The Ultimate Guide to Bone Knights!

[Zuranthium]

Aside from using Staff of Undead Legions, the whole melee necro thing is overrated at high levels. Vampiric Embrace is 124 damage per minute at best, that's not some kind of game-changing thing to make you want to melee instead of medding and casting spells. If you're soloing and need to tank some for your pet, yeah, but otherwise, eh. Venom of the Snake is more efficient in Vanilla era and then in Kunark at 51 you get Envenomed Bolt. Unless your group is killing each individual target ultra fast, those DoT's are fast enough to be efficient.

[socialist]

It's overrated in general, not just at higher levels. I've been trying it since Kunark and it stopped being worth doing around level 20. Even fully twinked with all the AC gear I'm getting crushed by mobs because I'm effectively wearing what amounts to banded, with no dodge or parry.

Also whiffing 75% of my attacks because at level 21 I have the melee skillcaps of a level 15 warrior. I have to fully dot up a mob in order to outdamage my pet, and since I'm not medding during fights, I've got crazy downtime. It worked fine up to level 12 and was acceptable until 18, then it became trash.

Kinda knew that would be the case as well, but everyone was so caught up in this shit that I figured I'd try it. It's garbage. Undead staff is the only way this melee necro fantasy is even worth contemplating. Other than that, it's just Ivory being too excited thinking he found some amazing new strats noone's ever thought of in 20 years.

[Donkey Hotay]

You're not supposed to outdamage the pet, genius.

[Zuranthium]

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

You're not supposed to outdamage the pet, genius.

If you're soloing and trying to level then you want to be outdamaging your pet, genius.

[Donkey Hotay]

No, you don't. You simply kill >2x the number of mobs in less time. How many times does Ivory have to spell that out for you in this thread.

[Zuranthium]

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

You simply kill >2x the number of mobs in less time.

No, you don't. You're going to level slower trying to use the melee necro method, once you get to a level range where you're missing too many attacks because of shit weapon skill and the mobs hitting too hard. DPS in melee as an INT class is pathetic and you're just going to be standing there eating damage, and thus need to cast more inefficient lifetaps to heal yourself up. The efficiency of Necro DoT's, and the ability of fear kiting to make the enemy do 0 damage, is far better.

[Donkey Hotay]

Wrong again. You level faster because you kill faster. Duo up and level faster still. Ask anyone who has tried it other than Lawson above who couldn't be bothered to read that you don't dot everything up for max xp, or of course you who can't be bothered to do anything but flame this thread with your whining against anyone trying a strategy you don't like.

[Zuranthium]

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

You level faster because you kill faster.

You don't kill faster, LOL. Starting at level 34 with Venom of the Snake, you absolutely do more damage with that DoT alone than trying to melee (speaking of the pre-Kunark weapons available). Once your pet gets fast regen at 39, there's not much reason at all to do this melee approach, aside from a hard fight where you need to take a few hits, or the special undead proc weapon scenario (which isn't pre-Kunark era either). Even with the twinkier weapons available in later expansions, you're absolutely still going to hit a point where melee is no longer the better option.

If you're trying to melee once you have powerful DoT's, you're not only killing slower AND at the same time using mana less efficiently by needing to lifetap more (if you are taking hits from tanking), but also losing 50% exp if not outdamaging your pet when soloing. It's not good. Vampiric Embrace is supposedly the reason why melee Necro is some great thing, and again, that spell doesn't have a ton of impact as you get up there in level.

[Taiku]

Level 16 bone knight here, so far it seems to be going very well, duo/trio is pretty fun, a new playstyle for sure, like a shadow knight but better spells, if you're wasting mana on DoTs besides leech/lvl1 disease you're doin it wrong! Tap tanking every other mob or so is a great way to relieve the pressure on your groups resources, will report in if it gets worse as I level up!

[Morton Jr]

Caster melee / damage caps dont work right on p99 this was just a drug induced troll thread