may be to keep them up a little longer mid-battle, so that they can live until you get a chance to regroup and heal them.

Developers need to cut necromancers some slack on the accelerated degeneration times. Between constantly casting vereta's sacrifice every 30 seconds, and raising minions from dead bodies (As long as theres not another necro in the group screwing me up by using well of blood), I barely have enough time to walk anywhere.

If your in PvP, and you see a necro with an army of undead (which happened to my team once), then DONT ATTACK them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wait for the minions to die off in a couple minutes (which my stupid team didnt do, they immediately attacked, the morons). Just wait 2 minutes, its not like theres a timer on the mission, and its not like theres extra dead bodies to rez from. Just wait. You that impatient to not wait 2 minutes?

I wholeheartedly support any motion that allows players to choose who's health bars show up on the screen out of EVERYONE iin the area who isn't hostile. We should be able to choose to have all the undead that are friendly on screen at once if we want, or turn it off. We should be able to put random NPC's in the area in our party window to make protecting them easier (especially if they're important to the mission/quest).

I understand the need for Necro summons to have some sort of limit or health degeneration for game balance purposes but just now it's very hard to play an effective summoner necro unless you get a very good group or are in a guild. The problem I always find is that it's fine raising an army of undead but generally they're dead by the time you get to the next mob because you have to wait for the elementalists and monks energy regen. Unless you get good players who know how to heal or nuke efficiently you're going to be waiting for 15-20 seconds after each battle, combined with the ever increasing health degen effect your minions rarely last long enough.

That said in a good group or guild and in an area where there are plenty of corpses to use, a good summoner necro can make a very nice little army to help the team. Just not if you are using PUGs.

Don't got blaming monks and elementalists, we are required to use all our enegry during much larger battles to kill mobs and keep people like you alive in battle

If they limit the number of minions Necros can raise I'm happy for them to be alive longer, they not that powerful in attacking anymore

Not complaining or blaming merely pointing out that with coordination eles and monks supported by a good summoner necro army don't need to use as much energy because the minions are taking all the heat and doing some nice damage too. And you don't need to keep my N/Mo alive, he can heal himself with Taste of Death better than most monks can heal him.

Bone minions + Death Nova = more damage output than an elementalist can dream of

Maybe, but the Monk is the best healer in the game and you stand a better chance of winning in battle by leaving healing to the class it was designed for.

Seen that trick used on me before... use Armor of Earth, Ward again melee or foes depending on what I have at the time, use area effect spells to clear off the minions... simple when you know how