So my GF has been a necro for a few months now, recently got her mythical and a full set of T2 shard armor and we just tried duoing some heroics together (with me playing a simularly geared Coercer). She really wants some get a bunch of stuff from SoL, we've been doing it with groups as much as we can, but sometimes you just can't get a group for the zone you want to do, so we tried duoing it.. Didn't go to well.. We killed the first named after like 5 tries. It sucked. So whats the trick to becoming an uber soloer Necro? I've tried to help her as much as I can looking at her spells, and it works like this: (using myth pet) 1) Root the mob 2) Throw out the swarm pets) 3) throw out more pets 4) Keep Throw out big attacks and dots 5) watch root break, try and Fear the mob, watch it not work 'cause all the dots and pets attacking the mob 6) die So I know we could not use her pets and not use any dots to make it so the roots and fears are more effective... But how do you do DPS and actually kill the mob? Whats the strat you guys use? Thanks!
Greetings I've been a necromancer for the longest time, I had the time to explore this area of the game and got very good at it, especially in zones like Shard of Fear and Shard of Love. In order to solo in heroic zones successfully as a necromancer, here are a few outline list of tips for your GF: 1. Load a specilized pet spec of your AA abilities. You want to buff the pet up as much as you can, which includes skills and items. I'm assuming she has more than 186 AA points. In the Summoner tab you need: Fill up Percepters line (STA), that way you get boost to pet health, taunt (Percepters Command), and knockback (Shockwave). Fill up Animist line (WIZ), to improve pets defence and casting abilities. In the Necromancer tab you need: Add 5 points into Enhance: Fighter Pet. Fill upto 22 points into Manipulations tree to get Tainted Heals (VERY IMPORTANT) This will grant you the ability to heal your pet (as you probibly already know) for 18% everytime you cast a manipulations spell (we have around 5). In the Shadows tab you need: Mage branch: Bewilderment (de-aggro and direct dmg spell) Summoner branch: Minion's Constitution (4 points), Minion's Critical Strike (5points), Pet Weapon Mastery, Summoner's Soothing (5points, lowers your hate gain), Minion's Mark (extra pet spell) Necromancer branch: Shield of Bones (5points, pet defense), Archlich's Lifetap (5 points), Disease Mastery, Wrath of the Undead Servant (extra pet spell, around 5k dmg) Here are a few images of the above information: 2. Equip gear/items that increase pet stats like hp and crits (Void Energy set from shard merchant in Moors is a good example), this void set will give you atleast 2200 HP increase, my pet has about 18k hp with 37%+ avoidance atm. 3. I recommend equiping items that decrease aggro such as the Edict of the Whispered Word that will proc hate gain during fights, very useful. The reason for this is that our tank pets do not hold aggro very well. We can easily rip and get our selves killed, it's very sad. There are many items that decrease hate, but this is the easiest to get and is equiped in the range slot. It drops in Chelsith. Now, as for tactics, here is what I do and it works well, I hope it will do the same for her. Create 2 macros for "a button does it all" kinda of thing: Heal pet button: add Percepters Command, and drag all your manipulation spells (Fear, Root, Siphon, Mark, Dispell) into this. That way you can just spam one button for your pet to heal and taunt. Nuke button *Optional: add Perceptors Command, and drag Lifetap (primary), Bewilderment, horde and swarm spells in here. Just to make things easier in a solo session. Set the pet in defensive stance (Grisly Protection) Try to body pull so that you don't pull the whole zone. Some mobs are not social, in that situation you can try to pet pull. As soon as you pull to a safe location, sic pet and hit your pets taunt ability (Percepters Command). If there are no other mobs close by, use your Shockwave skill to help your pet hold aggro. During the fights, limit your dmg spells to just a few or use the above macro if possible. Again, it's all because the tank pet does not hold aggro very well. Bewilderment, Lifetap, horde spells and debuffs. That includes your manipulations spells for pet heals. If you get adds, make sure you sic pet at it to keep it off of you. Also, dont' be afraid to use Shockwave as a method of Croud Control. Use root and fear as well. If undead, use your Charm spell to temporarly mezz it and maybe use it to add dmg to the encounter. Rinse and repeat for every mob. Named mobs might take longer to kill mainly because you'll be doing more healing then casting dmg spells. If you have people in your group, advise them to hold off from casting dmg spells for a few moments, let the pet gain some aggro before attacking, much like dealing with Gaurdians in encounter fights :/ Basically, you really need to depend on your pet to hold the mob in place. We might be able to take a few hits but that's about it. Utilitize spells like FD, root and fear charm (for undead) as emergencies, adds happen all the time. The tank pet a lot of hits surprizingly, so don't be afraid to try to pull multiple targets or encounters with pet. Final note, this takes time and practice to get it perfected. Everybody is different, so try and experiment. In the end, it's rewarding and fun, you will enjoy the benefits of making money, helping friends and guildies through out the game. (please forgive any grammer or spelling mistakes)
One thing to remember is watch the root timer. Cancel the DOTs when root breaks so that you can root/fear again. It takes practice. But what Revanis says is very good to remember.
wow thanks for the tips Archimond, that was very useful. Man did we have some things done wrong. I still havn't tried it out in SoL or SoF yet duoing with my coercer, but looking at the changes we're going to make based off your post, it looks like a winner. 1) First off we didn't think the tank pet was capable of taking a hit from heroics, so we were using the mythical mage pet in offiensive stance. 2) the AA build you recommended was very helpful. I reviewed every choice, we had it all wrong really. I had her specced for DPS on raids, and it wasn't very effective at all for soloing. I bought her one of those AA respec mirrors and pretty much cloned your setup. I had no idea that the manipulations branch added +18% heal to each ability, zomfg! However I noticed you put atleast 1 point into each ability, we didn't do that, looks like that wasn't necisary to get the +18% heal 3) Early in the game I was teaching her what all the spells do, I told her just use your main nukes and don't worry about roots and whatnot (as we duod with my assassin, and they were worthless), but I guess we had forgot she had actually 2 roots, a fear and a stun.. we were sticking to just 1 root and a fear.. Totally forgot we had some really key abilities there that are gonna make this much easier. So we prolly should be pretty well off now. So I guess the strategy is just keep the pet alive and don't do too much damage, as it needs to hold agro.. Deagro as much as possible. we were doing it all wrong Thanks for the input
So last night my girl and I tried your tips out, and we sucsessfully cleared all named mobs in Shard of Love, and Shard of Fear without any tank or healer - just one uber necro We were never able to kill any even con heroics with her necro before your advice. Thanks for the help Archimond!
Awesome, i'm glad it worked out for you. I'm impressed you were able to impliment these tactics so soon, well done!
