Necros in Velius

[Andyman976]

Hi all,

So I'm trying to determine if I should stick with my necro into vel. I'm not sure how much of a power boost we get both item wise and spell wise, nor am I familiar with the content and how necros perform solo , group, and raid wise.

My friend is making a shaman, and I am considering rerolling a monk to duo. It appears as though velious is a huge melee centered expansion from what I can tell. Do casters get left in the dust? Can monks solo at max level as well as necros with all their uber gear?

Any info or stories is appreciated, thank you!

[Tecmos Deception]

Imo they'll be solid. I mean, you aren't going to own lodi like a geared shaman or do 150 DPS like a geared rogue or be showered with pixels like a main tank/cleric. But necros can DPS very well between pet and dots on targets short of actual raid bosses, their rezzes and corpse summons and twitches are handy for raids, they've got a bunch of cool spells for small group play (feign, harmshields, ivu and invis, etc).

You can always level a monk with your sham buddy then pick your monk or necro based on which you prefer when your buddy gets leveled up. Sham is a great partner for either class.


Solo necros are strong, but not like a shaman or enchanter. You're better at farming lower-level stuff, grindy stuff, than aiming for big-ticket solo items. Duos/trios necros are solid with the right partners, especially if they can be charming. In groups necros are underrated imo. Health transfers, faster dots, lifetaps, pet DPS, pulling potential, roots and a mez, and more; they're versatile not unlike a bard or enchanter. Raids I think you'll generally be twitching and helping on CRs? Essential though not glamorous.

[Andyman976]

Do we get any decent upgrades in vel? It seems like melee get all the nice gear.

[Tecmos Deception]

Everyone gets upgrades in Velious. I'd say necros benefit the most from new gear of the int casters, since they're the int class that can make the most use out of AC and HP and resists in non-raid settings. It's still not a HUGE deal like it is for melee or shamans though.

[Andyman976]

Why are those more important for shams? And why do shams get such a power jump in vel ?

[Uteunayr]

You get some fantastic gear for a Necro come Velious. Not only does your epic become more easy to attain, but the darkness clickie on it will begin to stack with roots. Using this with a variety of different clickies (VS Staff, Fear Stick, etc) allows for some very powerful mass slaughter.

The mana machine you run with becomes far more powerful as by stacking things like the Coldain Ring, Aura of Battle, and a Zlendie Heart, as an Iksar you can get into positive HP gain while using Demi-Lich, and with very minimal loss while standing using the same. This provides around +31 mana a tick at all times, which is an incredibly powerful mana machine.

The great advantages, beyond this, is more related to play style. Few classes will offer you as much variety in different styles of approach each situation, even if it cannot always be executed perfectly. In other words, if you dislike just charming, you can go fear kite. If you dislike fear kiting, you can go root rot. If you don't want to charm, root rot, or fear kite, then you can group and play the support game. The variety you have at your fingertips is virtually unparalleled. That doesn't mean that you are without disadvantages.

The drawback you will find with Necromancers is that the DoTs, while they can be quite powerful, are quite often resisted. Some exploiting of necro related spells in earlier times of the server resulted in some significant nerfs to the efficacy of our lifetaps.

Additionally, and probably the biggest issues necromancers face until a few expansions later, is handling summoners. It is entirely possible to handle certain summoning mobs through clever use of pet and aggro mechanics. This is why Tecmos refers to us not going to be comparable to a shaman: Our pet soaking summon shenanigans can't be done that easily on a dragon that would quickly eat our pet before we can manage to do a thing with it. And once a necromancer gets summoned, we get eaten, whereas a Shaman can force slows and use their high health and armor values to soak. Additionally, we lack the mezzing ability to take down packed rooms one at a time, unless they are undead. Our short term mez is insufficient for breaking rooms of 4+ mobs, and so many high end targets become dicey to say the least.

There are ways to handle summoners, but probably not dragons in which your pet is going to get eaten too quickly for your FD shenanigans to really work. You can charm and handle rooms, but they have to be undead and in the right situation. It isn't until necro pets are significantly buffed and pet tanking becomes a legit strategy (PoP I want to say) for a necromancer soloing that these situations become more manageable.

However, note that this is an extremely high skill cap. The one big agreement Tecmos and I came to in the Necromancer versus Enchanter thread is that for Necromancers to do some of the type of shenanigans an Enchanter can, the Necromancer has to work a great deal harder.

Velious gives us some great things, but we don't get many exciting spells. Arch Lich, while it looks cool, is totally balls. We get group DMF, which is nice... We also get a burst heal, which is fantastic for the support game. But that's about it.

But in conclusion, necromancers are a fuck ton of fun, there's a lot of variety, and a lot of room to grow and enhance your skills. Once you've had Demi Lich, it's really hard to go back to playing other classes... The mana addiction is severe. So that's the one thing I'd say to be careful if you decide to stick Necromancer, it is really hard to play any other caster when you see how damn slow everyone's mana bar recharges.

[Andyman976]

That's very helpful thank you!

Summoners scare me now. So would a nec/sham duo be able to handle high level stuff on vel? Are me lees just mopping the floor with our dps I'm vel? I thought out life taps were pretty good about not being resisted.

Also what are the clicky staffs you mentioned, can they be used from inven?

[noleriand]

*gasp* Ute endorsing the Fear Stick? Why I never. :)

One of the biggest things I'm worried about with Velious that hasn't been pointed out is the dearth of undead available in Velious. Aside from Icewell Keep, Dragon Necropolis, TOFS, and Velks, there just aren't many undead mobs that we can perform our quasi-enchanter antics on, like lull and charm. Not to mention that aside from DN and TOFS, these undead mobs are sequestered away somewhere out of the way and usually mixed in with a disproportionate number of live mobs. Oh, and the DN undead are bellycasters, so hope you have hp/ac stacked hard if you want to charm those. :)

Melee gets some insane gear in Velious, and mobs also get a huge boost to HP (among other stats), so sustained mana-free DPS becomes the name of the game for raid encounters. Necros are a caster's best friend though, since even now if I'm being lazy and only doing one twitch every minute I can contribute 15 mana/tick to my raid, and over a long Velious boss fight this can be quite a boon. We also get an awesome new FD at 60, a new lich with spectre illusion (come on, that's f'ing awesome), and plenty of hp regen loot we can take back to old content and play with.

So necros get sort of pigeonholed into doing CRs and mana batterying in Velious, at least in a raid setting. Like Tecmos said, not the most glamorous jobs but someone has to do them, and we get the toys to do them well. Plus, we can go back to Kunark and old world content with powerful new Velious gear and have fun solo or in group. While we may not be powerful enough to do a lot of super impressive stuff in Velious, we do get more powerful while other more necro-friendly content stays the same.

So yes, I'm looking forward to Velious as a necro. Personally, I'd make a monk and level up with your friend, because it never hurts to have another character leveled up and you won't know if you like it more until you try it.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Nightshade_Scented_Staff
http://wiki.project1999.com/Staff_of_the_Dreaded_Gaze
http://wiki.project1999.com/Shissar_Deathspeaker_Staff

These are the clicky staves that Ute was mentioning. As you can see, they are all 2HB and must be equipped to use.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Ring_of_Dain_Frostreaver_IV

This doesn't have to be equipped though! Although I would right now if Sirken handed me one.

Summoners should always scare you. :) Unless you can effectively fearkite them.

Only experience I have with necro/shaman duo is levelling up, and it is a great duo for that. I'm trying to think what necro would bring to the table for a shaman in a high end duo though. Our DPS is never really that stellar, but we can do the old vexing/dispel trick for the best healing efficiency outside of a Donals BP, we can twitch, and we can certainly provide some respectable (although not stellar) DPS. Maybe a debuff if you can get one of the 'Scent of' spells to land (which I have never been able to do reliably).

Melee dps mop the floor with our dps already. :)

I get a decent number of lifetap resists on highish end mobs now, and it will probably only get worse in Velious, where mobs have more MR.

[Daldaen]

All 3 Coldain Rings with clicky must be equipped to click. You're looking at a link that references live, where they removed all must equip to click restrictions.

[Nirgon]

Parsed wizard at 181dps with jboot refresh. Can't imagine with bane line how awesome its gonna be as a wizard owning the charts.

Feed wizards mana and patch heal with cancel magic to remove recourse they haven't fixed. You should be able to solo grind faction really well (heads/helmets) as a necro too.

And actually on longer fights like Lady Nev in ToV your patch heal sploiting will be super bad ass.

Necro gets zheart in Velious and summon corpse robe 8).

[Splorf22]

I don't think Necros will be soloing much that counts in Velious. But then I don't think anyone will be soloing much that counts. Most of the mobs that count are L60ish with annoying abilities and small groups will be the name of the game. Shamans will have the ability to solo Lodizal, but I predict there will be 40 people on his spawn point jav spamming, so if they do win the FTE lottery they'll want to bring a melee to be 100% sure of victory.

Also, if you think bring 15 mana/tick to a raid is valuable, how about you roll a bard? A bard playing Cassindra's can bring 70 mana/tick and that stacks with everything. Twitches are useful here and there, but they aren't a 'build my class around this' kind of thing.

[Splorf22]

Feed wizards mana

Even with bane spells, 15 mana / tick -> 75 damage / tick -> 12 dps. Not so very impressive, is it?

[Daldaen]

Would love to know how Bards bring 70 mana a tick. Cause that is guaranteed a bug.

32 Mana Song is a Mana Feed
55 Mana Song is a Mana per Tick.

Pulsing for a single tic you get 13 mana per tick and 7 mana feed.

Instrument modifiers should have 0 effect on mana component of bard songs. They will amplify HP regen components on the 55 HP/Mana Regen song, but NOT the mana regen component.

[Splorf22]

7 * 2 * 5.

Necro twitch only works for one person; bard song works for the whole group. Really its strange math; I should have perhaps chosen 7 * 2 * 4 = 56 which is the absolute worst case (you have another bard singing Cantata, because your raid is all bards). Normally Bards can give ~20 mana/tick * 5 = 100 total.

[Daldaen]

Okay so you're talking entire group not single person. I was about to have to BugQuest it...

[Nirgon]

Even with bane spells, 15 mana / tick -> 75 damage / tick -> 12 dps. Not so very impressive, is it?

You are playing dumb... you know how bursting a raid targets works son. Don't gimme that shit.

Necro feeding patch heals with current healing exploit + mana giver is pretty good.

Should be able to tap most Velious targets to stay alive also. So there's a damage source that doesn't require its own heals.... well I guess nothing will land here to damage anyone with people in 400+ resists with bards/buffs... but that's another matter.

[Daldaen]

It will be a glorious day when 255 caps are put in place.

[Nirgon]

if > 255 -> 255


But more to the point necros can tap most Velious mobs except the ones I've parsed to be immune to lure of lightning, so that will make them pretty worth while.

If everyone is "immune" to everything aoe, necros will be pointless.


BTW Loraen, tested that bane spells don't even need belly cast (lures did on same targets). U jelly? ;)

[Splorf22]

The whole point of Velious is that you can't burst targets. Unless you are in a giant zerg and then who cares anyway. Don't get me wrong; I think Wizards will still be very good in Velious although not quite as good as they are now. I just think twitch is a very situational ability.

[Tecmos Deception]

No one would ever deny twitch is a very situational ability. But the OP did specifically ask about the situation in which necros are expected to twitch. As much as I like a discussion about what is "best," it's pretty dumb, honestly, to suggest the OP reroll bard so that he can mana pump in raids better when he just was asking about how necros fare in Velious. Lol :p

[Uteunayr]

Also keep in mind that Twitch and Clarity/Mana Song are different types of mana flow.

If your cleric is totally OOM, and you're mid-fight, the answer isn't "Quick! Get the bard over there!", or "Get that cleric Clarity, quickly!".

There tend to be two ways stuff can go, it can either be smooth and efficient, or bursty and inefficient. Necro DoTs for example are smooth, consistent, and efficient DPS. A Wizard's nukes are jagged, but bursty DPS. If you have to kill a 16k hp boss in 30 seconds, you don't want to call in a Necro to DPS, lol. Wizards shine because they can burst sick damage in a short period of time. It may not be efficient, but not every situation demands efficiency.

What a necromancer brings is the same thing a Wizard brings, but instead toward mana pools. Twitch is mana on demand, it is burst mana. Clarity and Bard Song are efficient, steady mana.

If you're sitting and waiting to engage a boss with no pressure: a necromancer probably isn't what you need. If you're at king camp, a pull goes bad, 5 adds come in, and the enchanter is heavily mana tapped, then a necromancer is what you could use. I believe the last time I ran the numbers, I can twitch a bit over 1k mana to someone in less than half a minute. That type of burst mana isn't matched anywhere else.

Additionally, you should also consider the fact that although Necromancers only deliver mana to a single person, there is no limit to the number of necromancers that can provide their mana benefit. Once you have a single enchanter, everyone has clarity, so each additional enchanter cannot provide any further mana benefit to the group. As far as I know, this is still true for bards, in that you cannot have the same bard song on twice. Once a group has one bard, each additional bard cannot add advantage to that group. Each additional necromancer doesn't interfere with other necromancer's ability to provide burst mana in a tight situation.

A strong team of coordinated and smart Necromancers is not something to be dismissed so easily. There are plenty of uses for burst mana.

In other words: There is always a place where Burst is needed, and always a time when Efficiency is needed. Necromancers offer burst mana, not efficient mana. It's apples to oranges.

*gasp* Ute endorsing the Fear Stick? Why I never. :)

One of the biggest things I'm worried about with Velious that hasn't been pointed out is the dearth of undead available in Velious. Aside from Icewell Keep, Dragon Necropolis, TOFS, and Velks, there just aren't many undead mobs that we can perform our quasi-enchanter antics on, like lull and charm. Not to mention that aside from DN and TOFS, these undead mobs are sequestered away somewhere out of the way and usually mixed in with a disproportionate number of live mobs. Oh, and the DN undead are bellycasters, so hope you have hp/ac stacked hard if you want to charm those. :)

Melee gets some insane gear in Velious, and mobs also get a huge boost to HP (among other stats), so sustained mana-free DPS becomes the name of the game for raid encounters. Necros are a caster's best friend though, since even now if I'm being lazy and only doing one twitch every minute I can contribute 15 mana/tick to my raid, and over a long Velious boss fight this can be quite a boon. We also get an awesome new FD at 60, a new lich with spectre illusion (come on, that's f'ing awesome), and plenty of hp regen loot we can take back to old content and play with.

So necros get sort of pigeonholed into doing CRs and mana batterying in Velious, at least in a raid setting. Like Tecmos said, not the most glamorous jobs but someone has to do them, and we get the toys to do them well. Plus, we can go back to Kunark and old world content with powerful new Velious gear and have fun solo or in group. While we may not be powerful enough to do a lot of super impressive stuff in Velious, we do get more powerful while other more necro-friendly content stays the same.

So yes, I'm looking forward to Velious as a necro. Personally, I'd make a monk and level up with your friend, because it never hurts to have another character leveled up and you won't know if you like it more until you try it.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Nightshade_Scented_Staff
http://wiki.project1999.com/Staff_of_the_Dreaded_Gaze
http://wiki.project1999.com/Shissar_Deathspeaker_Staff

These are the clicky staves that Ute was mentioning. As you can see, they are all 2HB and must be equipped to use.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Ring_of_Dain_Frostreaver_IV

This doesn't have to be equipped though! Although I would right now if Sirken handed me one.

Summoners should always scare you. :) Unless you can effectively fearkite them.

Only experience I have with necro/shaman duo is levelling up, and it is a great duo for that. I'm trying to think what necro would bring to the table for a shaman in a high end duo though. Our DPS is never really that stellar, but we can do the old vexing/dispel trick for the best healing efficiency outside of a Donals BP, we can twitch, and we can certainly provide some respectable (although not stellar) DPS. Maybe a debuff if you can get one of the 'Scent of' spells to land (which I have never been able to do reliably).

Melee dps mop the floor with our dps already. :)

I get a decent number of lifetap resists on highish end mobs now, and it will probably only get worse in Velious, where mobs have more MR.

I don't endorse the fear stick right now, because removing your weaponry is often more of a gimp than an advantage for such a shitty cast time. However, come Velious, when you have a lot of reason to swap weapon, the variety of sticks you listed, the benefit of weapon swapping becomes incredible. The free damage you get out of it makes up for the time you spend standing and casting the long cast clickies.

Additionally, Death Peace is a SK only spell to try and put SK FD on the same level of Monk. Necros don't get it. Sad panda.

Also, the new Lich form fucking sucks until Luclin when Demi Lich is knocked down to 56. Get comfy with Demi Lich.

[Daldaen]

Didn't realize DP was added to necros so late... That blows.

September 2002 (http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20020904.html)
Death Peace made available to Necromancers at level 60.

[Tecmos Deception]

Yeah. Two harmshields but only one feign death. SKs get 3 with BE legs, lol :)

[Uteunayr]

Yeah, but to be fair, the BE Legs FD is a 3 second cast. Ugh.

[Andyman976]

Switching weapons sounds fairly lame...

For duo / trio, how would you guys rate nec vs mnk if there is a sham available. Do lots get resisted against smallish mins a lot as well?

Should I go bard?!?!

[Tecmos Deception]

Switching gear in and out for clickies is commonplace if you want to get even close to the most out of your character.

Necro and monk are both strong with shaman, with edge to the monk imo, especially if the necro doesn't like charming whenever it is remotely possible. No fucking idea what lots or smallish mins are.

[Potus]

Necro gets a sweet FD item for about 2 weeks in Luclin, then it gets nerfed so hard that everyone throws it away in disgust.

[Andyman976]

Smallish mobs, sorry.

Playing a monk feels like being a child sometimes lol, having to get healed, invisd etc

[Sheriff]

http://wiki.project1999.com/Zlandicar%27s_Heart

Mmm iksar regen and heart stack.

[BlkCamel]

Smallish mobs, sorry.

Playing a monk feels like being a child sometimes lol, having to get healed, invisd etc

Monk is a perfect complement to Shaman. A shaman/monk combo can essentially solo both the shaman and monk epics together, especially once Velious comes out (with help for final fights). Necro epic only going to come if you join a top raiding guild and build up a-lot of DKP. On live I had friends that didn't get original epic until PoP.

I did Shaman main and a family member did Iksar Monk(who eventually quit so I came to box monk until GoD when it no longer was worth it boxing to me $$$), can duo to 60 and once Velious comes around with major gear upgrades for Shaman and Monk they are a powerful combo. Monk can tank most slowed monsters so you will be able to duo in Velious no problem. Monk pulling and dps is no joke, one of the biggest problems for shaman is not enough dps. On the hardest mobs you can tank with the shaman and let the monk go all out dps on the back side of the monster.:D

[Teppler]

Switching gear in and out for clickies is commonplace if you want to get even close to the most out of your character.

Necro and monk are both strong with shaman, with edge to the monk imo, especially if the necro doesn't like charming whenever it is remotely possible. No fucking idea what lots or smallish mins are.

What kind of strength does monk/shm have that a charming necro/shm doesn't?

[Tecmos Deception]

Not needing charm? Haha.

I bet the necro in that duo would really have to be a great player to make the most of the duo too. Monk could probably just be "good" and it'd be good enough.

[Potus]

Monks in Velious become arguably the best tanks in the game, they do absurd DPS as well. That gives a lot more room for error than a Necro who can have some unlucky breaks on resists.

[Teppler]

I'd think the gap would be closed a bit if only for that there's supposed to be less mobs to charm in velious.

[Ikonoclastia]

It might be possible to solo Lodi as a necro, with a soulfire, FD, dots, root and pet heals. Give your pet a couple of slow proccing weapons.

I tried him out with a /beta buff necro but died at 75% but wasn't timing his summons, no slow proc weapons and no soulfire. Tash stick might have helped too.

[Potus]

The mixture of mobs that summon + being immune to fear/snare makes solo'ing in Velious not very fun for Necros. It's a huge bummer.