N/W: The Meleemancer

ah the meleemancer, at first glace may seem an odd combination of classes ... a long ranged spellcaster with minimal armor using swords and fighting toe to toe with the big boys ? oh yes !

The following is a summery of what i have learned about the art of meleemancy (spelling?) over the last week in my attempt to create a working and effective melee fighter out of a spellcaster...

Ok so first up, why ?

well for one they look cool as hell ! i mean come on look how cool my necro looks with a sword rather than a staff of wand ... ok so thats not the best reason.. so lets just say i like a challenge . The first thing i looked at was what advantages did having a Necro primary have over a W/N and the answer to that is purly this... ENERGY !

With +4 energy regen and the excellent support from the necro primary attribute Soul Reaping, energy for a meleemancer is no problem . As we are going to be at close range alot of the time and droping as many enemies as we can we are going to be gaining little boosts from the souls we er... reap ! The one thing i like about the +4 energy regen is we have enough room to fit in a zealous mod and still dont have to worry about energy regen being to low ... couple this with a flurry stance and you will acctually make back more energy per flurry than it takes to activate (which is also usfull to a warrior but i dont like the +1 regen your left with). The zealous mod is an optional step however as some points (about 4-5) in soul reaping and the standard energy regen will sufice and i would only suggest this for a more energy heavy build.

Which brings me to my next stop on this enlightening journey of er...enlightenment (yea that sounds cool)

BUILDS

so at first i was concerned with the lack of armor that the necromancer has and instinctivly went with a very defensive build, almost using the sword as a "ok come to close and i'll use it" type affair..

Parasitic Bond
Mark Of Pain (using the scattering effect to repel groups of enemies)
Seeking Blade
Distracting Blow
Healing Sig
Bonnettis Defense
Flurry
Insidious parasite

now this build served the purpose well .. strong healing from parasitic bond and healing sig , cover from bonnettis and some interuption in there aswell ... but then it occured to me ...well a W/N could easily do this and do more dmg at the same time also it could not deal with conditions well so it was back to the drawing board.

To better improve my build i had to go back to the question of why a necro primary ? then i remembered its all about the energy baby .. i mean i have all this wonder full energy and i dont go down easy with all these healing spells .. so lets risk it a bit and put a bit more into offense !

thats when i came up with this :-

Flurry
Bonettis Defense
seeking blade
Wild Blow
Insidious Parasite
Parasitic bond
Barbs
Spitefull Spirit [E]

Again this served its purpose but i had started to wonder into that "ranged caster" area ... which is not good for a MELEE fighter ... however i had noticed by now that the nice recharge times on seeking blade and wild blow allowed me to use them almost continuously .. which i noticed (in the pve pick up groups i was testing this in) gave me a much higher dmg output than my fellow warriors.

So starting on this path of energy based swordsmanship i came to the build i use now !

Distracting Blow
WIld Blow
Seeking Blade (quickly becoming my fav skill ha ha ha)
Watch yourself
Enfeebling Blood OR Enfeeble
Insidious parasite
Healing sig
Plague sig [E] (or plague touch if you cant get hold of the signet)

this build i feel works very well as it has somewhat high dmg output through the continuous sword attacks with relativly low points in swordsmanship (around 8) and this build has the defense of enfeebling blood and plague sig (which allows this build to deal with the conditions the other could'nt)

phew ... allot of typing lol anyway i am still somewhat new to the art, Yes ART ! of meleemancy and i hope the info contained here will help other enthusiastic young N/W's !!

thanks for reading !

I can't help but look at your builds and just think they are trying to do too many things at once. Group PvE; very heavy on defense; with minimal, spammable, but minimal attack skills; little to no energy management in your latest build; interruption; stance removal.

They have alot of very good skills in them but very little in the way of synergy.

Insidious Parasite for example at 16 curses lasts 20 seconds and steals 20 health roughly, might by 21/21. Recharge of 10 for 15 energy. Very nice self heal, harming spell, great against large numbers of enemies that use attack speed buffs to keep you live. But it doesn't help you kill off a large chunk of enemies. And even at 20hp/s which would be your ideal situation you are still getting hit, hit ALOT. Wouldn't avoiding those blows be better altogether? Avoiding them and letting you cast much more often using Bonnetti's Defense to me would be ideal.

Yes, it is the PvE standard, everyone uses it defense. But there might just be a reason

Plague Signet, while seeming a great skill, has little practical use due to the fact things that cause conditions in PvE are going to spam them on you and any recharge time is only going to hinder you. Yes getting rid of all of them at once would be great, but wouldn't on the spot, instant removal of one that you can spam out work better?

Also, Wild Blow is a very good skill, used as a follow up to an adrenaline chain or if you are being evaded, which by the way Necro's have the best cure for, Rigor Mortis. Wouldn't a similarly spammable plus damage skill be more worthwhile? Especially since in your last build you are eschewing stances: Pure Strike.

You are set up for single target elimination pretty well, with solid defense, but you need to ask yourself, does not taking a Res Signet help or hinder your team by giving you one more slot to defend yourself or attack something.

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what about swithing healing signet out for vampiric touch?
well yes the nrg needed is pritty high, but...
yes I do not tested it....

Distracting Blow
WIld Blow
Seeking Blade (quickly becoming my fav skill ha ha ha)
Watch yourself
Enfeebling Blood OR Enfeeble
Insidious parasite
Healing sig
Plague sig [E] (or plague touch if you cant get hold of the signet)


look into Victory is Mine. with a necro/warrior you can really spread the conditions around. with plague touch even more so. if you used hamstring(cripple), sever(bleeding), gash(deep wound) on your target then used ViM.....'You gain 10..56..72 Health and 5 Energy for EACH "Condition" suffered by adjacent foes'.........

I made my N/W with the intent of being an up close condition inflicting fiend... Seemed to me that a necro would be better suited for softening up targets then trying to take down just one.

Was much harder then I expected, mostly because up close monsters hit hard and I found that my W/N was more succesful in surviving - even if he could dump out conditions as fast. And he really benefits from the blood line. Stealing health from the guy trying to kill you? WUnderbar!

i hav made a n/w..they r hard to get used to but, having SS REQUIERS(sp) the enemies to hit u. Y not just take Hp from them?
i found it much more devestating to your enemies if u use Life Transfer. this way they can stack conditions on u, and u can still hav energy to hit em with vamp gaze/touch if u need to gain Hp.

1. Life Siphon (don't have life transfer yet)
2. Vampire Gaze (unholy feast could also work)
3. Vampire Touch
4. Well of Blood
5. Flurry
6. Final Thrust (Frenzy if you are careful)
7. Sever Artery (Plague Touch is better in certain areas)
8. Rez signet


First I start off casting life siphon on 1 or 2 targets. Run in and hit my target using flurry. Fire off Sever Artery as soon as I can. Use the vampires skills to heal and attack. Cast Final Thrust as a finishing move. As soon as a body goes down cast Well of Blood. So the idea is to be always fighting in a well and/or have life siphon on.

There will be problems if another necro is there making minions. In that case I might trade out flurry for blood ritual and keep the heat off the back line troops. And use life sifon and gaze from back field.

If you replace a skill with Frenzy you need to have another stance ready for when the enemy turns on you. I just switch to flurry. When I use Frenzy I always use it as sneak attack on someone already engaged to limit the chance of them turning on me and taking double damage.

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Hmm...lots of good ideas in here, lots better than the other Meleemancer thread. Heh...yeah, now I'm feeling dumb for forgetting Pure Strike myself, but I still think that Wild Blow is superior to Rigor Mortis. RM's useful only when someone is using dodgey/blocky things, Wild Blow can land a critical hit whenever ye need one as well as eliminate the stances altogether. Great to see someone else confirming how broken Insidious parasite is for a Meleemancer :-P. Given this stuff, I'd say...

Pure Strike
Wild Blow
Distracting Blow
Enfeeble(ing Blood)
Insidious Parasite
"Watch Yourself!"
Plague...SOmething
ReSiggy

One of those amazing and typically loathed no-Elite bars unless you use Plague Signet, but people seem to forget that Elite skills are just skills you can't stack much. If a skill bar works better without an Elite than it would if you just crammed whatever Elite almost worked in, then I say dump the [E] tag altogether. After all, we go through three-quarters of the game minus Elites anyways :-P

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Don't forget, Wild Blow can also take out IAS stances and such. And with the Assassin and Ritualist coming soon, there'll be even more stances for WIld Blow to eat, while I doubt there will be all that many more Wards. I don't know about you, but spanking an Assy's increased-critical stance would be high on my list...

Anyways. Enfeebling Blood seems kinda risky to me for a char with spellcaster armor in melee. I don't want to sacrifice any more health than I absolutely have to. Still, Enfeeble, at least, is virtually a must. I know, it doesn't give enough bonus to "Victory is Mine!", but perhaps we could find more. Let's see...

Wild Blow
Hamstring
Sever Artery
Enfeeble
Distracting Blow
"Victory is Mine!"
"Watch Yourself!"
ReSiggy

Not quite so fond of this one, and it loses a high-damage attack, but you can lay on Weakness, Crippled, and Bleeding in fairly short order, which gives you a nice boost from ViM. WY is great with an already-high Tactics score, helps you patch up the armor difference as well as bolstering any nearby Warriors or other Melee-casters who are helping you out. Would need tweaking, but is a start.

The main point with Enfeebling Blood is after the sacrifice you are taking well under half the damage from physical damage sources that were affected than before.

So it actually reduces the damage you would take over time.

And insofar as some builds that have been posted you need to have a specific goal in mind. Single target elimination, Solo farming/AoE killing/Survival, Debuffing, Tanking, a N/W can fulfill a very wide spread and differing roles

well i have not got round to attempting it yet ...the idea is that ettins will pretty much surround you and the single target enfeeble just wont cut it.. how ever enfeebleing blood will give the group effect of weakness and give purpose to "ViM"! ... i still need to work on this however as weakness, vim and watch yourself is fine for counteracting the normal physical hits but wont help much against their undodgeable special...irresistable blow

Since the physical damage is not a true problem for you, it is the knockdowns that are stopping you, take Balanced Stance.

Something I'd take for Solo farming Ettins/Giants/Herders/Wurms:

Spiteful Spirit{E} // Victory is Mine!{E}
Enfeebling Blood
Watch Yourself!
Balanced Stance
Bonnetti's Defense
Cyclone Axe
Parasitic Bond // Mark of Pain
Plague Touch // Shadow of Fear

Axe, again, because you can't beat a Zealous XX of Enchanting with Cyclone Axe for adrenaline AND energy management during farming.

Sword is a better choice for single target and debuffing due to the energy and low adrenaline cost based Conditions you can inflict.

i dont think bonettis would help you much against ettins ... however the rest seems solid ! shadow of fear is somthing i was thinking about ...but like i say i have'nt got round to acctually trying anything yet ...getting that warrior fow armor keeps me busy !

edit : oops forgot to mention you would also need some form of running skill to get to the ettins to !

My build works rather well

I've made a pvp and a pve version

pve

final thrust
savage slash
plauge touch
Signet of Agony
vampirc touch
life siphon
well of power (only good elite i have)
awaken the blood

pvp

final thrust
savage slash
plague touch
sig of agony
chilblains
vampirc touch
victory is mine
awaken the blood

im using a wep that give +15% while enchanted
might think about taking out awaken the blood or final thrust for that quick rechage sword skill you mentioned...maybe even pve too.

anyway it works great to condition the poor fellow im attacking and also rid him of a nice enchantment.

I don't farm Ettins ever really, but I've gotten to them fine on my Warrior without running skills, but the armor might have helped keep me from worrying about it really.

And Bonnetti's is more for energy regain than anything else, even just a few evades will help tremendously.

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Nice idea for a N/W build so far, but why don´t you have mark of pain with you?? it is very good versus the larger groups of enemys...

Here is what I have right now (currently have no elites). Been working pretty well for me, with some exceptions....
Vampiric Gaze
Vampiric Touch
Well of Blood (been in a lot of groups with not so bright monks, that watch you die)
Barbs
Mark of Pain
Flurry
Final Thrust
Res Signet
------
This is what I usually do. Use Mark of Pain for groups of enemy and use Barbs and Flurry. Reason for this.... Mark of Pain makes close enemies lose -20 per hit and flurry increases 33%, so you might not dmg the main target that much but everything around it is losing -20 for each hit. Since I have barbs on the main target, it loses -3 for each hit I do as well. When the target gets below 50% (closer to dying) my adrenaline should be up to use Final Thrust. Plus why I am physically attacking them my energy is coming back up from using Mark of Pain and Barb so I can use Vampiric Gaze and Vampiric Touch for an additional 130+ dmg.
Also, I have a 3/-1 vampiric sword that is really nice to use with flurry (I dont use it that often but when I do).
Thinking of using Shadow of Fear also but don't know what to take out. Use that with Mark of Pain so no one can run away.

I'm not sure if you came to a final decision for a melemancer ettin farming build but I started one last night after mm was taking to long and the fact that my w/mo was getting old. I havent really payed attention to how much slower / faster this is but I dont really care it works well enought.

Blood 12
Death 11
Swords 12


Sever artery
Gash
Galrath Slash
Savage slash
Aura of the litch
life siphon
Vampiric touch
Sprint

I just realized I spaced and didint put any in tactics for my sheild but i have not died yet so... i will try taking some out of death for 7 in tactics to see if the added armor is worth the lower time for aura of litch


I just pick a group of ettin cast aura let energy fill then put siphon down on one ettin if its a group of 2. 2 ettins for a group of 3 and 3- 4 for a group of 4. It does seem like a waste of tiem but that all goes by pretty quick. Just sever artery and gash wait for heal sig savage it galrath and vampiric touch next ettin. rinse and reapeat.

Meleemancer? I've done the n/w extensively, it doesn't really work out. You won't be any more than a substandard tank in the end. In my opinion, if you really want to go melee, a touch build using dark aura and aura of the lich is the best meleemancer build possible.

You will have spamable ~100 dammage touch attacks. Very few builds are able to do this type of dammage and yet self heal somewhat effectively at the same time.

The problem is, many people don't understand Aura of the Lich. In effect, it makes you more durable against most attacks, yet more vulnerable to heath degen builds. The trick with it is to use health sacrafices, since they are also reduced, in conjunction with health regen spells.

For this type of build, I usually run with something like 16 blood 12 death 7 soul reaping (with runes)+20% enchant helps a lot:
Touch of Agony (dammage, the main attack of this build)
Dark Pact (cast in melee range)
Vampiric Touch (recovers around 1/3 life while AotL is on, decent dammage)
Plague Touch (to get rid of conditions, a main source of degen, the enemy of this build. Could be replaced with any condition removing spell or another +regen skill like life syphon.)
Dark Aura (added dammage to your main attacks, dammage taken reduced by AotL)
Aura of the Lich (the cornerstone of the build)
Blood Renewal (have activated whenever posslble. If AotL is on, the +6 health regen from this is really like +12, also becomes another dammage spell while Dark Aura is active)
Ressurection Signet

I welcome any sugestions.

Usually when I go with a dark aura/ aura of litch build anywhere in pve i just do it as a 55.

Yeah, for pve I'd probablly use a 55 build too. The build I posted was more for random or even team arena.

melee necros are not even good in 4 on 4 arenas, any warrior that isnt garbage can out damage you and outlast you, keep the necros in the back row

Hm my n/w builds arent like other people's here...

I tend to go with virulence now, though i used to focus heavily on blood.
Anyways here's my build.

Vampiric Touch
Death Touch ( whatever the death attack is that deals dmg costs 10 has reasonable recharge...)
Sever Artery
Gash
Virulence <E>
Blood Renewal
Demonic Flesh
Res Sig

I use this build to deal tons of degen via conditions.
Then I sap their health away with VT or Toque de Muerte.

My build for when they dont have flesh is quite different.

Vampiric Touch
Touch of Agony
Pure Strike
Galrath's Slash
Unholy Feast//Shadow Strike
Awaken the Blood
Final Thrust
Res sig

This is more heavily influenced by life stealing. If dealing with mobs unholy feast works well too.