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Hello @SouthPaw!
It will depend on what you are fighting. Corpse Skin + Flamestrike is definitely a powerful combination. Corpse Skin will reduce the Fire Resist (and Poison) of the target by a flat 15% no matter what their current resist is at. This does stack with other debuffs like Rune Corruption and Discordance.
Evil Omen you will want to cast before Corpse Skin to increase its duration (Evil Omen will halve the value of Resisting Spells when used with a Debuff).
To determine what spell to use, you will want to look at their resists. If Energy resist is more than 15 less than fire resist, then Chain Lightning/Energy Bolt will be better damage than Corpse Skin + Flamestrike.
Evil Omen is unfortunately not worth it for damage spells, unless it is a very long cast time (like WoD).
Evil Omen will add 25% damage to the next spell and is a 0.5s cast time with FC2. So you can take the cast time of your damaging spell and divide it by 4. If that number is less than 0.5, then it is not worth it do to an Evil Omen > Damage Spell rotation. Even if that number is 0.5 or higher, you have to account for latency/lag so really it will only be beneficial to spells that are 3s or higher.
Example:
Let's say your flamestrike hits for 100 damage at the top end.
Flamestrike Only: 100 Damage @ 1.5s Cast Time
EO + Flamestrike: 125 Damage @ 2.0s Cast Time (more realistically would be 2.25s).
Over 18 Seconds:
Flamestrike: 3600 Damage
EO + Flamestrike: 3375 Damage
This trend will continue even in very long fights:
Over 144 Seconds:
Flamestrike: 28800 Damage
EO + Flamestrike: 27000 Damage
However, with a longer cast time spell like Word of Death, you will always be ahead on damage as of the second EO + WoD combo. So unless you only have time for a single Wod, it is more efficient to use EO + WoD everytime.
Wither is a great spell with a very short cast time. The downside is you need to be within 4-tiles of your enemies. Also, like other non-target AoE spells, it can cause an immediate change of aggro, so be careful when you use it in a large cluster that something else is tanking (like your pet).
The only other Damaging Magery spell I probably use regularly is Meteor Swarm, if I need to do AoE and the enemies have high Energy Resist and the situation is too dangerous to Wither.
If you go the route of Necromancy Mastery, you open up a few more options that are quite powerful. Conduit + Corpse Skin + Poison Strike is an Extremely powerful AoE (probably the best in the game IMO).
SouthPaw
Lore Master
Sounds like the only necro spells worth casting are Wither and sometimes Corpse skin and poison strike, is that right? Of course the forms are all pretty good. Maybe throw in some animate dead for fun.
No not at all.
Necro/Mage is the best damage combination in the game because there is no SDI cap and they have near perfect synergy.
Evil Omen casts so fast that you can cast it after the previous spell and still have it land before the damage from that spell lands on the target to get the 25% damage increase bonus.
If the target is weakest to fire you can Corpse/FS/Omen in that order.
If the target is weakest to energy you can Chain Lightning/Omen.
If they're weakest to poison you can Strangle/Corpse/Pain Spike/Poison Strike.
If they're weakest to physical or cold DON'T use Corpse as it puts both of those UP by 10.
You can stone Taming on, bond a pair of Bake Kitsune's (which have amazing base resists and a huge 400+ mana pool EACH), then use them with a Dark Wolf.
Bake Kitsune have been 3 slot animals since Patch 97.
Mine are both 2 slot, just took them both out with a Dark Wolf.
Yes, old ones remained 2 slot, anything anyone has tamed since 97 are 3 slot.
Cool I'll sell my 2 slots then if anyone wants, fully trained.
Lord GOD,
I am a newly return player and wanted to play a mecro mage. After reading your posts it beg the question: What if I stone taming and bonded a Cu? will it follow or guard me? I like the spells you mentioned above. Mage, eval, SS, medi, necro, resist is my build. I wanted to mostly pvm but will going Red worth it? Not sure how much more range i get? I am overwhelm with so many new gear available can you give me a dream list of gear i would want for necro mage. Also i noted some item give skills like magery +15. I want to ask if I have 120 mage is there a way I can retrieve only 105 and save the rest on the stone so I can get it later to 120 should i change the armor?
Thanks
I am a newly return player and wanted to play a mecro mage. After reading your posts it beg the question: What if I stone taming and bonded a Cu? will it follow or guard me? I like the spells you mentioned above. Mage, eval, SS, medi, necro, resist is my build. I wanted to mostly pvm but will going Red worth it? Not sure how much more range i get? I am overwhelm with so many new gear available can you give me a dream list of gear i would want for necro mage. Also i noted some item give skills like magery +15. I want to ask if I have 120 mage is there a way I can retrieve only 105 and save the rest on the stone so I can get it later to 120 should i change the armor?
Thanks
I don't think it works with Cu Sidhe, I can't remember why.
Not sure I understand your question about going red. That is irrelevant to template. It serves no purpose for anything other than killing blue players. If you're part of a red guild that raids blue spawns then it's worth it - otherwise it's not. It gives no more range it just means you automatically hit anyone you're not allied with when doing area attacks.
There is no way to part store a skill unless you purposely drop it first. You wouldn't want to do that anyway as to use a mage weapon you need real skill of say 120, then the mage weapon gives say minus 15, and you make it up with plus 15 on gear.
There is no specific list of items, you build for what you need, if you're building for pvm only, PvP only, or something in the middle then you will prioritise different things. I would say that imo it's worth joining VvV for the free gear regardless of what or where you intend to play.
No SDI cap for PvM.
Innoxicated
Journeyman
And since you seem to be just catching up with things, the MR cap on gear is 30. The lmc cap is 40%.
Now the lmc cap has a cpl nuances you should familiarize yourself with. It is possible to exceed the 40% and reach a hard cap of 55%. You do this by using studded or bone pieces for your suit that are NOT mage armor. If you have a particularly great legendary studded/bone piece with mage armor, you can have that property removed at the New Haven mage shop for 250k. Look for the orange guy, pyronarro i think.
Each piece of studded or bone in your suit--up to 5 pieces--will add 3% lmc overcap. 15% additional lmc on your suit, as long as you've already got 40 with properties on your equipment. They call this "nonmeddable armor inherent bonus," and while it does not show up on the armor piece itself, it will show up on your character status gump.
With 30 MR and 55% lmc it is common for players to drop meditation completely, especially among necromancers utilizing Wraith form for mana recovery. This can free up a good chunk of skill points and allow a lot more room for diversity in your template.
I've tried both, and I'm still on the fence about it. The no-med route works great for bursty damage, but I found myself running out of mana in sustained combat. i switched back and put med on my temp again, which was a real btch after I had removed mage armor from my entire suit, lol... So a suggestion from me is to put together a suit just to try it out before diving in.
-- I'm late to the party but ... my NecroMage is 13 years old. She's my favorite mage - highly preferable to my MysticMage or my Spellweaver.
I don't end up using most of the Necromancy spells in PvM because a handful works so well.
I have Necromancy and Magery mastery III's on her, but I keep the Magery mastery active for the Death Ray. (Seriously, it does as much damage as Word of Death does for Spellweavers - especially with a slayer spellbook in hand - but you can use it when the target is at 100% health, you don't have to wait for the target to be below 30%.)
So, typically, I go into Wraith Form for the Mana Leech properties - which keeps me from running out of mana. I very rarely run out of mana - unless I'm in a group battle with something and I'm needed as a dedicated healer. Even with Death Ray running, I never run out of mana. (Mana Increase and Mana Regen helps tremendously with this, as well. My NecroMage has 221 Mana and max Mana Regen.)
Next, Corpse Skin is going to be one of your most used spells - so prepare for Karma loss. (Not a big deal, for people who don't mind negative Karma, but I try to keep my NecroMage's Karma above 10k.) Corpse Skin lowers the target's Fire Resist, yes, but also the Poison Resist. So when fighting something with a person using a 100% Poison Weapon or pet, it helps just as much.
Flamestrike, in PvM is decent but a combination of Explosion/Fireball does more damage after a Corpse Skin and you can cast both spells in less time than it takes to cast a Flamestrike.
Evil Omen works well, but only if you can guarantee the next damage event to the target is one you want to enhance. In group fights where there are 5 or 10 or 15 people all attacking the same target, you can't guarantee the next damage event will be a Magic Arrow, a Fireball, a Flamestrike, a Chiv/AI hit, or a Death Ray hit. So you could be setting the target up for a 70 damage Fireball instead of a 450 damage Death Ray hit. So I'd say, Evil Omen is something you want in your instinctual arsenal but it won't be something you use as often as Wraith Form or Corpse Skin.
Wither is good in mobs, but it doesn't do a ton of damage.
In PvM, Necromancy is the perfect enhancement to Magery with Magery Mastery III - I guess kind of like PvP? Necromages in PvP set up the good shots for their group - but in PvM, NecroMages set up their own good shots.
At Lady M or Medusa, I can hold a slayer spellbook and toss a Corpse Skin ... my Explosion/Fireball combos typically average 160 for Explosion with 90-110 Fireball. An Explosion/Flamestrike combo usually averages 160/200 ... and Death Ray never hits for less than 250 each time. Depending on how Lady M or Medusa spawn? My Death Ray can hit for 350-400.
And again, in Wraith Form I never run out of mana.
I don't end up using most of the Necromancy spells in PvM because a handful works so well.
I have Necromancy and Magery mastery III's on her, but I keep the Magery mastery active for the Death Ray. (Seriously, it does as much damage as Word of Death does for Spellweavers - especially with a slayer spellbook in hand - but you can use it when the target is at 100% health, you don't have to wait for the target to be below 30%.)
So, typically, I go into Wraith Form for the Mana Leech properties - which keeps me from running out of mana. I very rarely run out of mana - unless I'm in a group battle with something and I'm needed as a dedicated healer. Even with Death Ray running, I never run out of mana. (Mana Increase and Mana Regen helps tremendously with this, as well. My NecroMage has 221 Mana and max Mana Regen.)
Next, Corpse Skin is going to be one of your most used spells - so prepare for Karma loss. (Not a big deal, for people who don't mind negative Karma, but I try to keep my NecroMage's Karma above 10k.) Corpse Skin lowers the target's Fire Resist, yes, but also the Poison Resist. So when fighting something with a person using a 100% Poison Weapon or pet, it helps just as much.
Flamestrike, in PvM is decent but a combination of Explosion/Fireball does more damage after a Corpse Skin and you can cast both spells in less time than it takes to cast a Flamestrike.
Evil Omen works well, but only if you can guarantee the next damage event to the target is one you want to enhance. In group fights where there are 5 or 10 or 15 people all attacking the same target, you can't guarantee the next damage event will be a Magic Arrow, a Fireball, a Flamestrike, a Chiv/AI hit, or a Death Ray hit. So you could be setting the target up for a 70 damage Fireball instead of a 450 damage Death Ray hit. So I'd say, Evil Omen is something you want in your instinctual arsenal but it won't be something you use as often as Wraith Form or Corpse Skin.
Wither is good in mobs, but it doesn't do a ton of damage.
In PvM, Necromancy is the perfect enhancement to Magery with Magery Mastery III - I guess kind of like PvP? Necromages in PvP set up the good shots for their group - but in PvM, NecroMages set up their own good shots.
At Lady M or Medusa, I can hold a slayer spellbook and toss a Corpse Skin ... my Explosion/Fireball combos typically average 160 for Explosion with 90-110 Fireball. An Explosion/Flamestrike combo usually averages 160/200 ... and Death Ray never hits for less than 250 each time. Depending on how Lady M or Medusa spawn? My Death Ray can hit for 350-400.
And again, in Wraith Form I never run out of mana.
Innoxicated
Journeyman
Evil omen is definitely better solo, but it's still difficult to time just right. A poster here on the forums mentioned you can cast it after your damage spell and it will usually land before the dmg hits.
This made playing my nox necromage a lot more fun as I can cast EO, then drop a nox field and watch my target 'spasm uncontrollably' with confidence, instead of getting frustrated with imperfect timing 90% of the time.
I havent had the pleasure of death-raying anything, yet. Havent been able to snag a vol 3 primer and I figure the 2 may disappoint. The purple death ray in the old Westwood studios game NoX was the absolute shtt, and I would love to enjoy the pseudo-nostalgia of using something very similar in uo. The fact that slayers work with death ray now makes it seem to be very potent ability.
I usually run the spellweaving mastery for the focus bonus, but when I can I use necro masteries. While not as easy to utilize as the magery ones, conduit is so sick for the nox necro. Being able to mass EO before the nox field is very nice, but it seems like conduit takes forever to cast. Conduit and corpseskin is killer, especially with a poison strike spam or meteor strike afterward.
The karma is a good mention, I think however it is more useful to run max neg karma for the shadow wisp. Summon familiar is one of the handful of good necro spells, and aside from forms really the only utility spell necro has.
This made playing my nox necromage a lot more fun as I can cast EO, then drop a nox field and watch my target 'spasm uncontrollably' with confidence, instead of getting frustrated with imperfect timing 90% of the time.
I havent had the pleasure of death-raying anything, yet. Havent been able to snag a vol 3 primer and I figure the 2 may disappoint. The purple death ray in the old Westwood studios game NoX was the absolute shtt, and I would love to enjoy the pseudo-nostalgia of using something very similar in uo. The fact that slayers work with death ray now makes it seem to be very potent ability.
I usually run the spellweaving mastery for the focus bonus, but when I can I use necro masteries. While not as easy to utilize as the magery ones, conduit is so sick for the nox necro. Being able to mass EO before the nox field is very nice, but it seems like conduit takes forever to cast. Conduit and corpseskin is killer, especially with a poison strike spam or meteor strike afterward.
The karma is a good mention, I think however it is more useful to run max neg karma for the shadow wisp. Summon familiar is one of the handful of good necro spells, and aside from forms really the only utility spell necro has.
— Which shard are you on? (She asked knowing the answer is most likely ATL.)
I’m strictly GL, so if by some chance that’s where you are, I have a Magery III you can have.
Otherwise ... I’m not sure if getting a circle with Weaving mastery and then switching masteries 30 minutes later would erase your bonus or not. Or if anyone’s even tested it ... but it might be worth a shot.
I’m strictly GL, so if by some chance that’s where you are, I have a Magery III you can have.
Otherwise ... I’m not sure if getting a circle with Weaving mastery and then switching masteries 30 minutes later would erase your bonus or not. Or if anyone’s even tested it ... but it might be worth a shot.
Innoxicated
Journeyman
Yes it definitely does, as I found out at the most inconvenient time possible. That is very generous of you, but you were correct in your assumption, haha... ATL born and bred. A native atlantic-er. Atlantician?
I noticed in my post praising the wonders of post-casting evil omen, I got my cast order switched around. I drop the nox field first and am able to shoot off a quick EO before the field actually tics. If I'm with a group on a nox-able big target, I'll just spam EO 3 or 4 times and every now and then I'll still see a LP. Pretty sweet!
I noticed in my post praising the wonders of post-casting evil omen, I got my cast order switched around. I drop the nox field first and am able to shoot off a quick EO before the field actually tics. If I'm with a group on a nox-able big target, I'll just spam EO 3 or 4 times and every now and then I'll still see a LP. Pretty sweet!
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— I forgot: Animate Dead!
That spell is a fantastic thing to have up your sleeve. You can animate up to three corpses - and they don’t count towards your pet slots so you can throw out two EVs at the same time.
If you’re lucky, what you’ve animated spawns a Lich - and you get five followers doing damage to your target on top of you.
That spell is a fantastic thing to have up your sleeve. You can animate up to three corpses - and they don’t count towards your pet slots so you can throw out two EVs at the same time.
If you’re lucky, what you’ve animated spawns a Lich - and you get five followers doing damage to your target on top of you.
Flame Strike followed by Evil Omen will land close enough to garuntee the boost even in group fights.
You can even macro it:
Cast spell - FS
Wait for target
Last target
Cast spell - Evil Omen
Wait for target
Last target
You can even macro it:
Cast spell - FS
Wait for target
Last target
Cast spell - Evil Omen
Wait for target
Last target
Innoxicated
Journeyman
Speaking of the poster I mentioned earlier, do you ever run EC Lord GOD? I've heard the Wait for Targ can have a bit of a delay, using a EC macro that already had the target selected for EO might open a few more possibilities as well. I did try to post-cast EO after a WoD but either I wasnt quick enough or WoD just applies the damage instantly.
Animate is awesome, I forgot that one, too. Cant help but show those necro masteries a lil more love, since you can tame 2 skeletal dragons (in my experience, a bit of a pita to do, though,) and still pop 3 more with animate. Look like a proper necromancer with a flappy army that harkens back to old times.
Liches are a nice little extra dps, esp since they'll probably get killed before running out of mana and love to throw debuffs at things. But even the skeletal knights and flesh golems provide some crowd control while gettin cut down.
Animate is awesome, I forgot that one, too. Cant help but show those necro masteries a lil more love, since you can tame 2 skeletal dragons (in my experience, a bit of a pita to do, though,) and still pop 3 more with animate. Look like a proper necromancer with a flappy army that harkens back to old times.
Liches are a nice little extra dps, esp since they'll probably get killed before running out of mana and love to throw debuffs at things. But even the skeletal knights and flesh golems provide some crowd control while gettin cut down.
Oh, no, can't get on with it at all.