I am by no means a necromancer expert, but my biggest problem is that I am not sure who the heck is. I have one person from reading posts here I think seems to know more, but I could be way out in left field. Please don't take this to mean I want to read from 20 people on how suchandsuch is super terrible, and they have been terrible since launch, prelaunch, dawn of time. So...I am going to ask these questions, and hopefully someone can pipe up and let me know if crazy, right, wrong....and if wrong/crazy.....most importantly....what can be done better. 1) Cast Order....Efficiency. I did a less than super scientific approach, but the efficiency order I came up with was (let's assume single target for now) Unda Soulburn Rot Flesh BlightHorde ET Grave Vampirism Coil* Soul Bats Lifetap I realize casting Rotflesh before some of the others is better, I realize things change when not in a vacuum. Just what I've found so far. So, first questions. Is this what other people come up with? Do people use AA's to get bewilderment and/or Master Strike in there? If so...which one? Note: I put an asterisk next to Coil. The reason is, because coil front loads alot of damage, and has a fast cast time, it is well worth to cast again before it expires....which leads to another question. Do other people do this? I've seen others argue that recasting coil/bats before it expires to be a waste....I've found in testing that does not seem to be true, but am wondering what others think....know. 2) AA's. Presuming I haven't lost my entire mind, blighted horde and gravecaller are pretty good things to cast. I've looked at a multitude of AA setups, and almost noone ever puts AA's in either to lower their recast. Because of the 70 aa's required in that tree, I am astounded people have stuff in some of things rather than these. Why am I wasting the points in Blight and Grave? Also, the one necro in particular I mentioned has a different Prestige line than everyone else. In particular, they have 5 in the Weapon of Mind, and 2 for the end ability. (I have done likewise...going on faith even though not sure on math) This foregoes Skull Focii and 4 points in potency/crit bonus. Do others do this? 3) Lifeburn I couldn't come up with a place I'd ever cast Lifeburn...at least how it is currently. This sounds like a travesty to me.... Does anyone ever cast Lifeburn? Even as a filler?
I'm not a Necro, but I raid a Conj and some of this should pertain to both classes. I am not certain on the exact effects of the Necro version of Bats, but assuming it is the same as the Conj, there is no increase or decrease in damage by recasting. However, recasting early does reduce its efficiency. Assuming you are at 100% reuse (and you should be), the AAs that reduce reuse timers do nothing, unless they specifically state that they reduce the base reuse.
This is precisely the kind of reason I was looking for. As for bats...the thing is...Coil frontloads a bunch, while bats does not. So, not recasting bats makes sense, but the Coil is pertinent. Assuming most things have been casted...a standard rotation is Coil/Soulrot/Lifetap/Soulrot/Coil/Soul/Life...... I can no reason to put pandemic or dooming darkness to replace, but want to hear evidence why I should.
Hey friend! Gonna make a list of things for you. 1. Soulrot is a necro's number one priority! 2. Bloodcoil, should be maintained. I cast it a ton while soulrot is down BECAUSE of the crit chances. Since they added Myth Crits and Fabled Crits, always casting Coil is pretty nice. 3. I never cast Bats. The damage is stupid low and it's like casting Strike of Consistsncy. 4. Rot Flesh is a great ability, tons of damage IF running a refresh weapon. The recast is too long to see it do any justice at this state in the game. 4 fervor is a necessity, so most necro's are starting to convert to Graverot. (Testing this with non refresh weapon parses higher than rot flesh without refresh weapon) 5. Melee will be our number one parse besides soulrot if prioritized correctly. (800 dps/100 AE/60%+ Flurry/300+ haste) 6. Lifetap is not a dot. It doesn't burst us. It's actually really low damage. Use as a filler. 7. Pandemic is a really good dot. Use it when timing timewarp or when you feel like you're putting out less numbers than you should. Damage is really good. 8. LifeBurn is a total waste. Too long of a cast and too long of a re use. 340K DPS in 11 seconds vs 2 in a half soulrots. 9. Dooming Darkness is a necro spell? (Bad) If you're looking for AA's, go with Twistyd. I am locked because I am testing specs, but take graverot versus rot flesh.
Necromancer has been my main for 4 years. This is what I do. Mortality Mark (If this is up your stamina will be up, and your pet will gain stamina when you do, making Soulburn hit harder) Soulburn* Spellbind+charm macro Rot Flesh Unda Arcanus Spiritus at 19 meters from mob Undead Horde + Blighted Horde + Awakened Grave macro Vampire Bats Soulrot Bloodcoil Soulrot Lifetap Elemental Toxicity After that unda should be up again, then I do the main meat and potatoes casting order of soulrot>bloodcoil>soulrot>lifetap, then after lifetap I'll alternate with some filler spell like consumption or something. Before the mob dies I'll cast Siphoning of Souls If I'm in a group with an illusionist, I'll cast my swarm pet macro when I get the timewarp warning. Reason being is that the pets will doublecast with their spells but only before timewarp goes off when you cast them, not after. Ill cast Rot Flesh right as timewarp hits, making it doublecast and increasing the magical damage done to the target. Everyone else in my group who is affected by timewarp will do increased magical damage too. Then I cast Unda, because how it works is the damage is increased the more doublecast you have. You may think that doublecast over 100% is capped for spells and won't do anymore benefit, which is true, with unda being the only exception. As far as arcane bewilderment, master's strike, animated dagger, dooming darkness, feasting soul, even smite of consistency, I put them all in a macro to spam when I'm in a group with a bard and VC is going off. For aoe I use a macro that casts bloodcloud, unda, theurgist's detonation, elemental toxicity, awakened grave, vampiric orb, and pestilent soul As for lifeburn, it depends. If there isn't going to be a lot of hard hitting pulse damage, I cast lifeburn right at the start after Mortality Mark. I have enough potency that will make consumption heal me very well when I'm casting lifeburn. I'll also use superior signet of life. If that's on cooldown I'll cast lifetap or transfer life. I rarely cast lifeburn though, just a personal preference. * - I have a macro for soulburn that will cast unstoppable soul on the pet, a buff to make soulburn hit harder from the increased health it just received. /target_pet then drag the spell unstoppable soul and drop it Note: if you hit that macro twice it will target yourself and cast the buff on you As for AAs and Prestige, just copy my spec. Just search for Luciuz on Halls of Fate.
Luciuz: Thanks. In case you were wondering, you were the necro I did copy the AA's from, laugh. You know, I had the unstoppable soul macro for myself for when I Lifeburned, probably should have connected the dots and moved it to pet for Soulburn. My raid force is an alliance of casuals, but I have raided hardcore with an Illy in the past. I am determined to beat the two Beastlords!!
i had to come in and say luciuz is the man he's a beast and following his pointers made my necro a monster
I am getting to my wits end. My numbers are absolutely awful compared to what I see others posting here and in different threads. I guess I should mention my necro's name is Manratten on Skyfire. Feel free to look at the profile and make whatever suggestions you want, I won't be offended. I'm the kind of guy who will go try whatever people tell me and see if it's better/worse. Now, it's not like the raidforce as a whole is dogging me, but I'm not seeing what I can do a whole lot different that is going to make catastrophic differences. At lunch I am going to upgrade the white adorns on my shoulders, chest, forearms, hands, legs, and feet, but have a hard time believing this is going to matter all that much. Ok....so what am I talking about. I don't have the exact parses since I'm at work.....but here are what I'd call typical parses from the last raid. Like that Lyrical dude... Beastlord 45mil dps Manratten (Me) 32 mil dps Wizard 30 mil Conj 28 mil Ranger 18 mil Coercer 12 mil Illy 10 mil I made these up, but this will be representative enough. I just don't see how people are hitting 100-300, and when I look at their breakdowns, it's like their autoattack did more than that.
So, for those 100-300m numbers, it basically requires the entire raid force to be wearing Practiced ___, Brotherhood, Barrage, etc items. Then, it requires that everyone is performing as well as possible. If the raid's DPS goes up, your DPS goes up. I posted a similar thread (for my Conj), so some of this information might be of use: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/conj-dps-questions-comparison.567854/
sounds like you're doing on par for the raid force you're in. if u'll want to move up, you'll probably need to move up ur game most of the advice here is good enough to make you decent. the rest you'll have to improve via experience and experimentation yourself, no amount of further advice is gonna do it for you. sometimes it'll mean going against advice, as long as you can prove to yourself you're right via hard evidence and you don't suck at such fact findings. i don't agree with a number of things in here for example. but that's fine, any finer-details advice will usually come with a number of asterix anyway. not to be totally useless, i'll leave you with 1. bloodcoil macroed with pet attack should probably be always your 1st spell 2. not in any way necro-specific - using multiple spells queued in a macro, such as for AE situations for example, will make you perform sub-optimally most of the time, since you remove your ability to react to situational changes appropriately and if anyone's looking at my eq2u profile for ideas, good luck lol... caveat emptor. i do very many things requiring very many different setups
This isn't really an addition to a cast order sequence, but just a small tip and trick. If you're trying to cast Soulburn but aren't in line of sight with your pet, try casting Shift of Death. It will teleport the pet directly behind the target. That is about the only use for that spell
I feel a couple of adjustments could be made to this to pull out a bit more dps. Mortality Mark, imo doesn't provide enough sta to make it a viable increase for SB. it increases my pet's hp by 14,459, which roughly translated to about 409k damage. with MM lasting 1 min 12 seconds, this means about 3 casts with that increased dmg. This adds up to about 1.2mil-ish dmg from that. To give it some perspective, Animated dagger for me does about 2 mil in one cast... not really worth the buff. Casting spellbind plus your charm (assuming salvo) this early in your rotation causes you to lose out their benefits on your harder hitting abilities. EQ2 works off an update system instead of a snapshot, so if your abilities were ticking prior to your increased stats, once you apply all your buffs they will get buffed as well. doing this allows you to get the full benefit of your buffs+charms on all of your big spells if you line it up correctly. Same thing with Rot Flesh assuming you don't have the reset weapon/adorn. casting it prior to your dumbfire rotation means they're pretty much missing out on a free 15% in group, 5% in raid dps buff. Unda: yay free dmg ET I'd move up in the rotation as well. personally it's like my second spell in my opener. To free yourself up from TW (and overall increase dmg) I'd recommend grabbing a soulthirst wristpiece. As a necro, our natural healing negates the effect. In regards to Lifeburn... Lifeburn was worth casting ONLY in group because the potency/CB potential in group wasnt high enough to merit not casting it in your rotation... now with the new gear that has been released, casting Lifeburn at any point (unless the mob is SS'd during your cast time... cause yay free dmg) WILL cause a dps loss. Soulburn: I recommend precasting Unstoppable Soul as your first SB should come far before 30 seconds is up.
My preferred method is: Call Servant, pet attack macro, Soulburn (or Elemental Blast, since I'm a Conj)
For a group, yeah, okay I'm with ya. But that max health debuff is more powerful in a raid setting than every other ability you get.
^That's the only time I'd use it. as a dps buff though... it is not. hp debuff though is why you would cast it.
Just tested this on my Conj and SB did no damage if Planar Motion was still on the pet when it went off =/ However, due to the cast times, this only comes into play if you cast Planar Motion/Shift of Death after Soulburn
