9 replies to this topic

[FourGs]

Hello everyone.

I really need some help playing my necromancer low level. Right now Im using minions, staff, and scepter dagger. I just feel like the necromancer is so incredibly weak that I cant fight mobs like I can on my ranger.

Im low level (only 16) but in diessa lowlands a wolf and his summoned allies will kill me sometimes and I could barely do my personal story quest that I was supposed to be the correct level for. Maybe its that I just suck at playing necro and in reality thats probably it, but I need some ideas, tricks, and tips to help me feel like I can actually do damage and stay alive with my necro. I really like him and think hes cool but I just dont play him that often because of this.

Can anyone understand what I mean? or do I need to re-clarify?

[TGIFrisbie]

Short answer:  Stay away from Wolves.  Seriously.  They can turn out to be ridiculous if you get more than 2 on you at the start.

Necromancers have their place once level 80, and that is what the game is about.  Deciding now if they are weak to you doesn't help for end game, but it may help you decide if you want to put the time in to get to 80.

Sadly you kinda need minions when solo til around 30 or so.  Otherwise if you don't want minions and prefer not dying trying to be a lone wolf, do events with other peeps for levelling.

If you do not want minions you need to make a build with gear that supports it.  Be sure to have lots of Toughness and Vit, balanced with Power and if you are condi, work that in where you can on gear.  The main thing early though is Tough and a bit of Vitality.

Edited by TGIFrisbie, 19 January 2013 - 02:55 PM.

[Gregor Sabetin]

minions are a pain : stupid and weak. Never used them during my leveling.

Use instead epidemic, locust and a well or the poison cloud since you use conditions.

Wolfs shouldn't be a problem since conditionmancers manage so well multiple targets.

the sequence staff->scepter->dagger->epidemic->cloud->DS should kill everything around you while letting you with a full health bar.

Edited by Gregor Sabetin, 19 January 2013 - 03:03 PM.

[God Pain]

dagger main hand is good for lots of dps. That's what i use on my main necro. and warhorn offhand for control.

Staff as second weapon for DE that involve lots of groups.

I use wells in my utilities. well of suffering (10 stacks of Vuln.) plus another well that gives blind aoe (forgot the name) and blood is power for instant 10 might (oyu kill mobs in no time).

When you have elites unlocked use golem as he is a good tank for you.

And don't forget to use death shroud and get better gear for your lvl... =P I once was doing lvl 15 stuff with my mesmer with the starter gear still and i regret that xD

[Khrushchev]

Necromancer is no Warrior when it comes to ease of levelling.

With that said, if you want "easy" levelling, I would recommend Dagger/Horn + Staff (If you're not running an extremely specialized build and don't have a staff, you're doing something wrong, so good job on that) and beginning to invest in Wells. The 3 seconds of protection per well dropped is a massive boost to your defense, and the extra AoE damage from Well of Suffering helps against mobs like Wolves who typically come in pairs.

Also as people have said, running Minions is gimping yourself, half the time they don't attack at all, and they get tunnel vision rather easily. I can't tell you how many times I've been fighting a Champion Centaur Shaman and my Flesh Golem decides the Centaur Supplies are a more imminent threat.

[Gilles VI]

staff + wells = epic AoE damage that nothing can withstand.

[matsif]

I did most of my leveling with staff marks/wells builds, stuff literally melts in front of you.  Now that I'm at 80 and geared I swapped to epidemic conditions and its more fun to me cause its closer to the old hex or blood magic builds from gw1, although not the same.

[kendro1200]

Gregor Sabetin, on 19 January 2013 - 03:01 PM, said:

minions are a pain : stupid and weak. Never used them during my leveling.

Use instead epidemic, locust and a well or the poison cloud since you use conditions.

I wouldn't follow this advice, from person experience of playing a necro in beta and then leveling it up to 80 solo.

Minions are actually pretty OP in PvE if use properly.  You don't need all of them, just keep a blood fiend, bone minion and sometimes a bone fiend around.

What I did was build a conditionmancer, so I maxed out curses first, but use a couple of minions along with using epidemic and got fantastic results.  You drop a mark of blood before a fight starts, then swap to scepter/dagger, drop 2 and 5, something runs to you, triggers the earlier mark of blood, minions are running up, and the target now attacks the minions before it'll come after you.  When bone minions get low on health you blow them up (the one that'll be detonated will always be the lowest health bone minion), and basically do this until you hit 80.

Necros are really strong solo, and also fairly strong at low levels if handled properly.
Remember to use death shroud, and to drop a mark of blood on targets frequently to help the longevity of your bone minions (and flesh golem if you pick that up).  Around level 45 is when dropping mark of blood won't put out enough useful healing through regen if you don't have +healing, so you'll stop using it for that to help minions, and use it exclusively for weaving bleed stacks.
I've never had issues with any singular mob types while leveling up, wolves were never hard, just long fights, but the summoned allies usually dropped quickly thanks to epidemic.
One very important thing to remember while leveling is never level in a zone that is your level.  Always try to enter a zone to level at the max level of the zone.  I found that to be the quickest way to level up (at least until level 70, then you go to orr and get sexy xp pinata events) and led to the least number of issues.  The first zone is always the worst, usually around level 15 I've finished a race's starting zone, and so I'll normally hop over to another race's starting zone to get 5-9 levels, to get a leg up before the 16-30 zone.

[Ara]

Dagger main hand: you will feel powerful and it is fun to go melee. Once you've got Signet of the Locust (in my opinion, it's a must have for leveling), invest skill points in wells (suffering, corruption) and trait points in spite and death magic.

Gear for power and toughness (knight / cleric) and get/buy daggers regularly (a blue, maybe green, every 5 level is great, and you dont need the right stats, just good base damage, so you can go for dirt cheap ones).

You may want to engage combat with a staff for a quick and bursty 2-3-4 that will also apply weakness, then quickly switch to dagger. Dagger's auto attacks will give you alot of life force, so dont hesitate to use death shroud, especially when over 50% life force; even more so if, for whatever reason, you're stuck with a "milked' staff, waiting to switch back to dagger.

You may also want to try bone minions: fast recast (20 sec untraited), decent damage in spaced fights, and lots of possible combo's : AoE blind in Well of Suffering/Power (like a mini Well of Darkness), AoE weakness in staff 3's poison field, AoE retaliation in Well of Blood...

Wait 80 to have fun with conditions and to rediscover your necromancer !

Edited by Ara, 19 January 2013 - 07:07 PM.

[FourGs]

Wow thanks for all the responses guys, Ive picked up main hand dagger and its really good, I also very much like using wells and I even discovered Signet of Spite to be very good.

Thanks so much for all of your help Ive been leveling pretty fast now and will take all information here into consideration and try them all. Really thanks a lot my necro is becoming 1000x more fun!