Definite Iksar Vs. Necro Answer?

[Natewest1987]

I'm going to beat an already dead horse with an obviously dead corpse and kick it until someone gives me an answer I can tolerate. Actually, I'm really curious to hear different opinions regarding Iksar vs. other available races ( particularly gnome, DE, or Erudite ).

I really don't want to wait months to start a necromancer, and I've came upon mixed opinions as for whether or not that is necessary. Does anyone have experience on both sides of the race debate - playing as an iksar necro AND any other race up to 60 within this play era?

I have only played as an iksar necromancer, and if it were available at launch that is the route I would go, even though they are ugly with a capital AF. Will guilds need necros that are not of the scaley kind ? Once Kunark is released will I then be cast aside if I don't have a tail to wag ?

Is there any argument to be made for Erudites having a larger mana pool, and potentially not needing to lich as long? or is that a pipe dream hallucination? There is obviously some exhaustive info on the net for min-maxing, but do fights in classic last long enough for this to make an honest difference?

TLDR. halp. I need someone to convince me that its okay to play a non lizard iksar and that I won't hate life once kunark is released.

[Xallis]

A Necro is a Necro as far as groups and guilds are concerned. Being scaley only really helps downtime in Solo endeavors, you'll be fine rolling any race.

[Tecmos Deception]

Is there any argument to be made for Erudites having a larger mana pool, and potentially not needing to lich as long?.

Yikes.

[BlackBellamy]

The definite answer for "Iksar vs Necro" is yes.

[skorge]

Iksars make the best monks and necros, hands down. You can always roll a new necro when Kunark launchs. Vanilla caps at level 50, fairly easy to get level 50...

Necros are super strong in Vanilla EQ...best pet class, hands down. That is reason enough to play necro...but yes you will never be as good as an iksar unless you re-roll one.

[DMN]

At least make either a dark elf or gnome, then you can have hide or wall hacks to go with your sour grapes. And since necros do get lull spells wall hacking is really quite useful.

[cd288]

IMO, you really start to see the difference between an Iksar and another race post-50. So until then it's not AS big of a difference, although it certainly is a difference. As far as guilds/raids go, it's not a huge deal though. Sure, you'll need to get your HP up more frequently than an Iksar while you're being a mana battery, but not enough that a guild would say they don't want you coming along. There's no raid size cap in EQ obviously, so there's no negative to having more mana batteries regardless of whether or not they are Iksar.

[Gustoo]

There is no arguement, the iksar is a meaningfully better race for monks and necromancers.

However, in raiding and group scenarios, the difference isn't game changing. It really plays out more significantly for min/max psychopaths and for PVP. On green it hardly matters.

If you want to justify being a necro on green launch, play a non KOS race like a gnome or human. Then you can be a necro and still get around the old world in relative eaze.

If you roll evil like dark elf, there is really no advantage.

Same goes for Monk. If you're a human, you can enjoy all of the goodie zones. If you're an iksar your stuck in the jungle. Depends what you want to do and how you want to play. a Min/Maxer wouldn't waste his time. Someone wanting to enjoy necro in the glorious vanilla era should absolutely go with any goodie race necro and enjoy the best game.

TL/DR there is no one thats going to say "oh our group / raid wanted a necro/monk, but we didn't know you were not an iksar, so please take a hike.

In PVP you want every advantage you can possibly give yourself and I would re roll a PVP monk or necro as sad as it is to do that kinda junk due to racial advantages.

[DMN]

In guild situations you'd probably have a crapload of regen buffs going to offset lich anyway. I think just chloroplast and your natural sitting regen will beat out lich damage.

You are certainly going to notice it when you are soloing tho.

[Vexenu]

Erudites make very good Necros. Super high starting INT + Mantle of Souls give them an insane Mana pool compared to Iksars. That means they can stack HP like crazy to have a huge HP reserve for liching. They aren't as efficient over time, but for something like breaking a hard camp an Erudite is actually better than an Iksar. Why? Because you will have a larger HP and Mana pool to play with. That being said, this advantage is really only meaningful through Kunark. With high end Velious gear the Erudite INT advantage basically disappears.

I wrote more about this here: https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110930

[Tenlaar]

The definite answer is that an iksar necro is flat out, hands down better than any other race. If it bothers you to know that then you should probably either play something else during classic or play a necro during classic knowing that what you're doing with it is building up a set of twink gear to swap to an iksar necro on day 1 of Kunark.

[btravis1990]

I mained a DE Necro here on blue when I started a year ago.

Rerolled a Iksar due to min maxing.

The differences I saw:

Iksar: leveling took longer (noticeably), but I did not even feel the regeneration differences until leve 51-52. That is when I felt the regen was a positive.

Also, my DE could hide in the middle of a KOS city..ikkys cant so there is that.

[Gustoo]

You can feign death in city as needed.

Lets just reiterate, iksar is flat out better.

Only advantage to other race is being a non KOS race.

[DMN]

You can feign death in city as needed.

Lets just reiterate, iksar is flat out better.

Only advantage to other race is being a non KOS race.

Gnomes still have wall hacks.

Do shrunken iksars get them? Hrmmm. never tested that. Anyone know offhand?

And let's not forget this puppy.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Fungus_Covered_Great_Staff

put that on your necro Christmas list.

[Samaritan]

You can feign death in city as needed.

Lets just reiterate, iksar is flat out better.

Only advantage to other race is being a non KOS race.

Hide is a definite advantage when it comes to being able to do certain turn ins, say giant helms for dragon faction.

That’s not to take away from the fact that iksar > all.

[Trollhide]

Is there any argument to be made for Erudites having a larger mana pool, and potentially not needing to lich as long? or is that a pipe dream hallucination?
I mean, technically from OOM Erudites would have to lich longer to get to FM. Your mana regens at a steady rate - if you increase the total capacity, it takes longer to fill the bar.

[ldgo86]

If you roll evil like dark elf, there is really no advantage.

Dark elves can Feign Death + Hide so that’s something.

[kotton05]

20 years later and this is still a question?

[Deathrydar]

Dark elves can Feign Death + Hide so that’s something.

Dark Elves cannot feign death. Necromancers, Shadow Knights and Monks can, it is not a racial!

[Baler]

There isnt even a question. Iksar is the only race for Necro.

That being said. You can't be an iksar in classic. So pick which ever race you want. I encourage Erudite or Dark Elf in classic. These are the min/max for classic necro. But I wont say why because I don't want people to know why. I know that's cryptic..
Just trust me Erudite necro is the bee's knee's till late velious. DE necro is good straight through to end of velious.

But Iksar is the defacto Necro race.

[ldgo86]

Dark Elves cannot feign death. Necromancers, Shadow Knights and Monks can, it is not a racial!

For real? Obviously I meant as a necromancer smh

[cd288]

There isnt even a question. Iksar is the only race for Necro.

That being said. You can't be an iksar in classic. So pick which ever race you want. I encourage Erudite or Dark Elf in classic. These are the min/max for classic necro. But I wont say why because I don't want people to know why. I know that's cryptic..
Just trust me Erudite necro is the bee's knee's till late velious. DE necro is good straight through to end of velious.

But Iksar is the defacto Necro race.

Gnomes have the edge over DEs IMO. Slightly better starting stats, Tinkering, not as hated, etc.

[Deathrydar]

Gnomes have the edge over DEs IMO. Slightly better starting stats, Tinkering, not as hated, etc.

I would start a Gnome necro as opposed to the Human necro I am going to start but I hate the Gnome starting city and I can never figure out how to navigate it.

[Ashenden]

I think it's sad how they didn't add Necromancer or Monk to the game until Kunark, but Verant was always doing weird things like that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[btravis1990]

DE also have access to the Reaper of the Dead and ring quest line..

Money maker and super useful items.

[Baler]

DE also have access to the Reaper of the Dead and ring quest line..

Money maker and super useful items.

Welp cats out of the bag :P
This was my DE ""secret""

Gnomes

Thanks for taking time to troll me. :)

[Baler]

I didn't mean to double post
:(
**please delete this post**

[kjs86z]

Play a different class for launch and roll that Iksar necro day 1 of Kunark.

[Baler]

Play a different class for launch and roll that Iksar necro day 1 of Kunark.

My plan is to roll a necro and only loot items that can be traded to a iksar necro. Then when kunark hits I can transfer over all my gear and be "twinked" level 1 iksar necro to get into kurns quicker.

[uygi]

Iksar unequivocally best, but you know that and everybody keeps telling you anyways.

My strong vote is gnome for a day 1 necro. Wall-vision is super useful. I think they can bank/buy/sell in more places with less work, but I haven’t played an evil gnome in a really long time. Tinkering is great, and in a pinch that stalking probe is a ghetto-but-cheap elder beads alternative.

[DMN]

Necro will generally be able to turn every 1 hitpoint into 1 mana, and 1 mana into 2 hitpoints.

If you do a bit of math you end up with Iksar's being able to regenerate mana 10% more efficiently than a non iksar with lich+ meditating.

Not really that much, frankly, but if you are OCD maybe it bothers you too much. And if you like to group/do guild things, you will generally always have regeneration going to offset lich anyway.

[Natewest1987]

DE also have access to the Reaper of the Dead and ring quest line..

Money maker and super useful items.

What ring quest is this ?

[Tist]

Iksars are godly, no doubt about it. Not sure any other race can compare sadly. I would go for gnome if I had to for solo dungeon crawling.

[Vizax_Xaziv]

You're in a worst-case scenario OP. If Iksar is the only race Necro you've ever played then yes, playing a non-Iksar is gonna feel pretty terrible. Everytime time you have to waste mana casting a tap you're gonna be reminded that your Iksar wouldn't need to do that.

I went Iksar Necro race-change on the Mangler TLP and I'll be honest playing my Erudite Necro on P99 feels quite a bit worse (even despite having better gear)

At least until you get your Soulwell staff from VP which (IMO) helps to level the field a bit

[Vizax_Xaziv]

Lemme also state that Necro is easily one of the strongest classes in the game regardless of Race. An Erudite Necro will be able to accomplish 90% of everything an Iksar Necro is capable he's just going to do it less efficiently and with greater downtime.

[Baler]

I have argued about a lot of race/class combos..

But if you argue against Iksar necro. Ur dum

no troll

[Gustoo]

An Erudite Necro will be able to accomplish 100% of everything an Iksar Necro is capable he's just going to do it less efficiently and with greater downtime.

I can't think of a single thing that an Erudite can't do that a Iksar can, except the efficiency.

Necros so good.

[Vexenu]

And for example if you're charming you will be doing a lot of lifetapping anyway to finish off mobs. So what happens is that as an Iksar you just don't need the full benefit of the lifetap as much as the Erudite, but you still have to cast the spell anyway to finish off the charm kill. So in that case the Iksar really isn't much more efficient anyway.

[TROUNCE]

Something I don't see people considering is that Necros were not balanced around iksar regen. While this is exactly what makes iksar superior, it is not necessarily the way necromancers were originally designed to be played. I think rolling non-iksar is a more true representation of the intended necromancer experience, from a design point of view.

Health is just a resource. Necromancers know this best. The difference between having 0 to 1 hp is infinitely more meaningful than 1 to 999999999 hit points. Non-iksar will find themselves at lower hp more often, yes. But they will find themselves at 0 hp roughly the same.

Also, assuming you take a necro to 50 before kunark, you have to weigh whether the extra time you spend medding your non-iksar over the course of your characters lifetime will be less than, equal, or more than the time it takes to level a second necro with an extra 20% exp pentalty to 50. I would wager iksar isn't worth that hastle if you want to make a necro day 1 of green.

[Natewest1987]

And for example if you're charming you will be doing a lot of lifetapping anyway to finish off mobs. So what happens is that as an Iksar you just don't need the full benefit of the lifetap as much as the Erudite, but you still have to cast the spell anyway to finish off the charm kill. So in that case the Iksar really isn't much more efficient anyway.

I suspect this is where I’ll be, not sure how viable charm is in this era for undead but in pop and luclin, I spent the majority of 40+ charming undead.

[Natewest1987]

Thanks all for the replies. I’m leaning towards erudite or dark elf, at the moment. But for a final judgement... is the benefit of Iksar vs Erudite or dark elf, so great that I should just avoid necro completely until Kunark ? I doubt I will actually level up two Necromancers, but I could maybe feel inclined to do that if I were able to get enough twink gear by the time Kunark pops out.

[Vexenu]

Thanks all for the replies. I’m leaning towards erudite or dark elf, at the moment. But for a final judgement... is the benefit of Iksar vs Erudite or dark elf, so great that I should just avoid necro completely until Kunark ? I doubt I will actually level up two Necromancers, but I could maybe feel inclined to do that if I were able to get enough twink gear by the time Kunark pops out.

I mean what is your alternative? Even without Iksar racials Necros are one of the strongest classes in vanilla EQ. And as has been pointed out, there is nothing an Iksar Necro can do that an Erudite/Dark Elf Necro cannot. The only difference is you will have to lifetap more with a non-Iksar, which itself is not a huge issue 50+ because you will likely be charm soloing and/or grouping in which case you will be life-tapping a lot anyway.

[Natewest1987]

I mean what is your alternative? Even without Iksar racials Necros are one of the strongest classes in vanilla EQ. And as has been pointed out, there is nothing an Iksar Necro can do that an Erudite/Dark Elf Necro cannot. The only difference is you will have to lifetap more with a non-Iksar, which itself is not a huge issue 50+ because you will likely be charm soloing and/or grouping in which case you will be life-tapping a lot anyway.

Alternative being to just find another class in the meantime if being a non Iksar was too big of a issue. It did seem like the opinions were split. I just have quite a few memories of dying from AFK or alt tab Liching, even on an Iksar / i suck. Lol.

I’ve read some horror stories of people getting to 60 and then just refilling because kisses are allegedly so superior. Really trying to avoid that

[Kanuvan]

erudite will solo the same way, just with slightly more downtime, its a non issue that only a community of scuffed players would whine about

[branamil]

Hide is a definite advantage when it comes to being able to do certain turn ins, say giant helms for dragon faction.

That’s not to take away from the fact that iksar > all.

You can not turn in while hidden, you're thinking of sneak.

[Cen]

You can not turn in while hidden, you're thinking of sneak.

Hide can be used that way as well, for indifferent turnins.
Open trade, click hide till indifferent, turn in.

[bwe]

Iksar autocompletes to kisses lol

[uygi]

... is the benefit of Iksar vs Erudite or dark elf, so great that I should just avoid necro completely until Kunark ? I doubt I will actually level up two Necromancers...

It depends, what are you going to do with this toon? Are you going to be 50 and in planes before Kunark, 60 quickly and raiding gods and dragons? If that's what the character is for, then the regen doesn't really matter much; you might be a cleric mana battery, but you'll have regrowth on anyways, so the deficit will matter less. If you're going to solo, especially in dungeons, the regen is going to be more important.

[uygi]

Hide can be used that way as well, for indifferent turnins.
Open trade, click hide till indifferent, turn in.

Was true at one time, but you can't activate hide with a trade window open any more. I think that got fixed/nerfed like 5+ years ago.

[whitebandit]

Yikes.

Is this a Hate crime?

[Vidar]

I mean what is your alternative? Even without Iksar racials Necros are one of the strongest classes in vanilla EQ. And as has been pointed out, there is nothing an Iksar Necro can do that an Erudite/Dark Elf Necro cannot. The only difference is you will have to lifetap more with a non-Iksar, which itself is not a huge issue 50+ because you will likely be charm soloing and/or grouping in which case you will be life-tapping a lot anyway.

This is your answer. People that love iksar can love them all they want, But at the end of the day there is nothing an iksar necro can do that any of the other necros cant. Its just a little less down time. I have a 50+ DE necro on blue. Hes a bad ass. i love him.

P.S. Not once have i wished i had rolled an iksar for less down time. Youre a necro. there isnt much down time compared to other classes.

[Samaritan]

You can not turn in while hidden, you're thinking of sneak.

As someone who did those turn ins on a DE SK, I'm speaking from experience. There are a few benefits to having hide that some might like to consider.

Hide can be used that way as well, for indifferent turnins.
Open trade, click hide till indifferent, turn in.

TY Cen. You're doing god's work out here.

[tsuchang]

At least make either a dark elf or gnome, then you can have hide or wall hacks to go with your sour grapes. And since necros do get lull spells wall hacking is really quite useful.

What is wall hacking?

[Ashenden]

What is wall hacking?

Looking through a wall by clipping in to it in first person. You can do it by sitting as most races, and as a skeleton. Shrunk people and Gnomes just do it with a larger view and the ability to turn the camera left and right without standing and sitting again.

[Shinko]

Gnome

The lizard regen is highly overrated

[uygi]

As someone who did those turn ins on a DE SK, I'm speaking from experience.

I did it on P99. You could do it on Live after Luclin-ish client. It was removed from Blue, I believe the conclusion was the classic client did not support this. Log onto Blue and try it, then report back. There are still some FD tricks for quest turnins, but activating hide with trade window open is not one of them.

[DMN]

Looking through a wall by clipping in to it in first person. You can do it by sitting as most races, and as a skeleton. Shrunk people and Gnomes just do it with a larger view and the ability to turn the camera left and right without standing and sitting again.

Not quite. The complete wall hacking suite allows you target mobs through the wall, not just see them.

[bum3]

I played DE necro from 1999 to 2003ish, solo, group, raids. On P99 Blue I played iksar necro. Pre-50 it doesn't matter much. At 60 it allows you to kill 1 more mob every 6. So it's not really a game changer. I multi mob kite as necro so I don't sit much. If you are running out of mana as necro then you more likely have efficiency issues or an emergency gank by a casting mob.

[Samaritan]

I did it on P99. You could do it on Live after Luclin-ish client. It was removed from Blue, I believe the conclusion was the classic client did not support this. Log onto Blue and try it, then report back. There are still some FD tricks for quest turnins, but activating hide with trade window open is not one of them.

I never said you hid while the trade window was open...

[Gustoo]

Yep. Iksar is better, but it doesn't break the class.

Applies to Monk and Necromancer.

In both cases, the difference is more meaningful in PVP

On non PVP, barely even worth mentioning except in your gut you know that the iksar version of you would be slightly "better" whatever that actually means.

[aaezil]

Zero raids or groups “need” a necromancer so its more whatever you prefer.

[bwe]

Someone earlier mentioned a decent rationale for not going Iksar: you'll be 50 levels behind when Kunark hits and this is a rapidly-progressing server, not one that stagnates in Kunark for a decade

[Natewest1987]

Appreciate all of the replies!

I'm going to roll necro at launch and just worry about iksar later if I decide to do that. Between Erudite and Dark Elf, do either of their quest options mentioned earlier provide a stronger advantage?

[Tr4c3r]

Appreciate all of the replies!

I'm going to roll necro at launch and just worry about iksar later if I decide to do that. Between Erudite and Dark Elf, do either of their quest options mentioned earlier provide a stronger advantage?

Also consider Human follower of bertoxx for cool factor.

[bum3]

Appreciate all of the replies!

I'm going to roll necro at launch and just worry about iksar later if I decide to do that. Between Erudite and Dark Elf, do either of their quest options mentioned earlier provide a stronger advantage?

Erudite gets a couple neat quests and eventually flayed skin but not till later. They get a pretty empty starting area away from everyone. DE gets a couple quests too but others can do them if they get their faction up. DE big advantage is it starts near 30% of the population and is close to a couple dungeons.