Necromancer FAQ with pet pictures! (Old version with Feb. feedback!)

I was doing fairly well in 1 on 1 battles with yellow heroic mobs. Of course they were casters and I was rotting their power pretty badly. Still, they were yellow heroic.
And I have yet to have seen a tank take on 3 orange in 1 battle. I've seen a tank take 2 yellow and run, but not 3 orange.

I have a theory actually. There are lots of necro's who came from EQ1 (me included). They were so used to soloing they persist with it now. I know necro's ain't as good as other classes at it but persistence with it has meant I can kill stuff solo that others may stuggle with.

Kind of , where there's a will there's a way mentality. All classes can solo 'Solo' flagged mobs as far as I'm aware. We are not above average at soloing.

Quick question.

Is it true my damage is directly linked to how much strength I have? If so, why? It's a little disturbing to learn I've spent my money and time searching for better Int items when I should have been looking for str items.

Int 202 (necro buffed)
Str 13

I also wanted to add for those who wonder.
The lvl 30 training pet buff option is a perma ward. At lvl 30 it absorbs 200 dmg from every attack against it. There is no need to recast it each time. So far all I can tell is that it absorbs physical damage. I havn't tried it against any caster types yet.
This combined with the lvl 20 pet buff is pretty lethal. It makes soloing a lot easier.

Hmm. We should have got this spell at lvl 21. Feel free to flame, but if you were to write a job description for a necromancer then 'raising the dead' must surely be right at the top of the list. Obviously this is no one's but the devs fault, but where is the flavour for this character class - typcasting a necromancer isn't that hard is it?
Oh, and thanks for this post / thread. I was wondering what apart from my UA (60g - ouch) to upgrade to adept III - question awnsered :smileytongue:

Quick question.

Is it true my damage is directly linked to how much strength I have? If so, why? It's a little disturbing to learn I've spent my money and time searching for better Int items when I should have been looking for str items.

Int 202 (necro buffed)
Str 13


STR affects your Melee attack INT affects your magic attack. I am lvl 23 Froggie Necro and am at 135 INT buffed and 40-ish STR.

I duo all the time with a necro friend (warlock here) and there are a few things I'd like to say about the FAQ. First let me qualify some things: When my necro friend is not online, I will grab any necro LFG and duo with them...if none on, I'll just solo. I also have a necro alt.

Anyway, after doing this for well, since beta -- not only have I found that my friend is probably the best necro I've grouped with, but for comparison purposes, I think he is a good example of the necro class.

Solo'ing: I agree, middle of the ground. When my friend solo's (he's 43 atm) he cannot take on heroic mobs. I know several classes that can. As far as xp while solo'ing, I'm afraid necro's...aren't really very quick about it. As you mentioned in the "sustained damage" FAQ...it takes a while to kill a mob. The only upshot, is necro's die way less than say, me when solo'ing. Even still, I'm sure I could get 3 times the xp as a necro in the same amount of time if both solo'ing.

Pets: The FAQ is dead on, this is exactly what my friend has been doing after us posting parses from combatstats and just -- well it's kinda obvious which are best for different situations, but I absolutely agree with everything said on the pets.

DPS: Okay now...I go to raids...I'm in regular xp groups on occasion and I duo with necros -- I have to say, I've never seen a necromancer come close to my dps. When I say not close...I mean, generally less than half, even on long fights. At 47 (and actually since I was in my late 30s), I have never, ever NOT been able to maintain at least 200dps on any encounter I wasn't AFK in and parsed. I've achieved near 500dps several times -- and I'd say 300dps is about normal on heroic mobs (orange solo mobs die in 5sec (2spell casts) so those really don't count). That being said, I've never parsed a necro hitting 200dps - even on raids when some mobs take over 5min to kill.

After all of this, it may sound like I'm putting down necro's; but that is hardly the case. I choose necro's over any other because we work well together with noxious resists. Necro's are steady dps, if there's trouble -- necro's can ALWAYS save the day with their pet, stuns, wards and crowd control. No other class I could duo with can yield such a great balance of dps w/ overall safety.

Based on Morgaard's dps chart, necro's should be getting a significant boost with revamp. And since most of the feared nerfing is in roots and such; necro's have the least to fear in that department. Spells will also stack with other necro's when expansion is released. I think for anyone that has had doubts about the necro class will be very pleased after the revamp.

Anyway, my 2cp.

Necro's can be tough to get good parses on, rats won't parse out correctly and they are a large portion of our damage. With a fury buffed pet I can get to around 250dps in a non-AoE raid encounter... AoE raids are generally around 200ish.
Necromancers and conjurers need a little more hands on parsing to get the numbers right though you're right that they certainly don't hit warlock damage numbers. There was a time when we could but with the increased damage of a warlock and their power efficiency it just isn't possible anymore. If there is only one necro in raid they can hit 200dps pretty easily but if those rats get killed off early in a fight (and we're the only ones buffing the pet) we'll probably be at around 180dps.
We'll see what the balancing brings I guess.

I am seriously confused now.

I read a lot of talk about grim corruptor yet find no mention of the pet here: http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/classes/index.vm?classId=30

I am now a 31necro froglok I have 3 pets, rats and dogs... the first pet I got is adt3 next two are adt1s and my SS will be adt3. I am starting to get concerned about what spells are what anymore cause to me it seems SOE in its wisdom has changed a lot of things. and I am nto sure where I should focus my upgrades. I also recently got withering affliction in adt3 as necros are supose to be great single mob fighters so I wanted those spells at there best. But since I hit 31 I noticed Breath of the Unearthed and Withering Affliction to be my greatest spells in grp mob instances with my UA tanking(buffed first with boon of the lifeless first for aggro).



I tend to dou or trio more than anything else (Always with a lower level wizzard or equal level INQ). What skill do you guys use the most? I am not worried about armor as you can see for yourself by looking up Mrwhite on eq2players, he has some really nice armor to help out. Now I need help in understanding exactly what spells are most effective that I should concentrate on. I never played EQ1 and still learning the EQ2 stuff in spite of having two high level toons in game now so I apologize in advance for my noobness.


Thanks

Added a combat revamp note.

I'm a lvl 50 necro in a basically raid only guild

i've 190 dps and this is another 2 necros in the raid and not letting me cast any of my dots or rat spell is not often so 190 dps hampered isnt too bad the problem with all this comparing is your spells, one necro is not the same as another necro. I have master spells and adp3 all buffs and pets dots rats all this makes a big difference in your total dps I've hit over 260 dps and i dont make it a point to keep track guildmates do, right now our guilds necros are the top dps'er in raid events... you can disagree with me but my guild will agree, our wizards dps is usually third highiest do to resists which seem to happen alot for them necro is usually second or first depends how many r in the raid.

O btw we had a raid force with 6 summoners and 3 warlocks once, the mobs dropped so fast we manged to kill the main target before we finished up the adds...
3 necro
3 conjur
3 warlock
-------------
dead epic with everyone full on power

Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your original post. I just recently began playing Ever Quest II (after participating in the beta so long ago) and your information helped me greatly in deciding a career path (obviously a Necro!). Anyhoo, I'm looking forward to the post-revamp update and was wondering if you wanted any help with creating a more extensive set of photos? I can only, as of now, provide shots of stuff up to the early 30's but would be more than willing to e-mail you some screen grabs of pets, transformations or spell info.

One of the biggest things I find lacking in the EQII site is an updated list of the spells Necro's get starting at 20. It's kind of nice having a surprise when I level but also a pain not knowing how long I have to wait.

Added some stuff, removed some stuff, changed some stuff .

Great!

Might want to add the /petname command as well, and a blurb on where to get lvl 51-60 spells.

Good idea.

Nice work El Chupacabra.

Thanks so much for the petname macro!

The Master 1 Grim Terror is now a GrimTemptress (i.e. a Lamia). PM me an email addy and I'll send you a screenshot.

IMO, your general comment on soloing ability is too pessimistic now. Since the revamp, we are one of the better soloing classes.

You might want to add 3 points about Lich, since it's a bit confusing when first scribed:

1) Never, ever enter combat without Lich up.

2) For a high-INT necro with Master 1 Lich, Lich alone gets us to the in-combat power regen cap of 1.5 points/tick times adventure level. So... hardcore necros really have no use for items like GEB, prismatics, ROI, Battlement of Mind.

3) If health pool is depleted after a fight, cancel Lich temporarily to speed up regen.

Just a couple of points or uncertainties, they may have already been mentioned, but...

***"If in a low damage group, the grim is a good choice since he is slow on the attack but does pretty good damage, can also regen your groups power (it's a green cloud that surrounds your party). "

This spell is grim embrace, it damages all enemies and heals all group members, I have never noticed it give any power but I could be mistaken I suppose.

***"Q. What are these special spells level 52/55/58 I'm hearing about? I can't find an apprentice spell for these either on the broker or in Maj'Dul."

Actually you can get apprentice versions of these spells by gaining faction with one of the guilds in Maj'Dul


***1. Soothe Servant (our only direct pet heal, doesn't share a timer with the necro heals so important all the way to lvl50)
***3. Essence shift (stacks with all other pet taps, you'll stop using it around 50 but helps all the way 'til that level)

Sooth Servant will not take effect on the pet if you have the HoT line running on the pet already, also, the timers are linked. It is a slight speedbump if you prefer to use power instead of your own health to heal as this is our only capacity to do so. The same goes for essence shift I believe.

***2. Lich (it's a pretty good power spell, not great but worth the upgrade)

Are you crazy? Lich caps out your power regeneration AND makes you do an additional 300+ damage with EVERY disease based spell. It's ability to return your power is only a small part of what it does..it borders if not exceeds being one of the best level 50 spells. Ice comet may nuke a mob for a couple of thousand but with Lich you can do incredible damage to a group of mobs by unleashed both of your AEs on them and heal yourself for a lot at the same time. And that's just the AEs, you're still getting the proc off of your single target spells.

Other notes would be that stacking issues with other necros are fixed, as far as I'm aware and spells are no longer rewarded partially through a level. I assume a lot of this stuff is just from the old faq and you forgot to edit the changes that made them so much better, lich for example.

The spell upgrade stuff hasn't been modified yet (note the italics at the beginning and end of that topic). As far as apprentice ancient spells, they aren't available at warmly and I've had some kindly's in guild check for me and they haven't see them either.

Hey great post here, I have learned ALOT by reading and re-reading it. 1 question that is not explored to my satisfation though...
Perhaps someone could provide a link or just tell me more about this "Hero Pet" you keep referencing please? I can find nothing on it, I must admit I am kinda google stupid with regard on where to begin looking for more info as well.
As far as some of the soloing comments... I have leveled my Necro to 22 in two weeks and have found that I have virtually no problem soloing most encounters of even heroic MOBS solo. But I would also like to hear more about what kinds of classes you all like to duo or trio with?? Thanks in advance.

Gilron
Mistmoore