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I have noticed with the new nevergrind specs for lvling my necro i first did talents on my pet boost till i opened up dot spells then shifted them over to dot talents but i keep my pet about same hp as the mobs i fight an extra on dots so pet dont go down to fast

I've been doing the Max Howling Terror -> Max Bone Spirit for their bonuses and liking it so far. Not too sure what to max out next though (doing Invoke Death for now), any suggestions for builds that worked particularly well for you?

Map update your guide, you reserved this spot almost 10 days ago!

I know, I'm slow! I have a good excuse though. I'm getting married on Friday so there's lots of RL stuff to do!

Congrats! Le excuses...

Congratz!

I messed around with a bunch of different setups on my necromancer:

http://nevergrind.com/nevergrounds/inde ... ter=Rayyak

Dark Elf seems like a no brainer here. Necro is super squishy, and you'll run out of CDs for heals and fears in longer fights and you might require the racial ability to survive that fight. I know there were some times where I would have died without it.

In the early levels, buffing up your pet is a good idea, but once you unlock the full tree and get all the skills, I highly recommend buffing corpse explosion so it can activate from poison damage.

I got a logitech G700 mouse, and I'm able to make custom keybinds which really help a ton with necromancer particularly with getting the most out of corpse explosion procs.

General strategy:

I made a keybind to cycle targets and cast asystole so I got greater odds of getting corpse explosion procs. I got another keybind that activates corpse explosion ASAP. While at the same time I manually pump bone spirit (fireballs) and use my fears and healing abilities when needed. The good thing about necromancer is they can do physical or elemental, so those certain combos that screw one or the other aren't that bad.

When things are going well, you'll be pulling mobs very quickly, and you'll be raining fireballs with corpse explosions going off simultaneously, and you'll be doing insane AOE DPS. The 20% chance to counter with fireball is VERY good when you got 3-5 mobs on the screen attacking, and buffing cast speed helps a lot as well. Try to get your cast speed for fireball to below .6 secs, like .56 or .57 is good. There are times when I get counter procs and machine gun like 3-4 fireballs. If those are regular mobs, they're DONE.

My general take on necromancer is they aren't good for really huge chains, like into the hundreds, but can easily do a chain of 25 or 30 really quickly. When I plan on chaining and fighting multiple mobs on the screen, I bring a shield with 24% block rate, because it increases my survivability and allows me to extend a chain further. I'm not sure what the optimal shield is for a caster, but I was using a Steelclash, and it works pretty well. I haven't found any epic tier unique shields yet.

By the way, I don't grind in Nimgall, I fight the mobs at Viston's, because they're weak vs fire and generally got lower HP. Most of them are casters as well which are considerably easier for necromancer to deal with than heavy hitting melee mobs that attack super fast and stun. The fire weakness also typically transfers to champion mobs which makes them easier to drop, unless they show up with Chromatic, but I can take those out with corpse explosions. I don't plan on getting to 99 on my necro, but I do plan on doing some chains in the 10-30 range @ viston's really quickly to farm some gear up. I got freaking wrecked in Nimgall when I tried to fight multiple targets on the screen.

I don't have 20 points in asystole because I thought the 15% magic damage with shields up was better than it is in reality. To clarify you need Arch Shielding AND Diamond skin up to get the 15% bonus. And because Diamond skin is trash, and burns up on a couple hits, you are almost never going to have that 15% buff. I think Diamond skin needs to be buffed, because I only get 500 damage absorb with 400 abjuration. And of course, buffing asystole's damage isn't crucial because I'm mainly using it to proc corpse explosion.

Overall, Necromancer is decent. I wouldn't say its OP, because necros are glass cannons.

I've been testing some different setups with necromancer, and I'm weighing in favor of not using poison proc corpse explosions anymore, because they don't do enough damage if you can get the cast speed of bone spirit fireball down to below .5 secs. I changed my mind about corpse explosion after I got some better gear and got a bit higher cast speed and damage.

I can crit for 12-15k with fireball and launch 2 per sec. End game for necro is about fireball DPS while using fears to lock down the largest threats. I save howling terror as an "oh shit!" button. Dark Elf's leech ability can top necro off very quickly, so between that and howling terror you got a few ways to bail out. You can also use the opportunity to howling terror => run if you end up getting like 3 chromatic champs on the same screen, which does happen sometimes. Putting 20 points in invoke death is a good idea if you plan on doing chains because you won't have to worry about micro managing your pet. The pet is going to get around 50% of all the damage, so consider it a shield.

As far as the best way to chain, it took me lots and lots of deaths to get the feel for the limits of necromancer, and even then I still get killed occasionally. But I typically pull 3 mobs and try to position where fireball will hit 2 out of 3, with the 3rd being a place filler to allow me to continue the chain. If I get a champ on the screen, fear it if its off CD if not then use bond of death. Then I blast all the left over regular mobs before I kill the champ, and then hit pull as I'm about to land the killing blow on the champ, then pull 2 more times to get 3 mobs on the screen and repeat. Another important thing, after you hit pull, hit tab to see if the mob you just pulled is a champ, if so then there is no need to pull another and risk a triple champ gang rape, if worst comes to worst, fear one, and bond of death the other, or use your "oh shit!" buttons. The last time I got pwned it was by 2 frenzied + chromatic + disruption aura gorillas. That's a deadly combo for a necromancer, because your heals won't leech worth a damn off chromes, and they hit like a bus. I'd suggest howling terror, then RUN if you come across 2 worst case scenario champ mobs on the screen.

If you plan on chaining with necromancer, its a good idea to bring a shield. Pretty sure this is the best shield:





I found a dagger earlier called Chromaspike, and it seems like a solid choice for a 1h caster weapon that would be good to combine with either the above shield or the Holy Grail.