Necro or enchanter...Go! [Archive]

Tecmos Deception

02-17-2014, 08:29 AM

I agree with element. Also this server is kind of flooded with enchanters. It might not show too much during leveling, but its a popular class and its shows on the amount of 60 enc out there.

And while its true that chanters "can" pull off some amazing stunts - It often comes down to luck and available mobs. If those two arent present, its either not doable, or catastrophic failure follows.

A necro has alot more leeway manipulating the numbers and making it happen - and frankly, in my eyes, can do alot more, in more situations.

But as anyone else will tell you - pick the class you would enjoy the most =)

Imo attributing things to luck is setting yourself up for failure.

It's not luck that I spend a long time in south without having to hat, it's the fact that I cleared out the higher-level casters and HT mobs from the spawn I'm farming so that even if I get "bad luck" with a crit lull aggroing the whole room, I can survive it! It's not luck when I find a rare mob up as soon as I log in, it's the fact that I log out in/near HS almost every time I log out, so it's only a matter of time before I log in and have a fluid sitting there waiting for me with a hoop. It's not luck surviving 3 charm breaks in a row, it's the fact that I refreshed my rune right before because I knew it had been hit a few times even though it wasn't down yet + I refreshed bedlam even though it still had a few min of duration left. Stuff like that.

Yeah, there IS some luck in the game. But proper preparation and a lot of playtime make it look like you are way luckier than average when luck really had little/nothing to do with it.

In terms of leveling up, necros have more solo variety and probably similar overall power. In groups enchanters get the nod, but a necro who knows what to do in groups is solid for sure (just underrated by most people). At 60 the enchanter is more powerful and more versatile, imo.

Necros seem more versatile because they CAN charm, and they CAN use EoT, and they CAN root+rot, and they CAN fear kite. But how often can you really use all of those in a high-end situation? Necros aren't kiting in dungeons (too little room), root+rotting 51+ mobs (because they summon), or letting EoT tank unslowed 50+ stuff (it gets raaaaaped). So necros can charm, and chanters can charm. But chanters have tash, stuns, mezzes, slow to help them charm. Necro tools are awesome, but they are tricky to use effectively, and they don't have many tools to help them continue a fight if charm breaks... they need to feign and reset the fight and try again. And while it isn't fun, Zumaik's can kill level 54 mobs (I killed crypt excavator with Zumaiks a month or so ago - it took most of my mana and like 12 minutes, but it was also 99.99% safe!). EoT? I dunno. I watched an EoT get eaten by a 50% slowed trash mob (might have been 70% even, can't remember which one I cast) in HS east when I was duoing with a necro once as he was dotting + healing.

All that said, the alt of mine I get the most excited about is a necro! One of these days I hope to work on the solo challenge with him :)

justin2090

02-17-2014, 09:55 AM

Necros mez too. Don't know how effective it is at 60 but I healed (dispel recourse) and CC'd stables in CoM on my necro at 45ish. The necro heal at that lvl is super efficient. Not to mention my pet was killing things as well. I could of charmed something but really no need to.

I did solo stables some with charming and it wasn't very hard at all. Since necro can heal himself there is little worry of taking dmg on charm breaks. Circlet of Shadows is insta click charm break so it's a must have. And of coarse if things go south there is always FD.

And more importantly Necros can be Iksars!

I think the choice is clear.

Tecmos Deception

02-17-2014, 10:35 AM

Necros are very strong when leveling, for sure. And they are still very strong at 60. But they aren't as powerful as a chanter, imo, because their spells, mana pool, and mana regen don't scale up enough to handle the 10k+ hp mobs that hit for 144+ (and summon) that you need to kill in dungeons for good loot.

I think necros can solo most of what enchanters can solo, but I think it takes more finesse and more effort and more time. I have never actually seen a necro successfully solo anything like hs south or crypt though... so maybe not? That's why I want to level my necro! So I can find out :)

Sturgeon

02-17-2014, 11:06 AM

Necro fo sho

The solo challenge here which hasn't been updated lately but logs everything is fun and gives you something to strive for on P99 if you don't feel like dealing with the QQ over End Game Raiding with Guild Butthurts.

Blazingtide

02-17-2014, 01:41 PM

Just my two cents

I played a necro to 55 and then Rolled an enchanter. My enchanter is now 60 and my necro is still 55.

As far as soloing goes, my enchanter has killed any enjoyment I had in soloing with my necro. I don't feel like there is any situation where root rotting or fear kiting (the two solo methods a necro excels at more than an enchanter) would be more efficient than charm burning with my enchanter. Maybe I'm just doing my necro wrong, like I said. Just my opinion. I happen to love charming so this doesn't bother me.

Other thing is fd. Yes this is an awesome ability but it also feels semi bugged or not as useful as I remember it from live. Constantly having issue with roamers and mobs not resetting and clearing agro like they should kinda sucks.

In return the enchanters get stuns mezzes and blurs. You won't truly understand how much enchanters win this trade until 56 when your level immune to ae mez. Giving up fd to have access to these other tools is a trade I'm more than willing to make. Yes necrosis get a mez but it really doesn't compare to the mezzes an enchanted gets.

All that said, to each his own. Necros are an awesome and in my opinion and underrated class. Being in a group with 4 rogues and a monk in kc with my necro was amazing. I was heals and cc. The exp flew by.

My best advice is take a look at the complete kit of each class and then decide based on what abilities they get. I made my choice and I don't regret it. Be the best player you can be and whichever you choose you'll be able to shine as that class.

-hainynx

diplo

02-17-2014, 02:33 PM

i'd roll a mage.

just kidding they suck now.

Arterian

02-17-2014, 06:21 PM

Great feedback.

What level do you think an enchanter needs to reach to give it an honest shot? I know they increase in power dramatically as they increase in level.

Tecmos Deception

02-17-2014, 06:58 PM

I don't think enchanters START coming into their own until 29. Honestly they get stronger every level all the way to 60. You start to be able to salvage bad situations, kill tough mobs relative to your level, and stuff like that probably in the 30s I guess?

Ando

02-17-2014, 07:29 PM

Tecmos any leveling tips for a lvl 22 enchanter? I find grouping to be painfully slow, but can't find any good charm solo spots. EK Crag Spiders are always overcamped not to mention boring.

I've heard enchanters get stronger as they level, but right now I feel very weak compared to my alts of similar level.

Vellaen

02-17-2014, 07:57 PM

What level do you think an enchanter needs to reach to give it an honest shot? I know they increase in power dramatically as they increase in level.

You'll have the first versions of most of your signature tools by level 16 (Breeze, haste, charm, mez, root, slow, Tash, etc). But what makes Enchanters so powerful isn't the tools per se, but rather how they scale. The best example, which I'm shamelessly paraphrasing from Loraen's guide (http://wiki.project1999.com/Loraen%27s_Enchanter_Guide), is with slows: a 25% debuff on a mob that hits for 40 is barely worth the mana. A 70% slow on a mob that hits for 120 turns Rangers into viable tanks.

By 20 you can charm a mob that hits half again as hard as a mage or necro's pet. By 30 everyone you group with will love you for your buffs. By 40 you start to see the gains in mana efficiency (how many other classes have a level 4 spell that costs 20 mana that they never stop using?). By 50 everything at your fingertips makes you feel like a god. By 60, you pretty much are one.

Tecmos Deception

02-17-2014, 08:19 PM

I believe I was killing random aviaks and centaurs (and then gnolls) in SK from 20-30. Maybe spent some time in the entrance of paw in that period also. Early 30s are kind of a haze, I never liked those levels... FM maybe? Upper 30s to 50 I killed a lot of bloodgill goblins, then did CoM to 54 and HS to 60.

Uteunayr

02-17-2014, 09:57 PM

Just wanted to address a few small points (EDIT: And as always, my lack of wit has made that a terribly long post, so I put a TL;DR):

1) Seems very weird to me for EoT to be brought up when talking about soloing. A Necro shouldn't be using EoT most of the time, and should avoid situations in which pets have to tank if they do not have a charm pet. The thing has 2.7k HP, and shit for armor. Our pets are not durable. Necro pets are best understood as another DoT that take material components, but remain persistent, with the potential to steal XP if you rely on it too much.

EoTs are shit tanks, and you always prioritize a Charm pet over an EoT. The one main situation in using an EoT against a summoner/caster, you would root the mob, send your EoT, and FD your aggro onto the EoT. Back your EoT off, this way all casts and shit go to the EoT, rather than you, and the EoT maintains the non-health regen state of the mob. Stand up, lay some DoTs, re-FD, and so on. This is the primary way in which a Necromancer should be approaching a Summoner/Caster in the root rotting sense to avoid summoning as a major issue. Manaskin (damage absorption) is more than enough to smoothen this over, although Necros do pay 10.6pp a pop relative to Enchanter's free cast.

But other than this situation, EoT isn't really something to be discussing other than it being meh. Favor the undead charm, or the rogue for backstabbing. The Minion is a far superior pet to EoT, as backstabs are simply damn good to have pumping out from your pet. EoT is only there to screw with summoners and spellcasters in the indoor root rot (as outdoor you should prefer fear kiting mobs, which is still used in higher levels, such as with seafuries).

2) Necromancers have a variety of different tools from Enchanters. Not saying they have more, or they have better, only that they do have a good number of them. We have 2 DAs, FD, a clickie invis for aggro shenanigans, undead lulls, charms, no-random breaking undead charm, instant-kill to undead, a stun/mez, a 3 minute root, and the most efficient mana generation in the game.

This is not to say that a Necromancer has the same or better tools than an Enchanter for charm killing indoor mobs in close quarters which summon or spellcast which also cannot be rooted, only that I agree wholeheartedly when it is said that Necromancers must work with more finesse and effort to achieve what an enchanter can. But that is the cost of having a variety of styles to fit your given RL situation, such as if you need to frequently AFK and lack FD, and the cost of having things like a rez, self-evac, the mana engine, and the like. And honestly, that is totally worth it to me.

3) If you are having issues with FD as a Necro, you need to understand first that roamers do not easily reset their aggro, and often you will need to /q afterwards. Second, once FDed, you can stand up and pop COS immediately to prevent further aggro so long as nothing that was on you that is a roamer has see-invis. These things negate a wide array of issues fellow Necromancers approach me with about FD. FD isn't buggy, you just need to understand it.

4) Root rotting and fear kiting are still efficient in situations in which you wish for more RL freedom, or where you can reliably have your rogue pet backstabbing a bunch (fear kiting primarily), or in which you are truly in a single camp (i.e., no other mob of comparable level nearby to charm). For example, I would much rather be doing the Pained Soul camp as a Necro than an Enchanter. It's boring, it takes forever, I'd rather not rip my eyes out maintaining a charm at the same time. For fear kiting, I'd rather be a Necro on seafuries than an Enchanter. Sure, enchanting a seafury and going one on one is nice, but I rather enjoy having a rogue pet dishing out backstabs on a dotted up seafury. I have no way of empirically vouching for this being superior, only that I have felt I kill them much faster with a rogue pet and fear, than with a charm. But in such a case, I'd rather be a quadder anyway.

In other words, the efficacy of Necromancers versus Enchanter is entirely situational upon what you're seeking. If you're seeking an easy time taking down the highest end mobs, go Enchanter, because their ability to stun/CC/charm anything is unparalleled in this endeavor. But know that not everything of value is high level indoor mobs, and Necromancers make up for the greater difficulty in greater ease and independence in a wide array of different parts of the game, and in other types of camps. Pick what seems best for your desires.

5) I wholeheartedly agree that you should look at both full packages and take each for what they are, and then assess what you like the most. The answer for me was a resounding Necromancer (obviously). I value the independence the class allows me, the variety it gives me so that it never becomes boring, and the huge skill cap that allows me to continually better myself in the variety of different play styles a Necromancer must master. Nothing to me compares to balancing healing, twitching, and DPSing (especially if you can charm) all at the same time. Nothing is more intellectual stimulating in this game to me.

TL;DR: Necromancers and Enchanters have different tools. Think about how much you value their respective tools:

Necro: FD/2 DA/1 target Mez/strongest efficient mana regen/3 min root/component damage absorption/pet variety/undead charm/self-evac/component 93% rez/undead lull VS Enchanter: Memblur/stuns/AE mez/single mez/any target lulls/any target charms/free damage absorption/3 minute root/weaker efficient mana regen.

Pick the one that seems most attuned to what you want. I went Necromancer, and I have never regretted that choice. My only regret is being a fucking Dark Elf. Fucking curses to the person who wrote the old Necro wiki page saying they are effectively the same. >.>

Tecmos Deception

02-17-2014, 10:34 PM

The one main situation in using an EoT against a summoner/caster, you would root the mob, send your EoT, and FD your aggro onto the EoT. Back your EoT off, this way all casts and shit go to the EoT, rather than you, and the EoT maintains the non-health regen state of the mob. Stand up, lay some DoTs, re-FD, and so on. This is the primary way in which a Necromancer should be approaching a Summoner/Caster in the root rotting sense to avoid summoning as a major issue.

Good shit.

I always knew necros had ridiculous tactics like this available to them but having never played a high-level necro, I never figured any of them out or badgered other necros about them.

Edit - loraen reminded me that he actually told me he thought of doing this with a necro, but his description of the process didn't sink in on me for whatever reason to realize how cool it could be :)

Potus

02-18-2014, 12:16 AM

Rec

02-18-2014, 12:54 AM

I see the two great necro and enchanter role models saying their own classes are both the best. That's boring!

Uteunayr

02-18-2014, 12:55 AM

Necros are very fun from 1-50. After 50 please realize that their is a considerable and noticeable drop in power. Verant hated necromancers and the two expansions reflect a neglect of Necromancers. You see it in the pets, which aren't very good post 50, and you see it in a lot of anti-necromancer gameplay changes, things like mobs summoning, mobs being unfearable, mobs being unsnareable, etc.

I think both are a lot of fun and you won't be disappointed by either.

Think so? I always had the opposite reaction. It isn't until 50+ that I feel the class really starts to flush out and spread its wings. It isn't until then that you get a good bit of your best self-sufficiency (rezzes, succor, etc), your most mana efficient DoTs, get to spend more than 1 level with an effective root, tiny coffins, and we end up with Spectre form. You get a backstabbing pet, and a Spectre warrior pet, far cooler than the standard warrior.

It wasn't until 60+ in the post-Velious era that I started to feel the end of Necromancer, through the DOT crunch, the end of twitch, healing, and the like.

Eh, to each their own I suppose.

Potus

02-18-2014, 01:19 AM

Uteunayr

02-18-2014, 02:00 AM

Yeah because post 50 the goal of Verant was to make Necros "more well-rounded" without actually making them any better. That's why they start to venture into the realm of gimmickry, with rezs and spectre pets and direct-damage to plants instead of actually getting stronger.

The pets are a perfect example. The 49 pet is a badass. It deals fantastic damage, can take a beating when you get an add or a series of resists. Very good pet. If you continue the trajectory to 51, 56, 59, the Necro pet should be a 49 pet but better. More HP, more Damage. Can stand toe-to-toe with 50+ mobs which start to really hit hard. Not the case.

Instead you get monk and rogue pets. Sounds great on paper, terrible in practice. They have a fraction of the hitpoints that the 49 pet has. Which means they die very, very, very fast. Get an add? Dead pet. Get 2 consecutive fear resists? Dead pet. The increase in damage is a gimmick. Dead pets do no damage (also ugh I hated having to get people in groups to tank so my pet was behind the mob. It was also amazing how many times the pet pathed awkwardly so that during fear kites it never backstabbed). Whatever mana savings you supposedly got from the pet doing more damage went out the window once it died at a moment when your level 49 style pets would have lived longer.

1-49 the Necromancer is a complete beast. Very good class. 50+ you see where Verant tried to nerf the class by not improving it while all other classes got gains and monsters got way more powerful.

Your pets are not meant to be tanking for you, not even in the pre-50 stages. If your pet was out-threating your DoTs, you probably weren't using enough of them to claim full XP on your mob. Your pet really is nothing more than another DoT with the potential to steal XP. So having a pet that can tank isn't something I have ever, at any point, needed out of a Necro, nor ended up using.

I agree with the scaling. DPS boosts from 59 damage a tick up to needing 111 a tick, while HP on pets go from 2300 to 2700. But again, I refer to my previous. If the mob is turning away from a fear, and hitting your pet first, I am going to lean toward the idea that you're doing something very inefficiently.

And in that regard, my skeletal pets remain up most of the time, because I am the one who is controlling the mob. So my pets do not die, so I do not see them suffer from inefficiency. The difference in time between killing a seafury from a root rot, and a fear kite with necro pet backstabbing is significant.

I will add that in regards to pets, I do think the 56 pet is ultimately an entire waste.

I do not share the perspective that we were simply diversified, rather than empowered, as with Kunark we were given an additional hard-to-resist DoT line, Splurt, which ended up being one of the most mana efficient spells in the game. Our Necro heal Shadowbond was scaled up for output and diminished the negative effect, even if it only ever ticks once if done properly. I do not see a 93% rez on demand as a gimmicky aspect, nor the ability to Levant across zones, I see them as incredibly empowering and great abilities that enhance a Necromancer's individuality, in a world in which Necromancers are meant to be isolated.

Defoliation is a joke. I will wholeheartedly agree there. But there are other Necro spells from pre-50 that are equally as useless.

So, from my experiences, I disagree with the negative perspective of Necros 50+. To each their own, and it is for each to judge.

Potus

02-18-2014, 02:27 AM

Your pets are not meant to be tanking for you, not even in the pre-50 stages. If your pet was out-threating your DoTs, you probably weren't using enough of them to claim full XP on your mob. Your pet really is nothing more than another DoT with the potential to steal XP. So having a pet that can tank isn't something I have ever, at any point, needed out of a Necro, nor ended up using.

I agree with the scaling. DPS boosts from 59 damage a tick up to needing 111 a tick, while HP on pets go from 2300 to 2700. But again, I refer to my previous. If the mob is turning away from a fear, and hitting your pet first, I am going to lean toward the idea that you're doing something very inefficiently.

We might be getting into differences between this server and live (especially about stealing aggro), but no, I am not talking about for tanking. I'm talking about for taking damage when situations go bad. That is the best part about pets for the Necro, you can be very cavalier about solo'ing without downtime and getting very aggressive with spawns because your pet can compensate whenever you have resists or trains or adds. And they happen. It's just a part of the game, and if they don't happen then the Necro is being waaaay too cautious.

The fact remains that the Rogue and Monk pet die so quickly it's amazing. If you look at their HP totals they're roughly half and 3/4 of the 49 pet, yet they're 4 and 7 levels later against monsters whose damage output scaled significantly higher.

Another thing that people do not recognize is the rogue and monk do not bash. Bash is a lot of damage and more importantly it stuns. When you factor that in it is quite obvious Verant was scamming the necro class by calling them upgrades (which at the time people ripped Abashi a new one over on the forums).

I do not share the perspective that we were simply diversified, rather than empowered, as with Kunark we were given an additional hard-to-resist DoT line, Splurt, which ended up being one of the most mana efficient spells in the game. Our Necro heal Shadowbond was scaled up for output and diminished the negative effect, even if it only ever ticks once if done properly. I do not see a 93% rez on demand as a gimmicky aspect, nor the ability to Levant across zones, I see them as incredibly empowering and great abilities that enhance a Necromancer's individuality, in a world in which Necromancers are meant to be isolated.

Defoliation is a joke. I will wholeheartedly agree there. But there are other Necro spells from pre-50 that are equally as useless.

So, from my experiences, I disagree with the negative perspective of Necros 50+. To each their own, and it is for each to judge.

I understand, and I respect your opinion. Anyone that remembers me from live knew I was rather vocal about hating Verant regarding necros during this period so I definitely had a glass-half-empty viewpoint on the situation.

Splurt is a fantastic DoT, I won't argue with you there (although on this server it is missing its last tick). The problem is that DoTs became super underpowered during this era, and even more as Velious approached, and it was something that continued to impact Necromancers the most. DoT stacking did not exist, and in groups monsters died way too fast for most DoTs. Necros had to become super utility, which Shadowbound helped considerably. Would have loved an upgrade to Screaming Terror.

The problem with sacrifice was that it wasn't really a rez. You had to steal someone's exp to use it, which usually meant you had to pay some poor guy getting deleveled. It took until Shadows of Luclin before the price on EE's dropped enough that it didn't hurt to use them all the time (at least on my server, I haven't seen the price here in a while).

For raids? Sure, great great great utility to be able to feign death, quit out, then come back 90 seconds later and rez the failed raid. But I'd rather have better lifetaps or a fear spell that landed on mobs over 55.

Vexenu

02-18-2014, 02:34 AM

The simple fact is that charm is incredibly overpowered in EQ due to the strength of mobs relative to players, and this fact is only amplified as you get higher in level. Put another way, the Enchanter is powerful because he is able to use mobs to kill each other rather than having to use his own spells to kills mobs. The Necro can only do this with undead. The Enchanter can do it with any type of mob. The Enchanter also has lines of stuns and mezzes to easily control their charmed pets and recover from breaks, as well as two massively powerful debuffs with Tash and slow. Along with charm, slow is another incredibly overpowered ability in EQ. Being able to cut a mob's damage output in half, or even less, is simply a staggeringly powerful ability.

Objectively speaking, looking at it from a design perspective and with modern knowledge/mastery of the game, Enchanters are almost laughably overpowered. Charm, slow, haste, mez, stuns, Clarity, ToT, Invis/IVU, etc... The guy who posted about having a 55 Nec and a 60 Enchanter had it right. Once you play an Enchanter after playing other classes, it sort of feels like you're cheating. It doesn't seem like you should be able to do that much with just one class.

Necros are a more versatile class in terms of being able to do more things (FD, heal, rez, self-evac, snare, insta-invis, invuln) but they fall short of the pure power of the Enchanter. It's simply a design issue. Mobs in EQ are much more powerful than players, and Enchanters can control and buff/debuff mobs to a much greater degree than Necros can.

The Necro is like MacGuyver. He has a trick to solve every problem. Often the solution will be ghetto and barely functional, but it will probably work somehow.

The Enchanter is like an incredibly hot chick. She has no need to do anything for herself. She just charms some Brock Lesnar-type fella and gets him to smash everything in her path. And if her charm breaks, she will stun and mesmerize him by flashing her tits before re-charming. Shit ain't even fair.

All that being said, Necros are still a lot of fun to play and are a very powerful and versatile solo class. But they just can't match the pure power of the Enchanter for killing tough mobs.

Potus

02-18-2014, 03:13 AM

Charm is super super super powerful. It doesn't break as often here as it does on live, so it's even more powerful here.

But I am glad. Charm is fun and cool.

Uteunayr

02-18-2014, 10:18 AM

We might be getting into differences between this server and live (especially about stealing aggro), but no, I am not talking about for tanking. I'm talking about for taking damage when situations go bad. That is the best part about pets for the Necro, you can be very cavalier about solo'ing without downtime and getting very aggressive with spawns because your pet can compensate whenever you have resists or trains or adds. And they happen. It's just a part of the game, and if they don't happen then the Necro is being waaaay too cautious.

The fact remains that the Rogue and Monk pet die so quickly it's amazing. If you look at their HP totals they're roughly half and 3/4 of the 49 pet, yet they're 4 and 7 levels later against monsters whose damage output scaled significantly higher.

Another thing that people do not recognize is the rogue and monk do not bash. Bash is a lot of damage and more importantly it stuns. When you factor that in it is quite obvious Verant was scamming the necro class by calling them upgrades (which at the time people ripped Abashi a new one over on the forums).

See, when you write like this, I don't honestly understand. I am sorry, but I must be missing something. Whne you say "your pet can compensate whenever you have resists or trains or adds...", it sounds as if you intentionally throw your pet in to absorb damage for you... That's not a Necro pet. Skeletons are brittle, weak. If a pull goes bad, or you get resists, you pop your mage clickie and Feign Death out of the situation. I have never, at any point in my EQ career, felt I needed to throw my pet at something, to have it tank something, to compensate for me. That's something I have always seen as a Mage tactic.

I have never, once, felt gimped by the fact that the rogue and monk pet die quickly. Yes, they die quickly, but they shouldn't be taking damage in the first place if you're doing it right. Instead of scaling up HP (which is NOT what necro pets are, or ever were, for), they scaled up their damage by adding some nice variety to it with the backstabbing pet, and a cool looking warrior pet.

The stun bash does is brief, and the DPS it does is minor relative to the backstab. Warriors Bash, Monks Flying Kick, Rogues Backstab. I'll take the Backstab over a Bash any day of the week. My DPS with a Rogue backstab is much higher than an EoT with Bash.

Sorry, there's some major disconnect happening between us. I have never, nor can I ever imagine, a situation in which I feel it would fall on my pet to need to take hits for me. They are not tanks, they should not be tanks, they are another DoT effect. That's it. So, you are obviously doing something very different from how I have been playing the class since back in the day as well for the crux of your argument to be relevant. I am not saying you're wrong, just that for your argument to stand, I believe you're playing Necromancer in a strange way.

The problem with sacrifice was that it wasn't really a rez. You had to steal someone's exp to use it, which usually meant you had to pay some poor guy getting deleveled. It took until Shadows of Luclin before the price on EE's dropped enough that it didn't hurt to use them all the time (at least on my server, I haven't seen the price here in a while).

For raids? Sure, great great great utility to be able to feign death, quit out, then come back 90 seconds later and rez the failed raid. But I'd rather have better lifetaps or a fear spell that landed on mobs over 55.

Convergence is the rez, and yes, it uses an EE. But, just as on P1999, just as back on live, you did not have to delevel a person, as you could EE a level 60 through some janky mechanics. Even back in Kunark you were capable of getting EEs without something sacrificing their levels. Further, I do not buy "it wasn't really a rez.", it's a 93% rez at any point that I want without a Cleric or Paladin. Yes, you have to pay dearly for the component to do it, but that's the cost of convenience. How much would you be paying a Cleric or Paladin to run all the way out to City of Mist to grab you? How much would it cost to use one of your EEs? The convenience makes a Necromancer independent, and the rez is a part of that. So, I disagree and believe you undervalue the necro rez here, and overemphasize the losses.

You can FD and /q out any time you have roamers and you're over level 34. You can do it effectively in just about any situation, in addition to standing up, and popping CoS immediately to reposition yourself, or zone. I have good enough Lifetaps, and I have fears that will land on CT Minions, and Dark Blue cons to me. I am more than content, and I was more than content.

All that being said, Necros are still a lot of fun to play and are a very powerful and versatile solo class. But they just can't match the pure power of the Enchanter for killing tough mobs.

This is what I would emphasize, yet again. Not every money mob is tough, and more importantly, not every money mob is living. An Enchanter will be supreme to a Necromancer in that they can handle large numbers of enemies in close corridors through their CC, and charm through the bunch. However, there are numerous camps a Necromancer can solo that are still end-game ones in which your full arsenal is available (undead), and there are numerous camps in which maintaining that charm becomes more a hindrance than an advantage (especially if you're a graduate student like me and need to do a lot of work while playing), and the variety offered by Necromancer as a class adjusts to that.

A necromancer can manage with a lower level pet, as we have our DoTs to make up the difference in damage, whereas the vast majority of damage from an enchanter is from their pets. Necromancers can rest more heavily on their own efficient damage potential. If you do not have a high level pet available to you, or numerous weak ones around the main target (thinking stuff like AC South Ro, some Guk mobs, a ton of quest mobs), or you cannot make the time to focus on maintaining a charm, a Necromancer lets you power through such a situation.

There are plenty of tactics a Necromancer can employ to take down high end mobs, but they are not as wide as an Enchanter. But the number of camps an Enchanter can do with ease that a Necromancer must work much harder to do, are made up for (in my view) by the absolute freedom Necromancer provides for you (rez, levant, DA, healing, most efficient mana machine, your extremely efficient damage not contingent upon a pet, etc), and the ease of camps that, relatively, enchanters need to pay more attention to since charming is pretty much the only way.

Again, I am not saying Enchanters are bad, their tool set is great, but Necromancers have a wide variety of tools at their disposal that make them far more efficient than a simple jack of all trades. The OP and any other reader trying to make this choice should do one thing, and one thing only: Look at the abilities and capacities of each class objectively, and make the choice as to what best fits their life, their sense of fun, and what they desire out of the game.

TL;DR: I do not accept a value judgment that Enchanters are better, just as no reader here should accept a value judgment that Necromancer is better. By the very nature of the word, better is subjective. One person may value the tools offered by a Necromancer more highly than those offered by an Enchanter, or may value the tools of the Enchanter over those offered by the Necromancer. Make the choice that best fits what you want, and you will not go wrong. And in that respect, you can read my Necromancer guide (linked in my first post) to read about how a Necromancer plays.

Tuljin

02-18-2014, 11:45 AM

Nec vs Enc is almost like apples and oranges - the only thing worth comparing is the fact that they are both very capable solo classes that can charm strong mobs (with the nec being limited to undeads) The similarities end there really.

For many (most) places in the game, root CC is just fine, especially in a group situation. If you live your life without AOE mez you start to get good at pulling tough camps with whatever available tools you have. Theres a lot of encs that ride to 60 just by grouping and only casting AOE mez on ugly ass pulls of 4 mobs plus in KC or Seb without keeping a charmed pet and you can get a group really whenever the hell you want lol. The ride for a Nec to get to 60 is nowhere near as easy.

Really enchanter is the "best" class in the game because its OP (really along with shaman idk) You can be really good at soloing deep in dangerous dungeons, OR (as is the case most of the time) you can sit on your ass and have all the nubs in your full LCY group pull w/e willy nilly and with little skill you can keep the horrific pulls at bay (most of the time :P)

But when people talk about "best" on this server it means "easiest to not die" and "broken powerful." Because EQ is actually a hard game everyone's constantly looking for shortcuts/the easy way out. Theres a reason there are always so many 60 encs online, and if you did the research a only fraction of them soloed to 60.

I guess nec is "weaker" but again the whole argument is just completely ridiculous. Nec is an awesome class if you know how to play, but its a shitty class if you don't know how to play. Enc is an awesome class if you know how to play, and is somehow still an awesome class even if you don't know how to play.

Uteunayr

02-18-2014, 12:29 PM

Really enchanter is the "best" class in the game because its OP (really along with shaman idk) You can be really good at soloing deep in dangerous dungeons, OR (as is the case most of the time) you can sit on your ass and have all the nubs in your full LCY group pull w/e willy nilly and with little skill you can keep the horrific pulls at bay (most of the time :P)

But when people talk about "best" on this server it means "easiest to not die" and "broken powerful." Because EQ is actually a hard game everyone's constantly looking for shortcuts/the easy way out. Theres a reason there are always so many 60 encs online, and if you did the research a only fraction of them soloed to 60.

This is where I have an issue, because it's a value judgment. When you say Enchanters are the "easiest to not die" or the most "broken powerful". What type of power? What is the relative power comparison between a 93% component based rez, and having illusions? What quantity more powerful is a self-succor versus a mana regeneration buff that goes on others? What is the relative strength of Feign Death compared to AE Mez?

These things cannot be easily quantified. Are enchanters the "easiest to not die"? I'd think a Necromancer has that down with 2 DAs, FD, Levant, and the like. How does the survivability of those tools relate to the survivability potential of an Enchanter with AE mez, mem blur, and the like?

If better is being counted as "easiest to not die", then I'd put Necros up against them gladly. If better being called "broken powerful" in which we consider power to be efficacy against the highest level dungeon mobs in terms of soloing? Then I'd put up Enchanters.

The point is simple, it is all subjective. Each person will look at the tools of each class and have a different opinion on the relative value of each tool to the other class' tool. That is why the best way to choose is to get an understanding of the objective facts about each class, free of judgments, and make your own, so you pick the one that is most fitting for what it is you want. This is why I cannot blame anyone who knowingly picks a Dark Elf, understanding the differences between Dark Elf and Iksar for a Necromancer. If they understand just how valuable regen is, but it isn't as valuable to them as having a copy of their old classic toon, I can completely understand that. But they must understand the objective fact of what regeneration does for a Necromancer, so that the value they place on it is appropriate.

Tuljin

02-18-2014, 01:19 PM

Which is why I put "best" in quotes haha - you can come to the p99 forums with the Johnny Cochran Legal Team and no matter what you say about a partcular class enc or shaman will always be the "best" class.

Also, most people who play this game are so solo-centric (i.e. the EQ Asperger's Syndrome) that when it comes to the odd skills that a Necro has that are very valuable to others (HP feed, twitch, EE rez) they won't really register as legitimate reasons to choose a class. Its either pure DPS, JBB root rot, or AOE mez/charm.

And I would agree that with FD its quite easy to stay alive =) Again a big reason people argue enc is that as a high level nec its damn near impossible to post up LFG and get a group, whereas if you're an enc people will kick people out of the group to get you lol. High level necs really need to have a couple good buddies that they can group with or go solo HS, theres really no other choice to move the bar at high lvl.

I may get crucified for saying this but I will say enc is probably the "easier" option! =)

Uteunayr

02-18-2014, 01:38 PM

Which is why I put "best" in quotes haha - you can come to the p99 forums with the Johnny Cochran Legal Team and no matter what you say about a partcular class enc or shaman will always be the "best" class.

And I will argue them, and tell those people that their thinking is limited, and they are less effective human beings because of it. If you limit yourself to thinking one set thing without understanding the why, then you let yourself become a blind follower. When you understand the why, then you understand the value judgments that go into it, and in that way, you can hone what exactly you mean, and deliver unparalleled clarity. That only falters when people permit it to, and I refuse to let such ignorance slide. (EDIT: Lest I look like an ass, I am not saying you're like this. I am referring to those you refer to in your quote)

Also, most people who play this game are so solo-centric (i.e. the EQ Asperger's Syndrome) that when it comes to the odd skills that a Necro has that are very valuable to others (HP feed, twitch, EE rez) they won't really register as legitimate reasons to choose a class. Its either pure DPS, JBB root rot, or AOE mez/charm.

This is your value judgment. I play this game as I am raid-centric, not solo-centric. I have numerous friends who are group-centric, who spend most days in Charasis. That's what they love. I, however, am raid centric. I love maintaining a charm pet on a Loathing Lich while dishing out the twitches and heals.

Both of our claims are based purely on individual speculation, rather than any empirical data. Due to that, both of our claims stand on tenuous grounds. So, I do not agree that "most" people are solo-centric, I agree only insofar as there are people who are solo-centric. Until I see a legitimate survey (which would have to be a census given the small server population is about the necessary sample size of a legitimate sample), that is as much as I will accept in that regard.

And I would agree that with FD its quite easy to stay alive =) Again a big reason people argue enc is that as a high level nec its damn near impossible to post up LFG and get a group, whereas if you're an enc people will kick people out of the group to get you lol. High level necs really need to have a couple good buddies that they can group with or go solo HS, theres really no other choice to move the bar at high lvl.

But your previous quote said people are solo-centric, so why should the speed of grouping matter at all? You see what I mean? It is subjective interpretation on what is most important for you. If getting into a group incredibly fast is what you want, Enchanter is for you. If you want to play the game of balancing a charm pet with necro heals and twitching, managing your HP and your mana in this (which is an incredibly complex thing to do, a high to which I have found no comparison in this game), then you should be playing a Necromancer.

I may get crucified for saying this but I will say enc is probably the "easier" option! =)

Easier in what way? Enchanters have their own challenges. The most expensive piece of gear that is fundamental to a Necromancer is a 5k pair of jboots, lol. Enchanters need a Goblin Ghaz at minimum to really be effective. I would say it is far easier to be a Necromancer at the start, but it becomes more difficult as time goes on. By comparison, Enchanters are harder at the start when you have lower gear, inconsistent charms, whereas Necros have stable, reliable fears.

But when you get into challenging content, such as clearing rooms, Enchanters are able to AE mez and have an "easier" time getting through it than a Necro would. A necro cannot AE mez, and must instead Charm a mob inside the room, pop DA, absorb any DTs, back the pet out, root each of the mobs in turn, and then reverse charm through the pack to clear a room, whereas an Enchanter can go one at a time.

I have an easier time getting rezzes, I have an easier time getting from point A to point B, I have an easier time killing anything without caring about faction, I have an easier time. I have an easier time powerleveling other players. I have an easier time levitating. I have an easier time getting a pet. An enchanter will have an easier time in numerous other places.

So once again, I will ram home my point by paying it is all about looking at the objective facts of each of the classes, and judging for ones' self which has the tools and abilities they most desire to get the most out of the game.

Tuljin

02-18-2014, 01:49 PM

I agree!!

I am very subtly ripping on the p99 Sperglord Hivemind. Most people don't give a shit about anybody else when they play the game besides themselves and you can see that in most people's choice of class or discussion of pros and cons of certain classes. It always comes back to what can they can play with the least effort/danger/trouble getting a group to move the xp bar/get phat lewtz and pay for an chardok aoe proxy to lvl their next toon lol

Potus

02-18-2014, 03:41 PM

See, when you write like this, I don't honestly understand. I am sorry, but I must be missing something. Whne you say "your pet can compensate whenever you have resists or trains or adds...", it sounds as if you intentionally throw your pet in to absorb damage for you... That's not a Necro pet. Skeletons are brittle, weak. If a pull goes bad, or you get resists, you pop your mage clickie and Feign Death out of the situation. I have never, at any point in my EQ career, felt I needed to throw my pet at something, to have it tank something, to compensate for me. That's something I have always seen as a Mage tactic.

I have never, once, felt gimped by the fact that the rogue and monk pet die quickly. Yes, they die quickly, but they shouldn't be taking damage in the first place if you're doing it right. Instead of scaling up HP (which is NOT what necro pets are, or ever were, for), they scaled up their damage by adding some nice variety to it with the backstabbing pet, and a cool looking warrior pet.

The stun bash does is brief, and the DPS it does is minor relative to the backstab. Warriors Bash, Monks Flying Kick, Rogues Backstab. I'll take the Backstab over a Bash any day of the week. My DPS with a Rogue backstab is much higher than an EoT with Bash.

Sorry, there's some major disconnect happening between us. I have never, nor can I ever imagine, a situation in which I feel it would fall on my pet to need to take hits for me. They are not tanks, they should not be tanks, they are another DoT effect. That's it. So, you are obviously doing something very different from how I have been playing the class since back in the day as well for the crux of your argument to be relevant. I am not saying you're wrong, just that for your argument to stand, I believe you're playing Necromancer in a strange way.

How exactly are you soloing? Are you root rotting or fear kiting? Because with fear kiting adds happen. It's just a part of the game; you'll never play from 1-60 and not have another mob aggro on your pet, or your snare wear off while you're trying to reapply it and the monster runs into an area it shouldn't, or you get a series of resists and your pet ends up tanking briefly. 1-49 the pet is great at dealing damage and staying alive so you can keep soloing. Post 50 the pets don't do enough damage to outweigh them dying instantly from adds. Verant knew this, that's why they tried to sell the monk and rogue as being really awesome, and then when people summoned them they felt duped.

Convergence is the rez, and yes, it uses an EE. But, just as on P1999, just as back on live, you did not have to delevel a person, as you could EE a level 60 through some janky mechanics. Even back in Kunark you were capable of getting EEs without something sacrificing their levels. Further, I do not buy "it wasn't really a rez.", it's a 93% rez at any point that I want without a Cleric or Paladin. Yes, you have to pay dearly for the component to do it, but that's the cost of convenience. How much would you be paying a Cleric or Paladin to run all the way out to City of Mist to grab you? How much would it cost to use one of your EEs? The convenience makes a Necromancer independent, and the rez is a part of that. So, I disagree and believe you undervalue the necro rez here, and overemphasize the losses.

How are you sacrificing people and they're not losing experience? Getting to level 60 on live was a ton of work, just as it is here. Lots of hours of play time. People wouldn't sell sacrifices without you coughing up A LOT of platinum up front. I recall the only people willing to do it were at the lowest level possible for a sac because they could (I presume through pretty dubious means) level back up quickly.

Again, it really was a gimmick. Sure you can rez, sure it made you more independent. But at a huge cost that wasn't really practical. You hear rez and you're excited for the expansion, and then you learn that you have to pay tons of money to convince people to eat exp loss. You're not going to replace a cleric or a paladin except in very, very, very limited situations, like when a raid wipes and you feign death. That's great, but like I said previously, it only makes Necromancers more well-rounded and gimmicky, not powerful.

Kadron

02-18-2014, 04:33 PM

I usually pay 350-450 plat per sac. What would you pay to have someone come res you? Plus think about camping items. I can corpse lore items and res myself with ease. It's a huge benefit. I can spend hours camping something and get a few items with never leaving my camp and lose very little experience. Both classes are awesome, it's all about what you want to play.

Uteunayr

02-18-2014, 04:37 PM

How exactly are you soloing? Are you root rotting or fear kiting? Because with fear kiting adds happen. It's just a part of the game; you'll never play from 1-60 and not have another mob aggro on your pet, or your snare wear off while you're trying to reapply it and the monster runs into an area it shouldn't, or you get a series of resists and your pet ends up tanking briefly. 1-49 the pet is great at dealing damage and staying alive so you can keep soloing. Post 50 the pets don't do enough damage to outweigh them dying instantly from adds. Verant knew this, that's why they tried to sell the monk and rogue as being really awesome, and then when people summoned them they felt duped.

When you're root rotting, you shouldn't have a pet engaging the enemy, as they will break roots.

When you're fear kiting, yes, adds happen, but if you have eyes on what you're fear kiting (which you should), you know when to pull back your pet, or when to pre-cast a Darkness before it aggros so it comes to you first for a fear. Further, you can minimize the occurrence of these by letting the mob get close to you before a re-fear, and if you are good at counting your Darkness ticks, you will *never* be caught unaware. Further, appropriate use of Invoke Fear v Fear can help you maintain positioning far better. You don't use Invoke if there are enemies within range, use regular Fear for the shorter duration, so you can pull it back to you after it is over. It hurts the DPS, but is far safer in such a situation.

The number of times a mob aggros my pet rather than aggros me is infinitesimal in the grand scheme. If you're playing right, the mobs should be aggroing the necromancer, not the pet. You get a series of resists, you do what I said: Reclaim clickie and FD. You don't want your pet to tank, otherwise you lose the mana investment, and even if you can get the mob snared and feared, and your pet is dead. Instead, you reset the pull and put it up to bad luck. How often do you get chain-resists in post 50? That shit happens a lot at earlier levels, sure, but chain resists at max level, against higher level blues? Generally if the mob is resisting, they are immune, if they don't resist, they are not. It is pretty rare to get random resists in the 50-60 range. I cannot think of even once having fear resisted on spectres or bloodgills, a root resisted on nobles, or a root resisted on charm killing shit in Charasis. Some dots often get resisted, but those do not even have a hope of landing.

Pets do enough damage to outweigh them dying if you fuck up. There's no reason your pet should ever be getting aggro if you're playing well. And if you're not playing well, your pet will die and you will deserve the loss of the pet, because you fucked up.

How are you sacrificing people and they're not losing experience? Getting to level 60 on live was a ton of work, just as it is here. Lots of hours of play time. People wouldn't sell sacrifices without you coughing up A LOT of platinum up front. I recall the only people willing to do it were at the lowest level possible for a sac because they could (I presume through pretty dubious means) level back up quickly.

I didn't say without losing experience, I said without getting "deleveled" as you said. You made it sound as if to get the EEs, people had to be deleveled for it. A 60 can suicide to a guard 6 times from 100% into 60, and go to 59. Then, you sacrifice them 5-6 times, and then you get a cleric to rez the 6 suicide corpses. They re-ding 60, boom. You have EEs, they are still 60, and their kills are not wasted. This is always how it was done to get a bunch of EEs without making it as malicious as:

which usually meant you had to pay some poor guy getting deleveled.

Rogues were notorious for this, because they couldn't farm stuff in any way but groups. So, they could also make EEs since they capped XP damn easily.

Again, it really was a gimmick. Sure you can rez, sure it made you more independent. But at a huge cost that wasn't really practical. You hear rez and you're excited for the expansion, and then you learn that you have to pay tons of money to convince people to eat exp loss. You're not going to replace a cleric or a paladin except in very, very, very limited situations, like when a raid wipes and you feign death. That's great, but like I said previously, it only makes Necromancers more well-rounded and gimmicky, not powerful.

It was practical, and it remains practical. Yes, you have to pay. You're a Necromancer that is bringing people back from the dead, lol. Not as a skeleton, but as a fully living being (this is getting into fluff, Ill do that in a sec). How much do people pay for a Cleric to run out to City of Mist for a rez? 400pp? 500pp? I've seen people offer 1k for rezzes in the depths of Kaesora, or in LOIO. A Necromancer can pop a 350pp EE, and a 50pp Coffin, and be done. Certainly, prices are inflated on the server relative to classic, but the pricing was within grasp.

Again, you say it doesn't make them more powerful. Define power? What aspect of power? That is a value ridden term, heavily subjective. To me, having a 93% rez on demand is powerful. Incredibly powerful. Especially since I am a far more self-sufficient class than a Paladin or Cleric, I would much rather pay 350pp-400pp to have a rez than try to find a Cleric to do a rez for me.

It even fits with the traditional fluff of the Necromancer, in that Necromancers are not people who create or destroy life, they are those which transfer life energy. Just as Evocation alters energy, Conjuration creates new energy, Necromancy is the evocation of life energy. A cleric can create new life, as their power is divine, but a Necromancer cannot. So the Necromancer becomes a conduit through which life is transferred. The Necromancer can drain life from the opponent to channel it through their magic into their ally. The Necromancer can burn that life energy to empower their spells (lich), and they can burn huge amounts of life energy to use far more powerful spells. It is for this reason that later in xpacs, Necromancers developed means of creating EEs out of enemies as a more advanced magic tech.

So, ultimately no, I do not agree in the least. I do not agree that it is "not powerful", because I do not believe it is reasonable in any form to say that having a 350pp gem in your bag that lets you use a 93% rez at any point you want is nothing more than a gimmick. That is power. It isn't hard power, but hard power is not the only kind of power.

I usually pay 350-450 plat per sac. What would you pay to have someone come res you? Plus think about camping items. I can corpse lore items and res myself with ease. It's a huge benefit. I can spend hours camping something and get a few items with never leaving my camp and lose very little experience. Both classes are awesome, it's all about what you want to play.

Quoted for agreement.

Potus

02-18-2014, 07:01 PM

When you're root rotting, you shouldn't have a pet engaging the enemy, as they will break roots.

When you're fear kiting, yes, adds happen, but if you have eyes on what you're fear kiting (which you should), you know when to pull back your pet, or when to pre-cast a Darkness before it aggros so it comes to you first for a fear. Further, you can minimize the occurrence of these by letting the mob get close to you before a re-fear, and if you are good at counting your Darkness ticks, you will *never* be caught unaware. Further, appropriate use of Invoke Fear v Fear can help you maintain positioning far better. You don't use Invoke if there are enemies within range, use regular Fear for the shorter duration, so you can pull it back to you after it is over. It hurts the DPS, but is far safer in such a situation.

The number of times a mob aggros my pet rather than aggros me is infinitesimal in the grand scheme. If you're playing right, the mobs should be aggroing the necromancer, not the pet. You get a series of resists, you do what I said: Reclaim clickie and FD. You don't want your pet to tank, otherwise you lose the mana investment, and even if you can get the mob snared and feared, and your pet is dead. Instead, you reset the pull and put it up to bad luck. How often do you get chain-resists in post 50? That shit happens a lot at earlier levels, sure, but chain resists at max level, against higher level blues? Generally if the mob is resisting, they are immune, if they don't resist, they are not. It is pretty rare to get random resists in the 50-60 range. I cannot think of even once having fear resisted on spectres or bloodgills, a root resisted on nobles, or a root resisted on charm killing shit in Charasis. Some dots often get resisted, but those do not even have a hope of landing.

Pets do enough damage to outweigh them dying if you fuck up. There's no reason your pet should ever be getting aggro if you're playing well. And if you're not playing well, your pet will die and you will deserve the loss of the pet, because you fucked up.

It's all fine to say you should never be caught unaware and you should use different fears and keep mobs routinely controlled. And if you can do that with regularity congratulations. Sadly it's just not realistic, the random number generator will trip you up and you will run into adds unless you're playing overly conservative.

Mob aggro on pets right now is flatout broken on this server, but on live it was a much larger problem, and considering the devs are probably going to restore it you'll see this as an issue again. As for resists on those mobs I'm impressed you don't have resists on bloodgills or spectres. I've not camped Bloods here, but on live they do resist spells and spectres (which I have killed here and on live) do as well. If you haven't got root resisted that's...really just hard to believe. P99 50+ sounds like a paradise compared to live or even the resist code on Red.

I didn't say without losing experience, I said without getting "deleveled" as you said. You made it sound as if to get the EEs, people had to be deleveled for it. A 60 can suicide to a guard 6 times from 100% into 60, and go to 59. Then, you sacrifice them 5-6 times, and then you get a cleric to rez the 6 suicide corpses. They re-ding 60, boom. You have EEs, they are still 60, and their kills are not wasted. This is always how it was done to get a bunch of EEs without making it as malicious as:

Not sure I get this. You take a 60 who is maxed on exp and then you sac him 5-6 times, right? Why do you have him suicide on guards and get resurrected?

Again, you say it doesn't make them more powerful. Define power? What aspect of power? That is a value ridden term, heavily subjective. To me, having a 93% rez on demand is powerful. Incredibly powerful. Especially since I am a far more self-sufficient class than a Paladin or Cleric, I would much rather pay 350pp-400pp to have a rez than try to find a Cleric to do a rez for me.

So, ultimately no, I do not agree in the least. I do not agree that it is "not powerful", because I do not believe it is reasonable in any form to say that having a 350pp gem in your bag that lets you use a 93% rez at any point you want is nothing more than a gimmick. That is power. It isn't hard power, but hard power is not the only kind of power.

That's fine. To me power is spells actually getting better with each level or at least keeping pace with the the progression of mob's power and other classes. I'd rather have better lifetaps and pets and dots that do a lot more damage than receive a resurrection spell with strings attached. When you consider how much better melees got post 50, and how much stronger monsters got, the necromancer was hosed in nearly every category.

Uteunayr

02-18-2014, 07:13 PM

It's all fine to say you should never be caught unaware and you should use different fears and keep mobs routinely controlled. And if you can do that with regularity congratulations. Sadly it's just not realistic, the random number generator will trip you up and you will run into adds unless you're playing overly conservative.

It isn't that hard to keep your eyes on a mob and where it is running. It really isn't. Watching the ticks of your Darkness is more complex, and no one can blame you for that, but if Darkness breaks and it starts sprinting into mobs, you should still, with reasonable ease, tell your pet to back off, without much of an issue.

Mob aggro on pets right now is flatout broken on this server, but on live it was a much larger problem, and considering the devs are probably going to restore it you'll see this as an issue again.

If you are keeping your pet up front and having them tank, they are going to get aggro and die on live. Right now, you can easily pull aggro from them with DoTs. That doesn't change the fact that if you back off your pet appropriately, which isn't a high mental taxing activity, your pet shouldn't, 99/100 get hit.

As for resists on those mobs I'm impressed you don't have resists on bloodgills or spectres. I've not camped Bloods here, but on live they do resist spells and spectres (which I have killed here and on live) do as well. If you haven't got root resisted that's...really just hard to believe. P99 50+ sounds like a paradise compared to live or even the resist code on Red.

I remember it similarly on live. Resists became less and less a difficulty the higher the level you got. Certain mobs will be able to break roots faster and so on. But being a high level significantly reduces the number of random resists, and it sorts into near immunity vs. easy to land. We seem to remember things very differently.

Not sure I get this. You take a 60 who is maxed on exp and then you sac him 5-6 times, right? Why do you have him suicide on guards and get resurrected?

You cannot sacrifice a level 60 character. You can only sacrifice a level 46-59. So, you have to have them die to a PvE style death, so they go down to 59 (6 deaths). Then, you can sacrifice them 5-6 times, and rez the suicide corpses (since you can't rez the sacrifice corpses), and they will come back with 20-36% experience.

That's fine. To me power is spells actually getting better with each level or at least keeping pace with the the progression of mob's power and other classes. I'd rather have better lifetaps and pets and dots that do a lot more damage than receive a resurrection spell with strings attached. When you consider how much better melees got post 50, and how much stronger monsters got, the necromancer was hosed in nearly every category.

Then you would like what they did to Necro on live post-60, where they shafted twitch, necro heals, long DoT ticks, and made it so Necromancer is a 14-dot rotating machine.

Sorry, but you're comparing us to melee, the consistent DPS group. No, we wont DPS like a Monk or a Rogue, and it is silly to think that we should be balanced relative to them in terms of DPS. We weren't equal to them before, we weren't in Kunark, and we certainly aren't now on live.

Necromancer isn't a DPS class. It is a support class. That is the fundamental difference in our thinking, I believe.

Further, I'll add that I disagree that we are as worse off as you seem to suggest. All enemies were scaled up, and I have not seen anything empirically sound to say that the scaling up of Necromancer damage (counting in your pet damage) is proportionately worse than that that it was at relative to other classes in the pre-Kunark era. If you have such an analysis, please do share. I know I take longer to kill things post-50 than pre-50, but I also know other classes do too. I'd like to see some proof, because it really isn't (from the two necromancers I have leveled through the 50s) as devastating as you seem to be making out.

element08

02-18-2014, 07:33 PM

i'd roll a mage.

just kidding they suck now.

RIP

pasi

02-22-2014, 08:57 AM

Uteunayr

02-22-2014, 10:34 AM

Zalaerian

02-22-2014, 12:00 PM

Roll on red as a chanter. Most devasting class in PvP if played well.

Vandamwtc

03-24-2014, 10:43 AM

I have an Enchanter, and a Necromancer. I love both in their own way, but I too can't decide. Probably why neither is 60 yet. I'm leaning more toward Necro, simply bc everyone seems to have an enchanter the past couple of months. My Necromancer is also a dark elf, bc you see nothing but Iksar, I've also had him since 2010. Guess I'm a hipster!

Arterian

03-24-2014, 11:27 AM

Wtb enchanter with feign death.

Splorf22

03-24-2014, 03:35 PM

Resists become less frequent at 60 because of the level gap. Keep in mind that while Kunark does have a level 60 cap, the vast majority of the high-level content was designed for 50s play. Most folk in raiding guilds were not 60 when Velious hit.

Take a look at Sebilis, the majority of the frogloks up top are in the upper-mid 40s with nameds being 50-55. Hell, even the Fungi King is only level 56. You are killing blue mobs that are 12 levels lower than you. Contrast this with leveling where you're mostly killing stuff 4-5 levels below you.

I think one of the biggest problems with Project 1999 is that we have been stuck on Kunark for so long, and so we end up with exactly this: a bunch of max level/geared players stomping hard on group content that was designed for people 5 levels lower without their epic/dragon haste etc.

Spore king group on live: the players are 55-57, the warrior has two lamentations and a FBSS, the monk is using an IFS or maybe even trance sticks, the rogue has a Rapier of Orinn, the enchanter doesn't want to charm because he lags out hard once an hour (and has 500+ ms ping), and with ideal construction the full group puts out 150 dps. Snare is critical, and the group has to sit on the spawn point due to low dps, which is very dangerous with all the roamers.

Spore king group on P1999: Everyone is L60. All of the melee have an epic and dragon haste. The enchanter has a great connection and charms an ilis knight for 100 dps. The shaman is 60 with Torpor. If it's a full group, they do 250+ dps and sit at the zone out room clearing all the way to juggernauts. If things go south, someone logs on their pocket epic cleric.

This is why I wish we could have a new Blue server. At least for a while, people wouldn't be roflstomping the content.

Necros are very fun from 1-50. After 50 please realize that their is a considerable and noticeable drop in power. Verant hated necromancers and the two expansions reflect a neglect of Necromancers. You see it in the pets, which aren't very good post 50, and you see it in a lot of anti-necromancer gameplay changes, things like mobs summoning, mobs being unfearable, mobs being unsnareable, etc.

I think both are a lot of fun and you won't be disappointed by either.

100% agree. Necros are a great class (and still fun) but they suffer hugely in Kunark.

A L45 frenzied ghoul will be relatively unhappy with Ignite Blood and a 49th level skeleton. A L55 froglok commander will laugh off Pyrocuor and eat your 59th level pet alive (even with backoff tricks). And summoning mobs will absolutely wreck your day, which is really why Druids and Necros are fantastic soloers in classic but pretty mediocre in Kunark.

Charm is weaker because of fewer undead: there are charm targets in 75% of classic zones (Hate, Fear, Guk (all the good items are dead side anyway) vs Sol B) but less than half of Kunark zones (HS, KC, Seb Crypt vs Chardok, Sky, Veeshan's Peak, Deep Sebilis) and IIRC in Velious that ratio only gets worse.

TBH even with those issues if mobs could not summon players (one of the most retarded mechanics ever in my opinion) and necros could land taps on boss mobs I would consider them equal with enchanters.

Uteunayr

03-24-2014, 06:59 PM

Clever necromancers can handle many summoning mobs. This was discussed earlier in the thread.

While most bosses will easily resist taps, they do not easily resist Ignite/Chill Bones, as so many creatures are heavily skewed to MR rather than CR/FR.

In Velious, our time to shine (after the lull that is Kunark, where the best we get is Demi-Lich, Splurt that we don't get to use much, and Iksar) happens because root and darkness no longer count as the same type of debuff. This allows for more freedom in using Darkness. In addition, we get Death Peace, a much faster casting, lower failing chance FD that has a very brief cooldown, allowing FDing at near the same speed as a Monk. This makes necromancers even better at handling summoning mobs and controlling their aggro.

Additionally, the changes to raid mobs brings Necromancers into a much greater light than we ever were in the past, even in classic. With higher HP bosses, longer encounters, necromancer DoTs start ticking to fruition. Our heals become faster, we get the Elder Beads to increase our independence, and our twitch becomes even more necessary.

Potus

03-24-2014, 10:41 PM

I'm just now rediscovering this thread, sorry for the late response.

Sorry, but you're comparing us to melee, the consistent DPS group. No, we wont DPS like a Monk or a Rogue, and it is silly to think that we should be balanced relative to them in terms of DPS. We weren't equal to them before, we weren't in Kunark, and we certainly aren't now on live.

Necromancer isn't a DPS class. It is a support class. That is the fundamental difference in our thinking, I believe.

Necromancers were always a DPS class. At launch they matched/exceeded monks and rogues in DPS. Necromancers had multiple DD spells, the most DoTs of any class in the game, was a primary pet class. They screamed damage, both immediately and sustained over long periods of time.

If Necromancers were a support class then Verant screwed up majorly. And no amount of Screaming Terror, Summon Corpse, and Shadow Bound could make up for real support classes like Cleric, Enchanter, or Bard.

In Kunark, Necromancers ceased to be a DPS class because Verant coded all the raid targets to resist a vast majority of Necromancer spells. This was intended to make Necromancers worse than other classes post 50.

Further, I'll add that I disagree that we are as worse off as you seem to suggest. All enemies were scaled up, and I have not seen anything empirically sound to say that the scaling up of Necromancer damage (counting in your pet damage) is proportionately worse than that that it was at relative to other classes in the pre-Kunark era. If you have such an analysis, please do share. I know I take longer to kill things post-50 than pre-50, but I also know other classes do too. I'd like to see some proof, because it really isn't (from the two necromancers I have leveled through the 50s) as devastating as you seem to be making out.

I'm kind of puzzled you'd argue this point. You really think Necromancers received equal positive attention in Kunark and scaled proportionately to other classes? Shaman? Enchanters? Monks?

I don't think I even have to provide data. It's pretty blatant when you look at itemization for Kunark. Do Necromancers get a kunark spell at level 30 that outdamages their level 49 dots? No, they don't. But melees have noob dungeon drops that make them vendor Ykeshas and delete planar drops.

The fact that little-to-no Necromancer spells landed on raid targets in Kunark proves my point.

Uteunayr

03-25-2014, 09:03 AM

Necromancers were always a DPS class. At launch they matched/exceeded monks and rogues in DPS. Necromancers had multiple DD spells, the most DoTs of any class in the game, was a primary pet class. They screamed damage, both immediately and sustained over long periods of time.

If Necromancers were a support class then Verant screwed up majorly. And no amount of Screaming Terror, Summon Corpse, and Shadow Bound could make up for real support classes like Cleric, Enchanter, or Bard.

In Kunark, Necromancers ceased to be a DPS class because Verant coded all the raid targets to resist a vast majority of Necromancer spells. This was intended to make Necromancers worse than other classes post 50.

Necromancers were a support until around Luclin/PoP era where they condensed DoTs to short duration, removed twitch, removed heals, removed pretty much all our utility (with ST being one to quickly follow), and made us rotate between 12+ DoTs.

We never "screamed damage". Rogues, Monks, Rangers, Wizards, these people were always on top of a Necromancer. Necromancers were in the position of being one of the inefficient DPS classes for group and raid fights until Velious when bosses started getting some real meat on them, and DoTs would tick to fruition. Our DDs are terribly inefficient relative to other specialized classes, and they would never match up to MDPS.

Necromancers were not a DPS class in Classic unless you were an idiot that adds to the culture of Necromancers not being seen good in groups. A smart Necromancer knows that is not their role, and they shine in other ways, namely as a support class.

This was not a mistake, it was intentional, and it was brilliant. It's among the first games to really dig into this side of Necromancy, namely being a conduit for the transfer of life, something that many games completely looked aside from. A Necromancer is not a Wizard, they do not cause the elements to cringe, they are not a Cleric, they do not create life through healing, as that is a divine power. No, a Necromancer is an arcane caster that can transfer life between things. You suck the life out of your enemies, and you deliver it to your allies. You burn it into mana, and transfer that to allies. You sacrifice the weak, and you can expend that soul to bring the strong back to life. The point is that the Necromancer does not create life, the Necromancer just moves life between the living.

It's the side of Necromancer that is missing from many games due to the time it takes to manage such a thing (such as Diablo 2, it wouldn't really fit in an ARPG), and it is the reason why Necromancers in classic were the best recreation of the class for a video game ever done by a game company.

I'm kind of puzzled you'd argue this point. You really think Necromancers received equal positive attention in Kunark and scaled proportionately to other classes? Shaman? Enchanters? Monks?

I don't think I even have to provide data. It's pretty blatant when you look at itemization for Kunark. Do Necromancers get a kunark spell at level 30 that outdamages their level 49 dots? No, they don't. But melees have noob dungeon drops that make them vendor Ykeshas and delete planar drops.

The fact that little-to-no Necromancer spells landed on raid targets in Kunark proves my point.

Again, you're looking at this through the lens of "HOW MUCH DPS DO I DO? HURR DURR.", which is about the last thing a Necromancer should or needs to be concerned with, in classic, or in Kunark. It didn't even get onto the table for intelligent Necromancers until Velious when we had raid mobs with more meat on them to allow DoTs to tick, but also resulting in putting a greater need on our patching and twitching capabilities.

It is not as bad as you make it out, as you're damn near obfuscating reality through your lens of DPS Only. Damage needed was scaled up to kill anything, and Necromancers were no exception. But instead of our damage being ramped up incredibly, our utility, our support was, with modest increases to damage.

What Kunark brought to the many Necromancers who embraced their role as a support included abilities to bring back the dead, a pet that backstabs, quick-casting lifetaps, a fantastic heal (+125 for -60ish for 4 ticks), a self-Succor, a third Fear, tiny coffins, a second DA, and the most mana efficient engine until mid-Luclin.

Saying that because Necromancers can't land damage spells on Kunark raid mobs means Necromancers were treated unfairly since Necromancers are a DPS class is like saying that because Rogues can't bandage up to 100% proves the point that they were treated unfairly since Rogue is a Support Class.

I really want to believe you're trolling at this point. This perception is why Necromancers had to fight an uphill battle to group, and even more so now in P1999, because people who blindly believe Necromancer is a DPS class will be slinging DoTs onto mobs that die before 3 ticks get off, and they'll claim that's their job, no matter how inefficient and shitty it is. If you want to make arguments about the efficacy of a class based on DPS, find another class.

Tuljin

03-25-2014, 10:21 AM

Again, you're looking at this through the lens of "HOW MUCH DPS DO I DO? HURR DURR.", which is about the last thing a Necromancer should or needs to be concerned with

If you want to make arguments about the efficacy of a class based on DPS, find another class.

This

Splorf22

03-25-2014, 10:44 AM

I really want to believe you're trolling at this point. This perception is why Necromancers had to fight an uphill battle to group, and even more so now in P1999, because people who blindly believe Necromancer is a DPS class will be slinging DoTs onto mobs that die before 3 ticks get off, and they'll claim that's their job, no matter how inefficient and shitty it is. If you want to make arguments about the efficacy of a class based on DPS, find another class.

I went and checked the Necromancer spell list. From 56-60, Necromancers receive 10 damage spells (including two pets) and 3 utility spells (including Death Peace from Velious).

I'm certainly not going to accuse you of trolling but I'm really surprised you can't see his point: Necromancers were designed as a DPS class, but Verant decided they were too strong in classic (remember the uproar over necromancer pets with their double FS daggers? or necros soloing the Ghoul Lord while FD?) and so in Kunark they gave Necromancers a few situationally useful utility spells instead of better pets or big upgrades to nukes. They did exactly the same thing to magicians, who got CoH and mod rods rather than a 6000HP Earth Pet.

Edit: Also the necro heal line being dispellable is almost certainly unintentional, and possibly not classic. If you don't dispell your recourse, then you heal at about 1 mana / 2 HP, i.e. worse than a Druid (and no regeneration). Also twitch means a necro can give 20 mana/tick to ONE player. An enchanter can give 14 mana / tick to the entire raid. I just don't see how you can build a class around an inefficient heal, an inefficient means of mana regeneration, and rezzing the cleric after wipes.

Uteunayr

03-25-2014, 11:07 AM

I went and checked the Necromancer spell list. From 56-60, Necromancers receive 10 damage spells (including two pets) and 3 utility spells (including Death Peace from Velious).

I'm certainly not going to accuse you of trolling but I'm really surprised you can't see his point: Necromancers were designed as a DPS class, but Verant decided they were too strong in classic (remember the uproar over necromancer pets with their double FS daggers? or necros soloing the Ghoul Lord while FD?) and so in Kunark they gave Necromancers a few situationally useful utility spells instead of better pets or big upgrades to nukes. They did exactly the same thing to magicians, who got CoH and mod rods rather than a 6000HP Earth Pet.

First off, you're selecting pretty heavily on your level selection which is introducing a nasty bias. You're selecting slightly more than one interval. In Kunark, we gain more utility and support than we do pure DPS abilities.

Sedulous, Trepidation, Conjure Corpse, Quivering Veil, Immobilize, Devouring, Demi-Lich. That's 7 support abilities not counting Death Peace. To get at the bias you introduce with your range selection, most Necro DoTs only get upgraded in the last 5 levels. Stretch your range out to the full Kunark era, and the majority of spells are utility, followed by DPS, followed by pets, and lastly charms.

And how many of them are unique? Necromancers gain a few really neat unique utility abilities in Kunark, whereas they get only one new damage ability in Splurt. The design shifted to emphasize their utility because their damage was horrendous in group and raid situations. Yes, necromancers can DPS while soloing. Fantastic, we get that. But they are among the worst in any type of collaborate effort, and that was true in classic.

Necromancers were designed as a support class with DPS capabilities that were not useful in any way shape or form when it comes to the game's mechanics as they stood in classic or their plans for Kunark when in a group or a raid. Created as a soloing effective class (the only place where you'd get any sort of efficiency out of your dots), but group and raid supporting class, it is when idiots try to bring their soloing into a group by saying "WE'RE A DPS!" that it damages the Necromancer's role. Heck, Enchanters can solo rather efficiently with charm pets, as that's their way of doing damage in a solo situation. So now Enchanters are a DPS class, not a support class. No, that is absurd to any form of logic. So instead of expanding Necro DPS, they realized Necromancers do best in grouping and raiding (what a MMO is ultimately about, as it is a multiplayer venture), so they emphasized the utility and support of the Necromancer class, rather than trying to scale them up more than they were to competitive DPS. And then, of course, they ruined it in PoP by turning the class into what people like Potus wanted, and caused a mass exodus of Necromancers from the game.

Edit: Also the necro heal line being dispellable is almost certainly unintentional, and possibly not classic. If you don't dispell your recourse, then you heal at about 1 mana / 2 HP, i.e. worse than a Druid (and no regeneration). Also twitch means a necro can give 20 mana/tick to ONE player. An enchanter can give 14 mana / tick to the entire raid. I just don't see how you can build a class around an inefficient heal, an inefficient means of mana regeneration, and rezzing the cleric after wipes.

Dispelling the negative recourse is classic.

Shadowbond costs 10 mana, you give 125 per tick for 4 ticks, while loosing approximately 60 hp. If you do not dispel, that's +500 hp on the target, -240 hp on yourself, for 10 mana. A Touch of Night is 720 HP for 405 mana. That means you can generate +1500 hp for one Touch of Night worth of mana, or 405, plus the 10 to cast, or 415 mana, suggesting a 3.614457 HP per Mana, rather than the 2.0 you're citing. Further, this doesn't take into account standard ticks of HP and Iksar regen, or even the Regrowth buff of 15 a tick which is pretty vital. An Iksar with Regrowth will be getting back 18+15 = 33 a tick, and losing 60, meaning the net loss is 27, not 60, so you'd actually get an efficiency of 8.03.

A Necro can twitch to the right player, and it can go over Clarity. Each additional Enchanter added to the raid diminishes the need for any further enchanters, because you can only clarity but so much. Necromancers do not diminish other necromancers. Once you have an Enchanter to provide Clarity, the comparison is over, as you can have 2, 3, 8, 10 necromancers to boost far beyond what multiple enchanters would do. You can't put multiple Clarity's on one person. The point is that in being able to directly control our mana, we can give it to the right player, we have control at the right time. If you've never seen the benefit of a strong group of Necromancers, then I feel sorry for you, because it is significant.

This is not to say I diminish or believe an Enchanted to be less important. An Enchanter is to a mana pool what a MDPS is to a mob's HP pool: Sustained mana gain. But Enchanters do not burst (although limited comparison as Rogues do have discs to burst a bit). Necromancers are more comparable to Wizards, bursty Mana/DPS. It is incredibly useful when you need burst reactions that a slow and steady gain won't do. It's just how shamans are better at getting back mana on demand, but Necromancers are best at getting it back progressively.

You can build a class around injecting more bursts of mana into the right player at the right time to prevent wipes, while delivering considerably good heals, all with either a charm or back stabbing DPS pet. The merging of all of these do make a functional and very strong class. If you are not taking full advantage of your Necromancer and instead treating yourself as an ineffective DPS, you're severely curtailing your ability and gimping every single person you associate with to overcome PvE or PvP goals.

Edit: Please do note that I do not have specific values for the HP lost on Shadowbond, I have not done any conclusive testing lately on it, and I cannot find my notes where I had the value written down. It is about 1/2 the HP transferred.

baalzy

03-25-2014, 12:49 PM

Just going to chime in on necro healing because I think this is often forgotten now that recourse dispelling is commonly known (I didn't know about it when I was actively raiding back in 2011).

Shadowbonds recourse cannot be overwritten by Pact of Shadows recourse, but pact will still land on a target (just can't stack shadowbond+pact on the same target).

Even if recourse dispelling gets removed, this mechanic is completely and legitimately classic meaning for an additional 10 mana you can heal a second target for 320 for absolutely no additional hp cost. What does this mean? This means 2 necros working in conjunction can shadowbond their patch targets and then Pact of Shadow each other completely eliminating the need to lifetap the lost health back and even making up for lost hp due to liching. For 20 total mana.

Furthermore. Post-Velious as long as you pick up Holgresh Beads you will always have a lifetap target and if you can get VP geared you'll have a mana-free lifetap DoT. Even without Holgresh beads, stalking probes are cheap. Talk about a model of efficiency. Being able to heal others for 820 hp every 30 seconds while generating 32 additional mana/tick with no worry of having low hp due to these transfers. Soul Well is one of the biggest item upgrades a necro could ever hope for.

Uteunayr

03-25-2014, 01:50 PM

Potus

03-25-2014, 03:10 PM

Necromancers were a support until around Luclin/PoP era where they condensed DoTs to short duration, removed twitch, removed heals, removed pretty much all our utility (with ST being one to quickly follow), and made us rotate between 12+ DoTs.

Again, no. Necromancers are clearly a DPS class. They do damage. I'm sorry you loved twitching, but that was not even a Necro spell at launch -- it was a cheap gimmick that was put in to negate nerfing Necromancer spells. Screaming Terror was nerfed at launch. It was originally a fear+mem wipe. That was considered way too powerful and it was turned into a 2 tick Mez. It was never a defining characteristic of the class. The heals are fine, they're not going to be useful in raids. Great in Groups and Duo'ing. Terrible for all else.

We never "screamed damage". Rogues, Monks, Rangers, Wizards, these people were always on top of a Necromancer. Necromancers were in the position of being one of the inefficient DPS classes for group and raid fights until Velious when bosses started getting some real meat on them, and DoTs would tick to fruition. Our DDs are terribly inefficient relative to other specialized classes, and they would never match up to MDPS.

No. Necromancers are fantastic damage in a sustained setting like a raid. The problem is that Verant intentionally made Necro spells not land on raid targets. There was a guild on Tarrew Marr called the Necro Death Squad and they killed raid bosses with Necros only. In came the nerf bats. Lifetap was coded to resist on guys like Cazic and Inny. You had the "have to stand directly under the mob" to get it to land gameplay feature added. It was a joke.

Necromancers were not a DPS class in Classic unless you were an idiot that adds to the culture of Necromancers not being seen good in groups. A smart Necromancer knows that is not their role, and they shine in other ways, namely as a support class.

You have no idea what you're talking about which is kind of sad because you have a pretty good user guide. I don't get how you know so much about Necromancers yet don't understand what they are about. Go look at the Necromancer spell list. What gets upgraded over and over. Dots, Lifetaps, Snares, Fears, Pets. These are all used in dealing damage and killing shit.

Again, you're looking at this through the lens of "HOW MUCH DPS DO I DO? HURR DURR.", which is about the last thing a Necromancer should or needs to be concerned with, in classic, or in Kunark. It didn't even get onto the table for intelligent Necromancers until Velious when we had raid mobs with more meat on them to allow DoTs to tick, but also resulting in putting a greater need on our patching and twitching capabilities.

From Classic to Velious most guilds carried one or two necromancers at the most. Forums like EQnecro were full of Necros either quitting their class or using them to twink out new characters because the end game was completely broken for Necromancers.

No one liked twitching, which was the only role for Necromancers on raids besides Corpse Cleanup following wipes.

Here was the Necromancer experience on a raid and in most of Kunark-Velious: Sit far away from the AE (because you can't even lifetap yourself to heal and clerics aren't going to waste a CH on you), buff DMF, twitch.

That's a great class! So much fun! The genius of the Necromancer! You give about as much mana as a bard's song. That's not good gameplay, that's a fucking embarrassment of game design.

What Kunark brought to the many Necromancers who embraced their role as a support included abilities to bring back the dead, a pet that backstabs, quick-casting lifetaps, a fantastic heal (+125 for -60ish for 4 ticks), a self-Succor, a third Fear, tiny coffins, a second DA, and the most mana efficient engine until mid-Luclin.

You really love that rez, don't you? It's sad that it's the one thing you mention over and over again. Seriously, look at what other classes get in Kunark and you're obsessing over Shadowbond and tiny coffins.

I really want to believe you're trolling at this point. This perception is why Necromancers had to fight an uphill battle to group, and even more so now in P1999, because people who blindly believe Necromancer is a DPS class will be slinging DoTs onto mobs that die before 3 ticks get off, and they'll claim that's their job, no matter how inefficient and shitty it is. If you want to make arguments about the efficacy of a class based on DPS, find another class.

Again, you know nothing about a Necro and it's kind of sad. In the right situation we're one of the most efficient damage classes in the game. We're great in groups for a variety of reasons. If you just sit and cast Shadowbond and twitch I'd kick you.

Potus

03-25-2014, 03:37 PM

First off, you're selecting pretty heavily on your level selection which is introducing a nasty bias. You're selecting slightly more than one interval. In Kunark, we gain more utility and support than we do pure DPS abilities.

Sedulous, Trepidation, Conjure Corpse, Quivering Veil, Immobilize, Devouring, Demi-Lich. That's 7 support abilities not counting Death Peace. To get at the bias you introduce with your range selection, most Necro DoTs only get upgraded in the last 5 levels. Stretch your range out to the full Kunark era, and the majority of spells are utility, followed by DPS, followed by pets, and lastly charms.

WHOA WHOA WHOA. You accuse this guy of bias and then you list Demi-Lich, Snare, Fear, and harmshield as support abilities?

How can you possibly accuse me of trolling when you shovel horseshit like this?

Invite that Necro into the group, he has root, a spell literally every caster except mages have! If we're going to list that as support then let me talk to you about how great Wizards are at support. Don't use any of your nukes, Wizards, you're just HRURR obsessed with damage. Embrace your Utility! Cast root and evacuate.

Uteunayr

03-25-2014, 04:35 PM

Again, no. Necromancers are clearly a DPS class. They do damage. I'm sorry you loved twitching, but that was not even a Necro spell at launch -- it was a cheap gimmick that was put in to negate nerfing Necromancer spells. Screaming Terror was nerfed at launch. It was originally a fear+mem wipe. That was considered way too powerful and it was turned into a 2 tick Mez. It was never a defining characteristic of the class. The heals are fine, they're not going to be useful in raids. Great in Groups and Duo'ing. Terrible for all else.

Enchanters do damage. Wizards do damage. Clerics do damage. That is not an acceptable criteria for what makes someone a DPS class. But, I get into this later in the post.

The heals are not useful in raids? If you're not using it, you're a bad Necromancer. If you're not using twitch, you're a bad Necromancer. If you're only using twitch, you're a bad Necromancer. If you're not using a pet, you're a bad Necromancer. Not only does it feed other necros to remove all negative side effects of Lich, but it can be incredibly useful for saving clerics needing to patch heal, preserving their mana for more important jobs.

No. Necromancers are fantastic damage in a sustained setting like a raid. The problem is that Verant intentionally made Necro spells not land on raid targets. There was a guild on Tarrew Marr called the Necro Death Squad and they killed raid bosses with Necros only. In came the nerf bats. Lifetap was coded to resist on guys like Cazic and Inny. You had the "have to stand directly under the mob" to get it to land gameplay feature added. It was a joke.

When was there a sustained setting in a raid until Velious? 32k mobs don't sustain DoT. They didn't until you get 1 million HP bosses in Velious, and it isn't until then (as I have said) that necro damage becomes a useful thing. The only other time is when soloing and you're the single producer of damage.

Yes, Lifetap was made to be resisted, there are other spells you can land on Cazic and Inny, that isn't bias towards MR. If you're so limited in your thinking that the only damage you can pump out is Lifetap, you're really missing the grand scope of what Necromancers do.

Necromancers were not in any way a reasonable sustained DPS class by any stretch of the imagination until Velious when bosses would survive long enough for DoTs to start ticking to fruition. Before this, it didn't happen because our DDs are not in any way efficient relative to other classes, because they merge utility with DD, rather than being pure DD as is the case for a DPS. I'll come back to this later.

From Classic to Velious most guilds carried one or two necromancers at the most. Forums like EQnecro were full of Necros either quitting their class or using them to twink out new characters because the end game was completely broken for Necromancers.

"Most"? Please, offer some valid evidence to this, otherwise you're just talking out of your ass. Lets see some proof of that claims, not anecdotal recounting of a time long past.

No one liked twitching, which was the only role for Necromancers on raids besides Corpse Cleanup following wipes.

Don't assume that because you didn't that "no one liked twitching", nor that other necromancers would only twitch. That's a logical fault.

Here was the Necromancer experience on a raid and in most of Kunark-Velious: Sit far away from the AE (because you can't even lifetap yourself to heal and clerics aren't going to waste a CH on you), buff DMF, twitch.

That's a great class! So much fun! The genius of the Necromancer! You give about as much mana as a bard's song. That's not good gameplay, that's a fucking embarrassment of game design.

An Iksar Necro with Regrowth wont need to lifetap to return health, and a well trained group of necromancers will be able to heal themselves to never need to screw with Clerics. Manage your HP/Mana, twitch, heal, buff DMF, and manage a pet. Yup, that's a great class. Better than pressing a mindless rotation like it's fucking World of Warcraft.

A bard song, an enchanter's clarity, neither will provide a burst of mana, and each causes diminishing the value of each successive class. That burst is what Necromancers do. It isn't as efficient as the sustained, burst rarely is efficient, as the loss is what you get for having it at demand. Cannibalize, Manastone, Mana robes are not efficient, but they burst. Wizards are not efficient, but they burst. Necro DoTs become efficient in Velious, because they don't burst. Necro twitches are not efficient because they burst, but by bursting, they do what sustained like a bard and an enchanter cannot do.

You really love that rez, don't you? It's sad that it's the one thing you mention over and over again. Seriously, look at what other classes get in Kunark and you're obsessing over Shadowbond and tiny coffins.

You really love those dots, don't you? It's sad that it's the one thing you mention over and over again. Seriously, look at what other classes get in Kunark and you're obsessing over DoTs and DDs.

You see, that phrase doesn't work, because you're even more overwhelmingly zealous about the role of DPS as the singular activity that Necromancer was designed for, you who did not design the class. My argument is based on the facts of the spells and abilities that were in the game, not any subjective interpretation of your reality.

You have no idea what you're talking about which is kind of sad because you have a pretty good user guide. I don't get how you know so much about Necromancers yet don't understand what they are about. Go look at the Necromancer spell list. What gets upgraded over and over. Dots, Lifetaps, Snares, Fears, Pets. These are all used in dealing damage and killing shit.

"Understand what they are about"... You mean understand what you see them as about, while ignoring the other half of the equation. My argument for support has never been, nor has in the previous responses, been that necromancers do not do DPS. A support class, I maintained, does DPS, but supports the group in numerous other ways. Much in the same way that Enchanters are a support class, but still charm to deal some significant DPS output, Necromancers are equally as Supporting. Necromancers are not, in any way, like a Rogue or a Wizard, where their abilities and behavior, when maximized in terms of efficiency, is the output of DPS. Instead, Necromancer is a class that is best played as supporting a group of players through the combination of moderate damage, moderate mana support, moderate healing, and some ninja tricks. That puts a Necromancer into the traditional category of a jack of all trades style support class, not maximized for any one behavior.

You say that because DoTs get upgraded over and over, it means that Necromancer is a DPS... And yet, twitch gets upgraded. Heals get upgraded. Cancel magics get upgraded. Roots, fears, snares get upgraded. Lich gets upgraded. So... Yeah. Your argument works against you. You'll want to start curving your argument into one of number of DoTs vs other abilities, although that one also fails.

Further, what is used in dealing damage and killing shit (Fears, snares, lifetaps) do not serve a singular purpose, so they do not equate DPS. They serve multiple purposes that intersect. A snare helps you to kill, but it does not kill. A snare is not a DPS ability. It is a utility, it is a support. Now, Darkness combines Snare with a DPS DoT, making it intersect two separate things. You can use Darkness only as a DoT, not as support, but you can use it equally as support instead of just as a DoT. This helps to distinguish the Necromancer. Similarly, lifetaps serves two purposes, to heal the necromancer to feed into the machine, and to deal offensive damage capability.

But by serving two functions, they act sub-optimally in each category. A Necro lifetap will not be as efficient as a heal would be, but it comes with a DPS component. Similarly, the DPS component is not as efficient as a wizard nuke would be, but it comes with a healing utility component that feeds into the mana generation. It is much like a Bard in D&D, proficient in many things, but master of none of them.

To say we are a DPS is to say the central focus of our abilities is for the goal of producing damage. And yet, most of our damaging abilities have a secondary function that makes then less efficient and useful than comparable other class abilities when looked at in a pure DPS light. But, if you are a smart person, you realizes that there is a careful balance and theme to most necromancer abilities. Unlike backstab, unlike rend and the like, the necromancer emanates utility and damage, but not optimizing either. In this way, a Necromancer does not fit the role of the DPS, they fit a support role, through their application of moderate DPS (and in Kunark, that is primarily through pet backstab/charm), moderate mana regeneration (through twitch), moderate heals (through necro healing, see Baalzy's post), moderate rezzing ability (relative to a cleric who can do it with no component), and moderate independence in their own health management. That's a support, that's a jack of all trades, that's a class that specializes in nothing, but touches upon most things.

Most classes have ways to kill shit, it doesn't make every class a DPS.

WHOA WHOA WHOA. You accuse this guy of bias and then you list Demi-Lich, Snare, Fear, and harmshield as support abilities?

How can you possibly accuse me of trolling when you shovel horseshit like this?

Invite that Necro into the group, he has root, a spell literally every caster except mages have! If we're going to list that as support then let me talk to you about how great Wizards are at support. Don't use any of your nukes, Wizards, you're just HRURR obsessed with damage. Embrace your Utility! Cast root and evacuate.

First of all, saying someone is introducing a bias is NOT the same as saying that they are bias. Everyone can introduce a selection bias when they want to make a point, but it remains an empirical truth that the cases you select shape the results you find. It was in no way offensive to him, and you're blowing it way out of proportion by jumping to conclusions that were not called for by the language used.

You say that Snare and Fears are a CC, and that is a support ability. Demi-Lich fuels your mana machine, making it a utility that goes to be either support or DPS. Harmshield allows for you to survive and soak things that you otherwise would be unable to for your group, if you're smart.

I can accuse you of trolling because what you're saying is absurd and in denial of the strengths of the class that can be empirically demonstrated. I try to believe that more often than not, people have a decent head on their shoulders that can analyze a situation based on the evidence presented, and that is why I accuse you of trolling.

Sure, talk to me about how great Wizards are at support. Stack up Wizard DPS:Support abilities versus Necromancer DPS:Support abilities. Every class has utility, every class has some form of support, no matter how roundabout, but some classes are significantly more DPS, and more bias to it in their mechanics and their abilities. Necromancer is not one of those, there is a far more flat distribution of abilities than that. You think Wizards don't have support, or that it hurts my argument? Then you truly haven't understood a word I have written.

If you were the leader of a group that kicked a Necro who was maintaining their pet to deal modest DPS, twitching mana to the cleric and enchanter, and patch healing, in favor of someone who is going to spam DoTs that never get to tick to fruition, then you're a person I'd want nothing to do with in a group or a raid, as you do not have a mind for maximizing outputs.

Either way, I am done expending time and energy trying to explain what is obvious to anyone who has played a necro. I am more than confident anything written after this has a clear and thorough response in this or my previous posts. Nothing has been added to this conversation for weeks other than regurgitation of anecdotal nonsense. Feel free to have last word if you like, I'm done trying for your sake.

Splorf22

03-25-2014, 05:44 PM

The heals are not useful in raids? If you're not using it, you're a bad Necromancer. If you're not using twitch, you're a bad Necromancer.

I'm not going to get into this Usenet point-by-point style of debate, but are you serious here? These are highly situational abilities.

Twitch: Sedulous Subversion has a 3:8 mana transfer ratio. Under absolutely perfect conditions you'll get 65 mana per tick (bard song, lich, torpor to get your HP back and waste nothing on taps). That means you can supply 25 mana/tick to the cleric. As an Enchanter I cast clarity on the raid and provide 200 mana/tick, not to mention haste and in some areas CC and insane charm DPS.

Necro heals: Sakuragi rolls with over 5000 HP in Kunark, and 6000 HP in Velious. With 2-3 clerics for complete heal, 125/tick becomes completely irrelevant. In fact I would regularly ask the necro to stop healing me so I could have room for useful buffs like bard MR songs or stamina potions.

Look, I'm not saying these are worthless spells. I am saying that they aren't class-defining abilities like Charm, Complete Heal, Slow, Feign Death, Lures, etc. It's cool that you have found a way to be marginally effective in spite of the bad class design, and if you enjoy it that's great for you. But the fact of the matter is that Necros were hugely OP in Classic and as a result they got hit with the nerf bat hard in Kunark, probably too hard.

edit: just to be clear, that was from a raid perspective. In groups the heals are great (twitch is even more pointless). But again it's very situational: to really shine as a necro you need a group without a cleric, and most people won't go for that. Shaman/Necro/Monk is probably your best setup there . . . and even there, I think Shaman/Enchanter/Monk is better if there are charmable mobs around. In my opinion Necromancers are very good at soloing up to 60 safely via undead charm, root rots, and fear kiting. Beyond that, there just isn't much.

Uteunayr

03-25-2014, 06:39 PM

I'm not going to get into this Usenet point-by-point style of debate, but are you serious here? These are highly situational abilities.

But you're going to get into it? Lol. Okay. I'll try to answer as completely as possible to the general sentiments, rather than each particular bit of information.

Twitch: Sedulous Subversion has a 3:8 mana transfer ratio. Under absolutely perfect conditions you'll get 65 mana per tick (bard song, lich, torpor to get your HP back and waste nothing on taps). That means you can supply 25 mana/tick to the cleric. As an Enchanter I cast clarity on the raid and provide 200 mana/tick, not to mention haste and in some areas CC and insane charm DPS.

Again, you miss the entire point of my post, so let me try to make it clearer...

You can supply 200 mana a tick to your raid. Fantastic. I have already said that Enchanters can do this, and the sustained mana offered by an enchanter is beyond what a Necromancer will provide. Now what about the 2nd enchanter? Can he or she also supply 200 mana/tick to the raid? If not (which is the case), then you'll get to the root of the difference between burst and sustained benefit to the raid.

Necromancers don't do that. We burst. We provide 150 mana every 8 seconds, faster if you mix efficiency, and use Covetous. Lets say you do, because you're super bursting. You can cast Sedulous and Covetous once every 4 seconds, to provide 250 mana every 8 seconds. It costs you 400 + 300 = 700 mana to deliver 250 mana in 8 seconds, and with a conservative mana pool of 3k, you can deliver 4 instances of 250 mana in 4 sets of 8 seconds, or 32 seconds. So I can provide 1k mana to a caster in 32 seconds. That's a bit over 5 ticks. Clarity II provides +11 mana a tick, if the wiki page is correct. In 5 ticks, a sustained Clarity II will provide 55 mana, relative to a Necromancer's 1,000.

Further, and expanding upon what I said earlier, we get 65 mana a tick by your calculations, which is, I agree, in the area (I don't really have the total, but I'll go with that). So it will take a Necromancer 4.6 minutes to get their mana back to full, to reload the 32 second 1k mana burst. Each Necromancer in the raid can provide this, whereas you only need 1 Enchanter to provide the 200 a tick.

Now again, that's 1000 to a single person, you're completely right, but when your cleric goes OOM, or your enchanters are tapped due to a shitty pull or if your raid simply wants to be faster and have mana be dished out to the core handlers (clerics/enchanters), a Necromancer shines. When you're playing slow, or you have tons of downtime in your raid or group, a Necromancer does not.

So, I will point this out again: I am not saying Necromancer is better than Enchanters in providing mana, but that we provide mana in two very different ways, and both are good to have. If your Clerics need a burst of mana so pulls can keep going, Necromancers will do better. If your Enchanters are tapped for mana trying to hold down CC, Necromancers will do better.

Enchanters are a great class, with amazing raid utility. I do not reject this, nor would I try to. But that doesn't mean Necromancers need to have the true power of their abilities eschewed, and their role made to seem different than what it is.

INecro heals: Sakuragi rolls with over 5000 HP in Kunark, and 6000 HP in Velious. With 2-3 clerics for complete heal, 125/tick becomes completely irrelevant. In fact I would regularly ask the necro to stop healing me so I could have room for useful buffs like bard MR songs or stamina potions.

If 2-3 clerics are going to use a Complete Heal on some small AE damage, yes, the necro heal becomes irrelevant. But take a Shaman for example. A shaman is going to be cannibalizing to get more mana to dish out buffs. A smart necromancer using their heal efficiently can save a Cleric the 300 mana to cast an Elixir. Take any situation in which you're in a group that doesn't have a cleric due to limited numbers, you can patch up DS damage, your fellow necromancers, your melee after an unfortunate enrage. All of these situations in which there are small bursts of unsustained damage (and as a Necromancer, I see them all the time, and get to patch them all the time), a Necro can save a Cleric a great deal of mana from needing to patch everyone, or a shaman mana so they don't have to torpor people that do not need it.

It is not completely irrelevant. I don't know if you play a Necromancer in a raid scene, but try it. Keep your eyes out for bits of damage that a Cleric would celestial elixir, and instead do it yourself. No, a Necromancer is not going to solo heal a tank, that's what a Cleric is for. That's why I said, Necromancers provide patch heals. You end up doing this very frequently if you have your eyes open and on the health of the raid.

Now, hopefully you have a decent enough head on your shoulders to realize these are different strengths between the classes, and if so, I'll just ignore the rest of what you wrote on the grounds of it being overly patronizing bullshit fueled by ignorance of the class. Perhaps one day, if you haven't yet (I don't see one in your sig), you'll raid extensively on a Necromancer and try what I've been saying and come to see just how big an impact you have on greasing the wheels of a raid through masterful play.