New to Necromancy

[portcontrol7]

I'm actually new to the game as well. Anyways, I am working on my necro and I am going with the following skills:

Necro
SS
Anatomy
Tactics
Swordsmanship

I can fit 2 more skills in with these I believe and I was wondering first which would be better, Focus or Meditation? What are the advantages of one over the other?

Also for the 7th skill I was wondering if Parry or Resisting Spells would be the better choice? I like the Idea of being able to dodge attacks, but from looking around on the forum it seems that resist is one skill almost everyone choses.

Thanks in advance for any info!

 

[imported_Farsight]

If you use wraith form, meditation is a complete waste of points.
If you use a mana leech weapon, meditation is a complete waste of points.
If you use a suit of armor with a little bit of mana regeneration, meditation is a compete waste of points.

Focus, in my opionion, is always a complete waste of points. Chivalry would be a better option, giving you divine fury for those stamina emergencies.

Healing would be another good option.

As would a combination of bushido and parry.

My favorite trick lately is for my necro-dexer to be a wammy, that is a wraith/samurai. With curse weapon up all the time, he never runs out of mana casting necromancy, chivalry and bushido spells and he hasn't found a single creature that can kill him yet because of all the hit points he gains from his cursed weapon..

 

[portcontrol7]

When I curse my weapon it ends up hurting me, whats the point of it?

 

[imported_Skrag]

You're doing something wrong, or misunderstanding somewhere. Curse weapon just gives you life leech. I know, I cast it like 100 times per day.

Also, add bushido. Curse weapon + lightning strike = godly.

 

[Jaimes]

Curse Weapon is a really useful spell that imbues your weapon to grant you 50% life of whatever damage you deal with your weapon. I'm not sure it was supposed to damage you (maybe you were fighting something else at the time?).

Also, for your template, could you comment more on what you'd like to do with your character? A lot of skills are situational.

 

[portcontrol7]

Well I did figure out the Curse Weapon spell, And yes it is AWESOME! Forgive my newbieness.

Jaimes, what I want to do is be able to explore Britannia and kill some pretty tough beasts, maybe go on some cool quests.

So far I'm leaning towards this folks...

Necro
SS
Tactics
Anatomy
Swords
Parry
Resist

Here's a few questions if you would be so kind as to give me some input...

1)Is SS enough to heal my necro? I see PVP templates usually have healing in them but I'm not interested in PvP.

2)With Parry, you must have a weapon and a sword equipped right?

3)How important is Resist in PvM?

4)Lastly what type of Attributes should I have on this type of char?I thought the cap was 225? Currently I have the following:

99 INT
76 STR
50 DEX

Don't know where to go from there as I have used all 225...

What should I do with these attributes folks?

Thanks again, what a community we have here!

 

[imported_Farsight]

<blockquote><hr>

Well I did figure out the Curse Weapon spell, And yes it is AWESOME! Forgive my newbieness.

Jaimes, what I want to do is be able to explore Britannia and kill some pretty tough beasts, maybe go on some cool quests.

So far I'm leaning towards this folks...

Necro
SS
Tactics
Anatomy
Swords
Parry
Resist

Here's a few questions if you would be so kind as to give me some input...

1)Is SS enough to heal my necro? I see PVP templates usually have healing in them but I'm not interested in PvP.


[/ QUOTE ]
95% of my time, curse weapon is enough healing. The other 5% of the time, I use spirit speak. I don't even have healing on my template and tend to not use chivalry for healing or curing.
<blockquote><hr>


2)With Parry, you must have a weapon and a sword equipped right?


[/ QUOTE ]
With parry, you need a shield unless you have bushido, then it's better not to have the shield. So in your case, get a shield.
<blockquote><hr>


3)How important is Resist in PvM?


[/ QUOTE ]
You'll definitely get mixed answers on this one. Myself, I could do without it, but I had to rework my stats accordingly so I don't lose armor pieces every time I'm cursed.
<blockquote><hr>


4)Lastly what type of Attributes should I have on this type of char?I thought the cap was 225? Currently I have the following:

99 INT
76 STR
50 DEX

Don't know where to go from there as I have used all 225...

What should I do with these attributes folks?

Thanks again, what a community we have here!

[/ QUOTE ]

In the beginning, the stat cap is 225. After you play for a few months, it gets bumped to 230. You can also buy scrolls from other players which will give you more stats, up to 250. But for our sakes, we'll use 225.

What your stats are really depends on what equipment you want to use. There are some nice pieces of armor that require 90 or more strength to use (like the darkwood set, for example) which will force you to get very high strength at the cost of your dexterity. There are also weapons, like soul seeker, which will swing at maximum or near maximum speed regardless of your dexterity, making it possible to have low dexterity and still hit like a truck.

Most people use the "max out dex" philosophy. As a swordsman, I believe this is the best way to go. Your swing speed using the ugly-but-effective ornate axe will improve greatly, giving you an even better chance to live while fighting the really big big baddies.

Myself, my necro-warrior has 100 strength, 80 dex and the rest is in intelligence. Since your effictiveness comes from your sword, you really don't need a lot of intelligence. If you have a mana leeching weapon, you can still always cast curse weapon when needed.

 

[portcontrol7]

Awesome info Farsight!

I am going to try to balance the STR and DEX and put the rest into INT.

With lower INT is that going to dramatically effect the uefulness of my Necro spells, or is this just dependant upon my SS skill?

 

[imported_Skrag]

Drop Anatomy and add Bushido. Your damage per hit will decline a bit, but your actual total killing power and survival ability will increase greatly. Here's why:

You're a life-leecher. Spirit Speak is a nice emergency or backup heal, but your main means of staying alive against serious monsters is Curse Weapon. The drawback, of course, is that you need to hit things to leech life. Missed swings are your worst enemy. Missing too many times in a row is the difference between life and death for you.

Bushido has Lightning Strike, which gives you a huge bonus to your hit chance and sometimes does critical hits for extra damage. (A critical hit with a slayer while Curse Weapon is in effect is basically instant full health for me.) Bushido also lets you use the Honor virtue to build up extra damage.

I mean, here's how I kill paragon lich lords.

1) Equip slayer weapon.
2) Honor the paragon lich lord.
3) Cast Curse Weapon.
4) Bash it with Lightning Strike until it's dead

It can't kill me. I just leech life faster than it can do damage. I remember at Honesty we had a paragon Titan and two paragon Cyclops spawn all around the same time. I just cast Curse Weapon, sat in the middle of all the spawn, and kept whacking away with Lightning Strike until they were all dead. You can just stand in front of stuff and trade punches without moving, because you're refilling your own health to full with every one or two whacks.

 

[Jaimes]

I kind of agree... I would never make a PvM dexer template without either Bushido or Chivalry (and usually not both since they're redundant in terms of the damage cap). The damage possibilities each give are pretty huge. They're both mana hogs though.

And yeah, come to think of it, healing isn't nearly as important in PvM. Spirit Speak is awesome when you've got a bunch of corpses to tap around you.

How to fit all of your skills in together with each other? Hmm, that's a beast..

Here's what I would suggest:

100 Necro (I would say 105 so you can cast Strangle reliably, but this template doesn't need it)
100 SS
100 Tactics
110+ Swords
110+ Bushido
110+ Parry

You can put the rest of the points in Anatomy, for some extra damage, or Meditation, for some extra mana regen. Magic Resist isn't too worthwhile at 70 points (it's better than 20 or 0, though..).

That character, properly geared, should be very powerful.

 

[imported_Skrag]

Thing is about mana, if you're just PVM and don't use bandages then you don't need that much dex. Just get nice fast slayer weapons like Blackthorn's Kryss. Put the points into int instead of dex.