Guide:Necromancer

The Necromancer profession serves many purposes in PvE and PvP. They are able to support their team mates and pressure opponents without needing a secondary profession which means that they often choose their secondary based on the needs of the team. In HA or GvG they can often take Ritualist restoration skills to augment their monks. In TA they often use Warrior stances to improve their survivability. In HB they can be given Assassin skills for increased mobility and survival.

Necromancer armor has a maximum armor rating of 60, provides 2 extra pips of energy regeneration, and an additional 10 energy.

Primary Weapon

The Necromancer's primary weapons are the Staff, Wand, and Focus.

Staves are two-handed projectile weapons that can be linked to any of the four Necromancer attributes. They normally deal Dark damage but ones linked to Death Magic and some lined to Curses deal Cold damage. Their maximum damage range is 11 to 22 and their attack rate is 1.75. Being ranged weapons, they receive a damage bonus against targets on a lower elevation and a penalty against targets on a higher elevation. They have a maximum +10 energy bonus and a 20% chance to half the recharge time on Spells.

Wands are one-handed projectile weapons that can be linked to any of the four Necromancer attributes. They normally deal Dark damage but ones linked to Death Magic and some lined to Curses deal Cold damage. Their maximum damage range is 11 to 22 and their attack rate is 1.75. Being ranged weapons, they receive a damage bonus against targets on a lower elevation and a penalty against targets on a higher elevation.

Foci are off-hand items usable when wielding a one-handed weapon. They can be linked to any of the four Necromancer attributes. A focus will provide a maximum energy bonus of 12, but requires investment in their linked attribute to gain the full bonus.

Primary Attribute: Soul Reaping

For each point of Soul Reaping, you gain 1 Energy whenever a non-Spirit creature near you dies. You may only gain Energy in this way 3 times every 15 seconds.

Arguably the best primary attribute in the game, Soul Reaping provides a Necromancer with huge amounts of energy. Deaths will not trigger Soul Reaping if you already have full energy and the "3 times every 15 seconds" will not take those deaths into account.

Skills in the Soul Reaping line focus mainly around energy gain. Popular skills from this line include Foul Feast, Signet of Lost Souls, and Wail of Doom.

Attributes

Curses

No inherent effect. Many Necromancer skills, especially Hex spells which reduce your foes' effectiveness in battle, become more effective with higher Curses.

A very popular line in Pvp at the moment; both in large arenas like GvG and small ones like TA. Curses focuses mainly on degeneration, enchantment removal, conditions, and anti-melee. Popular skills from the Curses attribute include Lingering Curse, Spiteful Spirit, Plague Sending, and Faintheartedness.

Death Magic

Without Death Magic, you can control no more than two undead servants. For every two ranks of Death Magic, you can control one additional undead servant. Many Necromancer skills, especially those that animate undead servants, manipulate corpses, and deal cold damage, become more effective with higher Death Magic.

Death Magic focuses mainly on summoning and managing minions, dealing damage, and inflicting poison and disease. In PvP, this attribute sees occaisonal play. The most popular build involves summoning lots of minions to help manage energy and apply supporting damage while the necromancers spike targets with Deathly Swarm. In PvE, Sabway is a popular hero build that uses minions for energy management and to tank damage. Popular skills from this line include Aura of the Lich, Jagged Bones, Death Nova, and Rising Bile.

Blood Magic

No inherent effect. Many Necromancer skills, especially spells that damage and steal health from your foes, become more effective with higher Blood Magic.

Much of the Blood Magic line revolves around spells that steal health from opponents. In PvP, this is one of the least popular lines with the exception of Blood Spike. In PvE, this line is often used for Blood is Power to fuel allies that require rapid energy use. Popular skills from this like include Vampiric Spirit, Angorodon's Gaze, and Orders.

Common Necromancer Builds

PvP

• The Lingering Curse Necromancer is probably the most popular build. It's focus is to keep Lingering Curse on as many people as possible, making it very difficult for Monks to keep their team alive.
• The Weaken Knees Necromancer both relieves pressure from their team with Foul Feast and adds additional pressure to the opposing team by punishing kiters and spreading the conditions back to them.
• A Pain of Disenchantment Necromancer fills the role of spike assist while relieving pressure through Foul Feast, Weapon of Warding, and Protective was Kaolai.
• A Wail of Doom Necromancer is a popular build for small arenas where there's likely to be only one monk on each team. Shutting down the enemy monk for spikes with Wail and assisting its Monk by countering condition and melee pressure makes this a solid support character in a balanced team.
• Corrupt Enchantment Necromancers are sometimes run instead of Wail in small arenas when the team wants a strong enchantment counter and a more offensive approach.
• The Contagion Bomber is a popular build for Jade Quarry. Since players only need to kill all NPCs on a shrine to capture it and will be resurrected often with full health and energy should they be killed, this build is ideal. It jumps into a shrine and self destructs, taking the NPCs with it.
• The Life Siphon Capper is used in HB for capturing shrines. By using "degen you, regen me" skills, it can apply decent pressure against other heroes especially in stand-offs.

PvE

• The SS Necro was one of the most popular PvE builds for a long time. It centers around use of Spiteful Spirit and A.I. not recognising such skils to wipe out mobs in PvE quickly. This is especially effective on Hard Mode where mobs have faster attack rates and reduced recharge and casting times of skills.
• The Necro Healer is a popular hero build that uses high energy gain a Necro would have in PvE to counter poor energy managing ability Heroes suffer from.
• Sabway popular Hero team for vanquishing. It makes use of high energy gain from Soul Reaping as well powerful Necro spells to score fast kills. Another advantage this build has is that player can be vertually anything.
• Discordway is another popular vanquishing Hero team that uses same mechanic as Sabway. It's ability to quickly kill one target gains it a significant advantage it tougher fights.