Necro Group Tactics?

[Q_Nine]

Can anyone describe appropriate group tactics for the necro at different levels of advancement?

For instance, what roll would a Necromancer play in a typical group at lvl 10-20?

(20-30/30-40, etc)

Would their Pet play a part?

I know Necro's have been made more group friendly, but I'd like to know how I might be of assistance to a full party.

Thanks

[brent_o_shred]

I'm only lvl 24 but a good one for me is when your in a group cast allure dead on yourself and then cast leach on every mob (so your health will always go up and your mana will go up even faster) and the use the spell (forgot whats its called) that transfers your mana to someone else, and make that someone else the healer in the group so that the healer is always close to FM.

[Xyla]

I'd have to disagree with setting yourself up as a mana pump. Although this is a great benefit of necro's and can be an invaluable tool in emergencies you're selling yourself short if thats all you do.
If you're in a group that requires you to constantly feed your cleric more mana to provide heals then something is wrong with your group.
With a large variety of spells unless my role is set up immediately I just cast a few dot's during the first few mobs and find the direction of the group. Then I can fill in whats missing. I always load a few debuffing dot's then see what else is needed with my other spell slots. Sometimes this is healing spells, sometimes crowd control. If the group is killing quickly I'll load more direct damage spells to increase efficiency. If its killing slowly, more dot's.
Remember that there is no set role with a necro. Probably why there are so many questions on how to play one. I grouped with another necro recently who was pulling for the group. In 54 levels I have never pulled once for a group. Conversely, he had said he had been a puller in almost every group he's been in. Same lvls (54) same class (necro/heretic) virtually the same equipment..Two totally different characters..Hope this helps.
Xyla

[Jebasiz]

General.
At 46(?) you get auspice, and you can heal your group with that. At 60 you get an upgrade called zevfeer's theft of vitae, you can usually heal Divine arbitration damage, ae damage, or any dmg from "stray shots" a mob might do to a non-tank.
You can mindwrack casters and give mana to everyone in your group by taking it from a mob. Crippling claudation is also a nice atk buff for the group. A primary role has been darknessing and crowd control (aka root). If there's no bard or monk we usually pull.

Roles change if your hunting undead or living.
Undead- we slow, mez, charm(maybe), nuke, dot, send pet root...I've even Lifetap tanked for ldon's in MM.
living-darkness, root, dot, nuke. send pet

VERY rarely will I ever mana xfer in a group, unless a healer has died. I'ts a complete waste of 200mana per twitch, which frankly...isn't to acceptable IMO. If your in a very challenging/new environment MAYBE, but that's still a waste in most cases. NOONE CAN USE YOUR MANA BETTER THEN YOU CAN! The only reason why we feed clerics on raids is simply because fights outlast their mana pool, that's it, there's no other reason. Once mobs die faster, your dps'ing helping it die even that much faster.

[Torathe]

One other thing that is a lot of fun... All Necros in a group or Necros and SKs. The six skelly pets can really shread a zone in a hurry and no one in the group ever gets hurt. Crowd control??? the only real crowd to control is the six Jabobers that are running around. It used to really bother me when I see a group of High Elfs just inside the Neriak foreign quarter killing guards and the quest NPCs. Now that I'm 55 it's revenge time. I gather 6 other Dark Elf Necros/SKs and we go over to Felwithe and wipe the whole city about once a month. Those pompous High elfs get quite a shock when they come home to find all the vendors dead and the bank closed due to no bankers. The only problem we have with this raid is the Clerics guild. We've learned the hard way to just leave them alone. Most of the characters are lt. blue but the guards drop fine steel weapons and armor. We usually stay for about an hour or so and wipe out both halves of the city. Everyone is loaded or encumbered with FS junk that sells for a pretty penny. It's not a great way to level because the XP is too slow but it's great fun and it really ticks off the newbs. No real harm done, they can always run over to Kelithin and do their business in the tree house. About an hour after we leave everything has respawned.

Torathe
Drunken Necro
Veeshan

[Vlarik]

Acutally, skip the twitching, like said.. it's for emergencies.. good for after a rez, and also if you are pressed for time in a LDoN or something..

It's FAR more efficient for the necro to heal :) Your heal uses practically no mana.. Shadow Compact uses a whole 10 mana.. forget what Shadowbond uses. Don't try to heal the main tank.. Heal the casters, secondary Meleers (Ranger, Rogue, etc) and the cleric when needed.

You will save the cleric a lot of mana.. As I know, from playing a cleric, the worst mana sink is healing the extras in the group, here and there.. Small heal for chanter, medium heal for ranger, etc.. It's the cleric's main mana drain. You can heal more efficiently than any other class in the game, although far more slower, as well.. But use Shadow Compact, Shadowbond... Heal away, and use Vampric Curse or BoD to heal yourself back up.. Only lifetap when low on health or very high on mana.. I always keep up snare, and either fear or ST.. Although it's not effective in Dungeons or over level 55 really.. I saved a bunch of tanks with snare/fear in open zones, like DL and OT.. Cleric OOM.. I snare, then fear. It was more reliable than twitching the cleric..

Now, I usually use group taps, snare mobs and dot away. Twitching when needed, but I still toss around heals here and there.. I figure we are bascially a dark-priest.. and act accordingly :)

[wyntyr]

Looking at this from a <50 level do you find yourselves using dot's or DD's more often in groups? Some of our dot's take <60 seconds to run their course and I have found that most mobs don't even last that long.

[Fizzleplink]

As I'm inherently lazy, I looked for DoTs that did more than one thing at a time and would justify casting it instead of a DD.

Darkness: I've always used a Darkness. Even when we have a druid around, I took over snare duties.

Weaken: I generally used Heart Flutter until Asystole became available.

As far as damaging mobs, I tended to use DDs more. By the time I was done with Darkness and Flutter/Aystole there wasn't enough time to get good damage out of a DoT. Of course, if you have a bunch of pathetic losers in your group you may have time for DoTs.

[Skarra]

Hello I would like to add my 2cp, I always keep our ghetto mezz loaded (screaming terror) when grouped even if I am grouped with a chanter and a bard.
I have truly saved my group numerous times with this simple spell (chanters and clerics will love you for it), the best part of all about being an emergency mezzer is the fact you also have FD (this spell is permenently in my lineup), FD may sometimes fail but would rather have 1 fail and 4 success than no chance at all


Skarra
51 necro
Lany's server

[Jebasiz]

screaming terror doesn't work on anything over 55ish...enjoy it while ya can.

[Rijak]

root or at worst a taunting pet can also help with adds when ST is no longer viable

on the twitch thing... it is not efficient, that said, don't get too hung up on the principle thing... unless i'm in an extremely efficient group i find myself at 100% mana all the time (and rarely even as low as 20%)... in this case i will often twitch the cleric, or the puller if they are a hybrid that uses mana on pulls

if you have the mana... no reason not to share it

[Rikam]

Only time I ever manna pump in on raids after a wipe for buffers and rezzes or for as mentioned mobs that eat up cle manna. Other then that only time I cast would be on a enc doing awesome job with mezzes or if you screw up and bring like 5 extra mobs. Other then that "overnuking wizard" says, Hey i need pump. Necro says, huh not seen any of those drop. Try to keep them from knowing how much manna you realy have too lol lom is nice when you have 75 or so lol). So yeah most of the first 35 lvls necro jobs is to dps like everyone else pretty much at 35 no more grps till 62).

[Kaiwen]

In a group I tend to cast snare and dots on the mob and then sick pet in, rinse and repeat, I also heal and transfer mana, when needed.

[Srell-Meister]

I didn't really group too much when I was lower level, my playtime and just personal preference didn't allow me to group. Tho I did group enough to learn (or just learned thru common sense) of what the general ideas of a necromancer in a group.

I always keep FD, Lich, Tap/DoT-Tap(or both), mana xfer, snare, and mez(ST). That'll usually leave me with 2 slots for DoTs, pet, pet buff, whatever I feel is necessary for the situation. In the times that I've been grouping (much more post 50) I've found that these spells will help out my group the most. Cleric/Chanter/whoever lom? suure, I got 75%+, I'll help ya out. Pulled a few too many? Pet mez or ST. We don't have a snare? Darkness the bitch...

I've never had a bad time in a group whenever I'm going like this. Only time I had to be a big scaley battery was when me, rogue, war, cleric, and chanter took all of the bottom of Sebilis (not where Trak is, but 4door and 2 other camps). But the cleric was healing the tank a bunch cuz we'd take a camp at a time and I wasn't doing much so I was just the battery that kept us going. I was much complimented on my necro skillz when I we were done.

I don't know if I'm just a good necro that knows what to do, but I've been playing him since 2001 (one year 6+hours a day, but off and on recently). I've played several characters since, and I've never had as much fun with any class but him. Funny thing is, the only other one I've been having remotely as much fun is with my ranger that I've been playing lately.. lol

At any rate, Necro grouping is pretty simple, it's just using all the similar spells that every class has, but we get as well, just given a darker image. ;)

[Aryse Andenter]

I think what a lot of people have touched on, but nobody has really said, is you have to talk to your group about what role you will play.

There are so many things a necro can do - DD, DOT, snare, root/mez, slow undead, pet, pull, heal - that your role will likely be different in each group you join.

When you get a group, and each time someone joins the group, quickly go over what classes are there and what role everyone prefers to play. Since everybody has different preferences even within the same class about what they will be doing in a group, you probably won't ever find a magic formula for exactly what will be expected of the necro. Just as long as you know the many choices you have of what to bring to the mix, you're a class that can fill in in a group wherever something is missing.

[Captain_Crunch]

I find the best way to use a necromancer in a group is to make up whatever is lacking. I grouped as much as I soloed during my levels, and although that is "blasphemy" in a way to the necromatic society I learned some very important strategies while grouping. The best way to use a necromancer is to tailor yourself to whatever is lacking in the group. If you are all DPS I suggest becoming a support healer, transferring health to the lower classes (usually in these groups it is a semi tank tanking, such as a druid or the dreaded ranger) and being purely support.

If it is mostly tanks in the group I suggest going DPS, if you are doing hard (or it takes forever to kill something) using dots or on quicker kills chain nuking. If there is no enchanter have twitching up (I suggest having it up all times anyway just for emergencies) and unless you are in the higher levels ST for adds (as far as I can tell you can consistently keep 2 mobs mezzed all the time, but this will require you casting and recasting constantly).

Also if you are lacking a bard or a paladin, or in worse groups a monk or a shadowknight, you might have to be the puller. Unless you are doing undead this can be a pain, but if you arne't doing ldons feign pull is the best way to do this (at lower levels you can use your rest the dead spell). A unique ability as a puller is the ability to "park" incoming mobs, which means root them a bit away for further use (you can also root-rot while waiting for them to deal with the first ones).

And of course if you aren't the group type or if you want to get more praise you can "solo-group", which means staying in the group but purposely taking adds solo and watch as you groups first laugh at you for the "wake it tank it" rule of enchanters then gaping in amazement as you finish off the first mob faster then the rest of the group can take the other :D .

A necromancer is a "jack of all trades" when grouping: you will NEVER get much praise unless solo-grouping so don't expect it: people never see necroes doing much good as we are purely "over time" classes, thus the reason most necromancers like soloing more. However realise that despite the lack of noticeability in a group (and thus the possible lack of being able to get into one) we are excellent groupers, able to fill any class that is missing: even if most people don't realise it.