Spell Bar - 54 Necro

[ghost182]

Just started playing on P99 again after a little break back in September. Memory & mechanics are bit rusty, but after a few days grouping in Karnors Castle I decided to move to Howling Stones Basement.

So far the XP is killer, but just wanted to get some feedback on what spells most people are using. I've never gotten a necro this high before, but the practice charm killing in Tower of Frozen Shadows definitely is coming back and has been a big help.

Currently I'm using:

1. Screaming Terror (mez)
2. Paralyzing Earth (root)
3. Thrall of Bones (charm)
4. Deflux (lifetap)
5. Splurt (dot)
6. Bond of Death (lifetap dot)
7. Harmshield (invulnerability)
8. Feign Death


So pretty much that's my bar, I keep Shield of the Magi up, and Lich of course. Generally I don't DoT, it's mostly just charm and send pet on packs of mobs, back pet up as i root mobs and fight things in series of 1v1 battles. I kill my pets with deflux now but before that I was having a hard time finishing off pets with no fast cast spells

My questions:

Is Manaskin a must use? Reagents are expensive.

Now that I have Deflux, should I still use Bond of Death?

Is Rest the Dead (lull) worth using?

Is Harmshield a waste of a spell slot?

Should I Splurt when mana permits or just let the pets do their thing?

Does anyone use some of the undead-only roots/fears or quicker cast CC? spook the dead is only 3 ticks and casts very fast for only 10 mana. Hungry(?) Earth is a nice little root too. Is that short duration fear just to dangerous? is it not worth soaking up 2 spell slots for a 2nd root thats undead only for just .5 sec faster casting

Does anyone use some of the darkness lines, like the lower level ones just for safety/insurance?

Thanks for any and all feed-back. It's a class with an overwhelming amount of options compared to the rangers i previously played, and coming back to a lvl 54 necro is much tougher than starting from lvl 1.

[Kawhi]

Hey man. We grouped the other night in the basement for a short while before I got gf agro, hah.

I think your spell lineup looks good. Of course you can swap some other spells in and out when needed. I generally drop splurt since you don't need it to save your ass and the cooldown time is fast on it so you can remem and cast it pretty quickly when you need it again.

Your questions:

1) Manaskin really isn't a must use IMO, especially if you're keeping harmshield up. Will save you every now and again though. I only cast it if I get in a situation where I'm low on health but high on mana to save me in case I get an early charm break on the next pull.

2) I cast Bond of Death quite a bit actually. You get 2:1 on your mana expenditure compared to 1.6:1 on your mana through Deflux. If you get below 50% health or so, I definitely think it's better to cast Bond. Especially true if your pet is fighting a living mob.

3) No I don't think so. Not in the basement at least. There are better ways to pull.

4) There are times when you will realize you're likely to eat a HT or an Oblation nuke. Harmshield can save your ass. I think it's worth it.

5) I Splurt when my pet is fighting a living creature and is losing the fight, and I don't know if I will be able to grab another pet soon enough to finish the living mob. I also will splurt a mob down if I want my current pet to survive the fight with enough HPs to pull a wing without immediately dying to HTs.

6) I wouldn't cast fear in HS. Basement is open enough that generally you can keep the mobs far enough away from you so that you can get ST or PE off without a problem. Even if a mob gets on me, it generally isn't more than 2 casts of ST or PE before you channel it through. I doubt it'd be much different for the faster casting spells.

7) I don't ever cast darkness in the basement. You can park mobs far enough away from you that if a mob comes charging for you that you have plenty of time to cast ST or PE.

[Kawhi]

Also watch Sesserdrix's video on this camp if you haven't already. The video is very good, but I'd also recommend reading Izmael the Enchater's comments on the video because I think pretty much everything he says is spot on strategy wise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpjhDVLiQYg

[derpcake]

My questions:

1) Is Manaskin a must use? Reagents are expensive.
2) Now that I have Deflux, should I still use Bond of Death?
3) Is Rest the Dead (lull) worth using?
4) Is Harmshield a waste of a spell slot?
5) Should I Splurt when mana permits or just let the pets do their thing?
6) Does anyone use some of the undead-only roots/fears or quicker cast CC? spook the dead is only 3 ticks and casts very fast for only 10 mana. Hungry Earth is a nice little root too. Is that short duration fear just to dangerous? is it not worth soaking up 2 spell slots for a 2nd root thats undead only for just .5 sec faster casting
7) Does anyone use some of the darkness lines, like the lower level ones just for safety/insurance?

1) Manaskin is great. Getting a res after summoning your corpse is expensive also
After you get experienced you can always drop it, but you'll probably end up loving it. It lets you go down to 30% hp while being confident a surprise HT won't ruin your day
2) Deflux is very inefficient, try to minimize its use. You'll need hp to cover for full-time lich, so yes, BoD until Vexing
3) Its a risky spell, if there are alternative ways to split those are usually better
4) Good if you can train to zone or abuse pathing. Bad elsewhere. (good on red!)
5) Use your mana so you clear as fast as possible with as low downtime as possible, at least splurting mobs, moar dots if can
6) Spook the dead is good, afaik fear always lasts max duration still. Hungry earth is poor. Its a 30 mana 48 second root, paralyzing is 100 mana 180 second root ..
7) dooming darkness helps on rooted mobs

[Tuljin]

Steelskin is an excellent alternative to Manaskin and I would recommend using it. It only costs a jasper (less than 10% of the cost of a Peridot) and it costs less than half the mana of Manaskin.

Even though it "only" has 230 points damage absorb, that will 99% of the time be enough damage absorb for you to cast the spell you need to cast. Also if you're low on HP and have to cast mid-combat its a low mana and cheap reagent spell which will be enough to save your ass.