AA and Tank pet viability questions

[fr1ggy]

Currently I'm spending all of my time either soloing, or duoing with my friend who is a Fury. I have 4-8-4-8 in the Summoner Stamina line, and 3 in Wisdom, with the intended purpose of 4-4-8-8, focusing on my tank pet obviously. I've been having a nagging feeling that I should have gone down the Wisdom tree first, but it could be a "grass is greener" type situation.  I'm not completely unhappy with my pet's performance... but he doesn't do too well against Heroics.  Even if my friend and I are both healing him (I have Master I Life Transfer) he goes down too fast to reliably tank even ^^ heroics of a similar level (I am currently 34, my friend is 32).  I have been reading about Necros soloing heroic content and, maybe its my level and/or lack of skills, but I'm not seeing it.  My pet holds aggro like a champ... and tanks solo content like its nothing.  But anything within 5 levels and more than ^ will eat him for lunch when I'm soloing, and it gets a little better with my friend healing him.  For what its worth, I currently have Adept III of my tank pet. Does this change at some point?  Should I respec to finish out the Wisdom line before Stamina?  Or should I scrap the idea of soloing/duoing heroic content and respec into either the mage or scout pet?  Any help is appreciated.

[greploco]

I'm curious about this too ... anyone?  anyone?  bueler?

[Lazzi_Bum]

I just hit 35 last night, so I am about on apr with you.  I chose to go with the tainted heals line and the tank pet damage mitigation before I did any of the summoner lines.  Tainted heals rocks, free 13% heal for any manipulation spell.  I easily solo blue ^^^ heroics.  Have not tried any white ^^^ yet.

[BLIGHTBRINGER]

<p>in my opinion Tainted Heals is essential for solo necro. i can solo all sorts of ^^^ heroics near or at my level (one at a time mind) as all 5 manipulations heal tank pet for 13% each - i dont even need to use the 2 actual heal spells at all usually.  you just cant understand the massive difference this ability makes until you have tried it.</p><p> when you have lifeburn, undead tide, a charmed undead pet, and cazic thule pet as well as dumb fire pets, you are a virtual army by your self!</p><p>lifeburn is fun and satisfying but tainted heals is essential - if soloing nearly all the time. </p><p> it will heal your pet far faster and efficiently than your fury friend can leaving him/her to look after themselves and you and time to do a bit of dps too.</p><p> Hellstone</p>

[LiquidFlex]

Agreed. Your Tainted Heals will ease your life more than you know. I know it's probably not what you want to hear, especially if you've already put most AA points into your WIS/STA line. You'll just have to acquire more AAs to dump into the Necro tree. But they really do help.

[Kattheswas]

i know this is kind of a hi-jack, but im curious about if the scout pet is always just kinda..meh....or what's up with it...I currently have M1 undying adherant...M1 Grim Thulian...and M1 Shadowy stalker... so it is the best scout pet i can possibly have ATM.....so is it just ya know nothing special or does it get to be a decent pet at later levels? cause im finding i only use tnak pet (solo) and mage pet (grps) btw im lvl 35

[Noktaris]

Well...I've restarted my necro since my old one is higher level with only 2 AA's  <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />   I'm trying to understand The tainted Heals AA...but when I look at the spells you got to cast for the heals,It just doesn't look all that good unless I'm missing something. Of the spells that can heal my pet...fear? I never cast fear,Dispel magic...another spell I just rarely cast except maybe once,Grisly Mark I cast from time to time. Grasping Bones is a decent spell but it's on a 45 second timer. I use root...but really not that often. That leaves Necromantic Rune...which is a pet buff that procs. Does it heal your pet for 13% when it procs or something?  Maybe I'm just totally missing something here...but it looks like you just got to chain cast your root and debuffs over and over again to heal your pet. And that just doesn't sound fun.

[MadLordOfMilk]

WARNING: Long, and I make it sound easier than it is. Bit of a ramble. It's a massive supply of tips and tricks from what I learned soloing as a Necro with the correct AA specs. 67^^^ and lower (most of SoS for example) is pretty doable; 68^^^+/EoF zones are quite another story. <b>NOTE: This really requires probably a good 75-80 AA points to work. Tainted heals and tank pet damage reduction and full STA KoS line are pretty much necessary. The rest you can wing but you still need the boosts from the AAs.</b> I've messed with this quite a bit before raid specing. Go with rotting for the extra damage and lifeburn (for when you need spike damage), and get tainted heals in the AA lines and buff up your debuffs also.... or maybe push the pet heal and life transfer AAs (can only do so much compared to 13% heals though). Definitely get the tank pet 10% damage reduction. The tainted heals are gonna be your main heals against hard-hitting mobs (odd as it sounds). Go all the way through the STA line and pump points into it (the hate transfer is 10% w/8 points, that's a huge swing, helps a TON, as does the AE knockdown for some AE hate). Other than that I'd go with maybe the WIS line for the manashield, or possibly the STR line for the crits and the % chance to parry (nice for survival). Make sure you have a M1 Tank pet, m1 defensive stance, and ideally m1 berserk buff (forgot the name offhand), and definitely have the full 10% hate transfer. The pet should pull plenty of hate, and the Tainted Heals should provide you with plenty of healing power against KOS mobs. EoF is a bit tougher; you'll probably wanna duo those. Definitely carry numerous essences of anguish so you can use drawing of souls to proc tainted heals, and if need be cancel and recast debuffs to keep healing up. Make sure to abuse crowd control skills - Fear+Root = ownage, macro it, it's even usable on the mob you're currently targetting to lower its dps or to interrupt it. [[[Aside: There used to be a bug where with tainted heals it kept you from being able to root more than one mob, but that was fixed.]]] Abuse that on adds, and go nuts with stuns and such on your single target. Undead Tide is gonna be your ace in the hole; generally I saved it for nameds but on occasion you need it to keep you from dying. Better to blow UT than to have to fight your way back down a dungeon for 45min. Be sure to keep Lich going, you're gonna need the power; bring Dracomancer Gloves from Labs as a backup just in case (you can burn through power fast with Abate Life), or something to that effect. Painfully your dps drops a lot while using this strategy so it helps a crapload to bring someone else with you, especially another good Necro =) Remember that your tank pet procs numerous roots; if it's dying fast don't be afraid to pull him back (you do have back off and call servant macroed together, right?) and cast a root spell to give you a chance to heal up, and if you're lucky, while you're pulling your pet back the mob is already pre-rooted. Should you manage to somehow rip hate (say your undead tide expires before the mob dies, or you cast Lifeburn) - don't be afraid of FD. If your pet stays up, you're good. Warning about Lifeburn though, if the mob AE's, you're dead, and if you get up w/o timing it correctly with your tank pet's root CAs, you're dead. In AE situations, send the tank pet in first, open up with the AE knockback (kicks [I cannot control my vocabulary], few seconds long too at 8pts) which gets some nice hate, then throw in your AE DoT. That'll actually help the pet keep aggro in a sense (because of the hate transfer). If it's a lot of mobs, try to take them out fairly quickly; either speed burn one-by-one or abuse the AE knockdown and your AE DoT and lifetap. The AE lifetap is especially nice if you're going down fast - Lich procs for every target, it hits for over 1k damage at adept3 and ~550int, and it generates some decent hp naturally. Some mobs you're really just gonna need to root and nuke because they deal a crapton of damage. Aysor in Poet's comes to mind - your pet can stand up for a little while but until you really develop skill at this, you're not killing this guy. Also he has a BAD habit of going through the floor, making him particularly hard. Generally I throw the tank pet in, stun, send out all swarm pets (including UT), spam the HELL out of heals, and hope he goes down fast enough (maybe throwing in a bit more dps). Otherwise you have to chain-cast root and kill him with the lich proc (he falls through the floor too much to be able to risk root breaking), which takes roughly 10-15min. In terms of hate management, definitely bring stuff like Raiment of the Skywatcher to keep your hate down. Items for quick ace-in-the-hole stuff (like the Dracomancer Gloves for Mana Font) can help keep you going; also items such as the Shield of the Magi can come in handy. Keep backup gear to adapt to each situation. In generic situations the legendary class set works wonders. Yeddahd's Caduceus can be nice in a pinch, but really, with a 15min recast, reserve it for backup (maybe macro it). 40% hp isn't a ton compared to your tainted heals so while it can help a bit, if you really need it, you're probably already screwed. Without tainted heals, however, Yeddahd's owns. All things considered, it's tough to get used to and takes some practice, but you can get it down. TIPS: -Practices on green heroics first... you're gonna need the practice for all kinds of situations. -You're going to die numerous times. -Bring a partner, esp. if it's a dps who can res *coughNecrocough*. Double necro duo = ownage. -Some stuff you're just not gonna be able to solo without a TON of practice/luck (read: D'vinn. This fight is chaotic and almost impossible to do with less than two people as a caster... fun as hell though) -If you can transmute, even better, less trips to the vendor/broker. -Balancing DPS with healing is tough, and takes a lot of experimenting. -Your DPS blows while doing this. -Your DPS REALLY blows while doing this. -Switching from a raid spec to the suggested AAs, you lose about 20% of your DPS. You can still parse decent but nothing spectacular. Unless of course you've got your tank pet out, and your dps blows because you have to hit a bunch of heals and crowd control and can barely get more than swarm pets and longer DoTs in. -Seriously, bring a dps partner. Your dps is craptacular compared to group dps with a dps pet out. -Swarm Pet expiration/death = burst of aggro toward you -If the tank pet dies, it's not getting hate back when you resummon it. Get out something with damage, or use a tank pet for the potential roots and as a mana battery with your pet hp devour for mana spell.

[Lazzi_Bum]

<cite>Noktaris wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well...I've restarted my necro since my old one is higher level with only 2 AA's  <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />   I'm trying to understand The tainted Heals AA...but when I look at the spells you got to cast for the heals,It just doesn't look all that good unless I'm missing something. <b>Of the spells that can heal my pet...fear? I never cast fear,Dispel magic...another spell I just rarely cast except maybe once,Grisly Mark I cast from time to time. Grasping Bones is a decent spell but it's on a 45 second timer. I use root...but really not that often. That leaves Necromantic Rune...which is a pet buff that procs. Does it heal your pet for 13% when it procs or something?</b>  Maybe I'm just totally missing something here...but it looks like you just got to chain cast your root and debuffs over and over again to heal your pet. And that just doesn't sound fun.</blockquote><p> 1) I use root mostly for the fear proc, and the heal is a bonus.  If a mob is running, it is not hitting your pet.</p><p>2) Stun- Again if it is stunned it is not hitting back, but slow recast.</p><p>3) Grisly Mark- Debuff to make you DOTs better, umm I usually pull with this one if I don't have the pet do it.</p><p>4) Grasping Bones - DOT and slows target, other than timer you can't go wrong here.</p><p>5) Fear- see points 1 & 2</p>

[nadym]

I think you should try tainted heals spell line, it really shines with your tank pet. If you have STA line, tainted heals and that 350 lvl tinkered item, they have just nerfed from being a memwipe coercer spell to now lower your aggro, you will solo blue & white mobs without much problem (ofc depending on mob). tainted heals is impressive.

[nadym]

constrict will give your pet a 100% "avoidance" for a few seconds and heal your pet. fear too. drawing of souls will make mob hit weaker and heal your pet. loathsome mark all the time will give you a nice heal per second rate, just disable and enable it all the time, hitting contrict, dispel magic when available. Only use chains and fear when you are on a solid ground (mobs not going under the ground)