G
Guest
Guest
Alright, I've been a necro/mage since AOS, through thick and thin and I've gotten pretty reasonable with it. Let me give some tricks I've found useful.
A) Mission Statement
The purpose of a necromancer is to cause death and despair, spreading decay and darkness. Note: It is not to KILL. It is to CAUSE DEATH. The difference is subtle, but critical.
B) The Role of the Necromancer
Necromancy offers a range of debuffs and area control attacks. The power of the necromancer is his ability to seize control of an area and hold off the enemy. Let me repeat that. A NECROMANCER'S FUNCTION IS TO SEIZE AND CONTROL TERRITORY.
The best necromancy spells are slow and easy to disrupt. However, because necromancy spells are NOT affected by fast casting, you can use protection to cast them perfectly, at the cost to the mage end of your template. If you understand your role, you will realize that it is not best served by spamming magic arrows, so this is an easy trade to make.
Lastly, all necro/mages should be red. This is so you have the maximum amount of impact with your area effects and so you can hunt down hiders and stealthers with your withers.
C) The Template of a Necromancer
The skills are listed in order of importance: Scroll them up as possible.
1 - Magic Resist - This is without a doubt THE MOST IMPORTANT skill for a necro mage. A necro mage who does not have this skill is a failure and is useless to his team. Why? A necro/mage's role of taking territory requires him to spear head assualts, often through paralyze fields. If you have no resist, you cannot move through paralyze fields. Furthermore, a necromancer/mage SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE PROTECTION ON. This means your resist will be taking a 35 point penalty, thus you will have to have AS HIGH BASE RESIST AS POSSIBLE to compensate for this handicap. 120 base resist = 85 base resist on a necromancer.
2 - Magery - This is the second most important skill for a necro mage. Never neglect the power of the mage end of your template. Magery determines how well you heal, how well you cure, how easily you can field, and lets you drop energy vortexes and raise the dead, which are CORE abilities for controlling an area. Also, with a mage weapon, your magery because your defense against meleers, and because you'll be spearheading most of your team's assaults, you WILL be facing off with meleers ALOT.
3 - Spirit Speak - This is your third skill. It determines the power of your necromancy spells: Duration of strangle and corpse skin, damage of wither, poison strike and painspike, those are determined by Spirit Speak. The higher it is, the better.
4 - Meditation - Fourth skill. Necromancy is VERY mana intensive. VERY. You'll be spamming withers, which will burn your mana pool like you wouldn't believe. Meditation will keep you in the fight.
5 - Evaluating Intelligence - Fifth Skill - You need it so you have SOME kill power with your magery, or you'll be meat whenever you're forced to go one on one with someone (IT WILL HAPPEN). Magery without Eval is limited at best, useless at worst. Get it.
6 - Necromancy - Sixth skill - Obviously, determines the success of your necromancy spells. However, Vampiric Embrace you will not be using as a necro mage. Revenant is limited, I don't favour it for real fights. As long as you have 105 in this (Wither and Strangle), you're alright.
7 - Focus - Seventh skill - More mana is good, stamina for unlimited running is good. This is a good place to dump your spare points while you scroll up the rest of your template.
D) Equipment of the Necromancer
1 - 80+ base physical. Protection drops your physical. 60s and 70s all else. Resists are critical, because you WILL be taking hits. ALOT.
2 - LRC. You will be spearheading assaults and you will die. LRC means you can keep fighting after death.
3 - LMC. You will need to spam withers often. LMC helps you do this.
4 - 2/6 Casting. You can possibly get by with 2/4, but 2/6 enables your wither spam.
5 - SDI 15 - Important for those wither spams, as well as gank support. You can always use more damage.
6 - Ethereal Mount - Ideally, all necromages should have an ethereal mount. This is so you can go into a form when you need to, then get back mounted when you need to chase or run. Also, the way of the necro/mage is death, so it helps to have a mount that won't die when you do.
7 - HPI/+Resist/+Magery - I list these equally as bonuses to your equipment. They're not core but they will help. +Resist, to offset your protection handicap and let you break fields easier. +Magery, so you can use a one handed mage weapon and still chug pots. HPI, so you can take more damage and stay in the fight longer.
E) Skills and Equipment NOT to get.
1 - Weapon skill - Everyone thinks they need this. They don't. Specials are nice for duels, but your purpose isn't to duel, it's to conquer. Damage? Use your spells, you can't fit tactics anyways. Defense? Mage weapons cover that. Leave weapon skill for dexxers and tanks, play to your strengths.
2 - Inscribe - Your purpose is to support and conquer, not kill. SDI is good, but there's other things that are more important and your template is too cramped to squeeze this in.
3 - Poisoning - Poisoning DOES NOT HELP YOUR POISON STRIKES. PERIOD. It helps you lay fields and cast poison. However, Withers are more important than fields and strangles beats poison. Leave fielding and poisoning to nox mages and pure mages. Play to your strengths.
4 - Mana Regen - Sounds good, but not as key. We have lich and we have wraith. HPI beats this.
5 - Mana Increase - Sounds good, but again, not as key. Wraith form will help alleviate your burn rate, and besides, if you're playing your necro/mage right, you'll be dying faster than you can burn your mana.
F) Way of the Necro/Mage
IN A SPAWN - A necro/mage should consider going wraith form. Drop two energy vortexes and then move to a new area. Get as much spawn around you as you can. Wither them down. Wraith form will refill your mana from this. Keep moving around, withering down mass spawn. Sometimes, you'll get too much on you and you'll die, but oh well. This ISN'T 100%. Alot of times, I DON'T go wraith form, because I like the maneuverablity of my horse so I can dodge swarms and so I can chase down scouts that might pop in.
IN A BATTLE - A necro/mage's most important spells when raiding are wither and corpse skin. Is the enemy on a choke point, like the Despise Bridge? Go wraith form, wade through the fields, dropping withers. Withers will push back their meleers and their fielders, inflicting damage. Wraith form makes you hard to target and allows your team to move past you. Thus, the goal is to get into the choke point, disrupt it by either killing or forcing their fielders to heal, and then your team runs over you, into the breach, killing all. Wither is also hider/stealther defense. Thieves? Wither them down. Hider ninjas? Wither them down. The second spell to learn to love is Corpse Skin. This drops an enemies fire and poison resist, which makes them vulnerable to explo/flamestrike ganks, poison strikes, and strangles. Try to make sure every enemy is cursed and corpse skinned, so your mages can run over them. Your goal is to curse and corpse skin, so your team mates can go right for the kill.
IN A DUEL - A necro/mage in a duel will have problems, because most other templates can out heal and out damage him. The key is to develop your offense. Start with blood oath, to buy yourself time to get spells on your enemy. Then, get them corpse skinned, then strangled, then pain spike them. Make sure to keep them corpse skinned and strangled through out the duel. After that, keep hitting them with explo/poison strike comboes, and pray they don't outheal your mana pool.
G) Conclusion
A necro/mage is the most powerful template for assaulting or holding a choke point. It's also extremely powerful at working spawns. It's critical to any red team in Fel working towards shard dominance.
A) Mission Statement
The purpose of a necromancer is to cause death and despair, spreading decay and darkness. Note: It is not to KILL. It is to CAUSE DEATH. The difference is subtle, but critical.
B) The Role of the Necromancer
Necromancy offers a range of debuffs and area control attacks. The power of the necromancer is his ability to seize control of an area and hold off the enemy. Let me repeat that. A NECROMANCER'S FUNCTION IS TO SEIZE AND CONTROL TERRITORY.
The best necromancy spells are slow and easy to disrupt. However, because necromancy spells are NOT affected by fast casting, you can use protection to cast them perfectly, at the cost to the mage end of your template. If you understand your role, you will realize that it is not best served by spamming magic arrows, so this is an easy trade to make.
Lastly, all necro/mages should be red. This is so you have the maximum amount of impact with your area effects and so you can hunt down hiders and stealthers with your withers.
C) The Template of a Necromancer
The skills are listed in order of importance: Scroll them up as possible.
1 - Magic Resist - This is without a doubt THE MOST IMPORTANT skill for a necro mage. A necro mage who does not have this skill is a failure and is useless to his team. Why? A necro/mage's role of taking territory requires him to spear head assualts, often through paralyze fields. If you have no resist, you cannot move through paralyze fields. Furthermore, a necromancer/mage SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE PROTECTION ON. This means your resist will be taking a 35 point penalty, thus you will have to have AS HIGH BASE RESIST AS POSSIBLE to compensate for this handicap. 120 base resist = 85 base resist on a necromancer.
2 - Magery - This is the second most important skill for a necro mage. Never neglect the power of the mage end of your template. Magery determines how well you heal, how well you cure, how easily you can field, and lets you drop energy vortexes and raise the dead, which are CORE abilities for controlling an area. Also, with a mage weapon, your magery because your defense against meleers, and because you'll be spearheading most of your team's assaults, you WILL be facing off with meleers ALOT.
3 - Spirit Speak - This is your third skill. It determines the power of your necromancy spells: Duration of strangle and corpse skin, damage of wither, poison strike and painspike, those are determined by Spirit Speak. The higher it is, the better.
4 - Meditation - Fourth skill. Necromancy is VERY mana intensive. VERY. You'll be spamming withers, which will burn your mana pool like you wouldn't believe. Meditation will keep you in the fight.
5 - Evaluating Intelligence - Fifth Skill - You need it so you have SOME kill power with your magery, or you'll be meat whenever you're forced to go one on one with someone (IT WILL HAPPEN). Magery without Eval is limited at best, useless at worst. Get it.
6 - Necromancy - Sixth skill - Obviously, determines the success of your necromancy spells. However, Vampiric Embrace you will not be using as a necro mage. Revenant is limited, I don't favour it for real fights. As long as you have 105 in this (Wither and Strangle), you're alright.
7 - Focus - Seventh skill - More mana is good, stamina for unlimited running is good. This is a good place to dump your spare points while you scroll up the rest of your template.
D) Equipment of the Necromancer
1 - 80+ base physical. Protection drops your physical. 60s and 70s all else. Resists are critical, because you WILL be taking hits. ALOT.
2 - LRC. You will be spearheading assaults and you will die. LRC means you can keep fighting after death.
3 - LMC. You will need to spam withers often. LMC helps you do this.
4 - 2/6 Casting. You can possibly get by with 2/4, but 2/6 enables your wither spam.
5 - SDI 15 - Important for those wither spams, as well as gank support. You can always use more damage.
6 - Ethereal Mount - Ideally, all necromages should have an ethereal mount. This is so you can go into a form when you need to, then get back mounted when you need to chase or run. Also, the way of the necro/mage is death, so it helps to have a mount that won't die when you do.
7 - HPI/+Resist/+Magery - I list these equally as bonuses to your equipment. They're not core but they will help. +Resist, to offset your protection handicap and let you break fields easier. +Magery, so you can use a one handed mage weapon and still chug pots. HPI, so you can take more damage and stay in the fight longer.
E) Skills and Equipment NOT to get.
1 - Weapon skill - Everyone thinks they need this. They don't. Specials are nice for duels, but your purpose isn't to duel, it's to conquer. Damage? Use your spells, you can't fit tactics anyways. Defense? Mage weapons cover that. Leave weapon skill for dexxers and tanks, play to your strengths.
2 - Inscribe - Your purpose is to support and conquer, not kill. SDI is good, but there's other things that are more important and your template is too cramped to squeeze this in.
3 - Poisoning - Poisoning DOES NOT HELP YOUR POISON STRIKES. PERIOD. It helps you lay fields and cast poison. However, Withers are more important than fields and strangles beats poison. Leave fielding and poisoning to nox mages and pure mages. Play to your strengths.
4 - Mana Regen - Sounds good, but not as key. We have lich and we have wraith. HPI beats this.
5 - Mana Increase - Sounds good, but again, not as key. Wraith form will help alleviate your burn rate, and besides, if you're playing your necro/mage right, you'll be dying faster than you can burn your mana.
F) Way of the Necro/Mage
IN A SPAWN - A necro/mage should consider going wraith form. Drop two energy vortexes and then move to a new area. Get as much spawn around you as you can. Wither them down. Wraith form will refill your mana from this. Keep moving around, withering down mass spawn. Sometimes, you'll get too much on you and you'll die, but oh well. This ISN'T 100%. Alot of times, I DON'T go wraith form, because I like the maneuverablity of my horse so I can dodge swarms and so I can chase down scouts that might pop in.
IN A BATTLE - A necro/mage's most important spells when raiding are wither and corpse skin. Is the enemy on a choke point, like the Despise Bridge? Go wraith form, wade through the fields, dropping withers. Withers will push back their meleers and their fielders, inflicting damage. Wraith form makes you hard to target and allows your team to move past you. Thus, the goal is to get into the choke point, disrupt it by either killing or forcing their fielders to heal, and then your team runs over you, into the breach, killing all. Wither is also hider/stealther defense. Thieves? Wither them down. Hider ninjas? Wither them down. The second spell to learn to love is Corpse Skin. This drops an enemies fire and poison resist, which makes them vulnerable to explo/flamestrike ganks, poison strikes, and strangles. Try to make sure every enemy is cursed and corpse skinned, so your mages can run over them. Your goal is to curse and corpse skin, so your team mates can go right for the kill.
IN A DUEL - A necro/mage in a duel will have problems, because most other templates can out heal and out damage him. The key is to develop your offense. Start with blood oath, to buy yourself time to get spells on your enemy. Then, get them corpse skinned, then strangled, then pain spike them. Make sure to keep them corpse skinned and strangled through out the duel. After that, keep hitting them with explo/poison strike comboes, and pray they don't outheal your mana pool.
G) Conclusion
A necro/mage is the most powerful template for assaulting or holding a choke point. It's also extremely powerful at working spawns. It's critical to any red team in Fel working towards shard dominance.