What is a Necromancer... please don't forget...

[warlok34]

Hello all, I'm new to the message boards on all EQ related sites, but I figured I'd start here since this site is devoted to my favorite and main class, the Necromancer. Be aware this is a bit long post, but well worth it to any Necromancer to think about.

As of this day of post, I have a lvl 46 Necromancer. I've learned a lot from soloing, grouping, and advice given by my fellow Necros. I have read up on message boards all over, from Sony's site, to sites like Caster Realms. And I have to say I agree with a lot of what is said, but also disagree with a lot. Now granted, I was not playing a necro "back in the day", so I don't have a reference of what necros used to be like vs. how they are now, but as someone who only knows how they are now, they rock. They are still the best class to be in, in my opinion.

The reason for this post is to hopefully make people feel better about their choice of being a Necromancer. What is a Necromancer? Well, sure, dictionaries and EQ manuals have a book definition, but the concept of being a Necromancer is what is most important... I believe that SOE might be keeping the concept in mind more than the textbook definition (although, remember, this is just my opinion as a fairly newer member to the community, and I could be wrong, but...). Here's why:

In concept, the Necromancer is master of death, pain, disease, and undead. They are a spell caster who specializes in necromantic type spells and undead mastery. This mastery of undead is probably why our more powerful spells are specific to Undead (versus other classes having similar spells for any type mob), but we get them at lower lvls. Our spells that are not specific to undead mobs should not be as powerful as those for undead, and must be obtained at higher levels than others. This hopefully calms those who wonder why people of other classes get spells of equal power (or around abouts), at lower levels.

Our mastery of disease is why we deserve great spells that debuff mobs (whether undead or not). I don't know of classes that can debuff a mob while enhancing themselves as well as we do (these are 2 for 1 spells, as early as Sap Strength for self, all the way up to spells like Theft of Vitae for whole group). If soloing, our debuff spells alone with a pet, and maybe 1 DOT and/or 1 Nuke can allow us to solo on our journeys. When in groups, we can just debuff the heck out of mobs, giving ourselves and/or the group buffs, send our pet in, and let the rest of the group take the rest. As for raids, I don't have any experience in that yet, so I just won't comment. Oh, and if the MOB has a high resist to a type spell, rest assured we have another spell similar to that spell, but a different spell type (Poison vs Disease vs Magic types).

In addition, we have great pets... let's be honest... granted, they're not as good as another PC class of it's lvl, but come on, where would the balance be if we were a pure caster with a pure melee fighting for us always. Now, we're not a Pet Lord specialty class (I'm not sure who is or if there is one), so maybe some of our pet abilities are not as good as some others have, but they are still excellent. I mean, we have a full diverse choice of how to use our pets (whether it's fear-kiting, aggro-kiting, or flat out tank if done right).

I've heard people complain about mana costs and component costs, and I'm disappointed. Done right, a necro will hardly ever run out of mana. Oh, sure, we have to give up HP for mana, but that's what being a necro is all about: gaining adv from disadvantages (more power by inflicting pain on ourselves). I find one of the most exciting things about being a Necro is my HP constantly going down, while mana is constantly going up, only to Sap HP from the MOB that my pet is pretty much handling better than I could. We can get more mana restore faster than anyother class, so spending a little extra mana shouldn't bother anyone. Although, I'll be honest, all the way up to my upper lvl 20's, I had a weapon and was right in there attacking when pet was taking too much damage. As for component costs, well, as the best of being able to solo, we can go out to low lvl MOB areas and wipe them out, making a killing in loot. Do we have to do this, well, no, you can still solo equal lvl MOBS for xp and loot, but of course, it'll take a bit longer to get as much loot.

We are the jack of all trades... we have the means to root, mezz, debuff, dot, nuke, self buff, mana regen, heal ourselves, heal others, have a pet, Feign Death, Gate, evac to safety, solo, group, even melee ourselves if aggro is on another player in a group. This is why we are kings of soloing, and an advantage for any group to have (whether they know it or not). We can do anything that any other class can do... we won't be as good at it as any other class that specializes in it, but guaranteed, when it comes to Undead, we are kings of all those abilities.

Again, I don't know what it was like before... maybe Necromancers were too overpowered for someone who is supposed to mainly master in the Necromantic arts, or maybe they just kept looking at balance versus the warrior (trust me, if anyone has something to complain about, they do, LoL). But the list of spells I see for a Necromancer now seem right in line with the concept of what a necromancer is.

Do I think some things could be added or changed... sure. I think some of the graphics of our pets as we level up, or of ourselves for mana conversion, could be a gradual constant change, or even something we get to choose for that situation. I also think that some of the spells have a cost that doesn't make sense (like Sacrifice, wouldn't it be more logical, and more in line with Necro spells, that you would have to sacrifice yourself, not another character, to rezz someone... I mean, we have to give up our HP to give others HP, and we have to give up our mana to give others mana, or... maybe at higher lvls allow us to sacrifice an NPC/MOB of equal or higher lvl to rezz another character just like we have spells that take HP or MANA from a MOB and gives to others... these would be more logical, but, eh, nobody/nothing's perfect).

Overall, what is a Necromancer? It is exactly what we are as of today, jack of all trades, masters of Undead, Pain, Disease, and Death. Feel free to give your input, responses, disapprovals, disbeliefs. Just please, let's not start personally attacking each other over something that is nobody's fault (except maybe SOE, LoL). We are Necromancers, we're better than all that pettiness.

Tribune Atraeel
46 Necromancer
Seventh Hammer
**One of the unusually nice Necro Iksars**

[Reyna Niteraven]

Great post Tribune!!
B)

[Emperson]

Wow you're good at writing essays... Anywho nice post and a good read for all necromancers. I salute you!

i think that this essay should be stickied somewhere... its very nice

[Xarrix]

Great!

[Beltathor]

Well said!

Beltathor

[Draz]

:D I concur. What you wrote is in line with my thinking. So of course I will say, Well done. :)

[Maihem]

Yes, we remain powerful. Just takes a bit of grey matter to figure out how to make it happen. It's just not as easy as it used to be, and I think thats what has the veterans up in arms. I'd sure like it if my fear spell still worked.

Maihem
55th Level Heritic
Innoruuk Server

[saelena1]

What a wonderful post, loved reading it and agreed almost 100%. Takes some skill and much knowledge of your abilities to play a necro, but once you have those down...nothing can stop you!!!

Great Post!!

[Nytewrayth]

Great post Tribune - well said! :)

[Menoz]

Fo Shizzle my Nizzle!!!!

[hotlunch]

WOW!!! what a great post. But keep in mind, dark elf necros cant solo as well as others. Simple, we just cant. We are allways KOS so it is a bit tougher. Anyways..... Amazing post and thanks!!!!



Vueen
Level 40

[Schaeffer]

No sympathy for DE being KoS, Ikky's are even more KoS...

[Everdude(Everquest rocks!)]

I totaly agree with you ;) My Webpage (http://www.drakenandmarion.bravehost.com)

[Emperson]

lol this kid is great.... dare i click the My Webpage link?

[Adalric]

As for raiding, necroes have it so easy lol. On every raid I attend I basically am a mana pump for team heal, although on nameds, mini's etc I will load every stackable DoT I have due to long killing times. Sure I will send the pet in and debuff when I can but I do not see any other purpose for a necro on a raid, classes/numbers permitting of course.
Oh, and we rarely have to wipe over and over again. We can FD and drag corpses lol My main is a cleric and what a nice change of pace in the raiding scene when playing the necro! I can /afk whenever the f**k I want to lol when playing the cleric I'm usually stuck in my chair for hours at a time

[cyberdragon]

All I can say is WOW I liked what u had to say that was great anyone that would read that would most likely want to try and play a necro what u said was great I like i said, all I can say is WOW!!!!! :D :D :D

[KarmaKeeper]

warlock very good post. you are quite right =) and you helped me feel better about being a necromancer.

for anyone else who read this far down :

necromancers a simply the best solo class, with less effort. Raw unbridaled power one of only 3 classes to ressurect players. one of only 3 classes with feign death (its so useful you should hardly unmem it. uberdot agro is a bitch, so is debuffing, but FD makes it go away =) as far as i know, the only class with feign pet and the ability to have 3 pets at once (1 active, two stored ready to go). the only class to turn a corpse into a minion (without worrying about losing current pet) the only class that heals and does damage from the same spell. the only class with BOTH snare and fear.

i could go on for quite a while, i assure you. but hopefully i dont have to cuz you have faith in your decision to be a necromancer.

[Kzann]

Fo Shizzle my Nizzle!!!! Nizzle

Bad Word.

[Silayn Test]

Hi. Bare with me here im kinda hard to understand. This is my first post.

That said.
Please dont forget what a necromancer is. Most honestly have no clue where we came from let alone where were going. DiD you know the first nerf to the class(named for the nerf bat) came when 8 I believe it was 8 correct me if im wrong Necros soloed Vox(or naggy its been a long time). it was really easy cast a pet send pet to attack FD when your pet died stand up summon a new one. Things started to go down hill from then. Take grinding afk, just have a pet near a mob that you can get xp from fd and go afk. It was great i did all my factioning that way.

Ive been playing eq on the test server since i stared eq pre test wipe befor kunark. Since then ive had a few occasions to talk to devs and the one thing i can tell you is you really cant have a solo class in a game that was designed for grouping. If they were to design eq all over again we would be the only class not in it. Were too hard to fit into the big picture.

In the begining it was easy to give us spells that other classes had, it was great we were every class and then we were our own class. But now 65 lvls later and may expansions you really cant say what a necro is. Its alot easier to say what were not and work from there. I really cant say what dirrection the necro should go into no offence but half of what anyone wants is really unballancing. Look at mana regen that alone has gone way out of hand.

There is a lot of types of necromancers. Its very hard to try and put them into a role especially when we look at our past. Durring velious i tanked and healed a group that consisted of a monk, sham and ranger. You take that into PoP and it doesnt work. We get alot of spells that can go along with a great set of skills. There is the problem.

Its funny to me to hear that some necros only function on a raid is to give mana. I feel sorry for those poor necros. I feel even worse for the raid. #1 i would never raid with that raid leader again because they honestly dotn know what a necro can do or #2 they are still stuck in velious. Necros can now stack dots on a mob that was the single most step forward in raiding we have had in long time. Also 1 necro does not = 1 cleric. On a raid i like to think im there when things go bad. When the shit hits the fan i got a HS i can heal myself fd and then i can rez. I have saved enough raids along with the other necros i raid with for us not to be used as mana pumpers for the clerics. But im also not saying delete that line of spells. We got that spell to eleminate down time. That was the main reason for that spell. THink of it pregraveyards it took way to long to rebuff and start the raid over again when you wiped. This was back when 1 necro per raid to dot.

Its nice to try and put a history with a class when trying to define it. Every one tries to take the D&D or some movie or book version and try to make the EQ class that way. Stop it please that makes it hard to get things accomplished. case in point. A lvl 40ish necro wants a lvl 16 dmg shield on his pet someone reads this and gets it put on the lvl 65 pet. If you have the pet you would then want to severly beat that lvl 40 necro. It wasnt what i voted for but then try to explain to a dev why our pets need a weapon skill so our % to hit increases for our pet and not just increasing the pets ATK. But hey this is my oppinion and i have been wrong to speak out from time to time.

Im not gona sit and say we need to fear higher lvl mobs or that we need to charm or have a debuff. or even have a spell line upgraded. Things change the game changes we as a class need to evolve. Raiding is now the focus of the game for the masses and things you change or thing would need changing effects things on so many lvls. Its hard to establish a picture of a Necro when the picture is still getting painted.

What is a necromancer... Honestly all i can say is Its good to be one.

[Jebasiz]

It's a great post...and we should all be glad we're members of such a great class and resourcefull community. On raids I refuse to be a mana pump, except on something like The rathe council or Xegony, where it's absolutely necessary..normally on any mob that last more the 2mins I'm in top 5(of 70ish) in dps for the raid....don't let people fool you/trick you, your mana can't be used better by someone else, if your feeding a cleric chain...fine, but that shouldn't be SOP(standard operating procedure). We can be as much an asset in a raiding environment as we choose to be, feeding clerics is a waste of the abilities we have,
and adds to the stereotype of what we "are."


Some of the reasons for the negativety the initial poster encountered are:
mages and bsts have free summon pets(mages after aa ability, bsts are innately free), ours cost a 11p and a bonechip.

Our UNDEAD charm and mez are capped at level 64...enchanters aren't.
our screaming terror spell won't do a damn thing to anything over level 50(or close)...so we actually loose that line/ability.

fear is capped at 55...another ability lost. Considering we used to be able to fear just about ANYTHING for almost 2 years, to where were at now (it's almost useless)
that's quite a big hit to how we hunt.

In the end though, no matter how SOE changes the game and/or our class we'll do as we've always done, kill things solo that most other people won't even attempt... and look good while doing it =).

Jeb

[Morbific]

WOW!!! what a great post. But keep in mind, dark elf necros cant solo as well as others. Simple, we just cant. We are allways KOS so it is a bit tougher. Anyways..... Amazing post and thanks!!!!

I don't agree with this. Very few factions get in the way of hunting and virtually all faction is fixable anyway, if it was proving that much of an issue and you wanted to fool the damn enemy. :D

[Devlinn Deathcaster]

Well i was coming around to posting something like this, but you made it about a billion more sentences than i would have made it, Necros Rule Norrath, We are Jacks of all trades like you said. It is alot of fun PKing another necro, its pretty much whoever has better spells, or who gets the darkness off first.

I couldnt have made a post like this ever. its awesome.!

[Skidmarkz]

This is exactly why I started a necromancer. Very well written

[VenimFv]

nice post and I agree. I think as necro's were are so dang versatile. We get a mezz spell , ok so it only lasts a tiny bit but hey it can be the difference between a wipe and a win , we get dire charm, we get feign death, we get snare, we get fearm we get dots and nukes and a rez too. what other class has all that power and can do the things we do ? As for being KoS, that can be fixed by faction hunting with can be quite fun on the days when you want less stress and wanna relax, just send in pet and have a go, though for role play purposes you may want to remain KoS, depends on how you roleplay ... but all in all you did a great job on the post.

[AanuuarVF]

On raids I refuse to be a mana pump, except on something like The rathe council or Xegony, where it's absolutely necessary..normally on any mob that last more the 2mins I'm in top 5(of 70ish) in dps for the raid

Great Point... I play a warrior main in my guild. We are just shy of the Rathe Council atm...

Recently we started parsing all of our fights, mostly for fun, but some strat evolution as well. One thing I have to say, is that our Necros are usually in the top10 for total Damage and even rank pretty high on the DPS scale.

If you're being a mana pump every night, then you're not doing your job. We raid every night if we can, hitting 3-7 targets in a night... if I see (Necros keep the clerics up) once a week it's a suprise... and yes, it's for Xegony if anything.

Only when a Cleric/Shammy/whatever says in raid... 10m (just res'd) should you be pumping them, otherwise you're a DPS/Debuffing machine... GET TO WORK! >)

[Deathroes]

All Hail,
Great post my undead brother. As a "new" necro also, I am finding this class quite enjoyable to play. Just dinged 24, am lamenting my not finding the prescribed words required to cast my new pet. I am however, making excellent exp in LOIO as I search. This is quite the amazing site.......by and large, a majority of posts are thoughtful and informative. About time!

Cold Regards,

Deathroes Bitterblossom 24 Iksar Necro
Bertoxxolous Server

[Nytewind TP]

Deathroes make sure you check out the Hunting grounds on this site. Lake of Ill Omen-20% PENALTY. So you may level faster in a different zone...

[Niri]

I think besides twitch, I am mainly decorative on most raids.. :lol:

[Cannukko]

I only mem dump between battles if everyone's oom and I have some to spare. No one sees the dps/total damage of our dots because DoT isn't announced, but I promise you if you stack your 2 or 3 best dots on there, combined with the shredding damage of the pets (mine always out-aggros a mage friend who duos with me all the time) and you are doing some serious damage. Dead mob = less damage for the tanks.

About fear on 55+ mobs, hey it's a great, quick aggro generator for aggro kiting. We can still aggro kite better than other classes, with our varied pets and ability to snare and dot while we do it. Yup, necros are still almost overpowered, especially if you know what you're doing.

Well stated, brother.

[Nigyl]

On a raid I normally have PoT9, beastlord crack and enough regen to compensate for Arch Lich: that's about 75 mana per tick when medding. I don't see the point in _not_ giving that mana to other players in downtime if they need it, it's only wasted otherwise.

[cptnmikey]

I think that necros are really the only class that can pull and pull and keep pulling for hours....non-stop killing, SOLO. I love being necro and I am so glad she is my main. If you can use your brains, and a little imagination, you can go pretty far with this character. I can solo non stop on the 2nd ship in Dulak's for hours, and not have to have any downtime medding. That is something to be marvled :)
~Peaych
53 Heretic
Druzzil Ro

[Remuts]

heh

[Sevyene]

Hi I'm a casual player who is new to the forum and to the Necro class. (My old main was an Iksar monk pre-luclin. I recently came back from 'retirement' on a new account and server.) I actually heard of this place thanks to a post in Caster's Real on one of the spells there. I'm VERY grateful that I ran across it because I've found a wealth of knowledge and comradery here in Necrotalk that I haven't been able to find elsewhere. When I started out I knew very little about the class. The early dreary solo attempts and young Research stage was a disheartening time for me. (It still is since I've failed my 24 pet combine 3x already. >_< )

This thread on What is a Necromancer clued me in on its history. It also provided insight to high end necro-life ala raids. This made me decide to keep my necro because I dont think I really gave the class a chance. I continued to read up on the postings and have found new tactics and tid-bits to help me on my long trek through necromacy. I was a cookie-cutter player who spent most of her newbie-ness grouping through Kurn's Tower and PC so I didnt do much soloing. (I didnt realize how damaging that was to me at the time while the Ding's kept pouring in.)

I am currently soloing in LOIO to hunt for more Research components and OMG it is through soloing that I have learned more and more about how to play my class. Through trial and error and a series of annoying deaths I think I'm managing my way. I'm exploring this class and actually enjoying the game for myself and not so much worried about the XP grind like I used to be on my monk.

I'm sorry Umbrello (sp?) was deguilded for posting the links to this place, but there are a lot of young necros like myself who appreciate the wealth of information here at Necrotalk.

Thank you.

[Atdan]

Sevyene you might want to try Vendor diving for words in PoK if you have the cash and get out of LOIO it has a exp penalty.

With saying that I'll get back to the jist of this post that Tribune started.

/bow Tribune.

Great post and I agree with you, we are the swiss army knives of EQ.

I played a Druid up to 48 pre Luclin and had to quit due to some RL issues. Coming back to EQ I strarted to read up on what would be the best class for me to play and I found Necro's sounded just what I was looking for. I hate grouping with anyone other than guildies and I have off hours I play so Solo was the way for me to go.

After playing up to my current lelvel of 44 I find that being a Necromancer is not just playing a class that is the most powerfull and underutilized class in the game it's a EQ way of life for me. I no longer see my self as an Alt of a Druid but I am the Main of a gimmpy class I put to damn much time into.

I have no where near learned all the "tricks of the trade" playing a Necro but reading these boards I have learned alot of them and I hope to continue to learn on how to play this great class.

I'm rambling now so "Move along, nothing to see here, Move along"

[aurelias]

HAH!

Try being a Erudite Necromancer.

You start out in Paineel. The ghetto housing project of Norrath. Nothing ever got done to develop Odus any further other than to make it a connection point to Dulak. Your alsoKoS in Erud and just about everywhere else that hates Heretics, which by the way is a lot of places. Finding fellow Erudite Necromancers is a rarity. I think I met only 6 my whole time playing on the Nife. There are more than that obviosly, but I have only grouped with 6 in my whole time playing my necro for 63 levels now. DE necros are a dime a dozen. If it was so damn hard to play em, Why everyone playing a necro taking a damn DE then?

Just my 2 CP.

Black man gets it IRW and he gotta get it stuck to him in EQ. Its all a plot to keep us down :P

Aurelias Slayneheart 63rd level Erudite Necromancer

[Rijak]

high level necros are also the most confident class by far... no fear of death whatsoever... we are use to walking around at 30% health... we can FD... and if all else fails, summon and rez ourselves

i laugh when i see most other caster classes with the obligatory "HELP ME! I'M GETTING ATTACKED!!" hotbutton they hit before even reaching 70% :lol:

[Plavonica]

yes i do agree we necros rock! i was in a group the other week (all guildies), we had like 3 necros a cleric and a tank. there was a guild raid killin the same exact mobs we were killing (forget name), no biggie i know with that many necros in a group we can do some amazing stuff. what got me lovin the class even more was when we were constantly saving their raid as they kept pulling way to many adds and we would take em all as most of em ran! anyways great post and i agree wholeheartedly!

[Braeinae]

I started a necro because I "thought" I saw the depth of the class and how fun it can be. I was wrong... dead wrong. I've tried out most of the classes. I've watched necro friends do the "Dance of Death" (solo/duo) for a long time. I was envious and always dazzled. I have labored for the last couple of years with tradeskills because I thought I had to and only found one I took satisfaction from. I've topped out the class I thought most suited me and yeah it's still fun but...
I dinged 44 duoing with a higher lvl necro friend in Natimbi... I gleefully RUSHED to research my spells... I RAN to a testing ground (Rathe Mtn) to find myself totally alone.. I dropped 4 of those HG bastages in one mana bar (no great acomplishment for most but for me it was about discovering spell sets)... I confidently strolled the top of HG hill, pet in tow, laying waste to the PH's for a respawn... I dared one to spawn! RAWR! What a rush!
For me, playing a necro is pure fun. A renewal of pleasure in the game. Nothing compares to the self reliance I experience now when considered against the other classes I play. The power to walk unaided where I want, when I want, even at this tender young age. To look at a mob and decide if it is worthy of my mana to kill it. To not be limited by narrow class specializations, but to have the luxury of assessing a fight based on whether I can or can not handle the power of my opponent. The ability to group and be a multi talent within that group. I get a kick out of surprising uneducated group mates when I play crowd control. My bank has 8 bags dedicated to nothing but words. Vendor diving used to be a dreaded chore, now I enjoy it. I take pleasure in our given tradeskill... the excitement of finding words on a dead mob... researching and planning the hunts for them... then putting that newly created spell in my book or handing it to a grateful necro friend who needs it. To come here and and learn by reading about your adventures, accomplishments, techniques and the mechanics of playing a necromancer. Pure fun!

[Faumienn Hellangle]

Ya you got that right Tribune !! :) , your right We Necro's can Kick @$$ and We are masters of Death, Destuction and of course Mayhem to the little poor Npc's that we terrorize ... i first started playing EQ with a warrior i got him to 52 , then i started me a Necro sold my warriors armors and bought stuff for my Necro ...And Sence that day the only class that i'll even look at is a Necro ... Im Proud to Salute Tribune For that Great Post !!! and i aggree Wholeheartedly B) :) :D

[aeriform]

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, my memmories aren't as clear as they used to be. Necro's were first and formost a pet class, then our pet's got nerfed and agro "fixes" were made. Then we were a fear kiting soloist/jack of all trades, at which point fear kiting was nerfed. Then I took a break from EQ and I came back to necro's being a dps character. I think for the last little bit we've become more of a pet class in the eyes of Sony with a range of different long term damage that can be done (look at the AA's and spells we've been given from and since PoP). I'm not sure what Sony thinks we are at the moment, but personally I liked the jack of all trades bit the most, with level 53 rez and my clicky velious robe, I find that I still have some limited utility. While not always the best pullers, largely due to FD we have always had the ability to pull/split mobs and have been pretty creative in the ways that this feat can be accomplished.

I'm hoping that Sony has an actual vision for us rather than cut and paste random spells/data from selected aspects of earlier content. I'm also hoping jack of all trades is part of that vision as that's always been the real appeal to my necro as well as my fledgeling bard.

[Mallakith]

Love the post.. would like to add my tuppenth

I started my necro in 2000 as an asside from my warrior (who was getting boring) and Malla quickly took over as my "main" (although i refused to call him that till he got higher level).

My pleasure is the ability to say "screw it" when u donlt like the zone the majority of your friends are hunting and go off solo (even at 65).

I think what I enjoy the most about the necro is the "pseudo-hard" nature of us, i love other classes gazing on in envy as im tap-tanking a 4th add in an LDON. I love being able to summon corpses for ppl and will always do it if asked (politely).

What i think i love most is the complete lack of recognition on the part of other classes that should the diaku death knight im kiting actually get anywhere near me Im dead... im SOOOOOO dead you wouldnt believe.

So i liken being a necromancer to these extreme sportsmen that leap out of aeroplanes and the like. When everythings going good we look SO cool but gos help us if anything goes wrong!


And on the point of raids, I think that the necros in my guild all have a good understanding now. We will dot and increase the dps of the guild BUT have twitch ready for any cleric/healer calling for mana. Being a pure dark guild theres considerably more necros than clerics on any raid so the "patch feeds" seem to work best.

Case in point.. without stopping the cheal chain our 5k mana cleric went from 10 mana to 50 mana after calling for feeds withing 30 secs

And to echo the wise comments previously..

Im not sure of my role sometimes but i bloody well enjoy meself ;-)

wow that got long..

Lich Mallakith Darkstalker Arch Lich of Vallon Zek

PS them skeleton archers are no real use but BOY are they funny

[Zilvaere]

On the matter of being an Erudite necromancer:

Yes, we have bad faction everywhere. So what? Faction can be fixed if you have the time and patience to invest in the matter. Don't whine about it. I can stroll down through Butcherblock, no problem. You want to go to Erud? Why? If it's that important, get down into The Warrens and kill kobolds until you're blue in the face. As Erudites, we are given a higher base intelligence to work with.

Our starting point is about as safe as you can get, a small, enclosed field with lots of rats, beetles, snakes, bats, and decaying skellies for our bone chips. No one is forcing you to stay in Paineel. How many can easily purchase a key to the Hole? We have a nice pool of water to swim in and safely build that up if you so wish.

Yes, I am an Erudite necromancer, a female one at that. The only way anyone can "get it stuck to you" is if you sit back and do nothing about it. Now, I have some frost giants to kill. After all, I'd like to get my CoV faction up to the point where I can quest a few items. A little determination, my friend, is all that is required. Good luck to you.

[Azalin]

I usually go for LDON, and sometimes due to timezones, the late hours, level differences etc, my group could not find a cleric. Soon all 6 are gathered and we only has a druid or shaman as main healer.

In such occasion, i have two choices, to mem the Twitch or save it for some other spell. Since i have lich going, i gets to regen mana quickly (regen by the shammy or druid helps offset the liching) and so other then dots etc, i can pump some mana into the shaman/druid. Their spells don't heal like the clerics, and thus they need to expend more efforts to keep our tanks alive. So in such a case, twitching is also necessary.

If i walks out of the adventure with a succesful mission, and all party members alive, even though with limited healing powers. I will be glad that i done a good job.

My 2 coppers.

[Mallakith]

Lol did a LDON the other day with 3 necros a bestlord and 2 sk's... we just breazed it

who says u need a healer ;)

Lich Mallakith Souldefiler Arch Lich of Vallon Zek

[Newbie411]

GREAT POST
i love the necro class,i hav spent long whiles on this board just reading,and reading,i was just wondering if we have as much love for our ShadowKnight brethren,or do we hate them??

i know i like Sk's,accept wen i tell them to summon pet,they listen to me,but pet just sits there,and then they have the nerve to steal bone chips from me/demand a few plat for em,that gets me P-O'd real quick,then i jus tell them to go Harm Touch something and leave the pets to the Big Boys...

Well,w/e we are all hated everywhere,we need to stick together and destroy all!!

(P.S) What got me into the Necro class was the Amulet of Necropotence,lol the most trusting person i have ever met,on Quellious server,i was at the LDoN camp in BB and i said ''omg howd u get to b a skellie,ur a worrior/rogue w/e he was'',he gav me a lil pink link to the Amulet,n i said OMFG,can i use the clicky,ill giv it right back,cross my heart...he let me use it,and i handed it right back,i then proceeded to take multiple pictures of my shammy,my shammy on a horse,etc. all in skellie form,that was the most trusting person i have ever met,it only happened once,and i dont expect it to happen again,i started necro so i could have the Liche skellie form,that reminds me,when do we get the illusion Life>Mana spell??

[Mallakith]

34/35 is the first with an illusion

[Vanadinaa]

wow cant believe i just found this post. Great post it really is. And so true. Necros really are a great class that can do most anything a group our lvl can do and sometimes more lol. I frequently get told "OMG YOUR CRAZY" for things i do and stuff i solo or try to solo cuz i don't worry about dying. i started playing EQ in the kunark era and i'm a DE necro and yes its true were great lol but i didnt start as a necro lets see first lvl 3 war 2nd lvl 12 bard 3rd lvl 2 iksar necro then lvl 12 DE necro lol finally got my own account and got MY necro lvl 65 necro and i'm lovin it as much as i did at day one. Heck just the other day 67 wizzy and a 68 druid were awstruck by lil old me lol. It was great. Granted we may have been nailed with the nerf bat over the years but don't you all think its pretty sad that while were getting nerfed and other classes are getting improved that we still come out on top as #1 It's cause were so versitile. Originally what couldnt we do really? we still have so much power and the many of us who know how to use it are deadly hehe. great post and i'm glad i found it even though it took me this long lol post was Posted: Nov 18 2003, 06:34 PM and its now january 05 and this post is still getting praised hehe trully great post tribune

[nick]

[FONT=Times]Very nice post.I enjoyed reading that.

[thisnecrocory]

Very good post sir. And I am an Erudite Necro male..lol..and I don't have much trouble

[Arkaron]

This was a post I made on this subject a while back, prior to OoW release. The comment about Druids is somewhat dated, but the spirit remains the same.

Do you know why I like Necromancers? Not just the class, but people who play Necromancers in general. I love them. While ever class has members that will do this, there are more Necromancers who will play through every change that is made by Sony for whatever reason than almost any other class.

Some Druids for example whine constantly. I simply use Druids because they are the perfect example of a class that begged and pleaded with a laundry list of crap they wanted. They complain that they are unbalanced constantly, and their slow migration from a good utility class that could actually do something to a secondary healer who MGB'd occasionally in the end game is not the fault of a developer. They got what they asked for.

Mobs in GoD summon. Big deal. Nobody 'took Riwwi away' from anybody. You just need to think about it. I love Necromancers because in spite of things people may feel are nerfs, we will always exceed with what we have. We will always think outside limitations that others project onto us.

Who was farming in Sol Ro for thier own ornate before mobs summoned? Who still is doing it, even though the change was implemented? The only exception to the rule I have ever seen was an Enchanter, and he's one of the best on my server.

Who can solo epic mobs while people are still taking whole groups or more to attempt them? Who can laugh while some stalwart band of adventurers dies at your xp spot?

Who is easily the most efficient soloing class? I have only seen one that can maybe compete and if I were a Druid I would go insane. It must take them hours to kill anything. I don't know how people can stand being Bards, as much as a talented one will astound me.

Who were the first to go into GoD and go in alone. Who solos most of the Breakdown In Communication quest not involving a raiding force?

Who brings amazing damage and utility to a group or a raid? Who do you credit for getting through Vxed and Tipt? Nobody, because it's all you. You did corpse recovery, you rezzed your Cleric (over and over).

Who does all of these things?

Necromancers.

Yes, things need to be changed. But I am not going to wait around for changes to happen. We go into encounters knowing that there is a way to beat it, no matter what the odds or how much the spell resists or how many people tell us it's impossible. Pardon my love letter but this is what I truly believe, and I was raised by Necromancers who endured through the Velious changes.

I will keep doing what Necros do best - mantaining a sense of mastery over nearly any situation I play in. I will laugh at Death as always, and any nerfs he might bring.

[Aryse Andenter]

What a nice post.

[Duke Roger]

I just thought I'd share a little discussion from over on Allakhazam's.

In a thread about quad kiting, this came up:

Necros and beastlords like to run off at the mouth but the bottom line is they can only kill one mob at a time so why are you quading four for them?

My response: Really? I must be doing something wrong then! :lol:

When someone went into a lengthy dissertation about how necros aren't technically quadding, I gave them some insight into how it was just a matter of semantics:

Fighting 4 mobs at once is not the same as *killing* 4 mobs at once...
I understand what kiting and quad-kiting mean, I was just working on the necro stereotype :D What I was referring specifically was that night, hunting in Burning Woods, getting multiple roaming adds and fearkiting them all, continuously. Technically, I *can* quad-kite, in that I can fearkite four mobs at a time, but it's more like a four-armed yo-yo trick, each yo-yo running independently. Oddly enough, this is the same tactic I used in my mid-20s or so in Overthere. It may not be perfectly efficient, but it is damn fun, exciting and rather impressive.

[UsulDaNeriak]

nice write up from a 46 necs point of view. you will write this guide perhaps a bit different later ;)

Usul

[Mortreus]

I agree with many of the posts. When i first started playing EQ i made a SK because of the whole necro with a sword thing. After a time i realized i didnt need the sword so much and remade my main as a necro. I have never had problems in soloing or grouping untill i was in my 50s granted this was about a year ago and iv'e been out of the game since then. but unlike many clases who will never lvl unless the have atleast a small group to help them soloing in inpossiable. We have more advantages than disadvantages, we are self sufficent in a group which is less of a burden than any other class can lay claim to. All in all even tho i have other class toons none are called my main even my first toon Drizzdin. Who by this time has a nice coat of dust on his shelf will ever called my main.


Bonecaster of the 52nd shadow of hate
Mortreus......
Saryrn....
Lord of the Dead Keeper of the Souls....

[Gondarionas]

posted wrong place :(

[erusnex]

Welcome

Erus Nex

A great black gate, the entrance here
Burning sulfur the air you try to breathe
All is refuse, vomit, darkness and fear
And once you've been sentenced, you can never leave

Welcome to my world, welcome to my soul
Where naught but anguish may abide
Welcome, doomed one to the black, gloomy cold
Where no pity, nor mercy comes to your side

Welcome to my death, welcome to my heart
Where the stench of disease is great
Where being eaten alive is only the start
And to serve each day is your final fate

Welcome to my need, welcome to my hell
Where ne'er is my horrid craving quenched
Nor my unending hunger e'er to be quelled
And from your spirit, my life is wrenched

Welcome to my touch, welcome to my night
Where the blood of your soul I thirstily drink
Where I savor the taste of your terrible fright
And knowing your fate, your heart starts to sink

Welcome to my hate, welcome to my pain
Where death comes slowly, you pray life to end
From your very essence, my life I regain
And when the torment stops, your undeath will begin

Welcome to your death, welcome to life after
The cares you once held, now they are gone
Your only desire is to please your new master
We’ve no need of others as we travel alone

Welcome to my side, welcome to the gift I gave
Your eyes, how desolate, seeking an answer
Welcome my friend as you serve as my slave
I am the Master of Death…The Necromancer

[UsulDaNeriak]

well, i posted something on vanguards board related to this.

Title: Will the Necromancer become a class of its own?

---------------------
or just another dark style mage like in eq2 or wow?

i played now a nec for over 5 years in eq1, after playing necs or dark casters in some older games in the 90ties. and i still love my toon. i am now up to lvl 70 and 1k aa and still looking forward to the next expansion. as i am looking forward to vanguard launch or beta if lucky. honestly, my post is not about soloing or not in soh. i am today grouping 70%, raiding 25%, solo 5%. actually i like to be able to solo while /LFG, but thats all. and it never lasts long.

my post is more about the question: is the nec a class of its own in vanguard, or just another dark kinda mage like in eq2 and wow.

this leads us to the question: what is class defining for a nec? a question which was discussed endeless on the eq1 nec boards. finally, i needed to play eq2 and wow to find the answer. we necs are definately in eq1 not the "Masters of Undead", even if this is written in the beginners manual by sony. our undead abilities are not sooo superior compared to what we can do to live mobs and others like paladins and clerics are even better in this department. actually, there is a lot of nonsens written in sonys eq1 manual

i guess, whats really class defining for a necromancer is:

Master of Transfer

we can deal with mana and hp in a virtuoso manner

- mobs hp to necs hp - lifetap
- necs hp to necs mana - lich
- necs mana to buddies mana - twitch
- necs hp to buddies hp - shadow line
- mobs hp to groups hp - hp lifetap
- mobs mana to groups mana - mindwrack
- ..... and so on

honestly, the ability to transfer hp and mana and especially to lifetap my hp back if needed is what i miss mostly in all so called 2nd gen games (ok, there is a high lvl lifetap in eq2, but forget it)
i like the nec to be a vampire kinda class.

aside from this, i miss my FD most badly. i understand that fd splitting is not supposed to happen in vanguard, like kiting or such. but please, fd as an escape spell only.

and finally, necs are the masters of dots. ok, shams got some better ones, but did you ever see a sham managing to stack 8 dots on a god to let him suffer painfully? ok, having dots as the main dmg source is the only thing i can see for the eq2 nec or wow warlock.

looking to the eq2 nec or the wow warlock, the biggest disappointment is: they are just mages with dots instead of nukes. and the spell lines are parhaps more disease and posion and such. oooooh, how dark . no thanks thats not a nec , thats just a clone of the mages archetype class.

will the necromancer in vanguard be something really different than mages or warlocks? really a own class, with an own set of spells and abilities. i dont ask for another eq1 nec, i just ask for a class of its own.

dark, nasty and different.

any information available on this?
-------------------------------------------------------

Usul

[Rijak]

is the nec a class of its own in vanguard

been watching this myself and not info as of yet... a class should be unique, or you're just throwing a label on 'em... we'll see... i hope they realize that diveristy (and maybe imbalance) is what makes things interesting

[Sathras]

From time to time I might have issues with your posts Usul, but these observations are spot on. That truely is what defines the eq1 necromancer! I hope Sony keeps this very image in their minds when modifying anything.

[Denomic]

Awesome posts in here...

I started playing at the end of Velious (if I recall correctly, a few months before Luclin). I started out as a Ranger and originaly my necro was suppose to be his corpse hunter. As time went on, I needed to level the necro to get the summon spells and such so I started to learn to solo and group and got hooked into staying a necro...

The only thing I find annoying about being a necro is finding and paying people for the sacrafices for the EE's... Other than that, there is so much a necro can do or find a way of doing... However, I did want to comment on the Necro's role in a raid.

Personally, I am the twicher in my guild raids.. That doesn't mean I just sit there and wait for someone to ask for mana.. the sequence usually goes ~ load set of dots, med, check new clerics mana (if no new clerics then I usually don't have to twitch unless we have like 3 clerics on a TT raid in PoTime then i'm fooked) if mana is needed then feed, 2 or 3 dots (pending on dot/clickies before feed is back up) feed, dot repeat..

[Seskaa]

Will i have a Iskar Necro lvl 59 i started her as a joke BUT I fell in love playing her I have a High Elf cleric lvl 67 i like the power she has , BUT SESKAA Oh man she is so evil, I can not stop playing her. she gives me a break from healing and buffing.
But sorry to say Mejestic will always be my main, just Seskaa gives me a break.
Necros are very cool !!!!!!!!!!

[Raidjin]

"Hey, Raidjin. With all your AA's and Epic, how many pets can you have up at 1 time?"

"10"

"10?? OMFG...That's crazy. Maybe I'll make a Necro!!"

Lost count of how many times I've heard this in groups.

[Aryse Andenter]

Originally posted by Raidjin@Dec 21 2005, 01:25 PM
"Hey, Raidjin. With all your AA's and Epic, how many pets can you have up at 1 time?"

"10"

"10?? OMFG...That's crazy. Maybe I'll make a Necro!!"

Lost count of how many times I've heard this in groups.
Hahahaha, if they only knew how very little I think of pet DPS.... :D

10? Bah, I'd rather a dot or two!

[Fargrace]

I heard a disturbing thing the other day and I wanted to know how people felt currently. Now, I am a Raid leader in my guild, but we are not a full time raiding guild. I have played a Necro now for 5 years and have never really spoken much about my beliefs, because I was happier to just get time to play and didn't want to spend a lot of time online, but with my new job, I get to spend more time online. The reason I need to ask this is that the Necro I was talking to was a member of a high end raiding guild and according to my Guild Leader isn't a Ebayer Necro. So here is the question and my beliefs... not necessarily in that order.

My beliefs of Necro responsibilities during raids has always been we are for Wipe Recovery, Nuke DPS, and Mana Feeding and in most situations in that order. Occationally it doesn't make much since to worry about Wipe recovery as that even if you FD, you can never stand up and to ignor a necro's DPS is silly, we aren't Cleric Flunkies, but my question is the whole Nuke verses DoT mentality in Raids. Well according to the Necro I was talking to, we should be DoTTing and FDing. My past beliefs are that DoTTing puts us at the top of the agro list and that as soon as we stand up, we are screwed so we Nuke and FD once in a while or in some mobs wait until they start to rampage then nuke the living hell out of them to quickly get rid of them. This High End Necro Raider told me that I was more or less an idiot for my beliefs... have I missed some patch or something, but the last time I checked our FD still doesn't work like a monk's FD in clearing agro and that for us to clear agro we need to wait until we get the message that all has been forgotten.

I would like to note that this necro I was talking to did die twice in the raid for a 2.0 Epic, but his response to this was that "we are necros... we are suppose to die". I almost never die as a necro unless I am pulling or get tagged by a mob because the monk decided to FD next to my lazy ass, but maybe I am playing too conservatively.

The other thing is that maybe I'm just not used to playing with awesome tanks with 2.0 epics that can hold agro better than my ability to steal it.

[Felicite]

Um. This calls for Xis. But I will try in his absence.

Yes, your beliefs are somewhat obsolete (she says politely).

The amount of DPS from our nukes is in line with Enchanters and Clerics. This is why your "feign every so often" works.. you are doing almost no damage, you are way down the hate list.

The DPS from our DoTs is enough to make every other DPS Class call for change. "Necros are overpowered!" And the key to making this work is "if you aren't casting, you should be feigned". The Death Peace AA makes this free and doable during the 2 seconds your spells are unavailable, anyway.

True fact re: our DoT DPS. Figure 1,000DPS-ish. The Top Raid Guild on FV (with a few DoDH and PoR serverwide firsts) proudly annouced their Total Raid Damage at 15k/second. So.. is that including the 5k/sec from the 5 Necros? Backpedalling insues. Jeb I believe said, they *know* we can kill stuff faster solo than anyone.. why does that not translate into damage on big targets in their minds? We shine on long fights.. our relative DPS position just gets better the longer the fight.

The amount of mana transfered with our Kunark and Luclin twitches is laughable compared to mana cost of a single modern heal used in most raids (which rely less and less on CLR/39 Complete Heal and more on group heals, quick heal, heal over times, heals with cure components). There are many raids that could be well served by grouping necros with other casters and using Mind Wrack et al.

I mean, you could just have all the Rogue's use super bandaging on the casters to offset AoEs, right?

Now, before Rijak says it, if you are the "leader".. all this goes out the window. You are leading, and anything you do is secondary to watching the fight and leading. But for the Staff Necro types, General Order #1: DoT DPS

P.S. Yes.. if I ran into you, an experienced Necro saying that.. I would think you were kidding, then make "Rip Van Winkle" jokes.. then quietly leave.

Edit: P.P.S. I re-read, and I never acknowledged wipe recovery. Yes, sure. But unless it's so critical that you want to leave a necro FDed to the side for the entire fight.. it's a skill that you acquire (knowning when and how to hunker down). Xelgadis was for a long time, the only raiding Necro with CD.. I would bet he recovered raids, yet I would also bet he DPSs like mad.

[Aryse Andenter]

Originally posted by Fargrace@Mar 24 2006, 02:28 PM
My beliefs of Necro responsibilities during raids has always been we are for Wipe Recovery, Mana Feeding and Nuke DPS, and in most situations in that order.*
I don't know how to say this nicely. Actually, the nicest thing I can say following you spewing those beliefs is please delete your necro now, you are very wrong and are shaming our class and doing something I hate and fight against constantly - you are spreading your incorrect strategies and perpetuating myths of the necro.

Please... I am normally nice but I spend so much time trying to dispell these myths amongst non-necros, it is beyond discouraging that a NECRO would have so little clue.

We are absolutely, without a doubt, without hesitation, first and foremost a DPS class. We are the number one DPS on many many fights, and we are top three on most, and still can be top five on mobs that are quite resistant.

Under no circumstances during a fight should a necro be mana feeding. Sure, I can come up with a small handful of exceptions to this rule. But they are so small, and dated. There are always strats that are better that do not involve twitching. There's nothing too much wrong with necros doing a little twitching in down time to get things going faster, but at the same time remember that all casters need to med up during down time so even then feeding is of somewhat limited use. The DPS you can do can so much shorten a fight that mana problems go out the window. And that is not even starting to go into the incredible mana inefficiencies in our twitch spells. I personally feel that twitch spells should either be removed from the game or blocked from raid zones so we don't even have to hear anyone suggest them or ever have to explain again the uselessness of them.

For raid recovery... well, I can be doing over 1k DPS and still do raid recovery. It really doesn't in any way interfere with our DPS duties. When things begin to look like the are going down hill, head off to a corner and FD. Teach people in your raid to stand and die in a wipe or to train AEing mobs away from the FD necro. Very little needs to be done for us to do succesful recovery.


YOU DO NOT NEED TO FD FOR TWO MINUTES TO REDUCE YOUR AGRO.

For a mob to completely forget you, yes, you need to be FD until you get the message. But you can FD and immediately stand and you will have reduced your agro with the mob somewhat. FDing over a tick or your DoTs reduces your agro plus you don't increase any agro because you weren't standing for the tick. Some necros rely heavily on this trick, but I think with ample FDing & standing there is no reason to stay down over a tick or for any amount of time at all.

The tanks in my current guild have very poor agro control in my opinion. To be on the safe side, I tend to FD after just about every cast of a spell (DoT, tap, nuke). Do I ever get summoned? Yes. Do I die on raids? Sometimes. But if you are the top DPS on your raid, its going to happen sometimes and it is certainly well worth the risk.

So hrm. When do I nuke? Well, I use lifetaps to mitigate any damage I take from AEs or if I do get summoned by a mob. I also use them in combination with DoTs, particularly on more resistant mobs. I used to nuke during clearings, but I don't now that I have spells like Dread Pyre and Corrath Venom, which produce such high damage right from the beginning that they easily out do what our poison nukes do, providing of course you have the mana to cast them that frequently.

Nuking on raid mobs though? I don't much. I use Call for Blood sometimes when I have my full DoT line up on hoping to get the proc from it. But its more being used for the proc than as a nuke, and it is only used as it fits in with my DoTs, as a minor addition to the DPS I achieve through my DoTs. DoTs are without question our primary source of damage.

I am very much not fond of posting parses, but you clearly need a harsh wake-up call. This is a parse of my damage during a recent fight on Refang in demiplane. During the fight several times Redfang will de-pop, we deal with small adds, he re-pops and has to be re-agroed, brought back to the raid and re-positioned. Despite having to fully re-apply all the DoTs from null in this fight, it is still clearly better than just nuking, and I can maintain quite high DPS despite the periods of time I am not actually doing any damage on the mob. Have you ever done over 14k in a tick with just a nuke? Note that here Arcane Aria is also being counted as part of my direct damage in this, and I was ucing Call for Blood a fair amount to play with the proc. I don't normally even use it this much, but this is a fun fight for it.

..


On a raid you should be dotting for DPS, tapping as you need health, with generous use of the FD key throughout. If things look like they are going bad, you can begin to look for a place to do wipe recovery. Those are a necro's duties on a raid, and in that order.

[Darkeeyes]

OMG !!!! & AMEN!!!!! ARYSE...............


If you want to see just now effective the Dot FD Stand Dot Dot FD Stand.........Trick works try it solo just about anywhere you can pet tank. (as an example) I use it while farming words and tribute stuff in Veksar, I never go below 85% mana and can sit and med while my Dots do there full damage while my pet wacks away.




Mistress Darkeeyes Whitelies

[Xislaben]

Originally posted by Fargrace@Mar 24 2006, 02:28 PM
My beliefs of Necro responsibilities during raids has always been we are for Wipe Recovery, Mana Feeding and Nuke DPS, and in most situations in that order.
If I had an app necro that just nuked on raids I would not allow their poll to come to a conclusion, I'd just boot them (with other officer consensus of course).

I expect necros to be DPS machines on raids, fullstop. Yes raid recovery is important, and yes necros are responsible for it when possible, but you should be able to push full DPS and still fd recover a raid. Max your DPS and see how things are going, if they take a turn and you know a wipe is imminent, then you can stop DPSing and run and FD somewhere safe-ish.

As for dying, necs and skilled rogs should be the last classes to die and they should die the least out of all classes in your raids on average. Even pushing max DPS if you FD properly you can still lower agro enough to be able to run and find a same spot to FD for the wipe as encs are higher on the main raid mob's agro list. If you find yourself repeatedly dying before other classes then you're either not fding properly or you are poorly geared for the content you are raiding.

Some points:
1) A necros primary role on a raid is DPS.
2) DPS is maximized by stacking dots, and keeping them stacked.
3) Chain nuking either lifetaps and or pr nukes is both shitty DPS and horrible efficiency, undead nukes are ok DPM-wise but still shitty DPS.
4) Chain FD-ing between dots lowers agro to the point where you can max DPS and still be one of the last few alive.

As for leading raids, this adds some issues. Raid leaders typically have to give instructions in raid during the raid itself, and everybody who really plays a necro knows how DPSing requires much attention and many many clicks to keep all those dots stacks. You can try to have the standard things hotkeyed to minimize DPS interference, but there's just not enough social buttons to cover all sorts of normal raid instructions plus encounter specific calls like various dragon emotes and such. In a perfect world everybody understands the encounters and knows their job and nothing would need to be said in raid, but until then your DPS may well suffer as a RL.

And finally, mana feeding:
You should not need the twitch line during a raid. If your clr/enc (in some cases) are typically running OOM then they need better gear or need to learn to conserve better for the content you are on. There are cases of endurance fights, however, in which case you may need to sacrifice a DPS gem for mind wrack/mind flay, and put clr/enc in a group with a necro. It may not make much of a difference (and may even be detrimental imho), but it can help a little at the cost of DPS. Of course, if a necro is nuking, then they may as well be pumping instead of all the DPS they're not doing...

Here's a fun link for chain twitching and relative mana pools:
http://www.dzert.com/twitch.asp
Removing necro DPS for twitching when necro dots land is just dumb, it's removing 150k+ dmg for an extra heal or three at most.


---------------

wait for assist call, or mob's at 97% or so
Cast dot 1
fd
wait for tick, stand
Cast dot 2
fd
wait for tick, stand
Cast dot 3
fd
wait for tick, stand
Cast dot 4
fd
wait for tick, stand
Cast dot 5
fd
wait for tick, stand
Cast dot 6
fd
wait for tick, stand
Cast dot 7
fd
wait for tick, stand
Cast dot 8
fd
wait for tick, stand

repeat as they wear off in whatever order they wear off.
lifetap as needed (when out of coul orbs and hp is more than 2k off max and heals not coming your way)

Early in a fight I'll squeeze a few dots off ignoring dot ticks, but the chain fd'ing is key. No it does not remove all agro, it just lowers it and temporarily puts you at 0 while fd. When you stand again you're still on agro, but not as high as you were before.

[FCseven]

I have grouped with a lot of necros over the years,from pickup group,to kite group,to raids,ect.What amazes me most is how class instincts seem to matter much more then the latest and greatest gear.Some of my greatest memories was when I was agro kiting mob after mob with my ghetto gear while the other necro in my group with the latest uber zone drops was having trouble kiting even one mob.In my opinion we are kings of the casual game because there are so many things we can do alone without help from any other class and that ability fits so well into necro lore.All my respect goes out to those who forgo the allure of high end raiding and make the world their playground.

All a necro will ever need
instincts,a mob, and a place to kite it....

[daephyx]

I lead alot of raids for my guild so I no longer have the luxury of maximizing DPS all night. I agree that necros should be DoT factories on raids, but I must say that leading raids has opened my eyes to our usefulness outside of that in a raid situation.

If I'm leading, the other three necs in the guild are stacking dots (I hope), but since I have to coordinate and type alot I have to look for other ways to be useful. I still DoT of course, but not with the "cast/clicky/cast/clicky/FD" aggressiveness. Yes, I occasionally even heal with my shadow orbs to buy that enchanter or shaman an extra round to get a proper heal. Maybe I'll battle-rez an important class for the event. Grip of Mori and Scent of Midnight are loaded in my raid-leading lineup.

My point is, we are a very versatile class, and if unable to go full-bore DPS, we still have a wide variety of helpful tools in our arsenal. But nothing beats the BURN

[Xislaben]

I hate battle rezing, both for the cost of an EE when there's many other classes beyond a backup or OOM 1.0'd CLR that can rez, and for the interuption in DPS it causes. Hello whole new ramp up period /sigh

As for raid leading, one cannot stress the importance of hotkeys for /rs chatter enough. With a bunch of good hotkeys as the event demands you can aleviate much of the RL issues that prevent maxing DPS, though you will still have some random issues come up you had not anticipated, maybe an unexpected losing of a MA on adds and needing to delcare and designate a new one or whatever, random dz/task adding and raid inviting, swapping groups around, responding to ckador's cybers etc...

[Jebasiz]

Heh, with dots and barring huge resists and funky scripting..more often then not a necro will be in the top 5 for dps on mobs. There are guilds that are exceptions, rogue/berkerker heavy guilds for example..but even then, if the necro is good and the others aren't exceptional, the longer the fight lasts..the higher up on the dps chart necros should be.

I normally have 7 dots, a lifetap and mindflay memmed (current content, it was 8 dots previously). I have a few clicky dots, those get applied and that's about all I'm asked to do, day to day.

Raid recovery: Not as much as in the past. With guild lobby summoning, and travel so easy..it's rare these days. Add on to that that druids and shaman can rez and it's really rare to be burning EE's on raids. I've rezzed a warrior a few times recently, and a cleric once in a while..solely because noone else seemed to want to at that time, but normally..no.

Utility is less and less, it seems as time goes on. We shouldn't die, whoever said "dying is expected" is a special kind of idiot. For the love of Cazic Thule himself, forget nuking and break out teh dots! That's where we shine and speaking as a lizard, we like to shine.

[Rdarkwill]

Just for Jeb =)

http://a1061.g.akamai.net/7/1061/5412/home/www.walgreens.com/dbimagecache/225188.jpg

whoever said "dying is expected" is a special kind of idiot.

I would have to agree, even learning new content and wiping from time to time.... Why should we die? If at all possible I'm the last man standing, err feigning, whatever =)

[Zandramadass]

We as a class have many utilities but none shine and set us apart as significantly as our sustained dps, and unlike those zerks or rog's out there our dps is not so reliant on our gear. So even if your gear is lacking as long as you got your dot spells you can still do some serious dmg.

Battle Rezzing - cost us more than any other rez class and causes a larger drop in dps to do than those other classes likely put out in a given fight.

Twitching - see my sig.

Pulling - todays end content is a bit more than we can handle in most cases but pulling GoD and prior expansions is very possible and we are given more tools to do so than any other class.

Wipe recovery - There is no reason you cannot wait until the very last min to FD for recovery while still putting out max dps thru your dots and taps. All you need to do is to just periodically "/" to see how many are in zone when you think things are going bad. I've actually FD'd for a raid recovery with only 2 others besides myself alive in zone while maintaining a 850dps parse in inkky3 raid trail.

DD's - if your using anything other than your lifetap and only to offset AE's, lich, or on highly resistant mob that nothing else will stick on... well i'm sorry your a mage in a necro's body and you should reroll.

Some things that every 60+ nec should just know:

How to fd split
How to pet pull
How to solo
How to kill non stop solo using the tools at their disposal (against even to red cons)
How to ignore request to twitch
How to reroll a mage/wiz if they think C3 is better than lich 50+
How to politely inform a ks'er which mobs are part of your camp
How to give said ks'er the mobs in your camp when he wont leave them alone (all at once)
How to push agro to the point of being summoned nightly if fighting summoners (group/raid) while never/rarely dying
How to kite 1-3 adds while group takes out primary (4+ by 70)

Anyone have any others to add that i'm overlooking?

[Jebasiz]

Originally posted by Rdarkwill@Jul 27 2006, 10:50 AM
Just for Jeb =)

http://a1061.g.akamai.net/7/1061/5412/home/www.walgreens.com/dbimagecache/225188.jpg


WoW thanks littleblueman! A nice soft, clean towel(to apply the wax) and you got yourself a friend for life!

Zan..you forgot the Spanish Pull ™. Such a lost art, or so it appears.

[daephyx]

Originally posted by Xislaben@Jul 27 2006, 05:34 AM
I hate battle rezing, both for the cost of an EE when there's many other classes beyond a backup or OOM 1.0'd CLR that can rez, and for the interuption in DPS it causes. Hello whole new ramp up period /sigh

As for raid leading, one cannot stress the importance of hotkeys for /rs chatter enough. With a bunch of good hotkeys as the event demands you can aleviate much of the RL issues that prevent maxing DPS, though you will still have some random issues come up you had not anticipated, maybe an unexpected losing of a MA on adds and needing to delcare and designate a new one or whatever, random dz/task adding and raid inviting, swapping groups around, responding to ckador's cybers etc...
When I talk about having to type for raid leading, I'm not talking about "OK, hit the mob now." Of course hotkeys are an efficient way of regurgitating the standard instructions. It's the various bullshit that you don't expect.

And I doubt anyone likes battlerezzing, it's certainly not a strategy a necro wants to adopt. When the shit hits the fan, though, I trust myself to act in whatever means necessary to help the raid, which was my point.

[Xislaben]

Originally posted by daephyx@Jul 27 2006, 05:06 PM
And I doubt anyone likes battlerezzing, it's certainly not a strategy a necro wants to adopt. When the shit hits the fan, though, I trust myself to act in whatever means necessary to help the raid, which was my point.
Yeah, I'm just saying nec is one of the worst classes to use in this way due to the mechanics of our DPS, unless for some reason you're not DPSing in the first place.

[Schaeffer]

Zan..you forgot the Spanish Pull ™. Such a lost art, or so it appears.

Well it's sorta kinda in there but he left out the "olay!"

[Zandramadass]

Originally posted by daephyx@Jul 27 2006
I doubt anyone likes battlerezzing, it's certainly not a strategy a necro wants to adopt. When the shit hits the fan, though, I trust myself to act in whatever means necessary to help the raid, which was my point.

Doing something as demanding as leading a raid means that your focus is of course on other things and if you feel being a battle rezzer is something usefull while you are in that role more power too you. However, your not truely playing a necro during raids so your roles listed may have been good intentioned but are detrimental to those who are not actually leading a raid. I'm not trying to pick a fight with you at all as raid leaders are usually very intelligent and able to multi task better than the avg player so deserve our respect, but this topic is just about what a Necromancer is not what a raid leader is.



Jeb,

Please clarify this Spanish Pull... I have so many different techniques with no names to them other than what others refer to as luck or suicidal... myself I see them as skilled but those poor souls dont know the first thing about pulling usually.

[Schaeffer]

Usul demonstrates the Spanish Pull:

http://www.necrotalk.com/index.php?showtop...sh%20pull&st=45 (http://www.necrotalk.com/index.php?showtopic=5893&hl=spanish%20pull&st=45)

[Zandramadass]

Ahh yes, I have done that before for all of the listed purposes.

Works very well for the Hides You Seek Task which results in a nice 10avoidance belt for casters on hard.

[Rdarkwill]

A nice soft, clean towel

Tsk, tsk.. Jeb you should never ever travel anywhere without a towel. If you have a towel peeps think ya have everything else under control.

I've never spanish pulled someone, but I have parked mobs right in the pull path of a group that pissed me off and kept the path blocked till they left. Didn't break any rules so all they could do was grumble and complain.

[Hertubad]

Do I think some things could be added or changed... sure. I think some of the graphics of our pets as we level up, or of ourselves for mana conversion, could be a gradual constant change, or even something we get to choose for that situation. I also think that some of the spells have a cost that doesn't make sense (like Sacrifice, wouldn't it be more logical, and more in line with Necro spells, that you would have to sacrifice yourself, not another character, to rezz someone... I mean, we have to give up our HP to give others HP, and we have to give up our mana to give others mana, or... maybe at higher lvls allow us to sacrifice an NPC/MOB of equal or higher lvl to rezz another character just like we have spells that take HP or MANA from a MOB and gives to others... these would be more logical, but, eh, nobody/nothing's perfect).

I think its a great post,,the only thing that i see diffrent in necros (mind you its only my 2 cents and i am not slamming anyone).

In the sacrifice i think they did the right way,,my point of view is that necromancers are the stealers of life and instigators of misery and pain and suffering, most of my research into necromancer and some just plain reading is that the necromancer power or spells come from blood magic wich is done in torturing the victims and saving the energy to accomplish the spells they needed to cast..they are known to just plain take what they want no matter how they need to accomplish this.

I hope i did not over step my bounds in this reply,,and please forgive the bad spelling

[Felicite]

Originally posted by Hertubad@Dec 22 2006, 10:07 AM
In the sacrifice i think they did the right way,,my point of view is that necromancers are the stealers of life and instigators of misery and pain and suffering
I have to agree. Sacrifice is brilliant in terms of game lore.

Not sure about the in game dynamic it creates.

Some kind of mechanism to make EEs from NPCs does seem the logical solution conceptually.

But the in game reality (if I remember what I have read) is still borked.

Well, and tricking people into to accepting a Sac is really funny..

[Tiereni]

i laugh when i see most other caster classes with the obligatory "HELP ME! I'M GETTING ATTACKED!!" hotbutton they hit before even reaching 70% :lol:

This made me laugh because I have this hotbutton on my druid. =)
I told y'all she was a lame druid! But having that hot key on my necro? NEVER! I am soooo glad I started this toon! In 30 levels she became my main. Now to get her to 65. :)

Tier

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[Drazzminius]

Ruh-roh, the spambots have found us....
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