Necromancer Decision

[DMN]

Originally Posted by zoso [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Is it worth it to play a DE Necro?

What I mean is: When Kunark drops, am I going to feel compelled to re-roll an Iksar and level it 1-60 because the Iksar regen overpowers Dark Elf?

From what I've read, it's not just an issue of "min-max"; it's an issue of necessity.

Does anyone have any insight beyond the Sesserdix guide that basically says, "If you aren't Iksar, you're doing it wrong mathematically"?

It's certainly not a necessity. It gives you a minor but notable bit of a bump in mana efficiency.

But I'm sure his guide doesn't mention the fact that if you are in many grouping and raid situations you'll often be able to have access to buffs that almost entirely offset the lich line's damage. There are also items,though rare and highly sought after, that will also increase HP regeneration and get you closer to offsetting the life lost,too.

The important take-away point is that a non iksar in lich regenerates the exact same amount of mana per tick as an Iksar one does.

Now you can come up with some theoretical scenarios where even if you offset the damage via buffs/gears the iksar can toss a HoT on someone every now and then if they had the same buffs/gear. But you are really getting down to minor details at that point.

So when considering playing a necro now or later so youcould take an iksar I'd think about several things:

1. do i plan to primarily solo or do I plan to group/raid more often? The closer you are to soloing mostly on this spectrum, the more you should consider iksar.

2a. How much do I care about acquiring the legacy items available when kunark arrives, as they will only be around a short time and many of them will require your toon to be 50+.

2b. If i do care about some of these items, can I spent umpteen hours a day every day of the week to catch up in time to get them with my necro or doI plan to skip rolling an iksar for a long time and use some other character before I finally go back to rolling up the iksar necro.

3. Can you stand to look like a bipedal lizard and have some of the most hideous animations ever seen in a game?


Full disclosure though,I have an icky necro on blue, but I started there long after velious had already been released.Apples/oranges.

[peterpal]

Originally Posted by DMN [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

2a. How much do I care about acquiring the legacy items available when kunark arrives, as they will only be around a short time and many of them will require your toon to be 50+.

Can I ask what are some of the valuable kunark legacy items? I mainly played pre-kunark back then.

[Snortles Chortles]

for my ERU NEC i went all points STA except for 5 STR
totally forgot about 75 AC so i wear a pear of Obsidian Bead Hoops
don't get hit naked?

[Baler]

pre-kunark, Erudite/Dark Elf
Kunark+, Iksar
Velious+, Iksar

Iksar isn't just the min/max it's the only race you should play as necromancer if it's available.

[ChooChoo Train]

Erudite with prenerf fungi staff and a coldain ring 10(do these two effects stack) ?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by ChooChoo Train [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Erudite with prenerf fungi staff and a coldain ring 10(do these two effects stack) ?

No, Ring 10 and other Regen spells do NOT stack. Pre-Nerf Fungi Staff will overwrite Ring 10.

However, there is still some benefit to having both. Fungi Staff (Pre-Nerf and Post-Nerf) snares you, and removes run speed buffs such as Jboots and SoW. Therefore, you would use Fungi staff when sitting, and ring 10/Jboots/SoW when running.

[loramin]

Counterpoint: I made an Iksar Necro on Blue and I kind of regret not going Dark Elf.

Look, in general 90% of the forum arguing over race is idiotic. It's people taking extreme cases out of context, or making obviously false statements to justify the choices they made (eg. "regen will let you kill fast enough to make up for the XP penalty" ... I call bullshit on that for any race/class combo in the game!)

Even for Cannibalize/Lich and Racial Regen ... yes on paper the two absolutely do go together great ... but in practice you're pretty much never going to win or lose a fight because you got back 50 HP in regen over the course of the fight. 95+% of the time it will only lower your downtime after the fight (a bit), and practically speaking you won't notice the difference. Just think back (even if you've never played a regen character) on all the times you survived a fight with only 50 HP, and would have died otherwise: you can probably count them on one hand, because in EQ generally when you die it's not by such a small margin. I'd argue liking how your character looks > losing five fights over your entire character's life because you didn't have regen (and again, while it will reduce downtime, A) you won't notice, and B) the XP penalty will create a lot more "downtime" between 1 and 60 than the regen saves).

However, there is one undeniable thing about Necros (and Monks) with regen: Feign Death. When you are feigning death nothing (well, a Fungi on a Monk, but for a Necromancer nothing short of a Z Heart) will help you get back up faster ... except racial regen. So there's the one and only thing I think non-Iksar will truly "miss": when an Iksar FDes at low HP, he can get up noticeably sooner than a non-Iksar (and classes with FD will likely use it many times at low HP over the course of their life). We're still only talking about "Iksar gets up after ten minutes, non-Iksar gets up after fifteen", or whatever, but again because you'll be doing it a lot you likely will notice.

So, in general I truly think you should pick whichever race you want, and I truly believe you won't regret the decision even when you get to 60 (and I say this as a proud level 60 Barbarian Shaman [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]) ... and I believe this for Iksar Necros also. Again, I kinda do wish I'd picked Dark Elf, because I just am not big on Iksar personally.

But even as someone who is so vehemently a believer of "pick what you want on race" ... I have to admit there is a noticeable difference for Monks/Necros who choose (or don't choose) Iksar. Not a big one, or even major one, and not one that should decide your racial choice for you ... just a noticeable one ... which is more than I'd say about most racial differences.

[DMN]

What level is your necro though? You'll notice the difference more the higher you get. At 60 the iksar necro will be getting a "free" 11 mana per tick and the shaman about 6 a tick. For torpor shaman though it's most likely lower though since they won't be gettng a lot of their sitting ticks.

It's not so much about having a racial that wins you a fight, but one that lets you kill you more efficiently.

Gnomes are prolly the only race that realistically has a racial that has a chance of winning them fights, and it's purely related to their tinkering, particularly the haste arms.

[Dolalin]

Originally Posted by DMN [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

At 60 the iksar necro will be getting a "free" 11 mana per tick and the shaman about 6 a tick.

Realistically, how much will you be soloing at level 60? At a raid you will always have regrowth so racial regen is moot.

Have a shorter but marginally harder grind to 60, or a much longer but slightly easier grind to 60?

Racial regen on a necro is a wash at best and not worth the xp penalty imo.

[Scoojitsu]

Originally Posted by DMN [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Gnomes are prolly the only race that realistically has a racial that has a chance of winning them fights, and it's purely related to their tinkering, particularly the haste arms.

Can you elaborate? I can only see those tinkered arms with clicky haste, must equip, WAR CLR.
How does that help the necro?