Necromancer Primary

Ive read in another Thread, that a lot of people dont like the Necro as a primary that much. Is it realy bad or is it just the way you play it, or just a matter of the right 2nd class. Cause i played a little in the world events and e3 for everyone as a Necromancer and i realy like his apearance and the way he got his skills. But is it good as a primary( new player ) class?
Please say what you think sucks or is good as a Primary Necro

Well I'am going primary Necromancer no matter what anyone says..I have heard that a Necromancer/Warrior is a very solid connection, then I have also heard the opposite. I would just go with what you want to play as, plus necro's look amazing so you will learn to love them either way

My main character is a Necro / Monk and it seems to work pretty well for me. I can drain monsters from far away while a tank smashes them and also do some healing while that is going on. Also, creating minions is a big help. They help create a wall between me and monsters when I'm out exploring. It's kind of a hard char. to manage but, once you get your spells setup right and use them in the right order at the right times managing your health and mana isn't bad. Since I'm usually in the back half of the group it definitely comes in handy that I can res. other characters when things go bad. Also, since I can basically heal myself monks don't have to heal me, they can focus on warriors and keep them doing their tank thing. Plus, the armor just plain looks cool.

I'll be going Necro primary as well, but because of the looks. A Warrior/Necro has everything I want (heavy armor, melee damage & life drains) however the necro models look so much better *sigh* .

I spent a lot of time in the frontlines last BWE and surviving became a problem sometimes (especially when I tried the Death Magic route).

The Necro/War has its own advantages though. (Bigger energy pool and regeneration for example.)

Well you will be a blood knight like me it seems, I dont think there will be much of us which makes it even cooler. Plus we will stick out cause our armor and looks are the best. That and our minions are dope...

Cyberzomby,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your question is about the primary necro attribute....not necessarily why everyone is in love with necro armor.

In and of itself, Soul Reaping isn't that bad. Consistency is what you worry about. You can't depend on Soul Reaping to come through for your energy needs so each battle becomes an energy gamble.

Soul Reaping, when compared to other primary attributes, is pretty useless. Even compared to other energy management skills, it's not worth it. Still, some people don't care much about their primaries or choose not to find out what they're missing. If you see yourself in this camp, there's no reason to second guess your primary necro choice. If you worry about opportunity cost or believe that the grass could be greener on the other side, I'd recommend necro as a secondary.

Well, I plan on playing a necro/ranger. And since I don't plan on using any attack skills, preps or traps, there's really no effectiveness of the rangers primary attribute. So in that case, I think the soul reaping will be more effective than the alternative. Not to mention that I would like any equipment bonuses to be applied to my far more important necromancer attributes.

thx for all the replies,
think ill stick with the necro than.

Necro/Ranger is a good combination, as long as you have chosen your attributes correctly. I have Marksmenship 10 plus a 17-21 longbow, a few good bow spells (Poison and Hunter's Shot are primarily equipped).
My Blood and Death Spells are pretty high, and I'm working on building my curses up.

Haven't tried it out in PvP yet, but in PvE it is a really key player to the groups. I can cast weakness spells, drain the enemy. Use my poison shot, drain his health that much faster. Use Hunter's shot and strik for 45 dmg. Can typically take out a lvl 20 on my own in about 20-30 seconds (never actually timed it, but it died pretty quickly).

Then are a lot of good Necro spells, just remeber a lot of them affect you also. Some spells lower your max. health temporarily, but boost the attack dmg of your teammates.

I'm a little confused as to why people seem to bash Death Magic as a necro primary. When I played a Necro/Monk in the March BWE, I focused mainly on Death Magic and barely died at all. I only used Monk for Res in case people think I would just heal myself when I got near death. Anyways, I found it quite easy to raise an army of 5+ w/Blood of the Master and then raise and maintain an army of 10+ w/Verata's Sacrifice. Granted, I didn't play PvP much in the March BWE so I don't actually know how I'd fare. However, in PvE I barely ever died and was able to help my party out quite well.

Primary necros are pretty useless in PvP when compared to other primaries. What you gain by taking a necro primary is weaker than what you gain from the other primaries.

...so are you going to use pets? Nature Rituals? In either case you opinion is pretty much null and void when it comes to PvP. Sorry.

Well Necro's Primary attribute is kinda weaker than the other professions, most Competetive players choose Primary professions by its primary attribute...

To me Necro/Monk or Monk/Necro is like "Wat Da HELL>?!" I probably call it Chaos Caster or Yin Yang lol

The thread is still on the front page... could this not have been addressed there?

Unless you plan on being with an Uber team who kills a lot of things, it isn't so great (especially since if they're so uber they wont' need you waiting for them to kill stuff).

Why does everyone think the necromancer armor is stronger then the other casters? Its not its exactly the same, 60 armor at its highest.

Er sorry i just checked.. there is one 70 armor set for the necros. Guess i didnt see that :P

I played a necro/elementalist in the March BWE and didn't fare very well cuz my comp was in desparate need of upgrading, but that is all taken care of now so I can't wait to try other necro primary builds this next BWE. I'll be checking out death magic almost exclusively as I'm getting the "bone idol" bonus item from CompUSA. I haven't even tried PvP yet cuz like I said my comp was soooo laggy, I could barely play at all... but yeah, necro is first choice and while some say necro primary may not be the way to go, remember this is supposed to be a game revolving around skill, so maybe necro's take more skill to play...

Double post content:

Not only that but they headbang like mad!!!

People don't like the Necromancer as a primary profession in PvP, since it provides a less reliable bonus to your character in PvP combat. However, a Necromancer primary is EXCELLENT in PvE play- you're pretty much guaranteed not to run out of energy, unless your team doesn't have enough damage to kill anything, in which case, having a different primary profession wouldn't make much difference.

If you're looking for a character to go through the missions with and explore the world, a Necromancer will serve you quite well. A well-built necro can do fine in PvP as well- I've never had problems with having a Necromancer character in PvP- in many Tombs matches, Soul reaping easily outstrips other attributes when you get in a 3-way battle for the altar, though in other PvP venues such as GvG battles or Arena, it's not extremely reliable. If you're wanting to focus on Necromancer skills, I'd recommend going Necromancer primary in any case, since the bonuses to your attributes you can get through headgear and runes will often outweigh the advantages you'd get from a different profession's primary attribute.

Well, I guess that makes sense. Thanks to everyone for clearing up for me why people don't think as highly of necros.

You gain necro runes. And FYI, expertise is not needed for troll unquent+melandru's resilence which is what any decent player would even want on PvP necro from ranger skills.

Differences in order of importance (imo?)

* Warrior vs Necro - Higer Armour, Strength (strenght shield, AP% for skills, some skills), Warrior Runes vs More Energy, Twice the Energy regeneration, Necro Runes, Soul Reaping.

* Ranger vs Necro - Expertice (energy managment, some skills), Higher Armour, Ranger Runes vs More Energy, Faster Energy regeneration, Necro Runes, Soul Reaping.

* Caster Proffesions vs Necro - Primary Attribute (effect, tied skills), Proffesion Runes vs Higher Armour, Necro Runes, Soul Reaping.

In some builds you might not pump or use the primary attribute much at all in wich case the other differences will weigh higher.

I for example are going tro try out both Me/Ne and Ne/Me but doubt either FC or SR will help my build more than runes and armour.

And with W/Ne or Ne/W it really depends on if you are going to use more energy skills och or adrenaline, and if the armour trade off is worth it.

And so on...

(that said yes SR could use some help to get more balanced with regard to PWE and PVP)

I think it's short-sighted to say as a blanket statement that necro primaries are less useful in PvP.

Soul Reaping needs to be taken into account within the team build for it to be useful. I would imagine a team using several pets and a few necro primaries, one of whom was running minions and death nova would rake in plenty of energy, and pretty regularly as every death can generate two more deaths from the minions, deliver lots of nova damage and piles of energy for the other necros - with each additional necromancer a death goes up in value by his Soul Reaping attribute, so that a party of 8 primary necromancers with 10 Soul Reaping would rake in a total of 80 energy on the first pet death, followed by 160 more from the minions. This kind of huge energy discrepency between the sides could prove advantageous.

Of course, this might be hard to make work in practice, but the possibility is there.