[baalzy]

I think i'd prefer to have 2 necros +4 mages vs 1necro +5 mages. Definitely want at least 1 necro though.

Necro nuking power is non-trivial with velious. Shock of Poison does 160 dmg and we get at level 24, mage max nuke is 176 for that circle of spells. Torbas Acid Blast at lvl 34 (once velious launches) is 220 damage (mage is 333 with a bolt, 280 with a regular nuke). Ignite/incinerate bones at 44 is 500-600 dmg, mage max nuke is 600 at this level. No pure nuke upgrades (dmg wise) beyond that for a necro, but its still pretty solid. Our lifetaps do good damage too (just aren't the most mana efficient for pure damage purposes). You wouldn't be DoTing most mobs anyways, unless you're taking on Reds.

Having necros to share root/heal/mez/twitch/snare duties as well as being able to stagger DoTs (on the mobs that would live long enough) so they don't take as much aggro.

Hopefully pet taunt gets fixed to the point where 4 person pet parties are viable. I haven't had a chance to get into velious beta & fight anything yet (last time I logged in I couldn't summon any pets due to a bug) but Haynar says that he made aggro changes to pets in the beta....