New Player: Basic Questions about Necromancer

[Toadpipe]

1. When I played EQ1, I spent most of my time deep in dungeons exploring and finding camps in out of the way places. I would like to relive a bit of the days of yore by doing some good old fashion dungeon crawling, but I would like a class that can handle heroic dungeon content alone. Is the Necromancer the right class choice?

2. Do you focus on INT exclusively like a Wizard?

3. Would someone link an EQ2 character with a recent build or an up to date guide that shows suggested AAs for solo PvE play?

4. Does any tradeskill stand out as most useful for the Necromancer?

5. Any other suggested reading on the class?

[Nulgara]

I'll preface this with .. EQ2 Necros are a SHADOW if what an EQ1 Necro is.

your ability to solo heroic content will require much aa and gear beyond what yould get in that heroic content.

it is possible and actually quite easy with teh right aa at lower levels but the higher you get the harder it will get.

pre level 50 life is slow for a necro. at 50 you get lich which makes life much easier.(remember getting call of bones back in eq1 how instantly life became good hehe)

as far as stats to focus on Intelligence primary Stamina Secondary. most int gear has stamina on it so it works itself out.

in the first 79 levels of the game your pet is jsut that. you wont be finding gear with pet focuses on it and such.

soloing all the way to 90 for a necro is cake (jsut liek it was cake soloing all the way up in eq1) the difference is to do heroic content efficiently you gotta be geared up rather well. doing heroic stuff solo is of course still possible and heres how i did it.

at level 10 you start getting aa's. get as many as you can while your leveling xp is so easy to come by in this game its nto even funny, on every alt i make these days i set my aa xp to 25% of all my incoming xp gain. this gives you much more aa much faster.

if your goal is to solo heroic stuff heres what i woudl do. in your summoner aa tree get teh starter, then a few things in stamina line. MAX out perceptors Command. it WILL save your life A LOT. once you have that move into your necromancer tree and get teh tainted heals line. this line will make your control effects better and culminate with an endline that adds an 18% pet heal to every manipulation spell you cast. VERY UBER. Tainted heals is the bread and butter of a soloing necro. once you have this ild move back into the summoner line and add more to stamina line. increasing your tank pets hit points dont bohter with the stamina endline it sucks. after you have the tank pet hp move to wisdom line. and slap 4 points in the first one for now.(you can heal yourself with it as well so remember that) then max out the pet defense and offense skills. again no need to get the endline. once this is done slap 5 points in teh tank pet damage reduction in the necro tree then go back to summoner tree and start on the strength line down to the increase in crit chance. dont get teh str endline either its jsut horrible. now that you have a rather well fleshed out summoner tree head over to the tso tree. 5 points in health boost and 5 points in something else. some will say get the pwoer but your a necro you aint gonan need it. i put mine in boosting mount speed. then in the second line in tso 5 in the soulrot mod, and either 5 in magi shielding or 5 in master strike (i went with magi shielding) and get bewilderment, bewilderment is another tool you can sue to push the mob back onto your pet if you pull agro off him (which you will A LOT). now go back to the necor tree.

now lets boost up your dmg a bit and give the pet some more love. in necro tree the lifeburn tree. 5 in all the dmg skilsl here. but dont get lifeburn yet, your a soloer and it will end up getting you killed more often then not. once the dmg stuff is maxed out, put 5 points in consumption for your pet. now in the blood pact line enhance your heals, cause they do work on yourself

now that you have all that your next tso tree line shoudl be open. 5 in pet crits 5 in pet weapon mastery and get minions mark. for a soloer i woudl also get dimensional storage so you always have a tank pet in your pocket when facing a named.

now at this point youll have a pretty good idea of what you need to get as a necro for solo play.

i see you mentioned seeing folks using the mage pet to tank stuff. this isnt possible in the lower levels due to the lack of pet focus mods on gear. once you start seeing pet mods on gear you can stack up a ton of defensive pet mods on a mage pet and take on some serious stuff with it. but this is something that youll learn as you come up. each pet has advantages and disadvantages and youll learn then pretty well by the time you get up to pet mods on gear.

the majority of necros are aa specced rather similarly at the end game. our specs are pretty straight forward for soloing and for grouping/raiding. and if you ever do start raiding youll find rahter quickly that your raiding spec will jsut become your soloing spec as well cause your pet will jsut be a beast. i dont swap specs anymore, i swap a couple pieces of gear when soloing to give my pet better defense and i dont think i have summoned a non mage pet since i hit 90.

at 90 i have no trouble soloing old instances (i can actually send in my pet and go afk on some stuff lol) even level heroic content is a challenge but doable the trash mobs being relatively easy, named present a pretty significant threat sometimes but with patience and time they are doable as well.

as far as what spells to upgrade as you level. get the highest quality spells you can for your pets. (kind of a no brainer i know but thought i shoudl mention it) lower level master spells are fairly cheap on the broker but for a new player you will have to save for a bit to get them. focus on one pet while your levleing up and get it first, if you happen across the others great.

here is a link to my necros planned aa spec for 250 aa's (this is my do it all solo/group/raid spec)

250 Necro AA

[Toadpipe]

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. That is very helpful information!! It is sad to hear that they are a shadow of their former EQ1 selves, but I am determined to give it a go in EQ2.

Unfortunately, I am unable to see the AA build you posted. For some reason, that website never displays properly for me. Ugh.

I am still hoping for suggestions on a useful Necromancer tradeskill: is there one that really benefits Necros?

And is 25% on the AA slider the norm? How many AAs is that per level (1/4?)

[Garlin1]

One thing I will add with the AA build posted, you will want to get a tradeskilled mirror that allows you to save a AA spec.  IMO create a solo (tank spec) and a group (pure DPS) spec.  You will want to go down the str tree to get Wild Channeling for the crit.  I have mine maxed.  In DPS spec drop blood pact once you get your mythical dimensional storage is better spent on something else.  It is good for if your pet dies and you need to get another one back up quick, however you can pump points into stuff such as Master strike reuse etc to help your dps.  Hope this helps =)

[Nulgara]

good stuff giga. i forgot to mention the mirror and such, and sometimes i dont think about crit much cause im having trouble reducing mine under 130% even when swapping to potency and crit bonus gear heh.

i was giving some though on the tradeskill question, and ild have to go with Sage. giving you the advantage of making your own expert level spells. other options  woudl be alchemist to maek your own potions (cure pots mostly), or woodworker to be able to make totems. (i actually go through a lot fo totems mostly run speed ones when im in a dungeon with no dirge hehe)

my necro is also a tinkerer. there is asome great utility stuff in tinkering. self evac, call self to a group member within zone, mender bot, an extra fd, tinkered heal and power heal items, tons of tinkered swarm pets hehe self ports to a couple zones. its funny popping off all your swarms undead horde and some tinkered ones. its liek your own little army even though they die in seconds its a cool screenshot opportunity hehe. think the most swarm pets ive had out at once was like 28 or so hehe. was funny.

for the aa slider question. im not really sure how many folks actually do that. most folks that make alts these days are doing it for specific needs at higher levels so they jsut blast through the low level stuff. but there are some of us that take our time with them and try to bank as much aa as possible before getting ot t8 and t9. there is enough content throughout the level ranges to even go to 50% on aa all the time and yould still have enough quests and such to get to 90 i'ld bet.

and there is another option as well. I know quite a few folks that will lock their combat xp after completing a tiers quests in 1 zone then go max aa xp and go and do all the other zones in teh same tier maxing out aa gain per tier and then rinse/repeating for each tier. takes a little longer but can be well worth it. in fact firned of mine jsut did so with a coercer and he was at 226 aa when he hit level 90.

as far as their being a godo 1 to 90 type necro guide. i cant recall seeing any. there is a solid at level 90 raiding type guide over on eq2flames but thats about it.