Necromancer - How good are they?

Just how good are Necromancers in EQ?

Can they solo grind faster than some groups?

How good is their dps on raids OoW onward?

Can they solo named mobs to sell loot and make krono efficiently?

Are they a needed in class in raid guilds on Mischief currently?

I would actually like to know more about Necros too. Curious about their raid dps / raid utility and also how well they do in expansions after Kunark.

Considering that GoD and the next couple expansions = melee heaven, at least my guilds active necro numbers have dropped. They arent shunned, but not highly wanted - most guilds would recruit the player over the class at this stage of a TLP life (and occasionally bench some peeps as numbers dictate)

No, even a semi decent group in Paw will destroy solo exp on any class. This is not because they are bad soloers, but because grouping has exp bonuses.

OoW and beyond is entering the caster dead zone. They will get better.... eventually... That being said our very strong necro shows up on the parse reasonably often.

Meh, most named summon. If it doesn't summon they can kill it. There are a few tricks even for summoning mobs, but your pet has to be able to tank it with ooc regen on. That being said, getting krono from selling your old raid gear is something everyone can do easily.

Needed is a strong word. No raid is going to fail without a necro, but most raids will welcome one. They are 99% DPS at this stage, and on the right mobs can put up reasonable numbers, if they know what they are doing.

Amazing S Tier class from Classic through Luclin content. Still pretty great in PoP. Falloff a cliff in GoD and the 70 stretch, then come back to being amazing after 75+.

Beastlord better from 65-70 as far as soloing goes?

With the group xp bonus you shouldn't be soloing to level in this game.

^ correct answer

As far as Raids, well you want as many as the debuff bar on mobs allows, around 4 right now, so long as they are good ones, I have sadly seen plenty of necro who were just hot-garbage, relegate them below raider status or boot them because they don't deserve to be such a powerful class if they CBA to do even 50% of what they are capable of.

Is it sad that even a 50% capable necro is dropping like 1 mil sustained on raids right now? The class is in such an insane spot right now.

Very sad, it's like they can fall over dead drunk & so long as they hit a few spell gems while snoring on their keyboard they just outparsed 90% of the raid.

Meanwhile the Wizards, way over the safe consumption levels of caffeine are smashing every best spell combo within millionths of a second to attain almost perfect parsing and are ....doing meh dps.

Exaggerated for teh lulz.....but only by a little bit.

Necro absolutely S tier for a long time. It's like asking " what do they not do well." You'll find a lot of OG casual players that really downplay how powerful they are, because for some dumb reason they think necros are " the solo class."

You always want to group. There's never a situation where a necro is bad in a group or a raid, unless they are comatose or something lmao.

Considering the fact you'll likely be spending time in undead areas ( plus new body updates ), necros are absolutely what you want. A group with a necro and a chanter is just insane clear speed.

How does necro charm compare to enchanter charm? Do they function essentially the same aside from the undead component?

One pro is you can feign pet onto group for leisurely recharm.
Pact heals coupled with taps make necros solid healers pre-pop. You can lull your groups cleric to sleep keeping ppl topped up on health.
many of our dots land easier on boss mobs.

That said, we cant tash or malo charms.
Undead charm options arent prevalent in many camps.
Our mez doesnt come with tash.

Of course, if you want to view a necro as a enchanter with feign, lifetap, mez, succor, etc ..

all that is technically true.

what makes necro less popular is you have to "drive" one to take full advantage. Its not an easy box like mage/bard/healer/ranger where you can have 80% of their dps/utility as a box.

it IS insanely fun to 1 box... You impact all raids and play big roles in groups (fd puller, cc, spot heals, burst dps. i would slit my wrists 1 boxing a rogue. i *enjoy* raiding on a necro.

fun veilous bonus : feign allows you to feign off most negative faction hits. so you spend way less time grinding faction and dont restart each time you raid kael/tov =)

Playing as just a rogue in my experience sucked. It was OK while grouping but you have to get a group. If you are not finding a group sitting semi-afk awaiting tells in between your Rogue lvl XX LFG spam and no raid happening, it is the most unenjoyable experience I ever had in EQ.

To answer a few questions - pet charm is useless afaik, reg rog pet is just as good if not better than the war pet etc, necs can solo their way to the end game, most guilds have enough necs atm, more than 5 necs is pointless due to bufflocks, and yes nec dps is insane these days and has been for a few years. Also yes necs can easily molo most nameds and even excel in the group game or solo game and raid game if you know what you're doing.

It functions the same.

I will say I enjoy root rotting animals in the primal caves in Yxtta. Getting 21% of an AA for each kill while solo and stuff dies pretty quickly. Now with out of combat regen i can pretty much compete with the exp i'd get in a group..or at least come somewhat close.

This was definitely not my experience playing a Necro from Classic through GoD when I played on Phinigel, although admittedly that was a few years ago. Melees on Progression servers benefited from the rebalancing from a later expansion and blew away casters at every turn. Content was so easy that it didn't matter, but casters, except for Enchanter charming, were B-Tier DPS at best compared to melees.

Through Velious, a well-played Necro dabbles in Enchanter territory with its short duration mezzing and limited undead charm, but that playstyle falls to the wayside come around Luclin (I think) 'cause there's no improvement in the spells.

Overall, while still super fun, I found class balance to be woefully garbage (haha) on the progression servers.

Starting off a new TLP the necro is king soloing. However if you have a good necro in your group he can fill so many roles and still maintain good dps. Raids you will start alittle weak dps wise compaired to monks, but once Kunark hits you will gain ranking on the parse. But remember you are also keeping up the clerics with mana on them long fights. So your rankings will vary pending on the fight and your raid make up. Come PoP the necro does start to slip some, but only because the other classes are starting to catch up. The 70 range does become melee heaven, but rest up, cause you will still be doing good and will only rank up from there. Beyond 70, get ready for the ride, you will ramp up again and rather quickly. Like any class it's a rollercoaster, but if you ride it out you will get what you want out of any class you enjoy.

I usually main a Necro. I used to play Enchanter and Cleric but once I went Necro and being able to FD I couldn't go back. Their charm is amazing. I solo Howling Stones Westside at level 52.