I think necros are slightly more versatile than bards.. with the ability to rez.. fd.. summon.. gate.. bind.. etc.

Bard is my main as well.

Honestly it just depends on the situation. bards are useful in all situations. but they dont have any last minute save the day abilities like necros do

Weren't mod rods droppable in early Velious? I seem to remember piles of these things all over the place, and clerics using them like a fat kid eating candy. With the no-drop flag it makes necros that much more important.

Yes, they were droppable. In NTOV, you amassed piles of them prior to the bigger fights.

Necros were still valuable, but certainly more so after the mod-rod nerf (which I believe occurred during Luclin.)

If you're raiding:

Yeah modrod nerf was in Luclin and basically made the expansion playable by halving everything's hitpoints. Until then, twitch really isn't amazing since stockpiles of modrods cover CHeal/Dragonsbane costs.

IMO, Necros main job in Velious was CR. Whether that involves clicking their conjure corpse robes at ToV entrance when some idiot monk/sk gets brings a dragon and 3 flurry drakes to the raid or initiating the rez chain.

Other than that, healing with shadowbound/PoS (not sure if the 15 buff trick works, but on live if you kept your buffs full, you could cast these spells without the recourse). I think shaman are usually gonna be healing the clerics, but necro heals don't hurt.

Scent/minor DPS/looking-busy in general. I mean, you're a Int class in the most melee-tuned expansion the game has ever had - if you're raiding, why haven't you rerolled?

Level another class up to 60?

I died a little inside at the prospect

primal, lol

necs are a dime a dozen

raiding necro

/thread

This.

If you want a class that easily solos to 60, provides the most utility to raids and pick up groups... Play a Shaman. :o

if your hard core about raiding, and you wanna secure yourself a good spot in the scene with any guild and ur not a complete drooler

/bard /cleric

you still need the core classes, war, enchanter, shaman but but but... you can never have enough bards/clerics on raids, always room let alone a skilled player

all casters get butthurt in Vel, after 3+ years its when the war/rogue/bard/ranger/sk/monk really shit on all casters. since they were shat on since the start.

my 2 copper